I Think You Stink

           I was washing dishes this afternoon, thinking about telling you something and composing in my head.

          I think — and a picture of what I wanted to tell you came to my mind’s eye. I composed it several ways always starting with I think when you stink came unbidden into my head. I don’t really think you stink, not literally and not figuratively. However, it does rhyme, so I went with it.

          “What did you want to tell us?” you ask.

          I posted a second letter blog this week and I think some of you may have missed it. I say that because it only got eleven views which is a far cry from the thirty or so I usually get. The only conclusion I can come to is you missed it. Not to worry though. It’s still posted. You can go back and read it if you’ve a mind to.

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          My beautiful Jody and I took Pastor Rick to be with his family in Michigan. He had a myriad of health problems including diabetes and a bad heart. He needed to have his lower leg amputated but they didn’t think his heart could withstand the operation. All told, Pastor refused any and all medical treatments. He passed away this past week.

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          Our new Aldi’s store in Wysox is almost done! Yay!

          I was reading an online article about Aldi’s and how they keep their prices low. You have to have your own bags and pack your own groceries, you rent the buggies, no fancy displays, are all things I already knew. One thing the article said that I didn’t know was that the man who owns Aldi’s and the man who owns Trader Joe’s are brothers who had different business visions and went their separate ways.

At the end of the article, they started dissing Aldi’s products. That means disrespecting or insulting. I don’t know who this person was that wrote it, I don’t even remember where I read it, whether it was something that came up on Facebook Newsfeed, an email, or an article on Yahoo Homepage, but I totally disagree with all of their assessments on Aldi’s products. They said the cereal is awful. Mike used to eat the spoon-size shredded wheat until they discontinued it, then he switched to Crispy Oat’s and thinks they taste just like the name brand. I eat their oatmeal. I mean, com’on! How can you mess up oats?

They said if you use Aldi’s butter your baking will suffer. “It’s just not worth it.” 

I’ve been using the butter for years and have never had any complaints on the things I bake.

The article went on and on dissing one product after another, but the one — no make it two, that really struck me was the jello and the yogurt.

          When my kids were little, they actually liked the Aldi’s jello better than the name brand. They thought it had a fruitier flavor.

          “And the kids won’t even touch the yogurt,” the article said. “Now that’s pretty bad.”

          I’m here to tell you that another favorite of my kids was the yogurt. It was where they first became yogurt lovers and I used to buy it by the flats!

          “It’s like store brand stuff,” my feisty redheaded neighbor said. “You just have to try it and see if you like it.”

          Speaking of Miss Rosie!

          She had a birthday.

          “I’m not making you anything,” I told her.

          “That’s alright,” she said. “You give me stuff all the time.”

          And at the time, I hadn’t intended to make her anything.

          Rattling around in my head was a project to upcycled tin cans into flower holders. I was talking about them to Jody on our road trip but I don’t remember the context. She hadn’t seen them. So, this little project would kill two birds with one stone. Show Jody what they are and a birthday gift for my Miss Rosie, albeit late.

          It probably took me longer finding the picture to decoupage than it did to make them. It’s super simple. Just remove the bottom, flatten, paint, add flowers, and something to hang it by, and — BAM! — you’re done!

          I made three sizes so Miss Rosie could have a grouping and stuffed ‘em full of artificial flowers that Momma had given me. She wouldn’t mind me giving some away. She had a kind and generous heart. You can change out the flowers for the seasons if you want to.

          Then I made my Aunt B’s Lemon Bars, one of Rosie’s favorites. I happen to have it on good authority that she likes my Lemon Meltaways a lot, too, but Lemon Bars were easier, so that’s what I went with.

          “I made you some Lemon Bars,” I told Miss Rosie when she answered the door.

          “My favorite,” she said. “Thank you.”

          “I made you a birthday present, too.”

          “You said you weren’t making me anything.” I don’t think she was complaining.

          “I know. I changed my mind. Now, you know the drill. Close your eyes.”

          Miss Rosie is a good sport. She closed her eyes and I went back to the golf cart to get the flowers.

          “Okay!” I said. “You can open your eyes now!”

          I didn’t WOW her like I do with some of my stained-glass creations. In fact, I don’t think she even knew what she was looking at.

          “They’re flower holders,” I explained and held one up by the string. “You hang them up.”

          Then she warmed up to them.

          I found out a couple of days later that she was even bragging about them to her friends.

          “They look like something you’d buy,” one of her friends said.

          “With all of her talent,” another one said, “she should go to the personal care home and teach a class.”

          Yeah. No. I like old people, heck, I is one! But I don’t have the time or inclination to do something like that.

          Miss Rosie is old school. She always writes and sends thank you notes.

          “Why?” I asked her once. “Why not just hand it to me and save a stamp?”

          “I like getting stuff in the mail that’s not bills. I think other people do, too.”

          So, I wasn’t surprised when a Thank You card showed up in my mailbox on Saturday. Dear Peg, she wrote. Oh, so cute — My 3 tin rooster flower holders now decorating my front porch wall.

