Journal: Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety-Jig

 

Last Tuesday was an overcast day.  I couldn’t have seen the lunar eclipse that morning, even if I had’ve tried.  But here’s a photo from NASA.

I continued working on the Star Crossed quilt that day, preparing the newsprint papers I’d printed for paper-piecing.

Meanwhile, I saw that Larry had put ‘Take Me Home’ into his GPS, which always gets my hopes up, even though he’s done it before, and my hopes have soon been dashed when he instead requested to be routed to Napa or O’Reilly Auto Parts.  🫤  He was listening to Sweeter As the Days Go By by the Old Fashioned Revival Hour at the moment; so I figured he hadn’t crashed down a mountainside.

A friend, having successfully gotten her front-yard security camera up and running, sent me a video clip from the previous evening.  She lives some distance to the south, and insects have come out of diapause (if they ever went into the state of dormancy in the first place), and luna moths have emerged from their cocoons.

I wrote to her, “Wow, there’s a huge moth!  It went swinging on your wooden porch swing, admired itself in your car’s side-view mirror, grinned at the camera, curtsied, and then exited Stage Left.”

(Photo from National Geographic Kids.)

We were once camping at Ponca State Park in the northeast corner of the state alongside the Missouri River.  That night, as we were roasting marshmallows around a big campfire, a large luna moth landed right atop Joseph’s cap.  Victoria, who would’ve been about 3 or 4, laughed so hard she sat right down on the ground, ker-plunk.  We all got struck funny at her, more so than at the moth on Joseph’s head.  I have no idea why she thought that was so all-fired funny; but her sense of humor has not changed much in the ensuing years.

That morning, FedEx delivered two 40-lb. bags of black oil sunflower seeds.  Soon the insect population will start picking up, and the birds won’t be going through sunflower seeds and nyjer seeds like hot soup.

I spent the day working on the Star Crossed quilt.  As suspected, my printer had indeed spit out extra pages – enough for four extra blocks.  So I’m debating... shall I or shan’t I make four decorative pillows?  (Or two large shams, alternatively.)

For supper that evening, I had broccoli, applesauce, cottage cheese, and apple peach juice, with mint chocolate chunk ice cream for dessert.

The Sandhill cranes are arriving in the Platte River Valley west of Grand Island.  I want to go see them!   About 1.25 million cranes migrate through the Valley.

(Photo from the Iain Nicolson Audubon Center at Rowe Sanctuary.)

Here’s the Crane Camera, streaming live.

I texted Hannah, and after a short delay, she responded, “I lost my phone, so I searched all over the main floor.  Finally I saw it in Levi’s hands, thanks to Aaron saying, ‘Isn’t that what Levi has?’”

She had gone to Urgent Care that morning, because she was having trouble breathing.  She had some trouble in Los Angeles, too, as their hotel room was in a building that had opened in 2025, and had some odd smell about it.

I have no trouble breathing, but I do have extremely sensitive olfactory senses, and I know it’s distressing when someplace where you’re trying to stay smells bad or odd.  So much worse for Hannah with her asthma and sinus disease.

This time of year, an odor of fumes sometimes fills our house.  It burns my eyes, nose, throat, and makes lymph nodes in my neck swell.  It’s probably diesel fumes from trucks on the highway.  The newer trucks bother me a lot – it’s the DEF additive in the fuel.

Wednesday I thought, Thank goodness I’ll be going to church and get away from this smell — and then the church smelled quite similar, only from train diesel fumes!  Aarrgghh.

Larry sent me a picture Tuesday night, writing,  “My rig is just as long as the truck next to me.”

He was not making good time, since anytime he got above 40 mph, the trailer began swaying alarmingly.  The picture cut off the tail end of the container, so I suggested he turn his camera to the landscape position in order to show the entire thing.  (I have severely cropped this shot; it originally had lots of black sky at the top and even more parking lot at the bottom.)

“No wonder the thing is swaying,” I remarked.  “I see what you mean about the axles being too far to the front.”

He was in Seligman, Arizona, and it was chilly.  He was planning to sleep in the container he was hauling, as it actually has a room built into one end with planks for bunkbeds.  He had a travel mattress, a sleeping bag, and quilts, so he would stay warm.

“The altitude there is 5,243′,” I told him, then asked, “Have you noticed you’re smack-dab in the middle of a big tourist trap?” 

He had not.  I sent a few pictures.

Seligman, Arizona, is famous as the “Birthplace of Historic Route 66.”

Since he was hungry and hoping to find a place to eat before he slept, I sent a shot of the Roadkill Café.  There’s a sign out front with their slogan:  “You kill it, we grill it!”

“Did you want me to bring you a meal from there?  😋” he asked.

“They supposedly have good food,” I answered, “but by the time you’d get it here, it would be so old it would be petrified.”

Wednesday morning, I showered and curled my hair.

I do that every morning, even when I don’t expect to see anybody – well, except for the house finches, English sparrows, goldfinches, blue jays, Eurasian collared doves, cardinals, juncos, red-winged blackbirds, grackles, starlings, and robins.  The cardinals in particular can be quite judgmental.

On Wednesday mornings, I take a little extra time, since I’ll be going to church that evening.

It was a foggy, mysterious morning, and 42°.

The red-winged blackbirds are practically tame this spring.  They perch just 10-15 feet away while I rehang the bird feeders, tipping their heads to see if I’ve got each one straight, and making little metallic ‘hurry up, please’ squeaks and squawks.

