Journal: New Grandbaby, & Wolfe Country Quilt Show

 

Last Monday, Bobby and Hannah and a couple of the kids sent me pictures from their excursion that day.  They’d rented a couple of Jeeps and gone on trails over the mountains near Silverton.  There’s the town, as seen from the top of Kendall Pass, elevation 12,800 feet.

“Looks like fun!” I said, and then, turning into my own mother, I added, “But be careful!  I like all of you in one piece.  One piece apiece, that is.”

I completed the impersonation with the following dire tale:  A boulder fell on an open-topped Jeep in Glacier National Park in Montana last week on Going to the Sun Road.  A helicopter came in and got the driver, but he has since passed away.

I told Bobby, “Your mother once said that your father saved tread on the front passenger tire (her tire, you understand), by hanging it off the edges of the road on high mountain passes.”  😆

I love the mountains.  I particularly love the green valleys, with mountains all around, and a river rushing past.

“We saw some moose cavorting about in a lake on California Pass,” said Bobby, sending this picture.

Tuesday morning, as usual, I refilled and rehung the bird feeders, made my bed, took a shower, and went to play the piano.

CrrrrrRRRRAAaaaaSSHSHHSH!!

I broke one of the C2 strings (two octaves below middle C).

Rats.  Those low bass strings are custom-wound copper-over-steel, and they are not cheap.  😕  Levi can replace it for me, but it’s not a very easy job.  I’m giving him good practice!  😑

My piano is a 5’ 8” Baldwin grand.  When our AC went kaput last summer, the heat and humidity did a bad number on the piano strings.  They didn’t just go out of tune; they rusted! 😞

At least the note has a double string, and it’s not too awfully noticeable that one is missing.  I made myself a tall mug of Caramel Apple Pie cold-brew coffee to calm my nerves.  😉

After drying my hair, putting a few curls in, and eating breakfast, I headed upstairs to my quilting studio to work on the Crinoline Ladies quilt.

It was hot that day, still 87° at 4:30 p.m., with a heat index of 94°.  But it was nice and cool in my quilting studio, thankfully.

I happened to be looking toward the window when a young Northern Flicker flew past and landed in a tree a few feet away.  There he sat, chirping and looking around, wondering why Branch Dash was taking so long.

Soon one of his parents arrived with a big juicy bug for him.  He gulped it and promptly went back to squawking.  “More!  More!  More!”

They’re such pretty woodpeckers.  And they’re LOUD.

Speaking of loud birds, my parents once ‘birdsat’ for some friends of ours, Bernie and Gay, when they had to traveled somewhere.  The parrot didn’t make a whole lot of noise (probably missing its familiar surroundings) until my father began praying before a meal.

At that point, when everything got quiet, the bird went into Loud Jabber Mode.  One of his favorite statements had obviously been taught to him by Gay:  “Bernie is a Bird-Brained Blabbermouth!”

His next favorite, “Bernie kissed a Bird-Brained Blabbermouth!” had presumably been taught to the bird by Bernie himself, in retaliation.

Sometimes it garbled its former address together with nursery rhymes:  “Hickory, dickory, dock!  The mouse ran up the Northwest Depot!”  (Bernie had worked for the railroad.)

A couple of times of that, and my father made sure the feathered loudmouth had a bag over its cage before he started praying.

For supper that night, we had venison roast, potatoes, onion, and carrots, cooked in the Instant Pot.  I put in enough that we could have leftovers after church Wednesday night.

As I quilted, I kept hearing a crop duster going over, low.  I ran to the windows several times to see it, but I chose the wrong window every single time.  😅

After some research, we decided to switch from the too-expensive Verizon to Straight Talk Platinum service.  They use Verizon’s coverage, and Verizon has by far the best coverage in rural Nebraska right now.  Two lines with the Platinum plan will be $115 a month – and that will include unlimited almost-everything, including high-speed hotspot data.  That’s better than we have right now; my high-speed hotspot data usually runs out and I get throttled down to 3 or 4G several days before the monthly reset.  Right while I was chatting online with a helpful person from Straight Talk, my monthly Verizon bill arrived:  $385.44.  😧 

At 11:30 p.m., I received this picture from Victoria:

She had also sent a post with the baby’s name, but it hadn’t arrived yet.  Victoria likes teasers!

