Board Rattles Against the Hard Ground

July 7, 2010.  Wednesday.

Situation:  Moi woke me up this morning with the announcement, “I have to go to work now.  I didn’t take Mway for her walk.”   It’s another hour or so before I drag myself out of bed, about 9:30.  Since Moi already made coffee and turned on my computer, I now sit here drinking a mug of coffee, having a cigarette, and writing this.  Mway patiently lies on the floor of her room, waiting for the moment when I take her out, which will be just in a few minutes.  I myself have to work tonight, and I haven’t yet checked my emails to see if I have any work that has to be done during the day.  My muscles feel sore; I’ve been swimming everyday for a number of days, and perhaps that’s too often – but because of the hot weather, I’m sure I’ll go swimming again today.  Well, I’ve finished my cigarette, and have just one gulp of coffee to swallow, so here Mway and I go.

State of the Path:  Out on the back porch I have a little trouble finding the “pro-quality” stick; yesterday Mway had dropped it at the end of the porch and I had neglected to pick it up and put it on the bench.  For a minute or so I fear the stick may have been lost, but then I discover that someone, probably Moi, has placed it safely against the wall of the house.  Out on the side path, I reflect that, in past years, this side path by now would be impassible without chopping down briars and weeds with a weed whacker, and much of the main path would need whacking too.  But this year, although plenty of weeds lean into the pathway, and make these walks no stroll in the park, there hasn’t been any need, because of the extremely dry weather, to cut things down in a major way.  Down by the wigwams, when Mway walks over the board that’s lying on the path, it rattles against the hard ground.  Up on the side path and down by the creek, there are still stands of jewelweed, with leaves and flowers withered, that I bet would bounce back vibrantly if we had some rain.  On the sumacs, which are now bearing their bright berries, there are portions of branches that hold nothing but crumpled brown leaves.  Many of the plants have yellow leaves, although I notice that the leaves on the pin oaks are striking in their greenness.   There are just too many red honeysuckle berries around, but I see birds flying out of them.  I see butterflies – I’ve been too lazy to try to identify them.  I think about checking the elderberries to see if the purple berries have come out on them, but I forget to.

State of the Creek:   The three puddles are still there, and Mway steps into the one along the crest of the skating pond.  A frog leaps across the path and dives into the puddle just beyond the big trees.  I haven’t yet seen any flowers on the sweet flag growing in the feed channel, and their leaves are flopped against the dirt.

The Fetch:  Up at the clearing, I realize that I haven’t been paying much attention to tossing the stick because by the time I get here I’m just so damn hot; I just want to throw the stick, get it over with, and hop into the pool.   Mway doesn’t seem to be affected by the heat and insists on fetching the stick a good number of times and on playing “Put it down” at least once.  But back in the yard, she does hop into the water basin beneath the lilac bush, her own little pool, that Moi set up for her yesterday evening.

Long Unidentifiable Weed Turns Out To Be Dogbane

July 6, 2010.  Tuesday.

Situation:  I’m still on an early morning schedule, even though Moi has come home, and wake up about 7:30.  Yesterday the temperature had soared to 101 degrees by late afternoon, and I suggested to Moi, after Ezra left her off, that we cook supper outside on the charcoal grill.  We thawed out some kielbasa and salmon, and I went to the store to pick up some vegetables, ready to try out my vegetable griddle that Jazz had gotten me for Father’s Day.  Between 6:30 and 7, we figured it would be bearable to go outside.  All the McNeighbors were in their air-conditioned lairs.  It was absolutely peaceful and quiet out, no noise pollution from machines and loud voices.  (Moi had turned off the filter of our pool.)  After we ate, we took a dip in the pool – it was Moi’s first time in it this year (she doesn’t go into the pool until the temperature reaches 99), and she spent most of her time in the water scraping down the algae that had accumulated on the pool sides.  When I come down to the kitchen this morning, Moi is at her laptop, the coffee is made.  But I’m surprised to find out she hasn’t yet taken Mway for a walk.  I offer to do so (Moi hadn’t turned on my computer, so I have to wait for it to finish its grinding anyway), and Mway and I head out at 7:40.

