Many, Many

           I have many, many road pictures for you this week. We went on two — yes TWO ride-abouts! My file contains some 95 pictures. Will I use them all? I don’t know. Should I use the pictures in the order of my week or stick them all in one place? I don’t know that either. Sometimes you just have to start and see where it takes you.

Mike and I found a new lady to cut our hair. Paula has a shop at her house and would you believe me if I told you she only charges seven dollars for a haircut? I know, right! Unbelievable! Mike’s been to her twice and I’ve gone once and she does a good job.

I took these two pictures on our way to Terrytown for haircuts.

 Mike’s buddy Vernon called. “There’s a place in my creek that looks like there could’ve been a pipe there or something,” he told Mike. “The water bubbles up in a circle. You should take Peg out there and look at it and tell me what you think it is.”

Mike got the specifics on where to go and we went. We followed Vernon’s ATV tracks through the field. “Watch for a place where you can turn to the right,” he’d said.

“That looks like that could be the place,” I said but there weren’t any clear tracks going that way. Mike went on past.

We came to a stand of weeds that hid a big ditch. Mike started to go down and it was steep and I was scared. Straight ahead was a wall of brush and shrubs.

“I don’t think it’s this way,” I said white-knuckling the arm rest. “If Vernon had gone this way, we’d see where he went through.” And there weren’t any tracks through the thicket. “I think you should’ve turned back there.”

Mike agreed and tried to back up. The tires just spun. We were stuck.

“Get out and push, Peg,” Mike says.

What could I do? I got out and pushed but it didn’t help. Mike traded places with me and he was able to push it enough that we got out.

We went back and turned where I thought we should and found the spot Vernon was talking about, but didn’t see anything. On the way home we decided to meander down one of the homemade four-wheeler tracks Vernon had made.

We were bumping along and I was scanning the weeds, looking for flowers or critters or anything interesting to take pictures of, when I saw it.

“It’s wet…” I started. But it was too late. We got stuck again! This time it wasn’t on a dry too-steep bank. This time it was in a mud bog!

“Get out and push, Peg,” Mike says.

I looked over the side. The sunken tracks of the golf cart were quickly filling with water. “No!” I cried. “I’ll get my shoes wet!” If there’s one thing I absolutely hate, it’s wet shoes.

“I don’t think it’ll take much,” Mike coaxed.

What could I do? I got out and gingerly picked my way across the high spots, hoping I wouldn’t sink down too far into the mud. I got lucky and gained dry ground with dry sneakers.

“Ready?” Mike asked as I took my place.

Mike gassed it, I pushed, mud went flying, and the tires spun their way a little deeper into the mud.

“Here. You drive and I’ll push,” Mike says.

Fine by me and kinda what I thought we shoulda done in the first place.

But it was no use. We were stuck but good! I got off and joined Mike behind the cart. I’ve seen tips on getting unstuck from snow. They used the floor mats from the car. The golf cart doesn’t have floor mats but there were a couple of boards still on the back from our last building project.

“Maybe we could use the boards under the tires?” I suggested.

Mike looked but dismissed the idea. “No. We can’t get them under the tires.” Mike was quiet for a moment as he thought of alternatives. “We could go home and get the tractor.” Then he remembered how far of a walk that would be. “Wait a minute. I mean you could go get the tractor — or the Jeep!”

I harrumphed at his correction. “I could call Lamar. He’d come get me and take me back to the house for the Jeep.” Then I got to thinking about the time that would take. “Or you could just go get Vernon’s ATV and pull us out,” I said.

“I hate to do that.” Mike doesn’t like to borrow people’s things.

“Why? Vernon invited us to come out and use it for a trail ride any time we wanted to,” I pointed out.

In the end we couldn’t come up with a better plan so I went with Mike and we walked back to Vernon’s cabin.

This is the pond with Vernon’s barn on the other side. The cabin’s farther up on up the hill.

Vernon gave us the key and we rode back to the stranded golf cart.

The paths weren’t wide enough to turn the ATV around in and there’s no reverse on it that Mike could find, so we had to push it back to the golf cart.

There’s a tow rope on the cart at all times. That makes it easy for me if Mike gets the mower stuck and I have to rescue him. He pulled it from the back compartment and hooked it to the ATV. He gunned the ATV, I gassed the golf cart, and the rope came undone. I joined Mike and once again we pushed the ATV back in place, re-hooked the rope and tried again — with the same results. The rope came undone. Once again, I help push the ATV back and Mike tried a different way of hooking it. This time it didn’t come undone but it also didn’t pull me out.

