A mouse in the house? Do I have a mouse in the house? Oh, yes I do! More than one, I'm sure! Country living is country living and even the country critters seek shelter in the winter. And winter is coming.
I got up one morning to a partially eaten mouse on the kitchen floor. Not a nice thing to be confronted with first thing in the morning, but I'm glad someone is doing their job. (Yes, I took a picture and yes, I'll spare you.) Unfortunately, when the mice stay out of reach, like say in the warming drawer of the stove, the cats can't get them. Since I can see by their leavings that they were there, I set a trap. I got him the second day the trap was set. I don't like having to kill them, but they don't make the best roommates, don't 'cha know.
On a recent trip to Towanda, I stopped at my favorite second-hand store. Someone died. You can always tell when someone dies because of the items for sale in the store. Things old people have in their houses and the kids don't want. On this trip, I picked up two box sets of records. Reader's Digest produced them and you know someone paid good money for them. I scanned the songs on them, recognized more than one, and bought them. Love is Blue was produced in 1969 and has four albums.
Happiness Is... has nine albums and was produced in 1970.
"Peg, what are you going to do with them?" you wonder.
I'm going to listen to them, for one thing. And if I want to, I can put them on a CD. My player will play and write both vinyl and cassettes onto CDs. I went out into the library and got my fancy music player, where it's been for the last few years, and brought it into the house. As I balanced it on one knee to open the door, I heard something rattle. I knew what it was. I knew it was Kentucky Coffee Tree seeds rolling around in there. I can even guess how they got there... doggone mice. I set it on a shelf beside my desk, lifted the cover and there they were. Kentucky Coffee Tree seeds. I got out the vacuum and sucked them out. My vacuum wasn't crazy about the seeds and they clacked and clattered inside the wind tunnel.
Thank goodness he couldn't get inside the player, I thought — or could he? I turned the player around and there were these very nice black mouse tunnels.
Yeah, I don't really know what they are but I took a flashlight and peered inside. There were seeds in there; I'd have to take the back cover off. Once off, I see these black plastic pieces just go into the speaker box and some resourceful mouse was using it for a pantry.
I turned the player over and shook all of the seeds out.
Look at them all! That's quite a stash he had for himself. I wonder how many trips he had to make. Are they like chipmunks and can pack their cheeks full or is it a one seed at a time thing?
"Peg, what are the seeds for?" some of you may wonder.
Momma and I make rosaries with these seeds. I had a couple of buckets sitting around here and when I went for them all of the seeds were gone. Every. Single. One! Now that I've got seeds again I can make Momma a couple of three rosaries for Christmas gifts.
Although I've got our vacation and my trip to Arizona out of the way, I've still got a little catching up to do, but this letter should bring you up to date.
Early October had us going to an equipment auction and on roads I've never been on before. You know what that means don't you?
"More road pictures?"
Yes, more road pictures and more barn pictures.
"I love the barn pictures," Laurie, my Missouri gal told me.
I took these on the 20th day of October. We should have color and we didn't.
Same barn, coming and going.
The Nicholson Bridge has more than one name.
It's also called the Tunkhannock Creek Viaduct. It was built in 1915 by the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, the DL&W for short. It's 2,375 feet long and towers 240 feet in the air. It was (and still may be for all I know) the largest concrete bridge in America.
We've never been to an equipment auction before so we thought we'd see if there were any decent tractors to be had.
This sale was huge!
There were all kinds of tractors in all kinds of shape.
There was even big equipment there too.
It wasn't limited to just tractors either. They had so much stuff! From toy tractors to cars and trucks to fencing and pallets of spare parts and stuff I don't even know what it was.
"I guess if we don't know what it is then we don't need it," Mike said.
It was cold and blustery and a little sprinkly and not the nicest day to be outside. Mike didn't see anything that he was interested in bidding on so we didn't stay.
On the way home, we stopped at a yard sale where we bought a few little things. Mike talks with everyone and generally, people are happy to talk to him. The lady running the sale said it was her mothers' house and she'd died on Tuesday. This sale was just four days later. "That didn't take them long," Mike told me later. But anyway, the woman's daughter came in with her young son while we were talking and the conversation moved around to what she's done with her house.
"It's all country," the mother told us.
"My husband and I just put pallet wood up in the kitchen," Jenny, the daughter, said.
"Really!" I exclaimed. "I'd love to see it."
"Come on," she invited. "I just live a few houses down."
Such a sweet lady to invite me, a complete and total stranger into her house. And she let me take pictures. "Just don't mind the mess," she said. "We both work and the dishes aren't done."
I promised I wouldn't mind. Her house is old and the kitchen is a goofy L shape with the stove being in the little part by itself.
"Do you collect rolling pins?" I asked.
Jenny laughed. "Yeah."
We stopped in the little town of Meshoppen at the used tractor place but it was just a drive by.
Towards the end of October, the color is finally coming on.
