Quill Pig

Game night is one of my favorite nights. There’s nothing like sitting around the table with family and friends; laughing and telling stories, sometimes sharing our fears and worries. 

We normally start after the supper dishes are washed and play until eight o’clock-ish. That gives us time to play four rounds of Mexican Train dominoes and four rounds of Rummikub, which is what we normally play. That gives everyone a chance to go first. Sometimes I can talk the guys into playing a round of Skip-Bo with me, usually at the expense of a round or two of Rummikub. There are only so many hours in the evening and some people have to work in the morning and some of us are just old and go to bed around nine-ish. 

We had a game night planned.

“Are you ready or almost ready or what?” Mike asked. 

I was sitting in front of my computer and I glanced up at the clock. Fifteen minutes to go. “Almost ready. I have to walk the girls and scoop the litter boxes.” It would be too late when we got home and I wouldn’t feel like doing it then anyway and the litter boxes really needed to be done. 

I got up from my seat and got the first of three inside litter boxes, carried it through the living room and out onto the breezeway where the scoopin’ happens in this house. I scooped and returned the box and carried the second one out. On my way though, as Mike sat in front of his puter playing Solitaire, I said, “You could walk the girls while I finish this.” 

I was scooping the third one when Mike came through the breezeway carrying both girls, Itsy and Ginger. I finished the last inside box and carried my plastic bag lined pail to the garage to scoop the first of four outside boxes. 

Yeah, I know. It’s a lot of boxes to scoop and a lot of litter to use. Thank goodness for scoopable litter. But I’d rather have the cats use a litter box than a corner of the garage — and for the most part, they do.

I was on the second box when I hear the girls bark and Mike call to them. He never uses a leash because they always listen to him. Me? I tried to let them go out naked (with no leash on) but I’ve had to chase them down too many times as they took off after a cat or rabbit; a leaf or a bit of fluff or even something totally imaginary. It just takes one of them to start barking and running before they both go. They kind of feed off of each other that way, you know what I mean? And once they are on the run, they don’t stop. In conclusion, it’s been a long time since I’ve taken them out without leashes on.

I move to the third box, which lives in the cat room, and I hear Ginger barking and I think she’s running down the side of the mill, just outside the cat room door. 

Mike calls for them.

They bark.

I keep scooping.

Then I don’t hear anything.

A door opens and closes. 

“Peg! They ran off,” Mike says.

“Where did they go?” I asked putting my pooper scooper down and straightening up.

“Over in the weeds someplace.”

Mike went back into the house and I went out the cat room door. I can hear Ginger bark in the weeds. 

“ITSY! GINGER! COME HERE!” I yell but they don’t come. Despite the fact that we never use corporal punishment on the girls, maybe they won’t come if they think I’m mad.

I hear the weeds rustle as they run through the dried stalks of winter flowers and bark. I change tactics and use an excited tone hoping to get them to obey me. 

“Itsy! Ginger! Come here girls!” It didn’t work, but then again, I didn’t really think it would. 

Yip-yip-yip! I hear a cry. I had visions in my mind’s eye of a whistle pig or coon biting Itsy. I thought it was Itsy crying. 

“COME HERE! RIGHT NOW!” I demanded, more scared than mad. I call again and again and I can hear them moving in my direction. Ginger was first out, emerging from the weeds, head down and sticking out of her face… porcupine quills! I didn’t even know I had any quill pigs! I picked Ginger up and plucked a quill from my poor little girl as I called for Itsy. I could hear her coming and while we waited I surveyed the damaged. Oh my gosh! There was one in her eye! Ginger had a porcupine quill sticking up out of her eye! I think it was in the flesh on the inside of the lower lid though and not the eyeball itself. I tried to keep her still. She was whimpering and kept trying to brush the quills from her face with her paw. It seems like it took Itsy a long time to come out of the weeds but it was probably only a few minutes and I could see she was quill-free. Thankfully but not really surprising. Ginger is faster and probably got a taste of the quill pig first and Itsy had sense enough to stay away.

I picked Itsy up and carried the girls into the house where Mike was sitting in front of his computer, passing the wait time with Solitaire. 