My piano sounds sooo beautiful since Levi tuned it Saturday, I can hardly stop playing it and get on with anything else.  That boy has talent.  He also has perfect pitch.  If I say, “I like I Know Whom I Have Believed best in the key of E, four sharps,” he promptly starts humming it in four sharps.

According to Larry’s Google Activity around 10:00 a.m., he was looking for equipment and/or tool rentals in Flagstaff.  😶  I wonder what that meant?

I don’t often call him when he’s traveling, because one of two things might very likely be happening: 1) he’s driving in heavy traffic/unknown, perilous territory, or 2) he’s taking a much-needed nap.  So I prefer that he call me.

Someone posted a video on Facebook of hundreds of thousands of snow geese on Lake Babcock, 8 ½ miles to our east.  What a sight, and what a sound!

Greeting a couple of my very tall great-nephews after church that night reminded me of the time I was in the public library, trotting through the aisles at a rapid clip.  I came dashing around a corner — and barely got stopped in time to keep from bashing my nose against a gigantic, ornate, silver and gold and jewel-bedecked belt buckle.

So I said in my most intelligent tones, “Oops!”

And then I looked up... up... up... and more up, into the face of a black man (a grinning black man) who was taller than anyone I’ve ever seen, before or since.  He was taller than my great-nephew Joshua, who is 7 feet tall.  There was another tall black man with him, though not as tall as the first.  He, too, was wearing a giant, shiny, sparkly belt buckle.  

They looked like basketball players, judging from the logos on buckles and caps.  And weightlifters, too.

Anyway, I grinned back and went on my way, trying to hush small fry scampering along behind me who would insist on hissing loudly as soon as we got into the next aisle, “Those guys are TALLLLLLLL!!!!!” with the smallest fry (that was Hester, back then) inquiring in great curiosity and wonderment, “Whyyyy are they so tall??!!!  Are they ((...gasp...)) giants??!!!!!!”

Small fry assume sound waves travel only to the ears for which they were intended, and never, ever pass through or go over the top of bookshelves.

I said right her ear, ”They can hear you.”

Wow, her hazel eyes opened WIDE, at that news.

Here’s a pair of blue-winged teal on Standing Bear Lake, a photo I took two years ago after visiting Loren.

Larry spent the day in Flagstaff, moving the double dual axles under his flatbed farther back so his load would stop swaying so badly.  In so doing, he discovered that they had actually been moved forward by the previous owner, probably in order to better balance the backhoe they hauled on it.  He had to rent a welder from a Home Depot, and then he put those axles back where they were originally intended.

While there, another customer, a man in his mid-40s, saw what Larry was renting, along with a few supplies he also purchased, learned what he was doing – and proceeded to spend the day helping Larry do the job!  He drove twice to his house, ten miles away, and got welding helmets, creeper or mat for Larry to lie on under the flatbed, and some DeWalt chargers for some of Larry’s tools, as he’d forgotten his chargers at home.

He let Larry fill his pickup with fuel as payment, but when he took Larry to a nearby Cracker Barrel for supper that night, he wouldn’t let Larry pay for it. Larry wouldn’t let him pay for his meal; so they each paid for their own food.

In our many travels, we sure have run into a lot of lovely, helpful people.  We try to be helpful to others when we can; but I think we’re going to have to up our game, if we want to come out even!

I spent a totally sleepless night Wednesday night/Thursday morning, which was odd, since I was tired when I went to bed a little after one.  I almost fell asleep, not quite... and finally gave up and got up at a quarter after 5, showered, and got in gear.  That’s waaay too long to be miserably tossing and turning.  There are better things to do.

It was another morning with dense fog, and just 32°.  It would get up to 59° that afternoon, with a few raindrops falling.

Larry would be heading toward home as soon as he could return the rented welder after Home Depot opened.  I hoped his pickup and trailer would be a whole bunch safer now.

That day, I continued piecing the Star Crossed quilt.  I’d gotten the fabric cut for all the blocks the day before, and started the piecing.  I’ll cut the sashing and borders when the blocks are done.

At 7:30 a.m. I texted Larry:  “You’re in a wind advisory, with winds up to 45 mph.”

From my kitchen window, I watched a robin tugging a worm up out of the ground – but before he had it quite extracted from the earth, another robin that had been perched in a nearby Blue spruce, watching with a combination of malice and anticipation, divebombed him!  Robin #1 nearly tipped over, fluttered and hopped a few feet to the side – and the divebombing opportunist scampered right to the half-tugged-up worm, jerked it the rest of the way out of the ground, and gobbled it up.

Haven’t seen that happen before.

When I got sleepy at 12:30 p.m., I took a nap.  That lasted just an hour before I abruptly awoke; but I felt better, and it kept me going until bedtime that night.

As I sewed, I watched (and listened to) a video of someone taking an Amtrak journey across the country.  As they waited in a depot for their train to arrive, they gave a running commentary. 

“Here’s a lady who’s probably never been on a train before, looking nervous and pulling two large rolling suitcases, with a big duffle bag slung over each shoulder.  She’s probably packed for a two-week vacation with enough stuff to last her an entire summer.”  And, “Now here’s a man jauntily strolling along, a small carrying case in one hand.  He’ll probably make whatever’s in there last him a month.”  Pause.  Then, “Along comes somebody carrying an entire toddler.”

Hee hee  It would be easier if toddlers could be split into sections, like those colorful big plastic pop beads.  Here’s Hannah at about age two, playing with said beads.

