Plow Day

Sunday, November 8, 2015

Saturday morning breakfast continues to be a tradition with us only now instead of having it with Margaret at the Golden Corral, we have it with the Robinsons and it’s usually at the Ram Zone in Wyalusing. However, because it was parents day at their daughter Jonecca’s school, we had to relocate one of our Saturday breakfasts to the Jolly Trolley in Dushore which was on their way down to Jonecca’s college.

As Mike made a U-turn to park in front of the restaurant I snapped a photo of the fruit hanging from the trees there along the main street in Dushore and it is my current desktop photo.

You know something? This isn’t even an especially good photo however, sometimes I get a little too busy to devote the time it takes to sort through the photos. Which -- I only thought I was behind on posting photos before! I haven’t posted since September twenty-first and I haven’t even looked at what I’ve downloaded since October twenty-fourth! And as a result I have been looking at this photo on my desktop for a long time now!

After our breakfast with the Robinsons, Mike and I drove around Dushore for a little while.

 Coming back to the main street I see the Catholic church up on the hill to our left. “Mike, the road that goes up to the church is the Dushore Overton road. It should take us back out to New Albany. Do want to go that way?” I asked always looking for photo opportunities.

“Okay,” he said and off we went.

I’m happily snapping away at barns and cows and Mike is poking along, not in too much of a hurry.

Occasionally he would pull over to allow an impatient driver around us. We’re following the road signs and we come to an intersection that says straight across is Kelly’s Hill Road. On our right is Hottenstiens Hill Road. We were on the Dushore Overton Road and the way to the left wasn’t marked.

“Which way?” Mike asked but I didn’t know. We took the unmarked road and I got a few photos I wouldn’t have gotten had we not gone that way,

but a mile or two down the road Mike says, “I don’t think this is right.” He turned around and as we approached the crossroad of our mistake, we see a sign saying Overton is one mile straight through. We should have gone right instead of left.

Once through Overton and back on familiar roads we are heading for home when we see a sign that says ‘Plow Day’ with an arrow pointing to the right.

“What’s Plow Day?” we both asked at the same time.

“Let’s call Jon and Steph,” I suggested.

“It’s when a bunch of people get together and plow the field with their horses,” Jon told us.

“You wanna go see that?” Mike asks.

“Well, yeah!” So we follow the signs and get off onto some country dirt roads.

“Which way?” Mike asked as we were approaching an intersection.

“Ummm…” I say stalling for time as I snapped a few more pictures of an old truck sitting beside the road. It’s hard to take pictures and watch for signs!

“There it is,” Mike said spotting the directional sign.

We drive on and after a while we see where cars and trucks and horse trailers are pulled off into a field and cars are parked beside the road. There’s a trailer and a tent and a Port-A-Jon set up on the edge of the field and people are cooking over open fires with pots steaming on top.

“Do you have some money?” I asked Mike. I saw a table set up with a couple of big roaster ovens and a couple of ladies were fluttering around with big spoons, lifting lids and stirring things. We had just come from breakfast and I wasn’t hungry but I was open to buying a cup of coffee.

“Yeah,” he answered as he got out of the Jeep.

With nothing to stop the wind it came across the hilltop, blustery and cold. I pulled my sweater a little tighter around me and headed for the table.

“Hi, I’m Sue,” a lady said as she came up to us holding two pens. I thought we were going to have to write something but when she held them out to us and said, “Welcome,” I realized they were gifts.

“Thank you,” I said taking a proffered pen as Mike took the other one. I turned it over to see what was written on it while Mike was chatting with Sue. Albany Valley Plow Day 2015 was printed on the pens. Aww. How sweet is that? They had pens made just for the event!

“If we stay on this road,” Mike asked pointing to the dirt road we had just come in on, “will it take us to the Marsh Road?”

“It’ll take you out to Evergreen,” Sue said. “This road just makes a big circle,” and she made a big circle with her arm.

“Evergreen?”

“You know, where Lamar grew up,” I said speaking of our neighbor.

“Oh,” Mike said with realization dawning.

Sue went on. “There’s a lot of food over there, and coffee. Help yourself and if it’s not open and you want some, just go ahead and open it up.”

“Thank you,” I said minding my manners and smiling. “Can you tell us what’s going on here today?”

“Well my mom and dad started Plow Day and my mom makes all the food and everyone comes out with their teams and plow. That’s my mom over there,” she said indicating a lady who appeared to be presiding over the event.

“Sue! Hey!” someone yelled and she turned to look.

“Go on and get some coffee or a roll or something,” Sue said taking her leave.

“Thank you!” I said a she walked away. It was ch-ch-chilly! I only had a sweater on and Mike a long sleeved shirt. Coffee would help.

I walked over to where the tables were set up, located the cups and got some coffee. Then I scoped out the food and saw a cream cheese filled Danish and even though I wasn’t hungry, I couldn’t resist. I opened the box and picked one up and went back to where Mike was. “Wanna bite?”

“No. I don’t feel right about it. This is for their family and friends,” Mike said. “Not for us.”

“Mike, we were invited to help ourselves and to not do so would be rude.” I just don’t have the reservations about accepting hospitality that Mike does.

I ate my Danish in silence and drank my coffee as Mike and I watched the people bustle about.

I had my camera with me. “I should try to get someone for my Humans page,” I said to Mike and snapped a few photos of people.

“Peg, you can’t just take pictures of people without their permission,” Mike said. But in my experience most people don’t mind and if they do object they manage to communicate that to me with no problem at all. Usually by throwing a hand up to block their face or turning their back to me. Either way I get the message and don’t take any more pictures of them.

I looked around and spotted the trash can, walked over and threw my empty coffee cup away. I came back to where Mike stood shivering with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. “I’m going to talk to her,” I said nodding toward Sue’s mother.

“Alright.”

I walked over and she looked up at me. “Hi! I’m Peggy and I do a webpage. Could I put you on it along with your picture?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Great! What’s your name?”

“Maxine,” she answered and when she paused I fired away with my first question.

“You started Plow Day?”

“Kellogg.” Oh. My bad. I didn’t wait for her last name. “Mm-hmm,” she answered my question.

“What made you start Plow Day?”

“I don’t know, he just decided he...he bought the horses and wanted to do something...and the kids wanted to help do it and everybody thought it was a good idea and...and...this is where we are,” Maxine finished with a laugh.

“How long have you been doing this?

“Seven years.”

“Uh-huh uh-huh,” I said having the habit of saying it twice in a row like that. “And do they make it a competition or is it just...” I was going to go on to say something to the effect of it just being a friendly contest, but I couldn’t formulate how to say that thought so I let it hang.

“No, they just...people just get together and plow. Show off their horses,” Maxine answered.

“Is that what it’s all about?”

“I think so,” and Maxine laughed.

“How many come out here to Plow Day?”

“Well last year we had a hundred or more and we had ten teams.”

“What’s the best thing about Plow Day?”

Maxine thought about it for a moment. “It’s the meetin’...” she stopped and started again. “I think it’s the people you meet and you get to know a lot of people.”

Just then she spies a man walking by, “What do you think Monty?” Monty stopped and Maxine went on. “This is my son.”

“Hi Monty, I’m Peggy, I do a web page and we just stumbled on your little event here, what’s the best thing about Plow Day?”

“Family and friends,” he answered quickly and simply.

“So this has been going on for seven years and your mom and dad started it all...” I didn’t have a question but I was hoping he would pick up the ball and run with it.

“Couldn’t do it though if it wasn’t for the kids,” Maxine chimed in.

“How many kids are there?” I asked her.

“SIX!” she exclaimed.

I drew in my breath with a gasp. Maxine laughed from deep in her belly. She was obviously delighted with my response and must get that a lot when people find out she has six children.

“My goodness! Boys and girls? What do you have?”

“Two boys and four girls,” Maxine answered.

Monty sees a buddy and yells something about not working in the rain. “No,” the buddy answers, “I’m waiting for you to come over and pick up hay.” And Monty wanders off to continue his conversation.

“Do all of the kids come?” I asked Maxine.

“Yeah, they’re all here today.”

“It’s really nice you kept your family close to you,” I said thinking how far and wide mine was scattered and how hard it was for all of us to get together.
“Suzy is the fartherest one away and she lives in New Jersey.” (Mom calls Sue by her little girl name.)

“Do you do this the same time every year?”

“Just about, now last year it was the 25^th and today is the 24^th.”

“And how long does it last?”

“Usually until around three.”

We were quiet for a moment. “How many acres do you have?”

