2017 Wyoming County Fair

         Although it has been another quiet week in the Luby household, I guess I'd better not use that title again. Despite having searched my story titles, I've used it twice now. I could have come up with a more creative title last week except my brain was tired and I just didn't feel like thinking about it. Is that bad?

        

         You see the back of this Yorkie head?

         It's Itsy.

         You see the black speck in front of this Yorkie head?

         It's a poor little bee.

         Itsy is watching him for any signs of life. She spent hours and hours and hours worrying this poor little guy to death. Every time he'd twitch a leg she'd run over, pick him up, bite him, and drop him real quick, then she'd sit back and watch.

         I bet you a million bucks that she spent the good part of six hours at this self-appointed task.

         That sounds a little obsessive-compulsive doesn't it.

         Maybe it runs in the family.

         Speaking of which, "How is your flea battle coming along?" you wonder.

         Yeah. I can be a little obsessive-compulsive when it comes to catching and killing those little blood suckers.

         We are at the end of a month on taking the new medications I bought for the animals. All month long I've seen a marked decrease in the number of fleas I comb out of them. The most I get anymore is like six, but more often than not, it's only two or three and sometimes none at all!

         However, there are a couple of qualifiers to that statement too.

         First, they also had their last tube of K9 Advantix applied to their necks at the beginning of August. I'm not sure how much that factors into it because by the end of July, the month before, the little girls had tons of fleas on them.

         Second, and lastly, the weather is cooler. Fleas are not as active in cool weather as they are in hot weather.

  

         I found this guy crawling along the patio early last week.

 I picked him up and took a picture of his face (cause I know you want to see it), then I took him over to the weeds where he would be much happier. At least, that's what I hoped.

         Because of his distinctive black hair sticking up all over the place he wasn't hard to identify.

         Once he goes through the change, he will be an American Dagger Moth.

         The Velvetleaf has dried and you can see the seeds inside the pods.

 I shook one out into my hand and as you can see the seeds are almost heart-shaped.

         The Wyoming County Fair started on Wednesday. The first and last days are Senior Citizen's Day and anyone 62 or older gets in free. 

          We went the first day.

         Mostly just for the food.

         The first thing we did was rent a scooter for Mike. Too much walking makes his back hurt and that takes all the fun out of going to the fair.

         We walked around a little while, taking inventory of all the different vendors there. The sun was hot and in my eyes and I fervently wished I'd brought my sunhat. I'd thought about it before we got in the Jeep, but didn't do it. Then I saw a tent with sunhats in it. "I'm going to buy one," I told Mike. "I wish I'd have brought mine."

         So I've got a new sunhat. I wanted purple piping but had to settle for pink piping and a purple band.

         After that it was time to hit the food. I've been looking forward to the pierogies made by the church ladies for a whole year now, so that was the first thing I had to eat.

         "How were they?" you ask.

         We didn't think they were as good this year. Normally they are swimming in butter but the lady serving them up had drained all the butter from them and they seemed dry.

         I know! I know! Butter is not good for my waistline or my gall bladder, but I do so love butter and it would've been worth a belly ache.

         Right next to the church ladies pierogie stand was a trailer full of diapers manned by the employees of Proctor and Gamble, makers of Pampers. If you stop they will give you a sample of diapers and sometimes they give you some baby wipes too.

         I stopped and asked for the largest size they had, which was a six, and they gave me two of each of the three styles they had.

         "Peg! What do you want with diapers?" you ask.

         Inside the diapers, the thing that makes them absorbent, are tiny crystals called AGM, Absorbent Gel Material. These crystals absorb tons of water. You can take the diaper apart, collect the crystals and mix them with potting soil to help retain moisture in your houseplants. I'd never go buy diapers for this project but I'd certainly accept a few samples from P&G!

         Our next stop was Mike's favorite, Italian sausage. He has one vendor that he especially likes and luckily he was there again this year.

         Another of my favorite things to do at the fair is to check out the used book vendor. I seldom buy any books these days but I still like to look. I thought I'd see if there were any craft books or maybe books on identifying critters or plants, but all I found was a cloth-bound journal, new, that they let go for a dollar. I'm getting down to the last few pages of the notebook where I make notes throughout the week on things to write about. A notebook at Walmart would cost me that or maybe more. Yeah. Definitely more if I were to buy a journal and not just a notebook.

         Mike checked out the other vendors in the building and met me back at the book table just as I was paying for my journal. I tucked it in the basket of his scooter and we walked on.

         "You know who that is?" I asked Mike.

         "Who?"

         "That guy right down there with all the woodcrafts?"

         "No. Who?"

