Peggy's Jibber-Jabber: Too Much Stuff!

Another week has slipped by...

And much too fast if you ask me!

It's been a busy but quiet week in my house this week.

Mike woke up feeling lousy on Monday, but not bad enough that I called the Kipps off, and they stopped on their morning walk. We visited a little while and as they were getting ready to leave, Itsy joined Ginger who was already in my lap.

"Now there's a picture!" Lamar exclaimed.

I picked up my camera and handed it to him. This is real life folks. For better or worse, this is what I normally look like on any given day.

Early in the afternoon I took Ginger for a walk-about. I was surprised at how much the Bittersweet had popped.

I was standing there, snapping away, when I great ruckus arose in the weeds.

Cat fight!

"HEY!" I yelled. "KNOCK IT OFF!"

Spitfire came bounding out of the weeds.

"Who were you fighting with?" I asked and scanned the weeds for his opponent. At first I didn't see anything then I spot little Cleopatra, Spitfire's cousin, hunkered down in the weeds. She blends in so well, I bet you'll have a hard time spotting her in this shot.

Spitfire is either bad-tempered or high-spirited because I've caught him fighting with other members of the clowder before.

The Virgin's Bower has changed from her pretty little white summer flowers into a wispy, feathery, seed... Gosh. The only word that comes to mind is pod and that doesn't seem quite right, but with all that wild hair, she looks like Medusa!

Rat-tat-tat.

A woodpecker was taping away at a tree. I could hear him but I couldn't see him.

Rat-tat-tat.

Trying to get a better look, I followed a deer path through the brush and ended up in the driveway that goes up to the hunter's cabin.

Rat-tat-tat.

I was zeroing in on his location when he takes flight. I snapped away but my camera focused on the trees.

Can't get them all, I hear Michael in my head. It's what he always says when I complain I missed a shot.

As long as I'm here I might just as well take a picture of the Winterberries, I think and turn to head in that direction.

Rat-tat-tat. Rat-tat-tat-tat.

That wasn't the woodpecker! I think of the missed shot and turn back around. I hadn't gotten far before I see a Red-bellied Woodpecker take flight — and totally miss the shot.

So I turn back around for the third time.

The Winterberry tree isn't far and the vivid red among the muted colors of winter really stand out. This tree is loaded!

The next stop on this walk-about was the pond. Spitfire ventured out onto the ice and I wondered if it was thick enough to support him, but I didn't worry. The pond is probably only about six inches deep at this time of year.

Spitfire walked nonchalantly out onto the ice until — crack — and he froze. He waited for a few seconds then turned back to the shore.

Cleo joined him on the ice. Would it support both their weights, I wondered but it did and without any complaints either.

Cleo stopped, drank water from her shadow, and came off the ice.

Spitfire wasn't far behind her and stepped in the puddle Cleo had been drinking from. He shook the cold water from his foot.

Everyone back on dry land, safe and sound, we headed for home.

Early afternoon turned to mid and Mike was feeling a little better. "Wanna go to C.C. Allis?" he asked.

"Sure," I readily agreed. We don't go there often so I thought I might get some pictures for you.

"What's C.C. Allis?" you ask.

The lumber yard. We still have it in our heads to build an awning off the kitchen door to keep the snow from it.

Getting the corn in.

It's easier to spot the hawks sitting in the trees in the winter, but still hard to get my camera to focus on them as we fly by.

Cows.

Barn quilt.

At home, Mike backs Big Red up as far as the Yorkie fence and stops. When we start the awning we'll just pull the lumber from the truck as we need it. I go inside, get my sweater off, put water in the microwave for coffee, and look out to see Smudge snooping around. Cats are curious. Anything new appears and they all have to check it out.

The next day, Mike was sick. Really sick. By the time I thought about calling the Kipps and telling them not to stop (so they wouldn't pick up Mike's germs) it was almost too late. In fact they might be out walking and wouldn't be home to answer my call even if I did call. I put on my sweater and hooked up the girls and we went out the back driveway to see if I could see them on the road.

I didn't see them. Not in either direction.

Rat-tat-tat.

A woodpecker. Whether it was the same one from yesterday or another one, I didn't know, but I looked in the direction the sound was coming from and there he is.

