August 6 & 7 photos

 

Moth

 

 

I was shooting the grass against the sunset and found there was a spider on the grass I chose! As I photographed him and he ran up the grass, I discover there is a second spider there too!

He is in this shot too but not in focus.

 

 

Touch-me-nots or some people call this plant jewelweed. They get pods on them that when they are ripe, they 'explode' and the seeds go flying!

 

 

Don't know.

Rose of Sharon

Poke berries.

Woodpecker. See a little below him? There's a black blob in the middle of the blue sky? See it? He was pulling the dead tree apart looking for his supper. I think I have one shot of him with ant or termite legs sticking out of his beak. 

Photos from 8-8-15

 

 

I'm trying to catch up on posting photos.

 

 



 

Andrew took this one!

 

 

Passion fruit

 

 

Persimmons

 

 

 

Water on a blade of grass.

 

 

8-10-15 Photos

 

Feather

 

 

She just watched me walk by

Then I saw another one, and she just watched me walk by too!

 



Don't know what these are, but I will bet they are invasive

 





 

 

There were two, but only one stopped long enough for me to photograph him.

Yeah, it's a whistle pig.

 

I know this is gross, it's just that I didn't know bees ate carrion.

 

Trumpet flowers

 

Hey! There's a spider in there!

 

Skipper

 

 





Beetle



8-9-15 Letter

Sunday, August 9, 2015

Hi everyone,

I am working on the next chapter of The Great RV Adventure and while looking through my photos I found this one of a window and it has been on my desktop every since then.

Miss Helen called me.

“Peg, can you take me to the doctor’s on Thursday?”

“Sure, what time?” I asked.

“One-thirty.”

I had no idea why Miss Helen had a doctor’s appointment but I was glad I could be there when she needed me.

So Thursday, at one o’clock, I get in the Jeep and go to pick up Miss Helen. She doesn’t live far from me, only about three miles, so it didn’t take me long to get there. When I pull into her driveway I see her garage door is open. I pull right into the garage so Miss Helen doesn’t have far to walk. The door into her dayroom is right there, three steps from where I parked the Jeep.

Once I’m parked and the engine is off, I get out and open the back door to retrieve the step stool. It’s a long climb up into the Jeep even for me, let alone a slight ninety-four year old woman, stooped with age. Without the stool, she would never be able to get in.

With the passenger door open, and step stool in place, I turn and open the door into the house without knocking. I don’t know if this is rude or not. I have never been given permission to just walk in, but I hardly ever show up without her knowing I’m coming because if you do, you won’t get in. All the outside doors are locked up tight.

Miss Helen is expecting me so I just walk in, calling out as I open the door. Well, unless she’s sitting right there in her day room. But if she’s not sitting there I’ll call out, “HELLO!” If I don’t hear an answering ‘hello’ I’ll call again as I make my way to the kitchen. “Miss Helen! I’m here!”

But on this day, I didn’t have to call out. Miss Helen was sitting in her day room, her hair all done up nice and pretty, a touch of color applied to her lips and cheeks and her going-out-of-the-house clothes on.

“Are you ready?” I asked.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Where are we going?” I asked not sure where her doctor’s office was located.

“Out to the wound clinic,” Miss Helen said.

“The wound clinic!” I was surprised.

“I fell,” she confessed.

“You did!”

Then Miss Helen told me what happened. “I was laying down on the day bed when the phone rang. I sat up to answer it and I was sitting on the edge of the bed, with my feet on the floor and my legs just gave out and I slid to the floor.” Miss Helen couldn’t understand why it happened, why her legs gave up-or out, she just knows that she ended up on the floor with both her shins scraped. Now, let me tell you that when you are ninety-four, your skin is tissue paper thin and rips easily. So we were going to the wound clinic to have the bandages changed.

I help Miss Helen get to the Jeep and I am careful to not help her too much. Because here’s the problem when you try to help old people. You can end up hurting them more. People have bruised her trying to help by gripping her too tight. Rather than take her arm, I offer her mine. Then once at the Jeep I stand by, right behind her, as she finds her handholds and footing and climbs up into it.

