A New One

          Guess what!

          I know you can’t, so I’ll just tell you. ♪I got a new computer♫ ♪I got a new computer♫ I didn’t know how excited I was to have a new computer until I got one!

          My computer that crashed was about five years old and running Windows 8.1. I pulled out an even older computer to use; one we bought in 2012. While I was trying to set it up, I somehow lost my DVD player and couldn’t get it to work again. It was all very frustrating — but I was going to make do. Being on a fixed income, affording a new computer for me just wasn’t in the plan. Then this stimulus package was rolled out by the government and we found ourselves with some ‘extra’ funds.

          I know a new computer isn’t on everyone’s wish list. Some people don’t even own a computer anymore, instead doing everything they need to do on their fancy-schmancy smart phones. But it’s really important for what I do here. Both to write with and to edit my photos.

          Now, I want you to take note of my desk. It won’t stay this way for long. I’ll soon have papers and cards and letters and books stacked up along the sides — just like my mother. If you’ve ever seen her desk, that’s pretty much what mine looks like most of the time. I had to clean it off to set up my new HP All In One with a 24” screen and AMD Ryzen processor. I’m not sure what all of that means but Mike assured me it’s a good thing.

          “What about memory?” you ask.

          I don’t worry about memory so much anymore. I have an 8TB external hard drive that I save all of my photos and letter blogs to so I’m good in that department.

          “You’ll like Windows 10,” Mike said.

          And I do. I spent most of my free time on Friday learning my new computer. I had to break down and buy Microsoft Word. They wouldn’t let me use the 2007 version anymore. They said I’d reached my limit of activations. I uninstalled it from the 2012 computer, but it still wouldn’t let me activate it. I Googled my problem and found out that if I called them, I could probably get them activate if for me.

“Just buy a new one,” Mike told me.

          Microsoft wants sixty-nine dollars a year for Word 365 and has a lot of extra programs that I’m not interested in. After doing a little digging I found a stripped-down version of Word 2019 for a one-time purchase price of one forty-nine.

          “Peg, there are other programs out there that are free,” you say.

          I know, right! And I’ve even used one. Google Docs. But it wouldn’t do everything I needed to do, and I’m just plain stuck on Word.

Then I had to figure out how to import photos from my camera and where they got stored. I didn’t have stuff set right and it imported all of my 400 and some odd photos into one folder and renumbered them starting with number one. It’s going to be a lot of work to straighten that mess out, and with very little reason to do so I’m not going to do it. From there I went on to figuring out how to do the small amount of editing that I do on my photos. A little contrast, a crop here and there, and reducing the size is about all I do. After that I went to work sorting and editing photos for today’s letter blog, a job I finished up Saturday morning.

          So, pictures might be out of order, but I don’t expect that’s going to be a big deal.

          Mike and I have checked on the progress of the new bridge a couple of times this week, but I don’t have any pictures to share. It’s not that I don’t have any, I do, it’s just that I don’t have any good ones. They expect to have it finished this week.

         

          “Peg, you wanna go for a ride?” Mike asked early in the week.’

          “Where?” my first and automatic response.

          “I don’t know. Out the back way and up around. Let’s just go and blow the stink off. You can make pictures.”

          I set my craft project aside, made a travel cup o’ joe, and off we went. The first thing I notice is the beaver pond is gone! I don’t know if the DNR broke the dam or if it happened on its own.

          “Why would DNR do it?” you wanna know.

          The only thing I was thinking is that since the DNR building is right next door maybe they were afraid of it flooding?

          

          Two old drums buried in the hillside and decomposing.

          I spot blossoms on a tree a little way off the road. 

          I can’t get to them, I think as we drive past.

          But they’re so pretty! methinks. Surely you can try!

          By this time, we’re on up the road. I’m very aware of the fact that the longer I take to think about it, the farther away from them we’re getting.

          “Mike, could you back up?” I finally blurted.

          Mike’s a good husband and immediately puts the brake on, shifts into reverse, watches his mirrors as he backs up and asks, “Why?”

          “There’s some blossoms on that tree back there and it would make a pretty picture for my letter blog.”

          “Tell me when,” he says, and I do.

          Down the bank and into the weeds I go to get my picture.

            On the way back out I see a bird’s nest. I checked for eggs but there weren’t any. 

Halliburton trucks stopped at a red light on a small country dirt road. “Why are they stopping them there?” I wondered aloud.

          “I don’t know,” Mike answered.

          Goslings and a view of our Rainbow bridge.

          Around the house I took pictures of the catkins on our sideways growing Box Elder tree. After this stage it gets helicopter seeds on it, much like a maple because Box Elder is a maple tree. It has a lot of other names which include Boxelder Maple, Ash Maple, Three-leaf Maple, and several more.

