Tis The Season

          So! I have to tell you something and it's something no one wants to admit.

          "What is it Peg? What's wrong?" you ask with all the kindness and sympathy you can muster.

          I found a cockroach. At least I'm pretty sure that's what he is.

          "EWWWW," you say.

          I know, right! Me too! This one is going for a swim in my to-let...er...toilet, which is where I dropped him after finding him amongst newspaper clippings of Bill Bower's column.

          "Bill Bower?" you query.

          He's a correspondent for the Williamsport Sun-Gazette and writes Reflections of Nature. Our newspaper carries his column and I really enjoy reading it.

          But anyway, if this guy and the one I showed you last week are the same bug, and if this guy and the guy I showed you last week are roaches, and if you knew the guy I showed you last week was a roach and you didn't tell me — shame on you!

          I don't want roaches! I'm not gonna have it! I'll get those pest bombs and set them off all over my house if I have to. But first I need to know if I have a problem. I got a flashlight and dug around in my closet, pulling out shoes and boxes and picking stuff up, and moving stuff around, but I didn't see any of these guys run. I did find a shoe stuffed with cat food, the work of an industrious mouse. I'll take mice any day over these things.

          From the closet, I moved to the bathroom. I searched under the sinks, moving things around and putting them back. No bugs. So far, so good. I moved on to the kitchen. If I have them anywhere, likely they'd be there. In the dark of under the sink and close to crumbs missed on counters and floors. Once again, I moved stuff and didn't find any evidence of them — and none of mice either.

          I'm breathing a little easier now but I'm still watchful — and still prone to go on the hunt every few days.

          Look at this beauty, would ya! This is Bristol and she just turned four and she's our great-granddaughter.

          Last Sunday was a get together at the church parsonage. We had hot dogs, S'mores, plus all kinds of sides and desserts others brought. I took a ton of pictures to commemorate the day.

          I just love the benches. The trees were cut from the church property and Larry, one of our parishioners', made them. Aren't they fabulous!

         

          The flowers of the Silky Dogwood have opened. Mike and I were on the golf cart taking a ride-about when I had him stop. I stood on the back of the cart to be high enough to get a picture for you.

  

       

          Construction!

          Oh my gosh! Construction everywhere! But I guess it's the season for it.

          Going into town, they're working on the bridge.

          "Pennsylvania has the worst roads and most crumbling infrastructure of any state," Mike told me.

          "Do you know why?" I asked.

          "Because they didn't spend the money to maintain them."

          "True," I conceded. "I'm sure that's part of it but another part is that Pennsylvania is an old state, so all of our roads and bridges are just plain old."

          More construction in town. 

          There's construction when you go to Laceyville. The side of the road collapsed taking the guide rail with it.

          Construction if you're going to Wysox.

          This is the view as you're coming into Wysox. The old grain silos on the left, the mansion turned C-store on the right.

          Once you finish your errands or shopping and head for home, you have to go back through all the construction again!

          "He's got all his tools on the back of his truck," Mike said.

          And I took a picture.

          There's so much dust in the air you can't see through it.

          As we crossed the little bridge I saw one guy with a water (or other liquid) hose wetting down the pavement. Another guy had another hose and was blowing this dusty stuff on top.

          Mike saw this and pointed it out to me. I missed it the first time past but got a picture on the way home. Horse head on a man body? What do you make of it?

          I took advantage of being stopped in traffic to take pictures and I'd like to share them with you.

          Chickens, whether it be boy chickens or girl chickens, always remind me of my Miss Rosie, since she loves them. You should see her house!

          And flamingos remind me of my far away old girlfriend Trish since she loves them.

          I love this shot but it only has one flamingo in it — and there's a shit-ton of them. So I took another shot and sent it to Trish. I figure she can use it to make her electronic jigsaw puzzles.

          "Flamingo heaven!" she says.

          And I took this one when we were stopped for construction too.

          We did something we haven't done in a while. We went on a golf cart ride down our dirt road to the lower bridge.

          The Robinson's old machine shed and barn look different this time of year.

          Our dirt road is sliding in two places, one here across from us, which isn't as bad as this one further down the road.

          And look at this, would ya!

          The cart has been farting a big ole stinky cloud whenever we ask it to pull us up a hill! I think he's sick.

          "There's a doe and two fawns," Mike says. His eyes are better than mine and he saw them a long way off.

          I got my camera up and focused as fast as I could but this is the best I could get. Normally I'd skip showing you such a blurry picture but hang with me a second. I've got a story and more blurry pics to go with this one.

          Mama deer heard us and doubled back for the babes. I didn't know she was going to do that or I'd have been ready.

