Mr. Dino

          Another weekend is here. This one is the last weekend of January. A month, guys, we've got almost a whole month of the new year under our belts.

          Last weekend was the Super Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse. Did you see it? I didn't. It was cold here. It was really cold. Bitterly cold in fact.

          Mike and I never got around to tearing out the kitchen wall and finding where the cold air was coming in and freezing the water at the sink. I don't think either one of us was looking forward to that job at all so we put it off — and put it off some more, and now winter is here.

          "I guess we better put a heater under the sink tonight," Mike said. And the water didn't freeze.

          It was minus six when I got up but it warmed up a couple of degrees before it got light enough for me to take a picture.

          "Peg?" you say.

          Okay! That's only half true.

          "Peg!"

          Okay, okay! That's not true at all.

          Geesh! You guys don't let me get away with anything!

          The truth is I didn't think about taking a picture until a couple of hours later — but it would have been too dark when I got up anyway.

          The Super Blood Wolf Moon Eclipse was to take three hours from start to finish. I've done the blood moon thing and the eclipse of the moon thing before but not in these temps. I wasn't going to do it, so I didn't. I went out and took one picture before I went to bed and this is it.

          Even the sunrise the next morning looks cold, don't you think?

          That night it got even colder! Despite putting the heater under the sink again, and feeling confident I would have water in the morning, I didn't. It froze. Mike has it down to a science though and knows exactly where to aim the hairdryer.

          "What's that?" Mike was lying on the floor, propped on an elbow, running the hair dryer when he asked that question. I just naturally assumed it was something on the floor he was asking about. I looked but couldn't see anything other than the bits of detritus that found its way there and hadn't been swept up yet.

          "What's what?" I had to ask.

          "That light in the sky."

          I couldn't see it. I even got down on the floor and put my head next to his and followed his arm to where he was pointing. "I don't see a thing," I confessed.

          "Get your binoculars and look."

          I got up and reached the binoculars from the shelf where I keep them handy for bird watching. I was surprised when I found it right away. "I bet it's the sun shining on an airplane."

          "It's not moving."

          We watched it for a few minutes and it wasn't moving.

          "Take a picture," Mike said.

          I traded my binoculars for my camera and snapped a couple of pics.

          "What's it look like when you zoom in on it?" Mike asked.

          "Nothing. It just gets grainy. I can't really see what it is."

          We went about doing other things for a few minutes and the next time we looked, it was gone.

          "I bet it was either a star or a UFO," Mike guesses.

          And yes, Mike got the water flowing again.

          A trip to town to get milk and bananas was the high point of that day.

          "Look at that, Peg," Mike says as we're crossing the Susquehanna. "The truck is reflecting red on the snow." He was quite taken with the effect of the sun on the side of the truck.  

          A snowy gazebo.

          I always take my camera with me when I go to the mailbox although I sometimes wonder why because I don't usually take any pictures.

          Just in case, I tell myself.

          The sun was melting the snow from our roof and dripping down the icicles.

          I was trying hard to capture a droplet just as it left its moorings but they were dropping everywhere except where I was focused!

           I switched to a different icicle and missed another droplet. With a little persistence, I got one, and it has a tiny little picture of my house in it.

          I know, right!

          The things that entertain me.

          A couple of weeks ago I told you about having to kennel Macchiato for bad behavior. We bought three more plastic tubs for about $5 each, added cat litter, and placed them around the house bringing our total litter boxes to six, the recommended amount. Then let Macchiato out to roam the house again. I've been keeping an eye on the places where he's peed before and so far, so good.

          Our temps went from being bitterly cold to 45 degrees and that created fog in the valleys. Mike took me up to the overlook for pictures. You can make out a couple of silos toward the bottom left in this picture.

          Turning a little to my right, the bank I'm standing on is visible in the foreground and the Susquehanna is almost completely swallowed up by the fog.

      

  

          I took a couple of pictures as we came back down the mountain and into Wyalusing.

