Fail with One Plant, But Identify a Heal-all

July 16, 2010.  Friday.

Situation:  Last night Moi closed the bedroom door on Mway, and Mway was forced to sleep in the hall all night.  This morning, Moi tells me, Mway acted very ashamed, refusing to eat, skulking around the house, and hiding for more than an hour in the bushes outside.  Although Moi last night chided me for not hosing Mway down, as far as I know Moi hasn’t washed Mway either, and the dog might still stink.  I have to work tonight, and I plan to take Mway for a walk sometime this afternoon.  Mway lies down in the corner of the music room, and periodically throughout the morning, I can smell the stench coming from her.  Finally around 11:30 I decide I need some air, and get ready to take Mway out.

State of the Path:  In the walled garden, Mway sniffs a bag of trash, then wanders around, knowing there’s a ground hog somewhere around here.  I take off down the path, then, thinking I don’t want her rolling in anything, call Mway to follow.  She soon comes shooting down the path behind me.  I sniff the air down by the wigwams, but I don’t smell any odor, although perhaps the breeze is carrying it away today.  I’ve brought the Audubon along with me, and my focus is to try to identify decisively what that Queen-Anne’s-lace-like plant is.  I look carefully at a specimen down near the swale from bug land, but I’m still hampered by a photo that doesn’t show what the leaves look like, and I can’t find anywhere on the plant the “one dark reddish-brown floret usually at center of umbel.”  Then walking along the ridge around bug land, I see a new purple wildflower growing all over the place.  I think to myself, “Damn, here’s another wildflower I won’t be able to identify,” but I throw off my gloves and start leafing through the Audubon anyway.  I really despair at finding what I’m looking for, because I can’t even describe what the flower looks like, with some big bulbous thing in the middle of the tiny purple petals.  But to my amazement, after a short while, I come across a photo that matches what I’m looking at exactly.  It’s a photo of a heal-all.  The big bulbous thing, which I think must be part of the flower, is described as the “square stem [that] has dense, cylindrical terminal spikes of purple flowers.”

State of the Creek:  Hear what sounds like a bullfrog coming up from Hutchinson’s land.  The pools remain, but the creek bed between the tree stand and the black walnut tree is dry.  Between the black walnut and the big locusts, water still lies among the rocks, but there is not a trickle to be seen.  Jewelweed grows in some of the dry spots.  I see a frog swimming in one of the pools, which quickly disappears under a stone.

The Fetch:  Up at the clearing, I take my stance next to some of the Queen-Anne’s-lace type plant, and then I see right next to it something that looks very much like it – another plant, I think, that maybe really is Queen Anne’s lace, for it has an umbel, I guess you’d call it, that looks like something in the Audubon photo.  I throw down my gloves and take out the book, ignoring Mway, who’s waiting for me to throw the stick.   She eventually takes off, as I try to decide which plant before me is actually Queen Anne’s lace and which is something else, perhaps poisonous hemlock.  I’ve also tried to look up both plants online, and have found that wikipedia states that Queen Anne’s lace is often confused with poison hemlock; I realize this is my predicament, and have yet to find a photo that will clear up my confusion.  After a while, I call Mway back to the clearing.  She fetches the stick twice.   I think she only fetches it twice because I’ve taken her for a walk in the middle of the day, after which she won’t get a cup of food in her dish.  Whatever I may have theorized before, I believe that Mway loosely associates fetching the stick with getting fed, and whenever she realizes that a walk is not at feeding time she doesn’t feel obligated to fetch the stick very many times.   Back in the back yard, Mways jumps in her little wading pool to cool off, and leaves the stick crosswise on the rim, as she’s been doing the past several days.  The larger pool, that’s where I’m going to jump into now.

Three Days-In-One: Finally Realize It's Mway Who Stinks

July 13, 2010.  Tuesday.

Situation:  I have no work today, neither for the afternoon nor for the evening.  I don’t even have to mow the lawn.  I’m beginning to feel like a worker who has, if not a weekend, at least a Sunday.  I let Moi do whatever she will with Mway in the morning, reserving my time for the afternoon.  We’re out on the path shortly before 5.

