Friday, O Friday

        Friday, O Friday, what a day you were!
I woke up — which is always a good thing — to Spitfire, standing on the edge of the bed, staring out the window. Curious, I sat up and looked.
What do I see?
A cat.
A cat torturing a … mouse? I’m guessing mouse but maybe it was a mole. It was hard to tell in the early morning light — that and I have Cadillac eyes, so I don’t see all that well.
“Peg, why don’t you get those cataracts fixed?” you ask.
“What and not have a good excuse for a million different things?” I say with a little laugh. “I will. Someday. When I’m ready. Not right now.”
Despite being almost naked (the best way to sleep in my opinion), and despite the chilly morning air, I ran for my camera. Mike was up already and watching TV. He was quite surprised to see me rush into the living room in my state of un-dress.
“Wow!” he exclaims with a big grin. He loves me.
“There’s a cat out there with a mouse,” I say by way of explanation. I ignore his leer, and snatch my camera from the table, where it lives most of the time.
“What cat?” he asks.
“I can’t tell but I think it’s that tabby that’s been hanging around,” I  answered. We’ve had at least two different strays visit us in the past weeks. A gray tabby a couple of times and most recently, a big black tabby.
“We don’t need any more cats hanging around here,” Mike says to me. “Don’t feed them.”
“We’re not going to turn away a hungry creature,” I tell him and feed them anyway.
I got my camera and went back to the bedroom window. Spitfire was still watching. I snapped a few pictures but the light was too low and they’re not the best, however, they are good enough to give you an idea of what’s going on.

I watched a literal game of cat and mouse take place.

Cats are cruel, you know that?
The tabby walked away, the mouse sat there. The tabby went back and swatted the mouse.

       I’ve seen this battle of life and death before and in my mind’s eye I can hear and see the mouse squeaking up a storm, turning and facing the cat, mouth open, teeth bared, but still no match for it’s mighty foe.
The tabby continued this game of retreat and attack. I’m guessing the cat walks away hoping the mouse will run, but the mouse never does.
I watched for a little while, then dug my socks out of the bed bottom, hurried into my duds, hooked up the girls, took my camera and went outside. I walked around the corner and I see the fun and games are over.
Crunch, crunch… I hear. A line from Jack And The Beanstalk, a story I used to read to my kids when they were little, comes to my mind. “I’ll grind ye bones to make me bread!” I used my full zoom (and a little flash) to take a couple of pictures but I didn’t get too close. If it was the stray tabby, I didn’t want to scare him from his meal.

Today, getting these pictures around for my letter blog, I can tell this is Feisty, our little year-old female.
  It’s hard being so conflicted, you know that. I’m sad for the mouse but proud of our cat. YAY Feisty! You go girl!
After the morning excitement, I needed to get everyone fed, then get myself showered and ready for our planned shopping trip to Athens.
My hair is longer than it’s been in fifteen years. I’ve kept it short for so long and made so many trips to the hair salon to keep it that way that I’m taking a break and just letting it do what it wants to do. Grow, don’t grow. I don’t care.
I saved my hair combs from a hundred years and a lifetime or two ago. I have them in many colors and I used to wear them in my hair everyday for work, matching the color to my shirt if I could. But in those days I used to perm my hair. With straight hair the combs don’t stay in as well. Now I had a problem, not a big problem, mind you, but a problem none the less. I wanted to put my hair back in a comb, but I don’t want to perm my hair again. Then I found out that if my hair is damp or if I wet the combs, they will stay in a little better.
I was at the thrift store a while back and picked up a set of Revlon hot rollers. I didn’t even know if they worked or how to use them but I took a chance. After owning them for several months I finally decided to give them a try. I Googled how to use hot rollers and watched a couple of videos and gave it a go. I have to say, it’s the best fifty cents I ever spent!
Since we were going shopping of Friday, I put the hot rollers in my hair, and let them do their magic while we had breakfast. Forty-five minutes later I took the rollers out, finger combed my hair and pulled it back with the combs. I can’t stand to have my hair loose and flying in my face — getting in my way. This is better than a pony tail anyway, don’t you think?

“Shows your gray, Peg,” you say.
It really does. My hair is gray underneath and dark on top so pulling it back does show off my gray — just another perk of wearing it this way.
“Perk!” you exclaim.
That’s right! I’ve been waiting fifty-seven years for gray hair and by golly, I’m going to show it off!
Friday, O Friday, you were dark and dreary — and wet too!
It was raining. As Mike and I climbed the hill out of Wyalusing, my camera in my lap, I said, “I probably won’t take many pictures today.”
“Probably not,” Mike responded.
I thought to put the camera in the backseat, but then I didn’t.
We were following a log truck and halfway to Wysox we see flashing lights.
“Cop,” Mike says but as we got closer we could see it wasn’t. “What’s he doing?” Mike asks.

“I don’t know,” I answered but I thought maybe he was getting something off the road or looking for something lost, maybe.
We round a curve and the answer is before us.
“Accident?” I say with a question in my voice and I scan for wrecked vehicles but don’t see any.

Traffic is moving at a pretty good clip. I’m taking pictures of the emergency vehicles stopped on the road. Then we finish rounding the curve.
“There it is,” Mike says. “In the ditch.”
I turn my attention to the other side of the road and I see it.

“Heck of a way to park your car,” Mike jokes.

Other than the fact the poor guy had gone down in the ditch, it didn’t look too serious. The ambulance was still sitting there, not screaming its way to the hospital.
A few hills and curves later, I exclaim, “Turkeys!” and I point to a field two fields over and up on a hill. I bring my camera up, zoom in as far as it will go, and snap off a few pictures before the trees obscure the view.

“Ain’t nothin wrong with your Cadillac eyes,” Mike says.
“What?”
“Ain’t nothin wrong with your Cadillac eyes,” Mike repeats. “I couldn’t have seen them.”
I laughed. “That’s because you’re driving! And I don’t know that they’re turkeys. When you see big black birds in a far off field you just assume they’re turkeys!”
We saw more tree haulers that day then we usually see in any one day and we followed this guy through the little town of Ulster. And this, my dears, is my current desktop photo.

