Pop of Color

 

Colors are really starting to pop around here!

 We’ve also had frost. This wasn’t our first frost, it was like the second one, but it was the first one I went out and took pictures for you.

Our big adventure this week was re-roofing a section of our roof.

We took Big Red to Laceyville Lumber and brought home sixteen-foot two by fours.

I only took one picture on that trip that I’m going to show you. How about this fancy-schmancy porch railing? People certainly put a lot more character in houses of old. Today a porch railing would be simple four by four posts and two by two balusters.

Mike backed Big Red up close to where we needed the purlins and we stood them against the mill.

Right there, right in the middle of the white circle I put on the picture for you, is where our honey bees live. They didn’t bother us once as we stacked the lumber.

And they bothered us — bother me— only once while we were putting the purlins down. This lone kamikaze was buzzing my head and landing in my hair.

“Get him off!” I frantically screamed waving my arms and running to Mike. “There’s a bee! Get him off me!” I’m a little shy about being stung after being stung twice in the same week a few weeks ago.

Mike swatted at him a few times but missed. I went even further away and he gave up the chase. Despite the bee’s best efforts, I didn’t get stung. It was near the end of the job so we finished and got off the roof.

We went to C.C. Allis for the metal roofing. They’ll cut it to length and we needed thirty-foot lengths. And they delivered.

Matt backed into the driveway.

             I was fascinated how he unloaded the forklift. He used its own hydraulics to set it on the ground.

Our order was on the top and the forklift made it an easy job to unload.

Mike showed him where to put it and Matt slid the metal off onto the ground.

“I have to take the pallet back,” he said. “They cost about four hundred dollars to build and I don’t want to have to charge you for it.”

Mike was excited to get going on the project so we unbundled it and carried a couple of pieces around to the other side of the house where Mike had the ladders set up.

We used the extension ladder to feed the long sheet of metal up to the roof so we wouldn’t bend it.

“It’s very important to have the first piece straight,” Mike lectured me for the umpteenth time. “If it’s off by even a little bit, it’ll be off a lot when we get to the other end.”

We put the sheet down and Mike was lining it up when a bee started dive-bombing my head and getting into my hair.

“Get him off!” I frantically screamed waving my arms and running to Mike. “There’s a bee! Get him off me!”

Yeah, déjà vu.

Mike swatted at him and the bee turned on him, leaving me alone.

“Ow!” Mike yelled and slapped his head. A bee fell to the rooftop.

“Did he get’cha?” I asked. I know, right! Silly question.

“Yeah!”

We went back to work and another bee attacked. “Get him off! Get him off!” I don’t know why they were going for our heads. I got over to where Mike was so he could kill the bee for me and once again the bee transferred to him.

“Now he’s on me, Peg!”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. On my shirt some place.”

Mike turned around and I didn’t see any bee.

“He’s inside my shirt.”

“Get it off before he stings you.” I reached for the bottom buttons of Mike’s shirts as he undid the top ones.

“Too late,” he said.

“Did you get stung?”

“Yep.”

Mike didn’t even yell ouch that time but he’d had enough.

“Let’s just get this one put down and get off the roof,” he said.

We went back to lining it up and more bees started coming out. One of the little buggers zeroed in on me. He landed in my hair and I started swatting and flailing my arms. “Mike! Get him off me!” I screamed and went running to Mike.

“Get away from me!” he said.

I wasn’t having any of that. “No! Get him!”

Well, you guessed it. Mike got stung again!

We moved out of the danger zone and gave the bees a chance to settle down. Then as quickly as we could we put just enough screws into the sheet to keep it from blowing off. The bees were calm for a moment so we sat on the furthest edge away from the bees and rested until our heart rates came down.

I felt something in my hair. As I ran my hand through I felt something. Bee came instantly to mind. I started picking and dropping as quickly as I could, trying to untangle him from my hair but got stung on my finger anyway. He fell to the roof but it felt like he was still stinging me. I looked at my finger and saw the venom sac was still pumping venom into my finger. I brushed it off and then crunched the bee. He’d die anyway.  

