Last Week — This Week II

           I could easily do another Last Week — This Week letter blog — in fact, I think I will! — because there were 19 pictures left over from last week and I've added another 105 pictures to this week's album.

          Sigh.

          What am I gonna do!

          "Get to it, Peg!" you say.

          Okay, let's get to it!

          But first, let me show you just how goofy I think sometimes. Last week I was talking about wrapping that heavy-ass 60-pound chain around the trees and bushes that we were pulling and I told you that if they were skinny I'd have to wrap the chain around at least once. I should have said twice. In my mind, just looping the chain around and hooking it doesn't count as a wrap and that's why I said I'd have to wrap it around at least once. I guess any normal person would have said twice. I fixed it in my online blog but it's too late for the letters I printed and those I sent on email.

          Mike found a little blue egg lying in the grass and pointed it out to me.

          "I bet another bird came along, pushed this one out of the nest, and laid her own egg in there. Some birds do that, y'know," I told Mike.

          I bet you dollars to donuts that this is a Starling's egg since right above where it was found, a Starling has a nest. She's had her nest in the same spot in the eaves for several years now despite Mike's best efforts to close up the opening she gets in through.

          A couple of days later there was another egg on the ground and this one was broken.

          Two weeks ago I showed you pictures of Anon, one of my three wild girls. Callie and Sugar thought they should have their 15 minutes of fame too!  

    

          A ladybug at the tippy-top of a pussy willow.

          Look at all the deer! They're in the field next to our place.

          Look what I found while unpacking a few boxes. Number six!

          Look at all the baby dragonflies! It'll give the baby frogs lots to eat.

          Did you know...

          Some dragonflies live underwater for two years and molt 17 times before becoming adults?

          And that a dragonfly's head is all eyes? As a result, they have almost 360-degree vision.

          And dragonflies catch their prey mid-flight?

          And the nymph has his gills inside his rectum? That's right, he breaths through his butt!

          I don't know why this guy's so special he gets a red dot. Parasite maybe? Disease? I didn't see anyone else with one.

          A puffball come and gone already.

          This is ground ivy, also called Gill-over-the-ground, and Creeping Charlie. 
         This wildflower is easily cultivated and grows well in shade. Brought over from Europe, it escaped from someone's garden and is considered invasive.

          The fresh leaves can be rinsed and made into a tea, which has a mild peppery flavor and is full of vitamin C. You can cook it as a potherb or eat raw in a salad. The leaves were once used to help ferment or flavor beer too.

          A willow.    

  
            Forsythia after a shower.

            My lilacs are just coming on. 

     

            Cherry blossoms.

          "Peg, aren't cherry blossoms pink?" you ask.

          Yeah, some are. I have a kind that has white blossoms.

          Violets — also eatable. 

           I can't tell you what these are. I've forgotten.                                     

          My rhododendron is blooming.

      

          And that's what you missed last week.

          Sunday is pizza day in my house and involves some kind of frozen pizza. Last Sunday a week ago — but it wouldn't have made it in last week's letter anyway, even if I did have room — I took the outer plastic off and saw this gob sitting on top of my pizza. I flopped it onto Momma's pizza pan and carried it into the living room where Mike was watching TV in his recliner.

          "Mike what is that?" I asked and held it so he could see it.

          "I don't know."

          I took it back to the kitchen and when the oven was preheated, I popped it in. Mike joined me in the kitchen and we played a game of Skip-Bo while we waited for the pizza. When the timer went off, I pulled it from the oven.

          "It's cheese!" I exclaimed.

          "That's what I thought it was," Mike said.

          Yeah, right.

          I couldn't tell if it was that or crust.

          Cut into six pieces, Mike pulled one from the pan and we both laughed.

          Okay, okay! One of us laughed. The other one frowned but I won't tell you which was which. I guess I find my foibles more amusing than Mike does. I must have been so distracted with the blob on top that I completely forgot to slide it off the cardboard. As it turns out, it was a blessing in disguise. The cardboard helped soak up the oil from all that extra cheese.

          "Peg, you cook your pizza on a pan?"

          Yep. I do. The crust gets just as brown (if you remember to take the cardboard out) and there's no mess in my oven.

          Mike and I were looking for something in the RV and I found a bag of dried lavender that my Miss Helen had given me. It was nice to think of that sweet lady again. The lavender still smells nice and I put a sprig into Momma and Kat's vase, on my windowsill, above my kitchen sink.

