Shrooms!

 

          I did something rather stupid. At least in hindsight it was rather stupid. Honestly, it was more than stupid. It was dangerous. You could’ve woken up this morning and been one sister short — that’s how stupid and dangerous it was.

          “Peggy, Peggy, Peggy! What are you going on about now?” you ask.

          I was out with Itsy and saw all these beautiful white puff balls in the yard. I picked one and realized they weren’t puff balls, they’re white caps! I love white caps!

          I popped the top off. The gills were creamy white colored. I broke it in half and surprise! It smelled just like a mushroom you’d buy from the store!

          I’m gonna try it, I thought. The worst it’ll do is make me sick.

          I took a taste. It tasted just like a mushroom! I ate the whole cap. Not only that, I picked a few, leaving the more mature, open ones to release spores for the next crop.

I was gonna make me some mushroom soup!

Once I got my mushrooms home, I decided it might be prudent to confirm that these little beauties are edible.

I Googled it.

Guess what came up.

Death Caps.

Yep. Death Caps. An extremely poisonous mushroom.

Never eat a mushroom with white gills, Google said.

Oh no! I’m thinking. I’ve screwed up royally and now I’m gonna die!

I jumped up from the computer and checked the mushrooms I’d picked. They weren’t white but an off-white.

          I felt a little better.

I went back to the computer.

Death Caps have a green or yellow tint.

Whew! I was okay. The ones I picked didn’t. Then I went on to read. Size. Gills. Those resembled too closely the mushroom I’d eaten.

Now I’m back to thinking I’m gonna die again and Googled pictures of the Death Cap mushroom. It did sorta look like the ones I picked.

Guess what I started to do.

I started praying.

Lord, I know you protect children and fools and I was a fool.

“Peg, what happens if you eat a Death Cap?” you wanna know.

I know, right! I wanted to know too.

Symptoms of poisoning appear in six to 24 hours after ingestion. People experience severe abdominal pain, vomiting, and “cholera-like” diarrhea that may contain blood and mucus and often results in profound dehydration and death.

          Oh joy! Not only am I going to die, I’m going to die in a puddle of puke and poo!

          It reminded me of a dream I had.

I was driving and came to a cliff. There’s a road that leads down from the top but for some reason I missed the road and drove right off the edge of this million-mile-high cliff. I’m sure that’s an exaggeration but coming off the edge and seeing the ground so very, very far away, my only thought was, Oh shit! This is gonna hurt. At the same time, my heart sank into my stomach and I resigned myself to the consequences of my mistake. What else could I do? In the midst of a free fall, there was nothing else to be done except wait for the end to come.

I never hit bottom. I woke up.

          “What if you go to the hospital and get an antidote?” you ask.

          Yeah. There is none. If, by some slim chance you do recover, your only option is an organ transplant as the toxins in the mushroom destroy the kidneys and liver.

My God is a mighty God. This I know. He created everything from nothing. He alone controls life and death. If I had indeed eaten a Death Cap, I knew it could pass through my system with no ill effects at all if it’s God’s will.

Is my work here on earth done? I wondered. Have I written all the stories You want me to write?

          The Biblical story of Ananias and his wife, Sapphira came to mind. They said they were going to sell their land and give all the proceeds to the church. They sold the land and kept part of the money for themselves. God’s punishment was swift and severe. First Ananias lies about the money from the sale and falls dead at Peter’s feet, then, later, when Sapphira comes in, they ask her about it and she confirmed the lie. She too falls dead for it.

          They knew lying was wrong. They didn’t have to pledge all the money. They could’ve kept some for themselves and it would’ve been fine. Instead, they chose to lie about it so they would be exalted by men for their generosity. 

          Is there sin in my life? I wondered.

          Other than an occasional bout of self-gratification, I don’t think there’s anything else.

          “Ewww, Peg!” you exclaim.

          I know, right! That maybe more than you wanted to know. Besides, that one seems to be subjective. Some think it is, but in a confessional with a Catholicly ordained priest, he said he didn’t believe it was.

          Nonetheless, I’ll not have you thinking I’m perfect.

          I’ve heard it said that sometimes God will take you because of a sin you may commit. Is that true? I don’t know.

          “When Mike is gone — if I live longer then he does — I’m going to drink wine and smoke pot,” I recently told a friend. I have no idea why I even said something like that. I wasn’t thinking it. It just popped in my head and out my mouth.