State of the Path:  What weeds are bending into the path today are doing so, not because they’re weighed down by water, but by their own weight and will.  Huge briars arch through the air; stems of goldenrod are bumped by their neighbors into open space.  I take the side path, see the white jack-in-the-pulpit fruit, hear a McNeighbor talking in his McYard.  Find the mullein, but it hasn’t yet flowered.  The red grass is still flattened, but the path through bug land is now visible.  A few flowering jewelweed by the creek, but no seed pods as yet.  A berried honeysuckle branch blocks my way over the feed channel; I tear it off, but don’t quite know where to throw it, lest I unwittingly plant yet another honeysuckle bush.  I toss it under the existing shrub.  Greeted by more black blackberries on the way to the clearing.  I look for one which has lost its luster, having read that they are the sweet ones.  I eat two, which turn out to be rather sour.

State of the Creek:   The puddles have become pools again, as large and as muddy white as they were yesterday.  The one under the tree stand has links to a chain of puddles by where the skunk cabbages grew in the spring.

The Fetch:  Up at the clearing, Mway fetches the “pro-quality” stick more times than I care to count, then coaxes me to play “Put it down” four or five times.  When I turn around to go back to the house, I have to call her to come.  She fumbles with the stick, and rams my legs, trying to pass me.

July 14, 2010.  Wednesday.

Situation:  It’s raining when I wake up about 9; it’s still raining, a gentle rain, when I sit down to enter this at 10:30.  I have to leave for work tonight about a quarter to 4; sometime before then I should take Mway for a walk, perhaps if and when the rain lets up.  After one o’clock, can hear the roosters crowing outside; means the rain has let up.  Mway lying around in the music room, waiting.  We go out shortly before 2.

State of the Path:   Mway sticks her head into the outbuilding; can’t tell what she might have spied.  The hour of sun has pretty much dried the rain off the weeds.  If my hand casually drops on a goldenrod or grass stalk, I pull it up in passing.  Don’t sample any of the blackberries before the maples.  Surmise that the putrid odor must be the dead bracken.  Again, have to guess where the path is through the red grass, but do so pretty successfully.  The plastic barrel, for weeks now, has been visible; the jewelweed around it has died and disappeared.  But along the banks of the creek, it appears the jewelweed might survive the dry weather and sprout seed pods one of these days.  I venture over the feed channel, despite the water in it, slip on the mud, and just manage not to fall.  In front of the ridge around bug land, Mway goes in the weeds after something; can’t tell what it might have been.  Even before the clearing, had seen some flowers on the goldenrod; now see even more, most of it green but some of it already yellow.  Realize, also, there are two different plants I am calling by one name: goldenrod.  One is sprouting tiny flowers, the other getting a big bud on top.  Will have to research this sometime soon.

State of the Creek:  The pools are full, and water lies among the rocks between them, even trickling here and there.  I think, as I walk along the creek, that I am seeing it, if not flowing, at least filled back up with water, until I check on the creek at the crest of the skating pond.  There, just below the pool of water below the swale, the creek bed is dry, with the discarded tire sitting in it.

The Fetch:  I stand over into some goldenrod to throw the stick today.  Don’t bother counting, but it’s not quite as many fetches today.  Play “Put it down” once or twice: but don’t feel like making a big issue out it.  Sweat’s pouring out of my eyes, and I want to get out of the sun.

July 15, 2010.  Thursday.

Situation:  Normally I would work tonight, but my Thursday job has been reduced to every other week for the remainder of the summer.  I have a little job to do this afternoon (along with some errands which I can do in tandem).  After I get home, I rest up a bit, and get ready to take Mway for a walk about 4.  Moi is working tonight, and before she leaves she says, “If you’re looking for something to do tonight, you could pull up the weeds around the red raspberries in the garden.”  I’m not looking for anything to do, but I ask her anyway to show me which weeds she means, so I don’t accidentally pull up any thing that is not a weed.  Out at the garden, she points, “You can pull up all those ox-eyed daisies.”  “That’s fleabane,” I tell her, and spend ten minutes before the walk getting hot and sweaty pulling it up.

