Journal: Troublesome Transmissions (& Quilting, of Course)

 

The rain that began last Monday evening continued through the night and the following day.  It was 48° Tuesday morning, and it didn’t get much warmer that day.

As I blow-dried my hair, I sipped subpar pumpkin spice cold-brew coffee from the Jug That Never Runs Dry and listened to farm broadcaster Lacey Shippy on the Rural Radio.  She’s fairly new to Rural Radio, though she moved from Virginia to South Dakota at least ten years ago.  She often broadcasts from her home at Shippy Cattle Company, where she lives with her husband and four children.  Hers is one of the most pleasant voices on Rural Radio, and that soft Virginia accent is just as pronounced today as it was the first time I heard her.

Each afternoon, she has a little segment called ‘The Good Life’.  Last week she told a story about a young cowboy on their ranch who was learning to ride, and how his shenanigans managed to endanger not just himself, but her, too.  I was finally beginning to suspect the identity of this ranch hand by the end of the story, when she finished, “And then he climbed off of his upside-down laundry-basket steed, picked up his teddy bear, and said, ‘Can I have a sandwich, Mommy?  I’m hungry!’”

Speaking of little cowboys and ranchers, Victoria sent me a video captioned ‘An Interview with Arnold’, along with pictures of him in his new John Deere overalls and cap.  He’d built a Lego plane, and was telling all about it.  Here he’s pointing at the clear block and explaining that it’s the ‘cabin’.

I wrote back, “Tell Arnold Grandma says, ‘I really like your overalls, and the cap, too!  And the plane is nifty.’”

I soon got back an audio clip from Arnold, with a sweet little thank-you.

Here’s a comment from a woman who was also interviewed by a news agency that day, and she’s not nearly as bright as my little two-year-old grandson:  “I don’t care who they are or what they say:  I’m voting for Democrats in every office no matter what.”

Now there’s an enlightened way to do it.

Or not.

I received the following comment from a woman I don’t know from Adam (or Eve) under a picture I posted of a quilt I made for one of the grandchildren:  “Hello I’m realy sowrey but I realy don’t need a quilt but thankyou anyways” 

I wonder what the answer is to something like that.  “Don’t worry, I wasn’t going to give you one even if you did need it”?

I was still pondering that when the cousin who is known for asking questions such as “Don’t you ever get tired of making quilts” and “How many more quilts do you plan to make” asked another, all rephrased in order to make it a brand-new question:  “Do.you.think. there will ever be a time you will get tired of quilting.”

(I view the lack of question marks and those superfluous periods as a bit of passive-aggressiveness [new-fangled {i.e., first used during the World War II era} psychological phrase meaning ‘syrupy-hostile’ and “I be nice but wanna punch you when you not a-lookin’” {and yes, the meaning has morphed a bit since then}].  And yes again, I do have a tendency to take things more personal than necessary, at times.)

Background on the cousin:  She’s several years older than me and unable to get around well.  Word searches and texting are her primary activities, except on those rare occasions when the nursing home has a painting activity, takes people for rides around their small town in a pull-behind cart with seats in it, plays bingo, or has a singer or musician come in.  There are other things she could do, but, in her own words regarding, oh, just about everything, “That isn’t my thing.”

I do my best to be kind, and if I feel annoyed when I read such things, then I take care not to respond until my compassion is back in place.  I do love her, after all!

I responded, “No, I don’t get tired of things that I consider worthwhile activities.  I have loved sewing since I was eight years old, when my brother brought me my very first sewing machine and showed me how to use it.  For years, I enjoyed making clothes for my family, and now quilting feels like playtime.”

By midafternoon, after quilting for only 2 ½ hours, my back was protesting.  Time to get out one of the topical analgesics I keep handy.  I’d be smelling like Absorbine Jr. or Tiger Balm or — oh, here’s some DMSO cream in lavender scent.  I put that on, instead. 

It’s not all that strong, but it does help, and I still smelt purty good.  😄

I spent the majority of the day quilting.  We had plenty of leftover lasagna for supper, so I didn’t even have to cook anything.

When I stopped quilting for the night at 10:00 p.m., I’d completed a row of quilting and was ready to roll the quilt forward.

