Journal: Rain, Sleet, Hail, Wind, --- and Quilts

 

In the last week, two or three friends have asked me how many quilts I have made. 

The truth is, I have absolutely no idea under the sun what that number might be.  As I scanned my old printed photos a couple of years ago, I was surprised time and again to come upon pictures of quilts I’d totally forgotten making. 

So the answer is this:  while I’ve made more quilts than I think I have, I’m pretty sure I haven’t made as many as others might think I have.  I often wind up with all sorts of time-consuming details, sometimes almost entirely by accident.

Back when I sewed almost all of the children’s clothes, and when I did a lot more cooking and baking than I do now, an elderly friend used to fret about it, regularly telling, “You’re going to get burned out!”  It didn’t matter what I was doing, I was going to get ‘burned out’.

I wonder what she thought I should’ve been doing?  Sitting in a rocking chair twiddling my thumbs? 

Last Tuesday was a chilly, rainy day.  At noon, the temperature was 45°, and the windchill was 29°.  The wind was blowing at a steady 20 mph, with gusts up to 30-35 mph.  And wouldn’t you know, I had an appointment in town that afternoon with the lawyer regarding Loren’s estate.  I was glad that the rain stopped about the time I headed out the door, and didn’t start up again until after I got back home.

Prior to heading upstairs to my quilting studio, I checked my email.  One of my blind friends had written.  At the end of her note, she wrote, “I just heard two tiny beeps.  I wonder what it was.  It wasn’t the computer, because it came through the doorway beside me, and I’m in the computer room.”

I wrote back and told her it was a couple of baby roadrunners.

I always try to be very helpful to my blind friends.

I spent several hours cutting and sewing, and by suppertime I had 32 triangles sewn to those three-piece units I was working on last week.  That left 148 to go.

At a quarter ’til 9, it hailed for a while, with small hailstones rattling on the roof and deck and against the windows.  Shortly after 9:00 p.m., rain came down in sheets.  The wind was blowing hard, and there was thunder and lightning.  Weathermen said this would keep up all night long.

Later, the temperature dropped, and there was a lot of hard sleet with a really blowy wind (as Victoria said once, when she was barely past a year old).  It sounded like someone was sandblasting the sides of the house. 

After supper, I sewed for a few more hours, making a total of seven hours of sewing for the day.  Gone are the days when I could sew for 12-14 hours a day (clothes, generally), with breaks for feeding the kids, reading to the kids, playing with the kids, taking the kids for walks, etc.

Nowadays, I keep the topical analgesics handy.   And I pause and enjoy the downy woodpecker on the suet feeder, and the little squirrel sneaking sunflower seeds from the feeders.

Wednesday after reading the news and a few obituaries, I wrote to the girls:

“When you write up my obituary, please don’t use Facebook or smartphone filters, okay?”

You see, I had come across an elderly lady’s obituary, where the photo they had used had clearly been subjected to a filter.  Her plump, smiling face would’ve doubtless been sweet and pleasing in its original form, but the filter had wiped off every crease and line on her face, added lengthy eyelashes, and put on a ‘headband’ of butterflies.  But who knows, maybe she wrote her own obit, and put the picture in there, too!

A friend had completed a quilt for her grandbaby that she wanted me to quilt, and after our evening church service she told me she would leave it in a bag on a bench near the door where we go out.  I said that was fine – and promptly forgot all about it, what with visiting with various family and friends.

We eventually departed, walking right past that bench – but there were numerous people seated on it and standing near it, visiting and chatting; so not only did I forget, but neither did I notice it.

We drove to Hy-Vee for some milk.  Larry went in to get it.  I didn’t give him any further instructions, but I hoped he’d get something yummy, too.  I pulled out my phone to check for messages.

The first one I saw was the one my friend had sent late that afternoon, asking if I’d like her to bring the quilt to church tonight.

The quilt!!!!

I texted Larry, “Hurry!!!  We need to go back to the church and get the quilt!  I forgot about it!”

His phone signaled ‘incoming text’ from a niche on the dash where he likes to set it while he’s driving.  🙄  But it was only a minute or two before he came back out.  In addition to the milk, he’d gotten blueberry turnovers.  There was no time to be glad about that at the moment. 

I told him the issue, saying, “We need to hurry, before everyone leaves the church!”

Telling Larry ‘we need to hurry’ effectively slows him down exponentially.

He sat and digested the news for moments on end before slowly reaching for the gear shift and pushing the button that puts the car into Drive.

