I have
been spending much of my time either helping Mike or working in my glass shop,
although work may be a rather strong word, it's more like play for me.
I caught
up on soldering the glass I already had cut and foiled. I took them out in the
sunshine and hung them on the fence. Except for the butterfly. I hadn't had that
one done until later.
Then I
had a panic attack — sort of. I realized that Miss Rosie, our friend and
neighbor — I love the Kipp's! — is having a birthday on Sunday! So Friday I
went through my patterns. I know Rosie's windows are full-up with pretties already
so I thought something that sat by itself might just do the trick. I found a
cute cat candleholder and picked the colors I thought would best represent the
colors of two of their cats. Mama Cat is a dark calico and Flannel is gray.
"What
do you think?" I asked the Kipp girls, and I got pretty much the same
answer from both of them.
"Totes
adorbs," Jenn said. "And closer than they'll ever get in real life,
LOL."
"What
does that mean?" I hear Momma ask.
Well,
"totes adorbs" is an abbreviation of 'totally adorable'. It's used when one sees something that
causes squealing, clapping, and overall giddiness due to something being of
extreme cuteness and/or adorableness. That is the definition from the Urban
Dictionary. And I guess Mama cat and Flannel do not get along and barely
tolerate being in the same room together, let alone snuggle.
"That
is ADORABLE!!" Marla wrote me. "She will like it, for sure. Re: the
candle, though, she won't actually burn a candle. Dad developed a bit of a
phobia about them that she used to ignore...until one day (years ago) that she
left one burning and forgot about it and then she decided it wasn't worth
burning them when she might actually burn the house down because she'd forget
(or the cat would knock it over, even). They make battery-operated tealights
(where it looks like a flame but it's just a little lightbulb), so she can get
one of those. Tell her you intend for a candle to go behind it and shine
through, but that a little birdie told you she wouldn't use that. She might
even be able to put it in the big living room window where natural light would
come through it at certain times of day."
I gave
Rosie her gift at church this morning, in a fancy brown lunch bag for the
wrapping. Yeah, it wasn't fancy, it was plain.
"It's
the thought that counts, right Rosie?" I made my apology when I handed it
over.
She
nodded. "It's alright," and I could tell she really meant it.
Then I
handed her a birthday card and she opened that first. It had a little bird and
purple violets on it.
"Ah,
Rosie. It makes my heart go pitter-patter to hear you say that," I told
her and fluttered my hand over my heart.
"It
makes my heart go pitter-patter to receive it. It's for a candle, right? A
little tealight?"
"Yes,
but a little birdie told me you won't burn candles anymore."
"Do
you know why?" Rosie asked and quickly went on. "Trouble and I went
for one of our five mile walks and when we got home hours and hours later, it
was still burning."
"I
didn't know that," and visions of the tabletop being on fire when she
walked in the door filled my head but Rosie held her hand up, answering before
I could ask.
"It
was alright, but it really scared me."
"It
would me too!" I agreed.
"Lamar
got me one of those little battery operated tealights, I can use that in
here."
And
Rosie gave me an extra special hug.
<<<<<<>>>>
Our
apple tree has blossoms!
I showed
you this one last week and this week I know what it is! It's Purple Dead
Nettle. Some people confuse this with Henbit but I knew it wasn't Henbit. It's
'dead nettle' because it doesn't sting.
>>>>><<<<<
"Aww,
that's so cute," I said to Mike.
"What
is?"
"Spitfire
in the window."
Mike didn't
see him so he made a u-ey and went back so I
could get a
picture.
Mike reached out and Spitfire reached forward too, stopping when his
nose hit the window.
<<<<<>>>>>
Oh! My!
Gosh! Did I ever have a scare! Mike is afraid of snakes, although he didn't use
to be. He laughs because his father was afraid of snakes and Mike, being the
teaser he is, used to catch garder snakes when he was a kid, and show them to
his dad. "He would get so mad!" Mike told me, smiling at the memory. "He'd
say," and here Mike would switch to his father's voice. "Get that
thing away from me!"
Mike was
quiet for a moment. "Now when I see a snake I dream about'em."
I wasn't
even thinking about critters in the toilet when I lifted the lid one day and
found one in there. I jerked my hand back so fast! I bet you never saw an old
woman move as fast as I did that day! After the shock wore off I thought, Is that a walking stick? Slowly I leaned
forward and realized it wasn't a critter at all, it was a piece of dried grass.
"How
did it get there?" you wonder.
I
wondered the same thing.
"I
found it on the floor and threw it in there thinking it would go down the next
time I flushed it," Mike said. "Sorry." He was apologizing for
scaring me.
>>>>><<<<<
Our
trash bill came in the mail as it always does at the beginning of the month. Rather
than spend 49 cents and mail it back, we used it as an excuse to have breakfast
out. "We could drop off the recyclables at the same time," we
justified.
I hardly
ever turn down an excuse for a ride-about. I'll take pictures and one of the
things I tend to photograph is train car graffiti.
Do you
see what it says?
It says:
FOR ALL THE MISSING WOMEN IN JUAREZ
What's that about? I wondered and I
Googled it.
Juarez's Missing Girls Were Sex Slaves—And
Everyone Knew It
Ciudad Juarez shaken by rising incidents of
missing women - LA Times
'An open wound': Mexico's missing women and
girls - CNN.com
I
skimmed through: Hundreds
of young women have disappeared from the Mexican border city since 1993 — many
of them teenagers who came to Juarez to work in the town's foreign-owned
factories, known as "maquilladoras." The official toll is 260 women
killed since 1993, but local women's groups believe the actual number is more
than 400.
