The Wyoming County Fair 2016

One event I wait for all year is the Wyoming County Fair. I think the best time I ever had at the fair was last year when I took Momma and we got to see a lumberjack and jill show as well as a high school rodeo.
Last year? I think. Was it last year?
No. It’s been two years ago now. My-oh-my where has the time gone?
Mike picked me up a calendar of events from the local hardware store and I eagerly scanned it.
It wasn’t there.
No lumberjack and jill show.
No rodeo either.
They did, however, have other shows. “What is the Pork Chop Revue?” I asked that beautiful neighbor lady of mine, Stephanie, when we were playing cards with them one night.
“I don’t know,” she said and reached for her newfangled cell phone — you know, the kind that gets on the internet. “Let’s see,” and she Googled it. “It says here it’s a comedy/animal/variety show that features performing pigs and hogs.”
“That sounds like fun. How about that other one? The Pirates of the Columbian Caribbean?”
With a swipe of her finger and a few taps of the virtual keyboard, she says, “Umm, it says here it’s a high wire thrill show.”
I turned to Mike, “Can we see those shows?”
“Sure. Whatever you want.”
We went to the fair on the first day. Seniors get in free. Mike qualified for the age limit, I did not.
Our first stop, after getting in the gate, was the church tent where the ladies make the best pierogies!

Now, I know that a lot of people prefer their pierogies fried crispy golden brown — and I like them that way too — but I love these swimming in butter and onions equally as well. The shell is tender without being chewy and the only thing that would make them any better at all is if I could eat them without having to suffer a gall bladder attack afterwards. It was so worth it though.
Mike found a stand selling his favorite fair food; an Italian sausage sandwich, and we made our way down to the event area as he munched. There were only a few people in the stands and we had our pick of seats. I took a high seat so I could shoot pictures over the fence.
We didn’t have long to wait before the show started.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the loudspeaker came on, “for over 50 years now the Pork Chop Revue has been amazing audiences around the nation. And now, please welcome the host of the Pork Chop Revue… Coouussin Grrrumpy!” he finished with a drawl.
“All right, you guys stay here and let me see if anybody’s out there,” Cousin Grumpy said as his mike came on. Then he came through the tent flap. “Hi’ya folks!”

When none of the small audience replied he said a little louder, “HI’YA FOLKS!” Then we got the idea and several people returned the greeting along with a smattering of applause. “It’s nice to see everyone! Capacity crowd this morning —” which it wasn’t. The bleachers were less than half full but I knew it was a comedy routine. “— Thanks for coming to the show. Y’all having a good time so far at the fair?”
There were a couple of faint, “Yeah’s,” but that was it.
“And you’re an enthusiastic bunch, whoooo!”
We laughed a little and he went on with the history of the show. “By a show of hands, how many of y’all have ever seen Pork Chop Revue?”
A few hands went up.
“You’ve seen our show? Alright. Well for the rest of ya, if you haven’t figured it out, this show features performing pigs and hogs. Yeah. My family started this show back in 1956, if you can image that. For sixty years now my family and our animals have traveled this great country of ours, been fortunate enough to perform in every state except Alaska! Forty-nine of the big fifty states. The pigs have appeared in movies, commercials, television shows; they’ve been featured on Animal Planet. Yeah. And we get them when they’re babies. We adopt the pigs from the farm when they’re a week or maybe ten days old; hand raise them — we raise them on a baby bottle, they live right in the house with us. As they get bigger they’ve got their own barn and vehicles  designed especially for them to travel in. ’Kay, see, these guys start off as babies with us; well, they live out their entire lives with our family. That’s right! None of these little piggies ever go to market. Hey we do appreciate you comin’ to the show, you can help us out by havin’ a good time! The more noise you make by hootin’ ‘n halleren’ ‘n clappin’ and just havin’ fun with us, the better show they’re gonna put on for ya! That bein’ said, please welcome the Pork Chop Revue. Com’on guys!” he called and the pigs came out and the show started.
“Hey Roxie! I forgot to roll the carpet out girl!” And Roxie pushed it with her snout and rolled out the red carpet.

While Roxie was doing this Cousin Grumpy got the other hogs to their places. Then Nina, his wife, performed Thread The Needle with a little pot belly pig named Marilyn.

The other hogs didn’t always stay in their place when not performing but Cousin Grumpy was patient and kind with them as he gave them direction and touched their sides with his magic wand. Okay, it wasn’t a magic wand but they did what he wanted them to do when he tapped their sides with it.
“Seat Mi,” he coaxed tapping her. “Seat Mi. Miley seat. No, no you’re not doing it today, take a seat. Seats right here. Take a seat.” And when she made it back to her stand he rewarded her with a treat and a great big, “GOOD GIRL!”
While he was busy staging the hogs, Nina set up for the next trick.
“All right Mac, let’s go to the hurdles.” Mac recognized his name and left his stand. “Right here Mac,” Cousin Grumpy directed Mac to the start of the red carpet. “You ready?” he asked and Mac took off. “Jump!” and Mac jumped over the first hurdle. “One,” Cousin Grumpy called, then “two — three!” as Mac cleared each of the other hurdles. “Good boy Mac!” And we all clapped. He told Mac to take his seat and Mac did and earned a treat.

