Journal: ♫ ♪ On the Road Again ♪ ♫

 

I forgot to bring in the bird feeders the other night.  Last time I looked, shortly before dusk, they were about half full, and there were two nearly new suet blocks in the suet cage.

When I went out to fill them the next morning, they were plumb empty, every one of them except for the nyjer seed feeder.  Raccoons either don’t like nyjer much, or maybe they just plain can’t get their pointy little noses and paws into the feeding stanchions. 

Look at this shot from our game cam:  a mama raccoon and four youngsters!  Can you see them all?  One is barely visible behind that main post, and halfway up.

At the top is a blooming milkweed.  We leave several stands of milkweed growing every year for the Monarch butterflies; milkweed is their only host plant.  I like to keep them in organized (haha) sections next to other tall flowers (tall phlox, Asiatic lilies), and then they almost look like they actually belong there. 

Tuesday, I cut a border for Brooklyn’s Little Sweethearts quilt.  Does this look like a border to you?  

Or maybe this is better:

As so often happens the night before I need to get up earlier than usual, I wasn’t able to sleep.  At a quarter after three, I heard a raccoon chirring in the back yard, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t brought in the bird feeders.  Again.

I got up and went out to get them (the bird feeders, not the raccoons).  It was so hot and muggy out there, my glasses steamed up.

I finally fell asleep sometime after 4:00 a.m.  Lightning and thunder woke me up again at 5:30 a.m.  I listened to thunder for a little while... went back to sleep... and then my alarm went off.  It was time to get up and get ready to go to the eye doctor in Lincoln for Botox injections (my third treatment) around my eyes for Blepharospasm.

When I refilled the bird feeders and hung them back up that morning, it was not as hot as it had been at 3:15 a.m., but still muggy and miserable, even though it was only 70°.  Storms had rolled through parts of the state with 70-mph winds, and there was damage here and there from trees falling.  There were several thousand people without power on the eastern side of the state.

In my online quilting group that morning, we were chatting about whether or not we’d ever tucked fabric or quilt blocks away in a ‘safe place’, and then been unable to find them later.

I told my story:  I was putting together a Mariner’s Compass quilt for Bobby and Hannah.  As compasses and stars are oft wont to do, one of the smaller compasses wound up up-doinked in the middle. 

So, to entertain the grandchildren, I perched it on my head, took a couple of pictures, and emailed them to a few of the kids.

A bit later, after trotting upstairs to warm my coffee and coming back downstairs to finish the stars, one was missing.  I hunted all around and under my sewing table... went back upstairs to see if I’d left it up there... and then spotted myself in a mirror.

Yeah, it was still on my head.  😂

Luckily, no one had come to the door in that span of time.

I made a pot of coffee, and poured myself a steaming cup of German Chocolate coffee.  I’m not usually as fond of coffees with chocolate flavorings as most other flavors, but Amana’s chocolate coffees are better than most.  Mmmmm...

On Facebook, I posted a picture of my ‘new’ quilt rack, and told about Larry getting it for me at the Goodwill.

The first comment under the picture:  “What is this?”

Why do people do that?  If they know how to type, “What is this?”, then surely they know how to read??

I replied, “Read description above picture.”

Now, that sounds fairly innocuous, but those who know me probably recognized right quick-like that I’d’ve rather responded, “Stop being such an idget!”  But that clueless person would’ve most likely wondered what in the world brought that on.  Sigghhhh...

I loaded purse, camera bag, and coffee into the Mercedes and headed southeast toward Lincoln.

Somewhere in the middle of Columbus, not yet ten minutes after leaving home, I lifted my camera and pressed the shutter button.

Nothing happened.

Not looking down at the camera (driving comes first, you know!), I felt the switch, figuring I hadn’t gotten it turned on.

It was on. 

I pressed the button again.

Nothing.

When there was no traffic, I glanced at the screen.

“No Card,” it read.

What?!!!  No card?!

And then I knew:  it was in the card reader where I’d left it after taking pictures of the border pieces the night before.

Now, I knew there was no extra card in my large camera bag.  But I felt inside the pockets anyway, just to be sure.

Nope.  No extra card.

I was ten minutes from home.  I glanced at the clock.  No, I did not have time to go all the way home to retrieve a camera card.  As it was, I was going to be ten minutes early to my appointment.  If I went home for that card, I would be ten minutes late.

