Nothing

 

          Nothing.

          I’ve got nothing.

          “What do you mean?” you ask.

          I’ve got no lead story, no lead picture for this week. Although, I do have a variety of pictures and little stories to tell.

          Our week started off with breakfast out. Leaving our driveway, a young buck crossed the road in front of us.

          Reaching our destination, stepping out of the car, I notice these cool lamps. I’ve developed a fascination for the variety and styles of lamps. I want to make one out of plastic and clay. That’s somewhere down on my list of things I want to make, but it doesn’t stop me from garnering ideas.

          The last time we tried to meet Butch (on the left) and Woody (on the right — I don’t know the people in the background), Woody wasn’t feeling well and they didn’t come out for breakfast. This time we had a very nice hour or so visiting.

          “I’m putting you in my blog to show everyone the handsome guys we had breakfast with,” I told them.

          They laughed and said it was all right.

          Next up, in my file of picture making for the week, is a ladybug and a common housefly.

          There are about 5,000 different species of ladybugs in the world. These much-loved critters are also known as lady beetles or ladybird beetles. We may think they’re a pretty bug but farmers love them because they eat aphids and other plant-eating pests. One ladybug can eat up to 5,000 insects in its lifetime!

When threatened, the bugs will secrete an oily, foul-tasting fluid from joints in their legs. They may also play dead. Birds are ladybugs' main predators, but they also fall victim to frogs, wasps, spiders, and dragonflies.

We’ve covered facts about the ladybug, how about a few for the housefly?

House flies live almost everywhere there are people, except for Antarctica. They live a short life of just six days. House flies live on an all-liquid diet. If they can’t find it in liquid form, they’ll make it so by injecting an enzyme into it. They taste with their feet, transmit lots of diseases, walk upside down, and poop a lot!

 

          Mike’s yard art.

        

          The Silky Dogwood berries are turning. Other names for this bush are Red Willow, Silky Cornel, Swamp Dogwood, and Squawbush.

          The flowers are great for pollinators, but the primary use is for windbreaks and streambank protection. Its dense foliage creates habitat for birds and small critters.

          The berries are greatly sought after by the birds, insects, rodents, and the deer will eat them, too.

          Like many, many plants, it had its place in folk medicine. The dried root-bark is antiperiodic, astringent, and mild stimulant. The flowers are said to have similar properties. A tea or tincture of the astringent root bark has been used as a quinine substitute and in the treatment of chronic diarrhea. It’s been used to treat painful urination and chest congestion. The bark was also used as a poultice on external ulcers and as a wash for gonorrhea sores.

          Be careful with this one. They (whoever ‘they’ are) don’t know if it’s safe to ingest.

          This stuff grows like weeds all over our property.

          This is the flowers of the Boneset with some yellow Goldenrod thrown in for accent and interest.

          It gets its name because the leaves grow together around the stem and in the old, old days, they thought that meant it was good for healing bones. Another theory has it that it was used as a diaphoretic in the treatment of an 18th century influenza called Breakbone Fever which caused bone pain. In folk medicine it was used to treat flu, fevers, and colds. All parts of the plant are quite toxic and bitter.

           Pokeberries are ripening, too. Also called Pokeweed, Poke, Inkberry, and Dragonberries.

The berries contain a red dye used to color wine, candies, cloth, paper, and war paint.

It’s said that leaves and very young shoots — up to about 6 inches —can be edible if properly cooked, though the cooking water should be thrown away. But people have died because of this plant, most frequently little children.

Having said that, have you ever heard the song Polk Salad Annie? It was written and performed by Tony Joe White. It describes the lifestyle of a poor country girl from the South. Sally’s Polk Salad refers to the pokeberry plant, all parts of which are poisonous. Pokeberry has been used as a food staple in the southern states for years.

Yes, I see the contradiction.

Still and all, don’t eat it. You can do what my siblings and I used to do with it.

“What’s that?” you wanna know.

We’d pick great clusters and toss them against the side of an outbuilding, leaving splotches of purple. I remember coming in from doing just that and our mother, seeing the purple stains on our hands, panicked until she found out we hadn’t eaten any.

          I saw an itty-bitty spider, no bigger than my pinky nail, and tried to get a picture of him. This is a view of his undercarriage.

          “Let’s go for a ride,” Mike said.

          I always say no right off, then relent.