          “Man! That hurts!” I cried like a little girl.

          After a few minutes it started to calm down. As soon as we were off the roof, I treated my sting. Momma always treated us kids with baking soda or told us to use mud, but I didn’t have much luck with baking soda last time. One of my faithful readers was surprised I hadn’t used vinegar. It’s what his family always used and he swore it really works. So, this time I broke out the vinegar and a cotton ball and dabbed the area. It really helped and my sting didn’t continue to hurt all day like the other two had.

          Mike isn’t thrilled about the bees taking up residence between the siding and the house but I won’t let him kill them. Chances are they’ll be gone next year and if they’re not I’ll find someone to come and relocate them.

          “We’ll go up early and work until the bees wake up,” I told Mike. “If we can’t finish it tomorrow morning, I’ll go up with you on Saturday and Sunday morning until we get this done.”

          He knew I was serious then. It has to be pretty important for me to give up my blog days because you guys are so important to me.

          Bees, and other insects as well, are not active in cooler temps. With our overnight temps falling into the forties it takes a few hours for it to warm up enough for them to be any threat to us at all. Even then, that part of the house is shaded. We might have sun for an hour before it moves over far enough to warm the bee corner.

          Since the kitchen patio was finished, and we were finished on the roof for the day, I wanted to start decorating it.

          “Mike, would you help me bring that old dresser down from the upper barn?” I asked.

          We took the golf cart up, cleaned some junk from the top, and loaded it.

          “These legs are rotten and uneven,” Mike pointed out. “I’ll cut them off straight for you.”       

            Once it was in place, I brought out my Rosie window and hung it above. I call it my Rosie window because it was Lamar and Rosie who gave it to me.

          “Peg, shouldn’t it be the Lamar and Rosie window then? Or the Kipp window in the very least?” you ask.

          I know, right! You’d think so wouldn’t you.

From there it wasn’t long until I started shoving things onto the shelves. Mostly I did that to get it off my patio table.

          Then we just sat and chatted and enjoyed the space for a while.

          “Look at Smudge,” I said and grabbed my camera.

          Smudge loves to climb ladders. And he was headed to the roof. He didn’t waste any time getting up it either. By the time I got around to the front he was already at the top. I think he climbed this ladder every day it was here.

          Mike went on to do other things and I started rearranging the patio. I’d taken all my chimes down so they were out of the way while Mike worked on the stones and now I put them all back in place. I decide it was a good time to hang a few more things. I got a step ladder, the screw gun, and a few screws. I climbed up two steps and nearly stuck my head in the web of this beauty. She was busy wrapping up a meal for later and didn’t take any notice of me at all. She has two egg sacks securely anchored to a corner. I was surprised at the size of them. I guess I’ve never seen the egg sacks of a Black and Yellow Garden Spider before. They were easily as big around as a quarter.

          I left her in peace.

          A trip to the mailbox yielded junk mail. I’ll stand at the kitchen counter, open it, pull it apart, crunch it up, and toss it in the burn bins.

          Crunch?

          Did someone say crunch?

          More importantly, did someone hear the irresistible sound of paper crunching?

          Tiger.

          He came running! He loves paper balls. I tossed him one and he jumped to catch it. I tossed him another. He swatted it as soon as it hit the floor and sent it flying. I tossed him a few more until I was out of junk mail. He enjoyed every single one for at least a minute. Then he was over it and I had to pick up the floor. The things we do for the love of critters.

          The next morning, I woke to an itchy bee-stung finger. I looked and saw a pus blister. I wondered if the stinger was still in there, got a needle, and popped it. I didn’t see anything except pus, then blood, then it started itching like crazy! Worse than before! I tried the vinegar but it didn’t seem to help with the itch so I broke out my tube of hydrocortisone. That worked well enough.

          After we were fed and the critters were fed, we headed for the roof. This was my view after shoving the first sheet of metal up the ladder.

