Sarah Lynn's Nature's Splendor: Journal: ♫ ♪ Oh, The Birds & The Bees ♪ ♫ & The Cinnamon Trees ♫ ♪

Last week, two or three people asked me how many hours I put into each quilt.

Every one is different. Emma’s Flower Garden quilt took 148 hours. The Starry Night Wolves quilt took 226. The most hours I ever spent on a quilt was the Graceful Garden quilt for Andrew and Hester. It took 936 hours because of all the appliqué, the embroidery, and the custom quilting. It’s hard to gauge how long a quilt will take!

I had gotten my midarm HQ16 not long before I made the Graceful Garden quilt, and had not yet learned to do much free-motion quilting, more’s the pity.

There were dragonflies all over the yard Tuesday, along with hordes of mosquitoes. They normally don’t bother me, but they were absolutely vicious that day. The barn swallows were gleefully swooping around gorging themselves.

It looked like there were thousands of dragonflies, and hundreds of barn swallows. What a sight. How do they avoid aerial collisions, I wonder?!

Swallows have longer wings in proportion to their bodies than most other birds. Their shoulders are more muscular, too, in order to make excellent use of those slender, aerodynamic wings. Their tails are extremely mobile, and they twist and turn them to propel themselves like ping-pong balls in multiple directions at once, or so it appears, the better to snag all those zigzagging insects, of which their diet consists, right out of midair.

There were big fat bumbles, middle-sized bumblebees, and myriads of smaller bees of all denominations covering the Autumn Joy sedum. This is a Gray Looper. Incoming bumblebee, ten o’clock!

There were also quite a few cabbage whites fluttering about.

I visited my sister Lura Kay that afternoon. She was in bed, and seemed so very frail, though her granddaughter Sharon said she was better that day than the previous day, and had been able to spend most of the morning sitting up and having a small breakfast.

Lura Kay answered me and talked with me quite a bit while I chattered away about this and that, but I couldn’t hear her very well, as her voice was so weak, and also because she didn’t really know how to say what she wanted to say.

She grinned when I told of how, when I was little, Mama tried to get me to eat toast with peanut butter with a tomato slice on it. I wouldn’t touch it; I thought it looked terrible. But then Lura Kay came along and coaxed me into it – and I discovered it was scrumptious.

Sharon and another granddaughter, Kay, looked like they’d never heard of such a thing; but they’re both too polite to exclaim “Yuck!”. hee hee

Home again, I walked to the house through myriads of dragonflies and scolding, twittering swallows. What, did they think I was going to eat their dinner?!

This is a Bombus impatiens, common eastern bumblebee, on the Autumn Joy sedum:

And here's a Toxomerus marginatus, margined calligrapher fly. I think it would take about 20 calligrapher flies to equal one bumblebee.

Wow, I don’t remember ever seeing so many dragonflies in our yard before. (I probably said the very same thing at this very same time last year.) The little swallows must get full right up to their gills every now and then, as they sometimes finally land on a perch and are content to merely tip their little heads this way and that to watch the insects as they go past.

(Yes, yes, you don’t have to tell me that swallows don’t have gills.)

Last week I posted pictures of the baby animals we saw at the Nebraska State Fair, and captioned one shot, “Twenty fresh-hatched piglets!” which made some lady reply, “Hatched????”

I responded, “Yep. They were only two days old. ‘Fresh-hatched.’ You can laugh now.”

She then took issue with the ‘two-days-old’ statement, and said they were way too big to be only two days old.

They were absolutely two days old; the sign gave their birthdate. Each piglet would fit in a man’s hand, and weighed right around two pounds.

“If you consider that ‘big’,” I answered her, “alrighty then, they’re big!” 🙄

Yeah, it was indeed ‘that’ lady, the one and the same. ((snerk))

One time I wrote on one of the now-defunct quilt groups to which I used to belong, “I don’t like bats in my house! They’re forever trying to lay eggs in my hair.”

Two or three ladies immediately set out to reeducate me.

“Bats are mammals!” one lady wrote. “No mammal ever lays eggs.”

