Mr. Mister

          Dear Lord, help me realize that getting out of my rut isn’t such a bad thing after all. Amen.

          “Peg, why the prayer this morning?” you ask.

          Nothing went as planned for the last two days and I hate it! I like my rut! I like to sort pictures on Friday. I like to write on Saturday. And I especially like finishing it up early Sunday afternoon and spending the rest of the day in the recliner watching TV with my husband. That’s what I like. Instead, it was Saturday before I could start picture sorting. I had 1,431 pictures to wade through. I picked out 140 pictures and that’s too many for one week. Some were easy to toss. When I’m sorting, I’ll often save a picture then find out I like the next one better. So, I’ll have two almost the same and those are easy to decide between. Some aren’t quite in focus. If it’s not too bad, and I really want to show you the pic, I can sharpen it in my photo editing software — nothing special. Just what came with the computer. Some are still too blurry to save and those get tossed. All of the pictures have to be reduced in size. They range in size between five and seven mb. That has to be reduced to somewhere around 100 kb. It all takes time. It took all of my Saturday. I’m standing on 120 pictures this week. That’s still too many. Now what I’ll do is start and we’ll see where we end up.

“Peg, I'm pretty sure Mr. Mister has an abscess in his leg,” my oldest, much adored, and beautifulest sister told me after last week’s letter blog. “If you can puncture it, squeeze as much pus out as you can, if you have an old syringe without the needle, inject peroxide in it until it quits bubbling. It should heal up then.”

 I was skeptical about using peroxide. I’d done a little Googling and it said it wasn’t a good choice because it kills healthy tissue. It said to use saline solution and a topical antibiotic. “I did put some antibiotic on it today,” I told Patti. “He tolerated it really well. I'm not sure how much I actually got on it because it's scabbing over already. I'll definitely keep your advice in mind and give it a try if it opens again.”

 “The antibiotic won't do it as it needs to be flushed out to clear away all the bacteria.”

I knew she was right, despite what the internet said. Patti’s almost as wise as my mother was. And she’s taken care of her share of injured critters and snot-nosed brats. Being the oldest of a brood of eleven she was a little mother to us.

I looked out and saw Mr. Mister up on the feral cat house. I went out and looked a little closer at his wound. I was going to see if I could squeeze it and get any pus out of it. But guess what? These old rheumy eyes had deceived me. What I thought was a scab was a leaf stuck to it! I went to work picking it off. There was a pocket between his flesh and fur you could park a truck in! I got the peroxide and a syringe and flushed it. I finished off with a dab of antibiotic ointment.  

“He tolerated it really well,” I reported back to Patti. “Even purred while I scratched his head!”

I’ve been watching for him to come back for another treatment but he never did. It’s not that he wasn’t here. He came in and ate. But I didn’t catch him laying down and I’m not comfortable trying to make him lay down. I do like my fingers.

How about this!

“What is it?” you ask.

I know, right! I wanted to know too! I could see where something came out of it and I tried to tear it open with my fingers to see inside. That, my dear, was impossible. It was tough as leather!

I’d joined a Facebook group to help with critter ID’ing and posted it there.

“It’s a cocoon for a Cecropia Moth,” I was told.

Curious what a Cecropia Moth looks like, I Googled it. This is a huge silk moth. The wingspan is five to seven inches across. Like other large moths (the Luna for instance) the only purpose at this stage in their life is to reproduce. They don’t even eat. Thus, they have no mouth parts. And the male can smell the pheromones of a female from a mile away!

When they demolished our old single-lane open-grate bridge they gave us the cut stones from the abutment. At the time we didn’t know what we’d use them for but they were way too cool to pass up.

Mike found a use for them. He made a wall so he could get his tractor behind the barn and do some work.

And he’s not happy with it.

“I think it’s great!” I told him. After all, he’s never built a wall before and it will make going behind the barn safer.

We pulled a couple of stumps then I left Mike to haul gravel and even out the ground.

“I was being so careful,” he told me later. “But I hit the barn anyway.”

You know what I did, don’t you?

“Yell at him for hitting the barn?” you guess.

Nope. Shit happens. I grabbed my camera and went to document his little boo-boo. He fixed it though. A couple of screws and you can hardly tell he’d hit it at all.