          Although drinking wine in and of itself is not a sin, the last time I drank wine, more than four years ago, I got falling down, puke my guts up, stupid drunk, and that is a sin. I vowed then and there not to drink again.

          Would I be able to just have an occasional drink and not get drunk again? I don’t know. But I do know we own a bottle of Crown Royal. It’s been sitting unopened in my cabinet for… hmmm… twelve, thirteen years now. It was given to us as a gift from the jewelers when Mike bought that big diamond for me. 

          Smoke pot. Weed. Marijuana. Now there’s something I haven’t done in four or five years either — and not because I don’t have any, I do. But Mike doesn’t like it so I don’t.

          Is smoking pot a sin?

          Yeah. I think it is. The Bible warns against intoxication and altering your mind. You can have a glass of wine and not get intoxicated but there is only one reason to smoke pot. To get high.

          “What about medical marijuana?” you ask.

          I don’t know but it’s not pertinent here.

          Would dying now, because I mistakenly ate the wrong mushroom, keep me from committing a grievous sin in the future?

          Father, I prayed. I’ll get rid of all my pot if you don’t let me die.

          Bargaining with God.

          What if it’s like Ananias and Sapphira? What if I say, I’ll throw away all my pot, then don’t die? Will I still throw it away? Will I be tempted to smoke it later?

          I’ll throw it out now, I think. Then God’ll know I mean it.

          I got up from my seat and went to the spice cabinet. Behind jars of Italian Seasonings, Chili Powder, Dill, Ground Turmeric, Coriander, Fennel, and Basil, lives a jar marked Cinnamon that has no Cinnamon in it. It does contain some nice buds though. I set it on the counter. I pull out other mismarked spice jars too and a small baby food jar. I’ve collected a nice assortment over the years. Some so mild you could smoke a whole joint. Then some so wicked powerful a toke or two will fry you.

          I picked up a couple of jars and looked at it.

          It’s so beautiful. I just can’t!

          So was the apple that tempted Eve. Beautiful, I mean.

          You’re right. It’s a sin.

          Flush it.

          I can’t. I just can’t, I argued with myself

          I set the jars I’d been hugging to my breast back down on the counter and walked away.

          “What if Mike sees them?” you ask.

          He won’t. He’s so very engrossed in a sin of his own — even if he doesn’t think it’s a sin to watch that stuff. Queen of the South is his current dose of pollution. When I object to watching all the violence, nudity, sex, and crude language, he calls me a prude.

          It’s a sin. Eternity is forever. And I know what the Bible says about hell. I don’t want to take any chances that I’ll end up there.

          I went back to my computer and pulled up page after page of Death Cap Mushroom.

          What to do if you think you’ve eaten a Death Cap, I typed into Google.

          Go to the hospital immediately, and take one of the mushrooms with you so it can be positively identified.

          Well, I’m not gonna do that. I’d have to admit I did something stupid. Besides, there’s no antidote. If I get really sick, I’ll fess up then.

          I went back to Death Cap images.

          I’m still not sure.

          I went back to Death Cap identification and read a few more pages. One gave this hint. It’ll smell bad after a while.

          I got up and went to the bowl of mushrooms on the counter. I picked one out and smelled it. It didn’t smell bad. It smelled earthy, just like a mushroom.

          Next to it, my jars of hoarded marijuana waited for me to pass judgement.

          If I die then let them be shocked when they find my stash, I thought and put them back in their hidey-hole.    

          I looked at the clock. It’s been three hours. I took inventory of my innards. Is my stomach starting to feel bad?

          What if I make myself throw up?

          I know from past experience, times I’d eaten something that made me feel bad, that my body is protective of whatever lands in its possession, and doesn’t give it up easily. I’ve tried to make myself throw up. The old finger down the throat doesn’t work for me — no matter how hard I try!

          How to make yourself throw up, I Googled.

          Tickle the back of your throat with your finger or the handle of a toothbrush.

          Well, there’s something I haven’t tried. A toothbrush.

          I headed for the bathroom. Oh, and we had lunch too. I thought of my lunch sitting on top of the mushroom cap I ate. Spaghetti for Mike, a healthy serving of broccoli with a cup of spaghetti over it for me. All those beautiful colors swimming around together in the bowl. Oh, well. It couldn’t be helped.

