Because That in It He had Rested

December 19, 2010.  Sunday.

Situation:  I did manage to work last night, although it was a tough time.  Fortunately I had help carrying my equipment, so that wasn’t a problem.  But I hadn’t eaten anything all day, and I felt very weak during the whole job.  By the end of the night, though, my appetite was coming back, and I was able to eat much of the clams casino served to me at the end of the job.  A long drive home – 138 miles round trip.  This morning I woke up with my appetite fully restored, so I was looking forward to food I would get on the job today.  I was still having a little trouble walking, but I was assured I would have help moving my equipment again today.  Before I left Moi read something she’d written up.  “You know,” she said, “how people send out these letters at Christmastime all about what their family did all year?  I think they’re stupid, but I wrote one up.”  She read it to me.  The letter touched on all the major events, Jazz’s wedding, the Boy getting a job with CBS in NYC, Moi working as an enumerator for the US Census, the family pow wow up in Awkwesasne, Jazz’s photography award, Moi not being able to shoot a deer but discovering the inspiration to write about it.  When she finished I said it was good, but Moi wrinkled her face.  “It’s stupid, isn’t it?  I’m not going to send it out.”  Right now I’ve just gotten back from work.  Moi was on the phone when I walked in the door, so I haven’t talked to her yet.  Typical Sunday: work all day, when I get home it’s dark.  No walk for Mway from me today.  I’m hoping tomorrow morning my leg will feel much better and I’m able to take her for a good walk then.

Fall Down Stairs, No Walk Today

December 18, 2010.  Saturday.

Situation:  Last night I went online to set up a blog.  After about two hours, rather than the 5 minutes that the servicer suggested it would take, I had a title page.  But when I tried to post my introduction, although I was told that the upload was successfully completed, I couldn’t find it anywhere on the site.  Then when I was walking downstairs I missed the bottom step and landed hard on my leg, the ice from my drinking glass flying across the kitchen table.  The tendons of my leg and hip were jarred, and I can barely walk this morning.  Plus I must have churned up juices in my digestive tract, because I’ve been burping up a rancid taste in my mouth, and my energy is low.  I’m going to beg off taking Mway for a walk, at least for now.   The bigger problem is that I have to work tonight, at a place other than with Moi.  It’s not a simple matter of calling in sick: I’d have to find a replacement for myself, and I’d lose my entire pay.  I don’t know yet what I’m going to do.  Maybe I will go soak in the tub.

Some Things I Haven't Mentioned Before

December 17, 2010.  Friday.

Situation:  This morning, the last dream of my night’s sleep was about keeping this journal.  I dreamed that I was taking note of some plants, some sort of white flowers, that were persisting into winter time, but then I realized these were not old flowers but new ones coming up.  Then I started seeing other flowers that had come up, which I didn’t know the names of and some of which were appearing behind trash cans in our house, and I suddenly had a feeling of being overwhelmed, that another whole year was arriving in which I’d have to take note of the plants and try to learn their names.  While I was lying in bed, thinking about this dream, I could hear Mway outside barking, undoubtedly outside with Moi, then a little later Moi opened my bedroom door to tell me she was going out and that she had taken Mway out.  I got up to sit over the edge of the bed, and Mway came sauntering into the room, to be pet on the head a couple times, then went sauntering out.  So far today I have no work to do, or rather I have a job I could do that will take all of two minutes to do but waste an hour or more of travel time.  I don’t know whether I should take Mway for a walk or not – but what am I fretting about?  Moi has taken her out, but not for a walk.  So I’m going to check my email, then I guess I’ll take Mwayla out.

State of the Path:  I’m wondering what possibly else could I say about the path – or, on the other hand, I’m thinking of all the things I’ve never mentioned.  Under one of the bare shrubs by the springhouse there’s a bright red, plastic ball, slightly smaller than a basketball, only revealed now in the winter time – probably has been there since the kids were small, or maybe it’s part of the pool paraphernalia that got tossed over here unaccountably.   In the walled garden, I look into the old orchard and see a second PVC pipe next to the one leaning against a tree.  When I get over to the tree, I at first can’t find the second pipe, but then I spot it – it seems to have moved and turned in another direction.  I see the bottoms of briars and sumac saplings chewed bare, probably by rabbits.  Near the hedgerow, I look into the bare honeysuckles and see a cement block, covered with moss.  I hear the chirp of a bird and see two birds – neither of which I can identify.  The one bird – I can say this – is gray and has white feathers on its tail.

State of the Creek:  At the former log jam, I poke my walking stick into the ice.  It’s thick, but I manage to break through it after several pokes.  I still see Moi’s green plants, but they look pretty pathetic, frozen into the ice.  The ball of the sun shines in my eyes as I walk along the creek.  At the narrows, there’s a rotted log athwart the path that’s a little problem to step over since there’s not much space here; it looks like its trunk was in the ground along the bank, but more likely it’s a log that was washed up here in the last high water.  I walk over to the crest of the skating pond.  A couple weeks ago I saw a golf ball on the ground, but I don’t remember picking it up, so I look for it, but I don’t find it.  As I walk by the frozen pond between the ridges, the ball of sun again shines in my eyes.  On the other side of the ridge, as I walk toward the clearing, I look at one of the evergreens sitting in the middle of the field.  Last night Moi mentioned to me that Ezra is concerned about the coyotes in his woods.  Because they didn’t see as much deer this year as they usually do, he thinks the coyotes might be getting them.  But Moi added that, because Ezra had his woods cleared, there’s a lack of cover for the deer.  “Out on our property,” Moi said, “there’s a lot of cover, in all those places we don’t walk.  There could be lots of deer bedding down there.”  As I look briefly at the evergreen tree and the area around it, I think, yes, anything could be in there.

The Fetch:  I toss the birch branch around the circle, Mway running after the stick to the various points where it lands, bringing it back and dropping it at my feet, spinning and barking as I bend over to pick it up.  Today as it lands against the frozen ground it resonates and makes thuds with different pitches and timbres.  Sometimes when it lands it sounds like a bass drum or a tom tom, other times like a marimba.  When it lands in the goldenrod it sounds like the swish of brushes against a snare drum.  On the way back to the house, while Mway’s running ahead of me with the stick she’s fetched enough times to her satisfaction, I spot something on the ground that looks like the guts of a field mouse.  It’s red and green, and I think it could also be a seed pod or something from a plant.  I poke at it with my walking stick, but I don’t know what to make of it.  Back in the house, Mway skitters around her food dish, looking up at me with a smile.  “You already had your breakfast,” I tell her.  I toss her a biscuit.  “Here, you can have this.”

Note Changes from Last Year

December 16, 2010.  Thursday.

Situation:  I have to work today, at the job I usually do at night.  Moi has already taken Mway outside, but just out to the back yard.  I heard Mway barking, then saw her coming into the door behind Moi, carrying her stick into the house, which of course I don’t like her to do.  Right now she’s lying on the floor next to me in the office.  I suppose she is hoping I take her for a walk.