         "That's Jon Robinson's brother."

         About that time we were there. "Hello!" I called to him in my cheery sing-song voice.

         "Hello!" he answered just as cheerfully back.

         "Are you a Robinson?" I asked.

         "I am!" he replied and that was all it took. Mike and Jim talked and talked and talked!

         I wandered around and checked out the woodcrafts Jim had for sale. I thought these three-in-one high chairs were clever. They can be a chair, a rocker, or a desk, depending on which way you turn it.

         I spent some time reading the sayings on the wooden plaques.

         Sing to Him A NEW SONG: Psalm 33:3 reminded me of my beautiful redheaded neighbor, Rosie. She loves the Lord and she loves birds.

         Rosie sings. In church. On Sunday's. But I don't know that she loves to sing so I won't say that.

         Right next to it was one with three owls, a little one on a bigger one on the biggest one.

         FIRST we had each other, Then we had YOU, now we have EVERY THING, it read and that reminded me of our son Kevin, his wife Kandyce, and our grandson Andrew. And I smiled.

         Next to that was one that says: READ ME A STORY, Tuck me in tight, Say a sweet PRAYER AND Kiss me Good Night.

         This one brought a flood of emotions. Kevin and Kandyce read bedtime stories to Andrew, this I know. And I think that's important. But I read bedtime stories to my children too. And the words of my daughter Kat came unbidden to my mind. I remember falling asleep to your voice reading me and Kevin wonderful stories.

         And I was sad.

         But I wasn't allowed to stay sad for very long.

         A hardy laugh breaks through my reverie. I look up.

         "Hey Bill," a big beefy guy says and nudges the smaller, slightly built man he had been walking with. They both stop and he goes back a step or two and picks up one of the wooden plaques from the table where I stood and holds it up in front of him. "We should get this for Sarge."

         I read the sign. I SMILE BECAUSE I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHAT'S GOING ON

        I glanced at the other guy as he finished reading it, taking in his uniform with an American flag on the arm, and he lets out a great big guffaw.

         "You know someone like that?" Security? I wondered. Or EMTs?

         They both laughed and spoke at the same time.

         "Yeah."

         "Yeah, we do."

         "Well then, you should buy it for him," I said and started to walk away. "He could put it on his desk."

         "How much is it?" the big, beefy guy asked and flipped the sign over. "Seven-fifty."

         "You could split it and it wouldn't be that much each."

         "Maybe later," he said and put the sign back in its place. "I'm not going to carry it around with me."

         And they walked on.

         Mike finished conversing with Jim Robinson and we walked on.

         This was my next stop.

         Inside a port-a-john I see Satellite Industries embossed in the plastic and I thought of my beautiful sister Phyllis. That's the company she works for.

         I'll have to tell her, and I made a mental note to myself.

         We walked on.

         I snapped a picture of the chainsaw carvers and remembered the time Mike and I had taken Momma to the fair. That was the best time ever. We had so much fun watching the lumberjack show and the high school rodeo.

         My next stop was to get an apple dumpling — with a dab of vanilla ice cream. Mike and I shared a piece. It doesn't have as many calories in it when you share, don't you know.

         Then we shared a piece of cheesecake. New York style, the sign proclaimed! It was a small piece and way overpriced.

         "Where's the topping?" Mike asked when I carried the naked piece back to where he waited.

         "If it's good cheesecake it doesn't need any topping," I told him.

         Yeah.

         I should have gotten cherries or something on it. It wasn't very good. In fact I wanted to throw the last few bites away. "It's not that bad," Mike said and finished it off.

         We walked on.

         The lady selling sugared nuts was hawking her wares. "You want to try a free sample," she called.

         "Sure," I said and held out my hand. She dropped a sugar cinnamon almond into my hand and I popped it into my mouth.

         "Very good," I told her, but I already knew they were. I love those things. "I'll be back to get some before I leave." I bet everyone tells her that with no intention of following through.

         "Where's the nuts?" Mike asked when I caught up to him empty handed.

         "I'll get them later."

         "Just get'em now."

         "Okay," I said and turned on my heel. "My husband says to get them now," I told the lady and plucked a medium size bag from the basket and dropped it on the counter.

         "Seven dollars," she said.

         I paid her.

         Walking away and thinking about the fair and things I wanted to write about, I was struck with a horrid thought. "Mike, I forgot to take a picture of the pierogies for my story!"

         "Yeah?"

         "Yeah. Now I have to get more!"

         Dagnabbit! It just broke my heart to have to eat three more pierogies! This time I asked for them not to drain all of the butter off, and after taking a picture for you, I took a bite. Much better but I couldn't really enjoy them. I was already full to bursting so I asked Mike to help me eat them.

