Try to Identify Purple Wildflower in Bug Land

July 22, 2010.  Thursday.

Situation:  I have to work both this afternoon and tonight, so I’ve decided to take Mway out this morning, about 10.

State of the Path:  I bring along the Audubon, my focus to identify the purple wildflower in bug land.  Along the creek, I come across one specimen of a new yellow wildflower, but I’m unable to identify this – I don’t think it’s more fringed loosestrife.  Disappointed I move on to the purple flower.  This seems to me to have petals and bracts like a thistle, but its color is purple and not rose like all the thistles in the book.  The stem and leaves look something like in the photo for tall ironweed, but the flower is all wrong.  Perhaps Moi knows what this plant is.

State of the Creek:  The pools holding their own, water drying up between them.  On the big log at the log jam, a fungus has emerged.  Will I ever have time to try to identify this?

The Fetch:  Two fetches, then Mway forces me to play “Put it down” once.

Weeds Still Brush Against Arms and Legs

July 21, 2010.  Wednesday.

Situation:  I have to leave for work about 4, and take Mway out about 2:45.

State of the Path:  Since I also want to get in a swim before I leave, I’m pretty much in a hurry today.  Most interested in how the path fares where I clipped yesterday: while weeds no long hit me across the chest, they still, for the most part, brush my arms and legs, but this is an improvement.  Wonder again what the purple wildflowers in bug land are – wish I had time to scour through the Audubon; this plant must be in there somewhere.  Eat a dozen blackberries on the way to the strawberry patch, all of them sweet and juicy, with a slight musty undertaste to them.

State of the Creek:  In the pool beneath the black walnut tree, notice some sort of aquatic plant.  Don’t think it’s duckweed; it has spiky leaves like goose grass.

The Fetch:  On the second fetch, Mway backs away from the “pro-quality” stick as if it’s bitten her, then looks back at me, with one paw raised, as if to plead “Time out.”  Never saw her assume such a stance before.  I have no problem with stopping at this point, though, and start walking toward the stick.  Mway picks it up and heads toward the house.  Moi’s student Alma has arrived, with treats, and perhaps Mway knew this.

While McNeighbor Chainsaws Our Tree, I Clip Back along the Path

July 20, 2010.  Tuesday.

Situation:  Work this afternoon, and take Mway out about 4:30.  Earlier this morning I heard a chain saw and thought I’d better walk out toward the back acre to make sure one of the McNeighbors wasn’t making some sort of incursion on our land (as at least one has done in the past, namely, by cutting down trees and dumping spare cement on the ground).  I see two guys amidst some sawed-off branches near a black walnut tree, and figure this must be the McNeighbor concerned about black walnuts dirtying his McLawn and finally getting around to trimming back the tree.  Before I go out on the walk, Moi goes out to check the apple trees by the outbuilding.  She’s a little upset because the small apples she had seen on the tree are now all gone.  “I wonder if they were blown away by the wind,” she says.  We also check her plum tree.  This year was the first year any plums turned purple on the tree, but in the course of the season they all dried up and rotted on the ground.

State of the Path:  I bring along the clippers to widen the path a little as I thought about doing yesterday.  Mainly I just work along the main path from the walled garden down to the wigwams, cutting back goldenrod, sumac saplings, briars, honeysuckle and red willow branches, and trying not to touch any plant that’s not so prevalent, namely, the moth mullein near the wigwams.  My legs are still sore from yesterday’s mowing, and I do a fairly half-ass job, but it’s better than nothing.  Hardest to clip back is the grass, and I don’t even bother with any of the red grass down at bug land, although this is pretty much still covering up the path after being beaten down by the last rain, and it would be nice to clip this back.  Coming along the ridge around bug land, I see a new wildflower, purple and tall, in the middle of bug land, and I walk over into the tall grass, to look at what are more than a half dozen of these plants.  Damn, though, if I can find this plant right now in Audubon.

State of the Creek:  The rock bed between the tree stand and the black walnut tree is almost completely dry, and the rock beds between the other pools are drying, so the pools are becoming disconnected again.  At the pool at the log jam, I watch some sort of dragonfly darting across some newly exposed mud.