          I tried. And I tried. I really, seriously tried to make myself throw up and I just couldn’t get the job done.

          “Weren’t you afraid Mike would hear and want to know what’s wrong?” you ask.

          I know, right! If he asks, I can’t lie. I could just say something I ate didn’t agree with me. But for the moment, I wasn’t worried. An episode of his show ended and he went down to the barn. So, he wasn’t in the house at the moment.

          I went back to the computer and looked for other ways to induce vomiting.

          Syrup of Ipecac.

          I don’t have that.

          Two teaspoons of salt in warm water will create an imbalance and you should vomit in 25 to 30 minutes. To hasten, stick your finger down your throat.

          I could try that, I thought.

          I mixed the salt and warm water and drank it down. It wasn’t that bad. I waited a few minutes then tried to make myself vomit. It almost worked. Almost. With tears running down my cheeks and snot running out of my nose from trying so hard, I finally gave up. I’d have to wait for the salt to work on its own.

          It never did.

          Like driving off a cliff, I resigned myself to the consequences of my foolish actions.

          It was Friday and I was getting an early start on my letter blog. I went back to my computer, put mushrooms out of my mind, re-read what I’d written, and started typing again.

          I’m writing about my brothers and hunting and I have a question. I can’t ask Ed; he’s gone on to be with the Lord. I can’t ask Mike either. He’s gone too. David came to mind. I texted him. “If I die, I ate a wild mushroom.” I just thought someone should know the truth.

          “A magic one?” he asked.

          “No, just a white cap. You wanna Face Time?”

          David called me on Facebook but it takes my computer too long to hook up and it disconnected before it rang through. I called him back and we talked about hunting for a while.

          Six hours and the first hurdle passes.

          My stomach was a little queasy but honestly, it could’ve been the handful of potato chips I had with lunch.

          I drank half a bottle of the pink stuff.

          Bed time comes and I’m feeling a little more confident that the mushroom I ate wasn’t a Death Cap.

          I woke up the next morning and still felt fine.

          Twenty-four hours pass and I don’t get sick.

          After two days I throw the mushrooms out. I’m just not taking a chance with mushrooms I’m not one-hundred percent sure about. Besides, I don’t know for sure that it wasn’t God that kept me safe.

          Mushrooms weren’t the only thing I threw out either. I dug my stash out. This time I didn’t look at it. I didn’t want to be swayed by its beauty. I didn’t think about the feelings of euphoria smoking it brings on. I just unscrewed lids and dumped all of it in the scrap bin to be tossed in the weeds, and washed the jars out.

          “Why didn’t you give it to someone?” you wanna know.

          I thought of that.

          And the words of our Lord came to mind.

          But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

          Little ones, in this verse, doesn’t mean just children. The truth is plain and simple. Don’t cause others to stumble, or sin, or it will be bad for you.

          All that day long I thought of the pot in the bottom of the scrap pot.

          You could get it back out, came into my head. Thoughts planted by the devil or my own love of that particular sin, I don’t know.

          No. I firmly say and refuse to think about it. 

          I crack a hard-boiled egg and toss the shells in the scrap bin.

          You can still get it out, came again.

          An episode of Sex and the City came to mind. Don’t judge. I watched all kinds of things before I was saved.

          In this episode, Miranda’s boyfriend had a giant chocolate chip cookie delivered to her apartment with I love you written in icing on top. She freaked and threw it in the trash. In the next scene the kitchen light comes on, Miranda peeks around the corner, comes into the kitchen, gets a piece of cookie out of the trash, and eats it. She’s a little disgusted with herself, turns off the light, and leaves the kitchen, all the while licking her fingers. Then she comes back again and gets another piece. And another. I don’t remember how many times she did it but eventually she called her friend Carry and is in tears as she relates how she was eating out of the trash can. After she hung up the phone, she got the bottle of dish soap and squirted the remaining cookie with soap.

          You can still get it out, came again.

          And again, I had to reaffirm my no.

          I peeled potatoes for supper that night, making sure peels and water landed on top of the marijuana.

          After supper, after dishes were cleaned up, I took the scrap bin to the weeds where I dump it. I tossed the contents. When I looked, there in bottom, was a nice dry pile of weed. Before thoughts of trying to save any of it could creep back into my mind again, I scraped it lose and tossed it.