The air is fragrant with all the Autumn Olive that’s blooming. Even though it’s invasive, you can eat the berries — after a frost to tame the tannins, or make them into jelly. No one in my house eats jelly so I’ll leave them for the birds.

Mingled with the Autumn Olive is another invasive, the bush honeysuckle. There’s plenty of that here too. I was walking down by the pond and heard a pair of bumblers getting into it. As I watched, this guy came and ‘stood’ guard. After a few minutes another bumbler comes out and they get into it again. Then he comes back to his post. I’ve never seen this before and have no idea what’s going on.

I kept hearing a lot of squawking but didn’t pay much attention at first. Then I realized that this female Red-winged Blackbird is guarding a nest. The male just sat on the overhead power line and kept issuing his warning call. 

The female kept trying to draw me away.

When I got back to the house, I told Mike, “You know those willows we were going to pull from the pond this year?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, blackbirds have a nest in it so it’ll have to wait.” I’m still upset I disturbed a nesting female there a couple of years ago and she abandoned her three youngins to die. I’m not doing that again.

Speaking of birds and nesting. Guess who’s making a nest in the barn?

“A Barn Swallow!” you say.

And you’d be right. We have a pair busy building a nest in the rafters of the barn. 

“How’re they getting in?” you wanna know.

Didn’t I tell you? Oh, no, I guess I didn’t. The tarp we had been using to cover the door until Mike could put the door in got torn to smithereens this winter. It looked awful and was making such a mess with little pieces of it all over the place. Mike’s ready to have the door installed so we took it down. And this industrious pair picked it to make their nest in.

“I don’t want a nest in there,” Mike said. “When the door’s in they’ll die. Plus they shit all over the place.”

“Then we’d better knock their nest down before they lay eggs.”

We went in and took down two old nests and found where they had started a new one. Mr. and Mrs. were pretty upset at us and flew around the whole time we were in there. But it didn’t deter them. We left and they started building again.

I got to reading about Barn Swallows. They have a wingspan of 12.6 to 13.6 inches. Their tails are deeply forked with the males being longer. They are a migratory bird. Their biggest predators are cats, hawks, gulls, and surprisingly, grackles. Barn Swallows can live up to 11 years but rarely live more than four. They have two broods per season laying between three and seven eggs. They hatch after 12 to 17 days and leave the nest 15 to 27 days later. Thirsty swallows scoop water with their beaks during flight. They also feed during flight and their favorite food is flies. Who couldn’t love a bird like that!

I begged Mike to let them have their nest in the barn.

“But they’ll die once the door’s put in,” he protested.

“We could leave the window open…”

He capitulated. Now I only hope the installers don’t drive them to abandon their nest when they put the door in.

I saw this guy perched on a line. He’s a Baltimore Oriole. 

 A thrasher. Brown Thrasher maybe?

A Black-capped Chickadee has made her nest in the house on my front patio. I’d never had anything in there other than wrens before. I’m wondering if it has something to do with the plastic we had surrounding our patio. By the tine we took it down most of the birds already had nests elsewhere.

And these birds. I don’t know what they are but when I first saw them, I thought they were Turkey Vultures. The neighbor is cutting hay in this field next to our house. The birds were sitting together and appeared to be feeding. 

“Did he hit a fawn?” I wondered. I know that happens. Mike drove up the lane but we couldn’t see anything. I have other pictures of the birds but none of them clear enough to see what they are. I know they’re not vultures and that’s about all I can tell. But I love the sky full of big clouds so you get to see this shot. 

We lost two of our critters. Smudge...

 ...and Spitfire who’s canoodling with my leg. He only loves me because I was making his breakfast. 

They went out Monday afternoon and didn’t come home Monday night. At first, we only missed Smudge. Spitfire sometimes spends the night out but he’s always home for breakfast. Smudge almost always comes when Mike calls for him in the evenings. Who’d’ve thunk my big ole grizzly mountain man could be upset about a cat. Well, he was. And he didn’t sleep well with worry. Smudge wasn’t there for breakfast and neither was Spitfire. That’s when we realized we had two cats MIA. We waited and called all morning and on into the afternoon.

“How can we lose two in one night?” Mike wondered.

“I don’t know unless the fox or a pack of coyotes got them.”

