Last
week, Lydia showed us pictures of the two roly-poly puppies their yellow Labrador
Retriever Molly had. Their St. Bernard Monty
is the father. Thus, the puppies are Labernards.
Lydia
was 1 ½ when our Siberian husky Aleutia had two puppies in February of 1993. The father was a big German Shepherd that
used to roam the neighborhood. We called
this puppy that Lydia is petting Chukchi. (Look how long her hair was! -- almost waist-length.)
I just now right this
minute discovered that crosses between Siberian huskies and German Shepherds
are called Gerberian Shepskies. How ’bout
that.
Aaron had surgery on his broken
ankle last Monday. Two long screws were
put in to hold the bones in place after they were realigned. Eeeek.
Makes me shiver.
Juvenile Mountain Bluebird
Here are
more shots of bluebirds I saw at Whispering Pines Campground in South
Dakota. Did you know bluebirds raise up
to five broods in a season, and that the juveniles from earlier clutches will
often help feed the younger nestlings?
Male Mountain Bluebird
I had thought to go visit Loren Tuesday, but I forgot
and scheduled a Wal-Mart grocery pickup for that afternoon. I can’t be in both places at the same
time! And I had
to get the groceries, because the only coffee I had left was plain ol’ Folgers
Classic. Yuck. Don’t like it. Unflavored. Bitter.
Bleah. We were about to run out
of coffee as we traveled home from South Dakota, and planned to get some
groceries in Ainsworth or somewhere. But
the silly people out in western Nebraska close their grocery stores at 7:00
p.m., and we were a few minutes too late.
So we got coffee at a convenience store, and that Folgers stuff was the
only choice.
Larry got some yummy creamer at a store in South Dakota,
but I don’t often use it, as I don’t want the extra calories. I nearly used it up, though, on that Folgers
Classic.
I still had the tail ends of the cold I’d caught a
couple of weeks earlier, and Loren still had shingles; so a couple more days before
I visited him would be just as well. And I might avoid a possible thunderstorm with hail around
Omaha, too. Instead, I did some
housecleaning and bill-paying and photo-editing that day. I went upstairs earlier that morning to iron
some clothes (gasp! – astonishing! But I
couldn’t help it; the duds I wished to wear were a wrinkled mess), and admired
the blocks and fabrics for Malinda’s quilt while I was up there. I’ll get back to it soon.
Here are the Northern Painted turtles
that were at the Gil Pose Recreation Area.
They were doing all right when two... then three... then four turtles
clambered onto that stick; but when five... six... and then seven tried to
climb aboard, the whole works began to sink.
Nebraska has nine varieties of
turtles: 1) Common Snapping turtle, 2) Northern Painted turtle, 3) Blanding’s
turtle, 4) False Map turtle, 5) Ornate Box turtle, 6) Yellow Mud turtle, 7)
Smooth softshell, 8 ) Spiny softshell, and 9) Slider.
I went to Wal-Mart at
4:00 p.m. to pick up the grocery order.
The girl who brought the groceries out asked if I’d seen the
substitution, and if it was okay. I had
not. She said they had substituted two
smaller containers of sour cream for the one large container I had ordered.
Now, I knew I had
not ordered sour cream, but cottage cheese; therefore I assumed she’d said it
wrong, probably never having eaten cottage cheese in her young life, and I
thought surely they would’ve substituted some sort of cottage cheese for
the one I’d ordered.
Wrong.
They did indeed give me
two cartons of sour cream – but they were not small. They substituted both large cartons of
cottage cheese for two same-size cartons of sour cream. And they are the Great Value brand rather
than the Roberts brand I wanted. Besides
that, if and when I get sour cream, I always get the Lite version. These are not Lite.
Where in the world will I
use three pounds – yes, three pounds – of sour cream?!!
I know, I know! We can order taco pizza from Pizza Hut. They never give us enough sour cream. That’ll take care of a few spoonfuls of
it. Tonight I plan to cook porkchops,
potatoes, and carrots. We can use sour
cream on the potatoes.
That was not the only
substitution. They also substituted the
clock I ordered for some young friends for their wedding next Sunday. Instead of a dark bronze clock with the gears
showing, I received a white one:
Oh, well. It is pretty; maybe even prettier than
the one I ordered in the first place.
