Encouragement

           Encouragement.

          We generally, usually, normally, see encouragement as a good thing. Who knew that providing a little encouragement can backfire in such a big way.

          “What’s going on, Peg?” you ask.

          Do you remember I was encouraging Bondi to establish her dominance while Raini Dae is young enough to learn? I let Bondi claim food as her own and when Raini got a little too close, Bondi snipped. When Raini got too rambunctious, I let Bondi put her in her place. I never discouraged her behavior on either of those two points.

          Toys?

          That’d be a different matter. Before we got Raini, when I’d play Tug o’ War with Bondi, I’d go out of my way to make her growl. I knew she wasn’t gonna bite me and it was kinda fun. Now, when she plays with Raini, if she starts to growl, Raini drops the toy and retreats. Then Bondi loses interest and drops the toy.

          “You can’t growl if you want her to play with you,” I tell Bondi. I’ll pick up the toy, get one of the girls to take an end, then offer the other end to the other girl. And they’d play until Bondi growled again.

          Bondi doesn’t always growl when they’re playing and here they’re playing with a chew stick, with no growls. I don’t know what makes the difference.

          I’ve walked through the utility room/back hallway a million times since we’ve been here. I hardly ever turn the lights on, unless I’m looking for something. If I’m just passing through to the wayback, my old craft room, or even to the cat room or garage, I don’t need the lights.

          Early in the week, I went out to the garage through the door off the dining room. When I was coming back in, I saw both the girls looking out the bottom glass of the door, waiting for me. I’ll fool them and sneak in the other door, I thought and came in the back hallway. I didn’t fool them and heard the pitter-patter of little doggie feet running my way.

          First Bondi jumped up on my leg, then Raini. I greeted Bondi first. I reached down, scratched behind her ears, and with a smile still on my face, I cooed, “There’s my clever girl!” One more pet on the head and I turned to Raini. “And there’s my other girl.” After just a few pets on her head, I stood back up with an, “Okay.”

          The words were barely out of my mouth and with no light (stupid me!) I believe Raini came down on top of Bondi. Bondi snipped; Raini cried. I wasn’t concerned, not at first. But Bondi didn’t stop. She kept growling, and barking, and snarling, and biting, and jumping on Raini and Raini cried, and cried, and cried, and cried, as she tried to get away from Bondi’s fury.

          “BONDI! STOP!’ I yelled, once, twice, three times. Did Bondi listen? NO!

          They were halfway down the hall before I could catch up and pull Bondi off. Raini ran for the kitchen and hid under the table.

          I was so angry! “BAD GIRL BONDI! YOU’RE A BAD GIRL!” I put her down and tried to coax Raini out from under the table while trying to keep Bondi off her. She wouldn’t budge. I had to crawl under the table and get her. She cried when I picked her up. I checked her all over but didn’t find any blood. I snuggled her and tried to sooth her the best I could.

          And it bothered me all day!

          “Why would she do that‽” I asked Mike, but he didn’t know.

          After a few hours, Raini forgave Bondi, tagging along after her, wanting to play, and jumping in the bed with her when Bondi hid a chew stick under the cushion.

          A couple of days later, Raini peed on the rug by the front door. “RAINI!” I scold. “WHAT DID YOU DO‽” Like I didn’t know what she’d done. “DID YOU PEE IN MY HOUSE‽” By now Raini is cowering. “OUTSIDE!” I command and point to the kitchen door. “YOU PEE OUTSIDE!”

          Raini is running in the direction of the door (or kitchen table) when Bondi jumps on her and the whole terrifying scene starts all over again. Bondi’s tail goes straight up, she growls and fast as lightening she’s on Raini, snarling and biting. Raini rolls onto her back and starts crying and crying and crying!

          Once again, there’s no off switch on Bondi. She keeps going after her. I slapped Bondi this time but it did little more than cause a pause in her attack on Raini. I grabbed her, picked her up, and Raini runs to hide under the kitchen table.

          Poor, poor Raini. Scolded by me and beat up on by Bondi.

          It goes without saying that I scolded Bondi again.

          For a third time it happened. I’d been outside helping Mike and when I came in, I picked up Raini, got a flashlight, and walked around the house looking for messes.

          I found one.

          “RAINI!”

