Wildlife

 

          Looking over the pictures in this week’s letter blog photo phile err... file, I see there are a bunch of wildlife photos. Whether it’s butterflies or deer or wildflowers, twenty-five of the currently thirty-nine photos are those. I say currently because as I write, that number can change. Sometimes pictures I thought I was going to show are omitted, other times I add photos. But we will start with these thirty-nine and see where we go.

          Tiger, up on the wall, surveying his kingdom.

          Speaking of Tiger, I was at the kitchen sink and saw him coming across the back yard carrying something. I grabbed my camera and went out. It took me a few minutes to find him because I didn’t know where he’d gone. Then I heard the squeaks and squeals of I-didn’t-know-what-it-was and saw Tiger chasing something through the weeds on the bank. He came back with a baby bunny in his mouth.

           “Aww, Peg! I feel so sorry for that baby bunny!” you say.

          I know, right! I do, too. But it’s the cycle of life. Nature provides enough babies for the critters to get a few and the species to carry on. And Tiger didn’t kill it for the sake of killing it, he ate it.

          “I don’t know how they eat the fur,” that handsome Lamar Kipp said.

          Knowing cats don’t digest fur very well, I said, “They probably puke it up.”

          I know better than to try to take the bunny away from him. Wild bunnies will just die and Tiger’d just go back to the nest and get another one. I let him be.

          Bondi heard the commotion and watched.

          You may not be able to rescue baby bunnies from the jaws of a mighty hunter, but can you rescue an injured dove?

          Mike and I were coming down our little dirt road when we see a dove sitting in the middle of the road. It didn’t move and didn’t move until we were almost on top of it, then it fluttered a few feet away.

          “He’s hurt,” I said to Mike. “Let me get him.”

          Mike is such a good husband. He puts up with my eccentricities. He stopped the golf cart and I jumped off. The dove fluttered a few more feet. I followed and kept up a steady stream of what I hope was a soothing chatter. The dove stood still and I picked it up.      

          “What are you going to do with it?” Mike asked.

          “I don’t know.”

Suddenly, from the weeds on the side of the road, we hear, “Meow!” The weeds rustled. “Meow. Meow.”

We were close to our back driveway so I wasn’t surprised when Tiger came creeping out of the weeds.

“Do you want me to give it to Tiger?” I asked.

“That would be unsportsmanlike,” Mike said.

I’m guessing it was going to be Tiger’s lunch — did she escape from Tiger? Or had she been hit by a car? I don’t know.

I brought Bird home and put her in a cat carrier. Gave her some seeds and a dish of water. Every day I took her outside and put her where she could watch the other birds. Every night I brought her in and put her in the exercise studio and closed the door so no cat or dog could bother her.

I’ve taken to calling her Bird. As in every morning and every night I have to tell the dogs to, “Leave Bird alone!” They jump on the side of the kennel or nose it, hitting it hard enough to move it a few inches, trying to get a closer look at Bird.

A cat carrier is not the best home for a bird. But I figured if the cats can’t get out then they can’t get in. That made it a safe home. I changed the papers in the bottom of the cage twice a day at first. Bird was pooping a lot! Every time I’d reach in, she’d panic. I’m sure if she has an injured wing, fluttering is not the best thing for it. But it couldn’t be helped. I’d gently hold her in one hand, take out the food and water dishes and change the paper with the other. Then I noticed Bird was getting poop on her tail feathers. I washed it off. When I took her outside for the day, I shoved a branch through the grate of the wire door, which made her panic all over again, giving her a perch.

I started searching Facebook Rummage Sale for a bird cage. A few in the thirty-dollar range appealed to me but I couldn’t tell where they were. I got frustrated and had other things to do so I didn’t look very long.

Five days later, Bird is still alive — and we had a shopping trip planned. Mike wanted a case of ceiling tiles for the guest apartment. Dickson City is big enough for a Lowe’s, Sam’s Club, and tons of other big box stores.

I didn’t take a lot of pictures because we’ve traveled these roads more than a few times. I did take a picture of the wind generators glinting in the sunshine on a far-off mountain.

“Can we stop at Pet Smart?” I asked.

          We bought Bird a cage and several varieties of food.