The Fetch:  I see a cardinal fly across the clearing as I’m walking toward it – haven’t seen one of these in a while, though I’ve probably been hearing them all summer, invisible in the honeysuckles.  Up at the clearing, I see there’s a new giant anthill in front of the red willow at the corner of the clearing, and I do see one ant crawling around on top of it.  I realize that in past days I’ve been throwing the stick towards this anthill a lot, so today I try to throw the stick in a different direction.  Mway fetches the “pro-quality” stick more times than I care to count – many of the tosses end up being toward the ant hill anyway.  After playing “Put it down” a number of times, Mway dashes after the stick, then just stands in the middle of the goldenrod, panting and looking back at me with her tongue hanging out.   I think maybe she might have stuck her nose in a nettle, but I don’t see any when I walk up to the stick.  Probably she’s just worn herself out, and I toss the stick one more time, and we head back to the house.

Trip down the Path; Glance at Vinyl Siding; Go in Pool

July 19, 2010.  Monday.

Situation:  I work this afternoon, and after a cold supper that Moi prepares, I decide to mow the lawn.  Sort of like giving a haircut to a marine, but it gives me a chance to see some wildflowers I don’t see too much in the fields.  Aside from the heal-all and clover in the back yard, there’s a lot of buckeye (English plantain) in the side yard and in my father’s lane.  There’s a giant pokeweed in front of the evergreen where Moi has buried the cats, and a giant burdock in front of the cellar door.  After I finish mowing the lawn, I take Mway for her walk, about 7 pm.

State of the Path:  I’m exhausted after mowing the lawn, and trip a lot along the path.  Just down to the creek and back is all I can take.  I think about how it would be good to take the clippers to widen the path a little, making sure to be careful to leave such things as the moth mullein, which has a few flowers on it today.  I take a pee in the shade of the maples, while Mway rummages around Moi’s collapsing wigwam.   It is tempting to eat some of the blackberries, but I am too tired even to eat.

State of the Creek:  There’s about as much water in the creek today as there was yesterday.  Down past the big locusts, just before the narrows before the swale to bug land, there’s a piece of what looks like vinyl siding in the water.  This has been there ever since I started keeping this journal, but I don’t believe I have mentioned it before.  I’ve mentioned the plastic barrel and the car tire, but I don’t know why I’ve never mentioned this – my glance probably falls upon it on every walk

The Fetch:  I’m hoping Mway doesn’t want to fetch the stick much today, but she goes after it more times than I care to count, then even forces me to play “Put it down” about five or six times.  I throw the stick into a triangle of goldenrod, formed by the path that comes up from the strawberry field and the path in the middle of the clearing that Mway has beatened down in fetching the stick.  Back at the house, Mway drops the stick somewhere in the yard.  At the door, since this is the “pro-quality” stick I’ve been using for months now, I ask Mway where the stick is.  She knows exactly what I’m asking her, and with what seems to me great enthusiasm she goes over to where she dropped it, carries it to the door, and redrops it there.  After I let her in the house, I get ready to go into the pool.  I’m too tired to put on my suit, so I just hang up my workshirt soaked with sweat on the line (I’ve already taken my pants and sweat socks off inside).  I turn off the filter and clean out the basket filled with leaves and some bugs, then hang my underpants on the clothesline next to the towel that’s perpetually on the line.  Usually when I get in our above-ground pool (which is about every day), I swim twenty laps around the circumference, doing ten laps of breast stroke, five of back stroke with inverted frog leg and hand strokes, two of side stroke on one side, two of side stroke on the other side, then a final lap of breast stroke or a mock head-above-the-water Australian crawl (the pool’s too small to do a proper Australian crawl).  Today, though, I’m too tired to do all this, and I figure I can skip all the laps.   I still have to scoop up from the water whatever willow or maple leaves have fallen in the water and whatever gnats, flies, bees, or beetles have died in it.  Usually when I’m doing this, and cleaning out the basket, the chickens are milling around ready to snap up any dead bugs I’ve dumped on the ground.  Tonight, though, they’ve already retired to their coop; only the gray hen, which Moi has noted lays the biggest eggs, is still pecking around, and eventually she wanders toward the pool.  The other day I mentioned to Moi how efficient I thought it was that the chickens eat the dead bugs from the pool.  “Yeah,” she said fatalistically, “Bugs killed by Bacquacil, and we eat the eggs that the chickens lay.”  I hadn’t thought about that.