State of the Path:  Sure as soon as I get up, Mway gets up too, eyes me as I go to my room to put on walking clothes, follows me downstairs, and stands waiting at the door.  I had reread my first entry of this journal, since I want to see today what changes there are in the path and the creek since this time last year.  The first change is that the side path along the old orchard, partly because of the extremely dry weather this summer, has remained open all year, so Mway doesn’t have to step gingerly over a whole area of briars and goldenrod.  Because we haven’t yet had a big snow, the goldenrod, except for areas here and there, is still sticking up.  Also, I now have a pair of good boots, so I don’t have to be fussy about where I’m stepping, although today the water in the path is all iced up.

State of the Creek:  The log jam that used to be there is now gone, the smaller branches dispersed and the big log now resting a few feet from where it was against another big log on the opposite creek bank.  A honeysuckle has been chopped down, and more of the creek bank has given way, where Moi has stomped on it.  The plastic barrel the Boy has taken out of the water and thrown beside the path, and the piece of vinyl siding, once in the middle of the stream, has been washed downstream and is partially hidden underground.  And over the feed channel, there is now a plank, so I don’t have to stumble over the ditch to get to the crest of the skating pond.  The sumac tree that I mention as fallen over into the path is still where it was, but over the year I’ve simply made a path around it.

The Fetch:  As I walk along the ridge, I’m amazed to see all the puddles of ice around Moi’s pines.  On the other side of the ridge, the path is also iced up.  I step around the ice onto the thatches of tan grass surrounding it, pass the Russian olive that juts into the path.  When I come into the strawberry field, I see Mway sprinting up the path through the goldenrod into the clearing.  When I reach the clearing myself, she stops snooping at weeds and runs over to me, smiling and dancing in place.  On the first throw, I accidentally pitch the stick close to the evergreen Moi planted (another change), but fortunately Mway pulls it out of the weeds without wrecking the evergreen.  We make the circle, Mway dashing to the perimeter and back, barking and spinning at my feet.  As she runs, I notice her tail twitching, and I wonder if that’s because she moves her tail muscles or if that’s just an effect of her leg muscles moving.  A few fetches into the second round, she goes galloping past me with the stick in her mouth.  I yell “good enough.”  But she circles around me, and I find myself corralled by her circling.  “Oh, okay, put it down,” I say.  She fetches the stick a few more times.  We walk back through the sumacs, Mway passing me on the path as soon as it widens enough for her to do so, the stick in her mouth knocking against briar stems. The fresh air arouses in my head some words I’m thinking about putting into the introduction of my blog, words like “the underlying point is that the relation, the interplay of forces, between Nature and Art, object and subject, is more subtle and complicated than a mere dichotomy.”

Snow Squalls

December 15, 2010.  Wednesday.

Situation:  I have rush work to do today, and I also have to work tonight.  I just heard Moi going outside with Mway, and Mway barking, for a short time anyway – I’m not going to be able to take her for a walk this morning.  Maybe I can squeeze in a quick walk this afternoon.  I get home about 2:30 and just have time to take Mway for a walk before I have to leave around 4.  Mway greets me in the driveway, and as I rush through the cold, follows me to the door.  Moi is at her laptop, and after she tells me how this morning she barely avoided driving into a snow squall and how one of her students then called to cancel her lesson because she was in a car accident in that very same snow squall, I ask her, as Mway is pacing around the table, “So what’s up with her?  Does she need a walk?”  Moi tells me the Boy, who’s home for a few days, just took her out.  “Good,” I say, “Then I don’t need to do it.”  While I’m rolling cigarettes for tonight, the Boy comes in the door and tells me, “I took Mwayla out, but not for very long.”  “Well,” I say, “I’m not going to take her out.”  Long ago I decided I was only going to keep up this journal for a year, and the time for finishing it up is drawing near – 9 days to go.

Frosty Snow and a Cold Wind

December 14, 2010.  Tuesday.

Situation:   When I go down into the kitchen this morning, it looks like Moi’s again at work on her hunting stories.  The blinds on the kitchen windows aren’t opened; there are dirty dishes in the sink; half the coffee in the carafe is gone.  Woody hops on the table, coaxing Moi to throw his little mousy.  Mway follows me around the kitchen, looking up at me whenever I turn around.  I have to work, both today and tonight.  Outside my office window, I see patches of snow on the ground.  I’m not looking forward to going out in the cold.

State of the Path:  A few steps outside, and the cold is already burning my nostrils, drying my mouth.  I hear the wind – I’m inclined to say “howling,” but that doesn’t seem to be the right word.  I unlatch the chickens’ cage, as Moi told me to do – she didn’t even get around to doing this this morning.  The snow on the ground, encrusted in the hard soil, seems more like frost than snow.  The metal barrel near the walled garden is topped with white, as I see, later, that the plastic barrel down by the creek is as well.  I move swiftly down the main path, keeping my neck and head stiff, braced against the cold.  I hear my walking stick thump against the ground, and it startles me by sinking a couple times into mud around the wigwams.  Mway moves around in jittery movements, sniffing the ground – she doesn’t seem to have any complaint, though, about the cold.

State of the Creek:  I immediately see white ice along the banks of the creek, and as I walk along I find that most of the pools are frozen over, with a frothy but firm layer of ice, thin enough, though, to poke my stick through.  I keep moving fast.  My entire hands are cold.

The Fetch:  Up at the clearing, I start going around the circle – with each toss I hope Mway will feel lazy today and come back without dropping the stick, ready to go back to the house.  Sometimes she snatches up the stick with great ease – if the stick has landed in front of the weeds.  Other times she has to extricate the stick from the clutch of flattened goldenrod or the low branches of a “chokeberry,” stabbing at it with her snout before she can grab it and pull it away.   She follows the various tosses around the perimeter of the clearing, going a few fetches into a third round, and finally – I’m not paying close enough attention to know what circumstance sways her – she brings the stick back, chomping on it.  Although I’m cold, I indulge her a bit and command her to “put it down.”  Twice we play “put it down,” then I tell her “that’s enough.”  As I head down the path through the sumacs, I suddenly come up with the word to describe the sound of the wind: “moaning” -- the wind is moaning.  Yet as I write it, that doesn’t seem like the right word either.

Dead Tree between Posts of Electric Pole

December 13, 2010.  Monday.

Situation:  This morning I had to go to the dentist early to get my filling refilled, so I couldn’t take Mway for a walk in the morning.  Downstairs Moi was on her laptop, spending all morning, I believe, writing more deer hunting stories – it looked like she hadn’t taken Mway for a walk either.  When I got home, I checked my email – no work had come in today.  Mway was pacing around, following me from room to room, staring at me, and I considered taking her for a walk then – but before I could do so she and Moi went upstairs to take a nap.  Right now, it’s 2:59, and I’m waiting for them to get up.  Whenever they do, I’ll take Mway for her walk.