We putt-putted (imagine putt-putting in a Mercedes 450 with twin turbos!) our way out of the parking lot, then waited patiently (well, ‘we’ were not patient; only one of us was patient, and it certainly wasn’t me) for far-away cars to approach and pass before pulling out onto the road and heading sloooowly back to the church.

Everyone was gone when we got there.

I said, “Drive around to the other side, and we can ask Dennis for his keys.” 

Our friend Dennis lives just across the street from the church, and is the designated person who turns off the lights and locks up after each service.

Larry debated, then said, “I don’t want to bother him!  He’s probably already in bed.”

I knew that it had to have been mere minutes earlier that Dennis had locked the last door.

“Drive around!” I insisted.

Larry reluctantly (and slowly) worked his way around the church.

“See, his lights are all off!” he announced jubilantly.

“No, they’re not,” I objected.  I could see lights on through the window.  Not the front lights, but lights, nonetheless.  “Pull over!”

He pulled a smidgeon closer to the curb, but kept creeping right on past.  “You can get the quilt tomorrow,” Larry argued. 

“When?!!!” I exclaimed.

“They probably open the doors for school at 8,” he said.

Rrrright.  I would want to get up at 6 in order to shower and make myself presentable, in order to arrive at the school at 8 amongst arriving parents with school children, and beg someone to let me retrieve that quilt (they’re careful with unlocked doors), if indeed the quilt was still there.  Someone might very likely have squirreled it away to some ‘safe’ spot by then.  My friend would never trust me with another quilt ever again.

I thought I’d call Dennis, but didn’t have his number in my phone.  I could get it from Victoria (Dennis is Kurt’s great-uncle), but Larry was coasting farther away, and would probably be in Madison County before I got the information.

My friend Penny lives next door to Dennis, and she, too, has keys to the church.  I decided to call her, though I didn’t really want to, as I knew she’d had a somewhat strenuous doctor’s appointment earlier that day.

Just as her phone started to ring, Dennis, having spotted us out his window, came out to see what we needed.  I rolled my window down.  “What did you forget?” he asked, grinning.

(Either he knows us, or he has this happen fairly often.)

Larry told him what we’d forgotten, just as Penny answered her phone.

“Never mind, I don’t need you anymore!” I told her, laughing.

She paused a moment, determining who I was, then retorted, “Okay, fine, it’s been nice knowing you; it was a good friendship while it lasted!”  haha

Well, Dennis unlocked the church, got the quilt, and brought it out to us.  I promised to remember him in my will.  (He laughed; he’s almost 6 years older than us.)

Home again, we ate a light supper (can it be called ‘light’ when you have blueberry turnovers for dessert?), and then I sewed for a couple of hours, finishing the addition of the large off-white triangle on all 180 units for the Safari Animals quilt before heading for the feathers.  (Yes, I stacked those units back up neatly after I took the picture. 😉 )

Paper-piecing slows things down, but it’s accurate.  I sure couldn’t rotary-cut those sizes!

Thursday, I loaded my friend’s quilt on my frame.  She used Riley Blake’s Beatrix Potter fabric line with cute preprinted blocks.  Since she’d already cut the scalloped edge, I used a bit of fabric spray adhesive between the fabric and the batting to hold it in place until I stitched down the edge with the longarm.

 The stuff I have (June Tailor’s Quilt Basting Spray) is kind of old; it was in my late sister-in-law Janice’s things that she gave me years ago.  It worked fine, despite its age; but it stunk just fine, too.  Bleah.  😝

Fortunately, the temperature was up to 53° and slightly breezy, so I opened both windows wide and turned the ceiling fan on.  The stuff makes my head pound even with the slightest whiff.  I soon turned on the floor fan, then donned another sweater, and a scarf, too. 

A lady on my quilting group told me that the new June Tailer adhesive spray has no strong smell at all.  I’ll remember that, if I ever run out of this stuff!  But that’s a really big can, and I have only used it twice – and sparingly, at that – in the eleven years since Janice gave it to me.

After quilting until nearly 1:00 a.m., the top borders were done, along with the top row of Beatrix Potter character blocks.

Friday, the weather was again fine for opening windows and turning on fans – and the big EdenPURE heater, at the same time, when it got too chilly.  It only got up to the mid-40s that day.

I cooked yams in the Instant Pot for supper, and baked fish in the oven.  The rest of the menu included strawberry yogurt, pecan sandies, and cran-grape juice.

