“Here what is?” you ask.
Here it is, the Fourth of July holiday weekend and I do wish you all a safe and happy Fourth.
These past two weeks have been such a whirlwind! A tornado! A flood! Lots of stories and pictures and no time to record them!
“One bite at a time, Peg, one bite at a time.”
Yeah. That’s how you eat an elephant. And my elephant just got a little smaller as I show you my current desktop photo. I can’t really tell you what these wildflowers are because I haven’t had time to look them up, maybe they are black-eyed Susan’s past their prime? The little white flowers in the upper left corner are white sweet clover, not to be confused with white clover.
So!
We sold Luby’s Plaza on the Strip in Lake Ozark and we are at our Mountain Home in Pennsylvania as we speak.
Talk about elephants! We have a woolly mammoth here! Our renovation project has been on hold for the last four years or so and the feral cats and wild critters have pretty much had run of the place since then. Now they are all getting eviction notices and we will reclaim and continue to make this old sawmill into a home.
One bite at a time.
Last time I wrote I did mostly pictures because I didn’t have time to write.
“I didn’t get it!” all of you on snail mail proclaim.
No, you didn’t. The reason is because my computer lost it and I have to re-create it, which I started to do, but haven’t finished. And now it’s time for a whole new letter blog.
Two weeks ago, in Westward Ho!, I left you with a little teaser, telling you the story wasn’t quite done. So here’s what happened after that.
We rented a car in Wysox, Pennsylvania to get us back to Lake Ozark. We paid for three days and were told if we returned it early, we wouldn’t be charged for the third day. Mike even called the place we would be dropping the car off and was told the same thing. So we were confident there wouldn’t be any problems.
Monday morning Mike called the place in Jefferson City where we dropped off the car on Sunday.
“Oh no, I don’t know who told you that, but it isn’t true. Since yesterday was Sunday and we weren’t open to check the car in, we charge until Monday,” Mike was told.
Mike went around a couple of times with them (and kept his cool) but finally was told he had to go back to the original company and get his one day refund because they had already closed the account out. Mike got back on the phone with Wysox and they did credit us with the one day, but boy what a hassle that was. What we should have done — and hindsight is always twenty-twenty — is paid for two days and added a third if we needed it.
Sigh.
Once we returned to Missouri after our quick trip to Pennsylvania, Mike and I took two days to finish packing.
During our breaks from packing or even on the trips to and from the trailer, we watched them demolish the old police station. In just a matter of hours this big building was reduced to a pile of rubble.
Mike has often said to me that if you want something done, hire the professionals. They come in with the know-how and the big equipment and knock the job out fast. If you fool around trying to do it yourself or hire your buddy to do it, it will take two or three times as long and end up costing you two or there times more. I have seen this to be true in a number of cases through the years.
Kevin and Andrew came to see us for a little one night. Andrew is a true boy. Itsy doesn’t like Andrew very much and when he gets close to her, she nips. Andrew learned from an early age to leave her be, however, it doesn’t stop him from checking from time to time.
In this photo, Itsy was on the outside table, just hangin’ with Mike — she always wants to be where Mike is — and Andrew was checking to see how close he could get to her before she nipped. He was in complete control of the situation as he gingerly leaned in closer and closer. When she nipped he was quick to jump back. I laughed and he looked at me.
“Do it again so I can get a picture,” I told Andrew and he happily complied.
Andrew likes animals and even though Ginger doesn’t like Andrew any more than Itsy does, she doesn’t nip at him, she just tries to hide behind me. And what do I do? I pick her up and hand her to Andrew.
I know. I’m a traitor.
Queen Ann’s lace, also called wild carrot, is blooming and is editable. Sometimes the central floret has a purple speck in the center, sometimes it doesn’t.
Chicory, also called blue sailors, are in the wild lettuce family, blooming and are also editable.
Once we were packed and had taken the RV from the grouse, our first trip was to Camping World in Columbia. We have had it there twice before for the leveling system and it was still leaking. This time they were going to replace the pump, under warranty of course.
Camping World doesn’t let me stay in the RV while they are working on it, at least not if they have to take it in the garage. If they work on it in the parking lot they usually let me stay in it. This day it would have to go inside so I packed up my computer and went into the customer lounge to wait. Camping World recently had a make-over with fresh paint and new wall murals and this particular panel drives Mike nuts.
