Unable to Identify the Odd Tree

April 11, 2010.  Sunday.

Situation:  Work all day today, but I expect to get home tonight while it’s still light out and can take Mway for a walk.  Right now I’m looking through Audubon’s wetland book in the section on snakes.  The kind of snake we usually see down by the creek is, from what I can tell, the eastern ribbon snake.  Moi and I didn’t get a long look at the snake we saw yesterday, but it was definitely brown and patterned: possible candidates are the brown snake or the northern water snake – who knows?  Right now – I just had a feeling of déjà vu.  It was very weak, and it didn’t last long.  I get home from work about 6:30, and ask Moi if Mway needs to be taken for a walk.  Moi says that she wouldn’t mind one, and indeed Mway is pacing about the kitchen like she’s expecting one.  Then Moi says that Mway didn’t eat her breakfast until about 2 pm, and suggests again that it has something to do with some sort of expectations Mway has of my taking her for a walk in the morning.  I put on my walking clothes and, because I’m tired, I tell myself that for this walk I’m going to focus on nothing except trying to identify the unknown tree in the old orchard.  Because I don’t expect to observe any birds, I put on my father’s safari helmet.  Though I probably should, I don’t bother to carry along our tree book.

State of the Path:  Just before the sumacs, Mway squats to take a dump.  Because I’m walking too close to her, she squirts out just a little poop, then runs ahead to try again.  I stand still to let her poop, and I notice that her thighs are quivering and that she seems to be having a hard time.  I’ve never seen her straining so much to poop, and my first thought is that, maybe without us even realizing it, Mway is getting old, and maybe that’s also why she’s not fetching as much these days.  But as I’m walking along, I think about Mway not eating her breakfast, and think maybe Mway is just experiencing some digestive tract problems, perhaps from eating something or other outside.  On the side path, it seems some sort of ground plant new for the season has started to come up, but I leave trying to identify whatever this is for another day.  Out in the old orchard, I take a long look at the leaves of the unknown tree: the leaves occur in triplets, with serrated edges on top, and the left- and right-most leaves forming a sort of left and right hand.  Audubon has different sections in its field guide to North American trees for narrowing in on an identification:  I leaf through the photos in both the sections labeled “toothed simple leaves” and “compound leaves.”  I find nothing that looks like the tree growing in our old orchard – what am I suppose to make of this?

State of the Creek:   At the wigwams, where water has been trickling into bug land, there’s nothing really there now but spots of water, but down at the drainage area, water is still trickling along, if ever so slightly.  On the side of the ridge along bug land, the ground is still soggy, but on the other side of the ridge, the ground is drier, and I manage to walk all the way to the clearing without any water seeping into my boots.

The Fetch:  Only one fetch – but as Mway runs past me and heads to the path back to the house, she seems to give me a guilty look.

Slithering from the Debris

April 10, 2010.  Saturday.

Situation:   Early today Moi expresses a concern that Mway has not been eating her breakfasts – at least not until I arise in the morning and start milling around the kitchen.  She thinks maybe, as a result of her being away for a few days, Mway has gotten it into her routine-making head that I’m the one who should throw food in her breakfast dish.   I have no idea what goes on in that dog’s head, I think to myself.  Both of us work tonight, and I take Mway out about 3:30.  Moi decides to come along.

State of the Path:  We check out the garden, the chickens following behind us, Moi mentioning that the onions and lettuce are about ready to pick.  Moi points out that the birch tree in front of the garden looks like its dying.  In the old orchard, we look again at the tree with the odd seeds – neither of us has yet gotten around to identifying it.  Moi removes a branch sitting in the side path; I walk over the red willow that I’ve been regularly walking over, hoping to keep it from growing into an impediment in the path, even though there are green leaves on its branches now, and it so obviously wants to live.  Moi wonders exactly what kind of maples are growing down by the wigwams, anticipating that she might be able to tap more trees next year for syrup.  Down by the creek, she points out where she thinks locusts and hawthorns might be growing.  “I would like to identify better what kinds of trees we have growing on our land,” she says.  By the pines in front of the ridge, she points out again to me how there are a number of saplings coming up, and mentions that Ezra has given her some fir trees to plant somewhere.  “See, there’s that willow I planted several years ago.”  “Where?” I ask, seeing only some pathetic little tree without any leaves.  “Over there,” she says.  Then I look across bug land and see, behind the Boy’s paintball barrier, a sizable willow tree. “You planted that?” I ask, in amazement, “I’ve never noticed it before.”

