While y’all are sweeping up bits of wrapping paper, tinsel, and cookie crumbs, taking down lights and ornaments, putting Christmas away for another year, I find myself back in the chair I’ve spent most of the week in. It seems like all I did this week was gab at you guys and here I am again!
I did four letter blogs this week, one
regular and three pictorials. You’d think after spending so much time in front
of my ‘puter, that there’s no way I’d have anything more to say, wouldn’t ya?
Yeah? Well, you’d be wrong.
We had that big nor’easter and when I
posted the pictures, I did so to show all the beauty my sun-lovin’ friends and
family were missing.
“Well, beauty goes only so far. It doesn’t
keep you warm,” my oldest and much-adored sister said. “I’ll take my hot desert
any day! But your pictures are beautiful!”
And my handsome almost-twin brother
David says, “I like the snow and the beauty it brings. I just don’t like the
COLD!”
>>>*<<<
Early in the week we went shopping — and
we don’t need a thing!
I’d just bought Itsy a box of Cesar’s dog
food before she died. I’d never opened it so I thought we’d take it back to Sam’s
Club and get our thirty dollars back. While in Dickson City, I wanted to pop
into Hobby Lobby and get a piece of dark blue stained glass to make a memorial
for my last lost little grandbaby.
“Maybe while we’re there we can find a
Honey Baked Ham Store and get a ham for Christmas dinner,” my ruggedly handsome
husband said.
“I know I saw one down there someplace,”
I said.
Mike got on the internet, went to the Honey
Baked site, found the store locator tab, and looked for a store close to us. “The
closest one is in Scranton,” Mike said.
“Hmm. Maybe I saw the store when we
went to Danville. But we can still go to Scranton and get a ham if you want to.”
Mike didn’t want to go out of our way,
into Scranton, so he got over wanting a Honey Baked Ham for Christmas.
Tuesday.
It was Tuesday when we made the shopping excursion and left right after I had
the cats fed, so it was still pretty early. The cold snow created fog in the
warming temps and I was quite enamored with the look of the sun.
I
took picture after picture of it as we drove down the highway — probably more
than you want to see!
Something else you probably don’t want to see are pictures of ‘tired’ deer. There were so many of them!
“There’s another one!” I exclaimed to
Mike. I’m guessing that they laid low during the storm and now were hungry and
moving around.
I didn’t see the car at first. “And
there’s the car that hit it,” I said.
“I bet you’re right,” Mike concurred.
“There’s a big fire,” Mike said as we
passed Laceyville. I wasn’t so much taking pictures as pointing and shooting.
Is it any wonder I didn’t quite get the fire?
“I’ll try again on the way home.”
But on the way home, it was mostly all
smoke, and a backhoe was piling more stuff on top.
Going through Clarks Summit, I finally got the picture of the sleigh that I’d missed before.
Mike likes to see the big equipment at work.
I
don’t really know what the deal with these rocks are. I’m assuming it’s some
kind of memorial but since it’s at the junction of two busy highways, there’s really
no place to pull off and check it out. But I see someone decorated it for
Christmas.
We were heading out of Dickson City
when I see it. “There it is, Mike! There’s a Honey Baked Store! I told you I
saw one!”
Honey
Baked Hams are not for the faint of heart… err… what I really mean to say is they’re
only for people with deep pockets. That was one expensive ham! But Mike had a hankerin’
for it. “We can call it your Christmas present!”
“How do I cook it?” I asked the gal.
After spending seventy-five dollars for a seven-pound ham I wasn’t about to
ruin it!
“We don’t recommend cooking it at all,”
the gal said. “It’s fully cooked. We recommend serving it at room temperature.
Take it out of the fridge an hour or so before you wanna serve it.”
“By the way,” I told her. “Your store
doesn’t come up on a Google search.”
“It doesn’t? I’ll tell the manager.”
Mike
also bought a ham sandwich to eat on the way home. We shared it. It was good.
But was it that good? I don’t know. Maybe you need a more discerning
palate than I have.
“Did you see that barn, Peg?”
“What about it?”
“You can see right through it!”
Mike helped me watch for it on the way
home so I could make a picture for you.
“Catching
birds at the birdfeeder is unsportsmanlike!” I scolded him. That rascal has
gotten a couple of birds and with the snow, the birds don’t have any other way
of finding food.
“Don’t let him out,” I told Mike
Somehow, someway, he manages to scoot
out as he did on this morning. We were getting ready to go to town and Mike let
Tiger back in, then we left. I took road pictures for you.
The sun coming up as we crossed our
little bridge.