By 11:00 p.m., Rows 2 through 4 of the Beatrix Potter character blocks were done.  There was one more row of characters, then the bottom borders.  They could wait until the next day.

Seeing my pictures, a quilting friend inquired, “Light custom, huh?!!!!”

“Well,” I responded, “there’s no heavy fill-in stuff... but it did sorta morph into at least medium custom, didn’t it?  😅”

I just can’t help myself, it seems.

Each time I advanced the quilt a row, I lifted the side borders, sprayed the batting, smoothed down the borders, stitched... and so on all the way to the bottom.  The borders at the bottom were a little too ‘friendly’ (wavy = too much fullness), so after spray-basting and then stitching them down, I doused them with starch and used a hot iron on them.  For some reason, that just made the waves turn into stiff ripples, and I was thinking, Oh, no, now what do I do?!!! – but by the time I got to that spot to quilt it, it was nice and smooth, and looked perfectly fine after I finished.

By suppertime, the Beatrix Potter quilt was all done.  I did not trim it, as my hands were a bit stiff and achy that day, and I didn’t want to mess up those scallops.  The quilt measures 50” x 57”.

After supper, I got back to working on Jeffrey’s Safari Animals quilt.  First, I hunted through my fabric for some dark cream and light tan fabrics for the next set of triangles, but couldn’t find anything that would work.  Why does everything in my meager stash have flowers on it?!

Then I spotted the gold mottled fabric Amy gave me a while back.  It’s backing fabric, 108” wide – but there’s not enough for backing for even a full-sized quilt, so I’ll use it for piecing.  It perfectly matches the animal pictures.  But what to go with it?  And then I thought, How about the back side of the same fabric?  I flipped back a corner...  Yep, this’ll do. 

As a quilting friend once said, “I paid exactly the same price for the back side of that fabric; I can use it, too!”

Here are the baby eaglets in the nest at Big Bear Valley.  Can you tell an airplane is going over? 

Last night after church, we stopped at Hy-Vee to get peanut butter and syrup (very important, since there were leftover pancakes), but someone was painting stripes and curbs in the parking lot, and I promptly got a thumping headache, so we headed down the block to the new Super Saver.  There’s hardly any place to park, because they haven’t torn down the old store yet, and it’s right where the new parking lot will be.

We saw numerous friends from church at the stores, still decked out in their glad rags, just like we were.  😄  I stayed in the Mercedes, as my eyes were being particularly troublesome.

Larry’s third or fourth cousin texted me; she’s the one who is in a nursing home in Minnesota.  “You do know that you aren’t supposed to go to the grocery store when you are hungry,” she advised, as she often does.

I wrote back, “Yes, but we all think it’s better to go to the store when we’re hungry, because then we get yummier things, more items than usual, and don’t have to go back to the store quite so soon!  😄”

Sure enough, Larry came out with not only the peanut butter and syrup, but also frozen yogurt and honey-roasted peanuts to put on it.  Yep, I’m glad when he goes to the store hungry.

When the children were little, we’d make the trip to the grocery store a special outing with the whole family.  Each child would get to pick out something special (not junk food; something healthy and good).  We’d let them help us decide the menus, and they all helped me cook stuff.  We often went late in the evening, so Larry could come, too.

When we shopped late at Food-4-Less, very few customers were in the store.  Employees would be stocking shelves, and there’d be empty boxes sitting around all over the place.  Larry would pretend to get his foot stuck in one, and go clumping along with the box ‘stuck’ to his foot.  This convulsed the kids, especially since they were trying so hard to be quiet.

One time one of the stores had a huge tank with live lobsters in it.  The children stood and looked and looked at those things.

Later, Joseph, who was three or four at the time, told someone, “We went to the zoo, and it was right in the grocery store!”

A couple of weeks ago, I splashed a few drops of water on the number pad of my laptop’s keyboard.  Grabbed a tissue, I wiped and dabbed madly – and then belatedly noticed what was happening on the screen.  I had accidentally texted this to the girls:

+-

+-*++-*

+-*+

-+

+-

+-

+

I quickly wrote, “Oops.  Sorry.  Small near calamity.  Nothing serious.”

Hannah promptly sent this:

I explained what had happened, adding, “Fortunately, the keyboard on this laptop is water-resistant.  (At least I got your attention!)”

We then discussed music.

“I wrote a report on John Philip Sousa when I was in third grade,” I told them.  “My mother took me to the music store, and we got a record with his marches on it.  Ooooo, I loved that.  (I loved writing the report, too, you know.)”

“His marches make great 4^th of July music!” said Hester.

