February Photos

Monday, March 31, 2025

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 11th-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 31st 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 4th 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          ,,,>^..^<,,,




Monday, March 24, 2025

Journal: March Blizzard



Tuesday, I loaded an Anne of Green Gables quilt on my frame and began custom quilting it.  It was pieced by a friend for one of her little granddaughters.

That afternoon, my Walmart order was delivered – sunflower seeds, tissue paper, and four jars of jelly – in nothing but vinyl bags!  The jelly was also put in individual plastic grocery bags, as if those were any sort of cushioning.  And the delivery man ka-plopped the bags right down on the cement porch.  Amazingly, no jelly jars broke.

By 9:30 that night, the wind was starting to pick up.  It was 46°, but felt like 18°, as a north wind was blowing at a steady 27 mph.  The weatherman told us to expect winds of 35 to 45 mph soon, with gusts up to 70 mph.  In a couple of hours, it would start raining.  The rain would turn to snow by morning.  We were issued high wind and blizzard warnings.

After quilting for about six hours, the top three borders were done, and I rolled the quilt forward.  Then I shut everything down and headed downstairs.  Soon I was all cozy in my fleece robe and ensconced in my recliner, a space heater glowing nearby, coffee on a warmer at my elbow, and a fleece blanket over my legs.  Ahhhh...

One time when we were going for coffee in the old Fellowship Hall at church, I wound up behind my great-nephew Joshua, who was 14 at the time and already about 6’ 7”.  (He’s 7 feet tall now.)

Anyway, there he was, getting himself a cup of coffee.  And so I, all 5’ 2” of me, said, “You shouldn’t drink coffee at your age.  It’ll stunt your growth.”

Joshua, who didn’t know me all that well, turned and stared down at me.  And then, finally deciding I surely must be kidding, he laughed.

Late Wednesday morning, the temperature was 29°, with a wind chill of -2°.  A glance out the window – if I could find a window that wasn’t plastered with snow – confirmed that the weatherman was correct:  we were in an ongoing blizzard.  A lot of snow had fallen, but the wind was scouring it from the ground in some places, and putting it into tall drifts in others.  Everything with a north-facing surface was totally caked with snow. 

Here’s a picture of our church, taken by my nephew Robert, our pastor.



The electricity was out in various spots around the state, and many roads were closed.  Larry, of course, went off to work early that morning.  He later reported that it was a pretty tricky drive, sometimes with near-zero visibility. 

The lights blinked, and I got in gear and finished curling my hair before the electricity went out entirely.  Nothing speaks ‘style’ like a half-curled head of hair.  ha

School was canceled for the day, and that afternoon, our evening church service was canceled when the blizzard warnings were extended to 10:00 p.m., and the wind and snow showed no signs of abating.  The wet, sticky snow stuck to the evergreens despite the wind.



We often have school or church when other places around town are closed on account of the weather, because numerous members of our church who own various types of construction businesses have large equipment with which they can clear roads fast and efficiently.  They’ll clear side roads to the church and school, the parking areas, and other secondary streets around town so our people can get out safely.  Men with detachable blades for their pickups help, too.  But we live seven miles west of town, and the weather is usually worse out here.  Our neighbor across the lane, and now and then Larry, keeps our lane clear, along with Old Highway 81 down to the main road, if the county graders don’t get to it; but this was no usual snowfall.

I went on quilting, glad I was not among the thousands of Nebraskans who had no electricity, gladder yet that none of my menfolk were out working on the lines, and sorry for those who were.  I was clad in double sweaters, a scarf, leggings, thick slipper-socks, and suede slippers with faux fur linings, and I was snug and warm in my quilting studio.  Some ladies on my quilting group were not sewing or quilting, because they had fierce thunder-and-lightning storms going on. 

I have very good surge protectors.  They might not help if we get a direct hit; but meanwhile, I sew and quilt!  Maybe I like playing Russian Roulette.  (Not really.  I just like to keep sewing and quilting.  And nothing I’ve had plugged into good surge protectors has ever been damaged, even when other things did.  We once lost a microwave and an iron in a lightning strike.  But the appliances that were plugged into surge protectors were fine.

Here’s a piece of advice from Eaton Electric:  “Choose a surge protector with a joule rating at the very least in the 200 to 400 range.  Sensitive or costly equipment, such as computers, displays and audio/video equipment, warrants a joule rating of at least 1000.  A joule rating over 2000 indicates maximum protection.”

By midafternoon, visibility was better than it had been, but the wind created ground blizzards and continuously blew snowdrifts back over once-cleared roads.  Interstate 80 was shut down from Lincoln to 25 miles west of Kearney, and more roads were closed, some because of accidents or vehicles getting stuck right on the highways.  One major highway was closed because trucks could not make it up the hills, and some that nearly made it slid right back down the way they had come, jackknifing as they went.