My statement in last week’s letter, saying that migration was winding down, was wrong.  It evidently just lagged a bit during some nice days.  Here’s the data from Tuesday night through Wednesday morning: 

An estimated 495,200 birds crossed Platte County starting Tue, Nov 3, 2026, 5:20 p.m. CST; ending Wed, Nov 4, 2026, 7:00 a.m. CST.

It was cloudy Wednesday, and the high was 47°.  While I eat breakfast, I like to read messages and the news, in that order.  There was discussion about a violent assault somewhere, and people commenting that they never walk that area without something to protect themselves, with pepper spray being mentioned most often.

“In the UK, pepper spray is an offensive weapon and you can be arrested for carrying it,” remarked one lady.

“We’re sitting ducks!” agreed a fellow citizen.

“So how do you defend yourselves?” asked an American lady.  “Here in America, we carry knives, expandable batons, and it is not uncommon to have permits for guns or Tasers.”

“We’re not allowed to carry such things!!” exclaimed another from Britain.  “Like she said, we’re sitting ducks!”

Another chimed in:  “We rely on carefully sharpened witticisms.”  😂

At 2:30 p.m., I rolled the quilt forward, and the tops of ‘picket fence’ along the bottom of the quilt made their appearance.

A lady in the little town of Henderson, Nebraska, 72 miles to our south, posted a note on a Nebraska weather page:  “There are a few snowflakes falling at my house!”

“You hush!” another lady promptly retorted.  😄

I remember so much snow, back when I was a child, that I could make tunnels and igloos in our back yard.  

Sometimes we visited my mother’s parents in North Dakota immediately after Christmas.  They lived on a farm a little way from the small town of Arthur.  Plows had opened the country roads, leaving tall walls of snow beside the roads, which were no more than one lane wide.

Wind would blow drifts of snow over the tops of those snow walls, so we’d be driving in a tunnel.  We had a Studebaker, and Daddy would put chains on the rear wheels.  That thing was a tank.  It went.  If we ever got stuck, a little rocking to and fro got us out again straightway.  If we met anyone on those lanes, someone had to back up... back up... back up, until they reached a drive to someone’s farmhouse they could back into, in order to let the other car go by.

I thought it was enormous fun.

That afternoon, Victoria sent a video of Carolyn playing her violin.  She’s doing so well, she gets to play a song with the orchestra for our Thanksgiving service, which starts at 11:00 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day.  The church dinner will be at noon.

“She’s very excited,” said Victoria.

She also sent a picture of Baby Russell, sound asleep.  Much as it looks like there was a light on, there was not; she used her phone to take a ‘nighttime’ picture in his dark nursery, with only the door open to the hallway.

When Hannah was a much too tiny baby to be talking (just five or six months old), she’d say, “Doo bite!  Doo bite!” (too bright) – but, mind you, she’d say this when I went in her room in the afternoon after she awoke from her nap.  The sun would be shining brightly through the windows — but I’d automatically switch on the light, though it made no discernible difference.  That’s when she’d say it:  when I switched on the light.  “Doo bite!  Doo bite!”

By the time I rolled the quilt forward again that evening, there were only three more Dresden Plate flowers to quilt (from a total of 18 Dresdens), and the seven butterflies were done.

At twenty after five, I happened to look out my sewing room window and see that the sun was setting, and the sky was a mixture of heavy slate gray clouds, with fiery orange wisps beneath them.  I hurriedly took a couple of pictures from my upstairs window before donning my glad rags for church.

Getting ready took a little longer than usual, because, along with a thick maroon sweater with a cream-colored platter collar edged with wide Venice lace, I chose a maroon and tan paisley rayon skirt with wide box pleats, and they always have to be pressed.  Pressing wide box pleats takes a while.

That evening after the service, Hannah sent me home with some chocolate chip muffins, and Victoria gave me a pan of pumpkin dessert to take home for Larry’s birthday. 

He didn’t get home in time for church, as he’d gone to Columbia, Missouri, to pick up an old F800 Ford truck with a crane on it for the scrap metal (I think it was for scrap metal – but there’s always a chance he will find something ‘too good’ for the shredder).

Columbia is about 405 miles to our southeast; six hours and 15 minutes of driving time.  He loaded the truck on his trailer, then had to leave the load behind, as his trailer brakes weren’t working and the pickup’s transmission was complaining loudly, too.  If Larry says a transmission is ‘complaining loudly’, you’d better believe it’s loud enough to wake to dead, and the rest of us would’ve been grimacing in alarm long before he even noticed.  😬🙉

He got home around 1:30 a.m.

