Peggy's Jibber-Jabber: A Two-Weeker

Did you miss me last week?

I not only missed you, but I thought about you a lot also! So much so that over the past two weeks I’ve taken more than a thousand pictures. I spent Friday sorting through them and whittled it down to one hundred thirty-six. I don’t know if you’ll get to see all of those or not because as my letter blog takes shape, I may delete some and I may add others. Sometimes I’m really surprised by the pictures you tell me were your favorites. I’d never’ve guessed that Miss Rosie would pick this one as one of her favorites.

Regardless, those one hundred thirty-six pictures have to be resized into a more uploadable size. Some pictures need cropping and some need enhancing and some, no matter what I do, will never get any better. It’s frustrating when I miss a shot that I especially wanted to show you and that’s when I may show you an out-of-focus shot.

The job of editing oozed over into Saturday morning.

The gas company graded our road. They’re responsible for maintenance of roads they damage from heavy usage.

Mike was impressed with the expertise of this grader-driver. “He knows how to grade a road!” Mike said to me. “He’s bringing all of the gravel from the sides back into the middle and our guys don’t do that.”

I thought of my oldest and much-adored sister Patti’s handsome cowboy husband Lee. He’s gone now but he was a heavy equipment operator and knowing Lee, I bet he did a good job, too!

Mike had seen and heard a bunch of activity on our road. “Let’s go see what they’re doing up at the well.”

Just before turning up the drive to the well site, we saw a roller sitting there waiting his turn.

“They’re rolling it, too!” Mike was surprised. It was later, when he was rolling the road in front of our house, that Mike realized it was a vibrating roller. “That’ll pack it down tight,” he said.

The well site was fascinating. We sat on the hill overlooking the site and watched for quite a while. They were adding pipe. I don’t know enough about the process to tell you the why-fors and what-nots.

A guy on the ground loaded pipe onto a machine and lifted it to the guys on the platform.

They secured it, raised it into place while the guy on the ground lowered it and loaded another piece of pipe. I hope you could follow all that technical mumbo-jumbo there.

I had my long lens with me so I took some closeup pictures.

They may have graded the road right and packed it down tight but the dust of passing vehicles was just awful at my house!

A shopping trip early in the week brings a couple of road pictures.

It was strange to see two bikes propped against the sign and no one around.

“Do you think they were stolen and abandoned there?” I asked Mike, but he couldn’t guess.

Fishing on the beautiful Susquehanna.

I spotted a hawk sitting in a tree and got his picture before he flew away.

I’ve seen more hawks this year than I have in the last few years put together.

While we were in the store, I spotted some asparagus sets. I love asparagus!

“Let’s plant some,” I told Mike and put two bundles in the shopping buggy.

“Where are you going to plant them?” Mike asked.

“Let’s put them where they were growing before.”

We used to have asparagus growing on the bank near the pond but the bed was destroyed when we were pulling brush from the pond. It made me sad but I guess it couldn’t’ve been helped.

Trusting Raini and her Blue Heeler instincts, I let her run free while we planted the asparagus. At one point she started barking. I looked over at her and she was fixed on something under a bush. “She found a bird or something,” I said. I know that birds spend a lot of time on the ground nesting in and resting in the low branches of a bush.

Raini ran around the bush, barking first on one side, then the other.

Suddenly, the barking stopped. That bothered me more than the barking.

“RAINI!” I called. “RAINI, C’MERE!”

Raini came trotting across the bridge, the brown tail feathers of a bird hanging from the side of her mouth.

“Oh, she got a bird,” I said to Mike and went to rescue the poor thing.

I met Raini on the bridge.

“Drop it!” I commanded.

Well let me tell you! What she dropped on the wooden planks of the bridge was not a bird.

“What is that?” I couldn’t quite make out what I was seeing. Then one eye and two long ears swam into focus. “It’s a rabbit head!” I called back to Mike.

Raini, pleased with herself, picked her prize up and made off with it.

“RAINI! DROP IT!” I had to tell her twice before she reluctantly let it fall into the grass where I’d chased her.

I picked up the head in my gloved hand. “What am I going to do with it?” I asked. “If I toss it in the weeds, she’ll just get it again.”

Mike, leaning against the tractor, took a break while I dealt with Raini. “Stick it in a tree,” he said.

