42 Pictures!

         Hello, hello, hello!

         I know that Sunday has come and gone and you weren't expecting a visit from me this week, but after doing this for so many years, I just plain miss you! Doggone it!

         Mike and I took the girls and went on a ride-about — on the golf cart — on dirt roads we've never been on before. We got to the top of a hill and Mike stops, taking in the beauty of the valley before us.

         "We should have brought your mom out this way," Mike says, "she would have loved it."

         All I could do was agree with him. "Yes she would have."

         So, having said all of that, I'll show you some pictures from that day.

         Old cars... and trucks... and other things.

         Bittersweet Nightshade.

   

     

         A gas well named Kathryn.

         "Who names the wells?" I asked. "The landowner or the gas company?"

         But Mike didn't know.

         A lot of times they have people names like this one does. Across the road and down a ways is one named Redbone. A big landowner here simply uses his last name followed by a number.

         Columbine. There was some pink close by too.

         I took my letters down to the mailbox the other day and saw a dark spot in the back corner. Even with my Cadillac eyes I could see they were moving and I knew what they were.

         Ants!

         A colony of ants had taken up residence in our mailbox!

         "I wondered why there were always ants on the mail when I pulled it out," Mike said when I told him. He's tall and never bothered to look into the deep, dark, recesses of our huge mailbox. He took care of them.

         A bug on the milkweed. Last year the deer ate most all of the blossoms. Only a few survived.

         Which reminds me...

         We have been seeing, on the weather segment of our local nightly news that the Monarch Butterfly is in real trouble. The company that landscapes and maintains the backyard of the TV station (where the weather is broadcast from) is giving away milkweed seeds to everyone who stops by their greenhouse.

         I love that my very beautiful sister Phyllis always plants milkweed in her garden!

         Although this guy looks like a Monarch, he is not. He's a Viceroy, a Monarch look-alike. He piggybacks off the Monarch's reputation for being bitter tasting to the birds.

         "How do you know it's a Viceroy?" I hear you ask.

         Easy. Monarchs have two full rows of white spots on the wings; Viceroy's only have a row and a half.

         Birds can't count so the Viceroy is safe.

         Oh my gosh!

         Speaking of the pond, I was down there the other day and saw a water beetle skating around on the surface of the pond. I took several photos of him never seeing the threat stalking him. Do you see it too?

         A bee on the Multiflora Rose blossom. His saddlebags are full!  

       The blossoms are so fragrant! Sometimes I'll just stand there and inhale their sweet smell. And did you know that you can use the hips from the Multiflora Rose bushes just like any other rose hip?

   

  

       A daisy with a bug on it. I love the daisies.

         Pinecones?

         Our cherry tree is full of cherries! But we didn't spray for

worms and we don't have a bird net, so at least for another year, the birds can have them.

         The berries are coming on. These will be raspberries.

         I don't know what these are.

         This guy is called a Clover Looper.

         Let's switch things up a little.

         We have a rail line down in Wyalusing and the gas companies get their supplies in by rail-car, which means graffiti is always changing.

         "What's that one say? Barack Obama?" Mike asked.

         I had to take a picture of it and zoom in to see. "It says... Dank Burma? Whatever that means.

         Ins't the hmuan mnid wndorfuel and amzanig! Gvie it a coplue of lerttes and ilt'l flil in the blnaks. Taht's why eevn if you mses up all the lerttes you can sitll raed it whoutit a pboerlm as lnog as you keep the frsit and lsat ltteer in the rhgit pclae.

         A barn quilt.

         Okay, back to flowers and critters.

         The Kipp's were visiting the other morning when a bird catches Rosie's attention. "There's that bird with a white stripe on his tail," she said. "We have looked in all of our bird books and we can't identify it."

         "I'll Google it for you," I told her.

         I didn't see the bird so I had to ask for a better description. "Which way does the stripe run? Horizontal across all the tail feathers or vertical like it's just one white feather?"

         Rosie thought about it for a second. "Vertical."

