Busy Busy

 

          Oh. My. Gosh! What a week this week has been.

          “It must’ve been, Peg,” you say. “You promised an extra letter blog of just road pictures.”

          Well, I’m not so sure I promised, but I didn’t get to it this week, that’s for sure. The nice thing about road pictures though, they’re not time sensitive. They’ll keep.

          “I was thinking,” my beautiful friend Joanie told me a couple of weeks ago, “that you should go get a good picture of the mural someone painted of Ben Franklin flying his kite.”

          It only took me two trips to Towanda before I remembered to do that.

          Can you guess what store this is on? Yep. An old Ben Franklin arts and craft store. It closed a few years ago and was recently purchased by Bradford County at a price tag of $300,000.

          “What are they gonna do with it?” you wanna know.

          This is the future home of the police station, nice and close to the courthouse — right across the street, as a matter of fact. And Joanie walks past it every day on the way to her job at the courthouse.  

          I don’t know if they’re going to paint over the mural or not but Joanie thought I should get a picture of it just in case.

Ben was painted by Bonnie Bell, a local artist and art teacher in 2013. Bonnie died unexpectedly last year at the age of 68.

Once I got my picture, we left by way of a few alleyways. And that’s where I got this picture.

Then down along the river is this building. The old creamery.

 

I always thought it was a cool building. It’s got a for sale sign out front and its own historical marker. Passing it on this day is the first I realized its home to apartments. Whether there’s room for a retail business on the first floor or not, I don’t know. And it doesn’t matter. I’m not buying it anyway.

Instead of going home our usual route, Mike took the twisty windy Route 187 home.

 

Ah. Window reflection claims another victim.

 

Wrecked truck yard.

            I hate when I can’t decide which view to show you. Help me out, would ya?

            Last one. An old wrecker. It’s been sitting here for years and used to be covered with a tarp, which is long gone. I’m guessing it was going to be a project. But, like some of my projects, it’s sitting on the back burner. Ya just can’t get in a hurry about some of this stuff.

 

    I want to call this picture a bee overdosing on pollen. It looks like his eyes are closed, his tongue is deep in a flower, and he’s just absolutely covered in pollen. The picture before this one, he’s rubbing an eye with his foreleg. But overdosing is no joking matter. In fact, it’s a pretty serious problem here in our area. I’d hate to appear to be insensitive to anyone’s heartbreak of losing a loved one to overdose. Trust me, I’m not. I know the heartbreak. But with me it’s car accidents. Every time I see a picture of a head-on or a Life flight helicopter, it brings Kat’s accident back to me. So, here’s a bee covered in the pollen of goldenrod.

 

A Mason Bee. I’m not sure what he’s up to but this is his second trip to the underside of Mike’s patio chair.

I believe this is one very beat up male Ichneumon wasp. Half an antenna and minus a leg. If it was a female, she’d have a very long ovipositor.

 
 

Speaking of bees!

Guess what?

I got stung — again! And in the very same spot. Not in the very same spot on my body but the very same spot as in location of where I was when I got stung!

I dismissed the first sting as the work of a rogue bee, but a second unprovoked attack looks mighty funnyspicious to me!

I was following Mike around the corner by the feral cat house when I hear the drone of a kamikaze bee. Before I could do anything, he slams into my neck, stinging me. I think I cursed. Bee stings are not fun. But I know I definitely swatted him. Then continued on our way to whatever chore we were doing.

With the last bee sting still fresh in my mind — I swear! The new bee sting made the old one throb again! — I didn’t want to go through the pain and itch all over again. Baking soda helped so-so. Lavender oil, not at all. Is there anything else? I wondered. I Googled it. Plantain. The lady said she chewed a leaf and spit it on the bee sting and the pain subsided right away. I have lots of plantain in my yard. Both kinds. This one with the flowers at the end of a long spike is Narrowleaf or English Plantain.

And the broadleaf kind is Greater Plantain or White Man’s Foot, so called because the settlers brought it over with them and every place they went, plantain grew.