Don’t say it. I know. I’m weird.
Do you see the buildings on the left? There is an old brick bank building, built in the late 1800’s I think and a big building next to it and next to that is a small barber shop with its back corner hanging over the creek (only in Pennsylvania) and on the other side of the creek was a big house that is now gone — torn down, and all of these buildings are slated for demolition. Turns out the state bought the property to improve the intersection.
“I wonder if there’s still a safe in there,” I asked Mike.
“No,” he states bluntly.
“What?”
“You can’t have it.”
Sigh.
Besides getting the necessities and a few building supplies for Mike, I scored big. A new (to me) top for workouts from the thrift store, yarn and beads to create with. I was channeling my Missouri friend Linda on Friday, O Friday. Orange is her favorite color.

That evening I sat and crocheted a new dishrag while we watched TV.

        At one point my yarn ball fell to the floor, under my chair, and I wasn’t in any hurry to pick it up. Next thing I know, I tug to get a little more yarn and it felt like a fish on the end of a line.
“What… Spitfire!”
That little dickens had my yarn ball in his mouth and was walking away with it. He flopped down and proceeded to eviscerate my yarn ball. I took his picture before I took it away from him.

<<<<<>>>>>

I have found an outlet for my creations. I’m going to set up at a car show in Wyalusing in June. That’s far enough away that I can make a few things to sell.
Until the weather gets warm enough that I can get back out to my glass shop and make suncatchers, I can continue to make things here at the table. My biggest problem will be pricing. I want to make money but I also want to sell the stuff too.

“Give part of the proceeds to charity,” my cute little red haired sister suggested. “I always buy stuff I don’t need when I know it’s going to charity.”
That’s a great idea. The mobile spay/neuter clinic has been a godsend to us in helping to get eight cats fixed at a price we could afford. I wouldn’t mind giving back. And the animal rescue in Tunkhannock took the baby possums I found on the road, and the bat that got tangled in the pull-string of a light here inside the mill. I wouldn’t mind helping her out either.  
Besides pricing, I need ideas on displaying said creations. I think I can hang my suncatchers from strings on the tent poles. Dishrags, pet rugs, and rosaries, can be stacked on a table but I hate to put the bracelets and rings in a box to get all jumbled up and I don’t want to spend a ton of money on displays either. Any ideas?

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I love getting mail from you guys. I just love it.
Last month I got a letter from Mr. B’s son, J.D. I’d been watching for a letter from him for about two weeks when one showed up. He writes me every few months and my weekly letters brighten his day, as his letters brighten mine too.

Last month I received two valentines cards. TWO! Getting one wasn’t totally unexpected, because I’d sent one. But the other was a complete surprise, enough so as to make me teary-eyed. Thank you beautiful cousin Lorraine. Even now, thinking about it, makes me smile.
This past week I got another letter! Once or twice a year I hear from Carol, one of my bingo ladies from when I worked with Kevin in the kitchen at the Lake Ozark Lions Club in Missouri.
It’s in Carol’s heart to write me more often but because of tremors, it’s a chore for her and she worries I won’t be able to read it. I can see her writing is shaky but I was able to read it okay.
Carol’s letter was full of news and she always includes a few stamps (to help offset the cost of sending her my letters) and for that I want to thank her.
Thank you Carol. That’s very kind of you.
Carol mentioned that she and her husband Jim enjoy the ongoing saga of Peg and Mike’s life and it’s the first thing they open when it comes. She said that she loves all of the pictures especially the kitty ones, but it makes her sad to hear that Smudge has to be kenneled at night so he doesn’t tear the house up.
Well, Carol, I have a little bit of news for you on that front. We no longer kennel Smudge at night. Now, when he won’t settle down, we let him sleep out in the cat room with his sister and cousins.
And lastly, I’d like to share one more bit of news from Carol with you.
Carol has kept all of my letters, from the very first one I sent her back in 1999, she thinks. Me? I don’t remember when Carol came on board. She has them in a box and needs to do something with them. She said it’s about 15 pounds worth and asked if I’d like to have them back.
No, Carol, but thank you for the offer. I’ve kept a copy of my letters since I started writing them.
“Maybe someone would like them as a whole or find a publisher, just starting out. Good stories. I just couldn’t bear tossing them away.”
I don’t know about a publisher but I thought I’d ask you guys and see if any of you are interested in having them. Let me know and I’ll get you in contact with Carol.
What a blessing it is to have you all in my life — and in my heart.

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With a little room left on the bottom of page eight, here are two photos with no particular stories.
A barn, close to the road, with the front collapsing.

And another barn.

Let’s call this one done.

Blizzard!

Oh my goodness!
What a snowstorm we had! Was it officially a blizzard? I don’t know. I heard something on the news (but I only ever half listen — usually because I’m doing something else) that said a blizzard isn’t defined just as a huge amount of snow.

A blizzard is a storm with ‘considerable falling or blowing snow” and winds in excess of 35 mph and visibilities of less than ¼ mile for at least 3 hours, according to the website Live Science, the first website I checked out. I went on to read the short article. When all the blizzard conditions are expected, the National Weather Service will issue a ‘blizzard warning.’ When just two of the three are expected, a ‘winter storm warning’ or ‘heavy snow warning’ may be issued. 
Where did the term ‘blizzard’ come from?
It had been used to describe a canon shot or a volley of musket fire. It first showed up to describe a snowstorm in an Iowa newspaper in the 1870’s, according to the weather service. 
Hmmm. I decided to get my information straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, and I went over to the NOAA website (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). Their definition of blizzard is this: A blizzard means that the following conditions are expected to prevail for a period of 3 hours or longer. 