State of the Path:  Out at the walled garden, I see Mway by the far wall, then hear her yelp.  I see her back away from something, then charge forward again at something that looks like a ground hog running along the top of the wall.  It scoots into a hole near where the sumacs are growing (the one sumac is still fallen into the burn pile), and that’s that.  Wherever I see them hanging, I pick a blackberry or two to eat, first by the back hedgerow, then before the wigwams, then past the ridge on the way to the clearing; there are enough ripe blackberries to pick a bowl of them, if I were not too lazy and didn’t have to worry about getting seeds between my teeth.  I’ve brought the Audubon with me, so I try to identify more precisely what type of goldenrod we’ve got in the fields.  It’s only starting to flower, so I have some difficulty with this.  I believe I see a specimen that has long leaves like lance-leaved goldenrod, but other specimens that are just getting their flowers have long leaves too, and these are toothed, which could indicate tall goldenrod; some of the goldenrod have bulb-like things part way down their stems, indicating I don’t know what – I believe I’ll have to reserve judgment till the flowers come in more.  Down by the wigwams, I smell the putrid odor again, and I’m too far from the dead bracken that the smell could be emanating from that.  I recognize the smell now as that of a dead mammal, recalling most recently the dead ground hogs that Blue would cure in the sun.  But when I get down to the creek, passing through where the path narrows before the swale from bug land, I catch a whiff of the smell again.  I look down and sniff at my shirt, thinking that I must have gotten something on it that I’m carrying around with me, but I don’t see or smell anything.  Again I catch a whiff of the smell walking along the ridge, and look again at my shirt and at my hands; I then sniff a honeysuckle bush, thinking that might be causing the odor, but no such smell emanates from that.

On the other side of the feed channel, I suddenly come across a new wildflower, something with little white flowers.  I have my Audubon, but I shake my head at the thought of leafing through its pages, probably in vain, in the hot sun, when suddenly the word “meadow rue,” from previous leafings through the pages, pops into my head.  I find two listings of meadow rue in the index, and when I refer to the photo of tall meadow rue, I’m quite amazed and relieved to find that what I’m staring at in the field is pictured so clearly there in the book, right down to the spiky white flowers (I guess these are the “thread-like stamens”) and the little sassafras-like mitten leaves (“roundish, 3-lobed leaflets” – not every leaf, I might argue).  Throughout the walk, I’ve been looking at this other white wildflower, which I’ve been calling, not to my satisfaction, Queen Anne’s lace.  I really think this flower, with its fern-like leaves, is something else, but I’ve looked into the Audubon too much already today.

State of the Creek:  The pools are holding their own, and as I walk along the creek, I see how the water seems to be trying to flow through the rocks between the pools, flickering if you look closely with a trickle here and there, until it suddenly disappears at a high spot in the creek bed.  The water is losing its cloudiness, and turning a clear brown; the rocks are drying and turning white.  I think I’m noting the lack of water striders, when I see one or two in the pools below the big locusts.

The Fetch:   Up in the clearing, I stand in the same goldenrod I did yesterday to toss the stick.  Right by me are some of the not-quite-Queen-Anne’s-lace-like flowers I’ve been talking about, and I think to myself I’d get out the Audubon right then and there if I wasn’t in the middle of throwing the stick for Mway.  Again I smell the putrid odor, and I look down at my shirt and hands, then leaning over to pick up the stick I bend over further to sniff Mway: the smell is coming from her, all this time it’s been Mway who stinks.  Mway coaxes me to play “Put it down” until she decides herself that she’s done with fetching.  Right now she is lying in the hall outside the office, and when I pass by her I can smell the stench of dead animal.

After Another Rain, Something Smells Like Burnt Insects

July 12, 2010.  Monday.

