Journal: Snow! And Ice! But... Snow!

 

There’s so much baloney online these days.  AI baloney, particularly.

Look at this nice polar bear warning everyone in the school bus about the big hole in the road.  Pay no attention to the misspelt word ‘School’ on the bus.

This is a screenshot from an AI video.  At the end, all the happy, laughing children got out of the bus and clustered around the bear to pet and thank it for saving them.

There are AI pictures and videos everywhere you look, especially on Facebook – and what amazes me are the multitudes of dupes who ooooh and ahhhh over them, throwing all common sense to the wind!  A grizzly bear almost half the size of a greyhound bus running into the road to stop a semi truck and beg for help for its injured cub...  Yep, that’s totally believable, right?  A cleft in the earth as deep as the Mariana Trench and 1,000 miles long showing up suddenly in California (or Rhode Island, or South Dakota, or Bangladesh – with each report sporting an identical picture)... 

Absolute fact, isn’t it. 

Sigggghhhhh...

There’s baloney in person, too.  Someone is in the area going around knocking on doors and telling people they’re from the power company and they need access to their homes in order to install new meters.  When the people ask for ID, the baloney peddler gets all indignant and aggressive.

A few days ago, a friend posted this Bird ID.  😂

It’s the truth, haha.

Some animal has decided that our back deck is his restroom – specifically, directly in front of the patio door!  He’s done it twice now.  I cleaned it off and poured bleach on it.  I suspect it’s a raccoon – but if so, he has digestive problems.  Shall I put Imodium in the birdseed? 

I looked it up online.  Best match:  black bear scat.

Ooookay.  But we don’t have black bear here.

Or at least we didn’t. 

Opossum, woodchuck, skunk... their scat doesn’t match well, either.  Unless they have digestive troubles, as I mentioned.  It’s raccoon, I’m sure, judging by size and the fact that raccoons often come onto our deck (but then, so do woodchucks and opossums).

Here’s one getting into the suet, caught by our game cam.

Okay, that’s enough of that.  Enough talking about it, and enough of whatever it is doing it.  I shall attempt to deter it.

Tuesday morning, it was bright and sunny, not a cloud in the sky.  But it was windy, with winds blowing at a steady 33 mph and gusting up to 45 mph.  Vines and branches were clattering against the house.

That afternoon, Victoria sent an audio clip of Arnold.  She showed him a dinosaur and asked what it was.  “Dine-yo-horse!” he said.  “Neigghhh!”

By 3:30 p.m., it had gotten colder – 39° – and windier than ever, with gusts up to 50 mph. Thick clouds were moving quickly across the sky.  An hour later, the wind had increased to 65 mph at times, and a few nearby areas had 85-90 mph gusts.  Quite a few people lost power.

Glad our electricity stayed on without a flicker, I got on with the machine embroidery for Aaron’s quilt label.  I didn’t have a single eagle in my embroidery software, so I put a row of five little blue jays jiggety-jigging.  I could’ve bought an eagle motif online, but... I decided I liked the jiggy jays better than I liked spending money.

After the label was done, I cut the binding and pieced it together.  I would attach it to the quilt the next day.

That night, I went trotting out in a big rush to get the bird feeders, and didn’t notice a raccoon somewhere on the far side of the deck.  Scared him out of his ninth life (if they have that many).  He ker-plunked onto the deck (he must’ve been on the railing) and went barreling across it full bore, heading for the steps, which he went tearing down in a not-too-graceful fashion, nearly tumbling down them. The young ones have somersaulted down those steps, time and again.

Below is the back of the Soaring Eagle quilt.

Midmorning Wednesday, it was 30°, but felt like 20°.  The high that day would be 38°.  At least the wind was only gusting up to 22 mph; it seemed like quite a mild breeze after Tuesday’s winds!

As I ate breakfast, I responded to a friend’s email.  “I’m typing with one hand,” I told her, “while my other one is holding half a bagel, toasted, with lots of butter, and peanut butter and honey on one side and sugar-free apricot preserves on the other.  Therefore, I am conversationally challenged.”

Really, it was just too good to put down!

I washed the dishes, then headed upstairs to sew the binding on the Soaring Eagle quilt.