I didn’t know how far the boys range. I’m pretty sure they cross the road to Sally’s house but don’t think they’ve ever gone as far as the Kipps or the Robinsons. Still it couldn’t hurt to ask. We searched the road and the sides of the road in case they’d been hit.

“Even if they had been hit, we might not find them. Another critter could’ve drug ‘em off into the weeds.”

“I’m not sure I wanna see if they were hit,” my tender-hearted husband says.

“I know, but wouldn’t it be better to know?”

We stopped at the Kipps first. “Nope. Haven’t seen ‘em,” that handsome couple said.

We drove up to the Robinson place next.

“Nope. Haven’t seen ‘em,” that beautiful lady said. We chatted for a bit. “Wanna see my chickens?” Steph asked.

“I do!”

Steph shooed ‘em from the chicken house where they’d been hiding from the heat of the day and out into the run.

“They’re so big!” I exclaimed. They were only a couple of days old when I last saw them.

“I know!” Steph said. We watched for a bit then Steph says, “Is that a snake skin!”

I went around to the other side of the run and pulled it back through the fencing. It is a snake skin! And a big one! 

“He’ll be getting your eggs,” Mike says.

That reminded me of a story I either read or heard. Did Momma tell it? If she did then it was Grandpa or maybe Uncle Clarence trying to catch an egg thief. I shared the story with Steph in case she wanted to try it. “They drilled a hole big enough for the snake to pass through. Once the snake ate an egg or two he couldn’t get back out the hole and he couldn’t throw up the eggs either. He’d be there, stuck in the hole, in the morning.” I’m not sure she found that helpful.

Coming home our neighbor Sally was out tending her garden. “I haven’t seen them but I heard coyotes last night.”

Later that night, almost bedtime, Mike says, “I’m sad.”

“I know. I’m sad too.”

“But I’m really sad.”

Sometimes it doesn’t pay to have a tender heart.

Getting ready for bed, I let the girls out one more time and who comes bounding across the yard and up over the fence but Spitfire! The next morning Smudge came home! And all is right in my house again.

Anon. Do you remember which one she is? She’s a gray and white female. Smudge’s mom. She’s also the bully that gets a bee in her bonnet sometimes and swats everyone. She’s not allowed in the house anymore and has taken possession of the kitchen patio, bossing everyone around out there.

“Do you think the boys stayed away because of her?” I asked Mike.

“I don’t know. Maybe we should put her in the garage at night.”

And that’s what we’ve been doing. So far, the boys have come home every night since then.

Speaking of kitties. See Sugar? During the day they go out in the weeds where it’s cool. 

Look at this guy, would ya! He was in my house!

“Peg, that looks like a millipede,” you say.

Yep. And fun fact, millipedes do not have a thousand legs. How about more fun facts? They have two pair of legs per body segment. When they’re hatched they only have three pairs of legs. They don’t bite or sting but can exude a chemical that makes them taste awful to predators. When threated they curl into a spiral. And now, for the more adult members of my reading audience, male millipedes court females with songs and back rubs.

“Peg, that is just crazy!” you say.

I know, right!

Unfortunately for the male, a female millipede will often take his attempts to mate with her as a threat. She'll curl up tightly, preventing him from delivering any sperm. The male millipede might walk on her back, convincing her to relax with the gentle massage provided by hundreds of his feet. In some species, the male can stridulate, producing a sound that calms his mate. Other male millipedes use sex pheromones to arouse a partner's interest in him.

More than you wanted to know?

How about this? Millipedes are the oldest fossil specimen with spiracles for breathing air — and they live a long time. Unfortunately for this guy, he crossed paths with me. I took him outside to photograph him and turn him loose when he fell from my hand and landed on this board. He flipped back and forth a few times like he was trying to right himself then this white stuff oozed. Is that his blood? I wondered. As I watched it turned clear then he stopped moving. He was dead. I feel a little bad but not too bad. Not as much sympathy in my heart for bugs as for other critters.

How about this beauty! A Calligraphy Beetle. This is maybe the fourth one I’ve ever seen. When Mike and I were working behind the barn I found one but before I could take his picture he flew off. The very next day I found this one, who was more cooperative getting his picture taken. 