Though I still could not see out any of our north-facing windows, I had a view out of my east upper window to Highway 81 and the intersection of 81 and 22.  For several hours, there was nary a car to be seen on those usually-busy highways.  Eventually I saw one heading northwest up the hill on 81 at a very slow pace.  And then another slowly rounded the curve onto 22. 

I had a handful of almonds and cashews, along with a hot cup of coffee in ‘Caribbean Love’ flavor – chocolate, hazelnut, and coconut flavors – and that was my afternoon lunch between breakfast and supper.  My main meals are breakfast and supper.  If I eat much lunch at all, I gain weight.  A handful of nuts or a piece of cheese is healthy and filling, and enough calories for me, too.



Larry came home about 6:00 or so to collect some coffee, grapes, cheese, and crackers, and then off he went again to help friends push snow.  Supper that evening was sweet and sour chicken and rice, carrots and broccoli, and cran-grape juice, with mocha and chocolate Oui yogurt and a pecan sandie for dessert.

I warmed up my coffee and headed back upstairs to quilt for a while longer.

Back in the early 2010s, we missed the church Christmas dinner because we were snowed in.  Larry and Caleb shoveled and snow-blowed (snow-blew?) and shoveled and snow-blew (snow-blowed?), and finally were able to get a four-wheel-drive vehicle out of the driveway by suppertime.

Midway through the afternoon, I put on my warmest coat, hat, and gloves, grabbed my camera, stuck my feet into some boots, and headed out to take pictures.  I went around a corner of the house where I knew there was a snowdrift up to the second story – and there was Caleb on the tip top of the drift, waaay up above my head, just gathering himself to jump.



He saw me too late to abort the leap, though his face said “OOOOPS” all over it.  I was too stunned and horrorstruck to think of lifting my camera up to get a shot.  I expected him to be a crumpled mess of broken bones.  But he somehow landed in a soft bunch of snow with a PLOOOF!!!, and came scrambling back out, laughing.

My heart finally started beating again some while later.

Hard to believe Caleb is now 31, with a little daredevil girl of his own.



When I was little, a chatty elderly lady lived across the street from us.  One stormy winter day she said to my mother, who was checking to see if she was all right, “I’m not worried!  If the electricity goes out, I’ll just climb in bed and turn on my electric blanket!”

Mama, telling us the story later, said, “—and she talks both breathing in and breathing out; so I had no opportunity to tell her that that won’t work.”

Thursday, I was listening to the radio as I blow-dried my hair, sipped coffee, read the news online, and checked email and posts on my quilting group.   The sun was shining brightly and the wind was only blowing at 10-15 mph, but it was chilly at just 36°.  Right when I was feeling smug (Ahem!  Thankful.  I was feeling thankful.) that we still had power while 1,500 other Cornhusker Power customers did not, BLIPBOINK, neither did we.

Or at least, for the most part, neither did we.  The same thing was going on as it had the last time the electricity went off:  about half the house still had lights, though they were only burning at half their usual brightness.

First things first:  I’d been just about to curl my hair when the electricity went out, so when it did, I grabbed the hot curling iron and put a few curls in my hair as fast as I could before it cooled down.  Thus, I had waves instead of curls that day.  Come to think of it, the style looked a lot like it did when I was a teenager, and had naturally wavy hair.  It went straight after Keith was born.  It started to regain some wave – and then Hannah came along.  I’ve had straight hair ever since.

“Y’all drained the sap right outa me,” I tell the kids.



Next, since the electricity hadn’t come back on, I called the power company, and they put me into their queue.  I wondered how long that would be.  The man had told me that 1,500 others in the vicinity were without power, too.  In the greater Omaha area, there were still 80,000 without power.

On the radio, I’d heard them warn Omaha Public Power customers to be prepared to be without electricity for four or five days, as there were miles and miles of broken power poles all over the place.  Crews were coming in from other parts of the state to help, but it was going to take some time.  Some roads were still impassable, too.

I did what I do best:  I texted Larry.  “Can you come hook up a generator?” I asked.  “We have no electricity.”

He said he’d be coming – and then he did what he does best:  he diddled around for a while.

Meanwhile, the oven was clicking and smelling like electric wires burning, and lights were flashing on the display panel.  I can’t scoot it out to unplug it; it’s much too heavy.  I trotted downstairs, opened the breaker box, and peered at all the breakers.  Several of them were labeled, but I couldn’t tell which one might be for the oven.  Rather than waste time experimenting, I flipped the main breaker switch, waited a few seconds, then flipped it back on.  When I went back upstairs, the oven was no longer blinking and clicking.