“Hey Marilyn! Show’em how to do this thing!” Cousin Grumpy called and put all the hurdles together. “Come on Marilyn.” Marilyn took her place at the head of the red carpet. “Marilyn ready? Jump Marilyn!” Marilyn took off down the red carpet as Cousin Grumpy called encouragement. “JUMP!” and Marilyn crawled under the hurdles. We all laughed and clapped. “It worked in rehearsal, I don’t know what’s goin’ on round here. My goodness. Holy cow.”

Cousin Grumpy turned around to direct Marilyn back to her seat and he sees that Miley has left her seat and was heading to the tent flap. “Seat Miley,” he said and tapped her stand. “Seat Mi. Seat Mi.” She turned around. “Miley seat Miley,” and as she was making her way back to her stand Mac left his seat! “Mac, take a seat buddy, what’s goin’ on around here!” Mac got back up on his stand. Then Miley finally took her place. “Seat, stay. Good,” and Cousin Grumpy gave Miley a treat.
He turned his attention back to Mac. “Are you ready little boy? Alright, let’s go to the barrel.” Cousin Grumpy gave short commands to Mac, “Come here. Here. Up. Good. Easy. Good. Now roll it slow. Good!” Mac obeyed and rolled the barrel down the red carpet. “Alright! Good job today buddy. Take a seat. Good boy!”

And we clapped.
When everyone was in there place again he called the next trick. “All right Marilyn, let’s go through there.” Nina stepped up to put Marilyn through the obstacle course. Marilyn went through a tunnel. “Let’s go,” Cousin Grumpy called as she made her way to the barrels. “A little sports agility 101.” Slowly the little pig wound her way back and forth between the barrels. “Run Forrest, run!” Cousin Grumpy called with a reference to the movie Forrest Gump. “Boy she’d never make it as one of them racing pigs, would she? She wouldn’t stand a chance.” Marilyn went through another tunnel at the other end of the track and went back to her stand where she got another treat and we clapped for her.

In the meantime, Mac left his seat again. “Mac seat,” Cousin Grumpy said. Mac did, then he turned back to us.
“Hey that was pretty good, but now it’s my turn. Come on Betty,” he called and a little black pig came through the tent flap. Betty went through the tunnels, wove her way around the barrels and through the other tunnel. “Now here’s the kicker now, Betty. Come on. Up on the teeter-totter. Here we go. UP! Come on baby. YOU GOT IT! YOU GOT IT! YOU…” Then she was all the way over. “Good girl! Good.”

Cousin Grumpy had Roxie walk on her knees then sent her back to her stand.

“Hurry up, take a seat.” She complied. “Good girl.” Mac was off his stand again. “Mac, turn around. You’re mooning everybody.” We laughed and Cousin Grumpy went on. “They’re over here. Look. See the people over there.”

Miley was off her seat again and he told her to take her seat. “Heck of a way to make a living, isn’t it?” And we laughed again.
At this point in the show Cousin Grumpy introduced his troupe to us starting with his wife Nina. She waved and smiled prettily at us as we clapped for her.

Then he called Marilyn over. “Come here Marilyn.” Marilyn came and sat at his feet. “And this of course is a baby hippopotamus.” Laughter. “No, she’s a pot belly pig. Been with us about five years now, doing a great job. Say hello to Marilyn!” We clapped. “Yeah! Much as she loves the applause, you know her favorite thing is Milk Bones. Why? I don’t know.” He gave her a piece and went on.

“This is our high jumpin’ hurdle pig doing a great job today,” and he turned and talked to her. “You are a good girl,” and he fed her a treat. “This is Miley.”

Everyone clapped.
Cousin Grumpy walked to the other end of the line-up. “This little fella here, you may have guessed, is new in the show. He’s doin’ a real good job though, I’ll tell ya, he’s real smart and he’s got a great personality, this is Mac!” We clapped. “Little Mac!” And I noticed that Little Mac had been tethered.
After the applause died down Cousin Grumpy turned to his other side. “This gal here, she looks so different than the rest of ‘em. She’s part wild Russian boar. She’s got a great disposition and a long happy life with us, this is Roxie!” We clapped. “Rox-a-roni!”

Moving on Cousin Grumpy introduced the next hog. “This gal here is one of the sweetest animals you’ll ever see. She’s as smart as any dog I’ve ever had, she’s loyal and she’s kind, I’ll tell you what,” and he turned to her, “Yes, you’re real pretty, yea you are,” then he turned back to us. “This is Layla!”

