Don't You Want To See?

          I have pictures left over from last week and if I'd had more time, I might have extended your letter a few more pages to include them.

          "You could just skip them," you tell me.

          I know, right! But don't you want to see the turkeys?

          Or the mess the bear made at my church? When I arrived for exercise class, the dumpster was on its side and trash was everywhere!

          What should I do? I wondered and immediately the answer came to me. Clean it up!

          I'm not picking that up without gloves! I argued with myself. I never even gave a thought to righting the dumpster, which I wouldn't be able to do anyway.

          Call Lamar.

          What's he gonna do?

          I don't know but I can't just leave the mess.

          I called Lamar. "Would you be interested in knowing the dumpster is tipped over and there's garbage all over the place?" I asked.

          "Yup, you bet. I'll come up."

          When he arrived and had a chance to look it over, I asked, "What do you think happened?"

          "I think it was a bear."

          "Did they leave a bag outside the dumpster?"

          "Na. I think he reached in and pulled it out."

          "But there's chain across the top."

          "There's probably enough room for him to get his paw in and pull it out."

          And that's how I know it was a bear.

          Lamar was strong enough to right the dumpster, with a little help from me.

          Wouldn't you want to see the Wooly Aphid I caught just to show you?

          You almost never notice these guys as they fly about. Even their flight pattern looks just like fluff drifting past you. Wooly Aphids have many nicknames including Angel Flies, Fluff Bugs, Fairy Flies, Ash Bugs, Snow Bugs, Fluffer Fairy, Poodle Fly, and Fluffy Gnats.

          And wouldn't you want to see what our mighty hunter, Spitfire, brought in for us?

          "EWWWW! No, Peg! I do NOT want to see that!" you say.

          I know, right! Not the most pleasant thing to be greeted with when you open the door. And you know what's worse? Having to remove it from the dog pen.     

          I picked up a bunny leg with two fingers of one hand, a bunny ear with two fingers of the other hand, and carried it around to the cat room.

          "Here kitty, kitty!" I called. No kitty came.

          I dropped it in the grass and went in search of cats who I'm just sure would enjoy the fresh meat. I found Sugar first and she didn't want anything to do with it, but Callie settled in for a late afternoon snack.

          "Peg! I'll say it again! I did not need to see this!"

          Sorry.

          There were more road pictures left over from last week. Don't you want to see those?

 These steps go nowhere. The house is gone.

           I don't know what this place is or was.

          Don't you want to see the one picture I took at a car show?

          This was only the second car show sponsored by our local public library and it didn't attract a lot of cars; 26 in all. I've seen so much of this stuff that I seldom take pictures anymore.

          And our leisurely evening golf cart ride with the Kipps. Don't you want to see those pictures?

          Bear traps (in case you didn't know).

          The Walker Farm. They have barns and hay and cows and cats and chickens! 

          I took a bunch of pictures and I could show all of them to you at once, but I rather like showing my pictures in the order I make them. This view of the barn is after we were past it. Since I was sitting on the back of the golf cart, facing backward, my view was where we'd been, not where we were goin'. Rosie, with her bum arm, got to ride shotgun.

          Look how long the shadows are!

          The next farm.

          We reached our turn-around and headed back along the dirt road. This time we stopped to talk to the cows.

          "Moooooo," Mike says.

          Yeah. He does that.

          Cows are curious critters and if you stop along the road, they'll come over.

          I glimpsed this as we rode past.

          "What was that?" I asked. "Mike! Back up for me, would ya? Was that a skull on a stump?"

          "Where?" Lamar asked and I pointed it out to him.

          "No. I think it's a fungus."

          He was right.

          Aren't you glad I showed you that?

         The compressor station above the Walker Farm. 

         This picture may give you a better perspective as to its size.

        And don't you want to see the beautiful sunset pictures I took on that ride-about with the Kipps? How can I choose just one to show you!

          Didn't you want to see all those pictures I didn't have room for or time to include in last week's letter blog?

         

          This week's picture album starts with a foggy picture as we crossed the Susquehanna.

          As we climbed up to Wyalusing Rocks and the overlook, I thought about taking a picture much too late. I took this one a little further down the road.

          The Autumn Olive bushes are loaded!

            I know you can't eat them until they get their spots and not before the first frost either because they contain tannic acid. I know that. Yet the berries are red and juicy and ripe looking. Does tannin just make them more sour, I wondered. I can handle sour.

          "Peggy! You didn't!" you say.

          Yes. Yes, I did. I picked one and popped it in my mouth. Gingerly I bit down on it. Not bad. What's the big deal, I thought, and full force crushed it between my teeth. Then, oh my gosh, then the tannins kicked in and I spit it out so fast! Now I know what the big deal is! I had time to regret my decision as I continued to spit, for the next hour, it seems like, trying to clear the tannin from my mouth. It was astringent, bitter even.

          My little garden is doing good. Walking past the other day I snapped a picture of one of the cucumber flowers.

          I've never seen my section of the little creek that runs through our property, I write, then I remember that technically I have seen it. From the top of the bank — looking down through the trees. Not much of a view so I don't really feel like I've ever seen it. I took Ginger, went down to the neighbors, got in the creek, and made my way up to our section. I'm hoping to someday cut steps into the bank leading down to the creek and I thought I might see a good path to do that from the bottom looking up. 

          Once down there I hadn't gone very far when I could hear voices. I didn't think I'd gone far enough to be on the other neighbor's property, but I saw a building, heard voices, got spooked, didn't want to trespass, turned around and went back.