That day, I was wearing a
pale yellow top and a darker yellow skirt with big coral- and rust-colored
roses on it. When I walked down the
sidewalk with the groceries, butterflies by the hundreds swarmed me. There were monarchs, fritillaries, red
admirals, clouded sulphurs, cabbage whites, silver-spotted skippers... The bees and wasps were interested, too, in
my giant-flower self. Therefore, I
hurried. 😳😦
Chicory blooms wild across South Dakota, just as it does in Nebraska. Did you know that it’s in the same family, Asteraceae, as the dandelion? See how the petals and stamen are shaped, fringed, and curled the same? The entirety of both plants are edible or useful in one way or another, either by cooking or by making tea. It’s really too bad someone decided they were weeds. Wouldn’t it be so much easier to maintain a lawn of dandelions and eradicate the grass, than the other way around? 😄 And then each evening, you could just pop out the front door and pick or dig your supper. You could dry any part of them from roots to petals, and have dandelion (or chicory) tea each morning. 🙂
This small sheep wall-hanging was in the Textile Arts display at the Hill City Quilt Show. It’s made from various sheep and alpaca wools.
The lady who made it was sitting right there spinning wool as people walked by.
You could buy it raw, or unspun, or as
hanks of yarn; and there was also quite a number of finished items,
such as scarves, socks, shawls, hats, gloves, etc. Everything was soooo soft. The texture was definitely different, from one
type of sheep to another, and the alpaca .... oooooo.
Right next to this
vendor was another with things made of alpaca wool. Here’s a stuffed llama – made of alpaca wool. (Reckon the poor beast is having an identity
crisis?) These vendors own the Alpaca
Store there in Hill City. Once I touched
that so-soft llama, I wanted it!
“That’s why they let
you touch it,” remarked a friend.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
Larry must’ve known
this scheme, because he was behind me saying in my ear, “Don’t touch it! Don’t touch it!” – and then, “Ohhh. She touched it.”
Here are two sets of male and female common
blue damselflies, aka common bluets or northern bluets (Enallagma cyathigerum). This formation they make is called a ‘mating
wheel’.
I was looking for something in some
old journals and found this from February of 2014:
And now, for your reading
pleasure, Another Cat Saga:
So here’s Black Kitty minding her own business in her litter
box, kicking litter high and wide, missing the box entirely, and all that sorta
stuff. And over there’s Teensy, our niiiiiiiiice kitty — who,
having evidently lost his salvation (he must be Armenian, as opposed to
Calvinistic), is hunkered down, rear end a-wiggle, in Great Preparations of
pouncing Black Kitty.
I can see all this from my chair in my sewing room – there’s
a clear shot right through the door. I fling Stuff and Things down, leap
to my feet, and rush at Teensy. For once, he decides I am dangerous,
and flees.
However, Kitty, having completed her épisode dans le salle
de bain, spots me flying at – someone, and she, in groundless alarm,
flees, too.
So down the hall they go, Teensy and Kitty, side by side,
though in other times they hold only the uneasiest of truces. Around the
corner they race, toenails skidding and slipping, arriving at the steps and
galloping up them without the slightest pause.
Roadblock.
Tabby is sleeping on the third step from the top. He
likes to be as near halfway between all household humanity as possible.
Teensy and Kitty in unison pause momentarily. Then,
each supposing the other had politely decided to let him or her go first, they
gather themselves together and rush headlong up the remaining steps.
Tabby awakens suddenly – and his gold eyes grow very wide
when he discovers he is in direct line of certain annihilation. He seems
to be struck with paralysis, but he does garner enough mobility, at the
very last possible moment, to duck and squinch his eyes up tight.
Teensy and Kitty jump over him in unison.
Tabby slowly opens his eyes and recovers. His tail,
having gotten all bushy in the space of .005 seconds, feels funny. He
swishes it hard, trying to comb the wayward feathers back down.
I burst out laughing.
“Meee? Meeee?!” asks Tabby, scrambling to his feet and
coming to find out if he is still on the earth, or if he has landed on the moon
or somewhere, like Piglet thought had happened to him after his balloon blew up
when he fell down on it.