          She starts crying and squirming in my arms. “WHAT DID YOU DO‽” She’s smart enough to figure out what comes next. I put her nose close to the pee spot but not in it, scolding her the whole time. Poor Raini is howling like I’m killin’ her! It’s all I can do not to laugh at her theatrics. I take her to the open kitchen door, put her in front of the pet door in the screen, give her butt a little swat, and say “OUTSIDE!”

          Bondi was already outside and as soon as Raini got through the door, she nailed her. Bondi, in a blind rage, wouldn’t let up. Just like the other two times she kept biting, snarling, and jumping on Raini. I went out. A swat had no effect on her last time. In the blink of an eye, I’d made up my mind to give her rump a little kick. I know how bad that must sound to you. Heck, it sounds bad to me too, but it wasn’t a vicious kick, I just wanted her to stop attacking Raini. My little kick did little more than allow Raini time enough to get under the patio chair. Bondi went right back at her again. I kicked her again and this time used my foot to keep her away as I picked Raini up. I didn’t hurt Bondi, she didn’t even yip at my little love kicks. Is that an oxymoron?

          Right there on the patio, I stood, Raini in my arms, and had a little talk with Bondi — all in capital letters. “I DON’T NEED ANY HELP FROM YOU! I CAN TAKE CARE OF THIS MYSELF! YOU JUST MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS — YOU BAD GIRL!”
          I think I created a monster when I’d mistakenly encouraged Bondi. 

          “AND FROM NOW ON — YOU DON’T GET TO BE THE BOSS! I’M THE BOSS! YOU GOT THAT! YOU BAD DOGGIE!”

          It’s been a few days now. I’m reading on the internet about aggressiveness in dogs. Most of the stuff was about old dogs and young pups and couldn’t really find much about my situation because Bondi’s not an old dog. She’s just a year old and still has plenty of puppy in her.

          If it’s over food, feed them separately, the internet advises. When one dog is finished eating, remove it from the room to reduce fights over food.

          Other than special treats, there’s never been an issue sharing the same food plate. But now, even with special treats, Big Mama Boss allows no growling or I take the treats away.

          Another web page says a dog can pick up stress from the owner. I’m mad (sounding) and yelling at Raini so Bondi’s mad, too. Makes sense. That might come in handy if I’m ever attacked by a stranger.

          And that would account for the last two attacks, but not the first one.

          Raini hasn’t peed in the house since that last fight so I don’t know how I’m going to scold her without riling Bondi up.

          I’m so in love with this little Blue Heeler. I’ll be standing in the kitchen, chopping vegetables or washing dishes and I’ll feel a warm little body flop down on my toes. I’m barefoot most of the time now that it’s warmer. Then I really hate it when I have to move and disturb her.

Sometimes, if a foot isn’t available, a shoe will do.

           

          Bondi’s learned a new trick.

          She’s able to jump up onto Mike’s chair at the kitchen table and I’ve even caught her on the table.

“Git down!” I tell her and she jumps back into the chair.

But my desk chair’s a little higher and she can’t make the jump. If I’m not in the chair she sits in front of it and whines until I pick her up and put her in it.

Early in the week I caught her on the table.

“Git down!” I tell her. This time, instead of jumping back down into Mike’s chair, she crossed the table and jumped onto the seat of my desk chair.

          And she’s been doing it that way ever since.

          I caught her on the table yesterday and knew she was heading for the desk chair. I glanced at the chair and even though it was close to the table, the back was turned.

          “Wait,” I told her intending to turn the chair for her.

          Did she listen?

          NO!

          Her little feet found the arm of the chair and slick as you please, she jumped down to the seat of the desk chair.

          If I’m in the chair she’ll jump against my leg so I can reach down and pick her up. But on this day, I was working on a project at the table and instead of asking me to pick her up, she made the trip on her own. She didn’t care what was in the way. I moved stuff around and said, “C'mon then.” She came on and jumped to her place on the chair behind me.

          “What are you working on there, Peg?” you wanna know.

          Oh my gosh. Let me tell you.

          I’ve seen projects on the internet where crafty people take paint sticks and make cute little wall hangings out of ‘em.

          Me, El-Cheap-O doesn’t want to pay for something that I can make myself.

          “Mike, would you show me how to use the table saw?”

          “No.” he says right off. Then thinks to ask, “Why?”

          “I wanna do a project with thin strips of wood.”

          “Table saws are dangerous. I’ll cut you some.”