I then sent the above animated loop, telling them, “I tried to find the old marching song ‘Dominoes’ to go with that gif, but all I could come up with was Fats Domino singing When the Saints Go Marching In.  (Listen at your own risk.)” 

This afternoon, Victoria sent pictures of the children.  They were having an after-school snack of Blueberry Green Tea and apples with sunflower butter.

Victoria fixes them snacks that are yummy and fun and healthful, all at the same time.

Yuki kitty was sitting right between Carolyn and Violet.

Today is grandson Josiah’s 15^th birthday.  He’s Teddy and Amy’s fifth child.  I took him his gift a little while ago – a pen set with lots of small magnets, and the book All of Grace, by Charles Spurgeon. 

While there, I petted their humongous Anatolian shepherd, Atka, and two big puppies, and then I looked at and petted some of the dozen or so day-old lambs they just got near Yankton.  They’ll have to bottle-feed them.  These are lambs that have somehow lost or been rejected by their mothers.

Amy was just making up some bottles; the children will help feed the lambs.  Elsie could barely wait.

Bedtime!

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

Journal: Aurora Borealis, Birds, & Whistlepigs

 

Last week, the Aurora Borealis was once again visible in our area.  (Photo taken by Brandon Hammons, a local photographer.)

Last Monday, even though it was a nice day, weathermen on the radio were warning people to be careful of fully-snow-covered roads a little ways to our north, where a foot of snow still covered the fields, and the wind had blown it across the roads.

Meanwhile, about 60 miles to our west, there are around a million Sandhill cranes migrating through.

On a calm day, the rattling call of a single crane can be heard up to 5 miles away.  You should hear the cacophony when a giant flock, several hundred thousand strong, leaves the Platte River in the morning, or arrives in the evening to settle back onto the sandbars and the water.

The geese are migrating through, too.  We often see long V’s of them overhead.  I don’t even need to look up to tell whether it’s Canada geese or snow geese, as the snow geese have a high-pitched call.

I have a ‘Birders Life-List’ notebook that I got about 35 years ago in which I can list all the kinds of birds I’ve seen.  I have hundreds listed.  Wish I’d have had the book when I was very young, traveling hither and yon with my parents!  Mama used to point out all kinds of birds to me.

When I was in 11^th-grade biology class, we had a chapter or two on birds.  One of our tests was to name the birds pictured on the pages we were given.  I didn’t even have to study; my mother had long before taught me all those birds and hundreds more besides.

One year I got my mother a big, beautiful hardcover book full of gorgeous photos of birds.  I could hardly wait to give it to her for Christmas.

She got me the identical book.

After opening mine, I said, “I’m delighted you gave me this book, because I could hardly bear to wrap that one up (pointing at hers) and give it away!”  😆  She laughed and laughed.

This photo was taken by Anthony Hixon Photography.  He captioned it, “If you’re the short one in the crowd, you might have to hop into the air to see what everyone is looking at!”

Tuesday, the temperature rose into the mid 60s, and no more snow could be seen from my upstairs windows.

There were a lot of birds at my feeders.  The female red-winged blackbirds were there with the males, too, which probably meant they had not yet started nesting.  When they are nesting, I don’t see them.  I wonder if the males bring food to the females like some other birds do?  I should look that up.

Annnd... here’s the answer to that:

While the female incubates the eggs, the male may bring food to her on the nest.  Once the chicks hatch, both parents, including the male, feed the young insects, seeds, and fruits until they are able to fledge and feed themselves. 

The female red-winged blackbird is responsible for building the nest and incubating the eggs.  The male, in addition to helping with food provisioning, aggressively defends the territory. 

Their diet consists mainly of insects, especially in summer, and seeds, including those of grasses, weeds, and waste grain, as well as some berries and small fruits. 

So now we know.

A friend posted a picture of a shiny blue Jeep Wrangler that belongs to her grandson.  I oohed and ahhed over it, for I am quite partial to Jeeps.  We’ve had Cherokees and Commanders, and they’ve been excellent vehicles.  We sold my brother Loren’s bright red Jeep Wrangler to my great-nephew when we were cleaning out Loren’s house and garages back in 2022, after he went to Prairie Meadows.  We gave him a good price, as I know Loren himself would’ve done, had he understood.  I’m happy every time I see him driving that vehicle.

Another friend who likes Jeeps told about renting a Cherokee.  The rental agent pronounced it “Cha-row-kee” instead of “Chair-o-kee”.