Situation:  I have to work this afternoon and have no work in the evening, so I decide, whatever Moi does in the morning, just to take Mway for an afternoon walk.   When I get home about 4, it is storming.  Water is coursing from the driveway down the sidewalk and down the slate walk.  Moi is not home.  The pool is running, so I turn it off and unplug it.  The chickens are stranded on the porch.  My computer is still on, but by the time I check it, it seems to me that the storm is passing over, so I leave it plugged in.  Moi arrives home, and by 5:15, it has stopped raining, and Mway and I venture out.

State of the Path:  The weeds are bent over in the path, dripping with rain.  My socks and pants immediately start to get soaked.  Briars catch on my shirt.  I twist around drooping sumac saplings, brush back goldenrod stems, duck under rain drenched honeysuckle and maple branches.  Among the more common weeds, what looks like a new mullein juts up along the path, full of promising buds.  Under the maples, the soil is dark brown with moisture.  Brown leaves have been displaced along the ground, grasses flattened.  I stop for a moment to try to identify a slightly putrid odor, something that smells like burnt insects.  The red grass in bug land is again beat down and thatched together.  I can only guess where the path is, and it seems all my guesses are wrong.  The weeds become less thick along the creek, at least under the trees, but they become a nuisance again at the swale from bug land, through the red willows, and on the other side of the ridge.  My footstep finally finds the safe haven of the anthill, where I see a bunch of purple half-inch-long blackberries hanging.  The first one tastes sweet, but the half a dozen or so more I eat afterwards could have stood longer ripening.  Both sleeves of my workshirt are soaked, my pants are hanging low, pulled down by the water in the drenched trouser legs.

State of the Creek:  The first puddle has now expanded beyond the trunk of the maple tree, upward toward the multiflora shrub that blocks access to the creek, and downward I can’t tell how far.  There’s a puddle again, maybe two, under the black walnut tree, a larger puddle at the log jam, a puddle again under the big locusts, and two big puddles beyond the bend, and it seems some of these puddles are trying to leak through the rocks, reconnect to become a stream again.  There’s water again in the feed channel, all the way back to the skating pond.  The sweetflag leaves lie bedraggled on top of it.

The Fetch:  After a few tosses of the stick, Mway coaxes me to play “Put it down” four, maybe five, times.  I want to get out of my wet clothes as soon as I can.  In the back yard, Moi has put Cornish hens on the grill.  Mway jumps to cool off in the little baby pool Moi has bought for her this weekend.  As soon as I learn that Moi is going to watch the grill, I take off my clothes and jump into the bigger pool.

Moi Reminds Me How Touch-Me-Nots Actually Work

July 11, 2010.  Sunday.

Situation:  I wake up about 8, my alarm clock, which I had set for that time, frozen at 7:50.  Moi is milling around but hasn’t taken Mway for a walk.  I tell Moi I’ll take her for her morning walk, but I don’t know why, since I’ll probably take her for a walk when I get home from work and I have preparatory work to do before leaving.  By the time we get to the pig pen, I decide just to take Mway to the clearing (Moi seldom takes Mway for a full morning walk during the summer anyway).  I throw the stick from one end of the clearing, and at one point as I’m backing up in my spot, I feel my foot sink and realize I’m stepping on one of the evergreen saplings Moi has planted.  Last night, when Moi and I were discussing the dry, hot weather, I mentioned how the touch-me-nots had come out early and how the flowers were not springing at the touch of my fingers this year.  “That’s because it’s not the flowers that do that,” Moi smiled, “It’s the seed pods, which come out after the flowers.”  I wince.  “That’s right,” I say, “I should’ve known that.”  I have to leave for work by 10, but I anticipate taking Mway for a full walk this evening.

