For the record, I only need two
scoops, rather than three, of the cocoa/sugar/creamer mixture Victoria
concocted for me to put in my coffee, even if it is in a 16-ounce mug.
A few years ago, Victoria and
I traveled around to quite a few small towns in our vicinity one day, picking
up the free row-by-row quilt patterns that they offer for a few weeks each year.
Mainly, we did it for the fun of it... a
day trip to see what quilt shops there are here in middle Nebraska. I found several that I particularly like, and
have given a couple of them my business in the years since. Most were in small towns, some in very old
buildings.
It was at that quilt shop
that I first heard of and saw corn
husk batting, of all things. But they needed to put a new display piece
out, because the one I saw had been handled so much, one hard breath would’ve
turned it into floating confetti, I think.
I should return to that little shop one of these days.
Dorcas
told me that when they got home to Tennessee, her baby goat Miracle was sick. By then it was too late to save her, and she died
a day later.
Goats’
immune systems are weaker than some animals, and if they get sick, there are
often only a few hours to treat them, or they might not make it.
They’ve
lost some 20 chickens to raccoons, too.
Farm life can be hard!
Tuesday was another hot day here, with a temperature of 88° by 2:00
p.m. and a heat index of 93°. It would be like that for several more days.
That would be good for the crops that got planted so late on account of those
awful floods in March; but expected rains might take away some of the
benefit. Extended weather forecasts predict freezing at the end of
September or early October, which is normal for these parts. Farmers are still hoping for a long summer
and a late freeze so the late crops can mature.
Heavy rains to our northwest a few days ago,
up through the Dakotas and Montana, pushed flooding downriver on the Missouri, once
again causing major flooding in those same areas that saw historic flooding in
the spring. In fact, there have been only a few weeks this summer when
there wasn’t flooding; it’s been ongoing since March. Interstate
29, running north and south on the east side of the river, has been closed as
often as it’s been open. Levees that were nearly fixed have doubtless been
destroyed again.
By
4:26 p.m., the temperature had climbed to 91°, the heat index was 94°, and the
wind was blowing at 24 mph with gusts up to 35 mph. At the Grand Canyon, it was only 75°, but the
wind was gusting at 40 mph. Aspen,
Colorado, 67°... Banff, 55°... Ouray,
61°... Skagway, 53°... Cody, Wyoming, 59°... Leadville, 55°... West
Yellowstone, 56°... Jasper, 60°... Ketchikan, 62°... Grand Marais, 66°...
Yeah, I wish I was in the
mountains. Or the Upper Peninsula.
Here’s a view from our
drive through the Sandhills last Monday night.
For a sparsely populated place, that’s sure a lot of electricity running
through the countryside, isn’t it?
That evening, Hester sent
a video. Our little Keira, who came into this
world weighing a scant 2 lbs., 8 oz., is walking!!!
She’s 17 months now. She would be 14 months, had she been born at
the right time. She’s talking well above average, putting together
short little sentences. As she took these
steps, her Mama encouraged, “That’s right!” and Keira happily parroted, “That’s
right!” as she squatted down to crawl the last couple of feet. We are thankful every day for this bright and
loving little sweetie.
Silly little thing, she’s such a tease.
Last Sunday morning when we were walking on the sidewalk toward the church, we
were right behind Hester and Andrew. Hester was holding Keira, and she
said, “Say ‘hi’ to Grandpa and Grandma!”
Keira peered cheerfully at us over Hester’s
shoulder, wrinkled her nose, glanced at her Mama, then back at us – and then
she waved a hand and said, “Bye! Bye!” and laughed.
Her Mama used to tease us in exactly the same
way.
Wednesday, I sewed another
pile of kaleidoscopes together, finishing just before time for church.
After the service, Hannah told me why we’ve
been having such beautiful sunsets for the last few months: It has to do with the Russian volcano
Raikoke, which erupted in June.
I looked up information about it, and learned
all sorts of interesting information:
Early Thursday morning found us on the way to the dentist in Lincoln to
have Larry’s dentures realigned. It was dark and cloudy, and we drove through
a light rain for a few miles.