Victoria, coming to peer down the stairs, and upon being
apprised of these goings-on and toing and froing, scoops up Kitty, pets her,
and brings her back to see me, so she’ll understand no one is trying to murder
her in cold blood. Kitty purrs.
“And Teensy is over there” Victoria points toward the food
dish “eating again, because he got stressed out.”
hahaha That’s exactly what Teensy has always
done, at the slightest stressful moment:
he goes and eats. hee hee
It’s good that he’s such a laid-back, easy-going cat (usually), or he’d be a
real butterball by now!
And that’s my cat story for the night.
But wait! Here’s
another story from the old journals:
When Joseph turned 3,
back in 1988, we got him a little wooden table, two benches, and two chairs,
made by a friend of ours. I took the kids to the grocery store while
Larry and the friend hauled the set into our living room. I had bought a helium balloon earlier, and
they set it on the table.
We got home, pulled into
the garage, gathered up the groceries, and proceeded into the house. I told Joseph, “Your birthday present is in
the living room!”
He hurried forward...
came to a dead standstill... stared into the living room... and then exclaimed
in great delight, “I got a balloon!”
He ran to snag it off the table, then trotted happily down the
hallway, through our bedroom, the little bathroom, the kitchen, and back down
the hallway, continuing the circuit as he sang “Happy birthday”.
He never paid a lick of
attention to the cute little wooden table and chair set.
He would enjoy them
later, as did the other kids, but that balloon was the only Draw of the Moment.
* *
*
We had earthquakes Monday
and Tuesday of last week. It’s a little
unusual for Nebraska to have earthquakes, even though we are on a fault
line. They are usually so small that few
people notice them, but here is some interesting data about Nebraska
earthquakes:
The first
significant earthquake felt in Nebraska occurred in 1867, the year statehood
was achieved. The
strongest earthquake in Nebraska history occurred on November 15, 1877. There were two shocks 45 minutes apart; the
second was the strongest. At North
Platte the shock was reported to have lasted 40 seconds, and intensity VII
(equivalent to 6.0-6.9) effects were noted.
Buildings rocked in
Lincoln, and walls were damaged in Columbus. The shock was strongly felt at Omaha. Cracked walls were reported at Sioux City,
Iowa. The total felt area covered
approximately 139,000 square miles, including most of Nebraska and portions of
Iowa, Kansas, the Dakotas, and northwestern Missouri.
On July 30, 1934, a strong earthquake centered in Dawes
County in the Nebraska Panhandle affected a total area of about 23,166 square
miles in Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wyoming. The tremor damaged a few chimneys at Chadron,
Nebraska (intensity VI). In addition,
some plaster fell, and dishes and canned goods were thrown from shelves and
cupboards. The shock was reportedly felt
at about 125 places, including Sterling, Colorado, 149 miles distant.
About 89,962 square miles of western Nebraska, South Dakota,
and border areas of Montana and Wyoming were jolted by a magnitude 5.1
earthquake shortly after 3:00 a.m. on March 28, 1964. Six hours earlier, a mild shock centered near
Van Tassell, Wyoming, had been felt over a small portion of the same area. The early morning shock of March 28th
caused many cracks in a road about 10 miles south of Merriman, Nebraska. Some steep banks along the Niobrara River
tumbled (intensity VII). Plaster fell at
Rushville, and part of a chimney toppled at Alliance. Slight damage was also reported at Martin and
Deadwood, South Dakota. Broken goods in
homes and stores were reported from various towns. The press reported that this shock was felt as
far north as Alzada, Montana.
Tuesday night,
I wrote and asked Hannah how Aaron was doing. They’d been told that the nerve block in
Aaron’s leg would last 3-5 days, but around 4 a.m. Tuesday morning, the pain in
his ankle woke him up. It took over an
hour to get it under control. He was
better through the day. He has to stay
off that leg for six weeks, and will begin therapy after that.
Here
are a few more pictures of pretty mountain homes in Lead and Deadwood, South
Dakota. I do believe there’s a
ten-to-one ratio of saloons and casinos to town inhabitants.