When we got back from town, Mike opened the door, turned on a light and said, “Uh-oh. I think the cats tore up something.”
“What?” I asked from behind him. He stepped
aside.
I knew what it was as soon as I saw
it. “Feathers! Did Tiger have a bird in his mouth when you let him in?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” was what Mike said.
I don’t know how you could not know
but that had to’ve been what happened. I got the sweeper and cleaned it up —
after first checking for blood and guts. Twern’t none. At least he eats what he
catches.
Speaking of cats and snow…
I’ve told you before that Mr. Mister
hates Smudge and will nail him every chance he gets. Mr. normally hangs around
the back patio and we let Smudge out the front. But with the snow, Mr.’s been
in the cat room with the wild girls. We have trails in the deep snow that Mike’s
made and one of those leads from the front patio to the back. The cats don’t
like the deep snow and with no place else to go, Smudge followed the path to
the back to come in the kitchen door.
I hear his screams. Cat fights are
normally very loud and Smudge screams twice as loud as any other cat! I went
running and found Smudge and Mr. locked together in battle, tumbling and
rolling over each other, hissing, screaming, biting, clawing.
“KNOCK IT OFF!” I yelled, clapped my
hands, and stomped my feet. This caused only a momentary pause and they were
back at it. I grabbed a stick from the patio. That’s where it lives. It’s a
stick with a screw halfway in and Mike made it for me to hang stuff up with. I
grabbed that and whacked Mr. a good one. I have no idea if I used the screw
side or not but he skulked away, looking back at me, shooting daggers from his
eyes, and calling me traitor. He stayed gone the rest of the afternoon and I
found him in the cat room with Callie and Sugar that night when I went out to
do the litter boxes.
And that wasn’t the only skirmish
those two had this week either.
Since Mr. Mister has been spending a lot of
time in the cat room, I decided to let Smudge go out the kitchen door for a
little while. It was still early and I thought there’d be plenty of time until Mr.
came around for breakfast. I checked to make sure he wasn’t out there already,
then I let Smudge go out. The next time I walk past the window and look out, I
see Mr. skulking down the path towards my burn barrel.
He’s after Smudge, I thought and went running out. When I caught
up to them, Smudge was hunkered down at the end of the path and Mr. was six
feet away from him.
“You git!” I yelled at Mr., went around him
and picked Smudge up.
It was my intention to keep my body between
the two bitter enemies, the fighting felines, but apparently that wasn’t good
enough to satisfy Smudge.
I was apprehensive as I got closer to Mr.
Mister. Visions of the well-muscled tom launching himself at me to get at Smudge,
scrabbling up my body like a tree trunk, all needle-sharp claws and flesh-tearing
teeth. I prepared myself to kick him if he showed any signs of aggression.
Surprise!
The aggression came from the pudgy fur ball
in my arms. Smudge thought four-feet was entirely too close to his arch nemesis,
growled low in his throat, and with the next step I took, bared his claws and
nailed me! Me! The person trying to save him!
I
managed to hold on to him and shooed Mr. on ahead of me. “Go on!” He’d go a few
feet and stop. “Keep going!” I said, shooed and stomped my foot. Again he
stopped. I had to shoo several times until he took a different path and I could
pass him and take Smudge into the house.
Then I ministered to my wounds. I had
one very deep gouge in my forearm.
Put turpentine on it, Momma
said in my head.
Turpentine,
the real stuff made from pine oil, is an old-time remedy for small wounds. It
seals and prevents germs from entering thereby reducing infection and soreness.
It seems to work and I’ve used it many
times for many things over the years.
The very next day there was no soreness
and no infection — which says a lot since cat claws are notorious for being
extremely germy.
You’d
think that would be the end of the story but it isn’t. For a couple of reasons.
Momma showed up a couple of more times this week and Mr. Mister? He was mad at
me and stayed mad at me for a couple of days.
“How do you know that?” you ask.
I went out early to take pictures of
the sunrise and as I was heading back into the house he reached out and slapped
my leg.
“HEY!” I was shocked and surprised.
This is the first time EVER that he’s ever shown any aggression towards me and
I hurried on into the house.
I fixed breakfast for the cats and
went to deliver a portion to the girls in the cat room. One of my morning
chores is to clean and refill their water bowl. When I stepped outside to dump
the old water, I saw the sun was coming up and the sky was still beautiful.
I quickly finished and went for my camera.
I wonder, are you tired of seeing
sunrise and sunset pictures in my letter blog? I don’t think I’ll ever tire of
taking them.
“Peg, you said your mama ‘showed up’ a
couple of time this week. What do you mean by that?” you wanna know.