          I have two tall salsa jars in my freezer where I keep fat from the things I cook and they were both full! Time to make suet cakes for the birds, I think.

          It seems like I have to do a Google search almost every time I make it as different things become available in the house. This time I started with one jar of fat, set it in a big metal bowl and put it in the oven to melt. Then I started looking around for good things to add. First and most basic, something I always have on hand and always add is a large size cottage cheese container of birdseed and a big ole honkin' scoop of peanut butter. I had a few walnuts in the bottom of a bag that were getting old. The birds would enjoy them much more than I would. I crunched 'em and dumped 'em. Raisins came next, a handful but you gotta be careful with raisins. An apple that was starting to wither was chopped and tossed in. We had oranges, which we don't normally have. A Google search says birds like oranges. It also said to cut the orange in half and nail it to the tree. I peeled it, chopped it, and added it to my suet mix. Now I needed a binder. I've used different flours in the past but this time I saw my box of graham crackers on the shelf. Back to the computer and yes, birds like graham crackers. I took a pack out of the box and crushed them for the birds.

          "Isn't that expensive?" you ask.

          Not really. I'm going to buy food for the birds anyway.

          I dumped the mixture in my cake pan and put it in the fridge to set up. Tomorrow, I thought. Tomorrow I'll put one out.

          "Peg, you wanna go for a ride?" Mike asks.

          "No. Where?"

          "To the hardware store."

          "What for?"

          "I need a switch box for my wiring job in the garage."

          "Naw. But you can go." It didn't tempt me at all.

          I could see the disappointment in his face and hear it in his voice. "I don't want to go by myself." Mike seldom goes any place alone. He spent so many years alone in a truck, driving from one end of this country to the other that he doesn't want to be alone anymore. And that's okay. I knew that about him before I married him.

          Not long after this, I'm standing at the kitchen sink and see the flashing lights of a work truck go slowly past the house. "There goes a dump truck. I wonder what they're doing."

          "I bet they're dumping gravel on that section of road that's starting to slide," Mike guesses. He didn't ask if I wanted to go for a ride, but I knew he wanted to.

          "Here comes a truck back the other way," I say then ask, "You wanna go check it out?"

          Mike perked right up. "You want to?" Nothing like answering a question with a question.

          "Yeah, let's go." So off we went.

          We didn't find the dump truck. "Maybe they went up to the well site," Mike guesses. "Yup. I think I see tire tracks," he adds as we pass the entrance. The tire tracks were easy to see as the rain we'd been having turned the road to mud.

          "Since we're out we might just as well go to the hardware store," says me and we wander the back roads making our way to the hardtop.

          We crossed the lower bridge, headed up Oak Hill, and came face-to-face with a semi coming in the opposite direction.

           Mike starts backing up. "There's a pull off by the bridge." It wasn't really necessary for me to point that out because he knew it was there.

          "I'm going to get out of his way," Mike says and backs up to the Y.

          "What if he's coming this way?" I asked.

          "He won't," was Mike's reply and he was right. The semi passed us and headed toward the Walkers.

          Back across the bridge we go for a second time and for a second time I have a chance to take a picture that'll show you how horribly this section of creek was impacted by our floods last fall.

          Pictures just don't do it justice. Fallen and broken trees everywhere, vegetation flattened, the ground channeled and eroded by the raging flood waters. Our pretty little creek will never be the same again.

          Oak Hill is where I took the pretty picture of the trees hanging over the road.

            What a difference a couple of days make.

          The ice chunks on the Susquehanna cause a lot of problems downstream. They dam up at the bridges and cause flooding. Towns have to get the backhoes out and clear the jams.

          On the way home, coming up Wells Mountain, I'm watching the windshield wipers slap at the lightly falling rain. "I'd rather have snow."

          "Not me," Mike replies. "I don't have to shovel rain."

          Our creek is flooding the Kipps' yard — again.

          We got our mail from the roadside box before we went up to the house. There was a package and I knew just what was in it.

