Dark Enough to Wear a Headlamp

October 10, 2010.  Sunday.

Situation:  Dusk is falling when I get home from work, sometime around 6:30 or so.  But still enough light out, I think, to take Mway for a quick walk.

State of the Path:  Five jet trails like comets in the western sky.  Crescent moon northwest of them.  Actually this is what I see coming down O__ C_____ Road.  By the time I get my walking clothes on and get walking, I see nothing but a splotch of quickly graying pink on the horizon.  I still hear a jet plane -- must be the sixth one going west -- somewhere overhead, the thrum of cicadas, the trilling of an owl -- sounds like it's coming from somewhere in the old orchard.  Moi has suggested I fit a headlamp flashlight to my safari helmet (which she adjusts so it points downward), so I have a spot of light on the ground in front of me guiding me forward.  Mway turns left to head to the clearing, but since I feel like I’m property outfitted I lead her down to the creek.   In the dim light whitish stalks of dead grass bend over into the path.  Occasionally a bunch of fleabane or a fallen spike of fuzzy dead goldenrod fall into the spot of light.  I hear what I at first think is the chirp of crickets but then realize is the chirp of birds.  Above the ridge a scared bird flies away from me – and here also my headlamp alights on a bunch of asters.  As I head down to the creek, I worry that we might come upon the stirring of some nocturnal animal, like a raccoon, and coming up from the ridge, Mway stops dead in her tracks for a moment, like she’s almost frightened to go on.  She lets me pass by, and I march up to the clearing.  If there’s some animal lurking in the weeds, I don’t see or come across it.  Suddenly I see patches of what seems like smoke floating around the rim of my helmet – could this be fog rising from the ground caught in the light of my headlamp?

State of the Creek:  The stream of water snakes along to my left as I walk along.  At the narrows I see a ripple in the water, but I have no idea what might have caused it.

The Fetch:  As I come up into the clearing, Venus appears in the eastern sky.  I pitch the birch branch just a few feet within the clearing, concerned that Mway might not be able to find it.  But she easily tells where it’s landed by sound.  As she runs back to me with the stick in her mouth, her eyes shine in the light of the headlamp, a ghastly electric blue.  Perhaps she’s spooked by the headlamp, or maybe she simply feels it’s too dark to fetch anymore, because she runs right past me and heads back to the house.  As I walk down the path along the sumacs, I see the crescent moon again, now sunk among the bare branches of the black walnuts in the old orchard.  I walk along as fast as I can, but suddenly I stop near Moi’s garden pond, when the light from my headlamp falls upon a wooly black caterpillar, about six inches long, slinking in the dead leaves.

Same Water Strider As Yesterday?

October 9, 2010.  Saturday.

Situation:  Moi made an appointment for me to go early this morning to a local office supply store to have my computer diagnosed for any problems.  I don’t know how to hook my computer back up (afraid I might break something), so I have to write this out long hand on a piece of scrap paper (before typing it up later on the computer – I hope I’ll be able to read my handwriting).  Moi and I both work tonight, but she has two other jobs beforehand.  I might pay a visit to one of her jobs because I understand they’re serving up free food.  I think it’s best if I take Mway for a walk now, 12:20.  I’ll have to change from my street clothes into my walking clothes, then back into my street clothes, then into my lounging-around clothes when I get back home, then finally into my work clothes for tonight – more changes of clothes than I like to make in a day.

State of the Path:  Stick to main path.  Fallen leaves grow thick just beyond the outbuilding, as well as along the creek.  Farm machinery makes noise in a cornfield, that and my boots crunching leaves are the main sounds.  Gnat-like insects plume in the sun.  Brown birds swoop through the maples.  Beyond the ridge, Mway stops to sniff weeds – about where the raccoon once was.  I try to prod her with the stick to get her to move along.  Give up, and walk past her.  She soon follows and passes me to beat me to the clearing.

State of the Creek:  I can see Mway slurping up water, view from the path – shows how much bushes and trees have become bare – wouldn’t have had this view in midsummer.  See one water strider – exact same one as yesterday?  Along narrows, see minnows darting about in pools – now where did they suddenly materialize from?

The Fetch:  Toss branch into tall goldenrod.  Mway operating slowly – takes time for her to rummage in weeds to retrieve stick.  I see her disappear from the path, see the goldenrod wiggling and jiggling, then see her reappear in the path.

Black Walnuts Losing Most of Their Leaves

October 8, 2010.  Friday.