Here’s the view from the north window in my quilting studio that afternoon. 

It takes a while to sew binding on a quilt as big as this one – 101” x 107” – even though I do bindings entirely by machine.  This one took 5 hours.

Supper that night was sweet potatoes with butter and a bit of brown sugar, cottage cheese, Chobani Flip yogurt, and mint chip ice cream.

Thursday morning found me curling my hair and sipping Salted Pumpkin Caramel Latte cold brew – much needed despite the cold morning, since I’d already put on the light gray turtleneck I intended to wear to our Thanksgiving service under a dark gray ruffled cardigan, with a medium gray corduroy multi-gored circle skirt.  As if I wasn’t hot enough, after showering, blow-drying, and plying that curling iron!  Thank goodness for cold brew.  😅

Fortunately, our Fellowship Hall, with its high ceilings and ceiling fans, is usually a little breezy.  I figured I’d be just about right in this sweater/cardigan/corduroy skirt get-up.

And I was.

I got the turtleneck, along with a whole slew of other turtlenecks in various sizes and colors, somewhere online (I’ve forgotten where) at a smashing bargain, planning to give them to the menfolk (they were listed as men’s) for Christmas three or four years ago.  When they arrived, I was astonished at how small they were.  Even the XL was small!  It looked like my size, not Larry’s size.

I tried it on.

It was a little bit big, but not much.  The size large was a little better, and the medium was just about right.  The small was okay, because these sweaters are extra-stretchy.  It would be good under a suit jacket or a cardigan.

They sure wouldn’t do for any of the men in the family!  I gave one XL to one of the teenagers who’d already outgrown me, and kept the rest.  I’d been needing some to go with various outfits anyway.  It was quite a stack to put on the shelf in my closet; I’m not usually so generous with myself.  😄

The ruffled cardigan was a good deal on eBay.  The corduroy skirt used to be my mother-in-law’s.  I threw it all together, and there I was then, utterly too-too.  (Imagine me saying that in a Nellie Olson tone.) 

Larry didn’t go to the service, as he still had that miserable cold. 

The service started at 11:00 a.m.  The brass band played, we sang, the string group played, and then Robert, my nephew and our pastor, read some Bible verses and gave a short sermon.  At noon, we headed to the Fellowship Hall for dinner.

Let’s see if I can remember it all:  turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, dressing, corn, candied sweet potatoes, frozen cranberry salad, lettuce salad, blueberry/lemon bread, cranberry almond bread, pickles and olives, white or chocolate milk, a choice of juices, tea or coffee, a large selection of pies and cheesecakes, and ice cream.

I invariably get so full from the main courses, despite the fact that I try to take only small helpings, that I can’t eat any pie or ice cream.  Along about 7:00 in the evening, I sure do wish I had some pie!

Hannah gathered up a meal in Styrofoam boxes for Larry, and I brought it home to him.  She chose Sour Cream Apple pie for him, and he was generous enough to share it with me.  Mmmmm, it was sooo good.

It was a sunny, pretty day, so I gathered up the Soaring Eagle quilt and all my paraphernalia, and headed outside to take pictures of Aaron’s quilt in the field to the east, which meant I had to lug quilt, frame, sandbags, and camera over there.  It took three trips there, and three trips back, a total of 1,302,798 miles,  carrying 585 pounds each time.

I nevah, evah exaggerate.

When that was done and I’d regained a little oomph, I traded around some summer clothes for winter clothes.  Not all of them; I’ll haul more winter clothes to my bedroom another time.  These will do for a couple of weeks or more.

I have clothes in dressers and on a rack downstairs, on the main floor in our bedroom closet, and upstairs in dressers and closets!  😅  I wear most all of them, too.  If I come upon any I don’t wear or don’t especially like, off it goes to the Goodwill.

When Teddy was helping us move things out here back in 2003 when we moved from town, he was carrying some of Larry’s clothes into the house after hauling a whole bunch of mine inside, and he asked me, “Where’s Daddy’s nail?”  hee hee

That evening, Joseph sent me a picture of his Bachelor of Science certificate from Bellevue University.  He has graduated.