Thursday at midmorning, it was a sunny but chilly 43°, with the wind was gusting up to 25 mph.  I did a bit of housecleaning, played the piano, and then blow-dried my hair whilst sipping that everlasting Great Value(?) pumpkin spice cold-brew coffee.  There was reason for hope, though! – when I filled my tumbler with the concentrate from the jug, the flow began slowing.  Dared I hope that the stuff was nearly gone?!  There were beans from Aroma Ridge anxiously waiting...

As usual, I was listening to the Rural Radio news as I dried and curled my hair.  All was calm and serene – until some screamer started screaming (that’s what screamers do) the Lord’s Prayer on that same Rural Radio.  This was supposedly their ‘song of inspiration’.  I didn’t find it inspiring at ALL.  Why do audiences go wild clapping and doing their own screaming and screeching when some singer(?) hits notes well beyond their comfortable register, both for their own vocal chords and also for our eardrums?  Maybe it’s just to cover up the tortuous caterwauling.  (It does cover it up, at least partially; so there’s that.)

Once upon a time, when Caleb was about 5 years old, we were driving past this cemetery in Fremont.  Hester, 9, suddenly gasped and pointed at that tall chapel there in the middle of the cemetery.

“Ohhhh, look!!!” she breathed in a tone of horror.  “Too many people must’ve gone into that church, and it sank right down into the ground, and left nothing but the steeple sticking out!”

Caleb stared in astonishment. “Oh, no!” he exclaimed, quite horrified.  “What will happened to all the people; how will they get out?!”

And then his siblings went into throes of hilarity.

Caleb turned and looked at them reproachfully.  Then, “Hester,” he said quietly, and that was all.

That morning, a propane tank was accidentally sent through the metal shredder at Alter Metal Recycling on the east side of Columbus.  It blew up with a terrific ka-BOOM!, shaking houses all over town.  People even felt it in the small nearby towns of Bellwood and Duncan.

Thankfully, according to online news, the propane tank was completely enclosed inside a vehicle body and buried deep within the commercial heavy-duty shredder system.  The massive industrial framework of the machinery, the industrial shielding, and the safety designs of the heavy metal recycling shredder kept the blast contained, and the surrounding scrap material absorbed the physical shrapnel and directed the force of the blast.

Nevertheless, one of the men who works there said, “It scared the living daylights out of us!”

If I heard it, I must’ve thought it was Larry racketing about.  😂

That day, Larry went to a farmplace near Valparaiso where he has been helping to clear old machinery and scrap metal.  The noisy transmission went along for the ride – but it held the matter against him, as will be seen later.

“It’s not as far so it wouldn’t be so bad,” he assured me with what he considered Grand Logic.  “I am going to put heavier grease in it.”

The trouble is, he can’t hear it when it’s giving the death rattle.

Late that morning, Levi sent me this picture of one of his algebra pages, writing, “Doesn’t this look fun?  *I say as I bang my forehead on the brick pillar next to the drinking fountains*”

“Well, I thought it did, once upon a time,” I wrote back.  “A time half a century ago when I was a lot smarter than I am now.”

Levi then wrote, “Yay, it’s Cramer’s Rule!  You do the determinants of 3x3 matrices on top of each other in fraction form to find X, Y and Z.  Three determinants solved can find three variables in a three-equation system in...  40 minutes of trial and error and error and error.”

After looking it up, I responded, “Hmmmm... Cramer’s Rule:  ‘A linear algebra method that uses determinants to solve a system of linear equations with the same number of equations as variables.’  Let me bang my head with you.”

“Alright,” he agreed.  “The pillar has enough sides for the both of us!”  😆

I sent Hester pictures of Keira’s quilt.  She asked, “Do you hit the point with quilts where you’re ready to be done and move on to something else?”

That didn’t at all sound to me like the question, “Do.you.ever. think you’ll get tired of quilting.”  But maybe I’m just prejudiced.  😉

No.  Prejudiced or not, it is not the same question.

I replied, sending the accompanying picture, “Well, I do look forward to finishing quilts, but since I enjoy each part of the process, I look forward to working on whatever the current quilt is every day.  I always have the next quilt in mind, of course!  Oliver’s John Deere panels are lying right over there >> pointing westward toward the little library room << , and the thought of ‘The Next Quilt’ is a carrot in front of my nose.”

