Journal: Weather, Quilting, & AI Ruminations

 

Just for the fun of it, I asked AI, “Why was it so dark at noon in Columbus, Nebraska, on August 8, 2026?”

AI informed me that it was NOT dark in Columbus, Nebraska, at noon on August 8, 2026.

I retorted, “Yesirree, it absolutely DID get very dark!”

AI changed its tune and gave me this information: 

AI Overview:  At noon on August 8, 2026, the skies over Columbus, Nebraska, turned very dark due to a severe daytime thunderstorm system.  Heavy storm clouds and high-density rain cores rolled through eastern Nebraska right around midday, drastically cutting off sunlight.

It then went into greater detail, even adding in links to Nebraska Meteorologist Houston Hall:

Why the Sky Turned Dark

·                  Thick Storm Clouds:  A fast-moving line of heavy thunderstorms and gusty outflow winds pushed through the area between 11:00 AM and 2:00 PM.

·                  High Water Content:  The dense, towering cumulonimbus clouds carried heavy rainfall and large ice/hail potential, which blocked and scattered incoming sunlight.

·                  Low Cloud Base:  Low-hanging storm bases absorbed and reflected very little light, creating an eerie, twilight-like darkness at high noon.

*        *        *

Ooookay.  But if AI had access to this information, why did it first inform me that it did not get dark on Saturday, August 8??  Sheer laziness?  Knowledge pomposity?

I’ve had similar instances with AI, where if I adamantly disagreed with it, it would quickly change its stance and give me information that was totally the opposite of what it had given me seconds earlier.

A person can pretty much get whatever information one wants, with whatever slant one prefers, out of AI, it seems.

Nobody posted any good pictures of the storm – or at least none that I can find, probably because it was just plain too dark to get any.  Here’s one (above) from a year ago.

In hunting through an old journal for a bit of data, I found this tale from 2003, wherein Hannah related a story about a recent dinner with her in-laws:  

They were having some troubles with a handful of flies, and, after watching everyone shooing the flies away, Aaron, 2, decided to solve the problem, and he knew just how to do it, too.  He marched into the kitchen, came trotting back, flyswatter in hand, and, without a moment’s hesitation, aimed for the first fly he spotted:  SPLAAAAAATTT!!!

He got the fly.

Trouble was, he’d swatted a fly that had been sitting smack in the middle of somebody’s plate.

Chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and peas flew, as did several of the people.  Leaping to their feet, yelling in amazement and consternation, they gave futile effort to dusting gravy and potatoes off their fronts.

Aaron, meanwhile, was silently examining his flyswatter, wondering why he’d come up with so much excess this-and-that when all he’d been aiming at was the fly.

Late Tuesday morning, it was sunny and 83°, on the way up to 90°, with a heat index of 10-12° higher.

I finished cleaning the kitchen, and then spent the majority of the rest of the day working on Arnold’s quilt.

Meteorologist Ryan Hall was streaming live that afternoon, as there was bad weather across several states, including Kentucky, where he lives.  At one point, there was a shelf cloud moving right toward him.  This view is from a camera on the ‘Weather House’, as he calls it, where his broadcasting office is located.

The second shot is from a camera mounted on the Pikeville Medical Center in the town itself.

I got the first two quilt blocks done for Arnold’s ‘Puppy Pause’ quilt (below).  After Violet’s quilt with all those little curves, this one is like playtime compared to SAT tests!

A storm went through during the early morning hours Wednesday, with a lot of wind, rain, thunder, and lightning.  By 11:00 a.m., it was sunny and 78°, on the way up to 87°; but it would be raining again later that night.

I decided to call Arnold’s quilt ‘Puppy Pause’ (and I did use the blue puppy print from Janice’s bins).  

Let’s hope that name doesn’t boggle the brain of my friend who was highly concerned when last year I named Josiah’s horse quilt ‘The Mane Event’.  I tried to explain... mutual friends tried to explain... 

She remained greatly troubled about it.  “But your pretty label has a misspelling!”

Someone offer her a course called Puns 101.  😅

It was hard to tell which is the right side of the light blue background fabric I used, particularly since it fades from light to very light and back again throughout the yardage.  I flipped each piece one way and then the other before sewing, decided fast, and didn’t change my mind after the fact.

Motto:  “What’s done is done!”

(Bugs me, though, when I later notice a piece that I’m pretty sure is wrong side up.)

Motto #2:  “Don’t look, Ethyl!”