“I don’t know,” Maxine answered, “Hey Busty!” she called and a man turned and headed our way.

“Is this one of yours?” I asked Maxine as Busty made his way towards us.

“That’s my oldest boy,” Maxine said as he joined us.

I turned to him and he smiled at me.

“Nice to meet ya,” I greeted him.

“How you doin?” he returned.

“How many acres do we have here?” Maxine asked.

“There’s a hundred twenty-two...on this.”

“I don’t know how many over home...” Maxine said.

“Umm, 80 or 90,” Busty answered and with that he was off to finish whatever he'd been doing when we interrupted him.

“How did he get a name ‘Busty’?”

“His name is Charles and everybody’d call, he’d come, and...and...I don’t know, just - Charles!” she yelled. “That’s my husband going there in the blue coveralls.”

“So you have a Charles and a Charles Jr.?”

“Mm huh.”

“And Charles Jr. you call Busty but you don’t remember how he got his nickname,” I said confirming my facts.

“No,” and she chuckled under her breath a little.

I had a feeling that there was a secret here but she wasn’t going to tell me. I changed the subject.

“Your husband’s still getting around pretty good,” I observed.

“Charles was eighty in September and I’ll be eight-two in April.”

I gasped, “You got a younger man!”

Maxine laughed from deep in her belly again.

“How long have you been married?”

“Fifty-nine years,” Maxine stated.

“Fifty-nine years!” I echoed. “Oh my gosh! What does it take to stay married for fifty-nine years?”

“I don’t know, there have been some good times and bad times, but I think it’s the kids...it was the kids I think...that when we had the kids...they was...” There was a long pause then a, “Yup,” and Maxine trailed off not finishing any of her thoughts as we both watched this lady come across the field carrying a plate of goodies.

“Well hello there!” Maxine greeted her and I realized it was a Bring A Plate affair. I would remember that if we made it back next year.

“Hi,” this lady replied pleasantly.

“How are you?” Maxine asked.

“Hangin’ in there,” she answers, then she turned to me, “I’m sorry.”

“Go right ahead,” I told her and I got up from my seat.

“So they didn’t get started yet?” I heard her ask Maxine.

“No, no, everybody’s been a comin’ and...and ...” Maxine let it hang.

After a pause this lady said, “Ten o’clock must just be an estimate,” and she laughed right out loud.

“And they’re visiting,” Maxine qualified.

“Yeah, yeah, you gotta do that,” and she laughed again. She seemed like a really nice lady but I wandered away leaving these ladies to catch up and looked around for Mike. I didn’t see him anywhere! I bet he’s sitting in the Jeep, I thought and when I got back to the Jeep -- there he was! Engine running, heat blasting, talking on his phone.

I opened the door and climbed into the welcoming warmth. I let him finish his conversation. “They haven’t started to plow yet and it goes until about three, let’s go home for a little while,” I said. “I need my jacket.”

“Wanna go this way?” Mike asked pointing forward to uncharted roads.

“Well, yeah!” I’m always ready to see new sights.

We start driving and the already narrow dirt road becomes even more narrow. “Is this someone’s driveway?” Mike asked. I kid you not, that’s what it looked like.

“There’s a guide rail and I don’t think the state puts them on private drives.”

We go a little further and the road curves to the right. Once at the curve we look ahead, “I don’t know Mike,” I said, “It looks like the road just goes up to that house.”

Mike put it in reverse and backs up to the curve and a little cut-off that’s there and he gets us turned around.

It reminded me of growing up. We had a really long driveway and we occasionally had people come in only to realize it was a private drive and turn around and go back out.

“Who’s that?” one of us kids would ask when we saw an unfamiliar car coming down the lane.

“Someone turning around,” was the answer. I never could figure out why they came down our driveway to turn around.

“Maybe it goes around the house,” Mike said and he’s creeping along and glancing back over his shoulder. We get to a spot where we can see that the road does indeed go on around the house. “Yep, it does.”

I was looking too. “I see it now.”

“Let’s turn back around,” Mike said and as soon as he could, he did! We turned around again and as we get down around and on the other side of the house, the road gets even more narrow, if that’s even possible. It is little more than a driveway at this point.

“I hope we don’t meet another car,” I said.

“Me too,” Mike agreed with my sentiment. In many places there just wasn’t anyplace to pull off and let another car pass. Luckily, Mike is a great backer-upper. He backs up better than I drive forward! I knew if the need arose he could back up until we found a wide spot. We didn’t pass any other cars and we just enjoyed our ride on these country back roads. I snapped pictures and after a while we come to a T and the adjoining road was wider.

Before going back to our mountain home, we decided to go to an antique store and we browsed our way through the rest of the morning.

When we got home we had two spoiled little dogs waiting for their Saturday morning treat. I always save them something from my breakfast plate and believe it or not, they know when Saturday rolls around!

After freshening up and making a travel cup of coffee, I grabbed my jacket. “Are you ready?” I asked Mike.

“Yep.”

“Can we take the Gooseneck Road?” I asked as we got back in the Jeep and snapped our seatbelts.

“Sure,” Mike said and leaving our driveway he turned the Jeep in that direction.

We hadn’t been down that way yet and it’s just nice to see what changes have happened in the year since we’ve been gone.

One of the first things I noticed is the old saggy-roof Oak Hill Church had gotten a makeover. A new metal roof and siding.

The fall foliage was pretty as we came down the hill overlooking the old goat farm. His Kids Goat Farm was the name of it. The house had burned a couple of years ago.

Once we had made our turn onto the Gooseneck Road there is an old farm there. I have been photographing it through the years. The barn is completely gone now.

“Do you think we can find our way back to Plow Day the way we came out?” I asked Mike.

“Yeah,” he answered with no hesitation.

I’m not sure I could. There were a couple of turns and I wasn’t driving and half the time I wasn’t even looking at the road, I was looking through the viewfinder of my camera.

“Why do you want to go back that way?” you wonder.

Things just look different when you come at them from a different direction, you know what I mean? And you also see things you didn’t see the first time or maybe you did see but missed your shot.

With that in mind, here’s the old abandoned YOU STAY OUT house coming from the other direction. It sits on Carpenter Hill Road just as you turn off Moon Street (which is not a street - it’s a dirt road!).

Because of the way the road curves I missed seeing an old rock wall the first time through. Rock walls are slowly disappearing from the landscape of Pennsylvania as they are being sold off and dismantled.

I don’t know what's in the tree. At first I thought it was the curled pages of a book.

“A book!” you exclaim. “Who would put a book in a tree?”

I know, right! I realized how silly the thought was as soon as I had it. Maybe it was the curled edge of a NO TRESPASSING sign cause it certainly looks like something paper all curled up there.

“It’s a fungus,” I hear my mother in my head.

Isn’t it funny how, that no matter how old we get, we still can hear our parents in our heads?

Our neighbor Lamar Kipp told me a story about this very thing just the other day. The Kipp girls are long raised and on their own. The family had gotten together for something and during the course of the conversation - Lamar forgets what they were talking about now- Jenn turned to Lamar and said, “You’re all the time telling me what to do!”

“I started laughing,” Lamar says.

“What’s so funny?” Jenn asked him.

“I said, ‘Jenn, I haven’t told you what to do since the first day I dropped you off at college.’ Apparently she still hears me in her head telling her what to do.”

Apparently I’m not the only one who experiences this phenomenon.

Topping the hill I see they are plowing. I raised my camera and took a few shots through the windshield.

Mike pulls halfway off the road. coming up behind a parked truck, and his phone rings before he can shut the engine off.

“It’s my brother,” he says putting the car in park and flipping open his phone. “Heeello,” Mike answers in a slow drawl. Mike and Cork talk every week.

I sat there for a little while taking photos through the windshield, listening to him talk but I knew from past experience that his conversation could last for a while.

I bailed. I was hungry and there was food over there! I got out of the Jeep and went over and moseyed up to the food table.

OMG! (Oh my gosh!) there was a lot of food! A food explosion had taken place while we were gone! I found a place in line. Sue was behind the table helping to serve. “What will you have?” she asked.

“What are my choices?” I didn’t know what was under all those lids.

“There’s chili and barbeque and hot dogs…”
“How about a barbeque,” I said. Mike likes barbeque, I’d take him one. Sue reached into the bun bag and put one on my plate. “Thank you,” I said. Then she lifted the lid and let me help myself to as much barbeque as I wanted. I put a polite scoop onto the bun and shut the lid.

“How about some beans?” Sue asked and lifted a lid.