          We went up to see the well site now that all the extra stuff has been taken out.

          They call Heelers Velcro Dogs because they don’t get far from their person, and I’m that person for Raini. Although, in the absence of me, Mike will do.

          I have to sit sideways at my desk because Raini lays under it. The foot of my crossed leg braced against the desk. Sitting like this, Raini often rests her head on my foot. I love this. When she does it, I hate to get up and disturb her. I’ll even go so far as to go without coffee — and if you know me, you know that’s quite a sacrifice.

Speaking of sacrifices...

I often think how much like a dog I want to be when I get to heaven; not wanting to do anything more than please my Master and rest at His feet, or on them if He lets me!

Back to Raini. I like to take her with me when I hang laundry on the line to dry in the sunshine. When I went back to get the dry clothes, Raini checked the immediate vicinity like she always does, then satisfied things were in order, and I was staying put, she usually finds a place to lay. When I turned around to check on her, she wasn’t there. I waited a little longer, watching for her. She usually isn’t gone long. The minutes ticked by and no Raini. I couldn’t see her anywhere.

          “RAINI!” I yelled as I continued to fold clothes.

Nothing. I called again, “RAINI! COME HERE!”

          Raini decided to answer. “BARK! BARK-BARK-BARK-BARK-BARK!” Translation, “MOM! COME-AND-SEE-WHAT-I-FOUND!

          Uh-oh, I think. I knew she’d found something. I could tell by her voice. But I was thinking it was a cat. I put the clothespins in the bag, dropped the shirt I was folding, and went to find her.

          “RAINI! WHERE ARE YOU?” I yelled.

          The barking started up again. “OVER HERE!” she said and kept up a steady stream.

          I climbed a little bank and see, through the leaves, my little girl barking down a whistle pig hole.

         I try to get a closer look and push the Multiflora Roses aside — the Multifloras pushed back! Taking a picture with my left hand on a right-handed shutter release leaves you with a blurry picture, but you can see the thorns sticking up outta my thumb.

          “Come on, Raini,” I coaxed. She’s investigated their holes before but never acted like this. I’m gonna guess that maybe Mr. Woodchuck was caught excavating a new home and Raini could see him there, just out of reach. She wasn’t leaving. I wish I could’ve confirmed my suspicions but the roses and steep bank made that impossible. Raini dug the opening a little larger and I didn’t know what was gonna happen. Maybe she’ll work her nails down a little, methinks. Silver lining, right?

          I went back to the laundry, listening to Raini bark as I finished up. Walking past the hill, I yell over her barking, “RAINI! COME ON!” Suddenly, and quite surprising, she came! Suddenly, and not so surprising, she left. After a few steps toward the house, she turned and ran back to the hole.

          I went on home, calling her a few times with little hope she’d obey. The instinct to get that critter was stronger than the instinct to follow me.

          I put the laundry away and checked on her. There she was, just rounding the corner, heading to the back of the house.

          “RAINI!” I called. She heard me, reversed course, and trotted right in the door.

          We got Raini a herding ball. The Blue Heeler page I belong to on Facebook has a lot of owners touting how much their Heelers love it.

          Raini has no interest in it at all — no matter how long I kick it around the yard calling encouragement for her to join in.

          What Raini does love is that knobby, multicolored ball.

          I had to laugh when I tossed it out and it got stuck in a tree.

          Raini watched for the ball to come down. I knew it wasn’t going to.

Will she jump for it? I wondered.

          She didn’t.

          She turned beseeching eyes toward me.

          “Alright,” I called. Next to where I was standing hangs a hook I use to get my bird feeders down with. I picked it up and went to rescue Raini’s ball.

>>>*<<<

          A trip to town nets a few more road pictures.

          Japanese Knot Weed grows all along the bank of the Susquehanna. It’s also called Japanese bamboo because of its bamboo-like stems. It was brought to the United States in the 1800s as an ornamental. Because it adapts to many habitats, requires very little to survive, and spreads quickly, it pushes out native plant species. It’s considered extremely invasive.

In holistic medicine, it may treat Lyme disease, it’s both anti-Inflammatory and anti-viral, it may support brain health and improve heart and eye health. It has anti-tumor properties and they believe it may be used to fight cancer.

And lastly, Japanese knotweed is considered a very safe herb.

This guy pulled out in front of us with lights flashing.