Here’s a male Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on my tall lavender phlox.

Below is the female Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.  The male is yellow; the female is black. 

By 7:00 p.m., all the blocks were done for Arnold’s Puppy Pause quilt.  They were lying on my ‘design bed’, heh, where I was so absorbed in getting them in the order I wanted, I was quite startled when I glanced at the clock and saw that it was nearly time to head to church for our midweek service.

I made sure to point out the blocks to Larry when he came rushing in to finish getting ready after his shower; otherwise, he’d never notice them at all.  He’d toss his pants and suit jacket on the bed while he buttoned up his shirt, then grab them up and put them on – nary the wiser that he was wearing a puppy quilt block on his back or his ka-setterumpus (Hester’s word, when she was wee little).  😆

After church, we gave Andrew and Hester a gift for their anniversary.  I looked it up to see what the traditional gift for an 18^th anniversary is, and upon discovering it’s porcelain, I decided to give them a vintage casserole dish and lid in the Autumn Leaf pattern that used to be my mother’s, purchased from the Jewel T company before I was born, probably in the late 1950s.  I tucked a family-size bag of dried chicken noodle soup in it.

Hester later wrote me a thank-you note, adding, “The soup looks so good; the kids are excited for it 😄.  They’re big fans of chicken noodle soup.”

As we drove west toward home, we were heading into the sunset – but the sunset was all covered by tall thunderheads.

Here’s a Blue Jay fledgling, not long out of the nest.

As forecast, we had another night of thunder and lightning and rain.  There were three tornado warnings in the Sandhills to our west near the town of Mullen.

By late Thursday morning, it was sunny and 72°, with an expected high of 78°.  To our north, though, on the Nebraska/South Dakota border, another tornado warning was issued.  The little town of Bancroft, to our northeast, got almost 6” of rain.  There were 75-mph winds at Stanton, an hour to our north, and telephone poles were broken or down in numerous places.

We did not lose power at our house, but a lot of people from the Panhandle all the way east to Omaha had no electricity.  

Here’s a shot of a supercell near Gordon, Nebraska, taken by photographer Kris Feltes.

It was Teddy’s 43^rd birthday that day, the 13^th of August.

Here he is at age 8, when we got him a new red bicycle.

We tied a balloon onto the bike’s handlebar, positioned it on the walk, then I went out to lay wait with my camera while Larry asked Teddy to go out and get the newspaper.  Notice that even though he saw the new bicycle with the balloon on it, which would tell any birthday boy that that was his new bike (and you can see he knew, by the delighted look on his face), he nevertheless picked up that newspaper and was about to head back in and give it to his father.  Larry was right there at the door to take the paper and tell him he’d better hurry right down the steps and give that new bike a try. 

Victoria sent Baby Russell’s one-month pictures with the caption, “Our little bRussel Sprout 😆. ”

That reminded me of another time when Aaron was little, and he acquired a new baby cousin named Brock.  Aaron was quite sure the baby’s name was ‘Broccoli’.

Hannah would tell him, “No, his name is Brroc.k.”

And Aaron would say, ever so carefully and precisely, “Brroc.k.oli.”

That day, I went on sewing the blocks together for Arnold’s ‘Puppy Pause’ quilt.  When I added in the puppy print with the blue background, I had just enough of both puppy prints to cut 20 blocks.

As I mentioned, that blue print came out of one of my late sister-in-law Janice’s bins.  She gave me three very large, and very stuffed, bins in 2013, the Christmas before she passed away. 

She’d taped the lids on with masking tape, and after I untaped them to look at the contents, then put the lids back on, those lids kept sproing-oing-oinging back off again, because the bins were so full. 😅

I wish I’d have kept track of what all I used of her fabrics and things (guess I could look back through pictures of things I’ve made), but I’ve gone from three big, full bins to about 1 ½ not-too-awfully-stuffed bins.

By suppertime, the blocks were together and the first border was on.  I started cutting the next border, which would consist of 648 one-inch squares and 4 three-inch squares.

Teddy stopped by after he got off work, and I gave him his birthday present:  a flashlight and knife set that we’d gotten at Cabela’s in Sheboygan, Michigan; a tool for breaking car windows and cutting seat belts in an emergency; and a big jar of mixed nuts.

Here’s another episode of my Great Grammar Aggravation, this one from a newscaster who works for a major television station in Omaha.  She’s explaining why they’re not giving John Q. Public as many details on a certain sitchee-aye-shun as Johnny Q. might be a-wantin’:  “...and we don’t want to impede on their investigation in any way.” 