          Back up on the road, I wonder if the building I saw wasn't the back of the Robinson's old machine shed and not the neighbor's storage shed like I thought. And the voices? They could have just been carried. If that's the case then I still haven't seen our section of the little creek. I'm going to put that on my calendar as another day's adventure and try it again.

          This is a Mayfly in his imago, or adult stage. These are fascinating critters but I'm not going to take the time to talk about them today. I'm afart... oops, I'm afraid my letter blog is going to be too long and contain way too many pictures as it is. Another day, perhaps.

          Another weird quirk of mine is photographing construction sites. All the trucks lined up to offload their cargo.

          People react in all kind of ways when they see a camera pointed at them. Some show no emotion at all.

          Sometimes they smile.

          Sometimes they scowl.

          Coming through the construction, down into Wyalusing. What a view.

          What is on the bottom of the pond? I wondered when I spotted these. They look like big old turds. On closer inspection, I realized they're snails.

          I found a new wildflower too. All of the heads are faced away from me so I had to pick one to show you.

          This is Fringed Loosestrife.

          Mike got his mower stuck twice in the span of 15 minutes.

           He's trying to clear a channel for the runoff to go into the pond.

          We had a game afternoon with the Kipps this past week. I made a cheesecake and we played a few rounds of Water Works, the new old card game I'd picked up at a garage sale. The first game took us about 45 minutes to play by the time we read the instructions and figured things out. Even then I was a bit confused over one issue. In Water Works, you can give someone else at the table a leaky pipe. All leaky pipes must be fixed before you can add to your pipeline.

          At one point I was given a leaky elbow by another player. (I won't tell anyone it was you, Lamar.)

          There are two ways to fix a leaky pipe. You can lay one of your two pipe wrenches on it thereby 'fixing' the leak, or you can place a good pipe card of the same shape on top of the leaky pipe. Once your pipe wrenches are played, they stay played, and then you have to repair the pipe with a card, so you want to use your wrenches wisely.

          "Can I use this one?" I asked.

          "No," Lamar said. "It's not the same shape."       

          Well, I'm up for a good argument. "It is the same shape; it just goes in a different direction." Semantics.

          "Then it's not the same." Lamar is so logical, isn't he.

          I understood you couldn't replace a piece of leaky T pipe with a straight pipe or an elbow, but to me, this is the same shape. It's an elbow. Only the direction changed. Lamar is not a good one to argue with cause he doesn't really like to argue, so he let me get away with it. A few moves later, he took advantage of Peggy's Rule. The only problem is, it bothered me all night and into the next day even. I'm a rule follower and I wanted to play by the rules. I just need to understand what they are. I got the game out and sorted all the cards hoping the number of each of the different cards would give me a clue to the answer. It did. Lamar is right. It has to be the same, right down to the direction. This would have been the correct card to fix my leaky elbow.

          It was fun and I can't wait to play with the Robinsons.

          "Jon will hate it," Mike says.

          "You're only saying that cause you hate it."

          We sat out on the patio the other night and watched the deer graze and hit the salt block we put out for them.

          The sunset was pretty that night.

          I tried again to identify this wildflower. Still no luck. Anyone know?

           We were going somewhere the other day and as we crossed our single-lane open-grate bridge, I spotted a Blue Heron fishing in the creek.

          "A heron!" I declare. "Mike, back up!"

          Mike stopped the Jeep and put it into reverse. "Okay, but he'll take off," he said backing back onto the bridge.        

          "I know." But it doesn't stop me from trying. 

            He took off.

          A new shipment of metal yard art arrived in our little town. "Did you see the bikes?" Mike asked as we drove past the first time.

          "Uh-huh."

          "Look at the bikes when we go back through," Mike said. "You're going to like them."

          I looked. They're cute. I don't want one but they're cute.

          Look at this mess, would ya! All this stuff is from the Eastern Cottonwood tree and it's not only a mess directly under the tree, but there is cotton everywhere!

           It flies through the air on even a slight breeze and looks like snow in a heavier breeze. Mostly it doesn't bother us except for one thing. There are great drifts of it up on the patio.

          "Can we cut that tree down?" Mike asked.

          I'm kind of fussy about my trees. "I think it's one you wanted to cut down anyway." It leans toward the barn and Mike's afraid it could come down in a storm.

  

            The Queen Ann's Lace is blooming.

            The Teasel is still growin'. Look at his thorns!

            The Touch-me-nots are just starting to bloom.

            The raspberries are getting ripe. I don't have a lot of them, just enough for to pick a few and pop in your mouth.

            Wild grapes.

            The Black Haw has set its seeds.

            So has the Black Locust.

                And the Maple. 

           The Fleabane Daisy. Behind it is Curly Dock.

          Now, speaking of stuff behind stuff, I got a letter from J.D., Mr. B's son. He asked about the plant behind the daisies in this photo.

          "It reminds me of a weed we used to call pepperweed when I was a kid. It's quite peppery and I've used it to spice up rabbit stew," J.D. wrote. "If you know what I'm referring to, can you tell me what the world actually calls pepperweed?"

          I've never paid any particular attention to this 'weed' before but I guess I should have. Just like J.D. said, it is peppery and can be used like pepper. On the internet, I found it called Virginia Pepperweed and the flower book I have calls it Peppergrass. Thank you, J.D., for bringing this plant to my attention.

          And lastly, wild roses. 

           I picked some for my windowsill vase. Quite appropriate since it's Kat's favorite flower and this is the third anniversary of her death. I'm not seeking attention here, I'll always love and miss my daughter, but I can't just forget that Kathryn Lynn ever lived and I don't want you to forget her either.

          Let's call this one done!