Don't Know What to Make of Viney Plant

August 6, 2010.  Friday.

Situation:  This morning when I looked out the kitchen window while getting my coffee I saw in the weed bed by the house (where Steve Gray Wolf fears to tread) a number of the same white flowers I saw yesterday in the clearing.  So I’ve just gone out there with my Audubon to try to identify them.  The flower is trumpet-shaped and appears all white, with white pistil and stamen. The one specimen I looked at (the others were too far back in, and I was not wearing my walking clothes) appeared to be on a vine entwined around a goldenrod stem; its leaves were arrowhead-shaped.  Damn if I could find anything like it in the Audubon.  Then, while out there, I saw some white, pink-tinged, bell-shaped flowers, their leaves thick, big and dark green.  The flowers kind of look like what I see in Aububon for teaberry, bearberry, leatherleaf, nodding onion, and spreading dogbane, but damn if I can tell what they are either.  Moi has gone into town, so I can’t ask her right now for help.  Today looks again like I’ll have to work both afternoon and evening, so might as well take Mway for a walk now.  It’s 9:39.

State of the Path:   Today I do notice berries on the “chokeberry” on the path before the walled garden; it’s the main bush there these days, bigger than the multiflora bush, which, once the biggest bush, now has started (like all the multifloras around) to decline (life span?  weather conditions? competition?).   I see the arrowhead vine a couple times along the path, entwined always around another plant, but I don’t see any more of its flowers again until I reach the clearing.  I avoid the side path along the old orchard, but I do decide to take the one along the skating pond.  When I see it overgrown with goldenrod, though, I just take a quick jaunt over to the creek and back.  The tall meadow rue, I notice, has lost its flowers, and in their place are tiny green, spiky seeds.  I notice a couple of boneset plants standing among the ironweed in bug land; their leaves are indeed starting to look withered, as well as bug-eaten.

State of the Creek:  When Mway goes into the creek, I again hear, instead of the splash of water, the crackling of rocks.  All the pools are shrinking.  The vinyl siding sits a good yard away from the shrinking pool at the narrows.

The Fetch:  Before I toss the stick I take a quick look at the trumpet-shaped flower, with its arrowhead leaves, growing up the branch of a “chokeberry.”  I don’t see the other two flowers I saw yesterday.  Mway surprises me today – she ends up fetching the stick about five times, then coaxes me to play “Put it down” about four or five times, even though I heard her out barking with Moi early this morning.

Debris from Yesterday

June 2, 2010.  Wednesday.

Situation:  Work late morning, early afternoon, and must work again tonight.  Just enough time to take Mway out about 2:30, give a quick account here using problematic Microsoft programs, and cool off in pool.  This morning Moi said she didn’t take Mway for morning walk.  Reason: dew on weeds make for too wet a walk.  Understandable.

 State of the Path:   Just down to the creek and back.  See debris from clippings yesterday.  As I walk along, pull up whatever weeds I can casually grab with my hand.  See several different types of butterflies and Dobson fly-like insects – no time to identify.  See frogs.  May apple leaves starting to turn brown.  Mway doesn’t wade into the creek – odd.  Just stays at my heels the whole walk.

State of the Creek:  Pretty much like yesterday.

The Fetch:  Lilac stick today.  More fetches than I care to count.  Mway passes me at juncture to main path, to beat me back to porch.

Deploy the Clippers Again

June 1, 2010.  Tuesday.

Situation:   Work this afternoon, take Mway out when I come back, about 4 pm.  Today Moi took Mway over to Ezra’s place for a practice run for when she has to spend the day in a kennel this Saturday for Jazz’s wedding.  Moi said Mway, who’s not used to a kennel or even riding in a car, was very quiet and humble the whole time, but she feels Mway will be okay.  Even as Moi relates this to me, Mway skulks around the house, as if she understands exactly what Moi is talking about.  I bring along the clippers for today’s walk.