State of the Path:  Despite the hot weather, I still wear my regular outfit of long pants, long-sleeve workshirt, boots, gardening gloves, and safari helmet.  Even though the plants are all distressed by the lack of water and high temperature, they’re still growing enough that I need protection from briars, burs, nettles, spikes, overhanging branches, and poison ivy.  Before we hit the path, I notice that there’s poison ivy growing up the side of the chicken coop, and make a note to myself to pull that down sometime.  Out at the walled garden, I glance at the plant I’ve been trying to identify.  Last evening I told Moi about my failed attempts at trying to identify this plant; we took a walk to look at it, and Moi recognized it right away: “Oh, that’s dogbane,” she said, “Look it up in the book.  This stuff has really tough stems, and if I had done my wigwam completely to traditional specs, I would have used this for lashing.”  I remember now that several weeks ago Moi had pointed out some dogbane in the field amidst the goldenrod, and I should’ve remembered that before.  For, having looked it up in the book, I’m satisfied that this is what this is: a type of dogbane.  It might not be the spreading dogbane that’s pictured in the pink flower section, although “milky juice exudes from broken stems and leaves,” its leaves are “ovate, blue-green,” and its fruit is “2 long, slender seed pods…opening along one side”; because I’ve yet to see any pink flowers, it might be the kind of dogbane, mentioned in the same entry but not pictured, called Indian Hemp, “a slightly smaller species with erect clusters of greenish-white flowers [that] is also found in fields and is poisonous.”  Time, however, may reveal that some of these plants have pink flowers (as Moi now tells me she has seen in past years).

State of the Creek:  The three pools, or rather puddles, have not yet given up all their water, although I smell freshly exposed mud as I walk past them.  Along part of the creek bank, now flanking nothing but a corridor of dry rocks, there’s a row of jewelweed that hasn’t disintegrated into dust, clutching vainly to a source of moisture.  I touch one of the few touch-me-nots; it doesn’t recoil, but it seems to me it does spray some seeds – I can’t tell for sure.

The Fetch:  Up at the clearing, Mway runs over some dogbane as she dashes after the stick.  I find again, as Mway fetches the stick over and over, that I’m composing sentences in my head.

Addendum:  I take Mway out again around 5 pm.  Again I have no work today, but because I’ve already had two full days of no work this week, I don’t luxuriate in the fact as much.  Nevertheless, it was too hot today to do much except lie in front of the air conditioner in my bedroom and read.  At midafternoon, Moi checked the official temperature online: 103 degrees.  She had gone out some time today to check on the black raspberries around the perimeter of the yard, something I’d neglected to do in the past weeks.  She found, much as I found in the side acre, that the promising crop of berries were all dried up in the heat.  When I go out in the yard with Mway, both Moi and Barb Dennehy are in the pool.  They warn me that they heard some sort of agonized animal growl in the fields, so I’m prepared to encounter some sort of animal, perhaps, a dying one.  By the walled garden, only about two day lilies are open; the rest are closed – either they’re drying up in the heat or they’ve already passed their peak (out my office window, I don’t see any day lilies in bloom by the summer house; indeed, some of the plants are dried up and flattened to the ground). I look again at the jack-in-the-pulpit fruit; some of the kernels have turned white.  On my way to the creek, I check two of the grasses I’ve been trying to identify.  While online today I found a couple sites that explained the differences between grasses, sedges, and rushes; both of them quoted a little verse: “Sedges have edges, Rushes are round, Grasses are hollow, what have you found?” or alternately for the last line, “Grasses have nodes all the way to the ground.”  The verse is of no help to me.  The stem of the plant I’ve been calling red grass, or more recently great spike rush, is both round and hollow.  The other plant, which has a leaf formation similar to the other, is also both round and hollow.  Along the path, I find a lot of little holes, places I suspect animals like snakes or frogs might be hiding themselves.  In the muddy creek bed, I see what look to me like paw prints, but for all I know they might be Mway’s.  Then past the big trees, I hear a rustling in the weeds along the creek bed.  I turn around and see a gray house cat, running away from me but not frightened enough to run out of sight.  I suspect that it might be one of the feral cats that has been living in our outbuilding, but which we haven’t seen for a while.

