Peggy's Jibber-Jabber: It Begins

It's so funny.

"What is, Peg?" you ask.

Last time, when I was telling you about my 'suspected' coon stealing banana from the butterfly feeder and washing up in the butterfly water, I'd gotten up from my computer to let Itsy out and there he was, on the back patio having a snack. It's like writing about him summoned him. I've seen him a couple of more times this week too, eating the scraps I toss out under the bird feeder.

"Peg! Grab your camera and come here!" Mike yelled from the other room.

I did as he bid, grabbed my camera, and followed him out front.

"What?" I didn't see anything.

"Right there." He pointed to the grass and there sat a Painted Turtle. I took a couple of pix then we took him down to the pond and let him go.

This is another variety of Speedwell. It's called Veronica, Creeping Veronica, or Georgia Blue.

A tea made from Speedwell can help with sinus congestion.

I managed to get my camera up in time to catch this little guy running from the road into the neighbors garden.

We took a golf cart ride up to the hunting cabin above our property and see they have a tree down across the driveway. The next time they come they'll have to clear it before they can get the rest of the way to the cabin.

An old trailer that sits up there too.

Tons of these guys around. I expect that before long Spitfire will be hunting the babies. It's the cycle of life. Nature provides plenty for the cats to get a few. And he eats them so they don't go to waste and the change in diet is good for him.

Baby apples.

Do you see the rust spots on the leaves? That's Cedar-apple rust on an apple tree. I've shown you the form it takes on the cedar or other host trees, but I'll show you again.

I love this time of year when the Multiflora Roses are blooming. The air smells so nice! Multifloras are evil. They're considered invasive and the thorns will flatten a lawn mower tire. But a rose is a rose and you can use the hips like any other rose or leave it for winter food for the birds.

There used to be a house just before you cross our little creek. It's long gone but the lady there must've planted roses at one time because there are rose bushes there.

I picked a sprig for my windowsill vase.

The boys, Spitfire and Smudge followed me to the mailbox but stopped at the rocks near the end of the driveway.

Spit bugs!

Actually, they're Spittlebugs. It's the nymph form of the little leafhoppers. The foam shields them from predators, protects them from heat and cold, and provides moisture control. Without that they'd dry up. They suck the sap from the plant causing very little damage and much of the fluid they suck goes into producing the foam, which has an acrid taste deterring predators.

Oh my gosh! I have to tell on myself here about this plant.

"What is it?" you ask.

Yeah. I'm getting to that. I saw it and thought it looked like it might be something in the mint family. Knowing the shape of the stem can help in identifying that because most square stemmed plants are in the mint family. I reached out to see and as soon as I touched it, it bit me! OW! And I knew what it was.

Stinging Nettle!

I'll tell you what! That one little needle prick on my left index finger hurt ALL DAY LONG!

This is Smooth Bedstraw. It reminds me of Baby's Breath.

This one, with all the seeds, is Dock.

Bittersweet Nightshade. It's in the same family as tomatoes and potatoes. The stem is used for skin conditions like eczema and acne. It's also used for joint pain and as a calming agent. The leaves and berries are poisonous.

Chasing the frogs into the pond. Life is good.

A Damselfly with his landing gear down.

Red Clover.

I don't know. Maybe I'll find out when the berries come on.

This is the first time I've seen one of these.

"What is it?" you ask.

This is a Northern Pearly-eye. The adults feed on dung, fungi, carrion, and sap from willows, poplars, and birches. They overwinter in the larval stage and the larva eats various grasses.

This one is the Painted Lady, the most widely distributed butterfly in the world. They don't overwinter in cold climates and have unusual migration patterns. The Painted Lady is an irruptive migrant, meaning it migrates independently of seasonal patterns. It's suggested that it may be linked to El Nino. Males patrol their territory in the afternoon for a receptive female. Should he find one they'll retreat to a treetop where they'll mate overnight.

This one! This one, my dears is sitting on my Bergamot. I suspected he was a fly but it took some digging before I finally identified him.

"What is it?" you ask.

This is called Golden-backed Snipe Fly. Little is known about their life cycle and habits.

There are 120,000 members of this species of fly worldwide and are true flies. They're found throughout eastern North America and most often observed resting on low vegetation. They appear in late spring or early summer.

We're under a flight path. I have no idea where they're coming from or going to.

Taking food home for the kids.