We were able to get the nine remaining sheets of metal on and fastened down temporarily and off the roof before the bees woke up. That was all we’d planned on getting done that morning and by then Mike had had enough anyway. Even though we brought a chair up for him to rest in, and I encouraged him to take as many breaks as he needed, it was still hard on his back.

Oh. And yes, our sheets ran off.

“I would’ve liked to take more time to make sure that first piece was straight,” Mike said.

But we couldn’t because of the bees. Did you know that when bees sting, they release a pheromone that encourages the other bees to join in the fracas?

And we didn’t think about checking it the next morning. Once all the sheets were down, they weren’t coming back up either. Mike’ll just have to trim the metal off.

It was still early when we came off the roof.

“I think I’ll hang my hub caps up,” I told Mike. “I can always take them down and paint them when I have time.” I hope they look like flowers when I’m done with them.

Mike helped. “Show me where you want the screws,” he said.

I could easily have done it myself but he seems to enjoy helping me do this kind of stuff. From there the creative juices started to flow. “We could get those doors the Kipps gave us and put them up on that wall too,” I said.

We brought the doors down from the upper barn where they’d been stored, gave ‘em a quick bath and put ‘em up. I’d gotten myself a cup of coffee and Mike and I were sitting at the patio table talking and I heard someone calling me.

“Meow! Meow!” Tiger cries and stands up against the door looking out the window at me. Now that it was quiet on the patio he wanted to come out where we were.  

Tiger noticed immediately that something was different and he approached cautiously, sniffing the air as he went.

“Do you think there’s enough room for that other door?” I asked.

Mike looked it over. “Yeah. I think so. And let’s put a couple of windows up too.”

We spent the day adding elements. The doors that came from the Kipps. Window’s from my best girl Joanie. A church board rescued from a garbage heap. A panel for a garage door upcycled into a shelf. And shelves Miss Rosie’s father had made.

 I brought a water can turned planter with me from Missouri. It was left by one of our tenants when they moved. I knew right where it was and went to the lower barn to get it.

It would be prettier if it had flowers in it. I was thinking of the picture I’d be taking for you. Then I remembered there was a bag of silk flowers Momma’d given me years ago — and I knew right where they were too! I retrieved the bag, shook the cob webs off, pulled the old dead flowers from the dirt, and with no rhyme or reason, started shoving the flowers in the old hard dirt.

I love having things that remind me of people I love.

“Peg, are those apples on that door?” you ask.

Yes. Yes, they are. Miss Rosie was a teacher and had a lot of apples decorating her house. Aren’t they fabulous!

Once again, a fresh cup of coffee in front of me, Mike and I sat at the patio table and admired our handiwork.

“Won’t Miss Rosie be surprised we used her doors,” my eyes scanned the wall, “— and her shelves?” I smiled in anticipation.

I wasn’t crazy about how high our third door was off the ground. “I need steps there,” I mused. “Hey! We could use stones and I can set more flower pots there!”

I guess the thought of moving stones was more than Mike wanted to do. “Let’s just move the door down.”

We did that and it’s better than it was but it still needs a stone stoop. “I’ll probably like it so much I’ll want one in front of every door.” I could see it in my mind’s eye.

Our third morning on the roof got the job done.  

“I really like it that you made this idiot proof for me,” I complemented Mike.

“You know I always try to make things easy for you.”

He’s a good husband.

Mike used a chalk line so I didn’t have to guess where the purlins were, gave me a screw gun with a magnetic tip to hold the screws, and he set the torque so I wouldn’t over tighten them.

 I did put most of the screws in, especially the ones near the edges, because it’s hard on Mike’s back and he’s afraid of heights. He doesn’t even like to get on ladders these days.

“Be careful on the roof,” many of you replied to my morning love note when I laid out our plans for the day.

“We will,” I assured. “Old people break when they fall.”

Now the job is done. We are safe and sound. It’s time to sit back, wait for rain, and see if our patch job works. If it does, I see more roofing in my future.