“You would think they could’ve positioned it so it wasn’t right on that guy’s face, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” I agree. “Poor planning.”
Lake Ozark is getting a new boat at the dam that replaces the old ones that have sat in disuse for so many years.
This boat is twenty foot wide and eighty feet long. It’s called Celebration II because it is a second boat, in a second location, for the owner. The first Celebration has a sunset dinner cruise as well as other cruises. Celebration II is not having a dinner cruise and will be more of a party boat. Both boats can be chartered for private parties.
The Celebration II came down from Chicago via the river system to Jefferson City where they pulled it out, took the top deck off, and trucked it down to the Lake. When it arrived here Mike and I went out and checked it out.
Since Mike knows the man who will captain the boat, he called him and told him we were sitting there looking at his boat.
“Hang out for a few minutes,” Captain Bob said. “I’m on my way there now.”
While Mike was talking with Bob Grider, his wife Tammy and son Anthony, I was snapping away at a pair of hawks as they called and circled overhead.
A few days later the top half arrived and we went back down to watch them assemble the two decks.
We were invited to go on the Celebration II’s maiden voyage, unfortunately it was on the same night as our last night in Lake Ozark and we had already made plans to have dinner with the kids.
But that is another story for another day.
This blue and red critter is a rhododendron leafhopper.
When we returned from Columbia with our new pump on our leveling system we didn’t go back to Luby’s, we went to an RV park.
New beginnings are the perfect time for new beginnings. I’ve taken a year off from exercising and gained back twenty-five pounds of the forty-two I’d lost — but I enjoyed having all of the things that aren’t good for me (every bite of them) anytime I wanted them. I was already fat so why not? I justified. Now it was time to pay the piper.
Our first morning in the RV park I got up early and went for a run. I passed the quarry where the trucks looked like Tonka toys. You can see the Lake of the Ozarks sign on the hillside in the background.
All along this road, for the mile—mile and a half that I did my interval running, I saw numerous cigarette packs, all of the same brand. I’m guessing the man who smokes them travels this road everyday and just tosses his empty boxes out the window.
“Peg, how do you know it was a man?” you ask.
I don’t know, I just think it was.
I took Ginger with me on my first run. She spotted a turtle crossing the road and I let her torment it for a few minutes before we continued our run/walk.
I saw a spot where a bird became a meal for some other critter. I have no idea what kind of bird it was but I picked up a couple or three of the feathers.
Milkweed! Food of the monarch butterflies. This is the first I’ve seen this year.
An assassin bug on a milkweed.
I don’t know.
Black-eyed Susan.
A skipper moth.
Look at this one, would ya! When I first spotted it in the grass I thought it was some weird kind of black flower. Then as I looked around I see a couple more that aren’t quite as far along as these were and would you believe it’s not a flower at all? It’s some kind of a fungus that opens into these petals. It probably helps with spore dispersal. I thought they were interesting.
Trumpet flower floating on the water.
Woolly aphids!
Day lily. See the ladybug nymph?
Michael with his cronies, Tim, Paul and Gary.
I had another day with Miss Helen. I took her out to the cemetery to decorate Frank's grave,
then we went on to Golden Corral where Miss Helen treated me to a good-bye dinner.
This gentleman, at the next table, tried to photo bomb us but Sue was able to keep him out of the frame — and I have to tell you, he didn’t really try very hard.
Before we went for our food Miss Helen and I sat for a while so she could catch her breath. Our neighbor photo-bomber came back with a plate of food.
“Oh, look at that,” Miss Helen said.
“Yeah. It looks good,” I replied.
Photo-bomber lowered the plate so Miss Helen could get a good look at the mound of food he had piled there.
“That’s a good looking plate,” Miss Helen told him.
“Here,” he said and made to set it in front of her.
“Oh no!” Miss Helen exclaimed. “I couldn’t eat all of that.”
“Are you sure?” he asked. “Cause I can get another plate,” he said and with his free hand he pointed towards the buffets laden with food.
“No, but thank you. My teeth won’t let me eat that kind of stuff anymore,” she explained in a little more detail.
How kind is that! A complete stranger willing to give her his plate of food.
Miss Helen and I had a good dinner, a nice chat, and we ate way too much!
Later, at the campground I walked around with my girls and my camera.
Steps to nowhere.
