Photos: Rainy-Day Drive to Lincoln

Platte River

Just west of Raymond, Nebraska

Loup River

Journal: Varmints and Bugs, Oh, My!

 

After a night of thunder, lightning, and a bit of rain, we had a cool day last Tuesday, with overcast skies and a high of 68°.

I didn’t get much accomplished that day.  After being sick during the night, I got up at 7:30 a.m., but soon went back to bed and stayed there until a little after noon. 

Later that afternoon, Hannah and Levi came visiting, along with their Australian shepherds, Willow and Chimera, to see how Larry was doing on Levi’s car.

I was in my recliner when Hannah and the dogs came in.  Chimera (on the right) in particular seemed quite worried about me, hurrying over to sniff at my face.  ‘Are you all right, are you all right??  What shall we do?!’

Willow, the black dog, is more timid; but she, too, came to sniff at me, giving my hand a quick lick, more of a ‘If you’re sick, get well soon!’ gesture.

I wash and curl my hair 365 days a year.  Except this year (unless I get sick again).  It will be 364 days a year this year, because I ran out of oomph to curl it (I did wash it) on Tuesday. 

And that’s the day I had company.  Murphy’s Law, ’tis, alive and well.

Remember those ‘gemstone’ mugs I once ordered?  These are the ones I supposedly ordered:  

And this is one of the actual mugs:  

The others were just as bad or worse.  These days, people have been finding them at thrift stores.  Someone posted the picture below and wrote, “Looks like someone else fell for the fake AI gemstone mugs!  hahaha!”

I was supposed to send those mugs back “when the shipping label arrives via email” – but it never arrived.  I tried contacting someone about it, because I didn’t want to get charged for them again, and some lady (on the phone) said very snippily (with an odd accent), “Ma’am, the directions WERE ALL ON THE REFUND SLIP.”  I had no ‘refund slip’.

I have no idea what I did with those mugs.  Maybe they’re still in a box in the basement?  Maybe they’re the ones people are finding (and laughing about) at thrift stores?

Hannah wound up with some pathetic Walmart ‘containers’ from China:  bags that, as she puts it, “would likely rip the first time a person tries to move them.”  These were part of fraud perpetrated on her PayPal and banking accounts; she did not place the order.  She wondered what to do with them.

I had the perfect solution:  “Give them to the nearest thrift store with a note:  ‘These are to carry home your gemstone mugs.’”

At 6:00 p.m., I couldn’t stand it any longer (and my setter was all sat out anyway), so I curled my hair.  

“You wanna come back and see me now?” I wrote to Hannah.

Wednesday, it was cloudy and foggy, and a little cooler than the day before, only getting up to 64°.  Feeling better, I was soon headed to my quilting studio to work on the first Dresden Plate flower, hoping the maid would come and do the dishes and dust and vacuum while I was up there.

Before starting to cut and sew this Dresden Plate, I refolded and put away all the fabric I’d used for the background on the quilt (and immediately needed some that I’d put away).

I opened the windows, the better to hear the birds; but the crickets and katydids were making much more noise than the birds.

Hannah had given us a huge peach and a huge apple, both big enough for two.  For once, Larry thought so, too.  When she pointed them out to him when he had come in a while later, he told her, “Those are so big, I’ll have to share them with Mama!”  😄

Wednesday afternoon, I sliced my half of the peach and ate it with cottage cheese.  Yum, it was delicious.

We didn’t go to church that evening, as we were still coughing and blowing our respective schnozzes, and we were no doubt contagious.  I still felt like a wet noodle.  (Mr. Micro Q. Soft thinks I should say ‘feeling like wet noodles.’  That’s ridiculous.  Who teaches him stuff like that??  It’s singular.  I am not noodles; I am noodle.  I feel like o.n.e.  n.o.o.d.l.e.  O.n.e.)  Anyway, I was definitely back in the land of the living.  Pasta, but living.

I managed to lose four pounds on account of the stomach bug I had along with the cold.  I’ve wanted to lose 5-10 pounds for months, but haven’t managed the feat, since I like to eat.  😏  Unfortunately, I know that when I lose weight when I’m sick, it doesn’t stay off; I usually gain it right back, because once I get better, I’m hungry, I tell you, hungry!

So far, though, it’s stayed off.