I had two Monarch’s born this week. Both females.

I have two caterpillars left. I was excited to catch this guy mid transformation until I realized he was dead.

And I’m sad.

I think I may have killed him.

“Why do you say that, Peg?” you wanna know.

The butterfly house was on the patio table. As Mike and I were sitting there, I glanced over and saw a fly sitting on him. He hadn’t yet started shedding his skin and I was worried the fly may have laid an egg on him. So, I got the magnifying glass and looked him over. I saw a spot I thought could’ve been an egg so as gently as I could I ‘raked’ it away with my fingernail. Now I’m worried that by touching him I caused the skin to stick to his chrysalis and he couldn’t shed it.

But done is done and can’t be undone.

I’m hoping my last 'pillar will hurry up and turn into a chrysalis. It’s getting really hard to find any milkweed leaves that are still green.

Tiger.

Tiger, Tiger, Tiger.

He loves to sit on my desk while I’m working on my letter blogs. He’ll sit and watch the cursor as I move it around the screen clicking on various links. I took a picture to show you what a challenge it can be to see around him.

Then, as I was sorting pictures for today’s letter blog, he jumps up on my desk again. The picture I took of him sitting in front of my screen came up and it was almost a mirror image.

Tiger likes to be with his people. I can’t say he prefers me over Mike or Mike over me. He likes to be with each of us in his own time. He’ll follow us around the house a lot. Into the bathroom, into the kitchen, back to the recliner, or in my case, back to my computer.

The other day we were going to get a few tomatoes from the roadside stand. I’d get them while Mike waited in the Jeep. We weren’t planning any other stops. “Let’s take Tiger with us,” I suggested. “He loves to be with us and he rides well.”

Mike wasn’t crazy about the idea but he didn’t veto it.

Tiger was riding so well I never gave him a thought when we stopped for tomatoes. I opened the door and he followed me out.

“Watch it!” Mike yelled.

I turned just as Tiger hit the ground. I nabbed him and tossed him back in. “Stay there,” I told him. I got the tomatoes and watched Tiger through the window as I opened the door. He didn’t try to get out again.

So! Are you ready for some road pictures?

The flags blowing on the Veteran’s bridge.

Our poor Susquehanna River is so dry!

In town, Mike pointed out these mailboxes to me.

We saw two dead foxes beside the road that day. I’ll spare you the picture I took to remind me to tell you. I seldom see foxes hit by cars.

Tiger did well on our ride-about. I don’t know if we’ll take him again. I’ve seen people who take a cat with them in the car but I think Mike would rather not bother.

One last thing about Tiger this week. Now that he’s getting on to being a teenager, he’s getting more and more daring and adventurous. The fence used to be all the farther he’d go, now he leaps over and explores more of the yard.

He followed Smudge over the fence one day as we sat watching. Smudge went into the weeds between us and the road and Tiger followed.

“He’s going to get hit on the road,” Mike worried.

“I hope not. But there’s nothing to be done for it. Our cats aren’t prisoners. The other cats learned,” I pointed out. "He'll learn too."

“Not Anon,” Mike reminded me.

“No. Not Anon. That’s the problem with living beside a road. Sooner or later their luck runs out. Besides, there are people who go out of their way to run over a cat because they hate ‘em so much.”

That reminded Mike of his old buddy.

“Stan ran into a ditch once to kill a groundhog because he hated them so much.” Mike laughed a little. “He wrecked his brand spankin new Thunderbird.”

I took a few pictures around the house this week. This is a Paper Wasp on the edge of a trash can I use to catch rain water. I’ll pick the bees out if I see them swimming around in there.

            A geometer moth. He’s a little guy. There are a lot of different moths in the geometer family and I don’t know which one specifically he is.

A feather with a little red tip.

I don’t know what kind of bird it came from, I just thought it was unusual and interesting. I brought it in and stuck it in the hat of the snail I made.

The mailboxes weren’t the only picture Mike called my attention to this week.