We chat as we drive and we end up at the appointment about twenty minutes early. “Maybe they can take us early,” I say to Miss Helen as we pull up in front of the hospital where the wound clinic is located. I let the Jeep run as I go inside and get a wheelchair. When I come back out I open her door, position the wheelchair and lock the wheels.

Getting out of the Jeep is easier than getting in. Miss Helen didn’t need the step stool, she just holds on, steps down to the running boards then down to the ground. Once she turned around and sat in the chair I unlock the brakes and push her into the foyer where she can chat with the people at the information desk as I park the Jeep.

Okay, so I park and come back in and collect Miss Helen and wheel her down the halls to the wound clinic and we register at the desk and go to the waiting room to await our turn. Miss Helen and I are just getting settled in for our wait, her with a Woman’s Day magazine and me with my Nook, when the assistant comes in.

“Helen, when is your appointment for?” she asked.

“One thirty,” Miss Helen answered.

“We don’t have you on the books until Monday,” she told us.

They had a slight argument -- and argument is really too strong of a word -- about when her appointment was, but Miss Helen would prove it to her. She reached into her little purse and pulled out the paper she was given last time she was there with her appointment written on it.

It was for Monday. “Oh,” she says. “Since I’m here is there any way they can see me?” Miss Helen asked.

“I don’t know, we’re really scheduled tight today.”

“Transportation is a problem for me. Can you just check and see?”

The receptionist said she would, but don’t hold your breath, and she left.

“I’ll bring you back on Monday,” I told Miss Helen.

Miss Helen and I talked about it for a little while and she felt silly for making an issue of it, and if I would bring her back Monday, that would be fine.

I went to find the assistant and I found her in an office speaking with a doctor. “We’ll just come back Monday,” I volunteered when they looked my way.

“Since she feels so strongly that we need to see her, then we should see her. We’re going to find someone to change the bandages for her.”

I went back to the waiting room. “They’re going to see you,” I told Miss Helen and sat down again.

We didn’t wait very long before they came to get us. I pushed Miss Helen into the hyperbaric oxygen treatment room.

“I really don’t have anything to do while I’m waiting on someone who’s in the chamber,” the nurse told us, “so I said I would change her bandages.”

She had Miss Helen stay in the wheelchair as she opened and spread a pad out at her feet. The she pulled a stool up and using safety scissors, she carefully cut the bandages that covered Miss Helen from toe to knee on both legs, dropping the old bandaged onto the pad. Once she had them off she went for the attending physician to check the wounds.

“They look better than the pictures from the last time you were here,” he said. “They’re healing nicely.” Then he told the nurse what to apply and how to re-bandage them.

I asked a lot of questions that day. What are all the different layers of bandages for? Why do you put them on that way? Why do you use tape instead of the clips? I don’t remember the names of the different layers of bandages but they did different things and she applied them in a way to allow for swelling. The metal clips with the sharp teeth on them are a danger so they throw them away and just use tape to secure the ace bandage on the outermost layer. “It works better anyway,” she told me.

Cool.

“Could you check my arm while I’m here,” Miss Helen says out of the blue.

“I sure will,” the nurse said. “What’s wrong with your arm?”

“I fell again this morning and scraped it.”

The nurse finished with Miss Helen’s legs, checked on her patient in the hyperbaric chamber, then came back and helped Miss Helen wiggle out of her blouse. “I was between the dresser and the bed and my legs started walking on their own! Without me even wanting them to! And then down I went.”

“Can you use a walker in your house to keep you steady?” the nurse asked.

“I do,” Miss Helen replied, “but there isn’t room between the bed and the dresser and I had plenty of things to hold on to… I just don’t understand why my legs walk on their own!”

The nurse cut Miss Helen’s bandage from her arm, peaked and immediately slapped the bandage back into place, commanding Miss Helen to hold it for a second and said, “I’m going to get the doctor to look at this,” and she was gone -- in a flash.

“Why didn’t you tell me you fell again this morning?” I admonished Miss Helen.

“Well, I just had it in my head that they could check it while I was here and I never thought about it again,” she said.

