Journal: Counting Our Blessings

Our company – our oldest son Keith and his new family, wife Korrine and children Kaiden, 16; Keyara, 14; and Kenzie, 11  – left last Monday night after a nice visit.

The rewards of ‘getting ready for company’ for the last three weeks remain:  clean house (except for our bedroom, which became a bit of a catch-all, though I refused to let the spic-and-span closet get messed up), newly painted walls in kitchen and living room, and over-the-stove microwave (not new, but very nice) installed, yielding a little more much-needed counter space.

I mentioned the crash at the end of last week’s letter, but I’ll tell it again, and add and correct a few details.  Our daughter-in-law Amy had a bad wreck about noon Tuesday, driving their Ford transit van with all nine children with her, about 15 miles to our north, near Humphrey.  A semi truck loaded with rock pulled right out in front of her from the east; she was traveling north on the four-lane Highway 81.  I actually heard the ambulances going that way and then coming back on Highway 81 as it curves north about a mile north of our house, and wondered...

Everyone is going to be all right, but they’re pretty badly banged up, with sprained wrists and ankles, abrasions, and deep bruises where the seat belts went over their shoulders.  Ethan, who was in the front passenger seat, has quite a few stitches around one eye and across his eyelid – but the eye itself is undamaged, thankfully.  He has a sprained wrist, and cuts from flying glass.  His face got the brunt of it.  The cuts around his eye were too, too close for comfort.  He closed his eyes before impact; that could’ve saved his eye.

Amy was so afraid that fuel tank on the truck would catch on fire, and she was telling the children to get out the back as quickly as possible, trying to help the littles ones out – and then Ethan said that his foot was stuck.  That sure gave her a panicky feeling!  He managed to wiggle it loose, though, and it’s all right.

Emma has stitches at her hairline, a sprained wrist, and a badly bruised hip.  Warren, 4, has a broken collar bone.  Amy has a bruised chest and ribs.  Josiah has a big round bruise on one calf that’s dark purple, blue, and black.  Maybe it was from the rubber stopper on one of their skates?

For a  while, the thing that hurt Lyle the worst was where they’d given him an IV (they put IVs in all of them right away, in case they needed it for something, and I think they may have given them some pain medication through those lines).  Lyle’s IV wasn’t positioned correctly in a vein, and his arm swelled up and really hurt.

The most badly hurt was Leroy, 7, who was life-flighted to Bergan Mercy Hospital in Omaha, and then transferred to Children’s Hospital.  The curtain airbag on one side of the van had partially scalped him, and they had to sew it all back together again.  He also has a slightly or partially ruptured spleen, but the doctors believe it should heal all right.  Teddy got to the accident scene in time to ride in the helicopter with him.

Larry, too, went to the accident site.  He met four ambulances as he drove, one after the other, and his heart was sinking.  It was certainly a relief to learn that none had life-threatening injuries, and all are expected to recover all right.

Hannah and I went to the local hospital to see them.  They filled up most of the emergency rooms.  The nurses couldn’t get how sweet they were being, quiet and doing their best to be helpful with whatever they were asked to do.  Elsie, who’s 2 ½, didn’t like the neck brace the EMTs had put on her – and she rewarded the nurse who removed it with a big smile.

One thing the nurses noticed, and told me about when I got there, was that the children kept asking about the others, wanting to know if their siblings were all right.

Amy and the children were all treated and released.  Leroy stayed at Children’s Hospital until late Wednesday afternoon.

We are thanking God from the bottoms of our hearts that none of these precious lives were lost that day.

A lady from the County Fair called me Tuesday right when Hannah and I were at the ER.  I called her back later, but she was no longer at the fair, and couldn’t remember all the details (she’d probably called many people that day), but she said I got Best of County for one quilt, and either Grand Champion or Reserve Grand Champion for another – and several blue ribbons.  Ah, well.  I would find out soon enough.  Grand Champion ribbons pale, next to bad vehicle accidents.

Hannah and I followed a couple of policemen to the lot where the towing company had hauled the van, and the policemen climbed into the vehicle and handed us things, such as skates, a stroller (probably damaged and bent beyond repair, even though it was a big, sturdy one), shoes, caps, sunglasses, and suchlike.  So we got a firsthand look at the damage. 

We came away thankful for seat belts and airbags.

Then I took Hannah to pick up her van that was having the air conditioner fixed (the air conditioner in the house and in their van both went out at the same time, in these hottest days of summer!), after which I returned home to wash blankets and clothes for Amy, whose dryer isn’t working.  When it rains, it pours!