“Oh!” I texted back, “Are those brand-spankin’-new little piggy-toes?!!”

Just before she responded, the name showed up:  Russell David.  It was a new baby boy.  💖

Born at 10:31 p.m., he weighed 8 lbs. 8 oz.

Half an hour later, I finally got to see the north end of the new baby.  He was just a few minutes old, and he was obviously wondering who in the world turned on all the lights.

“Sweet baby,” I wrote to Victoria.  “I wonder what babies are thinking, all fresh-hatched?”

I then answered my own question:  “Probably, ‘Am I hungry?’  And ‘Are you my mother?’

Victoria answered at precisely the same instant:  “Food.  Hi.  You sound familiar.”  hee hee

An hour later, she sent another picture.  Babies change fast in their first few hours!

Wednesday, July 15^th, was our 47^th wedding anniversary.  It was another warm day; the high would be 87°.  As I did the usual morning routines and ablutions, I was texting several of the kids at once.  This gets confusing, because they all have very similar ways of talking and texting.  So long as nobody badmouths someone else, it’s no matter if we send a text to the wrong recipient, right??  

Dorcas texted to wish us a Happy Anniversary, and to remark that a new baby grandson was a wonderful anniversary present.

“I thought so, too,” I told her, “but I didn’t mention that to Victoria.  Didn’t wanna sound all ‘ME ME ME!’  haha”

I finished another row of quilting, and then it was time for our midweek church service.

Thursday morning, Levi sent pictures of a hummingbird he’d spotted at a feeder.  “It hovered before it landed,” he said in his usual funny way, “so I suspect it’s a hummingbird.”

“Maybe it’s a Forster’s Tern!” I answered, always ready to take the opposing view.  “They hover, too.”  I sent this picture.

“No sooner had I said that than about five of them began dogfighting,” replied Levi.  “I was not fast enough to get pictures.”

Here’s a shot I got back in August of 2008 of some hummingbirds having a rip-snorting squabble.  Good thing they can fly backwards, upside down, sideways, and every which way, or more than one of them might’ve gotten impaled!  Those long beaks aren’t just for retrieving nectar from deep flower blossoms; they also do double duty as swords and rapiers.

There were more than enough feeders for all of them, but they did not care to share.  We were at a campground near Gould, Colorado, and Caleb and Victoria were with us.

Larry spent a few days last week helping a friend rebuild a deck on his house, and working on a few vehicles, too.

We considered going to Norfolk to see Victoria and Baby Russell, but decided to wait until they came home, since the baby’s bilirubin numbers were a little high, and the doctor wanted him kept under their bilirubin light for another 24 hours, except for feeding and changing him. 

“So if you want to hold him,” said Victoria, “you might want to just come see us at home.” 

Yep, we would indeed want to hold the new baby.  💞

It was 83° that morning.  The high would be 90°, with a heat index 12° higher than actual temps.  I stayed indoors and continued working on Violet’s quilt.

I drained the last of the Caramel Apple Pie cold-brew coffee that afternoon, so I made a fresh jug.  This time, the flavor is Blueberry Banana Flambé.  Banana flavors aren’t usually my favorites, but this is scrumptious.  A gallon of concentrated cold-brew coffee lasts me about eight days, usually, though I go through it faster on hot days.

Our skies were clear part of the day, but every now and then the winds changed, making it look a bit hazy, and I caught a whiff of smoke.  I like the Western Fire Chiefs Association map for showing where smoke is coming from.