For supper a few nights ago, I added some frozen peas
and some frozen corn, along with chunks of Swanson’s canned chicken, to box-mix
scalloped potatoes. I was running out of
butter, as I hadn’t been to the grocery store since getting home, so I tossed
in a slice of American cheese (don’t blame me for having
that half-fake stuff in my refrigerator! – Larry bought it, Larry bought it;
blame him). Anyway, it
certainly changed Betty Crocker’s box mix, and for the better, too.
Oh! – I barely typed ‘American cheese’ when I heard on
the rural radio that Kraft cheese has recalled 83,000 cases of its individually
wrapped Kraft Singles American cheese.
The company said in a statement that a ‘temporary
issue’ with one of its wrapping machines had caused a ‘thin strip of the
individual film to remain on the slice after the wrapper has been removed.’ If that isn’t removed, it could be ‘unpleasant
and potentially cause a gagging or choking hazard.’
Kraft said that it issued a recall after several
customer complaints of finding the piece of plastic on its cheese, including
six complaints from eaters who choked or gagged on it. No injuries or health issues have been
reported and the faulty machine has since been fixed.
I wonder what happens to all that cheese? Do they just toss it? They don’t talk about that; I looked it up. I think they’ll pitch it. It’s too bad, when the food itself is fine. I’ll betcha there are a whole lot of people
who would be glad to pluck off an extraneous piece of plastic wrap, in order to
have a perfectly good piece of cheese. 😐
Wednesday afternoon, I
rummaged through some of my books, then texted Hannah: “Does Aaron have the big Spurgeon’s
Devotional Bible?”
“We have it as a family,”
she answered, “but no one else has it personally. We’re getting close to finishing it. It’s really been a good book for us to read
together.”
“Okay,” I said, “I have
one I’m going to give him to keep, and also the book ‘Peter – The Man’, by Dr.
F. B. Meyer, which Aaron’s Great-Aunt Linda gave me years ago. It was hers first, and still has her name in
it. Aaron can keep both of them.”
I need to find more of
the smaller, easy-reading books, too. I
know that when one is in pain, it’s easier to read such things as biographies
than deep studies.
Seeing the pictures of mountain bluebirds, a friend who
lives nearby remarked that she wished she could attract bluebirds to her yard.
We get the Eastern bluebirds in our part of the state
during the summer. If there are very many
English sparrows around, though, the sparrows, which are more aggressive, will
chase off the bluebirds. It’s too bad,
since the bluebirds are native and the sparrows are not. They were brought over from England.
English sparrows were introduced in Brooklyn in 1851 as a means of
controlling caterpillar populations and, thus, protecting the city’s basswood
trees from Linden moths. After several
subsequent releases, this Old World songbird made the entire continental United
States its home in less than 50 years.
Bluebirds need more territory of their own than sparrows
do. You can attract bluebirds by putting
up bluebird nesting boxes on posts, and by offering dried mealworms on flat
feeders. (If you leave the mealworms out
overnight, though, the opossums will love you forever.)
Thursday
morning, a quilting friend was telling about a female husky they used to
have. “She could talk a blue streak!”
she recalled.
So
could our Aleutia, the big Siberian husky. Can you tell she’s saying, “AAaaaRRRROOOOOOooooo!!!!”
with that side-eye?
When
she was a puppy, her “RRRROOOoooooOOOO!”s often got mixed up with a “YAAAAWWWWWNNN!!!”
in the middle and a ’squeeeeak!’ at the end, which made all
the kids laugh, which took her straight back to a protesting, “AAaaaaRRRROOOOOOOoooo!!!”
Early that afternoon, I had an appointment at one of
our local funeral homes to preplan and prepay for a funeral for Loren. Hannah went with me.
It didn’t take too long, and it’s good to have it
done. The money goes into a type of
savings account, where it will accumulate interest. If it turns out that there is more money
there than we need, the excess will be returned to us.
Afterwards, I took Hannah back to her home, then
continued on to Omaha to visit Loren. Two or three of the residents have been
diagnosed with Covid, but these days they do not restrict visitation on account
of that, thankfully.
