A Day of Rest Again

November 7, 2010.  Sunday.

Situation:  Work all day today and, because we’re on standard time again, it is dark when I get home.  Moi suggests that I could don her headlamp and still take Mway for a walk, as indeed I did not too long ago.  But I am tired from my late job last night, and I pretend that option does not exist, recalling also to myself that last winter I regularly didn’t take Mway for a walk on dark Sunday nights.  She and the Boy, visiting from NYC, apparently took Mway for a long walk earlier today; Moi suggests that she could give me a report of that walk, but I don’t feel like listening and bothering to write it down – not tonight.  I still have to take the garbage down, and because there are puddles in the lane, I have to put on my boots as well as wear the headlamp.  When I come back inside the house, Mway watches me intensely as I take off my jacket, remove one boot, then the other.  “Poor tiny Mway,” Moi remarks.

Count Squirrel Nests

November 6, 2010.  Saturday.

Situation:   Early this morning Moi mentions going down the lane to check the mail, and she’s still thinking about the kitten, worried that she might find it dead.  “I feel real bad,” she says, “I feel guilty.  But if it had rabies and I even get saliva on me…”  Both of us work tonight, but at separate places; and I work late, 9 – 12 pm.  Eventually Moi goes down to get the mail, and she tells me that the kitten is no longer where it was.  “Maybe it got over whatever was making it sick.  Or maybe one of our neighbors saw it and picked it up,” she speculates.  Moi shows me how Woody likes to fetch a little cloth mouse.  “Maybe he’ll someday go on walks with Mway.”  Mway looks on, nervous, pacing, eventually even barking.  She even pounces one time as Woody runs after the mouse, and Woody has to sneak behind a chair to bring the mouse back to Moi.  Everyone takes a nap from 2 to 3:45.  It’s now a little before 4, and I’m ready to take Mway for her walk.

State of the Path:  With the leaves off the trees, squirrel nests are easy to see, and, after first seeing one in the tree next to the outbuilding, I decide to count them.  I see three more in a tree beside the walled garden (although a couple of them look bedgraggled and may be old), a big one in a tree in the hedgerow close to the house (our willow, which I see when I look up that way, planted a little inappropriately in a rise of ground near the corn crib, is about the only tree that still bears green leaves), and another old bedgraggled one in a tree at the beginning of the old orchard – I don’t see anymore until I come up toward the clearing: none in the oaks by the creek, which suggests to me that squirrels prefer black walnuts, and I wonder what they do in a season like this one when the trees have not borne any walnuts, and I try to remember when was the last time I saw a squirrel -- I don’t know.  I scare a female cardinal out of a honeysuckle before the wigwams.  I watch my shadow passing over the brown grass of bug land.  In the the sky are thick bands of dark clouds, a swatch of blue, and a thick band of white clouds that slowly grows darker over the course of the walk.  Down by the creek, I spot – and, yes, I definitely can tell what it is – a black-capped chickadee in the bare mutiflora branches surrounding an oak tree.  I can’t remember when I’ve had such a good view of a bird.  It flies across the creek and lands on a honeysuckle.  I hear it make some buzzing noises – at least I think the noises are coming from it – and then I hear what I’ve always called its be-bop call (what Audubon describes as a “whistled fee-bee, the second note lower and often doubled).  Then after I walk the plank, I see about five more black-capped chickadees in another bare multiflora surrounding another tree.  They flit from branch to branch, nibbling at something, but I don’t see any berries on this particular mutliflora.  Then one of the birds suddenly seems to have yellow markings on it, and it looks like some other kind of chickadee (of course, I find nothing like it in Audubon – maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me).  In the break in the ridge, Mway suddenly stops, a paw raised – and I think maybe she’s sensed a raccoon or something, but soon she continues on.  I take the path up toward the summer house, and here I count more squirrel nests, the big one in the tree near our property line, and three in the trees around the summer house.

State of the Creek:  My shadow walks on top the quietly moving water, but today, instead of jumping onto the honeysuckle, it seems to slip behind it.

