Journal: Lilies, Bees, Quilt Blocks, & a Saab

 

The Asiatic lilies are in bloom.  They’re one of my favorites.  The bees and butterflies like them, too.

Once upon a time, when I was a little girl, I was traveling somewhere out west with my parents in the late spring.  We stopped at a rest area for lunch.  Daddy opened the back of the Suburban and started the generator, which powered the Airstream’s air conditioner, 120V electrical outlets, various lights and fans, the refrigerator (after manually switching it from propane to electricity), and also charged the camper’s battery.  We rolled the windows down in the Suburban so that the generator had good ventilation.

Here’s that Airstream camper and the Suburban.  This picture was taken at my Uncle Don and Aunt June’s farm near Shelbyville, Illinois.  In the photo are Daddy, Uncle Don, my dog Sparkle, Aunt June, and Mama.

Back to the rest area out west.

While we were eating, a truck pulling a flatbed loaded with beehives pulled into the space in front of us.  (Photo from Loop Logistic Freight Brokerage Co.  That’s most assuredly not a 1973 or older Kenworth.)

It seemed that the netting covering the beehives was not secured well at all.  And the bees were not pleased with their present circumstances.  “Must get out!  Must travel!  Must pollinate!”

And get out they did, quite a large swarm of them.

However, the day was cool and breezy, and the bees were soon in search of a warm place to rest.

They chose the Suburban.

The ceiling of the Suburban, to be exact.

Meanwhile, we finished our lunch, put things away, and Daddy turned off the generator with a remote switch in the camper.  (He was pretty proud of that switch he’d rigged up.)  We exited the Airstream and headed to the Suburban.

I’m not sure who saw them first.  Perhaps we were alerted by the pulsing, vibrating ‘hummmmm’.  But one of us looked up – and, to our amazement, discovered that the entire ceiling of the Suburban was a fuzzy, black and yellow mass of wriggling, murmuring honeybees.

Mama and I backed away.

Daddy pulled off his Fedora dress hat and began swinging it in a ‘Shooo, begone!’ attitude.

The bees took umbrage and launched. 

In near unison, they abandoned their warm refuge and took off on a buzzing, whining offensive.

Daddy, looking with alarm at this imminent skirmish, turned and ran.

The honeybees kicked in the afterburner.

Daddy ran faster.

The bees flew faster.

Daddy headed across the parking area and into the grassy lawns of the rest area, running for all he was worth.

Now, since it was lunchtime on a nice spring day, quite a number of people were sitting at picnic tables around the rest area, eating lunch.  (Remember, it was 1973, not 2026.  That translates to ‘a lot less fast-food joints; a lot more roadside picnics’.)

There they were, calmly lifting fork or sandwich to mouth, when along came Daddy, running like a contender in the Olympic 100-meter dash.

Paralyzed picnickers could be seen at tables all around the rest area, paused dead with burgers or forks halfway to their mouths, eyes wide as they watched, astonished, while Daddy raced past, an angry swarm of honeybees hot on his trail.

Daddy had not yet turned 57, and he could run fassst.  Still, bees can usually fly faster than a person can run.  The thing is, though, while bees are very agile and accelerate quickly, their maximum straight-line flight speed caps out around 15 mph.  A running person sprinting at full speed will usually quickly put distance between themselves and the swarm.  Even particularly aggressive swarms like Africanized honeybees generally only pursue a target for about a quarter of a mile, half a mile, tops.  If you can cover that distance to reach shelter, why, you’ll likely be safe!  Also, bees navigate differently than humans do.  If you sashay around large obstacles, this way and that, you might give them the slip.  They’re liable to get sidetracked, too, if the ringleaders spot any bright flowers along the route.

In any case, it wasn’t long before Daddy was tearing back toward us, yelling as he came, “Get in the car!  Get in the car!!”

I’ll betcha people at the rest area on the opposite side of the Interstate ran and leaped into their cars without at all comprehending why they were thus compelled.

Mama, who’d been laughing ’til the tears ran down her face, gathered herself together, and both of us, after taking a quick look in the Suburban to make sure the bees were gone, jumped in and began rolling the windows up with all haste.  Daddy came running, shut the tailgate and rolled the window up on the back of the Suburban, and then leaped into the driver’s seat.

We all looked around for stray honeybees, but found none.  Nor would we.  They were gone, every last one.  Nary a one of us had gotten stung, either.

We carried on with our journey.

Daddy’s method might not have been conventional or advised, but... well, it worked, now, didn’t it?! 

Tuesday morning, a new 8½” ruler from Creative Grids arrived.  I don’t have a whole lot of cutting rulers; just a couple I bought for specific blocks, and half a dozen a friend gave me.  (Maybe that sounds like a lot; but I know people who have two or three dozen!)  I do have two June Tailor slot rulers, a 12” x 12” and a 12” x 18”, which I use all the time.  Well, I needed to trim the embroidered Belle blocks down to 8½” x 8½”.  I thought, My 8½” ruler will make it easy to get the embroidery placed right where I want it – and then, !!!  I don’t have an 8½” ruler!!!

I looked at the slot rulers. Yeah, I could use one of those.  I’d be more likely to make a mistake, but I could use it.

But... I hadn’t bought myself a ‘tool’ for quite a long while.  I needed me a new ‘tool’!  (Didn’t I?) (Well, didn’t I?!)

So... I ordered a Creative Grids 8½” ruler.  And you know what?!  It’s a good thing I did that, because I was about to cut those blocks at 8”, rather than 8½”!  😦  It only occurred to me, Oh. Yes. Seam allowances. when I tried to buy an 8” square ruler, and they couldn’t be had. 🙄

I ordered the ruler Saturday evening through Amazon Prime, and it arrived just in time; trimming those blocks was the next thing I needed to do.  I spotted the package out on the front porch, trotted happily out there to get it, brought it in, – and dropped it on my toe.  😬  

Fortunately, it was still in the padded package.  I still wound up with a slightly colorful toe, but nothing like it would’ve been if I had’ve already extracted the ruler from the package.

