Last Monday night when I signed off, I said that the temperature was -27°. However, one final check after I sent the letter and actually went to bed showed that the temperature had fallen a couple of degrees to -29°, with wind chills below -40°. Wow, that’s cold. A lot of records were broken here in Nebraska, as they were in multiple parts of the country.
Tuesday morning when I
turned on the tub faucet to trickle some water for Teensy (he thinks that’s his
private water fountain), it spluttered and spewed, and he leaped backwards
about 10 feet in one jump. After
apologizing to the cat, and figuring there was ice in the pipes, I trotted
downstairs to see if anything was leaking, fearing the worst.
No pipes seemed to be broken, thankfully.
I noticed that the clock on the stove was blinking,
which told me the electricity had been off at some point in the early morning
hours. Larry, always the optimist,
theorized that because a bathroom faucet and both toilets have flaps inside the
tanks that don’t always seal completely, and because we have a well and an electric pump, water drained from some of
the pipes and was not replaced, allowing them to accumulate air bubbles in the water lines.
After letting the water run for a few minutes, all was
back to normal.
By 3:00 p.m., the temperature had made
it up to -4°, with a wind chill of -20°.
We were being told to conserve electricity, but there were clothes in
the washing machine that had been there since the previous night. I waited until a little later in the
afternoon, when the demand on the electric grid was down a bit, and then tossed
the clothes into the dryer before demand rose in the evening.
Supper for Loren that afternoon was wild-caught Alaska
salmon (in the last five minutes of baking, I like to sprinkle red and green
pepper slices and bits of onion on it), fire-roasted vegetables and potatoes, a
lettuce salad with a bit of cabbage, bacon bits, carrots, cranberries, and
almonds, with honey-mustard dressing, V8 cocktail juice, some slices of kiwi,
and blueberry yogurt. I’m glad my Jeep is reliable in weather like that,
and glad Loren only lives ten miles away!
I spent quite a few hours that day getting all the
papers ready to take to his accountant Thursday morning. ’Tupid
taxes. 😝
But... we ‘render unto Caesar what belongeth to Caesar’, and are glad we don’t
live in the Dark Ages of Europe.
“Indeed,” responded a friend when I
voiced this combination of precept and persuasion. “Nasty fleas, they had.”
And
rats! Plagues were carried by the fleas who were often living off the
rats. And the rats were
living off all the garbage everyone left lying about. Ugh, ugh, ugh.
When I think of the Dark Ages, I
envision it as very, very dark – literally. I suppose the sun did shine;
but I see it as dark. It really was dark, morally,
spiritually, ... and in many other ways. I didn’t much enjoy studying it
in school; but, as always, I was nevertheless intrigued, and went to the public
library and checked out even more books on the subject.
Way to give myself nightmares. 🙄
If people would’ve only
followed the old Mosaic laws concerning cleanliness, hygiene, and proper diet,
and, above all, put God in their lives, there’d have been a few less plagues in
this old world.
A friend who lives in a warmer climate than we do,
noting our frigid temperatures, asked, “What precautions must you take when it’s
this cold with such things as pipes, plants, and
pets? Do you let the cats out? Do you leave water dripping? Does anything special have to be done to
cars?”
We
didn’t let the cats outside during two of those coldest days. I don’t
want them to freeze paws or ears, and I didn’t want to leave the outer walk-in garage
door open a bit to allow them back in, because an Arctic gale can then blow
right into the garage and directly on through the pet door. The pet door
is larger than most cat doors; we put in a small-to-medium-sized dog door
on account of Tiger’s size.
Teensy
went outside for a little while Sunday; the cold doesn’t seem to faze him much,
though he doesn’t stay out as long as he otherwise would.
Our old house
isn’t very well insulated, and I do worry about the pipes. I have sometimes
purposely left a trickle running in the coldest part of the house.
All my
outdoor plants are hardy enough to withstand the weather. Theoretically.
#1
diesel and Diesel 911 additive have to put into diesel engines. The Jeep
is doing all right, although Tuesday afternoon it started slowly, and something
wasn’t quite clicking properly in the electronics until it got warmer. It
might very well need a new battery sooner than usual, on account of this cold.
