Weeds Impinge Path, But Would Be Worse If We Had Had Rain

June 23, 2010.  Wednesday.

Situation:  Same 9 am routine as yesterday:  turn on the computer, pour the water for the coffee, go outside let the chickens out, etc.  Mway’s ready whenever I am to go for her morning walk.  The only difference is there’s no turd on the rug in kitchen; that’s because I let Mway out late last night.

State of the Path:  It’s going to be a hot day today, feel the heat and humidity immediately.  Beneath the apple tree and along Moi’s garden pond, there’s a low-lying violet flower that looks something like gill-of-the-ground; a cursory check of Audubon doesn’t tell me what it is.  Day lilies by the walled garden are in full blaze.  The morning dew has almost already all evaporated.  I hear a mourning dove in the distance, then a farmer’s machine coming from the mountains.  The radio squeak of unseen birds: probably cardinals.  I realize as I’m walking along, that as much as the path seems hemmed in by weeds, it’s nothing compared to what it might be if the season were wetter.  Because of the lack of rain, the path is staying open, inviting our foot and paw steps with its beat down grass and dry white ground.  The elderberry flowers are turning into green berries; the red willow flowers, or whatever they are, are also turning green.  As I step across the board at the swale from bug land, I think about the deer we chased out yesterday, its absence now, and how disappointed it was to discover that what it thought was a perfectly secluded spot to bed down was a place visited by a human and his dog.

State of the Creek:  At the tree stand, Mway goes into the water, stirs it up; when I look at it it’s a muddy creamy color.  She steps over the dry rocks, which crackle under her paws, and exits the creek bed at her usual spot, below the red-berried honeysuckles.  I count the same pools of water as I did yesterday, then I hop over the feed channel, a little treacherous now, not because of water or mud, but because the foot holds are obscured by jewelweed and other weeds growing over them.  I look at the creek along the crest of the skating pond.  What’s usually one long pool of water has now shrunk into two smallish ponds, ringed by mud that was recently covered by water.  A dry wide outcrop of rocks, with the tire along the bank, is all that remains of the creek beyond the second feed channel.  It hits me today that most of the creek is now dry.

The Fetch:  Up at the clearing, I toss the “pro-quality” stick into the goldenrod; for some odd reason, maybe because the heat is affecting her brain, Mway dashes off in a tangent back down the path, and I have to call her back and walk toward the stick to reorient her.  After that, though, she fetches the stick with great accuracy.  We play “Put it down” once.  Walking back along the sumacs, I realize I should bring the clippers along with me on these walks, or another stick; the briars are getting thick here, and pretty soon they’ll be catching against me with every step.

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.

Ragweed, Touch-Me-Nots, Wild Carrot, and a Bunch of Unidentifiable Things

June 20, 2010.  Sunday.

Situation:  Work all day today.  When I get home about 6:30, no one is here.  The Boy has gone back to NYC; Moi has taken Atlas back to Jazz’s, where she finds it less stressful to watch him.  Moi has left a note on my computer monitor that says “Mway needs supper,” “Chickens need locked up.”  I find Mway on Moi’s bed.  After I put on my walking clothes, then go downstairs to put on my boots, gloves, and safari helmet, Mway comes down to the kitchen, ready to go for her walk.

State of the Path:  The chickens come running up to me, with their peeps following behind them.  Mway and I head to the path.  Just before the pig pen, in the middle of the path, I see the conspicuous plant with long spiked green flowers which I haven’t mentioned before because I didn’t know what it was.  But since yesterday, when I was leafing through the Audubon, I think I can confidently say that this plant is a common ragweed, to be distinguished from the great ragweed, which I’m more familiar with, because most years we have that growing in great numbers, to its maximum height of fifteen feet.  I haven’t yet this year seen great ragweed growing to that kind of height (except that one time by the summer house), but I do also see it coming up around the place, perhaps more than the common ragweed.  On the side path, I refrain from eating any raspberries, because I’m afraid of getting the seeds stuck in my teeth.  But when I get down to the creek, there’s a stand of raspberries with so many ripe ones that I cannot stop myself from eating some of them; I just make a point of chewing on the better side of my mouth.  All along the path, I notice how some of the plants seem bedraggled because of the dry weather, especially the touch-me-nots.  In fact I touch some of the touch-me-nots and discover that they lack all that spring which they usually have and from whence they derive their name.  Not one of the touch-me-nots which I touch twinges or coils up (like they do I guess to spray their seeds); and this suggests to me that these flowers have bloomed prematurely this season.  On the board on the ground near the wigwams, I see the pile of turds Mway left there yesterday.  Coming up to the clearing, I see several of the white flowers with fern-like leaves that I’ve seen before and didn’t know what they were.  But again, after leafing through the Audubon, I think I can confidently say these are Queen Anne’s lace, or wild carrot, which is a plant I think I should have recognized but perhaps didn’t because of how they were situated.  I see a lot more of the yellow flowers that I saw before, and judging from their leaves it seems to me that they might be what Moi calls goose grass, or bed straw, now in flower.  But the pictures I see in Audubon for bed straw and goose grass looks nothing like this.  I also see some violet flowers and lavender flowers growing just before bug land; but, right now, I don’t even feel like leafing through the Audubon to try to guess what they might be.

