Summertime - A tale of ticks, Woody Woodpecker and tiny yellow birds.

A tiny, yellow bird appeared in our yard this summer. No, it isn't a goldfinch.
 

See, it doesn't have the same familiar markings of a male goldfinch or even the same shape. Time to contact an expert, Sally Jo Gibson.

While we're waiting for an answer, join us as we drive north to Branson, Missouri, and stretch our legs at Stockstill Park, but only after picking up carbs while sharing lunch at Rocky's in downtown Branson.
We've been loyal customers of Rocky's since finding the little Italian restaurant beside the railroad tracks shortly after we were married 24 years ago.
The sign outside the restaurant says Rocky's dates to 1984, and our friend, Layne Ragsdale, said she remembers stopping with her late dad at the old rock building beside the railroad tracks when it was a feed store for livestock.
Well Sunday, it was a feed store for us and a few other diners.

Stockstill Park met all of our requirements for a mid-August stroll. It has wide concrete and asphalt walks, water faucets and restrooms, park benches and covered pavilions, and NO changes in elevation, except for crossing a bridge.

Look in the bushes, we're being closely watched by a doe. We saw a fawn cross the trail in front of us. Now it is hiding behind its mother. They quickly vanished into the undergrowth.

Yes, we saw wildlife in the park but NO, let me repeat, NO, ticks ... especially seed ticks.
What a pain, literally, when hiking forest and grassland trails in the summer.
Let's see, we were over-run by seed ticks while exploring the Pea Ridge National Battlefield.
We ran from the overlook trail at the Bull Shoals Dam after spotting ticks running all over our clothing.
Yep, that's the same dilemma we found ourselves facing when walking to a waterfall in Branson and on a trail in the Buffalo National River at Erbie.
Ticks! Ticks! Ticks!

See the wide, flat trail leading into the woods behind us?

Let me tell you about our caps.
We're under doctor's orders to limit our exposure to sunlight.
If I go to my doctor's office with sun exposure lines on my forehead, I can expect to be chastised. I'm also under orders to use lotion with sunscreen on my ears, face and neck.
Here's what a dermatologist told Megan.
Last year, he said lots of farmers come in his office and have old arms (from sun exposure) and young legs (no sun exposure).
Women have old legs, especially thighs, from sun exposure.
This year, he told her that damage from sunlight is permanent. Asking her to lift her arms.  He said her arms, face, neck, entire body should look like the skin under her arms.
When he came in my examining room, I bragged about using sunscreen. That got me the same lecture, the damage is done ... back 55 years ago and up.
These hats do a pretty good job of limiting exposure to the sun, and they're light and comfortable.
"Ha-ha-ha-HAAAAA HA!"
Did you hear than voice?
"Ha-ha-ha-HAAAAA HA!"
It's Woody Woodpecker.

There he is! Megan saw his flight onto the side of this tree beside the trail.

Actually, this is a Pileated Woodpecker.
We used to call it by the wrong name ... until Megan's Mom pointed her finger right in Megan's nose, squinted, corrected her and said, "Pī-lē-ˌā-təd. It's called a pī-lē-ˌā-təd woodpecker." 
Thanks for the laugh, Mom.
Back to that little bird.
 

Sally Jo Gibson said this is a yellow warbler. Yes, we're part of its summer habitat, so this isn't unexpected. We just haven't noticed the birds before. Now they're on our life list.

And here's a last picture of our walk today. Yes, it's OK that we're standing this close. Dwain's wearing white or you'd see his pores are sweating profusely and Megan is glistening ... just a little.

She took care of that problem in a few minutes when we found a spigot.
Megan took off her sandals and stood under the stream of water. 
Then like a little kid, she let it run down her legs, rubbed on the back of her neck, washed her face ... enough girl. We're in public.
Hahaha ... time to go home.

Megan and Dwain

I say ...
In the summertime
When the weather is high
You can stretch right up
And touch the sky
When the weather is fine ...
Mungo Jerry - In the Summertime

How high's the water mama? High enough to make the "naked ladies" smile.

In the South, this beautiful flower was called a surprise lily by both our mothers.

We were surprised earlier this week when one of our friends saw a picture posted on Facebook and asked if it was a "naked lady."
We blushed at the suggestion.
Here is the picture we posted:

We looked beyond Megan to see if Dwain had accidentally captured a naked lady in the background at the Newton County Courthouse in Jasper, Arkansas. Nope, just these beautiful surprise lilies, and some tourists wandering around with cameras. But none of them were naked.

Wikipedia describes our surprise lily as: "Lycoris squamigera is a plant in the amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae, subfamily Amaryllidoideae. It is also sometimes referred to as naked ladies." I guess they got that name because they're so lovely with long, bare (naked) stems."

And as a woman boasted on Seinfeld: "They are real. And they are spectacular."

Surprise lilies line our front porch and if you could see past the circle driveway, the long-stemmed beauties line our country driveway. These are the prettiest the summer flowers have been in the 24 years we've lived together.

Talk about a surprise, these rain showers, some heavy, and cool temperatures have been a real surprise this July. We haven't even reached 100 degrees. We've barely gotten into the 90s.

