Peggy's Jibber-Jabber: Clouds

It was a really good week for clouds, that’s all I gotta say. And since I do like to title my letter blogs, Clouds is about as good as anything.

It was getting on towards evening when the neighbor called. He told Mike he saw a big bird circling our pond, “It looked like an eagle.”

I took my camera and went out. I didn’t find any big birds over or near the pond but turning back around, there were fabulous clouds over the house.

We had to make a couple of forays into the wilds of Beyond Our Front Yard, and I got even more cloud pictures.

Crossing the Susquehanna into Towanda where two of my siblings were born.

Speaking of going out, let me show you some of the other things I saw. These are in no particular order or even on the same trip.

“I don’t think those are factory,” Mike said.

I wasn’t paying attention. “What’s not?”

“Those mufflers,” he answered and nodded to the car ahead of us.

Hangin’ around after school. It seems like a hundred years since I was in school.

I wonder if this guy is related to the truck I’d taken pictures of a couple of weeks ago, since they were both in the same town.

“…that stuff should be outlawed. I would not ride in that truck for anything!” one of my beautiful friends said.

I have a feeling Joanie won’t like this one any better.

White Trash, was easy enough to read. The green one I read wrong. I thought it read, Zero Faux Given. Faux means fake.

“Peg, that doesn’t make any sense,” you say.

I know, right! It didn’t make any sense to me either. It wasn’t until I was editing the picture that I realized what they were really saying — which I won’t repeat.

A Minion. I think he’s cute.

Mike won’t let me have any yard art that he has to mow around.

It looks like we’re not the only one who’s hit something.

I sent one of my tin flowers to my beautiful friend in West Virginia.

“Peg!” you exclaim. “Have you ever noticed that all your friends and family are beautiful or handsome‽”

I have noticed. You don’t think I’d associate with anyone who’s ugly, do you? Having said that, I don’t ever want any of them to forget how truly beautiful — or handsome — they really are. I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t so.

While I was mailing Trish her package, I see these stamps. Since I’ve been writing our grandson Andrew a weekly letter, I thought that he’d get a kick out of ‘em.

They’re working on our road. A couple of days in a row we’d gotten stopped and had to wait.

I was scanning the bank outside my window when I see these and I was absolutely delighted to find a new-to-me wildflower.

“What are they?” I asked Mike like he’d know.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think I’d have time to go take a picture of them?” I was already taking pictures of them from where I sat in the passenger seat.

No cars had passed us from the other direction so Mike thought I’d have time. “I’ll let you know if I see anything coming,” he said.

I hopped out, climbed the bank, and took a few pictures.

On a whim, I pulled one and brought it back to the car with me.

“What can I put it in?” I wondered aloud. In my head I’m thinking if I had a drink cup, I could put a little water in it and keep my wildflower. All I had in the car was full, unopened bottles of water. I reached for one. “Here, drink some of this,” I ordered Mike. And he did. My wildflower stayed nice until I got home, then I looked up what he was and planted him.

“Well, what is it?” you wanna know.

According to my Field Guide to Wildflowers, a book given to me by my beautiful cousin Shannon, one which used to belong to my beloved my Aunt B. (and still smells like cigarette smoke), this is Tall Corydalis. An internet search lists other names for this as Rock Harlequin, Pale Corydalis, and Pink Corydalis. I find no uses for it other than making shaded places look pretty.

The worker guys stood back and watched as car after car drove over the two steel plates that spanned the ditch they were digging.

“Looks like they’re putting in a new culvert,” Mike observed.

I thought it was a little scary, especially since fully-loaded semis were crossing it. I guess they know what they’re doing and had them rated for that, but what if someone misses one of the plates‽

This one made me laugh.

“What’s on the end of the fence?” I asked Mike, but he didn’t know. All I know is it wasn’t there before.

Maybe one of my local peeps know what this is all about.

I always try to snap a picture of the eagle’s nest as we drive past. I could get a picture at the old location of the nest but it blew down two years ago and this new site has a lot of branches and foliage between us and it. But I guess if I had one of these ten-thousand-dollar lenses, I could zoom right in between them and get a good picture.

Pigeons on an old porch.

I saw a Great Blue Heron at our pond. He’s probably trying to eat some of our frogs.

Oh! Speaking of frogs! Look who brought a frog in!

There’s only one time I’ve ever seen our cats eat a frog, then they only ate the fat, juicy jumping legs. Poor guy was still alive when I found him. It grossed me out. I took him back to the pond and put him back in the food chain. I figured the turtles would finish him off.

I had Tiger put his frog down long enough for me to get a picture, then I let him have it back. Tiger didn’t want it back. He walked away and found a sunny spot to sit in, then went to work washing and drying his muddy and wet undercarriage.

I picked up the frog. He didn’t look hurt and wasn’t bleeding that I could see. I took him to a wet swampy area near the edge of the field. It was closer than going the whole way down to the pond.

A hummingbird. Not a good picture, however, it does have the distinction of being the first hummer I’ve seen this year.

The honeysuckle is starting to bloom. Soon you’ll be driving down the road and be able to smell them. There’s a lot of it around.