"Mike, right there is one reason I don't want you to make swales through the yard. I don't like the weeds growing up beside it."

"Peg, we need the drainage and I can't mow it right now or I'll get stuck. But if you stand by to pull me out, I'll mow it."

Mike did get stuck a couple of times but since it was expected I'm not going to show you pictures.

However, this one he had to call me for a tow.

A doe with her fawn suckling. She stood still to watch me and the fawn took advantage of the situation. Since the deer all look alike to me, I don't know if this is the same doe that comes up to the house for a bite of corn.

The Kipps asked me to help them identify a wildflower that just sprang up in front of their shed. I used an app on my phone which said it's a Columbine that only grows on the high plains. Yeah, right. I've found this app not so accurate on other things.

It is a Columbine, that much is for sure, but I'm not 100% sure which variety it is.

My first dragonfly picture of the year! He's sunning himself on a rock beside a grasshopper.

His name is Dot-tailed Whiteface, which sounds like the description I used to find him with, and he's a male because he only has one dot. Females have multiples.

This humbee, as Momma would call them, is a hummingbird moth. I had the kitchen door open and he kept banging against the screen door. I ignored him the first three or four times but he was persistent. When I finally went to look and realized what he was I rushed back in for my camera. He was frantic, being under the awning, and wouldn't sit for long. I only got two shots of him and this one was the best.

I tried to find out what his name is but haven't had any luck. One website says there are three basic kinds. The Clearwing, which is the one I see most. The Sphinx, which I've seen before and do recognize. And one called a Hawk Moth. I've not seen that one but he's not black like this one. So my guy here is a freak. That's okay, I love them all anyway.

As you may remember, this is the week my family was coming in from all over the country to bury our mother. I spent the week trying to clean the house. I say trying because now, after the fact, I probably coulda done better. But I hate housework, I really do, and as a result, I usually do the bare minimum. I come by that honestly though. Momma once told me she'd rather do the hot, dusty work of hayin' than clean house. And my oldest and much-loved sister Patti is not a fan of housework either!

I digress. Mike and I had a few loose ends to tie up and one of those was to finalize plans with Marybeth, our caterer. We decided to drive into Dushore and have a sandwich while we were there.

They're working on 220 and we ended up having quite a long wait. This road crew even had a pilot truck to take us through the construction area.

Dushore has parking meters, did you know that? I guess they think they're special cause they are the largest borough in the county with the one and only traffic light.

We were told that we didn't have to put a quarter in the parking meter but we always do. So on this trip we asked Marybeth about it.

"We do collect the money from the meters, but we don't have anyone to give out tickets," she told us.

Marybeth is the mayor of Dushore.

I suggested we take a different way home but Mike wanted to go back the way we came so we ended up waiting for our turn in the construction zone again.

"They're all just standing around," Mike observed.

Me? I stuck up for them. "They have to wait for everyone else to do their job before they can do theirs."

Judging by the pictures I took, they were all just standing around.

Our neighbors, the Robinsons, had an old church pew they didn't want anymore.

"Take it out and burn it," Steph said. She was tired of looking at it on her deck.

Jon asked us if we wanted it and we went and picked it up. Now it sits on my patio and gave us extra seating for when the family came in.

So! There I am, cleaning rugs, the kitchen door and screen door wide open when I hear some commotion. I turned just in time to see a bird take off and fly out the door while Spitfire frantically tried to get him. He obviously had caught the bird and was bringing him in the house, loosened his grip just enough the bird escaped him. I can't tell you how glad I am that he went out the door and not in the house. Have you ever had a bird lose in your house with two or three cats in hot pursuit? Things tend to get broken.

The carpet in the pantry was pretty dirty so one of the jobs I did in prep for the family was to get the carpet shampooer out and clean it. I have no idea what was going on with the machine but every once in a while it would get a hitch in its giddy-up and wouldn't move. I'd pull it back, pick it up, set it down someplace else, roll it back and forth a few times until the wheels would roll again. After about the fourth time I was getting pretty fed up. The next time it locked up I pulled back and gave a mighty shove!

"CRACK!" said the shampooer and the rollers refused to work anymore. I was done — out of business.

When I had a little time, I took it apart. The arms weren't broken, the belts weren't broken, and those were the only replacement parts that weren't discontinued. Whatever broke, broke inside the machine. He's scheduled to go to the dump next week.