Aaarrrggghhh!  It drives me bonkers when I watch one of my favorite crafters/quilters on YouTube, trying to cut things with a rotary cutter whose blade must’ve been in use since 1963.  She saws (with energy!) back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, until finally, finally, she gets a cut.  Looks like she hacked it with a butter knife. 

Her scissors are no better.  She saws along slowly through a single piece of fabric, while the fabric, rather than getting cut, instead just folds over those dull blades.  Through sheer willpower, she eventually chews the material into a mangled, haggled mess.  Siggghhhhh...

It was sunny and nice Thursday, getting up to 72°.  Midmorning, I peered out the window to see if any wayward birds had returned to the bird feeders – and discovered a big ol’ fat whistlepig (aka woodchuck) perched up on the rail, plump as you please, chowing down on the suet!  I knocked on the window, and he, apparently waaaay more convinced than the squirrels that I am Danger with a capital D, abandoned even the bite already in his mouth, bailed off the railing, thumping onto the deck, raced lickety-split for the steps, and then flung himself all the way down the first half-flight, landing with a THUD!! on the first landing, and then repeating the feat over the second half-flight to the ground.  Those pudgy little things are muscular and tough, and they have a thick layer of fur padding, too.

I started a load of laundry, cleaned the bathroom, and played the piano.  When I made myself a tumbler of Blueberry White Chocolate cold-brew coffee, I noticed that the jug was nearly empty, and thought, How can that be??  I just made it three days ago, and didn’t have much for a couple of days!  Then I took a look at the little black dry-erase board that hangs from a jute cord around the neck of the jug, saw the date I’d written on it, and realized I’d made that stuff seven days earlier.  Time flies when yer a-havin’ fun.

I blow-dried and curled my hair, ate something, cleaned the kitchen, started another load of clothes, and got back to making Dresden Plate flowers.  I’ll appliqué the centers on at the same time I’m appliquéing the flowers to the quilt.

Now for our WGR (Weekly Grammar Report).  This is a comment someone wrote under a story about two young people who were killed in a tragic accident: 

“My heart goes out to uins.” 

Somebody corrected her:  “You’ns.”

And of course there was the oft-repeated, “Rest there souls”

Someone tacked a laughing emoji onto the ‘uins’ post, raising someone else’s ire (and yes, laughing emojis are inappropriate on tragic stories).  She wrote, “how ognorant to laugh at something you dont a thing about ,not too many smart people reading this post apparently ,”

She got lots of laughing emojis for that.  I wonder if she even knows why?

Each evening, I look up ‘National Days’ to see what the next day’s important day might be, then find a quilt to go with it, and post it on my Quilt Talk group.

On the ‘National Day’ webpages, one is given the option of offering one’s own ideas for new ‘National Days’.  Judging by what days are already in place, it would appear that people blindfold themselves, spin around, point, remove their blindfolds, and whatever they are pointing at makes the cut.  Last Friday was National Ceiling Fan Day. 

‘Ceiling fans,’ tsk.

Okay, let me give it a try.  >>...closing eyes ...<<  (I’d spin around, but I’m in my recliner, and it doesn’t swivel.)  >>... pointing ...<<  >>...opening eyes...>>  Okaaay. I can now submit my recommendation for “National Wolf Lamp Day”! 😆🤣😄😂😅

Tomorrow is National Elephant Appreciation Day, so I’ve posted a picture of this quilt on my quilt group.

I had planned to go to bed earlier that night.  Instead, I went on a lengthy YouTube tour of One World Trade Center. 

At least that was a little more conductive to sleep than the videos I’d been watching of the planes hitting the twin towers, the collapsing of the towers, and interviews with people who had narrowly escaped with their lives.  Many of those interviews were new, especially done for the 25^th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks.  Some of these people have never told their stories publicly before.

A couple of days ago, deep in my rabbit hole of 9-11 videos on YouTube, I learned that there is an area in Brooklyn called ‘Dumbo’.  After hearing it a few more times, and seeing it in a video taken from the observation decks of One World Trade Center, I did a bit of research on it.

Dumbo, it turns out, is an acronym that stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass.  Artists and residents who moved into the former industrial area in the late 1970s made up the goofy name on purpose, hoping a silly-sounding name would make the area sound unappealing and keep big real estate developers away. 