Coming back from the mailbox on the golf cart he stopped for this big wolf spider crossing the road.

Mike had gone to do a little mowing when he called me on the phone. “Com’ere,” he says like come and here is all one word.

I went. He was standing in the yard. “What’d you find? A big orange pumpkin spider?” This is about the time of year you’ll start to see them.

“No. There’s a caterpillar for your butterfly house.”

 “He’s not a Monarch. He’s a Woolly Bear! They turn into moths.”

“We don’t want any moths. They eat clothes.”

“That’s a different kind of moth. I don’t know anything about raising Woolly Bears but I’ll put him in my butterfly house anyway.”

Woolly Bears turn into Isabella Moths. And he won’t transform until spring. The adult moth doesn’t eat anything. They just reproduce and die.

Another day Mike calls me.

“Com’ere.”

“Where?”

“Out on the front patio. Hurry up.”

I grab my camera and go.

“What?” I asked when I get there and he’s just standing there.

“Look around the corner.”

“Oh, the possum,” I guess. I look around the corner and see this guy toddling away. I’ve seen him in the cat room cleaning up the leftover food before.

I love that Mike helps me find pictures for you.

And you know what else I love?

You!

Let’s call this one done!

Together Again

            Here we are!

Back together again for another week, another visit.

          The very first job Mike and I tackled this week was changing the filter in our water purification system.

          Do ya see the little filter with the brass top just to the right of the big black tank? The big black tank is the iron filter. When Mike researched getting the iron filtration system for us, they recommended this prefilter. It has a turn nob on the bottom that if you hold a bucket under it and turn it, it’ll create a little whirlpool and clean the filter so you don’t have to open the system up.  

          Fine and dandy.

          Mike ordered it and we installed it before the iron filter just as they suggested.

          The filter worked for a while but our water has so much sediment in it that the filter doesn’t get clean any more and clogs up within a couple days of use. Mike’s even been taking the filter out and cleaning it by hand.

          The pressure’s gotten so low a couple of times that it wouldn’t close the valve on the brine tank and we ended up with salt water in our lines.

I knew something was wrong when I made a cup of coffee one morning and it looked like milk chocolate foam on top.

“My coffee looks funny,” I told Mike as we sat down to play our morning game of cards. But I was brave and took a sip anyway. My mouth instantly puckered, I grunted, got up, and spit it out in the sink. Then I dumped the salt coffee and got bottled water for my next cup. I don’t know why my coffee reacted that way with the salt water.

After our game we cleaned the filter and flushed the lines.

So, like I said, our first job of the week was to take out that dinky filter and move our whole house filter to that position.

Mike got a bucket to drain the water lines and when he put it down, the case of water bottles he sat it on collapsed and dumped two thirds full of a five-gallon bucket all over the floor.

“We really need to put a drain in here,” Mike grumbled as I ran for towels.

Tiger came and made his presence known by flopping down right in the middle of our work area.

We got the job done and we’ve had good water pressure all week.

 The other job Mike finished this week was my kitchen patio. The stones were all laid last week. This week he finished the base of the tree and once again Tiger came to do an inspection. I thought it was cute how he sat there and watched but I didn’t think to take a picture until Mike was getting up.

 Once the front stones were cemented in place, Mike built the wall for the back half.

 I shoveled while he troweled.

And the cats checked it out before it was dry.

           No matter. I love it anyway.

            There’s a guy over in New Albany who sells tomatoes every year. We decided to drive over and see if we could get some.

          A road picture.

          I was really surprised at how many tomatoes were available this year. In years past he’s only had one table. Tomatoes must be lucrative, even at twenty-five cents a piece, and he really stepped his game up!

          There was a couple there and obviously waiting. For what? I didn’t know.

          “He went to get some green tomatoes,” the lady said as I approached.

          I held up my hand. “Uh, none for me thanks.” Under my breath I mumbled, “I want mine ripe.”