Creative Grids rulers have exclusive grip circles embedded on the back of each ruler.  The ruler slides easily over the fabric until pressure is applied, whereupon it then holds the fabric in place while cutting, eliminating slippage.  The measurement markings are accurate, and are printed on the ruler in both black and white so they are easy to see on any color of fabric.

After trimming all the embroidered blocks, using the new ruler, I began attaching the central borders to the center panel.  I finished this middle section that day. 

At 6:30 p.m., we met Andrew and Hester and the children, Keira and Oliver, at Pizza Ranch to celebrate Hester’s birthday.

A friend got a new vehicle, and was remarking on how she felt a bit reluctant trading in an older vehicle that she was sentimental about.  That reminded me of the following:

When I was 4 years old, my father traded in a cute little red Saab that I absolutely adored for a bigger vehicle that I cannot at all remember.  I told someone (who duly reported it to my father), “Daddy just gave that nice car away, because it had a little dab of rust on it!”  

(First, I had no idea what ‘rust’ was, though I had a vague notion it could be red in color. Second, none of Daddy’s cars ever, ever had rust on them.  Also, I apparently did not know the difference between ‘trading’ and ‘giving away’. 😄)

I do still have the little matchbox-sized red Saab someone at the dealership gave me when Daddy purchased that car.  At least I think I do.  Where is it?  That thing is worth several hundred dollars now! – I kept my toys in near-pristine condition.

I don’t have any pictures of Daddy’s little red 1963 Saab, but it looked just like this one.

Wednesday morning, it was 80° by 10:30 a.m., on the way up to 92° on that sunny day.  I refilled and rehung the bird feeders, tidied the bedroom, showered, cleaned up the bathroom, played the piano, and made myself a mug of Baklava-flavored cold-brew coffee.  I blow-dried and curled my hair, ate breakfast, cleaned the kitchen, and then headed upstairs to my sewing room to start on the 52 blocks that go around the central section of the Crinoline Ladies quilt.

Thinking I might not have enough of the Michael Miller’s Fairy Frost (shiny white) background fabric, I thought I’d better order more from Marshall Dry Goods – but they no longer have it!  I tried to find it elsewhere, first calling the quilt shops in town and the big one in Fremont, and finally looking online.  I found that there are multiple shades of white, and there is not a defining number/name/code on the selvage.  Is it ‘silvery white’, ‘pearlized white’, ‘silver on white’, ‘white on silver’, ‘white on white metallic’, etc., etc.?  Furthermore, it’s almost twice the price anywhere else than it was at Marshall’s.  I eventually purchased what I think and hope is the correct color from a seller on Etsy.

Buckhorn Lake State Park, Wisconsin

She’s selling it in half-yard increments.  It sounded cheaper that way – but of course it wasn’t really.  I purchased from her because she had the best picture of the fabric.

I sure hope she doesn’t do what a young kid at Walmart did one time some years ago:  We’d gone there during a blizzard, because... why not?  😅  We needed stuff, and they were open.  But they were seriously understaffed, and I wound up with a kid from the electronics department to help me in the fabric department.

I needed two yards of a very fancy trim, the kind that comes unraveled at the ends if not properly secured.  There were barely two yards left on the roll.

The boy carefully measured the first yard ------ and then, before I could stop him, he grabbed the scissors and cut it.  Ker-CHOP!  I had not expected that at all.

I cried, “No, don’t!” – too late.

He looked thunderstruck.  If a person wants multiple yards of anything, he thought he should measure a yard... cut it... measure the next yard... cut it... and so on until he’d cut the right amount.

I felt sorry for him. He was trying so hard to do the right thing!  Poor dumb kid.  😄  I assured him all was well (though it wasn’t), and said I’d make it work.

I did, but it wasn’t easy.

Anyway, the fabric should be here tomorrow.  Let’s hope it’s not in half-yard chunks, and let’s hope it’s the right shiny white!

Oh – I did explain to the boy how one cuts trim or fabric when a customer requests multiple yards, so if he had to help anybody else in that department that snowy night, they’d wind up with their yardage whole.

That morning, Hester sent pictures of the pretty cabinet in her living room where she put the candleholder we gave her.  See it there behind the starfish?

I told Hester that I think possibly, maybe even probably, Claude Duperron is the name of the artist.

Here’s another vase by him.  That small vase sold for $119 at a secondhand store online.

Claude Duperron has a glassblowing studio on Vancouver Island in Canada.

Somebody wrote to the person who bought this vase, “If you paid less than $200 for a Claude Duperron, you got a smashing deal.”

I found this paragraph written by Claude Duperron, telling of the inspiration behind some of his pieces:  “When I was a lad growing up in the northern Alberta town of Peace River, I would walk by ‘Moccasin Flats’ on my way to school each day.  This was a swampy area where the cat tails and the reeds grew abundant.  You could hear the call of the Red-Winged Black Bird.  In late fall when it was twilight, you could look through the reeds at the hills and the reddish sky in the background.”

This made me want to know what Peace River looks like.  Here’s a picture on the old road to ‘Twelve-Foot Davis’ Grave’.  Peace River is in the background.

Once I read that, I needed to know if ‘Davis’ was 12 feet tall, or... or what.

It turns out, Henry Fuller Davis, a trader on the Peace River, struck gold on a wee twelve-foot claim.  He earned roughly $30,000 – and that was in the mid-1800s.