Raini wasn’t happy and decided she’d just go get more of the rabbit. I had to take her to the house.

“Do you think she killed it?” Mike asked.

“No. I think it was already dead.” I climbed in the bushes until I found the remnants of the rabbit. The head and back legs were all that was left. “Whatever killed it’ll probably be back tonight to finish it.”

I'd bought two pre-packaged bags of four plants. We planted the first pack and when I opened the second one, I was surprised to find an extra bundle of plants. Most people might be happy to find the bonus plants, but it kinda tees me off.

“Why’s that?” you say and scratch your head.

Mike and I owned and ran businesses. When an employee gives away our product, they’re stealing from us. When I worked at P&G I worked on the packing line next to a young man who thought it was cute to scrunch an extra pack of napkins into the case.

“He’ll be surprised when he opens that case up,” the young man bragged.

“Stop it or I’ll report you,” I told him.

He was dumbfounded. “What do you care?”

“Because it’s stealing,” I told him. People think it’s okay to steal from big companies, but stealing is never okay — not even if it’s just a paper clip.

I don’t know if he got it or not, but I never saw him do it again.

Once the asparagus were planted, we had to water them. “We can’t just dump water on them, it’ll wash the dirt away.”

We’d have to go back to the house for buckets of water. “I’ll take the tractor and fill its bucket with water,” Mike said.

I had a visitor while he was gone. I don’t know where he came from but I felt him tickling my arm. With his antenna sticking out the sides of his long snout, I know this is a weevil. Exactly what kind? I don’t know.

When Mike came back, he brought the dog water bowl with him and I dipped water from the bucket of the tractor to our freshly planted asparagus. When it was empty, we needed more water.

“Why don’t you scoop some out of the pond?” I asked.

Mike thought that sounded like more fun than waiting for the hose to fill the bucket.

When he came back, he gently dumped the bucket in the grass ahead of the asparagus bed and let it run down into it. That worked well and Mike went back for a second scoop of pond water. I was standing there waiting and see something squiggling in the mud. It was a mudpuppy, a little water salamander. I didn’t get a good shot of him. I put him back in the pond.

Mike had gone to the same spot where he got it the first time but this time he got stuck. He dumped the water and used the bucket to push himself out. He went to a different spot and got a bucket of water. This time when he dumped it, I found several of these guys mucking about in the mud. They’re are called Common Backswimmers. I picked ‘em up put ‘em back in the pond.

Mike went back for more water and this time went to where he got it the second time and after loading the bucket, he got stuck again! I guess the bank of the pond is good for only one scoop!

Mike couldn’t get himself out this time.

“Bring the golf cart down and pull me out,” he said.

I guess he thought he only needed a little help but the golf cart just sat and spun its tires. There was an old chain in the back of the golf cart. I grabbed it and tossed it under his back wheel. Once it grabbed, he was able to back out.

The chain was buried in the mud and I struggled to get it out. I rinsed it in the pond as best I could and dropped it on the bank. I think it’s still laying down there.

When we were done, I took a picture of the new asparagus bed.

Then I went looking for frog eggs and I found one. Actually, I found more than one. Our frogs are quite prolific.

It’ll be fun to see the tadpoles swimming around in the pond.

We went to Dushore to pay our spring taxes. Can you say road pictures?

This guy trailed water for miles until it ran dry.

The next day found us at the well site again. This time they were taking the pipes back out of the well. The guys at the top unhooked the pipe and liquid came gushing out...

It was lowered into the cradle...

...and unhooked.

The guy on the ground lowered it and tipped the pipe out.

Gravity rolled it down the rail until it bumped into the others.

Caps were put onto the ends of the pipes.

It was all very interesting and I’m glad I had my long lens with me.

We were heading out and I saw some fruit trees in bloom.

“Let me get a couple of pictures,” I said to Mike.

The trees were all in a row and sat back from the road. I’d have to walk a little ways to get to them.

“I’ll drive down to the other end and wait for you,” Mike said.

“Okay,” I called over my shoulder. I was already being lured by the pretty pink blossoms. “Just watch out my lens doesn’t fall off the cart.” That's the problem with having two lenses with you. You had to have someplace to keep the one you weren't using.

“Where is it?”

“On the floor where I was sitting.” I turned around to point it out to him but it wasn’t there. “It must’ve fallen off.”

