WHACK!

          So! Last time I talked about cousin Stacey's mac and cheese recipe. About how I thought hers was way better than mine and wondered if she'd forgotten something when she wrote the recipe out for me.

          "I think the mac and cheese might have been different because you cooked it in a shallow pan...I cook it in a casserole dish so it stays moist and creamy," she emailed me.

          Sometimes, when words are written, as Stacey's were, it's hard to tell the intention...inflection...tone of what's being said. You know, was she offended?

          "I bet it does make a difference," I replied back. "It was still good though. I hope I didn't offend you."

          Then I didn't hear anything from her. I waited and waited, anxiously checking the email from time to time, my anxiety level rising the longer it went. I waited ALL DAY! By the next morning, I was beating myself over the head. She'll never speak to me again! I think. You risked offending someone you love for the sake of a story? I berated myself then sat down and wrote out a heartfelt apology.

          "I'm totally not offended...never was. I got busy and in a rush and forgot all about replying to you, that's all!"

          I had to smile at my silliness.

          I made Stacey's Mac And Cheese (forever its name in my head) a second time (that's how good it is), paired it with burgers and deviled eggs and invited the Robinsons for cards.

          "Did they like the mac and cheese?" you ask.

          Yeah. They did, but they didn't have Stacey's to compare it to either.

          Water Works, the game Mike thought Jon would hate, Jon loved!

           

          Mike had a birthday. His 71st. We didn't celebrate because my birthday is coming up pretty quick. My 59th. Rather than have two birthday dinners so close together, we decided to have one dinner to celebrate both birthdays.

          And gifts? We don't do birthday gifts for each other. Normally. If Mike wants something, he buys it. If I want something, he buys it for me. Having said that, there are always exceptions. Like this year. This year I want something. I want something expensive. Not very expensive but pretty expensive. I may not get it for my birthday but Christmas is coming and I'm sure to get it then.

          "What is it, Peg? What is it you want?" you wonder.

          I want a thumbprint necklace with Kat's thumbprint. A lady at my church recently lost her mother. On a Sunday not so long ago I noticed her necklace and immediately knew what it was. 

          When Kat died, it was something the funeral home offered us. At the time, I didn't want it.

          "We'll keep her thumbprint on file if you ever change your mind," Corinna told us.

          I'm so glad they did because now I want one. They range in price from $375 if you go with sterling and a plain cord, to over $1,000 if you want gold and a gold chain. Like I said, pretty expensive.

          I kinda got off on a tangent there because it was my intention to show what the Kipps did for Mike's birthday. They got him a gift. An old-timey strainer spoon made into a clock — because we don't have enough clocks around here!

          LOL!

          I love it and Mike loves it too. In fact, it overwhelmed him a little.

          "They shouldn't have to buy me a gift," he said on the way home that day.

          "They did it because they wanted to."

          "But now I have to get them something."

          "No, you don't!" My tone may have been a little harsh. Mike just hasn't had a lot of people in his life who gave without expecting something in return. It's something that's hard for him to understand and I have to continually remind him. "The Kipps aren't like that. Besides, if someone gives you a gift expecting something in return, then it really isn't a gift!"

          Mike hung his new clock in my kitchen for now.

          I thought this fly was rather unusual looking with his yellow back. 

         As I was trying to get a good close-up of him I got a picture with him, a bee, and an ant all in one shot.

          This is clover. White Sweet Clover.

          This is clover too. Red Clover.

          And this is clover. Covered in morning dew.

          And clover with a bee on it. A honey bee.

          And this is clover too. White Clover. My yard is just full of clover! And bees. There are lots of bees too, as you can imagine.

          I decided to go out to the clothesline in my bare feet. Silly me. I crossed the yard, thoroughly enjoying the feel of the warm grass on my feet. I cross the little bridge that spans the ditch and I'm starting to see a lot of bees buzzing around the clover.

          No way is a bee going to let me step on him. I don't know why I thought that. Wishful thinking, maybe? Laziness? I didn't want to go back for my shoes. And I didn't think about the bees again, unfortunately.

          Ginger was with me. She loves to go to the clothesline with me because then I take her to the pond.

          All was good. I made it to the clothesline with no missteps, hung the load of laundry I carried, and called for Ginger. She was sitting at the edge of the yard, in the sunshine, staring into the weeds like she does. "Ginger!" She turned and looked at me. "Wanna go to the pond?" Her head came up a little higher, her ears a little perkier. "Let's go to the pond!" said with enough enthusiasm that she got up and galloped my way. Do dogs gallop? It wasn't a run but it was more than a walk.