The news agencies on the radio, online, and later in the newspapers, were reporting there were eight children, rather than nine, involved in the wreck.  They also first reported that the van had hit a car.  Quite a lot different than hitting a semi loaded with rock!

As I worked in the kitchen, I heard a small scrabbling noise, a little tick-tick, click-click noise, and a very small, high-pitched, almost-chirp.

I knew the sound:  it was a bat.  Yes, another bat, I was almost sure of it.  That was adding insult to injury, on that day. 

I tracked down the noise to someplace behind the refrigerator.  Unable to see much back there, I picked up a can of dusting spray and gave it a squirt.

Whatever it was behind there, it scrambled, and then clickety-clicked angrily at me. 

Yep, that was a bat.

I went for a flashlight, and verified the supposition.  Yes, indeed.  Bat.

When the blankets that had been in the van were washed and dried, I hurried them over to Teddy and Amy’s house.  They were Grant’s and Warren’s favorite blankets, and even in the hospital Grant was asking what had happened to his blanket.  It’s a fleece blanket I made him when he was a baby, red on one side, black and white on the other, with puppies and bones and pawprints printed on it. 

They were all doing a little better, not looking quite so pale and stunned.

I went back home and continued washing clothes, keeping the tennis racket handy in case the bat decided to exit his hidey-hole behind the refrigerator.

Teddy sent a picture of Leroy with his head all wrapped up after surgery.  He was smiling at the camera, and holding a stuffed penguin that sported a big ol’ Band-Aid on its head.

When Larry got home, he dispatched of the bat – with his pellet gun.  Then he extracted it with a long-handled something-or-other and his plyers.

We had BLTs for supper that night.  I really love those sandwiches (but only if the bacon is crispy).

Later, I took back some bedding that I’d washed for Amy – and a Lego man that got himself into the wash somehow.  I handed it to Grant and said, “Here you go; this guy is well washed and dried, and ready to go to church.”  That made him laugh – and I noticed he did it without discomfort to his chest, which was an improvement from earlier.

As I said earlier, when I heard the sirens that morning, I was outside in the yard.  I stopped and listened... and it sounded like several ambulances.  Just because it worried me, I prayed for Keith and his family, who were on their way home to Salt Lake City... and that Kurt and Victoria and the little girls would be safe, on their vacation in Colorado... and that Hannah would find help for her ongoing problem with nasal polyps, asthma, etc...  for Levi and Jonathan, who have asthma rather badly... and for menfolk in the family, whose construction and tree service jobs are often fraught with peril.  But I didn’t even think that Amy and the children were in any danger right then!

So I’m mighty glad for that verse in Romans 8:26 that says, “for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”  And I am assured that, even though I didn’t know what to pray for, the Spirit in my heart did, and so did it for me.  Such a wonderful consolation.

By 4:15 a.m., the last load of Teddy and Amy’s clothes was dried and folded.

Wednesday, I texted Teddy to ask how Leroy was.  He wrote back, “We should be home tonight.”

Meanwhile, Jonathan, who’d been having bad time with asthma, was a little better that day.

Lydia wrote, “He didn’t come panicking up to my room for a treatment when he woke up this morning.  But I have to make sure he’s not running around, or he’ll get really bad again.”

Larry and I took Amy and several of the children to church Wednesday night.  We met Amy’s father on the way, bringing Teddy and Leroy home from Omaha. 

Thursday, a friend posted pictures of the honey she was putting in jars – they’d harvested fifteen gallons.  Mmmm, it looked good.

When I was young and traveling with my parents, we would sometimes stop at Stuckey’s restaurants.  They often had beehives in glass on the side walls, sticking into the restaurant, so patrons could watch the bees making their honey.  I loved standing there watching.  The saying, “busy as a bee”, took on new meaning!

Nickerson Farms sometimes had fields of clover, blueberry bushes, groves of orange trees, and so forth in fields outside their restaurants, with netting extending from the beehive and all around the field or grove, to keep the bees in that particular area.  They would then label their honey accordingly.  My favorite was Orange Blossom Honey.  But I was intrigued with the Blueberry Blossom Honey, because it was almost purple. 

That day, I started on Larry’s brother Kenny’s quilt.  The panel is called ‘Black Bear Essence’.  I got it from Marshall Dry Goods Company.  I’d ordered it for one of the grandsons, but when it arrived, along with the backing, I decided to use it, instead of trying to track down the deer/cabin/sunset panel that seems to be out of production.  A panel in hand is worth two in the bush, after all.  😉

I’m using the well-known Bear Track block around the panel, and I’ll call the quilt ‘Bear Paw’.  After posting pictures of the cut fabric pieces on an online quilting group, someone wrote, “Why did you cut all those triangles?  Now you have to sew on the bias, and could have some warped seams.  Thangles has all sizes of HST, easy to sew, and cut.  Hardly any waste.  There are so many methods to making HST – this way is the hardest out of all of them.  Good Luck.”

