Eagles!

          You know, I saw something once, on FaceBook I believe, that said something about Nardone Bros. Pizza. It was something like, "You know you grew up in Pennsylvania if you've ever had this pizza." Or maybe it was, "If you love this pizza, then you grew up in Pennsylvania." Or maybe it was a combination of the two, I don't remember now. But I spent the first 19 years of my life in Pennsylvania as well as the last two years and I'd never had it.

          Since then I've noticed it in several stores in our area. I'm sure it's always been there, Nardone's have been in business since 1942, but Mike and I don't normally buy take-and-bake pizzas and Nardone's is fresh, never frozen (although you can freeze it — says the package). If we buy a pizza at all, it's usually the frozen variety. Finally, last week, I did it. I bought one.

          So! I'm standing in my kitchen, the oven is preheating, and I'm reading the package. That's the first I realize the crust is... what? Pre-cut? Pre-scored? I don't know exactly what it said because I didn't save the box and I'm never-ever-never-no-not-ever buying another one!

          "Peg! I can see right on the box it says 12 cuts," you say.

          I know, right! But I thought that meant I could cut it into 12 slices.

          Bake on the rack, it says, if you want a crisper crust. Place on a greased cookie sheet for a softer crust. Well, that's a no-brainer for me. Crisper. I don't like soggy pizza crust and I don't want a lot of crust either!

          I took the pizza out of the box and it started to come apart. As carefully as I could I got it into the oven but the pizza came apart, the cheese fell through the cracks, and sizzled as it hit the bottom of the oven.

          Sigh.

          By the time it was done I knew I'd have to clean my oven.

          "What do you think?" I asked Mike after he took a couple of bites.

          "It's alright."

          I ate a few bites and agreed. It was just okay. We both ate a couple of slices.

          "I'm probably not going to eat any more of it," I told Mike. "If you will I'll put it in the fridge."

          "No. I don't think I want any more of it either."

          I tossed the rest of the pizza out into the weeds for the coons and possums and any other critter that wanted it.

          I did a little research on Nardone Bros. pizza, that's how I know they've been in business since 1942, but what I didn't know was that they supplied many area schools with pizza so I may have eaten their pizza before.

          "How did you like the pizza when you were in school?" you ask.

          School is the first place I'd ever had pizza. It just wasn't anything that my mother ever served us. I know a lot of kids loved pizza day but I don't remember having any special feelings for it one way or the other. 

          Monday Mike and I started the day working on the ceiling in the kitchen. Over our lunch break we sat and played a game of cards. We heard a noise up in the rafters of the undone ceiling and we both looked. It stopped. A minute or two later a Starling comes diving down and took a spin through the house, attracting the attention of Smudge who'd been napping in the recliner. The Starling made for the light and smashed into the window of the kitchen where he frantically beat his wings. Smudge came from the other room, low to the floor, and in one leap he was on the windowsill.

          "OPEN THE DOOR!" Mike is yelling.

          The Starling got away from Smudge and zeroing in on the light from the front door, he headed that way. He didn't hit it. The door has internal Venetian blinds and he must have seen it was a solid barrier. He came back out to the kitchen and I thought he was going to hit the window again but he saw the open door and out he went. It was a very intense three minutes. I wouldn't have been surprised if things on the windowsill had been broken but when I straightened it out, nothing was.

          Later, when we were back to work and Mike was on the ladder, I asked him to see if he could see where the bird had gotten in. "I'll turn off all the lights and see if you can see any light coming through."

          Mike looked and looked. "Nope. I don't see nothin'."

          Even though I called the Starling a he in my story, I suspect it was a she looking for a nesting site.

          Tuesday brought us more snow. I love the snow. I don't necessarily like to be cold, but I do love the snow.

          "That's because you don't have to drive in it," I hear my best girl Joanie say.

          And she would be right. I don't have to go out in the snow unless I want to.

          I don't know how much snow we got. When I went out to feed the cats I took a picture of the bird feeders covered in snow.

          The beautiful bright-red of the male Cardinal stands out against the fluffy white stuff.

