Plant Peed On Beginning to Flower, Still Unidentifiable

June 25, 2010.  Friday.

Situation:  Last night Moi was home when I came back from work.  Atlas was with her.  Moi spent a lot of time telling me how she has been trying to train Atlas while down at Jazz’s, teaching him some basic commands like “come” and “stay.”  She feels she has made a lot of progress, although Atlas is still a lot to handle.  Because she feels more confident controlling Atlas, she took both dogs on the morning walk today, without leashes.  But she skipped throwing the stick, and back at the house Mway refused to eat anything.  Moi has gone back down to Jazz’s with Atlas.  I don’t have to work until tonight, so I’ll be able to take Mway on her afternoon walk.  It was nice to be able to get up this morning without having to do all the chores. I finally take Mway out about 2:45.  After Moi left, Mway slammed the door on herself in her room, so I have to let her out.  To finish up this entry, I have to remove Squeak from my office chair.   Squeak, who never goes outside, seems to like to sleep in the places I most use, like this chair, and the bathroom sink.  I’ve had to pick her up and move her a couple times already today.

State of the Path:  Mway starts sniffing the lawn, and I don’t see her again on the walk until I’ve crossed the feed channel and am walking across the crest of the skating pond.  I eat a couple raspberries by the old orchard, mindful of getting the seeds stuck in my teeth.  They are sweet and juicy.  I note that whatever the plant is I peed on a couple weeks ago is starting to flower, and there are a number of these shrub-like plants along the path, especially in the upper field.  I still can’t figure out from Audubon what this plant might be, but maybe in the coming days as they flower more I’ll be able to identify it.  The ground is like a bone, and with the heat and lack of rain keeping the grass and jewelweed beat down, the path opens up helplessly to my foot steps, which only have to contend with plants like goldenrod, grape vines, and briars, which seem to thrive in the dry heat.  A few butterflies – white ones – flutter about.

State of the Creek:  All the pools are still there, but they are shrinking even more.  The pool at the log jam has receded halfway across, and some kind of flies are buzzing around in the fresh mud.  A couple of the other pools are again crowded with water striders, who sit there squat in the water, with no room to stride about.

The Fetch:  Mway fetches the “pro-quality” stick more times than I bother to count, but probably less than seven times today.  Whatever the plant is that I’ve been wondering about, I see a couple of them coming up in the middle of the clearing among the goldenrod.  On the way back on the path by the sumacs, I regret again not bringing some clippers.  I have to tear back a briar jutting into the pathway with my gloved hands.

Goldenrod Scrapes Against My Thighs and Crotch

June 24, 2010.  Thursday.

Situation:  Same chores as yesterday, only about an hour earlier.  Some of the peeps have ventured as far as the spruce tree before I let the bigger chickens out, and they all gather together wherever I throw some feed for them.  Last night I worked, but Moi was home to take Mway for her afternoon walk, or at least to throw stick for her.  It’ll be the same situation today; I’ll have to go out shortly after noon to do some afternoon work also.  It’s about 8:15 by the time I’m ready to accompany Mway down the path.

State of the Path:  The heat doesn’t hit me as strongly as it did yesterday, but, again, it’s an hour earlier.  But though an hour earlier, there’s no more dew on the weeds.  I’m struck by how much the touch-me-nots (more specifically, spotted touch-me-nots) look bedraggled; where they’ve flowered, the flowers look withered.  Audubon describes the flowering period as July – October. Since they’ve flowered so early this year, I’m curious to see how they fare later on.  A lot of grape vines around the side path along the orchard; I’ve beaten down a lot of blackberry shoots, so the blackberry brambles don’t seem to be overtaking the path; at the end of the side path, though, the goldenrod is so thick that the path has all but disappeared: as I walk along, the goldenrod stems fall in front of my chest, scrape against my thighs and crotch, and spring back up behind me. Except for the fleabane and what I think is Queen Anne’s lace in the upper field, most of the white in the field is gone.  Something ruffles through the weeds down by the creek: probably a mouse or a vole, though it could be a snake.

State of the Creek.  Each of the pools that I noted yesterday is still there, but each one has shrunk a little, with fresh mud at its rim.  The newly exposed mud at the rim of the pool at the log jam seems buckled upward, as though something has buried itself underneath it.  Water striders crowd what little water is left in a couple of the pools.

The Fetch:   Again it seems like my muscles are sore as I bend down to pick up the stick; maybe I’m just not used to using them so early in the morning.  In contrast to me, Mway is a dynamo, fetching the “pro-quality” stick more times than I care to throw it.  After a number of fetches, she comes back to me holding the stick in her mouth.  I start to turn around, but I see she’s not following me: she wants to play “Put it down.”  So I turn around and scold her, “put it down!”  It’s the last fetch I want to do; as Mway brings the stick back, it gets caught between my legs so I almost stumble.  On the way back on the path, a briar catches on my shirt sleeve, and I think to myself that I must remember to bring something along on my next walk to cut these briars back.

Catch the Blurred Sight of a White Tail

June 22, 2010.  Tuesday.

Situation:  I wake up a little bit before nine, go to the bathroom, turn on the computer, pour coffee and water into the coffee dripper, go outside and let out the chickens (the peeps are already out, having been able to slip through the cage), put out some feed for them, see that they have water, and then, while the water is dripping and the computer is going through its start-up grinding, I take Mway for her morning walk, before going to work some time today.  I notice while I’m wandering around the kitchen, a little turd drying on the rug in front of the door; it’s probably Mway’s, and I realize I didn’t do things quite to her schedule.