The Fetch:  I toss toward the “chokeberry” and the honeysuckle.  On about the fifth toss, the stick slips from my grasp, makes a slice deep into the goldenrod.  But Mway pinpoints where it landed -- it seems solely by hearing -- and after already having run toward the honeysuckle, changes direction and makes a beeline into the weeds.  I don’t like how Mway is tearing up the grass in the middle of the clearing, so I stand off a little more into the newly trampled goldenrod.  We go to level 2, and again I keep saying “put it down” until Mway, standing in front of me with the stick without dropping it, has decided for herself that she’s had enough.

Fuzz Still on the Goldenrod

November 5, 2010.  Friday.

Situation:  A day of doing many trifling things, a 10-minute job, even going at Moi’s suggestion to a financial advisor (Moi had taken her can of loose change to the bank earlier in the day), finally to the grocery store.  At the end of our lane was what looked to me like a dying kitten.   Moi went back to check on it (me worrying that she was going to bring it home), but she described it as making retching sounds, and she was afraid for the health of our animals and her own health to bring it back.  It’s 5:00 by the time I’m able to take Mway for her walk.

State of the Path:  Moi mentioned that yesterday when she was cleaning off the back porch she discovered some large leaves, wondered where they came from, then realized it was from the unknown tree, the tree closet to our porch, which at one time we cut partially down and placed a cow skull on top of.  I look at the tree today, the few leaves still on it almost the size of tobacco leaves.  It grows more or less through an evergreen bush.  Take the side path through the monkey vines and green honeysuckles (their berries almost all gone).  Leaves on the maples almost gone.  Still leaves on some of the oaks.  Did I think the fuzz was gone from the goldenrod?  Wrong about that -- looks like most of it’s still there.  Little yellow flower by the creek still looks like a belated goldenrod.  Don’t see anything that looks like witch hazel.  Walk across the plank, but a little hesitantly – the plank looks damp from the last rain.  Brown stalks of ironweed: looking not that different from the brown stalks of goldenrod.

State of the Creek:  My shadow, not quite as black as a couple days ago, glides across the water, then hops out of the stream to creep up the honeysuckle.  Pools of water, orange from afar, turn into mirrors of the creekside trees up close.

The Fetch:   I pitch the birch branch a little into the goldenrod around the “chokeberry” and the honeysuckle.  When we reach level 2, I decide to keep saying “put it down” to see how long Mway will go.  I forget to count the fetches, but finally, though I say “put it down” twice, Mway keeps the stick in her mouth, and I don’t press the issue.  Hear her huffing behind me as we walk by the sumacs, until she passes me as soon as the path widens near the walled garden.

Could It Be Holly?

November 4, 2010.  Thursday.

Situation:  Work tonight.  It’s been raining all day.  Moi made a rain chain for the front porch out of musical symbols (G clef, notes, a measuring cup); the rain doesn’t quite drip down the chain right; still needs tweaking.  Moi and Mway now taking a nap; looks like I’ll be squeezing in a quick walk before I go to work.

State of the Path:  Mway is standing at the bedroom door when I open it.  She springs out the door and dashes down the steps.  The chickens are standing on the front porch.  They must have been there are all day: the porch floor is covered with shit and feathers.  They disperse when Mway rushes out the door.  The white mulberry at the start of the path has dropped most of its golden leaves.  The brown of the goldenrod, looking browner than ever, the green of the honeysuckles, make a striking contrast.  The rain, which had been just a drizzle, picks up for a moment in bug land.  Rainwater drips down my wrist.  I walk faster.  Wet weeds slap my pants, but I’m happy my feet aren’t getting wet.  Pushing through the “chokeberries,” I see one or two green holly-like bushes; could it be holly?  (A friend of Moi’s has just posted a wildflower on Facebook that blooms after the leaves fall: witch hazel.  I take a look at the photo; it’s not what I’ve been seeing.)  As I’m heading up to the clearing, I realize why the goldenrod looks browner: it’s because they’ve lost all their fuzz.

