Another week, guys. Another week finds me in front of my computer writing to you. It seems like all I do is sit in front of my computer — if you don't believe me, just ask my husband. After the marathon writing session of last week, churning out not one but two letter blogs, he was a little cranky. On average, it takes me about two days to complete a letter blog. Nevertheless, Mike's very proud of me. He likes the stories I write and he likes when I talk about him.
"Don't forget to tell them how handsome I am," he often jokes.
"And tall too," I add.
I say Mike 'jokes' because he doesn't think he's handsome at all. As he gets older, his hair gets a little grayer, his crinkles get a bit deeper, and he becomes more and more distinguished looking.
So, my tall handsome husband is very proud of this chronicle of our life together that I've created, he just sometimes resents the time it takes to create them.
Speaking of my husband, he happened to get the mail on a day when a package arrived for me. "What's this?" he asked.
"Open it and find out," I challenged.
He scowled when he saw that I'd bought another potato masher.
"Really, Peg?"
"Well yeah!"
"How many of these do you have now?"
"That makes five I think, but they're getting harder to find all the time!" I defend. In the back of my mind, I'm thinking I'd send our son one so he has a spare.
I was down at the pond taking pictures and I kept seeing something darting through the water. I don't know if I was seeing the same guy going from one clump of grass to another or if there were more than one. Whatever they were, they were fast and the vegetation at the pond is thick so I didn't get a look at him. I'm thinking it's a little early for tadpoles so maybe it was a frog but he was so fast I couldn't see what he was. One thing's for sure, it wasn't a minnow since our pond dries up every year. I know there are some kinds of fish that will bury themselves in the mud and survive a drought but I don't know if we have any of those kind around here.
I sat down on my haunches and held my camera at the ready. If I saw anything at all, a flash of movement or an air bubble, I clicked away. I couldn't see anything but then again with my Cadillac eyes I'm not likely to either. My best bet was to rely on luck and see what I got when I download the pictures onto my computer.
I didn't get even a glimpse of my mystery aquatic friend, but while looking at the pictures I discovered I'd gotten several shots of these little gray bugs.
"What are they?" you wonder.
These are baby dragonflies. Cool, huh?
I picked some pussy willows and brought them inside for Momma and Kat. I can't give either one of these beautiful ladies wildflowers anymore so I have to settle for keeping a few on the windowsill with their picture.
Since the beaver dam isn't holding back much water, Rosie's Mergansers are coming further down the creek. I know Rosie missed them when they were staying in the pool created by the beaver dam and was tickled when she saw them the other day. Then, when Mike and I were coming across the bridge I spotted them.
"Mike, back up. There's Rosie's Mergansers."
Mike backed up for me. The ducks were quite a ways away and I didn't get out of the Jeep so this is the best shot I got.
How about some Merganser facts?
Mergansers are sometimes called sawbills, fish ducks, or goosanders. The word "merganser" comes from the Latin and roughly translates to "plunging goose" — a good name for this very large and often submerged duck.
Mergansers build nests in tree cavities or holes carved out by large woodpeckers. On occasion they use rock crevices, holes in the ground, hollow logs, old buildings, and chimneys.
Young Mergansers leave their nest within a day or so of hatching. The flightless chicks leap from the nest entrance and tumble to the forest floor. The mother protects the chicks, but they catch all of their own food. They start by diving for aquatic insects and switch over to fish at about 12 days old.
Other birds trail the Mergansers, waiting for them to come up with a fish then they try to steal it rather than fishing on their own. Occasionally even a Bald Eagle will try to steal a fish from a Merganser.
The oldest Merganser on record was a female and was at least 13 years, 5 months old.
Michael decided that this was the week to get out all of the bears, make them a shelf, and get them put up.
"Bears? What bears?" you ask.
It started out with the Christmas Bears that Wal Mart sells at Christmastime. The bears have the year on them, usually sewn on the bottom of their foot and Mike bought me one every year. From there it progressed. Wal Mart started selling boy and girl Christmas bears, Valentine Bears, and Easter Bunnies. Now I get four a year.