          Mike does a fabulous job with a circular saw and his thumb as a guide. They’re not all exactly the same thickness but close enough and we call it character.

          I hadn’t known exactly what I was gonna do with the strips, but I knew sooner or later I’d try something.

          Then, when I wasn’t even thinking about it, an idea came to me.

          Do you remember way back in February I was showing you a piece that I was just foolin’ around with, trying different techniques on?

          Well, my Miss Rosie rather liked it so I told her I’d make her one with her favorite hymn on it.

          That was months ago. You can’t get in a hurry about this stuff.

          Now I had these nice strips of wood that my handsome husband cut for me and I thought it’d be a lot nicer on that rather than an old piece of cardboard that warps.

          I laid out enough strips to fit a sheet of paper. I hot glued them together by using two strips of wood crosswise on the back. Now, for the song sheet I went on the internet and downloaded it. I could only find two images of No, Not One and both of them came out blurry. No way was I putting a blurry image on.

          I have one of our church’s hymnals here. I’d brought it home to look at songs and then COVID hit and I didn’t go to church for a long time, then I kinda forgot about it. I pulled it down and took a picture of Miss Rosie’s favorite song. The light wasn’t good and no matter how or where I tried, I wasn’t able to get a good photo. Then I tried to scan it on my printer, copier, scanner. Because of the bulk of the book, it wouldn’t lay flat on the scanner table and I wasn’t getting a decent copy that way either.

          I hated to do it, but there wasn’t any help for it. I took a sharp knife and cut the page from the book. I scanned it into my computer, then glued it back into the book. Even though you can’t tell I’d had the page out, I confessed what I’d done to my church elder. If need be, I’ll buy a new book. Either way, my conscience is clear.

          I printed the page and to make it look old and antiquey I tore the edges and gave it a bath in strong coffee. After a long soak I dried it in a low oven. It was wrinkly and wavy when it came out but a hot iron took care of that.

          Now it was back to my board. I decided to round the top using a plate for a template and a husband for a cutter. I stained the board and glued the ‘old’ song page on and coated it with Mod Podge for durability.

          That much out of the way, I needed to figure out how to embellish it.

          I was talking to my beautiful younger sister about a new book box I want to make for her. It’ll be a memory box with a picture of our Kat on the front. And roses. Kat loved roses. Every time her fiancé gave her roses, she’d dry and save one. She had gallon jars full of them.

          Roses?

          Miss Rosie — whose real name is Rose. It was years before I found that out.

          Why not use roses on Miss Rosie’s song board?

          Oh, this is going to make me look so bad when I tell you this story — not that you don’t already hate me for kicking my dog. But here goes.

          I decided to practice a new technique. Something I’d known you could do, but never had a reason to try before.

          I wanted to color my clay before I molded it rather than paint it afterward. I took my homemade cold porcelain clay and worked red acrylic paint into it. I wasn’t worried about getting paint on my hands because it would wash off.

          You can use food coloring, too. I’ll have to get my gloves for that, I’m thinking. Then, suddenly, it dawns on me. I wonder if printer ink would work?

          Y’all have been with me for a long time now, at least most of you have been. And through the years you’ve seen me trying different ways to use up all this printer ink I’ve got leftover from when I used to refill my printer cartridges. And this works! Now I’ve found two things it’ll work for. The other one was painting the clay. It works for that, too.

          The color is different in the two, but in making roses, that isn’t a bad thing.

          In my mind’s eye, I was thinking of vines and leaves to compliment my roses. Blue and yellow make green. I dipped a piece of clay in yellow, then blue and started kneading it. Even knowing blue and yellow make green, I was still a little surprised when I came up with a nice shade of green.

          I have to use baby powder as a mold release. The powder sticks really well to the bristles of my brush when the powder is in the jar, but I can’t seem to pick it up from the cutting mat where I knock off the excess.

          If I had a flat blade, I think, I could pick it up, put it in the mold, and brush it around. An image of two razor blades pops into my head. Recently, on a hunt-about, while looking for something else, I saw two of them. But where was it?

          I got up from the table and started looking in all the places where I keep my craft supplies. Nope, not in the toolbox. That’s the first place I look and where one can reasonably expect to find a tool. I looked in the glue box, the stencil box, the paper box, the cardboard box, the molded and dried trinkets box. Things I’d made for a project then didn’t use. I saved ‘em thinking I’d use ‘em some place, some time.