So imagine my delight (not!) and regret (that I broke the shampooer) when Molly projectile hurls chunks all over the chair and carpet in the bathroom.

Molly likes drinking water from Mike's sink and she likes it best when you let it trickle from the tap. She puts her little face right against it and lets it run down her cheek to her mouth as she laps. She's old and I like her to be happy.

"I told you not to give her so much water!" Mike admonished.

I didn't talk to Mike. His comment wasn't being helpful and I wasn't happy to have to clean the rug right at bedtime and did I mention I'd just broken the shampooer that day?

I got a scraper and scraped all the chunks together and picked 'em up. There was a hairball in the mix.

"There's a hairball!" I triumphantly yelled. Mike was already in bed watching TV. I felt vindicated that the cause wasn't the amount of water she'd had. Then I got my little Pet Stain Eraser out and shampooed the carpet and chair and was very thankful that Santa had brought it to me last Christmas.

I'm trying to walk Ginger more because I think she needs it and she really does enjoy going to the pond. I saw this three-leafed vine and wondered what it was.

"Peg! Leaves of three leave them be!"

I know, right! But it doesn't really look like poison ivy to me. So what do I do? Don't laugh. I brushed the back of my hand against it and waited to see what would happen. I've had poison ivy lots of times. It's annoying and itchy but I figured a tiny little rash on the back of my hand was tolerable and the easiest way to see if it is poison ivy.

By the next day, I had no rash. It's not poison ivy. But I haven't looked it up yet. Maybe I never will.

Look at the grasses! Aren't they pretty!

The upper barn.

My cute little red-headed brother, Rick, has been keeping my father's ashes since his death in 1995. It was our mother's wish that they be buried together. I was worried Rick would leave his part of Pennsylvania, three and a half hours south of me, and forget Pop. But he didn't.

"When I get there I'm going to the funeral home first and dropping Pop off," Rick told me.

"I wanted some of Pop's ashes," I cried.

"You'll have to go to the funeral home and get them."

"Dean'll do it for you," Mike said. "We'll take the urns in and let him do it."

That meant another trip to Dushore, back through the construction. But I was wrong, the construction was over. They'd patched what they were going to patch and they were gone.

"Can we get a couple of more baskets for my tomatoes while we're in town?" I asked Mike.

At the Agway Mike and I walked around and didn't see any. Finally, I asked. "Do you have any tomato baskets?"

"Baskets?" she asked. "You mean the wire cages?"

"Yeah."

"They're up on the platform. If there aren't any there I'm sure there are more in the back."

While we were getting the cages, Mike notices that the rails for the train ran right through the building.

"This used to be the trestle," the lady told us. If you go outside and look you can still see it."

Once we paid for the cages, we went exploring. They built the building on top of the trestle and stored things underneath. From the end of the building on the trestle was gone.

On the way home, we took a little detour looking for the town of Evergreen. Not much there anymore. You can identify a place that used to be the grocery but's been turned into a private home. How about a few road pics?

And then it starts.

Patti, my oldest sister, sent me a text. "We're meeting at the Colley Pub for supper tonight. Do you want to join us?"

I couldn't say no.

My cousin Rosemary and her husband Carmen were in town for a funeral and would join us. Another sister, Phyllis, and her family would be here too. It was a kind of mini-reunion. My brothers wouldn't be in town until the next day.

I was incredibly excited to see my beautiful sisters again.

We all met in the parking lot and shared hugs.

At the table, I asked the waitress to take our picture. She said she would but she was too busy and never came back. The only picture I have of all of us — them is the one I took setting up the camera.

I took road pictures both ways.

Old and new. An old farm in the foreground and a new compressor station in the back.

On the way to the Pub, I could tell this was the farmer's cat. On the way home I see nature's cleaners are making short work of it.

Our sunset that night. See the moon?

The next day, Friday, Mike and I drove down to the B&B to join our family — yes our family. My family is his and his family is mine. We drove down to meet them, then we were going to tour the alpaca farm.

I took pictures. I've always loved the view from the top of the hill before you go down into Evergreen. The power lines ruin it but I can't do anything about that. Hay season has started.

Cherry Mills Lodge is just a few miles from Dushore. It's an old hotel converted to a six-room bed and breakfast. It's situated beside a beautiful creek.

"I looked for a way to get down to the creek," Patti told me, "but there isn't one. It looks so inviting with those big rocks. I'd just love to sit there and dip my toes."