Assumptions

October 25, 2015

My current desktop is this thing?

“What is it?” you ask.

Well, I didn’t know what it was and I didn’t know what to Google to find out either.

Then the Kipp’s were here, Lamar and Rosie. They come up most days to take care of the wild cats and they sit and visit with us if we are around. I asked Lamar if he knew what it might be.

“It looks like wild cucumber,” Lamar said and I was taken aback. I didn’t expect him to know what it was because I was under the impression that they didn’t know much about wildflowers and I have to confess; this is a conclusion I came to all on my own.

“Does that mean you made an assumption, Peg?” you ask.

Well, yeah. I was trying not to use the ‘a’ word because you know what happens when you assume, don’t you? It makes an ‘ass’ out of ’u’ and ’me’. I thought to skirt the whole issue by using the word ‘conclusion’ but I should have known you guys wouldn’t let me get away with it.

“So why did you assume they didn’t know anything about wildflowers?”

I brought some passionflower fruits with me and asked the Kipp’s if they would like to plant some. “That would be like a death sentence,” Rosie told me. “We just kill flowers.”

Translation, in this peon brain of mine, they don’t know anything about wildflowers.

“I could be wrong about what it is,” Lamar said. “You could look it up on the internet.”

Now that I had a place to start I did check the internet. I Goggled wild cucumber and it came right up. Lamar was right. It is wild cucumber, which are not eatable-editable.

“If you didn’t think Lamar knew what it was, why did you ask him?” you may be wondering.

Well, in the very least, I thought it was interesting and something they might like to see and something we could talk about. Not that talking with the Kipp’s is hard because it’s not. The Kipp’s are just about the nicest, kindest, people you could ever want to meet and conversations with them are easy and full of fun and laughter.

Between them and the Robinson’s - literally our place is between the Kipp’s and the Robinson’s! - we have the best neighbors in the whole wide world!

Lamar and Rosie take care of our mill cats when we aren’t here. Heck, they take care of them when we are here too! I can’t tell you how much that means to us. We like having cats because they keep the mice and other rodents down and who doesn’t love kittens?

When the Kipp’s are gone and can’t feed the cats the Robinson’s pinch-hit for them.

Currently we don’t have many cats. Just three at last count plus a stray from somewhere else that is welcome to come and eat with our cats.

“What happened to all your cats?” you ask. “Last I knew you had a dozen!”

I know, right!

It seems we have predators higher on the food chain living in the area, namely foxes and coyotes. They keep our cat population down and that helps with our cat food bill, don’t you know, but one thing that doesn’t help with our cat food bill are squatters.

“Squatters?”

Squatters. Raccoons. And boy, are they smart! The raccoons have managed to get into every container that Lamar has put the cat food in so Lamar set a live trap. He caught a raccoon which is what he expected to catch and he put the coon in the trunk of his car and drove it down around and across to the other side of the Susquehanna somewhere and set it free.

“Now stay on this side of the river!” Lamar admonished the coon as it scampered away.

And the cat food was still disappearing faster than Lamar thought it should. He set the trap again. This time when he checked he had no coon and he had no trap either. Not only was that coon smart, he was strong too! He pulled the trap apart and got out. Lamar, ever practical, decided to keep the cat food at his house and just carry up the days rations.

<<<<<>>>>

Assumptions.

Assuming.

Assume.

I always manage to get myself into trouble when I do any one of those things. And at my age, with as much trouble and embarrassment as I’ve caused myself over the years, you would think that I would know better, wouldn’t you? And yet I continue to assume things.

Sometimes when I don’t know something I just make it up. That’s not to say that I lie, because I don’t. There are many ways to be kind and still tell the truth, but sometimes if I don’t know something, I just put words in to make my stories flow.

“That sounds like a lie to me, Peg!”

If you don’t know it’s a lie, then is it really a lie?

“What are you going on about now!”