State of the Creek:  It seems to me that some of the pools in the creek are starting to dry up, as I notice some wet mud among the rocks.  Particularly along the crest of the skating pond, it seems to me that what used to be one long pool has now divided up into two smaller ones, with dry rocks in between.  Still I hear some frogs leaping into the water as I walk along.

The Fetch:  Up at the clearing, Mway fetches the “pro-quality” stick more times than I care to count, but not as many times as she was doing when Atlas was around.  When we get back to the back yard, I think about my chore of having to lock up the chicken cage and expect that I’ll have to wait a while before I have to go out and do that.  But when I get back, the chickens have already all gone back in their coop, and conveniently all I have to do is shut and latch the cage door as I’m walking by.

Atlas Leads the Way to the Creek

June 19, 2010.  Saturday.

Situation:  As it turned out, yesterday I never did any work in the afternoon.  I needed work on the brakes of my car and took it to Sears because they could work on it right away; but they couldn’t obtain all the necessary parts, so one of the workers gave me a ride home, and Ezra drove me and my equipment to and from work that night.   Moi had gone down to Jazz’s with Atlas yesterday in the afternoon; she came back early this morning, and she and the Boy (visiting from NYC) have gone to breakfast, I believe, after taking the Boy’s car to Kantz’s for an inspection.  Right now Atlas is downstairs sitting in front of the kitchen door, whimpering and barking occasionally, because I think he’d like to go outside.  Mway is lying down in the hallway just outside the office here.  I already took her out this morning to fetch stick in the back yard and then fed her (before Atlas arrived), but now I believe she’s waiting for a walk.  I’m waiting to hear from Moi and the Boy.

State of the Path:  Moi and the Boy come back about 11, and Moi, in a cheerful mood for the first time in days, decides to take both dogs for a walk, keeping Atlas on a leash, and not bringing the stick.  I follow along.  Moi seems to have gained some confidence that she can better control Atlas, as Atlas pulls her along down to the creek.  Both dogs take dumps and pees; Mway dumps on the board in the path near the wigwams.  Moi wonders whether she can take Atlas off his leash.  I tell her that I’ve taken both dogs on a walk before without leashes, but that was back at Christmas time, and that I had a stick as a means to put a leash back on Atlas before we came to the house.  Moi decides to keep the leash on Atlas.

State of the Creek:  At the tree stand, Mway goes into the water, and Atlas follows, with Moi behind him and managing not to get pulled into the creek.  I eat some of the raspberries that I see have ripened (I would eat more, but the seeds stick in my teeth).  Farther down the creek, Mway goes again in the water, and Atlas follows again.  This time Moi lets go of the leash, because the bank is high, but she’s able to grab it back when Atlas follows Mway back to the bank.

The Fetch:  On the way to the clearing, I ask Moi if she knows what the yellow wildflowers are (the ones I first noticed yesterday or the day before, and which are coming out now in more numbers).  She says, very provisionally, that they might be a type of crown vetch, but I don’t think so, and unfortunately I don’t have the leisure today to try to identify them.  Up at the clearing, Mway stops in anticipation of me throwing a stick, but of course we have none.  At the walled garden, after Moi and Atlas disappear from sight, I pull a stick from one of the dead sumacs on top of the barn wall, and Mway and I venture out onto the path again.  I take the side path along the orchard, just for the sake of a day’s trampling of the weeds, but then we turn back to the clearing.  Mway fetches the sumac stick as though she hadn’t already fetched a stick previously this morning.  I watch as the stick falls and rustles the goldenrod before it hits the ground, and Mway zeroes in on where it landed, then dashes back, with the goldenrod wiggling in her wake.  Where I stand to toss the stick, I look approvingly at how much of the goldenrod is staying smashed down.