      I searched and searched the images on Google and I couldn't find it. I changed all the words in the search box and nothing new was coming up. Finally, in frustration, I clicked on a black bird with a white stripe running across his tail feathers and jackpot! This one came up. 

        I haven't shown Rosie and Lamar the picture yet, but if this is what they've been seeing, it's a Great-tailed Grackle. The stripe is a variation. My search says this about the grackle. The great-tailed grackle or Mexican grackle is a medium-sized, highly social passerine bird native to North and South America. Passerine? What does that mean? I had to look it up. Passerine is an adjective meaning: relating or belonging to a group of mainly perching songbirds, which forms the largest order of birds including more than half of all bird species.

         Speaking of birds...

         Bird on a wire.

         I think that was also the name of a Goldie Hawn/Mel Gibson movie.

         This is a Purple Martin.

         "I thought Purple Martins were all shiny blue-black all over," you say.

         That's true — if you're a male. The females have lighter under parts.

         Purple Martins spend the winter in South America but come north to breed. They show up in Florida as early as January but in our part of the country we won't see them until April or May. These birds are aerial insectivores, which mean they catch their food in flight. If you ever see a group of them hunting, they are fascinating to watch.

         Here's Callie enjoying the warmth of the sun. Since the spring, she doesn't stay in the cat room anymore and won't let me get close to her.

         I made concrete leaves a few years ago. You can stand them against the porch for decoration or you can fill them with birdseed or turn it into a watering station for butterflies and birds...

         Or cats.

         Speaking of cats...

         That Spitfire got another baby bunny. It was dead by the time I found him but I wouldn't have taken it away from him even if it weren't. Not after that last fiasco! I tried to save the babies and they were ungrateful enough to die on me!

         Everyone knows this guy!

         He's a Daddy Longlegs also called Harvestmen. These spiders never build webs. If you ever see one with tiny yellow, orange, or red blobs stuck on his body or legs, they're mites parasitizing him.

         I was happy to see this one! We had this one in Missouri too. It's called Smooth Beardtongue or Foxglove.

         "Why are you happy to see it?" you ask.

         I was worried I wouldn't see many different wildflowers in my limited world. I don't get out and walk as much as I used to.

         Mike and I were on the golf cart the other day, going out back for something or another and a deer takes off. I had my camera but by the time I took a picture all I got was the tail before she was gone. No big deal. We've all seen enough deer that no one is going to miss it if they don't see another picture of one. Reviewing my photos on the camera I see the rock has ears. See it?

         Speaking of babies...

         The cows have babies.

         I love the babies!

         And I love the cows!

  

         This is Lupine. There's a ton of it across the road from where I took this picture and I suspect it was an escapee. There are over 200 species of this flower and they are in the legume family.

         I thought these leaves were pretty and this is my current desktop photo.

                 We were going down Welles Mountain and I spot this flowering bush alongside the road. At first glance I thought they might be Multiflora Rose but soon realized they were different. The flowers were bigger and closer together.

         I snapped a picture on the fly. "Can we stop on the way back?" I asked.

         Mike is a good husband and on the way home he found a pull off close enough for me to walk back and get a few pictures. As soon as I saw the leaves I knew what it was. My mother had planted a whole bunch of these beside our back porch one year.

         Aren't they pretty?

         "Okay," you say. "What is it?"

         This is Mountain Laurel, Pennsylvania's state flower!

          I was working out in the glass shop last week when my phone rang.

         "Can you get the golf cart and pull me out?" Mike asked.

         "Sure."
         "I'm down at the pond, near where you let Ginger chase frogs," he said.

         I got my camera and the golf cart and went to rescue my husband who was afraid to get off the mower cause, "...there might be snakes."

         LOL.

         I got him pulled out and went back to work only to get another call five minutes later. He was stuck —again.

         Husbands!

         Well my loves, I have a few more pictures and a few more short stories to share with you but let's save them for next time.

         I'll end this with another sunset that me and my best buddy Ginger watched together.

         You are all in my heart.

         Let's call this one done!

No Worse For Wear

        We had rainy days again this past week. My irises are finally blooming! Yay! 