          Native Americans used the wood from this tree to make flutes, bowls, dishes, drums, prayer sticks, and pipe stems, because it’s a soft wood. 

          Many tribes used the sap to make syrups and candy. They would take scrapings of the inner bark, dry it, and keep it as winter food.

          This tiny little flower is Chickweed. Even though we tend to see this as a weed, you can eat it. The leaves can be added to a sandwich, tossed into a salad or cooked. It has a neutral taste like spinach or lettuce. It’s full of vitamins A, B1, B2, and C, as well as fiber and protein. 

          Chickweed has holistic uses as well. It can treat constipation, iron deficiency, asthma, and joint pains to name a few. You can also apply it directly to the skin to treat the itchies, bruises, boils, ulcers, and psoriasis. You must first bruise the leaves or steep the stems in hot water before applying to the affected areas.

   

          And this is the flower of the Service Berry or June Berry tree. It gets an edible fruit on it that’s similar to a blueberry and can be used in many of the same ways.

          There are three early spring bloomers that are easy to confuse. I showed you Creeping Charlie last time. I haven’t seen any Henbit yet. And this one is Dead Nettle.

          “Why’s it called Dead Nettle?” I know you wanna know.

          Because, unlike Stinging Nettle, this one is ‘dead’ and won’t sting you.

          Despite belonging to the mint family, these leaves taste nothing like mint. You can eat the leaves fresh in your salad when they’re young. They also make a great substitute for things like spinach and kale. You can blend it with other greens and some lemon juice and make a green smoothie. As with other wild edibles, it can be used as a potherb, or made into tea.

          Dead Nettle tea is potent in healing kidney diseases, allergies, and common colds. It can boost the immune system and fight off infections.

          The leaves can be used to stop bleeding and heal cuts, burns, and bruises.

          I write about these things strictly for informational purposes. If you intend to try it, you should research it further or check with your doctor.

          

          This is an Eastern Comma Butterfly. The males will sit on leaves or tree trunks to watch for females. They’re aggressive and will chase other butterflies and even birds.

          The female lays her eggs on a variety of host plants including Elm trees, Wood Nettle, and False Nettle.

          The adult feeds on rotting fruit and tree sap.

          Sometimes on our walks, Mike’ll need a break, so we’ll sit on the Kipps front porch and visit with them while he catches his breath.

          Look at this! Look at this! Another piece of art by that fabulous and talented feisty-little-redheaded neighbor of mine. I see Tux there in the back yard behind the Rhodies and Forsythia.

          “Did you put sticks in it?” I asked Lamar.

          “Nah. Not me.”

          “Well it’s got sticks in it.”

          ♪Someone’s building a nest♫

          I saw the big Quince Bush blooming in the backyard of the Kipps and went to take pictures. I have a Quince Bush of my own but it’s a lot smaller since Mike mowed it over. And it doesn’t have any flowers on it yet. 

          As you can imagine, it was alive with the hum of bees!

          This is a tiny little flower called Speedwell.

          I think you’d be hard-pressed to find many things in nature that aren’t useful in some way. Speedwell is considered a diuretic, expectorant, and stomachic (promoting the appetite or assisting digestion). As with most bitter herbs, an infusion of Speedwell can be used as a wash for troubled skin.

          We did a second drive-about this week too. Coming through Terrytown I see something on the road.

          “What is that?” I ask.

          We were still pretty far away when Mike answers, “I don’t know. A buzzard maybe?”

          Then we got closer. “No! It’s an eagle!”

          I’m not sure if Mike said that or if I did. 

          Mike slowed down and as we got closer the eagle spread his wings and took off.

          Mike pulled into a parking lot but by the time we got turned around we he was gone.

          “I bet that made the whole trip worth it,” Mike said.

          “Absolutely!”

          Then this goose family crossed the road in front of us.

          Mike slowed down again and we watched them waddle out to the pond.

          Let’s see if I can answer a few of J.D.’s questions. I could write to him personally but then I got to thinking. What if some of you have the same questions but are too shy to ask.

          “What’s the difference between a sweet potato and a yam?” J. D. asked.

          Yams tend to be pointer and shorter while sweet potatoes are similar to a large russet potato. On the inside, the yam is whiter and firmer, while the flesh of a sweet potato is orange in color. As for flavor, yams are less sweet and more starchy and dry.

          “Did you ever find out what was in the ceiling?” he also asked.

          Nope. Never even looked. Sometimes I get a whiff of something dead but that could be a mouse somewhere too.

          J.D. was also curious about the upside-down car. “It’s kinda hard to run off the left side of the road in the middle of a left-hand curve.”

