Things Forgotten

           I would be a better writer if I gave myself extra time to write. Instead, I try very hard to stick to my self-imposed deadline of four o’clock Sunday afternoon. That gives me an hour to get it edited and posted and popcorn made by the TV-watching time of five o’clock. I don’t always make it and that just leaves me feeling more rushed, more anxious. Stuff I meant to tell you slips by, sometimes with no notice, sometimes with notice but too late to add.

          “If it hasn’t been posted yet, what makes it too late?” you ask.

          It’s the program I use and all the pictures. Adding something to page one or two after writing ten pages makes the pictures jump around. Then it’s so much work to get everything put back in place that it’s just easier to forgot about whatever I was going to tell you and go on with life or pick it up another time. It happens more than you know. For now, because I need to print my letters for a few people, things are just going to have to stay the way they are. Unless you know of a better writing program than Word.

          What a preamble!

          I did forget a couple of things last time that I wanted to add. Things that would’ve made the stories involved a little better, maybe a little more interesting.

          “What did you forget to tell us?” I know y’all wanna know.

          I was telling you about Raini being afraid of people and places she doesn’t know. There was one more thing I was going to add to that story, another thing Raini’s afraid of.

          “What’s that?” you ask.

          Bees, or maybe any buzzing insect. I’ve been spending a lot of time on the patio. Raini will hear a bee or large fly, jump up and run into the house. She had been snapping at them. I wonder if she caught one and got stung or bitten. Now she’s afraid of them.

          When I was painting the fairy house, I wanted to tell you about my new palettes.

          At a yard sale last summer, I picked up two flower-shaped glass dishes with no clue what I was going to do with them. I just thought they were such a pretty shape and they were super cheap. I figured I could paint them, drill a hole, and hang them up, or maybe glue them in a stack with other glass dishes. I never got that done.

          Painting with acrylic paint, I just use old plastic oatmeal lids with v’s cut to hold my brushes and it works fine. In fact, I’m proud of my frugality. I have about four of them set up for that purpose. Watercolors are a horse of another color. Your paint is so much thinner that you need wells. I bought some cheap plastic ones but what happens is the trays become stained. Since then, I’ve been using the trays molded into the metal lids of the watercolor boxes and that works fine. I’d’ve probably lived my whole entire life and been perfectly happy with that if I hadn’t seen a video with a gal painting and the palette she was using. It’s beautiful!

          “Peg! I thought I told you to stop watching videos and paint to the tune of your own heart!” my oldest, beautifulest, and much-adored sister told me.

          Yes, Patti. Yes, you did. I can’t seem to help myself. I love, love, love, watercolors!

          “Where did you get that palette?” I asked the lady. She sent me a link (and I assume) a discount code. They’re called Bubble Palettes, they’re made from ceramic, and the medium size is fifty dollars. The small has two large wells, the medium has three large wells, and the large, like this one, has four large wells.

          I like it — but not that much!

          I bet I could make one of those, I thought. I know I can mold it with clay. How would I make it waterproof?

          And that has been rattling around in my head for a couple of weeks now. Then I see a reel, a short video, where a gal made something called liquid glass using PU solvent and packing Styrofoam. How cool is that! I’ve been on the hunt for the solvent but had no luck. I think she’s in a different country and they often have different products than we have here.

          So, there I sat, on the patio, my acrylic paints were already out there, but I didn’t have a palette. I thought about using a corner of the newspaper I’d laid out to protect the table. I’ve done that before when my lids run out of room and I’m too lazy to get up and wash one. I could easily have gone in the house and gotten one, but casting my eye about, it landed on those glass flower plates sitting on a shelf. Perfect!

          They were dusty and I had to rinse them with the hose and dry them. In the long run it would’ve been faster and easier to go in and grab one of my oatmeal-lid-palettes, but I wanted to see how I’d like these. You know what? I love them! They even have a center well for a small amount of paint, plus there’s little v’s between the wells that are perfect for holding a brush. It’s a win-win for me! A palette that won’t stain when I use watercolors, I have two, and I saved myself forty-nine dollars!

>>>*<<<

          I’m always watching the landscape around me as we travel.

          “There’s another gas well!” I said and pointed. I look at it on the computer and see it isn’t a gas well at all. It’s a power line tower.

