Journal: Bread Pudding, Screen Flips, Quilting, and a Wedding

Last Monday, as I mentioned in last week’s journal, my brother Loren headed off west on a little excursion, possibly to the mountains.  That evening, he stopped in Kearney, where he went to Cabela’s and found a few bargains.  He’d thought to stay overnight in their very large parking lot, for which they’d given him permission, but as he talked to me on the phone, two nearby trains went blasting through, setting the ground a-rumble, and deafening us with the ear-piercing whistle.

So I gave Loren direction to the Wal-Mart north of town, where it would be a lot quieter through the night.

The next morning, his trailer brakes weren’t working properly, so he decided against going on to the mountains.  Before coming home, he visited Fort Kearny State Historical Park. 

Yes, the spelling of the Historical Park is different from the town’s spelling, ‘Kearney’.  The town of Kearney took its name from the fort.  The ‘e’ was added to Kearny by postmen who consistently misspelled the town name.  It was named after Col. (later, General) Stephen W. Kearny.

Tabby just came and very sweetly and politely asked for his soft food:  “Peep.”

I was busy typing, so didn’t look at him right away.  Fifteen seconds passed, with Tabby staring straight up into my face.  Then he said, said he, “MEEOW!!!”  Always makes me laugh, because he’s usually such a quiet little kitty.

And yes, I got up and got his food before finishing the sentence.  😃 He has me twisted right around his little paw.

Teensy seems to be fine after his strange episode last week.  He stayed in the house more than usual for a couple of days and slept a lot, but now he’s acting pretty much like his old self.

Tuesday afternoon, I paid a few bills, then headed to Hobby Lobby.  I took a small detour to Teddy and Amy’s house to take Jeffrey a birthday present; he was nine years old that day.  We gave him a giant nylon frisbee, a smaller nerf frisbee with tilted louvres, and a fancy little collector’s pickup. 

A friend and former coworker called as I was leaving their house, and we discussed my recipe for bread pudding.  She was planning to make it for the first time for her husband, who loves it.  She does not.  She told him she would not make it. 

But then she emailed me on the sly, asking for my recipe and wanting to know the best way to make it ---- because she wanted to surprise her husband with it.

Maybe she’ll like it now, using this yummy recipe from one of my Taste of Home cookbooks:

BILTMORE'S BREAD PUDDING RECIPE

Biltmore Estate, Asheville, North Carolina

INGREDIENTS

·        8 cups cubed day-old bread

·        9 eggs

·        2-1/4 cups milk

·        1-3/4 cups heavy whipping cream

·        1 cup sugar

·        3/4 cup butter, melted

·        3 teaspoons vanilla extract

·        1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

CARAMEL SAUCE:

·        1 cup sugar

·        1/4 cup water

·        1 tablespoon lemon juice

·        2 tablespoons butter

·        1 cup heavy whipping cream

DIRECTIONS

Place bread cubes in a greased 13x9-in. baking dish. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, cream, sugar, butter, vanilla and cinnamon. Pour evenly over bread.

Bake uncovered at 350° for 40-45 minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. Let stand for 5 minutes before cutting.

Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, bring the sugar, water and lemon juice to a boil. Reduce heat to medium; cook until sugar is dissolved and mixture turns a golden amber color. Stir in butter until melted. Gradually stir in cream. Serve with bread pudding. 

Yield: 12 servings.

Originally published as Biltmore's Bread Pudding in Taste of Home August/September 2007, p50

I don’t always make the sauce, and I often just use whatever kind of milk is in the refrigerator – sometimes 1% ... sometimes 2%...  and leave out the whipping cream.  We don’t need all those calories, really... but every now and then, if I’ve fixed a light enough meal, I figure we can afford to live high on the hog, and in goes the heavy whipping cream... or cream... or half and half. 

My friend and I were just finishing our conversation when Loren called; he was about five miles behind me, just going past the turnoff to our house, which meant he had twelve miles to go before getting to his own home.

I got a couple rolls of batting at Hobby Lobby, returned home, and finally remembered to eat breakfast:  half a banana, sunny-side-up egg on toasted homemade wheat bread, a glass of milk, and a big, fat, juicy strawberry.  The few dishes in the sink couldn’t be seen if one was standing five or six feet from the sink, and the livestock – uh, the three cats – were fed.  Therefore, I was ready to quilt.