          I looked in the brick box, the scrap vinyl box, and I was running out of boxes to look in.

          Just as I had my butt poised to drop down into my chair, my eye falls on a razor blade, right on the edge of the shelf in front of the boxes. It was too late to stop my downward momentum and I had to get back up. Not the two razor blades I was looking for but a blade nonetheless and it would do.

          I’m feeling triumphant! Blade in hand, I pull my chair up and settle in to work. I’m looking at the clay molds, I’m looking at the razor blade, and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what I’d wanted it for anymore.

          Don’t be laughing! It could happen to you!

          I mentally shrug, set the blade down, pick up my brush to dust a mold, then I remembered! I razored up some baby powder and dumped it in the mold. It works and saves me from trashing it.

          My beautiful Jody calls me her frugal friend.

          When you grow up poor, you make use and make do. And that lesson never leaves some of us.

          I took my cutting mat with all the roses, leaves and vines I’d made out to the patio table and worked on arranging out there. I was hoping the Mod Podge would be dry, but it wasn’t. It was still a little tacky and rearranging was tricky. The roses were sticking and I had to use a knife to pick them up without smushing ‘em. But I got stuff the way that was pleasing to my eye and I didn’t use any of the vines I’d made. Oh well. More stuff for the trinket box once they dry. I wonder if my beautiful West Virginia friend could use some of those in her crafting. I owe her a box so it wouldn’t be a big deal to tuck a few in.

          I started picking up the elements and gluing them down. As with everything else in my life, I get interrupted. When I came back to it, I couldn’t tell where I’d left off. Is it moving a little because the glue's not dry or because I didn’t glue it yet? I wondered. Like I said, they were stuck on because of the tacky Mod Podge. I decided the one I was wiggling was already glued and moved on.

I’ll have to tell Rosie that if one falls off to just glue it back on, I thought as I worked my way around the spray of roses.

Then I went for my gold paint. I keep my paints in a canvas tool bag Mike got when he bought a set of tools and doesn’t use. I was digging around in there, moving stuff that wasn’t paint out of the way, and decided it was time to organize it a little bit. I tucked the sandpaper in beside the box that holds the paint. My texturing pieces I shoved down another side. A piece of copper wire I’d tossed in there didn’t have any business in there so I decided to take him out. I pulled and pulled and pulled! It was a long piece of wire! It got hung up on something, I pulled harder and looky there! My cloth tape measure! I’ve been looking for that for more than a month! I use it when I make tin can flowers. I had to dig out an old paper one from one of those tiny travel kits. I left it on the patio table where I work, it blew off and Bondi re-sized it for me.

But now I’ve got my cloth one back and I’m happy about that!

I found the gold paint and lightly brushed the edges of the roses and the leaves.

          I was pleased.

          Now for a hanger, I thought. I knew I’d have to be careful because the roses weren’t dry and I could mess ‘em up. But I planned on a simple hanger. Just some jute twine and hot glue on the back. I could do that while it’s standing up.

          Turns out, some of us need three hands. I should’ve done this first, I think. I ended up having to put it in my lap and lean it against the table to get the job done, but I was lucky, despite one little slip, and didn’t mess up any roses! Yay me! I really would have hated that.

          I took a picture, put a screw in the patio wall, and hung him up.

          Later, I don’t know how much later, but later, I decided to get a better picture, one that would show the gold highlights better. I got my camera and went out to where he was hanging on the patio. That’s when I notice there’s an empty spot where there had been a rose!

          Dagnabbit! I hadn’t glued that rose on after all!

          I started searching for the missing rose. At first, I just looked straight down at the stuff stacked under where it was hanging. It was big enough I should be able to see it. But I couldn’t see it. Maybe it fell off before I hung it up, I’m thinking and search around the workbench and patio table. It wasn’t there either. Now I go back and pull everything out from under where it was hanging and give it a good shake down. I couldn’t find it anywhere!

          Was it even on there when I took the last picture? I wonder. I got my camera and started looking. A little comparing solved the mystery. The rose hadn’t fallen off, it had simply slid down the board. It was almost dried in place and when I pried it off, a little clay was left behind. A damp rag took care of that. I glued him back where he belonged and for good measure, I let it dry flat.

          The next morning, on my love call to Miss Rosie, she said, “I don’t know if I’m walking today or not. I haven’t made up my mind.”