The groundskeeper saw me with my camera and asked, “Did you see our heart tree?”
“What’s a heart tree?” I asked.
“It’s a tree with a heart growing out of it.”
That sounded interesting. “No. Where is it?”
“If you go down to the tent area it’s on the right,” he said.
“Can I see it from the road?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
The next time I saw him, as he was making his rounds, he asked, “Did you find the tree?”
“I forgot to look for it,” I admitted.
Once again he told me where it was and once again I forgot to look for it, only remembering I forgot when I saw him the next morning. I was interval running in the park and he was making his morning rounds.
“Which side of the road was that on?” I asked. I’m sure he thought I was a complete imbecile.
“It’s on the right if you are going this way around, There’s a white SUV parked in front of it now.”
I was on the last lap of my run so when I got back to the RV I hooked up the girls, grabbed my camera and took them for a walk. I get down to the area that he had indicated and I don’t see a white SUV, there’s a white van sitting there, not like a minivan, more like a cargo van used by the cable company, do you know the kind I mean? But there in front of it was the heart tree. I was finally able to spot it.
I got into a little trouble here at this curve. I was walking Itsy and Ginger when they both decided to poop at the same time, one to the left of the tree (closest to the road), one to the right.
I went for Itsy’s pile first then I went for Ginger’s and I couldn’t find it. I was looking and looking when a golf cart comes down the road and stops.
“You better find it,” the man says to me in a semi-mean tone. I thought he was joking around with me.
“I know right!” I say with a smile and good humor. “One goes one way, the other goes the other way and you lose it!”
“Well, you better find it because we are staying right there,” said the woman and she indicates the first RV after the curve.
Hearing her tone, seeing their stony, unsmiling faces, it finally dawns on me that they weren’t kidding around.
“I always pick up after my dogs,” I defended myself, no longer smiling.
“A lot of people don’t,” the man said and they left.
I wasn’t anywhere near what would be considered ‘their lot’ and I was obviously trying to find Ginger’s poop, I felt I didn’t really deserve what they were dishing up and simmered as I continued to search. Then a thought percolated to the surface. A thought I don’t want to admit.
After searching for a long time I couldn’t find any poo and I came to the conclusion that Ginger must’ve just peed. I didn’t actually see her poo, I just thought she was assuming the pose when I had turned back to Itsy, so I must have been wrong about her intention.
Later I tell Mike about my interaction with the neighbors (we are parked just on the other side of them) and Mike always comes to my defense when I’ve been disrespected and he wants immediate retribution.
“No,” I tell him, then I tell why. “I used to be that person. Just let it go.”
For years I used to police our little piece of grass at Luby’s, telling people —sometimes nicely, sometimes not— “I don’t mind if you walk your dog here, just pick it up, okay?”
That job became much too stressful and only served to make me feel bad so I gave it up. That was three or four years ago now. “I’d rather just clean it up myself,” I told Mike and that worked out better for me.
Ginger enjoys being outside. Coming back from our walks she let me know (by putting her brakes on) that she wanted to stay outside. So our first weekend in the RV park, I took my computer out to the picnic table and worked on my letter blog while she laid in the grass.
She is content to spend hours outside watching the birds and squirrels and even the people and other dogs walk by and she was so good and didn’t even bark.
Three birds came swooping past us, and landed a little ways off. Then a ruckus started and I watched as a baby bird demanded to be fed.
Momma, or maybe Daddy, picked a worm from the grass and the baby quieted as he sat in expectation.
Once the baby had his food he started yelling again. The adult bird hopped around looking for more worms and when she found another one, she fed it to the baby. I watched for a while before they moved on.
We met Kevin, Kandyce and Andrew for ice cream a couple of three times before we left and I want to tell you about all those times.
On this day we met them in the parking lot. Pop-pop was trying to get a hello hug out of Andrew but he was playing a game of Keep Away by dodging around his dad.
Andrew didn’t eat much of his ice cream and when he was done he got up and came around the table.
I grabbed him. “Come here,” I said and pulled him in for a little Kissy Face. When I turned him loose he started wiping my kisses away.
“HEY!” I exclaimed. “Are you wiping my kisses off?”
“Yes.”
“That means I have to give you more!” and I got a hold of him and pulled him in and kissed him all over his face again, then I turned him loose.
Andrew wiped all of my kisses away AGAIN —
—and this time he laughed about it.