Okay, here’s the deal. A couple of weeks ago I was talking about buying Halloween candy for the Halloween Party that is held every year at Luby’s on the Strip in Lake Ozark. I know how much money Mike and I spend on those little goblins, witches and zombies, but what I didn’t know was how much our dear friend Margaret spends. I didn’t want to leave Margaret out of the story because she is a very valuable part of what makes the Halloween Party such a great success, but I didn’t know what she spends. So plainly and simply I said that Margaret buys some candy too.

“I spend as much as you do and sometimes more!” Margaret told me.

I felt like a creep. Margaret is one of the most generous and giving persons you could ever want to meet. Margaret would not only give you the shirt off her own back, she’d go out and buy you two more! I deeply treasure my relationship Margaret and would never intentionally hurt her feelings.

Margaret, I’m sorry and I love you.

<<<<<>>>>>

I talked about working in my shop and making butterflies and here are the two butterflies that I made.

One was for Rosie and the other I made and sent to my beautiful sister.

“I made Phyllis a purple butterfly,” I told Momma on the phone one day.

“Purple! Her favorite color!” Momma said.

I finished all the glass projects that Rosie wanted and now I get to play. I’ve been making a new kind of wind chime that I really like. It is just bits of glass strung together and even if I put the same number and the same shapes of pieces of glass together in different strings, they sound different!

Do I sound surprised?

I am!

I made four and gave Rosie choice.

“Let me hear that one,” Rosie said indicating one of the chimes I presented for her consideration.

I made it move and tinkle and said, “It’s the same as this one, see?” then I tinkled the other one. Boy, was I surprised! “They do sound different!” I exclaimed. Rosie must have known they would, but I didn’t. I really expected them to sound the same and I don’t understand why they don’t.

“I like that one better,” Rosie said and the fact that it had more green in it didn’t factor into it all (even if green is Rosie’s favorite color!).

I’m thinking I’ll be able to make and send a few of these out for Christmas gifts this year so if you think you’d like one, you’d better be letting me know.

“But Peg loves me and knows I’d like one,” you say.

Yeah. I do. But I wouldn’t count on that. Better safe than sorry.

It's The Little Things

Sunday, October 18, 2015

I have had two desktops this past week. An orange leaf among the dried ragweed was up there for most of the week.

The seasons here in Pennsylvania are different than in Missouri as you may well expect. Spring comes later and fall comes earlier. I’ve missed a whole chunk of time by traveling east, don’t you know! In Missouri the ragweed and aster were just starting to bloom and here they have come and gone already! So you won’t have to suffer through too many more wildflower photos. Instead we will move on ‘winter flowers’ as I like to call them.

I took my camera with me when I took Ginger and Itsy out for an early morning walk. I spent a long time taking photos of the dew dripping from leaves and branches, reflecting the early morning sun light. When I saw this one on my computer it immediately caught my attention. There was just something about it that I liked. I made a few clicks with my mouse and made it my desktop photo, minimized my photo editing program to see the desktop and there, in the streak of light is a city with a big round moon above it. Can you see it? And if you use your imagination you can see the city reflected upside down in the water droplet hanging from the branch.

Maybe it’s just me.

You are going to get to see a bunch of these kinds of photos when I get around to posting them, but doggone it! I am so behind on posting! The last date I posted photos to my blog was September twenty-first. You can count how many days there are between then and now and I have twenty-one days with files in them waiting for me to resize and upload for you and every day that passes only adds to that number.

<<<<<>>>>>

Have I ever told you that I like to wash dishes?

“Peg, you’re weird!” you say.

Well, I do. I like to wash dishes. There’s just something that I like about having a sink overflowing with bubbles and hot water, taking the dirty dishes and making them sparkly and clean again. It’s almost sad when I pull the plug and watch the bubbles go down the drain. Now, scrubbing pots and pans is a different story but you gotta take the bad with the good.