          I hadn't gone more than four or five steps when I had a misstep and stepped on a bee. So much for that theory! He got me on my toe and I raked my foot back to dislodge the bee. It worked. Really well. Because the bee was gone but the stinger was still in my toe! OUCH! Ouch, ouch. I could tell by the way it hurt that the stinger was still in my toe. I had to bend over and try to find it. I was afraid that with my fat belly, I wouldn't be able to get to my toe. But the waves of pain made it imperative that I at least try! And fast! I bent down, separated my toes, and found it stuck near the top of the underside of my next-to-the-pinky-toe toe. Man, it hurt!

          Ginger was already at the pond so I made my way down there, brushing my foot through the grass occasionally, trying to relieve the pain. At the pond, I sunk my foot into the mud. Isn't that what you did with bee stings when you were a kid? It felt so good as the pain ebbed away.

          I love the dragonflies. This is a Twelve-spotted Skimmer.

          And these are Water Beetles. When they saw me coming, they took off and swam in circles a hundred mile an hour! Some of them even dove down and it looked like they were flying through the water. I sat still for a few minutes until they calmed down and I got this shot of four of them. Not a great shot, but the best one.

          Back up on the patio, I sat in a chair, in the sunshine and looked at my poor toe. It was red and swelling, even making my pinky toe swell too! I took a picture for you, pond mud and all.

          During my daily call to my mother, I'd told her I'd gotten stung by a bee.

          "Did you put vinegar on it?" she asked.

          "No. I put my foot in the mud."

          "That'll work," she said.

          I don't know that I knew about vinegar for bee stings. When I was growing up it was mud or baking soda if you were close to the house when you got stung.

          That night I had one of the worst nights of my life! Between hot flashes, having to get up and pee, and the insane itching of the bee sting, I didn't hardly sleep at all!

          Why does it itch so bad? I wondered. In my mind's eye, I see the bee sting I'd gotten the week before and it didn't itch at all. The next morn...

          "Wait, Peg. You got stung the week before? You didn't tell us about that."

          I didn't? I meant to. Mike and I were doing a little landscaping. A bunch of years ago we'd planted two cherry and two apple trees, then caged them in to keep the deer from stripping the bark off the young trees in the winter. We lost one of the cherry trees and one of the apple trees. We tore down the cage of the lost cherry tree a couple of years ago. Two weeks ago, Mike wanted to tear down the lost apple tree cage and get it cleaned up, but when we started, we realized that the tree was still alive. The main tree was gone but it sent out suckers or something that were struggling to survive.

          "Let's clear the weeds away and give it a chance," Mike suggested.

          Mike reached over the fence and pulled the weeds he could reach. I reached through and got what I could. "If you open the wire up a little, I could get in there and finish the weeding," I told Mike.

          He helped me find the beginning of the wire, untwisted some of the ties, and held it for me while I gingerly stepped through the two strands of chicken wire.

          I was pulling weeds, Mike reaching for a few more, and something's buzzing around my head. "Is that a bee? Mike is that a bee or is it a horsefly?" I asked and didn't swat it away because if it was a bee, that would only make it mad.

          "I don't know," he said not even looking.

          I stood still for a moment and the buzzer left, whatever he was. Whew! "If that was a bee, I betcha there's a nest in here somewhere." Then I didn't think any more about it, getting lost in the backache and monotony of weed pulling.

          "Can you finish this if I go and get some fertilizer?" Mike asked.

          "Sure. It's almost done anyway."

          Mike left and I kept pulling. I grabbed a bunch of tall grass to pull when all of a sudden —

          "BUZZ! Buzz, buzz! Buzz, buzz, buzz! Buzzbuzzbuzzbuzzbuzzbuzzbuzzbuzzbuzz

buzzbuzzbuzzbuzzbuzzbuzzbuzzbuzzbuzzbuzzbuzzbuzzbuzzbuzzbuzzbuzzbuzzbuzzbuzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

          I dropped the grass back in place, but not fast enough. "OUCH!" I yelled and slapped at the back of my calf. Some bees got out and more were coming, I just knew they were. The heck with this, I thought and dived for the opening in the fence, tuck, and roll, on my feet, run!

          Okay, okay. The dive, tuck, and roll might be a bit of an exaggeration, the run part wasn't, but I was out of the cage ten times faster than I'd climbed in!

          And that bee sting never itched at all. So why did the one on my toe itch so bad? Was it because it was on the toe or was it a different kind of bee? I Googled it and never found out the answer to that but did find out something else.

          "...and whatever you do, try not to scratch it. That will only intensify the itching," the internet said. Fat lot of good that information did me now! The itching started after I'd gone to bed and of course, I scratched it — and the itching got worse and worse, keeping me up most of the night.