State of the Creek:  The stream is a little higher, and flowing: slowly in the pools, faster in the rock shallows.  As I walk along it, I feel like I’m in a race with it.  I outpace it at the pools, but it beats me at the rapids.  Water courses down the swale and fills the feed channel.

The Fetch:  When I bend down to pick up the birch branch, my wet pants chill my legs.  I get angry with Mway as she just goes on and on with fetching the stick while I’m standing in the rain; finally, I throw the stick deep into the goldenrod between the “chokeberry” and the honeysuckle.  Mway takes a few minutes to find the stick and extract it, and when she comes back holding it in her mouth, expecting me to go to level 2, I tell her “that’s enough.”

An Insect Crawling in the Grass

November 3, 2010.  Wednesday.

Situation:   Moi eventually decided to let me take her to the hospital; the procedure went well, especially after the doctor and nurse IV’d a sedative when Moi showed “anxiety.”  We were out from 6:30 to 11:30 and came back to a cat eager to come in the house, and a dog eager to go out.  I have to work tonight, and may have to leave early to a do some work for my other job, so I think the best time for me to take Mway for a walk is now, about 12:12.  She’s already outside, so I have to go and put on my walking clothes.

State of the Path:  My long shadow follows me across the yard.  I look up at the sun, not having realized how low in the sky it is this time of year even around noon.  Mway turns onto the side path, but I’m in a rush now and continue straight ahead, Mway catching up with me shortly.  The main sound today is some sort of whiny rumble coming from the McDevelopment.  I don’t know what kind of machine it is, but I imagine it to be some sort of suction pump for clearing out the sewer line.  I almost forget to check on the new wildflowers.  I walk back to look at the second one: whatever it is, it’s still there.

State of the Creek:  I intend to look at my shadow when I get down to the creek, but I forget to.  Instead I look at the decomposing grass, leaves, and weeds turning black in the water; they seem to form a sludge that floats halfway up the depth of the water and seem to be in the process of slowly settling to the bottom.

The Fetch:  Up at the clearing, I see one insect (a grasshopper?) crawling lethargically in the thin grass.  Neither Moi nor I fed Mwayla this morning (except for two biscuits), and Mway fetches the stick like her next meal depends on it.  I don’t know – surely over 20 fetches, then we go to level 2 for four or five more, which I stop on my own.  Back at the house, I fill her dish.

Leaves Down or Brown, Except for Honeysuckles

November 2, 2010.  Tuesday.

Situation:  No work today because the workplace is closed.  Moi has a colonoscopy tomorrow and is a nervous wreck about it; she doesn’t want me involved in anyway, and has asked Ezra to drive her to the hospital.  When I asked her this morning if she had started the dietary regimen the doctors require, she barked at me “You and your family!  Always fascinated about shit!”  When I explained I was just trying to help, she said, “I don’t want your help.  Just leave me alone!”  She has gone off to vote (“I’ll probably kill every one down there!”  “Then I’ll kill everybody at the hospital tomorrow, if they don’t kill me first.”  “And don’t go telling anyone about this!  I don’t want them to know anything about me!”)   I don’t know what to do today, except to tread as softly as I can, and of course eventually take Moi’s dog for a walk.  When Moi comes home, she’s in a better mood, and talks to me as if she hadn’t said anything cruel to me earlier.  Eventually I go out, get back about 3, seems like as good a time as any to take Mway out.

State of the Path:  I can’t find the birch branch, but just when I’ve settled on another stick, I see Mway running toward the path with the birch branch in her mouth.  After I tell her to drop it, and she jumps up a few times at me after I pick it up, she leads the way to the walled garden.  The maple by the pool has lost all its leaves.  The remaining green in the fields is mostly the leaves of the honeysuckles; the Arums in the old orchard even still have some berries.  The maples by the wigwams have lost most of their leaves, though a few still cling to the higher branches.  The pin oaks (I’m starting to believe all the oaks by the creek are pin oaks; I stare for a long time at some of the leaves on the ground and they seem to all have “deep lobes nearly to midvein”) still hold onto many of their brown leaves.  I remember to look for the new wildflower; its flowers are already turning brown.  But then I spot a similar flower just a few feet ahead, with a single cluster of bright yellow flowers.  Perhaps this is a goldenrod of some type, I don’t know.  At the plank, I note a bush I never paid attention to before sticking branches out toward the plank with red berries on them; it’s a multiflora, and also still has some green leaves on it.  Some of the all-wing bugs flit about amidst the fuzz shedding from the goldenrod.