He told us, “There’s an eight-point good-sized buck galivanting around our neighborhood.  He has run in front of me three or four times now as I’m driving.  He was trotting through the front yards this morning showing his great disdain for lawn ornaments.  He stomped a poor Santa blow-up like he owed him money.  I’m about to shoot him and say it was self-defense.”  😂

There was a deer in the harvested field to our south a few days ago; we don’t usually see them there.

I told Joseph about the raccoon that messed up the deck.  “It went right smack-dab at the base of the patio door, and after I cleaned that up and dumped bleach on it, the recalcitrant thing used the railing, of all things!”

That time, there was no doubt about the perpetrator.  Its digestive troubles have apparently been resolved.

Joseph then sent a video of a raccoon getting into a bag of garbage he’d put in the box of his pickup to haul away the next morning.

“Get out of there!” Joseph said from the window– and the raccoon stopped what he was doing and stood up straight and tall, the better to discern, “Who that?!” and “Do you really mean it?!”

“He’ll be back as soon as you’re sound asleep,” I told Joseph.

Here’s a screenshot from his video.  

Larry finally got his Dodge pickup running again.  It’s been over two years since the clutch and transmission went bad as we were on our way to the Black Hills in South Dakota.  The pickup now shifts and runs well, but it still makes a lot of noise idling and in the lower gears.  Larry explained all this to me, but I can’t tell you what he said, as it sounded like Greek to me.  Suffice it to say, he believes he got everything fixed properly, and the noise is inconsequential.

“I’ve heard that before!” I said skeptically, but he only laughed.

Friday morning, it snowed!  Just a little skiff, but... snow!  Our first snow.  There was a young bunny out front lolloping about, stopping every couple of lollops to look about in amazement:  “What’s all this cold white stuff?  And where’d the lettuce salad go?!!”

The temperature rose a bit, and the precipitation went back and forth from flakes to sleet to icy mist.

I started ordering Christmas gifts, while Larry spent the morning removing a plow blade from someone’s pickup.  He came in to eat lunch, and said he was nearly done, and wanted to go for a drive as soon as he returned his friend’s pickup.  Of course he did; it was snowing!  😃

An icy drizzle was coating the windshield as we pulled out of our driveway at 3:30 p.m.  It was an hour and a half before sunset, but it already seemed dusky, what with the heavy, overcast skies.  We drove out of it within 15 minutes, though, and the roads were dry. 

We headed toward Loup City and Sherman Reservoir, 95 miles to the west, as Larry was on a quest to see if there might be any good places to go hunting.  It was too dark for photos by the time we got to the lake.

Teddy called at a quarter ’til six.  “Where are you?” he asked.

“We’re driving around Sherman Reservoir at the moment,” I informed him.

“I just knew you’d be out in this weather!” he exclaimed.  He’d called to tell us how icy it was at home.  “I pulled out from our road and wound up going across the entire intersection sideways, even though I was trying to take it easy.”

I told him, “Daddy wanted to see where the deer are, but so far we’ve only seen a dead ’possum and a live bunny—”  

I barely got that out of my mouth before a deer crossed the lane directly in front of us.  Within a minute or two, two more deer ran across the lane.  We were on something of a peninsula, and they were traveling from down near the water amongst the trees on our left to the wooded area beside the water on our right.

Teddy recommended buying sandbags to put in the back of our pickup, as he had done; but we never found a place to buy any, and, as it turned out, we really didn’t need them anyway.  I promised to let him know when we got home – or if we changed our mind and stayed overnight somewhere. 

We debated, but not for long.  We didn’t have the things we needed for an overnight stay, and there are new tires on the pickup.  We headed east.

Meanwhile, four of Teddy and Amy’s kids had gone to Omaha that day, and were on their way home, right through the worst of the winter weather. 

“Nothing like worrying about parents and kids, both at the same time!” I said to Teddy. 

They were worrying in both directions, east and west.  😏

The kids got home safely, an hour and a half before we did.

We stopped for supper at Frida’s Mexican Restaurant in St. Paul.  Their food is always scrumptious, and they give us enough that we have plenty for the next night’s supper, too.

We were almost to Genoa, and I had just informed Hannah that the roads were ‘drier’n a bone’, when the roads started looking shiny and a cold mist began coming down.  We had 21 miles to go.

