Over The Fence

          We started the week off with a big pan of homemade mac and cheese. This is the first time I've made the recipe that Stacey, my beautiful cousin, sent me. She served it at her daughter's graduation party and I thought it was just about the best mac and cheese I'd ever had.

          "It's just good old Betty Crocker," Stacey told me. "That and Velveeta."

          "Would you email me the recipe?" I asked. "And tell me exactly how you made it." I know that over time, people tweak recipes and I wanted all of Stacey's secrets because her mac and cheese was awesome!

          She smiled her beautiful smile. "Sure!" And she did.

          Thank you, Stacey.

          "How did you like it?" you ask.

          I thought Stacey's was better — did she hold a secret out on me? It was just a fleeting thought because I've heard stories or seen stories where women do just that because they don't want anyone else to make it better than they do, but I don't think Stacey would ever do something like that. Mike thought it was just as good as Stacey's was so it may be the old phenomenon of It Tastes Better When Someone Else Makes It, you know what I mean?

          We ate mac and cheese all week!

          We lost one of our cats. Little Miss Cleopatra would be gone for days at a time but eventually, she'd show back up. I haven't seen her now in probably two months. Our other little female, Feisty, does the same thing and every time I see her I can't help but wonder if it will be the last time.

          Last week we heard the coyotes singing in the woods above our place. "Maybe the coyotes got Cleo," I said to Mike.

          "Maybe."

          "Or do you think she got hit on the road?" That's always a worry.

          "Wouldn't we see her if she was hit on the road?" Mike said.

          "Not necessarily. With all the nighttime critters, one of them could've drug her off into the weeds."

          "Maybe she found a new home," Mike said optimistically.

          "Maybe," I agreed. It is a possibility, gives me a glimmer of hope that she's not dead, and it's definitely a much more pleasant thought.

          I don't know why the girls leave and the boys stay around. We see all of the boys almost every day.

          Coming back from a golf cart ride the other day I see the weeds were swallowing up our mailbox. "You should get your brush hog and knock them down." Mike thought it was a great idea, jumped on the tractor as soon as we got home, and made short work of the weeds.

          "That looks so much nicer," I praised his efforts. Now that we own a brush hog, we're using it more than we thought we would.

          Friday morning we decided to do a small job in the lower barn. We loaded the tools we thought we'd need onto to the back of the golf cart and took everything to the barn. "I smell something dead," I told Mike and wanted to go see what it was. Feisty's been gone for several days now, again.

          "I don't care," Mr. Testy-pants snapped. "We're working here."

          Well, I told myself, it'll still be dead when we finish, then I can go look. Not long after that, I hear the neighbor's voices and it sounds like they're pretty close. The only thing separating the barn from the road is a few feet and a brush line. Maybe they found the dead thing, I think.

          Part of my job, when Mike and I work together, is to be gofer. Mike sent me out to the golf cart for the screw gun. "I don't smell it anymore," I told Mike when I got back.

          Maybe it was making their house stink, I think and in my mind's eye, I see them pick it up with a shovel and toss it into the weeds way far away from their house. "Maybe the Kyle's got rid of it and now I'll never know if it was Feisty or not."

          Sometime after that, Mike sent me to the garage for the tape measure. "As long as I'm up at the house, I'm gonna pee too," I tell him.

          When I got back, Mike was gone and I hear voices from across the road. I started walking that way and I hear the neighbor say, "...it's down by the mailbox."

          Uh-oh, I think and turn around to get my camera — not that I think you want to see it but I can't help myself. I was almost to the end of our driveway when I see Mike coming back across the neighbor's yard and get on the golf cart.

          "Come on," Mike says when he sees me. "This is going to make you sad when you see it...it's going to make both of us sad."

          My heart sank right into the pit of my stomach because I could see the sadness in his eyes at the mere thought of what we were going to see.

          "What is it?" I asked. "What happened?"

          "I cut the head off one of the cats when I was brush hogging," he confessed.

          "No way!" I was incredulous.

          "Dean said there's a headless cat down past our mailbox."

          "Yeah, well, if there is, it was already dead. Hit by a car most likely. There's no way any cat would sit there and let you run it over." Once Mike thought about it, he realized it was true and he looked relieved. Our mailbox is down at the other end of our property so that didn't explain the smell by the barn. "What was dead this morning?"

          "They lost a dog and buried it." They used to breed German Shepherds but their 'stock' is getting old and dying off. I don't think they have very many left anymore.

