Sunday, July 27, 2014

My current desktop, as with last weeks desktop, may not impress you much.

“What is it?” I hear you ask.

It is a handrail, down the center of a set of steps, that is almost reclaimed by nature.

I want to thank everyone for your outpouring of love, sympathy and prayers at the loss of Tami-Mike’s only biological child-last week.

I owe my brother Mike a huge thank you. When he died he left me a wealth of information in the form of some well thumbed books. Edible Weeds, Identifying Fungus; Trees; Birds; Wildflowers, and I don’t remember what all else.

Mike has been gone for five years now and when I was given his books, I didn’t truly appreciated them. Although I’ve always loved the wildflowers, and wanted to know their names, it hasn’t been until this year that I was interested in harvesting the wild edibles. I was thinking about buying a book about it but when we got back to our mountain home, I found that I already owned one!

So, brother Michael, a great big THANK YOU.

I actually have a note on my list from back in the spring! Can you believe that? And when I see the note it makes me smile.

I had taken the girls out for a walk and Ginger started limping. So I bent down and checked her toes for burs or a piece of twig or rock or something, but there wasn’t anything there. Yet, still she limped. Did I check the wrong foot, I wondered. I have a hard time figuring out which leg hurts when people limp, maybe I had the wrong foot with Ginger too. So once again I stopped and this time I checked all her feet.

She’s faking, I realized. Her feet were wet and they were cold and she didn’t want to walk anymore! So she started limping.

The first time I saw a dog do this was when our oldest boy Chris came to visit us in Pennsylvania with his little Yorkie.

“Chris, he’s limping,” I told him.

“He’s alright,” Chris said. “He just doesn’t like wet feet.” And this is the only reason I knew that dogs would limp on purpose.

In all the years we’ve had Ginger, in all the different kinds of weather I’ve had her out in, she has never pulled this stunt before. But I’m afraid I’m half to blame for this.

“How’s that?” you ask.

I was given booties for Ginger this past winter and she wore them quite a lot. Do you think the booties spoiled her?

This next story is kind of a two part story.

Back when I was working for Mr. Zee, I took him and my other lady, Miss Helen, down to Hope House one day.

“What’s Hope House?” you ask.

It is a thrift store and food pantry. This was back in February or March and we were having a pretty nice day that day. Not too hot, and not too cold, so we took Mr. Zee’s dog Georgie with us and let her wait in the car. Mr. Zee got some food from the food pantry, and Helen and I looked around at the clothes and household items. When all of us were done and we got back out to the car, what do we see?

Georgie had poop all over the seats, that’s what!

Geesh!

I think she pooped on the back seat, walked through it several times and jumped up into the front seats. She certainly made quite a mess, not to mention a stink too, as I bet you can imagine. I got a plastic bag and picked up the nuggets, but I couldn’t do anything about the residue left behind, so I went back in and got some rags to throw over the seats. I always intended to get some fabric cleaner and clean the seats for Mr. Zee, but somehow, I never got around to it.

Then Mr. Zee’s niece borrowed his van and she took the covers off the seats and vacuumed it out before she returned it, full of gas of course. I’m guessing she didn’t know what the spots were, but by this time they were good and dry. From then on we just sat on the spots and I tried not to think about what it was too much.

Just before Mike and I went to Pennsylvania, I took Mr. Zee shopping. One of the things that he bought was a refill size of Out, Pet Stain & Odor Remover. I didn’t think anything about it and I just tossed it in on the seat, in it’s Wal Mart bag, along with the rest of the grocery’s.

Well, guess what?
“What?” you answer.

Some practical joker had loosened the lid of the cleaner and it had leaked into the Wal Mart bag, seeping out a hole in the bag and soaking the back seat!

“Oh no!” I exclaimed when I picked up the dripping bag. I tightened the lid, set the bag on the ground, got some paper towels and soaked up the cleaner.

“Peg, what about the inner seal?” you ask.

I know right! Almost all liquids have a seal under the cap to keep leaks from happening until you get them home. But not all of them. So I was doubly surprised when I unscrewed the lid and saw there was indeed an inner seal. I raked my thumb against it and discovered someone had pulled the inner seal halfway off.