          Late that afternoon I had three deer scavenging under the feeders for dropped seeds. I know the Kipps have deer at their bird feeder almost every night but this is the first time I'd ever seen any at mine.

          Standing at my kitchen window, I looked out and saw a whole herd of birds in the trees around my feeders.

          "Holy cow!" I exclaimed to Mike as I took the binoculars from the shelf. "Look at all those birds!"

          There are two Starlings in the shot, one on the suet feeder, one on the branch just over the first one's head. The rest are Red-winged Blackbirds.

           Wednesday we had to run to Dushore on an errand so it gave me a chance to take some road pictures for you.

         Linemen on the poles. Some areas had been without power for over a week at this point.

By the time we came back up through they were climbing down.

           It's maple syrup time! They are tapping the maple trees. In several places you can see the collection wagons parked beside the road.

          I almost missed this shot.

          The icicles hanging from the eaves are melting and blowing in the wind.

          Thursday was a grand day! Mike is measuring for the very last piece of knotty pine! My ceiling is up! Yay! O happy day!

          

          I looked around, admiring my ceiling and I spot a sticker hanging from one of the boards. I couldn't imagine how a sticker came to be stuck on the ceiling but whatever. I got the ladder and climbed up only to realize it wasn't a sticker at all. It was a white moth. A Virginian Tiger Moth or Yellow Woolybear Moth. Guess what kind of a caterpillar he comes from.

          "Ummm... a yellow woolybear?" you guess.

          And you would be right!

          Friday we went shopping. More road pictures?

          Our first stop was to drop off our recyclables.

          On to Scranton we went. A dam I've been trying to get a decent shot of for a while, but it's close to the road and the guide rail keeps getting in my way.

          This is another shot I've been trying to get. It's a three-dimensional skull on the side of a building. I Googled The Skullworks in Factoryville, Pennsylvania and found out they make shadow plaques. 

           Instead of having your trophy stuffed, you can have one of these made and mount just the skull. Here's an example I pulled right from their website.

          Speaking of shooting things, this green semi, left in the weeds to die, looks like he's been shot a few times.

          One of the places we went to in Scranton was the Lowe's store. Mike wanted a few pieces of round duct to finish the furnace run into the utility room and the Home Depot, where we'd just been, was out of the six-inch size. I was glad to have a reason to go back to the Lowe's store because at the self-checkouts is one of the most captivating ladies you could ever want to meet. Miss Nancy was not a bit put off by Mike's teasing. She's quick-witted and gave it right back to him. He laughed and kept up a running conversation with her as she rang us out.

          "She rang you out in the self-checkouts?" you ask.

          Yep. They'll do that for you and a lot of times the cashier there is less busy than any of the others.

          When Nancy announced the total Mike pointed at me, standing there ready to insert the credit card into the machine. "She's got all the money. Isn't that how it is in your house too?" he teased.

          "Well, since I'm a widow, I guess it is," she replied with a hint of sadness in her voice.

          "Oh I'm so sorry," I told her and meant it sincerely. "What happened?" I asked before I thought about my manners. "If it's okay to ask."

          "Sure. Cirrhosis of the liver," she said.

          "I'm sorry," was all I could think to say.

          "He did it to himself. I begged him to stop drinking and every time he took a drink I told him he was putting another nail in his coffin." Miss Nancy shook her head and was quiet for a moment. "Now we won't get to enjoy our golden years together... And now I have to find someone else to go fishing with me," She got a far-away look in her eyes and laughed a quiet little laugh as she remembered good times fishing with her husband. "We just loved to go fishing together."

          "I'll go fishing with you!" Mike volunteered.

          Nancy agreed. "Sure. We'll go fishing together."

          I asked Nancy if I could put her on my People's page along with this story and she said I could. "Only don't take a picture of me," she begged.

          "How about if we just use your pretty ring?" I asked.

          "It's a Mother's Day ring," she said and agreed.

          Other people needed Nancy's attention so we bid her a good day and I gave her a quick hug her as we left.  

  

          At home, after we unloaded the car and rested for a bit, we got to work putting the rest of the ductwork together. It was then that we discovered one section of duct was seven-inches in diameter instead of the six that we needed. We went as far as we could go and stopped.

