Down It Came

           Let's start this time with a couple of barn quilts.

         And a mailbox.

         I saw a mature dragonfly flying around at the pond. I wasn't able to get his picture but there are still some little ones waiting to make the transformation. What is that on the lily pad with them? A walking stick?

         While we are at the pond, how about a frog or two sitting on lily pads.

         I was taking a photograph of three lily pads on the pond; I just liked the way they looked, sitting there with the sun shining on them. When I look at it on the computer screen it's not nearly as pretty, but look what's sitting on the center one!

         "Peg! That's a spider!" you say.

         Yeah, I know it is. Isn't it cool!

         Among all of the green clover in my yard is a bunch of red-leafed ones. I don't know if this is a variety of clover or a mineral deficiency in the soil, but I noticed it so you get to see it too.

         I decided that I would like to have a few garden plants this year. Mike and I went to Doans, a local farm and greenhouse to buy our bedding plants. On the way home we took the back roads and I took a few pictures.

         An old farm house.

         "Look Mike!" I exclaimed. "There's a bird on that cow's nose!"

         Mike was able to stop and I took several photographs.

         The cows like the birds because the birds eat the pesky pests.

         Spring brings babies.

          Don't you love old stuff hanging on sheds?

         A couple of old wagons in a field.

         Old bathtubs never die they just become watering troughs.

         Going past another farm and I see chickens!  

         I'm snapping away and there's the farmer coming out of the driveway on his tractor. He saw my camera and smiled at me, I waved at him.

         On we go and as the barns go past and the pasture comes into view...

         "Look! Baby cows!" I exclaim.

         I was thinking how nice it was that the farmer gave them such good green grass to eat, then I'm confused because I could see there weren't any fences to keep the babies in.

         Then one of them looks up.

         Dang these Cadillac eyes!

         I debated whether or not to show you this one but I kinda like it.

         Ginger enjoyed the slow, leisurely ride through the country.

         This is phlox. It's abundant right now — blooming all over the place!

         At home, I planted my garden plants in buckets and the buckets are inside the dog kennel. I'm so glad I've found a use for the kennel. The dogs won't use it. Ginger will sometimes go through the flap and come out if Mike and I are coming home from some place but Itsy won't go through the flap at all. Now Macchiato will use it. He'll go through the flap and climb the fence when he wants out.

         "What plants did you get?" my cute little red-haired brother asked me on the phone the other day.

         "Let's see... I got tomatoes and peppers and tomatoes and squash and tomatoes and cucumbers and tomatoes," I answered thinking my way around the pots. I laughed. "Can you tell which one is my favorite?"

         Richard laughed. "Uh, tomatoes?"

         "I got early tomatoes and late tomatoes and a couple of cherry tomatoes."

         I think keeping the deer out of my garden plants is a great use of the kennel!

         Although these do not look like what you and I think honeysuckle should look like, I do think this is some kind of a honeysuckle — and an invasive one at that.

         Look who I found sitting on my lawn chair. Aren't the markings on his elytra beautiful?

         "Elytra?" you query.

         Typical beetles have two pairs of wings, but the front pair, called elytra (plural of elytron) are stiff and not used for flying. When a beetle is not flying the elytra meet each other in a straight line as they lie over the back, and the hind wings are folded and hidden under the elytra.

         This beetle is called a Calligraphy Beetle.

         I know, right! Very aptly named.

         Another beautiful sunset.

          This time Macchiato watched with me.

         Every night a battle takes place in our bed.

         Every night Macchiato beats me into the bed.

         Every night Macchiato's curled up on my pillow by the time I get there.

         Every night I tell him, "Macchiato! Get off my pillow!" and push him over to Mike's side.

         Every night Mike says, "He loves you."

         And every night I say, "He doesn't love me, he loves my pillow!" It's a Tempur-Pedic, what can I say. I love it too.

         I climb into bed and pull the covers up. By the time I'm reaching for my Nook to play a few nightly rounds of Solitaire, I feel little feet on my pillow and a warm, fuzzy body curls up against the back of my head. "Go away you flea bag," I tell him but I don't make him move again. Macchiato purrs away as Mike pets him and continues to purr long after Mike stops. He hardly ever stays long though. Fifteen minutes, a half-hour later, he'll get up all of a sudden-like, as if he just remembered something important he needed to do, hurriedly crosses the pillow over my head and bounds from the bed.

         There's a small hill between our driveway and the pond and the ground there has been soggy. It's been that way for a few years, but now that we are here full time, it seems to be getting wetter and wetter.