At 4:40 p.m. Larry texted, “I just galloped into Gallup, New Mexico.  It was definitely worth moving the axles back two feet.  I had the cruise set at 58 mph.  When the trucks pass by, it still pulls me toward them a little bit, but it corrects itself without me having to touch the brakes.  👍”

“That’s good,” I answered, then told him, “You have 950 miles to go.”

“Yeah, and around 100 miles before I turn north and head with the wind, if it doesn’t change direction,” he said.

Gallup, New Mexico, from years gone by

At 7:00 p.m., I sent him a weather forecast from Live Storm Chasers for our area, where he would be by the next afternoon:

“SIGNIFICANT SEVERE WEATHER EXPECTED FRIDAY:  Storms may produce STRONG TORNADOES 🌪️, Baseball ⚾️ size hail 🧊 (up to 3 inches), and Severe damaging winds 💨 greater than 60 mph.

“Forecast conditions appear favorable for supercell thunderstorms, which are capable of producing strong tornadoes, large to very large hail, and severe wind gusts Friday afternoon through Friday night across parts of the central and southern Plains into the Missouri Valley.”

From the predictive radar maps, it appeared that if he cut across the states from New Mexico toward Columbus in as straight a diagonal line as possible, he might miss the severe weather to the east and be ahead of the snowstorm to the west.

I baked an apple crumb pie that evening, and had a slice for dessert when it was still too hot and runny to actually be a slice, putting a big scoop of extra-creamy cool whip on it.  Mmmmm, yummy.  (Those ‘Let it cool an hour’ instructions are suggestions only, you know.)

At a quarter ’til ten, Larry wrote, “I am going to sleep for 4 hours and then start driving again.  Maybe I will be home before the bad weather hits.  I am just a few minutes from Santa Fe.”  That meant he had 800 miles to go.

I somewhat made up for my lack of sleep the previous night by getting 8 ½ hours of sleep, only waking up twice during that time.  That’s an hour or so more than usual.

It was foggy again Friday morning, quite windy, and the temperature had been on a downward trend ever since it hit the day’s high of 52° at 4:00 a.m.  There were some rainstorms with lightning during the night, and it was raining again at 10:00 a.m.  The weatherman said it would change to either ice or snow or both as it dropped below freezing that evening.

I spent the day continuing to put blocks together for the Star Crossed quilt.  The quilt is scrappy, in blues, browns, tans, and creams.  Sometimes, especially when first starting, scrappy quilts look all unbalanced to me, and I’m unhappy with them.  But as I continue, the colors usually balance out.  Let’s hope this quilt does the same!

By 4:00 p.m., the wind was gusting up to 30 mph., howling and rattling around the eaves.

An hour later, I texted Larry, “There are tornadoes in Oklahoma and in Michigan, and a snow-and-ice storm approaching us from the west.”

He answered, “I’m heading north on 83 and just went thru Rexford.”

That’s Rexford, Kansas, 260 miles from home.  Population 197.

Two hours later, at 7:00 p.m., he wrote, “I am in Alma, Nebraska, putting in some fuel. The wind is holding me at 50-55 mph.”

“It’s upended trucks in Oklahoma and Kansas,” I told him.  “I just heard a warning about 2” hail south of Seward.  Snow will be starting here in 40 minutes, and there will be ice on the roads.  There have been bad tornadoes in Michigan today, and going on right now in Oklahoma.”

“I am ready to hit the road again,” he responded a few minutes later.

“It is now hailing and raining hard, and thundering and lightninging,” I said.

He had 160 miles to go.

As I sewed, I listened to the weather.  There were reports of homes being wiped off the earth, right down to the foundation, and mobile homes rolled.

By the time the storms subsided that night, six people would lose their lives, adding to the mother and daughter who were hit by a tornado north of Tulsa as they drove in their car the previous night.  Others were trapped in ruined homes, with rescuers having a hard time getting to them, not just because of debris, but also because of downed, but still live, power lines.

At 10:00 p.m., Larry texted, “I made it to Grand Island, but I am going to take a little nap.  Too tired to drive on Hwy 30.”

He would finally get home, after being gone for 8 days, at 1:00 a.m.  He had a scary moment just 20 miles from home when he hit ice on a bridge.  His pickup started sliding, and he knew that if that flatbed trailer with the big container on it got to swerving, he’d land in the ditch, and probably not upright, either.  He let off the accelerator immediately, and then, knowing he had the brakes on the trailer adjusted as high as they would go, he applied the brakes.  It straightened him out like magic.  Whew.

Better believe, he drove the rest of the way in four-wheel-drive!

It was a good thing I stayed up until he got home, as the front storm door handle was iced over and frozen, and he couldn’t get in.

It was warmer than expected Saturday – 40° by 11:00 a.m., on the way up to 55° – and not a cloud in the sky.  I went on working on the Star Crossed quilt, getting the fourth block done and part of the fifth.  The finished size of the blocks will be 16”.  I paused and counted the pieces in one block:  65.  Maybe that’s why they each take so long!  😄  Paper-piecing takes a little longer than regular piecing; but it’s more accurate, and an absolute must when my designs wind up with oddball sizes for each and every piece.

It was Andrew’s birthday that day; he’s 39 years old.  We gave him a Gerber multi-tool, and I tucked this eagle placemat into his bag, too.

In the middle of the afternoon, I went downstairs to get a refill of cold brew.  That emptied the jug, so I made a fresh gallon of it.  I keep a bottle of Starbucks or Dunkin cold brew in the refrigerator in case I want more while the next gallon is brewing.  Since I don’t like it nearly as well as the stuff I make myself, I also keep a bottle of Coffeemate creamer on hand to make it a little more palatable.