I helped Mike bring out all the boxes marked 'bears' that we could find and we started unloading boxes. I had piles of bears all over the place! They were stacked high on the dining room table and tossed in a heap on the pantry floor.
All of the boxes of bears survived birthing and dying of cats except one. The top had been partially caved in and you could see where a nest had been made. We saved that box for last. When Mike pulled the flaps open and lifted out the first Easter Bunny, I knew something had died in the box. There were dried fly casings all over it. "I bet we're going to find a dead kitten somewhere in there."
"Let's take the whole box outside," Mike said and dropped the bunny back in.
When all of the empty boxes were taken out to the garage, broken down, and put into the Jeep to drop off at the recycling center, I went to work on the dead-thing box. I got a little dust brush, tentatively picked a bunny up by the ear, and brushed at the fly casings. It wasn't working all that well. Only the casings that were close to the surface came off, the rest I just brushed right over top of. I don't know if the flies glue the casing in when they lay them or if they're just wet and adhere to the fur when it dries, but they didn't want to come out. In frustration, I smacked the bunny with the brush — and was surprised when casings fell out. I did that a few more times and even knocked it against the porch poles. It helped but there were still casings down in the fur. I need a comb, I thought but dismissed the idea. Who wants to use a comb after I've combed fly casings out of stuffed animals, I thought. Besides, a comb probably won't comb stuffed animal fur very well anyway. Then I thought of a fork.
"Peg, you're funny," you say. "If you don't want to use a comb afterward, why in heaven's name would you want to use a fork?"
I know, right!
Even though there's no yucky stuff left, just dried hulls, and even if I bleached it afterward, I'd always wonder and be grossed out. But I have six, maybe seven, sets of silverware —
"You're kidding, right?" you say.
Nope. And I agree. That's ridiculous. I don't even know how I ended up with so many sets but here's one thing I do know for sure... Poor Kandyce! She'll get them all when I'm gone.
One of these sets is an El Cheapo set and I grab one out of there when I want one for the cat room or digging in the garden. I'll get one of those! I thought. For the most part, it worked okay but it didn't work quite the way I thought it was going to. I found that if I worked the tines back and forth over the top of the casing that it would work it out of the bunny fur. It was a bit time consuming because I had to do them one at a time and just about the time I thought I'd gotten them all, I'd turn the bunny a different way and spot more casings down in the fur. After the first two were done, I took them in and tossed them in the washer. That's where the rubber meets the road. All kinds of casings came floating to the top of the washing machine water. I missed more than I thought I did. I bet we'll have to clean the screen after this, I thought.
After I gave my hands a good scrubbing with hot water, soap, and a steel brush — just kidding about the steel brush, I took a much-needed coffee break. Then I went back out and pulled another bunny from the box. This one had a lot more casings on it so I guess I'm getting close to whatever died in there. Several times I caught myself doing my mommy breathing, breathing through my mouth, it's an automatic switch-over whenever I think something is going to stink. Whatever died in there, died in there years ago, I admonish myself, it probably doesn't stink anymore. But I wasn't taking any chances.
There were only four Easter Bunnies in the box. The rest of the stuff were small stuffed animals and one of my daughter's old baby dolls. I don't even know how I came to have Kat's doll but there it was. These things were a breeze to clean off because the casings didn't stick to them like they did the fur of the bunnies.
"So what died in the box?" I know you want to know.
After everything was out of the box was when I had my first clue. I'm guessing a kitten, maybe two. I can only see one backbone but several pieces of a skull(s). Lots of little bones. Lots of little dried up bones and no yucky stuff. I don't know if a kitten slipped down between the stuffed animals and mama couldn't get it out, or if they were abandoned.
I only washed two bunnies at a time but all of the smaller stuff went in at once. Elmo, a bear, and a few others preferred to float so I went in several times and gave them a dunking.
