Fall Colors

           I missed some road pictures last time and I’ve got more road pictures this time. Let’s start with what I omitted last time.

          I focused more on capturing the fall colors this week, for all of the snowbirds who might miss them.

          Our old internet company wanted their router back. I didn’t have to pay for anything, I didn’t even have to pack it. What we did have to do was take it to a UPS store. I thought our closest one was in South Abbington but an internet search shows one in Sayre. Can you say, “More road pictures, please?”

          As you wish.

          The Susquehanna was like glass.

           It was a week of running. After running to Sayre to return the router, I had a dental appointment in Tunkhannock the next day and the day after that was another trip back to Tunkhannock for Raini and Bondi’s vet appointment.

          Are you tired of road pictures this week, ‘cause here’s a few more.

          The twins were in the yard as I left the garage for my morning workout class.

          “Is that frost in the background?” you ask.

          Yes. Yes, it is.

          I was working on the computer Saturday afternoon when I heard the driveway beeper. Then it chimed again. Then I wasn’t sure if it was the driveway beeper or the doorbell so I got up to look. Mike came out of the bathroom and met me in the living room.

“Was that the driveway beeper or the doorbell?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I thought I heard something.” Mike’s hearing isn’t as good as it should be because he’s spent many years not protecting it against the decibels of power tools.

I looked out the door. “There’s no one at the door.”

It was a doe. She came up the driveway, setting off the alarm, then came up over the bank by the barn.

“There’s two more by the barn,” Mike said.

I hadn’t seen them until one moved. He went down over the bank. The other one stood there and looked at the doe for a minute then went running toward her. It was their mother. The other one came back up the bank and ran to his mother, too. She let them suckle for a few minutes. By the time I got my camera, she’d had enough and moved off.

          In the world of Peg’s Art, I worked on my next commission. I use molds where I can, but this guy said The Nightmare before Christmas was his wife’s favorite movie. I Googled images and found one to try. This is Jack Skellington, Sally, and the dog, Zero. I worked on them for a couple of days and showed it to my morning peeps.

          “Sally has a very small chin,” my granddaughter told me. She suggested I make it smaller or move her mouth down.

          I’m always open to constructive criticism. “Thank you,” I told Jessica. “It’s easier to fix now than after I paint it.”

          I made Zero smooth because he’s a ghost dog, but I left, or in some cases made, texture in the rest of it. If the client doesn’t like it, I’ll scrap the whole idea and do something else.

          You can paint clay while it’s wet but I set it aside to dry while I worked on the boxes. I’m doing two boxes for this guy so I cut a shipping box up and made a nice-size stack of cardboard. I hot glue two pieces of cardboard together for each of the sides. Top side, bottom side, front side, side side, spine side.

          There are two areas in box making that give me trouble. One is lining up the lid hinge so I have the same amount of reveal the whole way around. Close is good enough for handmade items and we call it character. The other area I have problems is attaching the curved spine. It wants to uncurl on me and not stay where I want it to stay even if I hold it until the glue dries. Invariably, the top pops up. Never the bottom, just the top.

          “Mike, would you cut me a piece of PVC pipe?” Mike is a good husband and didn’t hesitate to help me.

          “What for?” he asked as we headed out to the garage.

          “I’m thinking if I wet the cardboard and let it dry inside the tube, it’ll hold its shape better and not put so much pressure on the top so it doesn’t pop off on me.”

          The sides of the book box are three inches tall so we used a piece of three-inch PVC pipe. It only took Mike less than a minute to cut it for me. I took my hot glued double-thick spine and curled it by hand as best as I could.

          “I wouldn’t use too much water,” Mike advised.

          “What’s he know?” Me asks Myself and I wet it fairly heavy. Boy oh boy! Was it a lot easier to curl when it was wet. Then I slid it into the tube.

          It was still wet the next day and I really wanted to put the spine and top on the boxes.

          “Do you think I can dry it in the oven?” I asked.

          “I don’t know,” Mike replied.

          The cardboard won’t burn and the thick PVC won’t melt, right?

          Wrong! At 350, the PVC started to melt. I turned the oven off and just left it inside until everything was cooled down.