The doctor came back in with the nurse and carefully took the bandage off as I watched. Again, Miss Helen’s skin is so fragile that what wouldn’t even break our skin, peeled back a layer of hers which hung in a flap! Ouch!

“Pull the skin back into place and use steri-strips to hold it. Put some of this, this and this on it and bandage it up,” he told her. He might have used actual medical terms where I wrote the words ‘this, this and this,’ but I can’t remember a single one of them!

“It’s a good thing you came in today,” the nurse said. “The sooner you get the skin put back into place the better the chances are that it will reattach itself and the better it will heal.”

Remember that folks. If you fall on Saturday, don’t wait until Monday to go see the doctor like somebody I know did! Call your neighbor girl who loves you and have her take you to the ER. Or press your Life Alert button in the very lest!

“I thought it could wait,” Miss Helen said.

Miss Helen gets all taken care of and I agree to bring her back on Monday for her regular appointment.

The weekend passes and Monday comes. I arrive at Miss Helen’s at the duly appointed hour and pull into her open garage and gather her up and take her out to the wound clinic in time for her appointment.

This time her appointment takes place in a regular exam room instead of the hyperbaric oxygen therapy room and I sit on the sidelines and the three of us, Miss Helen, the nurse and I chat as the nurse cuts the bandages from Miss Helen’s legs.

One leg done. Bandages off. Scraped shin exposed. “It’s looking good,” she says. “All this pink stuff is new skin.”

The nurse starts working on the other bandage, using her safety scissors to cut the bandages off when all of a sudden Miss Helen gasps and lets out a little yelp. Conversation stops as the nurse checks to see what’s going on. The tip of her safety scissors somehow picked up the top layer of skin and she cut about an eight inch swath on Miss Helen’s calf before she knew it.

The nurse was devastated! “I’ve been doing this for four years and I’ve never cut anyone before!”

She documented what happened and went for the doctor.

“Miss Helen! Why didn’t you yell sooner?” I asked.

“I didn’t know it. It just felt like a little pinch at first.”

Poor Miss Helen.

<<<<<>>>>>

I was coming home from running an errand when I got a phone call from my youngest and very handsome son, Kevin.

“Mom, I just left your place and when you pull in the parking lot, there is a car sitting there with a dog in it. It’s 90 degrees out! The windows are open but you might want to keep an eye on how long it’s there,” Kevin told me.

Boy, was he right. I care about those who cannot speak for themselves and in this case, it was a dog, left in a car, on a hot -- wait a minute, I mean --HOT summers eve.

I checked the outside temperature reading on the Jeep’s dash and it said ninety-two degrees. In just a few short minutes I pull into the parking lot and spot the car with the windows down a few inches. I parked, delivered Mike his Frosty from Wendy’s and went to see if the dog was in distress.

I was careful as I approached the car. “Hi baby,” I said. She looked up at me from where she was laying in the passenger seat, got up and came over to the driver’s side window. She never barked. Her tail was wagging so hard her whole back end wagged. She lifted her nose to catch my scent.

“How are you?” I cooed.

Her tail wagged harder.

I put my hand up to the open part of the window ready to draw it back if she looked like she was going to snap at me, but she didn’t. She just sniffed. So I put a couple of fingers inside the car and touched her. She was way okay with that so I reached the whole way in and stroked her head. As I pet her I could see her teeth and they were smallish and white…I bet she’s just a pup.

I don’t know what kind of dog she was, she had short blondish hair, pink nose, and weighed probably thirty pounds. Her nails needed clipped, but I don’t have any room to talk. My girls need their nails clipped too.

With just my hand and forearm in the car it didn’t feel too hot, so maybe she hadn’t been in there long when Kevin alerted me to her. So I stood there for -- I don’t know, five or seven minutes and honestly, I was getting tired of standing there in the ninety-two degree sun, hot blacktop underfoot radiating even more heat up at me. But I didn’t want to just leave her there. She’d be way better off in the shade under the awning then in the car, don’t you think?