Star of Bethlehem. Also called Grass Lily, Nap-at-noon, or Eleven-o'clock Lady. It’s in the asparagus family. The flowers open late in the day and when closed have a green stripe on the outside. I was thrilled to see them growing at my pond. They are considered toxic despite being described as edible for 2000 years and incorporated into some traditional regional cuisines in places like Turkey and used in traditional medicine in India. Take my advice and don’t eat it.

This is Veronica speedwell or Thyme-leaved Speedwell. 

           My lilacs are blooming. I have a variety called Sensation Lilac. I’m guessing they crossed white and purple lilacs to make this kind because one of my bushes has a branch that produces all white lilacs.

          Momma loved lilacs and Kat loved purple so I cut some and brought them in. 

While at the Dollar General I picked up some cheap flower bulbs. I got a peony and some gladiolus. It took me a little while to decide where to plant them. They can’t be where Mike has to mow cause he doesn’t like to mow around stuff and they need full sun. So I chose right in the middle of the dog run. I take care of that area. I got a pick and a shovel and went to work. Oh, the problems of living on land that’s been filled!

 I chopped and dug and eventually excavated out the size hole I needed. Good garden soil, put the bulbs in and cover.

My next problem would be to keep the cats from using all that lovely loose soil as a litter box. I thought this wire would do the trick. 

The next morning, I could see where someone dug at it.

Doggone ground squirrels!

I thought my bulbs would be gone but they weren’t. A little later in the day I see Anon digging through one of the open spaces in the wire then backing up to it.

There was only one thing I could think to do. I got my shaker box off the wall where it was stored and used that to cover it.

I hated to use it. Mike made this for me so I can separate rocks form dirt and I didn’t want it ruined. But what else can I do?

Daisy Fleabane.

I took this picture because the grasses don’t waste any time blooming. The bug was a bonus. I don’t know what he is.

A damselfly. They sit with their wings folded back along their body whereas the dragonfly’s wings stick out.

 Mike thought the wet spots were dry enough for him to mow. They weren’t. Peg to the rescue! Twice!

Spatterdock, my pond lilies, are starting to bloom. 

And so is my Nannyberry. It’s called Nannyberry because the only thing that’ll eat it are nanny goats. It smells good though. In the fall I’ll show you the fruit. 

Look at this! It didn’t take long for someone to brand the new bridge. 

Our old Molly cat. We’re afraid she’s not long for this world. She’s nothing but a bag of bones. She’s taken to spending more and more time outside and if the sun is shining, you’ll find her warming her old bones.  

Look at this beautiful smiling face, would ya!  

Jody, my friend and sister-in-Christ, offered me some flowers. I originally went for some Chinese Lanterns and come home with Forget-me-nots and Spiderwort as well. Do you see the bed of flowers behind her? Those are the Chinese Lanterns and that is her husband Mike digging me up some.

“I started with six plants two years ago,” Jody told me. “Look at them now!”

I haven’t been to Jody’s in a while and she showed me her cute new greenhouse her husband built for her. “I still have to paint it,” she said.

This picture of some flowers on a shelf is my current desktop picture.

We sat around and talked, keeping socially distant of course.

“Nick’s watching something,” I told Jody.

“Oh yeah. There’s probably a chipmunk in the woodpile.”

 The sun was starting to set by the time we headed for home.

 Are you tired of sunset pictures?

The next day I went looking for more places to plant flowers. I was thinking of a corner of the mill. It’s mostly shaded and Mike doesn’t mow inside corners. I got the pick ax and the shovel and head out to the place I had in mind.

Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz… you get the idea.

They weren’t hard to find. I stood and looked at them and wondered if my picking and digging right below them would bother them. I decided to table the issue until I could talk to you about it.

These guys are about ten foot up. Do you think it would bother them? I really don’t want to get stung.

Speaking of beautiful smiling faces, look at this one, would ya! This is that beautiful sister of mine Phyllis. 

Remember one of my projects I did that I called Flower Garden because it had all flowers on it? Oh, and a little butterfly. Do you remember it? 

“I’d kill to have that,” Phyllis said.

I don’t really want my sister to go to jail because I love her so much so I decided I’d better send it to her. Besides, she does have a birthday coming up in mid-June.

All that is left in this week’s file are 59 road picture pictures. I’m thinking I’ll work on sending those out all by themselves in a few days.

Let’s call this one done!