State of the Path:  Immediately beyond the walled garden I start clipping, at whatever sticks conspicuously out in the path: hedge garlic, sumac branches, honeysuckles branches, multiflora and blackberry briars.  I would call it a casual clipping, as I don’t spend more than a few seconds at any one place; the only place I clip for a minute or more is down at the creek where the path narrows.  Here I spend a couple minutes trimming back about half of the multiflora bush that grows out toward the creek, and also cutting down the goldenrod, jewelweed, and other weeds around it.  It gives a little more space on the path, but I really should come down here with the loppers sometime and take out the whole bush.  My clipping really only gets at the worst of the vegetation.  All throughout the path, there are still weeds that impinge on it; it will take going out with a weed whacker to clear the path any more effectively.  Down along the seeps in bug land, the grasses that grow up along either side of the path are now over my head.  I trip over the monkey vine on the path, which is now hidden in grass, and I trip over some fallen locust tree branches which are now also hidden.  Along the ridge around bug land, I see something moving in the weeds (not far from where Mway cornered the raccoon a few months ago).  Mway sees something moving too, and goes into the weeds.  I see a shrub wiggling, and weeds shaking, but it looks like Mway can’t find anything, and I walk on.

State of the Creek:   Mway wades into the water to cool off.  Some of the dead flowers on the water seem to have floated to accumulate at the edges of the creek bank or in front of a cascade of rocks.  Some multiflora branches are drooping down in the water.

The Fetch:  When I reach the clearing I have to call for Mway to come.  She soon comes running up the path, ready to fetch the stick.  I’ve brought the lilac stick, but she doesn’t fetch it many more times than she did the “pro-quality” stick yesterday.  We play “Put it down” once.  By this time, I’m hot and itchy; I have to take my gloves off to the wipe sweat and bugs out of my eyes.  Mway passes me at the fork at the main path to beat me back to the porch, and after I make this entry, while Squeak presses against my legs with the hopes of jumping on my lap, I’ll be ready to jump into the pool.

It Doesn't Matter It's Memorial Day

May 31, 2010.  Monday.

Situation:  No work today.  I do have to mow the lawn, though, and don’t take Mway out till after I finish, about 5:30.  (Instead of my usual wool walking socks, I wear regular, and cooler, socks, which I keep on for the walk.)

State of the Path:  By the time I’ve finished the lawn, I’m so tired that my feet are dragging as Mway and I head down the path.   I bring along the “pro-quality” stick, mainly so I have something to support myself as I’m walking.  I stick to the main path, and I don’t really have the energy to look at anything.  Honeysuckle branches brush against my cheek; blackberry briars scratch at my shirt.  I noticed much more while I was mowing the lawn, and I suppose I could give an account of the State of the Lawn:  The grass was not too high, indicating how little rain we’ve had this spring.  Plus the Boy had a party this Saturday night, and much of the grass around the benches and picnic table was tramped down.  Plus the grass was low and brown where Moi and I had left the pool cover sit for a day or two.  This past week I cut a number of lilac branches down, so I wouldn’t have them as obstacles while I’m mowing.  So the lawn was not too hard to mow this week.  Still there were some obstacles remaining, which I should remedy one of these weeks:  the wild cherry on the side lawn has low branches which I have to duck under or plow through while I’m mowing; there’s another wild cherry with low branches by the corn crib, and a white mulberry tree with a low branch behind the pool; the apple tree by the outbuilding also has low branches, and the maple tree by the pool has one low branch that I kept running into.

State of the Creek:  As I’m stumbling through the high grass on the path along the creek, I step at one point perilously close to the bank.  The sky’s starting to cloud up, and the creek looks dark and foreboding.  Past the clutch of honeysuckles and multiflora briars, I hear Mway stepping into the water to cool off.

The Fetch:  For a moment I think Mway’s going to fetch the stick more times than I care to count, but she stops short of around five fetches.  I play “Put it down” once, and when she brings the stick back, she stands looking at me as if she might want to play it again.  But I turn around and start heading down the path along the sumacs, Mway following me with the large stick in her mouth until we come to the fork at the main path, where she has the space to speed up quick and pass me.  When we get to the house I put on my swim trunks, hang up my work shirt heavy with sweat on the clothesline to dry, and jump into the pool.

To the Sassafras Trees

May 23, 2010.  Sunday.

Situation:  Work all day today, and unfortunately it’s still light out when I get home, so I take Mway out, about 6:30.  Moi decides to come along again.

