“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.
And
I walked to the other side of the mill for this last shot.
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 7th.
The peak was the 21st 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.
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.
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.
“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.
“Truth be known,” Lamar said. “You
probably did him a favor by getting that rock out of the field.”
“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.
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.
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 6th.
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.
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.
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!
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