State of the Path:   Out my office window, I see a large cat striding down the lane behind the summer house; perhaps it’s what made the prints in the snow the other day.  I suit up, gather a couple sticks from the music room, one of which I bring along.  Moi has put weather stripping along the back door, and now you have to slam it shut several times before it stays closed.  A cold wind blows against my cheeks and nose.  The snow is gone, but Moi’s garden pond is still frozen.  At the side path, I turn to go on it; Mway, just ahead on the main path, looks behind her, and I mumble “we’re going this way today, Mway.”  Near the hedgerow my wrists start getting cold and my arms start freezing – it was not this cold this morning.  As I past the cedar tree I realize I’m not paying much attention to what’s around me; instead I’m thinking about my plans to post this journal online as a blog, and in my mind I’m pouring over words for an introduction to it.  My plans are to make the last journal entry on the day before Christmas, and then on Christmas day to post the first entry from exactly a year earlier.  The words going through my mind are mainly repetitions of words I’ve already written, although new words slip in now and then.   When I realize I’m not paying attention to what’s around me, I try to start looking around.  I look at some ice on the path down by the wigwams and at an old brown stalk of ironweed, but it’s hard for me to break through the swirl of language in my head.

State of the Creek:  At the tree stand, I look up into Hutchinson’s wood lot, through the two posts of a high tension electric pole, at a dead tree broken in the middle of the trunk with its top half leaning over, all of which is framed neatly, from where I stand, between the two posts.  I’ve been catching a glance of this dead tree, perhaps the most distinctive sight here, on most of my walks lately, but this is the first time I think about mentioning it.  It seems dark around the creek, and despite how cold it is, there’s no ice in the stream.  I spot some gill-of-the-ground, which has bounced back after being covered with snow and doesn’t seem to mind the cold.  I walk quickly, just looking to see if I come across any ice.  There’s none in the puddles in the grasses of bug land, and none in the water trickling down the swale.  Just by looking at it, I can’t tell if the water in the feed channel is frozen or not; but when I poke it with my walking stick, the stick makes a thud.  There’s ice in the puddles on the path along the ridge, which cracks as I walk across it, but there’s no ice in the soggy path on the other side of the ridge.

The Fetch:  As I walk up toward the clearing, cold spittle is forming around my lips and snot building up in my nose.  As soon as I toss the stick, I realize this is a way of keeping warm, and I try to bring my whole body into motion as I toss it, instead of just lackadaisically pitching it underhand.  I wind up for each toss, bringing the stick behind my back, and follow through on the pitch, even though I’m not trying to throw the stick as far as I can.  I go around the circle, flinging the stick into the corners of the roughly rectangular clearing, Mway dashing off in pursuit, snatching up the stick from whatever straggle of weeds in which it landed.   When she brings the stick back, she drops it at my feet, barks and spins once or twice.  If I hold the stick behind me, she stands still, ears erect, tongue draped over her teeth.  If she has to wait too long for me to throw it, she starts barking again.  She goes as far as two pitches into the second round before she brings the stick back and keeps it held in her mouth, gobbling on it.  I tell her to “put it down.”  She drops it, then makes a few more fetches, but when she starts chomping on the stick without dropping it again, I feel the snot gathering heavy in my nostrils and tell her “that’s enough.”

And God Blessed the Seventh Day

December 12, 2010.  Sunday.

Situation:  Yesterday afternoon, about 2, while I’m working in the music room, Moi came back from her day of hunting (we both had to work last night).  She doesn’t say anything when she walks into the kitchen, and I know this means that she hasn’t gotten anything.  I stop my work and go into the kitchen to make a late morning stir fry, and to listen to what she has to say, because I know after she pours herself a glass of wine, she’ll have a lot to say.  “I had a shot at a doe today,” she says, “but I just couldn’t bring myself to kill it.  If I’d been seeing more doe this year, I could have done it.  But I don’t know, I guess I was just thinking conservation.  I’m a BFF – big fuckin’ failure,” and she flops her arms in an apologetic manner.  “Are you mad at me because I wasted all this time, and didn’t come home with anything?”  I’m busy trying to get my food together and have trouble paying attention to her.  “No.  I’m not mad at you,” I say.  “I went out there today,” she continues, “with the resolve to come back with something, to shoot a doe if I had too.  It has to be the right situation for me to shoot a doe.  If I see one with fawns, I won’t shoot it.  When I’ve shot doe in the past years, it’s always been a bad thing.  One time I shot one and when I went up to it its mammary glands were spilling milk all over the place.  But I was resolved, if the right situation came, to shoot one.  The right situation came today, and I had a good shot at a doe, but I still didn’t take it.”  She’s saying a lot more, but like I said, I’m trying to fix my brunch.  I tell her about seeing cat prints on the plank yesterday, and ask her if they could’ve been from Squeak. “No, Squeak was up in my bed all last night,” she says.  “A BFF,” she goes on, “that’s what I am.  No meat for the freezer this year, I guess we’ll have to eat chicken all year.”  I tease her that perhaps she hasn’t been getting enough testosterone as part of her hormone therapy.  “No,” she replies, “it actually has more to do with estrogen,” and she says something I don’t catch about taking estrogen.  “There’s usually only a short window when I’m willing to shoot something.  If the right situation doesn’t come along then, then that’s it.  You know, I’m only telling you this, but this year I prayed to Matt’s mom that if the situation was such that only one of us could get a deer this year, then let it be him.  When Matt got one on the first day this year, I thought, well there you go – he’s the one who got a deer.  I was so happy he got one.  All these years, since I started hunting, I’ve gotten a deer, and Matt’s been having trouble.  And I want him to feel like he’s a good provider for Jazz and all that.  This morning,” and I scrape my food out of the frying pan onto a plate, “since this was the last day, I prayed to Blue to bring me the right situation – he, you know, always liked it when he had scraps of meat and fat to eat from deer hides – and, what do you know, the right situation came along.  About 11:30 this morning I saw about ten doe passing along the ridge, but I didn’t even bother picking up my gun.  The right situation came along, and I just let it pass.”  I move into the living room, and Moi starts telling me how in getting up into the tree stand that morning her gun barrel got filled with snow and how the red light on her viewer was not working because the battery was low, and a bunch of other things that I can’t quite all take in.  She asks me again, “Tell me the truth, are you mad I didn’t get a deer?”  I tell her that it would’ve been nice if she had gotten one, but if she didn’t, that was alright.  “You know,” she says, “I think I just like being out in the woods.  You see a lot.  You know – in your walks with Mway, some time you should bring a lawn chair with you.  You’d be surprised what you see when you sit outside for a while, what comes along.  Or maybe some time take a walk without Mway.”  Like most Sundays, work all day.  Come back, it’s dark.  No walk for Mway from me today.

Following Tracks in the Snow

December 11, 2010.  Saturday.

Situation:  Moi has gone hunting, and she left a note on the coffee maker that she gave Mway a half cup of dog food this morning and I’m suppose to give her a second half after my walk with her.  The snow’s still on the ground.  Mway’s lying down on Moi’s bed.  It’s 9 and I’m going to go put on my walking clothes.

