Favorite Things

          This has been an exhausting week! It seems like all we did all week long was run, run, run! So this week I thought I'd show you my favorite pictures from the week.

          First up is this Micrathena Spider.

          "Isn't it pretty?" I asked Miss Rosie when I showed her the picture.

          "It is. It's a pretty shade of yellow. What is it?"

          "It's a Micrathena."

          "I used to think bugs are bugs," Rosie told me. "But since I've been looking at the pictures you take, there are some that are really pretty."

          The more common name for this spider is Arrow Spider.

          I let the dogs out one morning and saw a large black critter run from a pile of puked up cat food, cross the big flat rock it was laying on to the other side where it disappeared over the edge.

          That was one huge spider, I thought to myself and was a little sad I hadn't gotten a picture of it. A little later, I opened the door for one of the cats and the critter had come back and once again sprinted for shelter. Is it eating the cat food? I wondered. Then I started watching for it and eventually got this picture. It isn't — wasn't a spider, it's a huge cricket. I thought crickets jumped. I didn't know they would run too.

          I went with Mike when he went to visit with Vernon, our neighbor. They got to talking about boy stuff.

       "I think I'll walk down to the pond while you guys are visiting," I told them.

          "Here," Vernon said and got up from his seat on the couch. "Take this bread and feed the fish." He handed me a pack of hamburger buns.

          I'll tell you what! I had so much fun sitting there on the end of his pier, feet dangling in the water, dropping bits of bread and watching the fish race for it. They'd brush past my feet and jump over each other. I took more than 150 pictures but I won't bore you with more than these.

          It is time, once again, for the Wyoming County Fair. Mike and I usually go on the first and last day. Those are senior days and seniors get in free so we only need to buy me a ticket. But on the first day, a lot of stuff isn't set up yet and on the last day, some of the vendors have already pulled out, so it's a crapshoot. But that's okay. We only go for the food anyway.

          Mike got his Italian sausage sandwich and I hit up the church ladies to get my fix. I ate my three pierogies with onions for $2.50 and totally didn't get a picture for you. I went back up to the counter and confessed. "I usually take a picture of my pierogies for my blog and I didn't this time. Would you mind if I took a picture?"

          I think the ladies thought I was silly, but they were happy to lift the lid for me to get my picture.

          "How many dozens of pierogies do you make?"

          "Oh, thousands of dozens," I was told. "We sell them all year long from the church office."         

          Hmmm. That's nice to know. I don't have to wait for the fair to get these tender, delicious, swimming in butter, pierogies. I can buy them anytime! But I bet I'll have to add my own butter and onions.      

          I stumbled on a display hosted by a garden club. It was these flowers that sucked me in. Then the farther I walked the more things I saw.

           Ladybug rocks perched on a log.

           This one is my current desktop photo.

          Homemade bee houses.

            I walked in the back way, this is the front.

           There were wildflowers planted for the butterflies and bees too.

          Mike sat on the rented scooter and patiently waited for me. I'll tell you what. Renting a scooter is the best thing we've ever done. It makes spending the time at the fair much more enjoyable for Mike. Otherwise, his back would have given out and made walking a real and painful effort for him.

          We didn't stay long because we had a dinner date for that evening. Back out in the Jeep, I was reading the fair schedule for the last day of the fair as Mike drove us home. "The Rhinestone Cowgirls Trick Horse Show is at one o'clock on Monday. Can we see that?" I asked Mike.

          "Sure. Whatever you want."

          I kept reading. "Talent Show, Archery Shoot, Lawnmower Pulls, High School Rodeo... I bet if Momma were here she'd want to see that." Then, right on cue, my phone alarm goes off and it was time to make my daily I love you call to her. "I was just reading the fair schedule," I told Momma. "The Lawnmower Pulls and High School Rodeo are at the same time. Which one would you want to see?"

          "Oh the Rodeo, no doubt," she told me.

          I folded up the fair schedule, tucked it beside the seat, and patted the front of my shirt for my glasses. That's where I hang them when I take them off to read. They weren't there. "Uh-oh."

          "What?" Mike asked.

          I started searching the seat and the floorboards — "I can't find my glasses."

          "Whadja do with 'em?"        

          "I don't know. I don't even remember taking 'em off. Did I even wear my glasses?" I almost always wear my glasses when I leave the house. They don't really help me see much better but I like to wear them anyway. At home, I never wear them.

          "Well, if you left them at the fair, they're gone now."

          "Maybe not. Maybe some kind soul will turn them in. They are prescription — but I don't even know if I was wearing them! Did I have my glasses on?"

          It's funny I had to ask and even funnier that he didn't know.

          "I'll check when we get home." We were most of the way home by then. "If they're not there, I'll call the fair office. And I still have my old pair I can wear anyway."

           They weren't at home. I called the fair office and they weren't there. "I'll take your number and call you if anyone turns them in," the nice lady told me.

          A few hours later, she called. Someone had found them and turned them in. "We're coming back to the fair on Monday," I told her. "I'll pick them up then."

          "Okay. I'll put a note on them."

          That evening we went to a steak BBQ as guests of Vernon and his wife Donna. I made Stacey's Mac & Cheese because Mike hates to go anywhere like this and not take something. This was one of the best steaks I've ever had! It was perfect!

          "The macaroni's good," I overheard from the table behind me. But the best evidence was the empty pan.

          There were people there that knew my mother and I seem to look like her. Hmmm. Imagine that.

