Slipping Away

Sometimes, like now - like this week, I start composing my letter blog in my head even before I’ve written a single word.
I spent Monday evening sorting photos for my new letter blog, making stories to go with the ones that are just pretty and picking out the photos I took especially to use in my letter blog.
Like this one.

Sigh.
Too bad I didn’t remember I’d taken a photo of the chip in the windshield when I talked about it last week.
Mike has since had the chip filled and during the filling process, a crack developed.
“But it won’t go any farther,” the guy told Mike.
And if, by chance, our windshield won’t pass inspection, and if, by chance, Mike takes it back to the same place for a replacement, they will apply the cost of the fill to the new windshield.
So I’m sorting pictures and writing in my head…
While I was busy writing the adventures of my family reunion for the past three weeks, life kept happening around me, the opening sentence would go. Then I would show you some of the pretty fall foliage photos I had picked out. Since I’d been taking photos for the past month, the color kept getting prettier and prettier and before long I’d picked out more than a dozen fall photos to show you.

Is that too many? I wonder. Oh, well. I’ll just put them all in the folder and delete what ever I don’t use. Then I begin to think I’ll do a letter blog with just photos and title it Just Photos… No, I’ve used that one before. It can be kind of tough coming up with a new, appropriate title every week, don’t you know. Maybe I’ll call it Fall Foliage…
Although there would be quite a few fall foliage photos in this letter blog, I had some stories I wanted to share too, and a sunset photo I took back at the beginning of October and never got around to showing you, even though it graced my desktop for a while too.
The river in the photo is the Susquehanna. The big building with lights all over it in the middle left side is the new power plant near the small town of Wysox, which is to the right in the photo.

And here’s a picture of my new rural route mailbox.

“It’s a little tall, isn’t it Peg?” you ask.
Yeah. Mike wanted to make sure it was planted good and deep so he used an eight foot six by six and cut off enough for the  brace. Then we loaded it onto the golf cart along with the digging bar and a shovel and went to pick out the spot where my mailbox would live.
Digging, in the rocky soil of our Mountain Home, was a job. I was helping Mike the best I could, but I have to tell you — I was so thankful when the Kipp’s came down the road on their daily walk. Lamar, oh my gosh, we have such fabulous neighbors! Lamar jumped right in and helped Mike for a while.
“You should have picked a different day to do this,” Lamar told him. “I can’t help for very long today. I have to get ready for an appointment.”

Lamar helped a lot! In the end though, Mike opted to get the chainsaw and shorten the post as the digging became too difficult. Besides, the hole was plenty deep anyway. The rock standing behind the mailbox was one Lamar helped Mike dig out of the hole. Mike suggested standing it up behind the post and I thought it was a great idea. I love it.

So I’m sitting here, in front of my puter, sorting photographs, thinking about the stories and photos I want to catch you up on and I’m thinking the title of this letter blog needs to reflect the variety of subjects I want to cover. But, it’s early in the week. I’ll just let it rattle around in my head and hopefully by the time it’s ready to post, a title will come to me.
And it came to me.
Tuesday morning, as I was waking up, it popped right in my head and I could see it as plain as if the words were written on crisp white paper.
Slipping Away.
Time.
It’s slipping away from me.
While I was busy writing the adventures of my family reunion for the past three weeks, life kept happening around me, and now I’m behind on photos and stories.
The disappearing rock walls of Pennsylvania and fall color.

A barn on Marsh Road.

The train depot…

And pond at Dushore.

Then a barn and lots of color on the other side of Dushore.

A fence row…

and bright reds dotting the hillside.

That cat!
That darn cat!
Yeah. Smudge.
Mike and I needed to return a few things to the store and I pulled the receipt shoebox down off the shelf and started sorting through them.
Smudge helped.

Smudge also helps  me write my letter blogs. The pads of his little paws work on my touch screen as well as my fingers do.

And Smudge helps Mike get dressed in the mornings; often times climbing Mike’s leg as he chases the belt Mike is threading through the loops of his jeans.
And hiding in the castoff jeans at the end of the day.

Smudge.
Goes everywhere he wants to.
Gets into everything he wants to.
He knows no boundaries.

Smudge pulled half the tissues out of an almost new, full box before I stopped him and unwound a whole roll of paper towels from it’s holder by the sink before I could get out of my chair and stop him.
And Smudge won’t stay out from under my feet. I’ve stepped on him so many times I decided to put a bell on him.

Sigh.
I still step on him.
Smudge plays hard! And continues to annoy everyone in the house to no end. The older cats get so mad at him! There is nothing quite like the hissing, spitting and growling of an angry cat. Smudge don’t care.

And they’re not the only ones who get aggravated at him either.
The house would be dark and quiet. We would all be tucked snug into bed. Smudge wouldn’t be ready to settle down for the night and he’d try to get us to play with him. After tossing him to the end of the bed a couple of times he’d then try to get the girls to play with him which ended up with them growling at him and everyone getting yelled at.
“SMUDGE! KNOCK IT OFF!” Mike would sternly tell Smudge.
Smudge moved on. To the dresser top.
Clang, rattle, roll, thump.
“What was that?” Mike asked.
“He’s knocking stuff off the dresser.”
Rattle… rattle, rattle…rattle.
Mike was starting to get frustrated. “Now what’s that?”
I knew what it was. I recognized the sound of metal on glass. “I have some necklaces hanging on a suction cup on the mirror and he’s batting them around.”
I got up, stepping on a tube of deodorant, and took the necklaces down.
After a couple of nights of this, we have decided to kennel Smudge at night again. He doesn’t seem to mind though.

How about a few more fall foliage photographs?
Crossing the Susquehanna.