State of the Path:  Outside I immediately notice a bare circle in the snow on the sidewalk where I had placed the chicken’s water dish yesterday – Moi hadn’t left a note about the dish:  I guess now I’m suppose to “just know” to haul it out in the morning, like I “just know” to take Mwayla for a walk, so I go back in the house, get it from the laundry room tub, and place it down on the bare circle.  Little birds are flitting around in the lilac bush – I don’t know what they are.  Tiny snarls of grass show through the snow at places, especially through the footprints that are all over the place by now.  I follow my foot prints down the path, then take the side path.  There are no prints in the snow here until I get to the monkey vine portal, where I see some animal prints on the path, and I wish I had brought the Boy’s little pack of cards for identifying animal tracks.  But the prints are kind of indistinct, and I think to myself that they’re probably made by rabbits, for what animal do I see out here all the time?  A bird sings very melodically in the hedgerow, and it makes me angry that after nearly a year I still can’t identify bird songs.  More snow seems to be on the ground out here: the gill-of-the-ground is covered up, and I wonder what happens to it in such a state.  The flattened down goldenrod is weighted down by undisturbed snow, so I figure if anything was bedding down here lately it didn’t do so last night.  Then I note that the goldenrod is not pressed down all the way to the ground, like it should be if something slept on it, and I guess that it must have just collapsed from the cold, although it has done so in an oddly uniform manner.  Past the wigwams and into bug land, I feel ice beneath the snow cracking under my feet.

State of the Creek:  The stream is flowing gently, a strip of brown winding through an expanse of white.  Actually I can only see it flowing, or trickling, at the rocks; the pools themselves seem stationary, with bits of slushy ice at their edges.  Moi’s green plants are covered with snow, and I look at the underwater plants – wonder how much longer these plants will last.  A few more little birds flit about – again I’m angry I can’t identify them.  I don’t see any prints in the path here, and I realize that Mway has not been following me – she must still be back around the old orchard, maybe sniffing at the rabbit tracks.  Finally at the swale I see, pretty distinctly, a set of animal tracks.  I follow them toward the feed channel, then over the plank – I see some on the snow-covered ice of the channel.  I continue following them to the pin oaks, where they suddenly stop in a dip of the ground.  Since I don’t have the Boy’s print packet I have no idea what animal made them, but I consider the possibility that they might have been made by one of the raccoons that Mway and I have disturbed down here, and it makes me happy to think this animal is still managing to live.  Back here at the office, though, I do consult the Boy’s packet: it looks like what I saw were not raccoon tracks.  If I remember correctly, I counted four toes, and the packet tells me raccoons have five.  A red fox has four toes, but there were no claws showing in the prints I saw, which the packet tells me I should see if the prints are those of a red fox.  The tracks look mostly like what the packet identifies as those of the “Family Cat,” so I figure they must have been made by a feral cat.  Or had Squeak been out last night and had she ventured all the way down to the creek?  This morning I had found her in a deep sleep on the top bunk of my bed, lying among the neglected clothes heaped up there.

The Fetch:  Up at the clearing, I have to call for Mway.  Soon she comes jaunting down the path through the sumacs, indicating to me that she had spent our entire walk up at the old orchard sniffing rabbit tracks.  I pitch the stick, making our usual circle, and Mway, though she dashes off after each toss, seems distracted, stopping several times to sniff at the tracks here (which are probably mostly mine and hers).  On the second round, after a few tosses, Mway brings the stick back without dropping it, chewing and gobbling at it in her usual fashion.  I tell her, “Put it down.”  She drops it, spins around once, splashing up snow on my arm sleeve as I bend down to pick up the stick.  I toss it again.  She goes after it, snatches it up from a tangle of goldenrod, then comes galloping past me, stick athwart her snout, back toward the house.

A Few Honeysuckles Hang onto a Few Leaves

December 10, 2010.  Friday.

Situation:  When I wake up, Mway is on the floor next to my bed – I left the door open last night so heat would waft into the room.  Moi’s not downstairs, which means she went hunting today.  I feel tired, I think because with my bedroom door open last night Squeak was able to come in and walk all over me a couple times during the night, disturbing my sleep.  I let Mway out, but a couple minutes later, she barks to be let back in.  I’m mentally steeling myself against the cold – I really don’t feel like taking Mway for a walk right now.

State of the Path:  I have to take the chicken’s water dish out, which Moi emailed me about.   Actually the air is refreshing – my first thought is I’m happy to be outside, like taking a swim on a hot day.  The path has that same faded look, with dead leaves and browning grass receding into the ground.  On the side path, a few honeysuckle shrubs are still hanging onto a few yellowed tattered leaves.  The gill-of-the-ground remains shriveled and frozen.  I come across a large circle of goldenrod that has been flattened – I wonder if deer have been bedding down here, or if the area just collapsed from the cold weather.  I walk along at a brisk pace – again I’m somewhat in a hurry because I have work to do today, and also I have to call the dentist because I lost a large filling last night.

State of the Creek:  The water is flowing brown and gentle, but in most of the pools a soupy film of ice has formed, which I stir up with my walking stick.  I look at Moi’s green water plants and wonder when they’ll disappear completely.  I see the underwater green plants still floating in the brown water and wonder how long they’ll last too.  I cross the plank to the skating pond crest, and when I duck down under the branches of the pin oak, I realize I don’t come this way sometimes because ducking down under these branches is hard on my joints and muscles.  When I return through the “chokeberries,” I expect to be struck in the eye by the ball of sun over the marshy spot near the ridge – but it doesn’t happen.  I look up in the gray sky, and there’s no ball of sun anywhere to be seen.

The Fetch:  I make the circle, Mway a couple times having to search hard for the stick.  We make a full round, then before we complete it a second time, Mway comes running back with the stick without dropping it, and I tell her “that’s good enough.”  Back in the house I don’t know whether to feed her or not – Moi didn’t leave any note about whether or not she did earlier.  I decide to feed her: better she have two breakfasts, I guess, than none at all.

Addendum:  When I get home from work, about 4:30, Moi’s not home – she had come back from hunting before I left for work, and I expected her to be home; I assume she went hunting again, so that means I have to take Mway out again in the afternoon. Moi had told me, by the way, that she had fed Mway earlier today, so that means Mway did have two breakfasts this morning.  Since it’s getting dark and I already took Mway for one walk today, I figure I’ll just take her in the back yard to fetch stick.  During the afternoon it has snowed, and there’s a half inch to an inch of coating on the ground.  I go out to the back yard, but Mway runs past the outbuilding onto the path.  I call her once, but she doesn’t come, so I figure I’ll fetch stick with her out in the clearing. I find Mway traipsing through the shrubs around the pig pen.  As I shuffle through the snow, my feet feel cold because I’m only wearing my street clothes – no wool socks – beneath my snow suit.  In the path through the sumacs much of the goldenrod is bent over into the path, not just from being dead, but from the weight of the caps of snow on top of their fuzzy spikes.  Mway follows me to the clearing.  I make the circle once, both the stick and Mway splattering snow off the goldenrod.  We only make the round once, though – about five fetches -- when she comes running back without dropping the stick.  I start to head back down the path, but Mway’s looking up at me, and I think what the hell – I shout “put it down.”  She drops the stick, and I throw it again, this time toward the electric pole, Mway bounding down the path toward the strawberry patch.  When the goldenrod swishes as the stick lands, she realizes her mistake, skids around, and zips up toward the sound, but she ends up sniffing around in the faint light, unable to find the stick.  I have to trudge over to find it myself.  I spot it right away, right in front of where she’s standing all bewildered.  When I bend over to pick it up, she suddenly catches sight of it and snatches it before I can reach it.   As she runs off, I walk back toward the path, telling her “okay, that’s it.”

Ground a Faded White

December 9, 2010.  Thursday.

