Jimmie Jo

          First, I want to tell you something. I opened last time with not being too excited about visiting with you. The only reason being I felt like I didn't have anything to talk about. It's so much harder to write when I don't have any stories to tell. Then I started getting into the pictures and the stories just came. None of them were planned. After spending every weekend with you for the past 20 years, I don't think I'm getting burned out. I love what I do, especially when you love it too.

          "Peg, pretty entertaining for a slow news week!" one of my Missouri gals tells me.

          And my handsome brother David seconded that. "Great stories for not having anything to say." And it also brought back a memory for him. "Remember our Mike made the newspaper. It said something like, 'Teen burns rubber in town.' Mom was mad!!"

          I had to tell David, "I don't remember."

          "It was the blue Ford truck and it was in Columbia. LOL — to be young again."

          Our brother Mike has been gone for ten years now.

           Our week started with rain.

          I like seeing the bugs come back. Here I caught a Green Leafhopper.

          I walked around with Ginger one day and saw my Bergamot is coming up. I recognize the leaf. I plucked one and breathed in the heavenly scent.

          "What's it smell like?" you wonder.

          Do you know what Earl Grey tea is? Yeah? That's what's in it and it smells just like that.

          I was anxious to get up on the hill and see if it was coming back up there. Last year Mike and I pulled stumps and brush and drug them across my Bergamot patch to get it to the brush pile to burn. Needless to say, the Bergamot didn't come up last year. I was especially pleased to see that it is coming back this year.

          Speaking of coming back...

          My small asparagus patch took a beating last year as well. It sits directly in front of the pond and all the brush we pulled from the pond got drug over it. This year I saw one lonely stalk of asparagus coming up and the first thing we pulled from the pond this year wiped it right out. I've looked twice more since then and don't see any more coming up.

          This looks like Butter-and-eggs. I'll keep an eye on it and watch for the flowers to bloom.

          Mike built my first raised bed. He was only going to make it two cinder blocks off the ground and changed his mind at the last minute. "You'll thank me when you get older and don't want to bend over so far," he tells me.

          We bought all Miracle-Gro garden soil to fill it with.

          Tuesday was my Miss Rosie's birthday.

          "What would you like?" I begged her to tell me.

          "How about some of those Lemon Meltaways?"

          I made her a double batch so she had some to stash in the freezer.

          "How are they?" I asked as Rosie took a bite.

          "Mmmm. Nice and lemony."

          "What do you think, Lamar?" And I got my answer as I caught him licking the sugar from his thumb.

          The Lilacs are blooming! I love the Lilacs! This bush is beside the road and I cut a few sprigs for my kitchen windowsill.

          My Lilacs are lagging behind and by Saturday were just starting to open. Mine are edged with white. I guess, just like anything else, there are different varieties.

          One of my bushes also has a branch of all white Lilacs that grow on it.

          I looked out my window one day and my back yard was sprinkled with a sea of yellow. I don't care what anyone says! Dandelions are a pretty wildflower! Not to mention they have long been used in holistic medicine. The health benefits of Dandelions include improve bone health, aid in digestion, prevent acne, help in weight loss, boost immunity, prevents anemia, and regulates blood pressure. You can make Dandelion oil to use as a salve for pain. And you can eat them too! You need to collect the greens early in the spring or late in the fall. They get bitter if you wait until it flowers. But all parts of the Dandelion are edible.

          This tiny little flower is Speedwell. I have two colors of it in my yard. This is another wildflower used for its medicinal powers. A tea made of Speedwell can clear sinus congestion and treat coughs. Or dip a cotton ball and it'll help ease sore eyes.

          Tuesday night was hard.

          My best girl, my ray o' sunshine, my Joanie lost a daughter to a drug overdose just four years after losing a son to anaphylactic shock. Tuesday was the service for Jimmie Jo.

          "The streets need to get cleaned up so drugs aren't so readily available to those struggling to keep clean. One weak moment in a person's life who's already dealing with anxieties and depression can take that life, and leave families devastated; parents without a child, a child without her mother, a sister or dear friend taken away. The ones selling these drugs to benefit themselves and take the life of another in the process need to be caught. They need to suffer the consequences of their illegal actions. Those that helped her get to this point need to be held accountable for their actions! Yes, it was her choice to take the drugs but if it weren't so readily available she may have had another day to make a better choice," Joanie tells me — tells all of us!

          Please keep Joanie and her family in your prayers.

          I spent Wednesday at the high school in Athens photographing the Special Olympics for my church. One of our girls was participating. 

          "You'll never see more smiles in one place as you'll see today," I was told and I believe it. Everywhere you looked, there were grins of triumph and victory!

          Our Miss Barbara came away with three first-place blue ribbons!

          I, on the other hand, came away with a sunburnt face.

          "Why didn't you put stuff on?" Mike asked.

          "I just did. I put on some aloe soothing lotion."

          "No, why didn't you put stuff on before you got burnt?"

          "I didn't know I needed it!"

          When I first arrived, it was cloudy and cool. The sun didn't come out until the last couple hours of the event and I never did take my jacket off.

          "I sure appreciate you covering this event for the church," Pastor told me. He and the Mrs. were also there to encourage and support this special young lady.

