“Peg, how’s Bondi?” you ask.
I’ll
tell you, but later. I’m going to keep you waiting until the very end.
Before I go off
on this week’s jibber-jabber, I’ve got a couple of things from before that I’d
like to clear up. And before I start on those, I’d like to open with my current
pretty desktop picture.
I got a little behind in my snail-mail letters when I was foolin’ around with Vocal. When I finally got around to mailing them, I had four envelopes worth of catch-up letters to send to two people. Two envelopes were under two ounces and the other two were over two. I have stamps for letters up to one ounce. I have stamps for letters between one and two ounces. What I didn’t have are stamps for letters over two ounces. I stamped those envelopes I had stamps for and put money in a postal stamp request envelope for those I didn’t and put everything in my mailbox. I assumed the carrier would see that two of the letters weren’t stamped and stamp them for me. That’s how it usually works.
The
next day, my request envelope comes back with stamps in it. They sold me more
stamps. Okay, I’m thinking. I wasn’t careful about putting the
un-stamped envelopes on top of the stack, the carrier assumed they were all
stamped and that I wanted more stamps. That’s what I thought. Now I’m
waiting for the two envelopes over two ounces to come back to me. It’s been
almost three weeks and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of them.
“They
either sent them through without postage or they’re going to collect it on the
other end,” I told Mike. Surely if they were coming back to me, I’d have them
before this. “Will you ask Cousin Suzy the next time you talk to her?”
Mike did ask Suzy and she said she
hasn’t gotten any envelopes without postage and no requests for postage due. I
don’t know where they are. But one thing is for sure. Those two readers will
have a gap in the story of this old woman’s life.
>>>*<<<
I
got my first sweet pepper from the plants my beautiful friend Jody gave to me.
I brushed it off, blew on it for good measure, and ate it right were I stood.
I’ve gotten more peppers since I took this picture two weeks ago.
A leaf hopper. He about bowled me over
then stopped so I could take his picture.
And so did this grasshopper, although I had a little more trouble spotting him.
Look what the
neighbors gave me! Isn’t it fabulous!
“What is it?” you ask.
This contraption is used to turn
newspapers into logs to burn in your fireplace — or wherever else you want to
burn them.
It
came complete with its accumulated dust and other detritus that found a home in
its unused innards. Nonetheless, I think it’s fabulous!
“What
are you going to do with it?” you wanna know.
I don’t know. Maybe roll a few
newspaper logs for shits and grins. And Miss Rosie had a suggestion. “You could
plant flowers in it.”
>>>*<<<
We
lost our cherry tree last year to some kind of insect that leaves tiny little
pin holes all up and down the tree.
This year it took out our pine tree. From what I can tell when I Google it, it’s some kind of a bark borer beetle.
“We better do something before it takes out your Bradford Pears,” I told Mike.
We inspected the pear trees and they
do have little holes in them too. Is it too late to save them? I don’t know. We
bought an insecticide that kills 500 known pests. All we can do is spray it on
and hope it works.
Speaking of trees, we have a couple of
this variety growing along our dirt road.
It gets these droopy
flowers that have a pleasant aroma but I don’t know what kind of tree it is.
This guy only looks like a bee but if you check out those eyes, you’ll see he’s got fly-eyes. This guy is — wait for it — he’s a Bee-fly! A Charcoal Bee-fly. These guys don’t sting. The adults eat pollen and nectar but the baby bee-flies feed off a host body of other, more problematic insects.
I
don’t spend a lot of time on the front patio but I watched her bring a flower
spider in to the babies one day.
Whenever the cats are out there, she raises a ruckus. To me, that seems like a dead give-away that there are babies close by.
I think Tiger figured it out, too.
The Touch-me-nots, or Jewelweed, is blooming. I’ve got both the orange and the yellow varieties.
I don’t know what kind of moth he is but he’s got a big spike on his one leg. See it?
I think this is a first-time sighting of one of these for me, even though the internet says they are fairly common.
“A butterfly!” you say.
Yes.
Yes, it is. It’s a Mourning Cloak Butterfly. I first saw it from a distance and
started snapping
pictures. I was lucky. He let me get pretty close so all those far-away blurry
pics went into the trash.