States of the Path, Creek, the Fetch:  I get home, I don’t know what the time is, must be the usual time, close to the usual time, have it in mind to take Mway, the dog, for a walk, at the usual time, for a Sunday, for it is Sunday, and close to the time, the usual time, when I take Mway, the dog, for a walk, on Sundays.  Moi says something, don’t remember now what, something about phone calls, or about making calls, something about the work she’s been doing, having to do with phones and calls, but I don’t recall exactly what now.  Out on the path, see Mway following, we’re on her walk now, our usual Sunday walk, the two of us, together more or less, though I’m paying more attention to where I’m going, stumbling down the path, one foot before the other, hoping Mway is following, depending on Mway following, for this is her walk, not mine, brushing away weeds, a briar here, a goldenrod there, whatever is next here or there, brushing them away, so one foot can go before another, one after another, in the usual fashion, as we usually do, on a Sunday.  See the fruit of the jack-in-the-pulpit, white, green gone white, once green gone white, a bony white, see other plants, many other plants, but don’t have names for them, or rather, do have names for them, but just don’t think of their names just now, the names for the many plants, which have names, many of them which I know, but just don’t think about them now.  That is the state of the path.  Enough for that now, and on to the state of the creek.  The pathetic creek, or rather, what should more accurately be called, the pathetic run.  Not to be confused with the manner in which I am moving, for that is definitely a walk, or at least a stumble, not a run, but a run in the sense of something less than a creek, in the category of things having to do with running water, and not of moving humans, water if it is moving usually being said to be running, but not necessarily in a run, for water can run, not just in a run, but also in a creek, or in a river, or in a pipe, or out of a faucet, or down a drain, whenever water is moving it seems that it is running, or at least not ever walking, even if it is just a trickle, even if it is just a drip.  For we never talk about water walking, or at least I never talk about water walking, and I think it’s safe to say, if I never talk about water walking, neither do you, for you and I, we pretty much speak the same language, and use the same words, you and I, whoever you are, whoever you are, if you are reading this, I’m pretty certain we speak the same language, more or less.  And that language, which we both speak, more or less similarly, never, to my knowledge, in all its varieties, and in all its permutations, in the course of all its history, from the first utterance of he who, or she who, first retched up a word that, in the course of history, could be said to be of the same language that you and I speak, more or less, down to the last utterance, or rather most recent, that is the latest utterance, of he, or she, who puked up a word in this said language, which could be considered the same, never, to my knowledge, in all that time, during all that history, for all those utterances, and many utterances there must have been, and a great variety of utterances, dealing with a great many subjects, from a great many perspectives, in a great variety of circumstances, never, to my knowledge, has that language compelled some one who spoke it to say, in reference to water, that it is walking.  Not that some one who speaks this language, either you or I, or some one else, one of our friends, say, or one of our enemies, for that matter, not that some one, be it a friend or enemy, or neither a friend or enemy, may not have said, upon some occasion in the course of the long history of this language, when confronted with say, a trickle of water, or a drip of water, and asked to describe it, may not have said, about the water, that it is walking, rather than running.  For just as one would normally say, when face to face with water moving at a certain pace, or rather rate, that that water, moving at that certain rate, is running, one could conceivably say, when face to face with water moving at a lesser rate, water that, in a word, is not running, that that water is, not running, but rather walking, one could conceivably say this, yes.  But such an utterance, if one were to say it, would not be a normal locution in this language that you and I, and this some one, speak, but would rather be an unusual locution, in the form of a metaphor, and however conceivable, not necessarily a likelihood, let alone an actuality, and more likely it has been, in the course of the long history of utterances of this language that you and I, and other people, speak, more likely it has been that, when faced with water that is not running, you and I, and these other people, have been content to say that it is not running, or that it is merely trickling or dripping, as the case may be.  As to the state of the creek, I am content to say, as I’m sure you are content to hear, as anyone else is probably content to hear, that the water is just lying there, as it has been for some time, in puddles, whether prone or supine, it matters not.

After the Rain, Come Upon Two Animals

July 10, 2010.  Saturday.