It didn’t get too awfully slick, and we got home right around 9:30 p.m. without any trouble.

Late Saturday morning, it was 25°, feeling like 1°, with sustained winds of 19 mph, gusting up to 31 mph.  One look out the window told me it had been a good decision to come on home the night before, rather than staying at a motel somewhere, because there were about four inches of snow out there.

Here’s the back deck: 

I got back to ordering Christmas presents.  Nearly all of the grandchildren’s gifts are either here already or on the way.

I posted pictures of Friday’s drive, writing that we drove to Loup City, then ate supper at Frida’s in St. Paul.  Some woman wrote, “Y ended up in Minnesota for dinner?”

Lady, I wondered, Y U not be a-thinkin’ ‘There musta be a St. Paul inna Nebraska, too,’ since I know U know where we be a-drivin’?

I answered, “St. Paul, Nebraska; population, 2,416”, and then sent her this (I just can’t help myself at times):

There are 28 places named Saint Paul in the world.  There are 18 places named Saint Paul in the United States.  There are 4 places named Saint Paul in France.  There are 2 places named Saint Paul in Canada.  There is one place named Saint Paul in New Zealand.  There is one place named Saint Paul in Mauritius.  There is one place named Saint Paul in the Northern Mariana Islands.  There is one place named Saint Paul in the United Kingdom.

I then listed the names of all the States, Provinces, and areas in the abovementioned countries where a St. Paul can be found.

Yeah, that was probably overkill.

Probably.

But fun!

That afternoon, I actually had hot coffee for once.  It was Sea Salt Pumpkin Caramel Latte, and I splurged and put Coffee Mate creamer in it – Italian Sweet Crème.

Larry spent part of the day helping friends push show off parking lots in town, after first fixing the blades/plows on their pickups.

At 5:31 p.m., it was quite dark here.  I’m glad we have electrical lights instead of candles!  However, I do remember the lanterns with little filaments that we used to have in various campers when I was a child.  They ran off of propane, and they were really bright.  Larry says they were dangerous, though.  And if he says something is dangerous, then, YIKES, it’s DANGEROUS.  😅

Those lanterns were attached to the walls of our campers, and were plumbed into the propane lines.  We got some Coleman lanterns for camping when the children were little.  They worked on the same principle, and were very bright.

That evening, I finished ordering gifts for the grandchildren.  I still need things for the children.

For the little kids, I got sets:  a Schleich hard rubber animal figure, with matching book and stuffed toy.  For instance, for Keira I got a Schleich honey badger, a book to go with it, and a large stuffed toy.

For Violet, an African Wild Dog stuffed toy, matching book, and the little hard rubber figurine from Safari, Ltd.

There’s a book about the Maned Wolf for Carolyn, along with the little rubber figurine, also from Safari, Ltd., and a matching stuffed toy.

Caleb and Maria have a Great Pyrenees dog, so I gave Eva a book about them, a little rubber figurine from Schleich, and a little silver Great Pyrenees pendant and heart on a necklace chain.

For Maisie, a Scotty dog fleece blanket (found at the Salvation Army for only a couple of dollars), a Scotty Dog board book, and a soft little squishy stuffed Scotty.

Arnold will get a stuffed Shetland pony and a Shetland pony board book.  I need one more thing for him.

We’ll give Willie a horse set – including a very large vinyl horse that my late sister-in-law Janice made one of our children when they were little.

For Malinda, a Giant Tortoise set; for Oliver, an armadillo set, and for Elsie, a river otter set.

Grant, Warren, Jonathan, and Ian will get Lego race-car sets.

Leroy, Justin, and Jacob get fur-lined hat, glove, and neck gaiter sets, with sets of wool argyle socks.

And the nine older grandchildren get quilts!

I ordered giant jars of Deluxe Mixed nuts for each of the families, and I found three vintage hymnbooks like one Hester gave me – Hymns of Heavenly Harmony, edited by P. P. Bilhorn, who is a beloved hymnwriter in his own right.  I’ll give these to three of the families.  I just loved the old songs in that book, and know they will, too.  If I find more like it, I’ll get them.