We think the cool temperatures from our vacation rode back home with us.

A couple of weeks ago, we were sitting on the front porch, when the cool temperatures enticed us to head out on a Sunday afternoon drive and explore dirt roads.

The sun was warm, and the sky was a feathery blue. We couldn't stay in the house.

Megan has a summertime rule: If you see water, you have to get out and wade, pick up rocks and see if crawdads are hiding underneath them.

That afternoon, dragonflies were busy skimming the water looking for whatever they eat. It must have been a great buffet. We saw a lot of them, and they seemed pretty happy.

Time for a game of "king of the mountain."

Uh-oh, looks like we're about to play suicide and see which one backs off the pedal first.

Megan denies, vehemently, that she was responsible for burning these circles in the pavement. What's the vote?

We're lucky we live in such a place.
Megan and Dwain

Summer rain taps at my window
West wind soft as a sweet dream
My love warm as the sunshine
Sittin' here my me, she's here by me.
Summer Rain - James Hendricks

'Please,' Brer Rabbit pleaded, 'Don't throw me in the blackberry bush!'

 A popular old Southern tale involves the simple psychological manipulation of Brer Fox by Brer Rabbit.
How? A blackberry patch is the plot.
It's as simple as why Dr. Bill Baker returned again and again to Gilbert, Arkansas. He said people in society say: "Every rabbit has his briar patch."

Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Dwain is already pricked by stickers on these "tame" blackberry plants. These plants may be tame, but they're still armed with sharp briars ... just like the briars where Brer Rabbit landed.

What makes these blackberry canes "tame" is the size and number of berries per plant. Each of these blackberries is as big as our thumbs, and so ripe they literally pop off the vine.

These plants originated with Megan's Dad, Clinton Tinkle.
He gave Dwain's Mom, Mattie Lair, a few of the canes, and they've thrived behind her house.
This year, she let us pick the berries.

What can we make with a gallon of fresh blackberries? And another gallon? And another gallon? And ...

Yum! Yum! Yum! Megan's just taken a hot blackberry cobbler out of the oven.

Can you smell the aroma, served in heirloom berry bowls with ice cream and whipped cream.

Where is the cherry on top?
Sorry, we don't want that taste to interfere with the blackberries.

Mmmmmm! Here are our main ingredients for blackberry jam: 8 cups of fresh blackberry juice, minus seeds, and Blackberry Brandy.

We'll add some No-Sugar Pectin and artificial sweetener to the bubbling juice, then fill and seal 8 half-pints with No-Sugar added Blackberry Jam.

In 10 minutes, these half-pints of Blackberry Jam will be finished processing and ready to store. Maybe we won't eat all of them this summer.  We have to save two for the fair.

 
If you're not familiar with Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox, the plot involves a rabbit that constantly pesters and belittles a fox.
Finally, Brer Fox catches Brer Rabbit.
Brer Rabbit begs Brer Fox to roast him, hang him, drown him, skin him, cut off his legs. And after each suggestion pleads: "Don't throw me in the blackberry bush!"
At that point, Brer Fox flung Brer Rabbit deep into the blackberry patch.
"Ouch! Oow! Ouch!" Then the blackberry patch fell silent.
A few minutes later, Brer Fox heard a scuffling sound at the other end of the briar patch, and Brer Rabbit scrambled out of the bush.
Remember what Dr. Baker told us years ago?
“Born and bred in the briar patch, that’s me,” laughed Brer Rabbit. “I told you not to throw me there. In all the world, that’s the place I love best!” 

The next berries to ripen will be a different variety of "tame blackberries." They're big and juicy, but the plants don't have briars.

Mmmmm, we love summer.
Dwain and Megan

We're going to a castle? Is it haunted? Yes ...

We're going to a castle? Is it haunted? Yes ... 
When your granddaughter is turning 15 years of age, what can grandparents possibly do to lure her away from her friends on a Friday night in late May?
We had to do some quick thinking and plotting.

First, we picked up the birthday girl and her little sister after school, while they were hungry, and promised them food. Then we played a game on the road trip: We're going to do something exciting for your birthday, you have to guess.

That took her away from texting for a bit.
Game on!
 

She got to pick between IHOP and Steak-N-Shake, because it was her birthday. It was a hard decision, but in the end, pancakes with lots of whipped cream always wins.

Click on the whipped cream link if you want to watch a GoPro time-lapse video of our funny meal:
See how fast the whipped cream face vanishes, then the pancakes are gone. 
As our server brought a surprise chocolate and ice cream topped with whipped cream dessert, she was joined by the iHOP staff as they embarrassed Alivia to death, clapping their hands and inviting everyone in the restaurant to wish her, "Happy Birthday."
As two senior citizens, older than us, walked past our booth, they purposely stopped, leaned over and wished Alivia a happy birthday.


Back on the road, the girls were still trying to unravel our destination as we played 20 questions.
Gosh, they were good questions!
At some point they guessed: "We're going to a castle?"
"Is it haunted?"
Their eyes flew open as they realized they were right. They didn't know whether to be excited or scared, but their smiling faces showed they knew the night held many possibilities.