          "One of the babies fell," Mike said.

          I twisted the zoom out, raised my camera, pointed it in the general direction, and depressed the shutter. Although not focused, I did get the baby fallen in the road. My heart leapt into my throat for fear a car would come tearing around the curve and run him over.

          But he got up and made it to the hay field where he disappeared.

          Don't ask me where the second doe came from. She must've been laying down, was the only thing I could come up with.

          We drove on past the does and fawns.

          "Look at how beautiful that bush is?" I said and nodded toward the house right across the road.

          "The Rhododendrons?" Mike asked.

          "No. The big white one. I wonder what it is. I asked Miss Rosie but she didn't know either."

          Mike made a u-turn and we headed back to the house.

          "I wonder where the fawns are?" I sat up a little straighter trying to see in the tall grass.

          "Pfft," Mike pffted me. "You won't see them in there."

          I turned and saw a doe silhouetted against the darkening sky. Even though these pictures were all taken only minutes apart, this one is so much darker because of where my focus is.

          Here's a wildflower I've never noticed before.

          The leaves kinda sorta remind me of a Wild Geranium but it's much too small to be one.

          "How small is it?" you ask.

          This small.

          I went through my beloved Aunt B's flower book and couldn't find it so I turned to Google. Still couldn't find it. Went back to the book. Maybe it's under pink flowers instead of purple, I thought. Still couldn't find it. Went back to the internet. It took some searching through pictures and changing my keyword but eventually I found it. This my dears, is Herb Robert. I looked in the index of the wildflower book and it is there. I turned to the picture and this time recognized it although I must have looked at it at least twice before. I don't always recognize them from the single picture in the book. That happens sometimes. The internet gives me a lot of different views and I kept looking until I found it.

          Herb Robert is in the geranium family. It's said to be named for Saint Robert of Molesme, an abbot and herbalist. His festival date in April occurs at about the time the flowers bloom in Europe. Several places say the leaves smell bad when crushed. One website says it's reminiscent of burning rubber. I'd brought one in the house with me to help with identification so I jumped up, picked a leaf and crushed it. It does smell like burning rubber! If you rub it on your skin it'll repel mosquitoes.

          Herb Robert was used in folk medicine as a remedy for toothache, nosebleeds, and as a vulnerary. That's a fancy word to say helpful in healing wounds.

          This is a tiny little butterfly called Blue Azure. The blueness of her wings caught my attention as she fluttered by and landed on this Buttercup. Look how big the Buttercup looks compared to her.

          Butterflies rest with their wings up so I wasn't able to get a picture with her wings out. Not this time anyway.

          This one is a Spicebush Swallowtail. The only reason I was able to get a picture is because he was busy getting minerals from the mud.

          The Spicebush gets its name because it's host plant is the spicebush. Makes sense, right.

          The swallowtail family includes some of the largest butterflies in the world. They're unique in that even while feeding they continue to flutter their wings. That's how I could get a picture with his wings open. Unlike other swallowtails, the Spicebushes fly low to the ground.

          Oh, one more critter before we go back to flowers. This guy was in the dog run! I used my pooper-picker-upper and gave him the boot. I didn't hurt him, just urged him to slither on out of the dog run. When confronted with the rake, he decided to go.

          Look what happened to my asparagus spear, the one I was letting grow. I hope the deer enjoyed it, that's all I gotta say.

          Creeping Charlie again.

          Raspberry or blackberry, I don't know.

          Salsafy!

          I first heard of this plant from my Miss Helen. She loves Salsafy, which is also called Oyster Plant because of the mild oyster flavor of its root. I've never tried any though.

          Once the flower goes to seed it looks just like a giant Dandelion. Good reason too. It's in the Dandelion family, only taller. Almost three feet high.

          Salsafy is a relative of the parsnip. You can boil, mash, or fry it like a potato. Besides the root you can eat the bottom six inches or so of the leaf.

          Hawkweed. I told ya I'd get a picture of the flowers for ya. This wildflower was used for diseases of the lungs like asthma and incipient consumption.

          "Peg, I've heard of consumption before, and don't know what it is, so what's incipient consumption?" you ask.

          Incipient means beginning to appear or develop. Consumption is any condition that causes progressive wasting of the tissues, especially tuberculosis of the lungs.

          Good question. Don't stop asking and we'll learn together.

          Rain.

          Rain, rain, and more rain.

          Mike and I got on the golf cart and checked out the pond once it stopped. It's full once again.

          The Daisies are blooming. These two are the first two I've seen and they're growing beside the pond. They'd better hurry and do their stuff though cause Mike is talking about hooking up the brush hog and mowing the banks.