          A feeling of victory came over me.

          But I know I didn’t do it on my own.

Mini Photo Contest

           “We had a beautiful sunrise this morning!” I told my best Missouri gal. “The hard part’s gonna be picking out just one picture!”

“I’ll save you the trouble of picking,” Linda replied, “and say just show them all!”

As much as Linda loves sunrises, eighty-one pictures of the same sunrise might be a little much.

“You could have another mini photo contest,” Jody said when I mentioned my quandary to her.

But another pick-yo-fav might not be a bad idea!

          All of the pictures are unedited. At least as far as color goes. I did crop one and cropping is technically editing.

          This is what my camera sees when I use my sport setting. That’s the setting I almost always use because it’ll stop any movement and give me a crisp, clear picture.

          This picture is taken using a different setting. I discovered if I put my camera in the landscape mode, zoom in on the color I want, focus, then zoom out, it keeps the colors more true-to-life.

          A slightly closer-up view.

          Geese! They were pretty far away so this is the one I cropped.

           The clouds started to shred.

          And I walked to the other side of the mill for this last shot.

          So, do you have a favorite?

         According to the website Sky& Telescope, we are currently experiencing a meteor shower named Orionid. This is the second meteor shower this year created by Halley’s Comet.

Halley’s Comet takes 76 years to complete a revolution around the sun and won’t be visible from earth again until 2061.

You can expect to see 10 to 20 meteors per hour and Orionid can be seen up to November 7^th.

          The peak was the 21^st and I wanted to see a shooting star. I got up at 5:30 and took Itsy out. Then I put my duds on, made a cup of coffee, grabbed a lawn chair, and sat under the stars.

          The night sounds surrounded me and I listened to each in turn as I waited for my shooting star. Sounds of cars and trucks and the never-ending hum of the compressor station are two I don’t hear anymore unless I truly listen. They’re always there. What I hear and notice first is the hoot of an owl. I love owls and never see one even though I hear them a lot. I love knowing they’re out there.

          Water, condensation, drips from the awning and lands with a plop onto the concrete.

          I waited and watched and sipped my coffee. It wasn’t very cold out so I was quite comfortable and stayed out for a while.

          I wish I could share this with you, I think and know it’s too dark to take a picture. Did it stop me from trying? NO! But it was too dark so I resigned myself to having to just tell you about it.

          I only had a little window of sky through which I could see stars. The rest was obscured by clouds. But I’d either see one or I wouldn’t.

          The owl hooted again. An answering owl hooted from a different direction. I listened as they started a conversation.

          A light breeze opened my window and I could see a few more stars.

          One of the stars was blinking at me!

          Okay, okay! It wasn’t a star; it was an airplane so high in the sky I couldn’t hear it.

          I do hear a small animal scuttling through the dry, fallen leaves.

          “Meow?” came from the night.

          I didn’t know which cat it was. Both Smudge and Spitfire spent the night out. “C’mon,” I call.

          I hear paws on the gravel of the drive and Smudge comes padding up. “Meow,” he says.

          “Hey Smudge. How’re ya buddy?”

          Smudge jumped into my lap, curled up, and settled himself — right on top of my phone. Lazily I stroked his back and side, cupping his tail and running it through my hand until I reached the end and started again, all the while watching the sky. He’d been in the weeds and had sticktights in his fur. I tried to pull a couple but he wasn’t having any of that. His purr turned to a growl of warning. I left the sticktights.

          I sipped my coffee.

          I watched the sky.

          I stroked Smudge and listened to his purr.

          The hum of the compressor station.

          Cars and trucks on the road as people headed to work.

          A jake brake rumbled its throaty call on a hill some place.

          The sky lightened.

          A rooster started his morning salute.

          The owl hooted.

          I was getting a crick in my neck.

          My coffee was almost gone.

          I decided to give it up.

          I reached under Smudge to retrieve my phone before dumping him off. He growled and bit me. Not hard but enough to break the skin on the inside tender flesh of my pinky and make me bleed.

          And that was my one and only attempt to see a shooting star. I wanted to try again the next morning but it was cloudy and I couldn’t see any stars.

We had a couple of especially nice days here. Perfect for finishing up the winter chores. We got all of the hoses in and the water lines blown out.

I planted my daffies and dug up the glad bulbs. I’m not so sure I would’ve planted gladiolus if I’d’ve known I had to dig the bulbs up before winter.