        It seems like up here on the mountain everything takes a week or more longer to bloom than it does down in town. For instance, the black locust trees have bloomed and are dropping their petals already but up here on the mountain they are just now starting to bloom. (Pictures to come.)

         And since we are speaking of rain...

         It rained — and the sun came out. I thought there would be a rainbow so I went out to look — no rainbow. The rain stopped. A few hours later the rain started again. When the sun came back out I went to look for a rainbow again — still no rainbow and the rain stopped. A little while later I hear the pitter-patter of rain on the roof and don't you know, the sun came out again!

         Should I go out again and look? I debated with myself. I almost didn't go but ultimately, the thought of missing out on a rainbow compelled me to action. I grabbed my camera and out I went.

         As they say, third time's a charm. I got my rainbow shot, right over the top of our house.

         I have been working hard this past week making things for the car show, which is next Sunday, June eleventh. I've rented booth space to set up and sell glass suncatchers as well as a few of the other things I've been making these last couple of months. And this might be a good place to tell you that because of the aforementioned show, I have no idea if I'll get a letter blog out next week or not. But anyway, there I was, drilling holes in a few glass pieces for the Long Dangly I was making, and the high pitched squeal the diamond bit made as it cut its way through the first hole, or maybe it was the second, was more than my poor ears could stand.

         Silly! I admonished myself. Get your earplugs! I reached up, turned off my Dremel, and went in search of the earplugs, which didn't take long, I kinda knew where to look. On the way back to the drill press I glanced out the window and ran for my camera.

         Mike's attention went from the TV to me as I rushed into our apartment, "Mike! Do you see what this is right there?" I asked as I pointed to a dark spot steadily moving across the monitor mounted on the wall over the TV.

         "What?" he asked.

         "It's a snapper!"

         "Holy cow. It's a big one!"

         "I know right! I'm going to take his picture." I got my camera from the table and headed for the door.

         "Be careful, Peg!" he calls after me. "If he gets a hold of you he won't let go! And they can move fast!"

         I went out and took a few pictures from a distance then Mike comes out with the snow shovel and flips old Mr. Snapper over onto his back, and boy! did that piss him off! But it didn't take long for him to push his head back against the ground and right himself.

         With my eyes I traced a path in the direction he'd come from. "Did he come from Jon's pond?" I asked but of course there isn't any way for Mike to know the answer to that question. With my eyes I traced a path in the direction he was heading. "Is he heading for our pond?"

         "I don't know but I don't want him in our pond," Mike says. "You let Ginger chase frogs down there and if he gets a hold of her he could kill her."

         "What are you going to do with him?"

         "Let's take him down to the creek."

         "Okay.... How?" I asked and in the theater of my mind, an old movie started to unspool. Pop was a good storyteller but I don't remember anymore of the story than just the gist of it: My father, driving a car, happens upon a big old snapper in the road. Thinking he would take it home for... turtle soup maybe, put the snapper in the trunk of his car. By the time he'd gotten to wherever he was going, the turtle had ripped out all the wires in the trunk.

         "How about the live trap?" Mike asked.

         Another movie loaded up in this weird, quirky brain of mine. This time it was of Mike trying to put the snapper in the live trap and for the life of me, I couldn't see how he would get that done. The turtle was nearly as big as the opening of the trap and I didn't think he'd go in willingly.

         I headed out to do Mike's bidding and on the way I spied a large trashcan. "How about a trashcan?" I yelled across the yard.

         "That might be better," Mike yelled back and I breathed a sigh of relief. I was sure I was in danger of losing a finger as I held the live trap door open for him.

         I ripped the bag from the 30-gallon outdoor trashcan, threw it aside, and carried the can out to where Mike was standing guard over Mr. Snapper. Every time Mike tried to get behind the turtle, he'd turn around. Eventually my snapper-wrangler managed to wrangle the snapper into the trashcan and no one lost any fingers in the deal! I know right! It's always a good thing when no one looses any fingers!

