A-tisket A-tasket

 

A-tisket a-tasket

A green and yellow basket

I wrote a letter to my friend

And on the way I dropped it,

I dropped it, I dropped it.

 

One day kids are gonna say, “What’s a letter?”

I love getting letters! I even love email letters!

There’s only one person who writes me an actual letter these days and that’s J.D.

“Who’s J.D.?” you ask.

He’s the son of Mr. B., a man I took care of when I did home care, and that’s how he became included in my circle of friends and family.

Of all y’all he may be the one who appreciates my jibber jabber the most. That probably has a lot to do with where he’s at, jail. J.D. isn’t one of those who proclaims innocence, and freely admits he did wrong.

Me? How do I feel about it? His sins are between him and God — and the state of Oklahoma. I’m not privy to any of the particulars and pass no judgement on the man. My only role in his life is to try and add a sparkle of sunshine by sending him my weekly letter with these crazy, boring, silly, mundane stories of — me! My life. The things I see, the places I go, the people I meet, the pictures I take, the things I think about. It started out as a favor to Mr. B., whom I loved. He was so sure that J.D. would enjoy my letters that he even offered to pay me! I never let him do that but he did insist on buying me stamps from time to time.

Mr. B. has been gone for years now and J.D. repays my kindness by writing me a couple of times a month. And that can often be challenging for a man in his situation. He tries so hard to protect me from his realities but occasionally gives me a glimpse into the prison life. Sometimes my letters jog some real and pleasant memories for J.D. and he regales me with those.

I got a J.D. letter on Friday.

“Bondi looks like the dog my dad had,” J.D. wrote.

Georgie and Bondi are both Chihuahua mixes, but I don’t know what Georgie was mixed with. Mr. B. got her from a shelter and she had one blue eye.

But what really interested me in J.D.’s letter and the reason I’m even bringing it up is because he told me something. Something that has caused a whole host of mixed emotions and feelings.

“What did he say‽” you ask.

He said, “Season one of Game of Thrones is very smutty. Filthy actually! There’s lots of scenes that would be impossible to put on TV. Having said that, if you get past the first half of season one then I’d urge you to watch the complete series. It’s extremely good. Just make a lot of popcorn and don’t brag about watching it at church.”

“Do you still want to watch it?” I asked Miss Rosie.

“You can always fast forward through them,” she said.

I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet. I’m torn between doing that or just skipping the whole thing altogether.

In books, I do skip the gratuitous sex scenes and if I see a bad word, I don’t read it or I’ll substitute another word.

“It still means the same thing,” my handsome husband pointed out.

Yeah. Shut the front door!

But the whole thing reminds me of the dog poop brownies. Do you know that story? You can Google it if you want to read the whole thing and there are several variations. In essence, some kids wanted to see a movie that was rated above what the house rules allowed. In a bid to get their father’s permission they interviewed a bunch of people. “It only has a little sex and violence and bad words in it but otherwise it’s a great movie!” they begged their dad.

To teach them that even a little bit of something bad spoils the whole thing, he made them brownies with just a little dog poop in it.

Needless to say, the kids didn’t want any of the brownies.

“Okay,” you say. “So, what about this upsets you?”

I wrote about picking up the DVDs in my June twenty-sixth letter blog, almost a month ago now, and J.D. is the only one who... who... what? Knows me well enough to know I wouldn’t want to watch something like that? Cared about me enough to warn me? What? Oh! I know! He’s the only one amongst my readers who’s seen the movie! Yeah! That’s probably it! 

Speaking of reading —

I just finished The Girl in His Shadow by Audrey Blake. It was so good! It was about the early days of women in medicine in England in a time when they strapped you down to perform surgery.

This was historical fiction and in the book this gal discovered the use of ether to put patients to sleep before surgery and couldn’t take the credit for it. In those days women were not allowed to be surgeons. In fact, if caught practicing, they could go to jail. 

>>>*<<<

I missed showing you a picture of the first Tiger Swallowtail of the year last week.

This week I got a picture of another one. But that’s all the butterflies I have this week. 