         "I should've just taken a picture of someone else's pierogies!" I thought of way too late to be of any use.

         Our two-hour scooter rental time was almost up. "Seen enough?" Mike asked.

         "Yep, let's go."

         "Head'er to the ranch?" he asked, channeling a line from one of the westerns that he watches in the afternoons.

         "Yep."

         We returned the scooter and headed for home. On the way we went back through a construction zone.

         "It looks like they're driving pylons in," Mike observed. "Maybe the road is slipping."

         We don't travel this way very often so our guess was the only thing we had to go on.

         That night we made plans to do our shopping the next day. Mike had an envelope of documents that he needed to mail to Missouri, and since I'd have to take them in to the desk to be weighed, "I might just as well mail Momma her stories too," I told Mike. My mother reads my letter blogs on the computer but she likes to have a printed version for her collection. So when I have five or six stories I mail them to her.

         "What time do you want to leave in the morning?" Mike asked as I was getting everything ready for the mail.

         "Not before eight," I told him. "The post office won't be open before that.

         Thursday we woke up early, like we do most mornings, without the aid of an alarm clock. I let the girls out first thing then coffee is the next thing on my morning routine. Then I fed the critters, poured Mike's cereal, and sat down in front of my computer with coffee and last night's leftover popcorn for my breakfast.

         "Popcorn! For breakfast!" you exclaim.

         One morning I didn't feel like making oatmeal, I saw the leftover popcorn sitting there, and I thought of something my mother told me, "Your great grandmother would eat leftover popcorn with milk and sugar on it for breakfast."

         I couldn't bring myself to pour milk or sugar on it, but it's a whole grain, low in calories, since I air pop it, so why not? And it's been my thing every since then.

         I munched on my popcorn while I opened my email program and typed out my morning love to my sister Phyllis, a habit I'd gotten into after the loss of our daughter Kat.

         Good morning my dear sweet sister, I wrote. Yesterday, at the fair, I used a port-a-potty made by Satellite Industries! I thought of you when I peed. You couldn't ask for a higher compliment than that, could you. This one had a wash station right inside! Yeah, I thought. And it was crowded too! But I didn't tell her that. Instead I said, If I could have stepped on the pedal while I was sitting, I could have washed my hands at the same time! Kinda would defeat the purpose then I guess. LOL! I let my mind drift as I tried to think of something else to tell her and I thought of Kat.

         I don't want to make you sad by talking about Kat, I told her on what would have been Kat's thirty-seventh birthday.

         You can always talk about or mention Kathy to me, she told me. She is always in my heart.

         So I let the sadness of losing our daughter well up inside me again and spill out onto the note I was writing to my daughter's other mother. Anyway. Life goes on. One minute, one hour, one day at a time. I still miss Kat, terribly sometimes. Horribly, other times. And with just a little ache the rest of the times. I ended the morning's note with a simple I love you. I couldn't bear to use any of the light and silly banter we often end our notes with. I love you mucho taco loco, is one of my favorites Phyllis used and made me smile. She comes up with some good ones sometimes.

         Breakfast over, teeth brushed, hair combed, we head out for our day of shopping. First stop, mail two packages. We pulled into the Wyalusing Post Office at ten after eight. I got out and went up to the door, opened it and went through the lobby to the office door. It was locked and dark inside. Open at 8:30, the sign read. I turned around and went back out to the truck.

         "It doesn't open until eight thirty!" I told Mike as I climbed in.

         "Well, what time is it?" he asked and glanced at the dashboard clock. "We'll stop at Ulster."

         I buckled my seatbelt and Mike put the truck in gear. We were picking up a few pieces of drywall so we had Big Red. "We could stop at Wysox," I commented.

         "The one in Ulster is on the same side of the road," Mike justified. "I won't have to cross traffic."

         We pass the post office at Wysox and the one in Towanda, but we weren't even considering stopping there as parking is a nightmare. At Ulster I climb out of Big Red and enter the lobby of the post office. The inner office was dark and the door was locked. Open at 9:30 the sign read.

         "Not open until 9:30," I told Mike.

         Milan is the next little town with a post office but as Mike pulled off the road, I looked in the windows. "It looks dark in there," I told him and didn't even get out of the truck to check. "We could go find the post office in Sayre or Athens," I suggested. We didn't know where they were but I'm sure our GPS could find them.

         "Naw, we'll just stop on the way home."