And if you think that’s weird, there’s another household chore that I like to do too and that would be laundry-at least here in the country anyway. I love to hang the clothes on the clothesline. I love taking each item from the basket, a favorite shirt or pair of jeans, sometimes reliving a memory, giving them a shake to undo the twisted-ness left by the spin cycle of the washer and pinning them to the line. Clothes go on the line upside down and it makes me crazy when I see jeans hanging by the waistband or shirts by the shoulders.

“Why do you hang clothes upside down?” you ask.

Because that’s the way my mother always did it. Besides, it just makes sense to me. The waistband of the jeans and the collars of the shirts are the heaviest parts and hanging allows them more movement in the breeze so they dry better. That and the clothespins tend to leave little teepees that would be obvious on the shoulder of your shirt and hidden if you hang them from the side seams at the bottom.

“So because your mother did it that way makes it right?”

Well, yeah! I have the smartest most beautifulist mama in the whole wide world -- but I’ll Google it.

The first (and only) website I checked was about.com and there is a photo of clothes hung all wrong! Jeans by the waistband, shirts hung from the bottom but folded over the line. My heart sank but I perused the article anyway.

 Maybe they would give me their opinion on why they think this is the right way. Imagine my surprise when I discover their photo does not correlate with their written word. In the body of the article it says to hang jeans by the leg and shirts by the bottom side seam.

See! Momma’s right.

Case closed!

Carrying the baskets to the clothesline is good exercise for me. As I’m hanging clothes I love to listen to the bees buzz, the grasshoppers and crickets chirp and the birds sing. I love the sound of the wind as it soughs through the trees and rustles the leaves. I love the feel of the sun on my face and the cool green grass under my feet. I take my time and count my blessings and give thanks to our Lord that I am able to do this chore and that He has sent the birds to sing to me, or the breeze to kiss the sweat from my brow or anything else that I can think of to be thankful for -- and I always find something.

Admittedly, this time of year, the sweat on my brow and sunshine might be in short supply however it doesn’t diminish my love of the job. Even if I’m out there in a jacket and boots and the skies are cloudy and gray and the wind is nipping at my nose and ears, I still love it, I just might not lollygag.

And I do have a drier.

I love walking out to the clothesline, checking to see if things are dry. Walking along, feeling the waistband of jeans -- if they are dry, everything else will be dry too. Scrunching the bath towels and pulling them up to bury my face in them and breathing the scent of the great outdoors.

And who doesn’t love sleeping on sheets that have been line dried?

I love to do the laundry and as we pulled into the driveway of our mountain home, I see my clothesline, waiting there for me and I smile in anticipation, and sigh as I know it will have to wait.

Needless to say, after two days of cleaning, my heart sang as I loaded the washer with blue jeans and socks, added the soap, shut the lid, set the cycle and smiled as I heard the water rushing in and walked away. I retrieved a cup of just made coffee and joined Michael on the patio for a much needed break.

When I went back inside the washer was done. I opened the lid, pulled out the top pair of jeans and they felt wetter than I expected them to feel. I gave them a little shake and dropped them into the waiting basket. I picked up the next pair of jeans and they were even wetter. I dropped them into the basket too. The next pair was wetter yet again. Okay. So now I reverse the process, picking up the jeans I had just deposited into the basket and putting them back into the washer.

I’ll just run the spin cycle again, I thought. I shut the lid, turned the dial to spin, pulled the knob out and...nothing. No spinning going on here! Doggone it! My washer was broke. I took the clothes from the washer and dripped a trail to the door as I took them out to the clothesline and hung them to dry. Talk about a workout! That basket full of jeans and socks was still pretty wet and man! Were they heavy!

“Mike, if the spin doesn’t work does that mean that the agitate doesn’t work either?” I asked Mike.

“I don’t know,” he said.

But I bet it doesn’t.

I texted that beautiful neighbor lady of mine, Stephanie Robinson and asked who fixes washers. She suggested a place and I called.