This quilt was red, white, and blue with star blocks, one of my favorite block designs.  As I loaded it on the frame, online quilting and crocheting friends, one of whom doesn’t quilt, were having a discussion.  One quilting lady was sewing Disappearing Four-Patch blocks.  A Disappearing Four-Patch quilt is designed by sewing together four squares; then it is cut into four equal sections, rearranged, and put back together again, thus causing the traditional four-patch to disappear.

The lady remarked, “I’m amazed that three inches are lost during the making of this block.”

The non-quilting crocheter exclaimed, “That is such a waste!   I would be so ticked off about the loss that I wouldn’t do that pattern.”

Other quilters hastened to explained, “But you don’t actually lose any fabric!  After a block is made, you cut it up and sew it back together again.  You lose the size in the seams.  A lot of different looks can be achieved with this method, using a four-patch or nine-patch block.”

Speaking of ‘lost’ fabric, let this boggle your brain:

After putting the 19,200 one-inch squares onto the gridded, fusible Pellon, the center of the Mosaic Lighthouse quilt measured 160” x 120”.  After sewing all the vertical and horizontal seams (160 horizontal seams, 120 vertical seams), it measured 80” x 60”, and the one-inch squares were now half-inch squares.  The only way to avoid this ‘lost’ fabric, I guess, is to make nothing but whole-cloth quilts.

Do you remember what happened when I sewed the three sections of that Mosaic Lighthouse quilt together?  (I put the top together in three sections, because of the size limitation of the gridded, fusible Pellon.)  In each third, there were 180 horizontal seams.  In the right third, I took a smidgeon less than 1/16” too deep of seams on almost every seam.  That made for a slightly more than 10-inch discrepancy between that section and the other two sections!

But could I just take out the 180 horizontal seams that were too deep???

Nooooooooooo... because the 40 vertical seams were sewn after the verticals.  The vertical seams had to be taken out before I could take out the horizontals.

I consoled myself by added ripping and resewing time to my total construction time. 

The non-quilter (and non-mathematician, evidently) wanted to know how I managed to count all those one-inch squares.  “I’d have to count a few, write them down, then count more.  An extremely daunting task!”

Here’s how:  The mosaic part of the quilt, before borders, measured 60” x 80”.  The finished squares are ½”.  So you take 120 x 160.  Ergo, 19,200 squares.

What do you do if you accept a ‘Follow’ request from someone on Instagram because you are quite sure, judging by a post he or she has made and by comments he or she has made on other friends’ pictures, that he or she is someone you know – but days go by, and you are no closer to guessing the person’s identity than you were the day you accepted the request?

I once went to an Avon meeting and sat by a woman who called me ‘Sharon’.  I wasn’t sure I heard her right the first time, so didn’t correct her (I was timid)... and when she said it again, it seemed awkward to correct her when I hadn’t the first time, so I let it go.  BUT! – then I discovered I’d won a bunch of awards, and had to go not once, not twice, but thrice up onto the platform to collect my laurels and trophies and accolades and High Praise. 

“SARAH JACKSON!!!” boomed the announcer, over and over and over again.  And each time, I went trippity-tripping up front, all cutesy and proud of myself.

Or at least, I’m sure that’s what it seemed like, to the woman sitting next to me.

Better be sure, she was sure giving me the ol’ stink-eye by the third time. 

Finally she said in a very accusatory voice, “I thought your name was Sharon!!!” 

So I looked surprised (it’s hard to look surprised when you’re not; it makes your eyebrows shimmy) and said innocently, “Oh, is that what you called me?  I thought I hadn’t heard you right.”

She stared at me suspiciously for a moment or two, and I gave her the old Snoopy grin and tried to look too daffy to be blamed.

That night, I finished quilting the red, white, and blue quilt, trimmed it, and removed it from the frame.

Wednesday, after doing some housecleaning, I loaded my customer’s Autumn-Theme quilt onto my quilting frame.

I barely got started quilting before it was time for church.

We stopped at the grocery store afterwards, then went home and had a late supper of grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup, cottage cheese – and a few bites of the macaroni salad and potato salad (ready-made stuff from the grocery store) that was supposed to be for the next night.  We had to see if it was any good, you know (and yes, it was).