• Sustained wind or frequent gusts to 35 miles an hour or greater; and
• Considerable falling and/or blowing snow (i.e., reducing visibility to less than a ¼ mile)

Okay, so if I’m understanding this correctly, it’s saying that you can have a lot of snow but it won’t be considered a blizzard unless it affects visibility and lasts for 3 hours or longer.
And that brings us back to the beginning. I don’t know if this record-breaking snowfall was officially classified as a blizzard or not but I do know that it snowed for over 12 hours straight.

Mike took me out for a short ride to take a few pictures. This shot of my neighbors mailbox is one of my favorites.
“Why?” you ask.
Because, even being sheltered by the tree, there’s still a lot of snow on top of his mailbox.

Another neighbor, Lemar, was out early with his snow blower. Even though it was still snowing, he was trying to get ahead of it.

“Do they plow an open grate bridge?” I asked Mike.
“No,” he answered. “It would damage the bridge, the plow, or both. The snow’ll fall through the grates anyway.”
The next day, the day after the record-setting single-day snow accumulation, Mike and I went for another ride. The wind was blowing the snow back on the roads after the plows had gone through,

and our bridge over the Susquehanna River had a lot of snow on it.

I posted these pictures and more on my Facebook page and I sent them to my mother and oldest sister on the email. But there are still a few people who wouldn’t get to see them if I didn’t include them here, in this letter blog.
It’s hard to believe that a few days before the snowstorm to end all snowstorms, I saw my very first flower of the season.

“Peg! That’s not a flower! That’s a weed!” you say.
I consider dandelions a wildflower and a welcoming site after having only having winter flowers to take pictures of for the past — I don’t know, four months?

How about some dandelion facts? I know you want it, so here it is.
The dandelion is the only flower that represents the 3 celestial bodies of the sun, moon, and stars. The yellow flower resembles the sun, the puff ball resembles the moon and the dispersing seeds resemble the stars.
“Peg, that’s a bit of a reach,” you say.
I thought it was cute, but let’s go on.
The dandelion flower opens to greet the morning and closes in the evening to go to sleep.
Every part of the dandelion is useful: root, leaves, flower. It can be used for food, medicine and dye for coloring.
Up until the 1800’s people would pull grass out of their lawns to make room for dandelions and other useful ‘weeds’ like chickweed, malva and chamomile.
The average American recognizes thousands of logos for commercial products, yet recognizes fewer than five plants that grow in their area. Dandelions are most likely one of those familiar plants.
The name dandelion is taken from the French word “dent de lion” meaning lion’s tooth, referring to the coarsely-toothed leaves.
Dandelions have one of the longest flowering seasons of any plant.
Seeds are often carried as many as 5 miles from their origin!
And a not so fun fact: Every year Americans spend millions on lawn pesticides to have uniform lawns of non-native grasses, and we use 30% of the country’s water supply to keep them green.
These fun facts came from the webpage my dandelion is a flower dot org.
Besides the little spot of sunshine that’s my dandelion photo, I have other photos from before the Blizzard of 2017 that I wanted to show you and talk about, so let’s do that, okay?
One morning, taking my little girls Itsy and Ginger out to do their business, I saw a bunch of fur on the ground in the yard. I thought it was a cat fight. Later, the Kipp’s stopped by on their morning walk. I went out to greet them and Lamar was checking out the fur.
“Cat fight,” I said to Rosie.
“That’s what Lamar and I were just talking about. He thinks it might be rabbit.”
Sometimes I think I know more than I really do —
I know right!  It’s a fault of mine and I’m working on it!
— and I dismissed the rabbit theory out of hand. I just hope I wasn’t rude because I don’t really remember what I said at the time.
The next day I look at the spot and Rosie’s words came back to me, Lamar thinks it might be rabbit. And I thought about it. I bet he’s right. When the Kipp’s stopped by that day, I brought it up to Rosie and told her I thought Lamar might be right. In hindsight, if I thought about things a little more first, I’d be a lot better off — and that’s something else I’m working on.
A full two days after the first sighting of fur in the yard, this shows up outside my door.
“What is it?” you ask.
It’s the back half of a full grown rabbit! I’m so proud of my mighty hunters even if I did have to pick up the remains and toss them out in the weeds.

A couple of days later I was out with the girls, coming back from the mailbox, when a rabbit takes off through the weeds. I saw him and Rascal saw him too and takes off after it. He didn’t get it but I’m glad my cats are hunting.

Speaking of cats, I’ve been trying to tame my three wild females. It’s kind of hard to do when they run from me every time they see me. For the last few weeks every time I go in the cat room, I block the cat flap, thereby keeping inside whoever’s already inside. Callie is almost always in there and she’s my buddy now. A lot of mornings Sugar would be in there too. Anon would only be there occasionally. By blocking the flap I force them to endure my presence. It didn’t take them long to accept that the flap would be locked while I was in there, whether I was feeding them, cleaning boxes, or just visiting, and they stopped trying to escape. Sometimes I’d just talk to them. Other times I’d pet them. And then I started to pick them up too. They didn’t like it but they didn’t scratch or bite me either.  In fact they’ve never scratched or bitten me and seldom ever hissed at me either. When I leave, I unblock the cat door and kick the flap so they know it’s open.
Wednesday was my litter box scoop day. Why is it that as soon as the box is clean, someone has to use it? A lot of times I’m not even out the door before one of them is in the box and I have to go back and scoop it again! But I’ll tell you what! Little Feisty takes the cake! There I was, this past Wednesday, right in the middle of scooping a box when Feisty jumps in and takes a big ole dookie right in front of me.
“Nice!” I tell her. It’s not like she didn’t have four other boxes to chose from and three of them were already clean! I waited and when she was finished she jumped out, not even bothering to cover it. And I’m left looking at some very unhealthy shit — literally! Her poo was very thin and shot through with blood.
Do you think she was trying to tell me something?