          White Clover is blooming. This isn't the same as White Sweet Clover. I'll show you those when they bloom.

          I had to move the Iris that Miss Helen gave me. The bed I had it in was obstructing the flow of water so Mike wanted to take the bed out. I'm glad to see they're blooming.

          I saw a pretty Yellow Finch at the pond (not a great picture).

          As well as this beautiful Cedar Waxwing.

          "What have you guys been up to this week?" I hear you ask.

          Oh gosh. So many jobs to do around here when the weather cooperates. Mike doesn't like the front edge of our patio. So he built forms...

          ...cut out the grass and dug out the gravel to get the proper height...

          ...leveled and drove in some rebar for support...

          Smudge helped.

          And helped some more.

          Mixed concrete and poured it in the form.

          Had a blowout.

          But got it done.

          "I really should move the braces and trowel under it," Mike said, then added, "but I'm not going to."

          By this time Mike was in agony with his back. Concrete is funny though. Once you start, you gotta finish. We mixed and poured 13 bags of concrete.

          More rain was expected so we drug out plywood and plastic and covered it.

          "Smudge'll have to stay in his kennel until tomorrow," Mike said. "Or he'll be walking in the concrete. You know how curious he is."

          Smudge loves his kennel. He happily goes in every night. However, being confined for the rest of the day didn't suit him at all and he told us about it too.

          "Why does he have to be in a kennel?" you ask.

          Cause he's bad. Not all the time but a lot of the time. He is the only one of the cats that climbs up on the shelves and desks and counters and tables and knocks everything over. As long as he stays down, we don't kennel him.

          Mike took the forms off the next day and it looks great.

          "Good enough for me and the girls I go with," he tells me with a twinkle in his eye and a smirk on his face.

          Yeah. Good enough for me too and the guys I go with.

          We had to fix our sideways-growing Maple too. Last week there were tornadoes in some of the surrounding communities. We just got winds here. Winds big enough to pick the Maple up and lift him off the support.

          Mike got the tractor and lifted the tree while I pushed the support back home. Then he got some new screws into the tin that holds it from being blown off.

  

          My best girl Joanie helps with a giant yard sale benefiting Relay For Life. Friday we went to that. 

          Mike did the express tour then found a seat beside this gentleman and between the two of them, they've solved the world's problems.

          "Peg, do you know who this is?" Mike asked.

          "Who?"

          "This is Tess's father-in-law."

          "Ooooh," I said just like Edith Bunker.

          Mike liked Tess. She worked at the bank until she retired and Mike enjoyed talking with her whenever he went in there.

          "Small world," Mike says.

          "He's also Debbie's dad," I informed Mike.

          "Yep," Harry agreed.

          Debbie and my Joanie are sisters-in-law.

          "Did you buy anything?" you ask.

          I did. I picked up a couple of boxes of dishes and glassware to create with. I want to make some Garden Totems and maybe try some Garden Flowers too.

          Miss Rosie came up and together we built this one for her.

          I buried a few flower seeds and planted flowers in pots this year. On top of the one plant stand is a small dish with water.

          Put marbles in it to give the butterflies a place to land, was the advice from the internet. I did that. Now I've got what I can only assume is a raccoon coming around, digging in the flower pot then washing his hands in the butterfly bowl. It's not enough that he makes the water dirty, he has to dig through the marbles knocking them out onto the ground. After picking them up for the third — or is it the fourth time, I'm considering gluing the marbles together.

          "What's the oven rack on top for?" you ask.

          Simple. To keep the cats from using it as a litter box.

          Then that darn coon pulled the overripe banana from the holder I made for the butterflies. That's fine, he can have the banana, but did he have to stretch out the holder too!

          And don't you know, after that he got on the patio table and knocked Miss Rosie's Garden Totem over and broke the one orange piece we had in it.

          I'm not going to tell you that Mike said that would happen, but he did. I think he jinxed it. Yeah! I'm blaming it on him.

          "I'm so sorry, Miss Rosie," I told her at church this morning. "I've glued it back together and it doesn't look too bad, but I can use a different piece in there if you want me to."

          "I like the orange piece. I wanna keep it if I can."

          Garden totems are a waste of time, according to my Michael. "Why would you even want one?"

          Me? I like to make things. Glass is cheap. You can pick it up for practically nothing at sales. You can use the totem for yard art, which is what Rosie likes, or a bird feeder, or butterfly water station. You're limited only by the bounds of your imagination.

          Me?

          I've reached the bounds of page 16.

          Let's call this one done!