What a stinker!

But even when apparently bad things happen, good things can come from them. It was the perfect time-and the right cleaner-to get Georgie’s residue off the seats and in no time at all, I had the seats clean.

Silver linings, my friends, silver linings.

Speaking of Miss Helen, I had gone out to help with her flower beds late one afternoon and at one point I lost a glove.

“Where’d that glove go?” I asked Miss Helen, like it sprouted legs and ran off on his own. I looked and looked and looked for that glove all the while chatting with Miss Helen.

All of a sudden I hear Miss Helen exclaim, “Here it is!” She must have picked it up with her things when we moved our tools to a new location. I LOVE this photo of her. The shear joy on her face just makes me smile every time I see it. And don’t you just love the sun hat?

Look at this.

“What is it?” you ask.

It’s a baby stroller. It has a partially consumed bottle of water in it as well as three baby shoes.

The first time I saw the stroller was after a brief, but intense rain storm. When I walked past it, I didn’t think too much of it. I just thought they must be in a store shopping. But it was there the next day, and the next day and the next day!

My question is this. Who goes off and leaves a stroller?

In my mind, I can see it all now. The rain is pouring down, Dad went and got the car and drove it to where Mom and Baby waited under the shelter of an awning. Mom pulls Baby from stroller, losing a shoe (that’s why there are only three shoes), hands Baby off to Dad (who is sitting nice and dry in the car) and goes back for the stroller.

That stroller!

It has always been difficult-even under the best of circumstances-to get it to collapse the way it’s supposed to! Stupid stroller!

“JUST LEAVE IT AND LET’S GO!” Dad yells over the roar of the downpour.

Do you think that’s what happened?

Let’s do August birthdays.

Me! 2^nd; Bradley Daniel Bowers, 8^th; Kayla Olewiler, 13^th; Jabe Austin Buhmeier, 13^th; Ariana Goldsborough, 20^th; Ralph Lewis Smith, 21^st; Nicholas Olewiler, 21^st; Michael Cosentino, 22^nd; Kathryn Lynn Kraft, 25^th; Rani Goldsborough, 25^th; Clarence Arthur Smith, 28^th.

Remember, if my info is wrong, or someone is missing, I won’t know if you don’t tell me. (I love having middle names, birth and death years.)

Let’s call this one done.

Lots and lots of love,

Peg and Mike

Sunday, July 20, 2014

My current desktop photo is Queen Anne’s lace with the Lake in the background. It looks cool on my desktop, although I realize this picture may not impress you much.

I went a long ways in cleaning up my notes the last time I wrote, but there are still things from our Pennsylvania trip I want to tell you about.

BUT...

They will have to wait. So forgive me if I jump back and forth in time and I promise that I will not make this letter too long. Okay?

I have some sad news.

Michael’s daughter, Tami died early this morning. She had just turned 45 on the 11^th of July and had lung cancer that metastasized to the brain and adrenal glands. At least that’s how far it had spread when she refused any more treatments. For the last couple of months they were just keeping her comfortable.

In my photo, Mike is standing beside his brother’s sister Toni. (A family joke. “She’s not my sister, she’s my brother’s sister!” Mike has said many times.) Tami is seated with her adopted sons on either side of her. I took the photo December, 13, 2011. Tami wanted to reconcile with her father after a very long estrangement-20 some years! And that was the reason for the visit. Mike and Tami talked on the phone several times since then and we saw her and the boys again the next year at our huge Magic Dragon Car Show. They were going to come for the car show again in 2013 but that was when the cancer was discovered.

This past week we got word that Tami was not doing well, so Mike and I decided to go see her. Friday morning we took off and drove to Rockford, Illinois.

I can’t tell you what a shock it was to see Tami in the condition she was in. Cancer had transformed this once vibrant, beautiful gal into little more than a shell. When we got there Friday afternoon, Tami was sleeping and we didn’t think we should wake her, so we left to find a motel room for the night.

At this point I need to tell you the names and relationships of the people in my story, so you can understand who’s who, so please bare with me for a moment.