           I also discovered that I was almost out of birdseed. Dagnabbit! That's a fine time to discover you're out of something, isn't it? When you get home from shopping?

          "Mike," I started hesitantly. "Let's go to Sayre tomorrow."

          "Why?" he asked.

          "You could take that one back and get the right size," I said of the ductwork. "And I need some birdseed," I added.

          He thought about it. "McDonald's has Sausage Egg McMuffins two for four dollars," he said. "We could go early and have breakfast."

          "Okay, but not too early. I want to stop at Rainbow (thrift store) and they don't open until ten."

          "We can do our shopping first and then stop at Rainbow on the way home," he suggested.

          It was all set and we were out the door by 7:30 the next morning.

          More road pictures.

          I love the view of this train trestle. It's probably the third or fourth time I've shown it to you and it probably won't be the last. We have four seasons here in Pennsylvania.

          As we rode along I got to thinking about the last time we made this trip. Just on the other side of a small town named Ulster, people were camped out, on the other side of the guide rails, with their camp chairs, tripods, and cameras with extra long zoom lenses. The terrain sloped down steeply affording a great view inside the eagle's nest.

          "Do you think the eagle is sitting on her nest?" I wondered out loud.

          Mike answered me anyway. "I don't know. Do you want to stop?"

          "Sure."

          I took a few shots of her and at one point she turned her head and studied me for a moment, then she turned back and didn't pay me any more attention.

          Back in the Jeep I texted my handsome cousin Justin. "The eagles are nesting just outside of Ulster," I told him. I knew that he had eagles at his summer cabin. "Are your eagles nesting?"

          "Yes. The neighbor says the pair are maintaining their nest. I can't wait to see if this year will be one or two eaglets," he texted back.

          I asked if I could go see them and Justin called me. "It's just easier to talk than to text," he told me. "Sure. Anytime. I'm down here now. I could show you around."

          I was in a store at the time of our conversation so I couldn't commit. "We're in Towanda right now," I told him. But when I got out to the Jeep I told Mike of my conversation with Justin.

          "We could shoot on down there," Mike said so I called Justin back and he said he'd wait for us.

          More road pictures?

           "Is that it?" I asked getting out of the Jeep at Justin's. "Is that the eagles nest?"

          "I guess so," Mike answered.

          "Hello!" Justin called from his back deck.

          We spent the next hour visiting.

          "You can't really see the eagles," I observed.

          Justin shook his head. "Not really. I think the nest is like bowl-shaped and most of the time they sit down in it so you can't really see them unless they stand up or get up on the edge."

          The average Bald Eagle nest is four to five feet in diameter and two to four feet deep. Although the largest recorded was in Florida, was nine point five feet in diameter, twenty feet deep, and weighed almost three tons! Eagles come back to the same nest every year, adding more material to it each year. Some eagles will have a second nest in their territory. They may use one nest for a few years and switch to the other one for a period of time. Justin tells me that this pair does have a second nest although he doesn't think they've ever used it.

          The average clutch is one to three eggs. Most of the time the female will sit on the eggs and the male will bring her food, but he may also sit on the eggs giving her a break to hunt for herself. Eagle eggs hatch in 35 days and they will fledge — they will leave the nest, around 10-12 weeks.

          "We can walk down there," Justin offered.

          I lit up, I know I did. "Yeah!"

          We get to the banks of the Susquehanna and there sits this immense tree. I mean it was absolutely huge!

          "Justin, let me take your picture beside that tree." I'm sure I wasn't ordering him although it may have sounded a bit like an order. "I'll use you for perspective." Justin made his way down the bank. "Can you wrap your arms around the tree?" I called.

          Michael scoffed. "He can't get his arms around the tree!"

          "Okay. Justin, hug the tree!"

          Justin is such a good sport and I love my cousin. Now isn't that a huge tree!

          "There it is!" Mike exclaimed, the excitement evident in his voice. "I just saw the eagle go in the nest!"

          I cursed my luck for having missed it but a few minutes later he pops up on the side of the nest. He must have been dropping off lunch for his mate.