State of the Creek:  Moi notices some minnows in the pool behind the log jam.  Then further down, she exclaims, “Ooh, I just saw a snake.”  I look where she’s pointing, at an area along the bank chocked with branches and leaf debris.  Then, as I’m looking, I see the snake leap from the debris, then swim back under the bank.  “Yeah, I just saw it too.”  “What kind is it?” she asks, “Is it a copperhead?”  I hesitate, because I don’t really know what kind of snake it was.  “Well, it wasn’t black and it wasn’t striped like lots of the snakes we see.  It was brown, with a pattern on it.  So I’d say you should be careful when you walk down here.”  “I’m not going to be careful when I walk down here,” Moi says facetiously.  “If it’s a copperhead I’m going to try to pick it up.”

The Fetch:  Up at the clearing, I tell Moi to stand out of the way as I toss the stick.  One fetch.

Wild Mustard and Point Blue Eye Grass

April 9, 2010.  Friday.

Situation:  A couple days ago, while driving to work down O__ C_____ Road, I saw two turkeys crossing the road; Moi has mentioned that she’s heard turkeys gobbling up in Hutchinson’s woods.  Yesterday, while Moi and I were out, I caught sight along the road of a grackle – it looked exactly like the picture I’ve been looking at in Audubon, black with a blue head.  A few weeks ago I also saw a starling outside my bedroom window, which matched perfectly with Audubon’s photo, black with speckles of white, sort of like Mway’s coat.  After seeing these two birds close up, I’m not sure anymore that the flocks of black birds I saw a month or so ago were starlings; they may have indeed been flocks of grackles, and the Audubon description of their voice – “Clucks.  High-pitched, rising screech like a rusty hinge” – jibes with my memory, although Audubon’s description of the starling’s voice – “a series of discordant, musical, squeaky, and rasping notes” – does not contradict it.  Perhaps there were starlings and grackles together, also with cowbirds, as Moi tells me that Ezra Glock has suggested that these birds flock together.  Once again I have to say – who knows what I’ve seen?  I have some work and errands to do in the afternoon.  When I come back, about 2:30, I take Mway for her walk, before going to work tonight.

State of the Path:  Moi is outside shaving more saplings for Wigwam II.  She complains that the chickens are prowling around the back porch, knocking over clay pots.  It’s cold enough today to be wearing my denim jacket.  Most of the trees, the birch tree by the garden, the willow by the corn crib, all the maples, are getting their leaves -- I’d say all the trees except the black walnuts and the ashes.   The wild mustard has grown considerably, and has gotten flowers, which are still green, not yellow like they eventually will be.  There are so many plants coming up now I wish I had the leisure today to identify more – maybe I’ll have more time tomorrow.  I pass by Moi who’s now down at Wigwam II tying up her saplings as poles.  In the middle of bug land, I see an area of point blue eye grass growing.

State of the Creek:  Despite the rain we had last night, there’s not much more water in the creek than yesterday.  A multiflora bramble snags my pant leg, and I beat it back with the fetching stick (which is actually a little bigger than my walking stick).  Mway spends a lot of time sniffing on the ground on the other side of the creek.  I hear a lot of birds, including some sort of whistling bird that has a call that sounds new to me – but I don’t have time to linger and look today.  By the ridge along bug land, water suddenly seeps in my one boot, and it is ice cold. 

The Fetch:   Up at the clearing, Mway greets me, smiling, and she seems ready for a bout of fetching.  But what do you know – again, just one fetch today.

Identify the Ghost Flowers as Pennsylvania Bittercress

April 6, 2010.  Tuesday.