“You don’t have to,” Miss Rosie told me. “But they won’t come back next year if you don’t.”

So I dug them up.

What’s all that stuff growing on them? I wondered. Are they new bulbs?

Miss Rosie confirmed for me that that’s exactly what they are.

“What am I supposed to do with them?” I asked. “Leave them be or pull ‘em off and plant them?”
          “Either way. But the little ones might not produce flowers the first year,” she told me.

I had a helper when it came to turning the soft soil and looking for bulbs. Tiger jumped in with both feet and dirt went flying out behind him as he helped dig.

He flopped down and sunk his nose into the dirt. I couldn’t help but laugh when he came up with a mouthful of dirt.

“You silly boy,” I told him. I thought it was just an accident until I’d seen him do it several times. I don’t think he was eating it as much as tasting and spitting it out. He looked contrite when I called him on it.

Once I finished the flowerbed in the middle of the yard, I moved to the one against the side of the building and dug up the glads I’d planted there. Tiger watched with rapt attention but didn’t try to help me this time.

          “Let’s go for a ride, Peg,” Mike said later in the afternoon.

          We got on the golf cart and headed down our country roads.

         Three Sandhill Cranes near the Walker Farm.

         The compressor station. It’s just over the hill from us.

          Cow.

          Cows.

          Rose hips.

          All along the road the trees were marked with purple paint. A common site that denotes NO HUNTING.

          “Purple,” Mike said as we rode along. Then, “Purple.” A pause until another comes into sight. “Purple.”

          I mean, the trees were marked at regular intervals and he was calling it out every time we passed a marked tree.

          “Purple.”

          What could I do! “Purple,” I confirmed.

          There we were, two old people, riding down a dirt road in the golf cart, Mike says, “Purple.”

          Peg answers, “Purple.”

          “Purple.”

          “Purple.”

          “Purple.”

          “Purple.”

          I could fill this whole page with Purple. Purple. and still not write all the times we said Purple. We marked the passage of each purple tree with our chant of Purple. Purple. First up one side of the road, then down the other side too.

This game continued until we ran out of purple trees. I had to smile as a thought struck me. If anyone could hear us, they’d have us committed.

          A squirrel ran across the road in front of us.

          “Don’t you have squirrels there,” one of my readers asked.

We do. It’s just that I hardly ever see one unless it’s running across the road in front of me.

          “I want a picture of a squirrel,” I told Mike. “Can you see where he went?”

          “Up the tree,” Mike answered, but the squirrel was gone.

          The next one that we saw, or maybe the one after that, I was able to get this picture. Not the best, I know.

          Someone who takes fabulous pictures is my ex-brother-in-law Michael. He lives in southern Pennsylvania and captures some amazing wildlife shots and shares them on his Facebook page. I asked if I might share his squirrel pictures with you and he said I could. Here’s two taken by Michael.

         “Peg, why do you want to show us someone else’s squirrel pictures?” you wanna know.

          At the time, when I asked Michael, it was because I didn’t have one and wanted to talk to you about squirrels. And now I’ve taken my own squirrel picture so let’s talk a little about squirrels, shall we.

          When I was growing up, I had brothers who hunted. Deer, rabbits, pheasants, squirrels. One of the things I remember one of the brothers say is that sometimes, when male squirrels are fighting, one will castrate the other.

          “I’ve gotten a couple of gray squirrels that were castrated,” my handsome almost-twin brother David told me. We’re just 14 months apart in age and after he waited in the first grade for me, we went through school together. People thought we were twins. “But I think it happens when the squirrels are young, not when they’re grown. Google it.”

          I did Google it and David’s right. An older male squirrel will invade the nest and castrate the young males he finds there but an adult male would never be able to be hold another adult male down long enough to administer the biting blow.

          “I wonder why he lets them live at all,” I said to David.

          “I don’t know. In the animal world a male will often times kill the young so the female comes back into heat.”

          But for whatever reason, this is the way God designed it to be.

          Coming back from our ride you can see a little more of the compressor station in this shot.

          ‘What’s on that tree?” Mike asked.

          I zoomed in and took a picture. “It’s some kind of fungus. I wonder if it’s Chicken of the Woods?”

