Peggy's Jibber-Jabber

Oh my goodness!

What a plethora of critters I have for you this week — not to mention a ton of road pictures I didn’t get to show you last week. We’re not going to have any trouble filling up ten pages, that’s for sure, even if all I do is show you my photos!

Our bridge is out. Many of you know that. A truck hauling a piece of equipment hit several of the overhead steel trusses. Even though we got as close as we could, the damage isn’t readily apparent. I was looking at the top and didn’t see anything bent.

There’s a Facebook page devoted to updates on the Rainbow Bridge and this week they posted photos of the damage.

Aye-yi-yi!

PennDOT has said it knows it’s a major route and is working hard to get it open as soon as possible.

Because the bridge is out, we’re having to take alternate routes to get to where we wanna go. This has led to me taking a ton of photos.

Let’s start with one of my not-so-good photos. By the time I spot these birds and get my camera up, I only got two shots, then we were past them.

This is the best of the two.

I couldn’t tell what they were and AI says they’re ducks.

I never thought they were ducks.

The next day, Jimmy Cole, a person in the Bradford County Birding group on FB, posted photos they took of a pair of Ospreys along the Susquehanna.

Is it a stretch to think my blurry photo of a pair of birds fishing on the banks of the Susquehanna are Ospreys?

We had to slow for a turkey crossing the road. I bet they do some damage if you hit them with your car.

Horses. But I bet you knew that.

Goats.

Cows. But I bet you knew that, too.

We were going out our road when I spot a hawk, his back to me, sitting on a branch overhanging the road.

Mike stopped and backed up for me, then drove slowly forward.

“Let me see if he’ll sit there while I get out so I can take a picture of his face,” I said. Usually, normally, they don’t, but this guy did! Isn’t he beautiful?! This is a Red-shoulder Hawk.

This species is called Barn Cat.

We were heading to Sayre on this day. Mike wanted to go to Lowe’s for a drainpipe. He’s working on the ditch beside the driveway.

“There’s an eagle!” I exclaim. And it’s in a place along Route 220 that I’ve not seen one before.

It wasn’t until I looked at the picture on my computer that I saw there were two eagles in the tree.

There weren’t any cars behind us on the highway so Mike slowed for me as we pass the eagles’ nest above Ulster. She (or he) has their head down.

“Is she feeding the babies?” Mike asked.

“That would be my guess.”

On the way home we’re in traffic and Mike keeps pace. It’s never worth a photo to put yourself or others in danger.

A car passes, going in the other direction, and clears my line of sight just in time for me to fire off a quick shot before the next car. The eagle has her head up and it’s not quite in focus. Nonetheless, I’m happy with the shot.

I watched for the spot where I’d seen the eagle on the way up to Sayre.

“It’s still there!” I said, my camera on rapid fire.

I didn’t know there were two so I was only looking for one — so that’s all I got.

Ducks, or maybe they’re geese, in the distance, but that’s not why I took this shot.

“Why then?” you wanna know.

Mike wants a windmill, one about this size.

This guy was in our yard when we pulled in the driveway. He never flew, just walked away. He went up on the hill and instead of taking the direct route through the weeds he took the path Mike mows.

Coming home from one of outings this week, we came home across the Laceyville bridge. There were no cars behind us so Mike slowed to almost a stop as I tried to get the eagle in the nest.

It didn’t come out very good and I probably wouldn’t show you it but for one thing.

“What’s that?” you ask.

This week is about all the critters I saw and this was one of them. Have no fear! I’ll try again to get a decent shot.

A whistle pig, on a rock, in the middle of a field. He saw me and dove for his burrow.

Another shot I was able to get only because Mike backed up for me. It looks like this heron has something in his mouth. A small fish maybe? A frog? I can’t tell.

As I was taking pictures, another heron flew in and landed nearby. I couldn’t get both herons in one shot because the first guy took his catch and went home.

More cows.

And the last critter shot is a calico sitting in an open window.

But it’s not my last critter story!

My cute little red haired sister has guinea pigs. She calls them her piggies.

About a hundred years and a lifetime ago, I read a small book called Pigs is Pigs by Ellis Parker Butler. The book I had was missing the last page or two and it was a long time until I found out how the book ended. It was such a cute story.

I found the book on eBay recently and got it for Diane.

“Good morning! It's my day off and I'm up! I read Pigs is Pigs! It's a 120 year old short story about guinea pigs. Mine are happy and healthy,” she wrote in her morning love note.

“What’s it about?” you wanna know.

Keep in mind that back then there was no internet. No email. It took weeks for a letter to reach its destination and a reply to be returned. And time is what caused all the problems in this story.

Mike Flannery, a stubborn railway express agent, insists on charging the “pig rate” for shipping a pair of guinea pigs. The customer argues they’re pets, not pigs, but Flannery refuses to bend, repeating his famous line.

“Rules is rules,” said Flannery, “and pigs is pigs.”

While the company debates the proper rate, the guinea pigs are kept at the station... and they multiply. And multiply. And multiply. By the time the company finally rules that guinea pigs are not pigs, Flannery is drowning in a hilarious avalanche of squeaking, hungry guinea pigs.

In the years it’s been since I’ve read the story, I’d forgotten how it ended. It’s a fast read, taking only about 15-20 minutes and when I read the end, I laughed all over again. Then I passed it on to the Kipps to read before sending it off to Diane.

“How’s it end?” you wanna know.

And I’m not going to tell you. If you look, you can find a copy on sites like Project Gutenberg.

Speaking of Diane...

When we visited with her last year, she asked me to bring my sketchbooks with me. I did. She fell in love with two of my sketches and I cut them out of the books and gave them to her. A week or so ago she framed it and sent me a picture.

You can’t get in a hurry about this stuff, don’cha know.

Doesn’t it look fabulous!

“Did you do any practice sketches this week?” you ask.

I’m so glad you asked!

I did.

I did exactly one.

I showed it to my siblings. My handsome brother David was the first to reply.

“I like it Peggy but when I saw the nose of the horse, I thought — ‘EEYORE from Winnie the Pooh.’ It brought a smile to this old face.”

I’m happy when I can make someone smile, it makes me smile, too.

“Your practice looks better than a lot of other people’s best,” my beautiful sister Phyllis replied.

This is Sugar. She’s been in the cat condo for two years now.

“I think she’s too young to keep in a condo for the rest of her life,” I told my handsome mountain man. “I’m going to put her outside.”

Which is where Sugar belongs. She was never an inside cat but we’d bring her in for the winter to keep her from getting sick. Then Hatch showed up last year and we were afraid he’d run her off, and we didn’t want that. And she stayed in last summer. I did some research on it and Copilot is confident that a fixed female and a tom would be wary of each other but would come to terms fairly quickly.

I put Sugar outside—

And she was afraid—

And left a trail of fur behind her.

Cats drop their hair because fear triggers a sudden fight‑or‑flight response. When they get scared the tiny muscles in their skin tighten and all the loose hairs fall out at once.

I left her out for the day, thinking she’d remember and get more confident, but she didn’t. She took a turn around the yard, hid behind the gas tanks for a while, then spent the rest of the day in the feral cat house on the kitchen patio.

I brought her back in.

If she’s happy in there, I’m happy to take care of her.

Lowe’s doesn’t carry drainpipe.

“Let’s go to the hardware store in Dushore,” Mike said.

I was happy to go and thought I’d pick up some flowers for my pots while we were there.

How about some road pictures. They’re not all from this trip, but are road pictures, nonetheless. These are next in line and I need to start emptying the file.