Another Week

         My last letter blog was so long I broke it into two stories, And Now It's May I posted on Monday morning, then on Wednesday I posted Clean-up Day. Even so, I hadn't shared all of the week's photographs with you that I wanted to.

         Shall we get to it then?

         The pond flowers are coming on.

         Last Saturday, a week ago now, Mike and I had gone out for a sandwich for our supper. Smile-A-While is a local ice cream joint that has food too and Mike likes her Italian sausage sandwiches.

         Me? I had a burger and a small dish of peanut butter ice cream — I ate the ice cream first.

         "Peg! I thought you were on a diet!" you exclaim.

         I am. I try to eat healthy most of the time, but life is much too short to be totally deprived.

         Late last year another little place opened up in our area. It's called Old School BBQ. On a whim Mike and I took a drive down to scope the place out. I took lots of pictures on that road. I'll share a few with you. A square rock with a round hole in it.

         A barn quilt I hadn't seen before. It reminded me that it's been a long time since I've shown you any barn quilts.

         The Wyalusing Area Chamber of Commerce has put out a map with all of the barn quilt locations shown. Some day I'd like to do nothing other than drive around and see them all.

         And since barn quilts were on my mind, I took several other photos of barn quilts for you.

         This old road was twisty and narrow and had very little shoulder and no pull-offs. Mike drove as slowly as he dared and I saw wildflowers along the road that I would like to have gotten out and looked at a little bit closer but it wasn't safe.

         "What's that?" I asked seeing this tall rusty thing beside the road.

         "An old gas pump, I think," Mike said.

         Across the road were the remains of a rather large complex. Lots of buildings and all gone except for the foundations.

         Old farm equipment is something else I tend to photograph whenever I see it.

   

  

    I can't tell if that's an old tractor in the barn or an old truck. What do you think?

         This toy has been sitting here so long I'm beginning to wonder if it's yard decoration.

         The next photo in my album of photos to share with you is this one. Scrubbies! Besides solid colors, I've been making them two-tone.

         Last Sunday, sitting in church, waiting for it to be time for the service to start, Rosie and I sat and chatted.      

         "Guess what the cat brought in this morning," Rosie said.

         "I don't know, what?"

         "A weasel!"

         "Really!" Now she really had my full attention.

         "Yep. And he didn't even eat any of it. He just brought it up on the back porch."

         "What did you do with it?" I asked.

         "Nothing. It's still there.

         "Can I have it?"

         Rosie didn't even bat an eye. "Sure!"

         I guess she's used to my weirdness. "Thank you. Now I'll have a weasel skull!"

         Later in the day Mike and I took the golf cart down to pick up my weasel.

         I knew the Kipp's weren't home because Maggie, the Kipp's Bernese mountain dog, was in her house. They always leave Maggie outside when they go away if the weather is mild.

         Maggie never acknowledged my presence. She never left her house, never barked at me.

         I found the weasel on the back porch, just where Rosie said it would be. I snapped a photo where he lay.

          Then I picked him up by his black tipped tail and carried him out to the golf cart.

          He's smaller than I thought he would be," I told Mike. "Is it a baby?"

         But Mike didn't know the answer to that question.

         When we got home I put him in the 'cage' with the quill pig who is in the process of reducing to bones. I don't want other animals to carry it off so it's inside the wire fence meant to keep the deer from eating a young, and now deceased, apple tree.

         I've been giving Ginger some running privileges. "As long as you listen to me and come when I call you, I'll let you chase those frogs," I tell her as if she can understand me. I unclip the leash from the harness and Ginger takes off, a hundred miles an hour, and chases all the frogs into the pond. After a bit I'll call her back and so far — keep your fingers crossed! — she's been listening to me. 

         Most of the tadpoles have left the nest. There are a few left but I bet they'll be gone the next time I check. I notice, too, that the nest is starting to fall apart. I guess nature knows how long they will need it, then it dissolves.

         Last week I showed you Birds-eye Speedwell, do you remember this pretty little wildflower?

         This is another kind of Speedwell called Thyme-leaved Speedwell. Do you know how little these flowers are?

         No? Let me show you!

         I don't know what this is. I've looked but as of posting time, I haven't found it. 

       We have several of these bushes or trees around and they seem to like the wetter areas best. These spikey looking things open up and fluff comes out.

         Pink honeysuckle.

         I don't know what kind of bird this is, but he sure had a pretty song! I haven't spent any time tying to look it up so feel free to let me know what it is if you know.

         This is Rascal, watching the sunset with me.

         When I'm focused on the foreground, the background looses a lot of its color. So here's a photo of the pretty sunset we were watching.

         The tree trimmers for the power company came through this past week. Mike talked with them about which trees they were cutting and which ones they were only trimming.

         When this guy came down from cutting, he came down right in the middle of the sticker bushes.

         "You want me to pull you out?" his partner asked.

         "Yeah," he answered.

         And Mike and I watched as one man let the line out and came down slowly as the other guy pulled him out of the thorn bushes.

         They were supposed to chip the branches they cut and maybe they still will, but they haven't done it yet.

         The dogwood is blooming. Actually, it's been in bloom for a while now but I haven't been anywhere I could stop and take photographs until this week.

         This is my current desktop photo.

         Just under the dogwood tree were these orchid-like flowers.

         And my heart sings.

         I've had my moments, in the past few months, where I was sad to have left Lake Ozark, Missouri, and not just because we left the kids and our grandson Andrew behind, although that would have been reason enough, but because I'd seen so many pretty wildflowers, lots of critters, and many interesting things while living there. I thought I'd never see those kinds of things here!

         Then I found these growing under a dogwood tree.

         This is Fringed Polygala, also called gaywings or flowering wintergreen.

         And this one! Growing right by my own pond! I'd never seen it here before and it took me a long time to find out what it is, but tenacity and perseverance paid off.

         This, my dears, is Star of Bethlehem, a member of the lily family. I found it interesting that US Forest Service has issued a paper on this plant saying it's poisonous, potentially threatening to native vegetation, and they warn: "Do not plant this species and eliminate the plant if possible."

        Mike got to use his yard sale treasure this past week. We bought the closet rods and Mike needed to cut them to length.

         "This will cut it straighter than I can cut it," Mike said, clamped it in, and started the machine up.

         'What would you have done if we hadn't bought it?" I asked Mike.

         "I'd have to cut it with a hacksaw," was his answer.

         I love my new cedar-lined closet. My clothes can finally breathe! The closet in our apartment was only about three feet wide and our clothes were so crowded they came out wrinkled! As much as I love to iron, I'm glad to have twenty-nine feet of new closet space.

         Speaking of crowded...

         Mike gets to feeling a little crowded sometimes too! It seems like all of our critters just wait for him to sit on the couch and just like magic, they appear. This day happened to be a light day. He only had Macchiato, Spitfire, and Itsy on him. There have been days when he's had them all. Besides these guys, Ginger'll be on the couch beside him, Molly'll be on the back of the couch and Smudge'll be some place in the mixture too!

         Michael really seems to have a special way with animals and they really like him.

         Let's call this one done!