Situation:  Last night Moi downloaded a bird identification app on her iPhone.  It show pictures and plays bird calls.  It seems like an ideal resource, but I don’t know how much use I will be able to make of it.  I’ve never had a cell phone, and the only way I might be able to use Moi’s is to bug her to use it for me.  As it turns out, I have no work today, but I do have to go out on work related errands, including getting gasoline and oil for the lawnmower.  I hate to begin mowing the grass, but it is getting high in a few places, and since my mower won’t go through high grass, I worry about keeping up.  I take Mway out for her walk about 4:30.  Just now, Moi has called me down to her computer.  She has been looking online to try to identify the ghost flowers, and she found a site with a lot of photos, showing plants at different perspectives – and yes, indeed, we found our plant: it’s Pennsylvania bittercress.

State of the Path:  Moi follows me out as far as the outbuilding, where I’ve seen and heard a lot of bees.  Moi worries that the bees might be making a nest in the building, and I worry too, because that’s where I store the lawnmower during the summer.  It’s very warm today, almost too warm for my long-sleeve workshirt, but because of ticks, I’ll wear this all summer along.  Throughout the field now, it seems there’s a layer of green, sometimes showing quite conspicuously, sometimes partially hidden under the brown dead goldenrod and blackberry brambles.  The wild onions in the old orchard are high, and joined together now by other grasses.  Over the grasses are the light green leaves of the Russian olive and honeysuckle shrubs, beneath the still gray black walnut and ash trees, which are the last trees to get their leaves.  Down by the seeps in bug land, the new green grass is already about six inches high, and there is new green grass sprouting all among the dead brown grass of bug land.  I see even more may apples coming up than I did yesterday, and I delight in seeing the yellow trout lilies, sprinkled along the banks of the creek.

State of the Creek:  As I walk along, I wish I could identify the birds I keep hearing.  The creek water is brown, and it’s barely moving in the pools.  Beyond the oaks, I hear a splash in the water – I don’t see what it is, but I guess that it’s a frog.  Last year dozens of frogs would leap in the creek water as I walked on a typical summer day along the bank.

The Fetch:  The clearing is now all green grass, and some of it’s getting high.  When I get there, I don’t see Mway, but then I spot her sniffing around in the sumacs.  I call her, and to my surprise, she doesn’t come running over to me right away.  I call her several times, and finally she comes.  I toss the stick once; she dashes after it; then she runs past me to head back to the house.  As she’s walking by the sumacs, I see her duck her head to peer once quickly through the trees – in the hope of maybe catching sight of whatever it was she was sniffing at before.

Moi Comes Along to Help Identify Things

April 5, 2010.  Monday.

Situation:  Work this afternoon, get home and take Mway out about 5.  Moi comes along, in particular to look at the tree with the long seed strings in the old orchard.  I bring the binoculuars.

State of the Path:  Walking from the walled garden, Moi worries that the chickens will follow us down the path.  “Just move quickly,” I say, “They won’t follow too far.”  I show Moi the tree – she thinks it might be some kind of ash, and she is intrigued that it bloomed so early.  I point out some of the ghost flowers.  “I think maybe it’s just white clover at an early stage,” I say.  “No,” Moi disagrees, “It doesn’t look like clover.”  I point out to her all the green shrubs around.  “Why do you call these wild olive shrubs?” I ask, since I’ve never seen that listed in Audubon.  “Russian olive,” she corrects me, “Some of them are Russian olive, and some are honeysuckle.”  Down by the creek, I point out the skunk cabbage, the may apples, and the trout lily leaves – and then suddenly we both realize, all along the creek, so many of the trout lilies have blossomed, showing their yellow flowers.  Then, after we’ve walked the plank across the drainage area to bug land, to my surprise, Moi steps into my foot holds over the feed channel and ventures along the skating pond; I follow, telling her I haven’t been able to find any of the colt’s foot she mentioned.  “No,” she says, “They don’t come up here.  They’re usually by the bank over there,” and she starts back over the feed channel.  I start to follow, then realize I’m stepping on some new small purple flowers, and I call Moi back.  “That’s point blue-eyed grass,” she says.  Then we both walk over by the pond between the ridges where Moi says the colt’s foot comes up.  “Maybe it’s gotten too shady for it to come up here,” she says.