The plan did not work.  That catchy name eventually helped make the neighborhood famous and trendy.

Friday, it was warmer than it had been for days, with a high of 92° and a heat index 8-10° higher.  In addition to the usual myriad of Cabbage White Butterflies, there were Clouded  Sulphurs on the Autumn Joy sedum.  A couple of Monarchs had a fuss right outside my window.

I found a sparkly piece of pale lavender fabric amongst my purple fabrics, and matched it with a little darker lavender for this next Dresden ‘flower’.

My brain must’ve reckoned I needed to make up for the time I’d lost being sick, so it only let me sleep about three hours Friday night.  I awoke at 4:45 a.m., and that was the end of any sleep.

By 9:00 a.m. Saturday morning, the thunderstorms that had moved through during the night had mostly gone off to the east, and the temperature had risen to 68°.  The high would be 73° that cloudy day.

I showered and cut my hair, played the piano, made myself a tall tumbler of Raspberry White Chocolate cold-brew coffee, then blow-dried my hair and put a few curls in it.  

My hair gets just about to a length I like – but then it takes too long to curl, and it loses its curl too quickly, so out come the hair-cutting scissors.  And then, once again, it only takes me about ten minutes to blow-dry and curl it with my brush curling iron.

I mentioned this to Hannah, who remarked, “I still have a brush curling iron like yours, but I’d have to wear it to church if I tried it. 😬”  hee hee

Noticing the whistlepig/woodchuck/ground hog at the suet feeder again, I opened the window; but he didn’t race for the steps quite as quickly as he has been doing, even when I said, “Hey, what are you doing?!” 

He must be getting accustomed to me.  It won’t be long before he’s acting just like the squirrels do:  “Oh, hi!  How ya doin’?  Next time, get the kind with berries in it, wouldja?”

Wow, look at this:

The largest pumpkin ever recorded in Illinois weighs 2,492.5 pounds and was grown in September 2026 by Plainfield electrician Phil Groenewold.  This broke the previous 11-year-old state record by 347 pounds.  The pumpkin was officially weighed on September 12, 2026, at the Bluegrass Championship Weigh-Off in Hawesville, Kentucky. 

But the very biggest ever?

The heaviest and largest pumpkin in the world weighed 2,819 pounds and 4 ounces and was grown by twin brothers Ian and Stuart Paton from Hampshire, England.  The pumpkin was named “Muggle”.  It had a circumference of 21 feet, 3.8 inches.  It was grown in a greenhouse in Lymington, England.

The seed was started indoors in April 2025, and after 131 days of intensive growth, it was harvested and officially weighed on October 4, 2025, at the Wargrave Nursery Giant Vegetable Weigh-Off.

By 3:30 Saturday afternoon, I was about to fall asleep at my sewing machine, so I went and took a 45-minute nap.  Feeling much better, I went back to work on the Dresden Plate flowers, fortified by a snack of Mozzarella cheese.  Mmmmm, this is my favorite kind of cheese, especially when it’s dry and crumbly enough to make your teeth squeak.

Around 7:30 p.m., I went to fix supper, thinking to cook salmon and broccoli.

But when I looked in the freezer, I found Pizza Bites and popped those into the oven instead.

Yuck, they were lame.  The first ‘bite’ didn’t have much of anything inside it.  The next one unexpectedly had much more, some of which ended up dribbling down my chin.  Ow, hot!  One little box of frozen ‘Pizza Bites’ was supposed to be one serving; but I could only stomach half of them.  I was glad to have broccoli, at least.

By the time I quit sewing for the night, I had finished four Dresden Plate flowers, making a total of eight.

Later that evening, Teddy brought us a tall jar of thick potato soup and a couple of muffins.  Perfect for supper the next night after church.

There was enough soup that we were able to have it for supper tonight, too.

It was 59° at 8:00 a.m. Sunday morning.  The high would be 62°, and it rained and drizzled periodically throughout the day.  I was happy that we both felt well enough to go to church, though we didn’t loiter to visit afterwards, so as not to spread germs hither and yon.

That afternoon, I walked into the kitchen barefoot and nearly stepped on a giant cricket.  In the time it took me to grab one of Larry’s boots, the horrid thing scuttled under the refrigerator.