          What he doesn't know is that I was paid many times over just by getting to meet people I wouldn't otherwise have met.

          I met the school superintendent and his student shadow for the day.

          "We've been going all day," Craig told me. "We started out by reading to a group of sixth-graders, trying to spark a deeper interest in reading and teaching them a lesson about bullying at the same time."

          That made me think of a teacher I had in fourth grade, Mr. Bailey. He sparked my interest in reading by reading Charlotte's Web to us, a chapter at a time. I just had to ask, "What book are you reading to them?"

          "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. And I didn't just read a chapter and tell them to find it in their library either. I bought a few copies to hand out too."

          Isn't that fabulous! I had a nice conversation with him about bullying and when I have a minute, I'm going to put him on my Human's page. Along with this cutie-patootie. This is Asia.

          "What's the biggest challenge your age group faces?" I asked.

          Without missing a beat, she answers, "Bullying. It's a big problem."

          Asia is a child of divorce. "I live with my mom but she works all the time. My dad drinks — a lot. And I feel like I'm partially responsible for that too. He's like, a mean drunk so I stopped seeing him so much and now he drinks even more."

          But the line that tugged at my heartstrings...

          "I try to be good because I don't want to cause them any more problems."

          And there you have it. In our messed up world, a 15-year-old feels like she's responsible for the happiness of her parents.

          "Do you go to church?" I asked.

          "No. We used to. My dad reads the Bible all the time. The whole way through, two or three times a year."

          And I'm thinking, She sees what her dad does so why would she want any part of that? "Not all Christians are like that. Is there a church close by that you can walk to?"

          "Yeah, there's one right over the bridge but I don't know how much it costs or anything."

          "It doesn't cost anything. Just go and sit and listen," I told her. "Some churches have youth programs and someone would even come and get you if you need a ride."

          With Jimmie Jo's funeral still so fresh in my mind, I tried to plant the seeds of our need for a Savior. "Even at 15 you're not guaranteed one more day on this earth," I told Asia. "So we must be ready every single minute of every single day to meet God." I just hope I didn't over-fertilize.

          The hummingbirds are back. Despite the fact that I was practically standing under the feeder, it didn't stop them. They're brave little birds.

          On Saturday, I saw my first Daisy Fleabanes blooming. It gets its name from the superstition that dried clusters of these plants could rid a dwelling of fleas. It doesn't work for that. It does, however, have diuretic properties as well as helps in digestive ailments.

          We had a visit from Roy. Roy G Biv that is. A rainbow. The colors are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. We had a double rainbow but it wasn't strong enough to be picked up by my camera.

          "Peg, what have you been working on this week?"

          I'm so glad you asked! Nothing new on my glass table but I made a garden totem. My first one! Although the bottom piece is dark I want you to know it's green too. What do you think? Not your cup o' tea?

          And this week I made homemade tortillas for the first time. I mixed the dough and double-checked the recipe just like my mother taught me to do — and missed the salt. OY! There's only four ingredients in the whole thing and I missed one! I knew it would need the salt to be good so I mixed it in at the end.

          What's the worst that can happen? I asked myself.

          I'd have to throw it away.

          And what happens if I don't try?

          I'll probably have to throw it away.

          So I didn't have anything to lose by trying.

          Here's the first one. They cook fast and brown up nicely in just a few minutes. I used my iron skillet and no extra oil.

          And here's what happens if you get to rolling out another one and don't pay attention to the one in the pan. Yeah, my first burnt one. I actually burnt two of the eight I made. I'll have to get faster at rolling them out.

          "How do they taste?" you ask.

          My first bite, I thought, Eh.

          My second bite, Not so bad.

          My third bite, These are good! I don't know why I didn't like them the first bite but now I'm hooked. They're so much better than what you buy and they're really easy to make.

          "What do you do with tortillas?" you want to know.

          Tacos or burritos or any place you use bread you can use tortillas. Roll it up with ham for a sandwich; smear it with butter and jelly. My favorite thing is homemade pizzas. I freeze pizza sauce in ice cube trays then when I want to make one I'll thaw the sauce on the counter, or stick it in the microwave if I forget to get it out. I froze the tortillas too, just so you know. 20 seconds in the microwave and they're good to go.

          Mike hired a couple of guys to pour the last bay in the barn. It was something that really needed to be done. The amount of moisture that comes up from the ground rots out the bottom of vehicles and the moisture encourages mold growth inside of them. Like I said, it really needed to be done.

          There was extra concrete on the truck so Mike had them put it in the bucket of his tractor and we used it to make a base for our sideways growing maple. Whenever the wind blows, it moves the supports off the rocks they sit on. Mike is tired of fixing it all the time. We already had the forms made. Mixing the bag concrete was a job we were getting ready to do and now we don't have to since there was leftover concrete from the garage floor.

     

  

          We were working on it when the birds were trying to eat their breakfast. A woodpecker landed just above my head.

          A Nuthatch swooped in, grabbed a seed, and took off again.

            Pink honeysuckle is blooming.

          And that's pretty much it for this week. The only other thing I might tell you is that Mike picked up a cold. He's blaming it on me but he started showing signs on Tuesday. I didn't have any symptoms until Thursday when I got a sore throat. So I'm blaming it on him.

           Let's call this one done and end it with the only sunset picture I took this week.