Situation:  I wake up shortly before 9.  When I step into the hall, Mway slinks out of my office.  I turn on the computer, go to the bathroom to pee, and downstairs I’m surprised to see Moi sitting at her laptop at the kitchen table.  She tells me she didn’t go hunting because it was 15 degrees outside, 7 degrees wind chill.  She’s making minor revisions on her story, and while I roll a cigarette, she talks to me at length about that.  I ask her if she took Mway for a walk.  “No,” she says, “I let her out when it was still dark outside.”  I go into the living room to smoke my cigarette and drink some coffee while my computer’s warming up.  Out the living room window I can see the swing set sitting in the driveway of our McNeighbor’s house – the one that Moi told me had gone up for sheriff’s sale – I’ve been wondering why the swing set is still there.  Mway comes into the living room and buries her snout in my hand.  I pet her head for a while and then, when she starts walking away, I pat her backside and a cloud of dust rises in the air, as thick as a cloud of cigarette smoke.

State of the Path:  Mway is at the door pacing as I suit up.  Outside the ground is a faded white, as if there had been frost, which, had I been out an hour before, I might’ve seen.   Moi’s garden pond is frozen over with thin ice.  The path is a faded white too, crinkly.  My lips are cold.  A lot of the goldenrod is knocked over, probably collapsed from the cold.  At the wigwams there are patches of ice in the path, and, through bug land, I feel like I’m stepping on the crust of a pie.

State of the Creek:  The water’s flowing at the tree stand.  At the former log jam, a shelf of ice hangs along the far bank.  I poke my walking stick in the water, to confirm that the whole stream of water has not yet frozen over.  Moi’s green plants are still in the cascade, but they look withered and battered.  A few brown leaves cling onto some oaks, and I look back and see that there are still some brown leaves on the oaks just before the creek as well.  I hadn’t taken the side path by the old orchard, and I don’t take the one to the crest of the skating pond either – I have to work today, so I’m somewhat in a hurry.  As I walk along the ridge, the sun, reflecting off the ice in the marshy spot between the ridges, catches me blindingly in the eye – exactly as it did yesterday.

The Fetch:  Up at the clearing, for some reason, the frost that must have covered everything this morning is still apparent here, glistening in the sun.  There’s a strip of snow down the center of the clearing.  I do the circle, Mway running, smiling, spinning, barking, but after I come to throwing the stick down the path, on her way back she glances over her shoulder and then, for whatever reason, prances past me to head back to the house.  I could insist that she drop the stick, but I don’t bother.  On my way back I think to look at the willow by the corn crib to see what’s happened to its leaves – amazingly there’s still quite a few green leaves hanging onto its uppermost branches.

Whispers

December 8, 2010.  Wednesday.

Situation:  Last night I reread Moi’s story, “The Old Man Who Took His Gun for a Walk.”  I hadn’t told her yesterday that when I read the story it brought tears to my eyes.  I hadn’t told her this because I wasn’t sure I cried solely because of the story.  Last night I waited until Moi was sound asleep, and while there was no sound in the house but the blower on the wood pellet stove, I reread it.  This time when I finished I cried uncontrollably for a half an hour.  Again I don’t know if this was solely because of the story.  But whenever my crying would subside for a moment I would reread the last two sentences and again the tears and mucous would well up: “He would just wait for that thing you see that wasn’t there the last time you looked.  He would wait for the whispers.”  Moi has gone out hunting again today – out my office window it looks very cold outside. 

State of the Path:  I select the same stick I used yesterday; it’s not as long as I’d like it to be, but it has some heft and a nice, what I imagine to be aerodynamic, bend to it.  The chickens are huddling in a lilac bush; I wonder if they find enough to eat this time of year, maybe seeds and nuts.  On the ground, looks like the same flecks and patches of snow as were there yesterday.  The water over the cement slabs has dried up, the ground crunchy underfoot.  I take the side path.  Mway turns around from the main path to follow.  Seems very quiet, very still, along the old orchard and back to the main path, except for a slight breeze.  I begin thinking I’m not going to see anything, when suddenly a gray body appears, disappearing behind a maple trunk.  I at first take it for a bird, but I know it was a squirrel; I don’t know why it’s in a tree among the maples.  I keep my eyes on the tree for a while but I don’t see it again.  At the wigwams, the water on the path is starting to freeze.  Across bug land, some birds are stirring in the shrubs along the creek, probably black-capped chickadees.  They fly off  before I get to where they were.

State of the Creek:  The water flows quietly, but at the former log jam, a thin shelf of ice seizes the far bank.  A multiflora briar makes a grab for my cap.  I stop quickly, take a step back.  The briar unloosens, and I duck under it and continue forward.  At the narrows I walk upon footprints I left in the flecks of snow yesterday.  I cross the plank, stepping on yesterday’s boot treads and poking the solid ice in the feed channel with my walking stick.  As I round the crest, I look for the rodent skull on the ridge but don’t see it and figure it’s been washed down the bank into the channel and out into the creek.  Recalling the bones I put under a small tree near the “chokeberries” many months ago, I decide to look for them.  I don’t see a skull, but I find two leg bones, frozen into the ground at the base of the tree.  At the ridge, the sun, reflecting harshly off the ice in a marshy spot, suddenly shines bright in my eyes.

The Fetch:  Mway is waiting for me at the clearing, smiling, taking little jittery steps backwards as I walk into position.  I do the circle again, play “Put it down” once, then tell her “that’s enough.”  Back at the house, I’m in a quandary whether Moi already fed Mway early this morning or not, but I dish out some dog food for her anyway. 

Yellow Turning Pink

December 7, 2010.  Tuesday.

Situation:  I wake up around 8:45, expecting that Moi has gone out hunting.  But even before I go downstairs, I can tell she’s home: hear the TV murmuring, hear her mumbling to the animals.  She tells me it was too windy to go out this morning, and she says she’s already taken Mway down to the creek.  That means I’m relegated again to an afternoon walk -- I have to work today, and I’ll have to make sure I get home before dark.  Out my office window I see a coating of snow on the ground, just an inch or so, but the first full covering for the season; I’m a little miffed because it would’ve been nice to write about this this morning.  Yesterday morning, while she was not out hunting, Moi wrote a hunting story instead.  It’s about an older hunter who goes out in the woods and, for the first time in his life, decides not to shoot a buck he has a good shot of.  I read it late last night, and Moi asks me this morning what I think about it.  I’m milling around the kitchen, heating up coffee in the microwave, rolling a cigarette.  I tell her that it seems to me that the “older hunter letting the deer go” is a theme that’s been addressed many times before, but that the story has a “quiet subtlety to it.”  “Well, I know the theme’s not original,” she says, “but this is about a hunter who lets the deer go because he can’t see to shoot anymore,” and she goes on to tell me that the story is based on what Ezra has been complaining to her about his father going hunting and that it has many of her own perceptions about hunting in it.  I tell Moi I’ll have to read it again because last night I was distracted by typos.