‘Impede on’?  We impede investigations.  Or we intrude on or encroach upon investigations.  We don’t ‘impede on’ anything. 

Grammar, oh grammar, where have you gone?

Thursday night there was another bout of thunderstorms, and the rain continued until late Friday morning.  Eventually the sun came out, but several areas nearby were issued flood watches.  The high was 82° that day.

I was late in hanging up the bird feeders, on account of the rain.  The last few big raindrops were still ker-plunking down when I looked out the window and saw little birds all lined up on the railing and the feeder hanging bars, looking at the patio door and chirping in unison.  😂🐦🐥🐧🕊🦅🦜🦚🦩🦉🦃🐓🦆🦢🦤🐦‍⬛🪿

By suppertime, all 72 three-inch 9-patches were done, 18 of each variety, using up nearly all of the puppy print and paw print fabrics.  In fact, a few 1” patches had to be pieced.

It was another rainy morning Saturday, and once again, the little songbirds (and a couple of noisy jays) were telling me they were half starved to death before I rehung the feeders, never mind the fact that there are seeds and grains of all sorts, insects of myriad variety, and wild and cultivated berries and other fruits everywhere one might look in this part of the country.  They want black oil sunflower seed served up to them in a ‘lordly dish’ as Jael did for Sisera, thankee kindly. 😄

I did some housecleaning, then headed upstairs to my quilting studio to get the nine-patch border sewn together and attached to the Puppy Pause quilt.

That afternoon, Hannah sent pictures of baby mourning doves in a nest in one of her bushes, right at eye level.  Dove’s nests look so unsubstantial, it makes one wonder how it stands up to the weather and sustains the growing babies!

By 9:30 p.m., Arnold’s quilt top was done.

Sunday morning at a quarter ’til eight, it was 67°, on the way up to 81°, and, although it was completely overcast at the moment, we would wind up with a sunny day.

I refilled and rehung the bird feeders, and then blow-dried and curled my hair, sipping Maui Joe’s (coconut, macadamia nut, and pineapple flavored) cold-brew coffee as I got ready for church.  I’m very glad to have discovered I like cold-brew coffee – in fact, I like it better than hot-brewed coffee – as it’s much more pleasant not to be boiling hot as I’m getting ready to go somewhere.

After church, we had dinner with Bobby and Hannah’s family:  chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, fresh corn on the cob from Daniels Produce, and, for dessert, zucchini chocolate sheet cake with ice cream.  We took a jug of Tropicana not-from-concentrate orange juice to add to the menu.

It was pretty and sunshiny most of the day today, with the temperature getting up to 87°.  Larry mowed the lawn this morning.  I need to do some serious weeding.  Mañana.  😉

There was a young English Sparrow at the suet feeder this morning, pecking off pieces of berry suet and gobbling them down with gusto.  But every time Papa Sparrow got close, baby backed off, crouched down (in order to look like a wee infant, you know), and went to flapping and cheep-cheep-cheeping.  “Feed me!  Feed me!  I’m just a baby, and I don’t know how to feed myself yet!”

The father bird patiently stuffed bites into his offspring’s noisy beak, then flew off – and baby proceeded to stand back up, step over to The Ol’ Feedin’ Trough, and continue feeding himself with aplomb. 

My weather app says that it will be raining in an hour and a half – about 9:30 p.m. – and the sky certainly looks like that’s just what it’ll be doing.

I drained the last of the Maui Joe’s cold-brew coffee this morning; so I made a new jugful.  I like to let it steep at least 18 hours, so this afternoon I opened a bottle of Starbucks cold-brew concentrate in Pumpkin Spice flavor.  Good stuff – so long as I water it down a lot.  I don’t like strong coffees and teas.

Nebraska was just issued a tornado warning – this one near Burwell, 100 miles to our west.  We’ve had several severe thunderstorm warnings throughout the day.

We had leftover spaghetti and meatballs for supper tonight.  Spaghetti and meatballs are one of those foods that often taste better on day two, because the sauce and spices have a chance to better permeate the meat and the pasta. 

Now I need to go decide on a backing for Arnold’s quilt, and sew together some batting.  I intend to get the Puppy Pause quilt quilted tomorrow.

Next, a new quilt for Keira.  I asked Hester yesterday what Keira’s favorite colors are.  

