A Week Of Grossness

          Last time I told you about getting hitting in the face with debris kicked out of Mike's mower. I was so disappointed when I didn't end up with a black eye or a bruise in the very least. In fact, I went to my ladies exercise class the next night and no one even noticed the mark on my cheek — or they were too polite to ask about it.

          "I've got some brown and blue eyeshadows, we could maybe make it look like a big old bruise if you really want one," my Miss Rosie offered.

          With Rosie's talent for painting, I'm sure she could make a very passable bruise on my face. Somehow, it wasn't the same and as much as I appreciated the offer, I passed.

          Then something weird happened. Saturday night (a week ago now) as I went out to close the cat room up for the night, a big old moth streaked past my face.

          What the hel—heck, I think as I turn my head to watch it go. I didn't see where it went. I went on and it happened again, only this time, I knew it wasn't a moth. This time I knew it was inside my head — in my eye. I was seeing flashes of light in my peripheral vision, on the side I got hit on.

          I was scared. What does it mean?

          The next morning when I got up, I had this big awful floater right in my line of vision. It looked like a fuzz ball with some of the strings still hanging. It was in the same eye as the flashes and yep, the flashes were still there. I Googled it.

          "Flashes of light are typically seen as lightning bolts or streaks of bright white light in the peripheral vision. As the vitreous separates from the retina, it may tug on the retina triggering the flashes of light. These can be caused by dangerous interruptions in the blood flow, abnormal fluid in the retina, or migraines."

          If you know anything about the internet, you know you need to check more than one web page and you need to check reputable sites.

          "A tear in the retina can occur with vitreous detachment with trauma or eye injury. The symptoms of a retinal tear usually are a flash of light in the peripheral vision followed by floaters."

          Those were my symptoms! Great! I kept looking and looking and came up with the same answers over and over again along with a warning. "If this is happening to you, you need to seek emergency help as soon as possible. Retinal detachment can cause loss of vision."

          I'm not going to the emergency room, I'm not going to the emergency room, I'm not going to the emergency room! Instead, I prayed. Heavenly Father, please put Your finger on my eye and keep it from getting any worse. I'll call the ophthalmologist first thing in the morning, I promise.

          I did more research online trying to figure out what kind of timeframe I was looking at. If it were a retinal tear, how much time did I have? "Hours to weeks," was the ballpark, a very big ballpark.

          I'm not going to the emergency room. I'll take a chance and hope it's the slower one, I thought. Then I thought, worse case scenario, I have two eyes! If I lose the vision in one, I can still see out of the other — not that I wanted to lose vision in one eye, but did I mention I wasn't going to the emergency room?

          The next morning I told Mike what was going on, called the doctor, and got an appointment for later that morning.

          I really, really liked the doctor that looked at my eye. He explained stuff as he went along; he was very kind, and gentle. Mike was so impressed he complimented him on his 'bedside manner'.

          As it turns out, I have the first thing. The vitreous, a gel-like substance in the eye, is thinning and causing tugs on the retina, ergo, white flashes. It's a normal part of aging eyes and happens to most people. I don't know why I've never heard of it before. Why doesn't anyone ever talk about this? Be that as it may and none-the-less, if it happens to you, you still have to be checked out by an eye doctor to rule out the other thing, the retinal tear, which is a really bad thing.

          Monday came and during my daily call to Momma, I told her the story. When I got to the Saturday night white flashes, she said. "Oh no. A retinal tear."

          "I know, right! That's what I thought too!"

          And when I finished the story both Momma and I gave thanks and praises to God.

          Monday evening I picked up Miss Rosie for exercise class. "Rosie, you want to hear a story?" I asked.

          "Sure," she said.

          I started my story from the beginning, where all good stories start, and when I got to the Saturday night white flashes, she said. "Oh no. A retinal tear."

          "That's what Momma said!" I finished the story and ended it with, "And Rosie, I had to worry all by myself!"

