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Critters in West Virginia

This weekend was basically uneventful, aside from Hubby’s departure, which I mentioned in yesterday’s post.

I did take a few interesting photos, though. Like this one…

I have no idea what this is. It looks like the body of a butterfly, but its “wings” are only about 1/4″ long. It flapped them furiously as it walked. Quite an odd little critter, if I do say so myself.

No critters here. Just a cute, little purple flower.

Now this is the kind of turtle one would expect to find in the woods or backyard (unlike the turtle I found in my MD yard last week). It is a box turtle. I actually saw two of them on Saturday.

And here’s my little princess with what, at first glance, I assumed was a bit of decayed log.

I was wrong. It was a decayed critter. So decayed in fact, that it was unidentifiable. After convincing her to drop it, which was not easy, I had to dispose of it. If I just tossed it off into the woods, she’d go retrieve it. Heck, for all I know, she killed it months ago and hid it.

I grabbed a very large leaf from a nearby plant, which I used to lift the critter for the short walk back to the house. It wasn’t too bad. It was very dried up, and had barely any weight to it. I grabbed a plastic grocery bag and dropped it in. Right before I dropped it into the bag is when things got gross. Just as I was holding it over the mouth of the bag, a big, slimy, cadaver-eating worm-thing squiggled out and dropped to the floor in front of me.

Ew, ew, ew!

No pics of that one. Lucky you!

The next post should be from Oklahoma…

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Hubby Left Me…

And he left me in West Virginia! (Note to Mom Murphy: if you don’t want to know any motorcycle trip details, you should stop reading now.)

Hubby didn’t leave me, leave me. He just set off on the first leg of our motorcycle trip without me. I’ll be with him soon, though, as I’ll explain below.

I am not an endurance rider. By that I mean I don’t enjoy riding very long distances in very short periods of time. In this case, with a destination of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, we’re talking 1,400 miles in just over 2 1/2 days. In my book, that’s too long.

You can see Hubby all packed up and ready to go. He left from the WV place on Saturday morning. By about 8:00 Saturday night, he’d made it to Beaver Dam, Kentucky (the “A” pin in the center of the map).

On the map, that looks to be about halfway. But that’s because he rode the interstates so he could cover some ground quickly. He’s going to ride a bit more relaxing routes today. Not too relaxing, though, because he has to be in Oklahoma City by 4:00 PM on Monday to pick me up from the airport.

Yep, I took the sissy route and decided to fly to Oklahoma. I’ll be flying home on Friday from Little Rock, Arkansas. In between, we’ll be cruising around seeing various sights.

I plan to post Blog updates when I can. But I can’t make any promises as I am not sure if our lodging, which Hubby arranged, has Internet access.

Here’s Belle saying goodbye to Hubby. Actually, she’s probably saying, “No, Dad, don’t leave!” (Meg had gone down to get her friend Buddy, so she missed the farewell. You should have seen her looking for him when she got back!)

I’d planned on driving home last night, but it was raining and I just didn’t feel like making the 3-hour drive in crappy weather. So we left this morning. Today, I’ll be doing various things in preparation for my trip.

Tomorrow, before I leave, I hope to post a couple of pics from our abbreviated WV visit.

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Age-Appropriate Clothing

One of the blogs I check regularly had a post today, which I just had to share.

I’ll give you the link in a sec. But first, you need to know it was one of the comments to said post–to which I heartily shouted, “Amen!”–that really made me want to share this with you.

So, after you click on the link to the post, which is provided below, be sure to scroll down and read comment #1.1 from Mister Hand.

Here’s the link to the post at PassiveAggressiveNotes.com…

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The Proper Authorities

By now, most of you know I work from my house. The company I work for is based outside of Philadelphia, in a not-so-remote area. Actually, the area is heavily populated, although it is not very far from Valley Forge.

I am often amused by the offbeat, but well-meaning e-mails the company’s facilities folks send to all employees. These typically include reports of found items, lost items, cautionary tales of the icy, grassy hills on the property, etc. I used to wish they’d limit the communiques to employees in that building. Then I realized I would miss the occasional bits of entertainment these e-mails provide.

Today’s communication was particularly amusing…

To All:
 
By now many of you have heard or seen the wild turkey hen that is hanging around the property and is becoming a nuisance. The hen has been seen on cars and it has also been reported that she can get aggressive.
 
I contacted animal control about this bird and the only advice they can offer is to be sure that no one is feeding the bird and to give the bird a little free space.
 
So we are asking you not to feed the bird and give her a little leeway when entering the building. Facilities will do our best to see that she stays away from the cars and hopefully she will get frustrated and leave the property on her own.
 
If there are any further instances of the hen getting aggressive please report them to me so that I can pass the information on to the proper authorities.

I can just picture a group of big, burly facilities guys patrolling the parking lot chasing after the poor turkey hen, doing their best to frustrate her. While fellow employees cower in their cars for fear of being attacked by this crazed bird.

I wonder what authorities they would call?

If only someone at the home office had a camera…

You know I would be doing my best to get some pics of the crazy hen.

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Why I Keep the Camera Handy

I was chatting with a friend the other day about pictures and she asked me something to the effect of whether I always have my camera attached to my hip.

I don’t. But I do keep it handy. Because you never know when you’ll look out your back door and see this…

It’s a turtle. But it is not just your plain old everyday box turtle. It is a painted turtle. They’re the kind that live in water. Since I no longer have a pond, I was quite surprised. The girls were both intrigued.

Apparently, when there are long periods of rain, like we’ve recently endured, and ponds/streams/creeks are unusually high, these turtles seek out dry land for a while. REALLY dry land, I guess.

I got a kick out of watching them examine this turtle, so I just had to take pics to share.

Belle decided to “talk” to the turtle, too. She’s cute as a button, but remember, she’s a killer. So I didn’t leave the turtle at her mercy for long.

Instead, I plopped it in a box and sat it on the kitchen counter until I could set it free in a more appropriate spot. Like, somewhere near water.

The turtle doesn’t look too thrilled. Better than being ripped apart by my cute little princess, though!

I’m sure the turtle was smiling when I pushed it gently to freedom through the fence of the storm water management pond across the street from my house…