Some people think grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup are wintertime food.  Bad, bad people, trying to keep me from eating one of my favorites, just because it’s summertime!  😾

Those grilled-cheese sandwiches were downright necessary, because of the loaf of homemade bread our friend had given us a few days earlier.  We needed to use it up before it got stale or moldy.  We had it with honey... with jelly... with peanut butter... and one evening we had it toasted, under roast beef, mashed potatoes, and gravy.  Thursday I toasted the last piece and had it with an egg, sunny side up.  We have to actively work at it, to polish off a loaf of homemade bread before it gets old, now that there are no hollow-legged kids in the house! 

Seems like not so very long ago that I was making two loaves of bread every single morning without fail – and I didn’t own a bread machine yet, either.

I make our tomato soup with milk.  Sometimes I use my grandmother’s old recipe and add spaghetti to it.  She always added enough milk that the soup had a pretty pink color to it.  (A pinch of baking soda keeps it from curdling.)  Mmm, I love it.  But you should’ve seen Larry’s face when I made it for the first time after we were married – he who grew up on spaghetti and meatballs, with plenty of thick, spicy tomato sauce. 

He was surprised to discover he did like Grandma’s spaghetti soup.

The first time I ever tried to make it, being a dumb – er, uneducated – teenager who didn’t know how to cook, I put the dry spaghetti into the milk and tomato soup and then tried to boil it long enough to cook the spaghetti. 

You wanna know what happened?? 

The milk and tomato soup curdled so well it looked like cottage cheese, and the whole works stuck to the bottom of the pan and burnt good and proper. 

Thursday morning, Victoria sent me her latest ultrasound pictures.  It’s amazing, what those ultrasounds show! – we can clearly see the baby’s face, with a little button nose and small chin... and a little hand, curled against her cheek.

Victoria also sent pictures of the baby’s going-home outfit and a soft little pink hat she’d crocheted.  Baby clothes are so much softer than they used to be.  I think I dressed my babies in cardboard, by comparison.

A friend and her husband are in the throes of selling their home and moving over a thousand miles away.  They’ve had potential buyers demand this, that, and the other thing.  One even demanded her handmade quilt that was folded over the back of the couch!

Our house was moved to our property from an old farmstead 90 miles to the northeast.  They were planning to level the place to make room for more planted fields.  Therefore, the house itself was free.

The moving of said house was NOT free.  😲

It was up to us to disconnect pipes, electrical wires (the electricity had been shut off), take the chimney off, and so forth.  In one of our trips to the house, we were delighted to discover an old-fashioned water pump just outside the back door.  Larry spent some time and a whole lot of brute strength disconnecting and tugging that thing out of the ground.  We planned to get it in a day or two when we would return with an enclosed trailer to get various other things they’d said we could have around the property.

But evidently someone else was delighted to discover we’d pulled that thing loose from its tetherings.  We never saw it again.

An elderly lady wrote to ask, “Are you going to be in the path of the total solar eclipse on August 21^st, where you live in Nebraska, that will pass from Oregon to South Carolina?  I have never witnessed a total solar, but my mother woke my brother and me up at 2:00 a.m. when we were in public school to see a total lunar eclipse.  That was exciting to watch.

“I can remember my dad talking about a solar eclipse that happened when he was a boy of 10 or 11.  He was in the field planting grain with his father, when everything grew dark.  They wondered, at first, if the world was coming to an end.  It must have been scary for a couple of minutes.  This probably was in 1919, so people were not educated to this kind of occurrence in the ‘good old days’.  They would of course find out about it after the fact by listening to the radio.”           

The exact path of the eclipse is about 60 miles to our south. 

People also thought the world was coming to an end when the earth traveled through the Leonid Meteor Shower in 1833.  Here’s a story about it:  The Sky Fell, But Life Went On

Pretty startling it would be, when these things happen, to have no prior warning or knowledge of such events!

Here’s some of the work I did on my customer’s Autumn-Theme quilt that day.

A few days ago, Larry finished putting the new piston into his Dodge dually pickup.  He had to pull the head, replace the piston, and then put the motor back.  Big job. 

When he got home from work Thursday, he did a final few things on the truck... filled it with oil... and started cranking the starter.  It took just a little while for the fuel to make its way back through the lines to the filter and pump (and if I say any more, I’ll reveal my stupidity about such matters).  But soon the truck started ... ran... and!!! – it sounds good!  No more nasty knocking noises.  Larry was really happy about that.  I’m happy about that.