Somebody wrote to defend my method, saying that there is more wasted fabric with Thangles (printed paper templates), and that I will get more of a scrappy look, and less duplication of fabrics.

This produced further argument.  “My method there is no waste,” wrote woman #1.  “I use Thangles.  These are paper templates for HST.  You get the size you need your finished HST to be.  You cut a strip of fabric, layer on your second piece and then pin your strip together.  You then sew your diagonal seam, down the first one, then turn the paper a bit and down the second.  I think there are 6 to one strip of paper.  Then you cut them apart – on the diagonal for your HST, and cut apart each section on the dotted line.  You clip the corners, and then pull the paper off very easily.  Then iron the HST open.  I just made over 100 HST using 10-inch squares...sewing up and down corner to corner then cutting NSEW... and for another quilt, I used 10-inch squares, sew 1/4 inch seam around the edge, then cut corner to corner for my HST.  I have not measured these yet to find out what size, but I suspect 4.5 inches.  I used one package of layer cakes for this.”

(If you don’t already know about Thangles, the above description won’t make a lick of sense.)

I decided to answer her:  “I just finished a king-sized New York Beauty – and it took me exactly 21 hours to remove all the paper (thin newsprint; it wasn’t hard, there was just a lot to do).  Not doing paper on this quilt, huh-uh, nosiree!  I cut a square from each fabric and then cut it in half diagonally.  I don’t have any trouble sewing biases.  It’s all in the machine (and how well-timed the feed dogs are with the shuttle and uptake lever), the thread, the tension, the fingers, and how you hold your tongue.  😄  (And yes, I do have Thangles.  But they aren’t the right size, in any case.)”

I declare.  Quilting friends have finally won me over to liking (some) scrappy quilts, and then when I proceed to do it, someone rakes me over the coals for my methodology!  hahaha

The thing is, I don’t make HSTs of some random size and then save them for a rainy day; I design a quilt and then cut pieces in the precise size I need for that particular quilt.  So... what works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for another person; and what works for one project doesn’t necessarily work for another project.

Friday morning, Larry found a bat in the tub.  It had been trying fruitlessly to climb out, but the sides were too slippery.  Larry sent it to its reward. 

We have caught and released bats whenever possible – up ’til now.  If they’re going to get into my house at the rate of one or two per night, then I want the bat population thinned out around here, never mind the huge influx of mosquitoes this year.  Our mosquitoes aren’t big enough to carry me off and stow me in caves and dens while they point and jeer and swoop wildly at my head.  Plus, I’m not afraid to slap a mosquito flat with my bare hands.  But a bat?!

Interesting info about bats:  A bat has only one baby per year, and it’s called a ‘pup’.  It is born while the mother hangs by her rear feet in her customary position, upside down, and the mother catches the pup in her wings.  The little brown bat (the kind we have here) has been known to live 30 years in the wild.  Bats like to nest in groups of about 40 or so.

Larry took the afternoon off to work on the mower deck for his tractor, sharpening blades and suchlike, as he needed to bale hay at Teddy’s.  He was going to work on it in a friend’s nearby garage, so he headed over there in the red pickup – and something went wrong with the clutch or... something when he was about halfway there.  The friend had to come tow him the rest of the way.

That person with whom Larry traded pickups was not at all honest about the state of his pickup.

A friend, upon seeing pictures of the fabric pieces I’d just cut, wrote, “Ha, all this time you have been telling us what a small fabric stash you have.  😄  This quilt is going to look great.”

“Ha!” I retorted right back.  “You wanna know sumpthin’?  Huh, huh huh, do ya, do ya?  Sometimes trimming a 2 ½” square from a dinky scrap was the end and demise of that particular scrap of fabric!  There will be fabric in this quilt that will nevah, evah be in another quilt of mine, because there is no more.  (Unless, of course, they still sell it somewhere, and I spot it, and need it for something, heh.)”

I put out a new oriole feeder last week. So far, I haven’t seen any orioles at it, but there are certainly plenty of ants.  It takes a while before the birds get over thinking, “New Big Bird Trap!  New Big Bird Trap!” about any new item in the yard. 😄

I got the background pieces for the Bear Track blocks cut that night, using white-on-cream fabric left over from the New York Beauty quilt.