Like
most people do, I loved my mother. She was a wise and strong woman. Such a wealth
of information and a fount of inspiration. I see her beautiful face everyday
because her picture is the photo on my iPad. It’s not this one but this is the
one that Momma especially liked.
“You’re always telling me what to do!”
Lamar’s daughter told him one day. Lamar laughed as he told me the story. “I
haven’t told her what to do in fifteen years!”
And just like Jenn, I hear my mother
in my head.
Our friends and neighbors the Kipps
are like most of us old people. We have twosies and threesies of a lot of stuff
and there’s little we want or need. Luckily, I have a couple of talents that
the Kipps love and I can tap into them when gift-giving time rolls around. For
Christmas I made them a pumpkin roll and a cheesecake!
Our friends and neighbors on the other
side of us, the Robinsons, have chickens — and chicken eggs! I love how deep
the color of the yolk is and think they’re more nutritious than the ones I get
from the store. And they’re definitely better tasting!
I used the eggs I got from Steph for the
cheesecake. I knew the golden yolks would give my cheesecake a rich color. I also
know that farm-fresh eggs can have a little blood in them so I used a tip my
mother gave me many years ago.
Crack it into a little bowl first.
I had an egg with a blood spot. I’m not
surprised and as a matter of fact, I rather expected it. Young hens that are
just starting to lay often rupture one of the tiny blood vessels in the ovaries.
“What do you do when an egg has blood in it?”
I asked Momma.
“I wouldn’t eat it. Throw it out.”
Her answer surprised me. She is often more
practical than that. That got me to musing about other things. I once asked her
about apples. I know she gathered apples from wild trees.
“Didn’t they have worm holes in them?” I
wanted to know. A vision of an apple I once cut in half popped into my mind’s
eye. It was covered with pin-points of brown specks. The browning of the escape
tunnels left by tiny little apple maggots.
“Not that I remember,” she answered.
Maybe they had more birds in the old days
that took better care of the pests than we have these days.
Then I wondered what the pioneers did. I
doubt they were wasteful and would throw an egg out. Did they use them
anyway?
Just for shits and grins, I called
Steph. “What do you do with an egg that has blood in it?”
“If it’s just a spot I pick it out
with the shell and use it anyway. If it’s a lot I throw it out. It doesn’t make
the egg bad,” she told me.
Miss Rosie had chickens too. When she
was young, taking care of the chickens was her favorite chore.
Just for shits and grins, I asked her too, “What
did you do with an egg that had blood in it?”
“Pick it out and use it anyway,” she
said matter-of-factly.
“I bet you wouldn’t even know it was in
there if you mixed it up and used it. After all we eat meat that has blood in
it,” I told her.
And that led my musings in another
direction. Once, a hundred years or so ago, Mom and Dad had gone to some kind
of a function hosted by the farm company my dad worked for. I can see that day
as clear as if it were yesterday — OMG! I heard stuff like that happens when
you get old! I guess I’m officially old then. But anyway, it was evening when
they returned home and they brought a ribeye steak home with them so each of us
kids could have a bite. The fork with a piece of meat was presented for me to take
my bite.
“It has fat on it,” I complained.
Momma, in a no-nonsense tone of voice
said, “Close your eyes.”
I smile now with the memory.
I did. I did what Momma said to do. I closed
my eyes and took my bite. I can still remember how surprised I was at how good
it tasted! I’m sure my pleasure was written all over my face and bet Momma smiled
her knowing smile.
Cheesecake in the oven, the house filled
with its delicious smell, I decided to treat myself to a refreshing diet drink.
I haven’t had one in quite a long time and its supposed to help you lose
weight.
I got my glass of water, added two tablespoons
each of vinegar and lemon juice, then went for the Stevia. I keep it in a
canister on the countertop but like I said, it’s been a long time since I’ve
made it, hence, a long time since I’ve used Stevia. I opened the top, tipped
the canister, and the Stevia didn’t move. It had clumped. I stuck my tablespoon
in there intending to break up the lumps when I notice a couple of dark spots.
I’d just wiped the canisters down a week or
so ago. It’s probably cake mix or brownie batter, I think. I probably
knocked a crumb down into the crack and it fell in when I opened it.
Close your eyes, was still echoing around in my head so I
closed my eyes and gave it a stir. How I ever thought I wouldn’t notice
a dark spot amongst all that white — I don’t know! But I didn’t see it when I
measured out my tablespoon of Stevia and that’s all that matters, right?
I stirred my drink and sat down to sip its
tangy sweetness. Near the bottom I see it. I see one of those dark spots — and
it looks just exactly like a mouse turd!
OMG!
