Short Stories

 

          I might be a little short on stories this week but I won’t be short on road pictures, that’s for sure!

          Nick, one of our church peeps, married his love, Aubrey, last weekend. They’re on their honeymoon and I took this photo from Nick’s Facebook page.

          Mike and I attended the wedding, where Pastor Jay officiated.

          It was a barn wedding and I ordered a long dress just for the happy event. I thought this dress, paired with cowboy boots, would look western enough. Although this one is yellow-green in color, I ordered it in a rusty reddish-orange. When it came, it was wrinkled.

          “I’ll just wash it,” I told Mike.

          “I wouldn’t put it in the dryer,” he said.

          “I won’t. I’ll hang it to dry.”

          Well, even after it was dry, it was still wrinkled. I ironed it and it looked great, until I was all done and held it up! I thought I was re-wrinkling it as I moved it around the ironing board so I ironed it again, being more careful. The wrinkles came right back. I tried again, misting it this time, then I tried steam. Nothing was working. I worked on it for hours before I gave up. It was a wet, raw day for the wedding anyway, so I ended up wearing slacks and a pretty top, along with my boots.

          And speaking of my boots that was something else I worked on for hours. They’d been in storage for something like twenty-five, thirty years. I don’t know when or why I quit wearing them, but I did.

          They were dirty.

          I washed them with a mild soap.

          A couple of spots were really stiff and I just knew they’d rub on me if I didn’t soften them.

          “I thought I heard that WD-40 will soften leather,” I told my peeps on my morning love note.

          “WD-40 is not recommended for boots. It dries out the leather,” they said.

          Other oils, like mink, coconut, and baby oil will work, but they need time and time was something I didn’t have. It was the day of the wedding.

          “Nothing like waiting until the last minute,” I told Miss Rosie on our morning love call. “I just hope they still fit.”

          “Don’cha think you should try them on before you put all that work into them?” she asked.

          I don’t remember how I answered her, but that certainly would’ve been more prudent.

          I ended up using my fabric steamer to soften the leather in a couple of spots that were heavily creased, then I oiled them. I do have coconut oil in my cupboard, but I also have this bottle of baby oil that’s more than thirty years old. I don’t often have a use for baby oil so I thought oiling my boots would help use it up.

          After steam heat, which can be drying, I worked some oil in and put clips on to keep the creases flat until they cooled.

          It worked. And more importantly, they still fit.

          A few pics from our ride to the wedding venue.

          The barn was beautiful but not really conducive to an early spring wedding. You could see outside between the boards and it was cold. They had giant heaters but that didn’t help unless you stood right next to them. Everyone, except the wedding party, wore their jackets, and I bet they put theirs on after the ceremony!

          Mike and I only stayed for a couple of hours. On the way home Mike noticed the docks around the lake had been cantilevered. Interesting.

          I started seeing a few tiny ants in my kitchen this week. Sugar ants, I think they’re called. I just crushed ‘em with a finger or thumb. They’re so tiny they don’t leave much guts behind. I know ants leave trails so I was hoping to avoid more ants by eliminating the scouts.

          It didn’t work.

          I woke up to a full-scale invasion one morning as they marched across the front of my sink.

         I wiped ‘em up with my dish rag, rinsed it in a bowl of soap and bleach water and crushed any stragglers I’d see after that.

          “Terro is good for ants,” my handsome son (and others) recommended.

          S’kay. I’ll put it on the shopping list.

          In the meantime I kept doing what I was doing and as of this morning I have very few ants. I might not need to buy the ant poison after all.

 

          My handsome mountain man has wanted a front mower for a couple of three years now. They’re not cheap.

          “You don’t need one,” I’d say.

          “But, Peg, it would be so handy to get under the bushes and out over the edge of the pond with,” he’d say.

          I agree. It would be handy. Mike has lost his gas cap a couple of times going in and out and around the bushes and he does get scrapes, too, but is it really necessary?

          I was at the kitchen sink when the printer started up and spit out a piece or two of paper. Mike was printing something from his computer and came out to get his paper.

          “What ‘cha got?” I asked.

          “Nothing. I don’t wanna tell you,” he said.

          “Okay...but I’ll find out sooner or later. You might just as well tell me now.”

          “I found a front mower I’d like to have,” he said, showed me the information page with the pictures, and proceeded to tell me all about it.

          Mike is our CFO. Mike is a good husband. Mike doesn’t deny me anything. He doesn’t really need my permission to buy something he wants, but he does like to have it.

          “If it’s a good deal, if we can afford it, and if you really want it — get it,” I told him.

          I’m sure he was shocked since I’d been so stubbornly against it for so long.

          “It’s in Michigan. You wanna go on a road trip?”

          “Sure!” Think of all the road pictures I’d get then! “The girls travel well and we could get a hotel room for one night. The cats and birds will be okay for a day, but I bet Lamar would come up and give them their morning treat.”

          Mike contacted the seller and got all of his questions answered. Then the next day he found a different front mower.

          “This one’s cheaper and closer to home. You wanna go look at it?” he asked.

          We got around, I made travel coffee, and off we went on a three-hour drive.

          How about some road pictures to start us off?

          The cow by the tree was having a rub.

          Rocks, in varying colors all lined up like this remind me of my cute little redheaded sister. Diane studied rocks and pointed out the different ones and even named them when she last visited us. My photo doesn’t do it justice.

          We drove through an Amish or Mennonite community. I don’t know how to tell the difference or if it even matters. This guy was in the field with his team of horses. Plowing or spreading manure, I don’t know. I had a hard time getting any kind of photo because of the trees.