          But these two are new gas wells.       

  

          I know that’s not all that exciting, but one of the many desires of my heart is to take pictures to share with you every week.

          Something that is exciting is that I saw a red fox! Raini and I were on the way to take the garbage to the road when I spot him running up by the clothesline, along the edge of the weeds.

          “Raini! Come here!” I call. I didn’t want her to see it and give chase. She turned and trotted back to me. “Good girl!” I tell her and rub her face. She didn’t see it. Whew!

          I didn’t have time to focus my camera. He was moving fast! I barely had time to get my camera up, pointed in the right direction, and snap off a few shots. I didn’t even look through the viewfinder. I guess that makes me lucky I got anything at all.

          Speaking of Raini...

          I helped Mike put a new alternator in Big Red.

          At the risk of her getting in the way, I took Raini with me. It gets her out of the house, she’s happier when she goes where I go, and I know she’ll stay close by.

          “Climb up on the ladder and help me line up the holes,” Mike said.

          I climbed the ladder. Guess where Raini was.

          Speaking of guessing...

          Guess who got his mower stuck again. I think this is the third time this year.

          Speaking of mowing...

          Mike hit a piece of metal with his mower. He went and got the small tractor, but it wouldn’t budge it. He had to break out the big boy.

          Mike dug and dug while Raini and I looked on. I think he was pulling it back on itself and should’ve tried pulling it out from the other side, but moving this thing around is no small feat.

          In the end, he pulled out these pieces, pushed down a piece that was sticking up, and covered it back over with its blanket of dirt. You just never know what’s going to come up out of the ground here.

          Another job Mike did was to cut down a couple of Black Locust trees on the site where he planted his two new Rhodies.

          Under protest, Raini and I helped. Well, I helped. Raini tried to pull a branch out of the way that I was already pulling out of the way. That and roll around on deer poo. When it came time to fell the tree, Raini and I got way far out of the way.

          “Why under protest?” you ask.

          I was working on the patio. As it turns out it was a blessing in disguise. It was as I was heading back to the house that I spot a branch in the brush pile that I think will be perfect for my cat mobile commission. It was a fresh cut branch so I put it in the oven at a low temp to dry it out. Then I stripped the bark, lined it up with a couple of other options, and asked the client which one she liked.

          “The light one turned up at both ends.”

          And that’s the one I picked from the brush pile on my way back to the house.

          Speaking of my commission...

          I painted a couple of my reject cats and sent her a photo so she could see what I had in mind. Now that I see these side-by-side, I’m thinking if I switch the faces, the one with the hat will look more like a boy cat than he does now with those long lashes.

          “I don’t like the top knot,” she said.

          “I could turn it into a flower,” I offered.

          “I think I’d rather it was just hair.”

          The customer is always right.

          “You could just shave some off the top to round it out,” Miss Rosie said when I told her I’d have to remake the cats.

          “If I do that then I lose my hanger.”

          I’ll string these two on the small stick in the center of the grouping and give it to Miss Rosie. It’s not a secret this time. She already knows she’s getting reject cats.

          So that’s what I did this week. I made new patterns and re-made the two girl cats.

          I made a lot more cement clay than I needed. On purpose. I wanted to play with some more fairy houses.

The first one I made I turned into a funky little teapot. Nothing like what I thought I was making, let me tell you! My spout looked like a face and my handle wouldn’t stay. I thought I’d make it into a broken handle and ended up looking like a tail. So, I put eyes on the spout.

I guess you get what you get when you work without a plan.

          On this one I used pieces of real stone to line the doorway.

          I thought it might be cool to use stained glass above the door. I went and got my glass but couldn’t find any scraps that I liked. Now, if I cut some pieces, that might work just fine. Might even be beautiful with fairy lights glowing behind it. But that takes planning and this was spur of the moment. I didn’t have time to cut any glass because my clay was already starting to set up on me — and I had more clay and one more piece to make.

 I went back to my original design and put rocks in. I might have to glue them in if they fall out when the concrete is dry. We’ll have to wait and see.

          I picked up the paddle to move it out of the way, tipped it a little, and being top-heavy, it tumbled to the ground.

          Sigh.