It rained, and it rained, and it rained some more. It seems like all it's been doing is raining. "Let's go check out the pond," Mike suggested.
We got on the golf cart and drove around the pond. It was nice and full.
"Let's go look at the ditch," Mike said and we drove around the pond and up the hill to where Mike cleared a ditch for the water to funnel into our pond.
"It looks like a little creek," I told him.
Then Mike steps on the gas pedal releasing the brake and says, "Uh-oh."
"What?"
He pumped the accelerator but nothing was happening. "It won't run."
We did a little investigating and found the headlights weren't working either. "I'll get the lawn mower and tow it back to the house."
As it turns out it was an easy fix. One of the battery cables needed replacing and it works like a top again. It's just strange how everything can go from being hunky dory one minute to not working at all the next.
"Let's go for a ride," Mike announced one day at the beginning of November.
"Where?"
"Let's go see where Butch lives."
Butch is one of the group of guys that Mike has been meeting for breakfast occasionally. Butch, Woody, and Vernon are his cronies, as I like to call them.
"Why?" I ask although I already knew why. It's just something Mike has always enjoyed doing. If you meet him and he asks where you live, and you tell him, chances are we'll drive by your house.
"Just to see where he lives."
For me, it's a photo op. By this time we're getting some pretty good color.
Did you know that graveyards and cemeteries are not the same thing?
I know, right! Me neither.
A graveyard is part of a church property and a cemetery doesn't have a church. I heard that the other day so when we drove past this graveyard, I took a picture so I could tell you. And now you know. You're welcome.
This is the old Lewis Crawford farm. It says so on the silo.
"What is that?" I asked.
"It's half a tractor," Mike answered.
"Really?"
"Yeah. They're made to come apart like that."
Two views of the same building. Which do you like better? It's hard for me to decide sometimes.
A barn made into a house.
We always, always have lots of deer in the field next to us and that means we have a lot of deer at our house too as they range. Here's turkeys and deer together.
And then I saw this handsome guy!
He's a might skittish, taking off as soon as we slowed down. He panicked one of the does he was with and she ran too.
Once he got to the tall weeds he stopped and watched us. We kept rolling and he turned to go back out in the field; that's when I got the last shot of him.
I asked the Kipps if they've seen him. "No," Rosie told me.
Then a few days later we were visiting the Kipps. "We saw that big buck," Rosie told me. "He was going through the backyard."
"Someone will probably shoot him during hunting season," Lamar said.
I know that's just how things are and it's important to keep the herds from becoming overpopulated and diseased, but it doesn't mean that I have to like it.
Our neighbor Jon Robinson called the other night. "Mikey, I need your help." The Robinsons call him Mikey sometimes and Mike doesn't seem to mind.
Mike was instantly on alert. "What's wrong?"
"I got my truck stuck. Can you bring your tractor up and pull me out?"
No more questions asked. "We're on our way."
We get up there and find out he not only has his truck stuck but Steph's sitting in her SUV and it's buried halfway up the tires in mud too!
I was really glad I'd had the foresight to put on my mud boots as I sloshed over to the driver's window. "What happened?"
Steph laughed. "Jon went up to the dump and got his truck stuck. He wanted me to pull him out but it's so stinkin' wet that I got stuck too! Jon went to get his tractor but it won't start. That's when he called Mikey."
"It's just a good thing you have such nice neighbors," I told her.
She laughed again. "I know, right!"
She's probably where I picked that expression up from.
It didn't take too long until Mike had them pulled out of the quagmire they were stuck in.
This past Tuesday we took the back way to Ahern's, a local produce farm, to get some apples. I took road pictures for you.
Sometimes when you go there, to Ahern's, there isn't anyone minding the stand. It works on the honor system. So I wasn't surprised when we walked in and no one was there.
"No cider," I said spying the empty cooler.
I was browsing the apples when Jim Ahern came in with his dog Sadie and it wasn't long until Mike had him engaged in conversation. "No cider this year?" he asked.
"Nope. No. We didn't get enough apples to make cider this year."
"Pretty bad growing year?" Mike asked.
"We didn't get any apples from the trees on the upper hill and what we did get won't last long," Jim said implying he expected to be sold out before long.
The talk went on to how wet the year has been. "We can't get in the fields to pick up our first cutting of hay let alone get a second cutting," Jim told us. "And those guys that did get in their fields tore up the fields and their equipment so maybe it's just as well we didn't even try."
I wandered away, snapping a picture of the stairwell of the barn we were in, then went the whole way out to the Jeep to sit in comfort and wait for Mike.
Sadie kept coming over to the window and looking at me. I have no idea what she was about but after the third time, I snapped her picture. Isn't she a pretty girl?
I took pictures on the way home too.
"Check that out," Mike said.
I guess it's a good use for your cabana in the wintertime.
One of these days we'll drive past and this barn will be on the ground — and no one will be surprised.