Now, because I'm shooting into the sky the foreground tends to be dark. I've lightened the photo so you can't really see the red on his head, but that along with the stripes on his wings and his size, say he's a Red-bellied Woodpecker.

I had cats following me so I didn't want to go far but I walked down the road in front of our house. There's a bucket on the bank that's been living there for years and is making great progress in going back to nature.

Luckily, by the time I got to our front driveway, no cars had passed us. I worry about the cats on the road and I know I shouldn't because they wander down there on their own anyway. I'd gotten to the top of the driveway, just to where it bends around the barn, looked back and spotted the florescent of Rosie's walking vest. The Kipps were coming. I went back down to the road and met them. The cats that had been following me disappeared quickly as they realized someone else was there.

"Mike's really sick," I told Rosie and Lamar. "How about if we just visit while I walk with you today?"

"Okay," Rosie replied.

And we walked and we talked. We'd just gotten down to 'Daddy's machine shed' when we hear, "Meow. Meow, meow." One of the cats had followed.

We kept walking and looking back and after a while we see Spitfire come out of the weeds.

"I'm going to stay here so he doesn't come any further," Lamar said when we reached the Robinson's barn.

Rosie took Maggie and we walked on down past the cabin where Kim lives. She does interesting landscaping and has a ladder standing against a tree as yard art.

We turned around, walked back, and met Lamar where he waited at the barn.

"Spitfire didn't show up?" I asked.

"No," Lamar answered. "He didn't come this far."

It isn't too far until we're back in front of my place and I spot a rat snake fritter. "It looks about the same size as the ones I found," I observed out loud. A few more steps and I spot a shell casing. "How does this get in the road?" I asked.

"I don't know," Lamar answered.

I see now, in my picture, that there's another rat snake fritter there with the shell casing.

Spitfire heard us and came out of the weeds.

"Hello Spitfire," Rosie greeted and bent to pet him.

"Who's house is that?" you ask.

That is the neighbor across the road from us. The eldest and only Robinson daughter lives there with her husband, Charlie Kyle. After Sally came six Robinson boys, Jim, Jack, Joe, Jerry, Jon, and Dean. And now there are twenty-one more Robinson girls in three generations.

With Mike being sick I was left to my own devices. I went in the wayback and sorted some boxes putting kitchen stuff in one stack and everything else in another stack. Then I got to work unpacking, sorting, and washing.

I had a deep iron skillet with a lid sitting on top of my griddle and over the years they've bonded.

Mike sprayed WD-40 between them and let them soak while he rested. An hour or so later he checked them but they still wouldn't come apart. More WD-40 and time, a good solid thunk and he got them apart. Then I went to work with steel wool, dish soap, and elbow grease. Once I get them clean I Googled it.

Coat with any kind of oil, it said, bake upside down in a 350 degree oven for one hour, it said, and put aluminum foil on the rack below to catch the drippings, it said.

I didn't call my mother to verify — my mistake.

"I'm not sure vegetable oil was the thing to use," she said when I told her about it the next day.

"The internet said any kind of oil and I had some vegetable oil here that I probably won't use," I justified, "so I used it."

She was quiet.

"And now my pans have a funky amber haze to them instead of deep, rich, black." Momma was still quiet. "Well?"

"Peggy!" I've heard that tone before. She's exasperated with me. "I don't know what to tell you!"

"Will they be okay or should I start over?"

"I'd start over," is all she said.

Well, maybe another day I will. For now they're protected from rust and I had boxes calling my name.

Boy! Talk about treasures! I found stuff I didn't even know I had!

I found Gizmo, a gremlin from the movie Gremlins. My ex, Gene, worked in a foundry and made the mold and poured an iron Gizmo. I don't really know how I happen to have him but if Kevin ever comes to visit, I'm going to load him up, and this is just the start.

I found a can full of these magnets.

I don't know what they were used for but I do know where they came from. Gene's father Jesse used to go to the dump with a couple of friends of his. They would scavenge and bring home all kinds of treasures. This was one of those. He used to bring home a lot of clocks too...

Oh! That reminds me! Guess what I found?

"Another clock?" you guess.

And you would be right. Mike left his sickbed long enough to check it out. Twelve years of storage in less than optimal conditions didn't do it any favors and it doesn't work. I promised him that one day we would get ALL of his clocks fixed-up, tuned-up, and working right.