          I’d already been offered green tomatoes and turned ‘em down. That wasn’t anything my mother ever made so I didn’t grow up on them.

          I was picking out tomatoes when the guy returned with the lady’s green tomatoes.

          “If you ever want some and there aren’t any out here, just knock. Someone’ll go pick ya some.”

          Once the lady left, he talked to me. “This is the first year I’ve ever put green tomatoes out and I’ve sold bushels of ‘em. That lady swears they’re the best thing to cook with.”

          He went on and I went back to the Jeep for my money. There weren’t any pockets in my old lady stretchy pants.

         I opened the door and set the bag on the seat. “I wonder if Miss Rosie would like some tomatoes?” It was strictly rhetorical. I picked up my phone and called.

          “Yes. How about four,” she answered after a slight pause to consider.

          I went back, picked out a few more tomatoes, and paid for my purchase. This is all honor system here. The money sits in a plastic bowl with a slot cut in the top. I sure hope that a man who’s willing to trust complete strangers isn’t taken advantage of.

          We meandered up around Dempsey Hill before heading home. I took pictures for you.

          This guy’s got a pallet making business going on.

          A rare glimpse of that rare and illusive photographer of yours. The only reason we even have this picture is because I sometimes use the Andrew Method of picture taking. Rather than looking through the viewfinder, just point and shoot, as I did here. I waited too long before deciding to capture the boat on the bank of this little pond.

          Not the picture I’d envisioned but here’s the same boat after we’re past.

          A whole herd of turkeys! Hard to see through the trees. Good pictures, bad pictures, you get to see them all!

          “What is that?” I asked Mike. “Back up, would ya?”

          Mike backed up so I could get the picture. An old spring? A cistern?

          I’ve never seen signs like these before. They’re open, more like a stencil.

 

        We came around a curve in the road. “Look at all the goldenrod!”

          “Peg, is goldenrod good for anything other than causing my allergies?” you ask.

          Actually, the culprit for many allergies is more ragweed than goldenrod. But yes, it has uses in folk medicine. Goldenrod is used to reduce pain and swelling (inflammation), as a diuretic to increase urine flow, and to stop muscle spasms.

           We stopped at the Kipps to give Miss Rosie her tomatoes.

          “I really, really, really, really, really, really appreciate you thinking of me,” she said.

          I laughed.

          She’d just finished the letter blog where I used a lot of reallys. 

          Here’s my handsome boy with another mouse! I didn’t see Spitfire anywhere around but I betcha he’s bringing the mice in for Tiger. I don’t know why but my friend had a guess.

          “Maybe he’s training him,” Jenn guessed.

          Saturday evening, I found Tiger with another mouse! It was too dark for a picture but I’m sure you don’t need to see them all anyway.

          Did you know that most orange tabbies are male? Orange or yellow is the color, tabby is the stripes. No matter how faint the stripes are, all orange cats are tabbies. There are female orange tabbies but it’s about 80% male to 20% female. A male calico would be much more rare as 99% of calicos are female. And a male calico would also likely be sterile.

           We went on the golf cart to get the mail and were just a bit early.

          “Let’s go see the new house that Lamar was telling us about,” I said. That handsome neighbor of mine went for a run out past the Walker Farm and said there’s a new three-story house going up out there.

          Mike likes to go for leisurely country rides and was amicable.

          A hint of fall color.

          “Look at the trailers stacked up there, Peg,” Mike said. “I wonder if it was a pre-fab and they used the trailers to haul it in.”

          “I don’t know but I see they left the old farm house up.”

           “Look at that cow looking over the back of the other one,” Mike pointed out.

I snapped a picture. Cows are curious critters and watched us pass.

           Look at all the old rototillers! I think these are called David Bradley’s.

           I saw this guy on a recent walk-about.

          “What is he?” I know you wanna know.

          This is a juvenile Eastern Rat Snake.

          “I thought Rat Snakes were mostly black,” you say.