State of the Creek:  A little water is still trickling into bug land up by the wigwams, and flowing from bug land into the creek.  As we walk along, Moi asks me if I think the creek has gotten wider.  I don’t think it has.  “I think it has,” she insists.

The Fetch:  Up at the clearing, I move to the far end to throw the stick, Moi standing nearby.  But Mway has stopped in the middle of the weeds in the field and is sniffing the ground, and I have to call her up.  “Maybe she’s found something,” Moi says.  Mway responds promply to my call, and comes running up through the weeds, smiling, into the clearing.  I raise my stick behind me to give it a good toss, when I hear a loud whack, and Moi yelling.  I look around me, and she is clutching her elbow.  “Did I hit you,” I shout.  “Yes,” she shouts, and starts walking on the path back to the house.  “Are you okay?”  I ask.  But Mway is waiting for me to throw the stick, and I give it a toss.  3 fetches.  Back in the back yard, Moi is leading the chickens back into their cage.  Mway is standing in the yard, without her stick, and anxious about the movement of the chickens.  She picks up another stick, and jostles it to coax me to throw it, but I walk over to the porch.  I see that she has dropped the other stick at the door, and I pick it up and lean it against the house along with my walking stick because Moi is concerned that our wild bees, which for years now have nested in one of our chimneys, have strayed to the bench, and she is going to move the bench tonight by the chimney, to urge them toward their usual nesting place.

It Doesn't Matter It's Easter

April 4, 2010.  Sunday.

Situation:  Unusual for me today, I have no work.  Later on Moi, the Boy, and I plan to go down to Jazz and Matt’s and have a meal with their neighbors.  Moi has to go out this morning to get a new door knob for our back door, which broke last night, and, though she has taken Mway out in the back yard to throw stick, she asks me to take Mway for her morning walk today.  I oblige, around 9:15, and bring along my binoculars.

State of the Path:  Right out the door, I see what I’m pretty sure is a mourning dove standing in the driveway.  I bring up my binoculars, and immediately realize that I’ve forgotten that I’m wearing my bifocals, which makes the view through the binoculars not so good.  In the walled garden, I see some robins, and try the binoculars one more time – not good again, and I let them just dangle for the rest of the walk.  In the corner of the old orchard, I see may apples coming up – where they generally come up every spring.  They may have been there days before, but this is the first time I notice them there.  I take note that I’ve been keeping the side path pretty well trampled down, but there are shoots of blackberries or dewberries starting to come up, and I realize that, unless I’m diligent about walking this way, this side path may very well become impassible by summer.  Down by the wigwams, water is still trickling into bug land.

State of the Creek:  I decide to go over to look at the skunk cabbages – I may get my feet wet, I figure, but what the hell – I’ll get them wet anyway when I pass through the ridge around bug land.  Amazingly, I manage to step on the rocks without any water seeping in my boots.  Most of the skunk cabbages are in their leafy stage, but I see three or four with their “spathe and spadix,” or at least their “spadix.”  Perhaps if I had been more attentive, I might have seen these plants in February, burning away, as described in Audubon, the snow around them.  As I head down toward the oaks, I anticipate Mway scaring out the ducks – but no such thing happens.  Maybe the ducks only come around in the afternoon, or maybe we have scared them off for good this year.  At the feed channel to the skating pond, I decide to leap across it, rather than step into the still muddy foot holds – I manage to do it, but it is a big leap for me, one which jars my bones and muscles.  I look for colt’s foot – and I begin to think that Moi is mistaken about having seen it coming up around the skating pond.  Mway wades into the creek, and I see the mud roiling where she has stepped in.  She then decides to step into the puddles in the skating pond, then wade through the brown muddy water of the feed channel – when she comes out, she’s pretty stinky looking.  The sedges in the feed channel are growing taller.