State of the Creek:  My shadow fords the creekwaters and glides along the bank.  Today it doesn’t land on the honeysuckle, but it passes briefly over the trunk of a locust tree.  Down at the crest of the skating pond, I’m surprised two of the pin oaks there, including the one I always have to stoop under, have lost all their leaves (unlike the others).  They seemed to have dumped all their leaves into the rocky creek bed at the car tire, so many that you can’t see the water there.

The Fetch:  My shadow juts out into the goldenrod; Mway runs around the goldenrod which I wish she’d trample down instead.  She fetches the stick – I don’t know – fifteen times maybe, then coaxes me to play “Put it down.”  I realize for some reason today that this is like level 2 of her fetching, so I start yelling at her to “put it down” after every fetch till we go – I don’t know – another fifteen times, and I get sick of throwing the stick before she tires out.

Back Home, Ready for Walk

November 1, 2010.  Monday.

Situation:  We arrived home last night around six; Barb, who sat with the animals for the weekend, was still at the house.  Mway greeted us at the door, but I didn’t take her out because Barb had thrown stick with her already in the late afternoon.  Earlier that day (which was Halloween and Jazz’s birthday) we took Jazz and Matt into Rochester to visit the very site where Jazz was born, on the street in an ambulance in front of what was our apartment on P_____ Avenue.  Took plenty of photos, and at the suggestion of someone from the hotel where she had been staying, Jazz placed a candle down at the site.  So far today no work has come in for me to do; I’ll have to keep checking my emails.  On Friday night, hours after my walk with Mway, Moi discovered another tick on me; it wasn’t embedded too deeply.  She pulled it out, and I took another doxycycline.  Right now Woody has been crawling all over the furniture in the office here, poking his nose in my coffee cup; Squeak has come in, trying to decide whether or not to hop on my lap, but now she’s chasing Woody around instead.  Mway is barking as Moi is getting ready to take her out.  Eventually work does come in; get home a little after 5.  Though she usually doesn’t for me, Mway barks as I’m putting on my gloves and helmet.  Moi gives me insect spray, yells at me for spraying it inside.  Find birch branch in music room, where Barb, concerned that it might have been put in the wrong place, told us Mway had put it.

State of the Path:  Sun low in sky.  Mway sniffs along one side of outbuilding.  The field is a field of fuzz, very few green goldenrod leaves left.   Behind Moi’s wigwam something I never noticed before: one oak amidst the maples, hanging tight onto its brown leaves.  Sunlight blocks my periphery of vision as I walk through bug land.  The bare low branches of the black oaks seem to have pinny twigs; perhaps they are pin oaks after all.  Near some honeysuckles, I see a chestnut leaf on the ground, then a few more; look up – see nothing like a chestnut oak around.  Mway veers down toward the plank, but I turn to go through the bare “chokeberries”; she runs to catch up with me.  Along the ridge, realize I forgot to look for the new wildflower I saw Friday; decide not to walk back.  Feel itch near my sideburn; touch with my fingers but discover no little body on my skin.

State of the Creek:  My long shadow creeps and jumps along the creek bank, then alights on a green honeysuckle, where it slowly grows in size until it disappears when I pass the bush.  The black water turns orange in the pools ahead of me, until I reach the orange spot, when it becomes a reflection of the tall orange oaks.

The Fetch:  Stand with back against the sun, my former spot.  Mway’s bark has a childish squeal to it.  She is turning the track in the middle of the clearing to mud.  After numerous fetches, we play “Put it down” about four times.  In the house, throw clothes in drier and have Moi inspect my body.