          Oh, so good — My favorite lemon bars.

          Oh, so special — the bestest friend who made them all for me.

          Thanks so much!

          Love, Rosie.

          I bet you’re all just a little bit jelly, aren’t you. I’m blessed to have such a good friend as Miss Rosie who loves an appreciates the things I make.

          Tin rooster flower holders weren’t the only thing I made this week. I made more tin can flowers for my fence. Purple this time.

      

I made six red, five blue, and only four purple ones. I don’t know what’s up with that.

          “I only count three,” you say.

          I know, right! I was holding the fourth one out on you because I wanted to tell you something about it.

          This particular design has a name. It’s Trish’s Flower because my beautiful West Virginia friend liked this design best.

          “Peg, are you going to name them all?” you wanna know.

          I don’t know. I didn’t set out to name this one, but when I sat down to make flowers, I thought I’d make Trish’s flower, meaning this design. And that’s how he got his name.

          When I started making them, I’d punch the holes one layer at a time. I didn’t care if they lined up, even when one turned out to be way off center. Then I got the idea to punch all the layers at once. Somehow, this guy ended up with four holes in him instead of just two.

And I had to laugh at myself. Only I can mess that up.

          Good! I thought. Now I can use whichever hole I want to.

          It reminded me of the story of Chesty Puller, American hero.

“They’re in front of us, behind us, and we’re flanked on both sides by an enemy that outnumbers us 29:1. They can’t get away from us now! We can shoot at them from every direction.”

Four of Puller’s men went down under the initial attack, but he got his men to cover, directed their fire, and then led a flanking maneuver that resulted in the complete destruction of the ambushing forces.

My father would’ve (and did) attribute the quote to General George Custer, but General Custer didn’t survive and no one knows what his last words were.

          A rainbow over the Luby household.

          Not the first butterfly I’ve seen this year, but the first I was able to get a picture of. This guy is a Meadow Fritillary. 

          Grass flowers.         

Lilies of the Valley. I have a few but Miss Rosie has a huge patch of them in her front yard. The air was fragrant with their sweet scent while we visited on her porch.

This next one is Creeping Charlie or Ground Ivy. Its uses go back centuries. It was brought to North America on purpose by European settlers because its high vitamin C content made it a good use to prevent scurvy.

            Native Americans used ground ivy to treat colds, hives, and measles. Argentinians treated corns with it, Chinese used it for regulating menstrual cycles, the Irish used it for skin problems, the Italians for arthritis, and the Norwegians for wounds and chest pains.

          Look close at these pretty little flowers and you’ll see a teeny-tiny little four-petal flower on the ‘roof’ of his ‘mouth’. Flowers inside flowers! Who thunk this up!

          This is Wild Geranium or Cranesbill. The whole plant, but especially the root, is an antiseptic, highly astringent, diuretic, and a styptic (stops bleeding). An infusion of the whole plant, or of the roots alone, is used in the treatment of diarrhea, dysentery, irritable bowel syndrome, cholera, kidney complaints, bleeding and a wide range of other ailments. Externally, it is applied to purulent (infected) wounds, hemorrhoids, thrush, vaginal discharges, and inflammations of the mouth.

          Both our township and the one next door have been working on our old dirt roads. They bring more gravel in, grade it off, and things were quite dusty for a while until they came back with a tar topcoat.

          “They should close the road for just an hour,” my handsome mountain man complains to me. “That would keep the trucks from coming through and tearing it up.”

          “Why don’t you go to one of the meetings and tell them that?” I suggest. Complaining to me accomplishes nothing.

          Not long after, we hear a tractor come down the road.

          “Let’s go see how bad it tore up the tar,” Mike said.

          It didn’t seem to have messed it up much at all but the gas truck took out big hunks of tar when he delivered next door.

          We went on down to Vernon’s field and watched the tractors cut hay. It surprised me they went right on and baled it the same day. I always thought they let it dry for a while before baling. 

          Mike and I finished the section of roof we were working on. Now almost all of our living space has a new roof. We still have two valleys to do, a short section over the garage, and the remaining fifteen feet of awning. Maybe next month we’ll do more. 

          I spent an afternoon sorting through my cans. If it had a dented bottom, it went into the recycle bag. If it was aluminum it went into the recycle bag. I much prefer to work with the tin cans than the aluminum ones. Besides, when the Boy Scouts turn around and sell it, they probably get more money for the aluminum. 

          Bondi, Bondi, Bondi.

She fills my days with such joy.

          The weather has been so nice that we’ve spent almost every day and all day on the kitchen patio.

          I was working on flowers when I see she’s watching something. I looked but couldn’t see anything. Whether a mouse stuck his little nose out or she’s just watching an ant, I don’t know.

          In the house one day she barks at a Carpenter or borer bee on the carpet. She didn’t try to kill it. I got tired of the barking and put the bee outside where I squashed it.