          "It's your own fault. You could have told me." No sympathy there.

          "I was afraid you'd tell me to go to the emergency room," I told her.

          "Maybe not. They don't have the equipment in the emergency room to look at your eye so chances are they would have told you to see an eye doctor on Monday morning."

          "And I'd have to pay a big bill anyway."

          "And you'd have to pay a big bill anyway," she confirmed. "But if you'd have told me, I could have prayed for you!"

          And there's that.

          We have had so much rain this past week. Kurt Aaron, a local weatherman, said this is the greatest amount of rain we've ever had that hasn't been associated with a tropical storm of some kind.

          Our pond is filling up, which is nice.

          The brush that's normally at the edge of the pond is now out in the pond. Mike and I were driving around on the golf cart, checking out the water flowing into the pond, and a little rabbit takes off. Our big yellow gib (a neutered male cat) came jumping out of the weeds in hot pursuit of the rabbit, which took off into the weeds.

          We went back up to the house and let the girls off the cart to do their business before heading inside. I glance down toward the pond and see Rascal coming our way.

          "Looks like he missed the rabbit," I told Mike.

          As Rascal got closer, Mike could see he had something in his mouth but I couldn't see it until he was almost up on the patio with us where he dropped it. It was a mouse and the mouse took off, away from Rascal but right into the jaws of Ginger. She nabbed it. "NO!" I yell and got Ginger by the scruff. " DROP IT!" I commanded, and she did. Now Itsy was attracted to all the hullabaloo and got that poor mouse before he'd gone more than a few steps. "NO!" I yell again. "ITSY! DROP IT!" and she did. The mouse took off and made it a little farther before Ginger, who was faster than Rascal, grabbed it again. "NO! GINGER! DROP IT!" This time, after Ginger dropped it, I picked her up. She squirmed in my arms, not happy to be out of the chase. But now Itsy had the mouse again. "NO! ITSY! DROP IT!" That poor mouse! By the time Itsy let go of him, and I grabbed her up, the life was almost out of him as he laid there with his legs twitching. With a backward glance and a snap of my camera, I took the dogs and went inside, feeling just a little bit sorry for the poor guy.

          Later that evening Mike went to the door to call Smudge in for the night. "Ewww, Peg, there's puke all over the patio!"

          I went to look. "Where?"

          "There," Mike pointed, "and there."

          Sure enough. One pile of heaved-up cat food had half a mouse lying beside it — the back half. "If it's there in the morning, I'll clean it up."       

          Later we were getting ready for bed and Mike goes to the door to make one more attempt to call Smudge in. "Peg," he calls. "Come here. You gotta see this."

          Out on the patio was a possum, one of nature's cleaners, cleaning up after the cat. In the morning, there was nothing left for me to clean up. Yay!

          My week of grossness didn't end there. I'd let the girls out into their run one afternoon and when Ginger barked, I went to let them back in. Right there, on my foot-wiping rug was a small bunny leg. It wasn't there when I let them out, but then again, neither was Rascal, who was now sitting there eating out of the cat food dish.

          Poor Ginger! She stood there looking at me like, "How am I supposed to get around that?"

          "Come on," I commanded and motioned her to run past it, which she did.

          "Peg! Really!"

          Hey! My life is sometimes about this kind of stuff. I don't know what to tell you except be glad it's not poop stories — and I have a couple of those too! But I'll spare you any more grossness for this week. You're welcome.

         

          The Bouncing Bet is blooming. This plant has many common names including soapwort, crow soap, and soapweed. As its name implies, it can be used as a very gentle soap. It has been hypothesized that this plant was used to treat the Shroud of Turin. How interesting is that!

          Along with the Bouncing Bet I saw these blooming.

          From a distance, and with my Cadillac eyes, I didn't know what they were.

          "Mike, stop! Did you see those flowers? What are they? I don't think they're lilies, the lilies have come and gone already. Back up, would you?"

