December 3, 2010. Friday.
Situation: Moi went hunting again today. I have lots of work that came in for me to do today. It’s 9:15: Mway is waiting for me to take her out.
State of the Path: I can only find the gashed stick, so that’s what I take with me. I stop in the path at the outbuilding, surprised to see how much water is still trickling down here – seems not from the springhouse but somewhere around the barn foundation. I hear a woodpecker in the old orchard. Mway might hear it too, for I catch her standing sideways in the path, snout pointed in the air. She heads down the main path, and I follow. She veers right to sniff in the sumacs. I look down a pathway with a lot of goldenrod bent down in it. At the maples, the water is not trickling so much, but it’s still standing in the second stream and in the spillways to bug land. All over the McNeighborhood I hear the sound of skill saws and the pounding of hammers.
State of the Creek: The sound of the flowing stream is almost loud enough to drown out the sound of a skill saw – but not quite.
The Fetch: I move quickly along the creek, over the swale, along the ridge, though it, and up to the clearing. I realize that I’m tossing the stick pretty much into the sumacs; a couple throws down the path almost reach the strawberry patch. The clearing is getting clearer. When Mway starts bringing the stick back without dropping it, I play “Put it down” once or twice, then tell her “that’s enough.”