Since I haven’t heard a chirp out of it, I presume it’s a female cricket.  It’s obviously full-grown, and it has probably decided that the warm, safe area under our refrigerator is the perfect nursery. 

A female cricket lays eggs over a period of about two months, starting when she is 8 to 10 days old.  She lays batches of 50 to 100 eggs every two to three days, and she can produce over a thousand eggs during her adult life.  She needs to re-mate every two to three weeks.  The eggs hatch in about 12 to 14 days if kept warm.

Meanwhile, Larry was still working on his Sunday afternoon nap.  Good thing I’m not the screaming sort.  Where’s the bug spray when you need it?!

Last evening was miserable, because, in addition to trying to tamp down this lingering cold, I was having much trouble with my eyes.  The left one burned, as usual; but the right one wound up with something in it right about the time we headed out the door to go to church.  I thought perhaps I’d finally gotten whatever it was out before bedtime by flooding the eye with eyedrops; but it was scratched by then, so I couldn’t be sure.  It was better when I awoke this morning.

We picked up a grocery order at Walmart after the service.

Hannah and Levi then came out to get his car; he was anxious to be able to drive it to school.  There were still a couple of quallyfobbles; Larry got those fixed this evening.

It needed a new, uh, ... maybe a Crankshaft Position Sensor?  Larry is asleep, so let’s ask AI.  Annnnd...  here’s what AI says.  If it’s wrong, it’s not my fault, I can’t help it, don’t blame me, I refuse to take responsibility!

“The instrument cluster tachometer gets its engine speed signal directly from the ECU (Engine Control Unit), which calculates engine RPM using data from the Crankshaft Position Sensor.”

A wire in this sensor probably got broken when the previous owner hit the post or whatever it was that also cracked the head and caused the insurance company to total out the car.  Larry got the new (remanufactured) motor put in a week or two ago.

Hannah drove the Elantra back to town, while Levi drove their Palisade.  She called shortly to say it was running rough (because of that sensor it needed) and was squealing (because the alternator belt needed to be tightened; Larry cannot hear that high-pitched noise).  He told her to pull over, turn the car off, then back on.  A couple times of that, and the sensor decided to work enough to take her home.

As I stood at my laptop typing this afternoon, I caught a sudden movement out of the corner of my eye.  I turned my head carefully to the right – and there was a mouse that had evidently popped out from under the stove and was sashaying along toward the back hallway.  He must’ve noticed me noticing him, for he paused, twisted around to look over his shoulder, and proceeded to size me up for a good while before scurrying on into the hallway and disappearing.

Wow, look at that AI picture I generated in Canva, after describing this field mouse.  It’s almost exactly as I saw it.

It first gave me this picture (below), and I requested that the head be turned more.  So that’s precisely what Canva did.  The only thing that gives it away as AI, I think, is that the front paw isn’t quite right; but most people would not notice.

I promptly stopped what I was doing, replenished all the mouse traps with fresh peanut butter, and made sure they were set properly.

Larry’s cousin, who lives in a nursing home and with whom I text nearly every day, wrote to say, “The aide was wondering why my bed was so high.  It’s because the aide who made the bed is tall.  He lifts it so he doesn’t have to bend over so far, and he just left it up.”

I then told her this story:

We once stayed in a motel in Colorado Springs that must’ve been designed and built by a basketball team, because everything was way higher than usual – not just the beds, but the light switches, the sinks, the clothes rods, the peephole on the door, the desk, etc.

I couldn’t look out of the peephole without standing on a chair.  I had to give a little jump to hang my jacket on the rod, and when I washed my face or brushed my teeth, the sink was so high I couldn’t lean over, so I wound up standing in a big puddle from all the water running down my elbows.  Everything in that room would’ve been too high for most people, not just me!

SSssssSNAP!  One mouse down.  Off I go to empty and reset a trap.  😜😝

I’d better git bizzy!  A customer needs me to do some quilting for her.

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

Journal: Making Memories

 

This old barn and the horses in the adjacent pasture are located northeast of Clarks, Nebraska, a village of about 344 residents, founded in 1866 when the Union Pacific Railroad was extended to that point.  It is named for Silas Henry H. Clark, superintendent of the UP.

I took the first two pictures as we traveled to the Nebraska State Fair in Grand Island last week.  The other two are from Google Maps.