Victoria sent this picture of the table runner I gave her for her birthday, saying, “This was the perfect centerpiece for a baby shower I hosted today!”

I took a little time to sew the hanging sleeve back on a quilt I made for Jeremy a few years ago, then continued with the piecing.  Below are the blocks I have completed for the Star Crossed quilt.

At 7:30 a.m. yesterday, it was 35°; but it would get up to 73° in the afternoon.  I got myself a tall mug of cold brew to sip as I curled my hair, getting ready for church.  This recent cold-brew coffee conglomeration is Gingerbread and Cupid’s Kiss (vanilla and red velvet cake flavors), and it’s mmmm, good.  When I need to combine bean flavors in order to have enough for a gallon of cold brew, I go by the aroma of the beans to decide if they go together.  It’s a surefire way of deciding. 

Motto: Trust Ze Ol’ Schnozz.

Did you know there are seven verses to Amazing Grace?  We sometimes sing them all.  Everybody else must love those verses as much as I do, because boy, oh boy, do they ever sing, when we do that!  Here they are:

 

Verse 1

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound

That saved a wretch like me!

I once was lost, but now am found,

Was blind, but now I see.

 

Verse 2

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,

And grace my fears relieved;

How precious did that grace appear

The hour I first believed!

 

Verse 3

Through many dangers, toils, and snares,

I have already come;

’Tis grace that brought me safe this far,

And grace will lead me home.

 

Verse 4

The Lord has promised good to me,

His word my hope secures;

He will my shield and portion be,

As long as life endures.

 

Verse 5

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,

And mortal life shall cease,

I shall possess, within the veil,

A life of joy and peace.

 

Verse 6

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,

The sun forbear to shine;

But God who called me here below,

Will be forever mine.

 

Verse 7

When we’ve been there ten thousand years,

Bright shining as the sun,

We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise

Than when we first begun.

 

I was glad to have Larry with me at church yesterday.  Without him, I feel as King David described:  “I am like a pelican of the wilderness:  I am like an owl of the desert... I am as a sparrow alone upon the house top.”  ~ Psalm 102: 6-7.

After the evening service, we took Jeremy his quilt, then picked up groceries at Walmart.

We had ham and Swiss cheese lettuce salad, along with Sweet Hawaiian club crackers and mozzarella cheese, for supper when we got home.

Andrew had sent us home from church with angelfood cake and breakfast muffins that Hester had made; Larry had his piece of angelfood cake for dessert while I had a piece of apple crumb pie.   I had the breakfast muffin for – what else – breakfast this morning.

We have a pretty, sunshiny day today, 59° on the way up to 71°.  

Someone with a phone number from Omaha (supposedly) just called.  I said “Hello?”, and after a loooong pause, a mush-mouthed man said, “Hello, is garble-garble-garble available?” (I think he said, ‘My man Goofball,’ but I could be mistaken.)

I considered handing the phone to Larry...

The pizza is done! 

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

Journal: ♫ ♪ I've Been Everywhere, Man! ♫ ♪

 

There’s an ad for farm equipment that plays on Rural Radio each morning:  “We have 99% satisfaction.  That’s right,  9 out of 10 people are happy with our products!”

Me:  “Sir, 9 out of 10 is only 90%.”

Surely I’m not the only one who notices this?

Tuesday was Victoria’s birthday.  Our youngest child is 29 years old!  She and Kurt, along with Willie and Arnold, were in St. Paul at Gillette Children Hospital seeing a specialist.  We’re all hoping he can help Willie with his walking gait.

It got up to 55° that day, but there was enough snow out there that it wouldn’t be all melting.  In fact, there’s still snow in a few places, despite two or three days of warmer temperatures.

After a bit of housecleaning, I spent the rest of the day cropping and editing the recently-scanned photos.  This is the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, taken in 2000.

I kept wanting to hunt through some of my saved patterns or created designs in EQ8 to look for the quilt I would soon be making; but told myself, No, no; just keep cropping and editing!  You’re allllmost done, alllllmost done...

Below is the Christmas picture I took of the children at Pawnee Park, October 24, 1998.

 

When I was done taking pictures and fiiiiinally removed camera from tripod, Victoria, who was 21 months, gave a huuuuge sigh, pointed at the playground we could see a couple of blocks away, began heading that way, and asked, “Nowwwwww go slide and swing??!” 

 

I said, “Imagine what your Christmas dress would look like, if you played in the playground with it on!”

“Ohhh,” she answered, soooo crestfallen.  She’d been just sure she could go play on the swings and the slide, taffeta dress and all!

She was so cute and sweet about it, I wound up promising we’d go home and change clothes and come back and play and eat supper there at the park.  And so we did.

That day in Omaha, a couple of drivers were startled when, as they sat at a stoplight, the earth suddenly opened and gobbled them up!  It was a big sinkhole right on Pacific, a main road in the city.  Good thing it happened when they were stopped; neither driver was injured, and they managed to scramble out of the hole, with help from passersby.

 

That evening for supper, without knowing that the following day would be National Clam Chowder Day, I had clam chowder, Sweet Hawaiian club crackers, applesauce, a few nuts, and cranberry cherry juice.

Sometimes I bake fish to go with clam chowder; but since Larry had gone to Detroit to pick up another container trailer, the chowder was enough for me.

I took this photo of a Golden-mantled ground squirrel in Rocky Mountain National Park in late summer, 2000.  I posted it on Facebook, and some man promptly wrote, “chipmunk”

 

I wrote back, “Not a chipmunk.  It’s bigger than a chipmunk; also, note the lack of stripes on its head.”