Try to Identify Donkey-Tail Grass

July 5, 2010.  Monday.

Situation:  I don’t wake up quite as early this morning, about 8:30.  The food I nuked for Squeak still sits in her dish, so I nuke it again and place it back on top of the refrigerator.  Squeak turns her nose up at it.   Today is another day I have no work to do – I won’t even have to mow the lawn, not even spot mow, it’s been so dry.

State of the Path:  But as soon as I step out of the house I hear one of the McNeighbors mowing his lawn.  I look around and see Schmidt (one of the few neighbor’s names I know) spinning around on his McTractor and running over his McQuickGrass.  The air is not as cool as it was yesterday – the weatherman has called for 100 degree temperatures this week, and I can feel it coming already.  I found my old walking stick lying on our slate walk, so I’ve brought two sticks along with me, like days of old – when I come across a cobweb on the path, I have a choice of sticks with which to knock it down.  On the side path, I look for ripened black raspberries.  I don’t see any that I would want to eat – maybe a few shrunken dried ones.  I don’t think the raspberries have done as well as they seemed they were going to do.  Perhaps they’ve been thwarted by the dry weather.  As I look through the bending briars and beyond, I mostly see red honeysuckle berries – it could be also that these honeysuckles are outcompeting the raspberries.  Along the back hedgerow, blackberry briars soar every which way, ten feet into the air.  The jack-in-the-pulpits are turning brown; their green corncob-like fruit stand ready to drop.  I still have to wade through goldenrod, and I also have to wade through the grasses at the seeps in bug land.  But the bottoms of the stalks of these grasses are turning brown.  Along the creek, I look again at a type of grass that seems so prevalent down here, almost displacing the jewelweed; some places the grass grows in patches, and its leaves, which look like pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey tails that kids might have attached to the stems, look so vibrant and hearty.  I’ve been unable to find this plant in Audubon, so I’ve googled “wild grasses of Pennsylvania” this morning, in the hope of finding a picture of the plant.  The web seems about as taciturn on grasses as Audubon: most sites are about ornamental lawn grasses.  I do find one site that is selling wild grasses for lawns and garden and which contains two pages of pictures and samples.  They list some things that look like stuff I’ve seen on my walks: bristly sedge – with long burs; crested oval sedge – with short burs; sallow sedge – with brown burs; great spike rush – is this the grass I see down at bug land?; Pennsylvania sedge; nodding fescue.  Unfortunately the site is simply trying to sell me this stuff; the information about the plants is scant, the pictures small.

State of the Creek:  As I walk along the creek, I hold my breath to see which pools have not yet disappeared.  There’s still a puddle at the log jam, one or two at the bend beyond the big trees, and a sizable pool below the swale from bug land, which is where Mway goes to take a sip of water.  Most of the creek is just a long row of rocks, parts of it hemmed by weeds, other parts by mud and exposed tree roots where the frogs hide, I suppose, from the dry weather.

The Fetch:   Up at the clearing, Mway fetches the stick one time after another, with barely a chance for me to stand up before I have to bend over and toss it again, beating a path down to dry brown grass from one end of the clearing to the middle, which we’ve both trampled down to dry brown grass with our feet and paws.  I took a swim last night, but I don’t feel that my muscles are sore.  After a while I’m not paying attention to what I’m doing; I’m bending over and tossing on automatic pilot, and I find myself, instead of noticing what’s happening, composing sentences in my mind for tentative use in this journal, a habit I reproach myself slightly for.

It Doesn't Matter It's the Fourth of July

July 4, 2010.  Sunday.

