Pink Moon

           We had a super moon there at the end of April called the Pink Moon, I happened to be outside the night before it was full and took this picture of the moon. I can probably make it pink with my basic photo editing tools but the Pink Moon isn’t named Pink because it’s pink, it’s named after phlox, the pink flowers that bloom in spring. Other names for this full moon are Sprouting Grass Moon, Fish Moon, Hare Moon, Egg Moon, and Paschal Moon.

          There’s a time I can take moon pictures and that time is not when it’s full dark. It’s while there’s still a little light out. I meant to go out and take a picture of the Pink Moon in all its fullness but forgot until it was too late. And then this is what I get. A hazy orb with no details.

          “Peg, can’t you change the settings on your camera?” you ask.

          Yeah. No. Someone who knows how to do all that kinda stuff can, but I’m strictly a point-and-shoot kinda gal. Even though I enjoy taking pictures and take lots of pictures I’ll never be a true photographer.

>>>*<<<

          My newest obsession, tin can flowers, is starting to take over my glass table! Okay! Okay! I might’ve just stacked ‘em all up there for effect, but it doesn’t diminish the fact that I’ve got a bunch of cans! I’ve been saving them for a while now plus Miss Rosie and beautiful neighbor Steph are saving cans for me. What I’d really like to have is some of those big one-gallon cans like restaurants use. It would be a bit of trouble to keep them in a separate place and I don’t know that they’d be willing to do that.

          I have a lot of cat food cans so I thought I’d ‘flatten’ ‘em down. They’ll take up less room and I can still do different things with them after this point.

          “What’d’ya make this week?” you wanna know.

          Besides spending an afternoon flattening cat food cans, I made this yellow beauty right here. I like to see them spin so I put it on a post in the yard and it wouldn’t spin! After looking at it, puzzling it over, and comparing it to the one I made that spins like crazy, I see I bent the petals in the opposite direction. I didn’t think that would matter but I guess it does since I changed it and now it spins!         

         While out and about this week I picked up a can of red paint.

          You know what that means, don’cha? It means I had to make a red flower. This time I made pointed ends on my back petals and gave them a little ‘kink’ to add interest. Did it work?

          Then I have this one in the works. 

          I think I need to second coat the green before I put it together. I’m not sure I’m likin’ this one so much. I’m thinking of adding larger petals where the orange ones are and I’m not crazy about the variety of colors. I like all the colors, I’m just not sure I like them all on the same flower-spinner. I think I’ll change the yellow to orange and I’d be happier with that. But, since it’s going to live at Miss Rosie’s house, I’ll let her decide.

>>>*<<<

          We had wind!

          We had two or three days of big winds!

          Some of my flower-spinner posts were blown over. I picked ‘em up and pounded them back into the ground.

          My first spinner, what I think of as a junk spinner, spun so hard he came off his post and stuck himself in the chain link fence — twice! 

          After the third day, when I inspected my spinners, I see two of them have broken vanes. One of them is this aluminum one.         

           The other is one of the vinyl ones. There’s no fixing them. If they won’t spin on three vanes, I’ll quietly give them a funeral.

Funeral. Dying. Death. Can my spinners die? Why did I pick that word? I could’ve just as easily said, “I’ll throw them in the trash.” I contemplate.

Then it dawned on me why. There’s been a lot of dying goin’ on around here this week. Has it always been so? Not the dyin’ part, the other part. Do the everyday happenings around me influence the words I pick when I talk to you?

I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve been surrounded in death this week.

Well, let me tell you! It’s all thanks to this guy!

            

Tiger!

Tiger, Tiger, Tiger!

I think he’s brought in at least one mouse EVERY. SINGLE. DAY! this week! One day he brought two! I don’t think he ate the second one.

Tiger was crunching mouse bones when I took this picture. As awful as that sounds, I think it’s much better than torturing the poor critters before you crunch their bones! And I said so to Mike.

             “At least he doesn’t torture them first,” I said when I came back in and put my camera on the counter.

I jinxed it! That’s what I did! I jinxed it! A few hours later, Tiger came trotting across the yard with this guy in his mouth.

          “Good boy,” I told him. When he dropped the mouse to accept his congratulatory pet on the head, the mouse tried to run away. “Kill him, Tiger!” I admonished and left him to his game.