I grabbed a leaf from the broadleaf, took it in the house and mashed it with a knife handle. I expected it to work right away and was disappointed when it didn’t. Maybe I didn’t mash it enough. Maybe you gotta chew it. I went back out, got another leaf, inspected it for bugs, chewed it, swallowed some of the juice — it tasted green — spit it into my hand and dabbed it on the sting. It did seem to help. It didn’t swell as much or itch as bad as the first one did.

Holistically, plantain has been used for a long time. Its skin poultices work wonders on wounds, sores, or insect stings. The root was used for fever and respiratory infections.

The leaves of the plantains are edible as a salad green when young and tender, but they quickly become tough and fibrous as they get older. The older leaves can be cooked in stews. The leaves contain calcium and other minerals, with 100 grams of plantain containing approximately the same amount of beta-carotene as a large carrot. The seeds are so small that they are tedious to gather, but they can be ground into a flour substitute or extender.

Later, when I had a chance to think about it, I realized there must be a nest somewhere. I stood close — but not too close — until I could hear and spot them. They’ve made their home between two boards.

“I guess they thought I was too close.”

“Want me to spray them?” Mike asked.

“No. They’ll be gone next year.” In the meantime, I take the long way around.

 

You know somethin? I’m finding out that the more I learn about wildflowers and critters, the less know.

Take, for instance, this one right here. I might’ve told you before this is Pennsylvania Smartweed. But there’s a number of smartweeds that look similar. And I do think this one is Pennsylvania Smartweed, but let’s suffice it to say it’s smartweed.

Smartweed is in the buckwheat family and edible. The seeds are very hot and can be used as a pepper substitute.

In folk medicine a tea was made to stop bleeding from hemorrhoids, as well as menstrual bleeding and other uterine bleeding. They also use it to treat diarrhea.

 

This is a closeup of a tiny little flower called willowherb. But like the smartweed, there are several varieties of willowherb. You’ve got Purple-leaf, Bog, Fringed, and Marsh Willowherb.

 

This is another willowherb.

 

This is Indian Tobacco. And yes, the Indians did smoke it, usually mixed with other herbs and barks and only for religious ceremonial purposes. They also smoked cannabis.

Indian Tobacco was used to counteract sickness produced by witchcraft. The Cherokee mashed the roots and used it as a poultice for body aches. The leaves were rubbed on sores, aches, stiff necks, and chapped places.

 

Dragonflies!

 

I’m lovin’ the sharp images I’m getting with my new camera!

This is a robber fly with his supper.

Flies are just plain ugly, aren’t they?

“Not if you’re another fly,” I hear my handsome neighbor Lamar Kipp say.

          

I think I’ve discovered why all of my glads are on the ground.

Yep. That’s Tiger making a hammock out of them.

Now that I’ve broached the subject, how about some Tigerness. You know, joyfulness? Cuteness? Sugar and sweetness?

Tiger is smart. When we first got him, he’d play with Mike’s toes after we’d gone to bed.

I laughed. “Aw. That’s so cute!”

Well, it’s not nearly as cute when it’s my toes he’s trying to play with, let me tell ya! He keeps those claws nice and needle-sharp!

We only had to toss him off the bed a couple of times, two nights in a row before he got the message. He doesn’t try to play toesies with us anymore.

One of Tiger’s favorite things to do is play fetch. He’s better at it than any dog I’ve ever owned, which isn’t saying much. Ginger and Itsy never played fetch.

Tiger loves anything that crinkles. Mike gets those little half packs of Ritz crackers and often munches one while we watch TV in the evening. Tiger gets the empty wrapper. It’s not heavy so I can’t throw it very far, but Tiger leaps and bounds after it, sometimes swats it around a little, then carries it back to me. He always puts it down within easy reach and looks at me with expectant eyes. He’ll play for a good twenty minutes — half hour easy!

Giving him Ritz wrappers might’ve been a mistake. Last night Mike only ate half the pack, twisted the end, and set it on the chair-side table. Tiger grabbed it and took off with it.

“Peg!” Mike yelled.