          We get home, get our coats off, hung up, and Mike settles at the table to unwrap the package. Inside was all five seasons of Boston Legal.

          One of our TV stations has been playing two back-to-back episodes every night during the week and we got interested in it. William Shatner plays Denny Crane, a lawyer with mad cow disease. You never know if his wacky stunts are because of the disease or not. Alan Shore, besides being a womanizer, is witty. And Betty White played in a few episodes, killed two guys, robbed a convenience store twice, and Alan got her off every time! Half the fun of the show is seeing how they get out of the scrapes they get into. It's not everybody's cup of tea but we enjoy it enough to watch it more than once.

          I have to tell you that this same station did the same thing last year (or was it two years ago now?) with the TV series Burn Notice and we got hooked on that one too. Burn Notice, just in case you didn't know) was one of my mother's favorite TV shows!

          And the next time I looked out the window the rain had turned to the snow I wanted, coming down lightly at first...

            ...and then in great flakes. I was happy! 

           Then it stopped and I was sad. Whether or not you like the snow depends on whether or not you have to go out in it. I don't and so I love it.

           Look at me! Way ahead of the Christmas 2019 season. That's a switch!

          "Peg, what's the deal with Christmas in January?" you ask.

          This was a special order from a special friend. I didn't want to take a chance of not being able to get them done in the rush of the season, so I did them now. And now that I've got these cuties out of the way, I've got a baby boy on my table for my brother John and his wife Eunice as a baby gift.

          And that brings me to two things I want to tell you.

          Where do things go when they're there one minute and gone the next?

          Case in point. I keep my suncatcher patterns in plastic baggies to use over and over. I usually write something on the outside so I know what pattern pieces they are. I wrote Baby Boy on this one. I dumped out all the pieces and set the baggie aside. At one point, I dropped a towel close enough to the baggie that it covered one corner. The next time I needed the towel I picked it up with one hand, the other one was holding glass pieces, and I felt the baggie on my fingertips. Without paying too much attention or giving it much thought, I let go of the baggie to drop back on the counter and kept the towel, heading for the sink. When I got back to my work station the baggie was gone!  Just gone! I looked everywhere for it. I looked on the shelf below the counter and the shelf below that, looking deep inside in case it caught a little air and went sailing. I even got down on my hands and knees and felt all around in case I just plain couldn't see it on the floor. I made three separate searches for that baggie and still can't find it. Where did it go? It's a conundrum!

          We have a little artisan shop here in town and they were offering a class on making glass suncatchers. I thought, Cool! I'll take the class and see if I can learn anything. "I'd like to take your class," I told the lady.

          "Great! We have two spots left."

          "How much is it?" I was thinking $30 — $35.

          "The cost is $30 plus tax of $1.80 for the glass kit and $20 for the class. The grand total is $51.80."

          "Wow," I told her. "That's a little more than I thought it was. I'm gonna pass," and I thanked her for her time.

          Can you believe that? Ten people, fifty dollars a pop, three hours work, that sounds like a good business to be in if I ever wanted to get back in business again. I remember the first and only class I ever took. It was $25. I ended up buying all of my equipment through her after that but I never took another class.

          We had another beautiful sunrise here in the mountains of Pennsylvania. It's reflecting off of a sheet of ice.

          This day I pulled the homemade suet from the fridge and cut it into six blocks. 

         There was still some of the store-bought suet cake hanging in the wire cage but I decided to take it out and put one of the homemade ones in it.

          Oh. My. Gosh!

          Did the Starlings ever go crazy for that! Not that I have any love for Starlings but they certainly didn't go crazy for the store bought suet cake.

          I stood at the window in the kitchen and took a ton of photos as they fought for possession. And guess what? The smaller the block became, the harder they fought! It was just a matter of hours until they'd eaten the whole thing.

          The next day I put a new one in the holder and moved the suncatcher so I wouldn't get colored dots in all the photos I take from the kitchen window.