Situation:   Since this is the only day of the week I have to be up in the morning at a certain time (to take the hour-long commute and be at my work between 11 and 11:30), I set my alarm last night for 7:30.  I usually set it for 8, but I set it a little earlier because of the extra chores I have to do and because the clock has been slowing down, if not stopping completely, of late.  After I lie awake in bed for about fifteen minutes, I finally get up.  I consider not giving Squeak any canned cat food, since she turned up her nose at it yesterday, but when I look at her dish it’s empty, so I fork out a little wedge from the can and nuke it, per Moi’s instructions.  Again Squeak turns her nose up at it (will she eat it sometime in the course of the day?).  I measure out 4 cups of water for the coffee, instead of the usual 8, since I’ll be leaving the house by 10.  Mway is anxious to get out of the house, so I let her out before I put on my walking clothes.  Outside the peeps that are small enough to squeeze through the spaces of the chickens’ cage are already wandering around the yard; the bigger ones I have to let out.  I throw the flock some feed; Mway is running the perimeter of the yard and anxious to get going, so we start down the path.

State of the Path:  A small ground hog or a rabbit runs through the weeds by Moi’s garden pond.  I have to knock down a spider web that crosses the path.  I stop at the walled garden to look again at the plant I’ve been trying to identify.  This particular specimen has just a small cluster of flowers or buds, but it also has, as I discover for the first time today, a long green double-tubed fruit hanging from two of its stalks.  As I touch the fruit, a drop of a milky substance drips on my fingers.  I turn over one of the leaves – Audubon describes the witherod as having a leaf with brownish hairs beneath; this plant does not have this, so I feel confident that this is not witherod.  But because of the milky substance, I start thinking this might be some sort of milkweed.  I shake my head, thinking that maybe I’ve just been too thickheaded to recognize the common milkweed.  But looking through Audubon right now, I see there’s another milkweed, swamp milkweed, which I’m considering now as a candidate for this plant.  The fruit is described as an “elongated pod…long, opening along one side,” words which sort of match what I see.  The only thing is that the flowers are a deep pink – so right now I have to wait to see if the flowers on these plants eventually turn that color.

State of the Creek:  At the juncture in the path that leads to the clearing, Mway turns right, heading to the clearing.  I’m ready to go all the way down to the creek, but I think, what the hell, if Mway only wants to go to the clearing this morning, I don’t have a lot of time, I’m all right with that.

The Fetch:  Dew splashes up off the goldenrod as the stick falls and Mway runs after it.  I’m happy to see it.  More fetches than I care to count – but Mway needs to get her energy out.  It’ll be a long day before I get back home from work, and I’m sure I’ll have to take Mway for another walk then.

Addendum:  I get back – it must be around 6 pm.  Mway is a model of patience – after all she’s been waiting for this moment for 8 hours.  When I let Mway out the back door, the chickens waddle toward her, as if there were a possibility she might throw them some feed.  When they see me, though, they realize their mistake, and follow my foot steps first to the bin where we keep the feed then to the spot in the yard where I toss it.  Mway immediately takes two dumps on the path, both before we reach the walled garden.  Except that it’s very hot and dry, I don’t notice too much on the walk, other than that a few of the blackberries have turned from red to black and some of the flowers of the Canada thistle have gone to seed.  Down by the creek, I note that the second half of the double pond past the bend beyond the big trees has shrunk to about a third of its size since the last time I looked at it.  As I’m gazing at it, a frog leaps into the water, then hops from the water into a mud hole beneath the opposite bank – I think to myself, so this is where the frogs go.  Mway sees this also, then goes down to the water to slurp some of it.  Up at the clearing, I’m amazed at how oblivious Mway is to the heat, as she fetches the stick with her usual energy.  I note that in the brown patch of grass where I’m standing, the stick that during the winter had a weird fungus on it has now disintegrated into a pile of white flakes.  We play “Put it down” about two times, then on the way back to the house, I can’t help but notice that a bunch of flies have descended upon the turds Mway left in the path.

Too Early for Flowers, Too Early for a Human

July 3, 2010.  Saturday.

Situation:  Last night Wade apologized for the things he said to me the night before, as I expected he would; nevertheless I performed my job, not quite like an automaton, but still very stoically.  After work, again, I fell asleep in front of the TV, and this time I awoke to the British attacking Fort McHenry during the War of 1812, a repeat of a History Channel show that had been on before I fell asleep.  I checked the time on the channel guide: it was 7 forty something.  I started going through my chores, minus turning on the computer, which I had never turned off the night before, but with the addition of turning off some of the lights that I had left blazing all night.  It felt like I was doing a lot of things twice, like rinsing out the coffee pot, then rinsing it out again.  Again Squeak turned up her nose at the cat food I nuked for her.  By the time I had my walking clothes on and was ready to go out the door, I still hadn’t seen Mway, and for a moment I thought I’d left her outside all night:  I remembered letting her out but I couldn’t remember letting her in.  But when I open the back door to see if she’s outside, she comes stumbling down the stairs.