I looked around in the car and I could tell the owners were traveling because the back was loaded! Loose clothes, shoes, a cooler, and full duffel bags were among the distinguishable items. Then I spotted a leash, between the seats but behind the console on a pile of stuff. I tried the door but it was locked. There wasn’t any knob on the door to pull up to unlock the door like there used to be in the old days, but I bet there was something; some button or something by the door handle to unlock it. I got my nerve up and felt around the driver’s door handle and felt a lever. It felt like it could be a lock. I pulled it and heard the door unlock.

Yes!

I opened the door just a little and the dog wanted to come out. “Just a minute, baby,” I told her. I would probably be in big trouble if the dog ran away so I grabbed her collar with one hand and reached for the leash with the other. I got a hold of it and quickly snapped it onto her collar. Then I let her out closing the door behind me.

Holy cow! Was she strong!

Right beside our garage door I keep an outside automatic water bowl for any and all strays that come through and need a drink. When it’s empty, I fill it. When it’s nasty, I clean it. I took this little girl over there and gave her a chance to drink, but she wasn’t all that thirsty. Another good sign. Then I took her to the grass to see if she needed to do her business but there were too many distractions there for her.

I kept an eye on the car for the owners to return and after a few minutes I took the dog over to the awning and sat down to wait.

After I had her for about fifteen minutes, I called Kevin. “Guess what I did?”

“What?”

“I took the dog out of the car.”

“Aren’t you afraid of getting into trouble?” he asked.

“Heck no! Let them call the cops,” I said. “They’d be in more trouble than me.”

“I just meant for you to keep an eye on it, Mom.” Kevin sounded a little worried about what I did but I suspect that it’s because his mom, who never breaks the rules, is now a rule breaker and it’s all his fault! But I know he’s secretly proud of me, I could tell. He loves dogs too.

I sat there for another ten minutes and Mike came outside looking for me and since I was sitting there with a dog he never saw before, I had to fess up to what I did.

“What if they come back drunk and are mad?”

Personally, I felt like they would be happier with what I did then if I had called the police, but Mike was freaking out. “You just can’t get in peoples cars and take their dog out!”

“Look. I’m not afraid of the cops. I’ve had the dog for twenty-five minutes now, but if you think it’s best, we can call the police.”

So we did.

They sent an officer who pulled into the parking lot just as the owners came back to their car. The gal went to the car and realized the dog was gone. She spotted me and headed my way as I was headed toward her.

“I was worried about your dog,” I told her. “It’s ninety-two degrees!”

“We were in there for like literally five minutes,” she said to me.

I didn’t want to call her a liar and maybe she just didn’t know how long she was gone, but I had to be honest with her. “I’ve had her for twenty-five minutes,” I said flatly.

“Well, she’s okay,” was all she had to say about that and loaded the dog back into the car.

By this time the officer had circled the lot and pulled up behind them. He got out and approached. “I guess you know why I’m here?”

“Yes,” she replied and I didn’t hear anymore. Mike steered me away.

I hung around a little while but the officer just let them go and they left and the cop got back in his car and left without talking to me so I went home.

Do you think what I did was wrong?



Let’s call this one done.

Lots and lots of love,

Peg and Mike

8/2/15 Just a Letter

August 2, 2015

Hi everyone,

My desktop photo for part of the week this week was Bagnell Dam. I took the photo two weeks ago and all twelve flood gates were still open. With the dark foreground and the dark background, and the sun shining on the dam, it just made a nice desktop photo.

I had this little sunflower on my desktop for part of the week too. I say ‘little’ sunflower and even though the flowers aren’t all that big, the stems are tall! Up to eight feet! So in this photo I’m shooting up, into the sky. I like the little bug I caught the petals.

And my current desktop is this landscape. I can’t tell you why I like it-- it’s crooked and everything! -- but I like it anyway.

“Peg, you could straighten it,” you say.

Yeah, I could, but I have found that when I do that I lose part of the photo. The Queen Ann’s lace is right at the edge and I would lose most of it if I straighten it and besides, I think being crooked is part of what makes it interesting -- to me anyway.

I took this photo somewhere in Iowa, I think, on the way home from Minnesota.


Sigh.
Loosing Kat…

Some of you remember her as Kathy, and that is what we called her while she growing up but once she hit a certain age (and reinvented herself), she wanted to leave the past -- and her little girl name -- behind.

She wanted to be called Kat.