The first appointment only took a little
while at the dentist’s office. We walked
back out to a blue sky.
While the teeth were being worked on, we had
the Jeep tires rotated at Wal-Mart for only ten bucks. (Now, there’s
something you can’t do while your
teeth are still attached to your head.) While
that was being done, we meandered through the Menards next door, and
Larry got himself a new lidded coffee mug, having lost his last week after
setting it down somewhere on the back of the boom truck and then forgetting it
and driving around the shop. Now, that
mug has to be somewhere, right?
But he looked all over the bed of the truck and all over the back drive,
and saw no sign of it, either whole or squished flat.
He’ll find it now for sure, having bought a
new one. One of Murphy’s Laws, you know.
We walked back to the Wal-Mart Tire Center,
saw that they hadn’t gotten to the Jeep yet (all but one worker had gone to
lunch), so we trotted into Wal-Mart, wandered through the toy department (no,
we’re not into our second childhood just yet; we were looking on behalf of the grandchildren),
and bought some bananas and a box of those yucky, cloyingly-sweet Pumpkin Spice
Rolls by Little Debbie (which are nothing more than seasonal Twinkies, if you
ask me). The reason for the Pumpkin
Spice Rolls was that they are soft – and Larry’s teeth were at the dentist’s
office.
After a few more minutes of waiting, the Jeep
was ready. As Larry was supposed to return
to Affordable Dentures at 2:00 p.m., and it was only 11:45 a.m., we decided to explore
the Sunken Gardens. It’s beautiful, at all times of the year. During
the blooming seasons, it’s a riot of color that constantly changes through the
months.
After an enjoyable time in the Gardens, we
headed back to the dentist office. We got
there early enough for Larry to take a fifteen-minute nap in the Jeep.
Since I’d had only a small bowl of cereal for
breakfast, and that at 6:00 a.m., I decided to have another
breakfast: a couple of biscuits with
either gravy or grape and mountain berry jelly, grits, bacon, fried apples,
eggs easy over, and hot tea. I left the
gravy behind. There weren’t enough
biscuits for two packets of jelly plus one bowl of gravy, nor could I have
eaten that much in any case. Anyway, I
like jelly better than gravy.
Larry had a steak, mashed potatoes and gravy,
a biscuit, cornbread, green beans, and fried apples.
We ordered caramel bread pudding with a scoop
of ice cream for dessert, and shared it.
Sorta. I had one bite; Larry had
the rest.
Larry likes the way I share.
When the meal was over (and a scrumptious meal it
was), we poked through the Cracker Barrel gift store and got a cute little
dress with a white furry vest for Violet for her birthday, and a gray fleece double-breasted
coat for Carolyn for Christmas (since we’d already given Kurt and Victoria some
$$$ to help purchase a very nice Schwinn tricycle for Carolyn’s birthday).
I would’ve liked to have whiled away a couple more
hours in Lincoln, maybe at a park, maybe at a sporting-goods store; but Larry
was quite sure he had a whole lot of things to do at home that must be done
that very night, so home we came, arriving a little after 7:00.
While Larry worked outside, I sewed another
group of hexagon kaleidoscopes together.
Then, thinking that might be enough, I gathered up all the finished
hexies, headed downstairs to the design wall, and started arranging them around
the center panel.
I was working away when I
happened to glance at the front door – and discovered there were three praying
mantises on the window. I find these
insects utterly fascinating (gross, but fascinating).
By the next morning, it would occur to me
that I should count the rows above the panel and compare the number to
the rows below the panel.
There were two rows more at the bottom than
there were at the top. Aarrgghh.
I measured the entire thing horizontally...
then vertically... and decided to make more hexagons.
Friday is the day our
Schwan man comes (every other Friday, to be precise – and this was the
Friday). He was agonna have to squeeeeeze his
way in the door, because the design wall with the quilt pieces on it keeps the
door from opening all the way.
Fortunately, he’s not too awfully big, and the bag with the frozen foods
in it wasn’t too awfully big, either; so he had no trouble getting in.