My stomach started to roil — and Momma’s
advice came back to me. Only this time, instead of don’t look at it, her
advice was, don’t think about it.
How could I not! I just drank a whole glass
of mouse-turd infused diet drink!
I had to know. I had to know if that’s
really what it was. I got up and checked the canister. There was still a little
piece of it in the bottom. I picked it out. I’m going with brownie batter.
I guess I need to apply Momma’s advice with
a little more discretion.
You might think that’s the end of the story
but it’s not.
My cute little redhaired sister called me
this week and Momma was one of the things we talked about. Mostly about her
cooking.
“How do you feed thirteen people on a pound
of hot dogs?” Diane asked.
“Gravy!” is the answer.
“When I tell people about hot dog gravy,
they say they’ve never heard of such a thing,” Diane says.
“I know, right! And the same with bacon
gravy,” I tell her.
Our mother was a genius in the kitchen and
we never went hungry. What we had might not’ve been our favorite, but, “You don’t
have to eat it,” Dad would say. “There’s always something else.”
“Like what?” a whiny hopeful kid might ask.
“Breakfast!”
And that’s all there was to it. If you went
hungry, it was by your own choice.
>>>*<<<
I took my camera with me to check the mail
and noticed the pristine snow wasn’t pristine anymore. Rabbit tracks? I guess.
I don’t know what made these.
Deer?
I
was walking with my head down, watching where I was going, and a patch of messed
up snow came into view. Animal fight, I think — then I looked up and
took in the whole picture. Snow blower!
Now here’s something I’ve not seen often! Mike usually doesn’t mind getting the mail, but he usually takes the golf cart. Well, he’s put the golf cart away for the year and I was shocked when he actually walked down to get the mail.
“I can’t believe it!” I said. “I gotta
get a picture of this!” That’s how rare of an event it really is.
Christmas Eve, Mike took me down to the
Kipps to deliver the goodies I’d made them. At the creek I see a little mist rising and
took a picture.
I
gave Miss Rosie the cheesecake and made her pose for me.
And I came home with a goody plate of my
own.
“There goes my diet!”
“Yeah, but Peg,” Miss Rosie said. “Christmas
calories don’t count!”
And it’s a good thing too! The cookies didn’t
last long. I’ve had her Christmas plate before and everything on it is oh so
yummy!
Then the rains came. And came. And
came. They were calling for floods.
“Let’s go see what the river’s doing,”
Mike suggested on the afternoon of Christmas Eve.
At this point, the water wasn’t up much but we
had a nice ride and I took lots of pictures anyway.
Sorting my pictures for this letter blog, I
realized something about myself. The things I like, I like. I took pictures
from almost the same spot on two different days without even intending to do
so. What I’d like to do, in chronicling these two days, is put those side by
side to show you how much the water came up overnight.
Christmas Eve was foggy. You could barely
see the mountain behind the gas station.
Same
creek, almost the same view, 9:57 the next morning. The rain’s been non-stop.
Passing over the creek I took pictures of
the other side this time.
If
I cropped this one a little more it would look closer to the previous one but I
want you to see the flooding.
This is our creek at the lower bridge. The bridge on the other end of our road I call the lower bridge. Again, I realized I’d taken a picture from almost exactly the same spot. This is 5:32 pm…
And
10:16 the next morning.
Our pond is full!
“Are those turkeys up in the field?” I
asked Mike. I thought they’d come to hunt for food where Vernon had cleared his
driveway.
“No. Just clumps of dirt.”
Dang
Cadillac eyes!
The creek by the Kipps’ house. It’s flooding
into the yard.
Lots of debris on the Susquehanna.
“Let’s go!” I encouraged.
Past the school and the cemetery...
...down past the bus parking area we went.
“Wow. That trailer has five axles,” Mike said.
I’m usually up there on that bridge taking
pictures.
Mike stopped so I could show you the deep channels cut by the water.
>>>*<<<
Macchiato is getting old and blind so
we treat him special. He’s gotten so he expects treats when he wants them and when
he’s hungry he only wants canned food. And just like kids do when they don’t
get their own way, he cries — yowls when he’s unhappy. So, I give in and give
him what he wants. By the same token, I don’t want to feed the other boys canned
food all the time either. So, I have to stand guard.
“No!” I tell them and push them away
from the plate. After doing that a few times, they get the message and lay down
to wait. Once Macchiato is done, if there’s anything left, it’s a free-for-all.
Now, they’re trained to wait.
Speaking of critter food…
I had a visitor to my bird feeders!
I seldom see squirrels at my feeders
and this is the first time I’ve seen one since I moved the feeders to the
patio.
