Moi Explains the Situation to Mway

June 9, 2010.  Wednesday.

Situation:  Work late morning and early afternoon, and have to work again tonight.  When I get home about 1:30, Mway and Moi are taking a nap, so I lie down to rest also.  Besides it’s raining fairly hard.  Everyone gets up about an hour later, and it’s now about 2:45.  It’s now only drizzling, and I’ve gone on walks in a drizzle before, but now I’m also more pressed for time.  Mway is pacing around the kitchen, in expectation that I’m going to take her out; I ask Moi for her advice, and she says I don’t have to take Mway out for a walk in a drizzle.  “Mwayla,” she says, “you go on walks a lot.  It’s raining today.”  So I’ve decided to forego a walk today, which will give me plenty of time to shave and shower and get dressed for work tonight.  Outside my office window, I notice, for the first time this year, a number of day lilies down by the summer house in bloom.

Dandelion Flowers, Green Grass, and Cabbage Butterflies

April 7, 2010.  Wednesday.

Situation:  Yesterday afternoon I did finally end up mowing some of the lawn, just the lower portion where the grass was getting high.  In the front yard and the side yard, I left whole areas of Pennsylvania bittercress untouched.  It’s amazing how, once you name something, you see so much of it around.  I take Mway out about 1:15, so I have time to rest up before going to work tonight.

State of the Path:  Mway runs through the chicken flock then heads down toward the summer house.  I decide to take the reverse path, but as soon as I do, Mway is not around, and I have to call her to come along.  At the edge of the lawn, I see two dandelion flowers.  I manage to get through the soggy ground around the ridge without much water seeping into my boots.  The weather is too warm for my long-sleeved shirt and wool cap – normally by this time of year I would no longer be wearing the cap, but I’ve been favoring it, for bird viewing purposes, over the wide-brimmed safari helmet.  The water in bug land is turning an oily color; in the feed channel, where Moi’s sweet flag are growing well, the water is almost orange.  The foot holds are drying up, so it’s getting easier to cross the feed channel.  Lots of trout lily flowers, and I see what I believe are the blue flowers of gill-of-the-ground.  I hear a splash in the creek again – the frog.  Along the seeps of bug land, I try to walk on the new grass coming up, so that doesn’t end up getting too high.  May apples seem in abundance – I notice a new area of them coming up near the two anthills on the path along the old orchard.

State of the Creek:  There’s still water trickling into the creek from bug land, but around the wigwams the water is drying up.  Behind the big log of the log jam, there is a slight scum on the water, but I no longer see the huge piles of cow piss froth as I did when the spring waters were rushing along.

The Fetch:  Up in the clearing, I see two what I assume are cabbage butterflies.  One fetch.  On the way back toward the walled garden, Mway drops the stick to sniff something on the ground.  I end up carrying it back to the house, and laying both sticks against the side of the house.