As we were clapping he turned back to Layla, scratches behind her ear and in a goofy voice says, “Yea she’s a girl…oh yeah.” Cousin Grumpy turned back to us. “Hey, she’s going to do something for ya in a minute we’re gonna have a little fun with. A little number she does called Oink, The Singing Pig. And I’m gonna need a helper with that —” he turned to a little guy in the audience. “Hey you wanna help me in a second buddy?” Then he addressed us again. “I don’t know if you guys know it but pigs rank—they rank in the top five intelligence of all animals. They are affectionate, they make great pets. I know usually you think about a pig being dirty, rolling in the mud, and we all know they have a bad reputation—well the reason they roll in the mud— and I don’t know if you kids know it, but pigs don’t sweat. They don’t perspire like us. They’re normal temperature is about 103 degrees and they sunburn. One of the few animals that sunburn like we do. The mud coats their skin, keeps ‘em from burnin’, now what we do to keep ‘em comfortable, fans goin’ all the time, misters to keep ‘em cool, and to keep ‘em from getting’ sunburn — like Mom and Dad — we use lots and lots of sunblock. In the pump bottles. We coat their ears and their backs. It does a great job. Right. Are you ready? Folks, right now it’s time for the Barnyard Baritone herself. The one. The only. Oink. The singing pig.”
We clapped as Layla came to the front and put her front feet up on the stand. “All right,” he said, stood beside Layla and asked, “Are you ready to sing?” and he scratched her back.
“Oink,” says Layla.
“What?” he asked and scratched her again.
“Oink.”
“What’s the matter? What?” he asked and pretended to listen. “Oh, oh! I forgot. Sorry. Hang on. I got’em.” Then he turned to us. “Yeah, she uh, she just wants me to put on her sunglasses.” Cousin Grumpy reached into his pocket and pulled out a giant pair of sunglasses and put them on Layla the singing pig, the Barnyard Baritone herself, while the song Superstar played over the loud speaker.
We laughed and clapped to see a pig in sunglasses.

“Anyway. We’re gonna sing a little bit of Old McDonald Had A Farm… you wanna help me out today buddy?” he asked  the kid in the audience he picked earlier. The little guy was afraid and shook his head no. “You wanna help me? No? We need a youngster,” and he scanned the audience. “No?” It was a school day and there weren’t a lot of kids in attendance. “All right guys, here’s what’s gonna happen. Usually we get a youngster out of the audience, but we’re gonna sing a little bit of Old McDonald Had A Farm, I’m going to need everybody to help me, sing along as loud as you can.” Then he called, “A little music!” and it started.
“♫Old MacDonald had a farm♪” he sang, paused and thrust the microphone at us, “E-I-E-I-O,” we sang. Cousin Grumpy continued. “♪And on this farm he had a…” he paused and thrust the microphone at us again. We were a little slow on the uptake on this one, but eventually someone said “pig,” and someone else said “pig” and the music continued on with no one singing the refrain.
“♪With a…” continued Cousin Grumpy. He lowered the microphone down to Layla’s snout, reached up and scratched her back…
“Oink, oink,” says Layla
“♫here a…” he scratches her back again.
“Oink, oink,” says Layla.
“♪there a…” scratch, scratch
“Oink, oink.”
“♫everywhere a…” scratch, scratch
“Oiinnnkkkkk,” Layla drawled. We laughed.
        A few people sang the last part of the song and the music came to an end.
        “OINK THE SINGING PIG!” Cousin Grumpy called and we clapped for her. He sent her back to her seat. “Keep on truckin’ Layla.” Then he made a couple of announcements including introducing a couple of new members to the Pork Chop Revue. “They’re a little different and they’re a little unusual, say hello to Fred and Ethel!” Two goats came from the tent flap as we clapped. “FRED AND ETHEL! Now, I know what you’re thinking, this is the Pork Chop Revue. Performing pigs. They’re goats. Yeah, I know they’re goats, but they’re pygmy goats!”
He got a few laughs for that and he made a comment about digging himself into a hole. He got Fred and Ethel to their stands while Nina set up the next trick. Cousin Grumpy had them do a few goat things. First he called on Ethel to climb a ramp, turning around in the center of the balance beam and coming back down.

        Ethel jumped the hurdles for us then he called on Fred.

“Hey Fred, we’re going to try the same thing but with a twist, pal,” Cousin Grumpy said.
Both Fred and Ethel obeyed simple commands like go, stop, and turn around. When Fred started up the steps he seemed to loose his balance a little and we all gasped. “Go slow buddy,” Cousin Grumpy commanded. “Pay attention to what you’re doing now buddy.”