Before you go thinking this is silly, just let me interject a little story here.

You may, or may not know that Mike’s birthday is in mid July and mine is at the very start of August. Okay, okay, it might be the second day of August but I think that’s close enough to call it the very start, don’t you?

Our friend Margaret always takes us to dinner at a very nice restaurant as our birthday gift and that is where this photo was taken.

J. Brunner’s.

Oh! My! Goodness! This place is always good. The steaks are cooked to perfection and are tender and flavorful without being covered in a ton of spices. The stuffed mushrooms are awesome and as if one appetizer wasn’t enough, we ordered onion rings to boot!

J. Brunner’s onion rings are a good part of the reason we like to eat there. You can get a good steak at a couple of other local restaurants but these onion rings are like no other that I’ve ever had anywhere. The batter is light and crispy, the seasoning perfect, and we ate almost the whole basket before I thought to snap a photo.

Guess who got to eat the last one?

Now, the point of the story wasn’t to solicit birthday wishes or make your mouth water for steaks, stuffed mushrooms or onion rings, it was to point out that our friend Margaret used to be called Peggy. When Margaret started her career she decided to she wanted to be called the more sophisticated version of her name.

Our name.

So people decide all the time, for lots of reasons, to change their name and it has only been the last few years that I have submitted to Kathy’s wishes and called her Kat.

Writing I Didn’t Know -- Kat’s Story has been good for me. Very cathartic and therapeutic. Cleansing and restoring.

Have you ever seen the movie with Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson called Something’s Gotta Give? There is a scene where Jack broke up with Diane and she is sitting at her desk, sobbing, piles of tissues all over the place, she’s sipping wine, sobbing and typing away. Then, just as her sobs start to subside, a new thought occurs and sends her into a fresh fit of sobbing and tissues flying and a flourish of typing. Do you know the scene I mean? Well, that was me, writing Kat’s story.

The outpouring of love, kindness and sympathy that resulted from this story has also been very good for me.

There is a Swedish proverb that goes like this:

Shared joy is double joy. Shared sorrow is half sorrow.

And I really felt it to be true. I didn’t have to cry all the tears for Kat by myself, you helped. You cried for her too.

And before I take any credit for the writing of this story I want to give all the credit where it truly deserves to be. And that is with God.

“Peg, don’t you hate God for taking your daughter in the prime of her life?” you ask.

No. Not one bit.

“But you begged God to heal her, to make it right, to bring her back even!”

Yes. Yes I did.

“Aren’t you even a little bit mad at Him?”

No. Not one bit. God loves me, and God wants only what is best for me. I don’t understand it, but I don’t have to.

I trust God.

And I am thankful to God even. I am thankful that He let us have her for as long as He did. I am thankful for the beautiful girls that Kat gave birth to. I am thankful that through a series of events in my life, that God gave me the good sense to never take a single day for granted and to always tell Kat how I felt about her, which leaves me with only one regret as far as she goes.

“What’s that?” you ask.

I regret that she thought I hated the cows she painted for me. I didn’t. I told her right on Facebook that I liked the cows.


Sigh.
And now, of course, they mean just that much more to me.

My story touched you.

“I had to take my cell phone out of my shirt pocket and dry it off, for all of the tears that fell there,” I was told.

Most of the comments I received were in the range of, “beautifully written,” and “touching”, but when I was told that my story “devastated” one of you, I had to call and make sure you were okay. Devastated is big word.

Another big word is powerful.

Lord, help me not to get a big head!

“You wrote a powerful story …”

I don’t know what higher praise there could be for a writer. ‘Powerful’ is a powerful word. Then to hear this person say that my story also helped with their grieving process too was like icing on a cake; the best part. “You should get paid for it,” I like that one a lot too, unfortunately writers who are not published seldom get paid for stories. As a matter of fact, getting it in print with no pay is a huge feat all in and of itself.

“Submit your stories,” Momma has told me on many occasions. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

“They won’t publish it.”

“And what do you get if you don’t submit them?”

Yeah, she’s a smart lady.

So Momma has been planting these seeds and now with a shot of ‘powerful’ fertilizer, one seed has sprouted.