My father used to have Peugeots in the 1970s.  That’s Peugeot as in “poo·zhow” – but we didn’t know better back then, and pronounced it “POO-jo”.  But that’s better than the man at our favorite gas station, who would say “PEW-jo”, no matter how often we told him how to say it (or at least how we thought it should be said).

When I was little, I called it “Pee-yoo-gee (hard g)-ott” until my father was no longer amused.  (I had a tendency to run things into the ground, heh heh.)

I finished my friend’s Anne of Green Gables quilt that evening.

Backing

My longarm isn’t behaving quite right.  I keep getting ‘motor stall’ notifications popping up on the screen.  So far, I just press ‘Start’ again, and it continues.  But it won’t work forever, I don’t imagine.  It sounds sorta clanky, too.  Tension changes in the middle of a row for no good reason.  Frustrating.

I posted pictures and description of the quilt on Facebook, and got this response from somebody:

“That sounds like an absolutely stunning quilt!  The mix of free-motion and rulerwork must have added such beautiful detail, and those thread choices sound perfect for complementing the design.  Your recipient is so lucky to receive such a thoughtful and heirloom-worthy quilt.”

Ummmm...  Okay.  Did that person even look at the pictures??  I have so many questions about a remark like that.  😅

We had corn on the cob for supper that night, with yogurt, grapes, and pecan sandies to go with it.

Wednesday afternoon while in the laundry room, I happened to look out onto the back deck, and there was a whistlepig (aka woodchuck) on the back deck!  He was roly-poly, with glistening fur and muscles (or fat) that ripple as he waddles along, sniffing all over the place for tidbits of seeds and suet that the birds have dropped.  He had a suspicion that someone was at the back patio door, but I held bolt still, and he just wasn’t quite sure.  So he went on sniffing and snuffling, and then headed for the stairs.

However, the sun was shining down warmly at the top of those stairs, and as soon as the piggy’s paws came in contact with that warm wood, he paused, then plopped himself right down on the planks and sprawled out, the better to feel the warmth on his tummy.

After a bit, he regathered himself and headed down the steps, which he navigates with more skill than the raccoons, oddly enough.  (Photo from the University of Maryland Extension.)

I washed all our bedding that day – sheets, pillowcases, the fleece blanket, and the quilt, too.  I even washed our robes and nightclothes.

It was really nice to climb into bed that night with clean sheets, blanket, and quilt.

While the washer and dryer worked away, I worked on Jeffrey’s ‘Safari Animals’ quilt.

By 6:00 p.m., I was all ready for church, an hour and 15 minutes early, so as to be out of Larry’s way when he came skidding in to get ready.  I was wearing a brown paisley rayon skirt, a cream-colored knit vest with paisley designs hand embroidered in burgundy, gold-brown, and olive green down the front, and a thin long-sleeved sweater in light brown.  The sweater has a rouched collar with three little brown buttons, rouched shoulder seams, and it’s 67% silk and 33% poly knit.  I totally forgot I had it, so that was the first time I wore it.  It’s soooo soft and nice.  It’s a Ralph Lauren brand, and I got it really cheap on eBay a couple of years ago.

Larry came driving up at a quarter after six, a good half an hour earlier than usual, giving me hope that maybe we wouldn’t be late after all.

But, as usual, we got there with no time to spare – because Larry took a nap in the tub.

After church, we picked up a grocery order from Walmart.  Among other things, I had ordered both green and red seedless grapes.  They substituted (or made a mistake) and gave me seeded red grapes.  Larry unsuspectingly took a baggie full of them to work with him the next day – and then brought them home again, because he can’t drive a big truck and cope with grape seeds at the same time.  But, worse, he can’t manage grape seeds with his dentures.  

This meant that I had an entire bag of sweet red globe grapes all to myself.  Just look at my sad face.

I’m munching on them right now.  Mmmm, they’re good.

Thursday, I went to Loren’s bank to make a deposit, and then to the tax accountant.  The accountant fee was so high, there will be barely anything left of the refund.  It was quite a bit more than they’d charged before, even for that year where we sold Loren’s home and vehicles and he entered the nursing home.  Siggghhhh...

But it had to be done, and I couldn’t do it myself.  And this will be the very last time, thankfully.

As I stood at the front desk signing one paper after another, who should come walking down the hall but my son-in-law Andrew, who works there.

“You look familiar!” he greeted me, and then invited me back to see his office when I finished signing papers.