Creeping Charlie, also called Ground Ivy and Gill-over-the-ground. I left part of my index finger in the shot so you can see how little it is. The flowers are only about a half-inch long.

The leaves of this plant were once used to help ferment, or flavor, beer.

On the ‘roof’ of every little ‘mouth’ are two more little-little flowers!

Flowers inside of flowers! Who’d’ve thunk it!

And check this one out! Down near the end of our road, a bunch of this was growing. It’s called False Hellebore, a member of the lily family. I brought two home with me and planted them in the weed line so Mike didn’t have to mow around them. Despite my tender care, they both died — or so I thought. I was so pleased when I saw them come up!

Two years ago, a flood took a lot of it out. Then last year they cleared the land and put poles up for electric service, something the part-timers never had on their property before. I don’t think there’s any left down there at all.

This plant is highly toxic, causing nausea and vomiting, cold sweats and vertigo. It’s considered a pest by farmers with livestock. I thought it was interesting that it was used by some Indian tribes to elect a new leader. All the candidates would eat the root and the last to start vomiting would become the new leader.

Personally, I think other qualities in a leader should be more prized. The ability to lead, compassion, bravery, and strength, to name a few.

“Peg, did you make anything this week?” you ask.

I did!

I made a new design flower-spinner. I took all the pieces out into the yard to spray paint and when I popped the top off, there wasn’t any nozzle! I thought I’d pulled it off when I opened the can so I checked the lid, then the floor around me. No nozzle.

“Mike, the nozzle is missing!” I cried to him.

“Someone stole it,” he said.

Nozzles do get clogged and maybe someone did think it easier to take one rather than clean one. “I guess I learned a lesson. Always check to make sure I get a nozzle.”

I took one from one of the other cans and was able to use it anyway. But it’s a pain to have to switch it between two colors.

I went out to flip the pieces and spray paint the other side and see two white legs poking out from under the tarp.

Smudge was lounging under it.

And this is what I made. I wasn’t even sure it would spin and was delighted when it spins like crazy!

“It’s not round,” my handsome, almost-twin, brother David said when he saw it.

Hence, why I wondered if it would spin. The clunking noise is from a different spinner, not this one.

I had my beautiful friend Jody in mind when I made it. She’s the one who gave me the large pieces of metal to play with. But would she like it? I posted it on Face Book and most people seemed to like it.

“Looks like a full skirt twirling. Love it!” Jody commented.

So, I felt safe in offering it to her.

“Do you want a ladybug, too?” I asked.

“Well, yeah!”

“What color do you want it?” I was thinking of one I’d just done and sent to West Virginia. It was yellow.

“Traditional colors,” was what she wanted.

This whole adventure in metal art is a learning experience for me. What works, what doesn’t. What breaks, what withstands strong winds. I lost two of my spinners and Jody let me know she lost one of hers. They can’t be fixed. Miss Rosie had one come off the front of its spinner post and that one I can fix. I trust my peeps to let me know when something breaks. I can tuck that info away and make adjustments and improvements as I go.

On the way to deliver Jody’s flower-spinner, we stopped at the Kipps' to drop off some Chinese Lantern seedlings. And that’s where I saw this guy.

I made Jody not look until I was ready.

“But Peg, didn’t she already see it on Facebook?” you ask.

She did, but it’s not the same as seeing it in person, and now it had its ladybug attached.

Jody was a good sport and gave me my surprise look.

“It’s beautiful!” she said. “Let’s go plant it.”

We went out to her garden and she picked just the right spot so she could see it from her office window.

“I like my newest whirly-gig the best. I look at it and smile. It reminds me of a full skirt twirling. Maybe others can’t see it but I do,” she told me a couple of days later.

That got me to wondering, “Did you spin your dresses when you were little?” I asked.

“All the time! I pretended to be Cinderella, twirling around with all the birds singing around her, like in the movie.”

I took a few pictures while we were there.

“What happened to your tree?” I asked.

“It got struck by lightning. We’re thinking about having it taken down.”

Jody has some beautiful lilacs. I kinda sorta helped myself without asking but knew she wouldn’t mind. I love lilacs and have some of my own but mine are in partial shade and haven’t started to open yet.

I took pictures on the way home.

I took the lilacs home and gave them to my girls.

These are some of the most fragrant flowers I’ve ever had!

With Jody’s flower-spinner signed, sealed, and delivered, I worked on a new design that came to me while working on Jody’s.

“Peg! They look like spoons!” you exclaim.

I know, right! That’s what I thought too!

“It’s like Jody’s,” Miss Rosie said when she saw it.

I denied it but later saw it with new eyes and had to admit the outer diamond shape was very much like Jody’s. And I again wondered if it would spin. And it does! I walked over and silenced the noisy one.

Since I had my spray paints out, I went ahead and painted my hubcap flowers.

And my lilacs have opened up! I have a fancy variety called Sensation Lilac. I’m guessing this is a cross breed since I have white lilacs growing on the same bush.

And now this year I even have white lilacs on the same stem.

Since the white has split off to return to its original color, I’m wondering if I’ll get solid lavender lilacs some year.

Closeup on a spent dandelion.

I was so excited to see an orange bird at my suet feeder. I spent days trying to get his picture and for the longest time all I could see was his orange belly.