Vestiges of the shingles
he had a couple of weeks ago can still be seen on his face. The worst part is that they spread to his
left eye, and it still looks red and sore.
Back when we were camped
beside Merritt Reservoir south of Valentine, Nebraska, as we were on our way
home from the Black Hills, my phone rang in the middle of the night, at 2:30
a.m. Snatching it up, I saw that it said
‘Prairie Meadows’, and, knowing that Loren had been diagnosed with shingles a
week and a half earlier, thought the worst.
Why else would they call at 2:30 a.m.?
A young man – another one
with enough of an accent that I have trouble understanding him – started
telling me something about Loren; but not only did his accent make it hard for
me to decipher what he was saying, there was also a loud, blaring room alarm
going off right over his head! To make
matters worse, I thought I heard him say that Loren had been stabbed.
“I’m sorry,” I
interrupted quickly, “I really cannot hear you at all.”
He called out for someone
to take care of the room alarm, then moved a little bit away from it and
started over again.
He had not said
‘stabbed’, he had said ‘grabbed’. Another
resident had grabbed his arm, causing an abrasion or scrap. This male nurse – and if he’s the one I think
he is, he’s good with the patients, kind and cheerful and gentle – had cleaned
and bandaged the wound, and Loren was okay.
“It was a new resident who did it,” he told me, “and we are trying hard
to deescalate and distract him, and to get his medication right so he calms
down.” He apologized several times for
calling at that hour, adding, “It’s protocol.”
I thanked him, told him I
understood, and asked, “Why was Loren out of his room at this time of night?”
Now, I do know that
dementia patients don’t sleep regular hours, and often get up and wander around
during the night. However, no one had
ever mentioned that Loren did this at the nursing home.
“Oh, he gets up at this
time just about every night,” the man said.
“He likes to go watch TV. We try
to coax him back to his room, but he doesn’t usually want to go.” He then assured me, “Loren is never the one
to initiate any conflict. If anything
happens with another resident, we tell him to just walk away, and he always
does. He’s very easy to care for.”
That was good to
know. It’s doubtless the medication they
give him that makes him so compliant and amenable, because he certainly wasn’t
like that when he was still living at home.
I knew we could’ve gotten medication for him that would’ve calmed him,
but it would’ve also rendered him less capable of caring for himself, and more
likely to lose his balance and fall.
As I walked into the
commons at Prairie Meadows Thursday afternoon, a woman with a walker was
ordering another woman who had her hand on the first lady’s walker, “Hands
off! I SAID HANDS OFF!!!” Then, “GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY WALKER!!!”
When this had no
discernible effect on lady #2, and she just kept her hand on the walker handle,
as if she thought it was a railing with which to steady herself, woman #1
punched at the other lady’s hand and arm, and when that had no effect,
she proceeded to hit her over the head with her plastic cup! Fortunately, lady #2 had a harder head than
the plastic cup, and the plastic cup shattered to bits.
This brought several
nurses running, and they soon had the situation under control.
Meanwhile, Loren was
sitting in a chair down the hallway beyond the dining room doors. I didn’t see him until one of the nurses
pointed him out. When I turned and
looked his way, he was already grinning at me, having spotted me before I
spotted him.
“I’m always sitting way
back here in the corner when you come!” he laughed.
Actually, that’s the
first time he’s ever been sitting in that particular spot when I
arrived.
“Looks like a pretty safe
place to be, at the moment!” I said, which made him laugh.
We walked a little
farther down the hall to a nice loveseat where we could both sit and
visit. I gave him several magazines and
newspapers, writing his name on each, and who each one was from. Hannah had sent a Reminisce magazine, and
there was an issue of Car & Driver from Randy and Judy.
A staff member came
along, gave me an unfriendly look (maybe the first unfriendly look ever, in
that nursing home), and demanded, “What’s your name?”
I paused and looked at
her for a moment to let her know she had interrupted our conversation, though
such subtle nuances are invariably lost on rude, vastly important people.
I really wanted to say, “Nunnayer
bizzniss. What’s yours?” – but I get to
leave that place and come home; Loren is at their mercy. I certainly don’t want to do anything at all
that might cause a not-so-nice person to vent her spleen on him.