          Turns out, I should’ve listened to my handsome mountain man. The cardboard was too wet, became wavy and was separating. I tried to save it by glueing it back together and ironing out the waves.

“It won’t look so bad when you cover it with paper,” Me tried to convince Myself.

I wasn’t convinced. “But what if it doesn’t?” I asked Me. “What if after all that work it still looks awful?”

Sigh!

I scrapped them and started again. This time I only gave them a light spritz of water and they dried inside the tube overnight.

Now the boxes are together. They received a coat of paper and glue. That makes them so much stronger as well as covering the edges. Next week I’ll give them a coat of plaster and that dries pretty fast. After a quick and light sanding, because I do like texture in these boxes, I’ll move on to the fun part. Designing and painting.

Speaking of painting, I needed something fun to do. I pulled out my sketchbook and in honor of Halloween, did a witch’s hat.

“Don’t count the spider’s legs,” I told my morning peeps. There’s nine. Or maybe he’s got five on one side, three on the other, and chin hair whisker.

Making something for our Sunday night videos at church has me searching for new things to make. Who wants chili every Sunday night? A dish my beautiful daughter-in-law made for us once a hundred years and two lifetimes ago came to mind. I’m sure she gave me the recipe at the time because I liked it. However, I never made it because Mike didn’t like it. Since I was making for my church peeps, it didn’t matter if Mike liked it or not.

“Kandyce, could you send me the recipe for that chicken and stuffing casserole you made for us once. Do you remember it?”

“I sure do,” she said. “In fact, Kevin just asked me to make it again. I’ll send you the recipe when I get home.”

While I waited for her to get back with me, I Googled recipes. I even printed one off. Kandyce is a good daughter-in-law and sent me the recipe late that afternoon. I compared it with the one I’d printed and found that Kandyce’s recipe was simpler.

“Simpler is usually better,” Myself said to Me.

Kandyce’s recipe only called for one kind of canned soup. Cream of Celery. The one I’d printed used that as well as a can of Cream of Chicken soup. At the store I picked up both kinds because another recipe I sometimes make uses Cream of Chicken and I didn’t have any on the pantry shelf. When I unpacked the groceries, I left the soups and box stuffing on the counter. I’d need them the next day.

          So! I’m putting this together and reached for the can of soup. I’d only need the one kind, I thought and opened the can. Well, don’cha know that I opened the chicken instead of the celery! Ay-yi-yi! What was I going to do with an open can of soup? I wondered.

          “You could use them both,” Myself says. “The other recipe calls for both.”
          Me agreed with Myself and decided to just use it. I mixed both soups with the sour cream and set them aside. I melted the butter and added it to the dry stuffing mix. I put half of that in the bottom of the pan and it sure didn’t look like much. I layered on the shredded chicken and I’m thinking about where I need to add the broth and without thinking, I picked up the stuffing bowl and put the last of the stuffing on the chicken layer!

          Doggonit! That’s not what goes on next! The soup goes on next.

          “Just make another box of stuffing,” Myself suggests as I’m picking stuffing off.

          I put the soup layer on, mixed another stick of butter with another box of stuffing and put it on top. Then I baked it.

          My church peeps ate every bite of it. I had a scoop of it, too, and the stuffing was crunchy. I didn’t necessarily object to that but, was I supposed to reconstitute the stuffing mix? I wondered. The downloaded recipe called for it to be made according to the box directions. I asked Kandyce.

          “Nope. You did it right.”

          Since the church peeps really liked it and since my Miss Rosie is still recuperating after her knee operation, I called and asked if I could make it for their supper one night.

          “Silly girl,” Miss Rosie said. “Of course you can.”

          “Okay. I was just checking to see if that was something you might like.”

          When I made it for the Kipps I made it with both soups.

          “It was really good,” Miss Rosie told me. “Lamar and I had a helping each, then we both went back for another helping. I’d like to have the recipe.”

          I gave her the recipe along with my variation. I had leftover chicken and stuffing for breakfast the next day and it was even better. The stuffing had softened. Now I’m thinking the next time I make it I’ll make the stuffing mix according to the box directions before I add it to the casserole instead of using it dry.