“Mike, Ginger got into a porcupine,” I said and put Itsy down. I carried Ginger to Mike. “I’ll hold her while you pull the quills out.” 

Mike tried to get a hold of a quill but every time he touched it Ginger cried and pulled away. “I’ll hold her, you pull the quills,” Mike said.

I handed Ginger over to his lap but I didn’t have any better luck getting a hold of one than he did. A picture of my little needle nose pliers flashes in my mind’s eye. I’d brought them in from my shop a week ago for… Oh my gosh! I don’t remember why I brought them in here now. Isn’t that strange? But they were right here beside my computer. I got up and got the pliers, came back, knelt down in front of Mike and Ginger, grabbed a quill and yanked. I didn’t screw around either. I figured quicker is better. With each quill came a cry from Ginger and when I pulled the one from her eye, bloody tears ran. 

I checked her over, looking for missed quills and near the top of her head I found one embedded so deep only a little piece of white was sticking out. 

Job done, I went to get a warm cloth when Mike called me back.

“Look,” he said.

I looked. 

It hurt Ginger so bad, she pooped all over his lap.

Can’t say as I blame her though.

Mike changed and I took Ginger with me to the Robinson’s for game night that night. She laid in my lap the whole time and never moved a muscle. 

My poor girl. Now, a week later, the white of her eye is still shot through with red, but other than that she seems fine. 

Speaking of game night…

The Luby’s hosted the first of what I hope to be many game nights with the Robinson’s and the Kipp’s. 

Like I said, I like being with family and friends. 

I made a huge pot of vegetable soup…

Okay, okay! That isn’t strictly true. I made two pots of vegetable soup, which if you combine them would make one huge pot.

“One pot is enough,” I said to Mike as we planned this get-together. “I’ll use the bigger of the two pots that I have.”

“What if it’s not?”

Well, there is no one in this house who wants anyone to go away hungry. “Okay,” I acquiesced. “I’ll make two pots.” It’s all good. Leftovers freeze well and it tis the season for soups and stews and chili after all.

I made the soup, deviled eggs, Kat’s homemade bread recipe, brownies and pumpkin roll. There were saltines and oyster crackers as well as a side of applesauce sprinkled with cinnamon and chia seeds. 

Lamar said a blessing over our food and we ate. Then we cleared the table and played games until the end of the evening.

The boys, Jon and Mike, neither one is crazy about Quiddler. I figured we’d let them sit out for a few rounds while Rosie, Lamar, Steph and I played, 

“I even bought a couple of dictionaries at the second hand store,” I told them. “And I found one in the library. So we have three dictionaries we can use.”

Lamar picked up one of the dictionaries and was flipping through it, chatting with Mike while I sat chatting with Rosie. Lamar, being a runner, looked up the definition of run.

“Guess how many definitions there are for the word run in this one?” Mike asked me indicating the American College Dictionary. 

“I don’t know. How many?”

“One hundred four. Guess how many in the other one?” which is a Funk & Wagnalls. 

“I don’t know.”

“Thirty four.”

“I think those two are school dictionaries,” I mused.

Lamar knew something I didn’t know. “Peg has two dictionaries here,” he said.

“Two! Lamar there’s three there!”

“Na, there’s two.”

“Turn around and look!” I could see three books stacked up there.

Lamar is unflappable. He touched the bottom two. “These two are just one.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. This one is A thru Lobar and this one is Lobate thru Z.”

“Really! I guess it’s a good thing I picked up both of them then.” Really, honestly, truly, I thought I was buying two dictionaries and I wanted two for Quiddler night. Had I only bought one I’d only have half a dictionary.

We ended up just playing dominos and one round of Rummikub that night so we didn’t need them anyway. But one of these days — it’ll be Quiddler night!

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My friend and neighbor Stephanie Robinson invited me to a girls night out paint class. We used acrylic paint on canvas and made these sunflowers with You are my Sun Shine written on it.

During the course of the evening we chatted as we created our masterpieces and one of the gals made a comment that made me wonder. She lost her husband and father within a short span of time and our girls night out paint class fell close to the one year anniversary. 

“I’m not on speaking terms with God right now. I’m mad at Him.”

What would you say to someone who says that?