I kept still – and soon throngs of other ladies came to my defense: “Sarah Lynn knows that! She was kidding. She was talking about the way bats dive at your head.”

Yeah. But... what about...

Eventually I could stand it no longer, and replied to that first lady: “Yes, I know bats bear live young. Whilst hanging upside down, mind you! But... what about Monotremes? These are mammals of the order Monotremata. They are the only group of living mammals that lay eggs, rather than bearing live young. The extant monotreme species are the platypus and the four species of echidnas. The five species of egg-laying mammals, specifically, are: Duck-billed platypus, Western long-beaked echidna, Eastern long-beaked echidna, Sir David’s long-beaked echidna, and Short-beaked echidna.”

I got no answer. No answer! Hmmph.

Maybe she decided she didn’t want to belong to a quilt group that talked about bats, platypi, and echidnas.

And yeah, yeah... I know it isn’t ‘platypi’, too. Because –

It’s not ‘platypi’ because the word ‘platypus’ comes from Greek, not Latin, and the ‘i’ ending is a Latin plural convention that doesn’t apply here. Instead of the Latin plural ‘platypi’, the correct plural forms are either the standard English plural ‘platypuses’ or, less commonly, the Greek plural ‘platypodes’.

Okay, I’ll try to say ‘platypodes’ from now on. Just for the fun of it. It’s way more fun to say ‘platypodes’ than it is to say ‘platypuses’.

As I walked toward the house, I smelled the unmistakable scent of Sweet Autumn clematis. Pausing, I looked up into the chokecherry tree – and sure enough, there were snowy white blossoms on the vines that climb that tree every fall. There’s a little leaf beetle in the middle of this blossom:

Lura Kay gave me a cutting from her Sweet Autumn clematis more than 20 years ago, after we first moved out here. I forget all about it, so it never fails to surprise me when suddenly there it is, mid-September, bursting into full, aromatic bloom.

There are vines on both sides of the property now; birds must’ve carried the seeds. Sweet Autumn clematis makes the entire yard smell good when it blooms.

That evening, we had London Broil roast. The Instant Pot made it so tender and good. I sliced it, and we had it on toasted and well-buttered English muffins. We also had cottage cheese, cauliflower, broccoli and carrots, bananas, and Ocean Spray Cran-Grape juice.

I took a drink of that juice – and immediately looked at the ingredients list. Sure enough, there was sugar in it. I always order 100% juice with no sweetener, but Walmart gave me a substitute. I thought it tasted too sweet not to have sugar in it! 🫤

Soon I was as stuffed as the barn swallows, right up to the gills, and heading back upstairs to my quilting studio. I got the backing put together, then loaded backing, batting, and quilt top onto my quilting frame. I would start quilting it the next day.

Late that night as I was getting ready for bed, I opened one of the bedroom windows to let the fresh night breeze in – and discovered it was fresher than I like.

The unmistakable aroma of Peu de la Skunk came wafting in.

(Look at that! I, who never make puns, and often fail to recognize puns when others make them, made a pun in another language!!!)

That made the third or fourth night in a row that I had smelled skunk.

Last Sunday morning on our way to church, driving down Old Highway 81, Larry slowed to let a skunk cross the road in front of us. He did not seem healthy. (The skunk, not Larry. Larry was hale and hearty.) Most skunks are back in bed well before 9:30 a.m. This one was crouching or slinking a bit, moving slowly, and his tail was dragging behind him. Made me wonder if he had rabies.

Well, at least one can’t get rabies from smelling skunk spray. Or even from getting sprayed, for that matter. The rabies virus is found in the saliva and nervous tissue of an infected animal, particularly the brain and spinal cord.

Enough, enough! Enough of that.

Oh, but wait, wait! First, you do want to see a cute baby skunk trying to look all big and scary, don’t you? Of course you do!

This cute little guy was at the Cincinnati Zoo. No, not visiting; he lives there, in a nice big natural enclosure. His name is Marshmallow, and he’s not old enough to spray yet. He thinks he is, though!