“It’s sixty-five dollars for a service call,” he told me. “Depending on where you live it could be more. Then there’s labor and parts.”

“I’ll bring the washer out to you,” I volunteered hoping to cut sixty-five dollars off the bill.

“Oh no. My backroom is so full I couldn’t get in there if I wanted to!”

This washer is at least fifteen years old and we didn’t feel like we wanted to put a lot of money into it.

“Just go to Roots and get Peg a hundred dollar washer,” Steph’s husband Jon Robinson told Mike.

After discussing it Mike and I decided we wouldn’t get another washing machine just now. We only plan on being here for two months or less, depending on the weather, and I could get by until we left. There’s a Laundromat in Wyalusing which is only about four miles away. We scheduled a day in our busy schedule to go into town and wash the clothes, (I’d still bring them home and hang them on the line to dry), and that day was several days away. Until then I thought about it. I thought about it a lot. I thought how much it sucks to pack all the laundry up and haul it all out to the car, drive into town and carry it into the Laundromat, sort and start the machines then sit and wait for it to get done. I know, I do it in Missouri all the time as I don’t have a washer or dryer there. The only good thing about Laundromats is that the laundry all gets done at one time, folded and put away at one time and you don’t have to think about it again until the next time. I thought about telling Mike I changed my mind and I wanted a washing machine, but I put on my big girl pants and stuck with the plan.

Laundry day came and Mike was a big help. Besides the two baskets that he carried to the car, we had a couple of blankets too. Mike drove to town and carried everything into the Laundromat for me. The washers here are cheaper than in Missouri but one of the big, glass-front multi-load washers I had chosen washed and rinsed with hardly any water. I considered moving the clothes to a different washer and washing them again but in the end I settled for what I got.

I’ll tell you what. That Laundromat was filthy. Not just dirty-filthy! Discarded dryer sheets collected in drifts around the perimeter of the floor where they had been kicked. A pair of men’s tighty-whitey’s were draped over the half-wall at the end of the line of washers, a sock beside it and other articles of abandoned clothing adorned various locations throughout the place. Dust and dryer lint on every flat surface that hadn’t been recently touched. Rings and rings of laundry soap on top of machines where caps had been set after measuring out the soap.

“If I had a broom I’d sweep the place,” Mike said to me. Does that give you any indication of how dirty it really was?

Once home, Mike carried the baskets to the clothesline for me and helped by handing me clothes as I hung them up. In all the years we have been together this is a first. We had so much laundry that I used all four clotheslines and almost all of the clothespins.

“Let’s take a ride over and see what Root’s has for hundred dollar washers,” Mike suggested.

“Okay,” I readily agreed never letting on that on the inside I was screaming “Yay!” and jumping up and down with joy.

“But just to look,” he cautioned. “There’s a place in Meshoppen that has washers starting at two hundred fifty dollars.”

It didn’t matter to me. Either way it looked like I was getting a new washer. Despite having so much to do, I dropped everything, made a travel cup of coffee and met Mike at the Jeep.

It was a nice fall day for a ride and it allowed me to get photos of the beautiful Pennsylvania countryside with all of it’s fall color. We were past the peak but that didn’t stop me.

Once at Root’s, the used appliance place, Mike started talking with a nice young man about washers. And just in case you had any doubts -- and Mike didn’t -- let me confirm for you. There are no one hundred dollar washers. Instead of just looking, we came home with a new washer. They have a thirty day warranty and Root’s does a great job of cleaning up the used appliances.

At home I helped Mike get the new washer in and hooked up but unfortunately, all the laundry was clean and hanging on the clothesline! It would be a few days until I tried it out.

Later in the day, when the laundry was dry, Mike helped me take it down. I was folding the clothes as I went along but Mike didn’t want to fold.

“What can I do?” he asked.