I knew someone had worms, I didn’t know which one, and I knew that come spring I’d have to worm them all. I guess Feisty gave me a wake-up call I couldn’t ignore anymore. After I finished with the boxes I washed my hands and got the worm medicine around. I took the bathroom scales out, blocked the cat flap, went in and weighed and wormed everyone I could get my hands on, which was everyone except Anon.
“Bathroom scales?” you wonder.
The dosage for the worm medicine is based on weight. I was nervous about holding Callie and Sugar long enough to weigh them but they didn’t fuss too much. Then I was worried about getting the medicine into them. I didn’t try to hold them, I just reached out, put my hand over their head, pressed on their jaws with my fingers and when they opened their mouth I jammed the syringe in, squirted the medicine and let go. I did it fast and it went amazingly smooth.
By Thursday I had it in my mind that the next time I caught all three wild girls in the cat room at the same time, I’d need to keep them in there. Monday the 20th is spay day and I had an appointment to get them spayed. I was afraid if I waited until the last minute I wouldn’t be able to get them.
Friday morning, I blocked the door and went in to feed them. Callie and Anon were in there. I couldn’t keep the door blocked or Sugar wouldn’t be able to get in so I put Anon in a kennel and trusted Callie would be there, she seldom leaves the cat room these days. When I left the cat room, Sugar was there, in the garage, but as soon as she saw me, she took off. I knew she’d go in the cat room as soon as it was quiet. I waited a while then went back to check, blocking the cat flap before I went in and she was in there.
On Friday I got Anon wormed. It is the first year I’ve ever been able to worm all of my cats. Anon is little, less than 5 pounds. She is also Smudge’s mother and I missed a shot of her looking out the bottom glass pane of the door to Smudge who was on the other side looking in. Dangnabbit!

Last month they wouldn’t spay Callie because of an upper respiratory infection and they sent me home with some meds. But she isn’t any better now than she was then. She has a runny nose but it’s clear, not all yellow and pusy. I’m afraid they won’t spay Callie this time either.

Sugar isn’t the prettiest girl with her coloring being what it is, but she has the cutest tail! It’s short! I don’t know if she lost the end of it somehow or if she was born this way.

Do you remember the turkey tracks from two weeks ago?

I’ve been so curious about that odd center toe that I’ve sent my photograph on to other people.
One of the websites that I stumbled on while I was researching it belongs to a woman named Kim who is a tracker.
Hmmmm. A tracker. She’d know, is what I thought, and I sent her this photograph.
“They look like turkey tracks,” Kim wrote me, “but that extra knob has me confused too. I’m not sure what it is. I’ve seen peacock tracks in my area and they have a huge inner ‘thumb’, but I don’t think they’re peacocks tracks. Do you mind if I post this photo to get input from other trackers?”
I gave her permission to do so and she sent me an invitation to the Facebook page that she hosts named Animals Don’t Cover Their Tracks: Animal Track Identification Help Group.
If a tracker doesn’t know, maybe the conservation department will know, was my next thought and the next person I sent it to was Kristie, a gal I’ve had a lot of interactions with over the past few years, from the Missouri Department of Conservation.
“Wild birds sometimes sustain an injury to their feet. This is commonly referred to as ‘bumblefoot,’ a disease of the bottom of the feet caused by any number of different types of bacteria. Birds have an amazing ability to heal their skin, but unfortunately it can end up encapsulating,” Kristie replied. She went on talk more about bumblefoot and ended her email with this. “Perhaps this is the track of a bird with an injured foot? Or perhaps some other species entirely? We mainly focus on Missouri species here.”
I smiled at the last sentence. I took that as polite way to say, “Maybe you should find someone there to help you?” I told Kristie that I thought turkeys were pretty much turkeys whether here or in Missouri. I thanked her for all of the help she’d given me though the years and told her I’d try to find someone here. And I did. I sent the same photograph to the PA Game Commission.
“Interesting. Yes, they appear to be turkey tracks — correct size. The extra knob on the center toe could likely be ice accumulation, especially if the flock walked through a wet area before this area,” came a reply from Mary Jo, a Wild Turkey Biologist from the PA Game Commission.
I checked back on the tracker page on Facebook and there are more than 20 replies to my ‘interesting’ photograph.
Some of them suggested bumblefoot, but someone else pointed out that it was too regular to be that. Bumblefoot would be more random.
Peacock or some exotic bird was also suggested but I don’t think we have peacocks here. I guess I should have mentioned my location when I sent the picture in.
And you get your share of smart-alecks too.
“Walking oak leaves…”
“It appears that one of the turkeys was able to fit a shoe on it’s foot…”
There’s one (or two!) in every bunch, isn’t there?
But the most plausible answer to this puzzling photo was amongst the comments. “I think the ‘bulbous thing on the middle toe’ comes from the relaxed foot as it lifted out of the track. The distinct clear shape is likely due to the condition of the snow,” SA Mansfield posted.
“It’s hard to visualize why or how a turkey would do that,” someone commented.
SA Mansfield tried again, “When the turkey goes to put its foot down the toes expand into what we see as a turkey track. However, when the turkey pulls its foot up in preparation for its next step the foot relaxes and the toes are drawn together.”
To me that explains perfectly why all of the tracks appear to have a center knob on them and we can put this conundrum to bed!

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How about a peek at things I’ve made this week?
I generally keep the first thing of anything I make, for two reasons. First, it gives me a pattern and second, I tend to get better as I go. Imagine that. So I made two more bracelets of this style and they are almost the same, the beading is a little different. They are going to the same house so I thought it a good idea for the ladies to be able to tell them apart.

I crocheted a couple of new dishrags, which is a fun way to spend a night in front of the television.
I’ve shifted gears and moved to making a few crosses. I’m trying to come up with something that will withstand the abuse of being on the end of a keychain. I’m not sure this it. And what do you think of the size of these for a keychain fob? They’re just under 4 inches counting the top ring.

Let’s call this one done.