I had another appointment at the public library Wednesday afternoon with the young man who is helping me get signed up for Medicare and whatever supplemental insurance we need. This time, another young man, also from Columbus and working with Mutual of Omaha, was with him. Since the application I’d submitted a couple of months ago seemed to have stalled out, they placed a call to the Social Security office themselves – and actually got a real, live person on the phone within less than five minutes of waiting! Astonishing.

The lady looked into why the submission was hung up on ‘checking your application’. Turns out, it’s because I have to file for spousal benefits, since I didn’t work enough hours to be eligible on my own. Why can’t the site let me know this? I assumed it was automatic.

Therefore, Larry needs to apply. He stopped at the office in Norfolk (the closest, as there’s no office in Columbus), and was told he couldn’t talk to anyone without an appointment. He called and tried to make an appointment, and a robotic voice told him to apply online.

Corn earworm moth

You’ll recall that he tried doing so – only to have his submission rejected time and again because his required ‘selfie’ didn’t match the photo on his driver’s license.

Last week he stopped again at the office, in hopes that someone, anyone, would listen to his tale of woe, be sympathetic, and help him.

First, he was informed by the bouncer (well, what would you call him?), an ex-military guy, that he had to go put his multi-tool and his pocketknife back in his truck (he was driving the boom truck, and it was off down the block a ways), or he could be fined $50,000 and/or imprisoned for up to a year.

Yeah, that’s a little farfetched, for a hapless bloke who didn’t even know it was prohibited, and certainly hadn’t made any threats.

Next, upon learning that Larry had no appointment anyway, the man told him he would have to make the appointment by phone. He was nice enough to give Larry the direct number to that particular office (as opposed to the main number that reaches the central Social Security offices in Maryland).

“Try calling around 3:00 p.m.,” the man recommended. “They’re not as busy then.”

This is easier said than done. Larry goes to work hours before their office opens and doesn’t get off work until hours after they close. He can’t just take any ol’ time to call, wait on hold for who knows how long, and then talk to someone for another who-knows-how-long. He’s busy driving, loading, and unloading forms, all day long. He has tried calling at lunchtime, but it was impossible to get through before his lunchtime was over.

But Larry thanked the guy for not tossing him in the hoosegow and headed back to his truck, assault weapons and all.

He looked at the time. 2:50 p.m. He called the number... and actually got a real, live person, right there at the office in Norfolk. 😮😲 She gave him an appointment – a phone appointment – for October 30^th. That’s well past my October 6^th birthday.

Meanwhile, I got home and began quilting Ethan’s Ducks Unlimited quilt.

I’m using 40-wt. Magnifico thread top and bottom – Venetian Blue on the back, and Cream Puff on the top. Why did you let me do this?!!! If the tension isn’t perfect, the blue will show on top, and the cream will show on the back.

But... the tension is good, and all is going well. I don’t often use 40-wt. thread in the bobbin, as it means a lot more refills than when one uses finer thread. But it was the perfect color for the backing, and the sheen of Magnifico sure is pretty.

The pantograph is called Ducks Taking Off, designed by Deb Geissler. It’s especially for computer-driven longarm programs, but it comes with a pdf file, so I’m able to use it for my hand-guided Avanté.

I knew someone who thought you just fed quilt top, batting, and backing, all at once, into a quilting frame in the same manner you feed a chamois into a wringer. Push GO on the quilting machine, and stand back. Five minutes later, the quilt is done, presto ka-bingo-ka-blam.

Even with a computer-driven longarm, it takes a whole lot of work to load quilts and get the quilting designs set up just right!

After our evening church service that night, Robert told us that Lura Kay has been placed on hospice.

Someone got a video of a big bull elk just a few miles southeast of Columbus. I showed this screengrab to Larry.

“She didn’t tell the exact location,” I said, “for fear someone would go shoot it.”

Larry nodded, “I was just ready to go get my gun.” 😆

He has been watching elk-hunting videos. In fact, his brother is planning on going elk hunting this season.

I spent a good part of the next three days quilting away on the Ducks Unlimited quilt. I timed a row of quilting (7½” x 100”): 49 minutes, 41 seconds, and 12 nanoseconds. That’s an intense pantograph!