Friday was a beautiful, sunshiny day, and it only got up to 75°.  Saturday, the high was around 65°, and it was rainy.  You’d think it was autumn!  It’ll get hot again, though.

Meanwhile, our weather announcer informed us that there was a ‘Warm Weather Advisory’ in Central Alaska – they were expecting temperatures in the 80s!  The announcers were joking that nobody up there has short sleeves... or air conditioners (well, that’s probably the truth)...  Seattle, Washington, was under a smoke-and-bad-air warning... Revelstoke, Canada, had been issued an air-quality advisory... and Kalispell, Montana, was hazy from smoke.

Aaron has gone back to work now, doing things around the shop until he recovers completely.  So at least he’ll be able to make a little money for a few weeks until school starts.

Oh!!!!! ----- SNAP.  There went the mouse trap.  Again.  We’ve caught four mice in the last couple of days.  I wonder why the sudden influx of the horrid little critters?  (‘Horrid’, because they’re in my house.)  😝

We have an electronic repeller that’s supposed to work on mice and even bigger critters, such as raccoons, squirrels, bats...

I think it works.  Especially if we don’t let the batteries run down.

Using a quilting machine for long stretches of time, day after day, can be painful, I have found.  I get to leaning over too far as I quilt, and ooooeee, does my back start complaining.  Chest muscles and neck muscles get strained, and it even hurts to take a deep breath.  Remember how it used to feel when you were a little kid, after you were swinging on a swing seat – on your stomach/chest too long?  This is similar.  It’s not so much ‘nose to the grindstone’, but ‘nose to the quilt’, as it were.  heh  Gotta remember to stand up straight!

I quilt barefoot on nice, thick carpet over a thick pad.  Quite comfortable.  But! – if the machine is stitching too far away, over on the far side of the frame, and I forget to stop at a good point and step forward a bit, I wind up ‘hanging onto the floor’ by curling my toes down tight – and by the time I realize I’ve been doing that, the balls of my feet are very, very sore.  Also, I hang onto the handles so tightly, my hands and finger joints really get to aching.

Once everything is sore, I remember to stand up straighter, step along with the quilting machine, blink at intervals, breathe, and don’t clutch the handles so tightly.  (As soon as I’m better again, I’ll forget again.)

I worked on my customer’s quilt for several hours Saturday, hoping to finish one full row before running out of bobbin thread.  I’d ordered more when I saw how little of the right color I had upon loading the quilt, but it didn’t come that day – and I ran out.  It was just as well, though; 5 ½ hours were enough that day – enough that shoulders and chest weren’t getting any better.  It’s not nice to feel like an elephant is sitting on you every time you take a breath!

I’m about 25% done, and the last half always goes much faster than the first half, with custom quilting – at least, for me, it does.  Things always speed up, once I’ve settled on the design I want to use.  I no longer have to dream up something and try it out with paper and pencil; I merely need to implement what I’ve already done and attempt to match it.

The mail lady brought a box that afternoon – three more quilts from the lady in Washington State.  This makes ten quilts that she’s sent me – and she says she has a lot more where these came from.  🙂  It’s fun to do quilting on a quilt someone has put together nicely, with pretty colors. 

The eclipse glasses arrived, too.  I thought I was getting 100; I only got 10.  It was a little hard to tell what I was ordering on that eBay page, since the poster’s native tongue was obviously not English.  Evidently a ‘pack’ means ‘one pair of eclipse glasses in plastic wrap’.  A 10-pack means ten, not ten packs of ten.  Oh, well.  They were still cheap.  I ordered another 10, after checking them out to make sure they are ISO-compliant.  It has the ISO number printed on it (which is no guarantee, when it comes down to it, since anyone can print a number on something); but I can’t even see the bright outside window through them, and can barely, barely make out the very slightest glow from a bright white LED light, and nothing at all from a halogen.  That’s one of the criteria as listed on the AAS (American Astronomical Society) website.  Another little reassurance:  the glasses came from California, not China, as I had earlier thought.

We might need to duct tape them to the kids’ heads, though.  😄

A friend wrote in response to my complaint about the mice that she, too, was having troubles with mice.  And the mice in her house have been mighty industrious.  She discovered a couple of purses hanging on doorknobs upstairs – both of them loaded with egg noodles that those busy little rodents had hauled all the way from the kitchen on the main floor.  Ugh, I hate mice in the house, but that’s really funny.  Egg noodles in purses.