          "The itching and swelling will subside in a few hours to a day or two," it said. It was less that next day and even better the day after.

          I got a yellow squash from my little garden. I like them better when they're small and my mouth was watering for squash and scrambled eggs, one of my favorites. I took the squash with me to check the mail and on the way back picked wildflowers for my kitchen vase.

          A little later that day we went to visit my Miss Rosie. She'd gotten the 'contraption' taken off her wrist that afternoon and I wanted to see how she was doing.

          "It's weird," Miss Rosie said, "but my arm feels so heavy now like I almost can't lift it."

          "Did it hurt real bad when he took the pins out?" I asked. I knew they were going to do it sans anesthesia. 

          "The first two didn't hurt at all. But the back two..." she clenched her jaw, grimaced, and nodded. "They hurt!"

          "Did you cry?" That's my measuring stick for how bad something hurts.

          "Noooo....."

          "Did your eyes tear up?"

          Rosie thought about it for a second. "I don't think so, but I think Lamar's did."

          All of us laughed, even Lamar. "Yeah, right," he said.

          This is plantain. Common Plantain. When we were kids, we would pick these before they've flowered, wrap the stem into a loop, and shoot the heads at each other.

           This is English Plantain.

          And this is plantain too. Water Plantain and grows at my pond.

          

          The Pickerelweed is blooming at the pond too.

           The Bergamot is blooming. I love the Bergamot!

          The Wild Basil is blooming. You can use this just like the domestic version.

          The Teasel is yet to bloom and comes in two colors; white and lavender. I think mine are all white.

          I spotted a different looking yellow flower growing on Mike's dirt pile; the place he keeps spare dirt for filling in holes. "What is that?" I asked, but of course, Mike didn't know.

          I wondered if it could be loosestrife since I know I had Purple Loosestrife growing there last year. It was a good guess because I found it right away. This is Fringed Loosestrife.

          When I take pictures of a wildflower I don't know or unsure of, I take pictures of the stem and leaves. I caught this guy hiding underneath and never knew he was there until I looked at the pictures on my computer.

          I went out the next day and spotted the Purple Loosestrife blooming not far away.

          I saw a Milbert's Tortoiseshell Butterfly. Isn't she beautiful?

          And this guy lands on my arm. My first instinct is to brush the ugly booger off, but I resisted long enough to take a picture for you. I didn't have to look this one up, except to confirm what I thought he was. This is a Robber Fly and he's looking for a place to eat his lunch. Yeah, not on my arm! I shook him off.

          Robber Flies have voracious appetites and feed on a lot of bugs including adult wasps, bees, dragonflies, other flies, grasshoppers, and some spiders. As ugly as they are, they're beneficial for keeping the other guys in check.

          We met a neighbor of ours for the first time this past week. Vernon Ambrosius owns many acres of land between us and the Kipp's house and Mike has wanted to meet him for the longest time.

          We were sitting on the road in the golf cart, watching them hay Ambrosius' field. If you haven't grown up on a farm or watched these machines work, they're fascinating, at least to Mike. "Look at that, Peg. It funnels the hay back into rows," Mike said. When the tractor reached the end of the row, he lifted the rake, made his turn, and came back. "It doesn't have any motors on it. It turns as it moves along the ground."

          It was then that Vernon came out of his lane and Mike stopped him.

          Two o'clock came and it was time for me to make my daily call to Momma, so I wasn't listening to their conversation. Then a truck came down the road and Vernon moved a little farther down the road and to the side to let it pass. Mike walked down and stood beside the truck to continue their conversation. Eventually, he came back to the cart. "I told him how much you like to take pictures and even though he doesn't normally want people on his property, he said it's okay if you want to go back and take pictures."

          "Cool!" I said. "Let's go!"

          "Now?"

          "Sure. Why not?"

          Vernon doesn't live on the property but comes almost every day. He has a garden there and it's his quiet place, he told Mike, and I can see why. It's beautiful and so peaceful with no close roads or neighbors.

          Like everyone else, he has a junk pile.

          And butterflies!

          I saw a Great Spangled Fritillary...

            ...and a Monarch on the same flowers but I didn't manage to catch them in the same shot.

          We were on our way out when Vernon came back and 'caught' us. "You have a beautiful place here," I told him.

          "Thank ya," he said. "Do you like zucchini?" he asked.

          "Yeah."

          "Come on back to the garden. There's probably a couple that are ready to pick."

          He picked and gave me two zucchinis and let me just tell you that zucchini and scrambled eggs is my new favorite! Yum!

           Later that day we see the farmer has switched from the hay rake to the baler and we were surprised to see two different shape bales in the field and only one baling machine. "Do you suppose he can choose which kind of bale he wants from the same machine?" Mike asked.

