A Mix

There will be several topics all rolled up into this post! First, I am still in a creative spurt. Tickled Pink did it!

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Three open, three to go!

Each measures 7" diameter!!!!

They give off a sweet fragrance too!

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There is a new snow blower operator this year!

(click on an image to view larger)

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A PENCIL MAKER TOLD THE PENCIL 5 IMPORTANT LESSONS JUST BEFORE PUTTING IT IN THE BOX :

1.) EVERYTHING YOU DO WILL ALWAYS LEAVE A MARK .

2.) YOU CAN ALWAYS CORRECT THE MISTAKES YOU MAKE.

3.) WHAT IS IMPORTANT IS WHAT IS INSIDE OF YOU.

4.) IN LIFE , YOU WILL UNDERGO PAINFUL SHARPENING, WHICH WILL ONLY MAKE YOU BETTER.

5.) TO BE THE BEST PENCIL, YOU MUST ALLOW YOURSELF TO BE HELD AND GUIDED BY THE HAND THAT HOLDS YOU. 

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AND THEN......I PAINTED THIS ON THE COMPUTER FROM SCRATCH. NEED MORE PRACTICE.

WHY?

Why do people hate snakes so much?  When I was a kid, my brother and I would go looking for them. Of course, we knew the ones with the wedge shape heads and eyes with pupils that went upwards were the "bad" snakes, but we went anyway knowing the dangers. I love the feel of snakeskin on a live snake. It is NOT slimy - it is SILKY. The beauty of each scale is also marvelous, as is the entire coloring and patterning. Their little pink, red or black forked tongues slipping in and out of their mouths are so delicate. Have you ever examined a snake as closely? I'll bet not. 

When my kids were in their summertime exploration mindset, I gave them each a plastic bucket and told them to hunt for snakes and catch a couple and to pick them up, with a stick if they were afraid to touch them, and put them in their pails and bring them to me to see. Once in a while, they would be lucky, as I told them just where to look and what to look for before picking them up. Now, I guess I was actually giving them a challenge, but then, in my mind, I was just sending them out on a nature hunting adventure.

None of us will ever forget the time one of the snake finders gave their youngest sister a small garter snake in her playpen. She was about 1 1/2 years old.  That child picked it up, and then BIT into it! Right in the middle! She made a face and then looked to see what she had done. It was a totally unexpected event and everyone who was watching her "play" with her first snake was shocked. We never killed our catches and "look and release" was the  result after thorough inspection.

One time, as an adult, I was in a field picking wildflowers when I looked down and saw that my feet were placed right next to a coiled up snake. I looked closely and determined it to be of the poisonous variety and stood very still while calling my husband to get his gun and come and shoot it. He did. To our dismay and great horror, we had killed a plain ol'e watersnake with the body markings of a copperhead, and her encapsulated babies had been blown out, still in their sacs and wiggling, all around us. There were many. How ashamed we were. The lake watersnakes are nonvenomous and are important to our environment. 

Why do people hate snakes? They are awesome creatures in countless ways. I think many people are uninformed of so much nature gives us.

Farm Capers

All day today there has been a buzzing in my mind. I've determined that is a bombardment of a swarm of memories that was stirred up yesterday shortly after writing about my dad's occupation in the 40's. 

Oh, incidentally, have you ever stuffed a gob of honeybee comb in your mouth and sucked out the honey... then chomped the leftover crumbs into a wad of waxy chewing stuff? I have.

Two particular episodes (true tales) include my brother who was three years younger than I and joined my explorations around the farm when dad was gathering his milk samples in the cow barn. I especially remember standing in front of a large cage that was raised up on "stilts" high from the ground containing many turkeys. We would both go right up to the cage, flap our "wings" and shout, "Gobble! Gobble! Gobble!" at them. It was a pure lesson of action and reaction. The whole flock replied "Gobble! Gobble! GOBBLE" right back at us. Someone came through the barnyard to see what the commotion was and we were chewed out to quit stirring the flock.  The other memory is one that I'm able to put down here because I'm lucky. Innocent, but alive. We played hide and seek throughout the barns and it was great fun because there were so many neat places to hide. I once got my hide tanned by dad for hiding in the silo! I loved the smell of silage fermenting and almost stayed too long. If it weren't for the farmer entering from the main floor of the barn (that's how I got in) to poke a pitchfork back where it was kept, he wouldn't have seen me there. My brother couldn't find me and gave up just before I was discovered. A lesson about silo gasses was sternly given to both of to NEVER go into a silo.