 Once Fred got to the other side, Cousin Grumpy wanted him to turn around and go back but Fred went down the ramp instead.
“Cheater you,” Cousin Grumpy uttered, and we all laughed. No matter what the animals did or didn’t do, Cousin Grumpy made it a part of the show. “Take a seat now Fred,” and he directed him back to his stand.
“A little earlier in the show you saw Little Mac rollin’ a barrel with his front feet, remember that?” Cousin Grumpy asked. “Well check this out. What’s gonna happen here, Fred’s gonna go inside, Ethel’s gonna go on top — this is going to take a little team work. I’ll tell you what, this is our first show, it’s going to be a little tough goin’ up hill a little bit.” Cousin Grumpy got Fred and Ethel where he wanted them and after a shaky start, and with constant words of encouragement from Cousin Grumpy they got the barrel rolling down the red carpet.

“Now for those of you who have goats, you know what I’m talkin’ about. If you’ve never been around ‘em, they’re awesome little animals, they love kids, they love to learn, they love to play, and if you have the space for them they make great, great family members. Also they love to eat grass so you never have to mow again,” and we all laughed. Then he switched gears as he went through the tent flap and came back out. “Hey! Hey! Look what I got here,” and he hoisted a little pig high in the air to a chorus of ‘awwws’ from the audience. “Hey this is Pepper, he’s bran’ new in the show, and he’s…” Pepper started to pee. “HEY! HEY! PEP!” Cousin Grumpy exclaims. “Oh my gosh. He sprung a leak over here Nina. Oh my gosh! Holy cow.”

Cousin Grumpy gave him a few shakes and put him in the baby carriage that Nina pushed towards him. Then he had Roxie, the part Russian wild boar come up and push the baby carriage down the red carpet to more ’awwws’ from the audience. At the end, we clapped.

“Take a seat, hurry up, let’s go” Cousin Grumpy directed with his magic wand. “Take a seat everybody. Nice job today,” and he walked down the line to Layla who had gotten off her stand. “Step up,” he commanded and she did. “Good girl. Good girl.” When everyone was where they were supposed to be he turned to us. “That’s our show guys!” he proclaimed to a round of applause. “Thank you so much. We appreciate y’all. Have a great day at the fair.”
One of the announcements that Cousin Grumpy had made during the show was that they were offering to take a photo of you with “a celebrity hog,” for only five dollars. “And it comes in a nice little folder,” he said.  Now, I didn’t really need a picture of me with Layla, the Barnyard Baritone, but the show was free, five dollars wouldn’t kill me and I image this is part of their income.

After I got my Polaroid picture in it’s little folder, Mike and I went to find an apple dumpling or chocolate milkshake or ice cream or something. (We found all of those things and more during the course of our day at the fair.) We wondered through the hall with all the vendors and eventually made our way to the stands where there was a giant pirate ship set up.
We didn't have long to wait and when our host came out and we clapped for him.

One of the first things I noticed about the show was that he kept up a constant stream of whistles when he wasn’t talking. I don’t know if it was how he coped with nerves or if it had some other purpose; such as signals to the other members of the troupe or maybe it helped them to know where he was during the performance.
Without saying anything he sat down on the edge of the pirate ship, pulled out a pole and went fishing.  He pulled up a stinky skeleton first,

then he caught his mermaid.

Then the bad pirates showed up an he fought with one of them on the high wire for the possession of the treasure map.

Even when they fell off, I’m sure they were in complete control.

They swashbuckled their way to the spinning wheel and did acrobatics on the inside of it.

         The wheel stopped. “Hey you!” the bad pirate yelled.
“What?” the good pirate yelled back.
“Let’s go outside!” and he pointed to the outside of the wheel.
“Outside? Outside!”
“Yes outside!”
“Ah na-na — you crazy man!”
The bad pirate turned to us and chanted, “OUTSIDE! OUTSIDE!” We picked up the chant, clapping with each word. “Outside! Outside! Outside! Outside! Outside!”
“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,” the good pirated interrupts us. When we quieted he asked, “Do you want to see outside?”
“YES!” we screamed.
“Do you want to see outside!” he asked again.
“YES!” we screamed louder.
“Okay, you do it. Come on,” and he motioned us to come up. We laughed.
The bad pirated flapped his arms and started chanting, “Chicken! Chicken!” which was quickly picked up by the audience.

The good pirate waved his arms and quieted us. “NO! I’m not a chicken. Let’s go! Come on!” and they both climbed to the outside of the spinning wheel thing. They did their acrobatics on the outside and it was a little scary because they didn’t have any safety wires on this stunt.
The wheel stops with the good pirate at the very top. Another bad pirate came out and from the ground yelled up to the good pirate, “THAT MAP IS MINE!”
“WHAT?” the good pirate yells back.
“THAT MAP IS MINE!” he yells again.
“Oh na, na, na, na, na. The map is mine. I got it!” and he pulled it from his waist band, and waved it in the air.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes!”
And the bad pirate pulled out a pistol.