What's A Caulk?

Bad news…

Another week has gone by. 

Good news…

It’s only one more week until the official start of spring. YAY!!

I was poking around in some old photos I’d taken and saw this one from June of 09; daisies pushing up through a crack in the concrete beside the garage. It made me smile and reminded me of the promise of summer to come, so I put it up on my desktop. 

Spring may be just around the corner but today was just about as cold and blustery as any day in the dead of winter could be. 

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Mike and I had gone into town earlier this past week, on Monday actually, and made several stops while we were there. We went to the hardware and the grocery stores, the post office, and Mike wanted a haircut. When we drove past Shorty’s Cuts though, she wasn’t open.

“Maybe she opens at 10. Let’s go get a library card and check back later,” I suggested.

At the Wyalusing Public Library we ended up with two library cards, one for Mike and one for me. We spent an hour in there, getting the cards, and chatting with Cathy, the director. Wyalusing has a fabulous public library! 

“Can I come back another day and write a blog about the library?” I asked.

“Sure, I’d love to have you do that,” Cathy replied.

Mike was fascinated with all of the historic photographs adorning the walls and asked Cathy about a couple of buildings in town.

“We have a book,” Cathy starts to say and walks away. She knew we would follow. She leads the way into the media room and picks up a well-thumbed copy of Wyalusing Valley Portraits and hands it to Mike. “The Wyalusing Valley Museum Association sells these, but you’re welcome to sit and look through it if you want.”

Mike took the book and sat down at a table. “How about wire weaving?” I asked Cathy. “Do you have any books on that?” 

Cathy led the way and I followed her to another section. “If we do it’ll be back here,” she said. When we got there, the book she was thinking of wasn’t there. “It must be checked out.”

“That’s okay,” I told her. “I can actually find a lot of stuff online.”

When we got back to where Mike was perusing the book, he was so excited. “Peg, look at this one,” he said and flipped back a few pages.

“Uh-huh,” I said, but I can’t tell you now what he was excited about.

Mike flipped through the pages and asked Cathy a question here and there. As I stood looking over his shoulder he flipped the page and a shot of the main street business came into view. Now it was my turn to ask a question. I put my finger on the page so Mike wouldn’t turn it before I could ask Cathy, “Why did they always have steps up into the businesses in the old days?”

Cathy didn’t hesitate, she knew the answer. “Because the streets were muddy and it gave people a place to step up out of it.”

We’d been there a good while at this point and I was ready to go. “I think we should just buy a copy,” I told Mike. I turned to Cathy. “Do you have a new one?”

“I sure do,” she said and once again she was off. This time we went to the front desk and she pulled out a brand spankin-new copy, still in it’s plastic.

“Excellent!” And I wrote her a check. 

 

As we were leaving town Mike drove past this old building. There was a squirrel clinging to the front of it, on the second floor near a hole by the door. “I wished I’d gotten that picture,” I told Mike, “but I didn’t have my camera ready.”

Mike pulled a u-ey at the end of the street, probably an illegal one, and went back but the squirrel was gone, out of site, inside his little hidey-hole, I bet.

Coming home, Mike was halfway up the driveway when I saw some birds at the edge of the yard take flight. Among them was a flash of red. “There’s a cardinal!” I exclaim as he sat on a bush. There’s just something about the bright red of a male cardinal against the starkness of a winter landscape…

Mike didn’t stop and had just put the Jeep in reverse and was backing up toward the garage, when I say, “Pull up and let me get a picture, would ya’ Mike?” 

Mike put the car in drive and crept toward this guy, all the while putting his side window down.

“Closer,” I say.

“If I get closer you’ll have to shoot out the windshield.”

With the snow smattering on the windshield, spotting it all up, I wouldn’t get a decent picture that way. “Well, go in the yard,” I say. Then I see the RV pad. “Head toward the RV pad,” I quickly amended. 

Mike did as I requested, but with the densely falling snow, that’s all my camera wanted to focus on.

“Doggone it!” I said and clicked away. Finally, I got the auto focus to change and this is it. This is the best shot I got before he flew away.

Saturday was our cold and blustery day, although today (Sunday) isn’t much better. I spent a few hours Saturday going over pictures and figuring out stories to tell you in my head. 

Pretty soon, this old building will be gone, I thought when I chose this one for the squirrel story. (I know, I’m using the same picture twice.) Our city bought the building so they could tear it down. It seems like they could have figured out a better way to have the building torn down without spending $10,000 for the purchase of the building, plus now they will spend another $24,275 having it demolished. Doesn’t make much sense to me, but that’s what they did. 

“What did it used to be?” you wonder.

I know, right! I wondered the same thing myself. I always thought it was a mill because it’s right on the creek. But I didn’t know for sure. 

Mike’s book! Maybe it’s got a picture, I thought. I pulled the book off the shelf and paged though. There was only one picture in the whole book that had this building in it and it wasn’t even a picture about the building, it was about the bridge. 

I turned to the internet and spent quite a long time Googling it but when I Googled ‘old mills in Wyalusing, PA’ only one came up and that was Welles Mill. The Welles were and still are a very prominent family in this part of the country. Mike’s book shows how handsome the mill was in the 1920’s. 

I’d just about given up on finding out anything about this building when I went back to the book one more time. There’s something written on the side of the building, maybe I could find out more if I had a name to Google. I got out the magnifying glass but I couldn’t read it. “Mike, can you tell what this says?” I got up from my seat and went around the table to where Mike sat playing a game of Solitaire on his computer.

“What?” 

“On the side of the old mill. It says something but with these old Cadillac eyes of mine, all I can make out is Taylor, Arty and I think that’s a Chevrolet sign.” Cadillac eyes, get it? You can blame a lot of things on cataracts.

Mike studied it for a while. “And Sons… it says and Sons on the end of it.” 

I Googled that and came up with Taylor McCarty & Sons which was a car dealership. Car dealership? I bet it wasn’t always that, I thought but couldn’t come up with anything else. 

