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!