Tuesday into Wednesday

          It’s Tuesday.

          Today is Tuesday.

          One thing is for sure. Having a new puppy and a misbehaving cat equals house cleaning time and that’s what I spent my entire day doing on Monday. You’ll get to hear more about that next time. For now, let’s catch you up on the pictures you missed in the regular Sunday letter blog. I know how you like my pictures.

          Sometimes, when a bit of fluff is floating around outside, it’s not really fluff at all. It’s one of these guys. Reach out and catch it and see if it’s got wings. This is a Woolly Aphid on my knuckle. They secrete a waxy filament which may make them unappetizing to things that might want to eat them. These guys have many nicknames including Angel Flies, Cotton Fairies, Fluff Bugs, Fairy Flies, Snow Bugs, Fluffer Fairies, Poodle Flies, and Fluffy Gnats.

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          When Mike was in the hospital, I found out something I didn’t know.

I had to put gas in the car for the first time in years. Did you know that there are other choices in gas besides Regular, Super, and Plus?

I’m standing there looking at this and thinking, what the heck is Flex Fuel and Unleaded 88? Both were cheaper than regular unleaded but since I didn’t know what they were, I opted to go with the Regular.

Speaking of Mike, I don’t know if I told you or not but he’s gotten a clean bill of health. At least as much as is possible. He needs no further treatment for his colon cancer except for checkups every three months, a CT scan in six months, and a colonoscopy in a year.

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We’ve been having quite the weather here lately. I went out one morning to fill the bird feeders and see a bit of red plastic on the ground. Where did that come from? I wondered. It wasn’t until I turned the other way that I see a glass jar with a red lid had come off the shelf. There were two side-by-side. The lid must’ve taken the brunt of the fall because the glass didn’t break. Can you see how far it fell?

We had hail!

And lost a couple of small trees to the wind, too.

There was a big stick laying right across the road. Mike, who is very conscious of the damage running over things can do to tires, never runs things over. For some weird reason, he decided to barrel right over the stick only to realize at the last second that it was a big black snake basking in the sun. I saw him go for the weeds and looked for him on the way back through, but didn’t see him. I sure hope he wasn’t hurt too bad — or at all!

Oh my gosh! Speaking of hurts, two of us got hurts this week.

Smudge. Poor, poor Smudge. He’s the only one of our clowder that Mr. Mister picks on. I’ve been trying to figure out why.

“Do you think he smells different than the others?” I asked Mike. When we took Smudge to be fixed, they thought he was already fixed. His testicles never descended. They had to open him up to fix him and it cost me what a female spay costs, which is more than a male castration.

“I don’t know,” was Mike’s answer and he didn’t speculate, but he really hates that Mr. picks on Smudge.

I turned to a trusted source. My vet. I asked Dr. Lori the same question.

“Does Smudge still have a Tom cat odor to him? Resources such as food and territory would be general reasons, so if he thinks Smudge is not following his rules on either, that would be reason enough,” she told me.

It was like a light bulb went off over my head. I caught Smudge marking in the house once. I don’t know why he did it, I’ve never caught him before, and I haven’t caught him since, but if he’s marking outside, that’s likely why Mr. picks on him.

I try. I really, really try to keep them apart. If Mr.’s out back, I’ll let Smudge go out front. But Mr. Mister doesn’t always stay on the kitchen patio.

Sigh.

And the other hurt?

That would be me.

I go out the catroom door to dump the litter in the weeds at night. I knew the hornets were building a nest under the awning outside the door, nonetheless, when I went out the other day, a buzzy-buzz buzzed my head. Without thinking, I started swinging my hand over my head and that sent these guys into attack mode. I had bees swarming me. I took off, smacking my head to get them out of my hair and ended up being stung three times. On the back of my neck, my shoulder, and my forearm. The stings swelled, like a bee sting is wont to do, and a couple of days later they started to itch. I’m not using that door anymore until Mike knocks the nest down. Or maybe I’ll let them live there till they die in the fall. I don’t have to use that door.

“Peg, what do you know about these bees?”

I’m so glad you asked! I could tell, when I zoomed in on my picture, the these are Bald-faced Hornets. They have many other names including, White-faced Hornet, Bull Wasp, and Blackjacket.

The colony is founded by a single overwintered, inseminated queen. She rears the first generation of workers on her own until they are functional. After the queen lays her eggs, it takes 6 days for them to hatch. They grow as larvae for eight days. It takes them an additional 9–10 days to mature into adult workers. The colony dies mid-September, for a life cycle of approximately four months.

Bald-faced Hornets are omnivorous and considered to be beneficial because they eat flies, caterpillars, and spiders. However, they’re aggressive and vigorously defend the nest, with workers stinging repeatedly, as is common among social bees and wasps. This makes them a threat to humans who wander too close to a nest. I found that out! Boy, did I! But listen to this. Bald-faced Hornet have a unique defense. They can squirt or spray venom from the stinger into the eyes of nest intruders which causes immediate watering of the eyes and temporary blindness.

Nature is so cool!

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I saw on the internet some time ago, that if you take a plumbing Y, you can use it in your bathroom to hold your hair dryer and curling iron.

I painted mine purple.

“Peg, it’ll be top-heavy if you don’t put something in the bottom,” Mike said. So, we put a few inches of concrete in the bottom.

Just let me tell you that it doesn’t work all that well. I was forever knocking it over.

I was in the wayback looking for that manicure kit I talked about a couple of weeks ago and found my old hair dryer holder. I’d forgotten I had it. 

Mike put it up for me and my purple plumbing Y is relegated to the back patio. I don’t know if we can knock the concrete out and still use it for its intended purpose of if I’ll just pitch it.

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Bouncing Bet is blooming. 

This plant is also called Soapwort because you can make a very mild soap from it. It’s been historically used to clean delicate textiles, especially wool, and they think this plant was used to treat the Shroud of Turin.

Knapweed is blooming. This plant is in the daisy family and is a huge favorite of all kinds of butterflies.

Chicory is just starting to bloom. This flower is in the sunflower family. I was so excited to see my first one that I didn’t wait to find a prettier one. Did you know that each flower lasts only one day? Or that you can only see flowers on sunny days? Both of these things are true.

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I’m writing in real time. Tuesday has passed into Wednesday. I thought I was done with this then I found eighteen photographs on my desktop that were supposed to be saved in the letter blog folder. Some of them will keep and if nothing better happens, I’ll use them in the next letter blog.

But a couple of three things I need to tell you now.

Having a new baby might put a crimp in my crafting but it’s more than worth it to me. I did complete a couple of projects before Bondi came to live with us.

I made new tin can flowers, a giant ladybug, and gave her several smaller babies.

Making the giant ladybug presented a few challenges for me. I was originally making these in three pieces to make it easy to spray paint. Then put them together with rivets. I decided to try and make it in two pieces and tape it off.

          My black paint had issues. The nozzle clogged on me and I couldn’t clear it. I got a nozzle from another color and it clogged, too.

          “Was it an old can we had around here?” Mike asked. “It might’ve been frozen and there’s chunks in the paint.”

          “I don’t know. Maybe.”

          I managed to get it painted, a few hours later taped it off to paint the red, and when I pulled the tape, the paint came off, too. It didn’t bond and I could peel it off. I had to strip it down, buy new black paint, and repaint it. I guess I’ll have to keep this one since it’s got flaws, which henceforth will be called character.

And I turned an old salsa jar into a canister with air-dry clay. This time I used a mold to make the flowers and embellished it with vines and leaves.

With that, let’s call this one done!