Situation:   Last night when I was driving home from work it was storming on the Golden Strip.  There were puddles in the lane when I reached home; a gentle rain was falling around the house.  Moi wakes me this morning to tell me that she’s going to work and that she threw stick with Mway in the back yard and fed her.  I’m curious to find out how the rain has affected the fields and creek, so, since Moi had not turned on my computer, I press the switch on it, put on my walking clothes, and take Mway out for a walk about 8:15.

State of the Path:  The dirt on the path is dark brown.  The stick doesn’t ping when I tap it against it.  A sumac tree has fallen off the barn wall and crashed into the burn pile.  The colors and textures of the plants haven’t changed – leaves are still withered and wilted, stems still brown at the base, the grass lies brown against the soil, ragweed flowers are dry and brown – but the plants are dripping with rainwater and fallen inward into the path.  My pants and boots immediately start getting wet.  I don’t bother taking the side path along the old orchard.   Beneath the maples, where water may have coursed over the ground last night, the ground is dark brown, but I don’t see any water.  At bug land, the red grass is bent over every which way.  I can no longer see where the path is.  As I flounder around trying to find it, something furry stirs about ten feet away from me.  I vaguely see a body containing white spots, hear it thrashing through the grass and shrubs, then it seems to suddenly disappear into thin air.  Mway hears the deer too, but it is gone before she can sniff the air.  As I turn right to follow the path along the creek, a turtle – probably a box turtle – sits in the middle of a brown patch of grass beneath a shrub.  Mway starts to follow her nose toward it, but I yell out to warn her, “Mway, that’s a turtle.”  She quickly shirks away from it.  Along the creek, I try to look to see how the jewelweed has been affected by the rain.  Various plants are bent over and criss-crossing each other -- it’s hard to make out anything.  Though I see some jewelweed along the creek bank, I can’t really tell how it’s doing.  I take a quick look at the feed channel:  there’s no water in it,  the sweetflag is as brown and flopped over as it was yesterday.  I plow through the red willows.  On the other side of the ridge, I can’t see the path until I come to the anthill.  There I comfortably place a foot.  My pants are completely soaked, my workshirt wet.  I continue on to the clearing as quickly as possible.

State of the Creek:   At the tree stand, there’s again a puddle of water nestling against the trunk of the big tree on the far bank.  At the log jam, there’s a splash of water that sits a couple feet from the main puddle.  The puddle has reappeared beneath the black walnut tree, as has the second puddle beyond the big trees.  Between the puddles, there’s still no water flowing, but the rocks are black with moisture.

The Fetch:  On her second fetch, Mway stops and looks at me with the “pro-quality” stick in her mouth, as if to say, “Come on, now.  I’ve just fetched the stick a lot with Moi.  Do I have to go through this again?”   I think to myself, “Of course not,” and I tell her, “Let’s go.”  She dashes off to get to the path along the sumacs before me, and disappears from my sight as we head back to the house.

Look for Bare Area Where Turkeys May Have Been Dusting

July 9, 2010.  Friday.

Situation:  It’s 9:01.  Moi has just taken Mway out in the back yard to throw stick, before going to work.  I’ll take her out in a few minutes for a full walk.  Yesterday afternoon, when she was taking Mway for a walk, Moi said she saw a weird area of bare ground off the path on the way to the clearing.  She said it looked like a place where someone had come in and dug up the dirt.  Ezra has suggested to her that it might be a place where turkeys go to dust themselves.  I will be checking it out.

State of the Path:  Mway is still panting from her fetch with Moi, but she nevertheless lines up at the door, ready to go out.  Moi has told me it’s not suppose to be as hot today – there’s a breeze, a cloudy sky.  One of the hens, milling around the walled garden, gets trapped in the march of my foot steps, and proceeds unwillingly down the path along with us, until she finally figures out she can step to the side.  I wonder how many of the plants might bounce back into life if we get some rain soon.  Down by the wigwams, what I once called ferns, but what Moi calls bracken – these plants are completely shriveled up, and I don’t think they could be saved by a rain.  A bird roosts on the electric wire that runs across the field from the back hedgerow – I think it’s a mourning dove, and if it would coo I’d be sure, but all I hear from it is a squawk of fright and protest at my presence.  Under bushes and trees, especially, there are brown spots; I don’t know if these would ever become green again if it rained.  Coming up to the clearing, I look for the bare spot Moi has talked about, and I finally see it near one of the evergreens she got from Ezra (and which she watered yesterday).   The area looks like one of the anthills, the size of manhole covers, we see all over the place, except that it’s been flattened – perhaps, indeed, by turkeys dusting themselves, except I see no evidence of digging, unlike on the anthill I’ve mentioned before along the old orchard.  Moi and I call these things anthills – but I reflect today that I’ve never seen ants crawling around on them, and maybe they are something else.