“HEY NO! HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!” the good pirate yells all in a panic.

The bad pirate fires a blank, the good pirate drops the map and the fight is on again.
They made their way up to the high wire again and had a drink on chairs balanced in the center of the wire.

Then they got up and stood on the chairs. They got down and went back to the platform.
The good pirate walked across the high wire with the bad pirate on his shoulders.

They put on a contraption and the girl did her thing with the treasure map held high.

At the end everyone slid down the ropes and the whole show ended with another sword fight on the ground. The good pirate won the treasure map, finds the treasure and gets the girl.

After the show ended they invited you to come and have your picture taken with the mermaid and the treasure chest and they had plastic swords for sale too.
It was a fun day —
—except Mike’s back really bothered him. He sat and rested when he could but it sure made the day less enjoyable for him.
The Wyoming County fair is a nearly week long event and Mike and I went back for the last day of the fair too. Once again it was senior day and Mike would get in free. A had a ticket; courtesy of my friend Stephanie, so it wouldn’t cost us anything to get in, and Stephanie was scheduled to work the stand for her company, P&G (Proctor and Gamble).
We were driving down Route 6 and had just gone through the little town of Laceyville when a car flashed his headlights at us.
“Must be a cop up ahead,” I said to Mike.
Then car after car after car flashed us and that seemed odd to me. Sometimes one or two cars will alert you to a cop, but not this many.
“Maybe there’s an accident,” I speculated.
A little ways down the road we see a couple of vehicles pulled over as far as they could but they were still part way on the road. One of them was a truck with a pull behind camper. There was smoke.
As we get closer I see a pile of smoking firewood laying in the road and a melted red plastic container.

I don’t know who picks up hot firewood but somehow he did, and came to regret that decision too, I’m sure.
We get to the fairgrounds and park. Our first stop this time, once we were through the gates, was at the scooter tent. Mike traded his driver’s license and fifteen dollars for two hours on this scooter. You can keep it longer if you want and they charge five dollars for every half hour you run over and it’s capped at thirty dollars for the day.
I’ll tell you what. That little scooter saved Mike’s back and made a day at the fair much more enjoyable.
In the picture is Mike on the scooter, then Jon Robinson on the bench with Aaron, Jonecca’s boyfriend.

“Who’s Jonecca?” you ask.
Jonecca is the beautiful daughter of Steph and Jon Robinson, currently in her last year of college. Steph recruited Jonecca to help her hand out diapers at the P&G stand.

I got in line and got some free samples of diapers.
“What are you going to do with diapers?”
I’m glad you asked!
I read someplace, probably Facebook, that you can take the diapers apart and use the absorbent gel beads in your house plants to retain water. Now, I’m not about to go out and buy diapers for this project, but since P&G was giving away samples of Pampers, their diapers, I figured why not give it a try.
I only have one houseplant and I haven’t done it yet.
        And with that, we will call this one done.

A Pology

I have a confession to make.
“What’s that Peg?” you ask.
I lied to you - not really on purpose,  nonetheless I told you something that wasn’t true. A misunderstanding… yeah! Let’s call it a misunderstanding.
“Peg! What are you going on about now!” you ask with exasperation.
I know you all think I’m some kind of botanist (cause I tell you all about plants) or entomologist (cause I tell you lots of things about bugs too) but the truth is — I’m not. And when I said that all butterflies are girls —
“I wondered how they reproduced,” a beautiful lady said to me  —
“I didn’t know all butterflies were girls,” another said to me —
— I didn’t mean it literally. And hence, the lie — er, misunderstanding.
I just refer to them as girls cause they’re pretty. Flies and other ugly, pesky critters I will always refer to as boys.
“What sex would you call an angel?” Momma asked when I had this discussion with her.
“I don’t know…angels are pretty… I guess if I was talking about angels I would say she.”
“Angels are neither male nor female by sex. They are male or female by nature,” Momma explained to me.
I did not know that.
Speaking of animals and sex, I saw this on the internet.
“Good luck getting those lions to breed, Noah,” captioned this picture which came from a children’s Bible stories book.

But just let me say here that some female lions do have manes. There’s a place called Mombo in Botswana’s Game Reserve that have maned female lions — manes so luxurious that they fool competing lions into thinking they’re males.
I sincerely regret any pain or embarrassment this misunderstanding may have caused you.

<<<<<>>>>>

That cat!
That darn cat!
Yeah, Smudge.
I opened my recipe box looking for my Dream Bars recipe and that little guy climbed right inside. He bounced around on the papers and when a corner came up, he sunk his little teeth into it. So now I have a box full of perforated recipes — at least the ones on top anyway.