State of the Path:  When I go to the cage to let the chickens out, I’m surprised to see that they’re all still back in the coop.  Apparently it’s even too early for the chickens to have roused themselves.  Out on the path, the day lilies have not yet opened – I note that it’s not that they have dried up, it’s simply that they haven’t opened up, same for the fleabane, and I think to myself that if it’s too early for the flowers to open up certainly it’s too early for a human being to be walking around.  Nevertheless, I like being out walking in the morning; the freshness and coolness of the air, the sunlight’s slant, the long shadows; it’s all preferable to the stale heat and uniform light of midafternoon.  And I like the idea that I’m walking around and, while waiting for the coffee to drip, spending the first forty-five minutes of my day without having a cigarette.  I look curiously again at one of the plants that I haven’t been able to identify yet, the one that I had peed on.  I had thought there were flowers coming out on them, but this morning I don’t see any, and I feel a little upset that I’ll probably never be able to identify this pretty plant, with its purple stems and smooth, criss-crossed leaves.  The grasses at the seeps in bug land are definitely a bit bedraggled.  Under the maples, where in the spring jewelweed had sprung up like mad, there are now only a few stalks of goldenrod.  I see cracks in the dry dirt of the path by the wigwams.  Under the young hickories, the ground is bare and brown.  The blackberries have in the last few days turned red, the sumac berries are bright red, and it’s too bad honeysuckle berries are not edible for human beings, because they have been firm and plentiful for weeks now.

State of the Creek:  All of the pools that were there yesterday are still there, but I’m sure they’re shrinking.  I can smell the fresh mud as I walk along the creek.

The Fetch:  When I get to the clearing, I have no idea where Mway is, and I call out her name.  Usually she comes running to me within a few seconds, but after a few minutes, I still see no sign of her, and I call out her name again.  It would be a good time for me to take in the vista, as I wanted to do yesterday, but because I’m waiting I don’t feel like it.  A few more minutes pass – it seems like ten minutes, and I start to worry that Mway might be in trouble, that maybe she fell into a hole, or got bitten by a raccoon.  I start walking back down the path, calling out Mwayla’s full name and sounding it repeatedly; just as I get a little ways into the poison ivy patch, I hear her body brushing against the goldenrod behind me.  As she brings back the stick after the first toss, she lollygags sniffing the goldenrod; I can tell that she had been absorbed simply in smelling around at things.  I toss the stick for her more times than I care to count, more times than I care to, period.  As she’s fetching the stick, I start wondering exactly how many times she is fetching it: is it twenty times? thirty times?  We play “Put it down,” a sign finally that she’s getting tired of fetching.  We play it a couple more times, and then she runs past me, carrying the stick back to the house.  I have no work today, and I look forward to not having to do anything.  However, as I’ve been writing this, the water pump has been going on and off; I’ve checked all the faucets and the two toilets, and nothing seems to be running, and now I’m afraid I’m going to have to worry about this.  And right now the chickens are on the porch, bucking and crowing up a storm.