It took a little finagling but with the help of the boards under the tires (grin) we were able to get unstuck.

That night I took a picture of the moon as it was rising through the trees. I should’ve waited a couple of more days and taken a picture of the full moon.

This week I decided to make a bat for Halloween — which is going to be here before you know it — and settled on this design.

I don’t know how many I’ll make but one thing I do know for sure is it’s cute with all different color wings! I wanna try at least two or maybe three more. Red, blue, green, yellow, brown? I don’t know. One color I probably won’t use is black.

And I’m thinking I don’t really like the round face. Maybe the next one will be more triangled. I just hope whomever gets stuck with this one won’t mind!

We did a couple of jobs around here this week. One of them was extending the culvert under the driveway and widening it. I didn’t have to do anything except help Mike get the culvert down, hold it while he cut a piece off, and take pictures.

I’m good at my job.

Mike did the rest.

I didn’t hang around and take a picture of the finished project.

 Mike left the step ladder up because he isn’t finished with our re-roofing job. He wants to get back up there and cut the ends off the purlins, add corners, and cut the steel sheets off to make them even.

“What’s the holdup?” I know you wanna know.

Mike ordered a Nibbler and was waiting for that to arrive. I don’t know if that’s the proper name for it but that’s what it does. It uses a punch and die to ‘nibble’ away the metal to make the cut.

When we did the addition on the lower barn, those guys had one and it was pretty cool. This was the perfect excuse to get one of our own.

Look who took a page out of Smudge’s book!

Tiger climbed up, looked around a little, turned around, came down two steps, and jumped the rest of the way to the ground. It’s a ten-foot ladder so that was quite a jump for the little guy.

But speaking of Smudge…

He brought a mouse in for Tiger. At least I’m going to attribute it to Smudge. He was the one lying beside it and I hadn’t seen Spitfire all day. 

And I’m going to say he brought if for Tiger since he didn’t put up any objection when Tiger took it.

Later, the very same afternoon, Mike and I were sitting on the patio and Smudge comes trotting up with this little warbler in his mouth.

I kinda sorta took it away from him.

“Peg! You didn’t!” you exclaim.

“Give it back to him,” Mike scolds. “He got it fair and square plus it won’t live anyway.”

I know I should’ve, but I thought maybe with a little time to recover, he might just fly away. I put him in the bottom of my butterfly house.

 I was thinking I’d give Tiger the bird but by the time I’d made up my mind to do that and went out on the patio, it was too late. The butterfly house was on the ground, the lid was off, and Tiger was tossing around a squeaking little bird. Not to mention he’d dislodged one of the Monarch chrysalises in the process. I don’t know if the bird chirped and Tiger heard it, or if it fluttered and he saw it, or if he just smelled it, but he didn’t torture the poor little creature for long and was soon munching down. There’s nothing quite like the sound of a cat crunching bones. He ate everything from beak to toenails to every feather in between. Now Tiger keeps checking the butterfly house for more birds.

As for the chrysalis? There wasn’t anything to fasten a string to and re-hang it. And it was a little wet. I’m thinking it lost some or all of its birth fluid and now I’m afraid it’s dead. Nonetheless, I superglued it back to its anchor and I’m hoping for the best.

Do you think superglue will permeate the shell? Do you think it’s toxic to the developing butterfly?

Speaking of my butterflies…

I got a letter — an actual, honest to God, pencil on paper, put a stamp on the envelope, letter — from one of my faithful readers.

Do you remember I told you how I recovered two lost caterpillars? I put milkweed leaves down and waited for them to find them.

“I’ve never heard of hunting caterpillars over a baited field,” J.D. says. “You ought to check with the State Fish and Game guys to see if it’s even legal!”

I laughed.

“Surely they wouldn’t have bag limits on cats up there,” he went on to say.

His letter really made my day.

 “You wanna go for a ride?” Mike asked.

“Where?”

“To look at fall colors … maybe take the back roads out to C.C. Allis and get the corners for the roof.”

“Sure!” I was all in for that!

Now, I really don’t want to get involved in the dirty world of politics but climbing the hill out of Wyalusing you’ll see this.

“Do you wanna stop at the overlook?” Mike asked.

“Nah. The colors aren’t that great around here yet.” Before we’d gone far, I’d changed my mind.