         Catching critters in one area and relocating them to another is illegal. I know that and you know that. But we didn't take Mr. Snapper out of the area, we just moved him past our pond and down to the creek.

         I have, since then, learned many interesting things about snappers and the most interesting thing is this: snappers aren't a bad thing to have in your pond! They eat any dead fish you may have, in which case he would starve in our pond! We don't have any fish. Do you know how I know? Last year the pond was completely dried up (sad face emoji). They will eat frogs and water plants, worms, snakes, snails, bugs, and an occasional baby duck. They mostly can't catch a healthy fish.

         I found out that there is a wrong way and several right ways to handle a snapper. The wrong way? By the tail! Their tail is a part of their vertebral column and it's highly possible you can dislocate or even worse yet, break it, thereby causing him to die.

         The right way, or one right way, is to slide both hands under the hind end of the shell, letting the turtle’s tail dangle between them and grab him there. They have almost natural handles there on the carapace. You can turn him around and pull him off the road — but don't forget to turn him back around and you should always take him in the direction he was heading.

         "If he gets a hold of you, he won't let go!" Mike warned.

         During the course of my investigation, I stumbled on a You Tube video by a man named Coyote Peterson who took on a snapper. He wanted to test out three ways to get a snapper to release its hold on you. Coyote went through the three ways: pour water on him, completely submerge him, or as a last resort use rubbing alcohol. "It won't hurt them, but they don't like the taste and they'll spit you out." They glued a piece of dowel rod to the side of his hand and he teased the snapper into biting him. The snapper missed the dowel rod and got all flesh. Coyote yelled. "It's incredibly painful," he said through gritted teeth. His buddy tried pouring water on the turtle but it just made him bite down harder. Coyote stifled another cry of agony. "You know what? We're going right to the alcohol." He had his buddy pour a little rubbing alcohol onto his hand and it ran down into the snappers mouth and sure enough — he let go! And spit out a fountain of rubbing alcohol.

         Here's the link if you're interested enough to go look.

         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F57z6ya-rnA

         In May I showed you what a baby dragonfly looked like. Like a true ugly duckling, these 'bugs' have turned into beautiful winged dragonflies.

         This one is called a Twelve-spotted Skimmer.

         "Why's that?" I hear you ask.

         I know right! I wondered the same thing! I count way more than twelve spots! Let's see...

         Three black and two white spots on each of four wings...

         Yeah! My math might be rusty but that's way more than twelve!

         Well! Don'tcha know, the spots are brown, not black, and they don't count the white ones because only the males have white spots.

         I got two different dragonflies in this shot, the Twelve-spotted is sitting on the twig behind another dragonfly, and I don't know what his name is.

         Here's another photo of my Spatterdock, a pond lily.

         Let's move on to pictures from a recent ride-about.

         Another barn quilt.

          The neighbor's shed, after a tree fell on the roof.

          The fallen-in front porch of an old house.

          Daisies!

         I love the daisies!

         And this is my current desktop photo.

         Another neighbor's barn.

         These pretty little yellow flowers are called Celandine and they are in the poppy family, sometimes even being called Wood Poppy.

          "Peg! Can I mow under your clothesline?" Mike asked.

         "NO!"

         I know the grass is getting tall and you can't really tell by my picture but the Meadow Hawkweed is so pretty.

          "Looks like a dandelion to me," Mike grumbled. 

         A couple of three nights ago, in the early evening hours, I was standing outside with my girls Itsy and Ginger and I heard a high-pitched scream that sounded vaguely bird-like. Across the yard came Spitfire and even though I couldn't see that he had something — dang these Cadillac eyes! — there's nothing wrong with my hearing.

         "What'cha got there Buddy?" I asked when I got close. I call him Buddy more than I do Spitfire. He dropped it. It was a baby rabbit and I took it away from him.

         I know! I know! Don't judge. I've always said, "If they catch it, they can have it," but finding a nest of baby bunnies isn't the same thing as hunting. I carried the baby in the house and showed it to Mike.

         "Let the cat have it!" Mike said, unmoved by its cuteness.

         "No. But if he found the nest, he'll get them all."