          We didn't find anything down by the mailbox. Whatever was there was gone now. I just thought that was a really mean thing to say to Mike. He agonizes over it forever when we lose a pet, let alone being responsible for it.

          "Wanna go see how they're doing at the bridge?" Mike asked since we were on the golf cart.

          I was up for a ride. "Sure." These guys have to drill down 110 feet or until they hit bedrock. They sample the ground on both sides of both bridges, the one outside the Kipp's house and the one down on the other end of our little dirt road.

          I stayed on the cart not knowing how long Mike would be. Then I got tired of that, got off, and took some pictures.

           The beaver dam is all but gone. 

          I thought for sure Mike would have been back by now but I should've known better. I wandered over to see what they were talking about; and now that I say that, I can't remember a single bit of their conversation. I was taking pictures. 

          We were leaving when Mike asked, "Did you see the core boxes?"

          "No."

          He stopped and turned around. "They're pretty cool. C'mon, you gotta see 'em."

          They had a full box and partial.

          They never hit rock. "They call this kind of dirt, beach sand," Mike tells me.

          We haven't had much rain lately so we figured the ground was pretty dry. Mike tried to brush hog the path the water takes to reach our pond, hoping to improve flow. And he got the tractor stuck.

          "Peg!" he calls to me. "Go get the Jeep and the chains and pull me out." Mike didn't have mud boots on and he wasn't getting off the tractor — or so he thought. I went and got the Jeep and the chains and when I got back Mike decided he'd better help me hook stuff up. Besides, I didn't know how to put the Jeep in four-wheel drive.

          The Jeep didn't have any trouble pulling the tractor out and when he was done he used the pressure washer to clean the tractor up.

          I love the Karcher electric pressure washer! Mike leaves it hooked up on the edge of the patio and it comes in so handy for so many things. Pet food dishes, baskets — it easily gets in all the nooks and crannies — the bottom of your sneaker when you step in doggie doo-doo, washing the mower, golf cart, Jeep, and let's not forget the tractor when you try to bury it in the mud.

          "How deep was it?" I asked Mike.

          "It was up to the top of the back wheel," he answered. And because I'm a girl he thought he had to clarify that. "Not the top of the tire, the top of the wheel."

          Another job Mike tackled this past week was clearing the rest of the brush from the banks of the pond. "I think the mower can handle it," he said. "And it's dry enough now I can get in there. You come down too so you can pull me out if I get stuck."

          I stayed a good distance away because his mower can kick out some pretty big stuff. Back and forth he went, mowing down stuff you'd never dream of tackling with a lesser mower.

           He came down a bank so steep it looks like he's standing! And he shaved off some of the bank too, kicking up a huge dust cloud.

  

          I was sunning my legs as I sat on the golf cart waiting for Mike to finish mowing or get stuck. I had these tiny little bees that wouldn't leave me alone no matter how many times I shooed them away. They tapped their little antennas as they walked along and their tapping tickled. Sometimes they'd stop and I waited for a bite, but they never bit me. I wondered if they were picking up the salt from my skin.

          Mike finished and his mower made short work of the brush. It looked so much better. Now, instead of brush, maybe we'll have grass on the banks of our pond.

          Then Mike moved to work on the other side of our little bridge and promptly got stuck.

          After pulling him out he turned right around and got stuck a second time. "I'm done," he says and we head to the house where he gave his hard-working mower a bath.

  

          I was taking with Lamar Kipp one day this past week and I don't remember about what anymore.

          "Yeah, right, Peg," you say. "You probably just don't want to tell us!"

          No, really. I don't have any secrets from you guys, you know that. I really don't remember. But I suspect I'd asked what they were up to because he mentioned that he was going for a walk.

          After I hung up, I got to thinking about it. It's been a while since I was out for a walk. A walk would be nice. So I called back and invited myself to go on a walk with them. "I don't know if Rosie's coming or not. It depends on how hot it is."

          "Either way," I told him.

          Turns out, it was too hot for Rosie and for Mike too. However, Lamar, Ginger, and I braved the heat and went for a walk. By the time we got to a place where we could walk in to the creek, Ginger was so hot she dived right in.

          I walked along the creek giving Ginger a little time to cool off and spotted some minnows in the shallows. I hate to tell you this but I thought the dark spots were the fish. It wasn't until I looked at them on the computer that I realized the dark spots were their shadows. Can you see the shadow of the spider-like water skimmer?

          I saw lots of pretties on the trip.

          "The lilies are so pretty," I said snapping a few pictures.