I submitted Kat’s story to Reader’s Digest. With the number of submissions they get everyday they can not respond to every one. That was a warning posted on the website. So even though I won’t hold my breath, I will continue to trust in God.

I posted the story on my blog, my niece Bambi and daughter-in-law Kandyce both shared it on their Facebook pages, I posted it on the Life Source Facebook page and the story has had over 115 views.

<<<<<>>>>>

This past week Mike had to go to Menard’s, a home-improvement store, for something and while we were there I picked up some treats for the dogs. They love Pup-Peroni. While I was looking at all the treats on the shelf I see something by Nutri-Source called Pure Vita Chicken Giblets & Sweet Potato Delights For Dogs.

It looked like the treats my sister Phyllis had for her dogs. Freeze dried bits. Itsy and Ginger loved what Phyllis had so I decided to buy this package.

I get it home and open it up and the girls go nuts for the chicken part of the treats. The sweet potato…yeah, not so much. But I gave them each a couple of pieces and put the treats away.

That night, I’m sleeping when all of a sudden Mike yells and this blinding light snaps on. I bolt straight up. “What! What is it?”

“Ginger shit on the bed and I got my foot in it.” He is pissed.

Yeah, not a nice way to be woken up.

Mike hobbles to the bathroom and I clean the mess from the bed. I take the dogs outside while Mike settled on the couch in front of the TV. When I come back in I change the sheets and crawl back into bed.

In the morning…

OMG! Oh my gosh! There were at least four new spots on the floor and I’m guessing it was Itsy this time.

“Throw those away,” Mike grumbles at me and I’m not sure why he was mad. He didn’t have to clean it up. So I kind of copped an attitude.

“What? You think I didn’t already have that figured out? You think I like cleaning up these kind of messes?”

I can get away with a little attitude once in a while.

Macchiato.

I was standing in the kitchen talking to Momma on the phone. It was nine o’clock at night and typically after I talk to her I get ready and go to bed. So while we chatted I got a glass out of the cupboard and drew myself a glass of water, just in case I needed a drink in the middle of the night, and I set it on the counter.

Macchiato is a night prowler and prefers to be out at night, but Mike doesn’t want him out. So often times Macchiato cries at the door until we are all in bed, then he settles down for the night. So this night, while I was talking to Momma, he jumped up on the counter to beg me to let him out and seeing the glass of water sitting there, he walks over to check it out. I watch as he sticks his head right down in my glass and gets a drink of water.

“Momma! Guess what just happened?” and I told her.

She laughed. “He won’t drink much.”

“Yeah, well I wonder how many times that’s happened and I didn’t know about it.”

“What you don’t know won’t hurt you.”

“Yeah! And I can’t taste it either!” I guess it won’t kill me, still, I’ve switched from a glass to a bottle with a lid.

Let’s call this one done,

Lots of love,

Peg and Mike

Catching Up

Sunday, July 5, 2015

Hi everyone,

I hope this letter finds you happy and healthy.

This week has been crazy busy and I haven’t had a chance to start the next story for my Great RV Adventure saga. On top of that, life keeps happening around me. I have so many stories and photos to share with you!

For one thing…we’ve moved.

But don’t worry, my address didn’t change. We didn’t go far. We rented our little upstairs studio apartment and moved into our newly built garage. Well, technically we moved into the RV but it’s in the garage, which by the way, seems almost cave-like. If it wasn’t for the two little windows Mike had put into the overhead doors, it would be almost totally dark inside.

“Those windows don’t look like they would be much good,” you say.

Well, you would be surprised at how much light they do let in!

Mike says he is going to install lights to come on and go off, simulating day and night. But our ultimate goal is to be able to travel and not spend all of our time here.

<<<<<>>>>>

Andrew, our grandson, has been to visit us a few times since we’ve moved, and I hate to keep bragging on him, but he continues to do things that amaze and surprise me.

On one visit we were staying in an RV park and Andrew was restless-- not wanting to sit and play with toys.

“Andrew, do you want to go take pictures?” I thought this would be a good way to channel his energy. I could see the yes all over his attitude and he immediately starts to look for something on the floor by the door. I was confused because he had his sandals on but it all became clear as he bent down, picked up a dog leash and held it high in triumph.