Smudge reminded me so much of Baby Blue when he climbed in there. Baby Blue always thought anything new brought into the house was hers.
And speaking of Baby Blue allows me to show you one of my favorite pictures of her with our handsome little grandson, Andrew.

Sigh.
But, back to my story.
When I open a can of cat food, I give Smudge some of it and put the rest in the refrigerator. The next time he cries at me, I open the fridge and get the can out and give him a little more of it. Well Smudge has learned that all the yummy food comes out of the fridge and now when I open the door for anything, I have to remove a little Smudge before I can shut the door again.
I gave Smudge and his sister Cleo their last dose of worm medicine this past week. Cleo is all but two pounds. Smudge is a pound and a half, but I don’t really think Smudge is much bigger, he’s just fatter. His little tummy is so round another good name for him would be Roly-Poly — if I didn’t like Smudge so much.
Ginger and Smudge play together. Smudge will grab her and bite her legs. Ginger gets him on his back and stands over top him, which is a sign of dominance in a dog. Smudge don’t care, he’ll just bite her on the tummy.

Last week Mike found a short piece of gutter in the way back of the mill.
“Let’s put this up over the cat water bucket and feed the rainwater into it,” Mike said.
“Okay,” I agreed. The runoff from the roof will keep the cat bucket fresh and full.
Mike got a hammer, a couple of nails, a six foot ladder and out we went through the cat room door.
“Let’s put it over your shop windows,” he said.
“Fine by me.”

Mike set up the ladder, climbed up a couple of steps, put the hammer and nails on the top of it and reached for the gutter which I was holding.
Mike took one end of the gutter and said for me to take the other. “Try to hold your end up as high as you can.”
I stood on tiptoes, gutter in one hand, other hand against the board and batten side of the mill for support, and waited as Mike started to pound the nail through the thin metal side of the gutter.
“OW!” I cried, dropped the gutter, slapped at me elbow and walked a few feet away.
“What’s wrong?” Mike asked as he now tried to support the entire gutter on his own. It wasn’t heavy, just awkward.
“I GOT STUNG!”  I was not happy. I did not see the bee, I did not hear the bee but we’ve pounded on the eaves before and gotten stung, so I knew what it was, but usually it’s Mike that gets stung and not me.
“Come on. This won’t take long. Hold your end up.”
I went back to my station, picked up my end of the gutter, got on tiptoes and held the gutter as high as I could. Mike started pounding again.
“OOOWWWW!” I dropped the gutter and slapped the bee from my face. I was less happy now than I was before. “Why don’t you screw it in instead of pounding on it!” I thought that would disturb the bees less but Mike was well into the project and wasn’t going to change his tools.
“Come on!”
“No. I’m not getting stung again.” I haven’t been stung by a bee in years and now twice in one day. I scanned the eave and spotted a few bees. “There they are!”
Mike went for the wasp and hornet spray and sprayed the heck out of them then he managed to get the gutter up without my help and without getting stung either.
That evening we went to the Robinson’s for game night.

I’ll tell you what. We have a serious game addiction going on here. Out of the past fourteen nights we have probably played on twelve of them! We have several games we enjoy playing which include  Skip-Bo, Mexican Train Domino’s, and Rummikub.
By the next night, as we sat there playing cards, the bee sting on my elbow was so itchy it was driving me crazy. I scratched and scratched and scratched.
“You need some lavender,” Steph said and she got up and made me a little roller ball container of lavender infused oil. Not only does it help relieve the itch but I love the way it smells too. Stephanie is such a good friend.
The bite on my face? I don’t know why it didn’t get itchy like the one on my elbow.

Our insurance company has asked us to remove the trees and brush that touch the sides of the mill and barns so Mike started that project. He got his tractor out and is using that to push the smaller trees over and clean up the brush. I was out there helping him the other day and I had to wait on him for something or another.

I’ll just pull a few weeds from my (overgrown) flower bed while I wait, I thought. It’s a job I’ve been working on for a few weeks now — not because my flower bed is so big, but because I don’t work at it very often or for very long.
There I was, all bent over, pulling weeds and grass from the flower bed, making a neat pile I could pick up and toss in the weeds at the edge of the yard when I was done, when…
“OW!” I said right out loud. Those dang thorns! I must have grabbed one. I looked at my pinky to see if the thorn was still in there but it wasn’t. I could see the mark it left behind though. I reach for another handful of weeds and got stuck in my ring finger. “OW!” I cried again. Now I know darned well it wasn’t something I grabbed because it was on the back of my finger! It reminded me of nettles. Did I just brush up against one? You don’t have to grab those things to get stung by them. I reached for another handful of weeds and I got stung on my forearm.
Bees!
I didn’t see them, I didn’t hear them but it was bees! I know it was. I scrambled to get up, fell on my ass and took another sting before I could crab-walk a few feet away and get to my feet.
Stop laughing, it wasn’t that funny.
I waited for a minute or two for the bees to calm down then I went back and looked for their nest. The bees were still pretty mad but I edged closer and closer and I did finally spot their paper nest down in the weeds. (In the picture it’s the gray area behind the bees.) They are paper wasps.