          Just for fun, and because I was tired of writing and had an hour before recliner time, I painted two more quick watercolors in my sketchbook. I hadn’t intended to paint two but the birds on the wire was really quick and I wanted to paint a little longer.  

          I’ve been seeing this kind of art on YouTube. Sometimes it’s called Zentangle Art and sometimes it’s called Neurographic Art. There is a difference between the two, but to me they look almost exactly the same. Draw random lines and patterns and fill in with whatever colors you have. Paints, pencils, markers, or crayons. But there are no rules and you don’t even have to color it if you don’t want to.

          I want to close this week by showing you another project I did.

          I talked about Joel last time. Through the course of conversation, I found out he wanted to use a pencil sketch of his late brother on the labels for his tincture business. Joel sent me the photo he wanted to use and I spent a couple of hours fooling with it in FotoSketcher, a program I have on my computer. This was as close to what he wanted as I could get it.

          Personally, I like the vintage look better. 

          Let’s call this one done.

          Done!

Cranky and Crabby

          I’m feeling cranky and crabby today. I know that surprises you, but it’s true. Even this mostly cheerful and thankful person has days when I want to make everyone around me feel as miserable as I feel.

          Buddy died.

          Went to watch a roof raising.

          Took lots of road pictures.

          Finished Fifi portrait.

          Done.

          There. That’s your letter this week.

          “Boy, you are cranky and crabby,” you say. Then you ask, “Buddy died?”

          I suspected he wasn’t doing well because after two days of eating and pooping, his appetite dropped off and he barely ate anything. He continued to pee, but not poop. Then Monday night into Tuesday he didn’t eat anything, despite my attempts to tempt him by making chicken and giving him all the luscious scraps. Possums need to eat bones because they need the calcium.

Almost every day I’d have to find where he was hiding. I found him burrowed down into an old pillow the cats were using as a bed one morning. Another morning, I was surprised to see he’d climbed into a box to sleep.

          Wednesday morning, when I went out to check on him, I didn’t have to look for him. There he was, right out in the middle of the floor, cold and stiff. I took him out and tossed him in the weeds. He’ll make a meal for another critter and such is the cycle of life. I swept up the littler from cat room floor, along with all my hopes and dreams of taking care of him, and tossed everything out.

          On a happier note, I stood at the kitchen sink and watched this Blue Jay eat seeds from the volunteer sunflowers that sprang up in my flowerpots. I’m going to plant sunflowers on purpose next year!

          Mike bought new wheels for Big Red. The old ones were rusted and pitted. We had been on the hunt to find a place that could change the tires over and we found this truck company.

          I took road pictures for you.

          We saw a lot of dead deer.

          “I can tell it’s hunting season!” I said to Mike after the sixth dead one. Then my beautiful friend Jody reminded me it’s also rutting season.

          These folks go all out. I actually like this better than those inflatables.

          Another day, a trip to Towanda, I see a beaver made a dam across our pretty little creek. This is in the Kipps’ backyard.

          The sun sparkling on the Susquehanna.

          I almost got my camera up in time to see the spooks hanging from the second story windows. I don’t know when we’ll be back that way for me to try for a better picture.

          We were passing the Kipps’ house and I see Lamar had his lawn tractor up by the house, under the Rhodie. He threw his hands in the air and got off.

          “I think Lamar’s stuck,” I said to Mike just as we were crossing the bridge. “He might need help.”

           I don’t care where we’re going or what we’re doing, we’re never too busy to stop and help a neighbor in need.

          Mike backed up, pulled into the driveway, and put the window down. “Do you need some help?”

          “No. I heard Tux bark,” I guess he was talking to Tux through the wall. “I’m just going to put some gas in the mower,” Lamar said.

          We continued on our way to a meeting hosted by our newly formed high-speed internet company.

          We received an invitation to an information gathering meeting where they would tell us all about fiber optics, how it works, the installation process, how much it costs, and we would be able to sign up for it at that time if we were interested.

          My beautiful cousin Stacey works for Revolution Broadband. “Aren’t you already hooked up?” she asked.

          “Yep. They hooked it up yesterday,” Mike told her. We were probably the only ones there that were. We’d signed up for it a long time ago and were supposed to go the meeting months ago. I guess they had an opening and just added us before we attended the meeting.

