Further Adventures

 

          When I left you last time, I alluded that there were more adventures than just my trip to the Sight and Sound Theater to see the production of Daniel. Before we get to this week’s adventures, we’ll pick up what you missed last week.

          We have a Belted Kingfisher that fishes in our creek. His favorite fishing spot is a dead tree that extends out over the water. I see him there a lot and for a long time I’ve been trying to get a decent shot of him.

          Kingfishers are territorial and will defend their fishing grounds vigorously against other kingfishers. They nest by excavating tunnels in riverbanks, often extending 2 to 3 feet horizontally into the bank, where they lay their eggs. Kingfishers are expert fishers, have excellent eyesight, and hunt by diving headfirst into the water from a perch or while hovering above the surface to catch fish with their sharp bills. Primarily they eat small fish, crayfish, crabs, small frogs and tadpoles, small reptiles, and occasionally they may catch and eat small rodents. Interestingly, in the case of the Belted Kingfisher, the female is more brightly colored than the male, which is unusual among birds. Females have a chestnut belly band in addition to the blue band that both sexes have. And lastly, Belted Kingfishers have two fused toes.

          I’ve been seeing lots of butterflies but managed to get only two. This one is a Duskywing.

          This little Peral Crescent has a tattered wing and is sitting on a dandelion. 

          Daisies growing along the roadside. Not bad for a picture taken at 50 miles an hour. 

          These things pop up from time to time. A new gas well is being drilled. In a couple of weeks, it’ll be down.

          Some shots from our walk about town.

          Moss, ivy climbing the rocks.

          Stone steps. 

          I was given an industrial-sized jar of Dijon mustard. Unless you love this stuff and use it on everything you eat, nobody needs that much mustard at one time! I decided to use it by making mustard pretzel bites. These things baked for an hour (stirring every 15 minutes) and came out quite crunchy — that’s code for hard. The whole thing only used six tablespoons of mustard so it wasn’t a great help in using up the huge jar, and as for flavor, I’d’ve liked them to be spicier.

          I love trying new things and starting new projects. After I made Miss Rosie’s primitive chicken mobile, I had a request for a cat-themed one.       

I didn’t think I’d have any trouble, especially since I had no problems in the making of chicken mobile.

Boy! Was I wrong!

I use patterns for lots of things. It just makes life easier. I drew (freehand) the chickens on a piece of thin metal and cut them out. I made the concrete clay and formed it on top of the metal. Easy.

For the cats, I drew on corrugated plastic sign boards. With the amount of detail in my cats, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to cut them from metal. I got a knife, started cutting, and stabbed myself, not once, but twice!

I was going to use the cutout to form the cats on but it looked to me like I could use the other piece for a form. It wasn’t very thick so I cut out a second one. I figured I could make one layer, add the hangers, and slap a second layer on top. I only did the one cat. I needed to see if it would work before I made any more.

After it dried, I tried to unmold it, and what a disaster! Did I mention it was corrugated? I was thinking, hoping really, that my clay wouldn’t go into the corrugation. It did. And the layers didn’t bond. I’m glad I didn’t make any more than one!

I tried again. I made more cats and this time formed them on top of the cutout, much the same way I did the chickens.

After waiting a day, I wanted to flip them over and take off the plastic board so it could dry.

The first one slid off nicely, and so did the second one, I broke the third one.

I’ll have to make another one.

While sanding the edges, I broke a tail off another cat. Now I’d have to make two new ones.

I’m not sad. Many times the only things I keep for myself are the broken ones. I’ll repair them but I won’t sell them.

          “I either need to reinforce the tail with wire or redesign my pattern,” I told my morning peeps.

“What would happen if you used all concrete?” Mike asked. My recipe only contains one-fourth Portland.

I asked Copilot, my AI chat buddy. “It’ll be more brittle,” he said.

          I scrapped that idea. Then I wondered if I'd put in the right amount. I doubled the recipe. Is it possible I forgot to double the cement? I asked myself, vowing to be more careful, more sure of my measurements in the future.

          I gave Copilot my recipe. “How can I make this stronger?” I asked.

          “Increase the Portland and take out the drywall compound,” Copilot said. “The drywall compound adds to the smoothness and workability of the clay but isn’t necessary for strength. You’ll have to experiment with it and find what works for you. Happy crafting!”