          I picked it up, fixed it as best as I could, and made a memo to myself to redo the top.

          This guy started out to be a mushroom top, but as I was working, this lizard appeared. I made wings for him but doubt I’ll use them.

          Then I was out of clay so the jar for this one is still naked. Not a problem though. When I make more clay to sculpt features into the cats, I’ll make extra.

          Working (or rather playing) on the patio is heaven. I have excellent light now, thanks to my handsome mountain man, and I get to enjoy the sights and sounds of nature. 

          I was sculpting when I heard the characteristic cheep-cheep-cheep of a hungry baby bird. I looked and spotted him on a branch, raising a ruckus and flapping his wings. Mama was at the sunflower seed feeder. The baby hopped down and joined her.

As I sat there, through the afternoon hours, I came to realize that Mama and Dada House Finch brought their two youngins to my feeders. For some reason, that pleases me.

The Finches eat seeds, but what they really like is the grape jelly I put out for the Orioles. I didn’t get the photo I wanted but I did get the family together in one shot.

They were chased off by this party crasher, the Red-bellied Woodpecker. Did you know that these guys have a tongue that can extend two inches past the end of their beak? That’s extremely helpful for getting bugs out of crevices in the wood, When not using it to get food, their tongue wraps up around their brain and helps to protect it during intense drumming. These woodpeckers are seasonally monogamous. They form pairs for a breeding season but may choose different partners in other seasons.

Another bird I saw this week was our resident hawk circling on the air currents over my backyard. Hawks are territorial and will fiercely defend their territory. I often see and hear him but seldom am I lucky enough to get a half-way focused shot with my zoom lens.

          Another thing I see from my kitchen patio are my peonies. I planted bulbs three or four years ago. Last year I got one, maybe two flowers. This year I got a bunch!

I wonder if different color peonies smell different.

Right next to them are my Glads. This is the third year in a row that I didn’t take the bulbs out of the ground for the winter and they’re coming up again. One of these winters it’ll get cold enough to kill them and that will be that. Since they are toxic to dogs, and since I saw Bondi chewing on them when she was a pup, I didn’t care if they didn’t come back.

          Something else I see is so much fluff floating around on the gentle breeze that it looks like it’s snowing.

         I think, but I’m not sure, that it’s from a cottonwood tree on the other side of the house, down by the end of the driveway. There will be so much of this stuff down there that it looks like snow drifts beside the road.

          On a trip out I saw a big bird sitting in a tree. I barely got my camera up in time to take a picture and to be honest, I was hoping it was an eagle. But I suspect, because of its size and heavy bill, that it’s a raven.

          “More road pictures, please!” you say.

          Your wish is my command. 

          The Catalpa trees are blooming. They have a large bell-shaped flower.

          The old house on our back road is almost down.

          Mike turned around so I could get photos of this wildflower. This is Yellow Loosestrife. In folk medicine it was used to treat diarrhea and dysentery, to soothe and protect irritated or inflamed internal tissues, cleanse wounds, stop internal and external bleeding.

          Making hay. 

          I’ve seen several does with their fawns trailing them. This doe was on the road when the fawn came bursting through the tall grasses beside the road. She decided not to cross the road, turned around, and went back into the woods.

          This doe and fawn were running a hundred miles an hour. It’s amazing that the baby could keep up with its mother.

A single turkey by the road.

This is John, our mail carrier, lay preacher, and one heck of a nice man. This spot on the back dirt road is his favorite place to have a bite of lunch and rearrange his packages.

          “I’m retiring this year,” John told us. “I’m not going through another Christmas season.”

          I guess it gets really crazy with all the Amazon boxes and John would have to return to the post office several times in one shift to make all of his deliveries.

           Rainbow over the Luby’s mountain home. There was a second one but it was so faint I couldn’t get a picture of it.

          New pinecones. 

          There are places in my yard where these Mock or Indian Strawberries grow. They’re not poisonous but they don’t have much flavor.

Like most plants, it’s been used in folk medicine for its blood-thinning properties, to clean wounds and prevent infection, purify the blood, and reduce fever. The leaves can be crushed and applied as a poultice for treating boils, abscesses, weeping eczema, ringworm, stomatitis, laryngitis, acute tonsillitis, snake and insect bites, and traumatic injuries.

