9/10/08 GOOD DOGS AND A SOMETIMES BAD TREE

7:00 AM. 42 degrees, wind WSW, calm. The channel is dimpled. The sky is mostly cloudy and the barometer down, predicting more of the same.
I walked Erick’s dog, and of course Lucky, and Roxy tagged along. All are good dogs, at least as long as one has a pocket full of treats. It gets light later and later each day now, so it was kind of a dusky walk.
The hawthorn tree pictured here is Winter King hawthorn, Crataegus X ’Winter King’. It is a very handsome, smallish tree, with deep maroon fall color and attractive berries which last the winter. Most of the hawthorns are hard to use as street trees due to their spreading habit and sometimes vicious thorns. As a young nursery worker I hated them, because digging one was like tangling with a wildcat. I may still have some scars on my backside from the three inch long thorns of the cockspur hawthorn.
The geese are starting to flock up to move further south, and their honking V formations are commonly seen every morning now.
There is a surprise ice cream cake birthday party for Judy at camp this afternoon and we will be happy to attend, and maybe pick some blackberries and collect some more wild carrot plants as well.