Dumb Me Should Have Known Yarrow

July 17, 2010.  Saturday.

Situation:  Yesterday afternoon, before going to work, I told Moi about the problem I was having in identifying the plants, one of which I’m sure is Queen Anne’s lace, or wild carrot.  Moi takes me out to the garden, where there’s a big wild carrot growing, and I see immediately that that’s the same as the second plant I saw in the clearing.  Referring to the similarity with poisonous hemlock, Moi says that that’s a plant that flowers in the spring; and, indeed, I recall seeing hemlock this spring, not in the fields, which is why I didn’t mention it, but along the perimeter of the lawn and in the midst of a stand of day lilies in the middle of the lawn.  Moi then tells me that the other plant I’ve been seeing, and have been hesitant to call wild carrot, is probably yarrow.  I fairly smack myself in the head, because this is a plant I should know, and I run into the house to look yarrow up in the Audubon.  The book has a photo of yarrow on the same page as Queen Anne’s lace, but it is a close-up view of the plant, a butterfly’s perspective, and doesn’t show any of the leaves.  In the entry on the plant, though, is a perfect description of what I’ve been seeing: “flat-topped clusters of small, whitish flowers grow at the top of a gray-green, leafy, usually hairy, stem”; “leaves…long, very finely dissected, gray-green, fern-like.”  If Audubon had had a photo from a human perspective in the book, I would have recognized the plant right away.  While we’re still out in the yard, I realize that the purple plants growing in the lawn, and about the only thing that’s been growing there the last few weeks, is heal-all, smaller specimens of the same plant I saw down at bug land, and I point this out to Moi, who didn’t know before what the plant was and is happy to learn what it is.  Moi and I both work tonight together, and sometime before then, I’ll be taking Mway out for her walk; in fact, why don’t I do that now – it’s 10:38.  I’m sure Moi didn’t take her for a walk earlier, and the Boy is visiting from NYC, he can take Mway out later, whenever he wakes up.  Yesterday late in the afternoon, a wicked storm passed over, and perhaps I’ll see some evidence of that.  I believe Mway doesn’t stink anymore; at least, she was sleeping in Moi’s room when I came home from work late last night.

State of the Path:  Out in the yard, while I’m taking a pee, the fat rooster pecking at my boot, Mway starts sniffing the grass, and before I know it, she’s flat on her back, rolling in something.  I yell at her to stop.  Just off the walled garden, I see what I think is another new wildflower, but its little purple flowers seem damaged somewhat, and I don’t feel like trying to identify a new plant today.  The weeds aren’t too wet, but they are a jumble in the path; I can barely see where the path is for most of the walk.  Mway shoots down the side path along the old orchard, and I follow.  Long green briars arch across the path, but, with the stress the plants have been experiencing in the dry weather, I’m hesitant to knock anything down.  We round the path at the back hedgerow, and just about at the place where there once was a stand of jack-in-the-pulpits, we stumble upon a rabbit, lying upon its shoulder, its head uplifted, as if it’s gazing at the weeds.  I think at once that it must be injured, but I see nothing to show that.  It sees us, and it’s breathing heavily, and seems to be having trouble getting up, but finally it springs off its belly and dashes into the brambles, with Mway in pursuit.  I don’t really want Mway to chase after it, but I realize that this is what dogs do, and I only half-heartedly tell her to stop.  At any rate, the rabbit seems to be doing well, as Mway thrashes about in the briars, losing sight of the animal, and I walk on.  Mway catches up with me when I get down to the creek.

State of the Creek:  The creek is, I realize as I’m walking along seeing water all along its extent, a creek again.  Trickles among the rocks, a shimmering in the pools, a half dozen frogs leaping into the water as I move toward them.  Even along the crest of the skating pond, water from the pool under the big oak tree flows down through the wide creek bed past the car tire.

The Fetch:  Mway fetches the “pro-quality” stick more times than I care to count, and plays “Put it down” once.  It’s not feeding time for her, and I’m through with trying to figure out what motivates her to fetch the stick many times on one walk and only three times on another, or to play “Put it down” five times or only once.

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.

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.