“Take down the towels, sheets and blankets,” I said. “Socks and underwear.” I didn’t care if they wrinkled in the basket till I got them folded. At some point I thought about telling Mike he needed to shake things before putting them in the basket then I changed my mind. I was afraid he’d quit on me. Mike carried the baskets into the house and set them on the floor in the living room. I picked up the couch cover and heard buzz-buzz.

“We’ve got a bee,” I said and took the cover out and let the bee loose. I came back in, put the cover on the couch, hung the shirts and...that was it. I didn’t get around to taking care of the rest of the laundry for a couple of days. I was spending all of my free time trying to get the last weeks letter done only stopping long enough to take care of the dogs or make another cup of coffee. One nice thing about it though, every time I came back into the house, I could smell the fresh air and sunshine. That was pretty nice.

Once the letter was done and I got around to taking care of the rest of the laundry, I found a couple of spiders in amongst the clothes. I took them outside a little ways from the house and let them loose.

Now, you want to talk about spiders?

“No way! I hate spiders!” I hear some of you say. “They freak me out!”

You might want to skip this next section then.

Steph stopped to see me after work one day last week. “I’m in the shop, come on around,” I told her when she called.

“Peg! Get your camera and come see this spider!” Steph said as soon as she came in the door.

I’d been working on a glass butterfly sun catcher but I quickly put my soldering iron back in it’s holder, detoured through the apartment where I picked up my camera and as we came into the front yard I saw it a mile away! This thing was orange and it was huge!

“Holy cow!” I exclaimed and snapped a few pictures of it. “Steph, we need something to show how big this spider is,” I said but I couldn’t ask her to pick up the spider. “Here,” I said and handed her my camera. “I’ll pick it up and you take it’s picture.” Stephanie actually did a really good job of taking its picture while I held it but then Steph said she wasn’t afraid and we switched roles. She held the spider and I took pictures. I think this photo really shows the size of the spider and Steph definitely has prettier hands and nails then I do. Look at the size of this spider, would ya!

“This spider looks like the one living on the patio except it’s yellow,” I told Steph and after we had enough pictures we took it over to the weeds and set it free.

“Come see the one on the patio,” I said to Steph. “I’m having a hard time getting it’s picture because the sky is behind it and he won’t turn around for me.”

Steph put her hand behind him to block the back light and it also allows you to see that this yellow one is a much smaller spider.

Aren’t they awesome spiders!

“What are they?” you ask.

I’m glad you asked! These are both marbled orb weavers. They come in a variety of colors and make a new spiral web everyday. Females are twice the size of males and stay hidden, having a strand of silk extending all the way into her retreat. If it vibrates, she knows her web has caught something. Females lay orange eggs in a silken sac and attach it near her retreat to guard it. If the weather is warm, the spiderlings will hatch soon after. If it’s cold, the spiderlings will over-winter in the egg sac and hatch in the spring.

Adults are very active during the summer and autumn months. They tend to fall to the ground if they sense danger where they stay hidden until the threat has passed.

Isn’t that interesting?

<<<<<>>>>>

A couple of days after I got my new washing machine I did a load of laundry. Mike was on the couch watching TV as I carried the basket through the apartment on my way to the clothesline. “Thank you for buying me a washer,” I told him. “I couldn’t be happier if you’d have bought me diamonds!” I was ridiculously happy.

<<<<<>>>>>

Let’s wrap it up this week with a shot of the creek down near the Kipps house. They have a beaver dam! I think I’m jealous!
 

Sunday Letter

Sunday, September 10, 2015

I have had two desktops this past week. This shot of our now abandoned Two-Bit Town was up for a while. Do you see the real-life size sheriff and bank robber on the Jesse James Hide-Out sign?

I have an opportunity to get a few of these characters that have never been out in the elements and the colors are vibrant and beautiful, but I just have a hard time parting with the amount of money it would take to buy them for something that is purely whimsical and decorative.

I also had this misty morning shot up on my desktop for a while too. I took this shot on our way east…

Oh, did I tell you? We’re in Pennsylvania now. Which is why there was no letter last week; we were on the road.