Situation:  I have no work today or tonight.  Moi is helping me to try to get my computer to run smoother and faster, and she has gone out to get more RAM.  And she has set up an appointment for me tomorrow to have my computer diagnosed for software issues.  Right now, it’s 11:20, and I’m trying to figure out when today would be the best time to take Mway for her walk (in the past weeks, if not months, it seems I’ve gotten into the habit of just taking her for one walk a day, whether or not I could do more).  Right now, after spending much of the morning on some work I don’t get paid for, I feel like I could use some sunshine and fresh air.  When I take Mway for a walk around noon, that usually ends up being a walk that covers both a morning and an afternoon walk.  I’m going to go right now and put on my walking clothes.

State of the Path:  I bring along the clippers and go down the side path along the old orchard, clipping any sagging goldenrod I see as I go along.  Some of the goldenrod is still yellow, most of it now has a brown and gray tinge, and here and there I see some stalks that are completely dry and brown, with fuzzy white flowers on top.  Fully leafed grapevines hang on some of the bare branches of the trees, one especially hearty and thick grapevine growing in the cedar near the hedgerow.  The Arums still have their red berries.  Moi has told me that we’ve yet to have a frost, so the black walnuts have turned yellow and have lost most of their leaves before the oaks and maples have turned full color, and they’re losing some of their leaves already.  Down at bug land, it’s warm enough I see a Dobson fly or something and a monarch (or viceroy).  Brown birds in the trees along the creek – I’d like to know what these are, but I can never get a good sight of them.  I go across the feed channel (with some difficulty since I didn’t bring my walking stick -- I have to use my clippers as support instead).  A lot of weeds to clip back on the crest of the skating pond, and at one point I nearly stumble in a dip in the ground that I don’t see because of the weeds I’m clipping down.  The asters are still blooming, and along the ridge of bug land, I spot one heal-all still in bloom.

State of the Creek:  Mway goes into the water beneath the tree stand and wades down the stream to her favorite exit below the honeysuckle bush.  Some of the rocks now rise above the water, and are drying in the sun.  A frog plops into the water.  It’s warm enough I see one water strider, casting its weird shadow upon the rocks in the water.

The Fetch:  It’s also warm enough I see grasshoppers hopping away from me in the clearing.  I toss the stick into the taller goldenrod, and Mway and I are succeeding in beating down much of the goldenrod in the wedge in front of the “chokeberry.”

Bluejay Sounds Like Crow

October 7, 2010.  Thursday.

Situation:  I have to work tonight, but I also have some day work I should do before then.  Moi has gone out – I forget where she said she was going.  Squeak is asleep in the bathroom sink, so I had to go downstairs to wash my hands after using the toilet.  Mway has shut the door upon herself in Moi’s room.  Right now seems like the best time to take her for a walk.  It’s 11:20 – whoops, Moi just came in the door; I’ll have to see if she wants me to do something.  No, Moi doesn’t need me for anything; she’s doing something right now with Ezra, who’s been rebuilding our front porch, part of the maintenance work on the house that Moi has instigated this year.  So I’m going to put on my walking clothes, then I’ll open the door for Mway to let her out.

State of the Path:   Before I can finish getting dressed, my day employer calls me.  Seems they have a client who wants a job done right now.  I can’t at first find the birch branch, so I pick up a monkey-vine kind of stick from the music room, a little shorter than I like, but I think this might be nice, but then I see the birch branch in the middle of the yard, and take that.  A rabbit scoots across the path at the pig pen.  Mway, coming from the weeds, shoots after it, but soon gives up pursuit.  Then she takes a series of dumps, having trouble with me walking right up to her as she’s trying to poop.  Past the sumacs, she finally gets everything out she needs to.  Beneath the bright sun, the goldenrod all looks faded.  Down by the creek, I see a bluejay.  Hear it make a sound like a crow, and I think, so bluejay sometimes sounds like crow.  Spot a cardinal in the same tree with it.

State of the Creek:  Flowing gently.  The rocks, which looked so black and cold all summer, look warm and brown beneath the water.

The Fetch:  Toss the stick so Mway will end up beating down the wedge of goldenrod.  On about the fourth fetch, Mway flings the stick against my shin, and I yell out “Ow.”

A Seed Pod to Touch, Several Birds to Call What I May

October 6, 2010.  Wednesday.