After church today, I asked the Kipp’s. Rosie said she doesn’t remember what it used to be, if she ever knew. “It wasn’t anyplace I’d ever gone into. You should ask Pat. She’s lived here a long time. She may know.”

“I think she’s gone already. How about Lamar, would he know?”

“I don’t know, you can ask him.”

I made my way to where Lamar was chatting and when he turned to me, I asked him. 

        “I’m not sure, let’s ask Leon,” he replied. Lamar called Leon over and asked him, but Leon didn’t even know the city had bought it and were going to tear it down. 

“There did used to be a dam there that made a big pond,” Leon said. “Did you ever see any pictures of that?” 

“I had not,” I told him, “but it makes sense. Grist mills often used water to turn the massive wheels that turned the heavy millstones that ground the grains to flour.”

“The Rocket Courier had an article in this week’s paper about it,” Lamar said. “Did you see it?” 

“I saw it online. It just called it the Cotter building and when I Googled that I found out that was just the name of the guy that bought it ten years ago.”

I obviously had not seen the whole article because Lamar, bless his heart, when he got home he found the article and called me. “It says here it used to be a foundry and a machine shop in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.”

“Really!” Boy was I surprised. 

“It was owned by Wyalusing businessman and inventor Will Lee. He owned a movie theater and a clothing store too, however, he was likely best known as a machinist and blacksmith. He invented a horseshoe caulking machine — whatever that is — that sped up the process of adding caulks or cleats to the metal shoes worn by workhorses and met with wide commercial success but was short-lived due to the increasing popularity of the automobile,” Lamar read.

I didn’t know what a caulk was either, so I Googled it. And now we know.

 

         Let's call this one done.

The Moxie Ladies

This week, this first week of March, let’s pick up some tidbits that have been accumulating in my photo file, none of which amount to a hill of beans.
Macchiato, sharpening his claws, is my desktop photo right now.

<<<<<>>>>>

After a recent snow, on a trip to the mailbox, I saw these tracks.
Turkey! I thought. Then, when I checked turkey tracks online, I see these look a little bit different. They have a knob on the center toe.
Is it a certain kind of turkey?
Maybe it’s not turkey at all!
Now, I just don’t know.

<<<<<>>>>>>

I have discovered homemade soft pretzels. They are really yummy and I have my beautiful cousin Shannon to thank for ‘turning me on’ to these. She was making them at 11 o’clock at night. How hard can they be to make if she’s making them that late? I wondered.
I asked Shannon for the recipe and she sent me a link to Instructables, the website where she got the recipe she uses. But something happened, I don’t know what happened, but something happened because when I made them, I used a recipe from the King Arthur Flour website. I have no idea how or why that happened.

The second time I made them, I went looking for the recipe again and when I clicked on the link Shannon sent me, I realized it wasn’t the same recipe as the one I’d used. The King Arthur recipe has more yeast, half the salt, a third less sugar, no butter in the dough, and doesn’t call to be brushed with an egg wash before baking. The technique to make them is a little easier than the Instructables one but I’m thinking I’d like to try Shannon’s recipe anyway, just to see which one I like best. With more sugar and butter right in the dough, I’m sure it’s good, but since they are so yummy, I try not to make them very often.
There are lots of recipes online and they are pretty easy to make, so don’t be afraid to try it for yourself. I highly recommend them. And did I mention that they are really yummy — especially when they’re hot, fresh out of the oven, brushed with butter and sprinkled with a corse salt?

<<<<<>>>>>

Check out this double beaver dam. The creek splits around a piece of ground and this is how the beaver— or beavers— decided to make it. The long arm has an arch in it, can you see it? And the beavers instinctively knew that an arch is stronger.
Impressive, isn’t it?

<<<<<>>>>>

Our weather warmed and the trees started sending out shoots.

        We’ve been seeing robins for two weeks now and whole herds of geese have been flying overhead, going north.
“The true harbinger of spring isn’t robins,” Miss Rosie told me. “I’ve been told it’s the red-wing blackbird and I saw one yesterday. The animals think it’s spring anyway.”
Then on Friday the temperatures dropped. We had snow flurries on and off all day.
The roads, in parts of Pennsylvania, became so slick there were multiple multi-car pile-ups on the interstates 80 and 81. One man died. He was just 55 years old. Too young. It’s been all over the national news, so I won’t dwell.
Here at our Mountain Home, even though it came down sideways and heavy at times, it didn’t amount to anything. Then the sun came out and melted it. It tickled me when I saw the snow lingering in the shadows cast by a bush, making camouflage patterns on the ground.

<<<<<>>>>>

On a recent shopping trip to Vestal, New York, Mike saw these wreckers in the parking lot of Home Depot. The wrecker company is just on the other side of the road and they probably have a deal with Home Depot to park these in the back of their lot because we’ve seen them parked here before.

It doesn’t matter how many times we see them though. Every time we see them, Mike is taken with them. “Look at that wrecker!” Mike exclaimed. “Is that a second steering axle?” he wondered. “Why would they need a second steering axle?” He drove closer and stopped as he scrutinized the design. “I can’t imagine how they can even make it work.” He thought about it. “Unless it’s a stationary air-lift axle.” I clicked away with my camera as Mike admired this big boy. “The way the boom is made, with the base of it being just in front of the back axles, maybe it’s just for support.” He was quiet for a moment as he considered this. “That’s a hellofa wrecker now, let me tell ya,” Mike said as we started to move on. Mike drove slowly around the wreckers. I could see there were two wreckers there and I don’t know why, but I thought they were both the same. They’re not.
“That one’s a work-horse,” Mike said, stopping the Jeep again, and he proceeded to tell me how it works even though I’ve seen it plenty of times before on those towing shows he used to watch. “You see that thing right there, Peg?” he asked and pointed.
“Yeah,” I answered. I let him go on and tell me.
“It comes down and those sides come out, then they back up to where it’s just behind the wheels, then they bring’em in and pick up the front of the truck.”