“No, let’s not take the dogs right now,” and I held out his camera to him. Andrew dropped the dog leash and took the camera. He flipped it around in his hands until he was holding it right and almost pushed the on/off button when he remembered he had forgotten something. He stopped and fumbled with the strap until he got it around his neck (a two handed job for him) then he reached for his camera (which was now down around his knees) and once again flipped it around until he was holding it right. Then he turned it on.

I’ve never had to tell Andrew to put the strap around his neck, not after that first day of taking pictures together. He always just did it. It had been a while since his last visit and he hadn't forgotten. It tickled me to see his ‘oh shit’ moment.

We said goodbye to Pop-pop and headed out.

Andrew is happily snapping away at pictures; mud puddles, the shadow he casts on the grass, his foot, the sky and trees and even one of me. We hadn’t gone far when I see the neighbors are watching this cute little guy with a camera. As we get a little closer their dog barks at us.

Andrew stops and looks at the dog for a moment then he turns to go.

“Andrew,” I call as he heads in the wrong direction, “let’s go this way.”

That little stinker looked at me over his shoulder, shook his head ‘no’ and kept on walking!

Now don’t go thinking I’m a doting grandmother and give him his way all the time, I don’t. I just choose to do battle only if it’s important, like his safety or my sanity, A.K.A. nap-time. Otherwise I use diversion a lot. This didn’t fall into either category so I shrugged to the neighbors and we went the way Andrew wanted to go.

We get back to the RV, I open the door, Andrew climbs the steps and once inside he picks up the dog leashes and thrusts them at me.

Okay. Now I understood what his defiance was about. He went back for the dogs. I really didn’t want to take the dogs out because it’s just too hard to wrangle the three of them. “No. We’re in now, we’re staying in,” I told him and he seemed to accept that.

Andrew has a couple of spots where he likes to play while he is with us. We’ve made a playpen of the upper bunk. We’ve put a blanket, a small pillow and two tubs of toys up on the deck and he’ll sit up there and play.

Lately though, Andrew has been climbing up onto our ample dash and playing in the front widow.

I have a desk that folds out of the dash. It’s deep enough to hold my computer during travel and seems to be a catchall when we are not traveling. One of the things it catches is a cat. Namely Baby Blue.

Andrew loves Baby Blue. He loves to pick her up and carry her around. Baby Blue is so good to tolerate him without using her claws or teeth. She was laying on the dash when Andrew climbed up and spotted her. He kept trying to hold her but she kept wiggling away from him. She wouldn’t go far and Andrew would get a hold of her again. This little cat and mouse game continued until Baby Blue ended up in the desk-well. Guess what else was in there?

My headphones.

Guess what Andrew decides to do with Baby Blue and the headphones?

“No way!” you say.

Yes way! He puts the headphones on the cat and she lets him do it too!

I know, right! I told you she tolerates him really well. You know she could get away from him anytime she wants to but she doesn’t.

“I have to get a picture of this,” I said and got my camera as Andrew sat back and patiently waited. He really is good about letting me photograph him.

I guess taking a picture of Baby Blue in headphones seemed like a good idea to Andrew too because he asked in Andrew-ese for his camera. By the time I got it for him and he got the strap around his neck and got the camera turned on, Baby Blue’s headphones had slipped a little and this is Andrew’s shot.

Andrew was still in the window when Daddy got off work and came to pick him up. Andrew saw him coming and took a picture as Kevin waved from the truck. (Andrew’s picture.)

Kevin parked and as he came around the truck he pulled out his picture-taking cell phone.

Andrew was absolutely delighted! He laughed and laughed!

Once his giggles subsided he was able to get a picture of Daddy taking a picture of him. (Andrew’s photo -- wiper blade and all.)

　

<<<<<>>>>>

Here in Missouri we have been having some awful storms with big winds and lots of rain. Lake of the Ozarks was created with the construction of Bagnell Dam. At the other end of our lake is Truman Dam which creates Truman Reservoir which is operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. When it rains a lot and Truman has to let water out of the reservoir, our dam has to open it’s gates and let water out too. This is the second time (in the seventeen years that we have lived here) that all twelve of the flood gates have been open.