          “Well, let me give you an incentive,” I said. “I have a present for you. I was going to give it to you when you stopped in after your walk.”

          Miss Rosie perked right up. “Alrighty then. I guess I’m walking!”

          Who doesn’t like getting presents! And I don’t need any special occasion to give a gift to someone who’s special to me, either.

          When the Kipps got here, I gave Miss Rosie a chance to catch her breath and love on the pups a little before I gave her her gift.

          “Close your eyes,” I say. Miss Rosie’s a good sport and complies. “Okay! You can open them now!”

          “Oh, Peg! It’s beautiful!” she says and reaches for it.

          And I grin. I always tell Miss Rosie how I make stuff and this time wasn’t any different. “I was practicing with my homemade clay and coloring it. I have to make a memory box with roses and I didn’t want to use the good stuff on yours.”

          “PEGGY!” you exclaim.

Don’t sound so shocked. I told you, you wouldn’t like it.

          Lamar laughed.

          “Wait! That’s not exactly what I meant!”

          “I know what you mean.” Miss Rosie knows my heart.

          I’m not as articulate when I speak as I am (or try to be) when I write. “I want to use homemade clay when I make stuff but not until I know it’s going to turn out well. When people commission me for a piece, they expect the good stuff.”

          “I don’t mind being your guinea pig and the recipient of your test pieces,” Miss Rosie said. I know that if a problem occurs with my homemade clay that Miss Rosie will tell me.

           I can always buy clay, but where’s the pride in that?

          Once Miss Rosie sufficiently admired her new love gift, I handed it to Lamar. Although Miss Rosie knew I was going to make her favorite hymn into a plaque, I don’t think Lamar did. At least not which hymn I was going to use.

          “Pretty nice,” he says looking it over. He read the song title. “Do you know that this is the last song I ever heard my uncle sing?”

          “No, I didn’t know!” Now I was twice as pleased. A gift that does double-duty! “Happy Father’s Day!” Both the Kipps laughed.

          “Now I have to find a place to hang it,” Miss Rosie said.

          “You can probably find a place on the porch,” I suggest.

          “No. It’s going inside,” Lamar said.

          When I talked to Miss Rosie the next day, she told me she hung it where she could see it when she comes down the stairs in the morning. “It starts my day off with a smile.” 

          “What’s Mike been up to?” you ask.

          Mike has been up to a couple of things this week. One of them getting the batten put up on the patio enclosure.

          During this project, Mike’s nail gun started acting up. It would just hiss a little air when he pulled the trigger but wouldn’t shoot out a nail. He oiled and it would work for a while longer. Then it would quit again. He thumped it a few times and it would start working again — enough to get us through the day. The next day it might shoot a nail or three, then it’d quit again. He bumped it, he adjusted the air pressure and after a while it would work again. That made the last few days of this project a real challenge.

          “Just get online and order a new one,” I’d been pestering him for days.

          “I don’t want to spend the money,” Mike says.

          “I understand that, but you need a nail gun, too.”

           We got down to the last three batten strips and no matter how many times he hit it with a hammer or adjusted the air pressure, it just wouldn’t work anymore.

          “Take it apart and see if you can see anything,” I suggested. “What’ve ya got to lose? It already doesn’t work.”

          Mike did take it apart but they’re made so you can’t work on them.

          It’s kinda funny because the next day, in my morning love note, I was telling my peeps about the nail gun failing.

          “Take it apart,” David, my handsome older brother suggested. “That’s what I’d do.”

          I think it’s in my family genes to take things apart. There are several of us in the family that like to disassemble things. And this gene gets passed down, too. My kids loved taking things apart, even if they couldn’t always put them back together again.

          Mike got online and ordered a nail gun, oil, and nails. When the confirmation notice came in, we saw two things were scheduled for pickup in Philly and the other would be shipped. For whatever reason, we didn’t see the ship options when we placed the order.

          “We?” you say.

          Yes, we. I was looking over his shoulder to make sure he did it right and we still did it wrong. I made a few phone calls trying to get the order converted to ship but it can’t be done.

          “You’ll have to cancel the order and re-order it,” we were told.

          So that’s what we did.       

Guess what came in the mail Saturday?

          “A new nail gun?” you guess.

          Yep. A new nail gun. This time Mike bought a Bostitch instead of a DeWalt. It’s different but I think he really likes it.

          Mike’s also been working on the pond. He’s dredged up the sides and now went to work back
-blading the piles.