A few years after Mike and Tami’s mom Mary, divorced, she married a man by the name of Mel. Then Mary died of cancer about 17-18 years ago. Mel has since remarried and his current wife is Gail. And let me tell you! She seems like she is an awesome lady. Gail has been taking care of everything from what I can see.

Mike let Gail know we were there and even though we saw Tami, we hadn’t talked to her because we didn’t want to wake her.

“Wake her,” Gail said. “I know she’ll be glad you did.”

So we settled into a motel room, unpacked and decompressed for an hour or so, then cleaned up and went back. Tami was still sleeping, but we woke her.

It was hard.

We tried to talk with her, but between the coughing and her voice being so weak, we couldn’t understand what she was saying most of the time. Then she wanted to sit up, but didn’t want any help in doing so. It was slow going as she had to stop several times every minute to cough. Once she was up I could see she had stuff in her mouth and needed some help, so I went off to the nurses station. The nurse or aide or whatever she was, came in and turned on a suction machine and gave Tami the straw. That was tremendously helpful rather than trying to spit into a tissue or basin and much more effective. Mike couldn’t bare it all and had to leave the room. It was an agonizing 40 minutes until she had enough junk out of her lungs that she could speak more than a single syllable at time. At one point I patted the top of her foot.

“That hurt my foot,” she said. I was mortified and apologized profusely. But I could understand her without asking her to repeat herself. So I called Mike to come back in the room.

“Gail will be here in a little while with the boys,” Mike told us, referring to Dillon and Devon, the adopted sons.

Shortly after Gail arrived another man showed up and they asked us to leave the room so they could take care of some business. Mike and I took the boys out to the waiting area and visited with them for a while.

After all the paperwork was taken care of, we sat with Tami, Gail, and the boys for a little longer, then said our goodbyes, telling Tami we would see her in the morning before we headed for home.

In the parking lot, Gail told us the arrangements for the care of the boys was now finalized and it seemed to take a load off Tami.

Mike and I saw Tami for a few minutes the next morning. She must have been awake for a while because she sounded stronger.

“I’m glad you came,” she told her dad.

“I am too,” Mike responded, hugging, kissing and exchanging I love yous.

Then we left, only to get the phone call this morning.

Isn’t this a funny looking caterpillar? It looks like he has great big eyes, but they aren’t eyes! They are spots to fool predators.

“What kind of butterfly will he be?” I hear you ask.

He will be a swallowtail. More specifically, he will be a Spicebush (or Spicebrush) Swallowtail. They are the ones that were on the butterfly weed in my desktop photo last week.

I found him in the parking lot, a long way from anything green. I picked him up and brought him upstairs with me with the intention of releasing him someplace a little more woodsy when I took the girls out for their evening walk.

I’ve learned a lot about these caterpillars since I found this one. For instance, this little guy is in his fifth instar.

“What the heck is that?” you wonder.

I know, right! That’s what I wondered too! Instars are the period between molts. So these little guys molt five times before they pupate, then they become adult, starting a new life as a butterfly.

I had to really really look hard to find a reference to emitting an odor. I thought I would find it on the websites that talk about the lifecycle of the butterfly, but there wasn’t a single mention of it on the first three websites I checked. So what did I do? I Googled ‘spicebush emit odor’ and that’s were I found out that they do. But I had already guessed that they did. When I picked this one up, I smelled a faint, vaguely lemony, skunkish odor and thought it might be from the caterpillar.

Once in the apartment I left him mostly alone, until I was ready to take him out and release him. Then I thought I would try to get a better photo of him. I teased him until he stood up, then I noticed he stuck his tongue out at me! He must have been really mad.

Cool! I think and I was going to try to get a picture of it for you, but it wasn’t long at all until I noticed that same skunky smell as before and the more I teased him, the stronger it got!

Uh-oh. I’m making the whole place stink! I better get him out of here before Mike notices. So quick as I could, I harnessed up Itsy and Ginger, grabbed my walking gear and Mr. Spicebush and out we went!
In my online investigation I learned about the defense mechanisms of this cute little guy. What I thought was a tongue was really the osmeterium of the caterpillar. When attacked, the larvae will stand up, creating the illusion of a snake and expose this y-shaped organ typically folded up within the caterpillar. For many Spicebush Swallowtails, the osmeterium is red in color, thus resembling a snake tongue, even further enhancing the disguise. It is this organ that emits the odor.