State of the Path:  By the time I get home from work, about 4:30, most of the snow is gone, the lawn largely green with wisps and patches of white here and there.  I hurry to get into my snow suit, not even changing first into my walking clothes.  Mway paces around the table, at first huffing, then unable to contain herself, bursting into a round of barking, which I tell her to “knock off.”  “She’s been waiting for this all day,” Moi says.  “But you took her for a walk this morning,” I protest.  “A walk’s not a walk until you take her for one,” she retorts.  I pick up several sticks from the music room, one of which I decide would be a good one to toss.  Outside the setting sun is scarring the sky yellow, jagged streaks through heavy blue clouds.  There’s a puddle of water over the cement slabs, thin ice on one edge of Moi’s garden pond.  The path is muddy, only a few flecks of snow under some shrubs.  Goldenrod stalks and briars paw at the sides of my snow suit.  Down at the wigwams, there are streaks of water in the path and at the spillway into bug land.  In bug land itself, the path turns muddy.  I’m happy to be wearing good boots, but my feet feel cold because I’m not wearing my usual wool socks.

State of the Creek:  There are still flecks of snow on the creek bank, which contrast sharply with the quietly running brown stream.  I stop at the former log jam and, with my walking stick, poke at some sort of root, caked with dead leaves and grass, that sticks out into the water, the only remnant of all the debris that used to be jammed up here.  I manage to duck successfully under briars without getting my cap pulled off.  At first I plan not to go over to the crest of the skating pond, but when I see there’s snow on the plank over the feed channel, I decide to walk across it, leaving my foot prints on it.  Under the oaks, it looks like the pool of water there has a lot of small round stones in it which I don’t remember seeing before, and I wonder if these have been washed down by the last flood.  Walking along the ridge of bug land, I see that the yellow streaks in the sky have turned pink.

The Fetch:  I make the circle of tosses, same as I’ve been doing the last few days.  The center of the clearing is a streak of snow; otherwise, it’s brown all around.  I play “Put it down” with Mway once, without actually saying “put it down,” just jabbing my finger, but after that I tell her “that’s enough.”  Back in the house, since Moi’s now up in the bath room, I feed Mway.  When Moi comes out of the bath room, she tells me that this morning she saw paw prints in the snow, “I don’t know if it was from a feral cat, a raccoon, or what.”  “Yeah,” I say to her, “you told me that before.”

Zipper Pinches My Neck

December 6, 2010.  Monday.

Situation:  I have to work today.  Moi has not gone hunting; she says it’s too windy.  Perhaps it is, but out the office window I only see a few bare branches sway slightly, if at all.  I don’t think she’s taken Mway for a walk; she’s still in her bathrobe.  Squeak’s on my lap.  Although I don’t see much wind I seem to hear it roaring around the house – and, there, now I see whole trees moving.  It looks cold out there in the drab brown fields, and I’m not looking forward to going out.  I just heard Moi let Mway out the door, telling her “you’re a damn fool.”

State of the Path:   I keep my sweatshirt on, part of my lounging-around clothes, and put on my snow suit.  I find the birch branch next to my boots.  Outside, Moi wants to take a picture of me and Mway with her iPhone for some reason;  I call Mway, but she keeps coming and going, and Moi has to take a quick shot while Mway’s looping around my legs.  Walking down the sidewalk, I think it doesn’t seem too bad outside, but when I get to the pig pen I feel otherwise; my chin and wrists are especially cold.  I zip up my snow suit as high as it goes.  The path is soggy in places, crunchy in other spots.  There’s a few flecks of frost.  Mway takes the side path, and I follow.  Past the cedar, some of the gill-of-the-ground below the brown goldenrod is withered and pasted to patches of ice, but others of it lie burgeoning in full leaf.  Through the maples I scare out a small flock of birds, those that, righly or wrongly, I always think of as mourning doves.  Down by the creek, the bare spots of ground on the path are crinkled.  The pin oak branches and multiflora briars make grabs for my cap, but I manage to stop or duck just in time before they can snatch it away.  We don’t bother going over to the crest of the skating pond.  The water in the marshy spot between the ridges looks like it has iced up, but the streak of water in the path on the other side of the ridge is still liquid.

State of the Creek:  All the branches that were in the log jam are gone – the last few were pushed up onto the bank by the last flood.  All that remains there are two multiflora shrubs on either side that throw out branches to each other across the water.  Moi’s green plant is still there in the cascade but it looks a little more scanty.  Just beyond it I see where the floodwaters have pushed up some dirt from some mounds of grass that jut into the creek.

The Fetch:  I again make the circle tossing the stick.  A couple times Mway runs off in the wrong direction, but she manages to find the stick without me having to walk all the way up to it myself.  When I bend over, the zipper of my snow suit pinches my neck.  There are small patches of ice in the middle of the clearing.  We make the circle – I don’t know how many times.   As soon as Mway comes back and just keeps chomping on the stick, I tell her “that’s it.”

He Rested on the Seventh Day

December 5, 2010.  Sunday.

Situation:  Work all day today.  Listen to John Cage’s “Works for Prepared Piano” on the way home.  When I arrive, though Mway meets me in the driveway, it’s dark and the path would be too perilous to venture upon.  No walk for her from me today.

Wary of Hunters Again

December 4, 2010.  Saturday. 

Situation:  I wake up later than I have been lately: about 9:40.  Out my office window I see a dusting of snow on the ground, with green grass sticking up through it.  I don’t know if Moi has already taken Mway for a walk or not; she hasn’t gone hunting because she has work this afternoon, then we both work together tonight.  She’s on the phone, maybe talking to Jazz.  Last night she was telling me about the dearth of deer she and Ezra have been seeing and the possible reasons why; probably the main reason is that Ezra had many of his trees timbered and this has disturbed the deer’s habits; there are also the two brothers who own the adjacent farm: one of them likes to hunt and the other one doesn’t, and the one who doesn’t like to hunt has been slaughtering deer so the other one can’t.  Then as Moi says, “Ezra’s starting to think he’s been jinxed because he shot that piebald buck.  He shouldn’t have shot at it because he didn’t have a good shot. The thing was standing twisted and the bullet went through the shoulder.  It ran off, running on three legs just as fast as if it were on four legs.”  But right now, just as Moi is on the main phone, she reports to me that she’s gotten a message on her iPhone, with a picture, showing the buck that Ezra has just shot.  “He shot it down in the hemlocks,” Moi says, “I don’t usually go down there.”  Moi has gotten off the phone, and is now taking a bath – probably a sign that she hasn’t yet taken Mway for a walk.   While I’m waiting for her to finish, I might as well relate the long dream I had this morning:  A friend of mine, who is someone I don’t recognize, wants to go see a new version of Roman Polanski’s The Tenant; he insists we sneek into the movie house, not because we can’t afford the admission but in the spirit of things, but we end up in an adjacent theatre where a different movie is being shown on a small projector and small screen in a room set up with long folding tables and chairs.  A ham and turkey supper is being served by Pennsylvania Dutch women --.  Oh, here’s Moi now: I’ve just asked her if she’s taken Mway for a walk.  She says she hasn’t and warns me that today doe season has opened up.  “I wouldn’t take her for a walk today,” she says, “but, well, I haven’t heard any shots this morning.  If you go out, just be careful.”