According to the Inflation Calculator, $30,000 in 1880 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $979,470.59 today.

Oh, look, look!!!  He is 12 feet tall!!!

Or at least his statue is.  😆  There’s a wooden statue of him at Riverfront Park in Peace River.  12 feet tall.  Just like I said.  haha

Henry Fuller Davis placed his 12-foot land claim during the Cariboo Country gold rush in British Columbia.  He took his $30,000 profits and staked it all on a trading post close to where the town of Peace River stands today.  The town of Peace River is sometimes referred to as ‘The Land of Twelve-Foot Davis’.

Twelve-Foot Davis’ gravesite is designated a park and is located on the top of Grouard Hill a little bit east of the town.

My pursuits of Important Bits of Intelligence lead me onto many reindeer trails (which are much smarter than ‘rabbit holes’).  I larnt all that, just trying to find out information about the candleholder I got for Hester!

Okay, one more piece of info, and then I’m done.  Really.  Maybe.

That blown glass candleholder might very well be part of Claude Duperron’s ‘Tranquille’ collection.  It does look a lot like the other pieces I’ve seen.  Here’s what he wrote about the collection:  “This series is about the peacefulness of the morning.  I enjoy feeding the birds and I love to appreciate the colors of the early morning sunlight.  In this imagery, you see the unfolding new growth reaching for a new day.  You can feel the quiet joy of a serene scene.  The black glass that I have formulated is a deep blue-black that also has the potential for fluorescence as the ultraviolet from sunlight excites the cobalt molecules.  The pieces start with the black glass overlaid with dark colors, as ‘before dawn’, and progressively get lighter until they have the bright blue of a morning sky.”

Here’s one someone else found at a thrift shop.  She wrote, “I paid waaay too much for this, but it’s a Claude Duperron!”

Because it’s glass and not pottery, he did not etch his name into his pieces, but, rather, painted it on.  So if, as I suspect, someone glued a piece of felt or something onto the bottom of Hester’s candleholder and then removed it, that might very well explain why the name is gone.

“Somebody make me stop!” I wrote to Hester after giving her all this information.

I thwacked my downstairs laptop shut (gently, mind you!) and hurried upstairs to my sewing room to see how much I could get done before time for church.

I printed templates, then cut pieces for several of the blocks.  I got one 8” block sewn.  This isn’t a quick block to make, because of all those tight curves.

Hannah had a tooth extraction and root canal reversal done Tuesday.  It took almost 5 ½ hours, an hour longer than expected, not including the fillings at the beginning of the procedures.  She kept running out of anesthetic.  It lasted around 30 minutes before they would have to redo it.  

Wednesday, she couldn’t keep anything down.  Probably the extra medicine made her sick. 

She can’t take much of anything for pain, as she’s allergic to most pain medications.  So she’s been in quite a lot of pain.  I worry about her.

It’s tough when you need medicine – but the medicine makes you sick.  ☹

Thursday was a pretty day, 70° at 10:00 a.m., with an expected high of 77°.  I should’ve been outside working in the flower gardens.  The rains have energized the weeds!  But... I’d already showered and was blow-drying my hair.  One doesn’t go work outside after one has already showered!  Besides, the wind was blowing steadily at 17 mph and gusting up to 28 mph.  That’s a good excuse for staying indoors, right there.  

Anyway, I needed to do some laundry, and I hoped to spend the majority of the day working on the Crinoline Ladies quilt. 

I got three blocks done that day, even while listening to – and occasionally watching – meteorologist Ryan Hall tell of tornadoes in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. 

Friday was another nice day, 74° by 10:30 a.m., heading up to a high of 83°.  I spent a good part of it piecing four more blocks for Violet’s quilt.

I timed it, and it took me an hour and fifteen minutes to piece one block, which consists of 32 pieces, or 16 units, each with a curved seam.  I’ll time the cutting of pieces for a block next time I’m at the cutting table, if I can remember.  The cutting isn’t fast, either.

That afternoon, Victoria sent pictures of the new décor in Carolyn and Violet’s new room, along with a video of Carolyn, Violet, and Willie laughing uproariously at an animal documentary with a frog ribbiting and a bearded dragon running with its front legs up in the air.  There are a lot of entertaining animals on Planet Earth!

I got four more quilt blocks done that day, making a total of eight.  The way I sew each unit:  I put the concave piece to the bottom, the convex to the top, hold the edge of the top piece with a handy-dandy pair of rubber-handled tweezers, and go along one or two stitches at a time, lifting the presser foot and readjusting often, in small increments.  Thank goodness for the knee lift – but an automatically-lifting presser foot would be even better!

At 11:00 a.m. Saturday morning, it was 69° and felt like 80°, or so said my weather app.  When I went out to refill a bird feeder (Larry kindly rehung them for me, including one that was plumb empty) (??), it felt more like 90°, to me.  It had rained hard, with accompanying lightning and thunder, through a good part of the night and early morning; but it was sunny by 11.

I cut the pieces for several blocks that day, and pieced three together.  That makes a total of eleven blocks done, with 41 yet to go.

The two curved pieces, one concave and one convex, that make up the units for this block are the same ones used in all the varieties of the Drunkard’s Path quilt.  This particular variation is called the ‘I Wish You Well’ block.  It is often interpreted as a ‘meandering’, ‘healing’, or ‘wish’ pattern, and is sometimes used in ‘healing’ or ‘encouragement’ quilts.

Some say the design was created and made by ladies supporting Prohibition, way back when.  There’s also another story which might be more accurate, since Prohibition was only in the 1920s-1930s, and this quilt block has been found in quilts dating back far longer ago than that.  It may have been a silent signal to initiate the journey toward freedom on the Underground Railroad, giving coded direction to runaway slaves.  It may have acted as a preparatory message, often associated with gathering supplies, signaling the time to begin the escape, or telling what direction to go.  Its function coordinated with other patterns such as the Log Cabin, the Bow Tie, and the Flying Geese.