These photos were all taken on a recent (three weeks ago now) shopping trip. Except the first photo of crossing the Susquehanna. That one was taken the week before but it’s so pretty I wanted to include it.
This is Towanda.

And speaking of Towanda, the local high school kids painted the windows along the main street with a theme that combined Halloween with the upcoming (at the time) election.
Hmm. I wonder who these two are supposed to be.

Broc Obama. LOL.

Although there was plenty of controversy, I think the kids did a great job.
The color is mostly gone from the trees now, along with the leaves. The mornings are crisp and frosty on the winter flowers but…

…the delicate crystals of ice don’t stand a chance when the first rays of the sun hit them.

Steel gray clouds are harbingers of the snow that is sure to fly in these beautiful mountains.

Enough of waxing poetic.
When we lived in Missouri we had a big box store called Menard’s. It’s similar to a Lowe’s or Home Depot in that they are a home improvement store, but Menard’s carries a bigger line of home goods, like pet supplies, clothing and groceries. They even carry a small amount of furniture like recliners and couches.
When we lived in Missouri we had a couple of little URL’s.
“Peg, what does a web address have to do with that?” you ask.
You’re right. URL does mean Uniform Resource Locator or a web address in computer lingo, but in my world, a URL is an Unspecified Roof Leak.
LOL.
Menard’s sells a product called Duck that has worked just fantastically for us. It is highly elastic and withstands expansion and contraction. That is great if you have a big sign on your roof that works back and forth with the wind and creates little leaks. You can put it on a wet surface and in temps as low as 35 degrees and it won’t wash off even if it rains while you are putting it on.

Yeah, you really don’t want to get it on your clothes or hands either.
Mike looked for a Menard’s store here and the closest one was in Ohio. A little far to go. But the internet is great because you can order online and they will ship it right to your house!
With our order confirmation we received a tracking number and everyday we looked to see where our (almost) five gallon bucket of Duck was. I say almost because they don’t sell a five gallon bucket. It’s a four point seven five gallon bucket. They don’t sell it by the one gallon either; it’s a point nine gallon.
Our Duck was almost here when a note appeared on our tracking order.
Container damaged. Returned to manufacturer.  
“Well, I guess that’s better than having it delivered here and finding out it’s damaged,” Mike said looking on the bright side. “What happens now?”
  “I don’t know. I would guess they will send you another one.”
Mike waited and waited. When we didn’t get another tracking number in the next few days Mike called. The order was resubmitted and the next day we got a new tracking number. The day came and our order was delivered. We hadn’t seen the UPS truck pull into our driveway, but we found the box on our patio. When we opened it…
It was damaged.  

“Are you going to send it back?” I asked Mike.
“No. Not that much of it leaked out and we need to use it while it’s nice enough to get up there and do it. Besides, I’m tired of waiting for it.”
At least he was honest. Patience isn’t Mike’s strong suit but he strives, everyday, to do better.
Mike spent a sunny and fairly warm afternoon applying Duck to areas he thought might be giving us some URL’s then we did what we always do with wet brushes we are intending to use again. We wrapped it in a plastic bag and put it in the freezer. You don’t have to clean your brush that way and it won’t dry out on you. You just have to remember to get it out of the freezer a few hours before you want to use it again.
Game night at the Robinson’s and I made a walnut pie.
“Walnut pie?” you ask.
Yes. It’s a lot like a pecan pie only made with walnuts and walnuts are my most favorite nut. Warm pie, vanilla ice cream…need I say more?
I brought the leftovers home and put them in the fridge. The next day I get the pie out with the intention of sending a couple of pieces home with the Kipp’s when they stopped by on their daily walk. I scooped a couple pieces into a takeout container and ate a bite of the one left on the pie plate.
Spit…splutter, splutter… YUCK!
What is that! It tastes like… I took another bite.
Yep. It tastes like chemicals! 
It was nasty.
I had no idea of how or where I had gotten something into or onto the pie. I hadn’t been doing any cleaning before I dished out a share for the Kipp’s, and it didn’t taste like that the day before.
It was a mystery.
Needless to say, the Kipp’s didn’t get any of my walnut pie.
That afternoon, making…what? I don’t know. Something or another. I’d gotten the butter out of the fridge and the first bite brought that chemical taste back, fresh to my mouth.
Yuck, yuck, double yuck!
What in the world… I wondered, put my something or another down and went to the fridge. I opened the door and surveyed the contents. Nothing suspicious jumps out at me. I closed it and opened the freezer only to be assaulted, full in the face, with a monstrous cloud of obnoxious chemical smell.  
And what do you suppose was laying there, front and center?
Mike’s paint brush.
I took the brush out of the freezer but the damage was done.
“That shouldn’t affect the stuff in the fridge,” Mike says.
“Obviously it does though.”
I now have a pound and a half of chemical tasting butter. What am I going to do with that?
“Feed it to the chickens,” I can hear my cute little red-haired brother say. “That’s what I do with a lot of stuff.”
But I don’t have chickens.
“Throw it away,” Momma says.
Can I feed it to the cats or maybe make it into a suet type food for the birds this winter. Do you guys have any ideas for me?
Besides the butter, the rye bread in the freezer has a vaguely chemical taste to it but not enough that it bothers Mike. The frozen blueberries that I put in my morning oatmeal have a slight taste to them too. Everything else was sealed well enough it prevented any transfer of odor.
“What did you do about the smell?” you ask.
Well, I didn’t have much baking soda on hand, which is what immediately sprang to my mind. But what I did have was charcoal. I grabbed a couple of pans and put a few charcoal briquettes in them and put one in the fridge and one in the freezer. It seems to work well enough.
More stories — okay, just one more — but we will save it for seed.
Let’s call this one done.
And don’t forget.
You are all in my heart.