It’s a very nice office, with leather chairs, pale pearl grey walls, and a big wooden desk.  I could clearly see the touch of daughter Hester’s décor here and there.  Andrew even has a hand-crafted, antique ‘granddaughter clock’ in his office.

As I looked at it, he laughed, “I didn’t even know a ‘granddaughter clock’ was a thing!”

After arriving home, I texted him and asked if he would please send me a picture of it.  Here it is.  That’s the original finish.  And it’s right on time, too.

See the leather briefcase/satchel hanging on the coat hook there on the left?  Hester found that at a consignment store somewhere.  It’s like new, and a high-dollar brand; but she got it for just a few dollars.

I needed to take the tax returns to the post office (they can’t e-file Federal tax papers when there’s a Personal Representative paper attached, which is silly; it could be sent digitally, just like everything else, but... 🙄); however, it was 3:30, right when school gets out, and I knew downtown would be a melee; so I came home instead.  Traffic doesn’t bother me.  But traffic plus Benign Essential Blepharospasm does bother me.  I like to leave plenty of space between my car and other cars, in case my eyes do a long blink right when somebody suddenly slams on the brakes.  ‘Plenty of space between cars’ is not to be had, though, at 3:30 p.m. in downtown Columbus.

It was a good thing I came home, because in putting papers into envelopes, I found a page they’d neglected to have me sign.  I signed it, and then, since my eyes were still behaving fairly well, and the 3:30 rush would be over, I hopped back into the car, returned to town, and mailed the papers.

It was a pretty day – 71°, sunny, not too breezy, and on its way up to 79°, a nice day for doing errands, if errands had to be done.

When I got home, I headed straight upstairs to my quilting studio to work on Jeffrey’s quilt.  I turned on my multitude of lights, my iron, and my sewing machine, setting everything the way I wanted it for the paper-piecing I would be doing.

The electricity went off. 

What in the world? 

It came back on in less than a minute.  I turned the iron and sewing machine back on and reset everything.  This time, the lights stayed on.

Maybe it was caused by repair work on the lines throughout the eastern part of the state.  It was only today that the last of the customers who’d lost power during the March 19 blizzard got it back.

I sewed for five hours, and got 32 of these three-piece units put together for the Safari Animals quilt.  That made a total of 74, with 106 to go.  

Friday, the temperature got up to 89°.  Quite high, for mid-Nebraska in late March.  And the weatherman was telling us to expect snow by the early-morning hours on Sunday.  😄

I got 61 of those three-piece units done Friday.  It took 7 hours.  There were 45 left.

Saturday was daughter-in-law Maria’s 31^st birthday.  We gave her a quilt-block apron I made some time ago, and some Wild Cherry hand soap .  The blocks on the apron are called ‘Autumn Seaside’.

That morning, a friend happened to mention something about the song Standing on the Promises, and I was reminded of when Joseph was a little guy, about four years old, boisterously singing that song as he came hop-bounce-trotting down the hall.  He walked into our bedroom, where I was folding clothes, singing away. 

He got to the chorus:  “Standing, standing!  ♪ ♫  Standing on the promises of God, my Savior!  ♫ ♪ ” 

He paused and looked down. 

“Except right now, I’m standing on Daddy’s socks,” he said.

He looked surprised when his mother and several of his siblings burst out laughing.

The European starlings are back!  The maple trees are full of them, all making their funny squawky, squeaky, metallic calls.  Listening to them, one just has to wonder:  In view of the lovely, melodious tunes many (maybe even most) of our native birds warble, why did Eugene Schieffelin think we needed these birds?

Well, we know why; but it sure wasn’t a very good reason:

On March 6, 1890, a wealthy socialite named Eugene Schieffelin released one hundred common starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) into Central Park in New York City.  The release was part of Schieffelin’s decidedly eccentric effort to introduce to the United States all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare’s works.

Some people take zealous ignorance to whole new levels.

It had rained all night, and the rain continued most of the day, while the temperature dropped.

In texting with my friend and distant cousin-by-marriage who lives in a nursing home in another state, she remarked regretfully, “In spite of being as careful as I could, I got a drop of tomato soup on my clean blue top.”

“Tomato soup is like baby pabulum,” I told her.  “One drip can spread all over an entire person!  haha”

If you knew how many times I thought the baby was opening his mouth to take a bite — but in actuality, Baby was opening his mouth to get a nice big breath in order to sneeze!

And of course babies think that all your yelping and diving and dodging is done specifically for their entertainment.

I finished the last 45 three-piece units for this block.  The name of the block (minus sashing and cornerstones) is ‘Cock’s Comb’.  Good thing I switched to red, ay?