          Some might get frustrated, at this point, but not me. I’m learning!

          While I was sanding the first cat, I thought it might be too big. It was ten inches tall. I made it smaller for the second try, and at eight-and-a-half inches, I thought it might still be too big. I made it an inch smaller for my third try. Even then, by the time I string them together, it might still end up being a fairly large piece. I checked with the gal I’m making them for.

          “Size won’t be an issue,” she assured me as she has two nice-sized gazebos.

          I’m going to go with the seven-and-a-half-inch-sized pieces. It’s just a little longer than Miss Rosie’s chickens.

          I was careful with my recipe, adding in extra Portland and omitting the drywall joint compound. I redesigned my patterns, attaching the tail to the body and I added wire, just in case.

          Once I put the wire in, tapped it down a little, and started putting a layer of clay on top, I decided to make my cats more 3D.

          Oh, what joy!

          What fun it was to add clay and smooth it, form hills and valleys, a rounder tail, a paw. To be creating something with more depth than just flat cats like my first two attempts. I thought of my cute little redheaded sister. Diane has taken up rock sculpting. She’s getting good at it, too. I could see her, in my mind’s eye, a hammer in one hand, a chisel in the other, and imagine that she felt much the same joy as I felt.

          I thought of you guys too, and my best West Virginia gal. It would be fun to have her here, making things with me. Would she even want to try something like this? I wondered. My hands were messy with clay. I wiped them clean enough to take a picture and sent it to her. Here you can see the wire I added to the tail.

          And these are the finished pieces. Well, except for painting, that is.

          With the extra clay, I made hearts, triangles, flower pieces, and leaves. I thought I would glue the flower pieces together after they dried.

          I haven’t decided what to do with the other side yet. I kinda wanna 3D that too but don’t know how or what I’m going to do. No one showed me how to do this so maybe, if I let it rattle around in my head for a while, I’ll figure something out for the other side.

          Speaking of cats...

          We were given a ceramic cat that was sorely in need of repaint.

          “Can you make it look like Smudge?” my handsome mountain man asked.

          “I can try,” I said.

          I spent quite a bit of time at the computer looking for photos of Smudge. The first thing I did was search my blogs. The very first one I opened was from three years ago when I told you about Smudge being hit by a car. The first photo in the blog was Lamar bottle-feeding Cleopatra, Smudge’s sister. They’d been abandoned by their mother and we were taking care of them.

          The next photo was of Miss Rosie giving Smudge love, equally as important as giving them food.

          Smudge was one of Mike’s favorite cats and I’m not sure he’s ever quite gotten over losing him — but Tiger helps! Tiger is Mike’s cat now and lays on his chest every night while we’re watching TV.

          I kept looking and found photos of Smudge helping us on the roof.

          I managed to find enough photos to know Smudge had a white belly, white collar, and a white band across his rump which left him with a black saddle.

          It may not be a perfect rendition but I did the best I could. “It’s close enough,” Mike says and it’s certainly better than it was.     

    

          Losing Smudge was a sad time in our life, much harder on Mike than me.

          This week we’ve had another loss — three losses to be more precise. I’m more mad than sad about it since it was my fault.

          “What happened!?” I know you wanna know.

          Teaching my birds to find the opening between the cages was the beginning of the end for three of them.

           I’m in — was in the bad habit of not closing the gates for the water and food dishes the whole way. It’s hard to tell from the photo but there’s barely an open space at all. Not even big enough for me to put my finger through. They had to be looking for it.

          One bird escaped out the top where the water is and the cat got him. At least, that’s what I’m guessing. There’s no bird flying around in here and a few feathers on the floor is all the clues I’ve got.

          The white one tried the lower food cup, got out, but died in the net.

          The last one got his head out but caught his wings in the wires where he died.

          So, I’m sorry my stupid, stupido, bone-head, lazy, bad habit, cost the life of three living things when it didn’t have to happen.

          “Why didn’t you close them the whole way?” you ask.

          There’s a catch in some of the gates and they’re hard to push open. Over the course of time that I’ve had my birds, I’ve always left it a little open like that.

          My Nannyberry is blooming.

