King Of The Hill

Bittersweet October. The mellow, messy, 

leaf-kicking, perfect pause between the opposing miseries of summer and winter. 

—Carol Bishop Hipps

October.
October is beautiful in Pennsylvania and one of my favorite months. The weather is cooler, the leaves are changing color and starting to fall from the trees. The world around me is snuggling down, pulling the covers up and getting ready for winter.
I have not been good to go walking with my camera. In Missouri I went out a couple of times every day with the girls, Itsy and Ginger and took lots of pictures. Here? It is more of an effort for me. Especially since we have been letting Itsy and Ginger run without leashes. That means I can stand on the patio and just watch them. The only time I leash them is if I want to take them away from the house, say to the pond, or if they’ve been bad and didn’t listen to me, then I leash them for a while until their hearing improves.
During our garage addition project Mike had an extra load of gravel delivered so he would have some on hand to fill in the low spots on the property. I was outside with the girls when Ginger decided to play King of the Hill.

Another morning I’d made a concerted effort to take Itsy and Ginger for an early morning walk with my camera and take pictures for you. One of the first things I saw was a garden spider with the remains of a grasshopper still in his web. He looks well fed, doesn’t he?

The asters were pretty all covered in morning dew.

Spitfire, one of my favorite kittens, decided to follow along on our walk. When we got to the clothesline, he climbed the pole.

An asparagus fern.

Spider webs are easier to see when they are covered in dew drops. This one is my current desktop photo.

I’m busy guys.
Really busy.
Too busy even! Or maybe my problem is there aren’t enough hours in the day.
Between doing all of the things I need to do and some of the things that I want to do, my days are full up.
Mike and I work on our renovation project most mornings.
Pictures? Pictures you ask? Yeah, I expect I should take pictures, I just don’t ever think of it.
Most evenings finds us at the Robinson’s for a few rounds of Mexican Train Domino’s and Rummikub. So it is in the afternoons that I work on some of my projects and if I didn’t already have enough things I like to do, I saw something new on the internet that I thought I’d like to try. Transferring photographs to wood. With my love of photography and a love for all things natural, like wood, I thought it was a perfect fit for me. I bought Mod Podge matte finish to use as a transfer medium and I printed two photographs of Andrew, our grandson, with Baby Blue as my test photos.
“Why two?” you ask.
The page I was reading on the internet said if you print your photo directly from your computer, the ink would smear and bleed and you won’t be happy. It said to make a copy first. I didn’t understand why it would make any difference so me being me, decided to try it for myself. I printed one and copied one, making sure to mark the copy so I could keep them straight.
I got into Mike’s scrap wood pile, recruited Mike to cut them down to size for me and set to work sanding the scraps of wood. I didn’t know how fine the finish on the wood had to be so I lightly sanded one so it had a more rustic look and sanded the other a lot smoother.
“Use lots of Mod Podge,” the article said so I got one of those little black sponge craft brushes out and put a thick layer on my board, put the photo on top and smoothed out the bubbles. The glue smushed out too and I thought that was a waste so I didn’t put it on the second one quite as thick. I let the photos dry overnight and the next day I wet the paper and rubber until I got all of it off. And this is what I ended up with.
I think I can do better.

Something else I saw on the internet was a crochet stitch called a moss or  granite stitch. I love my crocheted dishrags and this stitch looked like it would make a good one and it looked easy enough for a novice like me to master.
I bought some purple Peaches & Crème yarn in Kat’s favorite color (purple) and I sat here one evening and made a dishrag. Once it was done I couldn’t wait to try it out so I got up and washed the few dishes sitting in my sink.

The verdict?
Although the stitch has lots of fabulous texture, it is much too dense and heavy. I dug around in my yarn box and found a pretty blue Peaches & Crème yarn, then I set about to make another one using the same moss stitch only changing it from a single crochet to a double crochet.
Crocheting can be very relaxing and as I was crocheting I was letting my mind drift. I thought about my beautiful daughter-in-law Kandyce. She likes to use these as washcloths.
Washcloths?
And that made me think of Mike who likes a washcloth with lots of texture — rough even. Would he like one of these?
“Mike, feel this?” I commanded and got up from my seat and handed him the swatch I had made. “Do you think you’d like it for a washcloth?”
“Maybe,” he answered. “Only it’s not big enough.”
I made it washcloth size and gave it to Mike.
The verdict?
He likes it.

Something else I have been doing a lot of lately, too much even, is baking. I’ve always loved to bake and now with game nights at the Robinson’s it’s become a habit for one or the other of us to bake or buy something to snack on while we are playing.
There is one problem with this.
It’s not so good for the waistline.
Jon Robinson is almost as good of a baker as me.  I gave him the easy no knead bread recipe that Kat gave me and he turned it into sticky buns! We won’t talk about the batch he had to throw away because he forgot to take the plastic off before baking it.
LOL.
Happens to the best of us.
He made them again and they. Were. Yummy!
Jon also makes a banana quick bread and Stephanie made chocolate chip cookies.
Me?
I’ve made Dream Bars and if you add a scoop of vanilla ice cream while they’re still hot out of the oven it’s like heaven on earth. I made homemade caramel corn and sugar cookies and chocolate chip cookies and Monday (tomorrow) I’m making dinner for the Robinson’s. Taco salad and a new recipe called a Texas Tornado Cake for dessert.

Yeah.
It makes for a good social time but not so good for the waistline.
Rosaries.
Momma and I have been making these jumbo size rosaries from Kentucky Coffee Tree seeds for many years now. These past couple of weeks I’ve been drilling seeds and putting together a new batch for her. I’ve got six made so far.