There are many quilt blocks that had special meaning, and the runaways knew how to interpret them when they’d find quilts hanging on clotheslines, lopped over garden gates, or displayed in windows.  These stories, however, have been debated for years.

There are over 80 historically documented varieties and thousands of mathematical combinations of quilt blocks that can be made using the Drunkard’s Path unit.

Yikes!  I just discovered a tutorial on Drunkard’s Path units.  Look at this picture.  There are ten pins in that one small unit!  I don’t use any pins at all when putting this together.  Whatever works, I guess!  😄

At 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, it was 55° on the way up to a sunny 75°.  I sipped the last of the Baklava cold-brew coffee as I blow-dried and curled my hair, getting ready for church.

Larry made his yummy waffles for lunch when we got home from church.  He usually makes enough that we have waffles for a couple of days thereafter.

We picked up an order of groceries after church last night.  I was evidently feeling the need for chocolate when I placed that order, because I got a small package of peanut butter chocolate fudge.  It was precut into small pieces.  After we ate supper – cranberry almond salad, corn chowder, cottage cheese, and strawberries – I had a couple pieces of fudge.  Why didn’t I stop there?!  But noooo, I had to eat one more – and promptly got a stomachache. 

This is exactly why I very rarely buy any kind of candy, desserts, or junk food:  I can’t stop eating the stuff!  🙄

I made a fresh gallon of cold-brew coffee before going to bed, this batch from Tiramisu-flavored coffee beans.

At a quarter after ten this cloudless morning, it was 69° on the way up to 81°.  I made myself a mug of the Tiramisu cold-brew coffee, which had brewed overnight.  This is a new flavor for me, from the Grindhead Coffee company, as was the Baklava-flavored beans.

Eeek, it’s too strong!

...

...

...

Okay, now I’ve poured a good third of it into another mug, and filled the first back up with water.  There, that’s a little better.  

Is this what that stuff is supposed to taste like??

It’s not going on my list of favorites.  Here’s a description of the dessert itself:  Tiramisu is a popular Italian dessert made of coffee-soaked ladyfingers layered with a creamy mixture of mascarpone cheese, eggs, and sugar, and dusted with cocoa powder.  Its name means ‘pick me up’, and it’s a no-bake dessert that requires chilling to set.

Time to get back to making blocks for the Crinoline Ladies quilt.  I have 51 ½ hours in this quilt already, with 25 of them in the cutting and piecing of blocks alone.

Look at all the Asiatic lilies that are blooming!

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

Journal: New Bedrooms & Nurseries, Earthquakes, & Belles

 

Last Monday evening, we had chicken dumpling and vegetable soup for supper, along with rice pudding and mango juice.  For dessert, we had a couple of pieces of the Turkish Baklava I’d ordered.  Yummy stuff.

Here’s the description:  Baklava is a rich, sweet pastry made of layers of phyllo dough filled with chopped nuts and sweetened with syrup or honey.  Key components include buttery phyllo, a nutty filling (often walnuts, pistachios, or almonds), and a sweet syrup, with differences in spices and sweeteners defining regional styles.

Phyllo dough is a paper-thin, unleavened pastry dough.  When layered and baked with butter or oil, it produces an incredibly crispy, flaky texture.  Unlike puff pastry, which gets its flakiness by rolling layers of solid butter into the dough, phyllo is extremely low in fat.  It is typically made from just flour, water, a splash of oil or vinegar, and a bit of salt.

The filling tastes similar to the filling for an almond tea ring.  We really like it.  We’re trying to be sparing with it, to make it last.

I discovered that the Grindhead Coffee Company has Baklava-flavored coffee, and promptly ordered some.  Hopefully it would arrive before we finished off the Baklava pastries.

That evening, Victoria sent a picture of a beautiful dresser she got for Carolyn and Violet’s new bedroom for only $50 on Facebook Marketplace.

Next, Hannah sent a picture of Aaron’s new-to-him 2022 Dodge Ram Laramie 1500.

“It smells like cigarette smoke, 😐” she wrote, “So I’m looking online for advice on that.  Looks like the main suggestion is to use an ozone machine.”

Ugh, that’s not good for a family with a couple of people who have quite serious asthma to cope with.

An uncle and aunt of mine stayed in one of my father’s Airstream campers for a couple of weeks – and they smoked in it.  One cigarette after another, they smoked.  Right in Daddy’s nearly-new, spotlessly clean Airstream.

After my uncle and aunt left, my parents paid some friends to clean the camper.  They came with rags and mops and buckets and all sorts of cleaners, and they scrubbed and cleaned and scrubbed and cleaned.  They hauled out bucket after bucket of brown water.  And after many hours of hard work, it still smelled of smoke, and the ceiling was still dark yellow.

My father soon traded it in for a different camper.

You’d think common courtesy would tell people they should never, never do that in the nearly-new trailer of someone who was kind enough to let them stay in it!  And of course Daddy never charged them a red cent – and not only did Mama keep the camper’s refrigerator stocked, she also fixed big enough meals to share with them every day.

Some people give more than they take.  Others take more than they give.

Here’s a picture I took with one of my first rolls of color film:  my father with our Travelall and Airstream trailer, somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, circa ~1970.  I had a cute little red camera that took size 126 film.

Late that night, I heard a June bug hit the front door.  (The sound is unmistakable.)  How did they know it was June 1^st?

Meanwhile, Larry left the light on in the bathroom so light from the window would spill out onto the deck so he could better see what he was doing out there.