No answer.

I then posted this picture (below) of a Least chipmunk, also taken in Rocky Mountain National Park – and some man immediately informed me, “Somebody should be fined.  It’s illegal to feed the wildlife in Rocky Mountain National Park.”

 

I even more immediately deleted his comment.  First, they were a whole lot less fussy about that back in 2001 – and anybody who had crumbs fed the chipmunks, ground squirrels, and Clark’s nutcrackers.  Park Rangers even pointed them out to the children.  Second, I don’t remember whose hand this was in the picture; maybe not even one of my own kids; but I do remember that people were offering the little chipmunks stuff off the ground – stuff that he was already eating.  I wanted the hand in the shot, in order to show how tiny this type of chipmunk is – even smaller than our 13-lined ground squirrel.

 

Here is a photo with both a Golden-mantled ground squirrel and a chipmunk, by Lorraine Snipper Photography.

 

Wednesday, there was still snow on the ground, and we would soon be getting a few more snowflakes before the temperature got high enough to turn it to rain.  At least, that’s what the weatherman said.  I think we got three raindrops.  Possibly four.

Larry, on his way home from a north suburb of Detroit with the aforementioned container trailer and semi, stopped east of Jackson, Michigan, on account of heavy snow, lack of sleep, and brakes that kept locking up on the trailer.

Victoria sent me some pictures from St. Paul, including this one from an aquarium they visited – Sea Life, in the Mall of America.

 

Did you know there are over 35,000 species of fish in the world, with roughly half of them freshwater and half of them saltwater?  Furthermore, that number increases regularly, as new species are found frequently – a good 300 every year, especially in deep-sea and unexplored habitats.

There’s a narrow aquarium in the clinic, too.  Victoria got a shot with Arnold looking at her through it.

I like aquariums, big and little – so long as they belong to someone else.  I’ve had my fill of cleaning aquariums in my life.  😏

A quilting friend was telling about choosing thread in a quilt shop – and some young worker didn’t think she should buy thread labeled ‘embroidery thread’ for some other purpose, such as quilting or piecing.  Of course, embroidery thread is generally long-stapled, and therefore usually works great for quilting in long-arm machines.

The same thing happened to me in a big quilting store a while back.  I was happily looking through all the threads (‘Oooo, pretty! Shiny! Ooooo!’) when along came Helpful Hattie – young Helpful Hattie – asking what I needed thread for.  

I considered giving her a long paragraph of four-year-old Victoria’s theology:

Me, seeing Victoria threading a large needle:  “What are you doing?”

Victoria:  “Right now, I’m threading!”  Pause, while she caught her little pink tongue between her teeth in studious intent, working a strand of thread through the needle’s eye.  Then, triumphantly holding up the threaded needle, “And now I’m going to needle!”

Instead, I told Ms. Hattie I was going to be quilting — and here she interrupted before I could continue, informing me adamantly that that thread was embroidery thread.

I looked at her.  “Oh.”  Then I grinned at her and said, “In that case, I’m going to embroider.”  😏🙄😅

That afternoon, I sent Dorcas two photos of herself taking pictures, the first at Henry Doorly Zoo in 1988, the second at Branched Oak Reservoir in 2001.  

 

“A Wrinkle in Time,” I labeled them.

“LOL,” responded Dorcas.  I probably still look like that quite a bit.  LOL”

“I was once taking pictures of flowers and insects in the front gardens of our house on 42^nd Avenue,” I told her.  “I wound up in quite the position, all inside out and upside down and pretzelized, the better to get the best viewpoint – and then when I finally extracted myself and stood up, I discovered a dozen small noses pressed to the glass of the school library across the street!” 😆

Larry called about 4:30; he was just east of Chicago.  He’d spent a good part of the day clearing out old airlines that were all clogged with debris.  He thought everything was now working well.  At least the delay kept him from driving into a snowstorm in southwestern Michigan, where I could see on a highway conditions map and also on a Facebook page from that area that there had been numerous accidents.

At 6:30 p.m., I cropped and edited the final photo.  The scanning job was done! – and it was done about a week earlier than I’d expected.  I’ve scanned 6,883 photos since December.  Four or five years ago, I scanned 37,314 pictures.  That makes 44,197 scanned photos.  These were the pictures taken with film cameras, printed and put in physical albums.  Since 2004, I’ve used digital cameras.  You want to know what the total number of pictures is, I suppose?

Okay... I’m plugging in one of my external hard drives...

Annnnd... the absolute total photo count is... (are you ready?) ... 342,631 pictures.

Here are Willie and Arnold, sound asleep in their hotel room in St. Paul.

 

In the 35 minutes I had to spare before time to head to church for our midweek service, I brought my downstairs laptop (the one I carefully keep updated and current) upstairs, connected one of my external hard drives to it, and began backing up all data on to that hard drive.  I left it working away and headed to church.

After the service, I picked up some groceries at Walmart, came home and ate supper, then trotted back upstairs to continue the data-backup process.

I connected that first hard drive to the other laptop, put such things as I desired onto it, then plugged in the other two external hard drives and copied all data from the updated external hard drive onto both of those.

I can’t keep all my data on my laptops, as each of them only has a one-terabyte drive, and I have approximately three terabytes of data.  The oldest and smallest of the external hard drives is now full.  I won’t get another unless and until another of my hard drives is running low on space.