“Is that a cop?” Mike asked.

“I think it’s a fireman.”

“I don’t think they’re allowed to use red and blue lights,” Mike said.

I don’t know anything about that but a little way down the road he pulls over to where a guy was standing with his dog.

Not very much farther, debris was scattered all over the road.

“That’s probably what called him out,” I guessed. “What are those?” I tried to look as I snapped pictures and I got the impression they’re some kind of lights, but my pictures aren’t clear enough for me to tell.

Halloween is out at Sam’s Club already!

Once we got back to Laceyville, Mike took a back road home, one neither of us has ever been on before.

Momma liked when I took pictures of farm equipment. I always think of her when I take them. She would rather be outside doing anything than inside doing ‘woman’s work.’ In that respect, I’m very much like her.

          We passed a field of sunflowers.

          There’s one in every bunch!

          “What do you mean?”

          One that just has to be different. 

          Coming up our mountain, there’s part of a huge tree across the lines.

          “There’s a testament to how well they put the lines up,” I told Mike.

          “Someone cut it off. You’d think they’d want to get it off the line,” he said.

Even though these things have probably been on the tops of the poles for a long time, I just now noticed them. “What are they?” I asked but Mike didn’t know.    

     

          Since I personally know someone who works at our electric company, I asked her.

          “What are these?” I asked my cousin Stacey.

          “Those are extensions to keep the lines away from each other. They use them when they don’t want to put in taller poles,” Stacey replied.

          Well, you know me! I need a picture. “How about sending a picture so my peeps can see your beautiful face?” I asked. I do have an extremely good-looking family, in case you haven’t figured that out by now.

          “You can take one when you see me at the fair on Wednesday,” she said.

          I will be seeing Stacey at the fair on Wednesday. The electric company is giving us a credit on our electric bill as well as food vouchers if we stop in and sign up. “That’ll be too late for this weekend’s letter blog,” I told her.

          So Stacey sent me a picture with her kids. Aren’t they a handsome bunch‽

          Left to right are Colton, Ean, Stacey, Dylan, and Kyleigh.

          Stacey was kind enough to send me a picture of her sister Cassie with her girls Carmen and Rachel.

>>>*<<<

          In crafting news, I didn’t get much done this week. I painted WELCOME on one side of the growth chart I’m working on. Spitfire helped.

At the end of the day, I take my board off the table, stand it against the wall, fold my paint towel and drop it on my paint carrier.

The next day, when I went to get the stuff back out, I see my paint towel on the floor with a tail sticking out of it!

Spitfire! That rascal!

I couldn’t disturb him so I used something else for the day. 

          I took a page out of my handsome neighbor’s book.

          Lamar always mows around the wildflowers growing in his yard. The bees thank him.

          Mike doesn’t like to have to mow around anything but he will leave my milkweed patches.

          In the dog run, I mow around wildflowers.

          Under my birdfeeders, the sunflower seeds were sprouting. I mowed around them.

          Lamar was here and, on his way out, he plucked a handful to put in a flowerpot at his house.

          What a neat idea, I thought and put several bunches in my flowerpots — then I mowed the rest of them over.

          Now they’re blooming.

          “Peg, do I see bug legs sticking out?” you ask.

I saw them, too, and folded the petal back. What we have here is a longhorn beetle by the name of Locust Borer. 

This beetle can be found almost anywhere that unprotected black locust trees grow, and I’ve done nothing to protect mine. As far as I’m concerned, black locust trees are weeds! They grow everywhere and they grow so fast! Mike can mow the young ones down in the fall and by August they’re four feet high! And new trees sprout from the root system of other trees, so cutting it down doesn’t get rid of them. You know what the farmers used to say, don’t you? “Put in a locust post, you’ll get a locust tree.”

Oh, but back to the beetle. You find them more often when Goldenrod is blooming because the adults feed on the pollen. The females run up and down black locust trunks in search of wounds in which to lay their eggs in the fall. They lay eggs in crevices and near wounds of the locust tree. The eggs hatch and the larvae spend the winter hibernating within the bark. Once winter ends, the larvae burrow into the tree trunk and start to tunnel. These tunnels are around four-inches long by 0.28-inches wide, and serve as a primary infection site for wind-borne spores of fungus, which causes a damaging heart rot disease, causing them to be more susceptible to wind damage. The larvae overwinter within the tree and then pupate in late July and early August, and adults start to emerge in late August and throughout September.