I’ve been seeing Monarchs. They come flying up close to the patio. But they don’t sit long enough for me to get a picture. I’ve seen them here so often that I started to wonder. Are they my Monarchs? Monarchs I hatched out in my butterfly house? Are they like salmon and come back to the place where they were born?

One thing I do know for sure is that Monarchs have been put on the Endangered list.

>>>*<<<

We walked my letter blog down to Miss Rosie last Sunday evening. Just leaving our driveway we spot a whole family of turkeys crossing the road.

“Peg, they’re pretty far away and I wouldn’t’ve known they were turkeys if you hadn’t told me,” you say.

I know, right! By the time I lowered my camera to put the zoom on, they were gone!

Bees on a bull thistle.

Mullen is blooming.

Mike had a checkup this week. In preparation for that he had to get a blood test.

“There’s blood on your shirt,” I said when he got home.

He bled a little more than he usually does and the bandage didn’t contain it.

On the way to see the doctor in Sayre we see this rusted up, holey van. “It probably has a dead body in it,” I said. It was kinda creepy looking.

Mike checked out just fine. His sugar is a point or two above the upper limit and he’s worried about getting diabetes.

“Really, it’s nothing to be worried about at this stage,” the gal PA assured him.

I doubt that will stop him from worrying.

On the way home I took a few pictures.

          “There’s a truck on top of that pile of blacktop,” Mike pointed out. 

A broken pole.

We’ve been making lots of trips to the vet lately with Raini and all her new puppy shots and Bondi needing her yearly shots and the cats getting worms and we had to pick up dewormer.

I went to check out after one visit and someone had to help the gal on the computer because she was new.

A couple of weeks ago, Mike and I came home from shopping and I took the girls out to pee. Raini did her business and when she came up to me, she flopped down and rolled over. It was then that I saw she had a greenish-yellow discharge from her little cootchie.

I called my vet.

“This is Linda, how may I help you?” Linda said.

I knew they had a new receptionist but I didn’t know how much she knew about vet stuff. I identified myself and said, “I have a question about one of my little dogs. Is there someone there who can help me?”

I think Linda was taken aback by my — what? Curtness? Rudeness? “I can help you,” she said.

“Oh. I just didn’t know how much you knew about vet stuff,” I said, still thinking she was the new gal.

“I’m trained to write down what you tell and give it to the vet, then I will or someone will get back to you with an answer,” she said.

So, I told her.

One of the other gals got back to me later in the day. She said it’s not unusual because they squat so close to the ground and just to keep it clean.

I didn’t like her answer and I still don’t like it, but Raini doesn’t have any other symptoms. It’s not much discharge at all unless she holds it for a long time like when we’ve been shopping and gone for five or six hours and she was kenneled.

Raini had an appointment for shots shortly after that. It was hot so Mike came into the office with me rather than wait in the car like he usually does.

“Raini Dae is here for her shots,” I said to the new girl. “Are you Linda?”

“No, I’m Sherry. Linda’s in the office. Did you want to see her?”

“Uh, no. Not really. I was just kinda rude to her on the phone and I was gonna apologize, but it’s no big deal.”

“Let me get her for you. I’m sure she’d love to talk to you.”

When Linda came out, I introduced myself and said, “I’m sorry. I thought you were new and you know how it is when you call someone and go through the whole story then they say, ‘Wait a minute and I’ll connect you to somebody who can help you with that.’ Well, I just didn’t want to go through the story twice.”

Linda laughed. “It’s okay. I wasn’t offended.”

“You handled yourself very professionally,” I complimented.

“Thank you!” Linda smiled and looked around. “Where’s the boss when you want her to hear something?”

Now, three weeks after that, Raini had to go back for more shots.

The day before our appointment, Raini puked up worms. It grosses me out to see them wiggling and squiggling in the partially digested dog food. I was trying to figure out how I was gonna get stuff to clean it up and keep the girls out of it at the same time when one guy tries to make a break for it. He soon realized he didn’t want to be on the naked carpet and went back to the warm, moist dog food.