Friday morning Mike and I went for breakfast. We get to the bottom of the mountain and see traffic is backed up. They're working and have one lane of the bridge shut down.
When it's our turn and we get onto the bridge we can see they're pulling trees and other debris from against the bridge pylons and loading it onto trucks. At least, I'm assuming that's where they're getting the stuff from. I've never seen them do this before but it's a testament to how bad our flooding was this year.
After breakfast, we went to a tag sale. That's where a company is paid to come in, organize and price things for a yard sale. Generally, the prices are higher than a yard sale and that's because the company takes a cut of the proceeds. The more they make, the more they get. "Let's just go check it out. We don't have to buy anything," I begged Mike. He couldn't deny me and once again, I was on roads I've never been on before.
Going past Jaynes' Orchard I see that the apples on this row of trees were left to fall on the ground. All of the other trees looked picked clean. And I also noticed that the trees weren't very tall. "Is that so they don't have to use ladders to pick the apples?" I wondered.
"I don't know," Mike answered. "But that's a tall fence."
"It's probably to keep the deer out," I guessed.
"Or people?"
"Maybe," I conceded.
Paints!
We bought a couple of things at the tag sale. Mike got a couple of big bags of lag bolts; I bought two field guides, one on insects and spiders and the other, reptiles and amphibians. I wouldn't have bought them if they'd been more than a dollar because I can find all of that stuff online. I also picked up some resistance bands for my exercise class. They were priced at twice what I wanted to pay. Ten dollars. "I run an exercise program for ladies at my church," I told Shelly, the lady running the sale, "would you take five for these?" She thought about it for a minute and agreed since it was for the church. "You could come and workout with us," I told her.
"What are you trying to tell her, Peg?" smartass Mike chimed in.
I cocked my head sideways, looked him square in the eyes and flatly said, "That she's invited to come."
"That I'm fat," Shelly said.
I couldn't deny that she could stand to lose a few pounds, but who among us couldn't, so I didn't even try. "I have skinny girls that come too," I pointed out. "Because it's good for us." And Shelly agreed that it was.
"And it's free," Mike added.
I gave her the details but I doubt she'll come.
"You want to stop at Jaynes Orchard?" Mike asked as we headed home.
I hesitated. After two cups of coffee at home and at least two more at breakfast and a travel mug of coffee that I drank on the way to the tag sale, I really had to pee. "Sure, let's stop. We just bought apples and don't really need any more, but we're here. We might just as well check 'em out."
The ladies greeted us as we came in. They were busy sorting apples.
"WOW!" I exclaimed. "Look at the size of that apple!"
"It weighs a pound and a half," one gal told me.
Then I got to looking at all the other oddities they had displayed on the shelf by the sorting area.
"Siamese twins!"
We picked out a bag of apples and a gallon of cider — and I really had to pee!
"Is there any chance I could use your restroom?" I asked and begged with my eyes. But she didn't even hesitate.
"Sure. Go back through that door with the glass in it and it's straight back."
I thanked her and headed that way. I had to laugh as I locked the door. Can you see it? Can you see the lock? It's just a piece of wood that turns on a screw. Fancy-smancy. Actually, low-tech but it works and you don't ever have to worry about someone accidentally (or on purpose) locking the door on their way out.
When I went back out the conversation was about my cousin Justin. I didn't catch the first part of it but Mike knew that Justin patronized this place and must have asked if they knew him.
"What road did you turn on to go out to Justin's?" Mike asked.
"I don't know but it's right there by Brigham's Welding and takes you out past the old school."
"Yeah. Just take it the whole way out to the river, when you cross the tracks you go left on it's down there," Mike told her.
"My aunt has a place out there but it's on the other side," she said.
"And he has an eagle in his front yard!" I bragged.
Jayne, the owner, joined the conversation. "We had an eagle right out here! He just sat on a branch in the rain for the longest time."
"How cool! I wish I could've seen that!" I don't actually know if I said that or only thought it.
Jayne went on. "Even though they're kinda common, I still get excited whenever I see one."
"They're so majestic," Mike replied.
And I, of course, thought of the last common critter I saw that excited me and that was that big buck. "Yeah, I know what you mean. Deer are all over the place and I still get excited when I see a big buck!"
Jayne was a little disgusted. "Ugh! Let's not talk about the deer."
"Bad for your business?" Mike guessed.
"Yeah," Jayne said.
And I felt like a heel. I hadn't thought about the impact the deer had on her business, which she told us, has been in her family for 150 years.
Then I noticed the hornets' nest. "Wow! All the ones I've seen had the bottoms out of them." This one was whole.
"These holes right here are where the apples were," she pointed out.
We paid for our items and left. When I got home and sorted out the tub of bands I'd bought, I found I have two complete sets of five plus one extra band and a jump rope.
"What are resistance bands?" you ask.
They're like a giant rubber band with a handle on both ends and you use them in place of weights to build muscle.
Let's call this one done!
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