Shortly thereafter, all the half-bright lights flicked off, too.

An hour later, the power came back on.  I’ll betcha they had to turn it off somewhere while they made a reconnection, whataya bet?

I received a notice on my computer that the delayed red plum jelly from Walmart had been delivered.  Sure enough, there it sat on the front porch in a brown padded mailing bag.  I headed out to get it – and was brought up short by snow and ice that was piled against the front door.  It wouldn’t budge.  I decided against walking all the way around the house on icy, slippery sidewalks and driveway, then all the way back on them, just to retrieve a jar of jelly.  We would just have frosty jelly, and if the jar burst before a) Larry got home, or b) the snow and ice melted, so be it.

I texted Larry, who had not yet shown up, “The electricity is back on.”

“I knew I could fix it,” he responded, “if I thought about it hard enough.”

I suspect that meant he had forgotten all about it.

I washed some dishes (we have a well, but the pump and water heater are electric), then headed to my quilting studio.

Later that afternoon, I paused for a couple of minutes to take a look at a livestreaming video of a hummingbird nest in California – and discovered both babies perched on the edge of their nest!  



And then, even as I watched, one took flight for a few seconds before landing back down on the nest edge.

When their wings are going like crazy, they give each other quite the flogging.

The mother landed right on one’s back in order to feed the other one – which is her way of encouraging them to hurry up and get out of the nest.  She didn’t stay there long, as the one she landed on nearly faceplanted into the nest.



Here’s where one got clear off the nest and out of camera range for a second or two.



By the time I quit quilting for the night, I had reached the halfway point on the Anne of Green Gables quilt.

I sat down in my recliner and began looking at upcoming quilt shows here and there, then at possible places to stay, should I decide to go.  Actually, I like looking at historic Bed & Breakfast inns, RV parks, and rustic cabins whether I’m planning to stay there or not.  For instance, in Weston, Missouri, there’s a tall, renovated Coal House where you can stay overnight!

Some motels are nice for their free breakfasts.  However, there’s a drawback:  You can’t put as much butter and jelly on your bagel as you’d really like to, in public.  At least, not without looking like a pig, you can’t.  I’ve found a workaround:  First, you toast your bagel.  While that’s going on, you gather up your coffee and milk, a few packets of butter and jelly, an apple and an orange, and go set them on your table.  Choose a table in the corner, and stack the butter and jelly packets behind the apple, and orange (not behind the coffee or the milk, because you’ll be wanting a drink before you’re done eating your bagel). 

Go back to the toaster.  Casually lean against the counter.  If nobody is paying you any mind, palm a few more packets of butter and jelly.  Slide them up your sleeve, if you can manage it.  Stretch-knit cuffs work well.  (You really should practice the maneuver at home ahead of time.)  Pick up your saucer and knife, collect the bagel from the toaster, grab some more packets of butter and jelly with firm intent, just as if they’re the first ones you’ve picked up all morning, and hurry back to your table to butter your bagel before it cools. 

Hide all the jelly packets and a few of the butter packets behind the apple and orange.  Now, you have no choice but to rush with the buttering, because... warm bagel.  Ignore everyone and just butter to your heart’s content.  Those who would judge a person for liberally buttering a warm bagel are not worth your notice.  Neatly stack the butter packets together and press them down so they look like less instead of more.  Hide them behind the orange.



The jelly is another matter.  People will judge (and you’ll make a mess of yourself) if you put on all the jelly you’d like, all at once.  Sooo...  delicately and with great finesse, open the first jelly packet.  Gently scoop half of it out (those packets are small!) with your knife, and place that jelly blob, intact, on one edge of your bagel.  Be sure to hold both the bagel and your knife in an elegant fashion.  You do know that cultured people in 17th-century England ate their tea delicacies with three fingers, while commoners would hold the treats with all five fingers, right?  So be an Englishman, not a Barbarian!

Okay, now, as daintily as possible, take the bite, right where you put the scoop.  Deftly collect another scoop of jelly, position it on your bagel, and take another bite.  Take your time, and whatever you do, don’t chew with your mouth open.  Keep the bites small enough that you can smile charmingly at anybody you catch looking your way.  (Be sure you know the difference between a charming smile and a guilty one.)  Don’t smile with teeth if you suspect there’s breadstuff on them, or worse, jelly.

As you finish each packet of jelly, discreetly stack them tightly together and hide them behind the apple.  When you’re done, use your napkin to cover and gather the stacks of butter and jelly packets in one fell swoop.  Choose your moment to drop the collection in the trashcan when no one is close enough to see all those empty packets go scattering into the can.

And walk out with a happy palate and a smug satisfaction over your successful hoodwinking of your fellow diners.