Now, before anyone gets any thoughts about me teasing him, all I did was touch him with a paper towel. He didn’t like that at all!

There is death, and there is life. I think it is all in God’s plan.

Lots and lots of love,

Peg and Mike

Sunday, July 13, 2014

My current desktop photo is a swallow tail on butterfly weed. I love how the orange of the flower is reflected in the spots on his wings. There were three butterflies on this bush, but I couldn’t get a good shot of them together.

“Why not?” you ask.

Well I am so glad you asked! That beautiful orange bush was behind this!

“Are those blackberries?” you ask.

Yes they are! Look how loaded the bush is and the blackberries are a good size too, some almost as big as my thumb!

“How did you ever see the butterfly weed?” you wonder.

Simple, I was picking blackberries when I looked up and saw the butterflies. As carefully as I could, I made my way to where I could get a good shot of them, but by then only one butterfly had hung around.

I’ll tell you what, picking blackberries in a wild bush is not for the faint of heart! It also isn’t for anyone dressed in shorts either!

Yeah, yeah, I hear you laughing at me. I guess you would have had sense enough to put on blue jeans before you went blackberry picking, right? Well, as they say, live and learn. It has been so many years since I’ve picked blackberries that I hadn’t really thought it out very good. But since the blackberries are just now getting ripe, I will have another crack at it.

I have learned something else too. Something besides don’t wear shorts.

“What’s that Peg?”

I learned that if a bramble grabs hold of you, don’t pull away! Those thorns are wicked! They just set harder if you pull back. Oh, and I learned to make sure there isn’t a whip in front of your camera before you reach down and grab for it too. Ouch!

Last time I wrote, I told you all about our fire and Macchiato peeing on me.

“Any updates?” you ask.

As far as the fire goes, our tenants insurance will take care of everything, up to his limit, that is.

As far as Macchiato goes, we found out that she’s a he, about three years old, neutered and does have a UTI.

“I think we’ve had her for about three years now,” Mike says, unable to accept the fact that she’s a he.

“It’s only a guess, he could be four or maybe even five.” So we will call Macchiato a four year old.

One of the best cats I ever had was a male Siamese named Simon, named after another great Siamese named Simon-a cat we had when I was growing up. When my Simon was hit on the road, I cried for two weeks!

You should show them a picture of Simon, I think to myself. I just recently saw a photo of him as I was flipping through photos in Pennsylvania, held in the arms of my beautiful daughter when she was a young girl. I either gave the photo away or it’s still in PA. Either way, I don’t need a photo, he still lives in my heart.

I love writing.

I used to write just on Sundays, but it seems it’s all I want to do right now. I have a lot of stories I want to commit to paper before I lose them, a lot of memories. I want-no, that’s not quite right-I would like to be paid for making these stories. But if I never earn a cent from writing, I will still write. It’s like photos, you know. At least it’s how I feel about photos. I can’t help but make them.

Okay, so here’s something you may not know.

“What’s that?” you ask.

Last week was an awesome week with my awesome man, Mike. We worked together in the mornings and he left me to my story making in the afternoons. Before the fire, I had already had a seven page story written on my computer for you.

Seven pages!

I hadn’t counted on the drama of the fire.

Despite having seven pages already written, I felt like I should tell you about the fire. Then as long as I was telling you about the fire, I might just as well tell you about my awesome grandson Andrew. It’s not bragging when it’s crucial to the story, don’t you know. After all, those were events that led up to the fire. Before I knew it I had a ten page letter written!

I texted Kevin, “I already had most of a letter written-7 pgs before last night. Now Im off on my favorite subject...Andrew! How do you guys feel about a 10 pge letter?”

“It does not matter if there is 1 page or 50. We love them,” he texted back. I had to smile at that.

So I continued to write and before I knew it, it was 15 pages long and I hadn’t even finished the last story on the first seven pages! I was going to try to wrap it up and contain it to eight pages, but who knows about these things. It could have run over then I would have a different decision to make.