The girls watched him and backed away. I knew they wouldn’t touch it. Besides, she puked here in the kitchen so cleanup stuff was only a few feet away.

I didn’t want to put the worms in the scrap bin or garbage. I wanted the disgusting parasites dead. I think all parasites are disgusting, no matter what form they take. I got a scraper and a plastic bag. I wouldn’t mind throwing them in the garbage so long as I knew they couldn’t escape.

Then I called the vet.

“This is Linda. How may I help you?” she asked.

“Hey Linda. This is Peg Luby. Raini Dae just puked up a whole herd of round worms. We have an appointment tomorrow. Do you want me to bring them with me?”

Linda thought for a moment. “Sure. Why not? We’ll have a little show-n-tell for some of the new girls who may not have seen ‘em in real life.”

I double bagged those suckers!

On the way to vet the next day we decided to get Raini used to riding in the backseat. She’ll get too big for my lap. Raini wasn’t happy and cried a lot. She settled down a little when she put her head in the bed with Bondi, but it didn’t last long. 

Then I hear sounds of retching. Raini got car sick. Luckily, we have Weather Tech floor mats and that’s where it all landed. It wouldn’t be hard to clean up once we got to the vet’s office. But first, I checked it for more worms. There weren’t any.

“I’m not surprised she has worms,” I told Dr. Lori. “I caught her eating cat poop in the yard and the cats have worms.”

“Dogs don’t get roundworm from cats,” she said.

“Really!” I was surprised. “I thought they could.”

“The roundworm that lives in cats can’t live in dogs.”

Raini got her shots and just to be safe we’re treating both dogs for roundworm. And Raini has to go back for shots one more time, then she’s good until it’s time to get her spayed.

Not to doubt my vet, but I Googled it. There are three kinds of roundworm. One kind lives only in cats, one kind lives only in dogs, and one kind can live in either.

“Do you have any other concerns today?” Dr. Lori asked.

“Yeah. She’s been scratching a lot!”

Dr. Lori combed her and found a flea. “I think she’s allergic to the flea bites. But see how slow he’s moving? Your Seresto collar’s working but you may need to use a supplemental flea product on her, too.”

Luckily, I have great neighbors. The Kipps gave me a bottle of natural flea spray. I love the way it smells with its cedar and lemon grass oils. Between that, combing the girls several times a day, and Children’s Benadryl, I think we’re getting a handle on the scratching. Although, I have to tell ya. When I first started combing her, she hated it! It reminded me of my oldest and much-adored sister Patti’s Blue Heeler. Dakota won’t let Patti brush her.

“Mom! Leave my fur alone! It’s fine just the way it is!” Dakota told her.

This week was the first chance I had to use the pill popper I bought to give the cats their worm meds.

“How do you use it?” I asked Mikayla, the vet-tech.

“Just put it in their mouth and when they start to bite it, push the plunger.”

I love this thing! It works so slick! I don’t know why I was so resistant to using one before! 

With the heat we’ve been having, I’m walking the girls a little bit later in the evening. I love how Raini moves off the road, sits, and watches as the cars go by.

The sun going down behind the Robinsons’ old house.

Another shot of the setting sun through a gap between trees. Squint your eyes and use your imagination and it kinda looks like a doorway into another world. 

A few more feet and a window opens.

I took these next two shots to show you the difference it makes depending on where my camera focuses. They were taken only seconds apart.

And then over the Luby household as we come up the back drive.

I guess I’m taking more sky pictures these days because I’m actually going outside more, what with having to walk Raini, and there isn’t anything else to photograph. 

Instead of waiting until the end this week to show you what I’ve been working on, let’s do it now.

I finished painting the commissioned sewing box. I think it looks fabulous!

I love making these and everyone says they’re great. I’m thinking about maybe trying to sell a few if I ever get to a point where I can make something to sell. With that in mind I’ve been tracking how long each step of the process takes me. Some steps will be pretty much the same in any book box I make. It takes me about thirty minutes to cut out the pieces, an hour and forty minutes to put it together, an hour and a half to glue a second skin of paper on it, and I haven’t tracked the next two steps yet. Putting on the plaster of Paris will be common to all the boxes.