          I know, right! That’s why this guy’s often confused with an Eastern Milk Snake and that’s why I said he’s a juvenile. He’ll change color as he matures. The eyes are a dead give-away. Milk Snakes have red eyes and this guy has gray eyes.

          Let’s learn a little about these guys, shall we?

Eastern Rat Snakes are excellent swimmers and climbers. They’ll use these skills to catch a variety of food, from bird eggs to frogs. They’re constrictor snakes and use their body to suffocate their prey.

          Predators of the Rat Snake include hawks and other snakes.

          In the winter they brumate. That means they mostly sleep, but still wake up for occasional activities, such as drinking water.

          During mating season, the male snakes search for females and will fight one another for the right to mate with a female. She’ll lay between six and two dozen eggs, usually in late July. The eggs take between five and seven weeks to hatch and the babies’ll stay near their hatching site for up to two years.

          Speaking of snakes and climbing, I saw this shed snake skin hanging above the door of the upper barn.

          And I saw a little warbler.

          A Candy Striped or Red-banded Leafhopper.

          Katydid.

          Crane Fly.

         While out gathering food for my caterpillars, I found another Monarch caterpillar!

          Mr. Mister sat watching me as I came out of the milkweed patch.

          I had no butterflies born this week and I think I have three dead chrysalis.

          An early morning dew-covered shot of an aster. I believe these two shots are of a Smooth Aster.

           The deeper purple ones are New England Asters. The New York Aster looks very similar but the stems are different. The stem is hairy in the New England and smooth in the New York. Mine are hairy so they’re the New England.

          More color.

           This guy is in the same family as smartweeds. He is a smartweed. He’s called the Arrow-leaved Tearthumb. It’s a low growing plant but attaches itself to other plants by using sharp hooks on the stem. If you make the mistake of wearing shorts, it’ll "tear" into your skin. The other part of the name comes from the arrowhead shaped leaves which clasp the stem.

           Dandelions, like many plants, depend on length of sunlight as well as temperature to tell it when to bloom. They’ll bloom in the spring and again in the fall.

           Dew-covered spent dandelion.

           Finch food!

           The Bittersweet is changing color.

          Pokeweed is sorta amazing, you know.

           It has berries at all stages from blooms to ripe berries. Maybe that makes it an available food source for the critters over a longer span of time.

          I was lucky enough to catch the Cedar Waxwings feeding.

          Don’t overlook the second bird in this photo.

This little Cabbage White kept following me around. It’s almost like she was begging to have her picture taken. Once I took it I didn’t see her anymore.

          Sweet Everlasting.

          You know this one. Praying Mantis.

          I’m reading Clan of the Cave Bear, I told you that. Ayla is being trained to be a medicine woman by Iza, her adopted mother and medicine woman. Iza asked Ayla if she knew “that little yellow vine with tiny leaves and flowers.”

          “Golden thread?” Ayla answered.

          Iza told her it was also sometimes called strangle weed.

          A light bulb goes off in my head because we talked about this very plant not so very long ago.

          I was thinking about Momma. We were all crazy excited when the books first came out. In one book Ayla used the dried head of teasel to brush her hair. Momma tried that.

          “Did it work?” I asked her.

          “No. The spines kept breaking off. Maybe they grew a lot bigger and tougher in the stone age.”

          I thought Momma would have liked to see another plant that was mentioned in the book, one she may not have been as familiar with. And it was with those thoughts in mind that I snapped a picture of strangle weed, or dodder. Had it not been for that reason I might not’ve take a picture and I would’ve totally missed the Calligraphy Beetle sitting on top!

          We went shopping early one foggy morning. Going up a hill I snapped this picture. I’m glad it came out because I only had one shot, one chance at it.

          It took my breath away for a second. “Look at that!”

          It wasn’t until yesterday that I found out it looks the way it looks not just because of the fog but because of the wildfires burning out west.

          “Too bad your window’s so dirty,” I said a little snarky.

          Mike takes me in stride.

          They’re still demolishing buildings. It seems like they’ve been working on this stretch of buildings for months.