        All I’ve been feeding her was sunflower seeds. I thought if she’s gonna live, she’ll need a better-balanced diet. That and I could change her papers by sliding out the tray instead of reaching in and maybe she wouldn’t get so upset.

          Even though the girls shadow me every step of my day, watched me put the new bird cage together and transfer Bird, Bondi couldn’t help but stand in the patio chair and bark at it for fifteen minutes.

          The first day in her new home, Bird sat on the bottom of the cage. The next day she was up on a perch. Not only that but I saw, for the first time, Bird grooming herself. That’s a good sign.

          “How long are you going to keep her?” Mike asked.

          “I don’t know. I don’t know how long it takes a wing to heal or if she’ll ever be able to fly again.”

          >>>*<<<

          We had a nice evening and went for a golf cart ride. Something I haven’t wanted to do because of the dust passing cars leave in their wake. We started out and I spot Fringed Loosestrife. This plant is notable in that it’s one of the few wildflowers to offer oil instead of nectar as a reward to pollinators.

          The heads ‘nod.’ I tipped one up so you could see its pretty face.

          We reached the bottom bridge and no cars had passed us. “Let’s go see if the Bee Balm’s blooming.” We continued on.

          Two horses were coming down the road toward us. I didn’t know how Raini would react. She’d already smelled them and was on alert. She could slip her collar if she turned around and backed out of it. Knowing this, I used a two-hand — and arm — hold on her. My anxiousness probably made her anxious, but the horses didn’t pay much attention to our barking dogs and passed without incident.

          The Bee Balm is blooming and there wasn’t as much of it as had been there in years past.

       

Something else blooming is Bergamot.

          This is a Mourning Cloak Butterfly.

I’m not sure I ever saw this one before. This is a Baltimore Checkerspot.

          This is Indian Hemp also known as Dogbane.

          St. John’s Wort has been used in traditional European medicine as far back as the ancient Greeks. The name St. John’s wort apparently refers to John the Baptist because it blooms around the time of the feast of St. John the Baptist in late June. 

In herbal or folk medicine, it’s been used to treat mild to moderate depression, menopausal symptoms, and wound healing.

          Chicory.

This wildflower is a member of the aster family and has many names including blue daisy, blue sailor, wild bachelor's button, blue or Italian dandelion, or even coffeeweed. It’s been cultivated to produce salad greens and Belgian or French endive. It’s also been used as a forage crop for livestock in some parts of the world.

          Chicory is grown to produce inulin, the active ingredient in some fiber supplements. If you have ever been to New Orleans, you probably have had coffee mixed with chicory. Some people think it tastes like scorched coffee. On the other hand, if you’re from New Orleans, you’d probably miss it if it wasn’t in your coffee.

          You might be surprised to know that chicory is not native to the United States. It was carried to America by European settlers in the 1700’s because it was cheaper and more readily available than coffee. It’s since become naturalized throughout the North American continent.

          This pretty black and white wasp on dogbane is called a Four-toothed Mason Wasp. 

          When I was taking his picture, a Hover Fly landed on him!

          Walking Raini down around the pond, I stepped on this guy. He was sunning himself and I wasn’t looking where I was going. Lucky for me and fortunate for him that I felt him move as soon as my foot touched him so I didn’t step hard. I pulled my foot back and he took off. He didn’t go far and I took his picture.

          “What is he?” I know you wanna know.

          Google lens says he’s a Chicago Garter Snake, a subspecies of the common garter snake.

          Dew covered wild grape vines.

          I only got one web photo before Raini’s curiosity had her bounding over to check it out.

          I have at least one Green Heron fishing at my pond almost every day. He hears me coming long before I know where he’s at and he takes off.

          He landed in a nearby tree and I knew my picture wouldn’t be good. Didn’t stop me from taking it though. I’ll keep trying to get a better picture of him.

My Nannyberries. They’ll be purple/black when they’re ripe.

This one is Pennsylvania Smartweed also called Pink Knotweed and Pink Weed. The smartweed family includes buckwheat, dock, and rhubarb. The seeds are eaten by small mammals and birds including waterfowl.

Native Americans used it for epilepsy, horse colic, bleeding hemorrhoids, to treat hemorrhage, and to aid in post-partum healing.

          This is a little butterfly called a Pearl Crescent.

          Thistle, also called Finch Food in this house. The birds eat the seeds.