I can’t send fifteen pages, I thought to myself. It’s unprecedented!

So I chopped the letter off on why Macchiato was outside when he normally spends nights in the apartment with us! It’s why I didn’t tell the fireman that we had three cats upstairs, instead of two, when he asked.

So this time I want to pick up my story as I had written it mid-week two weeks ago.

If you remember...

I had started to tell you how sad it will make me to not be involved in our grandson Andrew’s life. Before I knew it, I was off on a tangent called A Day With Andrew. It was not the story I had set down to write, but sometimes stories have a life of their own. And that one certainly did. Afterwards, when I read the story in it’s entirety, I realized what I had written wasn’t what I had intended to write about at all!

Can we start again?

“If your place in Missouri sells, will you be happy living in Pennsylvania?” This is a question we get asked every once in a while. Most recently while we were talking to our friends and neighbors The Robinson’s.

We were telling Steph that we have had some interest in our Missouri property recently with new businesses moving in, other businesses remodeling, renovating and expanding.

“Yes, and no,” I always answer. “I love the mountains of Pennsylvania, it is the place my heart calls home, but Andrew is in Missouri!”

That beautiful neighbor lady listened patiently as she always does. “I understand what you’re saying,” Steph said. “But do you know that I grew up only getting to see my grandmother in the summertime?”

“Nu-uh,” I said.

“She made summers special! I have sooo many wonderful memories of her. Summers were the best! ” Thinking about it brought many great memories to her mind and Steph’s face lit up as she recalled going to the cabin at the lake, canning peaches, learning to bake and even just working in the garden with her grandmother. All were warm and special memories for her.

It gave me hope and made me feel better.

If I can’t spend a lot of time with Andrew, I can make the time we spend together special. Maybe he’ll remember it too, like Stephanie does, and smile fondly with memories when he is old.

Our trip to Pennsylvania was riddled with close calls and near misses. Okay, that is a slight exaggeration, because Mike is a really good driver and it wasn’t all that close. But we hadn’t gone but a few miles up the road when a tractor trailer pulls across the highway in front of us and has to stop in the median to clear traffic before completing his turn. Guess where that left his trailer?

Yep! In our lane. Mike had to hit his brakes.

A little later we see a car down in the ditch--

“Look at that!”

And we kept on going.

Soon, some jerk passes us, cuts in front of us and hits his brake to slow down enough to turn right off the highway. No de-acceleration lane here. Mike had to hit his brakes again. He was a champ though and took it all in stride as he grumbled that he should be given a special ray gun so he can rid the highways of these jerks FOREVER! He makes a gun of his index finger and thumb and makes shooting sounds to emphasize his point, replete with explosions.

“Now don’t forget sweetheart,” I say. “Sometimes we’re that jerk.”

But the scariest moment came as Mike and I were going through one of the cities and this SUV passes us on the left, like he is supposed to, and cuts back in front of us.

“Boy! He sure didn’t give us much room, did he?” I asked indignantly.

“No he didn’t,” Mike said not upset at all. He didn’t even pull out his ray gun this time!

Traffic is moving along and all of a sudden the back of the SUV drops down as the wheel comes off and bounces down the road at us!

Mike is on high alert by this time, boy let me tell you! I bet my mouth was hanging open and my eyes were big as saucers! I was scared.

We watched in silence as driver after driver misses the bouncing, rolling tire and the driver of the SUV fights to retain control of his vehicle and make his way off the road-narrowly missing a car in the slow lane. It was only then that I thought about getting a picture for you.

“Peg! What happened to the tire?” I hear you ask.

You know, it was surreal. The tire rolled down the highway for what seemed like miles before gently cutting across the lanes of traffic and falling over when it hit the grass on the side of the road.

Mike has this gorgeous big red truck that we call....

What else?

Big Red.

It’s a 2000 Ford F-550 that has a Centurion Conversion package and a pickup bed.

“Don’t all trucks come with a bed on them?” I hear you ask.

And the answer is no. F-550’s in 2000 did not come with a bed on them. They were considered commercial work trucks. You bought the truck and added a working man’s tool box bed, or a tank or something to it yourself! Pick-up beds don’t fit the frame so we had to have a spacer made and put between the cab and the bed. It’s a beautiful truck.