Decorating and painting are going to vary by how much I embellish it and how intricate my paint job is.

I have over six hours painting the sewing box. On some of the boxes I can slap on a coat of paint and highlight it, but with all the colors on this one, I can’t go as fast.

It’s still not done yet. I have to finish painting the two spools of thread I hid inside, cover it with a coating of protectant, and put the felt in. Then it’s done.

I have over ten hours in this one so far. I didn’t realize how much time it took. When I’m working, the time just flies. And FYI, my times don’t count drying, set-up, or clean-up times, just actual hands-on time.

I wish I would’ve thought to start my timer when I went to work on a unicorn box. This is another commissioned piece for a little girl. I wanted you to get a castle and flower garden vibe. I hid a bunny in the garden and I’ve got a butterfly that’ll sit on one of the flowers. I thought it might be easier to paint the flower and butterfly before I put them together.

I have a feeling this one will take longer than six hours to paint because it’s more heavily embellished — but I’m not complaining! I love it!

Is it too over the top? 

I said I’m not complaining, and I’m not. Not really. At least I’m not complaining about the time I put into making something beautiful. But (and there’s always a but), but I’m acutely aware of the passage of time.

Weekdays pass into weekends. Weeks pass into months. And when I’m working on things, I think of new things I want to try.

Sigh. When am I going to have time to even make the half of them?

As with anything, the more you do it, the better you get at it. This unicorn box is a far cry from the first boxes I made.

That got me to thinking and wondering.

“Miss Rosie, do you ever feel cheated when you get the first one of something I’ve made then they get better and better?” I asked.

“No! Not at all. I feel honored to get the first one of something you’ve made,” she said.

>>>*<<<

We had a couple of days of threatening weather this week. One night, rather than take the girls out I thought I’d see if they’d walk on the treadmill with me.

I put the speed on slow and hoped Raini would get up on the deck with me but no amount of coaxing could get either one to jump up.

The girls just played. Chasing each other around the room and occasionally stopping to watch me.

Then, on one particular race around the room, Bondi jumped up on the deck and had little choice but to walk. She didn’t walk long before she went off the back.

I decided to put Raini on the treadmill with me. I picked her up and put her on it. 

She walked for a few minutes then leapt to the front cowl and onto the floor where she sat and stared at me.

On the other day of threatening weather, I took the girls up around the barn and down to the pond.

I found my small patch of Bittersweet. The berries will be orange in the fall but for now they are green and larger than the Silky Dogwood berries.

I have two patches of Bergamot. I love the Bergamot! This patch is blooming and I can’t wait to see hummingbird moths in it.

My other patch is overgrown with goldenrod. I’m thinking I’ll have Mike mow them down before they can flower.

Down at the pond I gave Raini enough leash to let her get in the water. I was surprised when she plunged her whole head under. I snapped a picture as she came up and shook the water from her head.

I was waiting for her to do it again and see she’s focused on something. It took me a second to realize she was watching the Red-winged Blackbird sitting on the overhead power line, raising a ruckus because we were too close to a nest.

Then she did stick her face back in the water, but only just past her eyeballs.

I guess I didn’t know that Heelers were water lovers, or maybe it’s just Raini?

You may notice that Raini has a new safety-orange leash on. We got it for her on our last trip to the store.

On that trip we stopped at the Mexican Restaurant in Tunkhannock called Olivares Dream Mex II.

“I didn’t even know there was a Mexican place in Tunkhannock,” beautiful Joanie said. “You’ll have to take a picture and tell us how it is.”

I don’t think it’s been there very long. I ordered fajitas and Mike got a combo plate with a taco and a burrito.

While we waited, they served chips and salsa. I really liked the hot salsa. It wasn’t too hot but had a nice little bite of heat.

“I didn’t think it was hot at all,” Mike said.

That’s when I remembered they put two dishes of it on the table. I thought we each just had our own bowl, but one was probably hot and the other mild.

My fajitas were good. Maybe not the best I ever had but there wasn’t anything wrong with them. Mike thought his food was kinda bland.