          Mike is a good husband and dutifully backed up so I could get off the golf cart, walk into the weeds, and get a closer look.

          "They are lilies!" I called back to where he waited for me. Tiger Lilies, I thought.

          Once I'd gotten all the pictures of the Tiger Lilies that I wanted, I looked around and spotted other flowers. Yellow ones.

          Tickseed Coreopsis, I wondered.

          I wandered from flower to flower, taking pictures when I notice this guy. Can you see him? He's really hard to see and I almost missed him.

          I got around behind him and took a picture. This guy is a Goldenrod Spider.

          Then I noticed aphids on the flowers.

          Aphids range in color from green to yellow, brown, red, and even black. All aphids suck sap from your plants and excrete a sugary substance called honeydew.

          There are ants that will 'farm' aphids, protecting and even 'milking' them for their honeydew.

          When I got home, I checked my National Audubon Society Field Guide To Wildflowers book that once belonged to my beloved Aunt B. My book says these are Tickseed Sunflowers. From what I can tell, coreopsis and sunflowers are in the same family, so one way or the other, I'm right.

           How about some pictures from a recent ride-about?

          I remember when this was new. Now it's overgrown with weeds the horses won't eat.

          Guess what I saw at my pond! A young Green Heron. I didn't see him until he flew up onto the power line that crosses my pond.

          A few days later we caught the young Green Heron fishing in the ditch that funnels water into the pond from the hill. Whether the same one or a different one, I don't know. We startled him, he jumped out of the water and stood there for a moment before he took off.

  

          We continued on to the pond and there was another one there but I didn't get his picture — not that I didn't try. But a bird in flight is hard for my camera to focus on. These birds are much more common than I knew.

          The Green Heron is one of the few birds who use tools to catch its food. It commonly drops bait onto the surface of the water and grabs the small fish that are attracted. It uses a variety of baits and lures, including crusts of bread, insects, earthworms, twigs, or feathers.

          Speaking of common, there are tons of dragonflies at my pond. You can hear their wings beat the air when they fly past.

          I know you've seen them before...

          I know I've shown you lots of dragonfly pictures over the years and many times during the same year, but I feel compelled to take pictures, to try for a better picture, a more interesting shot, and so you get to see them more than once.

        

          This grows at the pond. I'm not for sure what it is, Burweed maybe?

          On the other side of not knowing, there's knowing and I found out the name of the little yellow flower I showed you sometime back. I was out this past week and saw the leaf of this plant and that was very helpful in identifying it.

           This is Prickly Lettuce.

          I love the Bull Thistle because it feeds the finches and I love the finches. My picture captures a weevil coming up out of the thistle. There's a kind of weevil that lays its eggs in the heads of thistles. Is that what's going on here?

          The Spotted Knapweed is blooming.

          An Evening Primrose, looking a little soggy after all the rain we've had.

          Need I tell you? Need I say it? It's a frog. I'm usually not stealthy enough to get pictures of them, but there are tons of them living at my pond.

          The Pickerelweed is pretty.

          Nope. Not a Monarch. 

           An opportunist, piggy-backing off the Monarch's reputation for being bitter to the birds. This is the Viceroy Butterfly.

          A ladybug.

          A Tiger Swallowtail on Hardhack flowers.

          I was watching two Skippers on the same thistle.

            I watched as they got closer and closer...

         Then I got this shot!

          Kissing Skippers! It almost looks like a little camera tomfoolery is going on here, doesn't it. Like I cloned a Skipper and made this picture up myself.

          Saturday I saw my first humbee of the year. These critters are not actually bees and they're not hummingbirds. They are, in fact, a moth called Hummingbird Clearwing. They are often confused with bumblebees because of their size or with hummingbirds because they beat their wings so fast.

          A Great Spangled Fritillary. He was in the same patch of Bergamot at the same time as the humbee.

          I'm faced with one blank page when I print this, something I normally don't like to do, but this week, I'll abide it.

          Let's call this one done!