         "Mike, is that our sewer or the pond seeping?" I asked.

         "I don't know," Mike replied.

         This week was hot and dry. I checked the spot and it was contained to the bank; not over-flowing and coming down to the driveway at all.

         Most of the time, I restrict my laundry washing to one load a day, which is not a hardship for just the two of us. I'll do a load of jeans one day and the shirts and underwear the next, and whites another day and towels another day. It really works out great for me because then I don't have too much to fold and put away at any one time.

         But if it's coming from our sewer tank, I can overload the system by doing several loads in one day, I think and put my plan into action the next day.

         I washed two loads and checked the bank by the driveway, Water was coming down to the driveway. I did another load and checked again. The water was starting to run down the driveway. A fourth and final load and my suspicions were confirmed. The water was running and has to be coming from our tanks.

         I let Mike in on what I had done...actually, we talked about it the day before so he knew my intention. Now we went down together and surveyed it.

         "This could be expensive to fix," Mike said.

         Me? I'm very pragmatic. "Well, we'll do what we have to do. We have to fix it."

         As we sat there, contemplating our problem, watching the water running from the hillside, a butterfly appeared and landed.

         "Look! A Tiger Swallowtail,"

         Then there was another and another and another!

         "Look at all the butterflies!"

         I actually didn't have my camera with me at the time but it didn't take me long to go and get it.

         "Why do they like that water?" I asked Mike. "There's a whole pond of clean water right there!" and I pointed to the pond.

         "Maybe there's a mineral or something in there that they like," Mike speculated.

         These four were joined by two more swallowtails.

         A Spicebush Swallowtail...

        ...and Black Swallowtail — minus her tails. And she is a female because girls have a prominent blue row between the yellow ones.

         I called a very well known and established family business.

         "Crawford's," the young woman answered the phone.

         "Hi. I have a problem, but I bet you could've guessed that."

         She laughed. "That's when most people call us."

         "We bought this place in a foreclosure and no one knows where our septic tank is. Can you help us with that?"

         "We sure can. He has a device, they call it a mouse, that you flush down the toilet and he can track it with this tool he has; it's like a metal detector."

         She told me what the cost would be and took my name and number for her father-in-law to call me back. He'd set up the day and time with me.

         When Butch called me that evening he said he could be out in the morning, if that was okay by me, and it was.    

         The next day he showed up just when he said he would. He gave me the mouse and admonished, "Be careful not to turn it off when you flush it, and flush three or four times so it gets the whole way down to the tank."

         I was careful and did just as he instructed me. By the time I joined Butch and Mike they were standing in the yard at the edge of the driveway, about halfway down to where the water is seeping from the ground.

         "This is where your tank is," Butch was saying and the guys talked man talk for a while, guessing how they think the lines run from here to there.

         "There used to be a trailer that sat over there," Mike told Butch. "We found the sewer line and put in an RV pad." Of course that isn't exactly what Mike told him. Mike took the long way around telling him how the first backhoe scoop missed it by a foot and we ended up digging up the whole yard, "Just for shits and grins, do you have another mouse?"

         "Yep," Butch replied heading back to his truck. "I only had one in my case this morning so I thought I'd better get a few more. I went back up to the house and got four more."

         We dropped the mouse down the RV sewer pipe, chased it with five gallons of water and surprise! We have two septic tanks! The only thing we can figure is they added a second tank to take care of the trailer. We have no idea if the tanks are connected but they can tell when and if they pump the tanks.

         "I don't think you need to pump your tank," Butch gave us his professional opinion. "I think you either have a broken pipe, or it's just been so wet that the ground is saturated."

         Later that day I saw a couple of more visitors to the swampland. This dark one is a Horace's Duskywing...

         ...and the light yellow one is called a Pale Sulpher. These are both butterflies. The easiest way to tell is by the antennae. Moths have feathery or saw-edged antennae.

         Mike wanted to know what was going on for sure. If the pipe was broken, he wanted to fix it. So he got his tractor and started scooping off the ground, a few inches at a time. My job was to watch and yell if I saw the pipe.

         Mike scooped, and scooped. I stood by with a shovel and every once in a while I poked it in the ground. Fat-lota good it was doing though. I couldn't tell if I was hitting rock or pipe, but I tried my best.

         Another scoop and it looked like we hit a geyser! The water shot up from the ground (for two or three inches) and the hole filled with water.

         Mike trenched the water so it would run out but it wasn't helping. "I'm afraid we do have a leak from the pond and I'm just making it worse," Mike said. He asked me what we should do but I don't know about such things as sewers and leach fields and holes in ponds. In the end, Mike rebedded the area in the prescribed manner and we'll watch and see what happens.