Next, I add the three larger triangles to those units, after which four units will be combined to make one block.  There are 45 blocks.  Then the sashing and cornerstones... borders around the animal prints... It’ll be a while.  I have 28 hours in the cutting and piecing so far.

Early Sunday morning, I looked out the window and saw sleet and snow on the back deck, just as the weatherman had said would happen.

When we left for church at 9:25 a.m., it was 26° with a windchill of 19°.  The calendar says it’s Springtime; but I dressed for Winter.

This morning I cleaned the bathroom, filled the bird feeders, made some Cinnamon Hazelnut Crème coffee, and then curled my hair while I sipped coffee, read email, posts, and news.  I kept getting delayed, because as I curl my hair, I stand right beside a window that looks out onto the back deck, and the birds were putting on a show.  There were a couple of male red-winged blackbirds, a common grackle, American goldfinches, a red-bellied woodpecker, English sparrows, house finches, and a robin or two.   The grackle and the woodpecker were sharing the suet feeder, one on either side; but they were extremely leery of each other, and kept craning their necks to peer around the other side and peek at one another.

The pine siskins are long gone, and there aren’t as many juncos as there were just last week; they’ve headed north to their nesting grounds.  Somewhere in the far fir trees, I heard Eurasian collared doves – oh!  I just heard a bobwhite quail!  First one this year.

Hmmm... I think that may have been a song sparrow I heard next; it was a little too far away to be sure, and the red-wingers were nearly drowning it out.  Since many of the female birds are MIA, I’m sure they’re nesting now.  It won’t be long, and they’ll be bringing fledglings to the feeders.  🐣🐥🐦

I barely got that note posted, and a pine siskin landed on one of the feeders!  I guess they haven’t all headed north, after all.

I’ve always loved Geography and World Studies.  When I was in school, particularly grade school and Jr. High, if we studied a country or a certain area of the world, I’d go to the public library and check out more books on that country, because I needed to know more, more, more!  I loved the big picture books on various countries that could be found at our library, too.

Nowadays, I like to ‘go traveling’ via Google Maps now and then.  If I spot something in the news about a location I know little about, I promptly check it out.  A few minutes ago, upon noting that Denali Park, Alaska, had been issued a Winter Weather Advisory, I took a quick survey of weather in other mountain ranges throughout the world.

Once I get started, it’s down the rabbit hole I go, with one thing leading to another... and then another... and another.  I wound up in Jodhpur, the second largest city of the western Indian state of Rajasthan.  This, because of the Aravalli Range, a mountain range that stretches from southwest to northeast across the state.  In Jodhpur is the historic Mehrangarh Fort.

Looking at the many beautiful pictures of the Fort, the Jaswant Thada Mausoleum in the foreground, and other locations where tourists often go, I thought, Yes, but I’ll bet the greater part of this city, with its population of nearly 2 million, is not that pretty.

I pulled up Google Maps, chose a spot that looked densely populated, zoomed in, clicked Street View – and lookie there!!  A quilt hangs from an upper balcony on 4^th A Road!

I switched from admiring mountains to admiring handmade quilts, and learned that “Jaipuri Razai” is a type of quilt made in this part of India, and it’s “known for its lightweight feel, intricate stitching, fine cotton fabric, wool batting, and vibrant, traditional Rajasthani patterns,” so they say.

How ’bout that.  As they say, “All mountain ranges lead to quilts!”  Or something like that.

Addendum: Okay, having now done larnt how they print beautiful bed sheets in Sanganer Jaipur, 200 miles to the east, and having seen some of those sheets and compared them to the Jaipuri Razai quilts, I’ve come to the opinion that what’s hanging on that balustrade is probably a sheet, rather than a quilt.  

Video:  Making printed bed sheets in Sanganer Jaipur

And there’s your rabbit hole for the day.

You’re welcome!  😂😆😄

Here’s a handmade Jaipuri Razai quilt.  (Why is the edge so messy?)

Here’s a funny:  As I was ‘strolling’ my way down the street in Jodhpur, turning onto side streets at various whims, I suddenly spotted a cow!  I clicked my way closer... found yet another... and then one more.  I’d forgotten that India holds cows sacred, lets them roam whithersoever they will, and does not kill them or, for the most part, eat beef.  (Or pork, for that matter.)

The problem with this is that once cows get old and stop producing milk, they are nothing but a draw on a farmer’s finances, and he will often abandon his cow any ol’ where.  Furthermore, bull calves, since they don’t produce milk and farmers are generally restricted from butchering them for meat, are sometimes just abandoned and left to die.