Problem:  The light brought in hundreds of mosquitoes, right through the top part of the window that kept sliding down in there!  I killed dozens, but for every skeeter I killed, two more popped up to take its place, humming menacingly around my head.

Larry ‘fixed’ the problem the next day by screwing the top window sashing right into the jamb.  It is now immovable.  😐

At 10:00 a.m. the next morning, it was 71° on the way up to 81° that damp day.  It had rained part of the night.  Flowers were blossoming like everything – and weeds were growing like gangbusters.  I’d better get busy in the flower gardens again! – but I’d better have the mosquito spray handy; they have shown up in buzzing, malicious clouds.

These are the old-fashioned roses that were my mother’s – and her mother’s, before that.  Mama brought home clippings from my grandparents’ home in North Dakota when I was wee little, keeping them wrapped in damp paper towels.  We wound up with at least three big rosebushes around our house from the planting of those clippings.

My roses were started from a big root I found when they moved Mama’s house.  I didn’t know what it was, as it was wintertime; but I cut it into several sections and planted it – and was pleased when spring rolled around and tiny reddish leaves popped up, and I knew what they were:  Grandma’s old-fashioned roses!

The clematis, too, is blooming like anything.

I have empty pots on the front porch, which is on the north side of our house.  Now and then I see pictures from a few years ago when the porch was covered with blooming flowers, and I think, I need me some flowlers to put in those pots!  (‘Flowlers’ was Hester’s word, when she was just a year old.  As if it’s not hard enough learning to talk, she often added letters and syllables to words!)

And then I remember the times big storms with high winds came through – usually late at night, when I was ready for bed – and there I’d be, dashing out onto the front porch to grab one heavy pot after another and bring them, often dripping, into the house.  And I think, Well, how many people actually see that front porch anyway, out here in the country? – and the pots go on sitting empty.

I told Larry, “Someday when you enclose that front porch, I’ll have flowers all over the place!” 

He replied, and I quote, “Hmmm.”  😄😆

In addition to the mosquitoes, we are having problems with raccoons.  They got into our unfinished addition and tore holes here and there, and generally made a terrible mess.

Aaarrrggghhh.

Here is Hester at age 6 months.  I sure am glad I found this ‘lost’ album!  I sent her a few of the pictures, telling her, “Everybody wanted to hold the baby.  And you had just discovered your tongue, and could roll it up quite skillfully.”

Here’s Keith, 9, and Hannah, 8, holding Baby Hester.  I also sent her the pictures of Dorcas and Joseph holding her that I included in last week’s letter.

“You weren’t lacking in expression!” I told Hester, sending a few more shots.

That evening, we met Kurt and Victoria and their four children at Pizza Ranch, for Kurt’s birthday.  On Tuesdays, children eat free at Pizza Ranch.  And old fogeys like us get a whopping $.75 off, any day.

I filled a plate completely full with things from the salad bar, and didn’t have even a single slice of pizza.

When I got up and went back for a piece of blueberry dessert, a middle-aged lady who works there came running after me calling loudly, “Ma’am!!  Maaa’aaam!!!”

I looked back, and then paused to see what she wanted.  In fact, everyone in the whole restaurant paused to see what she wanted.  😆

“You have something red all over your back!” she exclaimed.

Everybody looked.  (Except me.  I’m no owl; I can’t swivel my head 180°.)

Instead, I looked at the lady.  I thought of all kinds of things to say:  Huh, I didn’t feel anybody shoot me.  Or, in tones of great alarm, “Call an ambulance!!!”

The lady, seeing my dilemma, got a good grip and wrenched my sweater around so I could see it.  (At least she didn’t wrench my head around.)

I wasn’t bleeding to death after all.  It was tomato sauce.  It was on the back side of my sleeve and along the side of my back.  On my new white sweater.  My new snow white sweater.

I looked at it.  And then I said, “Huh.  I wonder how that got there.” 

Then I smiled at the woman and said, “Thanks for letting me know,” and proceeded on to the blueberry dessert I’d come in quest of.  The rest of the diners regathered themselves and got back to their pizzas.

When I returned to our table, I showed the splop (Mr. Google doesn’t think that’s a word, the poor uneducated man) to the rest of the family.  They duly admired it, with some bit of sympathy, and Victoria offered suggestions on stain removers.

I told Carolyn and Violet, “See, this is what happens when you tuck your slice of pizza under your arm so you can put more stuff on your plate!”

They giggled.

I would not learn until we were on our way home what had probably happened.

We were driving along quietly when Larry said, somewhat sheepishly, “I wondered what became of my second breadstick.”  ((...pause...))  “I finished eating one, and thought, ‘Did I already eat the other one?  Guess I must’ve.’  But now I remember that, as I walked around the salad bar with my plate, one of the breadsticks, along with the sauce I’d put on the place, slipped a little.  I thought I tipped the plate enough that it slid back into place.  I walked behind you as you were at the salad bar...”

“—and you bumped the wayward breadstick, all covered with sauce, on the back of my arm, and it fell off your plate and slid down the side of my sweater, and the sweater is thick enough that I didn’t feel a thing!” I finished for him, with some indignation.

I remembered something.  “I think I saw some sauce, and possibly a breadstick, on the floor on one side of the salad bar!  But about the time I saw the whatever-it-was, the lady called to me, and I didn’t look back in that direction again.”

Victoria would later verify that there was indeed a breadstick on the floor, complete with a puddle of sauce around it.

Fortunately, it was nearly closing time, so no new patrons were entering the restaurant, most people were heading out, and no one stepped in the glop and broke a leg.

See, this is why it’s good for messy old people to eat public meals with their grandchildren – the more, the merrier; and the younger, the better:  the grandchildren get the blame for all the spilt food!  That is, providing nobody sees the mess right as it actually occurs.