One night after I’d quit quilting and come upstairs, suddenly there was Teensy racing madly around my recliner, peering under and swatting under the loveseat, and skidding wildly through the living room.  I caught a glimpse of the critter; it was a young one.  But he kicked in the afterburner, and escaped down a vent.  Teensy held watch there for a couple of hours.

Horrid little destructive things!  If they’d stay outside, I’d think they were cute.  Inside, they’re nothing but trouble.

I posted some pictures, and an elderly lady wrote to me, “Sarah Lynn, I notice that you have lots more pictures of cats and flowers than you do of Larry.  Is it because you only have one husband but more flowers and cats?”

Heh heh...  Maybe it’s because he works such long hours, is rarely home – and if he is, he’s either moving rapidly about the ol’ homestead, eating, or sleeping.  The flowers are only hard to get photos of when they get buried in weeds, and the cats seem to actually pose for pictures. 

I could follow Larry around the state from jobsite to jobsite, and take pictures and videos.  That would fill up several memory cards right quick-like.  (Also, my hair would be even whiter than it already is. His job is scary at times.)

The lady, who is 90 years old, told me about attending her great-granddaughter’s 7^th birthday party.  She was so pleased when the little girl thanked her for the gift she’d given her, gave her a hug, and told her great-grandma she loved her. 

I asked, “Do you ever sit amongst your offspring’ns, grandoffspring’ns, and great-grandoffspring’ns, and think, Wow.  Because of me, these are.  ... look into adorable little faces and think, Oh, my goodness, that sweet child has my nose!  ... or hear a child singing a silly song and think, Listen to that! – I taught his Mama that very song, with all those same wrong words!”

Yesirree, my friend is right:  these are some of the best blessings life is made of.

She told me that she has troubles calling her children by their siblings’ names. 

I upped her one with this story: 

I once yelled, “Aleutia, STOP THAT!!!” at Keith, our eldest.

Aleutia was the big, friendly, Siberian husky.

The irreverent kids all burst into gales of mirth.  The husky waved her big fan of a tail, sharing the glee.

Just try getting the wind back into your sails after that.

The lady finished our conversation with this:  “I do my best to instill the knowledge that we must keep and cherish what is given us.  I call it thrift – they call it hoarding.”

When the children were little and it seemed there were always toys underfoot, I often said we were packrats from the kneecaps down, and neatniks from the knees up.  😃  We had pictures on the walls... a lot of pretty things on decorative shelves... nice furniture... and toys on the floor.

That evening, Teddy, along with little Warren, brought us a lemon meringue pie that Amy had made, with some help from the older children.  Mmmmm, that was one good pie.  With difficulty, we made it last three days.  Ahem.  I made my share last three days.  And I suspect I got cheated out of a bite or two.  😼

Among the things I took to our County Fair was the tied-edge double-thick fleece blanket that I made for Baby Elsie.  I looked at the little nine-patch doll blanket I’d put together with the corner scraps ... decided to take it, too.  Since there were only eight corners, the center patch had to be pieced.  But I thought it looked kind of nifty, since I’d overlapped all the pieces and used a fancy feather stitch on my machine (as opposed to making regular seams), thus reducing the bulk.  I put on a fleece backing and turned it.

Okay.  I knew the doll blanket wasn’t really state-of-the-art... but threw it in ... just because.  Because I was proud of myself for making use of every last scrap of fleece, and because it match... and, well, just because.  Now, the tied-edge baby blanket itself turned out perfect.  Nothing hard... or tricky... or time-consuming... but it was perfect, if tied-edge fleece blankets can be ‘perfect’.

I got a 2^nd-place ribbon on it, with a note admonishing me to make sure my seams were straight and all squares cut the same size.  hahaha  Should’ve left the doll blanket home!

We attended the wedding of Larry’s cousin’s daughter Katrina last night.  The groom, Luke, is a cousin to our son-in-law Jeremy and our daughter-in-law Maria. 

Originally, I made those Amish Folded Star potholders for them – but then I decided to enter them in the State Fair.  Instead, I gave the young couple a set of tea towels with the Bouquets design machine embroidery.  I put them in to a vintage wicker and burlap basket that was exactly the right size for the tea towels when they’re folded:

The lady for whom I’ve been quilting wrote last night to ask if I knew how to fix her screen.  She’d pressed some unknown keyboard buttons, and flipped it 90°, and had to turn her head sideways to use her computer.