I
know it has other names. It’s also called Grand Surprise and White Petticoat. (It
should be Yellow Petticoat, don’cha think?) It’s said that the butterfly’s
pattern is likened to a girl, who disliking having to be in mourning, defiantly
let a few inches of a bright petticoat show below her mourning dress.
The
Mourning Cloak has a wingspan up to four inches and can live up to a year,
making it one of the longest lifespans of any butterfly. They hibernate in tree
cavities and on the ground under loose tree bark. They’re one of the earliest butterflies
you’ll see in the spring, emerging even before all the snow is gone.
These guys use camouflage for defense, but he will also play dead by closing his wings, tucking his feet up close to his
body, and holding still for a few minutes. They’ll also emit loud clicks when
escaping from a predator.
And
lastly, when the eggs start hatching, some of the caterpillars will eat their unborn brothers and sisters.
>>>*<<<
I
saw this guy this week, too. He’s got a bright orange underwing that you can
see peeking out and it might not surprise you to know that he’s called an
Underwing Moth. There are more than 200 species of underwings so I’m not sure
what his first name is.
>>>*<<<
While
we’re talking about butterflies and moths, I’ve gotten my first pictures of a
Monarch this year. I saw one before this but he didn’t cooperate at all.
>>>*<<<
Swamp
Milkweed is blooming. It looks much like milkweed but the leaves are more
narrow. It smells just as good though.
>>>*<<<
Mullein is
blooming. The leaves, flowers, and roots of this plant have been used since
ancient times for the treatment of various inflammatory diseases, diarrhea,
asthma, coughs and other lung-related ailments — making it one of the top herbs
for healing.
An oil made from the flowers is very commonly used to treat the pain and inflammation of earaches. It might even be able to fight influenza, herpes viruses and some bacteria that cause respiratory infections.
Traditional use
of this plant, in its various forms, includes the treatment of bruises, burns,
hemorrhoids and gout. It can be ingested, applied topically and even smoked. In
the Appalachia region of the U.S., the plant has historically been used to
treat colds and upper airway infections. Additionally, the leaves have been
applied topically to soften and protect the skin.
And now you know
more about Mullein than you ever wanted to know.
>>>*<<<
I pulled a Bur Cucumber plant from
my flower bed and exposed these eggs hiding on a leaf. According to my bug
group on Facebook, they’re Squash Bug eggs.
>>>*<<<
I walk around in my bare
feet a lot on these warm summer days. I love the feel of the grass under my
feet. The stones and gravel, not so much. But we take the bad with the good.
Another bad thing about bare feet, and grass, and flowers, is bees. I used to think they’d move when they saw a foot coming at them. I don’t believe that anymore since I got stung on the toe last summer. Did I learn my lesson? No! This time I got stung on my foot. And with all that tough old skin down there, where does the bee sting me? Right in a tender crease! Even my feet are wrinkled!
>>>*<<<
We’ve had rain, rain, and more rain!
Our little creek is full to overflowing, leavin' its bed and going up into the
Kipps’ yard — and so did the ducks.
The Robinsons' barn in the early morning light.
We lost another little tree. This time someone cut it up and got it off the road before we were out of bed.
A few road pictures from our trips out into the world.
Turkeys with their young.
Mike stopped and put gas in the gas can. He had the tailgate open. I was sitting there waiting and felt something crawling up my neck. I flung it off me and he landed on the dash. I didn’t get bitten or stung, but wondered what he was. I leaned forward and found these little eyes looking back at me.
At the next stop, Mike went in and I stayed in the car with the baby. I plucked a receipt from the trash bag and lifted the guy up so I could get a good look at him. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t bite so I let him work his way from the paper to my finger.
“What is it!” you
wanna know — or maybe you don’t, but I’m gonna tell ya anyway.
This is an
Oriental Beetle. This guy is in the Scarab family, native to Asia, and invasive
here. They live one to two weeks.
>>>*<<<
How’s
Bondi?
I won't keep you waiting any longer.
Bondi, like any baby, thinks anything
found on the floor is hers and needs to be tasted. I took this piece of tin from
her. She found it in some obscure corner that got missed by the vacuum sweeper.