Mike likes baked beans. “Sure!” and I put a couple of scoops on the plate. Then thinking about Mike being uncomfortable accepting hospitality, I reached in my pocket. “Can I give you a donation, you know, to help with the food?”

With no hesitation, Sue answers, “No. Mom and Dad do all of this because they want to bring the community together and eating is just a part of it.”

Country folk are just the best aren’t they! With country folk you come into the kitchen and you sit at the family table and they give you food and coffee. It just doesn’t get any better than that, does it. (No question mark there because truly -- it's not a question.)

“Thank you,” I said and made a mental note to thank Maxine too. I moved on to the dessert table. There were so many desserts! I was drooling just looking at them all! I love dessert! But I was making this plate for Mike. He hadn’t yet joined me. I didn’t know if he was still on the phone, staying warm, or just uncomfortable crashing the party.

I picked up a couple of chocolate chip cookies, put them on the plate and weaved my way through the knots of people who were standing around talking and made my way back to the Jeep where Mike was still talking on the phone. He saw me coming and put the window down.

“Here,” I said and thrust the plate at him. I’d have to get him something to drink too, I thought as Mike took the plate with only the slightest pause in his conversation.

“Peg just brought me a plate,” he told Cork. He took the plate and set it on the dash as I turned and walked away. I was going back for a plate of my own!

Once again I get up to the food tables and I’m looking things over and you know what? I decided to skip right to dessert. I know, I’m bad. I got chocolate cake with peanut butter icing and I’m standing there eating that when I hear Busty telling someone, “Let me get you some. We just squeezed it last night.” I watched as he strode past me, bent down, opened a cooler and pulled out a quart milk jug. It was a white one so you couldn’t see what was inside it. He let the lid drop, went over to the table where the cups were, pulled one from the stack and came back almost to where I was standing and handed it to a man who stood there waiting. Busty uncapped the jug and poured him a cup of what looked like apple cider.

“Oh,” I said. “You got any hard stuff?” I was channeling Momma here. She loves hard cider.

“No, we just made this last night,” Busty tells me.

“Can I have some?” I asked thinking it was private stock.

“Sure.”

Busty grabs another cup and hands it to me. I took it, he uncapped the jug and as he pours I tell him, “My mom is going to be so jealous when I tell her I had fresh cider.” I sipped. “Mmmm. This is really good!”

“Thank you,” he said. He capped the jug, set it on the table and walked away. I drained the cup of nectar of my favorite fruit and refilled it to take to Mike. I bet he’s waiting for this, I thought, but he wasn’t. As I crossed the road and approached the car I see Mike is still talking on the phone! He put the window down and took the cup from me. I went back to the party and straight for the dessert table. This time though I just stood there looking. There were pies and cakes and cookies and cobblers and brownies and too much to choose from. I couldn’t make up my mind so I stepped back out of the way and just eyed all of the goodies. “It’s probably better if you don’t eat anymore,” I tell myself. And then, to distract myself, I look elsewhere and I see Maxine sitting at her post. I’ll talk to her, I think, walk over and plop down on the step of the trailer beside her.

“Hi Miss Maxine!” I exclaim brightly. “I’m back.”

“Hi,” she replies and laughs.

We start chatting and Maxine, proud of her children, names them for me. “Marlene...she’s got a team of horses here someplace...”

“Uh-huh,” I say in her pause but I only had time for one ‘uh-huh’ before Maxine went on.

“And then Busty and Suzy and Monty - er Lisa and Monty and Katrina.”

Thinking about my Humans page, I asked Maxine, “What is the best thing about being a mom?”

“Oh my God!” Maxine said with disgust.

I laughed to cover my embarrassment for asking what apparently was a stupid question. “Do you have a favorite memory that you like to share?” I rephrased the question.

She didn’t hesitate but immediately her voice took on a different tone. “Christmastime with the kids when they was little...it was just wonderful...”

I waited for her to go on but she didn’t. In fact she added an “Mm-huh” as if putting a period on the end of a memory.

Then she did go on. “I don’t know how people can...that don’t want to have kids...that don’t want kids...I don’t know what we would ever do without them. I wouldn’t take a million dollars for any of mine!”

I know a quote for my Humans page when I hear one! I couldn’t dispute her comment and in the pause my mind drifted to something Mike had said. “This is for their family and friends,” his words echoed in my head. “Miss Maxine, do you know everyone here?”

“Oh no.”

“So I am not the only stranger here!” I felt vindicated.

“No, no.”

A man came up and Maxine reached into a box beside her. She greeted him and handed him two pens. He thanked her, put them in his pocket and they started to exchange pleasantries. I took this opportunity to excuse myself.

I found a spot to stand and take pictures. This beautiful team of black horses belongs to Maxine and Charles. I believe it is their niece driving as Charles walks beside.

“Did you see that cake?” I overheard one lady ask another.

Cake? “Did you see that cake?” Hmmm. Interesting. I better investigate.

“I didn’t see it,” I piped up and chipped in.

“You have to see this cake,” this lady said and walked us over to the dessert table. She lifted the top of the cake box and it’s one of those photo cakes. Plow Day 2015 was written in yellow icing.

She saw my camera. “Maybe you could take a picture of it for them?”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I didn’t know these people. “Sure,” I said, “but I can’t use this camera, it’s too big.” I pulled Andrew’s Camera out of my pocket, glad that I had it with me and obligingly took the photo. I call my small Canon Andrew’s Camera because it’s the camera I let my grandson use when he comes to visit us.

I wander away as these ladies are talking over the cake and I see Sue. There’s how I can get the photo of the cake to them! “Sue, do you have an email address where I can send some photos?” I ask.

“Let’s see if Brenda will give you hers. She lives here and she’ll make sure Mom and Dad see them.”

Sue led the way to where Brenda was and explained what we wanted.

“Sure,” she said and started to pat her pocket for a pen and paper but I was ready. I handed Brenda a card and a pen and she gave me her email.

“I’ll put ‘photos’ in the subject line so you know it’s from me,” I told her. If she’s anything like me, she won’t open emails from people she doesn’t know.

“Thank you,” she said.

And with that I felt like my day was complete. I had lots of photos of our adventure, I had a quote for my webpage and I had an email address to send the photos to. There was only one thing left to do.

I walked over to where Maxine still sat. “Miss Maxine! Thank you for an awesome day!” I exclaimed.

She smiled and nodded her welcome.

I waved my good-bye and went on to the Jeep.

Guess who was still talking on the phone? Yep! Mike! I climbed in just as he was wrapping up his conversation.

“I’m ready.” I thought he was sitting in the Jeep waiting for me. “You want to eat your sandwich before we go?”

Mike reached for his plate and bit into his barbeque. “Mmmm.”

I was fairly bursting with my news. “We were not the only strangers here! I asked Maxine and she said there are a lot of people here that she doesn’t know.”

“Hmm.”

“And I tried to give Sue a donation for the food but she wouldn’t take it. She said that’s what this is all about; bringing people together.”

“Hmm,” was all Mike had to say about that too. Then, “These beans are good.”

I watched the last of the teams coming in as Mike finished his lunch. “How come only the women are plowing?” Mike asked.

“I don’t know, why didn’t you come over and ask someone?”

“I was just getting ready to come over,” he said, “but if you’re ready to go…”

“Yeah, I’m ready.” We buckled up and Mike pulled out onto the road.

“You wanna go this way?” he asked.

It’s spooky how sometimes it’s almost like he can read my mind. “Yeah,” I answered as if I didn’t really care, but I did. We were headed back out to Dempsey Hill Road, the road we had come in on originally and I’d only been on that road that one time. I was anxious to see how things would look going the other way or what I might have missed.

Here’s a picture of the truck from the other direction. I think I like this view better. What do you think?

What are those little crosses in the weeds for? I puzzle as I snapped a photo.

Then I glance on the other side of the road.

Oh. It was probably the old clothesline.

Even once we were back on roads we travel more often I continued to take pictures. I can’t tell you how many photos of this barn I have, in all kinds of weather, all times of the day and even in different seasons of the year.

This shed is another of my favorite subjects. It has been slowly falling through the years.

Back on our own road I take pictures of the neighbors treasures.

What a great day it was, getting to meet new people, see new things, and travel new roads.

Let's call this one done.

Cindy's Story

November 2, 2015

Some of you know this handsome couple and some of you don’t.

This is my cute little redheaded brother Richard and his beautiful wife Cindy.

Rick and Cindy have been together for twenty-eight years and married for twenty-four of those years.