Since that evening, I have applied various stain removers and washed that sweater three times.  A pale rusty-pink stain remains.  I need me some of Grandma’s Secret Spot Remover from Hobby Lobby!  I haven’t put the sweater into the dryer, so hope remains.

As we chatted that evening, I said, “At our house, we have swarms of mosquitoes.”

Willie, 4, listening with big eyes, gave me his sweet smile and exclaimed, “Can I have one?!”

Later, as we were walking to our vehicles, Victoria said to Arnold, 2, “Arnold, your pants are slipping!  Can you fix them?”

“Yes,” answered Arnold agreeably – and then he proceeded to lean down and roll up the cuffs a couple of times.

(The funniest part, though, was how tickled Kurt got at his little boy.)

After leaving Pizza Ranch, Larry and I went to Walmart to get a refund for a clock I had ordered for my great-niece Kay’s wedding.  When I picked up the package from off my porch and it sounded like a jigsaw puzzle, I knew, This can’t be good.  

It wasn’t.  The glass was shattered into teeny tiny bits; they hadn’t put any packing around that clock at all.  We collected our refund, then went to the household department and picked out another clock, this one bigger and prettier than the first one.

Hannah sent some pictures of Aaron’s new Ram 1500 Laramie.  It’s a nice-looking truck.

Take a good, close look at the photo below.  Can you see the passenger?  That’s younger brother Levi, and, as Hannah put it, “It was our first ride in the pickup, and he was pretty excited for Aaron.”

Wednesday, I had 85 more photos to crop and edit, and this project would be done.  I save all my old photos, unless they’re particularly poor quality – and I don’t pitch them even then, if it’s a one-of-a-kind memory.

I began refilling the birdfeeders, then headed out to rehang them.  Along came the neighbor cat that Larry calls ‘Kitty Chaplin’, on account of his funny black mustache.  I petted him and carried on a quite intelligent conversation with him, and then, before I could get it hung, he tried out the flavor of the birds’ suet.  😆  He then explored the laundry room while I filled another bird feeder.  I picked him up and put him out on the deck while he purred and butted his head again me.  He dashed back inside before I could get the sticky door shut.  I sure didn’t want to shut it on the kitty!  I put him out again... and he ran back in again, still purring mightily. 

I went to the refrigerator, Kitty Chaplin running happily along beside me, extracted the bag of shredded cheese, and, rattling it enticingly, headed back to the deck.  The kitty, after taking a brief excursion through the living room and the music room, ran after me.  I put a little mound of shredded cheese on the deck, and then, while the cat scarfed it down, I dashed back inside and got that troublesome door shut.

“MeOW!!” protested Kitty Chaplin, mouth full of cheese.

The cat is not a stray; he’s very well taken care of.  I left him to his countryside explorations and got back to my own business of showering, shining the bathroom back up again, playing the piano, making myself a mug of Georgia Peach cold-brew coffee, and blow-drying and curling my hair.

After eating some breakfast, I got on with editing photos.  It wasn’t long before the job was done.  I added to the count a bit by taking a few photos of the flowers outside.  The Stella d’Oro daylilies are blooming! 

There are many old photos that I am very glad I didn’t discard – this one, for example.  My flash didn’t go off, and it’s a bit blurry.  I use Corel Paintshop Pro on my laptop, and I employ the ‘sharpen’ feature often.  Sometimes, a little too much sharpening can pixelate a photo – especially a closeup on a face – and I have to soften it a bit.  I sharpened this one as much as I dared, brightened it slightly, and added a wee bit of color.  It’s about as good as I can get it – and much better than the original.

There are a few of my old photos that were practically ruined by light getting to the film (bad camera latch), and I’m so glad I didn’t pitch them out, because I put a dozen or more into black and white scale, and salvaged them very well that way.

The next order of business was to run a backup of all my data since February onto three external hard drives.  I also put what I needed onto my upstairs laptop.  It’s my favorite, as it’s a fasssst Acer Predator Helios 300, and it has a bigger screen, 17.3”.  But the design of that laptop is faulty, in that they have the charging jack affixed directly to the motherboard, which gets hot when it’s working hard – and that makes the jack get loose around the plug end.  So I keep it in one place and try not to wiggle it, so it doesn’t fail, as a previous one did.  They replaced the machine for me, putting my old hard drive into a new body with a new motherboard.  I doubt if it’s still under warranty anymore, though; so I treat it like a Desktop, and don’t haul it around hither and yon, as I do the equally fast MSI Katana, which has a 15.6” display.  That screen size makes a big difference.  It’s so much easier to edit photos, design quilts, and all the other things I do on a laptop, with a bigger screen.  When I got the Katana (at Nebraska Furniture Mart’s Electronics Department), I tried for a bigger screen, but the only one they had was a Sony, and it was $1,000 more!!  Yikes.

We bought a separate quite large screen to go with the Katana, but it’s awkward to use, as I don’t have a good place for it.  So it sits in still-pristine condition on my rolltop desk upstairs.

I had a little time to work on the design for Violet’s quilt before our midweek church service.  As I played with EQ8, I listened to a British newscast.  Sometimes the differences in our sayings are quite funny. 

For instance, here we say, “Hanging on for dear life!” 

The Brit on YouTube says, “Hanging on for grim death!”  😅

Thursday morning it was cloudy and damp, 67° at 10:00 a.m., on the way up to 72°.  Rain was expected in an hour or so, and would probably continue through the afternoon.  The Barn Swallows were happy as larks with the big mosquito infestation, and dozens of swallows were swooping gleefully through the yard, gobbling up mosquitoes as they went.  They must think I’m in competition with them for Haute Cuisine de Moustique, because they twitter and scold and dive at my head as I hang out the bird feeders.  This photo is from the Lewisboro Field Guide.