         We had a light shopping day, a Burger King lunch, and by eleven-thirty we were headed for home. Mike pulled off in Milan to mail the packages. I got out and went in. Open at 12:30 read the sign in the office window. I shook my head and carried the packages back out.

         We breezed on past the post office in Ulster because we were preoccupied with something else. Deliberately bypassed the one in Towanda and Mike pulled over in Wysox. For the umpteenth time I climbed down out of the truck and carried the packages in only to be confronted with another sign.

         I went back out to the truck. "You're not going to believe this," I told Mike as I climbed back in with the packages. "Closed for lunch."

         "You've got to be kidding me."

         "Nope!"

         We ended up back where we started. The Wyalusing Post Office.  

         The next day we regaled the Kipps with our woes over mailing those packages.

         "Imagine that! A post office that doesn't open until 12:30!" I exclaimed incredulous.

         "Well, that's what happens when they're in debt," Rosie said.

         "They have to cut back on manpower and hours," Lamar added.

         "How does it work when I get in my vehicle, use my gas to drive to the post office, and pick up my mail from a box I have to pay for, and yet they'll drive out here, in their car, with their gas, and deliver my mail for free?"

         Lamar laughed. "That's just how the government works."

         I've only got one more picture to show you this time.

         I had another yellow visitor to the patio this week. This one is a yellow woolly bear caterpillar.

         Let's call this one done!

         And remember, you are all in my heart.

A Quiet Week

         Not too much happening around the Luby household this past week.

         "What about the eclipse, Peg? Did you take any pictures?" you ask.

         Well, yes I did. But here's the thing. You can't just take pictures of the sun with your camera unprotected or you risk damaging it. Solar filters can be expensive and for a one-time use, I didn't want to spend the money. Besides, I justified, it'll be broadcast all over the TV anyway. There'll be tons of photos out there.

         A week or so before the eclipse I Googled 'homemade solar filters' and found out I could have sent for a sheet of the solar filter and made one to fit over the end of my camera, which wouldn't have been very much money, but now I'd waited too long.

         On the day of the eclipse, I fit my solar glasses over the end of my camera and took pictures that way. I couldn't use my zoom so I cropped the photos.

         Here in Pennsylvania, we only had 70 some percent coverage and we had clouds. Because of that and what I had to work with, this was the best I got.

  

       Like I said, it was quiet around here. Mike and I worked most days, went shopping one...

         Boy-oh-boy!

         Shopping, around here, is an all day trip. Especially if we need to go to both Lowe's and Home Depot. We left here at eight o'clock in the morning, stopped for breakfast, then went to Walmart and Lowe's in Athens, jumped on the highway and drove to Vestal, New York for Home Depot, Aldi's, gas, and a pizza lunch. On the way home we stopped at the Cabin Country Store.

  

       Betsy, the owner, remembered me — remembered my name even! — from four or five years ago when I sold her a few pieces.

         "Are you interested in buying any suncatchers?" I asked.

         "I can't right now," she told me. "We just put in a bakery and that's got us tapped out. I'd love to though."

         We chatted with Betsy for a while and bought a few cookies. "I never use shortening in my baking," she said as she bagged our cookies. "I use butter, sometimes lard, but never shortening."

         Before we left, Betsy had a thought. "Give me your phone number. Maybe I can buy a few pieces just before Christmastime."

         I am pleased with that. It gives me a reason to go out into my shop and make some pretties.

         That doesn't sound like so much shopping does it?

         Well, it's a 125 mile round trip and it was after four when we drove in our driveway. That's an eight-hour shopping trip. It makes me miss the old days, when we lived in Missouri and we had a Lowe's, Home Depot, and Walmart all within a five mile radius, as well as plenty of eating places and gas stations.

<<<<<>>>>> 

         Mike and I had gone to the Robinsons one evening this past week and I noticed they had some pretty pink flowers growing at the edge of the pond.

         "What are they?" I asked Jon Robinson.

         He thought for a moment, "I forget right now. But we can go look at them."

         I never got close enough to the pink ones to take a picture but there were lots of other pretty flowers down there.

         "A cardinal flower!" I exclaimed when I saw the bright red peeking from the tall grasses at the pond's edge.

         Cardinal flowers depend on hummingbirds for pollination because the long necks of the trumpet-shaped flowers are more than most insects can navigate.

         The finely ground roots of this Native American wildflower 

were once traditionally used as aphrodisiacs and love potions, but the plant is toxic if eaten in large quantities.

         "Look at these pods!" I was so excited finding new things to photograph and explore.

         Stephanie Robinson picked one and broke it open. The seeds were flat and all lined up.

         "What is it?" you ask.

         This is the seedpod of the yellow water iris.