          “I wish I had a better way to even it out,” he lamented. “The wheel base on the tractor is so short that when it goes up and down the bucket goes up and down and it ends up wavy.”

          I remembered what we did when we first moved here. We used the golf cart and a drag. Since then, and for a different job, we’d gotten an old bed spring from the Kipps.

          “That’s what my grandfather used and it works great,” Mike said.

          We still had that spring.

          “Why don’t you use the bed spring?” I wanted to know.

          “I can’t turn the tractor around,” Mike said.

          “Who’s talking about a tractor? Use the golf cart.”

          “I can’t go over the bridge with it. You could stand there an unhook it for me, wait till I turn around, and hook it back up,” he suggested.

          Yeah. Right. Just what I wanna do. Now he was looking for an excuse to get me to help. “No,” I flat-out said. “I’m not gonna do that. You can hook it and unhook it yourself — or take it over the bridge! You’ll figure something out.”

          “Well, will you help me get the spring out?” he asked.

          “Sure. I’ll help do that much.”

          We went to the upper barn and Mike was uncovering the spring where boards had been stored on top of it, and we hear a noise from deeper in the barn.

          I looked and there, looking back at me were doe eyes! “It’s a deer!”

          That freaked the deer out and she ran for the front corner of the barn, leaping over piles of lumber and buckets and whatever else was there, and ran right into the wall. Why she didn’t head for the door, I don’t know.

          Knocked down by the sudden stop into the wall, she gets up, runs right past the open door, and tries to climb the other corner. She got about halfway up the wall and falls down. This time when she gets up, she sees the open door and out she went.

          “She got pretty high on the wall,” Mike said. “I hope she’s not hurt.”

          Mike worked on the pond for a while and it’s really starting to take shape.

          “Will you help me pick rocks?” Mike asked.

          “Sure.” That is definitely a two-person job.

          We saved a pile of the larger rocks to use if we decide to put a liner in the pond, but the small ones went into the pond. There were two things that I told Mike we shouldn’t throw back into the water. One of them was any part of the willows. They’ll grow like crazy. And the other was these things. Do you know what it is?

          “It looks like some kinda crazy bug,” you say.

          I know, right! It’s the rhizome of a spatterdock, the pond lilies that grow in our pond — and they’ve taken over.

          “How can we get rid of ‘em?” Mike wanted to know.

          I don’t think our pond will ever be deep enough where they won’t grow so we may have to turn to chemical weapons. Not right away, but sometime in the future when we’re serious about restoring the pond.

          I have a super nice patch of milkweed down by the pond. I hope to have lots of baby Monarchs.

The flowers are just beginning to open. I bent down and smelled their wonderful fragrance.

          Have you ever really looked at the construction of these flowers?

          This guy was on a milkweed leaf.

          “What is it?” you wanna know (and maybe you don’t).

          This guy is a Soldier Beetle. 

          I saw this guy down at the pond. He’s a Twelve-spotted Skimmer. 

          We worked at the back-breaking job of picking rocks then we took a break and went to feed the Robinsons' cat while they’re on vacation.   

          We were coming back and just passed a doe in the field. I think she was limping. I turned and watched her cross the road.

          “Can we go back and see?” I asked Mike. He’s a good husband and turned around for me.

          “Where is it?” I wondered. “It couldn’t’ve gotten far.” But it was nowhere in sight.

          “There it is,” Mike said.

          “Where?” I couldn’t see it.

          “It’s in the barn.”

          I could barely make it out but there she was.

Even though there are tons of deer around and lots of deer-damaged vehicles at the collision repair garage in town waiting to be fixed, I still hope she recovers. We both feel really bad about being the cause of her injury. 

          This little beauty is called Little Wood Satyr. I took a picture when he first landed, then crept up on him. He was co-operative and stayed put.

          Then a second one joined us and let me get quite close, too!

          The Rough-fruited Cinquefoil is blooming. This is the very first wildflower I’d shown my best Missouri gal, Linda when we became friends.

          He’s growing next to the fence and when I did the weedeating, I went around him. 

          Now this one. In years past I’ve called it Prickly Lettuce because that was the closest thing I could find to it. But I knew it wasn’t quite right. Even though the flowers are very similar, the leaves are different.