Wednesday and Thursday Mike got sicker and sicker. At one point he was alternating between the sweats and shivering so hard I thought he'd rattle his teeth right out of his head.

He had the flu.

"You gave it to me," he opined.

"No I didn't. I only had a cold and I was only down for one day!"

With Mike down for the count, it gave me lots of time to sort through the kitchen boxes. I found the banana split bowls from when my kids were little.

In another box were the milk shake or ice cream float glasses, along with some holiday wine glasses.

"I think they were a give-away when you bought something someplace but I don't remember where anymore," I told Kandyce, my daughter-in-law. However, a quick search on eBay solves that mystery for me. These were from Arby's.

Do you see those pretty green ones to the left of the float glasses? It seems to me they were a give-away too. So I Googled them and they also came up as being from Arby's, but not everyone on eBay says that though. Some just call them Libbey green wine water goblets with gold trim and never say they came from Arby's. I used to have four, I'm pretty sure, but there are only three now. If I break another one I'll have a set of two.

I found the glass jars that Gene's mother used for storing dry goods, flour, sugar, noodles, that kind of stuff. I know you can buy these brand new today, but these were hers and the only thing I asked for when she passed away.

And then, oh my gosh, and then I found boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff from when I had Peggy's Kitchen, a small dessert bakery I operated for about eight months one year. Yeah, I made enough to pay the bills but not enough to take a wage, so we closed it.

"I bet I have six bundt pans!" I told my beautiful sister Phyllis in a morning email.

"Are those the kind you make angel food cake in?" she asked.

"Yeah, but I used them to make sticky buns." My cute little redheaded sister Diane had given me a recipe that used frozen yeast rolls and butterscotch pudding. They were really good when they were warm but not so much after they cooled off. Unless it was because I cooked them too long... who knows! It was so long ago I've forgotten.

The next day, unpacking boxes, I found an angel food cake pan. They aren't quite the same as a bundt pan and as soon as I saw it I knew I'd told Phyllis wrong.

"What are the prongs for?" you ask.

Angel foods have to be cooled upside down to retain their height so the pans have these three prongs on them for just that purpose.

I also found my pierogi cutter.

"Wow!" you exclaim. "That's a big cutter!"

It is! I don't fool around when I make pierogies. This will make five and a half inch rounds.

I was wrong though. I don't have six bundt pans, I have four. However, I do have six muffin tins, and four cake pans, not counting the two I've carried with me all these years.

And cookie sheets? I have six no-sticks for making pumpkin roll and at least that many heavy aluminum pans for cookies.

I found four Pyrex pie plates plus I have three more that I've carried with me.

Seven!

I have seven pie plates!

I smiled when I pulled out the McDonald's collector plates. I think the set had more than two but that was all I was able to get.

I have two round cake keepers! The glass one was a gift from my mother (I think) and if you invert the stand and cover — you get a bowl!

I have a terrible urge to make a round cake.

Not all of the surprises were good. I found a lot of old plasticwear, some bought for food storage and some just repurposed; like butter bowls.

I think I saved every Parkay butter bowl I've ever had — well, maybe not all but I saved quite a few, along with their lids.

No one wants this stuff, including the recycler. "No butter dishes!" they say. So these vintage butter bowls will end up in a landfill somewhere.

I found my two cheesecake pans. And I found a set of Wolfgang Puck 18-10 stainless mixing bowls with lids! I didn't even know I had these and I bet you that when I bought them more than 12 years ago, I didn't even know who Wolfgang Puck was!

I have a brand new, never been opened, twelve piece cutlery set.

Now I have two!

And speaking of new, never been opened, I have the original Ginsu knives.

Four more McDonald's collector plates came out of a box and brought a smile to my face. And a set of blue and white speckled enamelware. I call them cowboy plates and I bought a bunch of this stuff for my dad when he lived with me.

I found my deep fryer.

"Peg, it's nasty!" Mike said when he saw it. "Throw it away and buy a new one!"

"Well, let me tell you something, mister! It can be cleaned up, but I'll probably never deep fry anything ever again in my whole life!" I steer clear of deep fried foods these days but who knows! Maybe I'll clean it up and make some homemade french fries, just for shits and grins, you know what I mean.