I could tell by the way he called my name that something was wrong. I jumped up and went running in there. “What?”
          “Get those away from him.”

Before I could ask, Tiger comes strutting toward me with a half pack of Ritz dangling from his mouth. I laughed.

But don’t go thinking Ritz cracker wrappers are the only thing he has an affinity for.

I was on the pot the other day, lettin’ my water down, so to speak, and Tiger heard me unwrap a new roll of tissue and came running. It’s Scott brand and when it comes from Sam’s Club, they’re individually wrapped.

I wadded it up and tossed it.

He took off a hundred miles an hour! He batted it around for a while then jumped up in my computer chair with it so I’d throw it for him again.

And oh my gosh! Ritz crackers might be Mike’s thing but oyster crackers are my jam! I love those things! I’ll open a pack and dump them into a plastic bowl with a lid.

Guess who heard me open a new pack?

Yep. Tiger came running. I heard him and had to laugh. I knew what he wanted. I shook all the crumbs from the bag, crumpled it into a ball and tossed it for him. He was off like a shot. But did he bring it back to me?

NO!

He took it into the living room, up the doggie steps, and dropped it in Mike’s lap.

Mike tossed it for him a couple of times but if you’ve ever tried to ball up the wrapper from oyster crackers, you’d find out pretty quick it doesn’t stay ball-like very long. Tiger ended up stepping on the bag as he carried it back to Mike. Fetch with a cracker bag is short lived.

Tiger is almost as good as a dog.

          “He’s your little yellow dog,” Mike teases.

And in some ways, he’s even better than a dog! I know that surprises you. It shocks me too and I said it! The nice thing about a cat versus a dog is I don’t have to leave the movie I’m watching on TV to take him outside. And I can leave him home by himself a lot longer than I can with a dog.

And Tiger is way better than Itsy in that he wants to be with us. Itsy, at 15, only sleeps in her bed, getting up only to eat or pee on my floor. She can’t always make it outside these days.

You can find Tiger in the chair with Mike or he’ll keep me company at my desk.

He doesn’t give me a lot of room to work my mouse. I’d been typin’ for a while and when I looked back, Tiger was asleep with his nose pressed down on top of the mouse. It’s a good thing I have a touch screen. Can’t disturb the sleeping cat, don’t ‘cha know.

Tiger was sitting on my desk and I was petting him when I see him zero in on something across the kitchen. I hadn’t heard a sky raisin, aka a fly, so I turned to look. Do you know he saw Mike’s TV reflected in the microwave?

Tiger sees things on the screen. I don’t think all animals can or do. He’ll watch my cursor as it goes across the page and try to get it, his paws moving the cursor position.

I made a short video of him and Smudge wrestling and I was playing it on the computer and he watched it — and tried to play with the cats on the screen. Does he know it’s him? I doubt it. But maybe he recognized Smudge.

Tiger didn’t take up my whole week. I made a cake. Just a box white cake. A buttercream frosting came up on my Facebook feed and since Mike loves buttercream I decided to try it. This was made with marshmallow cream, butter, powdered sugar, and a little vanilla.

“Did Mike like it?” you ask.

It was just okay. It’s currently in the freezer. When the Kipps get back from their beach vacation, I’m gonna share it with them.

The real time consumers came in the form of one major, one medium, and one small project this week. The medium and small ones are complete, the large one is ongoing.

The small one was cleaning around this pine tree. Mike was worried about the grape vines growing on top.

“We gotta get it off there,” Mike said. “It’ll kill the tree.”

I’m not so sure it will but we spent an afternoon hacking and cutting the weeds and bushes from around it so we could get to the grape vine. We tossed everything into a pile and Mike mulched it with his Gravely.

I’m going to guess this vine has been growing for many years. It had a base as big around as my forearm and nice clusters of grapes.

But it’s gone now, and I’m sad to see it go. It fed a lot of birds.

The biggest project and the one that’s ongoing is my back or kitchen patio. I call it both names.

Here’s your before picture.

And here’s all my stuff out in the yard.

 

“What are you doing?” you ask.

We’re putting down patio stones.