It was during one of those visits that I noticed jellyfish swimming around in the washer. No, not jellyfish but stuffing. Someone lost their stuffing. I picked everybody out, one by one, squished out the water, picked strands of stuffing off them, examined them for rips and tears, and didn't find any until I got to Kat's doll swimming in the depths of the washer. The seams had come apart in a couple of places. I picked all the stuffing from the water that I could, squeezed it, and made a pile on top of the dryer. The doll I put into a mesh bag, with very fine mesh so no more stuffing could escape, I tied it shut, and put everyone back in the washer to finish their bath, then into the sauna... err... dryer they went.
Amazingly, everything came out pretty good. Most of the birth and death stains washed out and what's left is pretty faint. The only thing that did not do well in the washer were some of the paper tags.
"Peggy!" you exclaim.
I know, right!
That night I got the sewing kit out, gathered Kat's doll and all the stuffing I'd salvaged, sat in the recliner and fixed Kat's doll while I watched the news.
Oh my gosh! I had to laugh when I found this little Caveman and Cavewoman in one of the boxes. A lady at the factory where I worked in Indiana made these and sold them. I don't remember anymore what I paid for them but they are so cute.
"How can you tell the boy from the girl?" you ask.
Easy. The girl has painted fingernails and toenails... and if you lift the fuzzy beards you'd find that they are anatomically correct but I'll just show you their little bottoms.
Another box I unloaded this week was labeled 'Koeze's & other Jars'.
"What's a Koeze?" Miss Rosie asked me.
I pulled one of the jars from the shelf and showed her. They say Koeze's on the bottom.
"What came in them?" she asked.
"I don't really know. Some kind of snack because the lid doubles as a serving dish."
I don't know how many Koeze's I have but I think I have more than these three and one of these didn't survive moving and storage very well. He broke the corner off his top.
I found my youngest son's Santa Claus mug in the box too. It was a gift from his paternal grandmother. When we were visiting my ex's parents at Christmas one year, Kevin loved the mug so much that Clara gave it to him. As you can see, Kevin used it too — a lot.
So all of the bear boxes were gathered. All of the bears were unloaded and stacked on the dining room table and a corner of the pantry. They were in the way but we couldn't put the shelves up until the brackets were delivered by UPS. Luckily that happened the very next day.
Mike got the tape measure, the stud finder, pencil, brackets, screws, screw gun, and we went to work putting the shelves up. Mike measured out from a corner, where there surely was a stud and said, "There should be a stud right here." Mike ran the stud finder across the wall and it didn't light up and beep. It didn't find a stud. He changed the settings from stud scan to deep scan. Back and forth he went with the stud finder until it found the stud. Mike marked the location and we proceeded down the wall. After marking a 12-foot section I handed Mike a bracket and a screw. He ran it into the wall and guess what? No stud. He backed the screw out and used grandpa's method of stud finding — he rapped the wall with his knuckles.
"It should be right here," he said, moved the screw over a little and this time he hit the stud. Our record for hitting the stud on the first go isn't very good so I'll spare you the details.
First section up and it was time to sort the bears into years. I started on the back closet wall, lined them the whole way up the hallway, and even had a couple of piles in the bedroom too.
"Boy, I can tell the years you loved me," I joked with Mike. The years had varying amounts of bears. One year I'd only gotten one bear, some years two, and some years I got six! Poor Kandyce!
Another job we did was to get out my little houses. We lined 'em up on the ledge of the exposed steel beam. This is another thing that I don't know how I got into collecting, but there they are. The sad part is I think there's another box or two down in the garage.
Poor, poor, Kandyce!
My whistle pig.
I talked about him two weeks ago. I told you how Mike took a shot at him and missed. Well, a few days later Mike saw him again, got the gun, and took another shot at him. This time we saw him jump and he ran into his hole.
"I think I got him," Mike said.
"If I smell something dead out there in a couple of days I'll know what it is," I told him. I pass the hole every day when I walk down to get the mail.
