February Photos

Monday, May 12, 2025

Journal: Mother's Day, Blossoms, and Quilts



This is the old Burlington Train Depot we saw in Gemini Park, Bellevue, Nebraska, a few days ago.  Sarpy County Museum acquired the depot for one dollar on the condition that it be moved from the railroad tracks.  There’s a military display in the nearby museum.  

The depot was built by the Omaha and Southwestern Railroad in 1869 and later served the Burlington Railroad.

The depot has been moved twice.  It was moved from its original site on Block 4 Anderson’s Additions to Hayworth Park.  That location was one mile south of its original site.  Unfortunately, that put the building in the Missouri River Flood plain.  It was subsequently moved in 1987 by the Sarpy County Museum to Gemini Park, which is adjacent to the Sarpy County Museum.  This puts the depot in a safe place, well out of the flood plain.  Today, it is the oldest surviving train station in the State of Nebraska.

Last Monday, Larry drove his boom truck to Omaha to have it worked on, then rode his KTM motorcycle, which he had hauled on the truck, home again.  This proved to be a more lengthy operation than expected, because before he’d gone far, he discovered that the bearings were going out on the rear wheel – and he didn’t have any tools with him.  He stayed off the main highway and rode slowly until he got to a store where he could buy bearing grease and a tool to tighten the wheel as much as possible.  He stopped frequently to tighten it and apply more grease, and managed to get back to the shop in one piece. 

When he was ready to come home, though, rather than risk another seven miles, he called me to come get him.

Tuesday afternoon, I found an update on my coffee order, via the UPS Tracking Page:

On the Way, Lenexa, KS, United States, 05/06/2025, 11:03 A.M.

I spent the day quilting – and listening to what sounded like a nest of brand-new baby raccoons chirring and squeaking their heads off in the walls on the east side of my quilting studio.  I set off an odor bomb in one of the cubbyholes under the eaves in the hopes that the mama raccoon would transport her babies elsewhere.  I don’t believe she’s done so yet.  But I have more odor bombs!  It won’t hurt them; but it will run them off.

Larry is planning to take a day off this week or next week to repair the outside areas under the eaves where the critters must be getting in.

The Baltimore orioles are back!  They’re so pretty, and I love to hear them sing.  They like the suet with berries that I’ve been putting in the suet feeder.




Supper that evening was fettuccini with chicken and broccoli.

By 11:00 p.m., the last two Safari Animal blocks were quilted, and there was only one row of Cock’s Comb blocks and one border to finish.




Wednesday morning was quite nice, in the high 50s/low 60s, so I spent a couple of hours working in one of my big flower gardens.  I nearly have the gardens in the front done.  The purple irises are in bloom, and the lily-of-the-valley is still blooming, too.  There are blossoms all over the chokecherry tree, and they smell sooo good.  



UPS informed me that my coffee was “On the Way, Columbus, NE, United States, 05/07/2025, 5:48 A.M.”

Well, if it arrived in Columbus at 5:48 a.m., why couldn’t I have it that very day?!

Fortunately, I still had Cameron’s Toasted Southern Pecan coffee.  And it was downright good, too.

It got up to 76° that afternoon, and was a sunny, pretty day.

By 7:00 p.m., the last row was done on the Safari Animals quilt, with the bottom border to go.  It was time to head to church.  I would finish the border when I got home; it wouldn’t take long.

Larry called a minute or two after 7; he was just going past Madison, 27 miles to our north.  He would not be home in time for church.

The hostas and Autumn Joy sedum along the front walk have grown like everything in the last week.  I wish the Lily-of-the-Valley was more long-lived; it’s almost done blooming for the year.  I love its sweet aroma; it’s one of my favorites.



Thursday was another nice day – 74°, bright and sunny.

The first order of the day was vacuuming, sweeping, and dusting.  I do that once every decade, whether it needs it or not.  😄🤣😆

When that was done, I loaded my young friend quilt on my frame and quilted a couple of rows before quitting for the night.

Meanwhile, Larry mowed for the first time this spring.