On a Friday Cindy got a headache. This headache progressed all weekend long becoming unbearable and causing her to vomit. Now you know the pain is really bad if it makes you vomit. You can’t even imagine what that’s like until you’ve experienced it.

A trip to the doctor on Monday diagnosed Cindy with a migraine. The doctor gave her a “migraine cocktail” which is a mixture of medicines that is supposed to lessen the severity of the attack but it didn’t help and that night found Rick and Cindy at the emergency room of the hospital.

The hospital agreed with the original diagnoses, it was a migraine. They sent her home.

The headache persisted and Cindy, unhappy with the first doctor, went to a different doctor. This doctor couldn’t understand why no one had yet ordered a CT scan. He did so and Cindy went for the scan. That was when they discovered it wasn’t just a migraine, it was a “dark mass” and it was pressing on the left side of the cerebellum.

The cerebellum is in the rear part of the brain and typically consists of two hemispheres connected by a thin central region. Its main function is to control and coordinate muscular activity and maintain balance.

They decided it was a cyst and they drained it to relieve the pressure and they did a biopsy.

It wasn’t just a cyst. It was cancer.

A full body scan was ordered and they found two more dark masses in her right lung.

Cindy had stage four lung cancer.

Stage four means the cancer has spread outside the lung to other parts of the body.

I can only imagine that at this point Rick and Cindy had a lot of talking to do.

What would you do if you were diagnosed with cancer? We can all speculate but until you are actually in that position, you don’t really know what you would do.

“Cannabis oil,” my niece Bambi and Richard’s daughter has suggested. “I’ve been reading really good things on it’s use with stage four lung cancer.”

Cannabis oil does not make you “high” or “stoned” from what I read on the internet.

In the end Rick and Cindy decided on Cancer Treatment Centers of America and they caught a plane to Chicago. After meeting with the neurosurgeon he recommended surgery to remove the tumor from Cindy’s cerebellum and they didn’t let any moss gather under their feet either, let me tell you! They did the surgery right away.

All went well and Cindy came through the surgery just fine.

Cindy was scheduled to go home today (Monday the first of November) but unfortunately, had a setback.

Hospitals are funny, don’t you know? They want to make sure that all your inner workings are working the way they are supposed to work before they let you go home. One of those things is your pooper.

Cindy really wanted to make that happen and despite giving it a valiant effort, wasn’t having any luck. Rick left her to get some coffee and Metamucil and returned a half hour later only to find that Cindy’s head was hurting again.

Cindy had pushed a little too hard and caused a bleed at the surgery site. Back into surgery she goes and they repair the bleeders. I think there were two. Cindy did well and after the surgery they kept her asleep for a couple of days.

I talked to Richard today (Monday).

“They woke her up yesterday to check her responses and she did fine. She followed commands; squeeze my hand, open your eyes -- that kind of stuff.”

I guess they put her back to sleep because Richard went on to say that they would wake her again today and if all goes well, they could go home in a week,

“Currently Cindy is stable,” Rick concluded.

“Can I write the story and share it with everyone?” I asked.

“Yeah. I don’t like having to tell the same story over and over again. I like to just tell one person and they can relay it on to everyone else.”

This statement made me doubly glad that I haven’t been calling and bothering him in this time of crisis. Instead I had been getting all of my information from Kayla, Cindy’s granddaughter. But in the case of this phone call I needed to have Richard’s permission to write the story. Not everyone wants their trials and tribulations put out there for the world to see.

I talked to Momma on the phone later Monday and told her about my conversation with Richard. “Did you know that Cindy’s brain bleed was because she strained too hard to have a bowel movement?”

“No,” she answered and that is pretty much what I expected her to say.

“Do I put that part in my story?”

“I don’t know.”

“Here’s the thing. I often times write about that kind of stuff so people know. Like when I wrote about Pepto-Bismol causing you to have black poop. If you were an 80 year old women and you were having stomach problems and the doctor told you to take Pepto-Bismol and all of a sudden you had black poop...what would you think?”

“She would think there is blood in her stool,” Momma said. She knew. She knew that black stool is often a sign of bleeding in the upper intestinal tract.

“Exactly and that’s what happened with an elderly lady that I was taking care of. She panicked and went back to the doctor only to find out it was because of the Pepto-Bismol. Now the people who read my letters will know this and that’s why I write about that kind of stuff. I opt for the truth.”

“Okay then, that’s what you should do.”

There was also another reason that Cindy had tried so hard to have a bowel movement and I can’t tell you what that is.

“Oh yeah, Peg, now all of a sudden you’re going to be tactful?” you ask.

Well, no. That isn’t the reason. I confess that I didn’t hear it. Richard and I were talking and I must have been thinking about my next question and not listening because the next thing I hear is Richard saying with a laugh, “…and she doesn’t want to go through that again!”

I breezed on to my next question without having what he said register with me and it wasn’t until later that I realized I missed something.

I don’t know the journey these two have in front of them. I have no experience with lung cancer and I can’t guess what problems or stumbling blocks they may encounter along the way.

I can offer no advice.

The only thing I can do is to ask you to pray for Cindy and her family in this terribly hard time they are facing. We all know the power of prayer.

I am also going to ask you to help me send her a little encouragement, a hug in a card, a glimmer of hope or in the very least a ray of sunshine.

Even though no one deserves such hardships in life, I want to tell you that this is a fine family. Good people. And we must all remember...

God is good.

God loves us and only wants the best for us. We don’t always understand His reasons for putting us through the fire, but ultimately, His will will be done.

Amen.

Making Yogurt

Sunday, November 1, 2015

Guess what?

“Months that start on a Sunday will always have a Friday the 13^th in them?” you guess.

Yeah, well that’s not it. What I was going to say is that this letter is a continuation of last weeks letter. I have stories stacking up again and with everything on my plate I can’t spend as much time writing as I would like to. Ultimately what happens is the stories get older and older and new stories come up and pretty soon the old ones drop off my radar and you never get to hear them. I would say for every three of four stories I tell you, there is at least one story that didn’t get written.

A couple of years ago my mother wanted to make her own yogurt and bought a yogurt maker. She made yogurt in it and hated it. So she gifted me with the yogurt maker. “Thank you, Momma!” I told her. “I’d love to make my own yogurt,” but I never got around to making it and it has just sat here at our mountain home every since then.

Then three weeks ago Mike saw something on TV that said that yogurt has so much sugar in it that it offsets the health benefits.

Mike, who had been eating Activia twice a day for several months, told me, “I’m not eating yogurt anymore.”

“Well then let’s make our own. That’s the best way to know what you’re eating.” I went out into my shop and got the yogurt maker and brought it in. I washed everything up and read the instruction book. Then I got on my computer and Googled it. One web site said to sterilize your jars by pouring boiling water in them for a few minutes to kill unwanted bacteria that could interfere with your yogurt making. Although my book didn’t say to do that, it sounded reasonable to me and I decided I would do that too.

The next trip to the grocery we bought the two ingredients needed to make homemade yogurt. Milk and plain unflavored yogurt. I mixed the milk with the unflavored yogurt - being careful not to whip it, as per the instruction book, sterilized my jars, per the website, poured the mixture into the individual jars, put them in the yolife yogurt maker and my first batch of yogurt was cooking. Now I only had to wait for nine to twelve hours.

Nine and one half hours later I checked my yogurt and it was thick and creamy. Perfect. I tasted it and it was tangy! I capped the jars and put them in the fridge for a few hours.

Mike tasted it and hated it.

Neighbor Stephanie tasted it. “I think I would like some sugar in mine,” she said.

Turns out that yogurt without any sugar in it isn’t everyone’s cup of sunshine.

“You can add fruit,” you say.

Yes you can but I didn’t have anything on hand except frozen blueberries. In an effort to get Mike to eat homemade yogurt, I added blueberries to one of the yogurts. It wasn’t very sweet and it didn’t have very much blueberry flavor. Mike tasted it but wouldn’t eat it. I ate it and I ate the rest of the first batch of yogurt by myself without anything in it at all. It definitely takes getting used to but I could do it. I got used to diet soda, which I haven’t had any soda in over three years. I got used to instant coffee and now I love it. I got used to air popped popcorn, I still like it better with butter and salt but I eat it plain. I got used to rye bread, which I used to hate, and Italian sausage. But with some things it’s just not meant to be. I can’t get used to Miracle Whip. I tried and I tried! I tried for years! Then it got to the point where I would rather eat whatever I was eating without anything on it at all than to eat Miracle Whip, the only exception being potato salad. I can eat potato salad with Miracle Whip. Last year I decided it was silly. I like mayo in my tuna! And now we are a two mayonnaise family, which I understand, is quite a common phenomenon.