State of the Path:  I decide to slip down along the summer house, take the reverse way, bringing with me the thick birch branch I found yesterday in the music room.  A lot of the dusting on the ground has disappeared, but there are light flurries falling around me.  On the path I spot a red perforated top from a can of shaker cheese, and then some yellow pieces of plastic strewn about.  Heading down toward the strawberry patch, I note a lot of red berries on a vast swatch of multiflora shrubs.  I realize that my eyes are attuned to color: and indeed I’m looking around for any signs of orange or red hunter’s garb.  When I get close to the Russian olive, I hear Moi out in the back yard yelling.  She calls out to me, “Sis.  Call Mway.”  Apparently Mway’s still up in the yard, probably chasing chickens.  I call for her, and soon I see her running down the path, a big smile on her face.  Moi calls out to me again (I can’t even see her from where I’m standing).  “Good,” she shouts, “You have your orange cap on.”  I pass through the break in the ridge, keeping my eyes on the field and ridge across from the creek.  I see a hunter's stand up at the edge of the woods on the ridge, but I see no color in it; among the brown weeds in the field are some bright green plants near the top, and I wonder what they are.  As I pass through the “chokeberries,” I recall the deer stand that sits in the oaks on the other side of the creek; I figure, though, that if someone’s in there, I should be able to spot the orange or red through the bare gray branches.  Mway goes over to the feed channel, but then turns around and scoots down along the creek.  I follow.

State of the Creek:  The air’s damp and cold, but with the flecks of snow on the logs along the creek and in a few spots on the ground, it seems cozy, and I take my time walking along the creek, just enjoying the brisk air.  Up ahead, I see Mway bounding across some grassy mounds that jut into the creek, then I see her pick up a big stick in her mouth and start to walk into the water.  What the hell is she going to do with that? I wonder.  She reminds me of a beaver.  But when I get up to where she was, I see that she’s dropped the stick and has continued up along the creek. I reach the tree stand, turn left to go up along bug land.  Up ahead I see Mway running through the maples, with another stick in her mouth.  When I reach where she was, I see it dropped on the ground too.

The Fetch:  In the clearing, Mway is hopping up and down, eager to fetch.  The center of the clearing is a patch of ice, so I stand off to one side.  I pitch the stick in all directions: toward the sumacs, toward a honeysuckle on the other side of the clearing, toward the electric pole, between the “chokeberry” and the honeysuckle, toward the strawberry patch, and even into the goldenrod near Moi’s evergreen plantings.  Everywhere I toss it seems there’s some obstacle, a shrub, where the stick could get stuck in; but this, and making a circle of the tosses, keeps my interest up.  Mway fetches a lot, and even more as we go to level 2.  We don’t quit until finally I start saying “are you done now?” “are you done now?” about five times, and Mway just keeps chomping on the stick that’s rattling between her teeth.

Sound of Saws and Hammers

December 3, 2010.  Friday.

Situation:  Moi went hunting again today.  I have lots of work that came in for me to do today.  It’s 9:15: Mway is waiting for me to take her out.

State of the Path:  I can only find the gashed stick, so that’s what I take with me.  I stop in the path at the outbuilding, surprised to see how much water is still trickling down here – seems not from the springhouse but somewhere around the barn foundation.  I hear a woodpecker in the old orchard.  Mway might hear it too, for I catch her standing sideways in the path, snout pointed in the air.   She heads down the main path, and I follow.  She veers right to sniff in the sumacs.  I look down a pathway with a lot of goldenrod bent down in it.  At the maples, the water is not trickling so much, but it’s still standing in the second stream and in the spillways to bug land.  All over the McNeighborhood I hear the sound of skill saws and the pounding of hammers.

State of the Creek:  The sound of the flowing stream is almost loud enough to drown out the sound of a skill saw – but not quite.

The Fetch:  I move quickly along the creek, over the swale, along the ridge, though it, and up to the clearing.  I realize that I’m tossing the stick pretty much into the sumacs; a couple throws down the path almost reach the strawberry patch.  The clearing is getting clearer.  When Mway starts bringing the stick back without dropping it, I play “Put it down” once or twice, then tell her “that’s enough.”

Water Still Flowing into Bug Land and at Swale

December 2, 2010.  Thursday.

Situation:  I worked last night, and I have to work tonight.  Moi has gone hunting again.  I wake up a little later than I have been recently.  Mway went to the door to be let out, so she’s waiting outside for me to join her.  Last night after work I stopped in at Dan’s house by the river; the river was creeping up his back deck and could crest, he said, at the floor of his house, though he thought that unlikely.  There’s blues skies and sunshine out my window.  I can see the berry cones of the sumacs.

State of the Path:  When I step outside, Mway dashes off the porch, starts running down the chickens; I have to yell.  The plank and cement slabs in the path at the garden pond are still underwater; beyond, the path is soggy, with puddles around.  Flecks of frost here and there – maybe earlier this morning there was frost all over the ground.  The leaves are almost totally gone from the honeysuckles – only a shrub every now and then has scant leaves on it.  (Back in the back yard, I noticed that the willow still has some green leaves on it.)  I haven’t seen any deer in a couple days and no hunters, so I’m not thinking too much about that.  Round the hedgerow; a rabbit runs across the path; Mway doesn’t see it.  Through the patch of goldenrod, water is trickling, and when I get to the maples, there’s water trickling down the path here too.  The side stream is still flowing, and the water is collecting, though not nearly as much as yesterday, at the ridge and still spilling into bug land.

State of the Creek:  The creek is back in its banks, flowing brown and gently, gurgling at the cascades.  I see where grasses have been swept down, leaves and branches shoved about, dead leaves lifted up leaving behind bare spots of ground.  This is the case with the path, which is now nearly one long trail of bare ground winding along the creek.  I note that Moi’s water plants survived the high water; I see them sticking up at the same place in the cascade before the two big logs, which look like they’ve been pushed in tighter against the creek bank.  A couple dead branches have been caught in the little willow tree (if that’s what it is) that leans across the creek; the branches are matted with leaves.  I suddenly hear Mway barking; I look up and see her along the ridge, looking over at me; why the hell is she barking at me over there? I wonder.  A briar suddenly swipes me across my thighs, scratching through my pants (probably at a threadbare spot in them), and, wincing, I fling it aside.  Mway barks a few more times.  I note the swept-down grasses of bugland.  At the swale, a little water is still flowing into the creek; I pick up the plank behind the “chokeberry” and toss it across the swale so I can step across it.  I cross the feed channel, which still has water in it, though it’s not flowing.  The water in the skating pond has gone down.  When I duck under the pin oak, one of its branches lifts off my wool cap, and I have to retrieve it and scrunch it back down on my head.  I now see Mwayla: she’s backtracked from the ridge and is pushing her way through the goldenrod, which here is so bent over the path is nearly obliterated.

The Fetch:  Though the water’s down in the skating pond, there’s still water visible in the marshy area between the ridges.  And the path on the other side of the ridge is very soggy.  I note that, like the honeysuckles, the leaves on the Russian olives are gone.  I see the fairly recently shed leaves of one shrub strewn across the path just before the strawberry patch.  The goldenrod along one side of the path on the way to the clearing is now trampled down a lot, but on the other side the goldenrod is still sticking up.  I’d like to toss the stick there, but I see two white posts where Moi has planted evergreen trees, and I’m afraid Mway might trample those down too.  Up at the clearing, on one side of it the goldenrod is pretty well smashed down, and I end up tossing the stick sometimes into a honeysuckle or multiflora shrub, where it’s a little hard for Mway to get it.  I toss the stick down the path a lot, but I also start tossing it a few times on the side of the clearing toward the house, where there’s a lot more goldenrod for Mway to smash down.  As soon as Mway starts bringing the stick back without dropping it, I tell her “that’s enough.”