I know! I know! More than you wanted to know!          

          This guy is a Hickory Tussock Moth caterpillar. I was playing ball with Raini when I saw him making his way across the grass.

          Raini didn’t care that I was trying to get a picture of Hick here, she just wanted to play ball. When I didn’t pick up the ball she dropped near me, she picked it up and dropped it closer, almost hitting the caterpillar.

          Raini is really good about that. If you can’t reach the ball — and even if you can, she’ll keep picking it and dropping it closer and closer until you do pick it up.

          Wild things are growing behind my Hydrangea bushes. When I saw the Goldenrod, I took it out. Then this one grew and I didn’t know what it was until it flowered. It’s an Evening Primrose. Other names for it are Evening Star, Sundrop, King's cure-all and Fever-plant.

          There’s not enough clinical evidence to support the use of evening primrose oil as a therapy for any medical condition, but in folk medicine it was used as a stimulant for weight loss. The roots were made into a poultice to treat piles and boils.

          There’s another plant growing back behind the Hydrangeas, much shorter than the Primrose, and that would be the Jumpseed. It flowers along a slender stalk and they’re really, really, really little!

This wildflower is also called Virginia Knotweed or Woodland Knotweed. It’s a species of smartweed within the buckwheat family. They’re a shade-tolerant member of a mostly sun-loving genus. Jumpseed is a perennial, named for its seeds which can "jump" several feet when a ripe seedpod is disturbed, but I bet you guessed that. 

          Several years ago, I uprooted a Sweet Everlasting wildflower and put it in my flower bed. I haven’t seen it since.

          This year, I’ve been too busy — or too lazy, to weed my flower bed.

          Silver lining or blessing in disguise, my Sweet Everlasting is up this year. I probably thought it was a weed before and pulled it.

          Other names for this are Old Field Balsam, and Rabbit Tobacco.

          There’s a list on Wikipedia of eight Native American tribes that used this plant for everything from a face wash to perfume, to smoking it and chewing the leaves for fun, for muscle cramps and local pains, for colds and cough syrup, to a body wash for old people who are unable to sleep.

          Something else I found growing around here is Lichen.

          I feel like I may be droning on and on about plant and animal facts that few of you find as interesting as I do. I could probably do another half page on this critter. There are more than 20,000 known species of Lichen with some considered to be among the oldest living organisms.

          We’ll leave it at that.

          Asters, a fall flower, are blooming! I have two kinds growing here. I think this one is the New York Aster.

          >>>*<<<

           “Peg, you wanna go for a ride?” Mike asked.

          What do you think I said?

          “No.”

          “You don’t even know where I want to go!” Mike said.

          “Okay, where?” I challenged.

          “Let’s go get some stones to do that walkway you wanted.”

          How could I say no to that!

          Our neighbors are kind enough to give us a few stones from their property. We took the golf cart and went out through to the stone pit.

          It was beautiful. I caught our resident hawk in flight when I snapped a picture.

We got what stones Mike thought the golf cart could handle and went home.

            Mike laid them and I got out there to take a picture just as he was coming in.

          “We could use a few more,” Mike said.  

          Maybe next week we’ll get some. 

          I was playing ball with Raini and caught Bondi trotting back to the house, using the new sidewalk. Was it happenstance? Were the stones laid where she’d normally go or did she use the sidewalk on purpose? Inquiring minds want to know. 

>>>*<<<

           Lastly, this week, I’ve got a country-life story to tell.

          Even I was grossed out. It didn’t stop me from cleaning it up and it didn’t stop me from taking a cursory glance at what I was cleaning up.

Fair warning.

          If you are faint of heart, tender of stomach, dislike blood and guts and poop and dead mice stories, let’s call this one done.

          Don’t scroll any further.

          Don’t turn the page. Just ball it up and throw it away.

          For the rest of you, read on!

 

 (Space left so you don't accidentally see something you don't wanna see)

 

 

 

 

          I was in bed, reading. I was deeply engrossed in the climax of a book I was reading called Run by Blake Crouch.

          A small sound vaguely registered on my consciousness. A mew or a peep maybe. Raini raised her head from the bed beside me where she was sleeping. She heard it, too, and went to investigate. I figured she’d let me know if I needed to get up. She never called me; she never made a sound. A long time later she came back to bed.