Mike was glad — I was not. I knew why he wanted the groundhog gone and I thought I could handle it. I really did. But I found myself with a heaviness in my heart, a sadness, and I was angry at Mike. Every time I looked out my kitchen window and thought about never seeing him peacefully grazing in the yard again really upset me. It was beyond reason to be so upset about a stupid groundhog, but I was. I was barely civil to Mike the next couple of days.
It was about four days later that I looked out the window and saw my whistle pig again. Mike hadn't killed him after all and my heart soared.
I didn't tell Mike he missed him.
Later that day I saw Ginger sitting at the fence watching him.
Smudge saw the whistle pig too. He went running up and got between him and his hole. The whistle pig humped up his back, to make himself look bigger I'm sure, and stood his ground.
Smudge seems like he's more curious than anything. He doesn't look like he's picking a fight. His ears aren't laid back, he's not humped up, his tail's not bristling, he's not hissing, and he never bats at the groundhog. The groundhog must realize the same thing and makes a break for it. Smudge just paces him until he dived into his hole and that's it. It was over.
Knowing Mike would find out about the whistle pig when I posted my letter blog, I told him, and I asked him not to shoot it. I'm tossing stuff out there for him to eat, seeing what he might like, and maybe getting him used to accepting food from me, then I'll live trap him.
I talked to the lady at the wildlife refuge center. She said they will have babies right now and I should wait a while to trap it. I'll try to hold Mike off. After all, the burrow is already dug so he's not likely to do any more damage than is already done. What will it hurt to wait a few weeks?
Snow!
We had a couple of inches again! I went out and took pictures. These pussy willows are covered in snow.
These pussy willows are a little more mature and are starting to bloom.
This looks like a den, doesn't it.
The first little leaves on a bush.
A Bradford Pear bud.
A little later in the day, we made the trip to the clock shop to pick up Mike's clock and drop two more off to be worked on. You know what that means, don't you? Road pictures!
It was snowing again when we left the house. This is our pretty little creek as we crossed the single-lane open-grate bridge.
The front windows of the daycare center.
And right behind the daycare is the railroad and that means graffiti.
"We'll run out of the snow the further south we go," Mike said and he was right. By the time we got to Tunkhannock we were out of the snow and it was just a light on-and-off rain.
We were stopped at a red light and I saw the red buds on this tree and snapped a picture from the Jeep.
Now this is more spring-like! The forsythia are blooming.
We were leaving the clock shop when I saw this on the corkboard. I looked right at it, took it in, and kept right on going out the door. That's pretty cool! I thought and debated with myself before I turned around and went back in.
The clerk who'd seen us to the door wasn't far down the aisle when she heard me come back in and came to see what we needed.
"I just think this is a pretty cool idea," I told Tammy.
"Yes it is," she agreed.
"Any idea which one is missing?" I asked but she didn't know.
I Googled it. Healing is missing.
This time we didn't make the trip to Dickinson City. We didn't need to go to Lowe's, Home Depot, or Sam's Club so we decided we'd stop at the Wal Mart in Tunkhannock on our way home and pick up the few things we did need.
Another road picture.
The trees in the Wal Mart parking lot were blooming so I took a minute and got a picture for you. I don't know what they are but I wondered if it was the same tree as the one I saw when we were at the stop light.
In the small town of Meshoppen, we took a side trip. "I've been wanting to drive down this street for a while now," Mike said. It was a very interesting street and I got lots of pictures for you.
"Look at that," I said seeing all these little houses lined up next to the road. "I know that Meshoppen has a feral cat program, do you think that this is part of that?"
Of course, Mike wouldn't have any way of knowing the answer to that; it was more just me wondering out loud.
Several barns on this road had the same dot on the door but this is two shots of the same barn. (See the Robin?)
Between Meshoppen and home, the rain started again and the temperature dropped enough that ice was forming on the windshield. I got this funky picture to share with you.
Well guys, printed this is the bottom of page 14. So let's call this one done.
Done!
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