         I decided I wanted another plant for my garden; I wanted a green bean. So Mike and I went to a different place this time, a place called Farmer Fred's, and poked around there for a while. Besides bedding plants, they have interesting things like raw milk and goat meat. They even have a few pens close so you can check out the babies. This one was eating when we were there but I bet you couldn't tell that by the food on his mouth, could ya?

         They are improving the place all the time and there was a lot of pretty landscaping, but there was still some old farm equipment around and of course, that's what I take pictures of.

         Mike loves me and I know he does because he indulges me.

         We have some whistle-pig holes under the foundation of the mill. Three of them to be exact. And that's a bad thing. We hadn't seen any groundhogs around but we have seen our wild cats going in and out of the holes when they run from us.

         "Will cats use the holes if there's a groundhog in there?" we asked Jon Robinson.

         "Probably not," was his answer.

         Then!

         Guess what!

        Anon showed up. Remember Anon? Smudge's mom? She was one of the wild cats I'd trapped, had spayed, and never saw again. After not seeing her for more than two months, I thought she was dead.

         "Maybe that's where Anon's been," Mike said. "But we need to get those holes filled in."

         "Mike, no. There's no way I'm going to let you cover those holes up and kill anything that's living there. Dehydration and starvation are terrible ways to die and I don't care if it is only a nasty old whistle-pig! Just shoot it and be done with it! Besides you don't know if Anon's living in there or not!"

         So Mike did an experiment. He took shovelfuls of gravel and loosely covered all of the holes. A few days later they were all open again so now we know that something lives there, but what?

         "Hey! We could borrow Jon's trail camera! I bet he'd loan it to us."

         Do you know what a trail camera is? It's a camera you strap to a tree (or something) and when it detects motion, it takes a picture. A lot of hunters use them to see what game is using the trails.

         "Peg, you know how I feel about borrowing things. I'd rather just buy one. They're not that expensive."

         I do know how Mike is and a few days later this shows up at my door. Golly gee! Don't you just love the internet!

         It took me a while to figure out how to use it, then I strapped it to a tree and walked away.

         All I got the first night were pictures of the grass swaying in the wind.

         I called Jon Robinson. "Jon! Why am I only getting pictures of the grass?" I asked him.

         "You have the sensitivity turned up too high. Turn it down."

         I adjusted my settings and put the camera back out.

         I got a picture of a possom that night, but I couldn't tell if he came out of a hole or went into a hole because he was just there in one picture, then gone.

         I got a picture of Spitfire... 

           ...and of Rascal.    

         Then for a couple of nights I didn't get anything at all.

         Then I got him. I got a picture of our whistle-pig coming out of his hole. Now we know what it is and I'm still not going to let Mike kill him in such an inhumane way.

         Maybe I can live-trap him, I thought and researched it on the internet.

         Live-trapping a groundhog is tricky because they are a wary animal, it told me. Roll your trap in mud, being careful not to let anything get behind the spring, and camouflage it with branches and leaves. It went on to tell me that they like cantaloupe and I should wire the cage open for a few days until the whistle-pig is comfortable going in and out.

         Then, because it is spring, I wondered if it was a female, would she have babies? I Googled it. If she is a female, then she will have babies this time of year. Mid-summer is when the young ones will come out of a den.

         I called Jon Robinson. "Jon, if it's a female can I tell if she has babies?"

         "I don't know that you can tell the sex of a groundhog," he answered.

         Another tid-bit I picked up from Googling this is that groundhogs are solitary, except for breeding season. One groundhog may have several den sites in his territory and move from one to another as food dictates.

         I know there is another hole down at the pond and I saw him out there last night, eating grass. Then an airplane sounded overhead and he took off for the hole, diving in and out of sight.

          If he is the same groundhog moving from his den at the pond to this den up here under the mill, that would explain why I didn't get any pictures of him for several days in a row. And if he's moving around, does that mean he's a he and not a female with cubs?

         I can't, in good conscious, trap a female and leave the cubs to die a horrible death. 

         We had a tree.

         We had a beautiful maple tree.

         We had a beautiful maple tree growing where it had no business growing.

         We had a beautiful maple tree growing right against the side of the mill and we know its roots will eventually cause us problems.

         "Peg, if we'd have cut it down years ago, we could've done it ourselves," Mike says. And now it's much too big and too close to the mill for us to tackle.