Late that night (actually, it was very early Wednesday
morning), I finished sorting through Loren’s papers. Everything was ready to take to the
accountant Thursday morning, near as I could tell. It took me hours to go
through everything, because he had saved every receipt he got, all year long –
and a bunch from 2019 were thrown into the mix, too. He’s probably
remembering all the things they could deduct back when he was working for NFIB. Because Janice did all his bookwork, they
could consider at least one room a home office, and a number of household
things were deductible, as was his fuel.
Once, a few months ago, he got all excited when I
showed him the stub for the garbage bill, telling him I’d paid it – and then
started to toss it in the garbage. He hastily rescued it from me and put
it into his file box, saying he ‘needed it for taxes!’
I told him, “If you try to use your garbage
bill as a deduction, I’ll be coming to visit you in the jug!”
He laughed, but he didn’t retrieve the stub.
After that, I paid the bill and tossed the silly stub into the trash at my house.
He had a heap of receipts from the pharmacy and lots
of doctor bills from when Norma was sick.
The greater percentage of each bill was paid by Medicare or his
supplemental insurance. I doubted if he had paid enough out of pocket to warrant
itemizing and using as a deduction, but I put them into a folder, just in case.
It was a little bit sad, seeing things I knew Norma had
purchased until a month or two before she passed away last year, and seeing
some of the signs of my brother’s decline.
However, I was also glad to see some of his recent
receipts from Wal-Mart and a couple of other places, showing that he is still
able to buy his necessities. He’s been reading
his numerous books the last four or five months, enjoying them all over again now
that he can see well again. I think he
can no longer plow through the study books as he once did, though (he was the
pastor at our church for a few years after my father’s death in 1992, before my
nephew Robert Walker took the position).
Our midweek church service was canceled Wednesday night
on account of the work being done on the balcony. Larry has been helping with the welding.
That day, February 17th, was a friend’s
birthday. “It’s an extremely important
day on which to be born, too!” I told her.
“Just look at the list of important things that have happened on this date.”
1795: Thomas
Seddal harvests 8.3-kg potato from his garden in Chester, England
1876: Sardines first canned by
Julius Wolff in Eastport, Maine
1909: Geronimo
[one who yawns], Apache chief, dies at 79
1972: Sales of
the Volkswagen Beetle exceed those of the Ford Model T
1985: 1st-class
postage rises from 20 cents to 22 cents
2017: Discovery
of a new mostly underwater continent Zealandia in the South Pacific announced in
research journal “GSA Today”
I’ve always found the lists from ‘On This Day In
History’ quite interesting. Besides, who
wouldn’t like to be born on the same date as when sardines were first canned?
Some of the quilting ladies on my
group were discussing housecleaning and decluttering recently. One remarked, “My mom clears ‘clutter’ like
she’s reporting to a 4-star general.” 😄
We had a daughter-in-law like that. She’d pitch the baby out with the dishwater,
if you didn’t keep an eye on her. I have
to admit, though, her house was neat as a pin. A couple of times, I bought back stuff I’d
given our son – special things, such as nice souvenirs from Yellowstone, and a
couple of handmade items – when she had garage sales.
Once we started driving down their
gravel lane, realized she was having a yard sale – and when she started walking
toward us to greet us, Larry put our vehicle in reverse and went spinning and
skidding backwards. She stopped and
stared, amazed.
Larry rolled down the window and
called out, “I was afraid you were coming to put a price tag on me!!!” 😂
It got up to 13° Wednesday, the warmest it had been in
over a week. With the slight rise in
temperature and with people conserving power, no blackouts occurred that day.
Here’s Loren’s menu that day: baked chicken breast filet, broccoli, slices
of French bread fresh out of the oven with pats of butter between each slice (I
couldn’t help it; I had to have half a piece; I try not to snack on anything
when I’m making his food, as I need no extra calories – but fresh-baked bread
is too much to resist), peach Jello with diced peaches in it, strawberry Cibani
Greek yogurt, and apple juice. I gathered
up his laundry while I was there.
Before coming home, I went by the post office to mail
a check for Loren’s property taxes, then to the Salvation Army to drop off some
things.
The cats were delighted when we opened the outer
garage door again so they could go outside. It started to snow – and we hadn’t gotten the
2” from the previous night cleared off our sidewalks yet.
“If you come visiting, be sure to wear your galoshes!”
I told a few of the kids.