Green and Millard Streets are still paved with brick, and businesses still have the false fronts of long ago.  On the side of one of the Strobel Manufacturing buildings is a pioneer mural.

At a family farm that produced soybean, corn, and cattle near this little village, Evan Williams, the American internet entrepreneur who cofounded Twitter (now X) and created major web publishing platforms like Blogger and Medium, was born on March 31, 1972.

That evening, Victoria sent pictures of Carolyn with her new Molly American Girl doll, in their matching outfits, uptown by the old Schweser’s building.  Carolyn got the doll and the first book in the series for her birthday.  She even has a heart-shaped locket like Molly had, with a picture of her Daddy (Kurt) inside.  Molly kept her father’s photo in her locket, while her father, Dr. James McIntire, was serving as a U.S. Army Medical Corps doctor in England during World War II.  Each American Girl doll has a set of six books that go with it. 

Schweser’s department store was started in 1880 by George Schweser in David City, Nebraska.  His sons moved into the Columbus building in 1929, and operated their clothing and retail business here for nearly 87 years.  It is now used as a premium event venue.

My mother used to buy clothes and shoes for herself and for me at Schweser’s, and it’s where I bought her a birthday present when I  was about eight years old, ‘all by myself’ – with her own money, while she sat waiting in the car just outside the doors.  The ladies who worked there knew me, and helped me buy something that cost a little less than the money I had in my little coin purse.

I bought Mama a necklace called ‘Aurora Borealis’, and was sooo delighted to give it to her, never mind that it was her own money that had purchased the gift.  I have that necklace now.

A lady posted this picture on Facebook, writing, “We got a bad groomer for our dog.  I feel like he’s about to ask me for the car keys.” 

Hee hee  How does a groomer who does something like that stay in business??

Wednesday was a sunny, pretty day, with a high of 81°.  There was only a 10-mph breeze, which is unusual.  I drained the gallon jug of Raspberry White Chocolate cold-brew coffee that morning; it was time to make more.  

I wrote that, Wednesday morning – and promptly forgot to make more.

That afternoon, I texted Hannah and Aaron:  “The kids’ quilts are in our Mercedes; I’ll give them to you after church.  If Aaron’s has lemon sherbet on it, it was NOT MY FAULT.”

I attached this picture of a woman in front of Aaron’s quilt, a piled-high cup of sherbet in one hand, spoonful of sherbet in the other.  I’d taken a full-sized photo of Aaron’s Soaring Eagle quilt, never noticing the lady in the foreground until I was looking at my pictures later.  (Photo cropped to protect the identity of a nice lady who never intended to do anything wrong.  Signs are posted saying 'No Food in the Quilt Room', but people do it, nonetheless.  At least hers was somewhat confined to her wheelchair.  I saw someone with a flimsy plate heaped with cheese 'n meat nachos in one hand and a tall ice cream cone in the other dashing helter-skelter down an aisle between the quilts!  Yikes.)

“It could be banana puddin’,” I added.  “Or smashed summer squash.”

After returning the quilts as promised, we went to Walmart to pick up a grocery order.

Home again, Larry brought the groceries in while I began putting them away.  I discovered one loaf of bread – that yummy Nature’s Own® Perfectly Crafted Multigrain Bread – was smashed down to no more than an inch high.  Bread doesn’t do well with a 64 oz. jug of juice ker-plopped atop it!  🥴😵‍💫😵😖😕🫤😒

I would later discover that one of the two clocks I’d ordered was missing, too.

Thursday morning when I went to get my usual tumbler of cold-brew that I like to sip whilst blow-drying and curling my hair, I realized I had forgotten to make more.  Fortunately, I keep bottles of Starbucks or Dunkin cold-brew concentrate on hand for just such emergencies.  They’re not as good as the fresh-made-from-beans-and-steeped-overnight cold-brew I make, but they’ll do, so long as I have a dollop of Coffeemate creamer to add to them.  So that morning I had Starbucks Pumpkin Spice cold brew with Italian Créme Coffeemate creamer added to it.  I reckoned I’d survive!  😉

For supper that evening, I put chicken in the Instant Pot, and while that was cooking, Bear Creek vegetables and noodles simmered on the stove.  It already smelled good, and there were still ten minutes to go!  When the chicken was done, I cut it up and added it to the Bear Creek soup.  Scrumptious!