          All the pictures I’ve seen of that particular kind of edible mushroom show them spread out more than this is. The color is right. Either this one grew more compacted or that’s not what it is.

          Speaking of edible mushrooms…

          Guess what popped up this week.

          I know you can’t. The Shaggy Manes or Inky Caps. Mike was mowing when he spotted them. Rather than mow them over he came and got me. I picked a few and had a bowl of mushroom soup for my supper that night.

          But I digress. Back to our ride-about.

          A long time ago, in the horse and buggy days, people rode up between the house and barn. Over time, our roads naturally followed those of old. The Walker farm is no exception. Built in 1888, the house sits on one side of the road, the barn on the other.

          Randy Walker was just finishing up his evening chores, getting ready to go off and hunt, but he stopped long enough to chat with us — well, chat with Mike anyway, as we stopped in the middle of the road.

          I watched the farm life taking place around me.

          A flock of Red-wing Blackbirds. They’re a migratory bird. I’m guessing this is a flock from further north, stopping to feed in the field before heading on south.

          A beaver tree!” I exclaimed when we drove past. Like owls, I never see beavers but like knowing they’re there.

          “Now, will the beaver come back and finish chopping it down?” Mike asked.

          “I don’t know. They never went back and finished cutting down that old apple tree in Lamar’s yard,” I pointed out.

          And a beaver tree wasn’t the only thing we spotted either.

          We spotted a rock standing straight up in a field just off the side of the road. “Is that one of those old mile markers?” Mike asked.

          “I don’t know. Let’s go check it out.”

          Like I said, it wasn’t far off the road. Mike drove the golf cart up to it.

          “It’s just a rock kicked up by a brush hog,” Mike said.

          “It’s pretty cool though. Can we take it home?” I asked.

          And we did.

          “Was it wrong?” I asked the Kipps when they stopped by on their morning walk.

          “Truth be known,” Lamar said. “You probably did him a favor by getting that rock out of the field.”

          The Bradford pear trees along our driveway are really turning red.

           Last time I showed you a little dog I’d made from nuts and bolts.

          “You should name him Bolt,” my West Virginia friend said.

          It had been my intention to give Bolt to Miss Rosie — if she wanted him. After all, it was the stuff they’d given us that allowed me to make him and I just thought she should have the first thing I ever made with them. But he came out so sloppy I was embarrassed to ask if she wanted it.

I wish my soldering iron had a narrow tip, rattled around in my head all week long. It would have made getting into some of the tight spots a lot easier and with less mess.

The more I thought about it, the more I thought my soldering iron came with a narrow tip. I just never had any use for it. So, I went digging. I looked every place I could think of and didn’t find a narrow tip. What I did find was my old, original soldering iron. It had become so caked up with… whatever that stuff was, that I couldn’t get it clean anymore. Mike bought me a new tip but the old one wouldn’t come out. Hence, I got a new soldering iron.

I thought of one of the other tools I use a lot, a pair of wire cutters. Our handsome son took ‘em to work and modified ‘em on the grinder for me. Now that we live here, we’re where our grinder is.

I wonder if I can grind this tip down.

I asked Mike before I tried.

“I don’t see why not,” was his answer.

I didn’t care if the tip got ruined. I couldn’t use it the way it was and if I could ever get it out, I had a new tip to replace it with.

It might not be the neatest job. I think I should’ve let Mike do it for me.

I needed something to test it on.

I dug around in the shoebox of nuts, bolts, and screws and found two little screws I thought would work for eyes. I soldered them together easy peasy lemon squeezey. The new tip worked well.

I went back to the box and found a couple of wire staples and soldered them together.

          Legs, I’m thinking.

          I found a body and my legs turned to wings. I put the eyes on, a smaller wire staple as a hook and lastly, for good measure, I added a stinger.

           What do ya think?

          Don’t judge too harshly. It’s only my second piece.

          This pile of dried seeds or fruit magically appeared on my patio one morning. I don’t really know what they are. And I don’t know how they came to be on my patio. If they were out of the south end of a northbound critter, they wouldn’t be so clean, ya know what I mean? It’s a mystery.

           Itsy, poor Itsy. She’s got some kinda rash on her back. I hate to admit it but I think I caused it. It started last winter when I had to diaper her at night. I needed something to pin the diaper to or she’d shimmy out of it. So, I put a sweater on her. Like I said, it was winter. And cold. I pretty much left the sweater on her all the time. I’d change it for a clean one from time to time but in hindsight, probably not often enough.