Friday and Saturday mornings, I weeded the flower gardens.  I had neglected the ones in the back for a couple of weeks on account of company preparations, and also on account of making sure the front gardens looked nice.  Thus, little weeds had grown into forests.   I had to thoroughly spray myself with bug repellent before going out; it’s the only way to work in the yard these days.

Saturday, after a bath and a shampoo and a breakfast, I took some pictures of newly-blooming flowers (these are tall phlox)... then trotted upstairs to the quilting room to start sewing HSTs together for the Bear Paw quilt. 

That evening, Larry and I went to the County Fair.  We probably got there in time to have my picture taken by the Telegram reporter... and I’d actually dressed all cute-like for it – but I didn’t want to, and the closer we got, the more I didn’t want to ----- so we watched the kids’ mutton-busting instead, and then strolled through the barns looking at the animals, and by the time we got to the Exhibit Hall, huh, too bad, the ceremony was over.  Tsk, tsk.  I just look so... grrrrim when they take my picture.  🤨😒😕☹😖😞😟😧😬😩😠

Here are the items I entered, and the awards I got:

1.    Sunbonnet Sue quilt                               Grand Champion

2.       Nesting bowls                                         First Place

3.       Camping placemats                                First Place

4.       Stars table runner                                    First Place

5.       Maxwell House mug rug                        First Place

6.       New York Beauty quilt                           Best in County

7.       New York Beauty pillow sham               First Place

8.       Harvest Sun round pillow                       Second Place

The crocheted rug I entered for Hannah, just to surprise her, got Second Place.  It would’ve done better if I had’ve remembered to enter it when it was new, before we actually used it.

Here’s a Grand Champion winner who’s utterly unimpressed with his winnings.

Facebook comments are funny.  I posted news of my county fair awards on a quilting group.  One lady wrote, “Good grief!  That’s amazing!”  There were a few notes of congratulations... and then someone wrote, “No one is a bit surprised!”  😄

After leaving the fair, we went to Mike’s Towing and looked at the truck that Amy hit.  The semi truck’s frame is curved like a big ol’ banana, it was hit so hard.  They had to use their super-heavy-duty winch to pry the van away from the truck, it was wedged in so tightly.

That night, I got all the HSTs sewn together, warped seams and all. 

And I put together the first block for the Bear Paw quilt.  Just look at all those warped biases.

Or maybe they’re straight.  😉 

Our Jeep is becoming a bit unreliable, and no one can figure out what’s wrong with it – not Larry, and not the ‘professionals’.  Probably a computer chip issue, somewhere deeeep down inside.  I was hoping to get it paid off (less than a year to go) and not have that payment to worry about for a while, but it’s looking like that’s not to be.  😕  I really like the vehicle.  If it would just stop with the stupid glitches!  Now and then, it decides to suddenly die, even right whilst trundling down the highway at 70 mph.  That’s not very safe.  It’s 11 ½ years old.

One afternoon, a friend wrote to say that she’d intended to sew that day, but her husband was sleeping, and the bedroom is right across the hall from her sewing room – so she couldn’t use her sewing machine without waking him up. 

“You need a husband like mine,” I told her, “who is not at all fazed by sewing machine or quilting machine racket.  Just let me tiptoe up and silently sliiiiide his cell phone from his pocket in order to snag a hotspot off it, though.  

“‘Thief,’ he mutters, without wiggling a solitary muscle.  hee hee”

A month and a half later, the orchids I took home from Annette’s funeral are still blooming.  The orchid that used to be Loren’s, though, looks a little bedraggled.  One leaf has croaked.

Last night, I sent a message to my regular quilting customers:  “Just a little note to say that I am accepting quilts from customers again, though I don’t intend to go at it with quite the frenzied pace I was doing before.  I still need to get those family quilts done, after all!  But I’ll squeeze in a customer quilt now and then.”

This little wildflower is called Mouse Ears (Commelina communis).

Today is our 40^th anniversary – the Ruby Anniversary.  Imagine that.  I really don’t see how that can be, since I’m only 29.  Shall I put red food coloring in everything?

This morning, I went and picked up my things at the County Fair.  Home again, I filled out all the entries (online) for my State Fair items.  It took me a year and a day, trying to find all the entry/rule books with all the info I needed.  I think I’ve got it now... and the date the things need to be at the Exhibit Hall (Aug. 15) has been duly plugged into my Outlook calendar, so I’ll get a notification for it a day ahead of time.

Back to the quilting room!

,,,>^..^<,,,          Sarah