Many farms had horses, both riding and working. The horse barns were where I usually could be found when it was time to leave. One farm in particular was my favorite because of the horses and I always made a beeline to see them first with my package of "Charm" hard candy to pass out to each one. The groom there was a bent over older Scottish man. He made me feel welcome as I pummeled him with questions regarding the horses, tack, tools, and everything I found there. During one visit, no one was around and there was a large and very handsome new horse in the large end stall. He let me pet his nose and took my candy delicately. I boldly opened the stall latch, entered, and sat down in a corner under the corner feed tub. I was reaching up and feeding hay to him by hand when "Scottie" returned. He noticed the stall not latched and looked in and saw me. His gasp and stunned expression immediately conveyed to me that I should not have been in there! Later, after his impending heart attack faded away, he sat me down on a trunk in the hallway and strongly reprimanded me, "Missy, don't ever go into a stall again without me giving you permission." Then he went on to explain that the horse in the stall I had entered was a new stud horse and was vicious in nature. He was known to kick and bite! Only the breeding handlers were allowed to work with him. WHAT!! He was a pussycat with me, never exhibited any form of a threat and I knew enough horse body language to feel safe with him. I've always wondered about that episode. Of course I was only a little girl of about 10 at the time so didn't exhibit any danger to him either, did I?  "Scotty" never told my dad so I was "home-free" on that caper.

Horse Puckey

When you make peanut butter milk chocolate fudge and it comes out too soft and sticky what do you say?

"HORSE PUCKEY!"

What do you do with the stuff?

You make....

HORSE PUCKEY!

How? Well you scrape up a gob and roll it, and roll it again in sugar!

And....then you have....

HORSE PUCKEY!! YUM!

Failed Experiment

Well I've learned that it isn't easy to "draw" with a nail polish bottle. Nasty stuff - won't go where I want it to! Time to move on to other experiments...

I like the computer recreation better than the original photo I took as they were drying on the kitchen counter. It may take a week for these to dry up! Maybe they'll just go away. That will be OK, too.

Estrangement

I have another "long-time" person in my life, but this person is not a friend. This person has outwardly insulted me and several of my immediate family members and other loving friends over the past 15 years to the extent that I have now shut this person out.

Totally. OUT!

It wasn't only the insults, it was the game-playing and disrespect of feelings. I do not do shouting matches. I do not associate with people who do this. At ALL. There will never be a confrontation nor a conciliation. It is too late.

It took a great amount of tolerance from me to have it come to this. At first, I just turned away; the wound wasn't deep. The next time it happened I walked away and licked my wound. The third time, I ran away to tend to a deep wound and then I had completely gone away - bleeding profusely - to join others who were also stricken and injured in the same fashion. There is something seriously skewed in this person's way of thinking and inconsideration of reactions by verbalizing in such venomous manner. This person has a poisonous tongue. It is intolerable and treacherous behavior pointedly intended to entrap and tear apart.

Now "long-time" person wants to get together. It won't happen. My feelings of ill treatment are justified and today my bite punctures are repaired.

I'm reminded of an old-time tale of a frog and a scorpion.

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One day a scorpion is hanging around the side of a stream. A frog happens by on his way across the stream. The scorpion cannot swim so he stops the frog and asks if he can climb on his back for a ride across the water.

“Do you think I am crazy?” The frog says. “If I let you on my back, you’ll certainly sting me and I’ll sink in the water and die.”

The scorpion replies, “hey just think about it for a second, I can’t swim. If I sting you, then you’ll die and I’ll sink and die too.”