We were chatting with the people at the next table. They said there is another place right up the street but it’s sorta cafeteria style. You tell them what you want and walk along as they put on whatever fixins you ask for.

Personally, I’d rather have the sit-down style of Olivares.

That night I took the girls out, Raini with her new leash. This one is longer than the one she’s used to and she kept getting her feet tangled. When that happens, I know it. She’ll sit down. When I turn around, she’s staring at me. After the second time I just shortened her leash up a little and she had an easier time of it.

The next time we went out with this leash, she did much better. She learns so fast.

My Glads are blooming! They weren’t even supposed to come up this year because I didn’t take the bulbs out of the ground last fall.

In my other flower bed, the one where I sprinkled seeds that were more than ten years old, I see I have a Velvet Leaf coming up. I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t’ve been included in the wildflower mix because it’s a weed, but it does get a very interesting flower on it. I’ll let it grow.

I don’t really see any flowers coming up. It all just looks like weeds to me.

“What are the orange ones?” you ask.

Those are Marigolds I’d planted.

It’s my job to do the weedeating but I let some of this stuff grow up in the back of the house. I really thought Mike might say something or just take it out but he hasn’t so far.

Pokeweed is a natural wildlife feeder nourishing everyone from robins to bluebirds, squirrels to foxes, leopard moths to hummingbirds, opossums to raccoons. It’s a top plant for migratory birds along the Eastern corridor. Deer enjoy the ripe berries of late summer and dried leaves of winter.

“Can you eat it?” you ask.

Pokeweed is very toxic but you can eat the young leaves by cooking and changing the water several times.

On the other hand, Pokeweed has a long history of medicinal use. Mostly it was used to treat diseases related to a compromised immune system. It contains potent anti-inflammatory agents, antiviral proteins, and substances that affect cell division. These compounds are toxic to many disease-causing organisms, including the water snails that cause schistosomiasis. All parts of the plant are toxic, an excess causing diarrhea and vomiting. You should only use this plant with caution and preferably under the supervision of a qualified practitioner — or not at all.

Other uses for Pokeweed include making a red ink or a dye from the fruit. The rootstock is rich in saponins and can be used as a soap substitute.

And I bet you thought the only thing it was good for was throwing up against the side of the barn and making big purple splotches!

Mike came in from working outside and said, “There’s a coon down by the pond. He let me get really close to him. When he finally got up, he couldn’t hardly walk.”

“Hit by a car, huh?”

“I guess so.”

The Kipps were visiting after their morning walk at the time and when they left the coon was sitting at the end of our driveway. Lamar waved his arms overhead and the coon went across the road to Sally’s.

“He’s walking better now than when I saw him earlier,” Mike said.

I called Sally and let her know there was an injured coon in her yard.

“A coon out during the day means he’s got rabies,” Sally said.

“Maybe he got hit overnight and was laying in the ditch all morning,” I suggested. I’m often too quick to presume innocence.

I know that racoons can and do come out during the day for lots of reasons, it’s not an automatic rabies symptom, but Googling symptoms of rabies in coons, it says they may not be able to move their back legs very well or may fall over a lot. That’s exactly what this guy was doing. It helps to have all the information.

I called the game commission. The guy I talked to said aggression and attack are the signs of rabies but because it was two days ago, they won’t send anyone unless we see it again.

Something else Mike found while working out around the pond was this piece of a toy.

“After scooping it up out of the pile, dumping it out, and back-blading, I’m surprised it popped to the surface,” Mike said.

I can imagine some little boy playing with his tractor.

It’s always interesting to see what the ground spits out.

How funny is this? From toy to reality. It looks almost like the toy Mike found.

          We were at a stop light when this oversized load tried to come around the corner. Mike had to back up because he needed extra room.

          Then we heard a loud pop and dust came up from the back.

          “He blew a trailer tire,” Mike said.

          Always having my camera close by, I captured it.

          Let’s end this week with a sunset. From my house, sunsets may include a power pole and lines.

            Mike took me over into Vernon’s field where I captured the sunset over the Kipps’ house.

Done!