Mike used his tractor to even out the dirt then he got in there with the rake and finished the job.

There were a lot of tree roots in this area that we thought might cause us to do a little creative thinking, but in the end, we found we could simply pull them out. They were dried up rotten dead.

Next came the pea gravel and Mike got a blister from all the raking.

At the end of the first day he had a baker’s dozen laid. That’s thirteen, in case you didn’t know.

I think I’m really gonna like it!

I hung around quite a bit that first day. Moral support I guess because there wasn’t really very much I could do.

I wasn’t the only one hanging around either. Mike and I were both quite surprised at how close this cheeky little beggar got to us, and how close we could get to him before he’d fly away.

“He’s looking for seeds.”

He was scavenging on the ground under where the feeders would’ve been if I’d’ve put them out. I didn’t bother. I didn’t think we’d get any birds since we were working in the area.

Later in the day I’m in the pantry looking for containers to freeze that cake in and I hear scratch, scratch, scratch.

Damn mice! I think and go back to rummaging around.

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

It sounded to me like he was up on the shelf on my box of vinyl. I’ll fix him, I thought and went over and smacked the box.

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

I looked over and guess what I see?

“A mouse?” you guess.

Good guess, but no. That little Junko had gotten into the house.

“How did that happen?” you wonder.

While we were working on the patio, we left the kitchen door open.

I got my bat net out and tried to catch him. He easily evaded the net and headed out into the kitchen. Since the door was still open, I think he flew out. I shut the door.

A little later I see Tiger. All of a sudden, he squats down into stalking mode, ears flattened against his head. I look where he’s looking and there, perched on one of the paintings was the Junko. I went after the net again but didn’t take time to get a picture. I was worried Tiger’d get him before I could. I opened the door then tried to get the net over Mr. Junco. He went around it and this time I did see him go out the door.

In the meantime, I have to tell you another story. Mike broke the key off in the ignition of the Kioti weeks ago.

“I just went to flip it to off and it broke,” he told me.

We dug the key out — did you know the switch has to be off before you can get the key out? Yeah? We only worked on it for like five minutes before one of us remembered that.

Mike used the spare and a couple of days later he broke that one off too.

“They’re flimsy keys,” he justified. “They’re just made from aluminum.”

“How’d you break this one?”

“I was turning around in my seat to see the brush hog and hit it with my knee.”

“You and your long legs,” I said.

We bought two more keys.

“You need to stick that thing in the vise and cut most of it off,” I advised.

And now, a couple of weeks later, Mike’s working on the patio mostly by himself. I was in the house doing something and I see the garage light’s on. I walked out to see what he’s doing and this is what I see.

“What ‘cha doin?” I asked.

“Cuttin’ the key off.”

“How come?”
          “I hit it with my knee again.”

“Did ya break it?”

“No. And I don’t want to either.”

Funny how, when it’s his idea, it’s a good one.

Men!

 

We never finished the awning over the kitchen patio. When we built it we’d used repurposed metal roofing and there wasn’t enough to do the whole thing.

“This is good enough for now,” I told Mike. “It’ll keep the snow and rain off my kitchen door.”

But now…

“Peg, I think we should finish the awning before it rains and we have a mud pit to work in,” Mike said. And that was our medium size job.

We got up early… wait. We didn’t really get up early because we always get up early. What we did do is get around and head out to Laceyville Lumber for purlins and three sheets of metal roofing to finish the job.

The Susquehanna.

Once we crossed the bridge, I was looking at my new camera settings and there’s one called EFFECTS.

What’s that do? I wondered, turned the dial to select it, and snapped a picture out the front of Big Red. Yeah, we took the big truck to get our supplies.

Oh! Why would anyone want to take pictures like that? I wondered and turned the dial back to action mode, where I take the majority of my pictures.

It was foggy on this morning. This is the gate to the new LNG facility, all closed up. They shut the project down.

 

But the picnic table is still sitting atop the dirt pile.

 

“Why’d they shut it down?” you wanna know.