The birds were going through the black-oil sunflower
seeds like hot soup. I try to keep the
feeders full when it’s so cold and when it snows; birds need fuel to survive such
weather! Here’s one of the recent diners
at the buffet:
Teensy kitty, old as he is, acts
like a maniac when he wants out, and then discovers the weather is bad out
there. He bombs around the house
attacking throw rugs, grabbing them with his claws, and rolling. Sometimes he winds up stuck and requires
assistance getting out. 😅
It was all glittery Thursday,
with the sun shining on Wednesday’s powder snow, and nary a cloud in the blue,
blue sky. It felt like a major heat wave
– 18°, and NOT below zero!
That morning I took Loren’s
tax papers to the accountant. Wonder of
wonders, I managed to have everything I needed, on the first try. (Or at least I fondly imagined that was the
case. I was disabused of the notion
today.) I popped into Andrew’s office
for a minute or two while I was there; it’s always fun to find a friendly face
in a big office.
So that’s done (except
for going back to sign the papers when they’re complete). Whew, it’s a relief
to have it finished.
Home again, I had time to
trot upstairs to my little office to scan a few more photos before taking Loren
his supper. This time, it was a chicken
egg roll, loaded baked potato soup, peas, peaches, rice pudding, and grape
juice. I returned one of his plastic filing cases to him, and he laughed
when I opened it and pulled out two gallons of water. It was plumb empty
of receipts; I told him he could start filling it up again with this year’s
receipts.
Since it doesn’t do any
good to tell him he doesn’t need to save all that stuff, as he absolutely
believes he does need to save it, I’ll let him save it. And since
I have his mailing address changed to my address, I will (theoretically)
get the ‘important stuff’, so it won’t get lost like some of it did last year.
When I quit scanning
pictures for the day, I was nearly done with the 41st album, and had
scanned 10,978 photos.
Here’s Keith holding Lydia, in October of 1991. We were at Lewis & Clark Lake north of
the Missouri River near Gavin’s Point Dam, and we stayed in this log cabin
overnight:
Friday was Ian’s 5th birthday. The pajamas I got for him hadn’t come; they
were lurking in a depot somewhere in Overland Park, Kansas, and wouldn’t arrive
until Monday. At least the toy came. That’s the important part, when you’re five
years old. 😉
I cleaned the kitchen, put a load
of clothes into the dryer, scanned some photos, then called Loren at 3:00 p.m.
as usual.
The phone rang... Loren picked it up... and instead of
saying ‘hello’, he asked, “Do you need some food?” hee hee
“If I was a spammer,” I said, “I’d
be quite confused now!”
He laughed. Sometimes – a lot of the
time, actually – he’s just his old self.
I made him some food and took it to
him. On the way home, I dropped off Ian’s
present.
Below is Victoria learning to skate at Pawnee
Park. It was a cold, cold night, when I
took that picture.
A 67-year-old man who lived out by North Platte was
found dead in his house a couple of days ago. The temperature in his
house was 14 below zero. His brother had taken him to the grocery store a
few days earlier, and he’d been all right. It was known that he heated
his home with propane and had no electricity. The authorities therefore
checked on him now and then. In that cold of weather, ‘now and then’ wasn’t
often enough, it appears.
I finished scanning the 41st photo album Friday
night, and began on another Saturday.
I baked an apple pie Friday evening; so Loren was
pleased to find a slice in his lunchbox Saturday. 😋
He’s happy that his property taxes are paid (and he
didn’t have to go to the courthouse to do it, like he thought he needed to),
and his taxes are being figured, and he didn’t have to sort through his multitude
of receipts, not knowing what to save and what not to, or how to fill in the
tax papers. Before I started paying his bills for him, he would write out
checks... put them in the envelopes... and then drive to individual places of
business (the electric company, the trash company, etc.) to pay each
bill. If he had to mail something, he would take it to the post office –
and go inside to buy only as many stamps as he needed right then. I found
receipts from the post office for one lone stamp. No wonder he told me
months ago, “This is almost too much for me to cope with!”
Have you been watching Perseverance and Ingenuity on Mars? Amazing, isn’t it? Here’s Perseverance:
And
here’s Ingenuity, the little helicopter:
As I
scanned old photos, I came to a set that I had taken on October 24, 1997, while
helping Dorcas with a biology project for
school. She was to make a poster on the subject,
‘Maintaining Good Health’.