Those twelve nanoseconds may have been the time it took me to press ‘Stop’ on the quilting machine and ‘Pause’ on the timer. I can’t quilt that long without a short break.

I could’ve printed the pantograph bigger, but I thought it would be more effective if the panto ducks were about the same size as the duck prints on the small blocks.

I stopped the timer in the middle of the row I timed in order to make myself a tall mug of Strawberry Coconut Celsius.

Later, my quilting got interrupted while I watched an Asian Lady Beetle (not our native beneficial Ladybugs, which eat other bad bugs, but the nasty migrating beetles that just might bite you, if given an opportunity) strolling across the window screen at a fairly quick pace, shadowed by a jumping spider traveling at the same speed, about five inches in the Lady Beetle’s rear. The spider wound up half an inch farther from her when he noticed me observing the show, for he stopped dead in his tracks and watched me instead of her. Deciding I posed no threat, being on the other side of the windowpane and all, he put his attention back on his prey.

Every time the Lady Beetle halted, so did the spider. The Lady Beetle eventually turned completely around in a 180, facing the spider. I see you, you fiend! The spider held very still.

The Beetle suddenly gathered full walking speed, added a little flying leap, and made it to the screen frame, where she backed into a corner and then sat motionless. Asian Lady Beetles have more brains – or more instincts – that one might suppose.

Just look at the eyes in this macro shot of a little black jumping spider very much like the one I was watching. This photo was taken by Ego Kamelev.

The spider stealthily turned one way... then another... then another, finally turning quickly in a complete 360, clearly wondering, Where’d she go?

He started upwards toward the Lady Beetle’s hidey-hole, and I thought maybe her time was up; but she didn’t move an antenna, and he turned the other way, eventually winding up at the opposite side of the -----------

Oh! They were both back in motion again! And this time, the spider was very close. He jerked when she flew to the windowpane an inch or so away from the screen. Then she flew back again ---

Ooooo... He was close enough to grab her, but his pedipalps lifted and wiggled back and forth, and then he held still and did nothing but watch as the Lady Beetle headed off again.

Spiders ‘smell’ prey by using tiny sensory organs called wall-pore sensilla on their legs and pedipalps (small leg-like appendages near the mouth) that detect airborne chemical cues, similar to a ‘nose’. Asian Beetles’ blood has a chemical that makes them taste bad to some predators, and most of those predators can smell that repellent chemical before they taste the bug.

Many spiders will avoid these beetles because of that smell. However, this is not a universal rule, and some spider species will prey on them despite their smell and taste.

Asian Lady Beetles (and many other Ladybug species) have several defense mechanisms that make them an unappealing meal:

Aposematic coloration: The beetles’ bright orange, red, and black patterns are a warning to predators that they are toxic and taste bad. This is a common defense strategy known as aposematism.

Reflex bleeding: When agitated or attacked, the beetles release a foul-smelling, bitter-tasting, yellowish fluid called hemolymph from their leg joints. This reflex bleeding contains toxic alkaloids that can make predators sick.

Hard exoskeleton: The beetle’s hard, rounded shell provides a physical defense, making it a difficult meal for many predators.

The garden spider (Araneus diadematus), however, can and does eat Lady Beetles. Studies have shown these spiders are immune to the toxic effects of the beetles’ chemical defenses. The Bold Jumper or Daring Jumping Spider (Phidippus audax) has also been observed preying on Asian Lady Beetles.

I have no idea if the little jumping spider I was watching was Bold or Timid. 🤭😉 Maybe he just wasn’t very hungry. Maybe the aforementioned Bold Jumper that ate the Lady Beetle hadn’t had a good meal for days, and thus didn’t feel very picky?

Hannah sent pictures of the hooded little sweater she crocheted for Eva. Isn’t it cute?

Now she’s going to make one in sage green colors for Violet.

For supper that evening, we had chef salad with a bunch of fresh vegetables in it, and chicken. I had cottage cheese with my salad; Larry had soup with his. He brought home some peanut butter cookies, so that was dessert.

When I quit quilting at 10:00 p.m., I’d made it down to the central panel on Ethan’s Ducks Unlimited quilt.