Mike says Chesapeake is embroiled in a lawsuit with the government for ripping people off and it looks like they might lose. They’ve declared bankruptcy so they don’t have to pay us what they owe us.

Cresting a hill.

 No fog in town.

 

Inside the lumber barn — don’t ask me why I took a picture for you.

With more than four feet of metal sticking out the back, Mike took a back road home. The house burned but the chimney’s still there.

Mike setting a purlin.

“Peg, what’s all that stringy stuff hanging down?” you ask.

Remember I told you we used reclaimed metal? Yeah, well it already had holes in it. We put house wrap down to keep it from leaking on the patio so bad when it rains.

My view from the top. It was my job to guide the new metal under the old so water funnels down over top and not under. Then screw it down.

The first piece went up fairly well but no matter what I did I could not get the next piece under the old roofing.

“I’ve got an idea,” Mike said. “Come on.”

We went to the upper barn and got a short piece of metal. I put it under the old and on top of the new and ‘shoehorned’ it in. It was pretty slick.

The last piece was giving me issues and Mike had to come up and help me get it in place, but in the end, it was Luby’s three, roof, zero!

It’s quite a bit darker in the kitchen now and I’m worried I’ll have to find a new place to put my few measly little house plants or give them away.

“I can put a couple of clear panels over the window,” Mike offered. But it might be a while till we can do that. Eventually all of the old metal will get taken off and replaced with new and that’ll take care of the fraying house wrap.

Friday, I was working on pictures at my desk, Tiger keeping me company, kitchen door open (but screen shut to keep the birds out), when the clatter of a shovel handle hitting stone sounds. Tiger took off like his tail was on fire, jumped off the desk, goes under and climbs through the hole into the cabinet. I laughed, opened the door, and took his picture. I guess that’s his safe place.

 

Early one morning I took laundry out to the line. The dew was still on the webs. I should go take web pictures, I thought but only took these two. There’s just something about all those perfect little pearls that fascinates me.

A naked ladybug! He hasn’t any spots!

 

And your gratuitous humbee photo.

 

My first aster. You know what that means, don’t you?

“Fall’s coming?” you guess.

Yep. Fall’s coming.

 Great Blue Lobelia or Blue Cardinal Flower. It’s species name, siphilitica, is based on the fact that it was a supposed cure for syphilis.

The Iroquois used the plant as a cough medicine. The Meskwaki ground up the roots of this plant and used it as an anti-divorce remedy. The mashed roots were secretly put into some common dish, which was eaten by both husband and wife.

I wonder if it works.

The Cherokee used a cold infusion of the roots of great blue lobelia and cardinal flower to treat nosebleed. A poultice of the crushed leaves of the plant was used for headache and a warm leaf infusion was good for colds.

 

Check out the star-shaped seeds of the Ditch Stonecrop.

 

A Monkey Flower.  This is an important larval host for Baltimore and Common Buckeye butterflies. These lovely butterflies lay their eggs on the foliage, which provides an immediate food source once the caterpillars hatch

I wish I could remember where I took this picture.

I don’t know what this one is. I posted a pic on the plant ID group on Facebook and someone is guessing it’s something in the buckwheat family. That’s the same family as smartweed and I have lots of smartweed growing in the area.

 

I found this guy in my kitchen where he’s got no business being. I took him outside. Don’t freak. It’s just a wolf spider and not a very big one. They’re generally not aggressive — unless you pinch him. Then he might bite you.

Wolf spiders don’t spin webs. They chase and pounce on their insect prey like the wolves that inspire their name. Once caught, the wolf spiders will either mash it up into a ball or inject venom into it, liquefying its insides into a wolf-spider smoothie.

Sometimes you’ll see a female with a bunch of youngins clinging to her back until they get old enough to fend for themselves.

 

And this beauty is called a Question Mark Butterfly. He looks very much like an Eastern Comma. You can tell the difference by the spots in the center of the wing. A Comma has three black dots in a row, the Question Mark has a dash then three black dots. See it? 

Speaking of butterflies, I’m out of room and can’t tell you the adventures of my Monarchs this week. We’ll start next week off with that.

Let’s call this one done!