          He stood there and looked around for a minute or so.

          He stretched his mighty wings high...

          

          And jumped. I could hear his powerful wings as he took flight.

         

          There were a lot of branches between him and my camera. By the time he came to a clearing my camera was still focused on the branches and I only got blurry shots of him as he left.

          Down on the river were geese. Mike saw them.

          "I think they're Canadian," Justin said.

          I think I was still in awe of the eagle because I didn't even notice the geese. "Where?" I asked bringing my focus back to the present.

          Justin pointed. "Right there."

          The geese here are like the geese everywhere. They make messes in people's yards and they aren't all that happy to see them. "The neighbor has a dog that will chase them off if he sees them," Justin told us. "The geese have learned that he won't follow them into the water so they stay in that area down there, near the water."

          On the way back up to the cabin I asked Mike to take a picture of me and Justin in front of that humongous tree. We look like we're related, don't we.

          We continued our visit by having a bite of lunch together. I took one more picture on the way home.

          I have to tell you that it was a good way to spend a Saturday. A very good way indeed.

          Let's call this one done!

Cra-Cra

          Cra-cra is slang for crazy and what a crazy, crazy, week this past week has been. It seems like all we did all week long was run. Before I get into that though I want to start at the beginning — a good place to start, don't you think?

          The end of last week, beginning of this week, I did something I've wanted to do for more than a year now. I made my own suet cakes for the birds. I bought a couple of them from Wal Mart and saved the plastic trays. Last year I'd bought a cheap brand of peanut butter for this project and it's sat on the shelf all this time. Then a few months ago I'd bought some walnuts and when I opened them up I found out they were already rancid. Rancid won't necessarily make you sick, but it doesn't taste good. The birds won't care, I thought, and I've been chopping and adding them to my bird seed since then. Once the store bought suet cakes were gone, I decided it was time.

          A Google search turns up tons and tons of suet cake recipes. You can pretty much put anything into them you want. I used hamburger grease, oatmeal, raisins, walnuts, birdseed (sitting in the cottage cheese container), peanut butter, and wheat flour. I didn't measure anything. I just chopped a bunch of nuts and added a little of this and a little of that, mixing as I went. I spooned it into the plastic containers and had some left over. I took an old coffee cup and put the rest of it in there. I added a piece of dowel rod for a perch and put everything into the freezer.

           A couple of hours later I popped one of the suet cakes from the mold and put it out for the birds. The coffee cup — I added a bit of string and hung it from a branch. Then I sat back and waited. All day last Saturday I watched and waited. The birds were at the feeders, but not the suet cakes. Maybe I over-did the peanut butter, I thought. Like I said, I didn't measure. I just spooned a couple of gobs out — big spoonfuls!

          It was the next day, Sunday (a week ago now) when I saw the first little Downy Woodpecker on the suet cake holder. 

And I'll tell you what! He kept coming back to the suet cake all day long! He likes it! I was pleased.

 Then the secret was out and there was some competition for the peanut butter suet cake.

          It wasn't until Wednesday that I saw anyone on the suet cup, then it was a Starling while a Grackle was on the cake feeder.

          I wasn't the only one watching the birds. Little Miss Cleopatra sat and watched too!

          It's been a week now and they have the suet cake almost gone.

          While I'm talking about the birds, let me say that I saw a Robin this past week. And I saw Red-winged Blackbirds with red wings! Aren't they pretty!

          Monday we were up early and off to C.C. Allis for enough tongue and groove knotty pine to finish the ceiling in the kitchen.

          This time I took a picture to show you how far out in the middle of nowhere this place is. It's nothing but farms and fields for miles around.

          "You know, Peg," Mike says on the way home. "We can't really go very far until we finish the furnace runs..."

          "You wanna go to Sayre? We could pick up your meds at Wal Mart and get the ductwork at Lowe's?" We had tried to call his prescriptions into the Scranton store but the automated menu wouldn't accept his prescription numbers and the pharmacy was closed.

          So it was off to Sayre we went. I didn't take many road pictures but here's one.