         By the time I'd gotten back outside I heard the screams of another baby and Spitfire came trotting in with a second baby rabbit. He dropped it for me and I took it away from him. 

             He headed back out and I followed. He'd found the nest in the tall weeds by the upper barn. It took him a little while but about twenty minutes later, just as I was getting ready to call it a night and head back in the house, I heard the screams of a terrified baby rabbit.

          Have you ever heard a baby rabbit scream? It tugs on the strings of a mother's heart, that's for sure.

         I made my way, as quickly as I could, through the weeds to where he was but one of the other cats, attracted by the screams, got there before me. Spitfire growled a warning and bit down harder on the baby. I made Spitfire turn him loose and I scooped him up and put him in my shirt with the two other babies.

         When I got back to the house and saw the third baby was mortally wounded, I gave him to Sugar and Callie. The others were still up on the hill, looking for more babies, I presume. I don't know which one got him, but I never heard a peep out of him as they didn't fool around and finished it off quickly.

         I wasn't mad. The cats are just being cats and it's what they do, and they can do it all day long to mice as far as I'm concerned. Big mice, little mice, adult mice or baby mice, I don't care. And honestly, as far as rabbits go, it probably wouldn't hurt the population one bit the few they're gonna get. I just wish they wouldn't torment them before they kill them.

         And my cats are not hungry.

         I put the babies in a box and contacted Angie Colarusso at the Second Chance Wildlife Rehab Center. "If their eyes are open they need minimal care. Just solid food like romaine lettuce or leaf lettuce," she told me. "Then release in a day or so."

         The next morning, I'm once again outside with Itsy and Ginger and I hear the now all too familiar screams of a baby rabbit. I headed for the upper barn and Feisty came trotting down. She started to head away from me and I called her, her head dipped then she turned and came to me. By the time I could see if she had anything in her mouth, she didn't. I stood and watched for a moment. Feisty went back to the spot where her head had dipped then came away, then went back again. I went to investigate and that's when I found the baby, right where she'd dropped it. This one was older and likely already out of the nest.

         The two young rabbits didn't make it past the afternoon. Stress kills them. The older rabbit Mike and I took up into the field and let go.

          This is a kind of butterfly called a Small Skipper.

         Although the Multiflora Rose is an invasive plant, and I personally think they're evil, they still smell so sweet.

         I don't know what this one is.

          This little guy sang me the sweetest song!

         A piece of farm equipment called a disc or disk harrow.

         Just a barn and a pretty blue sky.

         Yesterday, Mike and I got a distress call from one of our neighbors.

         "Need help," the text read.

         Mike jumped on the golf cart and went to see how he could help Jon Robinson. "I had to go in the barn for something and I didn't want to get my feet wet going through the tall grass," Jon told me. "So I drove up under the awning.

         The awning came down and thank goodness for the roll bar on his tractor. It saved Jon from being hurt but he needed Mike to help him get the tractor out.

         Mike brought the golf cart back up to the house and got his tractor to lift the awning from Jon's.

         As Jon and I sat there talking there was a crash and the awning came down.

         "Want me to help?" Mike offered.

         "Naw, I'll finish knocking it down later," Jon told him.

         And as if that wasn't quite enough excitement for one day, I'm sitting here, in front of my computer, sorting photographs for today's blog, when Mike comes walking in the door. He'd been out mowing.
            Funny, I thought, I didn't hear him come back with the mower.

         He walked in, shut the door behind him, put his hands on his hips, stood there, and looked at me.

         "What's wrong?" I asked.

         "I need your help."

         "What did you do?" But I already kinda knew.

         "I put the mower in the ditch," he stated flatly.

         We got on the golf cart and as we headed out I asked, "How did you do that?"

         "Well, I was mowing the weeds by the driveway and it was muddy where they dug the ditch out. It was slippery so I was going slow, and I thought I could get a little closer but the wheels started to slip and it was like slow motion — and I slid down into the ditch."

         Mike used the golf cart to pull it out and it's no worse for wear.

         Let's call this one done!