Come warmer weather I saw what was happening. I went out and bought a bunch of tee shirt onsies. I had some prescription rash medicine and was treating her with that. As well as changing her onsie daily. Sometimes it looked like it was gone, then it would come raging back, turning her skin red and itchy.

I finally admitted defeat and made a vet appointment for her. Now we just have to wait for November 6^th.

In the meantime, I’ve bathed her and clippered her hair as short as I could. If we’re gonna treat her skin we need to be able to see it.

          Friday, Mike calls me out into the yard. “I think Itsy needs to poop and can’t. She keeps trying and falls over.”

          Yeah. She falls over a lot these days.

“Well, I don’t know how to give a dog an enema. Maybe she just needs to walk.” Her days are pretty much split between eating and sleeping and not much else.

          I grabbed my camera and took Itsy for a walk.

          Our poor, weed-choked pond is almost dry. There’s a little wet spot at the other end where it’s deepest but that’ll be gone before long if we don’t get more rain.

          I called and cajoled and begged with Itsy to follow me. She’d follow for a few steps then turn back to the house.

          I’ll have to carry her further away, I thought and picked her up.

          Up on the hill, just past the Bittersweet, I put her down again. I went on ahead a few feet hoping she’d just follow but once again, I had to call and cajole and beg her to follow. And she did follow, but she was taking her sweet time about it.

While I waited for her to catch up, I looked around for things to take pictures of. A bit of fluff drifts past. I reach up and snag it. When I open my hand, I see I’ve caught a Fluffer Fairy, aka a Wooly Aphid.

He could’ve flown away at any time but he was pretty cooperative when it came to taking pictures. When he reached the end of my thumb, I held him up and took this picture. Then he flew away.

You can see the tube he uses to pierce a plant and suck its juice with.

I turn my attention back to Itsy and see she’d given up. She’d turned around and was heading back the way we’d come.

I quickly caught up with her, picked her up and carried her.

          When I got within sight of the kitchen patio, I put her down and this time she didn’t hesitate. She went right for the door.

          “Did she poop?” I know you wanna know.

          Not that day but she did the next. I guess she’s okay in that department.

          Lastly, let me tell you about a sewing hack I discovered.

          I’d found some Valentine print scrubs at my second-hand store and want to make face masks out of it.

          Miss Rosie likes ties on her masks because they don’t interfere with her hearing aids. I found some red bias tape and stitched it together. Much to my chagrin, and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t stitch a straight line. If I’d’ve had red thread it wouldn’t matter so much. But all I have is black — or white. And white wouldn’t be any better.

          “It doesn’t matter!” Miss Rosie is so forgiving. “No one will even notice when it’s tied.”

          I wanted it too look better than that. Then I remembered I’d seen a You Tube video on turning a narrow tube right-side out. I went to my computer and Googled it.

          This lady, who made the video, showed how easy it was with the right set of tools — and she wanted to sell us the tools.

All it amounted to was a straw and poker.

I can make my own, I thought and went digging in my drawers for a slender enough straw. And in my wires for a sturdy piece of copper.

Sew the material right sides together. Insert the straw the whole way up to the other end, poke the material through the top and keep poking until you can grasp the tail as it comes out the bottom of the straw, then just pull. Easy peasy lemon squeezey!

          My beautiful friend Jody would rather have ribbons than elastic. But ribbons don’t work for Miss Rosie because the satin material of the ribbons won’t stay tied.

          “What’s Jody do then?” you wanna know.

          Jody has a unique way of tying her masks. She measures and ties the ribbon into a knot, just behind her ears, loops it over her ears, then just lets the rest of the ribbon hang, like dreadlocks.

          “You could put beads on the ends of those,” I tease her.

          Can’t quite envision it?

          I took a picture of one of mine for you. I think it’s kinda cool too.

          The only nice thing about having to wear masks these days is they cover wrinkles.

           I’m going to end this time with this picture. Misty morning pictures always remind me of the Mother Goose poem that our daughter Kat would recite. It went like this.

One misty, moisty morning,

When cloudy was the weather,

I met a man

All dressed in leather.

He began to compliment,

And I began to grin,

How do you do, and how do you do,

And how do you do again?

          And with that —

          Let’s call this one done!