          So is white clover. All aerial parts of the plant, including the stems, leaves, flowers, and seed pods, can be consumed. The leaves and flowers have a delicate, sweet taste and can be used fresh right after harvesting or dried for later use. You can make tea with flowers and leaves. The leaves can be added to your salad or baked goods for a vanilla-like flavor.

Clover contains essential vitamins and minerals, including vitamins A, B2, B3, C, and E, as well as magnesium, potassium, chromium, and calcium.

In folk medicine it was used to purify and cleanse blood, treat gout, fever and colds, as an expectorant, for joint pain, eye health, and a digestive aid.

Although related, red clover and white clover are not considered identical in their benefits. Red Clover is used to help reduce symptoms of menopause, maintain bone density, improve heart health, skin conditions, asthma, and whooping cough.

They do have blood purifier in common.

As for eating red clover, it’s very similar to the white. 

Blue-eyed grass is blooming.

Raini and I were down at the pond. The Red-winged Blackbirds were scolding us. I suspected there must be a nest close by but didn’t have a clue where — until the female broke cover. I used my zoom lens to get this shot and didn’t bother her nest at all.

On a golf cart ride I spotted moss flowers and stopped to get a picture. 

Walking a few feet into the woods to get the shot, I spotted two new-to-me wildflowers.

Starflowers. 

And False Solomon’s Seal.

I hung sheets on the clothesline and discovered some stinker laid eggs on one. I suspect it was a stink bug.

Claverack, our electric company, is putting in fiber optic cables for the internet.

Mike went and talked with the guys.

First, they come through and run the line, leaving it slack but with straps to hold it temporarily in place.

Then they come through with a device that zips down the line and secures it to an existing line by wrapping a wire around both lines.

“You should see this thing, Peg!” Mike was all excited about it as he told me how it works and how expensive this thing is. “They cost ten thousand dollars each and they have a lot of ‘em!”

In the photo, you can see he had just released one of the temporary straps, not what I was photographing, but a happy accident nonetheless.

Hey! Look here! First stuck of the season!

I got the golf cart and backed up to pull him out.

          “I knew I shouldn’t’ve come up in here,” Mike said. “It’s just too wet.”

          I attached the tow hook to the back of the mower, got back on the golf cart, checked to make sure I’d put the lever back into forward gear, pressed the gas, and — nothing. The cart wouldn’t start.

          Mike had to get off the mower to get the tractor and got his shoes wet and muddy, something he was hoping to avoid. He towed the golf cart up to the house and went back for the mower. Once I saw he had the mower out and unhooked, I started for the house. I heard something that made me stop and turn around. Mike was using the belly mower on the tractor to try and mow the area where he’d gotten the mower stuck.

          Guess what happened.

          “He got the tractor stuck?” you guess.

          Yeppers! He got the tractor stuck.

          Mike used the bucket to push himself out and it took him more than a push or two to clear the mud field. It was more like eight or ten before he could stop using the bucket.

          “What were you thinking!” I demanded.

          “It’s four-wheel drive. I didn’t think it would get stuck.”

          I guess now we know.         

Remember that barn on the way to Tunkhannock? The one they’re working on? I said I wondered if it would be a venue to hold weddings or parties? 

Look at it now!

“Maybe it’s gonna be someone’s house,” I mused. I guess time will tell. 

Let’s end with a couple or three road pictures. 

And call this one done!

Daniel

           I went to the Sight and Sound Theater in Lancaster, Pennsylvania with a group of my church peeps to see the production of Daniel. It was fabulous!

          We met at the church bright and early and left by six in the a.m. I told my peeps in my morning love note that we were carpooling, only I made it two words in my note and I missed the L. Oh how the absence of one little letter can make such a big difference! Carpooling became car pooing.

          “I’m glad I’m not in that car!” one of my peeps responded.

I was in a car with my best girl Jody driving. She is such a neat lady and truly an unsung hero. She does so much for our church and I’m sure gets very little thanks in return. Linda rode shotgun while Elaine and I took the back seats.

Can you say, “Road pictures!”

We had some fog but the sun was working hard to burn it off.

Then we didn’t have any more fog...

...until we came down out of the mountains.

Linda had a stroke and is handicapped. As a result, she seldom goes any farther from home than the church. We were on roads she hasn’t been on in a very long time, nor have I, for that matter.