          I leaned in, conspiring to tell Stacey a secret, “I’m here for the cookies.”

          “They’re really good,” she said.

          They were made by a local business and they were really good! I especially liked the peanut butter but the sugar cookies were my second favorite. The pumpkin was okay and I didn’t try a ginger snap.

          This handsome young man goes to our church. Joel recently inherited his grandparents' homestead and is excited to make it his own. He’s got big dreams to build a business there as well as raise his family on land where he has so many cherished memories.

          “I learned to swim in the pond,” he said. “I rode dirt bikes and ATVs on the trails. I climbed the rocks and camped out in the woods. I shot my first deer there.” There were lots of other firsts that happened to him there but I don’t remember them all.

           Joel invited us to come out and watch them raise the roof on the garage. We left early, before the fog had burned off, for the hour-long ride.

          We left the main roads and started to climb a mountain. “Joel said it was on a mountain under a windmill,” Mike said.

          Mike parked the car where I could sit inside, stay warm, and still see. The plan was to use the lifts to raise the roof but it was too heavy and didn’t work. Plan B was to rip the roof off and that would take time. We weren’t staying.

          “Let me show you a couple of things before you leave,” Joel said.

          “These big rocks are the ones we used to climb on. We’d climb right up the hillside and this made a perfect lookout. I’m going to put steps up, they’ll split at the top, one going this way and the other one going to the other side,” he pointed to the big rock on his left, “and this can be a picnic area or play area for the kids,” Joel dreamed.

          Joel drove us up the mountain. At the top were gorgeous views where you could see forever and a day.

          “I want to have three cabins and rent them out,” Joel said. “They’ll all have a deck where you can sit and take in the view.”

          From there he drove us to the windmill. I stood under it and looked up.

          “I’ve been inside it,” Joel said, “before it was up and running.” He told us there were platforms every so often to allow you to rest from the long climb.

          On the way back down the mountain I saw something. “Is that an old picnic table?” I asked.

          Joel backed up for me. “I asked about that, but I was told it was gone! Thank you for seeing it.”

          There wasn’t much left to it and if I hadn’t seen the legs, I wouldn’t’ve known it was a table at all, being all moss covered like it was.

          I was in the backseat and noticed we kept hitting branches and brush beside the road, or that’s what I thought was happening. Turns out we’d picked up a hitchhiker. A gigantic branch had become lodged under the car and we were taking it with us.

          “I gotta get rid of that,” Joel said, stopped the car, and got out.

          You know me. I had to take pictures.

          “Don’t tell my mother-in-law," he said.

          Joel showed us the hunting cabin his brother had built. “He did the siding like that so it would look camouflage.”

          Upstairs there’s a bathroom. It’ll have a woodstove and bunks for the hunters. The ground floor is currently used for wood storage and whether it’ll always be used for that or not, I don’t know.

Bret, Joel’s brother, died unexpectedly a couple of years ago. He was only 41. Joel’ll finish the hunting cabin in Bret’s memory.

          I took more pictures on the way home but I’m not going to show them to you now. Maybe next time if space and time allow.

          Let’s end this week with Fifi. She’s an American Bulldog and the beloved pet of the daughter of one of our church peeps. They’d had Fifi for thirteen years and had to put her down. When Lynda saw the watercolor of Scout that I’d done for California Susan, she asked if I’d do Fifi.

          “I’ll try,” was what I told her.

          She sent me her daughter’s favorite photo of Fifi.

          When I started painting it, I wasn’t sure I could do it. Watercolors have an ugly stage and I was there. It was ugly, and I was discouraged. “I don’t know what I’m doing!” I cried to Mike. With Fifi being gone, it was important that I get it right. I stopped, bowed my head, and prayed for God’s help before picking up my brush again. When I’d done the best I could, I called Lynda. She was excited to get it and stopped that very night.

“Those eyes,” she said, and when she looked up at me, she had tears in her own eyes. “Thank you.” She gave it to her daughter that night and, “We both cried,” she told me.

          No one is more surprised than I am that it came out as well as it did. It’s not perfect, but remember, this is only my third dog.

          Let’s call this one done.

          Done!