Pond Ponderings

The sky was gloomy and overcast. Rain was forecasted. We knew we wouldn’t be able to ramble far from home unless we wanted to risk soggy socks, soaking hair, and dripping clothes.

Though we’ve hiked in ponchos before, it wasn’t fun. While our upper halves stayed nice and dry, though steamy under the plastic coat, our pant legs ended up wet and damp socks created a blister-y bad time. (That particular day we’d had an 18-mile loop hike planned but had accidentally turned the wrong way onto the North Country Trail. A few miles in we realized our mistake and ended up doing an out-and-back hike of many fewer miles due to our sogginess and discomfort in the region of my heels.)

So instead of risking a bad time in the rain, we decided to adventure close to home.

Like backyard close to home.

Our “backyard” mainly consists of gardens (flower and veggie), a steep hill, a bog, and a pond. Sometime before our time here, someone created a trail down to the bog that’s like a switchback on a mountain. This singular “switchback” lets one get down to the bog and back up to the house by walking at a lesser steep grade than if we just walked straight down the hill. Bless whoever that was because that hill is so steep Luna struggled to climb up it through the snow one winter. I thought I was going to have to rescue her. It was unclear to me how I was going to haul 60 pounds of dog up a hill through knee-deep snow, so thankfully she finally managed on her own.

With several trees now cut down, we’ve noticed some mystery plants popping up in the bog this year. At least they’re a mystery to us when viewed from the deck. Once we get down there for a closer look, it’s a -bit easier to figure out what they are. The first “plant” we noticed a month or so ago, ended up not being a mystery plant at all but was actually a pitcher plant bloom.

But the plant we noticed a few days ago–appearing from the deck as just a light-colored blob on a stalk–still remains a mystery even after viewing it up close. I’m leaning toward it being Tall Cottongrass (Eriophorum angustifolium), which is a vigorously spreading perennial that grows at the edge of ponds or in bogs. As we’d had a bit of rain the day before, the tufts of white were a bit bedraggled but oh so pretty gleaming in the sun.

This tiny adventure wouldn’t have been complete without a mushroom sighting (Turkey Tail, Trametes versicolor) and a photo of a pitcher plant.

We stood for a while at the water’s edge. Hubby dipped sticks into the water to determine how deep it is (depth still unknown as the sticks never touched bottom), and we discussed how next year we’d finally get the dock he built last summer into place so we can finally explore this pond we’ve been looking at for 20+ years. Then the promised rain began to fall, and our son shouted from the deck that we better get a move on unless we wanted to get wet. So we scurried at a snail’s pace over our rickety “boardwalk” and over a felled tree and up the “switchback,” being careful to avoid a few pesky, partially hidden stumps, and were only a little damp when we made it inside.

As for books…

I recently listened to a short story collection titled The Homecoming & Other Stories by Maeve Binchy. I enjoyed most of the stories in this collection. The entire collection can be listened to in approximately 1 hour.

This Author Should Have “Circled Back”

Remember Pig Pen from Peanuts? Remember how he always had a dust cloud surrounding his body? We’ve got a dog like him, but instead of being surrounded by a dust cloud, he’s surrounded by a cloud of fur. It gets to be quite a hairy situation this time of year. He hates…and I don’t use that term lightly…to be brushed or combed or messed with in any way. No one has ever mistreated him. He’s just been suspicious of nail clippers and brushes since he was a wee little fellow. He will let you know, loudly and rudely, that all of those things touching him are a BAD TOUCH! (Last time he went to the vet, he peed on the floor, snarled, and Booty Blasted the vet tech in the chest. He’s now to be given a sedative before he returns. For the non-dog owners out there, a Booty Blast is when a dog releases his anal glands and a stream of the most fowl smelling liquid shoots everywhere. Our younger dog, lucky us, just happens to have very testy anal glands that release at the slightest provocation.)

But today…today we had success. He allowed me to comb him. He only allowed me to comb him with MY comb, but it was still progress. A huge wad of undercoat was removed which I promptly placed on Rosie’s (the cat) head. She looks thrilled, right? Maybe she’ll punish me tonight and not sleep with me. One can only hope!

Just kidding. Sort of.

I love that little girl. Most of the time.

We raised her and her sister (who died last year) from one day old. Rosie is now 16 and very bossy. She knows what she wants and she wants it now. And if you don’t get it NOW, she will meow loudly until you do. Even if it takes her 2 hours.

Most nights she’s well behaved during the hours between midnight and 8 a.m. Some nights I have paws in my ears, a wet nose on my cheek, or a loud purr in my ear. (The purring isn’t so bad.) I’m the lucky one, though. My husband gets the other end facing him and has occasionally woken up to a tail draped over his face and hairy back legs against his cheek.

But how does Rosie the cat tie in to reading or books??? Let me tell you.

Rosie can’t stand not getting attention when her favorite people are near. Rosie has to be in your face letting you know that she’s there, and she desperately needs you to acknowledge her existence. This desperation usually entails getting between me and whatever I’m reading before bed. Occasionally, this is not a bad thing. Especially when the book I’m reading isn’t all that wonderful.

Very rarely do I come across a book I’m not overly fond of or that I really, really dislike. There is one laying on the bathroom floor right now that I’ve been SLOWLY making my way through since January. (Why the bathroom floor, you might wonder? Perhaps I’m just keeping it there in case we face another toilet paper shortage.) I had high hopes for it, even shelling out full price for it, which is something I rarely do. Sadly, it is disappointing and may take me all year to finish. Some might just toss it away and be done with it, but I will persevere if only because of how much it cost.

I just finished another book that was disappointing. Thankfully I only paid .20 for it at a used book store. (This used book store has since gotten rid of all their super cheap stuff and is now charging half price for everything. I went in last summer to get some mind-numbing cheapie romance novels and came right back out when I found out I’d have to pay half price for something I could read in a day.)

I’m generally a fan of Maeve Binchy’s books and have read several. In my opinion, The Lilac Bus was not one of the good ones. It could have been good had the author just “circled back” a little. (Some Americans will get that reference.)

Each character in The Lilac Bus was given a chapter. It was basically short story after short story about each person who rode the Lilac Bus home from the city to a small town on the weekend. I was disappointed to not really have any idea how any of their stories ended up resolving. I guess I was looking for all their stories to converge somehow and for there to be a lovely happy ending.

Four additional short stories that related in no way to the original “story” were included in the back of the book. I found these equally disappointing.

Now I have to wonder, was my problem with the book only the lack of “circling back” or was the problem just me and my reading tastes? Do I just not like short stories? I don’t often read them and never really liked those short stories included in our language arts textbooks in school. Do they all lack a resolution…a conclusion that answers all of my questions or at least gives me some idea which direction the author wants my imagination to go as I ponder how it should end? Am I the only one who finds it annoying when I have to ponder out how the story will end and then sit there wondering if I got it right? (Even though there really is no right answer.) Who knows?