I crossed the Loup and Platte bridges, noting how pretty the rivers looked under the blue sky, with puffy clouds drifting along.  The sky was unique, with multiple layers of clouds, sparsely strewn about.  The lowest clouds were bare wisps, tossing lightly along, this way and that.  The middle layer consisted of a few cumulous clouds, half-heartedly trying to turn into cumulonimbus thunderheads at the far edge of the horizon.

Far above were Cirrostratus undulatus clouds, seemingly completely still in the azure sky.

And I had no camera.

Wait, yes I did!  I had my phone!  The camera on it is nothing to brag about.  Still, I picked it up, minimized the GPS, and held it up.

Oh.  Yes.  I can see absolutely nothing on my phone screen when I have on sunglasses, unless the phone is held vertically, speaker-side-down.  Well, this was not a vertical, but a landscape shot.

I removed my sunglasses and tried again.

I took three pictures and decided that was quite enough of that.  At the moment, there was practically no traffic, but that would soon change; and taking a picture with a cell phone takes considerably more effort than my Canon does.  For one thing, I can barely hold the silly thing steady whilst strrrretching a finger to touch the shutter button.  For another thing, I knew perfectly well that the phone pic would not adequately show all those nuances and gradations of the clouds.

I maximized the GPS app and put the phone back in its place in the center console.

The rest of the way to Lincoln, I saw one beautiful landscape after another.  And I had no camera card.

Somewhere along the route, despite a stop in Rising City to wash the windshield, I managed to shave a couple of minutes off my time, and arrive a whole 12 minutes early. 

Next time, I’ll start 5 minutes sooner.

All my life, I’ve labored under the illusion that Lincoln is about 75 miles away, and Omaha is about 90 miles away.  Well, there are areas of Omaha that are 90-100 miles away.  Hillcrest Nursing Home, where Loren was earlier this year, is 103 miles away.  But Prairie Meadows is only 82 miles away, while Eye Surgical Associates is 87 miles away.

It was a pretty drive, especially after all the rain we’ve been having.  Wildflowers were blooming beside the roads, and the corn is beginning to tassel.  Did you know that corn grows more than an inch a day?

After the first Botox treatment back in January, my bottom eyelids drooped a bit too much for a week or more, so that the top and bottom eyelids did not completely close when I blinked or when I was sleeping.  This irritated my eyes, making them bloodshot and painful.

The next time, the doctor left off that under-eye shot.  There was no pain like there had been first time, but the treatment wore off a lot quicker.

This time, trying to hit a happy medium, the doctor put a half-shot of Botox in that bottom lid.  It may be a little too early to tell, but I believe the dosage is right, this time.

The doctor is very soft-spoken.  When he’s ready to give each shot, he says in not much more than a whisper, “Now, on the count of three.  One, two, three, ... ouch.”

And he’s right.  🤣

Sadly, ever so sadly, the doctor is not applying nearly enough Botox to improve my appearance.  🤓🥴

I wish the doctor did Botox injections on a day other than Wednesday, so I could have some time to explore here and there (the Sunken Gardens, for instance), and maybe go on to Omaha and visit Loren.  But I wanted to get home in time for our evening church service.  Too bad the injections don’t take effect immediately; it would be nice to take somewhat normal eyes to church. 

Upon leaving the doctor’s office, I drove to a nearby Ace Hardware, having looked online to see if they had SD cards.  The young man at the cash register looked totally blank when I asked where the SD cards might be, and said he didn’t know if they had such things.

“Your website says you do!” I told him, smiling.

“Maybe they are over here —” he took a few steps down an aisle, and sure enough, there they were.

There was only one brand, in one denomination:  Gigastone (I’d never heard of that kind before), 16 GB.  And how ’bout this:  it was regularly $19.76, but it was right that very moment on sale, 50% off – only $9.88.  It’s even high-speed, so I can take videos with it.

I bought it, trotted out to my vehicle, got it out of the plastic and cardboard package (thank goodness for the little fold-up pocketknife that Caleb generously gave me when he ‘grew out of it’, as he put it), plugged it into my camera, and headed north, driving back the way I had come, through pretty countryside on a road I’d never been on before, snapping pictures all the way.

I got home at a quarter after five.  I like to get ready for our 7:30 p.m. service at 5:30, so that I’m out of Larry’s way when he comes skinning in from work at the last minute.

Thursday, I worked on the border for the Little Sweethearts quilt.  I thought I needed 176 ‘piano key’ strips, but, as it turned out, I needed 192.  The keys are a wee bit narrower than I had originally planned.  By the time I turned off my sewing machine for the day, I had more than half of the border put together.