Addendum:  Later in the day, before Moi and I both go to work, we take the dogs for another walk.  Or rather, the Boy takes Atlas for a long walk down to the creek, and when he gets back, I simply take Mway out in the back yard to fetch stick.  I use a small stick I find on the bench, perhaps one from a lilac bush.   After a few fetches, Mway starts to chew at the stick, until first it breaks apart in half and finally, after a few more throws, splinters into little pieces.  I find another stick in the yard, and she promptly chews that one to pieces too.

Atlas Returns

June 18, 2010.  Friday.

Situation:  I have to work both today and tonight.  Moi has come back with Atlas; while she had a comfortable time sitting with the dog down at Jazz’s, now that she’s back she’s beginning to get stressed out handling the two dogs.   She has just announced that she’ll take Atlas for a walk, and after that she wants me to take Mwayla out.  Mway is now lying on the floor next to me in the office; Squeak is on the window sill; we can hear Atlas barking and Moi screaming outside.  It’s now 9:18.  After a while, I go to put on my walking clothes; but when Moi comes back inside with Atlas, she tells me she has to go into town to do some errands and that I can’t take Mway out until she comes back or Atlas will break down all the doors while we’re on our walk.  So right now I’m sitting here, waiting for Moi to return; it’s approaching 10:00.

State of the Path:  By the time Moi gets back and Mway and I set out on the path it’s after 10:30.  I’m too stressed out myself to pay much attention to what’s going on today.  As we approach the juncture to the side path, I tell myself if Mway turns left on the side path we’ll go down that way, otherwise we’ll go straight.  Mway goes straight, and I see after a while that she’s trying to get ahead enough of me so she can squat down and poop.  Along the creek, I see a new wildflower; it has tiny yellows flowers and little green burs.  It looks like something I’ve seen in Audubon, but I have no time today to check it out.

State of the Creek:  As I’m taking a whiz myself down by the creek, I hear Mway splashing around in one of the pools.  Then I see Mway coming up from an area of rocks, through a little pathway in the weeds that she must have made by herself doing this everyday.

The Fetch:  Mway and I continue trampling down the goldenrod.  She fetches the “pro-quality” stick more times than I care to count; I suspect that she’s trying to prove to me and to herself that she is better than Atlas at fetching, which indeed she is.

Something Like a Mayweed, But Not Like a Mayweed

June 17, 2010.  Thursday.

Situation:  Moi has taken Atlas back to Jazz’s, where she finds it easier to dog sit him, although she’s going to have to come back this afternoon, with Atlas in tow, to work tonight.  I also work tonight (I worked last night too), and I’ve decided not to do any work this afternoon.  Moi has given me explicit instructions to take Mway on a good, long walk, so she won’t feel obliged to give her one when she gets back.  This morning, of course, I had to let the chickens out etc., and I threw morning stick for Mway out in the back yard, after which I fed her.  I take her out for a walk about 12:45, a moment that Mway has waited for all morning, lying patiently in the music room.

State of the Path:  I bring the hedge clippers along with me, figuring that a good, long walk constitutes clipping back some of the weeds.  I don’t clip anything, though, unless it’s something really leaning into the path: any kind of briar, like a multiflora or a blackberry, and some of the shrubs, the honeysuckles and the red willows near bug land.  A lot of the goldenrod needs to be cut down, but this requires more work, which I don’t feel like doing today.  Along the orchard and down by the creek, I help myself to any raspberry which I see has ripened.  Near the swale to bug land, I note again a wildflower I saw the other day, with tiny white flowers and fern-like leaves.  I wonder to myself if this might be mayweed, since I read the other day that mayweed has fern-like leaves.  But looking again at the picture in Audubon, I see clearly that, whatever this plant might be, it’s not mayweed; and I don’t see any other candidate among the pictures.

State of the Creek:  The only movement of water I see today are ripples caused by skating water striders and plopping frogs.  In one of the pools, I watch the striders for a while, as two of them skate over to a fallen flower petal, each of them rejecting it as something inedible.  In the water, I notice some lit up spots, the sun obviously shining down, but near them I see some foggy areas, like smoke plumes in the water – I can’t figure out what this might be, except perhaps for shadows caused by leaves.   

The Fetch:  This morning Mway fetched the “pro-quality” stick for a good, long time, and she does so again after we arrive at the clearing, where, also, we continue our work of keeping the goldenrod trampled down.