State of the Path:  She takes me first out to the garden to show me what she planted today: some more green peppers and tomatoes, some herbs, some endive, and I guess Swiss chard.  I stop at the white mulberry tree.  “We should take a look at this,” I say.  “There’s what people have told me is a mulberry tree over here,” Moi says, and I follow her into the walled garden to look at a tree, growing on the opposite side of the falling-down barn wall, that has maybe what you call catkins growing on it, and for all I know may indeed be a mulberry tree.  Past the pig pen, Moi starts going down the side path, knowing that this is the route I usually take.  “No,” I tell her, “we don’t have to go that way tonight.”  It seems to me, as we head straight on the main path down past the wigwams, that everything has grown about six inches more since yesterday.  “What did you say this was again yesterday,” I ask Moi, pointing at a grass-like plant growing in the middle of the path down at the seeps in bug land.  “Sedge,” she says, “look it up in your wetlands book.”  Down by the creek, we look again at the white flowers I haven’t been able to identify, and seeing it growing among leaves that look like goose grass, I remark that maybe they’re the flowers on the goose grass; but Moi parts the plants and reveals that the goose grass is a separate plant from whatever the white flowers are.  As we walk past the log jam, I’m glad that I cut down the honeysuckle bush that once blocked the path because I feel like if I hadn’t I might fall over the bank of the creek today.  I notice that the plastic barrel that the Boy had pulled out of the creek long ago is almost engulfed in jewelweed.  I point out to Moi how I noticed the other day that there are two oaks growing beside and engulfing the lower branches of a big locust tree, and since I’m already looking up overhead, when we get to the center of the path along the creek, I realize to my surprise that the big trees there, engulfed in honeysuckle bushes and a mutliflora shrub, which all this time I’ve been calling ash trees, are actually big locust trees.  When we get to where the path narrows, Moi forces me to give her my stick so she can stick it under the bank to show me how the ground is being undermined.  “Just don’t cause anything to give way,” I tell her.  Up beyond the break in the ridge, Moi says, “We should go look at that sassafras tree while the weeds are still not that high,” so we traipse through a field of goldenrod to look at a tree which even I can identify as, indeed, a sassafras tree (two of them actually – and perhaps the only sassafras trees growing on our land).  Back on the path, we pass the strawberry patch.  “I’ve never been happy with the strawberries here,” she says, “These might be what they call Indian strawberries, or false strawberries, rather than real wild strawberries.”  Then she points to a plant that looks like goldenrod to me.  “And this, and all these weeds that are mostly growing around here,” she says,” is dogbane.”  “No, that’s goldenrod,” I insist, “that’s what we have mostly growing around here,” and I point at a patch of weeds that I’m sure must be goldenrod.  “That’s goldenrod, yes,” she says, then pointing back at a plant that looks almost the same to me, “but that’s different, and that’s dogbane.”

State of the Creek:  The creek seems almost unnoticeable today, what with everything that’s growing around it.

The Fetch:  Two fetches today, with the “pro-quality” stick.  Down at the creek, Moi had mentioned that we have Solomon’s seal growing on our property and that, of all places, it grows up along the edge of the fire pit in the walled garden.  So on our way back to the house, I wander over to the fire pit, asking Moi to show me the Solomon’s seal.  “Oh, it’s not coming up now,” she says.

That Was the Name Thereof

May 22, 2010.  Saturday.

Situation:  Moi and I work in separate places tonight.  I take Mway out about 3:00.  Moi decides to come along.  “Why aren’t your barking, Mway?” she asks.  And I say it’s because she knows I don’t like her to bark.

State of the Path:   We look at the small apples coming out on our apple trees; I point out what I think is the white mulberry tree to Moi, and she points out that it looks like they’re starting to get mulberries; and then we set down the side path along the old orchard, where I have my first question for Moi.  “What is this stuff coming up?” I ask her.  “That’s goose grass, or bedstraw.  Feel how sticky it is,” she says, reaching down to touch it.  “Does it get a flower?” I ask.  “No, I don’t think so,” she says.  Later we see more goose grass down by the creek – it is much higher, and it is indeed getting tiny little flowers (but I don’t find any photo or reference to goose grass in the Audubon, and the northern snow bedstraw pictured in there looks like nothing we’re looking at).   We walk by the black raspberries – and I call them that because Moi agrees with me that that is what they are, and we both recall one other thing that distinguishes the black raspberry from the blackberry:  the purplish cane (as compared to the reddish cane of the blackberry).  I sweep aside some may apple leaves to find the new yellow apples that Moi told me yesterday to look for.  “You got to be more gentle with the way you touch them,” she says.  Moi starts picking some sweetgrass.  “Is that Virginia creeper growing in there?”  I ask, pointing inside the orchard.  “I’d say,” she says, “And jungle size.”  We go by some white flowers that Moi first thinks is on a multiflora bush – but I’m able to point out to her that they are on a blackberry and that the multiflora flowers are very similar.  “What kind of grass is this?” I ask.  “That’s timothy,” Moi says.  “What kind of bush is that?” I ask, pointing to the shrub I was trying to trample to death earlier in the year.  “I’m not sure,” Moi says. “I don’t think it’s a red willow.”  “And see these,” she says, past the wigwams down in bug land, “this is field bracken.”  “Aren’t those ferns?” I ask.  “No. Field bracken.  Look it up in the book.”  “And these bushes here, are they elderberry bushes?”  I ask.  Moi isn’t sure what they are, but she looks at the as yet green buds coming out, and agrees with me that they are worth keeping track of.  Down by the creek, I point out the little white flowers that I noticed the other day, but Moi doesn’t know what they are either – I pick a specimen to take back with me, but still I’m unable to find anything that looks like it in the Audubon.  Later along the ridge around bug land, I notice another new flower, a yellow one – and stuff a specimen of this also in my pocket – also unable to find anything like it in Audubon.  On the other side of the ridge, Moi feels a small shrub.  “This might be an elderberry,” she says, “No.  Maybe not.”  “Sometime before the weeds get too high,” she continues, “we should walk up in the field there and look at the sassafras tree.”  “Oh,” I say, “Is that where it is, up there somewhere?”

