October 11, 2010. Monday.
Situation: I have no work today. Had the piano tuned today. Since I had to remove all the knick-knacks Moi piles on top of it, gave me a reason to vacuum and dust around it. I wish she’d stop allowing Mway to drag sticks into the music room – brings a lot of dirt in. Moi spent the day painting the remodeled front porch. Among the old lumber, there’s a couple planks I figure I could put over the feed channel to the crest of the skating pond. I’ll have to remove some nails from them, if I can find a crowbar. I guess I had all day to drag them down to the ditch, but by the time I get around to it, about 3:15, Mway’s ready for her walk, and I have to do that first. Thought maybe afterwards I could drag it down, but now I’m back and writing this up, hear continuous rumbles of thunder.
State of the Path: A rumble of thunder as soon as I step out the door. In the fallen leaves by the garden pond, bare spots where chickens have been digging for bugs. The other day Moi asked me if I’ve seen any new wildflowers. I told her I didn’t think I’d be seeing any new ones, but now I can see birds again. A cardinal among the sumacs, some brown birds in the old orchard – wings black with white stripes. If I look in Audubon, will I find dozens of birds that fit this description? (Could be least flycatchers or eastern phoebes again.) Beyond the honeysuckles, spot what I think is a golf ball. Turns out to be a mushroom. Moi had told me to look out for puffballs; she spotted one above the walled garden, but it was pretty well pecked at by the chickens. Don’t generally see puffballs on the path. I poke the mushroom with my walking stick; it rolls around like a golf ball. The leaves of the maples down by the wigwams are still green, but in bug land a maple sapling (which I never really noticed before) has turned scarlet. Since I’m thinking about planks, I note that we already have two planks along the path: one near the wigwams, which doesn’t serve any function that I can see, and one over the swale. I take a look at the feed channel and the lay of the ground around it and worry that the planks I want to put there might not be very safe; looks to me like they will form a long span and rest about a yard above the ditch. Near the break in the ridge, poison ivy turning yellow. See more on the way to the clearing.
State of the Creek: Mway goes in the water at the tree stand. I hear both splashing and the clack of rocks. In the pools the water is at a standstill. Beneath the big locusts, fallen leaves look frozen in the water, and there’s scum over the water in the sunlight. Water still moving over rocks. I can’t hear it moving, although I might be able to if there wasn’t a lawn mower growling in the distance. At the narrows, about five frogs plop in the water.
The Fetch: Toss the birch branch in the tall goldenrod, continue trampling the goldernrod down in the clearing. Mway makes up for what she didn’t fetch yesterday. A couple times she starts running before I throw the stick, and I worry the stick might land on her head, but she and the stick manage not to collide. After a while I get tired of throwing the stick and anxious because the thunder is starting to become continuous. When Mway finally comes back with the stick without dropping it, I don’t play “Put it down” but tell her “that’s enough.”