She tried talking to me
in a normal speaking voice – but she had a mask on, and several nurses behind
her were carrying on a conversation in decibels equaling those of train
whistles, so I’m not totally sure what she said; but I think it was that
Loren had had an appointment with an eye doctor that morning, but it had to be
canceled. I’m not sure that’s
what she said; I only think that’s what she said.
I said, “Sorry; can’t
hear a thing you’re saying.”
I’d have been politer,
had she been politer.
She proceeded to step
closer and then just stare at me for a few moments, even though the other
nurses had apparently finished their jackhammering. I stared back.
She blinked first. So ha.
She told me Loren had
another appointment with an eye specialist next week, and asked me (practically
ordered me really, though it was phrased in the form of a question) if I
was going to be there with him.
“No, I live in Columbus,”
I said.
“What shall we do, then?!”
she demanded.
What on earth. They’ve been transporting him to hospitals
and doctors’ appointments and nursing homes as needed for over a year and a
half now, with only a call to me for an okay.
“You can check with the
nurses, and just do what they’ve done before,” I told the woman.
You’d’ve thought I said
her mother wore army boots. She puffed
up indignantly (though she was already puffy enough; she didn’t need more
puff).
“I AM a nurse!!!”
she informed me huffily.
I looked at her a moment,
then said, “Oh.” ((pause)) “Then I guess you’d better check your
records, and see what procedure has been used previously, and just do it again.”
She stared at me some
more. I obligingly stared back. If you just keep quiet, the other person will
eventually talk. And she did.
“You mean, just use the
transport van to get him there?” she asked.
“Yep, that sounds like
the thing to do,” I nodded agreeably, and then grinned at her, for good measure.
She walked off,
scribbling something in a notebook.
Probably, Loren’s sister is an extremely annoying person.
I wonder what there is
about a nursing degree that makes some women think they have been elevated to
the status of Queen Cleopatra? That’s
the first one of those sorts that I have encountered at Prairie Meadows.
I looked at Loren, who
had continued to page through one of his magazines while this conversation went
on. “I guess we could always get you a horse
and buggy,” I said, and he laughed and kept laughing, about that. He probably couldn’t totally follow the
conversation, or understand what it was about; but he does know when
there’s a clash, or when something isn’t quite right.
He
has a steadily harder time deciphering the things I say to him. I have to repeat almost everything I say,
even though I pronounce things clearly, and don’t talk too fast. And the mask that they are again requiring
was in its usual place under my chin. I
can’t converse with Loren at all, with a mask on. (I do pull the stupid thing up a bit when
others are close.)
There were many bad truck
drivers on the road that day. As I was
heading east on a four-lane highway with a median, a truck with a grain trailer
pulled out right in front of me from the south, but couldn’t enter the
west-going lanes, as there was a lot of traffic coming; so he sat there
blocking both east-going lanes and the turn-out lane, too. I had to come to a stop, fast.
On the way home, again on
a four-lane highway, I began going around a truck – and I was not lingering in
his blind spot, either; I never do. I
was a bit nervous about him, as he kept nearing the dotted line, so I sped up
to get around him quickly. When I was just
even with his cab, his left turn signal suddenly came on, and at the same time
he started pulling into my lane.
With no time to spare, I
pressed the accelerator all the way to the floor, and moved as far as I dared
onto the narrow left shoulder. I’ve
never pushed the Mercedes that hard before; I try to be careful with it.
But that vehicle sped up
soooo fast, it felt like it was jet propelled.
I shot past that truck in about one second flat. By the time the truck would’ve hit me, had I
kept going the same speed, I was in front of him, and he saw me. In my side-view mirror, I saw him jerk the
truck back into his lane. A little late,
by then.
Once I got around him, I
saw why he was moving over: another
truck was on the shoulder, and the driver was beside his grain trailer holding
a crank; he’d perhaps forgotten to close the hoppers or something. The truck was not very far off the road, and
the driver himself was standing left of the yellow line, a couple of steps into
the travel lane. Good grief. Can’t people try a little harder to be safe?!
There was a bald eagle beside the road on the bypass north of
Ames. He was eating something, and didn’t
care to leave it, even when vehicles drove by.