State of the Creek:  A lot of locust flowers lying on top of the still pools of water.  At the feed channel, Moi picks some of the sweetflag for me to smell.  The feed channel, for the first time this year, is dry, and we both walk across it onto the crest of the skating pond, Moi stepping in the mud.  We walk in opposite directions along the crest of the skating pond.  “Those phlox are pretty,” Moi says.

The Fetch:  Bring along the “pro-quality” stick today.  I wait for Moi to get past me, before I toss it.  About five fetches.  On the way back to the house, we notice plums coming out on the plum trees by the garden pond.  “They came out like that last year but then disappeared,” I remark.  “Yeah,” Moi recalls also, “I don’t know what happened.  It might have been when I was taking care of Jazz last summer, and just wasn’t around when they were ready to pick.”

Difference between Blackberries and Black Raspberries

May 21, 2010.  Friday.

Situation:  Work tonight, take Mway out about 2:30, after her and Moi’s nap.  Today I did manage to wash my walking socks, as well as my walking work shirt, so I have at least a partially clean outfit to wear today.

State of the Path:  Today I went online to do a little research on blackberries, and found one website that was fairly informative.  A chief detectable difference between a blackberry and a black raspberry (which I kind of already knew) is that the former bears an aggregate fruit and the latter a single fruit that come off with a hollow pit and leaves a receptacle behind on the branch when picked; a dewberry is a type of blackberry that grows along the ground.  As I walk along the old orchard, I start to think that what I’ve been calling black raspberries might just be young blackberries – when the fruit comes in I guess I’ll finally be able to tell for sure; but it seems to me that in past years we’ve had both types of berries.  I don’t see any, and I don’t ever remember seeing, any dewberries.  One website says that brambles are a common name for blackberries – a jagger or a briar I suppose would be any type of plant with a thorn.  It seems to me that I see blackberries in three general states: there are the new green shoots that are coming up; there are the canes that are now bearing leaves and pretty white five-petaled flowers; then there are the dead canes that will bear no leaves or flowers and are very prominent along the path between the sumacs and the pig pen and outbuilding.  I also look at the multiflora bushes today, which seem to me to be not as robust as they have been in past years.  There’s one bush on the sidepath near the hedgerow (the one I’ve been scaring the robin out of), hemmed around by jewelweed, which seems to have another bush, with skinny leaves and bright red stems, growing over it; I see this at some other places too, and I begin to think that maybe these are new stems of multiflora coming in.  Coming up from the ridge around bug land and just before the strawberry field, I see a multiflora bush which is bearing white flowers, which are white and five-petalled just like a blackberry flower: so I was right when I thought I saw flowers on a multiflora the other day.

State of the Creek:  Mway wades into the creek and takes a sip of water, then wanders around the weeds on the far bank.  By the time I get to the creek I realize it’s a little warm today to be wearing a long-sleeve work shirt, but this is what I wear on my walks.

The Fetch:  I bring along a smaller stick today, one that I found in the music room, where Mway frequently drops her sticks after her walks with Moi in the morning.  She drops them there, I suppose, to remind me of our walks in the afternoon.   She fetches the stick more times than I care to count, and we play “Put it down!” once, but the smaller stick gets lost a couple times in the goldenrod and sweet grass, and Mway has to spend up to a minute looking for it; which seems to me to be a good argument for using the “pro-quality” stick on our walks.