The Fetch:  In the clearing I take my stand where I usually do and immediately realize that, unlike in the afternoon, I’m looking into the sun.  I think about changing spots, but Mway only makes one fetch anyway (well, she was already out earlier; this is all she really needs to do now, we both think together).  Passing back through the walled garden, I see a couple of starlings, making their nasty chirp.  I think for a moment about looking at them through the binoculars, partly because I’m concerned about misidentifying some of the black birds I’ve been seeing.  As I’ve been leafing through the Audubon, I’ve found that there are a number of types of black birds that I could be seeing, for example, grackles and cow birds.  Right now I can’t readily distinguish a grackle from a starling, and I’d like to be able to do that.  But the particular birds I’m looking at are flitting all over the place, and I quickly give up trying to look at them more closely.  Back in the house, as Mway and I are walking up the stairs, I think of her wading in the water and I hear Moi’s voice in my mind saying “close the bedroom door,” so at the top of the stairs I quickly reach over Mway to slam the bedroom door on her, before she can hop on the bed and dribble mud and water into the blankets and sheets.

Scare Up Two Mallards

April 3, 2010.  Saturday.

Situation:  Moi and I both work tonight.  Moi goes out in the garden about 2, probably to check on the lettuce and onions she planted.  Mway sits beneath the birch tree, barking loudly at the chickens, who are scratching through the grass-clipping pile by the outbuilding.  I decide it’s a good time to take Mway for a walk, and I bring Audubon’s wildflower book with me.

State of the Path:  Moi’s plum tree, by her garden pond, is in bloom, with white blossoms.  I am walking, as usual, with both sticks, which means I have to tuck the Audubon in my armpit.  In the old orchard, I see a small tree that has sprouted its long stringy seeds.  The orchard contains a lot of black walnut and ash trees, but I have no idea what kind of tree this is – something else for me to look up.   Along the path I look for the clover-like flowers again – and I drop my sticks, take off my gloves, and open the Audubon, but then I shut it almost immediately.  I’ve already looked through the book several times and have found no photograph that will help me identify these ghostly, almost imperceptible, common early spring flowers – I say imperceptible, because if you weren’t looking closely you could easily walk by them without noticing them.  I know what they look like – clover-like flowers and leaves, except the leaves are in strands – pinnate, I guess you’d call it.  Maybe if the plants grow bigger, I’ll be able to identify them, but for now I’ve practically given up on it.  It’s been dry for a week or so now, and much of the mud in the upper field is drying up, but there is still a little water trickling into bug land, and puddles throughout bug land and by the ridges.

State of the Creek:  Down at the corner of our property, I look over at the skunk cabbages, then take out my Audubon to see what it has to say about them.  And here is an example of how unhelpful this book can be – if you were leafing through the book trying to identify these plants you would have no luck, for the photo on page 391, showing a close-up of a “brownish-purple spathe enclosing a knob-like spadix” looks nothing like the green cabbagy plants I’m looking at now.  I think about crossing the creek to look at the cabbages, since the water is low enough, but then decide against it – my boots (a typical commodity of our global economy) are worthless in any amount of water.  Under the tree blind, I see more of the ghost flowers, more may apple sprouting, and a lot more trout lily leaves all along the creek.  Then as I’m walking toward the oaks, up fly, like in springs before, two mallards, beating their wings and quacking loudly.  I feel badly for disturbing these birds – this happened like this on a half dozen walks last year, before they finally disappeared; and I wonder where they go, and am kind of both baffled and grateful that they showed up again this year.  Right after the mallards fly up and go away, I see a male and female cardinal darting by, then about a half dozen redwing blackbirds circling for a perch in a tree.  I decide not to go by the skating pond, figuring that maybe the ducks are hiding in there or else further down the creek, and I don’t want to disturb them again.

The Fetch:  1 fetch.

Minnows and May Apples

April 2, 2010.  Friday.