         Mike hired Tim and Don to cut the tree. They are professionals and had all the equipment and know-how to do it safely.

         When they first got here they discussed how they were going to do it. "We'll take out a couple of little trees here on the bank...take down that branch right there," Don said pointing to a good size dead branch, then he went on, ending with a question, "and drop it down on the road. We can still use your tractor to push it off the road?"

         "Yep," Mike said.

         Both guys put on harnesses and climbed the trees; Tim to cut the branches Don pointed out and Don to attach a line to the top of the maple. 

         When all the prep work was done Don and Tim stood on the bank and talked about where exactly they were going to lay the tree down.

         "Right between those two," Don said pointing.

         But Tim wasn't clear on which two trees Don was talking about and I stood and listened and was amazed.

         "Wait a minute!" I butted in. "Are you telling me you that you can put that tree down exactly where you want it?"

         "Yep. Pretty close really," Don told me. "When you have to take a tree down and miss power lines and houses and other trees the owner doesn't want damaged, you learn to be pretty precise." Then Don picked up his chainsaw. "Do you see these lines right here?"

         I looked where he was pointing. "Yeah..."

         "They're sights. We line up the lines and it'll tell us where the tree will fall."

         Now that the path was clear to Tim, he took a chainsaw and the rope and went down on the road to tie the tree off. Mike took his tractor down, not only to stop traffic, but to push the tree off the road once Tim had cut it.

         As Don and I waited, he appreciated having such an attentive audience as me and told me several interesting things. "It's easier to cut down live trees because they'll hinge and go right where you want them too. It's when they are dead or dying that they become unpredictable. And the most dangerous thing is when they barber chair on ya."

         "Barber chair? What's that?" I asked.

         "It's when you're making the cut and the tree splits right up the middle," Don's finger traced a path up the middle of tree as he spoke, "and it hinges out on ya."

         "But why's it called barber chair?" In my mind I just knew there had to be a reason.

         "I don't know," Don said.

         So I made up my own reason. "Maybe cause it'll give you a haircut if you're not careful?"

         "Maybe," he conceded. But a Google search reveals the truth. It's called barber chair because once it splits it resembles a barber's chair.

         "READY?" Tim yelled from the road.

         I got out of the way and watched as Don made calculations in his head, looking where he wanted the tree to fall, then back at the tree, adjusting the chainsaw a little, then up and back again until he was satisfied he had the right spot, then he notched the front of the tree.

         He moved to the back of the tree and checked to make sure he was cutting at the right place then he made his final cut.

         The chainsaw revved...

         The sawdust flew...

         The tree...

         The beautiful maple tree...

         Groaned...

         And creaked...

         And cracked.

         In a flurry of branches and leaves waving in an effort to catch its balance...

         Down it came.

         Landing exactly where Don said he would put it, smack-dab between two little trees, not harming either one.

         In the hushed quiet of the aftermath, a little voice pipes up, my little voice pipes up, "I'm a little sad!"

         "I'm sorry," was Don's first response, then puzzlement. "Why?"

         "Because it was such a beautiful tree! Maybe I should have a little memento," I said thinking of taking the wedge he'd cut out.

         "You want a piece of it?"

         "Yes, please." No sooner were the words out of my mouth then Don's chainsaw roared back to life. First he cut the end off where the tree broke then he cut me a 'cookie', a round slab.

         "Oh my gosh! It's beautiful! Thank you Don!"

         He beamed. "You're welcome."

         There was enough of an angle on the fall of the tree that it didn't land in the road. With nothing to do down there, Mike and Tim joined us.

         "Mike look at this!" I exclaimed and proudly held up my cookie. "Isn't it beautiful? I bet you could measure it and there wouldn't be much difference from one side to the other!"

         "Peg, what are you going to do with that?" you ask.

         I don't know. I'll just tuck it away for now, in the creative part of my mind, and let it rattle around in there until it pops back up.

         And with that, let's call this one done.

         Oh, wait. There is one more thing I've been wanting to tell you.

         God has blessed me. He has blessed me beyond belief with great friends and a fabulous family and talents that I didn't even want. I never wanted to be a writer. I never wanted to be a photographer. I wanted to be a painter — but my cute little red-haired sister got that talent! And I just want to take a moment to give Him the praise and thanks that He deserves.

         Thank you, gracious and heavenly Father, for knowing and giving me the things that make me happy. It is only by Your goodness and grace that I am able to share stories and photos of my life with others and bring a little sunshine and joy into their lives. I pray that I never take any of this for granted and that I always remember to give You the praise and thanks You deserve. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.