Crazy Crazy

           It certainly has been a crazy crazy week of weather here in the mountains of Pennsylvania. One day it’s in the mid-50’s go-out-in-shirt-sleeve warm, then a couple of days later it’s in the 20’s put-your-hat-and-coat-on cold! Just crazy crazy, I’m tellin’ ya!

          I took advantage of one of those warm days to finish sanding boards for porch signs. You may remember that my sander ate a towel. I was being lazy. I didn’t want to run an extension cord and go way out behind the building to the cement pad where I’d been doing my sanding before. I decided I’d work on the patio table and clean up the dust in the spring. I used the towel to keep my board from shooting off the patio table. And we all see how that turned out for me! Once Mike got the towel out and I tested the sander, it ran but was making a funny noise. I was all out of the mood to sand anymore after that and since I only had one upcoming order, and one board done, I quit.

          Last Sunday I had a gal at church talk to me about making her a porch sign. Now I had to sand another board. I ran the extension cord out behind the wayback, got the sawhorses out into the sunshine, and went to work sanding. Despite the funny noise the belt sander was making, it worked. I finished one board and set up another. I pulled the trigger on the sander and it came on but the belt wasn’t turning. I thumped it on the sawhorse and the belt started. I turned my board, picked up the sander, pulled the trigger, and nothing. It ran but the belt wouldn’t start. I thumped it on its bottom, nothing. Thumped it on its side. Nothing. Turned the sander up on end and thumped it that way. Still nothing! I thumped harder. Nothing. No matter how many times or how hard I thumped it, the belt wouldn’t start. Finally, I thought to bump the belt on the board, give it a little push, and got it going that way. Every time I picked up the sander after that, that’s the way I had to start the belt.

          “I might have to buy a new sander. I don’t know how much longer this one’s gonna work,” I told Mike when he came out to check on me.

          I only have three boards... no wait, that’s a lie, but not really a lie. As soon as I wrote that, my head snapped around to the closet here on my right, as if to show me it was a lie. Standing right there are at least five more boards. Those five are all reclaimed boards that are full of character and vary in length. When I said I only have three boards, I meant I only have three that are sellable, and I got all of them sanded.

          Mike’s a good husband, have I told you that? Two days later, look what shows up in the mail! A brand spankin’ new, variable speed, dust collecting, belt sander. I’ll be anxious to try it when I get more boards to sand.

          But this week I devoted my time to making a dreamcatcher and unicorn box. I gave myself lots of dry time between the different steps and put a piece of wax paper between the lid and the box to keep the paint from sticking before it was good and dry.

          “What’s the back of them look like?” you ask.

          Neither of these boxes is finished yet. The dreamcatcher box needs gold highlights and I haven’t done any of the detail painting on the spine and back of the unicorn box. So, you’ll have those pictures to look forward to.

          I did other things while I was waiting for paint to dry.

          Mike came out into the kitchen where I sat working.

          “How come you’re not working on your boxes?” he asked.

          “I’m waiting for the paint to dry.”

          “What are ya doin’ now?” he wanted to know.

          “Making corner bookmarkers.”

          He sat down at the table with a bowl of cereal and watched me fold paper as he ate his supper.

          “What are ya gonna do with those?” Mike asked.

          I was thinking about that when I was making them. “I don’t know. Give ‘em away, I guess.”

          Regardless, I had fun picking out the different patterns, printing, cutting, folding, and gluing them.

          Something else I did was a little online shopping.

          I got to thinking about these five reject boxes I have sitting here and what I might do with them. One of my peeps loves flamingos and has a birthday coming up. I was thinking maybe I’d turn one into Flamingo Dreams and surprise her with it. I went online and searched silicone flamingo molds. That ate up a good chunk of time. Not because there were so many to choose from but because even after I picked it out, I kept looking at all the molds, getting ideas for future book boxes.

Then I remembered that even though some of my peeps like my book boxes, they don’t want one. Was she one of them?

“What if she doesn’t want it?” Myself asked Me.

          “So!” Me says to Myself. “She can give it away if she doesn’t want it!”

          A morning love call brought a bit of a surprise.

          “Dean was out for his morning walk this morning and saw a black panther down on the game lands,” my neighbor Sally said of her brother. “It was feeding on a dead deer.”

          Mike and I took a ride down that way that afternoon but didn’t see anything.

          The next morning, she told me the game commission confirmed it was a panther. “But they saw it up closer to the building.”

          “I wonder what time it feeds?” I asked my beautiful Miss Rosie when I made my morning love call to her.

          “It would’ve been in the morning because Lamar passed Dean when he was walking Tux and he told him about the panther.”

          Mike and I decided to make another trip down to see if we could see the panther feeding on the dead deer.