But, back to yogurt. With the health benefits of yogurt I wanted Mike to eat my homemade yogurt. I decided that the next time I make it, I’ll add pineapple for sweetener. I know you can buy pineapple in it’s own juice -- no added sugar. That’s healthy for you, right?

I saved my very last yogurt to use as starter for my next batch, which the instruction book said I could do for five generations. Then it looses it’s potency.

“Momma, is that right?” I asked her on the phone one day.

“Yes,” she replied with no hesitation at all. “I only used mine for three generations, then I would buy new.”

“But if the cultures are live and active and growing, why don’t they just keep multiplying?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But it’s the same way with sourdough starters too.”

So I bought the pineapple and I made my second batch of yogurt. I did it the same way as the first batch only this time I used my own yogurt as starter. Nine and a half hours later my yogurt was thin and runny, not thick and creamy like the first time. I left it a couple of hours longer but it didn’t help. I was disappointed. I had used a different brand of milk, could that have caused it? I Goggled it and found out it doesn’t matter what kind of milk you use. You can use anything from skim to powdered to goat, soy and even raw milk. The only kind of milk it said to not use is ultra pasteurized. The kind of milk you use isn’t the issue. What the issue seems to be is the starter. I had waited a week to make a new batch, had I waited too long?

I went back to the web. The fresher your starter, the better, it says. Use your own starter in five to seven days, it said. Maybe I had waited too long.

I wanted to try again. I bought more milk and another plain yogurt. I followed the directions, sterilized my jars, stir in the starter without whipping it, put the yogurt into the yogurt cooker and waited nine hours.

And once again...failure.

What was going on!

I went back to the web again and I found a website called saladinajar.com and I watched her video on making homemade Greek yogurt. On her website she says she always saves some of her yogurt for the next batch, she hasn’t bought yogurt in over a year! Boy, was I surprised to read that! She has a page called Answers To Your Questions On Making Homemade Yogurt and the reasons why your yogurt fails is discussed on this page. But there are only a few reasons why your yogurt fails. Not being kept at the proper temperature or bad starter. It really is as simple as that.

Back to the drawing board I go for another attempt.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just buy yogurt?” Mike asked.

It would be but I’m adamant that I want to make my own, healthy yogurt. I buy milk and the freshest yogurt I can find. I boil water and fill my jars to sterilize. I measure and pour the milk and mix in the yogurt while the jars are sterilizing. When I think enough time has passed I pour the water out of the jars as carefully as I can. That water is really hot! Then I reach for the yogurt mixture, pull a jar towards me and it hits me!

“Peg, you dummy, those jars are too hot! You killed your yogurt!”

I stopped and waited until my jars had cooled, filled them and put them in the yogurt maker. Nine and a half hours later I had yogurt!

Boy! It took me long enough to figure that one out, didn’t it?

During the yogurt making process the whey separates. You can stir it back in for regular yogurt or you can strain it off and make Greek yogurt. I made a batch of Greek yogurt, adding a little honey to it and Mike says he will eat it that way. I didn’t really know what to do with my whey, so I threw it away. But I decided to research it and find ways to use it rather than throw it away the next time. Did you know there are many ways to use the healthy whey? You can substitute it for other liquids in baking, including making bread. You can freeze it. You can use it in smoothies. You can water your plants with it. You can even make ricotta cheese with it if you have enough whey.

I decided to try it in homemade bread. I love the No Knead Bread recipe I got from my daughter Kat which is so easy and the only way I’ll ever make bread again. The recipe calls for three cups of water, there is no milk in the recipe. I had exactly three cups of whey from my last batch of homemade Greek yogurt so I mixed it up in a batch of bread and just used it all.

“How did it come out?” you wonder.

Even though it’s good, it did change the flavor of the bread and I probably won’t make it that way again.

I’m toying with the idea of making yogurt cheese next.

“What is yogurt cheese?” you ask.

It’s yogurt with the whey strained out. The method is the same as if you were making Greek yogurt but you strain it longer. Then you use your yogurt cheese much the same way as you would use a cream cheese.

“What will you do with the whey?” you ask.

Maybe I’ll try a little ricotta.

What an adventure making yogurt has been. And speaking of adventures, next time I am going to tell you about Plow Day.

Until then, be well and may God watch over and protect you.

Assumptions

October 25, 2015

My current desktop is this thing?

“What is it?” you ask.

Well, I didn’t know what it was and I didn’t know what to Google to find out either.

Then the Kipp’s were here, Lamar and Rosie. They come up most days to take care of the wild cats and they sit and visit with us if we are around. I asked Lamar if he knew what it might be.

“It looks like wild cucumber,” Lamar said and I was taken aback. I didn’t expect him to know what it was because I was under the impression that they didn’t know much about wildflowers and I have to confess; this is a conclusion I came to all on my own.

“Does that mean you made an assumption, Peg?” you ask.

Well, yeah. I was trying not to use the ‘a’ word because you know what happens when you assume, don’t you? It makes an ‘ass’ out of ’u’ and ’me’. I thought to skirt the whole issue by using the word ‘conclusion’ but I should have known you guys wouldn’t let me get away with it.

“So why did you assume they didn’t know anything about wildflowers?”

I brought some passionflower fruits with me and asked the Kipp’s if they would like to plant some. “That would be like a death sentence,” Rosie told me. “We just kill flowers.”

Translation, in this peon brain of mine, they don’t know anything about wildflowers.

“I could be wrong about what it is,” Lamar said. “You could look it up on the internet.”

Now that I had a place to start I did check the internet. I Goggled wild cucumber and it came right up. Lamar was right. It is wild cucumber, which are not eatable-editable.

“If you didn’t think Lamar knew what it was, why did you ask him?” you may be wondering.

Well, in the very least, I thought it was interesting and something they might like to see and something we could talk about. Not that talking with the Kipp’s is hard because it’s not. The Kipp’s are just about the nicest, kindest, people you could ever want to meet and conversations with them are easy and full of fun and laughter.

Between them and the Robinson’s - literally our place is between the Kipp’s and the Robinson’s! - we have the best neighbors in the whole wide world!

Lamar and Rosie take care of our mill cats when we aren’t here. Heck, they take care of them when we are here too! I can’t tell you how much that means to us. We like having cats because they keep the mice and other rodents down and who doesn’t love kittens?

When the Kipp’s are gone and can’t feed the cats the Robinson’s pinch-hit for them.

Currently we don’t have many cats. Just three at last count plus a stray from somewhere else that is welcome to come and eat with our cats.

“What happened to all your cats?” you ask. “Last I knew you had a dozen!”

I know, right!

It seems we have predators higher on the food chain living in the area, namely foxes and coyotes. They keep our cat population down and that helps with our cat food bill, don’t you know, but one thing that doesn’t help with our cat food bill are squatters.

“Squatters?”

Squatters. Raccoons. And boy, are they smart! The raccoons have managed to get into every container that Lamar has put the cat food in so Lamar set a live trap. He caught a raccoon which is what he expected to catch and he put the coon in the trunk of his car and drove it down around and across to the other side of the Susquehanna somewhere and set it free.

“Now stay on this side of the river!” Lamar admonished the coon as it scampered away.

And the cat food was still disappearing faster than Lamar thought it should. He set the trap again. This time when he checked he had no coon and he had no trap either. Not only was that coon smart, he was strong too! He pulled the trap apart and got out. Lamar, ever practical, decided to keep the cat food at his house and just carry up the days rations.

<<<<<>>>>

Assumptions.

Assuming.

Assume.

I always manage to get myself into trouble when I do any one of those things. And at my age, with as much trouble and embarrassment as I’ve caused myself over the years, you would think that I would know better, wouldn’t you? And yet I continue to assume things.

Sometimes when I don’t know something I just make it up. That’s not to say that I lie, because I don’t. There are many ways to be kind and still tell the truth, but sometimes if I don’t know something, I just put words in to make my stories flow.

“That sounds like a lie to me, Peg!”

If you don’t know it’s a lie, then is it really a lie?

“What are you going on about now!”

Okay, here’s the deal. A couple of weeks ago I was talking about buying Halloween candy for the Halloween Party that is held every year at Luby’s on the Strip in Lake Ozark. I know how much money Mike and I spend on those little goblins, witches and zombies, but what I didn’t know was how much our dear friend Margaret spends. I didn’t want to leave Margaret out of the story because she is a very valuable part of what makes the Halloween Party such a great success, but I didn’t know what she spends. So plainly and simply I said that Margaret buys some candy too.

