Blue-Footed Musings

I took a walk in the woods late today. I didn’t bother to bring my camera. Not only was the light failing, but I didn’t want to pause to take pictures, because pausing gives mosquitoes a chance to bite. I don’t like mosquito bites at any time, but I like them even less when the EEE virus is a concern, as it is now (but not for much longer, because it’s been getting cold at night).

Anyway, walking nonstop gave me a chance to think about trees. I’ve been too busy identifying wildflowers to give the trees any love, and that’s not right. They deserve more attention. I should learn to identify them reliably, especially the ash, so that I can enjoy it while it lasts. The emerald ash borer is here, and nothing can be done to stop it. All of our ashes are going to die.

As I walked on the path, I looked for trees that might be ashes. My guess was that they were the trees with leaves shaped similarly to beeches and birches, but arranged differently on the branches. They don’t have the silvery-smooth bark of a beech or the horizontal marks that birch bark does. I found several such trees out there. Looking at my New England field guide now, my guess is black ash.

Browsing through the guide, the other trees and shrubs I believe I’ve seen here include red maple, sugar maple, Eastern white pine, sweet birch, American beech, Northern red oak, a whole lotta other oaks, some type of cedar, sassafras, shagbark hickory, blueberry, arrowwood, spicebush, multiflora rose, and sweet pepperbush. Now is a good time for taking pictures of foliage, and in some cases, fruit and nuts, so I will try to devote more time to that and to identifying our local trees.

Here is my late-Summer/early-Autumn plant catalog so far.

• Arrow tearthumb
• Asiatic dayflower
• Asters (blue), asters (general)
• Autumn olive
• Bird’s-foot trefoil
• Bittersweet (just the berries)
• Burdock
• Chicory
• Clearweed
• Common gerardia (tentative identification)
• Dandelion (out of season)
• Devil’s beggar-ticks (seeds, tentative identification)
• Goldenrod, and seeds
• Hawkweed
• Horse nettle
• Indian pipe (seed capsules)
• Japanese knotweed
• Jewelweed
• Joe Pye Weed
• Lady’s thumb/smartweed
• Mild water-pepper/smartweed
• Milkweed
• Mountain cranberry (a.k.a. lingonberry)
• Pokeweed
• Queen Anne’s lace
• Rabbit-foot clover, and again
• Red clover
• Silver-rod
• Slender bush clover, and seeds
• Smilax (vine and berries)
• Spotted knapweed, and seeds
• Spotted wintergreen (seed capsules)
• Steeplebush (seeds, tentative identification)
• Sweet everlasting
• Violet (out of season)
• Virgin’s bower/clematis, and again
• Wild madder
• White campion
• White lettuce
• White snakeroot
• White clover
• Yellow woodsorrel

Still left to be covered:

• Winterberry
• Clubmoss
• Spicebush
• Horse balm
• Rose hips
• False Solomon’s seal
• Japanese barberry
• Witch hazel
• Sassafras (leaves)

Earlier today I overheard my daughter telling her brother to do something like “a real man would do.” I wondered what she thought a “real man” was, but I was almost afraid to ask. Society pushes some harmful views, and sometimes it seems that the more harmful they are, the worse they stick. I did ask her, though, and she admitted that she didn’t really know, but then added, “He was just being annoying. A real man isn’t annoying, right?” Ha-ha! One day she will learn the truth: all men are annoying. 😉

We went rollerskating as a family last night. My kids, who had only been skating once before, began the evening as wall-huggers, but by the time we left, they were bravely skating along with everyone else. I hadn’t been rollerskating since I was a teen, or on any type of skates since before the kids were born. It all came back to me, though. I skated recklessly fast and barely avoided collisions several times, but it was so much fun. I also enjoyed trading war stories with my hubby. We talked about how hard it was to skate with the kids, how idiotically everyone else was skating, how much harder it was than rollerblading, and the toll it was taking on various muscles and joints.

It is October, and it’s starting to get cold. My husband and I have talked several times about turning on the heat, but like we do every year, we have been stubbornly trying to hold out as long as possible (“No heat ’til Trick-or-Treat”). We’ve been layering up to keep ourselves from shivering. Meanwhile, my son still insists on wearing shorts. It’s about 50 degrees outside, and I had to badger him to bring pants and a sweatshirt with him when he was packing to spend the night at his vovos’ house. Boys! They’re every bit as difficult as “real men.” 😉

The kids are staying at their vovos’ tonight so that my hubby and I can go out to celebrate our anniversary. We have been married 11 years. It’s pretty amazing that we made it this far. No one is more surprised than we are. 😉

Dear Free Anti-Virus Program: Don’t tell me what’s wrong with my computer unless you are offering to fix it for free.

Dear Furniture Store: Do not call me at 7:20 a.m, when I am too busy sleeping in my bed to discuss the delivery of other furniture.

Dear Sky: You are so lovely in October.

Dear Republicans: What is wrong with you? Do you want a tyrant? Do you secretly hate liberty? Do you like being lied to and taken advantage of?

Dear Deer: It was really cute the way you almost seemed to want to come over to me when I said “hi” to you. Thanks for letting me take a picture of your face instead of turning tail on me and running away.

Dear Can of Fizzy Bev: Why did you hide from me until the exact moment when I opened another can? That was so mean.

Dear Husband: Thanks for feeding the kids.

Dear Kids: Thanks for getting your father to feed you.

Dear TV: I’ll be there in a few minutes. Looking forward to some Netflix!

Yesterday I went for a walk in the woods behind my house. It was a nice day, and I wanted a good stretch for my legs, so I went farther than I usually do. I forgot, though, that it’s harder to find my way at this time of year. I’m used to walking in the winter, when there are no leaves on the trees and more of the rocky landscape is visible. Snow on the ground also allows for easy backtracking. The woods in early autumn are better at concealing their secrets, and I got lost.

I wasn’t worried per se, but it was late afternoon, and the clouds overhead threatened rain. I knew that, if I just kept walking, I’d eventually come to a place that was familiar or I’d reach a road. But I also knew that when the light failed I would start to get scared. I didn’t even have my phone with me (stupid!), or a light, or anything else that would be useful, except my head and my feet.

So I walked and walked and I did eventually come to a place I recognized: the Abandoned Truck. The Abandoned Truck is near what I call Oil Can Swamp, which is, as you might guess, a marshy area where someone dumped a bunch of oil cans (people can be such jerks!). I don’t usually go there, because it’s depressing, but I knew exactly where I was. Given a map, I could have pinpointed my position on it. I was on the side of the woods opposite from my house. But, it had been years since the last time I was there, and I wasn’t sure which paths to take to get home. Ugh.

I was near a road, though, so I took it. The way home by road was less than direct, and the steady stream of speeding rush-hour traffic made the trek seem even longer. Main roads are convenient for driving but unpleasant for walking. They are also dangerous, as silently attested to by the dead raccoon and opossum I saw along the way. When we are driving, we don’t realize just how fast we are going compared to everything else, or the force with which we move the air, how our hurtling cars rock the world as they fly through it. From the pedestrian’s point of view, it is terrifying.

I was mindful of the traffic, though, and I made it home safely. I got quite a lot of exercise and fresh air along the way. And, because the story ends that way, I’m calling it a good walk.