Hester’s answer:  “Pink and purple and sparkles and unicorns and butterflies!”  haha

I’m having Orca Spice Chai tea by David Rio in a pretty cup Victoria and her family gave me.  I make it with skim milk.

Just for the fun of it, I asked AI to identify the block I used for Arnold’s quilt.  It informed me that it was called ‘Square in a Square’ or ‘Economy Block’.

“This is NOT the ‘Economy Block’ or ‘Square in a Square’,” I informed AI, feeling quite smug and superior.  “Note how the points of the central square extend into the outer triangles.”

(Yeah, I’m having fun with AI.  If I can discombobulate my laptop, AI, or any digital program or device, I feel all accomplished ’n stuff.  Larry says I like to blow up computers.  No, no, I just like to discombobulate ’em!  😂)

Anyway, look at the answer I got.  You’d think AI actually had a conscience!

“You are completely correct, and I completely missed that key structural detail.  I apologize for misidentifying the block.”

Mah woid (in a Shirley Temple tone).

AI then proceeded to discombobulate itself, without any help from me:

“Looking closely at the image, the points of the center square explicitly extend all the way out to split the outer dark blue triangles, which is exactly how a Square in a Square inside a Square block behaves.  This specific geometric interaction makes it a variant known as a Square in a Square with Flying Geese (or an On-Point Flying Geese block).  When assembled, those inner light-blue fabric shapes are actually built as four Flying Geese units flanking a central square, rather than concentric squares.  Because of this construction, an 8” finished center square forces a direct mathematical ratio onto the rest of the block.”

It went on to give the ‘The Real Math’ for the block, including a lengthy explanation of ‘Flying Geese Units’.  I was given cutting directions using the ‘No-Waste Flying Geese Method’, and told how to avoid dealing with bias stretch and how to get perfect points where the center meets the outer border.  I was told that the ‘4-at-a-time no-waste method’ was highly recommended – and then was told to cut four 3.375” x 3.375” squares – or generous 3.5” x 3.5” squares if I preferred to trim down to exactly 2.5” x 8.5” later.  (So much for the ‘no-waste method’, eh?).  I was then given ‘Assembly Steps’ to finish the block.

The instructions were pretty good, actually, though not exactly how I did it (and of course I like my method best).  😉  Surprising, I thought, especially in view of the fact that it had originally misidentified the block.  It still thinks it’s a ‘Square in a Square with Flying Geese’ (or an ‘On-Point Flying Geese’ block). 

Hmmmm.  I believe I’ll call it an ‘On-Point Square in a Square with Flying Geese’.  That oughta deter anyone who tries to tell me (in snippy tones), “That’s a block that’s in such-and-such a pattern, and so-and-so is selling it on this-or-that website!”

Yeah, that happens fairly often.  I ignore them, figuring people just can’t possibly copyright all the quilt blocks that have been created for the last 500 years or so, using patch units that are common in most all the quilt blocks known to man.  For instance, what if I configure a Nine-Patch, documented in America at least as early as 1786, in some unique measurement – let’s say 8.76-inch finished, which would mean each square would measure 2.92 inches finished, ----- or what if I left the center square out and then appliquéd a 3.35-inch square over the hole?  Now I can copyright that Nine-Patch, right? 

Ugh, these things get ridiculous.  Thus, I generally ignore the fussbudgets who try to tell me I’m infringing on someone’s unique design, when I’d never even seen said design, nor do I know the supposed ‘designer’ from Adam (or Eve).  As King Solomon said, “There is no new thing under the sun!”

Besides, how do the aforementioned fussbudgets know that the designer they’re trying to defend didn’t steal said design from me?!  After all, I’ve been sewing and quilting and making all sorts of things for a good 56 years now.

It’s so silly.  If Jane Doe can create something off the top of her fuzzy li’l head, probably Jill Doe, in a different time and place, can do it, too.  And each of them considers themselves unique and brilliant. 

Can you see anything wrong with this AI-generated ‘quilt’?  😆

Pioneer version of front-wheel drive.

Okay, that’s a long enough rant about that.  Let’s find a quilt backing!

Oh – another tornado warning for Nebraska, this time near Ord, which is 90 miles to our west.  The weather is coming closer!

Quilt backing, quilt backing.

 

P.S.:  Just one thing more:  an AI-generated bird.  The bird makes me laugh.  The people who ooh and ahh over it – “Traveling to the country where that bird lives is now on my bucket list!” – make me want to bang their heads together. 

(Oh, and FYI the country is Lala Land.)

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