Friday, I hoped to make coordinating corner blocks, get the borders sewn onto the quilt, and add one more narrow border.

I did a bit of housework and was just ready to head upstairs to my quilting studio when Larry called.  He needed to take his new boom truck to Lincoln to have the hydraulics for the outriggers installed.  If the company that’s been installing the Palfinger crane and now these hydraulics would get themselves in gear, Larry could be actually using this new truck!  It was ordered two years ago... and the crane was ordered over a year ago.  The other three boom trucks that the company owns are showing their age, and Larry has worked long and hard to keep them in good working order the last several months.  The companies that do such things as  install the heavy-duty flatbeds for the aluminum forms on the truck are so understaffed, and the staff they do have is so ‘unworkified’ (one of Larry’s late uncle’s words, and it’s a good one, too!), Larry told his boss (my nephew) that he could build that flatbed himself, with Caleb’s help, quicker and a whole lot better than the company they were planning to use.  And that’s exactly what they did, working on it during the winter months when outdoor construction had pretty much come to a standstill.

So... I followed Larry to Lincoln and then we hurried home to get ready for our 44^th anniversary supper that the children had for us at Andrew and Hester’s house.  

We barely made it at the appointed time.  But the bountiful meal was absolutely scrumptious, and it was wonderful visiting with all the children and grandchildren, and especially watching them all enjoying each other.  

Our two oldest granddaughters, Joanna, 20, and Emma, 17, and the six youngest granddaughters were there, plus 14 grandsons.  Joanna likes to bring a pretty little bag full of cute miniature toys to our get-togethers, and dole them out to her little girl cousins to play with.  Carolyn, 5, immediately makes sure everyone has a like number of little doodads, gadgets, and toys, with a similar variety for each.  After a little while, they all start exchanging toys, by mutual consent.

Willie is walking!  Oliver, who is five days younger, has been walking for a little while now.  He stood watching and smiling as Victoria got his little cousin balanced and situated, then let go of his hand and said, “There you are, now you can go!” – and off went Willie, pell-mell and laughing so, he was bound to soon come tumbling down, ker-plop.

There’s a big bouquet of rose-mauve, yellow, and pink roses with baby’s breath on our table; that’s from Jeremy and Lydia and family.  In my purse are gift cards from others of the children to various restaurants in Omaha; always helpful when we visit Loren each week.  In the refrigerator are rhubarb-cherry crisps from Hester (there’s a big stand of rhubarb just outside her back door) and the last few slices of the sourdough bread Victoria brought.  She’s kept the culture alive for several years now, and her bread is delicious, light and airy and tangy.

Our oldest grandson Aaron, 22, bought a brisket big enough for all 38 of us, and smoked it in their Traeger grill, along with a whole lot of chicken legs, for a good part of the day.

The Botox was taking effect by that evening.  Even though the earlier drive to Lincoln in the bright sun had strained my eyes a bit, it was nice to visit with everyone without my eyes wanting to suddenly squeeze shut.

We got home a little before 11:00 p.m.  I put away the last load of clothes that I’d been washing before the impromptu trip to Lincoln, edited a few pictures, and then wrote the Saturday Skim for my MeWe quilting group.

During one of our group texts last week, I said to Lydia, who works at Hy-Vee, “By the way, are you the one who keeps making off with all the good flavors of Oui yogurt?”

“Maybe! 🤣😈” she responded.  “I get the coconut milk ones when I see them.  They don’t have them very often.”

“By the time we get there,” I told her, “only black cherry and vanilla is left.”

“If you need some, I can sometimes find them in the back,” she offered.  “Let me know what you need, and I’ll save some back in the morning.  The truck is usually there on Fridays.”

“Don’t fall in any buckets,” cautioned Hannah, who happened to be at Hy-Vee right that moment. 

She sent a picture to show what she was talking about.  Evidently the roof was leaking on account of all the rain we’d been having, and they were catching it in buckets.

“It’s the new green movement,” explained Lydia.  “They’re watering produce from water collected right in the store.”

Haha  We have funny kids.

Saturday, a quilting friend wrote, “The heat is miserable here in Tucson!  86° and 42% humidity at 6:00 this morning.  I am off to work at the shop today where I will freeze to death because they set the thermostat at about 71°.”

“That’s such a startle to the senses,” I commiserated, “going from oppressive heat to frigidity!”  