Last time I wrote about my wild feather bouquet. I have to tell you that while writing that piece I heard my daughter Kat in my head. “Mom! You shouldn’t pick up that kind of stuff! It could have bugs or carry diseases!” I’m not so sure she would have told me that before she went to vet-tech school or not, but she has told me that a couple of times since then. It hasn’t stopped me though, I’m just more careful.

My beautiful redheaded niece Bambi commented on my letter, “Keep those feathers outside (though I would really say to never touch a feather), birds have lice & you DO NOT want bird lice!” she wrote.

I read that and it tickled me and I smiled.

“Why would that tickle you?” you wonder.

Because she cared enough to admonish me, much the same as Kat would have done.

There was a span of a couple of days there where I was feeling especially sad and missing Kat very much. To cope with this I reached out to someone whom I knew shared in my sorrow of her passing and always seems to know how to make me feel better and the was that very special and beautiful sister of mine Phyllis. “I'm really missing her pretty bad today... L ” I wrote.

“I’m sorry. I love you and am sending you warm thoughts and hugs,” she wrote back.

But the feelings persisted. I turned to food. I opened my fridge and there in the door was a jar of peanut butter. “My mom loved peanut butter,” Jessica told me. “She would eat it by the spoonful!”

Well Kat isn’t the only one in my family that eats peanut butter by the spoonful, my mother does too! I was a little shocked the first time I saw Momma dig a big old tablespoon of peanut butter out of the jar, sprinkle it with sugar, and eat it while sipping her hot coffee. “Mmm, good dessert,” she said with a smile on her beautiful face.

“Why the sugar?” you ask.

I know right! I asked the same thing! “It makes it less sticky,” I was told.

Well, if it’s good enough for those two beauties, it’s good enough for me. I got a spoon, dipped it down in the peanut butter jar and got me a nice size teaspoonful of peanut butter. I skipped the sugar part because I didn’t want the extra calories but the coffee part was totally doable. My peanut butter popsicle washed down with hot coffee was good, but I don’t foresee it being a regular part of my diet.

I keep getting offers from different companies for free Shutterfly books. I love Shutterfly books! In the middle of September I redeemed an offer and made a book called Playing In The Puddle With Daddy

It was full of wonderful photos I took of Andrew playing in the puddle on an early July day and I gave the book to his mom and dad.

Then I received another free Shutterfly book offer and it would expire the last day of September. What was I going to do with another book? “Momma, I’ve got another free book coming, what should I do?” I asked her.

“You’ve got so many beautiful photos, just pick a theme,” Momma suggested.

I started going through my photos and a large part of what I have been photographing lately has been wildflowers and bugs.

I’ll call it Wild Things, I thought. Then my very next thought was, What am I going to do with it? A book of my photographs would be kind of wasted on me, you know what I mean? Momma already had a book of my photos, as well as a couple of others that I made for her…how many does she actually need or even want? Patti came next to my mind. My older and much adored sister. I know she’s proud of me and my talents, maybe she would like to have a book of my photos to show off once in a while?

A whole lot of things go through my head at this point. “What if she doesn’t want one but is afraid of hurting your feelings?” Me says to Myself.

“I’ll give her an out,” Myself responded and I fired off an email to her. “I was wondering if you would be interested in having a book of my photos? If you say no, that is way okay. I know you are a minimalist and don't like a lot of clutter so my feelings won't be hurt.”

In truth, my feelings would probably be hurt a little, but I would get over it. Here’s the thing. I know it’s rude to refuse a gift. A lot of people are brought up to accept whatever is given to them, then throw it away if they don’t want it. Honestly, that would not only hurt my feelings more, that would piss me off too. If you don’t want it, that’s fine! Someone else may think it’s a real treasure and value it. I would rather it went to someone who really wanted it, then to have you throw it in the trash. And I know this happens.

“Of course I would like one of your picture books,” Patti answered.