The frog thinks for a second and decides that makes sense, so he proceeds to give the scorpion a ride across the stream.

About half way across the stream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog screams “What are you doing? Why did you sting me? Now I am going to drown and die and you are going to sink and die too.”

The scorpion says “because I am a scorpion.”

In this irritating tale there is a disturbing truth: it really happens that people behave in incomprehensible manners with no other reason than, nobody knows why, "that is their nature."

This is a disease that lies deep in human nature. There are many examples, practically every day. We can laugh when they are just funny. But some are dismally tragic.

Sometimes they don't really know or understand life and friendships. I forgive that. Some people never find what they're looking for. It's pitiful.

Appreciation?

The Monday laundry blows in the wind - too much! I hate it when the sheet flips over the top line. I can't reach it to flip it back and if I reel the line in, the line soils the sheet as it rubs along. Sheets always seem to do this, but I'm simply not going to change the way they are pinned; the sun wouldn't do its job with the whitening and purifying process. And yes, I'm a bit old-fashioned.

Do you see the clothespin on the left bottom side? I jumped out of the box today - again. I grabbed the first thing of the correct size and weight and handy and pinned it inside the corner of the problem item. Threat altered!

I must tell Sue how much I appreciate the gift she gave me yesterday. It traveled far with her through several flight stopovers and held especially for a later presentation in a more relaxed environment.

I'll also tell her that I haven't found a non-conventional use for the exotic tea yet and will most likely just sip a cup soon.

Thinking Back...

NATURE RULES!!!!!!!!

Something you didn't know about me - I have raised and returned to their own habitat, baby squirrels, baby rabbits, baby raccoons, baby groundhogs, baby possums, baby crows, baby owls and more. In fact, the baby squirrels and baby rabbits were put in a clothes basket with my momma cat and she nursed and groomed them along with her own kittens. When they became too playful in the house, I set them free. The squirrels took a long time to adjust to the wild and came, precariously, from the tree to the house on the clothesline, begging for fig newtons

(their favorite cookie).

I once looked after oriole peeps in a hanging basket that I pinned on the clothesline, too. It had fallen from a tree when they were very young and I found it on the ground. I would reel it out to the tree and the mother would feed them. I would reel it in to the house so I could see how they were doing. One day they weren't there. I don't know if they flew or were eaten by hawks. The basket was empty except for many little white mites!

I learned early on that if I let the small kittens outdoors the hawks would swoop one up - drop it to kill it - swoop down, get it and fly away. I saw this happen! At first, I thought the kittens had wandered into the woods and got themselves lost, but I could never hear their cries nor find them. It was very upsetting to me.

I killed the crow with "kindness!" Jester was doing nicely in a large homemade cage. We had a vacation planned to go to the seashore for the weekend and I put a whole ear of field corn in the cage to last him until we returned. Well......when we came home, he was dead, clutching the perch, with the empty corn cob laying nearby. His crop was huge. We figured he pigged out! Of course he didn't have enough grit in his crop to grind up that much hard corn in one sitting! Lesson learned.

The raccoons were kept in the horse trailer. I bottle fed them. They were very noisy and loving. When the male became a bit aggressive, I set them free. Did you know that they don't actually wash their food? I always had a dishpan of fresh water for them and they would dunk their kibbles before eating. It became apparent that they don't have enough saliva-production to eat.

The owls were in auto accidents. Stunned and a bit brain damaged, they were fed bits of hamburger meat until well. It was my brother who found them lying on the road.

If you wonder how I obtained all of these babies, be assured they were all orphans to begin with! That's another story.

Six years ago, when Ed was recuperating from his heart surgery in May and June, I watched, from my kitchen window in the cabin, a robin build her nest in the carport. I soon saw 4 little eggs. Then, I saw 4 little heads peeking up with mouths opened wide. I saw Momma bird feed those 4 little barenaked babies. I watched their fuzz turn to feathers. One day I saw a big crow take the last one away in his ugly bill. Boy did that make me angry! Too late for any of them to be saved. I know we shouldn't interfere with nature, but DARN!