          It was a wasted trip. We get to Wal Mart and find out we can't get Mike's prescriptions refilled until the 12th because the insurance won't pick up their share until then. Then at Lowe's they didn't have the aluminum-clad flex duct that Mike wanted. We headed over to HEP, another business in Sayre where we picked up the diffusers but they didn't have the kind of flex duct Mike wanted either. 

          "We might just as well shoot over to Vestal," I said. "We're closer to it now then if we go home and go to Scranton."

          So that's what we did.

          On the way home I took a few pictures for you.

          I see the old fridge against the window to the right of the chimney. If I zoom in on the window to the left I can see some old metal kitchen cabinets. I wonder if the cook stove is between them.

          This is at a house on the edge of Wyalusing. He must be an odd duck. He's got the tire with a skeleton cradled in it hanging from a tree and now I see he's got something else there too. It's some kind of head on a pole with an Over The Hill hat taped to it and he's holding a checkered flag.

          I don't know what those round things are that're hanging there with him.

          This guy has had run-ins with our small town government.

          WYALOSERS BE DAMNED he's painted in white block letters on the side of his garage.      

          Go ahead, tell us how you really feel about Wyalusing!

           On Tuesday we got the sweetest surprise in our mailbox. Our grandson sent us a care package.

          "Andrew saw this candy and wanted to send it to you..." the accompanying note said. We also got family portraits, which I love and will frame. I miss these sweet faces.

          "Mom!" I hear Kevin exclaim. "We sent you more bite-size Snickers bars than that!"

          I know, right! We may have eaten a few before I thought to take a picture. I had no idea we needed a Snickers so bad!

          Speaking of sweet...

          I was flipping through an old cookbook given to me as a gift by my oldest and much-loved sister Patti many years ago. I was looking for a coconut macaroon recipe to add to the next care package I sent to my mother. I didn't find what I was looking for but I found something called Condensed Milk Kisses that sounded interesting. It only had four ingredients; sweetened condensed milk, coconut, vanilla, and a dash of salt.

          In the meantime, I'd made my Miss Rosie green birds for St. Patrick's Day. I like to make her things because she loves my glasswork, so I look for excuses to make her something. I finished well in advance of the holiday and posted a picture on FaceBook. I asked if they thought she would like it.

          "She'd be crazy not to LOVE it," my cute little red-haired sister replied.

          "If she doesn't know where to put it, tell her to swap out the star on the steps," Rosie's daughter Jenn commented.

          "Peg, aren't you afraid Rosie'll see it on FaceBook?" you ask.

          Nope. Rosie and Lamar don't have and don't want a computer or the internet.

          "But won't someone tell her?" you wonder.

          Nope. No one I know would ever want to spoil the surprise for this sweet lady.

          So I had these two things rattling around in my head; a new cookie recipe I wanted to try, and Miss Rosie's gift.

          In the meantime meantime, we got to work on the ceiling again.

          It seems this section of ceiling is dead set on giving us a hard time. We've got a macerator pump in our master bath. It was a million times easier to put the pump in, go across the ceiling, come down the kitchen wall, and hook into the gravity flow system than to have to jackhammer the concrete up and try to get the correct fall, which Mike said we could never get. We have vents in the system and yet every time the pump runs in the bathroom it sucks the water from the trap in the kitchen sink causing an annoying gurgle.

          "Let's put a cheater vent under the sink," Mike said.

          "What's a cheater vent?" you ask.

          It's a valve that allows air to come into the line but won't let anything come out. We put the vent in a month ago and it didn't help.

          "Maybe we need to add it to the line that comes across the ceiling," Mike guessed. "We'll have to do it before we put the ceiling up."

          So we spent a whole morning gathering all the parts and tools we'd need, flushing the lines and putting the vent in. Our expectations were high as we ran water until the pump ran. Our expectations were quickly dashed as water backed up into the sink making what was just an annoyance into a real problem.

          "It's letting the water run faster," Mike said.

          We spent the next hour digging through spare plumbing parts boxes looking for caps, then cutting off the cheater vents and capping the lines. Now we were back to square one, which is way better than having sewer water come up in the kitchen sink.