Then my next question for her was, “Is wildflowers and bugs okay or would you rather have other things?”

“Mix it up.”

I wished I had allowed myself more time because Momma is right. I have tons of beautiful photos, it’s just a matter of going through them all. I know if I had had more time I could have done a better job with her book. But my next conundrum was what to call it. Wild Things worked when it was just wildflowers and bugs…I know! I’ll call it This And That.

“Comme Ci Comme Ca would be cute,” Me says to Myself and Myself knew that Me thought comme ci comme ca meant a little of this and a little of that in French. But to be on the safe side Myself Googled it and found out it meant so-so.

“My photos are not so-so!”

“Well what is This And That in French then?” Me asks.

“Google says it’s Ceci et Cela. She isn’t going to know what that means!” Myself laments.

“She took Latin in school…what is This And That in Latin?”

“Et Hoc Quod.”

Ewww.

“How about Italian?”

“Questo e Quello.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, Peggy!” Momma (in my head) butts in. “Just call it This And That!”

She’s so smart! And she’s so right!

I spent all of my free time that last week in September working on This And That and the rest of that week was spent getting ready for this trip, which left no time to write. And on top of all that I have another free book! I am probably going to let that offer expire.

Getting ready for our trip meant a trip to Target for Halloween candy. This is the sixteenth year that Luby’s has hosted a kids Halloween Party and Luby’s buys most of the candy. Our friend Margaret will buy some too. So off to Target Mike and I went and we loaded a shopping cart chock full of bags and bags of candy. At the checkout some guy turns to us and says, “I’m coming to your place for Halloween!”

That segued into us telling this man about the party and all the games and activities for the kids and inviting them (he and his wife) to come down and help. “We always need volunteers,” I told him.

About this time Target opens more checkout lanes and we went to another lane. Mike and I were checking out and this guys comes walking up to us and hands us a twenty dollar bill. “To help with the candy,” he says.

Oh my gosh! How kind that was for that man to do that! I wished I had gotten his name so I could give him better recognition than what I have done here.


I have a very bad habit of eating Cheetos Crunchy on road trips. I seldom eat Cheetos any other time, but I seem to be helpless to break this habit. Even when I’m determined that I’m not going to do it, I break down and buy Cheetos at the first gas station.

Sigh.

Before I even thought about getting a bag for our trip east, Mike came home from Menard’s with a party size bag of Cheetos Crunchy and a huge jar of whole cashews, his kryptonite. I stowed the snacks out of sight where they stayed until Saturday, but let me tell you! We were no more settle on the highway then I reached down beside my seat, where (in preparation of the trip) I had carefully placed the Cheetos bag, pulled it into my lap and opened it up.

Oh that was easy, I thought as I opened the bag. Usually I have to struggle to pull it apart. I should have known right then and there that something was wrong. I looked down in the bag and they were all small pieces. Now mind you, we don’t throw them out just because they are small pieces, the bigger ones are better because you don’t have to work so hard to get a mouthful, you know what I mean?

“It’s all small ones!” I exclaimed.

“You probably opened the bottom of the bag,” Mike said.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because all the small ones go to the bottom.”

I didn’t say anything but I thought, Why would I do that? That would be stupid, and I start munching away. A few minutes pass as his comment is reverberating around in my head before it occurs to me to check.

I know! You would have thought of it sooner, but I didn’t think for a second that I had opened the bottom of the bag. I was fully prepared to gloat as I proved him wrong.

Yeah.

Okay, so that didn’t pan out. But let me tell you something that I did do that seemed to help with my Cheetos addiction. I have been eating a lot of air popped popcorn these last few months. No oil, butter or salt, just air popped popcorn. And I know what you are thinking.

“How can you eat it that way?”