“HEY YOU!” I said. “Now you have to come here for more kisses!”
“No,” he said but he came within arms reach and boy did I ever get him good! I kissed him all over his face and he giggled the whole time.
The game was on. I kissed, he wiped.
“Would you like to watch him while Kandyce and I go shopping,” my handsome son asked.
“Well, yeah!” I didn’t even have to think about it.
“We have to run an errand first but we’ll drop him off in a couple of hours.”
When Andrew arrived he saw my camera. “Where’s my camera?” he asked.
“It’s right here,” I told him and reached under my desk, picked it up, and held it out to him.
Andrew took the camera, turned it on and walked around the RV taking pictures. He took a picture of the litter box, the air freshener in the bathroom, the window above the door, Itsy on the couch, my pencil cup and a selfie. Because of the lighting, most of his pictures aren’t any good, but his selfie came out pretty good.
“Do you want to go out and take pictures?”
“Yes.”
We leashed up the girls and out we went. Right outside our door is the stocked fishing canal. Andrew took a picture of it.
I took a picture of a stump that lived there. It had it’s own ecosystem growing on it and it reminded me of that movie, Journey to the Center of the Earth. Isn’t that the one where they go down into a volcano and find a pre-historic land with dinosaurs?
I was thinking about this when Andrew said, “Spider.”
“Where?” I asked and he pointed to the edge of the canal.
“There,” he said.
And there it was, and I took his picture.
We walk on.
Andrew pointed.
“The duck house?” I asked.
“Yes,” he confirmed.
“You can take it’s picture,” and he did.
We walked on.
Past the lilies where I took a photo,
to the artesian well.
Andrew took a picture of the well, both where it was coming into the tank,
and where it was coming out a hole in the side.
I gave Andrew my water bottle and he had a great time filling it up and dumping it out and filling it up and drinking it and spitting it out.
“I missed it, do it again,” I said and he spouted water like a whale — just for me! He is such a good sport.
We were still playing in the water when Mom and Dad came back from shopping.
“I’ve got some popcorn, do you want to go feed the ducks?” I asked the kids.
“Yeah!” they all said.
Andrew and I walked back to the RV while Dad parked the car. We got a bag of popcorn and went looking for the ducks.
There is a little bridge over the canal and I took a picture of Kevin and Kandyce standing there.
Andrew had already crossed the bridge and was tossing popcorn to one of the ducks and the duck caught it!
“Do it again Andrew!” I said and he tossed another piece.
“Thanks for letting me watch him today,” I told Kevin.
“Well, you’re welcome. You know, you can have him any time you want to.”
“Would Pat (Kandyce’s mom and babysitter) drop him off here at the campground, then you could pick him up when you get off work?” I asked.
“I’m sure she would,” Kevin said and plans were made for us to have Andrew for a couple of hours the next day.
When Andrew arrived we hung out at the RV for a while and he ate a bite of lunch. “Do you want to go out, Andrew?” I asked.
“Yes,” he answered. “Where’s my camera?”
“Right here,” I said and gave him his camera. He put the strap over his head and we went out.
He photographed the canal and duck house again.
The artesian well feeds a tank that feeds a little stream, that feeds the canal. Andrew walked up the little stream.
“Cold,” he stated.
“I know it is,” and I took a couple of photos. I knew that Andrew would want to play in the water so I tied Itsy and Ginger to a tree where they could wait in the shade, and I’d sit at a table (which was in the sun) and take pictures of him.
Andrew took a picture of Itsy and Ginger, this is his photo.
“You better let me hold your camera so you don’t get it wet,” I told Andrew as he approached the wellhead. He handed it over and I gave him the cap from my water bottle. He filled it with cold water,
and drank it.
He did this several times then had his fill and started spitting the water out, shooting it as far as he could in a neat stream.
When Andrew tired of the water we headed for the playground.
“Get out of the sun!” Andrew exclaimed and ran for a patch of shade under a tree.
“Good job Andrew,” I told him. Today’s generation is much more conscious of skin cancer than previous generations and Andrew wears sunscreen when he goes out. Even so we made it a game to go from one shady spot to the next.
At the playground I tied the girls to a tree again and set our water bottle in a shady spot. Andrew went for the slide first. He climbed to the top,
and laughed in happy anticipation as he sat down to make his decent.