Where in the world is Pythian Street in Springfield, Mo., and what is a Pythian, anyway?

Spirits are high, you can tell from our expressions, as we unload our Ghostbuster attitudes and head up those steps.

Oooooo ... the castle is guarded by stone dogs. Why don't we feel safer?

Here's our knight-in-shining armor. So much for protection, it looks like he's watching the girls from back in the darkness. Do we see red, squinted eyes looking out over their heads into the library? Is this the same knight that Megan's mom had stationed beside her fireplace to scare grandchildren away from the flames?

OK, this is a dubious look. When are they pulling the curtains open?

What is this? Megan was taking a picture of Dwain sitting beside the fireplace and a great big mirror over the fireplace. Somehow, the picture disappeared, and all we have left is this blurry image. Is it a spirit that moved in front of the camera, just as she clicked it? We can't know.

We were assigned to table No. 6. Now what is the program?

Uh-oh ... are we going to lose Alivia and Lucie to a boring grown-up speech?
 

The fancy ballroom was filled with more than 100 people of all ages and interests. This night, we were all listening to our tour guide's experiences with the unexplained and his promise that we would see and hear things we had never experienced before. He told a little bit of history, starting when the castle was opened 100 years ago in June 1914 by the Knights of Pythias, a fraternal order older than the Masons.

When the castle served as an Enlisted Men's Service Club during World War II, this ballroom was visited by such entertainers as Bob Hope and Groucho Marx.
Imagine that ... we're in the presence of Groucho Marx. Maybe he took the tour with us.

This is the basement of the Pythian castle. We're in the far right row of three rows. Our narrator said this basement has served as everything from a POW prison to a military hospital to the Enlisted Men's Service Club when it included a movie theater, ballroom, bowling alley, pool hall, library, and arts and crafts area. It probably also had a lot of smoking and drinking.

With as many people who came and went, he said it most certainly was the site of thousands of deaths.
He was sure some are still in the castle.

Are those spirits twinkling in the caged windows looking out from the basement.

Our narrator said a Japanese POW painted scenes in this basement cell. Did he? Who knows ... All we know is: Don't touch the walls.

No telling how old these metal cell doors are. But our narrator said, there is no forgetting the sound when they slam shut and the noise echoes up and down the basement.

 

This was a dungeon in a far corner of the basement. Supposedly, a German prisoner was held in this room. EVR (Electronic Voice Recordings) have picked up a German voice in this room. So our guide turned off the single light and spoke in German and English, asking questions of any spirits who had something to say. He invited anyone with a recording device to turn it on, and if they got anything, to please share it.

Are you picking up any voices with your electronic recording device? We don't want to scare you, but is that a shadowy hand across your chest? Megan said, "That would freak me out."

  

Oh, lucky us. Because it was Alivia's birthday, we got to go first. That's Alivia in the lead, wading through shallow puddles in this super narrow tunnel, then Lucie and finally Megan with the pale red light reflecting off her back. Why won't our guide go in this tunnel?

We found out later, that some notable mediums had seen what appeared to them as threatening shadowy, hairy not-of-this-world beings guarding the end of the tunnel. Then they had seen a ghostly man wearing a suit, waving his arms and telling people not to go in the tunnel.

Whew, we're climbing out of this hole. We're glad we didn't hear that story before going in the tunnel. It was creepy enough without the story. The end of the tunnel was blocked off because it now leads underneath government property.

Early in the castle's history, it served as a home for widows and orphans. Megan, Alivia and Lucie are lined up in the corner beneath one staircase, and Dwain and the guys are lined up underneath the other. Boys and girls were never allowed to interact, even if they were sister and brother. What is the blurry image on the right side of this photo?

This is the theater on the second floor. Boys on the right, girls on the left. See the clear aisle?

As the lights twinkle like stars, we see a faint, blurry shadow stretching down the aisle. Could it be Bob Hope? Those old entertainers can't resist a stage and an audience. We sat in the dim light and listened to electronic voice recordings that past visitors had shared.

The spirit of a young boy often inhabits this room, one of the spaces not restored in the 100-year-old castle. He's often heard bouncing a ball against the wall and irritating the spirit of an old, widow woman in an adjacent room.

Right now, that room was muggy. Notice the windows were open. Lucie was glistening because she refused to take off her blue fleece hoodie. Is she cold? No! She wasn't going to let a ghost touch her bare shoulder. Smart girl, always ready for the unexpected encounter.

Whew, the tour is over. Time to say thank you to our tour guide.

Yep, looks like we survived any encounters with spirits. It doesn't look like any unearthly things are riding home with us, so Lucie took off her hoodie.

Walking through the crowd, even the most doubtful person couldn't dispel the possibility that they had been visited by a spirit from the past.
 

We've got to get one more picture before heading off for the promised ice cream.

Here's a parting look at the Pythian Castle in all its ghostly and historical glory. It was well worth the drive and cost of admission. Sometime, we'll have to reserve a couple of slots in a historical tour.

We know two grandparents who had a lot of fun out of Alivia's 15th birthday.