          Mike was so frustrated and discouraged that he collapsed into his chair only to be bombarded with critters. If you think this is an everyday occurrence, it pretty much is. The only thing that changes is the number of critters in his lap. This time he had Smudge lying across Spitfire, Itsy, Ginger, and Molly.

          "I think I'll go to town and get a haircut," Mike said after he'd rested a bit.

          Well, you may remember that I had a couple of things rattling around in my head. I had a new cookie recipe to try and I had a gift for Miss Rosie.

          I didn't feel inclined to wait until St Patrick's Day to give Miss Rosie her gift. I thought it might be better if she got to enjoy it for a few days leading up to the holiday in case she wanted to put it away afterward. With Mike gone I decided to make the cookies and when he got home, we'd pay a visit to the Kipps.

          I followed the directions on the cookie recipe, greasing my Teflon coated cookie sheets, and used a teaspoon to drop the cookies onto the sheet. It says to bake them at 375 degrees for 15 minutes.

          "Peg, that sounds awfully hot for awfully long," you say.

          I know, right! And my oven has been running hot lately. I tested it with an oven thermometer after burning some frozen pizza really bad last week. I adjusted the temp and put the cookies in. After about 10 minutes I could smell them burning. When I tried to get them off the cookie sheet they were stuck on tight! Maybe they didn't have nonstick bakeware in 1948, I thought as I scraped with a plastic spatula. Maybe I didn't have to grease it all, I thought. Maybe I should have greased my old tin cookie sheets instead, I thought dropping the cookie sheet in the sink and filling it with hot water and a squirt of dish soap. In the end I decided to use parchment paper, which did the trick. I turned my oven temp down even more and kept a close eye on the next batch of cookies. After what I thought was about eight minutes I went to see how much time was left on the timer and found out I'd neglected to start the timer. I checked the cookies but they weren't done. I closed the oven, started the timer — just so I didn't totally lose track of time, and did something else for a few minutes. When the timer went off, the cookies looked pretty good. So for the final pan of cookies I put them into the oven and set the timer for the required 15 minutes thinking I'd had all the wrinkles worked out.

          Yeah.

          No.

          They were burnt too.

          Pretty soon Mike came home.

          "Can we go see the Kipp's before we start working on the ceiling again?" I asked him.

          "What for?"

          "I want to take them some cookies and give Rosie her gift."

          "Okay, let's go."

          "Wait! I have to call first!"

          "Hurry up then."

          I called. "Hey Lamar, it's Peggy," I said when he answered. They don't have caller ID either.

          "Hi Peggy," he greeted.

          "Are you guys busy?"

          "I'm not busy," he replied then he turned from the phone. "Rosie, Peggy wants to know if you're busy."

          I could hear her in the background. "I'm just reading the paper."

          Lamar turned back to the phone. "She's not busy either, she's just reading the paper."

          "Can we come down for a short visit?" I asked.

          "Sure. Come on down."

          I bagged up most of the non-burned cookies and some of the least burned ones too, grabbed my coat and the gift I'd made and met Mike at the still warm Jeep.

          She likes it! I could tell.

          "Jenn says if you don't know where to hang it, to swap it for the star at the bottom of the steps."

          "Okay," Miss Rosie says and I follow her in the living room as she goes to hang it.

         The star has hung in this window for many, many years and has been usurped by two cheeky green birds! Maybe after St. Patrick's Day the star will get his place back.

          We sat and visited with Rosie and Lamar for a little while. Rosie tried a cookie and thought they tasted like macaroons.

          "These aren't burnt," Lamar declared. "They're good."

          "That's because Rosie burns everything and you think it's normal," I said remembering the stories I heard of over-baked goods. I don't think it happens as much anymore since Rosie got a new stove.

          When I made Miss Rosie's birds, I'd planned on making a second one for my mother as an Easter gift, only I was going to use one green bird and one yellow one. In fact, I'd already had the birds cut out before I'd shown them to Momma.

          "I'm making you one too," I told her during one of our daily conversations. "If you want one, that is."

          She laughed, pleased. "Sure!"

          "I can make the birds any color you'd like..."