Situation:  Work tonight.  Around noon Moi enlists me in helping her to close up the pool.  We scoop out most of the leaves and decide to leave the algae for next spring to worry about.  I find some birds’ nests, including one with broken eggs in it, in the spaces below the joints in the pool wall.  Before we can put the cover on the pool, Moi says we have to let some of the water out, so while the water’s pouring out of the drain and Moi’s hosing algae that looks like seaweed off the ladder, I take Mway for her walk.  It’s about 1:00.

State of the Path:  There’s still lady’s thumb along the path, but it’s disappearing.  Same for Moi’s round-flowered “smartweed.”  More of the goldenrod is fading, and between the two lines of sumacs, whole areas have turned fuzzy white.  The last touch-me-not flowers I think have fallen off, but I do find a big tempting seed pod to touch.  Down by the creek, I see some brown birds flying around a big locust tree.  I catch a good sight of one bird, which, after leafing through Audubon, I’m going to call a black-throated sparrow or a white-crowned sparrow, whether it was one of these birds or not.  Then I see a cardinal.  In a distant tree, I hear some birds making a very scary sound, and I see something fairly big fly away, but I can’t tell what this bird is at all.

State of the Creek:  Flowing gently.  The sun shines yellow down into the pools.  A frog leaps into the water and darts under a root.

The Fetch:  After one toss within the clearing, I make the rest of the tosses into the taller goldenrod and situate myself so that when Mway comes back with the stick and spins around she’ll beat down some medium-tall goldenrod that stands in a wedge in front of the “chokeberry” bush.  Mway fetches the birch branch a good number of times, but we only play “Put it down” once, and that’s fine with me.

Get Caught Up in Vines, Dead Branches

October 5, 2010.  Tuesday.

Situation:  Work this afternoon; when I get home it’s about 2:45, Moi and Mway are taking a nap.  I might as well go lie down myself, read, perhaps nod off for awhile, until they get up.  I read a selection from Ryle’s The Concept of Mind in one of the Boy’s college textbooks, and then I must doze off, except it seems to me I’m just lying there with my eyes closed, repeating “I am now dozing off into a certain state of mind.”  Suddenly I hear Mway barking outside, then I hear Moi shouting, “Mwayla.  What are you doing?  Bad dog.  Bad dog.”

State of the Path:   I retrieve the birch branch from the music room, where I had seen it earlier.  To my question what Mway was doing, Moi says, “Oh, she was trying to chase the black hen with her new peeps.  Not that I need more chickens.  But still.  When I was coming home from Ollie’s this morning, I saw one of those red hawks.  The chickens were all up on the porch, squawking.”  Moi follows me outside and goes over to the coop to adjust a tarp or something, saying she might need my help.   Mway ventures over to the door of the coop, and Moi yells at her to get away from there.  Moi finally tells me she doesn’t need my help just now, so I call Mway to follow me.  In the walled garden, the trash pile that Moi had been burning all day is still smoldering.  It’s a cloudy day, but the weeds are not too wet.  When Mway turns to go down the side path, I decide to go that way too.  Though the black walnuts have been shedding leaves (which I’m now walking on), their branches are not yet completely bare.  But with less leaves, the monkey vines seem more visible.  I get tangled for a second or two in the one vine at the monkey vine portal.  The part of the side path that goes through the goldenrod could use a clipping, I think to myself, as I brush away the weeds bent over in the pathway.  Down at bug land, two lonely touch-me-not flowers continue to hang on to some withered stems, but I don’t find any seed pods to touch.  Just beyond, about three ironweed flowers still poke up just before the pin oaks.  The highest grass in bug land is now brown, the shorter grass retains its greenness, and I think to myself that I don’t know how long it’s been this way.  Coming up through the strawberry patch, I hear a bird going “Too-wheet, too-wheet, too-wheet, too-wheet.”  I hear this bird all the time, I think, and I should certainly know what it is by now.

State of the Creek:  Mway goes into the water at the tree stand, but she doesn’t wade very far into it and comes out the same place she went in.  I hear the water trickling over the rocks.  I wonder how long the grasses swept over by the water will remain green.  Though the feed channel’s in the same condition it was in yesterday, I decide to step over it anyway.  I brush the asters away so I can see the footholds, and I manage to get across without clutching the honeysuckle bush to help pull me out of the ditch.  The path on the crest of the skating pond is choked with weeds, so I decide not to make the circuit, but head straight for the creek.  I get caught up in some dead branches under an oak tree but finally I reach the bank where I can see the car tire.  The water, though shallow, fills the enire bed here, rippling over the rocks.