         

                   Mike and I made a trip to Athens and you know what that means, don't you?

          "Road pictures?" you guess.

          Yes. Road pictures.

          Mike stopped so I could see the Eagles there along the Susquehanna. The babies were by themselves and I count three in the nest.

          It's quite a hike back to the parking area where Mike waited for me. Just as I got there another car pulled in and these folks climbed out. With a lens like that I could take closer pictures of the babies.

          "Peg, with a lens like that you have to use a tripod," Mike told me. "You couldn't hold it still enough to take a clear picture."

          One can always dream and that's all this girl is going to be doing. A lens like that starts around $2,000 and a super telephoto lens can be as much as $13,000!

          The new intersection going in at Ulster and our gas was $3.09 that day.

 

 
         It looks like this place got an addition. Front and back view.

          Mike stopped in Towanda on the way home and let me poke around the thrift store. I scored some reading material for our grandson. Mike and I make goodie boxes for Andrew several times a year, like at holidays and any other time I get to missing him. I'll send him a few books at a time.

          I was at the pond and this bird was singing the prettiest song.

          I see him again the next day and he's attracted a female.

          "What kind of a bird is it?" you ask.

          I'm so glad you asked! This is a Gray Catbird. Did you know that Catbirds are not afraid of predators and respond by aggressively flashing their wings and tails? They've also been known to attack and peck at predators that come too close to their nests.

          I saw a Rose-breasted Grosbeak. 

            The female of this species looks more like a sparrow until she flies. She has a yellow undercarriage.

          And I saw a Baltimore Oriole.

          Last year I had some Grape Hyacinth come up in a hole that Mike wanted to fill. When I saw them I thought of our daughter, Kat. She loved the Grape Hyacinth. I have no idea how these flowers came to be here but I didn't want them buried. I got a shovel, dug them up, and moved them into the flowerbed with the Iris's that Miss Helen gave me. Then I didn't think about them ever again. I'm not much of a gardener, though I strive to do better. Surprise!

          Wild strawberries are scattered about the place, but they don't stand a chance against the mower.

          The honeysuckle bushes are setting their flowers.

          A bumble bee with his tongue out, sipping nectar from my Rhodies.

          They put a fresh layer of gravel down on our road this past week. Now the dust is worse than ever! Eventually, to keep the dust down, they'll spray a coat of tar on top but only in front of houses.

          "Now's when they should put a layer of tar on top," Mike says to me. "But they won't. They'll wait until it's all rutted."

          And yet they never call and ask us.

          I took another picture of the violets this week.

          Since we did have some rain Mike decided it was a good time to burn the brush pile.

          "Peg, is that a gas can sitting there?" you ask.

          Yes. Yes it is. Despite the danger of doing so, someone uses an accelerant.

          "Pfft!" someone says. "I've been doing this for a long time. I know how to do it!"

          Safely. He didn't say safely. I sent up a little prayer.

          In no time at all Mike had the concrete cleared of the brush that was staged there to be burned.

          Along the path to the upper barn sat a big old bush Mike plowed out last year. It was good and dry.

          "Do you think we should drag that down and burn it?" Mike asked.

          "Sure."

          I hooked the rope and Mike pulled it down to the concrete with the golf cart. Then he got on the tractor and pushed the dried bush up on top of the still burning pile. He didn't even have it unloaded when it caught and started burning hot and fast!

          I took a ton of pictures as it burned, picked out four to show you, but I think I'll just show you two.

    This one is my current desktop photo.

          A wren has once again made a nest in the birdhouse on the patio this year. A male will build several nests in the hopes of enticing a female to move in and set up house with him.

          A twig is sticking out the hole and he's perched on it as he sings his song.

          "Where's his tail?" you wonder.

          I know, right! I wondered the same thing. It must be tucked inside the opening.

          Then he hopped on top and continued to sing his song.

♫I made a beautiful nest

To raise our babies in.♪

♪♫Come and see, come and see.

I used the finest twigs I could find

And laid them with care♫♪♫

Come and see, come and seeeee! ♫♪

          Our pear trees in full bloom with leaves coming on the top. 

            I'll tell you what! I expected the blooms to be sweet and fragrant. They're not. They stink!

          "Yeah, but it's not as bad smelling as the trees our girls used to call the cat-pee trees," Rosie told me.

          I have no idea what kind of trees those were and neither does Rosie.