Addendum: I take Mway out again in the late afternoon, at 6, after lying around all day watching the History Channel and reading the Smithsonian magazine during the commercials, even falling asleep for a time – delighting in the fact that I have no work to do today: I don’t even have to think about mowing the lawn, or paying bills, or doing some sort of errand.  I managed to contact Moi about the water pump, and she told me to twist the stopper in the laundry room toilet to secure its seal; that worked, and the problem was solved shortly after noon.  On my walk with Mway I bring along the Audubon.  Both of us see something moving in the weeds down by the maples; I yell at Mway not to chase after it, and she obeys.  My main focus is to identify the plant that I peed on the other week, and which I finally again discover some flowering, or at least budding, specimens of on the way to the clearing.  Again I consider that it might be Tartarian honeysuckle – but I’m not happy with the fact that it’s only now just budding.  Then I think it might be winged sumac, but the only similarity really is the purple stem.   I also consider that it might be witherod, or wild raisin, but this plant has toothed leaves, and mine doesn’t.  However, just now, I read more closely in Audubon that the “margins [of the leaves are] usually wavy or toothed, occasionally untoothed” [emphasis mine].  Anyway, I think I will have to see how the plant continues flowering, and see what kind of seed it gets, before I rule out witherod.  Whatever the plant is, there are a couple specimens of it in the clearing, which Mway runs over today as she’s dashing after the stick. 

Charge Down the Path, Looking at Nothing

July 2, 2010.  Friday.

Situation:  Last night I had a rough time at work, a fight with a co-worker (Wade), and afterwards I fell asleep in front of the TV, slipping in and out of consciousness, and not going upstairs to bed until the Colbert Report was running a second time.  So I was surprised when I woke up – I wasn’t sure when, because the clock in my room had stopped, but I can tell from the clock on my computer now that it must’ve been before 8 o’clock.  Squeak turns up her nose at the canned cat food I give her, but then I see that the dish tower containing her dried cat food, which is her main food, is empty; fortunately, I bought more cat food yesterday, and I’m able to refill it.  Outside, while I’m letting out the chickens and throwing feed on the ground for them, then wondering whether or not the pool filter needs back flushing (something Moi usually does), Mway starts to get impatient.  When I pick up the stick from the porch, she starts leaping and gamboling around the yard, expecting me to throw it there (as I did yesterday afternoon before going to work), and she ends up knocking over the chickens’ water dish.

State of the Path:  I vaguely look over at the day lilies – the flowers weren’t open, but – I can’t remember now – it seems that the spot they are in was awfully shady and the flowers were dried up (looking out my office window now, I see that the day lilies by the summer house still have not opened up this early in the morning).  Without thinking too much about it, I head straight down the main path, my mind a blur amidst all the plants with their various leaves criss-crossing this way and that.  I do notice the Canada thistles in the middle of the field, and reflect on how they’re doing their best to find a place to grow and blossom among so much goldenrod.  Down at the seeps of bug land, it seems to me that the grasses are a bit bedraggled – but, I don’t know, this is just a vague impression I have now in thinking about it.   Other than this, I more or less just charge down the path, looking at nothing and thinking of nothing except getting to the clearing as quickly as possible.

State of the Creek:  I do take some time, however, to look fairly closely at the creek.   When we arrive at the tree stand, Mway, instead of heading to the creek like she has so many times in the past, simply turns right onto the path, just like she did yesterday.  I step forward to look at the creek, and I see why she didn’t go down to it – all the water below the tree stand is gone, the pool has dried up, a fact Mway must have discovered two days ago.  I start checking on each pool of water.  There is still a little water sitting in the creek bed at the log jam, but the next pool of water, below the black walnut tree, is also dry.  So that’s two fewer pools of water than a couple days ago.  Below the big trees, where the creek bends, the double pool of water still has water in it.  I then go over to the crest of the skating pond; the pool of water below the swale from bug land is still there, but its lower half has completely dried.  While I’m there at the skating pond, I brace myself to step through the goldenrod to check on the cattails – that’s surely what they are, with their “brownish cylinder of female flowers” (as described by Audubon) sticking up.  I wonder if there’s any water in the pond.  I doubt it very much, but I don’t bother to step into it to check.

The Fetch:  Up at the clearing, I see that the spot where I’ve been standing to toss the stick is very well trampled down, showing nothing but brown grass and a few remaining stems of smashed- down goldenrod, so I take my stance at another spot.  My muscles are not sore today, probably because I took a break from swimming yesterday, but I still don’t feel much like throwing the stick, and Mway has me throwing it many more times than I care to.  Between throws, I try to take in the vista from the clearing:  I look down at the cattails in the skating pond, which look very striking from here, and I look around at the red berries that appear very bright these days on the sumacs.  But before I can look very long at something, Mway arrives back with the stick, ready for the next toss.  After many tosses, she starts playing “Put it down,” and she does this a lot, showing no signs of quitting.  Finally I have to simply turn around and start heading back to the house.