          This plant is both harmful and beneficial. In some places it can take over and crowd out the other plants, which makes it invasive, but it is useful in that it can take up heavy metals and clean the water.

         "My mother planted all kinds of flowers," Jon Robinson told me.

         I think this one is a beardtongue.

         This one? I don't know. A yellow coneflower maybe?

         Even plain old pinecones capture my attention.

         Back at our place I see the Wild Cucumber has set its pods.

         They hang all in a row like Christmas tree lights. Once they dry I'll show you what they look like on the inside.

>>>>><<<<< 

         Michael was mowing on Friday. I thought to get a little quiet reading done. I got my Bible, a cup of coffee, a folding lawn chair, Itsy and Ginger, and I'd no sooner gotten set up in the sunshine when the mower stops. I glance down to where Mike had been mowing at the pond and he waves for me to, "Come here." I put the girls on the golf cart and we went to his rescue.

         "Stuck?" I asked.

         "I don't know. It won't go."

         He hooked the tow strap to the mower (the other end is always left hooked to the golf cart) and I pulled. I hadn't gone very far when I hear, "Whoa, whoa, whoa!"

         I stopped.

         "I think it's broke," Mike said. "Either that or there's something caught up under it, keeping it from going."

         We both got down on the ground. "There's a belt off," I said.

         "I see it too." Mike thought about it for a moment. "Let's go get the ramps and pull the mower up on it."

         We left the mower in the middle of the yard and got the ramps. "You have to do it," I told Mike. No way was I going to. My luck, I wouldn't stop and I'd pull the mower right up and over them!

         Once the back wheels of the mower were on the ramps, and the mower securely tied to the golf cart, Mike got down on the ground and checked it out. "I'm going to need some tools," he says and starts rattling off a list. "...and get that two by four to block the front tires with," he ends.

         "You better come with me and help get all that stuff." I knew I wasn't going to remember everything he wanted and I certainly couldn't carry it all by myself.

         "Yeah, I will."

         He crawls out from under the mower and we head for the garage. "I don't know why a belt being off would have anything to do with the driving gears."

         I was quiet, not having any insights into the situation.

         "Unless the belt drives the hydraulics... that could be it," he adds.

         We gather everything Mike thinks he'll need and walk back out across the yard to where we left the golf cart anchoring the mower up on the ramps. Mike got down on the ground and scooted under the mower. He takes the pulley off and hands me the screw and washers to keep safe, then he figures out how the belt should run and when he tries to put the pulley back on, he can't get it.

         "There isn't enough room under here," he says. He comes back out from underneath it and thinks for a moment. "Let's get the floor jack."

         Back up to the garage we go, get the floor jack and drag it down through the yard.

         "You watch the back wheels and make sure they aren't coming off the ramps," Mike says, then adds a warning. "But don't stand too close in case it comes off there."

         Mike jacked it up while I watched the back like he told me to.

         "They didn't move," I reported when he had the jack the whole way up.

         We stood back.

         "That looks safe," I said sarcastically.

         Mike went around to the side and rocked the mower. It really was pretty solid. "It's not going anywhere," he said.

         Back down on the ground Mike went, scooting up under the mower again. "Where's that pulley?" he asks and I hand it to him.

         "Oh my gosh. I feel like I'm going to be sick," Mike says and in the next instant he comes shooting out from under the mower and he sits up. "I don't know what's wrong. I felt like I was going to throw up."

         "Yeah. That's your better sense keeping you safe. Maybe you shouldn't be under there."

         After a minute or so Mike tried again, but he'd no sooner gotten in position when he came back out. "I can't do it." He had to wait a few minutes for his innards to settle back down and in the meantime, he was thinking, not buying my "keeping you safe" story at all. "I think it's because my head is going downhill." He paused and I could tell he was thinking it out. "There's not room for me to come from the other direction with that jack there...."

         "We could put blocks under the tires and take the jack out," I suggested.

         "What kind of blocks?" he asked.

         "Cement blocks, or we have lots of two by sixes."

         So we unhooked the golf cart and went to get blocks.

         It took some doing but we did get the mower blocked up and with Mike going in from the other direction, he was able to get the belt on the pulley and the pulley put back on. Then we had to reverse the process and take the blocks out.

         Once back on the ground Mike started the mower and I held my breath as he engaged the forward gears.

         And it worked! He was back in the lawn mowing business.

         "You'd do anything to give me something to write about," I joked with Mike as we cleaned up the tools.

         Really and truly guys, it was a quiet week around here. So with that let's call this one done and end it with a sunset picture.

         This was the sunset the night of the eclipse.

         Done!