Larry got home late, just about the time I was preparing to put the big pot of soup into the refrigerator.  It had been out an hour and a half and had partially cooled down.  I was sitting in my recliner, so I didn’t realize he hadn’t put the pot in the refrigerator after he got himself a bowlful, until over an hour later.

I voiced the obligatory complaint, whereupon he protested, as he has done, lo, these many years, never mind how often I’ve tried to edjeecate him, “But the lid is on it!”

This time, I looked it up online, then texted him this (since he was on a different floor of the house):  From a webpage on Cooking and Food Safety:  A pot of hot soup cools more slowly with the lid ON, which traps heat and moisture and allows bacteria to grow much quicker than with the lid off.

Larry responded as follows:  “Interesting 🤔”

“Yeah, act like I’ve never told you such a thing,” I retorted in my politest wifey way.

He replied with a bunch of funny emojis.

Friday I finished putting the Maple Leaf background blocks together, and sewed them into rows.  It was a sunny, pretty day, but hot, with a high of 87°.  The wind was blowing at 25 mph by afternoon.

Here’s a link to an amazing light show via utilization of 2,977 drones, commemorating the 2,977 people killed in the terrorist attacks that took place in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania 25 years ago, September 11, 2001:  Lights Over New York Harbor

I did not know such elaborate displays could be done with drones.  I knew Fourth-of-July displays are increasingly done with them, but I haven’t looked at videos of them; so I was astonished to watch this.  2,977 drones, all in perfect synchronization, swirling upwards and then aligning themselves into outlines of the Twin Towers.  Wow, it was incredible.

The display reached an altitude of 1,368 feet to match the exact full architectural scale and height of the original North Tower, including its telecommunications antenna.

I listened to the last half hour of the reading of the names of those who died on 9-11-2001 by relatives who would read a few, then stop at the name of their own relative, say a few words about them, and then let a couple of others come to the mic to continue reading.  I’ve gotten sappy in my dodderage, and have become an excellent sympathetic crier.

It’s now been posted on YouTube – but the whole ceremony is nearly 4 ½ hours long:  Those Who Died on September 11, 2001

If I start watching footage from back then, and continue on through stories of survivors or families who have lost loved ones, I can’t get stopped, and then have dreadful crashes with myself going to bed and getting up!  I set my playback speed to 2.0 and made it through several videos, doubletime.  (So long as one can understand Hamsterese/Chipmunkese, everything’s fine and dandy.)

A friend wrote to tell me what she was doing (coloring in a coloring book for adults, as she often likes to do), and inquired into my activities of the day.  When I said I was sewing quilt blocks together (and mind you, I was quite excited to get to that stage, too!), she said, for approximately the gazillionth time, “Don’t you ever get tired of quilting.”  (She invariably ends the sentence with a period rather than a question mark, which always seems to add a dab of aggression to the slight antagonism.  But I could be too easily annoyed, too.)

“No,” I answered.  “I never do the same thing twice, after all!”  Still feeling peevish, I added, “Neither do I get tired of playing the piano... taking and editing photos... hiking... cooking... gardening... journaling... I like to do all sorts of things.”

“That’s good,” she responded.  “All I seem to do is text and color.  It is nice to have a variety of things that you enjoy.”

Ooookay, that disarmed me and made me feel guilty for being irritated in the first place.  She isn’t very well, after all.  I will be nicer.

There were a whole lot of vegetables and cornucopias at the fair.  Here’s a pretty one. 

And just look at this beautiful little wooden train somebody made by hand.

Here are some of the piglets that were in the nursery.  A Landrace-Yorkshire sow named Dolly had 23 piglets!  They were three days old.

A sow named Violet had 19 piglets; they were only a day old.

They’re so tiny and cute; hard to imagine how big they’ll get.  The mothers were huge.

These stalls are so clever; the mother can get up and eat and drink, and lie down to nurse her babies; but the babies have plenty of room to move out of her way and not get crushed.

Baby piglets often get crushed.  Teddy’s sow once had a dozen piglets, and, one after another, every last one got crushed.  That’s sad when that happens.