Did I mention that I’ve been busy?
“Peg, do you have any critter stories for us this week?” you ask.
Critter stories? Boy do I!
Since I have been locking the babies in the cat room at night, Mike and I have opened the wayback of the mill for the wild cats to come in out of the weather and have a bite to eat. One evening, when I went to check the food dish in that part of the mill, in the dim light, I see what I think might be a raccoon. Inside. Waddling away and out of sight up under some shelving before I had a good look at him.
“I don’t want to feed coons and I don’t want them inside,” Mike flat out says.
“Okay,” I am in agreeance with him. “I’ll set the live trap.”
I got a cat the first night. A gray and white female named Anon and mother to Cleo and Smudge. I locked her in the cat room for a couple of days hoping to tame her.
The next night I caught this big guy. Now, I’m not going to say that we took him a few miles from here and set him free because I recently learned — from my cute little redheaded brother — that that would be illegal. But if I were going to do that, we are practically next door to over 700 acres of State Game Lands.

I reset my trap and the next night I caught Sugar, a speckled white female and mother of my other three babies, Rascal, Spitfire and Feisty. I put her in the cat room with Anon hoping to tame them both at the same time.
The next night I caught this guy, a smaller version of the first guy.

“Is that a fork in his cage?” you ask.
Why yes it is. I only want to make one trip out at bedtime so I take all the food I’ll need with me. A dish of hard cat food to refill the pan for the wild cats, a fork and can of soft food to feed the babies before I put them to bed. I carried the fork to the wayback with me and set it down before I reset the live trap and forgot it when I left. In my mind’s eye, I can see where I set the fork and it wasn’t anywhere close to the trap. That coon couldn’t have reached it once he was caught. Did he pick it up and carry it into the trap with him? I don’t know, but I’ll tell you what. The way my fork is bent up looks like he tried to use it to escape the trap. I know coons are smart, but this is ridiculous!

Coming home from an early morning errand we saw a whole herd of turkeys in the field.

Since I had two wild cats locked in the cat room, I had to lock the kittens in the garage. I’d go in several times a day and talk to Sugar and Anon and sing to them a little but they weren’t warming up to me at all. I even tried food. Some nice juicy ham. Boy, Anon is so ungrateful! Rather than take the food from me she nailed me.
Has to be a mistake, I thought. And I tried again.
Nope. No mistake. She meant to nail me the first time and she double nailed me the second time. I have the claw holes in my fingers to prove it too.
Well. That certainly gave me something to think about.
They weren’t happy. I wasn’t happy. And the cat room was tied up with two ungratefuls.
Enough.
I opened the outside door and left the cat room open.
“Peg, why is it illegal to catch wildlife in one place and turn it loose some place else?” you ask.
Well that is a great question and one that I wondered too.
I turned to the internet. On the state website it says that some animals such as skunks and coons can be carriers of rabies and you don’t want to take a chance on introducing it into another area. Best to destroy the nuisance pest and then contact the DNR.
I don’t like that.
I don’t want to kill things if I don’t have to.
So we came to a decision. Stop feeding the cats in the wayback so the coons don’t come in. The cats will have to come to the cat room during the day for food, and that shouldn’t be a problem. Most of the day there isn’t anyone around out there but the kittens so they have plenty of opportunity to come in. Pretty soon the kittens will be big enough that I won’t be locking them up at night, then the wild cats can come into the cat room at night if they want too.
More pictures?
A bald-faced hornet on a calico aster.

The milkweed pods have split open and the seeds are taking flight.

Mike is clearing a lot of brush and weeds from the property. He uses the golf cart to drag them to the back where we have a burn pile. Come fall we’ll get a big bag of marshmallows and invite the neighbors over.

“How’s Smudge?” you ask.
That cat!
That darn cat!
He is so precocious!
And not a bit spoiled.

Smudge has taken to the litter box quite well. No complaints there and no mistakes either. He uses it faithfully.
Opening the fridge is quite a challenge. No. That’s not quite right. Opening it is easy, it’s closing it that can get a little tricky. I told you that Smudge has learned that all the tasty food comes out of there. Just to be clear, I don’t invite Smudge into the fridge. He’s fast — boy, is he fast. As soon as the door is open, he’s in.

“Com’on Smudge,” I say and he jumps right down with a meow. Only because he thinks I’m going to feed him though. Then I have a kitten under foot and I’ve stepped on him more than once.
Smudge is helpful. He helps Mike play solitaire on the computer.

Those needle sharp claws of Smudge’s though, I’ll tell you what! My legs are covered with scratches and little scabs where he has climbed my legs. I don’t always have jeans on.

And Ginger won’t sit in my lap anymore. She’ll be laying here sleeping and Smudge will reach up and claw her from underneath. Ginger gets mad and goes and lays on the couch. It has happened so often that Ginger hardly ever even tries to lay in my lap anymore. I miss that.
We came home with groceries the other day and Smudge explored every bag.

The other night in bed, we were all settled down and Smudge was wound tighter than an eight day clock. He’d jump on me and I’d toss him off. He jumped on Mike and got tossed off. Ginger and Itsy both growled at him and then it was my turn again. He attacked my hair where it was spread out on the pillow.
“SMUDGE! Go away!” and I reached for him and he thought my hand was another toy. “OW!” I cried when he bit and scratched me, but I got him and tossed him back to Mike’s side of the bed.
And this went on for about twenty minutes as Smudge tried so hard to get someone to play with him!
Dinner time has turned out to be another challenge. Smudge doesn’t know any boundaries and he tries to get in Mike’s dinner plate. Mike picked up Smudge and tossed him — gently — to the other end of the couch. Smudge was back in Mike’s lap before he could pick up his fork again.
“He’ll only be a kitten once,” I told Mike.
And with that, we will call this one done.