Larry called; he’d made it to Iowa City.  He was still having trouble with air lines.  They were no longer all stopped up with debris, but there was one that was cracked.  He repaired it with electrical tape, and it worked for a while; but one somewhat tight corner in a truck stop, and the repair came loose and the trailer brakes locked up and brought him to quite an abrupt halt.

It wouldn’t be nice if that happened on I80, especially since the roads to the west were ice and snow-covered.  There were no parts houses open.  So he would sleep in his truck there, and fix the thing the next day.

Thursday, I launched into the sorting and organizing of my fabric.

The Sandhill cranes are coming back through Nebraska on their migration back to the tundras of the Northern Territories.  Here are a couple of pictures I took of them on April 1, 1999. 

 

Larry got home around 1:00 p.m., rushing around telling me he had to leave for Santa Ana, California, by 2:00 p.m. in order to get there by 2:30 p.m. Friday to pick up the third container box he’d purchased.  Otherwise... what?  The owner would blow the thing up? 

He was going to drive his gray Dodge pickup, since he can go faster than with the orange semi, and the trailer is light enough that the pickup can handle it fine, so he says.  He would have two mountain ranges to cross, though.  GPS doesn’t seem to understand one must needs go slower over mountain passes.  Larry never figures he might have to sleep, either.

He was finally on his way by 3:00 p.m.  When I said, “You can’t get there that fast, by 2:30 p.m. tomorrow,” he glibly informed me, “I gain two hours, heading that direction!”

It was as good as an extra day, in his eyes.

According to Google maps, he had a 21-hour, 33-minute drive of 1,480 miles.

By a quarter after four, fabric in two big bins from my late sister-in-law had been sorted, and one bin now holds leftover batting, while the other has faux leather and fleece, and has been put on a basement shelf with other bins of other-than-cotton fabric.  Three boxes with partially-sewn blocks that my daughter-in-law found at thrift stores have been consolidated into two boxes, and the panel prints I bought a few years ago have been duly admired, refolded, and replaced in their box.  All the other bins – 14 of those not-too-tall 28-quart 24”x16”x6” bins, plus three 54-quart 24”x16”x11” bins – were lined up, lids off, and I was ready to start stacking like colors with like colors.

I took a time-out to rub Two Old Goats Arthritis Formula on my back and neck, which were protesting after hauling all those bins hither and yon, including the two from the basement to the second story, and then one all the way back down.   

 

I like this formula, because not only does it help quickly, it also has a decent fragrance to it.  It’s made with these essential oils:  lavender, chamomile, rosemary, eucalyptus, peppermint, and birch bark; 1.35% menthol (which provides the majority of the pain relief), along with almond oil, aloe vera, a bunch of unpronounceable things, and of course goat milk.  Five minutes later, I had recovered and was ready to launch back into the sorting.  Look at this pretty stuff just waiting, waiting, for me to use it.

 

Here’s the pattern I will use; it’s called Coastal Stars.

 

Below we have a bin of blues.  I have lots of reds... quite a few greens... a whole bunch of cream colors... and many other colors.

 

I got so busy trotting around putting fabric into stacks, and then into correct bins, I totally forgot about the Celsius I made myself over two hours earlier.

In talking with my brother G.W. on the phone that evening, he told a few old stories, some which I’d never heard before, as they happened before I was born (he’s 17 years older than me) – such as the time he got a couple of phone poles free from the power district in town.  He erected them, one on either side of the church, stringing a wire over the church to the house for his ham radios.  He painted the poles, so they looked nice.

Then, early the next Sunday morning, Mama came running down the stairs, telling him, “Get up, get up!  Your wire is rubbing on the church roof and squeaking, and Daddy won’t be able to preach with it doing that!”

So G.W. hurried outside and lowered the wire.

Trouble is, that’s not where it was squeaking.  It was squeaking where another wire ran through an eye ring on the side of the church.

Since that wasn’t removed, the squeak went on, all the way through the service!

I don’t imagine that went over very well.

Clark's nutcracker

 

My expectations of getting all my fabric organized Thursday was a wee bit optimistic.  I had about ten bins filled neatly with matching colors – and there was a whole lot more to go.  The last couple of years’ purchases, especially from Marshall Dry Goods, have added quite a bit to my stash.

It was a pretty day Friday – 53° on the way up to 68°.  Since Thursday’s long sleeves were too warm, and it only got up to 64°, you’d better believe I put on short sleeves Friday!

I finished Volume 3 of The Civil War by Shelby Foote that day.  In his bibliographical note he writes, “By way of possible extenuation, in response to complaints that it took me five times longer to write the war than the participants took to fight it, I would point out that there were a good many more of them than there was of me.”

It was just that style of writing that kept my interest throughout the 3,000+ pages of these three volumes, the majority of which I listened to on YouTube audiobooks.  Unfortunately, the final audiobook ended before the written book did; so I borrowed this third volume from Bobby in order to finish the reading.

Alpine Asters

 

At 4:30 p.m., I was done sorting fabric!  Or at least I’d quit.  Same approximate difference, right?  😅  I now have 18 of the smaller 28-quart bins and two of the large 54-quart bins full – and a bunch of cardboard boxes emptied and thrown out.  The first dozen bins are neat as a pin, each holding various hues and shades of the same colorways.  The last six, and those large ones, too, are a bit of a mishmash, because... what else can one do, when a bin is plumb stuffed full of reds, another of greens, another of orange and peach, etc.; and then one winds up with handfuls of each of those colors, but the original bin simply won’t hold another thread?  Thus, mishmash.