“Uh-huh uh-huh,” I say twice in row just like that.
I guess it’s a guy thing. They are very handsome wreckers but don’t thrill me quite as much as they do Mike.
Me?
I loved a little side trip we took on a different shopping trip to Athens, where we normally shop if we don’t need to go to Home Depot.
Athens and Sayre, PA sit on the New York border with Waverly being just on the New York side. They are so close all three towns kinda run together and you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. This was our first trip to downtown Waverly and I loved the tall doors on many of the old buildings. Waverly, like many towns and cities in this part of the country, is an old town. It was founded in 1854.
One thing I’ve noticed about businesses in these old towns is that they almost always have a step or three out front. I wonder why that is.

<<<<<>>>>>

How about an update on the jewelry I’ve been making?
I tried a technique called air chasing on a copper cuff bracelet.

        You fold the copper in half and pound on it, then anneal it, which means you heat it up. Think of annealing as rush hour traffic. When everybody stays in their own lane, traffic flows nice and smooth. When you have a lot of lane switching going on, traffic becomes snarled. Annealing lines all the molecules up and that makes the copper flexible. As you bend it or beat on it, the molecules get all mixed up and it gets harder and harder, hence it becomes work-hardened. Once annealed, you open the copper up and pound it out on your anvil, being careful to not pound out all of the lovely texture you just put in it.
I took  these pictures off the internet. They were all created using air chasing.

I wasted a bunch of hours making this bracelet. A beautiful lady I know, loves this bracelet and asked if I’d sell it.

Sure I would, but I have no idea how to price it and since she just had a birthday, I think I’ll gift it to her.

I also made this style bracelet. If you can’t read it, it says, XOX LOVE XOX. I didn’t quite get the letters centered and I should have separated my hugs and kisses from my LOVE but — it was my first and we will call it a learning experience.

I’m not the worlds best crocheter by any stretch of the imagination, but I saw this stitch on my Facebook page and it looked like it had lots of fabulous texture so I decided to give it a try. I love the homemade dishrags but find they get stinky after a day’s use. So I change my dishrag every morning. That means I need to keep at least seven in circulation and they do wear out. Sometimes, when washing a sharp knife, I may inadvertently cut the yarn. Then you get a hole. I crocheted my new purple dishrag the size I thought I wanted it, tied off the ends — for my dishrags I don’t fool around with weaving the ends in cause I just don’t care that much — then I washed a sink full of dishes.

“What’s the verdict?” you ask.
I’m so glad you asked! It’s a little heavier and bulkier than other stitches I’ve used. Not a bad thing, just different. The instructions called for this stitch to be used for a body cloth, aka washrag, and I’m thinking about making one of those for Mike. He likes lots of texture on his ‘body cloths’.
Speaking of Mike…
“Peg, look at this,” he said to me one morning as he dressed in the new thrift store shirt I bought him.
“What?”
“The bottom button hole is sideways.”
“Really!” I exclaimed and got up to go look. “It is!”
“Why is that I wonder?” Mike asked but I didn’t have a clue.
“Let me get my camera.” Mike waited patiently to button his shirt as I got my camera and made him hold it out so I could get a picture.

Mike thought about it for a little while. “Maybe it keeps it from becoming unbuttoned,” he guessed.
And what did I do? I got on Google and asked, Why is the bottom buttonhole sideways on a man’s shirt?
“Because horizontal buttonholes take horizontal stress with less deformation of the buttonhole shape and offer much less likelihood of the button pulling out from such stress than do vertical ones,” Google told me. So Mike was right.