That day, I found a notice on the Sandhill Cranes Photography Group on Facebook:  “The Administrator of this group, Debbie, passed away earlier today.”

This was accompanied by a lovely note from one of her friends:  “Dear friends, our sister in Christ, Debbie, has gone on to be with her Lord and Savior.  As we are saddened here on earth, I know she is healthy, healed, and rejoicing in Heaven with our Lord.  I thank you for all the prayers and support given over the past few weeks.  Debbie will be greatly missed by all.”

And then someone writes, “According to Chinese folk lore, the departed ride cranes up into the heavens where they are reunited with their ancestors.”

Good grief.

I do hope the group continues; there are 30,000+ members, and they post many beautiful photos.  Here’s one by Paul Julian of Wood River, Nebraska; he often finds small flocks of Whooping Cranes amongst the Sandhill Cranes.

I quilted until 10:00 that night.  Not very much farther, and the quilting would be done.

It was 36° at 10:30 a.m. Friday morning.  The high would be 42°; but for once we had practically no wind at all, and it felt warmer than that.  

Before getting back to the quilting, I put a new SIM card from Straight Talk into my tablet, and then activated it.  Now it doesn’t have to connect to my phone to be online.  Best of all, this was free with my Platinum Plan.

Next, I downgraded Larry’s plan to Gold, which is $10/month cheaper, and activated that, as the Gold Plan has all the options he needs.  Straight Talk is so much cheaper than Verizon, and the Platinum Plan hotspot has unlimited high speed.  Verizon didn’t offer that on any plan.

I washed the heavy-duty bright red BRAECN rubber tablet cover, and when it was completely dry, I put it back on the tablet.  Electronics don’t do well if they get wet!

Then I made myself a tumblerful of Caribbean Flare cold-brew coffee and another of Peach Vibe Celsius to take upstairs to my quilting studio.

One problem:  I was fixing both tumblersful at the same time, starting with the cold brew.  I left the lid off in order to add ice to both tumblers at the same time.  Then I pulled out a little powder packet of Peach Vibe – you know exactly what’s going to happen next, don’t you?

Yep, I accidentally poured the powdered Peach Vibe straight into the already-made cold-brew coffee, as it was innocently sitting there awaiting its ice cubes.

So the Caribbean Flare had a Peach Vibe to it.  

😛😜😶😝

I spent the next couple of hours drinking a little... adding more water... drinking a little... adding more water...

Late that afternoon, I put a large Marie Callender’s pot pie in the oven, then ordered a couple of birthday gifts and wrote the Saturday Skim for my quilt group while the pot pie baked.

And the verdict is...  Marie Callender’s pot pie is better than Bettergoods’ pot pie.  Yum!  In fact, it was so good, Larry had two servings.  We had some of Victoria’s pumpkin dessert for, ... uh, dessert.  That was yummy, too.

Then back to my quilting studio I went, to see if I could finish quilting the Dresden Flowers & Flutters quilt.  

I could, and I did.  Since it was 1:30 a.m. when that feat was accomplished, I left it on the frame, shut everything down, and headed for the feathers.

Saturday was a pretty day, sunshiny and 60° for the high.  Since connecting my tablet directly to the Internet via Straight Talk, as opposed to connecting it via the hotspot on my phone, it no longer hiccups in the mornings when I have Rural Radio playing, and then open my laptop.  This happened because the tablet would pause momentarily while the devices tried to work out which one was going to win the data war – laptop or tablet.  And it invariably occurred precisely when an important bit of news was coming on that I didn’t want to miss.

I went to start a load of laundry – and discovered that Larry had screwed the childproof lid back on the Tide Pod container, though I’ve asked him not to, because the lid is wide in diameter, and I have a very hard time trying to squeeze the edges and turn it, both at the same time.  He does not remember.  It doesn’t give him any troubles, after all!  😏

I pressed on the sides of the lid and tried to turn it.  I put the jug back down on the floor, held it with my feet, and used both hands.  I was about to give up, when I finally got it loose.  He will not forget again; I stuffed that lid deep down into the trash!

Do Tide manufacturers think that once people get past, oh, say, age 55 or so, they no longer do their own laundry?!  These lids are not made for people with arthritis.  (I’ve had arthritis since I was a child.  It doesn’t improve with age!)