“I spend as much as you do and sometimes more!” Margaret told me.

I felt like a creep. Margaret is one of the most generous and giving persons you could ever want to meet. Margaret would not only give you the shirt off her own back, she’d go out and buy you two more! I deeply treasure my relationship Margaret and would never intentionally hurt her feelings.

Margaret, I’m sorry and I love you.

<<<<<>>>>>

I talked about working in my shop and making butterflies and here are the two butterflies that I made.

One was for Rosie and the other I made and sent to my beautiful sister.

“I made Phyllis a purple butterfly,” I told Momma on the phone one day.

“Purple! Her favorite color!” Momma said.

I finished all the glass projects that Rosie wanted and now I get to play. I’ve been making a new kind of wind chime that I really like. It is just bits of glass strung together and even if I put the same number and the same shapes of pieces of glass together in different strings, they sound different!

Do I sound surprised?

I am!

I made four and gave Rosie choice.

“Let me hear that one,” Rosie said indicating one of the chimes I presented for her consideration.

I made it move and tinkle and said, “It’s the same as this one, see?” then I tinkled the other one. Boy, was I surprised! “They do sound different!” I exclaimed. Rosie must have known they would, but I didn’t. I really expected them to sound the same and I don’t understand why they don’t.

“I like that one better,” Rosie said and the fact that it had more green in it didn’t factor into it all (even if green is Rosie’s favorite color!).

I’m thinking I’ll be able to make and send a few of these out for Christmas gifts this year so if you think you’d like one, you’d better be letting me know.

“But Peg loves me and knows I’d like one,” you say.

Yeah. I do. But I wouldn’t count on that. Better safe than sorry.

It's The Little Things

Sunday, October 18, 2015

I have had two desktops this past week. An orange leaf among the dried ragweed was up there for most of the week.

The seasons here in Pennsylvania are different than in Missouri as you may well expect. Spring comes later and fall comes earlier. I’ve missed a whole chunk of time by traveling east, don’t you know! In Missouri the ragweed and aster were just starting to bloom and here they have come and gone already! So you won’t have to suffer through too many more wildflower photos. Instead we will move on ‘winter flowers’ as I like to call them.

I took my camera with me when I took Ginger and Itsy out for an early morning walk. I spent a long time taking photos of the dew dripping from leaves and branches, reflecting the early morning sun light. When I saw this one on my computer it immediately caught my attention. There was just something about it that I liked. I made a few clicks with my mouse and made it my desktop photo, minimized my photo editing program to see the desktop and there, in the streak of light is a city with a big round moon above it. Can you see it? And if you use your imagination you can see the city reflected upside down in the water droplet hanging from the branch.

Maybe it’s just me.

You are going to get to see a bunch of these kinds of photos when I get around to posting them, but doggone it! I am so behind on posting! The last date I posted photos to my blog was September twenty-first. You can count how many days there are between then and now and I have twenty-one days with files in them waiting for me to resize and upload for you and every day that passes only adds to that number.

<<<<<>>>>>

Have I ever told you that I like to wash dishes?

“Peg, you’re weird!” you say.

Well, I do. I like to wash dishes. There’s just something that I like about having a sink overflowing with bubbles and hot water, taking the dirty dishes and making them sparkly and clean again. It’s almost sad when I pull the plug and watch the bubbles go down the drain. Now, scrubbing pots and pans is a different story but you gotta take the bad with the good.

And if you think that’s weird, there’s another household chore that I like to do too and that would be laundry-at least here in the country anyway. I love to hang the clothes on the clothesline. I love taking each item from the basket, a favorite shirt or pair of jeans, sometimes reliving a memory, giving them a shake to undo the twisted-ness left by the spin cycle of the washer and pinning them to the line. Clothes go on the line upside down and it makes me crazy when I see jeans hanging by the waistband or shirts by the shoulders.

“Why do you hang clothes upside down?” you ask.

Because that’s the way my mother always did it. Besides, it just makes sense to me. The waistband of the jeans and the collars of the shirts are the heaviest parts and hanging allows them more movement in the breeze so they dry better. That and the clothespins tend to leave little teepees that would be obvious on the shoulder of your shirt and hidden if you hang them from the side seams at the bottom.

“So because your mother did it that way makes it right?”

Well, yeah! I have the smartest most beautifulist mama in the whole wide world -- but I’ll Google it.

The first (and only) website I checked was about.com and there is a photo of clothes hung all wrong! Jeans by the waistband, shirts hung from the bottom but folded over the line. My heart sank but I perused the article anyway.

 Maybe they would give me their opinion on why they think this is the right way. Imagine my surprise when I discover their photo does not correlate with their written word. In the body of the article it says to hang jeans by the leg and shirts by the bottom side seam.

See! Momma’s right.

Case closed!

Carrying the baskets to the clothesline is good exercise for me. As I’m hanging clothes I love to listen to the bees buzz, the grasshoppers and crickets chirp and the birds sing. I love the sound of the wind as it soughs through the trees and rustles the leaves. I love the feel of the sun on my face and the cool green grass under my feet. I take my time and count my blessings and give thanks to our Lord that I am able to do this chore and that He has sent the birds to sing to me, or the breeze to kiss the sweat from my brow or anything else that I can think of to be thankful for -- and I always find something.

Admittedly, this time of year, the sweat on my brow and sunshine might be in short supply however it doesn’t diminish my love of the job. Even if I’m out there in a jacket and boots and the skies are cloudy and gray and the wind is nipping at my nose and ears, I still love it, I just might not lollygag.

And I do have a drier.

I love walking out to the clothesline, checking to see if things are dry. Walking along, feeling the waistband of jeans -- if they are dry, everything else will be dry too. Scrunching the bath towels and pulling them up to bury my face in them and breathing the scent of the great outdoors.

And who doesn’t love sleeping on sheets that have been line dried?

I love to do the laundry and as we pulled into the driveway of our mountain home, I see my clothesline, waiting there for me and I smile in anticipation, and sigh as I know it will have to wait.

Needless to say, after two days of cleaning, my heart sang as I loaded the washer with blue jeans and socks, added the soap, shut the lid, set the cycle and smiled as I heard the water rushing in and walked away. I retrieved a cup of just made coffee and joined Michael on the patio for a much needed break.

When I went back inside the washer was done. I opened the lid, pulled out the top pair of jeans and they felt wetter than I expected them to feel. I gave them a little shake and dropped them into the waiting basket. I picked up the next pair of jeans and they were even wetter. I dropped them into the basket too. The next pair was wetter yet again. Okay. So now I reverse the process, picking up the jeans I had just deposited into the basket and putting them back into the washer.

I’ll just run the spin cycle again, I thought. I shut the lid, turned the dial to spin, pulled the knob out and...nothing. No spinning going on here! Doggone it! My washer was broke. I took the clothes from the washer and dripped a trail to the door as I took them out to the clothesline and hung them to dry. Talk about a workout! That basket full of jeans and socks was still pretty wet and man! Were they heavy!

“Mike, if the spin doesn’t work does that mean that the agitate doesn’t work either?” I asked Mike.

“I don’t know,” he said.

But I bet it doesn’t.

I texted that beautiful neighbor lady of mine, Stephanie Robinson and asked who fixes washers. She suggested a place and I called.

“It’s sixty-five dollars for a service call,” he told me. “Depending on where you live it could be more. Then there’s labor and parts.”

“I’ll bring the washer out to you,” I volunteered hoping to cut sixty-five dollars off the bill.

“Oh no. My backroom is so full I couldn’t get in there if I wanted to!”

This washer is at least fifteen years old and we didn’t feel like we wanted to put a lot of money into it.

“Just go to Roots and get Peg a hundred dollar washer,” Steph’s husband Jon Robinson told Mike.

After discussing it Mike and I decided we wouldn’t get another washing machine just now. We only plan on being here for two months or less, depending on the weather, and I could get by until we left. There’s a Laundromat in Wyalusing which is only about four miles away. We scheduled a day in our busy schedule to go into town and wash the clothes, (I’d still bring them home and hang them on the line to dry), and that day was several days away. Until then I thought about it. I thought about it a lot. I thought how much it sucks to pack all the laundry up and haul it all out to the car, drive into town and carry it into the Laundromat, sort and start the machines then sit and wait for it to get done. I know, I do it in Missouri all the time as I don’t have a washer or dryer there. The only good thing about Laundromats is that the laundry all gets done at one time, folded and put away at one time and you don’t have to think about it again until the next time. I thought about telling Mike I changed my mind and I wanted a washing machine, but I put on my big girl pants and stuck with the plan.