          "I don't know." When I was a kid all we had were the small bales that shot out into a kicker wagon where it was stacked.

          The next day we were headed to see Steph Robinson and there was a farmer baling their hay. Mike and I sat and watched for a while. He wanted to see the baler kick out a bale.

          It wasn't long until the tractor stopped. "He's probably putting the string around it," Mike said. "He's got his hand on a lever. Then the back opens and poops out a big round bale of hay.

          Then he went on his way.

          "Can you imagine what he's thinking?" I asked. "'Must be city folk. Ain't never seen a baler before.'" And we laughed.

          Then it was two o'clock. You know what that means, don't you? It means it's time to make my daily call to my mother. Mike waited patiently for me to finish my call before continuing on to Stephanie's house. By then the guy on the baler had stopped at his truck and Mike took the opportunity to talk to him.

          "It's two different machines to make the different bales," he reported when he got back.

          "Another mystery solved," I quipped.

          Speaking of quips — don't 'cha just love when stuff flows together? I know I do.

          Mike's got a really cool radio that you can use as a PA system. It's big and has wheels and a pull handle. "I'm going to take it down to the garage and see what stations it picks up," he said.

          It's not new; we bought it shortly before we moved out here two years ago and it's been in storage ever since. I helped Mike get it unpacked and he sat on the concrete so he could see the buttons. He ran through the dial from one end to the other and only got one station. FLN, Family Life Network, a Christian radio station. "Do you think God planned it that way?" I asked.

          Mike didn't answer me, not that I thought he would, got up and changed the subject. "Might just as well pack it back up."

           I got a picture of a Black Swallowtail this week. This one is a male, the females have more blue and less yellow.

          Soft Rush, a pondweed.

  

          A deer in the weeds beside the road. He just watched us pass.

          Mike got his mower stuck again. In the same place as the last time too. He called me and I came to his rescue. I backed the golf cart up to his mower, got out, got the towrope from the back compartment, and hooked it around the front of the mower.

          "I'm always afraid when I do this," I told Mike. "I'm afraid it'll come off, spring back and hit me in the head." And kill me dead. Head...dead, they rhyme, so I said it out loud, "And kill me dead."

          "I'm going to mow as you pull me out so I don't have to come back in here," Mike said.

          "Okay."

          I got on the cart and moved slowly forward until I was sure the hook was secure, then I gassed it. Alas, it was too late. The cart didn't have the power at that point to pull the mower out. I backed up to get a running start. I wasn't afraid now because once the hook snugs down, it won't come undone when I yank on it. I backed up, gave it gas, and jerked Mike from the mud he was stuck in. I stopped the cart, unhooked the towrope from the mower, and was stowing it in the back compartment when...

          WHACK!

          I was hit. Right on my temple. I saw whateveritwas bounce off after it hit me and I grabbed the side of my face, keeping my hand over the spot where I was hit. I was afraid my brains would leak out! No, not really. Really, I was stunned. I sat down. The mower shut off.

          "All you alright," Mike asked as he came across the yard to where I sat.

          I couldn't speak.

          "Peg! Are you all right?"

          I found my tongue. "I don't know," I managed and tears sprang to my eyes. "I'm trying not to cry."

          "Let me see."

          I didn't move. I was afraid to look.

          "Peg, let me see!" He was insistent. I took my hand away and looked at it. No blood.

          "How's it look?" I asked.

          "It's red," Mike answered.

          I felt around and realized I'd not been hit in the temple, it was more like my cheekbone.

          "I'm sorry," he said and I could hear it his voice — and I knew he was sorry before he even said it. It was just a freak accident. "Are you alright?" he asked again.

          "I think so." My tears were in check and never overflowed my eyes.

          I put the golf cart away and got an ice pack for my face. It wasn't long until Mike came in. "Wanna go for a ride?" he asks.

          "Where?"

          "Let's go see the Kipps."

          "You just want me to tell them what happened so if I die in my sleep tonight you won't be accused of trying to kill me," I said.

          He laughed. "It didn't work. You wanna try again?"

          I laughed and we went to visit the Kipps.

          "Oooh," Miss Rosie says. "It looks like you might get a black eye out of it."

          "I hope so!" I declared. "It hurt so bad I want something to show for it!"

          It didn't happen. It swelled up that night but the next day the swelling was mostly gone and no bruising! Dagnabbit!

          Let's end this time with a couple of sunset pictures. Both pictures were taken within a few minutes of each other and I really liked the mist rising, but when I focused on it, I lost the pretty colors of the sky.

         

  

        Let's call this one done, and remember! No matter what happens to me, I love you all. You're always in my heart.