Stepping Through High Water

December 1, 2010.  Wednesday.

Situation:  I didn’t mention it yesterday or the day before, but when Moi comes home from hunting, she likes to spend the next two hours drinking whiskey and talking about her day in the woods.  “It can get cold and windy up there in the tree stand,” for example, “sometimes I’ll go down into the hollow, but it’s dark and I get lost there.  Ezra has a blind but I don’t like to go in there.  It’s down on the ground, and that’s the last place I want to be.  Your suppose to be wearing orange and the thing has camouflage around it.  Ezra says there’s not suppose to be any other hunters in the woods, but I’ve seen them in past years.  I was down there today, eating candy, and I could hear the wind around me, everything sounded like a bear walking around.  I was so tired I eventually fell asleep.  I started having this weird dream about an angel named Rachel, and then I woke up to this sound like ‘rrrrr-rrrr- rrrrrr-rrrr.’  I suppose it could’ve been my own snoring that woke me up,” and on and on and on.  This morning Moi wakes me up to warn me that there’s a thunderstorm, flash flooding, possible rotation clouds.  I hear wind howling, rain hitting the roof and running down Moi’s rain chain.  By the time I get up, it looks like the worse of the storm is over, but out our windows you can see where the creek has overflowed its banks.  Moi hasn’t gone hunting because of the weather, but she plans to go out this afternoon if it gets better.  I’m eager to go out and look at the creek, and I keep checking out the window to try to tell if it’s raining and how hard.  Maybe I spoke too soon about the storm being over – the wind is howling again, the trees swaying.  “Listen to it,” Moi says, “It’s like a hurricane out there.  I better check Doppler radar.”  I hear the rain now hitting the side of the house, see it outside the window falling at a slant and carried by in little gusts; there are puddles of water in the yard, in the path by the summer house, in the lane behind it.  But as soon as I have the chance I’ll be taking the little dog for a walk.

State of the Path:  Finally Moi tells me “it’s only lightly raining now.”  I put on my usual walking clothes because I don’t have a raincoat or parka.  Yesterday afternoon the gashed stick broke a bit, so I choose the thick birch branch, which at least has some heft.  At the outbuilding, there’s water over the cement slabs and wooden plank in the path; water seeps from the spring house.  Moi’s garden pond is overflowing, with water spilling out toward the pig pen.  Beginning at the walled garden, the path is one long puddle of water.  Mway heads down the main path, but she turns around when she sees I’m taking the side path.  Already my pants are getting wet, there are raindrops on my glasses, and I’m wondering why I’m walking out here.  The path along the orchard is not as streaked with water, but there are tiny streams flowing through the black walnut trees (though not as much as there used to be typically before the coming of McNeighborland.)  But when I round the bend and start through the goldenrod, clumps of which are bent over from the rain, the path is again saturated with water.  Back on the main path, the water trickles faster as the ground slopes more.  At the maples, a second stream of water runs alongside the stream of the path, breaking up into tiny rivulets through the maples, most of this collecting along the ridge and pouring into bugland.  Beneath the pin oaks stretches a long deep puddle.  From here I can see the creek, rushing swiftly along, a tan torrent, streaked with white bubbles.

State of the Creek:  Mway is ahead of me, and I hope she has enough sense not to wade into the water.  She turns to walk along the creek, and I lose sight of her.  At the tree stand, the creek does not quite reach the path, but there’s water over the banks on the other side, creeping up into Hutchinson’s wood lot.  The water speeds along, carrying foam and bubbles, churning, turning this way and that, humping upward into long flowing mounds.  At the first stand of honeysuckles, the path is again covered with water, and I’m grateful to have new boots because I can walk right through it.  After I pass through the honeysuckles, I look ahead and see the water flowing right over the bank at the bend where the log jam used to be, and there’s Mway walking along right in it, just beyond the plastic barrel which seems to have been moved a little bit.  When I get to the overflowing bank, I hesitate to step any further; at places I can’t tell what’s water flowing down the path and what’s water in the main stream.  But I soon realize I can guide myself by following the multiflora and other shrubs sticking out of the water and the little islands of leaves here and there -- and besides, there’s Mway up ahead walking along without getting swept away.  When I step into the water, it feels weird because I think my leg should disappear into it, but somewhere beneath the gushing water is the path which holds my feet up, although I can sense soil being eroded away.  There are tree branches fallen across the path and into other branches.  At the big locusts, where the path winds around the trees, the water follows these twists and flows into the grasses of bug land.  I walk especially careful along the narrows, every step worried that my boot might sink all the way into the water and I’ll lose my balance.  Through the shrubs I see Mway pacing back and forth on the dry side of bug land.  When I reach the swale, the water is spreading over the dirt bar, and I see the plank’s been uplifted and is caught in some branches.  I pick it up and wedge it behind a “chokeberry” so it won’t get swept any further.  I then try to step through the swale, but the water reaches to the top of my boot.  I wonder how Mwayla got over to dry land.  I try stepping in a different spot, but again the water almost overflows into my boot.  I turn around and start to backtrack along the creek, thinking I’ll have to retrace my steps all the way around to the clearing.  I test stepping into the grasses of bug land near the big locusts, but the water is too deep here too.  How did Mwayla get over to the other side?  Finally at the honeysuckles just before the tree stand, it looks dry enough to walk into bug land, and I alternately plod and high-step across the large area of the thick brown, usually untouched, grass to reach the ridge.  I wade through more high grass along the ridge then head down the soggy path through the “chokeberries,” intent on looking at the skating pond.  The plank over the feed channel is still in place, but it’s only inches above the water, which flows from the creek toward the skating pond, so the feed channel is actually acting like it's suppose to.  Even before I step off the plank, I can see ponds of water that have swelled up around the catty-nine-tails: the skating pond looks like the marsh that I suppose it actually is.  I head toward the creek.  The stream around the oaks is very wide; there’s water flowing in around the pin oak which I have to duck under, and I spy a golf ball in the grass but don’t bother to pick it up.  Then in the middle of the crest, even though the ground is high, water has made a giant pool, and I have to stomp through this while shoving my way through sheaves of bent-over goldenrod.  

The Fetch:  By the time I reach the clearing, my pants are completely soaked.  I can barely see out of my glasses, and the last thing I want to do is throw a stick.  Mway’s not even anywhere around.  Still I give her a call, I don’t know why -- maybe because I figure if I don’t throw the stick there I’ll still end up throwing it in the yard.  I call for her several times, mistaking the sound of rain dripping through the weeds to be the sound of her approaching footsteps.  Finally she appears in the path along the sumacs, running with a big grin into the clearing, and I start tossing the stick, hoping she’ll give me a break and only fetch it a few times.  But soon I realize that’s not going to be the case and start muttering to myself.  Then it starts raining harder, and I realize that gives me a good excuse to stop.  Long before she’s ready to stop, I tell her “that’s enough.”