“If you haven’t been down this way in a while, this is a brand-new section of road,” Jody told us. “The trucks are told to stay in the left lane if it’s windy so they don’t get blown off the bridge.”

And what a view we had from 200 feet in the air.

I don’t know why I didn’t make any pictures as we crossed the bridge.

I did get some shots of other road construction.

“Look at his load,” Jody said. “Why isn’t it centered on his trailer?”

“If Mike were here, I’m sure he could tell us,” I said. “But I’m guessing it has something to do with weight distribution.” These are trusses and the tops were hanging over the side. There were times he would pull across the center line into our lane to avoid an obstacle on the side of the road.

I watched the roadside for flowers and birds. “What are those trees?” I asked when I started seeing a lot of these.

“Locust,” Jody said.

“What is that white flower?” I asked when I started seeing low bushes with white flowers. “Are the raspberry blooming?” Everything blooms earlier the farther south you go and I know blackberries come on after raspberries.

“I don’t know,” Jody said. “I didn’t see it and I’m going to watch the road.”

We passed the Statue of Liberty in the Susquehanna River. It's a replica known as the Dauphin Narrows Statue of Liberty, located near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It stands 25 feet tall and is perched on an old railroad piling in the middle of the river.

I had thought I’d read it was done as a prank by some collage kids but Copilot says, “It was first erected in 1986 by a local lawyer named Gene Stilp as a patriotic prank to commemorate the centennial of the original Statue of Liberty. The initial version was made from Venetian blinds and plywood, but it was destroyed by weather in the 1990s. The residents of Dauphin had grown so fond of their miniature Lady Liberty that they raised funds to build a new, more durable metal version, which was erected in 1997.”

Look at all the security cameras on this place! I wonder what they’re protecting.

Dutch Wonderland. 

Amish Village.

Someone said all the rooms in this hotel are themed around cartoons. 

Then we were there.

They allowed us to park in the handicapped lot even though we didn’t have a sticker. 

          The history of the theater is interesting. It was started in the early 60s by a dairy farmer and his wife who had a desire to serve God. It grew and changed, adding new technology to make the productions bigger and better. They had a fire in 1997 that destroyed the entertainment center. Glenn and Shirley didn’t give up and 18 months later completed construction on a new 2,000-seat theater that was state of the art and featured a massive 300-foot panoramic stage and a companion 12-ton, nearly 300-foot LED video screen that wraps around the audience on three sides.

          In the production of Daniel, they used 13,000 yards of fabric to create 830 costumes.

“I want one of those!” Jody said. They were fabulous!

They had nearly 300 wigs and 100 beards expertly hand crafted for the show.

There are over 140 people who work behind the scenes to bring the Daniel show to life and 65 actors, including the understudies.

          Okay. Now that we’ve got that technical stuff out of the way, I’ll tell you my thoughts.

First, they have lots of polite people stationed around to help you, from directing you to the correct theater door, to ushering you to your seat, or just to answer any questions you have. During the show, they had monitors in all the sections and occasionally one would come down the aisle and tell someone to put their cell phone away. As you can imagine, they allow no recording.

The sets were fabulous! They were huge and colorful! Great parts of the sets would rumble slowly back out of sight and another set would take its place. Sometimes the sets slowly cranked back, rotated, and came back out to reveal another set on the other side. Sometimes the set sank down below the stage. You could hear the gears and cogs turning and spinning and groaning, which set my imagination in motion. Instead of listening to what was happening on stage, I could see in my mind’s eye, people under the stage running around, getting ready to push one set out of the way and push another onto the lift, But honestly, there was a time or two where I couldn’t understand what was being said anyway.

Not all of the action took place in front of us, as I said a little bit ago, the stage itself wraps around us so some of the scenes were off to the sides.

          They had live animals and actors come down the aisles and onto the stage for an up-close experience. Sometimes they exited the stage by coming past us, too. One of our church gals was swished in the back of the head with a horse tail when she took her grandies to see the production a couple of weeks ago.

          Even the ceiling over our heads was included in the production. At first there were stars twinkling and gently moving in a night sky. When King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had a dream of a great gold statue, it came down from the ceiling somewhere behind me and floated through the air. Nebuchadnezzar sat up in bed, eyes wide and unbelieving.