So much for being ‘sacred’.

If you think a wandering cow in the middle of a city with a multi-million population can find enough food, well, you’d do well to zoom in on pictures of those animals and start counting ribs and vertebrae.

Beliefs that don’t honor God sure do take people far askew from anything reasonable.

This seems to be one of the nicer residential areas of the city, the skinny streets notwithstanding.

Thinking those pretty India sheets might work for quilt backings, I looked on eBay, and found some.  Look at this description:

 

Package Set Contents:  Bedsheet Combo - 1 Bedsheet with 2 Pillow Cover,

Material:  Cotton, Thread Count:  144

Size:  Bed sheets:  93 inch x 84 inch (Popularly known as 90*100) or 232 cm x 218 cm, Pillow Cover:  17 inch x 27 inch or 42 cm x 68 cm

Fast colours - No fading of color on washing, Skin friendly fabric with vibrant colors

Bedsheets king size bed cotton for double bed / queen bed

Rajasthani Jaipuri bedsheets for double bed king size gets smoother with every wash.

 

Allll righty then.  A thread count of 144 ... not very high quality.  But at least it’s ‘skin friendly’.  So is it for a double bed, or a king-sized bed?!  There’s a difference.  🙄  A double bed is 54 inches wide by 75 inches long.  A king is 76 inches wide by 80 inches long.

And what do you think of this description:  “93 inch x 84 inch (Popularly known as 90*100)” ?

I’m 5’2”, popularly known as 5’10”.  >>...snerk...<<

I checked Amazon.  Found some, and clicked on one after another that had no reviews.  Finally found one with a small number of reviews, all of them bad.  The sheets are shorter and narrower than advertised; they shrink; they lose their color and the color ‘intermixes’.  The fabric is poor quality, and the seams ravel out.

Guess I’ll continue buying fabric locally, or from Marshall Dry Goods, or from various other fabric stores where I like to shop online.

When I was a wee little girl, my father would tease me by suddenly popping into my route as I went rushing from one place to another (I never have thought there was any time to spare, hee hee), then brace himself firmly and announce, “I’m the Rock of Gibraltar!” while I shoved on him with all my might and main.  Before long, he’d pretend that I had tipped him right over, and off I’d go again, pell-mell, giggling as I went.  (And of course it wasn’t long before I asked my mother to take me to the library, because I had learned, to my surprise, that this ‘Rock of Gibraltar’ was indeed real, and I needed to know exactly what and where it was.  😂 )

I like to play my piano for a little while each day.  I play old favorites I’ve known for years – and a few new ones, besides.  New to me, that is.  They’re not really new, as they’re in an old hymnbook Hester gave me.  Many were written by favorite hymnwriters and lyricists.  I wonder why some songs made it into the big hymnbooks many churches use all the time, while other songs that are every bit as lovely, and maybe even better, are scarcely known at all? 

One that I played this morning sounded a lot like a tune I made up at age 3 or 4 with my little train that went around a track filled with metal ‘notes’.  The train had a plastic mallet on the back of it, and it would bonk each ‘note’ as it went along.  The ‘notes’ could be rearranged and put onto the track however you liked.  There was a paper showing note placement for simple children’s songs, but I often made up my own tunes.  You would skip a slot in the track in order to create a ‘hold’.  It bothered me a lot that I couldn’t make eighth notes!

I used to love it in grade school when our music teacher brought in various instruments for us to play.  Once she let us play her autoharp.  I loved it so much, my parents got me one for Christmas one year.

Larry brought home taco pizza from Pizza Hut tonight.  Mmmmm... we haven’t had that for a long time, and it’s one of our favorites.

After supper, he headed outside to work on something.  I keep an ear out, and an eye on the clock, in case whatever he’s doing entails noise.  His hearing aids are most likely in the charging case at this time of day, and he’ll have no idea he’s rousing the dead.

Yes, we live in the country; but we do have a few neighbors not too awfully far away, and we prefer not to alienate them.

When Larry makes lots of noise, I start complaining, “Noise pollution!  Noise pollution!”  haha

Contrariwise, when he’s wearing his hearing aids, he often speaks so quietly, none of us can hear him.  We say, “Huh?” and “What?” so often, he finally exclaims, “You all need hearing aids!”  😂

My eyes are being troublesome, and it’s still a week and two days until my next Botox treatment.  Time to put them to bed!

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