Our supper that evening was a big salad with cranberries and almonds and smoked sliced turkey and Colby Jack cheese and various kinds of crackers.  We had cottage cheese and ALO® Aloe Vera juice with it, this one Fuji apple and pear.

Friday morning, it was 86° by 11:00 a.m., on the way up to a high of 92°.

Larry hit a snag – one of several – in fixing Levi’s new-to-him car:  there was a blown fuse in an apparatus holding an entire collection of fuses, and none of the parts houses in town carry it.  It’ll probably have to come directly from Hyundai.  

He managed to do a temporary fix – but a worser snag done foiled him today.  It could be a cracked head; hopefully, though, it’s just a gasket.

This is a vehicle that, despite somewhat minor damage, had been totaled, and Larry picked it up to sell for scrap metal.  Discovering it was quite a nice car, and knowing Levi, who just turned 16, needed a car, he told Levi and his parents (Bobby and Hannah) about it.  Levi liked it and bought it.

If fixing it winds up costing too much, Larry might have to buy it back from him.

Our new SIM cards arrived, so I spent a little while getting my phone set up with Straight Talk.  Everything switched over just fine and began working properly in about half an hour – except the hotspot.  When I tried to turn the hotspot on, I was informed that ‘Restrict Background Data’ was on.  With further investigation, I found instructions telling me to toggle ‘Data Usage’ – but my phone has no ‘Data Usage’ option.

So I did not yet turn off the Verizon connections to my two tablets, as they were my only connection to the Internet, unless Larry is home, in which case I can use his hotspot.  I haven’t gotten his phone switched yet, because he’s always off doing something somewhere, and his phone is always off in the same somewhere. 

I got another row finished on the Crinoline Ladies quilt.  The blocks with the Crinoline Ladies themselves are cross-hatched.  I thought it would be easier to hand-sew those skirts onto a cross-hatch than onto a graffiti-filled background.

That evening, Victoria sent a picture and texted, “The baby has been delivered to the nursery.”

My heart gave a thump, just once, while it processed what this meant.  And then the picture loaded.  I wrote back to Victoria, “You and your way of saying things!  My notification popped up with the words, but of course not the picture (until I clicked on the Messages tab), and I wondered for a somewhat startled moment what you meant. 😯  But I see the baby is now in his very own nursery at home.  It’s such a beautiful room!”

“It feels a lot more finished now that there’s an inhabitant 🥰,” said Victoria.

Later that night, I retired to my recliner to put together the Saturday Skim for my Quilt Talk group.

I’d just gotten all nicely snuggled in and well absorbed in the assignment when something went ‘SPLAT-scrape’ against the other side of the stairs door.

I know that sound.  It was a bat.  They sneak into the upstairs from who-knows-where (we’ve tried to seal all the spots where they might find entry!), then they come flapping into the stairwell where – contrary to popular opinion – they do lose their orientation, and ka-WHUMP into the door (which I’m mighty glad is there).

I didn’t want to deal with it, and Larry was already having his before-bedtime nap in the downstairs tub, so I crammed a towel into the crack under the door so it couldn’t escape into the main floor.

I did send Larry a text, in case he wanted to deal with it:  “A bat just hit the stairs door.”

His answer:  “They always wa17”  That was all, there wasn’t any more.

Reminded me of President Trump’s ‘covfefe’ remark, back when, haha.

I know he (Larry, that is, not President Trump) wanted to say, “They always wait until I’m in the tub” – but fell asleep before he finished the sentence, though he did manage to tap ‘Send’.  (Makes you wonder how many other odd notes he’s written, and to whom he has sent them, doesn’t it?)

Of course President Trump meant to write ‘coverage’.  And he, too, apparently fell asleep before he finished the sentence, as it was also sent just a few minutes after midnight:

“Despite the constant negative press covfefe”

“‘Coverage’, Mr. President, sir!  You meant to say ‘coverage’.  ‘Despite the constant negative press coverage,’ hmmm... what would the rest of the sentence be?  Well, probably, ‘we valiantly press on!’” 