Situation:   Audubon does not list anything called a blue sulphur – the closet candidate I can find in the wetlands book is the northern blue, but this butterfly appears not to have a range around here and does not come out till June; Audubon’s insect book does not list the northern blue, but it has two other, more likely candidates: the spring azure, also called the common blue, described as “one of the earliest butterflies to emerge, sometimes appearing even when snow is still on the ground,” and the eastern tailed blue which thrives “where its habitat has been encroached upon by human activities… flying to puddles.”  I have to work tonight, and Mway and Moi have just awoken from their afternoon naps; it’s now about 2 pm.  In a short while I’ll take Mway out for her afternoon walk.  I’ll bring the binoculars along.  Throughout the day today, various McNeighbors have ventured outdoors with machines – lawn tractors, hedge trimmers – to vent the energy of global capitalism upon their estates, their McChildren venturing out onto asphalt driveways to bounce basketballs in front of two-car garages.  I could see where even I might have to start mowing the lawn soon: the grass over the septic tank is getting high.  My mother used to say that it always rains on Good Friday.  Today it is bright and sunny.  I put in my contacts, so I can use the binoculars better.

State of the Path:  Scare up a rabbit in the old orchard.  Focus the binoculars on a sparrow-like bird at the edge of the orchard – from what I could tell it remains a sparrow-like bird.  Pick up the rodent skull off the ground and put it back in the tree; a little farther on find a leg bone and back bone.  The little white flowers that Moi first saw weeks ago on the side path are now growing all over the place.  They’re not white clover.  I pick up a specimen and put it in my pocket.  It seems dry out, but there is still water trickling into bug land, and out of it.  The little white flowers up on the side path are, I now realize, the same little white flowers I’ve been looking at under the deer stand.  There’s much more of those growing – and nearby I see about seven shoots of may apple coming up.  The skunk cabbage is starting to spread its leaves – worth a trek sometime to look at them.  See a cardinal on a maple by the ridge.  Focus the binoculars on another bird by the creek – I wouldn’t call this one a sparrow, but I have no idea what it is.  Then in the shrubs across the creek, see three cardinals.  I pass by the little buttercup-like flowers, but with the other flowers to identify I have enough to trouble with.  Step in the wet footholds of the feed channel – where are these colt’s foot that Moi has been talking about?

State of the Creek:  In the pool behind the log jam: minnows.  Many of the rocks along the creek look bone dry.

The Fetch:  Mway dashes for the stick, and seems to trip over her feet at she snatches it up.  One fetch.  I’ve just leafed through the white flower section of the Audubon and I see nothing that looks like the white flowers that I picked up.  Moi doesn’t know what these are either.

Dandelion Greens

April 1, 2010.  Thursday.

Situation:  I don my binoculars and walking clothes and take Mway out about 1:15.  It would be better to take her out later, but I have work tonight and a little extra work I have to do before that.

State of the Path:  Mway dashes into the driveway – and I wonder what she’s after, but she soon comes walking back, tongue hanging.  In the distance, a McNeighbor is already mowing his lawn for the season.  Our next-door neighbor, Bob Whatever is out in his back yard – a couple days ago he asked if he could trim back one of our black walnut trees; apparently the black walnuts fall in his McYard.  The water streaming through the old orchard has dried up, but there is still water trickling into bug land.  In the old orchard, I see a few redwing black birds and a number of brown or gray birds that, for lack of knowledge, I have been calling sparrows.  I pick up the binoculars and try to focus on one, but the binoculars do not work well with glasses, especially bifocals, so I give up on looking at any birds.

State of the Creek:  Mway wades into the creek.  I spot some white flowers below the deer stand – I look at them for a while, and conclude, whether rightly or wrongly, that they are young clover.  Next to them I see some dandelion greens – which of course make me hungry.  I find the other small white flowers down past the oaks – I would like to call them buttercups, but I will have to look through my Audubon books to study up on them.  I don’t bother going by the skating pond.  Up at the break in the ridge, I manage to bend back the sumac branch a little farther than I did yesterday.  It doesn’t matter, though, because the ground is wet where the branch was, and water still seeps into my boots.  When I look back, I see one of the lavender butterflies again – possibly a blue sulphur?  Again, I will have to check Audubon.

The Fetch:  3 fetches.