February Photos

Monday, July 17, 2017

Journal: Quilting, Streaming Cams, and an Anniversary

Last Monday, I inadvertently entertained several of my friends by mislabeling a couple of sheep as goats on Instagram.  I sent one of them this picture and remarked, “I should know the difference, right?”
She laughed and teased, “We’re supposed to be able to tell the difference between the sheep and the goats!” – making reference to a verse in Matthew that says, “He shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left...”  The sheep, of course, are His children, and the goats are not.
The truth is, I do sometimes have troubles mixing goats and sheep, when they are unique breeds that I am not accustomed to.  I have even gotten the mountain sheep and mountain goats mixed up – and it doesn’t help any that they are sometimes mislabeled on the Internet.  See, here are some that are obviously trying to be sheep and goats, both at the same time.
I do not often confuse dogs and cats, however.
It was hot and humid that day, and will be the same for the next week or two, at least.  Not easy for Larry and our sons and sons-in-law who are working hard out in this heat. 
Aaaccckkk... time out while I switch to my own songs from youtube.  I thought I’d found a few good songs, but it seems I was mistaken.  😝  I don’t like ‘contemporary’ chording.  I think people who draw up that stuff have stumps that stop at the elbow and no fingers, so they made up ‘chords’ they could play, despite the lack of fingers. 
Judging from the description of heavenly music in the Bible, it’s safe to say that we won’t have to put up with tuneless ear-cracking chording with repetitive-drivel (and worse) lyrics in heaven.  Whatever it will be, I know it will be beyond imagination, beautiful, majestic, and glorious... lovely to the ear, lively, and inspiring.  For sure, our heavenly singing will be prayer and praise to the Lamb, rather than boastful caterwauling about one’s self.
My sister was our church pianist some years before I started playing.  Our father, the minister and also the song leader, would sometimes go talk with Lura Kay as she played before the service or during the offering, discussing a song or suchlike. 
He tried that with me once.  Now, I can listen all right whilst I’m a-playin’, but I can’t talk whilst doin’ the same.  So first I mumbled something incomprehensible, and when he asked, “What?” I concentrated on answering him ------ and my piano playing totally fell apart.  I mean, the earth stopped turning... the sky fell... and the organist had no idea what to do with her kneecaps and elbows.
Believe me, Daddy didn’t try that again.  😲
From Tuesday through Saturday, I spent the majority of each day quilting, with a little bit of time spent washing clothes, paying bills, watering the houseplants, petting the cats, and cooking supper.
After church Wednesday evening, we went to Wal-Mart to get Bobby a present for his birthday the next day.  We chose Bluetooth earbuds with hooks that wrap around the ear.  Larry likes his similar ones; they stay in place while he’s working or riding his bike.
The man in the electronics department took the box with the earbuds up front for us, and we were to request them after we finished shopping and went to the checkout area.
As we walked over to the grocery department, we said to each other, “We’ll never remember to ask for those earphones.”
Not only did we forget, but we did not remember that we had forgotten until long into the next day, when it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen the box when I put the groceries away.
The groceries we got were things I can’t order online:  fresh fruit and vegetables, and dairy and bakery products.   When we got home, Larry made Mexican omelets.  While we ate, we watched a live streaming cam from Katmai National Park in Alaska, where it is positioned near Brooks Falls.  Grizzlies were catching salmon right and left.  A sow with a couple of cubs came moseying out from the bank.  One of the cubs would just as soon play as catch food.  He ran this way and that... tripped over boulders... tumbled into holes with huge splashes... and probably scared away any fish his mother had hoped to catch.  But when he got to the main part of the falls, he could hardly keep from catching a fish, unless he purposely closed his mouth and refused to open it.  Fish were jumping everywhere, a dozen at a time.  Here’s the camera:
A friend mentioned that their cat chews on cords.  We had a dog that did that, but never a cat.  We did, however, have a cat that liked Halls Honey-Lemon-Menthol coughdrops, silly thing.  I was afraid they’d make him sick, so we made sure to keep them where he couldn’t get to them.  Or at least we thought we’d made sure.  But one day I found him on the counter standing on his hind legs, reaching up to the upper cupboard where those coughdrops were stashed and pulling open the door.  If he ever heard the paper crinkling as we unwrapped one, he’d come running, meowing, and then sit up and beg just like a puppy.
After about ten hours of quilting on Thursday, I rolled the quilt forward, putting the center of it squarely in the middle of the frame.  Custom quilting doesn’t go quite as fast as a pantograph!  But I was pleased with how the quilt looked so far.  More photos are here
Before heading for the feathers, I took another look at the Katmai cam – and watched as a mama grizzly came out to Brooks Falls with three little cubs in tow.  She kept catching salmon and, after putting the fish out of commission, she’d place the remains on boulders in the river, then busy herself catching another.  The cubs, in between boisterous playing and splashing, would stop at those boulders and have a snack.  Smörgåsbord! 
Sometimes, noticing that their mother had left them a snack, they’d gallop toward the boulder; then, averting their gaze, they’d stroll past... then suddenly whip around, rise up high, and pounce on the fish, quite as if they’d caught the thing themselves.  They’d shake it good and proper, as if they had to kill it all over again, then settle down to munch happily away.
Time and again, they accidentally lost their chow to the river’s current – but just as often, a sibling would manage to snag it as it floated past.
The braver of the cubs splashed pell-mell upstream, doubtless startling the fish for yards around.  His mother watched him in some disgust, then lumbered off to the shore with an I give up!  That kid! attitude.  The two milder-behaved cubs splish-splashed along behind her.  She kept throwing glances over her shoulder at the wayward cub, and finally he noticed that he was getting left behind and came barreling through the water like an out-of-control paddleboat to catch up with mother and siblings.
Bears in that area are fat and sassy this time of year.  No shortage of food there!
I woke up early Friday morning, wondering if I was feeling an earthquake for the first time in my life – and then realized it was just the washing machine, trying to escape out onto the back deck. 
Larry had overloaded it with a bunch of jeans before he left for work, and the poor machine was about to fly apart at the seams.
The 59 spools of Sulky embroidery thread I bought online a few days ago came that day.  Since some of the thread was partially used, the lady sold the lot, plus the plastic Sulky thread box, at a good price – $1.00 a spool, plus shipping.  She threw the case in free.