Yes, that would’ve served, and – well, would you look at that.  I made a pun.  See, the only way I ever make a pun is entirely by accident!  “Press coverage, press on.”  Aren’t I clever.

Saturday was the Wolfe Country Quilt Show & Garden Walk, and I wanted to go; but the temperature forecasts just kept climbing.  At least there was no chance of the show getting rained out, as happened two years ago!

I decided to just cope with the heat, and got ready to go.

I pulled out one of the ‘new’ tops, a red knit with thin gray stripes, that I got at the Goodwill in Sioux Falls a while back, when we were on our way home from Wisconsin. 

The original tags were still in it, and tags and the back of my neck don’t get along, so I went upstairs to remove them with my seam ripper.  I made sure to check carefully for the bat I’d heard the previous night when I picked up the towel, and again when I opened the door.  He seemed to have departed the way he came, which is what they most often do.

It was 79° at 8:30 a.m., and the high would be 92° here, and 95° in the countryside near Bennington, where the Wolfe Farm is located. 

I posted this painting along with my ‘Good morning’ post on my Quilt Talk group.

One lady comment, “Serene.”

I couldn’t help myself.  I responded as follows:

“Any minute, though, that fox over there by the field is going to make a run for the chicken, which will start squawking; the dog will bark uproariously and dash at the fox; the cats will shriek in unison and climb the closest tree; and the cow will bellow in startled stress and annoyance – and make a lumbering run straight through flower and vegetable gardens, taking the line of quilts down with it. The cat and chicken on the roof will jump out of their respective fur/feathers and either fall off or scramble/flutter higher on the, uh, barndominium(?); and the pig will grunt happily and wade in to feast on the spoils.  See, King Solomon knew what he was a-talkin’ about, when it comes to ‘little foxes that spoil things’!  (Sorry. I look at a painting like that... and my brain immediately starts sketching out dramas and traumas and theatricals.) 😄”

I did not know what foxes sounded like until we moved out here to the country in 2003.  One night I heard what sounded like a cross between a peacock getting stepped on and the screeching woman tied to the railroad tracks in Ray Stevens song, ‘Long, Tall Jones.’  I hunted around online for an answer, and finally lit upon a YouTube video that had a fox yelp-screeching in almost the exact same tenor as what I was hearing, and I knew that was it.

The cats knew it, too.  All three awoke from a dead sleep, sprang to their feet, and hissed in unison.  🤣  Sorry, kitties.

I filled one tall thermal mug with Blueberry Banana Flambé and another with Blueberry Lemon Celsius, and hoped that would be enough.

I left home at 11:19 a.m.  I’d have left a couple of minutes sooner, but...

Let’s start at the beginning. 

My large camera case was on one of the lower stair steps.  I looked at it carefully before picking it up, remembering the bat in the stairwell last night.

All seemed well, so I placed the case in my recliner with a couple of other things I planned to take.  I opened the case, put my flash away, tucked my camera inside, and gathered up a few other things.

When I was ready to go, I picked up my two thermal mugs of Celsius and cold brew, my tablet, my purses (one lightweight with only a couple of necessities in it and a long cross-strap, for carrying around at the Wolfe Farm; the other with piano benches and monkey wrenches in it), the gift bag for Baby Russell that I planned to fill, and, last but not least, the big camera case.  As usual, I grasped the wide strap and slung the bag around to land the strap on my shoulder, while the bag swooshed around to my side and back.

Something made a high-pitched “Tskeee-tskeeee-tskeeeeee!” noise.

My phone?  My tablet?  I stood very still and listened.

Actually, the sound seemed to be coming from my camera case.  I pulled it forward and twisted around to look at it.

On the back side of the case, from under the loose end of the strap, a wing was protruding, as the whatever-it-was tried to keep its balance and retain its grip on the bag.  The wing did not have feathers on it.