           Mr. Mister and Jerry are laying pretty close to each other in my front yard. These two guys are feral toms and they're not mine, although I do let them come and go as they please, eating and sleeping here.

          I have no idea if they're friends or enemies or brothers or tolerate each other or if they fight or don't fight. I don't see them together a lot, like they are here, but I've seen them both in the cat room at the same time. Normally at feeding time.

          That cat!

          That darn cat!

          Yeah, we're talkin' about that Smudge.

          But this is something he can't really help.

          I showed you how the sore on his hip festered and popped last week and it was healing fine.

          Until Thursday.

          Thursday morning I got up and Smudge was standing on my butcher block. I picked him up to toss him out and I hurt him. Inadvertently though. I didn't mean to hurt him. All I did was get him one-handed and pull him to my side to carry him to the door.

          The side I'd pulled against me was the side that had his sore on.

          He cried.

          I felt bad. 

          Later when I checked him I found this. His sore burst again, was wide open, and twice the size it was before.

          I called Dr. Lamar, or rather, I tried to. The Kipps weren't home.

          It was a dreary, overcast day and we had an errand to run.

          "Yay! Road pictures!" you say.

          I'm so glad you like them.

          As many times as I've been on this road I never noticed all the wind generators dotting the crest of the mountain.

          "That's cause your nose is always stuck looking at the roadsides," Mike says but he didn't notice them before either.

          On the way home we dropped down into Laceyville. Mike wanted to get a 4x4 for a project. I'll show you that a bit later.

         

          I sat in the Jeep while he went in to pay for his lumber.

          Across the road I see the lilacs are blooming. They're further along than mine are.

          The back of the lumber company.

          Train graffiti. Is this writing upside down?

          At home, Mike unloaded his 4x4. "Should we just go ahead and put it up?" he asks. "It won't take long."

          I agree to help him and he gets the tractor.

          The Maple tree that my bird feeders are on has grown sideways rather than up. Years ago, Mike put a support under it but its grown so much, with the end becoming so heavy, that its got a big crack in it. Thus Mike put a second support under it. 

          A few hours have passed and I tried Lamar Kipp again.

          "Smudge looks worse. Would you come and look at him?" I asked.

          Lamar said he would and he'd be up in a few minutes. He loves the critters too. "Oh my," he said when he saw it. "That looks pretty bad. I think you should take him to the vet."

          I guess a gob of Vaseline isn't going to fix it this time.

          I got the vet on the phone. "We don't have anything left today. The soonest we could see him is tomorrow morning," Mark, the receptionist, said.

          "Here, Mark. Talk to Lamar," and I passed the phone to Lamar.

          "Mark, it looks pretty bad to me. I'd really appreciate it if you could get someone to look at him today."

          Mark said something, but I couldn't hear.

          "Okay. I'll wait."

          A few minutes later Mark came back on the line. "Three o'clock?" Lamar said to me.

          "Fine," I replied.

          "We'll take it," Lamar confirmed.

          On the way to the vet we see a dump truck loaded with logs.

          "Who does that?" Mike asked.

          An old tree house...

          ...and Redbud trees outside the vet's office.

          Smudge wasn't happy...

          ...but he tolerated the exam pretty well. Dr. Joan said it looked like a cat bite. Because of the way their teeth are it tends to be a circle shape. It festered and broke, twice, which she said is good. They gave him an antibiotic shot that would last two weeks and she put two staples in, leaving the end open so it could drain. She had trouble trying to get the staples in and after the sixth time, Smudge wouldn't tolerate anymore.

          "Alright Smudge," Dr. Joan said. "I'll leave you be. It'll just have to do."

          The staples never held and Smudge had one out before we got home. By the next day Smudge had the other one pulled out.

          "What would have happened if we hadn't brought him in?" I asked the vet.

          "It would have healed, but a wound that size might take a couple of months," she told me.

          And I know the antibiotic will help it heal. We are keeping Smudge in so he isn't running and climbing trees, keeping it aggravated and getting it dirty.

         

          I did it.

          I finally did it.

          "Did what, Peg?" you say.

          I finally got the girls bathed and clipped for the summer.

          This is Ginger's before picture. You won't believe her after picture.

          And this is Itsy's before picture. Neither one is happy about having their summer cuts but Ginger behaves much better about it than Itsy does.

          And this is their after picture. The girls are a whole different color.