Later, I was telling Miss Rosie about it on the phone. About how Tiger never tortures them first, then just as soon as I said that to Mike, Tiger did!

          “You gave him ideas,” Miss Rosie said.

          I wish I’d’ve kept my big mouth shut!

          Later in the week he brings in another victim. Tiger plays the traditional cat and mouse game with him — lets him run a little then brings him back to the patio. 

         The mouse made it the whole way out into the middle of yard where my big planter is. He cried when he saw Tiger come around the corner.

          Then he turned his sad little mouse eyes on me. He seemed to be begging for his life. You don’t know how hard it was for me to leave him to his fate.

          There are lots of mice, I tell myself.

          Since I can’t watch, and it’s not fair to take his catch away from him, I head back inside.

          “I hope he gets away,” I toss back over my shoulder. “It’d serve you right for toying with him!”

          The next day I went out to spray paint one of my tin flowers. It was starting to sprinkle so I couldn’t paint in the grass. I unfolded a sheet of plastic I have on the patio to spray paint on and out tumbled a mouse. A dead mouse. He’d been hurt enough in Tiger’s games that he died anyway.

          Saturday was a repeat. Another mouse, another game. I have no idea of the outcome.  

          Tiger’s just a killin’ machine! 

>>>*<<<

          We made a trip to Sayre and stopped to see the eagles. The problem with this new nesting site is there’s only one place to take unobstructive photos from and by the time I got there, it was already occupied. But I did have a nice chat with the lady and her mother. They come once a week from New York to see the eagles and have lunch out.

          The eagle was tearing strips from a fish and feeding her youngens. 

         Shortly after the eagle left, the ladies left too. I moved into the now empty prime spot and snapped this picture. Look at the size of his feet! They’re huge!          

          We did a little shopping and had lunch downtown at the McDonald’s. You probably won’t be surprised when I tell you I had a chicken sandwich, will you?

          I caught a glimpse of this fence as we pass. In my mind’s eye, with my over-active imagination, I saw a steel-clad futuristic warrior with a belt of bullets slung over his shoulder.

          “Will you turn around for me?” I asked. I just had to see if what I saw was true.

          Mike huffed a little, checked his mirrors, and backed up.

I didn’t. I didn’t see what I thought I saw.

          So, I fixed it. 

          Coming back through our little town sits this tree in full bloom.

          I don’t know what it is but that didn’t stop me from wanting to take pictures of it.           

          In my yard, the Creeping Charlie is blooming.

          And so is the Speedwell.

           Garlic Mustard.

          And Black Mustard.

           I saw this one along our little dirt road and thought it was a wild strawberry but I don’t really know.

          Last year’s Chinese Lantern.

         Our pond is teaming with life. Frog life that is.

          The Red-winged Blackbirds like to nest close to our pond. I caught two males chasing a female.

 (The female is hard to see.)

           A bumble on the Rhodies.

           I’ve got a peony coming up! This is the second year since I planted it. I think I planted it too late in the year last year for it to do much plus the cats kept digging the bulb up. I fixed that. I put a wire rack over it. My glads are in the same bed and I’m wondering if they’ll come up through the grate okay. I guess we’ll find out!

          My grape vine sits draped over this stump for a year now. I need to finish getting it twisted together and hung on the wall.

          We ended up making a second trip to Sayre this week — in the rain.

             It was the day after some big winds and the guys were out getting trees off wires and wires put back up.

          I lowered my window and snapped a picture of the eagle as we drove past — and I actually got her!

           Maybe not as good as the guys with the ten-thousand-dollar lenses. Yeah, we have those kinds of serious photogs come and take pictures of our eagles.

          And speaking of serious…

          Are you serious!

          Why!? Just why would you put this on your Platinum, 6.7 Power Stroke, Super Duty truck? I bet there’s a good story here. At least an interesting one. I’d love to hear it if anyone knows.

          Do you think that whomever made the stickers should’ve known that ‘aboard’ and ‘a board’ are not the same thing?

          Lastly, I want to share another recipe with you. Mike found this one on the internet and we tried it. It’s Crockpot Sausage and Peppers and it was really good — and easy! Chopping the veggies was the hardest part. I’m not going to take the time or space to print it here, I trust you’ll contact me if you’d like to try it.

         Remember, you’re all in my heart.

          And with that, let’s call this one done!