“I hope I didn’t run it over. I’ll go look for it while you get your pictures.”

I took a few pictures.

Then turned around as Mike was getting back on the cart. I knew he’d found my lens.

“It’s a good thing I missed it now instead of when we got home,” I said when he got back, and no, he didn’t run it over.

Our ornamental pear trees along the driveway are blooming.

Talk about stink! It’s hard to believe something so pretty can smell so bad! It smells as bad as the flowering tree the Kipps have in their yard that the Kipp girls called a Cat Pee Tree when they were younger, so that’s what I call mine.

I spent a couple of days baking up a storm!

Jon and Steph Robinson were coming for a game night and I know Jon likes no-bakes. I made a batch of chocolate and a batch of peanut butter.

And I know Steph likes a soft cookie so I made the soft sugar cookie that was starred in my recipe book. This is the one my dad liked!

I spent a lot of time in the kitchen because I also made the Mounds Brownies and Dream Bars.

Raini’s my girl. She’ll come up to where I’m standing at the counter or stove and bump into me as she lays down beside or behind me.

I always know she’s there, unlike Tux, Miss Rosie’s dog.

“He’ll lay down behind me and I don’t know he’s there. Several times I’ve backed into him and almost fell!” she told me.

We haven’t had a game night in forever! We played Mexican Train Dominos on the front patio then finished the night out playing a few rounds of Rummikub at the kitchen table.

Game night was fun but nobody made much of a dent in my cookie supply!

“Peg! What are you going to do with all those cookies‽” you say.

Wait. It gets worse. Besides two kinds of Nobakes, Dream Bars, Mounds Brownies, and Sugar Cookies, I also made a cheesecake.

Lamar Kipp says I make the best cheesecake he’s ever had and Patti, my oldest sibling was coming for a visit. She’d be there the next day. I mixed up the cheesecake and baked it while we had game night. The recipe calls for it to sit in the oven for an hour after it’s baked. I checked it and it didn’t seem like it was quite done so I set the oven on a low temp and walked away.

Mike and I had gone to bed that night and Mike said, “Did you bake your cheesecake?”

I gasped! My cheesecake had been forgotten! Ten o’clock at night I jumped out of bed and sprinted for the kitchen, but at this point, what’s the rush? I made a Seven-hour Cheesecake.

The next day I tasted it and it was okay. I gave some to the Kipps and they knew something was different. Miss Rosie laughed when I told her what I’d done.

“Just throw it out,” I said.

“No. We can eat it. It’s just that if anyone had eaten your cheesecake before they would notice that this one isn’t quite as good.”

The next day, Saturday, I called Patti.

“What time do you think you’ll be here?”

“Somewhere around four,” she said.

“Okay. Mike and I are going up to the church for a couple of hours in the morning. He’s going to help finish making picnic tables and I’m going to a Women’s Meeting,” I told her.

“Just keep whatever you were going to do,” Patti said. “I’m a big girl. I can entertain myself if you’re not there when I get there.”

Mike and I started the day playing a round of Skip-Bo and watching an old episode of Hazel on TV. Those old shows kill me. Everyone dressed so elegantly just to go to the store and smoking was socially accepted.

In this episode, the lady visiting Mrs. Baxter pulled out a cigarette and a cigarette holder, lit it and casually smoked while she chatted.

Hazel walked into the room and asked what she had there.

“It’s a French cigarette holder,” she said.

“May I see it?” Hazel asked.

A lot of time I watch TV with my ears, but I turned to look. I was surprised to see this French cigarette holder was attached to a ring! I’ve never seen one like that. I’ve only ever seen the really long ones in some of the old TV shows.

Hazel slipped it on and got it stuck.

“Don’t worry. I’ll get it off,” Hazel said and she did and the story went on.

We went to the church and Mike went to help the guys while I went inside to my meeting.

The girls were done before the guys and Heidi, the Pastor’s daughter, and I went to see if we could do anything for the guys.

“I could use a water,” Mike said.

On the way up to the church for water, I see forts in the woods.

“What are those?” I asked Heidi.

“We’re making play houses using only natural materials,” she told me.

“Interesting! Would you show them to me?” I asked.

“Sure.”