Yeah, it was the bat.

I set the case down gently so as not to dislodge the critter (I don’t much care for it when their flightpath goes through my house), then set everything else back down.  I wanted as many hands free for this operation as possible.

I opened the front door, went back for the case, and carried it carefully out the front door.  The bat squeaked, then hissed, showing me his teeth. 

I put the case on the black bin on the porch. 

The bat should now take his cue, release his grip, and exit to the wild blue skies.

He did not.

I went back into the house, looking around for something with which to separate bat from case. 

A butter knife.  That would do.  (Don’t judge me!  I didn’t see anything else that would work!)

Back out on the porch, I slid the knife between the case and the bat, and gave it a little flip.  The bat landed on the porch, and soon went crawling off.  >>...shiver...<<

I went back inside, collected my things, and trotted down the sidewalk to the car.

A baby cardinal in one of the Blue Spruces said, and I quote, “Tskeee-tskeeee-tskeeeeee!”

What, was he trying to be funny?!!!  It was not funny.  Cut it out, baby birdbrain!

I put everything in the car, arranged it properly in the passenger seat, and went around to get in the driver’s seat.  I started the car, put it in gear, and headed up the driveway.

Something went, “Tskeee-tskeeee-tskeeeeee!”

Now the car thinks it’s funny!

Since there were no bats in the vehicle, it surely must’ve been one of Larry’s IPPs (Important Pieces of Property) skittering around in the far back.

I resolved to ignore all twittering, tittering, and squeeing noises for the rest of the day – or at least until nightfall, when the bats come out to play again.

I stopped at the Walmart in Fremont to get some little things for Baby Russell:  a shirt and shorts set, a couple of sleepers, a set of three onesies, and a set of six socks.  Baby clothes are sooo much softer these days than they were when my babies – particularly the first few – were little.

According to the timestamps on my photos, I arrived at the Wolfe Country Quilt Show & Garden Walk at 1:05 p.m. and left at 1:39 p.m.  I took 320 pictures during that time.  It’s a beautiful place, and there were over 200 quilts.  So many lovely quilts!  I think they were even prettier than they were last year.  There were lilies of all colors blooming all over the place.

It was 95°, with a heat index of 105°.  I’m surprised I was only tramping about in that heat for 34 minutes; it felt longer, though I hurried.

I didn’t get cooled back down until I was north of North Bend, 30-35 miles to the west.  About the time I hit the east side of Columbus, I had guzzled down the last of the cold-brew and the Celsius I’d brought along.  But I figured I’d survive another 15 minutes until I got home at 3:00 p.m.

Finally having a chance to look at my phone, I checked to see if the hotspot had begun working.

It had not.  It was still telling me I needed to turn off “Restrict Background Data” which is supposedly found under “Data Usage” – neither of which seemed to be anywhere on my phone.  I chatted with a Straight Talk representative, and after he couldn’t help me, he said to just wait 24 hours and maybe the issue would resolve itself.

As expected, it did not resolved itself.  I think the rep just hoped that when I called back, he wouldn’t be the one to answer the call.  Since I could still connect to the internet via Verizon’s hotspots on my tablets, I decided not to worry about it right then.

That evening, we went to Kurt and Victoria’s house to see Baby Russell.  As we walked into their house, Willie happily greeted us, “Hi, Grandpa and Grandma Jackson!  We have a new baby, and you can touch him!!!”

The little boys, Willie and Arnold, showed us their new bedroom (the room that used to be Carolyn and Violet’s), and the girls showed us their new downstairs bedroom.  And of course we looked at the nursery, and held sweet little grandbaby Russell.