I cleaned the kitchen, then headed upstairs to my sewing room.

After trimming the quilt from the frame and putting away rulers, markers, and the leftover pieces of fabric (not much!) and batting, I cut and pieced the binding, then sewed it to the quilt.  That took several hours.

Next, I pulled out the little flat square umber-toned Czech glass beads that I intended to sew onto the sides of the ‘picket fence’ – and discovered there were very few left.  There were plenty of brown/tan/cream round beads; maybe it would look pretty to mix them?  I started sewing on the beads, putting a couple of little tucks into the flange alongside the ‘fence posts’ at each point where I attached a bead.  The flange was too narrow to do much ruching or gathering at all.  I was hoping for more of a scalloped look.  Ah, well.

An hour and a half later, it was high time to head for bed, and my hopes of finishing the beadwork had perished, along with my plans to take photos of the quilt the next day, as it would’ve been an excellent day for outdoor pictures.

I solaced myself by ordering more flat, square, Czech glass beads from Barrel of Beads.  Spotting something pretty on their website, I ordered that, too.  I’d tell you what it is, but some snoopy relative of mine might read this letter and know immediately for whom I got it!

I have 275 hours in Keira’s quilt so far.  I only had a total of 225 ½ in Violet’s Crinoline Ladies quilt.  I hope the grandkids don’t ever get together, compare number of hours in their quilts, and decide by that which one of them I like best!

On quilting groups online, people sometimes post pictures of their flimsies with some noticeable error and then ask Jane Q. Public if they should fix said error.  Umpteen Janes then encourage them to ‘leave it!’  Most of the time, it’s a wrongly turned section of a block, which is a fairly quick and easy fix.  (I’m not talking about a quilt after it’s been quilted; that’s pretty much a done deal, set in stone.  I’m talking about a flimsy.)

Listen to this piece of advice:  “Leave as it.  Mistakes let all the evil spirits out of your project.”  She was not kidding.

People are plumb nuts.

When Larry got home that evening, he told of heading toward Columbia, Missouri, to collect the left-behind trailer with the truck and crane on it.

He’d only gotten to Hamilton, Missouri, when, upon attempting to shift at a stoplight, there was a dreadful grinding crash, and he could not put the shifter into the gear he needed.  He got it into neutral and coasted while he tried the gears, eventually finding that there was one gear still intact:  fifth.  It would not shift into gears one through four, nor would it shift into sixth or reverse.  Only fifth.

He found a Tractor’s Supply, parked on an incline so he could coast backwards when he left, and purchased some heavy gear grease, which he applied before departing.  He got on the Interstate where there would be less stopping and shifting, and headed for home, making sure to never park where he would need to reverse in order to leave.  He started from dead stops in fifth... and he drove highway speeds in fifth.

I’ll betcha that truck was making a whole lot of loud noises that Larry couldn’t at all hear.

When I told this story to Teddy the next day, he consoled me, “It’s okay; not being able to hear all those gears grinding probably keeps his blood pressure from getting too high!”  😆

At 7:45 a.m. Sunday morning, it was a chilly 38°, but the high would be a sunny 66°.  I sipped Caribbean Flare cold-brew coffee as I blow-dried my hair, getting ready for church.

Last night when I checked the bead order to see if it had shipped, and if a tracking number had been generated, I discovered that the Barrel of Beads company is located in Rhode Island!  That’s 1,550 miles away.  But shipping time is supposedly fast – faster than if I had’ve ordered from their store on Amazon, surprisingly.

Or at least that’s what it said on the website.

But I no sooner wrote that than I received the notice of shipment.  And the delivery date?  November 16.  That’s the very same estimate Amazon gave me.  🙄  The only difference is that Amazon at least told me before I placed the order.

Well, I can embroider the label and attach it; and, if need be, start working on Oliver’s quilt.  I want it done for Christmas, too.

It’s been a sunshiny day today, with a high of 66°.  Housecleaning is done – or at least as done as it’s going to get today.  I’ve played the piano and made myself a tumblerful of Caribbean Flare cold-brew coffee.

I just sent the above picture to Victoria, captioning it, “When your feet blend with the rug.” 

Those are the socks she knitted for me.

I’m having Orca Spice Chai tea. Mmmmm...  It’s made of black tea and ‘exotic spices’ – sugar-free, but not caffeine-free.

Gotta git bizzy!

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