Walking to them, I see this. I don’t quite know what to make of this guy with his trunk up the middle and roots to the side.

Heidi showed me the one she was making and the one her brother was making. She told me how they had to find just the right size branches and weave them together.

“And Levi is doing all of the stone work,” she told me. “He’s making paths and walls.”

What a great experience it is for these guys. Certainly much better than sitting in front of a computer playing games or watching TV.

I pointed out some of the wildflowers I knew that were blooming.

These are Bluets. They have four petals.

I’m not sure what this is. With it’s little green bells it looks kinda like a lowbush blueberry.

Heidi was interested in wildflowers and learning about them.

“Do you know what this one is that has little green berries on it?” she asked.

“Let’s go look at it,” I suggested.

What Heidi showed me was a Dogwood. “You have another one up by the church. When that one blooms, look under it and you’ll see a small pretty flower called Fringed Polygala.”

It wasn’t blooming then, but it’s blooming now. I got wet when I pulled a branch down for a better angle on the pretty white petals.

And right underneath the tree, just as I told Heidi, were the Polygalas.

Patti arrived right on schedule. We visited for a while then we went down to the Hotel for dinner.

“Let’s go to Mark’s for breakfast. We’ll stop at the eagles' nest and maybe we’ll be lucky enough to catch them on the nest,” I suggested.

Clouds rolled in that night.

The next morning was dim and drizzly.

Crossing the Rainbow Bridge.

Graffiti.

Loading a sandbox.

I was watching for the eagle nest as we neared Mark’s Valley View.

“There’s an eagle!” I was so excited!

A little farther up the road, Mike pulled over in front of the nest. One of the eagles was feeding the babies. I think both mates take care of the young so I don’t know which was the mama and which was the papa.

“How many babies are there?” Patti asked.

“I can only see one,” I told her. But on the computer, I can see there are two in the nest.

I didn’t take a lot of pictures of Patti during her visit. I just enjoyed our time together with no thought of picture making.

We went home by back roads, giving Patti a chance to soak up the scenery. Can you say road pictures?

On a dirt back road I spotted a hawk in a tree. I snapped off a couple of pictures when he took flight.

“He’s going after that other bird!” Patti exclaimed.

I didn’t capture the action but the bird got away and the hawk landed in a nearby tree.

We visited for a few hours then Patti went back to her room to rest.

The next day we met our beautiful cousin Rosemary and her handsome husband for lunch. So it’s Patti, me, Rosemary, and Carmen. Mike took the picture.

We took another back road home but I only took a couple of pictures.

The next day would be Patti’s last with us before she continues her trek around this big, beautiful country of ours.

Speaking of country, but the seamier side of life and death struggles...

I live in the country. I live in the country with cats and dogs and a myriad of wildlife around us.

Tiger, our yellow tabby, caught a mouse. For kicks and grins, I went out with my camera. My shadow followed me and when she realized Tiger had something on the other side of the fence, she was glued to the drama. Tiger flipped the mouse in the air. When he came down, he made a break for the fence, right into the maw of a waiting Blue Heeler. I honestly thought Raini would kill it like Bondi does, but she didn’t. She played with it, tossing him around.

“Raini! Kill it!”

“What, mom?”

“Kill it!” I said again.

She picked him up and with a flip of her head, tossed him in the air.

“If you don’t kill him, I’m going to get Bondi,” I told her. That threat carried no weight with her. She just continued to toss that poor guy around.

I went and got Bondi. I was prepared to grab Raini’s collar if she growled possession because I didn’t want her to keep torturing that mouse. But Bondi never tried to take Raini’s mouse.

I gave up, leaving them to their games, and went in the house.

On Patti’s last day with us. We decided on a trip to St. Basil’s to see Momma, Pop, and brother Mike.

The cows have babies!

We had lunch at the Westside Deli then went driving.

The old Dushore Hotel.

We took Patti out Kane Road to see the sculptures.

Mike pulled in the driveway.

“What are you doing‽” I was mortified.

“I’m gonna see if they’re for sale.”

“I don’t want to buy one, I want to make one! See if he needs an apprentice.”

Mike got out of the car and went to the shop door. No one was around.

More road pictures?

Patti wanted to see the 1942 trees. They’re on a hillside just outside of New Albany. If you know what you’re looking for, you can kinda see them in the pines above the barn.