“Yeah, yeah, Peg!” I hear you say. “Where is this truck?”

Well, until recently, the truck was stored in one of the barns at our mountain home. Now it’s here in Missouri with us.

The second day we were in Pennsylvania, Mike went down to get the truck and it wouldn’t start. After two years of sitting, we were not surprised. Mike put the battery charger on it and waited a while. I went back to the house and before long I hear the truck pull up to the house.

“Peg!” Mike yells. “Come and see this.”

I went out to see what was going on. “What?”

“Go behind the truck,” he says.

I walk behind the truck looking high and looking low as I go and at first I don’t see it, then I looked up and saw the back window of the topper was shattered.

“What happened?” you may be wondering.

We suspect our neighbor across the road shot our barn, shooting out the window in the process.

This neighbor proudly and gleefully told us of his adventures in harassing the trucking company and the saw mill operators, previous owners of our property, when we first met him. Nails in the road, that kind of malicious stuff. Then we weren’t friends anymore. A couple of years or maybe three years gone by now, we noticed there were bullet holes in the side of our barn. The barn that sits near the road, directly across from Bad Neighbors house. We called the State Troopers so we had documentation of Bad Neighbors suspected vandalism.

“Can’t do nothing ’bout it, you can’t prove it was him,” we were told. And it’s true. But I didn’t know until recently that the officer went across the road and talked to Bad Neighbor. I imagine that just pissed him off because sometime during our two year absence, someone shot through our barn again, this time taking out the truck topper window.

Sigh.

Have you ever tried to replace the window of your truck topper? Not an easy feat, let me tell you!

“An auto glass place should be able to do it,” you say.

I know right! That’s what we thought too!

“Can’t do it,” they told us. We finally located a truck cap company in Tunkhannock and after crawling around inside the bed of the truck to locate serial numbers, the replacement glass was ordered.

“How far is Tunkhannock from here?” Mike asked our neighbor Stephanie.
“Twenty five minutes,” Stephanie says.

“No, in miles,” Mike says.

“I don’t measure in miles, I measure in minutes!” she exclaimed.

I laughed.

Two weeks later we go back to Tunkhannock to have the glass replaced. We check in, give them the truck keys and go find a place to sit. I pull out my Nook to help pass the time but Mike was restless. “Let’s go outside,” he says.

“Okay,” I agree. “It’s kind of chilly in here anyway.” I stuff my Nook back in my bag and with my camera around my neck-where it usually is-we walk outside. There are chairs, right there in the front of the business, but they are in the sun.

“I don’t want to sit in the sun,” Mike says. “I’ll get too hot.”

So we walk across the front to see what’s down the side of the building, but there is no place on the shady side to sit. Across the parking lot an old bus and a smoker sit. “Do you think they have food?” Mike asks.

“I think so. I’ve been watching people pull up and leave with bags.”

As we wander in that direction we see a lot of activity under one of those garage awnings. You know the kind I mean? You see them sitting beside the road with for sale signs on them. “Just $695!” they declare.

Under this awning were several picnic tables, and people and a TV camera!

“I wonder what’s going on,” I said.

“I don’t know.”

Mike and I reached the tables and this guy comes running over to us. “Can I help you with something?”

“Is this where we get the barbeque?” Mike asked him.

“Over at the window,” he said indicating the old bus.

Mike and I walked right past it and didn’t realize it was the order window.

“Okay, thanks,” Mike said and we went over and ordered a barbeque sandwich.

“What’s going on over there?” I asked the lady taking our order.

“I think they’re doing an interview about the Marcellus Shale,” she said.

We got our sandwiches and went back over to the tables. We thought we could sit at the end-out of their way-and eat our sandwich.

As we approached with our sandwich, this same guy came running over to us. “There’s a table over there where you can sit.” He said and pointed behind the bus. We turned and looked and sure enough!--there was a table there. How were we supposed to have known that?

“Okay, thanks,” we say once again and making a 90 degree turn, we head for the table.