(Picture is from the Internet, but it’s a dead ringer for the eagle I
saw.)
The sun was getting low
enough that it would soon have been shining in my eyes, so I was glad when a
dark bank of clouds rose higher as the sun sank lower, and soon covered the
sun. So much easier on the eyes, driving
westward into clouds rather than into the bright setting sun.
I was glad when I was home
again, off the wild highways and byways, eating supper – chicken sausage gumbo,
with Pretzel FlipSides crackers, and strawberry Oui yogurt for dessert.
In the news Friday
morning, the pope was blasting the “fanaticism of indifference”.
Huh. Well.
That makes a lot of sense.
Almost as important as
the Save the Blobfish Campaign, ay?
And what makes him think
people aren’t just being determinedly nonchalant, I’d like to know?! Hmmph.
As I was
editing some pictures that day, I suddenly leaned forward and stared at my
screen, then made the photo larger.
Larger. Larger. And look what I discovered, in a photo I had
taken from Mt. Coolidge Lookout Tower.
There’s George Washington over there, with Abraham Lincoln trying to
peek out from behind him!
Too bad it was such a dark, dreary day. I brightened up the picture as much as I
could, and added a bit of contrast.
I knew
I’d gotten a distant shot of the Crazy Horse Monument from that Lookout Tower,
but had not at all known Mt. Rushmore could even be seen from that spot. The tower is atop a 6,023 foot peak and has
some amazing 360 degree views of the Black Hills.
Friday afternoon I used
my Instant Pot as a slow cooker for the first time. In it was the Italian Style Country Zuppa
soup mix we bought from one of the vendors at the Hill City Quilt Show.
“If this stuff is good,”
I told Larry, “I’ll order some for each of the kids for Christmas!”
After a few hours, I added ground venison,
cooked and browned.
When suppertime was
approaching, I stirred up some Loaded Cornbread, using a mix we got from the
same vendor, Grassland Gourmet & Gifts, out of Onida
South Dakota. I added a cup of shredded Fiesta
Blend finely shredded cheeses (Monterey Jack, Cheddar, Queso Quesadilla, and
Asadero) to the mix, poured it into a pan, and slid it into the oven.
The
family who was selling the various bags of dried mixes had a big crockpot full
of it, and doled out little paper cups with small spoons for everyone to
sample. It made the entire vendors’ room
smell delicious.
The
man said they had started it the night before, and through the night, they
could smell it. “By the time sunrise
rolled around,” laughed the man, “my drooling was keeping me awake!” 😄
Larry got home about the
time I pulled the cornbread from the oven.
It smelled good. It looked
good.
I took the lid of the
Instant Pot. The soup smelled good, too.
I put the food on the
table, and Larry prayed.
Then, “Do you want
shredded cheese on your soup?” I asked, holding up the bag.
“Sure do!” agreed Larry.
I sprinkling a generous amount on his zuppa. “Is that enough?”
“No, there’s still soup showing,” said Larry. 😆
Annnnd... the verdict is
in: the Italian Style Country Zuppa,
with added ground venison, was scrumptious, and the Loaded Cornbread was really yummy. The
perfect combination.
We had it the next night, too. So many soups and stews are even better on
day two, when the spices and favors have permeated some of the denser
ingredients. I put the final big bowlful
into the freezer.
Below are Bighorn lambs with the
zoomies. They really were hilarious to
watch.
About a year
and a half ago, a lady with the Threads Across Nebraska Quilt Show called me,
asking if I would be willing to show the New York Beauty quilt at their 2023
show in Kearney. She tries to gather all
quilts that have made Best of Show at the Nebraska State Fair for the Threads
shows.
Having already given the quilt to Jeremy and Lydia
(and asked for it back a couple of times for quilt shows), I said, somewhat
reluctantly, that I thought that would probably work. I then forgot all about it.
She called a few weeks ago to give me details of the
show, which is non-judged. Again, I said
yes, I would show the quilt. Jeremy and
Lydia were in Maui right then; it was only a day or two after the fires there
that burned down the place where they were staying, taking some of their
belongings with it.