Tomorrow I’ll start wrapping the gifts I have so far.

At a quarter ’til 8 Sunday morning, it was 13° with a windchill of -15°.  The high would be 15°.  The wind was blowing at a steady 14 mph, with gusts up to 23.  I went out and refilled the bird feeders, and it didn’t feel that cold, even with my hair wet from the shower.  But then hot showers always make my temperature rise.

Accordingly, I made myself a tall mug of Caramel Latte cold brew and sipped it whilst a-fixin’ me silvery tresses.

We were nearly late for church, because in addition to the car being covered with snow, the battery was dead, too!  Larry used a jump pack to start it, and we managed to go skinning in at the last minute.

A few snowflakes were falling lazily down when we got home from church.  They picked up their pace in the afternoon, then fizzled out.

Larry made pancakes for our lunch.  We like to stir peanut butter and butter-flavored syrup together to put on pancakes and waffles.

After the evening service, we picked up some groceries and put gas in the vehicle.  It was 18° and very slick, especially on the new streets where they don’t put down de-icer yet.

The Mercedes handled the slippery roads quite well; we have fairly new tires.  There were some idgets in pickups bombing around, sliding all over the place.  We politely stayed out of their way.

We got home, began gathering up Bibles, purse, coffee mugs, and groceries – and Larry found his lost hearing aid charging case!  It was in the door pocket.  He’d looked in all his pickups and the BMW, but not the Mercedes.  That means that when the vehicle was at the Mercedes dealership in Omaha for service, and he forgot his charging case in the center console, both cases were in that vehicle at the same time.

He lost the original... ordered a new one... relost the original... and now has both again.

This morning at 11:30 a.m., it was 19°, with a windchill of 8°.  The high was 23°.  I did the laundry, watered and trimmed a houseplant, reheated leftover pizza in the oven for supper, and... ?  What else did I do today?  Hmmm... I ordered a couple more Christmas presents.  I was busy all day, but it sure doesn’t seem like I did much.

Oh – I made myself an egg over-easy on a pancake for breakfast.  Mmmm...  That counts too, right?  I also paid some bills and made a fresh gallon of cold brew.  That really counts.  😉

I’ll be sending  gifts to our out-of-town children and grandchildren directly from Walmart or Amazon or Omaha Steak Company or from wherever I happen to purchase their gifts.  That’s easier and cheaper than sending through USPS or UPS. 

Speaking of postal clerks, have you ever noticed that, somehow, those postal/clerkish persons have a knack of sizing people up, and then, depending on your particular reticence and introversion, adjust their volume and intrusion inversely?

“OH, ARE YOU SENDING TOYS TO YOUR GRANDCHILDREN?”  “HOW MANY DO YOU HAVE?”  “DID YOU GET A LIST OF WHAT THEY LIKE, OR ARE YOU JUST HOPING THEY’LL LIKE WHAT YOU PICKED OUT?”  “WHAT DO THEY DO WITH THE TOYS AFTER THEY GET TIRED OF THEM?”

Answers:  “Yes.”  “153.”  “I get what I like, and if they don’t like it, tough.”  “They stomp on them.”

Snowflakes are falling lazily from an overcast sky.  Some places to our southeast got one or two more inches of snow.  Ours won’t be measurable.

Earlier this evening, I heard a thud, went to peer out the patio door – and sure enough, there was a raccoon at the bird feeders.  When I flipped on the outside light, he went tearing along the deck railing to the steps, where he came down from the railing (precariously) and then lumpity-lumped down the steps.  I have now brought all the feeders inside.

Some animal collected the mouse I tossed out the door.  Hmmm... I just went and took a closer look at the tracks in the snow.  They’re cat tracks, with the four toes, retracted claws, and a separate foot pad.

A few days ago, Caleb told Larry about Eva, 5, coming out of her room wearing her little cowboy hat and boots, carrying a disabled paintball gun, and saying, “Where’d that little deer go?!”

She was hunting for her little sister, who was in the living room, sneaking along the wall on her way to Caleb, which entailed clambering up and over a chair that was in her way.  🤣  Maisie, 1 ½, apparently felt that her father would protect her from her huntress sister!

Bedtime!

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