Well, it does take time to develop a taste for it, I have to say, but one thing that helps with that is the knowledge that there are few calories in popcorn if you eat it that way. And if you have a desire to munch, it fills the bill. So, to help cut my Cheeto consumption I mixed them with some air popped popcorn. Two parts popcorn, one part Cheeto. Not only did this method stretch the Cheetos so one bag lasted the whole trip but it made the popcorn pretty tasty too!

Our trip east was uneventful. I photographed some stickers that adorned vehicles. Salt Life? What is that all about? I Googled it and Salt Life is a business selling beach wear and stickers and refers to someone who loves the ocean.

We’ve all seen the little stick figures on the back of vans that denote the family makeup. Well here is a zombie family.

I recently read an article that warned us about giving out too much information to predators with these kinds of stickers. Saying where our kids go to school and what sports they play.

Then on a semi trailer I see a red and black mask. No idea about this one unless it was just something someone liked and that’s where he put it.

I’ve been watching semi’s. I saw a photo of a Taylor truck passing a Swift truck and of course that makes the name of the singer Taylor Swift.

Tugboat Dot was the best I could come up with. But in my defense, Mike doesn’t follow semis for very long.

“What’s Tugboat Dot?” you ask.

How about a cousin to Steamboat Annie?

Then I got Dot Crete when the Dot truck passed a Crete truck.

“What’s Dot Crete?” you ask.

How about a cousin to Con Crete?

I’m just making all that up but you can bet I’m going to keep my eyes open from now on.

I found another Mater! The one I photographed before was in Kansas, this one is in Ohio.

“What’s a Mater?” you ask.

I know, right! When I posted the first Mater picture I took, Patti said it was Mater and I had to ask the very same question. Turns out Mater is a character in the animated movie Cars and Patti knew that.

One of the first things that had to be done when we pulled into our mountain home, even before we could park and plug in, was to mow the hayfield of a yard. Mike opened the mill and tried to start the mower to no avail. The battery was dead. That made our first order of priority a trip to town to buy a new battery. Forty-four dollars later Mike is in business and lots of critters were left homeless.

I’ll tell you what! So many grasshoppers and garden spiders and praying mantis’s! I saved a few from the mower blades, but I couldn’t save them all.

I know, I’m silly.

Mike washed the splattered bugs and road grime from the RV while I started cleaning the apartment in the mill. Two days later we moved from the RV into the apartment and we are settling in nicely. It’s nice to have a little more room to spread out.

Hey! Check out these egg sacks.

At least that’s what I think they are. The web holding them to the garage door kind of gives me the idea that they are from a spider although I’ve never seen egg sacks this large before. They are the size of walnuts! Mike was going to knock them off but I would let him. What do you think?

Guys, I have lots more stories to tell you but today is Tuesday, so rather than rush through the rest of my stories, let’s just call this one done.

Sept 20 and 21 photos

The petals drop from the yellow flower, then it elongates and opens into this firework burst of seeds. Here you can see the phases on the same plant.

 

 

Lots of monarchs in the area as we are in the migration route

 



Skipper

 



Lobelia

 



 

Leaf on the water

 

 

Mist flowers

 

 

 

Photos Sept 19

 

Gray Hairstreak

 

Brown eyed Susan's are almost gone but I like how the center of each flower opens up with it's on little flower 



 

 Showy partridge pea

 

 

Aster



 

Skipper

 



I chased this guy halfway across a field! I didn't know what I was chasing. Until this point all I knew was that it was something that flew. I was thinking katydid but got grasshopper.

 



Chickweed Geometer

This colorful, butterfly-like moth flies during the day. It’s called a geometer (“earth measurer”) because the larvae are “inchworms” that loop their bodies with each “step” they take.

 



 

Old schoolhouse

 

 

 This guy's name is what he looks like. He's a yellow antenna black spider wasp.

Spider wasps use a spider as a host for feeding their larvae. They paralyse the spider with a sting and drag it to the nest. A single egg is laid on the abdomen of the spider and the nest is sealed. When the egg hatches, the larva feeds on the spider. Ewww!

 



Nuts!