          The morning started the way the mornings always do. I trip over a colorful knobby ball someone dropped at my feet as soon as they hit the floor. I toss it down the hallway as I stumble to the bathroom. Raini always insists on a couple of more tosses while I’m sitting on the pot letting my water down. I find it hard to deny her. She gets so much joy from leaping to catch the ball and her tail wags like ninety!

          Back to the bedroom I go, little Chiweenie eyes peek out from under the covers at me, waiting for me to get her up. I reach in and pull her out, snuggle a few minutes while Raini whines that I’m not throwing the ball fast enough. I make the bed and dress.

          “Where’s Mike?” you wanna know.

          Mike is almost always up before me, so I’m almost positive he’s in his recliner watching the morning news. When Bondi gets up, she joins him, snuggling down under the covers beside him and going back to sleep.

          You live in the country with cats that bring their prizes in the house in the middle of the night, you watch where you’re walking in the mornings.

          I spotted it almost right away. A big pile of something laying by the door. I snapped on the light and kenneled Raini so she wouldn’t eat it.

          “There’s a big mess on the floor!” I yelled to Mike.

          “What is it?” he called back.

          “I don’t know!” I said. With the light on, the Meeps came out of their house and meeped good morning to me.

           It looked gross and I didn’t know how I was going to clean it up. Finally, I decided on a paper towel and a dustpan.

          I pushed it onto my dustpan and it wasn’t nearly as wet as I feared it would be. It didn’t hardly leave a spot on the rug at all.

          In the mess I spot one ear, then another. “They look too small to be rabbit ears,” I told Mike carrying the dustpan in for his inspection. When he saw what I had, he refused to look. I’m okay with that. He couldn’t change a baby diaper either and I’ve done that tons of times.

          I worried.

          A night or two before, in our TV-watching-before-bed recliner, Bondi had an episode of trachea collapse and she wheezed as she tried to get her breath. Raini, ears alert, came to see what was going on. I let her sniff Bondi, then she growled! I yelled at her and pushed her away. I read someplace that even dogs raised together, if one gets sick, the other may kill it.

          I was concerned. And now, faced with little brown ears, I wondered if Spitfire came in hurt, would Raini kill and eat him?

          I know, right! I worry about the silliest stuff! But other than ears, there was nothing else that was identifiable.

          I carried the dustpan out the door and stopped short. A big pile of puke confronted me. I had to go back in for the paper towel I’d trashed, and in this pile I could see pieces of pig ear that Raini had for her treat the night before. She’d eaten whatever it was, and she puked it up.

          Halfway down the sidewalk sat another prize. He joined the pile on my dustpan and all of it was heaved over the fence. The possums will find and eat it.

          You might think this is the end of the story, and it is quite enough grossness, but it’s not the end.

          After getting the mess cleaned up, I set about to feed the birds and cats. Outside birds first. It only takes a few minutes. Cats second, and I only had one customer that morning. Blackie sat on the butcher block turned cat-feeding station. I filled the hard food bowl, opened the soft food, and doled it out amongst the three boys and our outside girl, Sugar. Getting some hard food and Sugar’s share of soft, I head out to the cat room, snapping on the utility room light as I pass the switch. I didn’t get far before I see a trail of fur and blood and pellet-poop. I could tell the fur was rabbit and I felt much better that it wasn’t Spitfire in that pile. Then I see a liver or spleen or something sitting in a little blood on the water room floor. That poor rabbit must’ve made a run for it. I fed Sugar and when I came back in, set to work cleaning up that mess. As I followed and cleaned the blood trail, I found two places where the rabbit had tried to hide behind stuff on the floor under the shelves.

          How did I not hear any of this life-and-death struggle? I wondered and I still don’t have an answer. They either didn’t make much noise or I was so engrossed in my story I didn’t hear it. But I do know that Raini never barked. Spitfire is usually the one to bring his kills in and Raini must’ve taken it from him. I don’t know when she puked it up. I never heard her get back out of bed.

          It wasn’t long until Spitfire showed up for his breakfast. Tiger doesn’t always come in for his but did show up a little later in the morning. It’s always a relief when we see all of the cats. We’re always afraid of them getting killed on the road. But, again, it’s all part and parcel of living in the country.

           And with that, let’s call this one done!