<<<<<>>>>>

And now, for the theme of today’s letter blog, let me tell you about my Moxie Ladies.
Moxie Community Church is where I go to praise and worship our Lord on Sunday’s. In November I attended a Bible study titled Prophets and Kings with Pastor Mike being the leader. At the end of the very first Bible study, we stood for the Word of God. As I struggled to get to my feet, I thought, I need to lose some weight. I looked at the lady next to me and thought, She needs to lose weight too! A light bulb went off in my head. We should do it together!
And just like that, it came to me. I could lead an exercise class.
NOOOOO! Every fiber of my being shouted. I DON’T WANT TO! I don’t really like to put myself out there like that, don’t you know. I’m a much better Indian than I am a chief.
But the idea was there and I couldn’t shake it. It even kept me awake at night thinking about how I’d do it if I led a health and fitness class.
“What qualifies you?” I hear you ask, and trust me, I’ve wondered the same thing myself.
I was the circuit coach for Curves for about three years.
I lost 42 pounds! Yay!
I’ve gained 30 of those back in the last two years. Not so yay.
During my employment at Curves I took and passed a class offered by the Cleveland Clinic that qualified me to be a coach for their diet program called Curves Complete.
“So why am I fat?” you wonder. Yeah, I know you were thinking that, even if you are too polite to say it right out loud.
The long and short of it is this. Accountability.
And that’s why I thought a ladies fitness class would not only help me, but it could benefit other members of the congregation too. After all, our physical health goes hand-in-hand with our spiritual health, don’t you think?
I really didn’t want to do it and after struggling with it for a week or so, I beat the idea down until it was barely a whisper in my head; easy to ignore. Then one day, about a month later, I was chatting with Rosie Kipp when all of a sudden, and all of it own volition, out of my mouth came, “I’ve been thinking about starting an exercise class at our church.” I was shocked! I had no intention of mentioning that! Like I said, I didn’t really want to do it.
Miss Rosie considered it for a moment. “I think that would be a good idea.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I’d come.”
Now that the cat was out of the bag, I couldn’t put it back in. So onward I forged. Early in December I presented my idea to the church elders thinking we could get started at the beginning of the new year.
“These things take time,” I was told.
So when I didn’t hear anything back after the board met, I’d assumed they turned it down.
January comes and I think I’m off the hook.
The board held it’s monthly meeting, but I didn’t think anything of it.
At the next Sunday service, Pastor Mike mingled at the end of the service, as he normally does and when he spoke to me, he asked, “Did Lamar talk to you about the exercise class?”
Lamar Kipp is a board member. “No,” I answered. “What was decided?”
Pastor Mike sniffed and swiped at the tip of his nose in the way that he does and said, “I’ll let Lamar tell you.”
“Uh-oh,” I said. “If it was good news, you’d tell me.”
“Let him tell you. He knows you better than I do.”
“Oookay,” I acquiesced and Pastor Mike moved on.
Going out to the Jeep I’m smiling and thinking, Yes! He only thinks it’s bad news! It’s really good news! Did I mention that I didn’t really want to do this anyway? So now I can pretend to be sad about it and say, Oh well! I tried!
Monday, when the Kipp’s stopped on their morning walk, I brought the subject up. “So, I can’t do an exercise class?” I asked Lamar.
“Oh no. You can do one,” he answered and went on to outline the board’s wishes to me, ending with, “…and you might have to have them sign a release.”
Through all of the subsequent discussions, not only with Lamar but with Pastor Mike, it was decided I could offer a class on Monday, Tuesday and Friday nights. Wednesdays and Thursdays were already taken up with a youth program and Bible study.
Mid-January, at a Sunday service, with no warning at all, Pastor Mike asked me to present it to the congregation. I stood and started babbling and I don’t even remember what I said but at the end of the service I had five or six ladies approach me, all interested in participating in a weight loss journey with me.
Two weeks later we started.
The first class was spent weighing in and going over a diet plan and other helpful materials that I’d printed out for them. We talked about tips and tricks to employ to help us lose weight.
The next class, and every other class since then, we spend our hour (or more) exercising to whichever DVD we’ve decided to do that week.
I picked the first DVD. I wanted to do a DVD by Beach Body called Slim In Six. I’ve owned the program for more than fifteen years and I remembered that the very first time I put it in my DVD player, I could do most of the routine, so I thought these ladies would be able to do it too. I was reasonably sure I knew where it was, and when I went looking for it, I did find it, right where I thought it was, but when I opened the case, the first DVD of two DVD set was missing. I obviously never put it back. I’m not surprised though. Whenever I decide I’m going to start the routine again I just leave the disc in the computer so it would be there the next time, the next day, when I’d use it again. I bet you know how that works. You do it for a while, then you miss a day, then you miss two days and before you know it, it falls by the wayside.
I spent a lot of time looking for the missing disc but I couldn’t find it anywhere. So I picked a different workout DVD and hoped we could all do most of it. There was a lot of laughter and chatter that first week as we tried to keep up with the instructor and imitate her steps.
Friday, the end of that week, I told the ladies, “Monday is weigh-in day!”
There were a lot of groans. “There goes my weekend,” someone grumbled, pretending to be mad. “Why can’t we weigh in on Friday’s?” someone else asked.
“Because it will help keep us accountable over the weekend,” I told them.
Someone else picked a DVD for the next week and week two was pretty much a repeat of week one with chatter and laughter. Some of us are not very coordinated and rhythmically challenged to boot so we found it hard to follow the dance routines.
After class one day, as we critiqued the program, there were a lot of complaints about the complexity of the program and how we couldn’t follow it and ended up just marching in place a lot.
“I really wanted us to do Slim in Six but I can’t find my disc’s,” I said.
“I have that one,” Joan said.
I perked up. “Really?”
“Yeah. I’ll bring it Monday.”
From the very first class that we plugged in Slim In Six, the ladies didn’t do much chattering as we followed Debbie Siebers through the routine. And we could all do pretty much the whole routine.
“I really like that one!” and, “I felt like I got a really good work-out!” were the comments after the class and we have been progressing through the program since then.
At the end of the month we lost a collective of forty-five point seven pounds. “Monday is weigh-in day!” I told the ladies, “And it’s picture day too!”
Talk about groans! “Do we have too?” I heard more than one say.
“Yes! You’ll be glad for it when we all get skinny,” I told them.
“I’m going to wear my I BROKE UP WITH GYM shirt,” Miss Rosie told me.
Monday, I set up my tripod, attached the camera, turned on the self timer and took several pictures. One of my regular gals, Tammy, wasn’t there.

“Can we do it again?” Felecia asks. “I’ll tell Tammy she has to come tomorrow night even if she just comes for the picture.”
“Sure,” I tell her, then I let the other ladies know that we would be repeating picture night the next night.
Rosie was a little sad. “I wanted to have my picture taken with my I BROKE UP WITH GYM shirt on.”
There was no help for it though, and Rosie got over it.
Tuesday night, Rosie wore a shirt in her favorite color. All of my regular gals were there, plus one. Leann doesn’t come all the time. She’s still in school and participates in sports, but comes to class when she can.
We set up and took pictures until everyone was happy with it, at least as happy as they could be.

At home I downloaded the pictures and looked through them for the best one. With thoughts of Rosie’s “I wanted to have my picture taken with my I BROKE UP WITH GYM shirt on,” rattling around in my head, I thought, I bet I can cut and paste it. Boy! Won’t she be surprised!
I did it — and I hated it.

       I mean, it looks like it could have been printed that way, but I didn’t like it. I need to color around the words, I thought and went back to the drawing board. I spent a good hour on it until I got something I liked then I named our group, added the date and pounds lost, and printed a copy for each of the ladies.

Rosie?
She was pleased. She really loves it. “I wish it really was that way!”
The other ladies thanked me for the keepsake and it was decided that we would take a monthly photo.
Let’s end it this time with a little prayer…
Thank you, heavenly Father, for taking me someplace I didn’t really want to go and thank you for bringing these Godly ladies into my life. They are truly a blessing. 
And let’s put a stamp on it before we send it off.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.