Did you know Barn Swallows often feed their fledglings while on the wing?  In fact, they have been seen and photographed feeding young that are also on the wing!  The original in-flight caterers.  😆  The picture below is by Kathy Gonder.

That day, I ran a diagnostic on one of my external hard drives.  Here’s the data retrieved:  There are 434,704 Photos in 5,952 Folders, for a total of 2.23 TB.

I spent a majority of the afternoon working on the design of Violet’s quilt, Crinoline Ladies, in EQ8 (the Electric Quilt program on my laptop).  

The windows were open, and the birds were singing like everything.  I could hear cardinals, robins, sparrows, orioles, and baby birds of all kinds.

By evening, I had four versions of the Crinoline Ladies quilt completed.

The fabric colors won’t match these all that closely.  It will probably be scrappy, though it’ll have a purple focus.  As for numbers 2 and 3 (if numbering starts at top left and goes clockwise), just look at all those curved pieces!  😦

I posted the pictures and ran a poll on my Quilt-Talk group, and also asked people on my Facebook page and a couple of Facebook quilting groups which version they like best.  One winds up with unsolicited advice, when one pitches questions to Facebook quilting groups.  😅

Like this, for instance:  “Question:  If this is a gift for your granddaughter’s 8^th birthday, would a more youthful panel not be in order?”

My answer:  “It will be all full of the things Violet loves:  Fancy ladies, lace and frills, flowers and butterflies, purples and lavenders, and plenty of other colors.”

The only response was the sound of crickets.

Reckon she would’ve liked it better, had the central panel been Minnie Mouse?  Daffy Duck?

Meanwhile, as I worked on the quilt design, my friend Sue, the lady from whom I bought my Bernina Artista 730, used her digital software program to remove the embroidered skirts from the Belle designs I planned to use.  Here’s one of the original designs with the embroidered skirt still in place.

Those embroidered skirts are really pretty... but I’m hoping the hankie skirts will be even prettier.

As the polls went on, the MeWe Quilt Talk group tilted heavily toward #3; but the favorites on other platforms balanced out until it seemed there was an almost even number of votes for each different version.  However, a lot of people are swayed by fabric colors, and pay little attention to the actual block pattern.

I finally asked Victoria.  She chose #2, at the top right.  Do you see that #2 and #3 are made from the very same units, with convex and concave curves?  They’re just set in different configurations.

Looks like I have a whole lot of curved seams in my near future!  😄

Friday morning it was cloudy, but the sun was trying to peek out.  It was 72° by 10:00 a.m., and the high would be 86°.  I attended to the usual morning pursuits, and then headed upstairs to my quilting studio, where I cut pieces for the first interior borders for Violet’s quilt, and then sewed them onto the central panel.

I had a yummy little snack that afternoon:  two small pieces of Baklava.  They were pricey, so we’re rationing them.  Besides, I was hoping the Baklava coffee I’d ordered would arrive soon enough that we could combine Baklava pastry with a mug of Baklava coffee. 

Each little piece is not much bigger than a bite, and we only have two or three a day.  But such a treat!  I drink coffee black, whether hot or cold-brewed.  Larry likes CoffeeMate creamer.

I used to call my father’s coffee ‘Coffee Soup’, because of all the ingredients.  He’d put a spoonful of instant Kava into his cup (and it had to be the same cup, every time, in order to keep the formula correct, you know), then pour hot water over it, add a tiny pinch of baking soda (because he didn’t like the flavor of distilled water), then a spoonful of honey – squirted from the honey bear into his teaspoon until it just started to drip – and finally, a dollop of half-and-half cream.  It smelled soooo good, but when he’d let me have a little spoonful of it, I didn’t like it at all!  😅

My friend Sue finished working on the Belle’s and emailed them to me.  I loaded the designs onto a thumb drive, attached the embroidery module to my machine, plugged the thumb drive into my sewing machine, pulled up Belle #1, chose the embroidery thread, put fabric and stabilizer into a hoop, attached the hoop to the embroidery module, and started embroidering the first of the Crinoline Ladies.

That evening, Victoria sent pictures of Willie and Arnold’s new room – they are moving into the room Carolyn and Violet vacated when they moved to the new downstairs room last week.

The little boys have slept in their new room a handful of times now, and are pleased as punch with it, and with the decorations Victoria put up.

Larry went to Springfield, Missouri, that day to get a flatbed trailer he bought.  He sent me a picture of Truman Lake, asking, “Does that look familiar to you?”

We had seen Truman Lake – and a whole lot of attached arms and branches – when we went to Missouri several weeks ago.  He saw a doe with twin fawns alongside the road, too. 

He got home at about 2:30 a.m., after driving through quite a rainstorm in southern Nebraska.

Hannah sent me a picture of mammatus clouds, and I sent her this screengrab I got from a stormchaser’s live feed somewhere to our southwest.

If you’re ever looking at a live stream with a supercell like this, grab the video slider and move it slowly back and forth.  You can really see the rotation of that mesocyclone.

I got two blocks embroidered for Violet’s quilt.  

Saturday, June 6, was National Tetris Day.

This Tetris quilt was made by an unknown lady named Sue.  Hers looks better than most, because her squares are each made with four half-square triangles in varying shades, giving it a 3D look – and she put in some black spots where Tetris shapes didn’t ‘land’ correctly, giving it even more depth and dimension (and reality).

Playing Tetris with some of the children on our first computer in 1998 is how I learned to use a mouse.  Hannah and I were First-Rate Champions before long.