But!  If, perchance, you’re a fumble fingers, and one of the jelly packets goes shooting out of your slippery fingers and lands jelly-side down in the perfectly coiffed tresses of the fashion model at the next table, give it up; all pretense is now worthless.  Just slather on the jelly and chow down.  Use the ol’ five-fingered claw-fist grip without apology.

Finish it all off with a rumbling, resounding burp as you stroll out of the breakfast nook.

No, strike that last sentence; my mother just pinched me from the grave.

Friday afternoon, Keith sent me this picture, taken from his truck.  “Not very often you get to see a perfect ring around the sun,” he wrote.



“Oh, wow, that’s quite a picture,” I answered.  “It’s a sunbow!  The perfect amount of crystals in the air, plus a whole lot of long scientific words, cause those.”

“Haha, ‘scientific words’,” he responded.  “Those words would probably hurt my brain.”

There were still 19,000 people in Omaha out of power that day, down from 106,000 at the peak of the outage.  They had over a thousand power poles to replace – the most ever, from any storm, anytime.

I quilted for six or seven hours that day, getting a couple more rows completed.  Here is the center panel.



The accountant called Saturday morning to say he had finished Loren’s final taxes, and to ask about a couple more details.  I sent Loren’s tax papers to the accountant on February 4, and it really shouldn’t have been too awfully involved; I’d think it could’ve been done in an hour or two, judging by how long it takes me to do ours.  But there were probably a whole lot more important (or impatient) people in line before us.  After I called and inquired, it was done by the next day.  The accountant will e-file with State, but he must send the actual papers to Federal because that’s what they require when there is a Personal Representative document.  He said it would likely be four or five months before that refund comes in!  Good grief.  

Federal seems to be always years behind the times and slower’n a seven-year itch.

Ah, well.  I reckon Loren’s affairs will be settled before our lifespans are over.  🥴😏

Did I ever mention that when we were gathering up his things at Prairie Meadows, I found a small canvas with a painting Loren had done?  I saved it, for  I found it touching, to have this item he had made not too long before, likely some time in the last couple of years before he passed away.  That was one of the things I appreciated about Prairie Meadows: they had many activities for the residents to do.



I put the painting in my little library upstairs next to my quilting studio.  I loved my brother.  Dementia is a nasty disease, but I’m thankful he knew me every time I went there, and was glad to see me.

My Grandma Winings learned to paint while in a nursing home at about age 95.  She was really good at it, and everyone was totally surprised, because she'd never painted before.  Of course not, because she never had time!  😊  She was a busy farm wife.  I have this small trivet that she painted.



By 8:00 p.m. Saturday evening, I had completed the central panel of my friend’s Anne of Green Gables and had started working on the bottom borders.  I wouldn’t have time to finish it that day, though.

Early Sunday morning found me sipping the last cup of Caribbean Love coffee; the next pot would be Caramel Macchiato (description: ‘buttery caramel and sweet cream’).  We like both of these flavors from Christopher Bean.

I checked the weather to decide what I should wear to church.  Hmmm...  It was 43°, with a windchill of 19° and an expected high of 56°.  There was a steady wind of 20 mph with gusts to 35 mph.  That meant I’d better use a good layer of hairspray!  I like Herbal Essences ‘with notes of citrus’.  On less windy days, their lighter spray ‘with notes of lily’ is good.

I didn’t question if that windchill was correct, once I walked outside.  Brrrrr!  When I tried opening the door onto the front porch, the wind grabbed it and nearly sent me flying into the next county.  I could’ve arrived at church like Mary Poppins, had I just popped out my umbrella.  ((...reconsidering...))  Nawww... it would’ve been wrong side out.



Oh, look!  One little newly-fledged hummingbird decided to have a nap next to the nest:



Have you ever seen a hummingbird yawn?



And then...  Incoming!

It’s the mother, Olive (see her there at the top of the picture below?), returning to refurbish the nest for her next clutch.



Look at baby’s beak:  he thinks Mom returned specifically to feed him!  No such luck this time, kid.



But she’ll be back.  She continues to feed her fledged chicks until she knows they are well able to care for themselves.  Sometimes she is feeding fledged chicks while sitting on newly laid eggs.

Below, she’s scrambling around adjusting the fluff in the nest. 



And here she is, feeding her fledgling.



Hmmm... someone (on Facebook, of course) has just informed me that I spelled ‘mane’ wrong on Josiah’s quilt label (Mane Event).  And I thought I was bad at puns!  😄

Can you tell somebody whose first language was not English wrote this bit of instruction on this quilt-marking pen?



Time for bed!  Tomorrow, I hope to finish my friend’s quilt.



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