Laundry day came and Mike was a big help. Besides the two baskets that he carried to the car, we had a couple of blankets too. Mike drove to town and carried everything into the Laundromat for me. The washers here are cheaper than in Missouri but one of the big, glass-front multi-load washers I had chosen washed and rinsed with hardly any water. I considered moving the clothes to a different washer and washing them again but in the end I settled for what I got.

I’ll tell you what. That Laundromat was filthy. Not just dirty-filthy! Discarded dryer sheets collected in drifts around the perimeter of the floor where they had been kicked. A pair of men’s tighty-whitey’s were draped over the half-wall at the end of the line of washers, a sock beside it and other articles of abandoned clothing adorned various locations throughout the place. Dust and dryer lint on every flat surface that hadn’t been recently touched. Rings and rings of laundry soap on top of machines where caps had been set after measuring out the soap.

“If I had a broom I’d sweep the place,” Mike said to me. Does that give you any indication of how dirty it really was?

Once home, Mike carried the baskets to the clothesline for me and helped by handing me clothes as I hung them up. In all the years we have been together this is a first. We had so much laundry that I used all four clotheslines and almost all of the clothespins.

“Let’s take a ride over and see what Root’s has for hundred dollar washers,” Mike suggested.

“Okay,” I readily agreed never letting on that on the inside I was screaming “Yay!” and jumping up and down with joy.

“But just to look,” he cautioned. “There’s a place in Meshoppen that has washers starting at two hundred fifty dollars.”

It didn’t matter to me. Either way it looked like I was getting a new washer. Despite having so much to do, I dropped everything, made a travel cup of coffee and met Mike at the Jeep.

It was a nice fall day for a ride and it allowed me to get photos of the beautiful Pennsylvania countryside with all of it’s fall color. We were past the peak but that didn’t stop me.

Once at Root’s, the used appliance place, Mike started talking with a nice young man about washers. And just in case you had any doubts -- and Mike didn’t -- let me confirm for you. There are no one hundred dollar washers. Instead of just looking, we came home with a new washer. They have a thirty day warranty and Root’s does a great job of cleaning up the used appliances.

At home I helped Mike get the new washer in and hooked up but unfortunately, all the laundry was clean and hanging on the clothesline! It would be a few days until I tried it out.

Later in the day, when the laundry was dry, Mike helped me take it down. I was folding the clothes as I went along but Mike didn’t want to fold.

“What can I do?” he asked.

“Take down the towels, sheets and blankets,” I said. “Socks and underwear.” I didn’t care if they wrinkled in the basket till I got them folded. At some point I thought about telling Mike he needed to shake things before putting them in the basket then I changed my mind. I was afraid he’d quit on me. Mike carried the baskets into the house and set them on the floor in the living room. I picked up the couch cover and heard buzz-buzz.

“We’ve got a bee,” I said and took the cover out and let the bee loose. I came back in, put the cover on the couch, hung the shirts and...that was it. I didn’t get around to taking care of the rest of the laundry for a couple of days. I was spending all of my free time trying to get the last weeks letter done only stopping long enough to take care of the dogs or make another cup of coffee. One nice thing about it though, every time I came back into the house, I could smell the fresh air and sunshine. That was pretty nice.

Once the letter was done and I got around to taking care of the rest of the laundry, I found a couple of spiders in amongst the clothes. I took them outside a little ways from the house and let them loose.

Now, you want to talk about spiders?

“No way! I hate spiders!” I hear some of you say. “They freak me out!”

You might want to skip this next section then.

Steph stopped to see me after work one day last week. “I’m in the shop, come on around,” I told her when she called.

“Peg! Get your camera and come see this spider!” Steph said as soon as she came in the door.

I’d been working on a glass butterfly sun catcher but I quickly put my soldering iron back in it’s holder, detoured through the apartment where I picked up my camera and as we came into the front yard I saw it a mile away! This thing was orange and it was huge!

“Holy cow!” I exclaimed and snapped a few pictures of it. “Steph, we need something to show how big this spider is,” I said but I couldn’t ask her to pick up the spider. “Here,” I said and handed her my camera. “I’ll pick it up and you take it’s picture.” Stephanie actually did a really good job of taking its picture while I held it but then Steph said she wasn’t afraid and we switched roles. She held the spider and I took pictures. I think this photo really shows the size of the spider and Steph definitely has prettier hands and nails then I do. Look at the size of this spider, would ya!

“This spider looks like the one living on the patio except it’s yellow,” I told Steph and after we had enough pictures we took it over to the weeds and set it free.

“Come see the one on the patio,” I said to Steph. “I’m having a hard time getting it’s picture because the sky is behind it and he won’t turn around for me.”

Steph put her hand behind him to block the back light and it also allows you to see that this yellow one is a much smaller spider.

Aren’t they awesome spiders!

“What are they?” you ask.

I’m glad you asked! These are both marbled orb weavers. They come in a variety of colors and make a new spiral web everyday. Females are twice the size of males and stay hidden, having a strand of silk extending all the way into her retreat. If it vibrates, she knows her web has caught something. Females lay orange eggs in a silken sac and attach it near her retreat to guard it. If the weather is warm, the spiderlings will hatch soon after. If it’s cold, the spiderlings will over-winter in the egg sac and hatch in the spring.

Adults are very active during the summer and autumn months. They tend to fall to the ground if they sense danger where they stay hidden until the threat has passed.

Isn’t that interesting?

<<<<<>>>>>

A couple of days after I got my new washing machine I did a load of laundry. Mike was on the couch watching TV as I carried the basket through the apartment on my way to the clothesline. “Thank you for buying me a washer,” I told him. “I couldn’t be happier if you’d have bought me diamonds!” I was ridiculously happy.

<<<<<>>>>>

Let’s wrap it up this week with a shot of the creek down near the Kipps house. They have a beaver dam! I think I’m jealous!
 

Sunday Letter

Sunday, September 10, 2015

I have had two desktops this past week. This shot of our now abandoned Two-Bit Town was up for a while. Do you see the real-life size sheriff and bank robber on the Jesse James Hide-Out sign?

I have an opportunity to get a few of these characters that have never been out in the elements and the colors are vibrant and beautiful, but I just have a hard time parting with the amount of money it would take to buy them for something that is purely whimsical and decorative.

I also had this misty morning shot up on my desktop for a while too. I took this shot on our way east…

Oh, did I tell you? We’re in Pennsylvania now. Which is why there was no letter last week; we were on the road.

Last time I wrote about my wild feather bouquet. I have to tell you that while writing that piece I heard my daughter Kat in my head. “Mom! You shouldn’t pick up that kind of stuff! It could have bugs or carry diseases!” I’m not so sure she would have told me that before she went to vet-tech school or not, but she has told me that a couple of times since then. It hasn’t stopped me though, I’m just more careful.

My beautiful redheaded niece Bambi commented on my letter, “Keep those feathers outside (though I would really say to never touch a feather), birds have lice & you DO NOT want bird lice!” she wrote.

I read that and it tickled me and I smiled.

“Why would that tickle you?” you wonder.

Because she cared enough to admonish me, much the same as Kat would have done.

There was a span of a couple of days there where I was feeling especially sad and missing Kat very much. To cope with this I reached out to someone whom I knew shared in my sorrow of her passing and always seems to know how to make me feel better and the was that very special and beautiful sister of mine Phyllis. “I'm really missing her pretty bad today... L ” I wrote.

“I’m sorry. I love you and am sending you warm thoughts and hugs,” she wrote back.

But the feelings persisted. I turned to food. I opened my fridge and there in the door was a jar of peanut butter. “My mom loved peanut butter,” Jessica told me. “She would eat it by the spoonful!”

Well Kat isn’t the only one in my family that eats peanut butter by the spoonful, my mother does too! I was a little shocked the first time I saw Momma dig a big old tablespoon of peanut butter out of the jar, sprinkle it with sugar, and eat it while sipping her hot coffee. “Mmm, good dessert,” she said with a smile on her beautiful face.

“Why the sugar?” you ask.

I know right! I asked the same thing! “It makes it less sticky,” I was told.

