Plant Peed On Beginning to Flower, Still Unidentifiable

June 25, 2010.  Friday.

Situation:  Last night Moi was home when I came back from work.  Atlas was with her.  Moi spent a lot of time telling me how she has been trying to train Atlas while down at Jazz’s, teaching him some basic commands like “come” and “stay.”  She feels she has made a lot of progress, although Atlas is still a lot to handle.  Because she feels more confident controlling Atlas, she took both dogs on the morning walk today, without leashes.  But she skipped throwing the stick, and back at the house Mway refused to eat anything.  Moi has gone back down to Jazz’s with Atlas.  I don’t have to work until tonight, so I’ll be able to take Mway on her afternoon walk.  It was nice to be able to get up this morning without having to do all the chores. I finally take Mway out about 2:45.  After Moi left, Mway slammed the door on herself in her room, so I have to let her out.  To finish up this entry, I have to remove Squeak from my office chair.   Squeak, who never goes outside, seems to like to sleep in the places I most use, like this chair, and the bathroom sink.  I’ve had to pick her up and move her a couple times already today.

State of the Path:  Mway starts sniffing the lawn, and I don’t see her again on the walk until I’ve crossed the feed channel and am walking across the crest of the skating pond.  I eat a couple raspberries by the old orchard, mindful of getting the seeds stuck in my teeth.  They are sweet and juicy.  I note that whatever the plant is I peed on a couple weeks ago is starting to flower, and there are a number of these shrub-like plants along the path, especially in the upper field.  I still can’t figure out from Audubon what this plant might be, but maybe in the coming days as they flower more I’ll be able to identify it.  The ground is like a bone, and with the heat and lack of rain keeping the grass and jewelweed beat down, the path opens up helplessly to my foot steps, which only have to contend with plants like goldenrod, grape vines, and briars, which seem to thrive in the dry heat.  A few butterflies – white ones – flutter about.

State of the Creek:  All the pools are still there, but they are shrinking even more.  The pool at the log jam has receded halfway across, and some kind of flies are buzzing around in the fresh mud.  A couple of the other pools are again crowded with water striders, who sit there squat in the water, with no room to stride about.

The Fetch:  Mway fetches the “pro-quality” stick more times than I bother to count, but probably less than seven times today.  Whatever the plant is that I’ve been wondering about, I see a couple of them coming up in the middle of the clearing among the goldenrod.  On the way back on the path by the sumacs, I regret again not bringing some clippers.  I have to tear back a briar jutting into the pathway with my gloved hands.

Goldenrod Scrapes Against My Thighs and Crotch

June 24, 2010.  Thursday.

Situation:  Same chores as yesterday, only about an hour earlier.  Some of the peeps have ventured as far as the spruce tree before I let the bigger chickens out, and they all gather together wherever I throw some feed for them.  Last night I worked, but Moi was home to take Mway for her afternoon walk, or at least to throw stick for her.  It’ll be the same situation today; I’ll have to go out shortly after noon to do some afternoon work also.  It’s about 8:15 by the time I’m ready to accompany Mway down the path.

State of the Path:  The heat doesn’t hit me as strongly as it did yesterday, but, again, it’s an hour earlier.  But though an hour earlier, there’s no more dew on the weeds.  I’m struck by how much the touch-me-nots (more specifically, spotted touch-me-nots) look bedraggled; where they’ve flowered, the flowers look withered.  Audubon describes the flowering period as July – October. Since they’ve flowered so early this year, I’m curious to see how they fare later on.  A lot of grape vines around the side path along the orchard; I’ve beaten down a lot of blackberry shoots, so the blackberry brambles don’t seem to be overtaking the path; at the end of the side path, though, the goldenrod is so thick that the path has all but disappeared: as I walk along, the goldenrod stems fall in front of my chest, scrape against my thighs and crotch, and spring back up behind me. Except for the fleabane and what I think is Queen Anne’s lace in the upper field, most of the white in the field is gone.  Something ruffles through the weeds down by the creek: probably a mouse or a vole, though it could be a snake.

State of the Creek.  Each of the pools that I noted yesterday is still there, but each one has shrunk a little, with fresh mud at its rim.  The newly exposed mud at the rim of the pool at the log jam seems buckled upward, as though something has buried itself underneath it.  Water striders crowd what little water is left in a couple of the pools.

The Fetch:   Again it seems like my muscles are sore as I bend down to pick up the stick; maybe I’m just not used to using them so early in the morning.  In contrast to me, Mway is a dynamo, fetching the “pro-quality” stick more times than I care to throw it.  After a number of fetches, she comes back to me holding the stick in her mouth.  I start to turn around, but I see she’s not following me: she wants to play “Put it down.”  So I turn around and scold her, “put it down!”  It’s the last fetch I want to do; as Mway brings the stick back, it gets caught between my legs so I almost stumble.  On the way back on the path, a briar catches on my shirt sleeve, and I think to myself that I must remember to bring something along on my next walk to cut these briars back.

Weeds Impinge Path, But Would Be Worse If We Had Had Rain

June 23, 2010.  Wednesday.

Situation:  Same 9 am routine as yesterday:  turn on the computer, pour the water for the coffee, go outside let the chickens out, etc.  Mway’s ready whenever I am to go for her morning walk.  The only difference is there’s no turd on the rug in kitchen; that’s because I let Mway out late last night.