          "I like the green ones," she said so I made her green ones too. That left me with a single yellow bird.

          I took some wire and made him a vine all his own to sit on and I thought he was pretty cute. Then I decided I'd make a few more in pretty pastel colors, just like Easter. Yeah! Then I could give them as Easter gifts to my family.

          And a memory comes unbidden into my head.

          "Giving stuff away devalues it," I was told once. "If people pay for stuff then they value it more."

          What do you think about that?

          Mike and I were putting up the tongue and groove knotty pine that we'd purchased on Monday and right away Mike notices there's something wrong with it. "There's an extra piece on some of these," he told me. "Someone didn't have it in the machine right."

          If you look at the picture, the board on top is wrong and the one under it is how the tongue portion should look. It creates a few minor problems for us but nothing we can't compensate for. I think.

          We get about halfway done with the kitchen and Mike decides he'd like to do something different with the heating system than we were originally going to do. Originally he was going to put a diffuser in the ceiling just outside the pantry but the more he thought about it the more he thought he'd like to run a heating duct into the pantry area.

          "What would it look like if we mounted an external duct and ran it under the beam and into the pantry?" he asked.

          Frankly, he wanted all of our ducts to be mounted to the ceiling in the living area, giving it an 'industrial' look. I know lots of business you go into these days have done that. "It's more efficient," he says. "You recapture any heat loss through the pipes that way," he says. "And it doesn't blow cold air when it first comes on," he says. It wasn't what I wanted and I don't know why he didn't do it that way, if it was because of me or some other reason, but I agreed if he wanted to run a surface mounted duct into the pantry then he could do that. Unfortunately, it meant another run to Scranton for parts. 

          I took more road pictures for you.

                    Construction of a pipeline.

               A walking trail beside a creek.

       Krispy Kreme bus. 

    

       Old fence.

          We were stopped at a stop light when I spotted these guys swimming in the creek beside the road. There's three of them there if you can see them.

          Another stop light in the middle of one of the little towns we pass through and I see whatever this is laying on the sidewalk. "Mike what is that?" I asked but he didn't know.

          An old concrete.... What? Wall? Foundation? Abutment? It looks like it has a red steel rim around the top.

          This building used to house a Laundromat and Mexican — or maybe Asian — food store; I forget which. Now the place is filled with all kinds of stuff, most of it sitting out in the weather.

          "Why would he just let all that stuff sit outside and get ruined?" I asked Mike but he didn't know the answer to that one either.

          Friday we put enough ceiling up to put the ductwork in. Have you ever put sections of steel duct together? One end is crimped and is supposed to slide into the end of another pipe.

          Mike got the pipe cut to length, attached the flex duct above the ceiling, but no matter what he did, he couldn't get the elbow to slide in.

          "Peg!" he yelled for me. "Will you come and hold this for me? Please?"

          I tried to hold the section as he pushed against it but he's stronger than I am and I couldn't hold it. "Maybe if you crimp the end a little more?" I suggested.

          "A furnace guy would have a crimper," he said and had to settle for adding a few cuts to the end, bending them in and trying to make the diameter a little smaller. Michael cut, bent, pushed, banged, cut some more, bent, pushed, pounded, and it still wouldn't go together. "Maybe we could flare the end of the other one out a little?" he suggested. So he cut that end of the pipe too, bent, pushed, banged, pounded, and we still couldn't get them to go together.

          In frustration, to see if we were doing something wrong, we turned to YouTube, a video website on the internet where you can watch videos on how to do just about anything. While Mike watched videos, I took a new elbow and section of pipe and slowly, carefully, keeping it even the whole way around, slid the two pieces together with no added cuts, bends, pushing, pounding, or banging.

          "I did it," I said calmly, belying the exuberance I felt.

          Mike turned in his chair and saw I had indeed put two sections together. "Good. Think you can do the same thing up there?"

          "I can try."

          Back up on the ladders we went. Mike held the downpipe and carefully, I lined stuff up, making sure to keep it even the whole way around and it slid together easy-peasy.

          We will see what Monday brings and hopefully my kitchen ceiling will get done this week.

          Let's call this one done!