She
wanted to give it a Biblical viewpoint. Following are a few of the photos I
took, and the verses Dorcas put with them:
Baking muffins:
“And behold, there was a cake
baken on the coals!” – I Kings 19:6
Crocheting: “And all the women that were wise hearted did
spin with their hands, and brought that which they had spun, both of blue, and
of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine linen.” – Exodus 35: 25
Reading schoolbook: “Study to be quiet and to do your own
business.” – I Thessalonians 4:11; and “Study to shew thyself approved unto
God.” – II Timothy 2:15; and one more, just for the fun of it: “Of making many books there is no end, and
much study is a weariness of flesh.” – Ecclesiastes 12:12
Eating an apple: “His fruit was sweet to my taste.” – Song of
Solomon 2:3
Skating: “When thou goest, thy steps shall not be
straightened, and when thou runnest, thou shalt not stumble.” – Proverbs 4:12
Sleeping: “He giveth his beloved sleep.” – Psalm 127:2
It was a fun project; I enjoyed
helping Dorcas with that assignment. She
got an A+ on it.
I sent her the photos,
and a little later she wrote back, “I showed Trevor the pictures, and he knew
it was me. 😆”
When I quit scanning
pictures Saturday night, I had a total of 11,223 photos scanned.
After the morning church service
Sunday, we hurried home to fix a lunch for Loren: Homestyle chicken noodle soup, crackers, California
blend vegetables, yogurt, apple juice, and V8 Cocktail juice. That seemed like an odd combination. I determined to make up for it the next day.
Larry put new batteries in the game
cam while I gave Loren the food, then we went to Kurt and Victoria’s house, as
they’d invited us for lunch. Victoria
fixed French toast (and Larry helped, since that’s his specialty, after all),
cheesy scrambled eggs, hash browns with peppers and onions, bacon, orange juice
or cran-blackberry juice, and coffee with drops of hazelnut syrup.
Violet, telling me a story about something she had
done by her ‘ownself’, reminded me of Hester using that very same word.
The following happened when Hester had just turned 3,
and Lydia had just turned 1 – and she was learning to walk. As she
toddled down the hall, arms akimbo to aid in balance, Hester went racing by,
startling her little sister, who swayed and sat down with a plop.
“Oh, be careful!” I admonished Hester. “When you
run by her like that, you make her fall!”
Hester looked at me, big-eyed, then carefully skirted
around Lydia, who was clambering back to her feet.
A couple of hours later, Hester was playing in the
living room. Lydia pulled herself up to the couch, headed off across the
room, lost her balance, and went down, ker-splat.
Hester turned around and stared at me with wide
eyes. “She falled down all by her ownself!” she informed me,
raising one little palm as if to say, I sho’ ’nuff couldn’t help it!
😂
Today is Keith’s birthday; he’s 41. We sent him a 26-piece Craftsman screwdriver
set. I thought I ordered it in plenty of
time... but it’s still in Illinois, and isn’t any big hurry at all to
get to Salt Lake City.
At least grandson
Trevor’s birthday present got there (to Tennessee). He will be 5 on the 26th. We gave him a set of MathLink Cubes.
Dorcas called this
afternoon, and I could hear Trevor saying ‘thank you’ in the background (or
foreground, as the case may be, hee hee).
It got up to 46° here! ((shocked face)) ’Course, the wind made it feel like only 39°,
but... 46°! Astonishing. For over a week, it didn’t get above 5°, for
two weeks it was no warmer than 10°, and for three or more weeks, it didn’t get
above freezing.
By 6:00 p.m., the
temperature was down to 43°, and the sun was sinking low in the blue, blue
western sky.
I’ve been to Loren’s with
his supper: a butterfly deer steak (so
called because of the cut), mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, a slice of sourdough
bread made by Victoria and rewarmed in the oven, pineapple slices, peach Jello,
and Welch’s grape juice.
On the way home, I
dropped off the rest of grandson Ian’s birthday gift, which just arrived today –
red and black fleece pajamas. Wouldn’t you know, they come on the warmest day
we’ve had for months. Lydia assured me
that he loves fleece pajamas, and wants to wear them year ’round; so I
guess we’re all right. 🥰
I’ve paid the bills...
set up an online account for Loren’s car insurance, paid it for the next year,
and called to change the mailing address to mine. I should never, ever assume I finally have the
address changed on everything, because just as soon as I think I’ve
accomplished that feat, I find out I haven’t. Then I took more 2020 tax forms to the
accountant. Another thing one should
never assume is that one has received all necessary tax forms. I don’t care how long you wait for
them, or how assured you are that you have all important documents;
you don’t. You never will. Ever.