“Oh and no taking pictures here!” he yells at me. I didn’t have a clue what he was referring to, so I just smile and keep walking. “NO! I’M SERIOUS!” he states rather firmly. “My smokers are all homemade and I don’t allow no one to take pictures of them! You can just take that camera and put it right back in your car!”

I am confused and dumbfounded. “I am not interested in taking pictures of your stuff,” was all I could think to say.

“Then what are you doing with that camera?” he demanded.

“Our truck is being worked on next door and I didn’t want to leave it in the truck!”

“Oh,” he says, and we walk away.

We sat and ate our sandwich then walked back across the 300 foot parking lot to the business where our truck was being worked on.

I headed for the chairs to wait assuming that Mike was right behind me, but he wasn’t. I thought maybe he was looking around the showroom floor. The two chairs in the waiting area are in the same room with this guy right here. Believe it or not, his name is Mike too. Still stinging from my exchange with the neighbor, I decided to tell Mike about it.

“You’re neighbor was really rude to me,” I told him. Catching Mike’s interest, he asked what happened and I told him.

“I’ve known him for a long time and I’ve never known him to be rude to anyone. He just came back from a cook-off in Texas and he took 27^th place for his sauce. I don’t remember what place his barbeque took, but it was under 100 and there were over 400 entries.” Mike explained. Then he went on to say that there’s a lot of money to be made in these contests and those guys get very protective of their equipment.

“So he thinks his homemade smokers are the reason his barbeque is so good?” I ventured to guess.

“I don’t know,” Mike said.

I wandered away to find my Mike and he was talking with this gal, Lisa. Mike had told her what happened and Lisa said she was speechless. She never knew him to be unkind or rude to anyone, ever.

“Maybe he just didn’t like the way we look,” I said. Sometimes that happens, you know? You take an instant dislike to someone from the second you see them.

“Well, I didn’t have any interest in taking pictures of his smokers before, but guess what I’m going to do now?” I said, and everyone laughed.

It wasn’t long until the owner of the cap company came out with some bad news. The replacement glass doesn’t fit. It wasn’t the right one. Doggone it! We waited two weeks for that one and we didn’t have two more weeks to wait for another one.

“I’ll have to put a piece of plywood over it or something,” Mike said.

“Maybe that glass place down the road can cut you a piece of Plexiglas or something,” she suggested. “Lisa, call down there and see.”

Lisa called and the guy said he’d check it out and see what he could do.

They kindly refunded our deposit and as we left, Mike drove past the roadside barbeque stand where I took this photo. This is a photo of the order window (who knew?) and his homemade smoker. If anyone cares, I have other views of the smoker too.

We stopped at the glass place and the man was swamped replacing bus windows someone had vandalized. But he took the frame out of the truck cap and said he would cut a piece of Lexan to put in there. He said it is way better than Plexiglas because it was unbreakable. But we would have to come back in a couple of days.

Another trip to Tunkhannock.

Sigh.

I have discovered-and I am very surprised to learn-that I am afraid of dogs. I have never been afraid of dogs before. Now that I’ve been bitten, I’m afraid. It doesn’t even make sense to me because I knew this was a mean a dog, why should I transfer that fear to all dogs?

When Mike and I got back from Pennsylvania we found out that the dog who bit Ginger and me, Fred, had not been put down. The judge ordered a $500 fine and a years probation. The dog has been sent to live in the country with someone who knows this dog and was willing to take him.

Mike is angry. “He’s just going to wait until it quiets down and bring the dog back,” he says. I hope he’s wrong.

Look what I found the other day. A balloon. A green balloon. And it had writing all over it!

I love you

1. uncle

2. my moms mom

3. God!

And the exclamation point on God was dotted with a heart.

On the other side of the balloon it said:

NOTE

You will Always BE My Rock

Under that it was signed:

From Favian Vineyard!

and Sadie Vineyard!

I wonder who sent it and from where it was sent and was it a special occasion? All questions I will probably never get an answer to.

Look what else I found!

Death by ice cream! What a way to go!

And this.

I’m snapping a photo of this pretty little alcove and look who wants his picture taken.

See him?

Let’s call this one done.

Lots and lots of love,

Peg and Mike