          It didn't take long until the Starlings were all over it. I decided to go out and stand under the awning and take pictures. All of the birds took flight when I went out but I thought they'd come back if I stood still for a few minutes. The Starlings wouldn't. But that opened the door for the other birds. Two different woodpeckers and a Junco in this shot.

          And here a Blue Jay getting a bit of orange.

          Two little Downy Woodpeckers and a Chickadee in this shot.

          I wasn't at all sad that the Starlings were too afraid to come back. To the brave go the spoils.

          I'd gone out without my jacket and I was getting cold. I headed back in only to be confronted with a locked door. Dagnabbit! I must have unconsciously turned the lock when I went out. I knocked on the door and put my face to the glass to watch Mike come from the other room and let me in. No Mike. I knocked harder — and saw him peeking around the corner of the counter at me. I didn't lock myself out at all! That stinker.

          Mike came to the door with a big ol' stupid grin on face. I couldn't help but smile.

          "You want in?" he asks through the glass.

          "YES!"

          "You want to walk around the house and come in the other door?" he asks.

          "NO! I'm in my slippers!" I held up my foot so he could see. "Come on! It's cold out here!"

          He was done torturing me and unlocked the door.

          "I thought I locked myself out," I told him.

          "That's what I thought you'd think. Why'd you go out without your jacket?"
          "Because I didn't plan on being out there that long." I go out every morning without my jacket on. I feed the three boy cats out there, so Itsy and Ginger don't eat their cat food, then walk out to the tree and fill the birdfeeder. Some mornings I get pretty cold before I get back in and it always feels so good to step into the warmth of the kitchen.

          Speaking of the boys...

          That Smudge! He discovered I keep an open box of Temptations on my work counter to feed Molly. She's old and skinny and treats are the only thing she wants to eat. Several times every day she'll come to the kitchen and meow for me to give her a few.

          "Why don't you keep the lid on them?" you want to know.

          The cats have learned the sound of me opening them and come running. Molly won't fight for her treats, she'll just walk away. I found out if I leave them open then I can get her a few without having the whole herd running to the kitchen.

          A couple of days ago Smudge found 'em and knocked 'em to the floor, then scooped out a handful for himself.

          When Macchiato figured what was going on, he took over.

          Now I have to keep the cat treats in a different place and keep them covered.

         

          My new old girlfriend Trish and I have been chatting on FaceBook. She told me a funny story yesterday and I want to share it with you.

          "My day started off with a little scare!" she tells me. "I took Yodi (her dog) out to potty and could hear what sounded like 'glub, glub, glub' coming from over the hill. Well, that's where my water main is so my first thought was something's wrong and can I get anyone to fix it on the weekend. I started over that way but then the sound was behind me! I thought it was something in the storage shed. Nope. Nothing there. I started going this way and that way until I narrowed it down."

          "What was it!" I could hardly wait to find out.

          "It was a dinosaur! He was in a pile of trash left over from tearing down an old trailer that used to sit here! Ice must have set his sound off. I don't know what he's supposed to sound like but I'm pretty sure it's not 'glub, glub, glub'! I had Ben (her son) set him on a stump. I'm not sure how long he'll 'roar' but we shall see."

          "How's Mr. Dino doing today?" you may wonder.

          "Mr. Dino is still 'glubbing'," Trish tells me. "We can't shut him off and he glubbed himself right off the stump last night!"

          Too funny.

          I made Unstuffed Cabbage the other day. I'm standing there chopping my cabbage and my mind drifts off. I don't even remember what I was dreaming about. One minute I'm chopping the second to the last quarter and the next I'm chopping the last quarter with no memory of having made a trip to the stove to dump it in the pot. I looked in my scrap pan, sitting right next to me, and there was the cabbage quarter I'd just chopped.

          Oh boy! It's a good thing I'd just washed the pan, methinks and I pull most of the pieces from the top of the scrap heap.

Let's call this one done and remember —

You're all in my heart.