The Fetch:  I begin tossing the stick just within the clearing, but when I see Mway usually just follows the path she’s already beaten down, I start throwing it into the taller goldenrod down the path toward the strawberry patch. On one toss, she nearly plows straight through the “chokeberry” bush at one end of the clearing.  I notice she can’t quite tell where the stick is going until she hears it plop into the weeds.  I hear the goldenrod whipping against her body.  We play “Put it down” more times than I care to count.  Finally, she comes slogging up the path, fumbling with the birch branch in her mouth.  I yell “put it down,” but Mway keeps fumbling with the stick, and so I say “good enough.”

I Should Have "Water Pants"

October 4, 2010.   Monday.

Situation:   Moi had hoped to finish up closing up the pool today, but it’s chilly and rainy outside, so she’s postponed the task for later in the week.  I have no work today (at least none I get directly paid for).  So after reading Russell on Schopenhauer, followed by a short nap, I’m ready to take Mway for a walk.  It’s 3:22, and I just heard Moi open the door to her room, which means she and Mway are done with their naps too.

State of the Path:  It’s cold enough to wear my father’s denim jacket.  As I’m putting it on, Moi says to me, “You’re going to freeze.  You should have water pants.”  “I know,” I reply, wondering to myself what “water pants” are.  Out on the path, where I’ve clipped a couple days ago, there’s already other goldenrod stems bent over into the path.  I break these as I walk along. But thanks to my clipping, I don’t get as wet as I otherwise would.  I think about taking both side paths today because Russell has written that Schopenhauer took a two-hour walk everyday, whereas most of my walks with Mway last only about 30 to 45 minutes.  But when Mway keeps straight on the main path, I decide to follow straight behind her – I haven’t clipped on the side path and I don’t want to get any wetter than I have to.  A bunch of little brown birds fly through the bare branches of the sumacs, and then I catch a good sight of a bird in the same branches that I think might be a black-capped chickadee (mainly because the name comes to mind).  It’s hard to note its features as it’s moving, but it has almost a bluish-greenish head I think, a white breast or at least a white crest, brown wings (or maybe brown and white wings), and when it flies it prominently shows white tail feathers.  I don’t hear it calling.  As I look in Audubon now, I see that what I saw looks not at all like the photo of a black-capped chickadee, but as I leaf through the “perching birds” section I come across a couple least-objectionable candidates (the only birds with a bluish-greenish head are grackles, but maybe I misjudged the color).  The candidates are the least flycatcher and the eastern phoebe.  Both are described as dull olive-green or dull olive-gray (pretty close to bluish-greenish).  Only the phoebe has an eye-ring, and of course I didn’t note anything about an eye-ring, one way or the other.  Down at the creek, I stop suddenly because I think I hear something moving, then I realize it’s a multiflora branch scratching against my helmet.  Along the narrows, I note on the ground things that looks like slices of baby zucchini.  When I poke them with my walking stick and flip them over, they look like the caps of acorns.  The tree under which I first find them, though, doesn’t look like an oak tree, but there’s a big oak tree on the other side of the creek, and maybe they’ve come from it.  Down by the creek, the rain starts to come down harder, and I think I better move fast.

State of the Creek:  Flowing smoothly, nice and clear, still dragging along grass underwater.  The big log at the log jam seems like it shifted more into the center of the creek bed.  Mway doesn’t step in the water – she probably knows it’s too cold for her.  I’d like to go over and see what the creek looks like down by the car tire, but when I get to the feed channel I decide against it: there’s some water in the ditch, the New York or New England asters, looking somewhat scraggly, hide any good sight of the footholds, and I fear, if I don’t fall into the ditch, I’ll surely fall against the wet honeysuckle bush on the other side.

The Fetch:  The rain has let up by the time we get to the strawberry patch.  Usually I don’t see her milling around there, but today Mway’s looking around there for something.  When she sees me heading to the clearing, though, she runs over to overtake me and get to the clearing first.  She fetches the stick more times than I care to count.  When she coaxes me to play “Put it down,” I suddenly become real animated about it and shout “put it down” very loudly.  Mway likes this and gets even more excited than usual, and we end up playing “Put it down” more times than we’ve ever played it – at least in some time.  And though most of the time I throw the stick within the clearing (to utilize Mway in beating down the weeds), I even throw it out farther into the higher goldenrod a number of times.  I don’t know how long Mway would have kept going; finally, after who knows how many tosses, I have to finally turn around and say “good enough.”