          I guess I don’t know which way the car was traveling when he lost control.

          “Is that Anon or Smudge in the picture of the cat toy?”

          It’s Anon. But I understand your confusion. Anon is Smudge’s mother and they have almost the same markings. The only difference is Anon is gray and white and Smudge is black and white.  

          Speaking of Anon…

          She has been relegated to the out-of-doors. It breaks both Mike’s heart and mine because we love our critters and don’t like to see them unhappy and Anon is very unhappy right now.

          “What’d she do?” you wanna know.

          Anon is fine most of the time but once in a while she gets a bee in her bonnet, so to speak, and bullies the other critters. She laid into Spitfire the other day and I had to pick gobs of his fur from the carpet. Spitfire won’t even come into the house without first checking to make sure that Anon’s not lurking nearby to swat him. Most times it doesn’t come down to blood or fur loss. Most times she’ll just swat and run. She’s even swatted at me when I walked past her. And she’s gotten Michael a couple of times. But the straw that broke the camel’s back is Ginger.

          “What’s going on?” you ask.

          Ginger has undergone a radical personality change in the past couple of weeks. If she’s sleeping and you touch her, she cries and cries and cries. Actually, you don’t even have to touch her. You can just move the blanket she’s sleeping on or put your hand down close to her and she’ll cry. It’s gotten so bad that she won’t even sleep in the bed with me anymore — which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I do miss her.

          “Maybe she’s sick?” you wonder.

          I know, right! I wondered the same thing too. But she never cries any other time when you pick her up and she’s eating and pooping just fine.

          Keep the questions coming. I love your feedback.

          Do you know what else I love? I love morning love notes. I have, what I like to call, my Love Club. This club started almost five years ago with one person. My beautiful sister Phyllis. In the past year or so it’s expanded to include many of the people that I love. Every morning I send out a little note. Usually it’s a short little note about something that happened or what my plans are for the day. Then I go about my day and wait for the dings to start rolling in. That’s the noise my computer makes when a new note comes in. My heart jumps and I stop whatever I’m doing to go look.

          What makes my morning love notes a bit of a challenge is I include a greeting. Good morning dear sister, is how it started. Then I got the idea to send out a test note to some of my family and friends. It was so well received I continued to include them. What I do is copy the first note and change sister to brother to friend to son to niece to nephew and send it to everyone else. You might see how this can get confusing. Well, there have been times when I didn’t change it. Then I had to fess up that my notes aren’t exactly personal. That there were more people getting it than just them.

          You know what?

          No one seems to mind.

          “I feel like I am your sister,” my beautiful friend Trish told me. We were quite close for a long time.

          “We are sisters,” another beautiful friend said. “Sisters in Christ.”

          So the pressure is off a little that I don’t have to remember to change it for them.

          However, it was a bit of a sticky wicket when I called my brothers dear sister and had to apologize.

          “Good morning sis,” my handsome brother David wrote. “It didn’t bother me. Your morning notes are nice and I get a chance to tell you what I'm doing and I know you pass it on and I think that’s super nice. I miss my family. Life goes and we do what we have to do. You’re a lifeline to our family. Tell every brother and sister that I love them.”

          A lifeline? I know that I hold dear to all the returning love notes, every one, every day. You all are my lifeline!  

          I am deeply comforted by the love and understanding I get when I do mess up my salutation.

          The start of our week wasn’t too bad and I got the weedeating done around the dog run and the house. I had to change the strings in the weedeater. It’s one of those heads that uses one piece of string. You have to poke out the stubs of the old ones and insert new ones. 

         Getting out the little pieces is somewhat of a challenge. Mike uses a screw when he does it for me but not me. I found an ice pick. I’m holding the head in one hand and trying to pry out the piece with the ice pick and can you see where this going?

          Yeah.

          I better move my hand before I stab myself, I thought. And I did move it. Only, the head turned and my finger ended up in the stab zone again and I did it! I stabbed myself! It didn’t bleed right away and I thought I could finish the job but great drops of deep red blood started to flow and I had to take care of it.

          “Put turpentine on it!” I heard my mother in my head.

          I did. I washed it off, got out the turpentine, doused my stab wound, and put a Band-Aid on it. You know, my mother was right. Turpentine did keep it from getting sore! But you have to use the real stuff made from pine gum, not the chemical stuff.

          The end of our week was cold and blustery. Weather forecasters called for us to get three to five inches of snow.

          We didn’t get it.

             Sigh. 

            If it sounds like I’m disappointed that’d be because I am. There’s nothing quite like a couple of inches of the fluffy white stuff — and I like the snow!

              Let’s end with a couple of evening pics of the Luby home.

   

          Remember you are all in my heart.

          Done!