Well, in looking at the Threads Across Nebraska
website, I discovered that a person can enter any number of quilts they would
like. I figured, since I’m going all the
way to Kearney, and I have these other seven quilts right here in my house, I
might as well take them, too, right? (I
forgot about the 1936 Vintage Sunbonnet Sue quilt and the Americana Eagle quilt
I made Larry. Maybe I should enter them,
too? I wonder if there are limits to how
long ago a quilt can be finished, like there are in judged shows?) Anyway, I filled out the entry forms and
submitted them for those seven quilts I have done this year.
The lady told me that many quilters prefer a
non-judged show. I, on the other hand,
like judged shows where each entry gets a written critique, whether good or
bad, and whether I agree with it or not. I find those remarks helpful in future quilts
(unless I decide to ignore them, heh).
About
9:15 a.m. Saturday morning, it rained and hailed like anything. Over
five inches of rain fell in Elwood,
Nebraska, 164 miles to the southwest. We
got about 2 ½”.
The
hailstones we got weren’t big enough to hurt anything, but in Columbus, they were
bigger. This was posted on the Platte
Valley Media Group:
Hmmm... a friend on
Facebook has posted an old family picture, a perfectly nice picture – but sideways. If she ever manages to post a picture in
correct orientation, I shall feel obliged to check and see if her account has
been hacked.
After church last night, we picked up a grocery order at
Wal-Mart.
On the way home we saw the Starlink Satellites, a long
line of them, as we were nearing the end of the Lost Creek Bypass. And then, just like that, they were gone,
having evidently entered earth’s shadow.
This
photo was taken and posted online by Brian Jordan, with the following caption: “Starlink from
34,000 feet. These are eastbound as we
are westbound. A quick iPhone pic.”
I looked
it up to see which set of satellites we might have seen, and soon found it, at findstarlink.com:
9:05 pm, 24 Sep 2023
Starlink-107 (G6-18)
(new)
dim (5.9) for 5
mins
Look from west (284°) to west (285°)
Elevation (from horizon):
start: 10°, max: 25°,
end: 25°
Before heading to bed
last night, Larry flushed the trailer tanks for the second time. He bought several feet of hose at Menards Saturday
so he could dump the tanks into our septic system from where the trailer sits
on the southwest side of the house, just off the driveway.
This morning, I filled
the bird feeders, cleaned the kitchen, and did the laundry.
Sometimes we talk about everyday household items that
we use in our sewing rooms. Well, I have
discovered another function for my brass stiletto:
A saucer was stuck in a steamer pan, and all my
finagling (including knives and hot water and suction) was to no avail. I ran upstairs, grabbed the stiletto, came
back downstairs, stuck the point through a hole in the steamer – and presto,
the saucer popped right out.
And now let’s all send strongly worded letters to the
companies of both the pans and the saucers about their sizing. 😏
Here’s an iron horse we saw in Hill City, South
Dakota. It was done by sculptor
John Lopez. This is not usually the sort of thing I
particularly like, but there’s no denying this man is extraordinarily skilled
at the art.
Over the last few months, there have
been quite a number of incidences of elderly individuals with dementia
wandering away. Time and again, they
were found too late – or have not been found at all. A 73-year-old woman from Glenwood, Iowa,
wandered away a week ago Saturday, and was not found until a week later, when
she was discovered deceased less than half a mile from her home.
I am so thankful my brother is
where he is safe and happy. It
was because Loren had walked away from his house one cold day that Larry,
Bobby, Teddy, and Aaron took turns staying with him the last couple of months
before we found a home for him.
Here is Pactola Reservoir
and Alcatraz Island a while after sunset.
It’s been long enough
since I filled the bird feeders that the poor little birds must’ve given up on
me! Nary a bird was seen at the feeders
all day until about 6:25 p.m., when a blue
jay finally found the black-oil sunflower seeds. Maybe the jays will make enough of a
commotion tomorrow morning that the sparrows and finches will sit up and take
note.
I went ahead and filled
out entry forms for the 1936 Sunbonnet Sue and the Americana Eagle quilts. So I will be taking ten quilts and three or
four pillows to the Threads Across Nebraska Quilt Show. They must be entered October 12th
and picked up on the 14th.
Bedtime!
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
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