Well, if it’s good enough for those two beauties, it’s good enough for me. I got a spoon, dipped it down in the peanut butter jar and got me a nice size teaspoonful of peanut butter. I skipped the sugar part because I didn’t want the extra calories but the coffee part was totally doable. My peanut butter popsicle washed down with hot coffee was good, but I don’t foresee it being a regular part of my diet.

I keep getting offers from different companies for free Shutterfly books. I love Shutterfly books! In the middle of September I redeemed an offer and made a book called Playing In The Puddle With Daddy

It was full of wonderful photos I took of Andrew playing in the puddle on an early July day and I gave the book to his mom and dad.

Then I received another free Shutterfly book offer and it would expire the last day of September. What was I going to do with another book? “Momma, I’ve got another free book coming, what should I do?” I asked her.

“You’ve got so many beautiful photos, just pick a theme,” Momma suggested.

I started going through my photos and a large part of what I have been photographing lately has been wildflowers and bugs.

I’ll call it Wild Things, I thought. Then my very next thought was, What am I going to do with it? A book of my photographs would be kind of wasted on me, you know what I mean? Momma already had a book of my photos, as well as a couple of others that I made for her…how many does she actually need or even want? Patti came next to my mind. My older and much adored sister. I know she’s proud of me and my talents, maybe she would like to have a book of my photos to show off once in a while?

A whole lot of things go through my head at this point. “What if she doesn’t want one but is afraid of hurting your feelings?” Me says to Myself.

“I’ll give her an out,” Myself responded and I fired off an email to her. “I was wondering if you would be interested in having a book of my photos? If you say no, that is way okay. I know you are a minimalist and don't like a lot of clutter so my feelings won't be hurt.”

In truth, my feelings would probably be hurt a little, but I would get over it. Here’s the thing. I know it’s rude to refuse a gift. A lot of people are brought up to accept whatever is given to them, then throw it away if they don’t want it. Honestly, that would not only hurt my feelings more, that would piss me off too. If you don’t want it, that’s fine! Someone else may think it’s a real treasure and value it. I would rather it went to someone who really wanted it, then to have you throw it in the trash. And I know this happens.

“Of course I would like one of your picture books,” Patti answered.

Then my next question for her was, “Is wildflowers and bugs okay or would you rather have other things?”

“Mix it up.”

I wished I had allowed myself more time because Momma is right. I have tons of beautiful photos, it’s just a matter of going through them all. I know if I had had more time I could have done a better job with her book. But my next conundrum was what to call it. Wild Things worked when it was just wildflowers and bugs…I know! I’ll call it This And That.

“Comme Ci Comme Ca would be cute,” Me says to Myself and Myself knew that Me thought comme ci comme ca meant a little of this and a little of that in French. But to be on the safe side Myself Googled it and found out it meant so-so.

“My photos are not so-so!”

“Well what is This And That in French then?” Me asks.

“Google says it’s Ceci et Cela. She isn’t going to know what that means!” Myself laments.

“She took Latin in school…what is This And That in Latin?”

“Et Hoc Quod.”

Ewww.

“How about Italian?”

“Questo e Quello.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, Peggy!” Momma (in my head) butts in. “Just call it This And That!”

She’s so smart! And she’s so right!

I spent all of my free time that last week in September working on This And That and the rest of that week was spent getting ready for this trip, which left no time to write. And on top of all that I have another free book! I am probably going to let that offer expire.

Getting ready for our trip meant a trip to Target for Halloween candy. This is the sixteenth year that Luby’s has hosted a kids Halloween Party and Luby’s buys most of the candy. Our friend Margaret will buy some too. So off to Target Mike and I went and we loaded a shopping cart chock full of bags and bags of candy. At the checkout some guy turns to us and says, “I’m coming to your place for Halloween!”

That segued into us telling this man about the party and all the games and activities for the kids and inviting them (he and his wife) to come down and help. “We always need volunteers,” I told him.

About this time Target opens more checkout lanes and we went to another lane. Mike and I were checking out and this guys comes walking up to us and hands us a twenty dollar bill. “To help with the candy,” he says.

Oh my gosh! How kind that was for that man to do that! I wished I had gotten his name so I could give him better recognition than what I have done here.


I have a very bad habit of eating Cheetos Crunchy on road trips. I seldom eat Cheetos any other time, but I seem to be helpless to break this habit. Even when I’m determined that I’m not going to do it, I break down and buy Cheetos at the first gas station.

Sigh.

Before I even thought about getting a bag for our trip east, Mike came home from Menard’s with a party size bag of Cheetos Crunchy and a huge jar of whole cashews, his kryptonite. I stowed the snacks out of sight where they stayed until Saturday, but let me tell you! We were no more settle on the highway then I reached down beside my seat, where (in preparation of the trip) I had carefully placed the Cheetos bag, pulled it into my lap and opened it up.

Oh that was easy, I thought as I opened the bag. Usually I have to struggle to pull it apart. I should have known right then and there that something was wrong. I looked down in the bag and they were all small pieces. Now mind you, we don’t throw them out just because they are small pieces, the bigger ones are better because you don’t have to work so hard to get a mouthful, you know what I mean?

“It’s all small ones!” I exclaimed.

“You probably opened the bottom of the bag,” Mike said.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because all the small ones go to the bottom.”

I didn’t say anything but I thought, Why would I do that? That would be stupid, and I start munching away. A few minutes pass as his comment is reverberating around in my head before it occurs to me to check.

I know! You would have thought of it sooner, but I didn’t think for a second that I had opened the bottom of the bag. I was fully prepared to gloat as I proved him wrong.

Yeah.

Okay, so that didn’t pan out. But let me tell you something that I did do that seemed to help with my Cheetos addiction. I have been eating a lot of air popped popcorn these last few months. No oil, butter or salt, just air popped popcorn. And I know what you are thinking.

“How can you eat it that way?”

Well, it does take time to develop a taste for it, I have to say, but one thing that helps with that is the knowledge that there are few calories in popcorn if you eat it that way. And if you have a desire to munch, it fills the bill. So, to help cut my Cheeto consumption I mixed them with some air popped popcorn. Two parts popcorn, one part Cheeto. Not only did this method stretch the Cheetos so one bag lasted the whole trip but it made the popcorn pretty tasty too!

Our trip east was uneventful. I photographed some stickers that adorned vehicles. Salt Life? What is that all about? I Googled it and Salt Life is a business selling beach wear and stickers and refers to someone who loves the ocean.

We’ve all seen the little stick figures on the back of vans that denote the family makeup. Well here is a zombie family.

I recently read an article that warned us about giving out too much information to predators with these kinds of stickers. Saying where our kids go to school and what sports they play.

Then on a semi trailer I see a red and black mask. No idea about this one unless it was just something someone liked and that’s where he put it.

I’ve been watching semi’s. I saw a photo of a Taylor truck passing a Swift truck and of course that makes the name of the singer Taylor Swift.

Tugboat Dot was the best I could come up with. But in my defense, Mike doesn’t follow semis for very long.

“What’s Tugboat Dot?” you ask.

How about a cousin to Steamboat Annie?

Then I got Dot Crete when the Dot truck passed a Crete truck.

“What’s Dot Crete?” you ask.

How about a cousin to Con Crete?

I’m just making all that up but you can bet I’m going to keep my eyes open from now on.

I found another Mater! The one I photographed before was in Kansas, this one is in Ohio.

“What’s a Mater?” you ask.

I know, right! When I posted the first Mater picture I took, Patti said it was Mater and I had to ask the very same question. Turns out Mater is a character in the animated movie Cars and Patti knew that.

One of the first things that had to be done when we pulled into our mountain home, even before we could park and plug in, was to mow the hayfield of a yard. Mike opened the mill and tried to start the mower to no avail. The battery was dead. That made our first order of priority a trip to town to buy a new battery. Forty-four dollars later Mike is in business and lots of critters were left homeless.

I’ll tell you what! So many grasshoppers and garden spiders and praying mantis’s! I saved a few from the mower blades, but I couldn’t save them all.

I know, I’m silly.

Mike washed the splattered bugs and road grime from the RV while I started cleaning the apartment in the mill. Two days later we moved from the RV into the apartment and we are settling in nicely. It’s nice to have a little more room to spread out.

Hey! Check out these egg sacks.

At least that’s what I think they are. The web holding them to the garage door kind of gives me the idea that they are from a spider although I’ve never seen egg sacks this large before. They are the size of walnuts! Mike was going to knock them off but I would let him. What do you think?

Guys, I have lots more stories to tell you but today is Tuesday, so rather than rush through the rest of my stories, let’s just call this one done.