I got two shots of him. Two! That was all. He came down that slide soooooo fast! He hit the first dip and his eyes got big then he hit the second dip and I could see fear in eyes and on his face then PLOP! He was on the ground.
“Are you okay?” I asked as the second picture snapped.
Andrew reached for his backside and I thought he might have scraped his back as he came off the slide. I slung my camera under my arm. “Let me see.” Andrew got up and came to me with the strangest look on his face. He was trying so hard to not cry.
“Awww, let me see your back sweetheart.”
Obediently Andrew turned around and I looked but saw no scrapes or red marks on his back, then the tears started to come. I thought that he may have had the wind knocked out of him and his original lack of crying was because he couldn’t cry. Getting the wind knocked out of you hurts! I know it does! I’ve fallen out of a tree and had the wind knocked out of me before. It not only hurts, it’s scary; not being able to breathe!
I held Andrew as great sobs racked his little body. I held him and held him and held him for a long time. When his cries started ebbing, I asked, “Can you walk now?”
“No,” he said with tears in his eyes.
“Okay, I’ll carry you,” I told him. I had no idea how I was going to do that but I would certainly give it a valiant effort. I gathered our things. The cameras were easy, they could go around my neck. Then I had a water bottle and two dog leashes to juggle and I couldn’t pick Andrew up.
“Can you climb up on that bench so I can pick you up?” I asked.
Andrew climbed up on the bench, I bent my knees, put my arm around him and he put his arms around my neck and I got him picked up. We walked for a while and Andrew sniffled.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“No. I want to go home.”
“I know you do sweetheart. Daddy’ll be here soon.” Then I commiserated with Andrew. “That was a bad slide, wasn’t it honey?”
“Yes,” he sniffled.
I carried him for as long as I could but he is a big boy and I am an old woman.
“Andrew, you have to walk now, I can’t carry you anymore,” and I let him down.
We hadn’t been back to the RV for more than ten minutes when Kevin showed up.
“Daddy,” Andrew said in a sad voice.
Kevin heard it. “What buddy?” Andrew held his arms up and Kevin picked him up. “What’s wrong buddy?” Andrew wrapped his arms around Kevin’s neck, rested his head against his daddy’s shoulder and closed his eyes. Kevin rocked him and patted his back and Andrew was asleep before I finished telling Kevin the story.
“I haven’t had a little one on a slide for such a long time and I didn’t know it was that fast or I’d have caught him at the bottom!” I made my excuses.
“He’s alright,” Kevin said trying to alleviate my guilt feelings. “Do you want him tomorrow?” Our time in Lake Ozark was running short.
“Yeah. And pack his swim stuff and we’ll go swimming.”
That night, on my walk-about with my girls, I found lots of critters in the campground.
A skipper on bergamot.
A box elder bug.
Ants on unopened trumpet vine.
A bee on bergamot.
I don’t know on a black-eyed Susan.
“Yes,” he said and we got ready. Changing into our swim suits, I see Andrew does have a small mark on his back from the slide, and I felt bad all over again. We gathered our towels and water bottles, put on our sunscreen, and with our floaties we headed for the pool.
We had only been in the pool for about twenty minutes or so when I heard thunder.
“Uh-oh, Andrew. Did you hear the thunder? We’d better go, it’s not safe to be in the water when it’s thundering.” We climbed out, gathered our things and headed back to the RV.
We dried off, put on our dry clothes and inadvertently scared Molly from her hiding place. “MOLLY!” Andrew excitingly exclaimed.
I reached down and picked her up before she could get past me and I handed her to Andrew. “Do you want her?”
Andrew took her and I grabbed my camera.
I know, I’m a traitor.
Although the skies darkened and it thundered a little, we didn’t get any rain. After it cleared Andrew and I went back out. He walked in the little stream that led up to the artesian well and when we got there I splashed him a little.
He splashed me back.
“HEY!” I squealed even though the water barely hit my foot, and the game was on! After playing for a bit, Andrew wanted a drink.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “I forgot my water bottle. Stick your face under there and get a drink.”
And he did!
After lunch we went back to the pool and we were still swimming when his dad came for him.
My mammoth of a story is a little smaller now, though a long way from being done. I started this on July third and today is the tenth. If I wait to finish it, it may be another week until you get it!
So!
With that we will call this one done!
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