          "Yep," Lamar agreed. "But I like these," and he pointed to the morning glories growing among the lilies.

          "There's cinquefoil." I tend to name the flowers no matter whom I'm with. 

            "And there's St. John's Wart."

          A little Pearl Crescent.

          "Do you know what this is?" I asked Lamar.

          He looked. "No."

          "I wonder what the flowers will look like when it opens up." 

          Lamar pointed to one. "I think this one's open."

          Yeah. I don't know what they are, at least not yet. I'll keep looking so I have an answer for you guys.

          I saw Bittersweet Nightshade.

          "We used to have this one at the pond." I pointed out the Blue Vervain. "Until Mike started doing all that mowing."

          The fruit of the sumac is turning a beautiful shade of red. "You can make lemonade from them," I told Lamar. I've never done it but my older brother Michael did and said it's true, it does taste like lemonade.

          The Robinson's barn, or rather, a small piece of it.

          When we got home, Ginger collapsed in a heap at the end of Mike's recliner and didn't move for hours. "Did your mom walk your little legs off?" I heard him asked her.

          At least I didn't have to carry her like I did the last time I took her with me when I went for a run! She was lagging behind me and that's how I knew she was tired. Normally she leads. There wasn't any water anyplace along my route for her to get a drink so I cut my run short and carried her home. But I look at this way, carrying an eight-pound dog while interval running should count toward strength training too, don't you think?

          I spotted a new wildflower, one I'd never seen before. I looked it up and didn't have any trouble finding it. This is Thimbleweed.  

          We were almost home when I put Ginger down and let her walk the rest of the way and that's when I found a turkey feather. I took it home and put it in the dried flower vase on my kitchen windowsill.

          On a run with my friend Judy, I spotted this one. I think it might be a knapweed, but it's not the Spotted Knapweed. Black Knapweed maybe or I might be way off base and it's a variety of thistle.

          I was so engrossed with the pretty purple flowers that I didn't notice the other side of the road until we'd turned around and headed back. On the other side of the road, all of the flowers have gone to seed.

          "That's Finch food," I told Judy but that's only true if it's a thistle.

          I got a picture of a dragonfly at my pond this week.

          And a skipper butterfly.

          The elderberry is setting its fruit but I'll never see any ripe berries. The birds will get them all.

 A doe and her twins.

A pepper and two cukes from my garden.

          Bee hives...

          ...and two old Jeeps from a recent shopping trip.

          And now for our feature presentation...

          That cat!

          That darn cat!

          No, not Smudge. Not this time.

          This time it's Spitfire.

          I caught him napping on the cool stones outside my kitchen, and it caught me by surprise for a second. It looks like he's headless. 

           I walked around to see exactly where his head was. It was just an illusion caused by the shape of the rock he's lying against.

          A couple of days later I see him from my kitchen window and he's trotting across the yard with a rabbit in his mouth.

          How's he getting that over the fence? I wondered and grabbed my camera.

          It's funny, but when a rabbit appeared inside the fence last week, I didn't wonder how he got it over the fence at all.

          Spitfire jumped. 

           He didn't get a good hold on the fence and down he went.

..

          He readjusted his hold and tried again. This time he got his back foot hooked... 

...and was able to pull the rabbit over. (The dark line is the muntin on my kitchen door.)

          He looked so proud as he trotted up to the house and dropped his prize. "Mike!" I called. "Your cat brought you a present!"

          Mike came out and praised his cat.

          I didn't need rabbit blood or guts all over the dog run so I gingerly picked him up by his foot. He felt cold between my two fingers. Do rabbit feet cool off pretty quick after he's dead or did Spitfire happen on a dead rabbit? I don't know. I carried the rabbit around to the cat room. "Here kitty, kitty!" I called. Callie and Sugar both came out but Sugar wasn't interested. I left before Callie started chowing down.

          A little later I'm out that way and I see the rabbit's gone. Did a fox come in the yard and drag it away, I wonder. Then I see that Callie had drug it into the cat room.

        A few hours later, I went out to the cat room for something and saw that Callie hadn't eaten much of him and he was drawing all kinds of flies. This time I tossed him into the weeds and that was the last I saw of him.

         Nature abhors a vacuum and Peggy abhors a blank page. Lucky for me, lucky for you, that I've got lots of pictures to fill it with.

         Mike and I came home from a shopping trip on a different road. Can you see the building way off in the distance? We're guessing it's new and has something to do with all the gas drilling that's been going on around here.

          The rest are road pictures from that ride-about.

          Let's call this one done!