         

          Thursday I got a surprise in the mail. DHL pulled into the driveway and handed me a package — and it wasn't what we were expecting.

          Mike bought an antique pocket watch on eBay for a few bucks and we were expecting that. The box the DHL driver handed me was much too big to be a pocket watch.

          I carried the box into the house. "What did you buy now?" I asked Mike.

          He looked at the box. "Nothing. Just that pocket watch."

          We opened it and this is what we have. A nice stainless steel tripod.

          "Who's it from," Mike asked.

          I checked the return address. "Thor. Why would the RV company send us a tripod?" I wondered. Besides, we traded that RV off almost two years ago now.

          After mulling it over for a while I decided to call the RV company and ask them why they would send us a tripod. I found the phone number on the internet.

          "I received a tripod from you today and I was wondering what it's for," I told Nate, the nice young man who took my call.

          "I don't know, let me see." And I heard the clicking of a keyboard. "I don't show anything on here."

          "Could it be an automatic replacement for something that got sent out to the wrong owner?" I asked.

          "I don't know, let me check." I heard more clicking. "No. I don't see a tripod of any sort on the list. Are you sure it's from us?"

          I picked up the box and looked at the return address again. "Yep, it says right here, Thor Industries... Oh wait. It says Instruments, not Industries."

          I guess since Thor Industries was the only Thor company I knew, my eyes saw what my mind thought it should say. Funny, isn't it.

          We had a good laugh and only half the mystery was solved. We know the RV company didn't send it but we still don't know why it was sent to us. We went back online and checked the tracking number for the pocket watch. Package one of two delivered, it says. There shouldn't be two packages. Me thinks the company has made a mistake and if they want their tripod back they're going to have to arrange for that.

          This plant grows under a Dogwood tree at my church and I went looking for it Friday night. I knew it should be blooming at the same time as the Dogwoods bloom.

          This is Fringed Polygala also called fringed milkwort and gaywings. It's a small native perennial.

          It was once thought that cattle eating this plant would produce a lot of milk, hence the name milkwort.

           The Iroquois used its leaves as a wash or poultice to treat abscesses, boils, and sores.

          Going home from exercise class that night I see these clouds. Aren't they awesome.

          Here's another evening picture. It was after a rain, the sun was starting to set and we had some fog rising.

          Ginger.

          That dog!

          I call her my little garbage truck for a reason. She'll eat just about anything she finds and most of the time those things are disgusting. Poo... dead things... Yuck! I try to be vigilant but I can't watch her all the time. Yesterday I'm sitting at my computer and I hear something hitting the kitchen door. I ignored it the first few times then I decided to get up and check. Rascal had a big ol' fat mouse he was tossing around. Rascal? Caught a mouse? I wondered. Then I see Spitfire sitting a little ways off, watching. I bet Spitfire caught it, he's my mighty hunter.

          This isn't the first time this week that I've found a mouse in the courtyard off the kitchen. It's the third. The first time I picked it up by his tail and tossed him into the weeds. The second time I only found it because Ginger was standing guard over it. I looked out and she was just sitting there, watching. I went out to see what it was and it was a poor little mouse. Dead. I picked it up and tossed it. But this third time, I don't know what happened. The cats were playing with it so I left it.

          Late yesterday afternoon, when the girls had been out for a while and didn't bark to come back in, I went to check on them. Looking out the door there was Ginger, a half-consumed mouse hanging from her mouth.

          "NOOOOO!" I screamed, opened the door, grabbed Ginger and shook her. "NOOOO!" but she was chewing and swallowing as fast as she could. It was hanging from her mouth by a thread as she chewed. I didn't want to — but I didn't want her to eat any more of it — I didn't want to but I gritted my teeth, grabbed it by its raw, gutty, nastiness, with my bare hand, and pulled. The thread snapped and I dropped it — fast. I took Ginger in and sanitized my hands.

          I went back to pick up the rest of the mouse but now that Ginger had gotten it started Rascal was finishing it off.

          I was afraid Ginger would be sick so I kenneled her for a few hours. I'd rather clean mouse guts from the plastic kennel than from my couch or rug. But she didn't get sick. Thank goodness.

          Well guys, there're 38 pictures left in this week's album. They're road pictures from a ride-about that Mike took me on. I love exploring new roads and seeing new things. I'll work on compiling them into a separate letter blog for you and send it in a day or two.

          In the meantime, let's call this one done!