Sarah Lynn's Nature's Splendor: Journal: Sunsets & Hexagons, Snowstorms & Gardens

Last Monday night was another of those nights that refused to lend itself to sleep. I finally gave up and clambered out of bed a little after sunrise (which is sometimes not too long after I’ve gone to bed).

By 9:30 a.m., I could’ve slept quite fine, but that would’ve messed up my freshly coiffed hairdo.

In another hour, I no longer cared about fancy coiffures. I needed a nap. I took a nap.

Fortunately, I have a neckroll gel pillow that keeps hairdos from getting too squished.

That afternoon, I hemmed a dress for Joanna. She’s 16 ½ now, can you believe it? The dress was made of thin, single knit, so after cutting off the right amount, I serged the edge, turned it up once (as it had been done originally), slid skinny pieces of lightweight Pellon into the fold of the hem, and then stitched the hem from the back, setting presser foot pressure at medium and cranking the top thread tension up a ways. The stitching on the front looked perfect, and the hem was smooth. Success!

Water soluble stabilizer would’ve worked better, but I found the Pellon first, and looked no farther.

After cleaning the kitchen, I went back to putting more rows together for the Atlantic Beach Path quilt.

Hannah came to pick up the dress that evening, all in a rush because a thunderstorm was bearing down on us. Fat drops of rain were starting to plop down as she and Levi hurried back to their van.

It rained hard for a short time, and then was gone as quickly as it had come, leaving us with a brilliant sunset.

By bedtime, ten vertical rows were done. I pressed under the edges of the hexagons that will overlap the panel; I’ll sew them on with a blanket stitch, like appliqué.

Wednesday and Thursday were more of the same, with a break Wednesday night for our midweek church service.

Late Thursday night (or early Friday morning, depending on your point of view), I finished sewing and pressing all the vertical rows on the Atlantic Beach Path quilt. I then pinned a numbered paper on each strip (38 of them) before taking them off the design wall and stacking them up. When that was done, I hauled everything back upstairs to my quilting studio, including my machine. (That thing is heavy!) The Styrofoam insulation that Larry used for the design wall was stacked together, so it was only 8’ x 4’, instead of 8’ x 12’ – and I can finally get into the music room and play my piano again! Yaaay! I’ve been suffering severe withdrawal pains. 🤪 Friday, I could start sewing the vertical strips together! Larry took the Styrofoam back downstairs.

It would be nice to have a permanent design wall, maybe. But then, I’ve never needed one before this One-Block Wonder, and I can finish it without the wall, so...

Friday morning, I very, very happily thundered my way through Onward Christian Soldiers and Stand Up for Jesus before trotting upstairs to my quilting studio to sew those strips together.

There are 38 strips, and to pin and sew one 102” strip onto another and then press all the seams takes almost an hour. Perhaps some time this week, I’ll start sewing the sections of kaleidoscopes onto the center panel.

Larry said the hexagons made from the area of the panel that sported those flying birds look like the seagulls went through a jet engine. hahaha Yeah, I know; that’s kinda gross; but I couldn’t quit laughing.

They’ll blend. They’ll blend. You just wait and see.

Saturday, it was cool enough outside to open the windows. I could hear cardinals and chipping sparrows and English sparrows and blue jays. They don’t really sing, this time of year; they’re busy chirping their ‘keeping track of each other’ and ‘there’s food over here!’ chirps.

I posted pictures from our trip to Lincoln to see the dentist, when we explored the lovely Sunken Gardens: Lincoln and the Sunken Gardens. And here are photos from our trip to Burwell, out in the Sandhills, where we watched the sun set over Calamus Reservoir, the waters covered with pelicans and other waterfowl: Sandhills and Calamus Reservoir

This is called Ornamental Millet Jade Princess (below).

Some quilting friends were discussing their tomato crops. A lady who lives in Phoenix picked the last of her tomatoes a couple of months ago. One who lives in Montana was hurriedly picking hers, ripe or otherwise, in front of a giant snowstorm slated to hit over the weekend. Another lady in northwest Montana was, along with her husband, picking bushels and bushels of apples from their trees, trying to get as many as possible before the blizzard hit.

One year, a friend gave me a pickup-bed load of bedraggled tomato plants that a local nursery was pitching out – and they let her have them for free. She evidently thought it was exactly the thing to keep me out of trouble.

Problem: It was mid-June. We sometimes get frosts in mid-September.

I planted them anyway. Larry rototilled, and I sprinkled some Miracle Grow into the mulch as I stuck each plant into the ground. Then I watered and weeded religiously, sometimes giving them more Miracle Grow – and those plants flourished and started giving us tomatoes in late July.