Needless to say, this event is causing quite a ruckus. Aside from the flooding issues both on the lake and the river below the dam, it has brought a lot of people to our area. Mike and I were among the hordes flocking to the dam to take photos. I wandered around looking for just the right angle and when I had all the photos I wanted, I turned to go back to where Mike was waiting for me and I see he is chatting with one of his old cronies.

Over his shoulder I spot all the pigeons lined up on the rail and decide I’d see what kind of a picture they would make.

That was when I spotted a heron sitting on the rail. Did you see him further on down there? So I took a few photos of him.

While photos with all twelve of the flood gates open are impressive because of its rarity, once I saw this shot of the heron on my computer, I loved it. And that is a really long way around to saying, this is my current desktop photo.

“Did you see the kayaker?” Mike asked when I joined him but I hadn’t.

“Where?” I asked trying to spot him.

“He’s gone now but he was right out there,” Mike said indicating the turbulent waters of the Osage River.

We left the observation area below the dam and went on down to the public boat ramp. The parking lot was partially flooded but cars were making their way through a flooded section of road to a dry parking area beyond so we did too and that’s where I got this shot.

While we were there, our kayaker came in and Mike spoke with the wife as she waited for her husband. They had come down from Columbia (80 miles north) just to kayak in the flooded river. In this shot he is in the parking lot and you can see a boat ramp warning sign up to it’s neck in water behind him.

The next day, after even more rain and high winds -- the tornado sirens had gone off here in town -- Kevin calls me on his way into work.

“Did you see the barge broke loose last night?” he asked.

“No.”

“A lot of people didn’t see it because they are busy looking at the dam.”

Needless to say I made a special trip down to the dam, where this barge is moored and took a few shots of it.

I posted this picture to Facebook and my beautiful niece Bambi asked how the plastic chairs didn’t get blown away. I didn’t have an answer for that and I still don’t. I could make a couple of guesses but I won’t. Instead, let me just say that I knew there was something about this photo that bothered me (for lack of a better word) and didn’t know what it was until Bambi pointed it out.

<<<<<>>>>>

It hasn’t been quite as hot outside the last couple of weeks and I was able to walk the girls a little more often, and I’ve seen tons of wildlife, both insect and critter.

“I’ve got a picture of a cute little spider,” I told Momma on the phone one night and the only reason I even mentioned it was because I was flipping through photos while we chatted.

“There is no such thing as a cute little spider,” Momma replied.

I think this little guy is called a crab spider and these kind of spiders look like they have glasses on their face, at least to me. What do you think?

　
You’re siding with Momma?

Well, no matter what you think, you have to admit that spiders play an invaluable role in the ecosystem.

Look at this deer would ya? Are those ticks on the back of her ears?

I missed the wild garlic. Either that or it didn’t come back in the same place it was last year. But something that is coming on right now are the brambleberries.

 Itsy won’t have anything to do with the berries but I’ll eat some and so will Ginger. I always stop and pick us a few before we move on. We get down the road a little ways and on the opposite side of the road I see another patch but the berries are less mature. I wasn’t going to stop when I spot a ripe berry. I’ll get it for Ginger, I think. Then I get a little closer. Hey! That’s not a berry!

I snapped a few photos of what I think is a black snake in the berry bushes then I go looking for the head, carefully mind you. So there I am, walking around the bush, up on tiptoe, crouching down, peaking around and among the leaves and about the time I spot his tongue tasting the air and think about taking his picture, he detects me, drops out of the bushes and is gone in a flash!

“Isn’t it amazing how something with no arms or legs can move so fast?” Momma asked when I told her about it.

I saw a whistle pig lounging around outside his home. That’s what my grandfather called woodchucks. He looks almost like a seal, I thought.

It should have occurred to me that he was watching something but it never did. Not until I saw this guy across the field. Then I knew.

And here’s something I don’t see very often. A hummingbird moth.

Lots more to show you but I’ve kept you long enough.

Let’s call this one done.

Lots and lots of love,

Peg and Mike