These next four pictures were taken there, then road pictures.

There’s a house under there!

“Did you see the umbrella with all the stuff hanging from it?” Mike asked and backed up for me. You can do that when you have the country roads to yourself.

What do you think? An upcycled satellite dish?

 It was early enough when we got home from the lumberyard with our corners that we decided to go ahead and put ‘em up. We gathered all the tools we needed. A tape measure, speed square, pencil, the circular saw and extension cord to power it with. The screw gun, screws, and the Nibbler,

Mike tossed the cord up on the roof and we carried everything else up. He cut the tails off the purlins, marked and cut the metal. The Nibbler left all these crescent moons behind.

 Then he screwed the corners on.

Now that job is done, at least until we decide to re-roof another section.

 We reversed the process, tossed the cord down, and carried down all the tools.

“Let’s leave the tools on the table and put the ladder away first,” Mike said. “Will you help me carry it down to the barn?”

You know I can’t tell him no — not very often anyway.

We came back and started picking up the tools to put them away. Mike took out the specialized bit he used to put the corners on with and went for the Philips head bit that normally lives there. “Where’s the bit?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I’m sure I dropped it in the Nibbler box but it’s not there.”

I helped him check the box again and it really wasn’t there.

“Is it still on the roof?” he wondered. “It’s my favorite bit.”

“Let’s get the ladder back out and I’ll go look,” I offered.

It’s a bit of a job to bring the big ladder up from the barn and Mike was tired. “No. Forget it. I’ll get another one.”

We carried everything through the house to the garage and Mike started digging for another, acceptable screw bit. I watched as he’d pick one up, look at it, and drop it back in the box. He rejected one right after another.

For heavens sake! What’s the big deal? But I’m smart enough not to voice that. “Let’s just get the ladder again and I’ll go up and get it for you.”

“No,” Mike said. Tired of looking and not finding what he wanted, he set the screw gun down. “I’ll look for one later.”

The next day he was again lamenting the loss of his favorite bit. I knew he didn’t want to lug the big ten-foot ladder back up from the lower barn. “Can I get on the roof with the eight-foot ladder?” I asked. That one’s not as hard to handle.

“I don’t think so,” he replied.

I remember how we used the tractor bucket when Mike needed to cut some limbs high up in a tree. “How about the tractor?” I suggested. I knew he wouldn’t mind driving the tractor up near as much as carrying the ladder. “You could lift me up with the bucket. Will it reach?”

“Yeah,” Mike answered and considered it for a moment. “If we did that then I could use the tractor to pull up some more of these dead roots.”

Mike got the tractor, I climbed in the bucket, sat on the edge, and he slowly lifted me up to where I could get on the roof. I looked and looked and looked but the screw bit — his favorite screw bit — was nowhere to be found.

Mike was disappointed and we still haven’t found it.

Running across the yard, the top visible, was the big root of a tree. “Should I see if I can get that one out?” Mike asked.

“That’s the one the cats sharpen their claws on but whatever.” I know Mike hates hitting things with his mower. He spends an inordinate amount of time picking up branches. This man takes down shrubs and small trees with his mower and worries about a little branch. And stones. That’s another thing. He’ll dig out stones if the tops show.

“That one’s low enough you’re not going to hit it with the mower!” I say.

“It’ll work its way up, Peg. I’m tellin’ ya!”

It seems he always needs something to worry about so I let him do his thing.

Mike got the end of the bucket under the root and lifted it out of the ground.

He worked it around but couldn’t break it from the stump. Finally, he gave up, got off the tractor and tried to snap it off manually.

It didn’t work.

“Will you go get my little chainsaw?” he asked.

 I went in and got the battery-operated chainsaw and Mike cut the little bit of root that was hanging on. He hauled the dried-out root to the burn pile and worked on a few other roots.

 Another job we did, one that was rattling around in Mike’s head for a while now, was replace one of the shelves that he’d put up for me on my kitchen patio. We upcycled a garage door panel.

“That’s really too wide for a shelf,” Mike said one day as we were enjoying the space. “You’ll never get to the stuff in the back. What if I move it down for a work bench and I’ve got another board I can put up for a shelf.”

And another job was done.

“Peg, what are you going to put up there?” you wonder.

Don’t worry! I’ve got bottles and jars galore! All kinds of pretties in boxes that I’ve got no place to put.

Someday, yard sale, unless my kids want them.