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In a world where writing longhand and cursive are becoming a lost art, don’t you think this is very beautiful?

Mike had to call the company that sent us this bid and while he had the secretary on the phone, he complimented her on her penmanship and she was pleased.

<<<<<>>>>>

On a shopping trip to Athens Mike and I were driving around and spotted this interesting building. 

“Stop and let me take some pictures,” I said to Mike and Mike is such a good sport and used to these wacky requests from me, that he pulled right over. I walked around and took a few pictures then I got back in the Jeep. 

“What was this place?” I asked Mike. 

“A coal company. See the tracks going into the building?”

“Yeah. Can we drive down that way?” I asked. 

Mike turned into the parking lot. “Coal came in on those tracks, up into the building,” he said pointing. “Then they opened valves in the bottom of the train cars and the coal went down chutes where the trucks waited at the bottom,” he explained.  

I snapped pictures then spotted something further down a dirt road. “What is that?” I asked.

Mike looked. “I don’t know.”

“Can we drive down that way?” 

Mike put the Jeep into gear and we made our way down to where an old train car sat rusting on a dead-end piece of track. I was taking pictures when a car comes up behind us and stops beside our Jeep. Mike’s window was already down, and we waited as the window opened in the other car. A gentleman leaned towards us.

“Can I help you?” he asks and before we can reply, he spots the camera I held in my hands. “Oh. You’re just looking at my junk.” He waved. “Okay. Have a good day.” Up goes his window and he drives on through, across the intersecting road and up to a big, beautiful stone house. I’ll tell you what. Pennsylvania has some of the most beautiful stone houses!

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Has anyone experimented with making their own laundry soap?

“I have,” I can hear my handsome son Kevin say.

“How did it work?” I asked him.

“It works just as good as the store bought stuff does,” he told me. “And it’s a lot cheaper.”

I’d been wanting to make my own soap. The only thing holding me back was it seemed like a pain to make since you had to boil it and mix it in a five gallon bucket and let it sit overnight. I bought the stuff and this past week I researched it online. The cost of homemade soap compared to store bought was three cents per load compared to eighteen cents, depending on the brand you buy. And all the websites said it worked every bit as well as commercially made soap and in some cases even better. It works in high efficiency washers too, not that I have one of those. And by making your own you avoid the harsh chemicals, fragrances, colors and other additives in many regular detergents.

Then I found a recipe that made powdered soap and not liquid. Actually, it’s the same recipe, you just don’t liquefy it. And it dissolves easily in the washing machine, the website said. It seemed so much easier and didn’t require the huge amount of storage space a five gallon bucket takes up not to mention the mess I would make transferring it to smaller containers (you are advised to save a few laundry soap containers before you start this project). 

So I made it. In fact, since I was making, I made a double batch. I grated the soap and mixed it with the washing soda and borax. It didn’t take very long and only takes two tablespoons per load. I’ve washed two loads with it so far and it does seem to work just fine. It doesn’t suds up but the clothes came out clean and fresh smelling. I think I like it!

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That cat!

That darn cat!

Yeah, Smudge.

He tore the tissues out of the box again this week. 

And he knocked a roll of paper towels onto the floor and tore them up too.

Smudge knocked over the dog food box and climbed inside. 

And he wrestled with Ginger, pinning her down. 

Smudge knows he’s not allowed on the table when we are eating… does it stop him?

NO! 

Despite the fact that I threw him off the table three times, he still came creeping back. 

Smudge is the wildest cat we’ve ever owned. He often times gets so wound up he bites anything — like the corner of my computer — and everyone — me when I’m tying to comb him —  and he won’t settle down. 

But I did catch him settling down in what seems like is a new routine for him. He’ll hold the blanket in his mouth while kneading with his front paws before he lays down for a nap. Even Mike has seen him do this and commented on it. 

Let’s end this week with a few snow pictures I took just this morning! 

My clothesline and the barn on the hill.

One of the little girls followed along on my walkabout this morning. I can’t tell if it’s Feisty or Cleo from this distance since they are almost twins, but she didn’t keep up. She’s on the far side of the pond.

And lastly, the cattails with snow on them. 

Let’s call this one done!