My heart is sad, but I don't think we
should forget them.
<<<<<>>>>>
I keep
checking on my tadpoles. Not every day but several times a week. The last time
I was down there I looked up and saw these critters on a lily leaf.
These, my
dears, are baby dragonflies. How cool is that!
>>>>><<<<<
This little
guy was my helper as I cleaned out my flowerbed this past week. Yeah, it's
Spitfire.
There he
was!
Is it a he?
He didn't
let me get too close before he took off and went into the weeds. Thank goodness
for zoom.
Do you
remember the cedar apple rust I'd shown you?
We've been
having a lot of rain lately and do you know what cedar apple rust looks like when
it's wet?
No?
One time I
look up and the feeder is where it's supposed to be, hanging from the awning.
The next time I look up it's on the ground.
This
handsome guy is a Rose-breasted Grosbeak.
Watching the
birds at the feeder is one of the simple pleasures of life.
"Are
you sure?" brother Richard asked when I told him.
"I
think so, but I didn't trace it back to the ground."
I made it a
point to go back outside the next day and check to make sure. The branches twist
around so much that I couldn't be sure, so I went to one of the other lilac
bushes and there it was, a white one and a purple one on the same branch.
I turned to
Google and found out that these are indeed a kind of lilac. They're called
Sensation Lilacs.
I think this is
chokecherry. I'll be able to tell a little better when the fruit comes on.
And then the
rains came. It rained and rained and rained. The wind kicked up and it was
fierce. Combine soggy ground and high winds and what do you get? Trees coming
down all over the place, that's what! Power lines came down all over the place
and Monday saw more than 8,000 people without power. They forecasted we would
be without power until Thursday! Our area had power again in the late hours of
Tuesday night — around 10 pm, I think. Where the storm damage was heavier they
were without power longer than that. On Friday another storm moves through and
some areas lost power again! Not ours though. It's been a tough
time for the electric companies and they called out for help in getting the
power lines back up. Power companies from all over sent crews in to help.
One thing
about storms though. They make for some pretty fabulous sunset pictures!
<<<<<>>>>>
When the
mowers had gone through two weeks ago, they cleared the lines to the hunting
cabin behind our property and while doing so, they found a culvert and opened
it up for us.
"That's
why our pond was dry last year," Mike guessed. "The culvert was
plugged."
With all of the rain, Mike couldn't help
but wonder how the water was flowing. "I think I'll go see what's going on
up there," Mike said and during a lull in the storm he jumped on the golf
cart and took off. He wasn't gone very long when he came back. "How's it
look?" I asked.
"I
don't know, I couldn't get up there."
"There's
a power line down across the road."
I tried to
call Claverack, our electric company, but the lines were busy. I got up on
FaceBook and sent a message to my beautiful cousin Stacey. She works at
Claverack.
"The
power lines are down at the cabin behind our place and there is no one there to
report it. I tried to call but the lines are busy."
"I'll
take care of it," Stacey told me. "In the meantime, stay away from
them."
Once it was safe,
Mike went up to see how the water was flowing through the culvert.
"What
do you think?" I asked when he came back.
While Mike
was hand shoveling I wandered around taking pictures.
I had my rain boots on so
I got right down in the water to shoot a picture up into the culvert. When I
picked my left foot up to climb up out of the ditch, I realize my boot was
stuck in the mud. I could probably have gotten my boot unstuck, with a little
patience and wiggling, but I'd already committed to the step. My foot came up
out of the boot and the next step found my white sock ankle deep in mud and
water.
I laughed.
What else can you do! And I was thankful it was just my sock and not my bottom!
Mike,
gentleman that he is, went down in the ditch and retrieved my boot.
>>>>><<<<<
On the way
home from an errand into town, Mike drove around a little. This, as you can
plainly see, is an old electrical panel. I can almost see a face in it.
And this old
farm house is one I've been photographing for years. It has an old lilac bush
growing up beside the house and now it looks as if they are quarrying stones
from someplace on the property.
<<<<<>>>>
The Kipp's
managed to get a walk in, in between storms this past week and stopped for a
visit.
"I
never saw anything like it," Rosie said. "It has a broad leaf and the
flower is a deep red. It's on the end of a long narrow stalk and it's about
this big." Rosie made a circle with her finger indicating it was a couple
of inches across. "
It wasn't
long until Mike and I went in search of the mysterious wildflower that the
Kipp's spotted. We drove past it in the golf cart the first time but Mike
spotted it when we came back down. This is Purple Trillium but it is more
common in white. Trillium is a fragile flower and while it is beautiful to look
at, should not be picked. It seriously injures the plant by preventing the
leaf-like bracts from producing food for the next year, often effectively
killing the plant and ensuring none will grow in its place. Some species of trillium
are listed as endangered and it's illegal to pick them.
As I read about
trillium I smiled when I came to the description of its scent.
"It's a good
thing Rosie didn't smell it," I told Mike.
"Why?"
he asked.
"The flowers have the smell of rotting meat,
as they are pollinated by flies," I read.
Well,
my loves, I have more stories to tell but as I said in the beginning, time is flying
right past me and has marched from Sunday into Monday. Let's call this one done.
No comments:
Post a Comment