One afternoon, I was happily working away, foiling the reddish-brown wings of another bat; Mike was at my computer scrolling through his favorite website, Facebook Marketplace.

“Peg, look at this door.”

I set down the piece I was working on and went to look. “It’s pretty.”

“It’s new and it’s cheap. I hate to spend the money right now but we need a door for the exercise room. It’ll give us an emergency exit in case of fire.”

How can I argue with that?

The seller was a business in Binghamton, New York. We got the address for the GPS and off we went.

 On the way, we pass the place where my beautiful friend Jody works. Cargill is a meat packing plant and the reason I was vegetarian for two years. Watching truck after truck after truck pass by hauling doe-eyed cows was more than I could take. I think they kill more than a thousand head of steer a day. Eating vegetarian is a job and it was hard to get vegetarian fare at restaurants. Besides, I like beef. So, I gave it up. Now I just look the other way when we pass a cattle truck. Denial works for me.

You can smell Cargill. It smells like death. I automatically fall into mommy breathing as soon as the plant comes into sight. You know, where you breathe through your mouth so you don’t smell the poopy diaper you’re changing?

“I don’t think they can use the blood,” I told Mike as we passed by. “So, they probably burn it to get rid of it.”

Later I asked Jody what causes the smell.

“Rendering. They render, cook down, product for dog food, or cook the blood for dried blood.”

So, I was only half right. “I thought it might be the blood but I thought it was to get rid of it. For some reason I thought you couldn't sell it.”

“The only part of the cow we don't use is the brain, spinal cord and the tail.”

 And now, pictures of our hour and a half ride through the countryside.

All along our drive, Mike called out all the Trump signs — and there were a lot of them! “I guess this is Trump territory. I wonder why we don’t see any Biden signs?”

“Maybe the houses without signs are Biden’s and they’re afraid to put a sign out,” I guessed.

You could tell when we crossed over to New York state. It’s like someone flipped a switch. There weren’t any signs at all — at least not on the roads we were on.  

We arrived at NASCO and checked out the doors. I didn’t see the one we saw on Marketplace so we went inside and found a salesman. While I was talking to him a guy comes walking through with a kitten.

“What have you got there?!” I exclaimed.

He turned around and let me pet the long-haired calico beauty he cradled in his arms. “Someone abandoned her out behind the building. She was starving but she’s a lot better now,” Frank told us.

Abandoned? I’d take her home. “What are you going to do with her?” I asked.

“I’m going to take her home for my daughter.”

I finished petting her, turned back to our salesman, and Frank started to walk away.

“Where are the ones we saw on Facebook Marketplace?” I asked.

“Whoa!” Frank said and passed the kitten to another guy. “You’re here for me. Come on. I’ll show you the doors.”

We followed Frank outside and we perused the doors that were on sale. We wanted a full glass, thirty-six-inch, right-hand swing door and had one to choose from. That really makes the choosing process easier, don’t’cha think?

“It has a couple of dents.” I pointed them out to Frank. “Do you discount them further for that?”

“Nope. You’re getting a four-hundred-dollar door for one forty-nine.”

I turned to Mike. “Can you live with them?”

“I can,” he answered.

Frank helped Mike load the door while I went back inside and paid for it.

“Peg, are you going to show us your door?” you wonder.

Nope. No, I’m not. I’m sure you’ll get to see it when we put it in. In the meantime, we have pictures from the way home to get through.

I hope you enjoyed the pictorial guide of this part of our beautiful country. I’m going to finish up this week with just a few more pictures from around here.

 An early morning sunrise as seen from my kitchen patio.

 A colorful tree along our road.

A seed head from Miss Rosie’s Zebra Grass.

Vine covered window of the Robinson’s barn.

I went to get the mail one day and was taking a picture looking down toward the Robinson’s barn when I heard a vehicle coming. I turned and saw a truck coming. I stepped back off the road to let him pass and took my picture.

When the truck hadn’t passed me, I wondered why. Here he’d stopped and waited so he wouldn’t interfere with my shot.

How kind and thoughtful, I thought and snapped his picture as he went on down the road. I’m not sure that many people would’ve done that.

Lastly, look at all the milkweed beetles!

Tell me something? Do you have a favorite picture from this week? One you especially love? If you let me know which one it is, I’ll tell you next week which one got the most votes.

For me, if you wanna know, you’ll have to stay tuned!

 Let’s call this one done!