There’s a gate at the end of those stalls, so the owners – youngsters in 4H – can take their pigs out for exercise and to clean the stalls.  Sometimes people fuss about those stalls if I post pictures; but they don’t understand that all those babies might die, otherwise!  They’re really very well cared for, both mother and babies.

There were over a dozen little ducklings in a big, straw-filled, galvanized tank; and right next was a pool with a slide and a cute little ladder.  The owners sometimes took ducklings from the tank and let them play and swim in the pool.

I finished sewing all the quilt blocks together, making rows; then sewed the rows together, completing the flimsy.  I then cut all the necessary strips for the three borders and sewed the strips together before quitting for the day.

During the night, a thunderstorm rolled through.  The worst of it was to our north, though some very strong wind gusts rattled our house.

Saturday morning, Teddy sent me a video he’d taken of the lightning.  Throughout his video, there was no letup at all in the lightning, which was occurring in multiple locations throughout the tall thunderheads.  I learned from Rural Radio that wind gusts were clocked at 62 mph at a weather station to our north a couple of miles.

By a quarter ’til eight, the borders were on the Dresden Flowers & Flutters quilt.  I sorted stacks of fabrics into coordinating groups for the Dresden Plates – and then quit when I finally realized, You know, the reason I don’t feel like continuing is because I’m just plain sick!

Larry has had a number of colds all year long, starting at Christmastime last year, and I’ve never once caught one, or at least not bad enough to talk about (as Roo said, explaining that he only had a ‘biscuit cough’).  But this week, Larry got another cold – and a few days ago he shared the cold brew in my tumbler.  And whataya know, now I have a cold.

I went to make myself a cup of Theraflu tea – and discovered it was all gone.  (Somebody in this house never thinks of replacing things that get used up, or asking the other one of us to order more; and it’s not me.)

So I made myself some Orca Spice Chai tea, which is supposed to be made with milk.  But the milk was all gone, too; so I added a dollop of French Vanilla Coffeemate creamer.  It wasn’t what I needed; but it wasn’t  bad.  🥴😵‍💫🫤😒😵

Here are a couple of pictures showing the borders.  Things don’t really look like they match – yet.  But I think after I add the fence, the flowers, and the butterflies, it’ll all go together.  That’s what I think, anyway! 😄

I got out the vacuum to clean up spiderwebs I’d noticed earlier on the ceiling light, fan, and pull chain.  But the extension was missing; Larry must’ve used it with his shop vac somewhere.  Lacking the extension, I scooted out a chair to climb onto.  We have 9’ ceilings.

I looked up, the better to position the chair – and discovered that the spiderwebs were plumb gone.  How ’bout that.  The spider had evidently ingested its own web, as orb-weavers do, thereby recycling valuable silk proteins.

I wish bunnies would gobble up the dust-bunnies they leave around the house, too!

At 10:00 Sunday morning, it was 58° on the way up to 62°, and rainy.  The latter was determined by a look out the window; none of my weather apps showed any rain at all.

Larry and I both stayed home from church yesterday on account of our colds.  We were especially sorry to miss last night, as it was daughter-in-law Maria’s youngest brother Royce’s wedding.  The bride, Megan, is a paternal cousin and good friend of Joanna’s.

Joanna and Bobby sang a duet for the wedding.

Royce and Megan moved their wedding up from mid-October to mid-September because Royce’s mother Mary, who has been struggling with cancer, is not doing well at all.  She was at church a week ago, so everyone hoped she’d be able to come to her son’s wedding; but Saturday night she was taken to a hospital in Lincoln, in much pain.  She’s still there; the doctors are doing what they can to make her more comfortable.

Royce and Megan both went with other members of the family to Lincoln Saturday night.  They didn’t know if she would make it through the night.

So everyone was running low on sleep.

The wedding was streamed live, but I don’t know if Mary was well enough to watch it.  I’ve just spent the last hour and a half pulling screenshots from the video and putting them into a pdf file to save with my photos, since I wasn’t able to take any.  I think I’ll give it to Megan and Royce, too.  Here they are saying their vows, and the next picture is when they were walking out to the foyer where the reception line would be, while the congregation sang the last song.

Our granddaughter Eva and her cousin Hunter were one of the flowergirls and ringbearers.