My father used to keep the house freezing cold.  He’d get boiling hot every time he’d take a bath (he had heart/circulation troubles that contributed to that), so he’d crank the thermostat waaaay down and turn on the window air conditioners.  Loren would sometimes come visiting about the time the temperature in the house got down to Light Arctic Gale.

Loren, on the other hand, has always run cold.  (I sometimes find him in his room at Prairie Meadows with the heater cranked up to 80°, sitting and reading – with his insulated Carhartt coat on.  And it’s 85°-95° outside!)  After a minute or two, he’d go to the closet, pull out the thick puffy parka he sometimes left there, pull the thickly furred hood up around his face and tie the string tight enough that his nose was just about the only part of his face showing.  He’d put on the rabbit fur mittens he kept in the pockets, and then come and sit back down at the kitchen table.

My father, after the first startled look, would laugh that big rollicking laugh of his, until he’d have to get out his handkerchief and wipe his eyes.  Memories... 

I visited Loren Saturday.  Smoke from the wildfires in Canada has again blanketed the state.  This is the view as I turned onto Old Highway 81 from our lane.

The smoke didn’t stop people from rafting on the Elkhorn River.

Elkhorn, northwest suburb of Omaha

When the nurses began herding everyone into the dining room, I bid Loren adieu and headed for home.  Because I hoped to make up for all the lost time that week, and since it wasn’t a good photographic day anyway, I took the shortest route both coming and going.

I got home a little before 6:30 p.m. and headed quickly for my quilting studio.  I was glad we had Marie Calendar chicken-and-broccoli individual casseroles in the freezer; that made a quick supper.  We had Hester’s cherry-rhubarb crisps with vanilla ice cream for dessert.

Then back to the sewing room I went.  By midnight, the borders for the Little Sweethearts quilt were partially done, with the side borders sewn onto the quilt.  I found some pink and fuchsia variegated King Tut thread in my thread drawer; I will use that to help brighten up this quilt.

As usual, I did not sleep well Saturday night.  Nevertheless, it was so good to go to church yesterday with eyes that were behaving much better.  I took a longer-than-usual nap in the afternoon before the evening service, and my eyes were quite good, really, last night.

After church, we picked up a small order at Wal-Mart, then went to Dairy Queen and, using the gift card my great-nephew Michael Walker gave Larry as a thank-you for the work he’s been doing on the older boom trucks, got ourselves Backyard Bacon Ranch Signature Stackburgers and Snickers Blizzards.

The only other thing I ate all day was one piece of French toast with peanut butter and syrup, and a few bites of cottage cheese.  So how, I’d like to know, did I gain an entire pound and a half on that burger and Blizzard??!  Good grief.

I ate gently today.  😂

This morning, I ground the last of the German Chocolate coffee beans.  There weren’t enough for a full pot of coffee, so I ground some Cherries Jubilee coffee beans, too.  Both flavors are from Amana.  There was approximately an equal amount of each flavor in the coffee maker’s filter basket.  Was this concoction going to be any good??

Hmmm... it smelled good.

Annnnd... it was good.

I filled the bird feeders, and the birds were soon flocking around them.  There was a Northern cardinal pair and a catbird in the bush right outside my window.

Then, before long, there were two baby cardinals with the papa cardinal!  He was hopping around industriously hunting for insects and little berries on the Boston Ivy, and the babies were fluttering around after him, hopping from branch to branch in their clumsy way, flapping madly when they overbalanced.  They cheeped loudly in high-pitched, metallic voices, fluttering with all their might and main every time papa bird turned toward them.

It was early afternoon when I realized that the ‘fumes’ I’d started smelling, making my head pound, were probably from the smoke, and not from any nearby tractors.  There aren’t many tractors out right now; not nearby, anyway.

The smoke has been making Hannah, who has asthma, have a hard time breathing.  Just imagine how awful it must be for the people who live right next to all those wildfires.

This evening I recooked in the new Instant Pot those porkchops that were so gristly we couldn’t chew them a couple of weeks ago.  We’d sealed them in plastic and frozen them.  I also put potatoes and a big onion into the pot.

You’d have never known those were the same porkchops, they were so tender and good.

We had a piece of cherry-rhubarb crisp for dessert, and this time we had Kemp’s strawberry-rhubarb ice cream to go on it.

Bedtime!  I hope I can finish putting together the Little Sweethearts quilt tomorrow and get it ready to quilt.

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