Between Bondi and one of the cats urinating on a corner of a rug, Monday was spent in an all-day house cleaning marathon. Floors were swept, a couple of rugs were shampooed, and the one that cat was using for her own personal toilet? It was taken outside, thrown over the tractor bucket, sprayed with rug cleaner, and power washed.
I
was so glad Mike had taken that chore to do!
We’ve had Bondi for a week now. It was brought to my attention that I neglected to tell you how old she is. Let’s fix that right now. The shelter said she’s three months old. Her paperwork doesn’t list a date of birth, but under age it says one month, twenty-nine days. In parentheses it lists the date of May 6, 2021. If that’s how old she was on that date, her birthday is March 8, 2021 and that makes her almost four and a half months old now.
Bondi’s not housebroken and I can’t
let her run in the house. I carried her around for the first day, pulling my
shirt up to make a cradle for her, grasping the bottom with my teeth when I needed
both my hands. Then I remembered what my beautiful sister Phyllis did. She had a
pup that cried whenever she put her down so her solution was to carry her in an
infinity scarf. I never thought I’d use that bit of information but here I am,
crushing it. For the most part, for the first week, Bondi was content to let me
carry her around.
I include lots of outside playtime for Bondi. I let her follow me to the burn barrel. Coming around the corner by the end of the fence is an old post hole. Bondi fell in. She fell in it one more time before she started to remember it was there. Then she’d go up to the edge and stick her head down in.
Bondi has discovered the joys of playing with an empty water bottle. It makes such a nice crinkling noise.
It didn’t take her long to get the label off. She played with this one for two days before she lost interest in it.
It took me a little while to figure out what she’s doing here. She’s hunting and eating ants. We shall henceforth call her Bondi, the Great Ant Hunter!
Oh, wait. She has another name too. It’s Bondi, the Great Neck Snuggler!
She loves to snuggle Miss Rosie’s
neck.
And Steph’s too!
On a trip to the mailbox, Bondi found a stick she wanted to bring home with her.
“If you carry it, you can have it,” I told her. She only made it about halfway before she dropped it for the third time and gave up.
The Kipps’ rescued dog, Tux is so good with Bondi. She jumps all over him and he never growls or snips at her. It goes without saying that we monitored them closely until we were sure how Tux would react. Now, I’m not worried about him at all.
As for the cats, a couple of them have smacked Bondi hard enough to make her cry. She doesn’t give up, will forget in a couple of days, and try to play with them again. Of all the cats, Tiger is the only one who will have anything to do with her. The first week was just cat and mouse. He’d run from her and chase her. This week he’s interacting with her. Bondi jumps at his face, Tiger grabs her and body-slams her to the ground. His bites are a little hard from time to time and he always lets her go when she cries.
Bondi isn’t impressed with the dog food I bought her. I Googled it and decided it wouldn’t be much of a hardship in either time or money to make her good food. A cup of brown rice and a chicken breast can feed this little girl for a long time. I can change up the flavors by adding peas (which she doesn’t like), sweet potato, carrots, and spinach (which she does like). To make sure she’s getting all the nutrients she needs, I ground up some of the dry dog food and add it to her food.
She
doesn’t eat more than a couple of tablespoons at a sitting and nothing makes
her clean her plate faster than when Smudge is trying to help her.
But what’s life if you can’t have a little junk food. Bondi likes pizza too.
Before we settle down to watch our evening TV, I sit on the floor and play with Bondi. Tossing her toys for her and playing tug-o-war.
We’ve
got this cat toy where a ball goes around and a cat can bat at it from the top
or the sides. Bondi is currently trying to figure out how to get the ball of
there. Her little mouth just doesn’t fit and she can’t get a hold of the ball.
That covers all the pictures I’ve set aside for you for this week.
Starting yesterday, housebreaking has begun in earnest. Bondi pees when I take her out and tell her to pee, but she doesn’t know it’s not okay to pee in the house. To learn that lesson, she’ll have to make some mistakes and be scolded. I’m giving her more floor time in a corralled off section of the kitchen. It’s a bit inconvenient to step over barricades but it can’t be helped.
Online only bonus video of Tiger and Bondi playing. It's a minute forty long. I hope it makes you smile half as much as it does me.
With
that, let’s call this one done!
No comments:
Post a Comment