But either the person who used the thread didn’t know what those little grooves at the top and bottom of each spool are for, or simply didn’t take the time to secure the thread ends in those grooves after using each spool.
The thread was raveled off the spools and tangled with other thread and on the spindles of the case.  What a mess.  I had to rewrap every single spool.  In so doing, I found some of it breaks easily.  It’s all 40#, except for one spool of finer metallic.  Perhaps it’s old and brittle?  All the other Sulky thread I’ve used worked fine in my machine.  Guess I’ll find out when I start using it.  If my machine doesn’t like it up on top, I’ll use it in the bobbin.  The colors are pretty, at least, and it’s a nice case.  It will hold 104 spools.
If you figure that a full spool of this thread is not often less than $4.50, and sometimes twice that, and then figure that only a few spools are half gone, most are at least ¾ full, and some are nearly new, I reckon that I easily got more than twice the amount I paid for – unless it’s mostly brittle.
Oh!!  Wow, I just discovered that Katmai’s streaming cam also shows the bears swimming underwater.  Now, that was a sight to see, especially when the bear swam right up to the camera and breathed out a lungful of bubbles. 
There’s another camera set up at Brooks Falls.  If you want to see the fish jumping up close, this is it.  The Falls present a temporary barrier to the fish through most of the month of July, because of the volume of water rushing through.  Here’s a screen shot:
There’s a camera on the Lower River, too, below the Falls.  It’s here the sows more often come with their cubs, as it’s safer for them farther away from the big ol’ boars, who’d rather not share their dinner table with bratty youngsters.