State of the Path:  It’s going to be a hot day today, feel the heat and humidity immediately.  Beneath the apple tree and along Moi’s garden pond, there’s a low-lying violet flower that looks something like gill-of-the-ground; a cursory check of Audubon doesn’t tell me what it is.  Day lilies by the walled garden are in full blaze.  The morning dew has almost already all evaporated.  I hear a mourning dove in the distance, then a farmer’s machine coming from the mountains.  The radio squeak of unseen birds: probably cardinals.  I realize as I’m walking along, that as much as the path seems hemmed in by weeds, it’s nothing compared to what it might be if the season were wetter.  Because of the lack of rain, the path is staying open, inviting our foot and paw steps with its beat down grass and dry white ground.  The elderberry flowers are turning into green berries; the red willow flowers, or whatever they are, are also turning green.  As I step across the board at the swale from bug land, I think about the deer we chased out yesterday, its absence now, and how disappointed it was to discover that what it thought was a perfectly secluded spot to bed down was a place visited by a human and his dog.

State of the Creek:  At the tree stand, Mway goes into the water, stirs it up; when I look at it it’s a muddy creamy color.  She steps over the dry rocks, which crackle under her paws, and exits the creek bed at her usual spot, below the red-berried honeysuckles.  I count the same pools of water as I did yesterday, then I hop over the feed channel, a little treacherous now, not because of water or mud, but because the foot holds are obscured by jewelweed and other weeds growing over them.  I look at the creek along the crest of the skating pond.  What’s usually one long pool of water has now shrunk into two smallish ponds, ringed by mud that was recently covered by water.  A dry wide outcrop of rocks, with the tire along the bank, is all that remains of the creek beyond the second feed channel.  It hits me today that most of the creek is now dry.

The Fetch:  Up at the clearing, I toss the “pro-quality” stick into the goldenrod; for some odd reason, maybe because the heat is affecting her brain, Mway dashes off in a tangent back down the path, and I have to call her back and walk toward the stick to reorient her.  After that, though, she fetches the stick with great accuracy.  We play “Put it down” once.  Walking back along the sumacs, I realize I should bring the clippers along with me on these walks, or another stick; the briars are getting thick here, and pretty soon they’ll be catching against me with every step.

Ragweed, Touch-Me-Nots, Wild Carrot, and a Bunch of Unidentifiable Things

June 20, 2010.  Sunday.

Situation:  Work all day today.  When I get home about 6:30, no one is here.  The Boy has gone back to NYC; Moi has taken Atlas back to Jazz’s, where she finds it less stressful to watch him.  Moi has left a note on my computer monitor that says “Mway needs supper,” “Chickens need locked up.”  I find Mway on Moi’s bed.  After I put on my walking clothes, then go downstairs to put on my boots, gloves, and safari helmet, Mway comes down to the kitchen, ready to go for her walk.

State of the Path:  The chickens come running up to me, with their peeps following behind them.  Mway and I head to the path.  Just before the pig pen, in the middle of the path, I see the conspicuous plant with long spiked green flowers which I haven’t mentioned before because I didn’t know what it was.  But since yesterday, when I was leafing through the Audubon, I think I can confidently say that this plant is a common ragweed, to be distinguished from the great ragweed, which I’m more familiar with, because most years we have that growing in great numbers, to its maximum height of fifteen feet.  I haven’t yet this year seen great ragweed growing to that kind of height (except that one time by the summer house), but I do also see it coming up around the place, perhaps more than the common ragweed.  On the side path, I refrain from eating any raspberries, because I’m afraid of getting the seeds stuck in my teeth.  But when I get down to the creek, there’s a stand of raspberries with so many ripe ones that I cannot stop myself from eating some of them; I just make a point of chewing on the better side of my mouth.  All along the path, I notice how some of the plants seem bedraggled because of the dry weather, especially the touch-me-nots.  In fact I touch some of the touch-me-nots and discover that they lack all that spring which they usually have and from whence they derive their name.  Not one of the touch-me-nots which I touch twinges or coils up (like they do I guess to spray their seeds); and this suggests to me that these flowers have bloomed prematurely this season.  On the board on the ground near the wigwams, I see the pile of turds Mway left there yesterday.  Coming up to the clearing, I see several of the white flowers with fern-like leaves that I’ve seen before and didn’t know what they were.  But again, after leafing through the Audubon, I think I can confidently say these are Queen Anne’s lace, or wild carrot, which is a plant I think I should have recognized but perhaps didn’t because of how they were situated.  I see a lot more of the yellow flowers that I saw before, and judging from their leaves it seems to me that they might be what Moi calls goose grass, or bed straw, now in flower.  But the pictures I see in Audubon for bed straw and goose grass looks nothing like this.  I also see some violet flowers and lavender flowers growing just before bug land; but, right now, I don’t even feel like leafing through the Audubon to try to guess what they might be.

State of the Creek:  It seems to me that some of the pools in the creek are starting to dry up, as I notice some wet mud among the rocks.  Particularly along the crest of the skating pond, it seems to me that what used to be one long pool has now divided up into two smaller ones, with dry rocks in between.  Still I hear some frogs leaping into the water as I walk along.

The Fetch:  Up at the clearing, Mway fetches the “pro-quality” stick more times than I care to count, but not as many times as she was doing when Atlas was around.  When we get back to the back yard, I think about my chore of having to lock up the chicken cage and expect that I’ll have to wait a while before I have to go out and do that.  But when I get back, the chickens have already all gone back in their coop, and conveniently all I have to do is shut and latch the cage door as I’m walking by.