          Nearby stood two more horses and they were watching. Maybe they’re wondering if they’re next.

          I think the one boy sees me taking pictures. When I looked at it on the computer, he seemed to be looking right at me.

I thought this church burned until I saw it on the computer. Now it looks like it just...died.

          Old buildings can live a long time when they have the breath of life in them.

          Speaking of buildings dying, How would you like to be attached to this guy?

          The highway opened up in front of us and Mike was going a little faster than he should. He always says something like, “Is 70 in a 55 too fast?”

          I usually say “You’ll think it’s too fast if you get a ticket.” That’s what I usually say to this all too familiar banter between us. But this time I said, “Not for me but maybe for that cop we just passed.”

          I was kidding, of course. We hadn’t passed any police officer monitoring for speeders. Nonetheless, Mike slowed his roll.

          Guess what we pass a few miles later.

         Mike didn’t like either of the mowers we went to see. And that’s fine. It’s an investment and he won’t be happy if he settles for something just because it’s cheaper.         

Our GPS took us a different way home than the way we went. Don’t ask me why, but it’s done it before. You’d think the route would be the same no matter which direction you were heading. We made a turn and promptly saw a ROAD CLOSED 2 MILES AHEAD sign. We were going four miles before our next turn. Do you think the sign was meant for us?

Instead of turning around then and there we continued. I got a few pictures on that road that I otherwise wouldn’t’ve gotten, so I’m not sad. But we did have to turn around.

          We went through Minersville.

         I’m going to guess that you can guess what industry the town was named for. If you guessed coal mines, you’d be right.

          “A miner’s life is a hard life,” my best old West Virginia friend said. Members of Trish’s family worked in the coal mines so she knows firsthand.

          “Did you know we have a mine here that’s on fire?”

          “No! I didn’t know that!”

          The Centralia, Pennsylvania mine fire started in May 1962 when the town attempted to clean up its landfill, which sat inside an old strip‑mine pit. The fire accidentally ignited exposed coal seams beneath the pit, and because the abandoned mines under Centralia were a maze of tunnels, the fire spread rapidly underground. Efforts to extinguish it between 1962 and 1978 cost millions but failed. By the early 1980s, dangerous levels of carbon monoxide, ground subsidence, and sinkholes made the town unsafe. In 1984, Congress funded a large relocation program. Over 500 homes and businesses were bought out and demolished. By the 1990s, nearly the entire town had been condemned, and Route 61—the main highway—was closed due to buckling from the heat below. Today, only a handful of residents remain, and the fire continues to burn underground across several miles. Estimates suggest it could keep burning for another 250 years. 

          It was raining so hard that this is the best shot I took of the tail end of an airplane sticking out of the building.

          The sign on the silo reads: Jesus is coming back. Are you ready?

 

          This farm was absolutely beautiful.

          “Peg, did you do any art this week?” I know you wanna know.

          I did. All of it was practice art. Working on my sketching skills, although I don’t know why. It isn’t necessary to be able to draw if you want to paint. That’s what they make light boxes and transfer paper for.

          I did this one and for the first time I used a black brush pen to outline it with.

“What’s a brush pen?” you ask.

A brush pen is a pen filled with paint and has a soft, flexible tip, like a paint brush.

I wasn’t happy with my lines so I went back to the Sharpie.

          I can knock one of these out in a half hour, give or take. And they’re just for fun.

          This old book has dirt or chocolate on some of the pages and scribbles on others.

          I don’t really care and I don’t try to clean them up.

          When you wash your watercolor brushes you want to leave them flat to dry or hang them bristle side down. For me it’s just easier to leave them lay flat on my desk. I prop my artwork up on top of my brushes and pens and take a picture like I did in this shot I sent to Trish. I had no idea what she’d think about this, I don’t even know what I think, except Miss Rosie will like the green eye shadow. Green is her most favorite color but she likes orange, too.

          “It looks like Mama has gotten all dressed up for date night!" Trish said.

          I noticed that my desktop was getting cluttered with brushes. I decided to get a container and pick my brushes up. I could’ve put them in one of the myriad of containers I already have holding brushes but I wanted to keep these separate. They’re my favorites and I didn’t want to have to dig through a bunch of other brushes to find the one I wanted.

          The brushes get pushed under the monitor when Tiger walks across my desk. I reached under to pull them out but quickly withdrew my fingers.

          Aye-yi-yi!

          What a mess!

          My small container of black ink was on its side and the ink had seeped out. I guess that wasn’t an airtight container! I drug the computer cords through the ink as I was trying to clean it up and I had ink all over the place! Time and effort cleaned most of it up but my fingers were stained for the rest of the day.

          I love the handmade ceramic bowl I put my brushes in but it’s not the right container for the job. Not to worry. I have other containers but I was tired of looking.

          I’m trying to work out a jelly feeder. After having the dish disappear this past winter then having it knocked to the ground where the dogs could get at the grape jelly wasn’t working for me. I got a food bowl out of the cat condo. It attaches to the wire of the cage so I found a way to attach it to the bird’s feeding station.

The Baltimore Orioles have returned. He’s waiting for the woodpecker to leave so he can have a turn.

          The weather warmed and the flaw became evident. There’s no water well to keep the ants out. I’d forgotten about them. Since then I’ve gone back to the dish with the plate of water under it until I can think of something else. 

          I’m out of room. The rest of my jibber-jabber will have to wait.

          Let’s call this one done, and remember, you’re all in my heart.