Larry was late getting home from work that night.  I kept quilting away, waiting until he arrived to make a big chef salad.  We had potato salad with it.
Kurt and Victoria came visiting, bringing Victoria’s homemade cinnamon rolls, which they shared with us as a gift for our anniversary Saturday, July 15th.  We’ve been married 38 years.  The visit was even nicer than the cinnamon rolls, and the cinnamon rolls were scrumptious. 
A friend who lives in Oklahoma wrote to say that they’d had an earthquake measuring 4.2 on the Richter scale that morning, about 15 miles from their home.  They had no damage, thankfully. 
“And around here, the clouds fall!” I told my friend. 
Well, at least that’s what one of my small great-nieces thought was happening when it was all foggy outside.  Her mother said funny things when she was little, too ------ and still does:  “Calm yourself, Chicken Little,” she told her daughter.  “That’s ‘fog’.”  😁

Here are Tiger and Teensy, taking it easy during these lazy, hazy days of summer.
Saturday after Larry got off work, he helped Jeremy take down some very large trees, using the boom truck.  When he got home, he gave Teddy a haircut, then worked on his red-and-white pickup, getting a new starter put on it, and fixing the brights/dimmer switch.
We had strawberry pound cake and fresh bing cherries for dessert that night. 
Nine hours of work took me to the 75% mark on my customer’s quilt, or thereabouts.
Last night after church, Lydia brought us an anniversary gift:  Ahroma French Caramel Crème coffee, a couple bags of Hershey’s Kisses, and a gift card to Cracker Barrel.
After she left, Larry went for a 22.5-mile bike ride. 
Meanwhile, I filled out all the necessary online forms for entering a dozen items in the Nebraska State Fair, including the Amish Folded Star potholders I’d planned to give the newlyweds next week.  They’ll get machine-embroidered tea towels instead, since I have a couple of extra sets.  I found a vintage handled wicker basket (looks like new) with puffy wicker fruits along the sides that the tea towels will perfectly fit into.  Because I entered things in the fair, I was offered tickets at half price -- $5/apiece instead of $10.  So I bought a couple.
I had to trot downstairs to measure the pillow I’m entering in the Fair.  I opened the door to my sewing room... walked in...
You know, I really, really dislike it when I walk through an oft-used doorway – and wind up with a spider web wrapped around my head two or three times.  Aaauuuggghhh.
I started using email back in 1999, and liked it for its unobtrusive way of contacting someone.  You write when it suits you... the recipients read when it suits them. 
And then... enter the smartphone, and similar gadgets.  Most everyone is plugged in most all the time.  I send an email to one of my daughters in the middle of the night... she has her phone on her nightstand, and it’s synched with her email account, and she’s forgotten to turn the volume down on all apps except the actual phone part of the gadget.  It rings loudly, rousing her husband, and he, still half asleep, he who is always, without fail, kind and loving and respectful to Larry and me as his parents-in-law, mutters, “Tell your mother to quit doing that!”  hee hee 
Now, what in the world would make him think that a notification on his wife’s phone in the middle of the night would be caused by me?!
After hearing that, you can be sure I think twice before sending emails in the middle of the night!
Speaking of the time, we’re in Central Time Zone.  Mountain Time Zone is 240 miles to our west.  When I was little, traveling with my parents, I was always sooo excited to get to that time zone sign, out in western Nebraska.  “We’re almost to the mountains!!!!” I’d cry.  But then I’d look at the map and start tallying up the mileage, and see that we still had a good 500 miles to go.  Siggghhhh... 
Auugghh; I just shook out the downstairs bathroom rugs, and the wind kept switching as I shook them, and I now have fuzz and lint all over clothes, hair, eyelashes...
I’m washing clothes... bedding... towels... and rugs today.  The last load is in the washer.  It got up to 93°, and I hung things outside.  They dried fast, as there are gusts over 20 mph and the humidity is only 42.5%.  We were issued a heat advisory this afternoon.
The bed is remade; I washed the fleece blanket, too.  It’s so nice, climbing into a bed made with sun-dried sheets. 
That sounds funny.  Sun-dried sheets are different than sun-dried tomatoes, aren’t they?
I just had a snack of bing cherries and orange juice, and ordered some long Red-E-Edge clamps for holding the edges of quilts taut on my quilting frame.  If I’d have had those, the Buoyant Blossoms quilt wouldn’t have a whoppyjaw backing in one spot.
The timer is beeping; time to get the cherry streusel pie out of the oven.  Larry will be happy when he walks in after work.  😊

Back to the quilting!


,,,>^..^<,,,       Sarah Lynn       ,,,>^..^<,,,



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