And then I thought about the time I was wasting, and decided, I shall not play computer games.  And with that, I was done.  I might use ‘gaming computers’, but nobody’s gonna find any games at all on them; I’ve removed every single one!

I did play ‘Oregon Trail’ with the younger children a few times; but that’s an educational game that didn’t become addictive like some of those racing games that the boys got when they were teenagers.

One time one of the boys was playing a racing game, and got all exasperated about a pileup he landed in, grumbling and exclaiming.

I said, “Either don’t act like that, or don’t play the game.”  A few minutes later, he forgot himself and grumbled loudly.

I reached over and pulled the computer’s electrical cord right out of the wall.  He was horrified.  “I almost had a medal!”

“It’s a calamity!” said I.  “Now go do your homework, so you can get a diploma.”

It wasn’t long before we all agreed to get rid of the racing games.  They really didn’t do anybody any good, and certainly wasted valuable time.

A whole lot of video games have gotten really, really horrid, since then.  And horrid or not, they’re dreadful time-wasters.  But I do look back fondly on those Tetris competitions with Hannah, and the Oregon Trail, too.

Saturday morning at 9:30 a.m., it was 75°, on the way up to 87°.  I tidied the bedroom, showered, shined the bathroom back up, played the piano, and made myself a tall mug of Georgia Peach cold-brew coffee.  Then I blow-dried my hair and put a few curls in it, ate some breakfast, and cleaned the kitchen.  That done, I headed upstairs to embroider more Crinoline Ladies.

One design has a flying bird.  I looked at my embroidery thread... and chose a pale, variegated, metallic pastel spool, thinking to make the bird look like a shimmering dove.

What I made is, in fact, a flying unicorn.  A miniature flying unicorn.  A miniature, flying, sparkly, pastel-striped unicorn.  🤣  (Not speaking of the shape; just the colors.)

No, I didn’t pick out the threads.  Fortuitously (and fortunately), Violet likes unicorns (and thus striped pastels). 

The Baklava coffee I ordered arrived Saturday, right in the nick of time, as I drained the cold-brew jug of the Georgia Peach cold brew that very morning.  I made a new jug of Baklava cold brew; it would be ready to drink Sunday morning.  If it tasted as good as it smelled, it would be scrumptious!

That evening, Victoria sent pictures of their newly fixed-up nursery.  Isn’t it pretty?

By 11:30 p.m., I had all the Crinoline Ladies embroidered.  Now to trim the blocks to 8 ½”, add the sashing and side borders, and attach them to the central panel.  Four more borders after that, and I’ll be ready to cut and piece the 52 outer blocks.

Sunday morning, it was 69° at a quarter ’til 8.  The high would be 79° on that cloudy day.

The Baklava cold-brew coffee was indeed scrumptious.  Another flavor to put in my list of favorites.

Plus, there are still some Baklava pastries to eat along with the coffee!  I’ve been doing my dead level best to keep Larry from eating the whole lot in one afternoon.  😅

(Actually, I’m doing my dead level best to keep me from eating the whole lot in one afternoon.  But don’t tell him I said that.)

Last evening, we attended the wedding of my great-niece Kay, my nephew Robert’s (our pastor) and his wife Margaret’s youngest daughter.

Another great-niece, cousin of the bride-to-be, had a new baby that morning at about 7:30 a.m.  Baby Edward weighed 9 lbs., 12 oz.  He already has dimples instead of knuckles!  And he quite handily foiled his Mama’s notion of attending her cousin’s wedding that night.  😅

Above is a picture a stormchaser took near Sidney, Nebraska, last night.  Sidney is 325 miles to our west.

Here is Kay and Christopher’s wedding party.  In that front row of children, all but the tallest girl, the smallest girl, and the little boy on the far right are my great-great-nieces and great-great-nephew.  The two little girls in pink weren’t really in the wedding party, but they sure were tickled pink ( 😉 ) to be included in some of the pictures.

I wonder where Kay and Christopher went on their honeymoon?  Severe thunderstorms and tornadoes have continued throughout the day and into the night tonight in Nebraska and several surrounding states.  113 mph winds hit Salina, Kansas, a little while ago, putting tens of thousands of people out of power, while 2.75” hail pounded Colorado.

Today is Hester’s 37^th birthday.  We’re planning to meet Andrew and Hester, along with their children Keira and Oliver, at Pizza Ranch tomorrow evening for supper.

This afternoon, I texted Joseph, “I’ve been watching videos and reading news reports of a 7.8M earthquake in the Philippines.  Is Jocelyn’s family okay?”

He wrote back, “Haven’t heard anything from them.  So that’s good  news.” 

(Unless communications are down, of course.)

The red pin on the map above shows where the family lives in Tibal-og, Santo Tomas, Davao del Norte.  Just look at the earthquake map below! – all those quakes and aftershocks.  The epicenter was approximately 115 miles south of their home.

In news from the town of Santo Tomas, I read the following:  “The tremors caused significant concern and structural damage in surrounding areas, with powerful aftershocks reported.”

At 20 ’til 7 this evening, Joseph wrote, “Jocelyn’s family said they felt the earthquake and they went outside because they were afraid the house would collapse.  But everything is fine.  No damage in their area.”

That was indeed good news.

I made a gallon jug of China White iced tea a little while ago.  It needs to steep in the refrigerator for several hours.

That’s the last of the China White.  I found about a dozen big boxes, each containing 100 teabags, at Loren’s house when I cleaned it out.  His wife Janice had purchased it, hoping it would help her stomach cancer.  It did not.

I gave a box of the tea to each of the children for Christmas that year, and wondered what to do with the last two boxes.  I was glad to discover it made excellent iced tea, if let to steep long enough.  Larry likes it, especially when he’s working outside on a hot day.

Time to fly into the feathers!

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