This is a Large Maple Spanworm moth (Prochoerodes lineola). He’s sort of bunged up from flapping around a light in the house for a while before he finally settled and I managed to put him outside. And then I discovered that he’s pretty much a ‘bad bug’, and I should’ve bid him adieu and sent him to the Happy Tree-Eating Land instead of releasing him. I once did the same thing with one of those stupid Mountain Pine beetles that helped destroy the very trees that used to surround our house! 🙄😐

Ah, well. I reckon one more Large Maple Spanworm moth and one more Mountain Pine beetle aren’t going to make a whole lot of difference.

Do you know what happens when you’re getting a drink from a tall Thermal mug, and it’s coming through the drinking hole slowly on account of ice clogging it — and then all of a sudden the ice jam breaks?

Well, I found out, though I already knew, and therefore didn’t need to find out. 😂

It wasn’t too bad, though, because I heard the ice break loose, and tipped the mug back down quickly. I was only a drowned mouse, instead of a drowned rat.

At 6:00 p.m. Friday evening, I discovered that several items were delivered by FedEx the previous day – and the delivery person had thrown them out way over on the driveway! Furthermore, one of the packages contained pictures for a friend who’s making a memory scrapbook. They were only in a thin cardboard packet, which was taped shut – and it rained for several hours during the night. Aaaaauuuuugggghhhhh.

Amazingly enough, the pictures were all right, I suppose because the cardboard was slick and somewhat water-resistant, though the outer two photos in the stack felt decidedly grubby. I wiped them off carefully. The ink didn’t run, and the pictures weren’t stuck together, thankfully.

I tried to find a place to complain to FedEx; but everything is automated, and the options I was required to choose from didn’t fit the occasion. I was looking for the “Your driver is a blame idget” option, but it wasn’t there. I’ll try again later.

I didn’t even think to look for those things Thursday, because a notification from FedEx said they would arrive Friday.

Here’s a male Eastern Tiger swallowtail on a purple coneflower.

By 11:30 p.m., when I quit quilting, I had passed the central panel of ducks. (Don’t worry about the quilting taking away from the duck print; when the overhead lights are on, the ducks take the eminence, and the stitching fades to the background.)

At a quarter ’til eleven Saturday morning, it was 81°, on its way up to 93°. A hot day, for mid-September in Nebraska.

I showered, shined up the bathroom, cut my hair, and put a few curls in my hair while sipping Caramel Macchiato cold brew and reading messages and news.

That afternoon, I paused in my quilting to look out my window at all the butterflies, birds, bees, and even a distant helicopter on some unknown mission. Right that moment, a little ruby-throated hummingbird flew directly toward my north-facing sewing room window, hovered and looked at me for a few seconds, and then went whizzing away. What a little beauty he was!

One story down, a white-lined sphinx moth was flying from one big white hosta blossom to another.

People sometimes call this moth a ‘hummingbird moth’, though it’s more accurately called a sphinx moth or a hawkmoth. Sometimes it’s mistaken for an actual hummingbird, and one can see why, as it’s about the same size, and exhibits some of the same behaviors. But in comparison to the agility and speed of the hummingbird (forward speed, 30 mph; diving speed, 60 mph), the sphinx moths are lumbering behemoths. (That’s almost a pun. Almost.) Their forward speed is similar (fassst!), but they can’t dive and whisk about in all directions like the hummers can.

(The hummingbird picture is from A-Z Animals; the white-lined sphinx moth photo is mine.)

By 3:30 p.m., it was 93°, as had been advertised. I quilted until 9:45 p.m., and quit for the day.

There was a wren on vines just outside the kitchen window warbling away yesterday afternoon, but I could mostly only see it in silhouette. The thing is, he wasn’t singing the usual Northern house wren’s song. So I typed ‘Winter wren’ into Google just for the fun of it, and discovered that yes, indeedy, there IS such a thing as a Winter wren, and he DOES migrate through our area, right about now!

Did I ever know there was a Winter wren? If I did, I had long forgotten it. I clicked on one of the audio ‘Songs’ at All About Birds – and there it was, that was absolutely the song I heard.