Yep, I knew how to fix that – because some years ago I discovered the trick by accident, and then used it to disconcert my offspring when they needed to use the computer. 

Usually, pressing Ctrl + Alt + one of the Arrow keys solves the problem.  If that does not work, this will: Right click on Desktop > Display Settings (or Graphics Options) > Rotation.

The lady had also lost her car keys.

“As for your keys,” I told her, “I promise, they will be in the last place you look.  I know this, because...  as soon as you find them, you will stop looking.  Ergo, you found them in the last place you looked.”

Here’s a funny:

One day I went to help one of my blind friends with her computer.  The synthesizer – the program that reads the screen aloud – wasn’t working properly.

She demonstrated:  “See, the keyboard commands aren’t working!” – and she pressed Ctrl + Alt + the Up Arrow key about a hundred times in rapid succession.  Just before she did this, I turned the screen on so I could see what was happening.

Boy oh boy, were things ever happening!  That screen was spinning around in a circle, everything a total blur.

I burst out laughing.  “Your keyboard commands are working perfectly,” I told her.  “You have your Desktop so dizzy, it’ll be staggering like a drunken sailor for weeks!”

Linda turned toward me and tipped her head in question like she does. 

I couldn’t quit laughing; that had looked so funny.  I explained what was happening... pulled up Display Settings... and turned off that keyboard function, which immediately allowed it to work in her synth, Window-Eyes (screen reader).

And the world went on turning.

The Desktop, however, did not.  😄

I pulled this stunt on my kids a few times.  Most of the time, when they’d turn on the computer and find the Desktop sideways, there’d be a moment of silence... and then they’d say, “What in the world.”

But then there was Teddy.

He turned on the computer... came the usual silence...  But it didn’t last long.  Soon I could hear the keyboard clattering as he typed away.  So it was me thinking, What in the world.  I peeked around the corner — and discovered Teddy had simply turned the screen (one of those big ol’ honkin’ things that the cats could nap atop) onto its side, and was working away at his report, cheek a-twitch as he tried hard not to grin.

This morning I made coffee.  I like to stick my cup underneath the drip, let it fill halfway up, and fill the rest with hot water.  Instant gratification.

I totally forgot that Larry had thoroughly cleaned the coffeemaker yesterday afternoon.

That wasn’t a drip, that was a pour.

Guess what happened?

Yeah, the cup got full twice (or so it appeared) before I pulled it out once.

Oh, well.  The counter probably needed a good wipe-down anyway.  The rest of the coffee in the pot is quite flavorless, however.  But wheweee, is it ever hot!  I now need to spray Solarcaine on my tongue.

A box arrived from Wal-Mart:  the wedding wrapping paper I needed for the box for yesterday’s wedding.  Fortunately, I found some wedding paper I’d forgotten I had.  I don’t like it, though; it features a multitiered wedding cake on a stand, and the cake is white on a pale background, so only the stand and a fancy cake knife really show up much ------ and from a distance, instead of a wedding motif, it looks more like it says HI! HI! HI! HI! HI! all over the paper.  🙄

Loren got his trailer brakes fixed today; it was only a setting that was wrong, and not the electrical wiring, as he’d feared.  So he’s considering heading west again tomorrow.

A few minutes ago, Teensy jumped on my lap and pumped and kneaded and purred.  Now he’s sprawled on the rug at my feet.  Yep, he’s back to normal again, near as I can tell.  To my right, Tiger is spread all over the loveseat.  Tabby is in his favorite spot on the landing to the back deck under the mulberry tree.

Larry got home late tonight after work.  He brought the mail in – and the bobbin thread was with it.  So tomorrow I’ll continue quilting my customer’s quilt.

AAAaaauuuuugggggggghhhhhhh!!!!!!!  There’s a bat in the basement!  I opened the patio door and skedaddled back upstairs (while he dived madly at my head, as all bats are wont to do); hopefully he’ll exit into the Great Outdoors where he belongs.

An hour later:  Okay, the bat is nowhere to be seen, so I’ve shut the patio door.  I have the front door and the window beside me here in the kitchen open (yes, there are screens), and I hear a Great Horned owl out there somewhere, hooting away.  The night insects are singing loudly.  I like night sounds!  😊

Time to head for the feathers.

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