Here's another give-away I found that I didn't know I had. Lord of the Rings light-up glass goblets from December 2001 (The date is embossed on the glass). These are from Burger King and when you open the box you have a code you can enter online.

Silverware and other utensils are another thing I have too much of.

"You'll have to make a chime from them like the one Marla bought me," Rosie Kipp said. "It makes the prettiest sound."

My cute little brother Richard offered a different piece of advice. "Sell it. You could use the money."

I've been to enough secondhand stores and flea markets to know that this kind of stuff doesn't bring anything, and that's if you can even find anyone willing to buy it. And a yard sale is a lot of work. No. My solution is to leave it to the kids.

"Come and visit!" I begged Kevin and Kandyce, our son and his wife. "Bring the truck! You can have as much of this stuff as you want now. Either that or you can wait until I'm dead and deal with it then!"

I've only shown you a few of the treasures that I've found. Look at the stack of boxes I unpacked!

Being up to my elbows in dust and dishwater isn't the only thing I've done this past week. I made chicken soup for my flu-riddled husband. Is there anything better than homemade chicken noodle soup! I think not! And this time I didn't put potatoes in it.

"Potatoes? In chicken soup?" you query.

I know, right! That's what Mike said too! I like potatoes — maybe even love them! Putting them in this dish reminds me of the wonderful chicken potpies my mom and dad used to make.

"Isn't chicken potpie made in a pie crust?" you say.

Not the way we made it. It did, however, use a square noodle called, ironically, potpie noodles.

Then I made bone broth with the chicken carcass.

Have you ever made bone broth?

I Googled it and the website I was perusing said she saved all the ends from her celery, carrot peels, and even the outer skin of her onions — all the things you would normally throw away — in her freezer to use when she made her bone broth.

"Onion peels!" I told Momma during one of our daily chats. "Is there any nutrition in the onion peel?"

"I don't know but I wouldn't use it," she said.

I didn't use vegetable scraps, I used the good stuff, but maybe next time I'll try it. I like the idea of not wasting anything if I don't have to. The recipe also calls for garlic and vinegar. Don't worry, you won't taste the vinegar, the website said. But you could smell it as it simmered in the slow cooker for 18 to 72 hours. I simmered mine somewhere around 18 hours and after the garlic, you can't taste the vinegar.

Another day, another walk-about and Cleopatra and Rascal followed me. At the pond, the skim of ice was too fragile to support Cleo's weight as she stepped on and promptly broke through. She pulled her paw back, moved over a few inches, and tried the ice again, with the same result.

Cleo thought she'd get on a branch that overhung the pond,

but it was a pretty skinny branch and she fell off, getting her feet wet.

She gave up and came back to dry land.

Rascal just watched as Cleo failed to gain the ice. I guess he figured if she made it, then he would give it a try. And I understand that.

Once, a hundred years and two lifetimes ago, a big sister put her little sister on a Shetland pony named Brandy. If she can ride her then I can ride her too, thought the big sister. Only Brandy didn't like to be ridden and promptly bucked the little sister off. Luckily, no one was hurt that day and the experiment was never repeated.

Checking our mailbox was another task that fell to me while Mike was sick. One day I see a rock propped up against the front of the box. I looked twice but didn't think too much about it. The next day, checking the mail, the leaves that had concealed a slice of pumpkin pie with whipped cream on top, had blown away.

A painted rock! I thought. Someone left me a painted rock! How sweet!

Painting rocks has been all the rage lately. Families everywhere gather together and paint rocks. Then they take them about town and put them in places for people to find, hoping to brighten their day. They even have websites devoted to painting rocks.

You can keep the rock, if you want to, the website says, or you can re-home it in another place for someone else to find.

I've seen other painted rocks and sometimes I take their picture, like I did on this day when I saw these on a curb outside of Lowe's, but I've never picked any up or re-homed any.

I guess someone thought I needed a painted rock. I brought it up to the house and put it just outside the kitchen door where I see it often, and smile.

Thank you to whoever left if for me.

That cat!

That darn cat!

Yeah, we be talkin' bout that Smudge!

Getting ready for bed one night, he heard me in the kitchen and climbed the screen.