They kept growing and producing until mid-October. When frosts were predicted overnight, the kids and I covered the plants with sheets, and when finally there was going to be a hard enough frost that no amount of sheets could insulate them, we picked all the remaining tomatoes, red, orange, or green.

The bigger ones, we spread on the table to ripen. The rest of them, I ran through the blender (lightly, so they stayed chunky), popped into my biggest pan, and set to making salsa. Mmmm, mmm, that was the best salsa ever, probably because, for once, the tomatoes outdid the hot peppers in ratio. I usually make salsa hot enough to lift one’s sombrero straight off one’s head. (I say it’s an accident; everyone else accuses me of doing it on purpose because I like it that way.)

Larry has been baling hay at Teddy’s place several evenings this week. The hay baler he got in Victoria, Kansas, is finally doing a fairly good job, once he found the heavier cording it needs.

Some of the hay he cut a while back got rained on before he had a chance to get it baled. Teddy will use it for bedding for his pigs.

Thunder was rolling and lightning was flashing early Sunday morning, about the time I got up. Rain began pouring down, and it kept up until not more than half a minute before we had to leave for church. I had my finger on the button of my umbrella, ready to pop it up, when the rain stopped. Trouble is, the hosta leaves and blossoms along the sidewalk hold water, and as we walk along between those plants, they lose all their raindrops all over our best Sunday duds!

So we sloshed off to church, feeling decidedly damp around the ankles.

We had dinner with Kurt and Victoria after the service. We stopped at Wal-Mart on the way and picked up some deli sliced turkey, cheese, and strawberries for them, and a couple of Lil Cutesies posable baby dolls for Carolyn and Violet.

Those dolls were a definite hit. Carolyn was slurping away on an applesauce packet, so I set her doll on the edge of the table so she could see it, and she promptly leaned over and kissed it on the foot.

Larry was holding Violet when I handed her dolly to her. She grinned at the doll, grinned at Larry, grinned at her Daddy, and handed the doll to him for his inspection. He put it against his shoulder, patted its back, then handed it back to Violet. She immediately put the dolly on her shoulder and patted its back. Funny little girl.

Some friends and I were discussing our ages, as several have had birthdays recently.

“I add 10-20 years to my age when people ask,” said one lady, “in order to amuse myself watching the stunned expressions on their faces. Then they utter one of my favorite phrases: ‘You don’t look it!’”

One night after church, Larry and I went into a local convenience store. The young man at the cash register greeted us, looked us over (Larry in his dapper black suit with silk tie and his best Tony Lamas, me in a fitted skirt and jacket with a shiny silk infinity scarf and high-heeled sandals), and said, “You two look really nice!”

We thanked him.

He scanned our items, took our money, and repeated, “You do look nice!” – and then, in the way of thoughtless youth everywhere, he added with friendly carelessness, “I mean, so many older people just don’t care what they look like!”

Then his eyes widened and he hastily began back-pedaling. “I mean, you’re not old-old; you both look really young!” A shuffling of feet, a furrowing of brow, and one last endeavor to save himself: “But you do look nice!” (In spite of looking really young?)

We again thanked him politely (me trying not to laugh) and exited. As soon as the door shut behind us, I told Larry, “Don’t strut your stuff, Big Boy. He thinks we’re eighty.”

Larry has used that line on me ever since. If anyone gives me a compliment of any sort in his presence, any sort at all, he hisses in my ear, “He/she thinks you’re eighty.”

I’m married to a comedian.

Hee hee... Tiger was starting to walk through the kitchen – but, over there in the food dispenser, where he recently had eaten a few bites, the cat food is trickling down from the container into the bowl, one piece of food at a time, plink, plunk, ploonk. Tiger has come to a total stop, and is staring at that spooky food dispenser with very large eyes. 🙀

Montana had historic snowfalls over the weekend. One town received 52”. Others got 48”... 45”... 42”... I wish I was there! Well, that is, tucked into a cozy little cabin in the mountains. With snowshoes and camera near at hand.

How in the world does this grader driver know where the road is??!

And would you look at the contrast between that photo and this one, taken at the Sunken Gardens:

When Larry got home from work tonight, he did a bit of work on the old blue pickup, then drove it to town to fill it with fuel and to wash off the bed. And now it’s ready to sell.

Speaking of buying and selling... would you believe, Larry has bought a large vehicle or engine jack... in Pavillion, Wyoming?!

(Of course you would.)

I accused, “You’d buy a toothpick in some far-flung town, just so you had an excuse to go there!” I considered, then added, “Or a Big Bud tractor.”