          A little later in the week we’re on the patio again and I see she’s watching something in the grass.

          “What is it, Bondi? Whadya find?”

          It was another borer bee crawling in the grass. She didn’t bark at this one and she wasn’t going to kill it. I stomped on him.

          “Peg, I didn’t think you killed things,” you say.

          I don’t. At least not unnecessarily. In this case the bees do damage and I have a husband that likes to spray poison all over the place to kill them. I absolutely refuse to let him use poison in the dog run so the least I can do is kill a few when I have a chance. But I’ve been reading up on the bees. It says to wait until evening then run a wire into the hole to kill the bee. Plug it up with tin foil or caulk. What I like best though is the tip to keep them from drilling holes in the first place. It says they won’t chew through painted wood. I foresee some painting in my future.

          One thing Bondi does bark at for sure is the lawn mower. She kept getting in front of me and challenging the mower. Then she left and when she came back, she had one of her little toys. She dropped it in front of the mower and barked. As I got closer, I expected her to pick up her toy and run, but she didn’t. She just backed away. I had to mow around her toy, stoop and pick it up, and toss it, all without letting go of the bar on the handle that shuts the mower off.

          After I finished one run, I went around to the side run. Bondi figured out where I was, came through the house, out the dog door, and watched me mow.

          Mike was up on the hill mowing with the Gravely. My phone rang and I saw it was Mike.

          “Are you stuck again!” I asked.

          “Yep.”

          “Where are you?”

          “Up on the hill by the barn.”

          This is the first time I get to use the hooks he bought and installed on the front of mower. It sure was a lot easier to hook the tow strap on that then it was to have to wrap it around the front by the tire.

          It seems to me that he stuck one other time this week but I didn’t take a picture of it. If there’s no picture, did it really happen? 

          Mike has been busy working on the pond with his backhoe. He’s digging it out in hopes of sealing up some of the leaks and he’s building the sides of the dam higher.

          “I don’t know if I’m doing this right,” he said to me. “And I’m not very good at it.”

          “You’ll get better with practice,” I tell him. At least it works that way with most things.

          And I can’t worry about all the little frogs he’s killing.

          “I saw one land on top of the dirt pile,” Mike told me when I said something about that. “He hopped down and jumped back in the water.”

          I know the work is necessary and the frogs and turtles will come back. If we ever get the pond fixed, maybe we can put fish in it one day.   

  

          The Autumn Olive is starting to bloom and boy oh boy! Does it ever smell! Not bad, just strong.

          It was brought here in the mid-1800s because its silvery foliage, showy flowers, and colorful berries made it popular in landscaping. They also used it for erosion control and wind breaks. It gets a lot of berries and the birds have helped in making this a now invasive shrub.

          We can eat the berries or make them into jam after the frost has tamed the tannins. Otherwise, they’re too bitter to eat.

          Things are really starting to pop around here! Every day I see another wildflower that’s bloomed.

          All along the road the yellow of the coltsfoot has been replaced with the yellows of the buttercup.

There are nearly 2000 species of buttercups. They can grow from 14 to 16 inches in height. Buttercups are shiny because they have a special layer of reflective cells located beneath the superficial cells of the petals. Fruit of a buttercup is called achene (a-keen) and only has one seed.

All parts of the buttercup are poisonous for cattle and humans. Signs of intoxication appear almost right away and include bloody diarrhea, excessive salivation, colic. and blistering of the intestines.

This one took me a while to identify because the flowers look like a kind of buttercup and since buttercups are blooming, I thought it possible that that’s what it was. But the leaves are all wrong! Back to the internet I went and I think this is Yellow Avens. 

          Another one that is often hard to identify is this one. It could be Golden Alexander or maybe it’s the much more dangerous Wild Parsnip. They both have yellow lacey flowers but the best way to tell is by its size. Wild Parsnip grows much larger and you don’t want to mess with it. The sap can cause burns.

          The leaves are different, too. Wild Parsnip leaves are deep and forked, Golden Alexander leaves are smooth and finely serrated.

          One more way to tell is bloom time. Golden Alexanders bloom earlier and I think that’s what these are. 

          Mike took me to dinner Friday night. On the way out of our road this Whistle Pig ran across the road in front of us.

          “Don’t you hit him!” I warned.

          I was surprised when, instead of making for the weeds, he turned and ran up the road. We were just about abreast of him, where I could get a good picture, when someone honked the horn and he dove for the weeds.

          “Where’d ya go for dinner?” you wanna know.

          We went to Mark’s Valley View for their Friday night fish special. Mike’s been hankerin for some Fish of Stroh and is thinking about making the nine-hour trip to Indiana to get some. Considering the price of gas, he opted for Mark’s instead.

          “How was it?” you ask.

          The last time we’d had fish there, Mark offered it two ways, beer battered and baked. He’s since added a lightly breaded version called Woody (named for the man who suggested it) and that’s what we both selected.

         It wasn’t Fish of Stroh but it was good enough. 

          Let’s call this one done!