“Get the wasp and hornet spray!” I hear you cry.
No. I don’t want to kill them. They aren’t really doing anything wrong and they aren’t really in a place where they are not supposed to be. They built their paper nest in the weeds, where it belongs and they stung an intruder, a threat to their nest (that was me), just as they were designed to do. But how am I going to finish weeding my flowers?
I thought about it and I know that the bees and wasps are not very active when it gets colder. Our mornings are cool — upper 40’s to low 50’s this time of year — if I go out first thing, maybe I can pull it up and toss it in the weeds. So the next morning I get up and let the dogs out first thing and I glanced over at my flower bed and down at my bare feet and thought, nope, not right now. That grass is cold and wet on bare feet first thing in the morning. You know how I know? Cause Itsy went a little far a couple of times and I had to go out and get her and bring her back — in my bare feet! You’d think I’d learn to put my shoes on before going out, wouldn’t you.
About an hour later, after I’ve had some coffee and I’m dressed, replete with shoes, I decide to see if the bees were up yet. I walked over to the nest and they were all still huddled together. I couldn’t really tell which weed the nest was attached to because of all the tall grasses surrounding it, and maybe it was more than one, so gingerly (and with one eye on the bees) I reached for the grass at the base of the nest. I pulled gently and I could see I didn’t have the right weeds in my hand, but I did wake the bees up. I’d better hurry, I thought and reached for a another handful of weeds.
“OW!” one of them got me. I didn’t need to be told again to leave their nest alone so I gave up for the day.

The next morning, determined to get the wasps out of the flower bed, I put on my shoes before going out and while the girls, Itsy and Ginger, were doing their morning duty, I went over to the flower bed and looked for the nest. I couldn’t find it.
Yeah! They packed up and left town! I thought. Then I spotted it, I’d pulled some of the supporting weeds from the nest the morning before and it was drooping almost to the ground. The bees were cold and sluggish. I could see which weeds the nest was attached to so as quietly as I could, without anymore movement of the weeds as I could help, I plucked the nest with it’s herd of bees on it, carried it ten feet to the edge of the yard and tossed it into the weeds.
And I didn’t look back.
And with that we will call this one done.

Pretty Pictures (And A Little News)

Oh my gosh! Where has the week gone? It’s Sunday afternoon and here I sit, in front of my computer, just now putting down the first few words of my letter blog. To say I’m running late would really be an understatement. Normally, by this time of the week, I like to have it almost done and not to be just starting it! With that in mind we will make this weeks edition mostly pictures.
This handsome guy is Spitfire and he graced my desktop for a while.

My current desktop photo is a close up of a red dragonfly. He was so good to sit for me for so long and didn’t even freak out when I got right in front of him for this shot. I love the purple and orange patches on his wings.

I thought dragonflies were dragonflies. Red dragonflies, blue dragonflies, green dragonflies, big dragonflies, little dragonflies … but no. They actually have names! This dragonfly is called a half-banded toper. How about that?
I washed the cat water tub out in the yard with rain water last week and a few hours later, when I went outside, there were butterflies all over the place!
The one with black edges on her wings (cause butterflies are always girls) is a pearl crescent. The other one is a spangled fritillary.

We have a lot of the same bugs and critters here in Pennsylvania as we had in Missouri, so these butterflies I was already familiar with.
I love the touch-me-not’s. I have two kinds of them here. I have the spotted touch-me-nots, shown here with the early morning dew on them.

And I have the pale touch-me-not’s which are a little larger than it’s spotted cousin.

And the aster’s are blooming. This one is the New England aster.

Do you remember, back on August 14 I showed you a pretty little flower called virgin’s bower? I told you that I would be showing it to you again because the seeds get feathery tails on them? Do you remember?

Well here’s the seeds all feathered out.

This orange and yellow bug is an instar of something that you might recognize as a green stink bug.

“What’s an instar?” you ask.
In the June 8th issue I talked a little about instars and nymphs. I thought there was a very definite difference between the two, but by the time I went to press, I didn’t have a clear explanation and the only thing I could find online said they were synonymous. I wasn’t very happy with that. I turned to Kristie at the Missouri Department of Conservation. “In a nutshell, is there a difference between instar and nymph? Google says they are the same thing.”
“I suppose you could say instar and nymph are synonyms but I use the term differently. I think of an instar as a stage in development while I think of a nymph as the animal itself.”
And there you have it.
Look at this guy. When I first saw him on these berries I thought it as a little spider. He dropped from the berry down onto the leaf and I chased him around a little trying to get a good picture of him (cause spiders are always boys). I thought he saw me and had his legs up as he backed away from me and went down over the edge of a leaf. He never flew. I just chased him from leaf to leaf before I lost him.
Now that the picture is on my computer I can see it’s a little bee. The f’s on the wings are what I thought were spider legs. I Googled it and found out that it’s not a bee either, it’s actually a fly. And he even has a name. He is called an apple maggot. Not a very nice name for a fly, do you think? But that’s what he is.