State of the Path:  We walk straight down to the creek; no side paths.  Again the dew is very light, the ground very hard, the dirt light in color, the grass in the path brown.  I look a little at the raspberries, but I don’t bother to pick any.  In bug land, I notice some purple flowers, but I don’t bother to look at them too closely.  Coming up to the clearing, I pull off a leaf of the St. johnswort and hold it up, but the sky is cloudy, and I don’t see any translucent dots.

State of the Creek.  Mway goes into the pool of water below the deer blind, which has shrunk a lot in the last couple days.  I look down at the pool of water at the log jam; its murky and very dark.  Up from the log jam, the creek is just a straight line of bare rocks to the tree stand.  Underneath the big trees at the center of the path, the creek is completely dry, and the next pool of water is where the path narrows.  It seems that all the water striders are crowded together on this one pool of water, so crowded together they have no room to move.  Then just as I’m looking to see where the next pool of water begins, I hear a great crashing sound coming from the swale of bug land.  I turn around just in time to catch the blurred sight of a white tail and some brown fur, the first deer this year that I’ve chased out of its resting spot while on a walk.  I walk forward to the board that crosses the swale, and I see Mway standing there, dwarfed by the red willows surrounding her.  She’s not moving, and while we stand there looking at each other, we can hear the deer gasping.  It sounds to me like the deer is hurt, and I surmise that it must have tripped over something in the grasses of bug land.  Mway and I move forward through the red willows into bug land, and I expect to find the deer floundering in the grasses, with a broken neck or something.  But when I look around, I see no sign of it.

The Fetch:   Up at the clearing, I stand in the trampled goldenrod and throw the “pro-quality” stick.  Mway fetches it more times than I care to count, or rather, more times than I care to throw it today.   I find today that I have a rough time bending down to pick up the stick; my muscles are sore, not so much from mowing the lawn yesterday, as from trying to restart the hot engine after emptying the basket and refilling it with gas.

Addendum:  When I get home from work late in the afternoon, Moi is home doing some work and errands (after which she plans to go back to sit with Atlas).  I take a nap, and about 5, take Mway for her afternoon walk.  It rained for a brief while around noon today, and I’m curious to see how it might have affected the land.  There are still some raindrops on the leaves, but by the time I reach the creek my pants are only a little splattered with water.  The touch-me-nots have no more vigor than they had before, and the creek water seems no higher.  I begin to count how many pools of water there are in the creek: one at the tree stand, another at the log jam, one beneath the black walnut tree, and a double one just beyond the high trees, which is divided by dry rocks.  There’s no water in the feed channel, and I don’t bother to take the side path along the skating pond.  Up at the clearing, Mway fetches the “pro-quality” stick with as much energy as she did this morning.  After our fetch, she rams the back of my legs with the stick, while trying to pass me on the path.

So Dry No Dew, But Manage to Identify St. Johnswort

June 21, 2010.  Monday.

Situation:   Today I have to go to work as soon as I can get around to it.  But first I have to do all of Moi’s chores, including take Mway for her morning walk.  I decide to take her out while the coffee water is dripping and while my computer is grinding away to open up its unwieldy programs.  It’s about 8:45.

State of the Path:  This early in the morning I expect to be splashed by the morning dew, but I don’t encounter any until I get to the seeps of bug land, and even there there’s not much of it, which serves to emphasize how dry it’s been.  Again I touch the touch-me-nots, and again they don’t coil and twinge, and I realize how hard and dry the ground of the path is, and that because of the lack of rain, the path is easier walking than it normally would be this time of year.  I don’t bother to take either side path, and although the end of the upper side path is choked with goldenrod, just before the wigwams, I think I can even make out a trace of the beginning of the path that used to cut across the field, although further on I see there’s too many weeds to make any easy attempt at it.  The raspberries, though, are doing well this year, and I help myself to some down by the creek.  At the swale from bug land, the touch-me-nots seem heartier, but they are not in flower there.  I look more closely at the yellow flowers on the way to the clearing.  They have five yellow petals, with stamens and so forth the same color.  I don’t find anything in Audubon that looks like what I see.

State of the Creek:  The rocky areas of the creek are definitely dry, with no water trickling through them.  So the creek consists of a string of disconnected, unflowing pools, one or two of which Mway walks into to cool off and take a sip of water.

The Fetch:  Mway fetches the “pro-quality” stick more times than I care to count.  I note that the grass underneath the goldenrod is brown.  On the walk back past the sumacs, the path is becoming choked with briars.  In the back yard, I look at the lawn and wonder if I should wait until tomorrow to mow it.

Addendum:  I finish up work and get home about 4:45.  I guess I’ll take Mway for another walk, after which I’ll eat and then I’ll mow the lawn after I eat.  I take both side paths, just for the sake of trampling the weeds.  I see grape vine leaves that are bigger than my hand; some of the fleabane towers over my head.  Down by the creek, I hear a frog or two croaking down where I used to see the skunk cabbages; I see a frog crossing the path as it leaps into the water.  Mway goes into a pool, and I can hear some dry rocks crackling against each other as she steps on them.  Then I stop at the yellow flowers on the way to the clearing – I’ve brought the Audubon with me.  As Mway heads up toward the clearing, and with the sun beating on my workshirt and sweat coming down my face, I leaf through the pictures, eliminating one by one several candidates for the plant I see before me:  black mustard? – nope; hedge mustard? – nope; common wintercress? – nope; nodding bur marigold? – nope;  tickseed sunflower? – almost, but nope.  Mway comes back down the path, and starts staring at me, beckoning me to the clearing.  Then just as I’m about ready to give up, I come upon what I’m certain that I’m looking at: common St. johnswort.  5 petals on branched, terminal clusters; long, opposite, elliptic leaves.  And the clincher: I even see the black dots on the margins of the petals.  Supposedly the leaves have tiny translucent dots that can be seen in the light; I tear a leaf off and hold it up, but Mway is still looking at me, and I drop the leaf and move on.