Feeling Sorry for a Briar?

July 1, 2010.  Thursday.

Situation:  Damn it.  Part of my morning routine is to turn on the computer first thing so after I’m done with my walk with Mway it’s finished going through its grinding.  But this morning I forgot to click one of the opening icons and now I must sit here and listen to the computer still go through its opening procedures.  But at least I think I can use the word processing program – and, there, it sounds to me like the grinding is coming to a halt.  This morning, having gotten more detailed instructions from Moi, I better prepared Squeak’s food, nuking it in the wooden dish, her preferred dish, rather than the plastic one, which I used instead as a cover, then breaking up the food with a fork.  I let Mway out the door before I’m ready to go out; I pour water for the coffee; then I go outside, let the chickens out and throw out some feed for them.  Mway and I are on the path by 8:15.

State of the Path:  It’s a cool morning; the air feels real refreshing.  Nevertheless, I feel tired.  Last night at work when I sat down to do my job, I suddenly realized how tired I felt.  People told me I did my job just as well, if not better, than I usually do, and I was able to put passion into it, but in the back of my mind lingered a feeling of irritability which I was unable to dispel the whole night and which undoubtedly adversely affected my job performance.  Yesterday afternoon before going to work I took Mway for another walk down to the creek and then I even went into the pool to swim my circle laps – with an early morning walk, it was probably all too much to do.  Neither the day lilies nor the fleabane have opened up yet.  I take the side path by the orchard, which I hadn’t done at all yesterday.  A briar and a grapevine, in one day, have grown across the path; I don’t bother to knock them down – perhaps with all the dry weather, I’m starting to feel sorry for the plants.  Nevertheless, through the goldenrod, I step with my foot turned sideways, to act as a wedge to stamp down whatever goldenrod I can.  The weed’s hold onto the soil doesn’t seem as great as it once was, and it seems like I’m able to trample some of it down pretty well.  Down by the creek, after tripping over the loopy grapevine as I do almost every time (the vine is hidden by some of those plants I talked about yesterday and can’t identify), I run into an especially prickly thistle – this, if it is a thistle (and since it’s not flowering I can’t for certain tell), may be a bull thistle.  Moi calls all the thistles Canadian bull thistles; but Audubon makes a distinction between Canada thistle and bull thistle:  both are spiny, but the bull thistle is “our spiniest thistle.”  I take the side path along the skating pond too.  I notice that there are catty-nine-tails (Audubon calls them common cattails) in the pond, and this amazes me, because I can’t imagine there’s any water in the pond to sustain these plants.  I think about going over to investigate things further, but between the path and the crest of the pond lies a bunch of goldenrod, and I just can’t stand the thought of walking through more of this stuff.

State of the Creek:  To my surprise, Mway doesn’t head into the creek at her usual spot, but simply turns right onto the path; I think maybe she’s deliberately trying to avoid any contact with the raccoons.  On our way along the creek, we both prick our ears at something suddenly crashing through the weeds on the other side.  This sounds again to me like a deer, but neither of us see anything.  I see that the pool under the black walnut tree is starting to disappear; the same is true of one of the pools along the crest of the skating pond.  Tomorrow or the next day, both of these pools might be gone.

The Fetch:  Up at the clearing, Mway is a ball of energy, going after the “pro-quality” stick more times, really, than I care to throw it – again, my muscles, particularly my thigh muscles, feel sore (too many frog kicks in the swimming pool, I believe), and it’s unpleasant for me to bend down to pick up the stick.  At one point, after Mway drops the stick at my feet, I just stand there hesitating to bend down, and Mway barks away at full throttle, the force from her abdomen kicking her body back and forth like a cannon discharging.  Up at the house, I hear the chickens crowing, and a sound of a crash like they’re up on the porch knocking something over.  I feel the urge to boot Mway --  but, of course, I don’t.  Eventually I bend down, throw the stick a few more times; we play “Put it down” till she grows tired of it herself, then head back to the house.