          It was snowing as Mike backed out of the garage. Before he could put the car in drive, UPS drove up the driveway, with chains on his truck.

          “You go get it,” Mike said. “It’s your molds.”

          “Nope,” I said shaking my head. “I’m in my grungies and I’m not getting out. He can leave it.”

          Mike put the car in park and went to get the package and talk with the driver.

          “He said he came off the Wyalusing New Albany Road and slipped and almost went in the ditch. That’s when he stopped and put his chains on,” Mike told me when he got back in the car.

          I took pictures.        

          Sally’s yard.  

         The falling down house.

          We didn’t see the panther but we did see Dean out for his morning walk.

          “Peg, did you sneak that photo?” you ask.

          I did! How can you tell?

         The neighbor’s chickens in the road.

          “I need a battery. You want to go to town?” Mike asked.

          “Okay by me. But I’m not getting out of the car.”

          The battery was for the remote for the ceiling fan in the bedroom. A hot flash in the middle of the night prompted me to turn it on, then I couldn’t turn it off. I left it on all the rest of the night.

          Coming home, we were behind a white work truck and just before our driveway Mike and I watched as he put it in the ditch. Then I see something running on up the bank towards our pond.

          “I think he was trying not to hit whatever ran across the road in front of him,” I told Mike. “I don’t think it was one of our cats.”

          We watched for a minute as he rocked the truck back and forth but couldn't get out of the ditch. He waved us around. When we got up beside him, Mike put the window down.

          “What happened?” he called across me.

          “You know how it is. You get close to the edge and it sucks you down in.”

          “I’ve got a tractor. I’ll get it and see if I can pull you out,” Mike volunteered.

          “I can call one of the other guys to pull me out,” he said.

          “What ran across the road in front of you?” I asked.

          “A groundhog,” he said so I know he saw it. And that may be why he took his attention from the road.

          It wasn’t until we were past him that I thought to take a picture.

          Mike did take the tractor down to try and help but by then the guy had himself buried so deep in the mud that the tractor just wasn’t big enough. One of the other worker guys came while Mike was there and pulled this guy out of the ditch.

          “He had a little trouble doing it though,” Mike reported.

>>>*<<<

When things aren’t where they’re supposed to be, it freaks the girls out.

One night, just before bed, I got up out of the recliner and there, right in the middle of the floor for Mike to trip on, was a stuffed bear. I gave it a kick and it went sailing, landing in the dining room, just under the table and out of the way.

Having these dogs is as bad as having a toddler in the house! There’s always toys on the floor for me to pick up!

We were in the bedroom getting around for bed when Bondi starts barking her fool head off. “What is she barking at?” I asked Mike but he didn’t know.

I waited for a minute and listened to her barks. She was trying to tell me there was something there. “Did she find a mouse?” I asked and went to investigate.

Turning on the dining room light, Bondi’s hackles are up and she’s barking at that stuffed bear! I laughed and picked it up. “You silly girl,” I said and showed it to her.

Bondi flipped her nose in the air and trotted off to bed.

The winds picked up that night and were still quite strong the next morning. I’m making coffee when I hear the dogs barking. I look out the window and see them freaking out because the trash can that sits under the downspout of the rain gutter was on its side.

Bondi isn’t a very brave dog. She runs up, barks, turns and runs back to the patio. But for that matter, Raini isn’t very brave either. Instead of investigating they just yelled for Mom.

Raini wasn’t sure if she trusted this thing not to hurt me because she kept herself between it and me, her hackles raised as she continued to bark.

Raini advanced with me. I reached down and looked inside. I wanted to make sure there were no surprises inside before I touched it. I grasped the can by the top and turned it toward the girls.

          “It’s just the trash can,” I told them. “See! It won’t hurt you.”

          The girls gingerly crept closer, their sniffers working the whole time. When they were convinced there was no danger, I set the can back up. It was empty and not long until the wind had it tipped over again, but now that the girls know what it is, it doesn’t bother them.

          Saturday was another blustery, snow flurriery day. We had an early appointment with our tax gal to get our taxes done.

          The first thing we notice is a shed we’d been watching slowly collapse in on itself has finally fallen. I wanted to show you the before pictures but couldn’t find one in my vast library of photos.

          Towanda in the snow.

          We stopped at the thrift store on the way home. I didn’t find anything I wanted but I picked up a couple of stuffed animals for the girls.

          Raini is working hard at getting the nose off. Next will be the eyes. I used to worry about her swallowing them but I’ve picked up enough now to know she spits ‘em out.

          Once Raini has the holes made, the stuffing comes out next. Bondi helps with that part.

          I want to end this week with a picture of the moon, Venus, and Jupiter.

          Let’s call this one done!