We had scalloped ham and potatoes and a vegetable mix of green beans, carrots, and peas for supper, and strawberry-rhubarb crisp ice cream for dessert.

Almost every evening when I head out to retrieve the bird feeders for the night, the raccoons are already there.  A large one shows up now and then; but lately there have been a couple of young, roly-poly ones snarfing down the bird seed.  They hightail it for the deck stairs when I open the patio door, but if I talk politely to them, one invariably stops at the top of the steps and looks at me contemplatively.  If I make no move toward him, but just go on talking quietly, he looks from me back toward the bird feeders, obviously hoping for just a few more bites...

After a moment or two, he tentatively heads back across the deck to the feeders, giving me a few nervous glances as he goes.  He scrambles up the railing... grabs a mouthful of seeds... and then decides, Yikes, this is just too scary.  She’s liable to turn me into giblets and gravy! – and off he scampers, pell-mell after his sibling, who is waiting for him at the bottom of the steps, one story down.

Shortly after he gets down the stairs, they both go scurrying off into the darkness.  I can’t see where they go, as it’s too dark; but I can hear them rustling quickly through the leaves.

This is one of the last blossoms on the crabapple tree.  It’s all leafed out now. 



Some of the weeds – let’s call them ‘wildflowers’ – have pretty blossoms, too.  This is Tall Hedge Mustard (Sisymbrium loeselii).  Those yellow blooms are smaller than my littlest fingernail.



Friday afternoon, my grandson Levi was planning to come after school to tune my piano — and suddenly I noticed:  his quilt was sitting nonchalantly on the leather sofa in the music room, with his name (remember the big blue embroidered letters appliquéd on the front?) practically glowing in the dark! 

I dashed in there, folded it right-side-in, and put it in my bedroom.

Levi arrived about 4:00 p.m. – bringing me a soft, warm cheese Danish.  I told him it spoiled my whole diet for the day, but I had to eat it right then, because it was warm – and I was downright happy whilst I was a-doin’ it, too.

While he worked on my piano, I worked on my friend's quilt.  By 5:30 p.m., it was done.  The pantograph is called ‘Alpine’.  It measures 45 ½” x 50 ½”.  I used pale yellow 40-wt. Omni thread on top, and pale yellow Bottom Line thread in the bobbin.  The batting is 80/20; I don’t know the brand.




Levi spent some time using Larry’s rubber mallet to pound the piano pegs tighter into the sounding board; this should keep the piano in tune longer.  So he ran out of time to finish tuning the treble section; he’s finishing it today.  Hannah and Joanna came that evening to pick him up. 

They brought me some gifts for Mother’s Day:  a bottle of World’s Only Winnetoon (little town in rural Nebraska) Goat’s Milk Lotion in black raspberry-vanilla scent, a beautiful, handmade, heart-shaped soap with flower detailing on top in lilac scent (I love handmade soaps), and two coaster-sized pieces that Hannah worked a pansy and a tulip into with tiny cross-stitching.  I will put a ribbon through the little holes at the tops of them and hang them in my quilting studio somewhere.






Before they left, Hannah played a song – The Old Rugged Cross – and we sang together.

Saturday was National Archery Day.  Upon learning that, I extracted this excerpt from my journal of October 5, 2015, when Victoria was 18:

After leaving Keller State Park, we stopped at an archery range so Larry could decock his crossbow by firing it into one of the targets.  He asked Victoria, “Want to shoot it?”

“Sure!” she responded, always game for a new adventure.

We walked to the shooting range... Larry showed her what to do... she prepared... pulled the trigger... and shot the deer target dead center, right through the heart.



“How far away was it?” she asked later.

“Ten feet,” answered Larry at the precise moment I replied, “A quarter of a mile.”  haha

When Larry got home early that afternoon, I helped him get my longarm out of my quilting studio so he could take it to Nebraska Quilt Company for me, since he was going to be traveling through Fremont on his way to pick up a scissor lift someone wants him to work on.  The Avanté needs a thorough tune-up, as it skips stitches if I use anything smaller than a size 20 needle.  The rear touchscreen doesn’t work right, either.