Ah nevah, evah
exaggerate, eithuh.
This morning I saw something
occur that I’ve never seen happen before: I filled the bird feeders, came back inside,
peered out the window – and the birds were already congregating. A blue jay landed on one side of the suet
feeder; an English sparrow landed on the other. The suet cakes blocked their views of each
other. However, the little sparrow,
hearing the jay ‘thonk-thonk-thonking’ on the cakes, craned his neck to see
what in the world the commotion was... Earthquake?! He only stretched far enough to spot some tail
feathers, a bit of a wing, and part of a tummy. Before his little birdbrain could advise, Caution,
little bird! You don’t know what’s at
the other end of those feathers, instinct and territorialism kicked
in, and he reached out and pecked that tummy.
The blue jay squawked and
jumped a foot, landing back down on the railing. This startled the sparrow, and he hip-hopped
to the top of the suet-cake cage. Then, sparrow up above and blue jay down below, they regarded each other in mute
amazement.
Jay: Did you do
that?!!!
Sparrow: Dunno, no
idea, it wasn’t my fault, I couldn’t help it, don’t blame me, I refuse to take
responsibility!
Both birds then decided
they should really occupy opposite sides of the feeding station, the better to
keep feathers from flying.
After taking some photos
of the birds, I turned around – and found Teensy on the counter behind me,
watching the show.
A friend, upon seeing my pictures, wrote, “Teensy is
so pretty.”
“The nice thing is,” I responded, “he’s every bit as
sweet-tempered as he is pretty. 🥰”
“I sure hope our new kitty, Shadow, gets to where he is
always sweet-tempered,” she remarked. “He
still has his mean-tempered moments.”
Our Socks was like that. I thought it was because we got him
when he was 9 months old, and he’d been shuttled around. He was born on a farm a little ways out of
town, then given at age two months to the lady’s mother-in-law who lived in an
apartment in Lincoln. 6 ½ months later,
she had a stroke and had to go into a nursing home. The cat was returned to the farm, which he’d
probably nearly forgotten about. The
worst thing was that there was a big German Shepherd who bullied all the cats
and kittens, chewing on them until they cried, chasing them, and generally
making life miserable for them with total impunity.
We found the cat through an ad in the local paper after our
sweet and favorite and best kitty in the world, Tad, was hit by a car at age 14
months. I had a choice: find another kitty quick, or invest in the
Kleenex company, since our littles were going through them at a monumental
rate, mopping tears.
We got to the farm, Socks came rushing to us, Joseph picked
him up, the German Shepherd brat tried to get him, Hester and Lydia blocked the
dog, and Socks snuggled under Joseph’s chin and purred loud enough to make the
ground rumble. He was sweet most of the
time – but every once in a while, he threw a classy tantrum. I really think it was his traumatic start in
life that caused it. The older he got,
the nicer he became.
Someone from Bristol Windows is driving me nuts, calling,
calling, calling... I’m not answering. Can they not take a
hint?!
This, because Larry said yes
at the State Fair in 2019 when they asked if they could contact us. 🙄 He does not know how to say ‘no’ to a
salesperson.
These pictures were taken on my 6th birthday,
October 06, 1966. That white stuffed poodle had a transistor radio in
it. The train was a xylophone, and the little ‘ties’ were ‘notes’ that
the train played by way of a mallet on the back of the engine. You could
slide those metal pieces out and put them in different orders, and the train
would play different songs. I loved it –
I could make it play my favorite songs, or make up new tunes, which I did all
the time on the piano. I wrote down a few... a very few. Too
bad I didn’t have a tape recorder going all the time.
Purr-Purr was my Siamese kitty, and the name was
appropriate. He loved for me to carry him around all over the place –
upside down. He had big blue eyes – but I didn’t remember he looked quite
like this until I saw the picture. He looks like those Beanie Boo stuffed
animals that became all the rage a year or two ago, haha.
Now back to the scanner!
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