Sunday at 8:00 a.m., I was sipping Blueberry Banana Flambé cold-brew coffee, blow-drying my hair, listening to the news on my tablet, and reading/typing posts, emails, and messages on my laptop, and periodically peeking out the window at the birds at the feeders.  Howzat for multitasking?  😆  

Usual definition of ‘multitasking’:  “Doing a whole lot of things all at once, and all of them poorly.”  😆  Fortunately, only one or two of the things I was doing required much brainwork, so nothing went to bits and pieces.

The birds out there that morning:  American Goldfinches, House Finches, English Sparrows, Northern Cardinals, Blue Jays, Mourning Doves, and Eurasian Collared Doves.  There were American Robins out in the lawn, and Barn Swallows and Purple Martins swooping around overhead, doing their part in lessening the mosquitoes.

It was 72° with a heat index of 82°.   The high would be 93° that sunny day.  Our air quality was good.  Saturday evening it had been a bit smokey, though I’m not sure where that smoke was from.  It could’ve been local; I should’ve checked.  (I did trot around making sure it wasn’t my own house on fire, heh.)

Fairly often on Sunday mornings as we’re driving to church, several ducks or geese fly low over the road, heading for small ponds nearby.  If rains have filled the ditches, the mallards in particular will land in them.  Sometimes all we can see are their wiggling tails, as their heads are below the surface, scrounging around for vegetation or crustacean tidbits.

Once upon a time when Hannah was about 3 years old, we were watching a dozen ducks or so on a pond at a city park.  Seemingly in unison, nearly every one of them tipped over, heads underwater, hunting for whatever tasty morsels they were finding down there.  Hannah giggled. “Bottoms up, kids!” she piped, making several passersby laugh.  Hannah looked around to see what in the world was so funny.  😆

Larry made his scrumptious waffles for lunch that afternoon.

This morning, it was already 88° by a quarter after ten.  The high would be 103°, with a heat index 10° higher.  I’m glad the house is nice and cool, and we’re not reliving last summer, trying to keep cool with portable ACs that churned out more noise than cool air.  I did a bit of housecleaning, refilled and rehung the bird feeders, and was soon sipping cold-brew coffee and blow-drying my hair.  One month from today I need to take my quilts to the Nebraska State Fair.

Here’s one of several cute kittens that were playing by the big red barn at Wolfe Family Farm.

My photos are all edited, and now I can look at all these beautiful quilts in the coolness of my own house.

At 6:00 p.m., it was still 95°, with a heat index of 103°.  The sun went behind a cloud, and it looked like it might rain; but the thunderclouds divided and passed by us to the north and to the south.

At midnight, I folded and put the last load of laundry away. 

“Bedtime!” I wrote in my journal. 

Almost three hours later, I added, “Oops, I got sidetracked trying to make the hotspot work on my phone.”

Annnd... after trying numerous fixes that I found online, I finally, finally lit upon one that worked.  It entailed restarting my phone in Safe Mode and then resetting Network Connections, after which I rebooted twice, leaving the phone off for 60 seconds each time.

The hotspot came on, after a couple of false starts, but it did its ‘Verification’ attempt instead of telling me that nonsense about Background Restrictions, so I did what I often have to do:  I tried again.  Sometimes I have to tap ‘Mobile Hotspot’ half a dozen times before it comes on. 

It only took two times this go-around. 

With the hotspot on, I tried connecting my laptop to it.

“Attempt failed,” I was informed.

I hunted for a new password, found it, plugged it in.

Again, “Attempt failed.”

I looked at the password.  Aha!  Microsoft, that brilliant entity, had automatically capitalized the first letter!  The first letter was not supposed to be capitalized.

I uncapitalized it and tried again.

It worked.  It worked!!!

I am now connected to an unlimited-high-speed hotspot through Straight Talk.

Tomorrow I will set up Larry’s phone by hook or by crook, then remove it and my two tablets from Verizon’s service plan and cancel the plan.  And we’ll have a little more money in our pockets each month.

And now it really is bedtime.  In fact, it’s a whole lot closer to sunup than it is to sundown. 

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