          I recently installed a new app on my phone that helps ID wildflowers. When I show it the flower part it comes up with several possibilities. Top of the list? Prickly Lettuce. I skipped to the next one. White Hawkweed. The leaves are still wrong. Then I decided to try and identify it by the leaf instead of the flower and guess what?

          It worked!

          It comes up as Nipplewort.

          I know, right! I agree this plant has a weird name. There are two reasons for the name. One is that the seed capsules resemble a nipple in shape and secondly, being an astringent, it probably helped heal chapped nipples or breast ulcers.

Nipplewort is used as a salad vegetable in Europe. It’s very edible and has a calming effect. In folk medicine it’s used as a tea to help staunch the flow of milk when it is time to stop breast feeding.

          Here’s one that’s gonna make you laugh — and that’s okay! I laugh at my stupid shtuff, too.

          So! I decided to make a box no-bake cheesecake. I haven’t made one in a really, really long time!

          I’m reading the first step. Combine crust mix, sugar and butter, PRESS onto the bottom of up side down pie plate —

          Wait! What‽

          I glance at the picture and the crust is in the pie plate and I’m thinking, what, freeze it and put it in the pie dish? Serve it dish-less? It wasn’t making sense to me. Maybe if I read further?  There wasn’t any more instructions on the crust. So, I read it again. I swear! That’s what it said! How in the world do you keep the crumbs on the outside of the plate? I wondered.

          The third time I pulled the box closer to these old eyes and read what the actual words were. Combine crust mix, sugar and butter, PRESS onto bottom and up side of pie plate.

 Aye-yi-yi! Did I ever get that wrong!

          Later in the week I made corn bread. I use the recipe on the back of the package. Mike was in the kitchen as I was putting the ingredients together.

          “Three teaspoons baking powder,” I read aloud. “Three teaspoons is a tablespoon! Why don’t they just say a tablespoon?” I wanted to know. A possible answer came to my mind as I went about getting the teaspoon and baking powder. “Maybe people see tablespoon but only use a teaspoon and it’s not enough?” I hypothesized. “One teaspoon salt,” I read the next ingredient. “Or maybe it’s so you can use the same spoon for the salt and you don’t have ta dirty two spoons?”

          I don’t think Mike was even listening to my ramblings because he never said a word as he went about getting his Drunkin’ Raisins, then sitting at the table and shuffling cards for a game of Skip-Bo.

          And this!

          I buy the dried chicken or duck strips from Dollar General for the girls’ nighttime treat. I found this Buffalo Jerky the last time I was in there and decided to try it.

          Last night I pulled a piece out and it was huge! Neither one of the girls needs a piece that big! I decided to break it in half. I tried, but could barley unbend it, let alone break it. I’ll use a serrated steak knife and saw it in half, I think. It wouldn’t cut. Tin snips! I think and head to the patio where my tin-can-flower making stuff lives. I opened the tin snips, put the buffalo jerky in and tried to close the jaws. I couldn’t. Reciprocal saw? I’m thinking.

          Mike was in the recliner watching the news. “Would you cut this in half with the reciprocal saw for me, please?” I asked.

          “What? Give it to me, I’ll break it.”

          I gave it to him but he couldn’t break it.

          “I even tried the tin snips and couldn’t cut it,” I told him.

          “Get me the tin snips, I can do it.”

          I seriously had my doubts but I got the tin snips. They didn’t work any better for him. I got the saw and handed it to Mike. As you can imagine, that not only didn’t work, it was slightly dangerous.

          “How about my branch cutters?” Mike suggested.

          We went out to the front patio and got the loppers from the front of the golf cart where they live. Mike gave it a valiant effort and did cut it a little — after working at it for five minutes.

          “How about the bolt cutters?” I suggested.

          Mike put the loppers back and we went to the garage for the bolt cutters. “If this doesn’t work, I’ll just give ‘em the whole thing,” I said. Don’cha know the last thing we tried was what worked?

          The girls spent hours working on their buffalo jerky. That was well worth the five dollars I paid for the pack. 

          Mike and I were stopped at a red light in Tunkhannock when I saw this sign. “A Mexican restaurant!” I exclaimed. It’s been years since we’ve had any good Mexican food and there aren’t any Mexican places any where around us. I have no idea how long this place has been here. I could’ve seen this sign a dozen times before and never bothered to read it. I’m looking forward to trying this place out. 

          Lastly, a moon shot I took this week. 

          Let’s call this one done!