“How could you not tell the difference between a spider and a fly?” you ask.
Well, these berries are little and just to show you how little, I went back out and took another picture for you.

        And that fly was just a moving spot on the berry! Plus I was looking through the view finder of my camera. Plus plus I have old eyes.
The asters are blooming.

This one is a spider with his front legs up. I spent some time trying to identify the wildflower he’s sitting on but I couldn’t find it and I gave up.

This is a white cabbage moth, but it’s not a moth. It’s a butterfly.

I’m not so crazy about the tons of goldenrod I have around here but the bees certainly like it!

A garden spider. You can tell because of the zigzags in the web. Believe it or not, these zigzags have a name. A design in a web, no matter what the design is, is called a stabilimenta. It’s function is not clear but there are several theories. It could be camouflage for the spider lurking in the center; it may attract insect prey or maybe it warns birds of the hard-to-see web.

This fuzzy caterpillar is a milkweed tussock moth.

Eggs!

Perfect little crystal clear  orbs. Sticky too! I am not sure what they will be when they grow up but I suspect they will be slugs. I didn’t save them.
Wholly aphids live in Pennsylvania too!

A spangled fritillary on a thistle.

The asters are blooming.

And so are the spotted touch-me-nots!

Oh yeah, I already showed you them. The problem is I’ve been photographing them for the past three weeks and not showing you all the pretty pictures I’ve been taking.
Our pond has gotten enough water in it for the spadderdock to bloom and the frogs to emerge from wherever they go when there isn’t enough water in the pond.

Someone told us that if our pond is not holding water anymore it’s because of muskrats and we need to kill them. I’ve never seen any and won’t they leave when there’s no water? And how do you fix it after they’re gone?
Hmmm. I’m having the same problem with loosestrife that I had with asters and touch-me-nots — I’ve been photographing them for weeks! And I can’t decide on one picture to show you so here’s two.

I thought this was an interesting moth. I have no clue what it might be even though I’ve Googled it.

Have you had enough of pretty pictures?
How about a little bit of news?
We put an addition on the barn. It wasn’t quite big enough for the RV to get in out of the weather so Mike added sixteen feet on the front of it. Our budget won’t allow us to have the overhead doors installed yet, but that is on our wish list.

Question:
How do you keep a two-hundred-twenty pound man from moving?
Answer:
Have a fourteen ounce kitten fall asleep on him.

Just kidding. Sort of.
Mike has a huge heart for our animals and Smudge has been adopted into the household clan.
Yep. You heard me right. Smudge is now an indoor kitten and he is doing fantabulous! He’s put on weight faster than he was doing when he was outside and that’s because of me. When he cries, I feed him. I’ve weaned him from a bottle. Smudge had gotten to the point where he was doing more chewing than sucking so when the opened carton of kitten milk was gone, I didn’t open anymore. The next step is going to be getting him off the canned stuff. I have a small dish of hard kitten food available to him at all times but he really likes the canned cat food. Not only is it more expensive but it’s also bad for his teeth.
I was worried that he wouldn’t understand that he HAD to use a litter box EVERY time and not some out of the way corner but over the course of this past week, I’ve not found one mess on the floor.
The first few days he was in the house I kept him in a cat carrier if I wasn’t watching him. I showed him where the big boy boxes were and a few times after playing for a while or eating, I put him in the box and he used it. I let him climb out on his own and rejoin us.
After the first couple of few days I let Smudge stay out longer and longer and pretty soon I saw him go into the carrier and use his litter pan. And now the only time I confine him to the carrier is at night and I think I won’t be doing that for much longer either.
Moving indoors was an adjustment for Smudge because he didn’t have anyone to play with. Ginger and Itsy just don’t know how to play with a kitten although Ginger is trying to figure it out. So several times that first week I took Smudge out to spend time with Cleo, his littermate. And sunshine. All the critters need time in the sun.
Cleo is doing really well. She holds her own against the bigger kittens when it comes to feeding times. Again, I have hard food available to them all the time but the Kipp’s bring all the cats canned food in the mornings and I give them canned food at night as a bedtime snack.
The older kittens play with Cleo and take turns staying with her through the day. Most times it’s Spitfire, as evidenced by this picture of the two of them, but some mornings it’s Rascal and even Feisty, the only female of that litter, takes her turn babysitting Cleo. Very rarely will I see that Cleo is left on her own.

And with that, we will call this one done.