          "This is Dorothy's daughter," Dean said to the man beside him. "You remember Dorothy don't you?" Then he turned back to me. "You look just like her."

          I'm flattered. My mother is a beautiful woman.

          It was getting late when we left and the evening was pleasant.

          We went home through the small town of New Albany and the only thing left of the library is a sign.

          Although I told the ladies at the Wyoming County Fair that I would be in to pick up my glasses on Monday, I hadn't planned on the trip to Scranton the next day. We'd be going right past the fairgrounds again.

          Mike stopped and I ran into the fair office to get my glasses, and this Farting Flowers picture for you.

          I also took road pictures for you. A barn and tractor. 

  

         We passed several trucks haulin' tractors for the tractor pulls.

                       And this guy going to the fair.

          We were in a part of Scranton I'd never been in before, which isn't saying much because I've only been in Scranton a very few times, so it's all new to me.

          That's a happy building.

          "What's everyone going in there for?" I asked like Mike would know.

          "Stop taking pictures. You'll get us shot."

          I'm pretty sure they were lined up for food at this one.

          "What did you go to Scranton for?" I hear you ask.

          We sold our Jeep and leased a brand spankin-new one. Jeeps always hold their value and it allowed us to pay off our credit card debt and we'll be able to go see the kids in Missouri as well as a side trip to visit cousin Suzy in Iola, Kansas. It's a bonus that Mike's brother Cork will be there at the same time.

          It took us two days and two trips to Scranton to get the deal done. Halfway through the first day, we took a break from negotiating to get a bite of lunch.

          "Where's your favorite place for lunch?" I asked Gene, our salesman.

          "Oh! I hate to say this because my mouth is watering just thinking about it and we're right behind it too, but the Glider Dinner makes the best French fries with gravy!"

          Mike isn't crazy about gravy, so he got a Turkey Club. I didn't try the gravy fries either, but it did make me think of my mother because she likes gravy on her fries. I had a roast beef with provolone and grilled onions. Look at the pile of beef on this sandwich! Mike's turkey was piled just as high too. Our sandwiches were good and it gave us time to consider the offer from the Jeep dealer.

          The Penn Paper Factory. I didn't realize it's still in business but according to the internet, it is. This building was also featured in the opening credits of a TV show called The Office.

          We passed Olde Good Things and I'd love to browse this store some day. I'd seen a show about it at one time and thought it looked really interesting. It has all salvaged stuff.

          We took Ginger with us the first day. Mostly because she likes to be with us and I didn't anticipate we'd be anyplace where I couldn't take her. I went out to the Jeep for something and a whole big group of school kids came walking up the sidewalk. "Where are you guys going?" I asked. It was the middle of a school day. Was it a field trip? I wondered.

          "Green Ridge," the leader of the pack stated.

          I gave him my best confused look but he wasn't inclined to elaborate.

          "I don't know what that is," I said hoping he'd tell me. He didn't. Do you know what he did! I'm incredulous! He laughed at me!

  

        The girls, a little further in the pack, complimented Ginger and one stopped to pet her.

          When I went back inside, I asked a different salesman, since Mike and Gene, our salesmen, had gone off someplace and I didn't know where they were. "What is Green Ridge?"

          "Green Ridge?" he repeated.

          "Yeah. I asked a group of kids where they were going and they said Green Ridge and I said I didn't know what that was..."

          "And they looked at you like you had three heads?" he guessed.

          "Yeah! They laughed at me!"

          "It's a district right up here. The schools around here let the kids go out for lunch."

          I Googled it. Scranton has 43 schools and the area we were in had quite a few in the surrounding blocks.

          I got tired of all the sitting around and waiting. "I'm going to walk Ginger around the block," I told Mike. "I've got my phone if you need me."

          Here are the pictures from that walk-about.

          I saw the Bittersweet vines on the side of the building and wondered why they were dying. 

            Is it just time? Did they get too dry? Someone cut the root? Or poison it?

          Oh my gosh! Some of the wildflowers seemed to thrive! There was Spotted Knapweed all over the place (but mostly gone to seed) and a huge patch of Butter-and-Eggs.

          This old Wesel Manufacturing building sat empty and I could get up to the window without too much trouble.

           I cupped my hand around the lens of my camera to reduce the reflections.

          The first white settlers came to this area in the mid-1700's. It was 1840 when the Scranton brothers came to town and built a forge that later became the nucleus of the Lackawanna Iron and Steel Company. In 1851 the name was changed to Scranton. There are many huge houses in Scranton and many of them are abandoned, as this one appears to be.

           Well, guys, that sums up the tour of Scranton. I've got a blank page left so let me tell you what's going on here at our mountain home.

          Mike moved our bridge out of the way so he could get in there and define the ditch the water comes down off the hill in and goes to our pond. 

          Then we pulled a couple of more bushes out that had grown too close or even in the ditch.

           Mike put the brush hog on the tractor and mowed the edge of the pond. I walked around and saw one unlucky frog and a bunch of snails that couldn't get out of the way of the mower.

          As you can see the water is way down. It didn't take long after the rains stopped for the level to start dropping. We're guessing, after talking to several people, that a tree has sent a root into the pond and the water's leaking out that way. If we can find where it is we can pack it and slow it down and maybe even stop it. That's another day's adventure.

          I have seen the Green Herons at my pond several times this week. That pleases me. Our pond has a healthy ecosystem and lots of frogs for the hunting. I hope the Herons are better at catching their dinner than I am at catching their pictures. Most times they see me before I see them and they take off for the trees.

          Let's call this one done!