But... all the fabric is put away, the bins are neatly stacked, and who but me knows about the mishmash?  (Well, other than you, anyway, heh.)  All that bending over, folding, and refolding, and lifting bins had made my back protest.  I rubbed some Absorbine Jr. on it, and made myself a thermal tumbler of blueberry lemon Celsius and a hot cup of Thompson’s Irish tea.  It was time to decide on a quilt pattern for son and daughter-in-law Joseph and Jocelyn!  Here’s Joseph in Colorado, in 2000.

 

Yep, I will soon be unorganizing all that newly-organized fabric by pulling out pieces for a new quilt.

I opened the windows in my quilting studio, and could hear finches and sparrows warbling their springtime tunes.  Then I heard a red-winged blackbird, and a robin, too.  I love to listen to the birds in the springtime.

Here’s the quilt I’ve chosen.  It’s called Star Crossed; I designed it in EQ8.  It’ll be king-sized – 108.25” x 108.25”.

 

The quilt will have a paper foundation – meaning, I print the pattern pieces on thin newsprint paper, sew fabric right to the paper, then tear off the paper later.  It makes for really accurate sewing.  Plus, it’s fun to do.

I began printing the pages.  The thin paper confuses the rollers on my printer.  It kept dragging through more than one sheet.

At a quarter after 9, I stopped the print job in order to go pick up groceries at Walmart.  The printing was taking so long, I was beginning to wonder if the printer restarted the job every time there was a paper jam (and there were a few; nothing serious).  I’ll not print more until I get all the pieces taped together that need to be, and learn if I need more.

The grocery order was fairly small – milk, cottage cheese, peanut butter, bananas, rice pudding, and a Gerber multi-tool for Andrew’s upcoming birthday. 

A friend of mine shudders at the very thought of ‘cottage cheese’.  There are numerous brands of cottage cheese that are indeed pretty yucky.  I like Hyland 4% milkfat, large curd, and not very many others.  Nordica used to be good, 10-15 years ago; and then they changed their recipe.  The flavor and the texture both changed, neither for the better.  Booo, hissss.

I put the groceries away, made sure the cottage cheese tasted good, and went back upstairs to continue putting together pieces of newsprint.

Larry, meanwhile, was arriving in Santa Ana.  As I mentioned, he was supposed to get there by 2:30 p.m. Friday.  He got there around 9:00 p.m.  And yes, I mean 9:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.  That’s 11:00 p.m. CST.

He’d had several mountain passes to traverse, and somewhere in Colorado he had to wait while the road was cleared of snow.  An avalanche was reported near Officers Gulch along I70 (that’s between Frisco and Copper Mountain) that day, but the report noted that this particular avalanche “didn’t make it to the highway.”

Here’s an elk we saw in Rocky Mountain National Park in 2000.

 

It was chillier Saturday morning than the previous morning; 29° at 10:30 a.m., feeling like 21°, and on the way up to 43°.

Levi came to tune my piano that day.  His parents, Bobby and Hannah, along with their daughter Joanna, had flown to Los Angeles, where they attended a conference for Lilla Rose, the hair jewelry that Hannah sells.  They also toured the factory.

While playing the piano that morning, as I usually do, I noticed that it needed to be dusted.  I did that just as soon as I blow-dried and curled my hair and ate some breakfast.  It was Hannah’s birthday that day, so I sent her an animated ecard.

Hannah sent me some pictures, saying that some of the mountains still had snow on them, though it was in the 90s in the city that day.   

 

The passionflowers are in bloom.

 

When I was about 10, my parents and I visited some friends who lived in Los Angeles.  The elderly man, Mr. Austad, with whom my father had once sold Bibles in Fargo, North Dakota, lived in a little cottage on a wide gravel road near LA International Airport.  His daughter and her family lived in a more upscale neighborhood not too far away.  We parked our vehicle and Airstream camper on the gravel road right out front of the man’s cottage.  I played with some Mexican children who lived nearby; they were the first Mexicans I had ever met.  They laughed when, every time a big plane flew low overhead, I stopped everything and stared, intrigued and fascinated.  Their laughter did not at all deter me from doing it the next time.  And the next, and the next.

A banana tree grew outside Mr. Austad’s front door, and an orange tree grew right outside the back door.  At breakfast time, the kindly old man told me to go pick one of each of the fruits to go with the oatmeal he was cooking for us.  I thought it was Top Novelty.  Plus, I loved oatmeal (so long as it was cooked properly).

As promised, Levi arrived at noon, and quickly got to work tuning my piano.  He asked if I wanted a brighter quality, or a more mellow quality.  I choose...  brighter!  Every time.  😊

I had a window open that afternoon.  There were a whole lot of birds out in the front yard, singing their springtime songs and busily gathering up dried bits and pieces of vines and stems and leaves from the flowerbeds, material they use to prepare their nests.  This is just one of the reasons I always leave old winter growth until springtime.

When Levi got to a certain high note on the piano, every time he played it, a blue jay warbled back the exact same note.  He played the note a half-step up – and the blue jay obliging sang that note.

 

When the piano was done, Levi requested that I come play it.  I did, and found it just as beautiful as expected, since, after all, I’d been listening to him tune it.

I love how it sounds now. 

For supper that evening, I had vegetable beef soup, rice pudding, cran-grape juice, and mint/chocolate chunk ice cream.

Hannah wrote to say that she and Joanna had made Flexi clips that day.  Here are Hannah’s; Joanna’s are below.  Aren’t they pretty?