In the feast scene, beautiful — and huge — chandeliers appeared over us as if we were in the banquet room with them.

I especially liked the scene where the actors were on a boat going down the waterways of ancient Babylon; the boat was moving around the stage, floating on a sea of mist, following the twists and turns of the river as the beautiful and brightly colored city moved past us. When we came to the hanging gardens you could even smell all the beautiful flowers. You could hear the roar of a waterfall in the background, if you listened for it. Birds flew across the screens and real birds flew over us.

          They allowed a 20-minute intermission. I don’t know how many restrooms they have but the one I was in had 45 toilets — I asked.

          Now there’s a second theater in Branson, Missouri. I hope my grandson Andrew gets to go there sometime. I also hope my church goes back again next year to see the production of Noah. Can you imagine all the animals in that‽

          “Peg, ask your AI friend how many live animals are in it,” you say.

          Okay, I will!

          “The production of Noah at Sight & Sound Theatres features over 100 live, animatronic, and puppet animals in the show. This includes a variety of animal pairs, from ducks to camels to parrots, and even a gigantic turtle entering the ark on stage, contributing to the grand spectacle and immersive experience of the biblical story.”

          After the two-hour show, and everyone visited the restroom or bought their trinkets, we gathered outside for a group photo.

          What a good-looking bunch, don'cha think?

          We had lunch at Cracker Barrel, just around the corner from the theater. We weren’t able to be seated together, nor were we seated at the same time. My table was almost done eating and the others, out of sight in another section, hadn’t even gotten their food. No one minded though. We passed the time chatting.

          We were seated at the first table inside the restaurant door and I had a clear view of the cashier station. “I’m going to go take care of my tab while there’s no one there,” I said.

          The gal cashing me out was Linda. It said so across the front of her apron. “Do you want a copy of the receipt, dear?” she asked.

          “No thank you,” I told her. Inspiration hit.  “And thank you for calling me dear!” And that started a conversation. It bothered me when Kyle blew up at me a few weeks ago. Since then, I’ve been surveying service people. “Has anyone ever gotten mad at you for calling them dear?”

          “Oh yeah,” Linda said, nodding her head. “Since I’ve been back, about a year now, it’s happened...” Her eyes went up and to the right as she thought about it. “Twice now. It really bothered me and for a while I wouldn’t say it anymore. Then I thought, why should I let them ruin my day and I don’t let it bother me anymore.”

          Linda and I talked a good while, me stepping out of the way if someone else needed to cash out. When my group was ready to leave, Linda said, “Come here,” and leaned across the counter like she wanted to tell me a secret. Much to my surprise, she hugged me and kissed my cheek!

          I absolutely glowed after that! Grinned from ear to ear! I don’t know what I said to inspire such a warm and friendly reaction from her, but she made my day! I am not often gifted with a kiss on the cheek even by my friends and I have to say, this is maybe the first time I’ve been given one by a stranger.

          I took more road pictures on the way home.

          Do you think this might be a duck blind? It was on the tip of one of the little islands in the Susquehanna. I saw several more on other little islands as well. 

          I have no idea why I took this picture. It’s got a bad window reflection in it. I was getting ready to hit the delete button when I spot a house waaaaay up on the mountain top. 

          I cropped it out for you. 

          Whirligigs on a rooftop.

          Old shingles, new shingles, and a few pieces of tin thrown in for good measure.

          “Does that cloud look like a bird?”

          “I’m going to watch the road,” Jody said.

          Elaine looked. “It does. Some of my favorite childhood memories are of laying in the grass, looking up in the sky, and making cloud pictures.”

          “I was always fascinated with this place,” Jody said and pointed to a plantation-style house. “It used to be a craft store but I never did go in. Now someone owns it.”

          And those "someones" were out planting a garden, the lady sitting in a chair. 

          “If I was going to garden, that’s how I’d have to do it, too,” Linda said.

          It was getting late.

          We watched the sun playing peek-a-boo with treetops as we wound our way down our back roads. 

        

I got home around 8 p.m. It was a long day but one I won’t soon forget. 

          I’m sure you know that my week was filled with more adventures than just the day-long excursion to Lancaster for the mesmerizing production of Daniel, but (and there’s always a but), we’re going to call this one done!

          Done!