          A Twelve-spot Skimmer. I think he’s sitting on the tiny white flowers of Sticktights.

          A swallow had her babies in the birdhouse my Miss Rosie painted for me. 

          Oh! Speaking of babies!

          I don’t know if you remember this or not, but I’ve told you about a Starling that returns every year to have her babies in the eaves. Her nest goes into the breezeway of the apartment and one year one of the babies fledged inside and died. And they always make a mess in the breezeway. Mike tried to close it up after the babies fledged but she came back and managed to find an opening Mike missed and she made her nest in her favorite spot again this year. I was at class when Mike called me.

          “There’s a snake going in where the nest is!” he said. Snakes freak him out.

          “Oh, well.” I’m nonchalant about it. That snake got all of her babies and now she’s gone.

          “What if the snake is still in the house someplace?” Mike wanted to know.

          “I don’t care.” He doesn’t like my attitude. “Just leave it alone. It’ll leave when there’s no food for it.” That might be a while since I’m sure there are plenty of mice running around here. I’d rather have a snake than mice.

          The next week, I was mowing the dog run when I see Mike’s snake sunning itself in the grass. I’m glad I saw him before I ran him over. I poked him with my dog-whomping stick and made him leave before the dogs saw him.

          “What’s a dog-whomping stick?” you ask.

          Both the dogs will bark and snap at the mower when I start it up, so I mow with a long stick in hand. I’m afraid they’re going to get hurt. I shout, “NO!” at them and slap the stick on the ground in front of them. I want them to think I’m going to hit them, but I won’t. After two or three threats, they’ll go lay on the patio. It’s a process I have to go through EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I mow. You’d think that both these dogs are smart enough that they wouldn’t do it anymore.

          I have a fancy-schmancy birdhouse made from a cowboy boot. My sister, Patti made it and I just love it so much! I was hoping to get a resident this year. Unfortunately, now that the leaves have come on the tree, I can’t see it. I have seen birds coming and going from the general area of the boot so I don’t want to move it and risk upsetting a bird that may already have babies in there, but you can bet I’m gonna move it next year. I’ve already picked out a new spot for it.

          Speaking of unfortunate, or maybe misfortune may be a better word, check out this bee. I have to laugh. I did laugh! I am laughing just thinking about it! This guy thought it a good idea to crawl down inside the hummingbird feeder and gorge himself on sugar water.

          “You poor thing!” I said.

          He didn’t say anything because his wings were constricted.  

          I opened the feeder, got a hold of his back end, and tried to gently pull him back down. He fought me every step of the way. I tried to push his head down while pulling his back end, but he still fought me. All of my pulling on his rear caused a release of some kind of fluid, whether it was sugar water or pee, I don’t know, but I reversed course, got a hold of him just behind his head, wiggled a little while he pushed, and out he came. He shook himself, then took off. And that, my loves, is my first bee rescue from a hummingbird feeder.

          Another unfortunate event that happened was to me this time. I was backing out of the church and used my arm on the push bar. I was talking to one of my church peeps at the time and as I was pushing the door open and letting off the bar, it pinched me! It took a long time before it started to bleed but once it started, I had to put a band-aid on it.

          There’s only one picture left in this week’s file. It should’ve been put where I was talking about wildflowers but it’s too late now. We’ll just have to close with it.

          This is Birdsfoot Trefoil, which grows abundantly in my yard. It’s also called Devil’s Fingers, Dutchman’s Clogs, and Granny’s Toenails. It’s mostly used as forage for livestock due to its non-bloating properties and as hay and silage.

          It’s funny that we can’t eat it but it’s used in folk medicine. The flowers are said to have antispasmodic properties, which can help relieve spasms or cramps. They’re also used for their cardiotonic and sedative effects, which can support heart function and promote relaxation. Both the root and the flowers are considered carminative, meaning they can help alleviate gas and bloating. The root can help reduce fever. Externally, it’s been used as a local anti-inflammatory. A recent study in Turkey found that an alcohol extract of Birdsfoot Trefoil showed potential as an antidepressant. Another study found that the essential oil from these plants improved both acute and chronic pain. 

          Remember.

          You’re all in my heart.

          With that, let’s call this one done.