          We did our shopping at Sam’s Club and Mike filled the tank with cheap gas before we left. While it was pumping, he cleaned the windshield for me. He’s so sweet.

           As soon as he finished and returned the squeegee to the bucket, we had a runaway droplet — right down in front of me. I smiled. So much for his thoughtfulness and hard work. Well, I certainly wasn’t going to point it out. But I didn’t have to. He noticed as soon as he got back in the Jeep. The next time we stopped he wiped it away for me.

          The lady sitting outside The Gathering Place even wears a mask.

          My beautiful (and goofy) friend Jody stopped by bearing gifts.

          “What’d she bring you?” you ask.

          She brought me some fresh Chinese Lanterns as well as some dried Silver Dollars.

          They weren’t very pretty looking and not at all what I remembered.

          “The seeds are still on them,” Jody explained. “Take it and rub it like this.” She grasped one between her thumb and index finger and applied a little rubbing pressure. The front and back fell away leaving the Silver Dollar.

          My eyes got big with understanding. “Oh! That’s where the seeds are!”

          Jody smiled. “Yeah. And it’s kinda fun so I thought I’d leave ‘em for you.”

          She’s such a good friend. And she’s right, it was fun. Now I can share some of the seeds and plant some.

          I put the cleaned Silver Dollars in my dried arrangement way up on the top shelf where the cats won’t eat them.

          Something else Jody brought me was buttons for my new project.

          “What’re you making now?” you wanna know.

          Ear savers. They can be made out of many different things but mine’ll be cloth with a button on each end. You put it behind your head and the loops of your face mask go over the buttons. It takes the pressure off your ears. And I can make mine to match your face mask!

          Miss Rosie also got into her button stash and gave me a bunch of buttons. It’s ridiculous how excited I was about receiving buttons.  

           I have bees. I believe they’re honey bees and they’re behind the siding of the little room that’ll eventually be my exercise studio. It’s just off the closet but it’ll also have its own outside door as well. So, when my girlfriends come to workout with me, they don’t have to walk through my closet to get there.

          Anyway, I went in the exercise-currently-storage room to see if I could see the bees and I can’t. With our double layer of siding, they’re between the two. They’re not hurting anything so I just let them bee — er, be. My fingers type faster than my brain thinks!

          Then this week I see all kinds of dead bees on the windowsill of my closet window. I don’t know how they’re getting there but it made me a little sad. I don’t like to see things die if they don’t have to. I went in the exercise room and couldn’t see where they might be coming through at. On my way out I noticed sisters at home in their twin webs, one on either side of the door. 

          Judging by the boneyard directly under their webs, they’re getting a fair amount of bees.

          I have a litter box in the back corner of the closet and that’s how I happened to notice the bees. Every day when I go to scoop the box, I look for bees. If they’re still alive I’ll pick ‘em up in my bare hands and take them outside.

          “In your bare hands!” you exclaim. “Aren’t you afraid of getting stung?”

          I was a little at first. But I saw a video of a gal beekeeper and she scooped great handfuls of the bees with her bare hands and put them in a box. She said they don’t normally sting if not threatened. So, I took a chance and picked up the first live one I found. I didn’t get stung and now I’m not afraid anymore. I’ve only saved about four or five bees so far.

          Lastly, and to wrap up our visit this week, I’m asking for prayers for my beautiful Missouri gal, Linda. We were both coaches at Curves, both business owners on the Strip in Lake Ozark, and she’s also my sister in Christ. When she was a kid, she had Rheumatic Fever. Now she’s found out she’s got a heart murmur. Are the two related? She doesn’t know. In the early 90’s she had a nodule removed from her vocal cord and now she’s having trouble swallowing. As soon as her doctor sets it up, she’s going for an ultrasound.

          I asked if I could share this news with you, my prayer warriors.

          “There’s power in prayer,” Linda says. “So yes, share it.”

          Will you hold Linda up in your prayers?

           All y’all are in my heart.

          Let’s call this one done!