I won’t be needing it for a little while, as I’ll be starting to sew Lyle’s quilt.

I began putting the binding on the Safari Animals quilt – and managed to remember before it was too late that it saves time and effort if I embroider the label first, place it in a quilt corner, hand-sew two sides, and then affix the sides at the edges of the quilt at the same time I sew down the binding.  In all the years I’ve been making quilts, I think I’ve remembered that... twice.



That evening, Victoria and the children brought me a large ceramic pot with a big yellow marigold, a red celosia (cockscomb), and a white petunia, along with a thermal mug of iced coffee Victoria had just brewed in her new coffee maker.  






Carolyn gave me a little hummingbird trinket box.  




Violet gave me a set of wooden salt-and-pepper shakers.  I told her how I used to collect them when I was little, and I wound up with some from all over the States when I traveled with my parents; but one Christmas I gave them all away to the kids in my Jr. Choir.  So I was happy to have another cute little set!  



Willie could hardly wait ’til I opened his sisters’ gifts; somehow his wound up last (luck of the draw, you know).  He stepped excitedly from foot to foot, and then, when I started unwinding the paper from his gift, he could contain himself no longer, and exclaimed, “It’s a tardinal!”

Sure enough, it was a bright red little cardinal.  He immediately showed me how it opens, and has room inside for a ring or a small necklace.




I told him, “The entire name for it is ‘Northern cardinal’, and when they’re bright red, they’re the daddy cardinals!”

“Yes!”  He nodded vigorously in agreement.  “It’s a daddy tardinal!” 

Sunday after church, Andrew and Hester and the children gave me a pretty pop-up card of a little bird in a birdhouse, a Ferrero Rocher milk chocolate and hazelnut candy bar, and a picture book called 500 Traditional Quilts.  






I am particularly fond of traditional and old-fashioned quilts.  I especially like the ones in this book because so many are intricate and complicated, and you know that’s what I like.  ♫ ♪

When a book is chockful of pictures of quilts, and not taken up with patterns and instructions, there are more quilts – and then I can almost always design or draw similar ones in my EQ8 program.  I used to do that with children’s clothes, copying designs from the Wooden Soldier magazine, where a little girl’s dress might easily cost $250.  There are a few quilts in this book that I’ve seen in person (‘in quilt’?) at quilt shows.  Some of the Japanese quilters are skilled almost beyond imagination.

This afternoon, Levi came to finish tuning my piano.  I sent him this picture earlier, writing,  “My ears, when I tried playing my piano the last couple of days.”



It was a pretty day today, though it got a bit hot, up to 87°.  It was windy, too; a gust of about 25 mph hit a while ago and rattled the rafters.

Levi was still working away at 7:00 p.m., so I fixed a quick supper:  Colby Jack grilled cheese sandwiches, cauliflower and broccoli, and cherry-pomegranate juice.  He’d brought some green globe grapes with him, and gave some to me.

45 minutes later, he asked if I’d like to try the piano.  I would, and I did.  It sounds beautiful.

Bobby came and picked him up soon thereafter.

Now Larry is home, and I’m fixing him a grilled cheese sandwich.  An apple pie just came out of the oven.  (I helped it; it didn’t get out on its own.)

Now to finish that binding!  I plan to start on Lyle’s quilt tomorrow.

Oh! – my coffee finally arrived on Thursday, three weeks and two days after I ordered it.  I guess, in the scheme of things, that’s not too awfully long.  But next time I order coffee, I just might order from Amana in Iowa.  Their coffee beans are good, and orders only take three or four days.

Off I go to the quilting studio!




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






Wednesday, May 7, 2025

Photos: Flowers in My Gardens

 Flowers in the gardens around my house today.

Hostas and Autumn Joy sedum

Chokecherry blossoms


Purple iris






Lily-of-the-Valley

Irises and tulips

Tulip



Tall Hedge Mustard (Sisymbrium loeselii)


Peony bud

New growth on the Douglas firs

Crabapple blossom


Tiny mulberries beginning to form


New garden flag.  The little cub used to be my late sister-in-law Janice's.