State of the Creek:  The three puddles, amazingly, are holding their own.

The Fetch:   Two fetches from Mway – I really didn’t expect any more: she’d already worn herself out with Moi.

Stick Makes a Ping Rather Than a Thump

July 8, 2010.  Thursday.

Situation:   When I get out of bed this morning, judging from the block of sunlight radiating in at the bathroom window, I guess that it must be about noon.  But when I go down into the kitchen, the clock is pointing at 8:30.  The coffee’s been made, my computer’s been turned on, but Moi is not around: looks like she’s gone to work again today.   She left without telling me anything about Mway, but I assume she hasn’t taken her for a morning walk, and that’ll be up to me.  Mway is lying in the hallway, watching my every move, perking her head up when I go downstairs for a second mug of coffee.  Last night when I came home from work, Moi was already asleep, and she had draped a bed sheet across the hallway, apparently to direct the cool air from the air conditioner in my bedroom window into her bedroom.  Moi can’t sleep to the sound of a fan or air conditioner, so the only unit we have in the house is the one in my bedroom, far enough away so she usually can’t hear it.  I’ve just finished a second cigarette and most of a second mug of coffee, and I’m ready to take Mway out for her morning walk.  Both Moi and I have to work tonight, and I have to leave in the late afternoon; I suspect that in the afternoon, one of us will only take Mway out into the back yard to throw stick.

State of the Path:  As I use the “pro-quality” stick like a walking stick, it makes a high-pitched ping, rather than a thump, when I tap it against the dry white ground.  Larvae of some sort are crawling up a web on a small black walnut tree.  Cabbage butterflies flit among the goldenrod.  Gray fuzzy seeds flare from the top of the Canada thistle.   I see a new wildflower, something with pink petals.  The elderberries are still green.  I don’t bother to whack back any briar or weed that be might sticking into the path, as I stumble along on the hard ground, sometimes into patches of bare ground just outside the path.  Along the creek, a goldenrod-type plant has withering top leaves and dry, almost black, stems, and the plants poke up from a ground covered with brown grass.   Invisible birds squeak and squawk in the trees.  I hear a rustling and see a movement in the weeds on the ridge around bug land.  Mway hears the rustling too, and starts sniffing to investigate, but I tell her to stay away.  A honeysuckle forms a canopy over the break in the ridge, and I have to duck my head to pass through.  The honeysuckle berries look plump and juicy; their liveliness in this heat looks unnatural.  Beyond the ridge, I see a little city of two butterflies and a number of fly- and bee-like insects sucking nectar from one thistle.  On the way to the clearing, the anthill is one spot where I regularly place a foot; the anthill sticks up, hard and dry like a manhole covering.   

State of the Creek:  The three puddles have still resisted drying up completely, though each is slowly shrinking away.  The one beyond the big trees is only about 3 feet long and a foot and a half wide; a few striders sit on top of its water, immobile dots.  Mway doesn’t even bother to go into the puddle below the swale from bug land.

The Fetch:  Up in the clearing, Mway starts out energetically enough, but after about the third toss, she drops the stick then flicks her tongue and moves her mouth against a wad of saliva.  Either she’s dehydrated or she’s bitten into a nettle or something.  She only fetches the stick one more time, and on the path back to the house, she even drops it.  So I have to carry it back, and Mway doesn’t even bother to try to grab it away from me.