(Photo is from All About Birds)

It rained hard in the afternoon, and again around 10:00 p.m., with bright sunshine in between; but we missed the high wind and hail that we’d been warned about.

We were glad the second wave of rain held off until we got our groceries at Walmart after our evening church service, drove home, and carried them into the house.

We had chicken and salad and cottage cheese for supper, and I ate two peanut butter cookies for dessert when I should’ve had only one. I’m a glutton.

You know, I can’t sleep any better when Larry is snoring softly than when he is logging an entire forest.

Softly: ssshhhhhhhhhhhhCLICK. ssshhhhhhhhhTICK. sshhhhhhhhhTHWICK. sshhhhhhhhhBWIP. sshhhhhhhhhGOINK. sshhhhhhhhhBOINK, etc.

Loudly: BZZZZQZZJZHONK BZZZZQZZJZCHONK BZZZZQZZJZGLONK BZZZZQZZJZCLUNK BZZZZQZZJZPLONK BZZZZQZZJZSQUAWNK, etc.

Yesterday, September 14, was National Gobstopper Day.

Do you know what gobstoppers are? I’d never heard of such a thing; I had to look it up.

Turns out, they are large, hard, multi-layered candies – same thing as jawbreakers, which is what we call them here in the U.S. and in Canada.

Anyway, here’s a quilt called ‘Gobstopper’, and I can guarantee it’s a whole lot safer and better for your health than the candy it’s named after. This one was designed for Red Pepper Quilts by owner Rita Hodge of Melbourne, Australia. Her 15-year-old son gave the quilt its name after the quilt was complete.

“I sooo remember the huge jawbreakers as kids. You could barely close your mouth around them 😂😂😂,” laughed one of the ladies on my quilting group when I posted this for the ‘National Day’ quilt.

“How in the world did we all keep from choking to death?!” I asked.

“We survived sooo many things😂😂😂,” she answered. “Drinking out of hoses, candy necklaces, 😂😂😂...”

“And standing on the floorboard between the front and back seats,” I added, “leaning over the front seat to chatter away with my parents as we drove! Good memories. I can’t even work up any alarm over it. 😅”

Speaking of scary things, here are pictures of our three oldest, Keith, 8; Hannah, 7; and Dorcas, 6. The photos were taken in the Colorado Rockies in 1988. But no, they were not leaping on rocks overhanging a precipice; it just looks that way.

When I got the pictures back, I was showing them to the kids, and said to Dorcas, “This was right before you fell into that canyon.”

Her eyes got wide. “I did?!” she breathed, staring at the photo.

Her siblings laughed then, and she looked at me with one of those sidelong glances of hers. hee hee

Here’s a Viceroy butterfly. The perpendicular stripe on the hind wings and the smaller size tells you this look-alike is not a Monarch.

Our doors are finally starting to fit again after that hot, hot time of no central air last month. Even though the portable ACs were extracting at least 5 gallons of water from the air every day, the temperature hovered around 78-80° and the humidity was usually over 85% in the house, which caused all the wood to swell.

The stove is working again, too. I wonder if my ergonomic keyboard would’ve recovered itself? I’ll never know, because I pitched it and got a new one. Then when I realized from some things I read online that the heat and humidity were doubtless the cause of both stove and keyboard malfunctioning, I hastily took the new keyboard upstairs to my sewing room, where our new portable AC was. Even though we never set it to dehumidify (who wants to carry heavy buckets of water down the stairs?), that room never did get so hot and humid as the downstairs areas did. The basement was awful, and still smells mildewy, even though we set out a couple of those bucket things that are supposed to draw humidity out of the air and take away moldy smells.

I’d better do some laundry.

It’s a lot less time-consuming than it used to be when there were 11 people at home! The washer and dryer rarely had a break. The kids helped a lot with the laundry.

I remember Joseph coming to find me one day, all excited because he’d just discovered he could reach the knobs on the back of the washer and dryer. He was probably 7 or 8.

“Now I can help wash the clothes!” he exclaimed happily.

So I went and showed him which settings to use for most of the children’s clothes. He was pleased as could be about that. That was some 35 years ago or so. He still helps do the laundry for his family these days.