Yesterday evening, I pulled up a chat with a Walmart agent to tell them I didn’t get the second clock that should have been in my order last Wednesday.  This agent, too, had an Arabic name, and though he was much faster than the previous person I talked with (regarding the soup that was missing from a previous order), he didn’t know English much better.  They obviously make use of ChatGPT, though, because, after an awkward, illogical sentence, they quickly spew out an entire paragraph of platitudes:  “You’re patient and lovely, blah blah, and I appreciate you so much, more blah blah.”

I described the clock, gave him the correct price – $11.84 – and then copied and pasted it directly from the order page, too.

Lickety-split (without asking how I wanted it), a refund was issued – in the amount of $32.00.

I said, “No, the correct amount was $11.84.”

“I gave you a refund for both clocks,” he informed me, “so you’ll have enough to reorder and have it sent Express Delivery!”

Express Delivery is only $3.00.

I knew he would never withdraw that money, now that he’d already sent it.  I only want what’s coming to me!  I don’t want to feel like I’m stealing from the company!

Sigghhhh...

But I said, “Okay, thank you, I appreciate it.”

And with that, he was gone, in the blink of an eye.

I wonder if Walmart knows their employees are doing this?  If everyone who needs a refund gets back two or three times the correct amount, either Walmart or the customer will have to pay for it eventually!  Smaller companies would go under.

Rain and lightning woke me up during the night, though I didn’t hear any thunder.  The high this afternoon was 84°, and the weather couldn’t decide if it should give us rain or sunshine, all day long.  Things smelled a bit mildewy, so when the sun came out, I opened some windows and the patio door.  Every single time I did that, it immediately started raining again.

It’s a quarter ’til midnight, and it just started raining once more.

I hope I feel better tomorrow; I want to get started on the Dresden Plate flowers and butterflies for Keira’s quilt.  Larry brought some medicine home for me – and a couple of tacos!  The tacos were the most helpful, by far.

Someone asked this question on a Facebook birding group:  “If an eagle feather drops in my yard, is it legal to keep it?”

A man promptly answered, “No.  You must stick it in your hat and call it macaroni.”

Some just as promptly took offense.  Tsk.  It was funny!

Now for a good COD (Conversation of the Day):

Someone texted me from phone number (236) 888-5479:  “Why can’t I ever seem to reach you by phone?  Did you restrict me?”

I usually ignore stuff like this, but I did look up the number.  I found many similar numbers, but with different prefixes.  All those seemed legitimate, so, curious, I texted back: 

“Who are you?”

It took whoever-it-was about five minutes to respond to each of my texts, which makes me think the person was conducting multiple whatever-these-are with multiple other whoever-they-are.

Eventually, she (if it was a ‘she’) replied, “Hello, Ms Misia. This is Angelina from NY.  This is my other phone number.”

“You evidently have the wrong number,” I answered.  “I do not know you.”

Another five minutes, and then, “I attended your 55^th birthday party in Omaha last week, didn’t you remember?  I also brought you a bottle of Petrus, which you really liked.”

(Never heard of Petrus; had to look it up.)

Then I responded, “I hope it was vintage 1990, which is worth $199,999.99.  Obviously I had too much of it, because I didn’t know I had a birthday, don’t remember going to Omaha, and no longer know my name is Ms. Misia.”

A few more minutes, then she said, “Ah, sorry!  If you're not Misia, then who are you...”

“I’m Harry Houdini,” I informed her, “and I’m outta here.  Byeeeee!”

Six minutes later:  “I’m sorry, Harry.  Do you know Misia Henhold?  She gave me this number.  Would you mind asking her if she and her shareholders have had a chance to discuss the possibility of funding the ALS research initiative we talked about before, and what they decided?”

Hasn’t she ever heard of Houdini??

I believe in this particular case, ‘ALS’ stands for ‘Always Launching Scams’.

I declined to answer further.  I said “I’m outta here,” and I say what I mean and mean what I say! – even though I did want to tell her the name was actually ‘Misri  Henhouse’, ‘Misri’ being the name of a chicken breed from Pakistan.

There have been numerous Monarch butterflies in the yard today.  They like the tall lavender phlox and the Autumn Joy sedum, which has turned pink now.  Here's one on a purple coneflower.

There are also dozens and dozens of Cabbage Whites.  They not only like the Autumn Joy sedum, but also the Autumn Lily hosta blossoms.

Time to take myself and this bizzerble cold to bed!

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