 

Larry called that night.  He was still in Santa Ana, California.  He’d spent the entire day struggling to load the container onto his flatbed trailer.  His winch had broken, so he had to use his manual come-along.  Then he needed to put air in his trailer tires (which he’d kept low on the route out west in order to have more traction through the snowy mountains), and he had a hard time finding a place to get air – and the loaded trailer with its too-low tires was swaying and misbehaving if he went over 20 mph – and of course he accidentally wound up on one of the freeways.

Ugh, I do not think this is going to be a safe journey home.  ☹

Sunday at 7:45 a.m., it was 18° with a windchill of 2°.  The high would be 34°.  I had just put the bird feeders out, and I can attest:  it did indeed feel like 2°.  Looking at that temperature, I wondered if the Mercedes would start.  I’d make sure I went out early enough that I wouldn’t be late for church, even if I had to put the jump pack on it.  The battery is going bad, and it doesn’t like cold nights.

Accordingly, I went out at 9:05 a.m. and gave it a try. 

It started, but with a bit more cranking than usual.  At least it cranked!  Sometimes, it barely tries before giving up.

At 1:00 p.m., there was an unusual incident in Nebraska, about 120 miles to our south:  an earthquake of 4.1 magnitude.  An hour and a half later, there was an aftershock of M 2.6, followed six hours later by yet another at M 2.6.  🫨  People felt it quite some distance from the epicenter, even in Omaha; but I did not. 

Larry, meanwhile, spent the day unsuccessfully hunting for a heavy-duty tire for his flatbed trailer, as the steel cords were showing through on one tire, and he certainly didn’t want it blowing out on some remote stretch of highway.  He finally found a place where he could buy what he needed, but they wouldn’t open until the next day.

Here’s a picture Hannah sent.  It’s the Point Vicent Lighthouse, with Catalina Island visible out there in the Pacific.  

 

She wrote, “It was worth the Uber cost to see the sunset.  Now we’re tearing along in another car.  😵‍💫”

A minute later, she wrote again:  “Bobby just texted me, ‘It kinda makes you homesick for Aaron’s driving.’” 

“Haha!” I answered.  “I presume Bobby is somewhere nearby, in the same car?”

“Yes, in the front seat, right in front of me,” replied Hannah.

I waited a minute or two, then wrote back, “When I see the three little dots bouncing, signifying that you’re writing, and you’ve already given me a review of the driver’s driving, and then no text is forthcoming, I assume you’ve crashed.” 

She soon texted again:  “We’re almost done with this thrill ride.  One more turn, and then we’ll see if we can walk.”

“I prefer big honkin’ Escalades and full-sized Hummers and suchlike, if the driver likes to play ‘Chicken’,” I told her.

She sent me a video of the sunset over the Pacific.  As she stepped toward Joanna, I could hear Joanna humming; then, as she walked closer to Bobby, I could hear him adding in the harmony.  😄

 

They were not all that far from Larry – yet ne’er the twain would meet, since Hannah and family had not rented a car (other than the Uber ride to the nearby coast), and Larry and rig were stymied.

It’s cloudy and chilly today, 33° at 10:00 a.m.  I refilled and rehung the bird feeders, and they were soon being visited by English sparrows, house finches, goldfinches, juncos, and red-winged blackbirds.  I hear Eurasian collared doves, robins, blue jays, and cardinals nearby.  

I put sheets and blankets into the washing machine; there were three more loads of clothes and towels to do.  Next, I cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen.

Larry was still in San Bernadine, California, trying to find a heavy-duty tire and wheel for the flatbed trailer.  Reckon I’ll ever see him again in this lifetime?  I’ve been afraid this was an ill-advised endeavor from the moment it started.  😟

At least Kurt and Victoria and the little boys got home safely from Minnesota last week.  Now they have some decisions to make about Willie.  The specialists at Gillette Children’s Hospital in St. Paul can help him with his walking gait, but it will be a big job for that little boy, and his parents, too, what with all the ensuing physical therapy.  And first, they need to find out about insurance.

This afternoon, Larry found the right tires for his trailer – and bought eight of them.  😲

After that, he changed the pintle hitch to a ball hitch. 

By 2:30 p.m., the last load of clothes was in the washer, the previous load in the dryer.  The bed was all made with fresh sheets and blanket.  My clothes were done; the last two loads were Larry’s.

A friend sent me the link to a YouTube video of a man in protective gear opening a can of biscuits.  Now I’m hungry for Grands Butter-Flavored Biscuits.

The boys used to leave the cans out in an obscure place for a little while in order to let the dough expand a bit (for a bigger explosion), then quietly tuck them back into the refrigerator.  A while later, they’d hand the thing to Dorcas to open, because... she always screamed.  Every time.  😂

This is kite-flying month!  My experience with kites makes me sympathetic with Charlie Brown. 

 

Yesterday, I heard a radio ad for Legacy Box – they convert old photos, film, slides, etc., into digital files.  With their 50% sale going on right now, converting photos, so long as one has over a certain minimum amount, is $0.07 per photo.  At that price, my 44,197 scanned photos would’ve cost me $3,093.79.  Wow.  And yikes.  Anyway, I’m glad it’s done! 

Changing the tires and the hitch on Larry’s flatbed trailer helped, but he can still only go about 40 mph without the trailer swaying, especially when big trucks go around him.  He’s needing sway controls – but all the camper dealerships are closed for the day.  A man at one camper sales told him there are more dealerships to the northwest, so Larry will probably head that direction.  This will take him through the mountains, on interstate highways with three or four lanes going each way.  🫤

Now, back to the Star Crossed quilt.  😉

 

 

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