          A Great Blue Heron. He was sitting on a log in the creek. We were on the golf cart and going so slow on the bridge that it spooked him and he took off.

 

          Speaking of our bridge, we were coming home and followed this little doe across the bridge. Mike went really slow so as not to spook her into jumping over the side and killing herself. She got to the end of the bridge and went up the Kipps’ driveway.

>>>*<<<

          “Peg, what have you been working on this week?” you ask.

          What have I been working on this week? This week I finished another commissioned piece.

          Spitfire helped.

          Okay! Okay! He didn’t so much help as get in the way. After I took his picture, I dumped him off on the floor. I would’ve let him stay if he hadn’t’ve been wanting to push against my hand. What happens then is I’d be painting in places I didn’t wanna paint!

          Then I went to work sanding boards. While I’m out there sanding, I might just as well sand more than one board. I did three. Two for up-coming signs and a spare. I got them stained then went to work designing the next piece. The computer work can take me a day or two. After a few back-and-forth’s with my client, the design is settled. But designing isn’t the end of my computer work. I have to size and print the patterns. I don’t have dedicated software for this so I use what I’ve got. That can mean two or five printings before I’ve got the size right. No matter. It’s all part of the process. I do what I have to do so I can do what I want to do, and that’s paint. I’m excited to start that next week.

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

          Mike has been working hard on the apartment. Besides putting up the new ceiling tiles, he’s been cleaning, too.

          I’ve not been helping much. I think it’s good for Mike to have a project all his own and I have enough to do. When you come to visit, you’ll see how nice the place is and you’ll know it was all because of Mike. His labor of love.

          A post popped up on my Facebook feed. “Free theater seats,” it said. Now who doesn’t need theater seats, I ask you.

          “It’d be kinda cool to have theater seats,” I told Mike.

          “Where would you put them?” he asked.

          “I don’t know. Maybe out on the enclosed patio?”

          A few days pass before I decided to inquire about them.

          “Do you have any seats left?” I asked Morgan, the curator of the Wyalusing Museum.

          “There’s one section of eight,” she said. “You can have some or all of them.”

          I was thinking of just getting four but what the heck. “I’ll take all eight.”

          We made an appointment to pick up the seats. They already had them broken into three sections of two seats. That’s six seats, for my mathematically challenged peeps. The other two seats fit between the sections to make the other two seats so there were no side pieces, just cushions.

          The seats were in a second-floor meeting room. The building used to belong to the IOOF and other organizations before it was given to the museum.

          

          The first section of seats we laid on the back and slid down the stairs. Then it was muscle power to carry it out the door, Mike backing up, me following.

          “Let me prop open that door for you,” Morgan said.

          Mike, backing out the door, asking Morgan a question, missed a step and landed flat on his back. Mike is taller than the deck is wide and his head smashed out one of the spindles.

          Poor Mike.

          Morgan felt terrible.

          My big, strong, indestructible mountain man jumped up, even though I told him to take a minute, and said he was okay.

          “I’ve got a hand truck if that would help,” Morgan said.

          Yeah. It would’ve made things a whole lot easier and maybe Mike wouldn’t’ve fallen. But hindsight is twenty-twenty.

          All of the seats fit in the Explorer. We left them in the car the first day because Mike had a huge headache.

“I need to rest,” he said and hit the recliner. A little while later he calls me. “Peg! Come and feel this big knot on my head!”

Oh. My. GOSH!

“That’s not a goose egg, that’s an ostrich egg!” That thing was as big as the palm of Michael’s hand! It only bled a tiny little bit but it had a bullseye bruise like I’ve never seen before. Now I was worried. I Googled it and it said he needed medical care if his vision was affected, he had memory loss, or vomiting. He said his left eye was a little fuzzy, but no other symptoms. And he refused to go to the ER.

          I tried to get another picture of it in the morning but his hair made that a little difficult. You can almost see the circular bruise here.

          Besides his head, he’s got a scrape on his right temple and a skun shin.

          And me?

          When he fell and dropped the seats, I fell forward onto the seats. I just banged my shins and skinned one a little but I’m way better than Mike! 

          The neighbor's fuchsia plant after being watered.

          I have another story to tell and more photos to show but let’s save them for seed.

           Done.