I wonder how many homes he
enters, in which the front door will not open fully on account of an 8x12-foot
design wall covered with kaleidoscopes in the room? 🤣
After rearranging kaleidoscopes so I could insert twenty
more here and there without making it look patchy, I trotted back upstairs to
cut more strips and triangles – and was happy to discover a stack of six fairly
large pieces of fabric, pinned together and ready to cut.
I cut strips and triangles and began sewing... and
then Larry belatedly got home from work.
He washed up, and we hurried off to Kurt and Victoria’s house for a
birthday party for Carolyn and Violet.
Carolyn was two on September 2nd; Violet will be one on
October 4th. A whole lot of
family was there, both Kurt’s and Victoria’s.
Such a blessing, when the in-laws are some of our best friends!
When we got home from the party, I went back
to my quilting studio and sewed together 42 hexagons. I only needed 20, but these were from the
fabric I liked best, and there were a few hexagons on the design wall that I
wasn’t particularly fond of. I would
replace them with the prettier ones.
Saturday I added the hexagons I’d made to the
Atlantic Beach Path quilt. There are now
a total of 439 hexies in the quilt.
I took a picture... looked at it on my
computer screen... moved a couple of blocks that didn’t blend well... took
another picture... looked at it on my computer screen... moved four more blocks...
took another picture... looked at it on my computer screen ------- and started
sewing vertical rows together.
By bedtime, eleven vertical rows were sewn together.
All that adding of hexagons and sewing
of rows took nine hours, making a total of 62 hours in the quilt so far.
Tiger kitty has gotten bitten by some animal,
probably a cat. Cat bites are very infectious. The side of his poor face was all swollen
yesterday afternoon. Why do these things always show up on Sundays, when
the veterinary office is closed??
Last night after we got home from church, the
wound broke open. Aiiiyiiiieee, that wasn’t pleasant. We got
him cleaned up and put a healthy dose of triple-antibiotic on it, and soon he was
acting like it felt much better.
But I had to mop the floors, and clean and
vacuum the rugs. Ugh.
Poor kitty. The same thing happened to
him once before in the very same spot on his cheek when he first started coming
around our house.
Today I called our veterinarian. The lady at the desk told me the doctors were
out right then, but she would have one of them call me when they returned. She said they would doubtless prescribe some
antibiotic meds. I reordered Teensy’s Felimazole (for hyperthyroidism);
might as well pick it up, too, while I was there.
Having not received a phone call after a
reasonable period of time, I was just about to call the Pet Care clinic again
when Larry texted to inform me that he had already picked up the medicine on his
way to the bank. The vet had called him
by mistake, instead of me.
Well, that was fine. It’s always nice to have an errand boy, isn’t
it? 😃
Schwan’s Chicken Florentine is in a pan on
the stove. Supper will be ready in about
ten minutes.
Answer: A
millipede with a wooden leg.
Although the name ‘millipede’ derives from
the Latin for ‘thousand feet’, no known species has 1,000 feet. The record of 750 legs belongs to Illacme
plenipes, a millipede that lives in the central region of California.
Aacckk, I just noticed a large brown miller
on the ceiling. Excuse me a moment...
...
...
...
Okay, I’m back. Did you miss me?
Our ceilings are too high for me to reach
with the flyswatter, so I shot the miller down with a fat rubber band.
If insects perch down around eye level, I
might grab my macro lens and snap off a few pictures before I dispatch of
them. Any higher than that (or if they
dive at my head), they will not be the subject of an insect portrait, but only
something on which to conduct target practice.
My brother Loren didn’t used to call me
‘Dead-Eye Pete’ fer nuttin’, huh-uh nosiree boy!
And now, I shall leave you with a couple more
photos of flowers, to get you over the shuddering willies from all the
bugginess of these last two pages.
Here’s a pink
waterlily. There were a whole lot of koi
in the ponds at the Sunken Gardens.
This monarch butterfly is on lantana. You don’t mind butterflies, do you? 😅
We haven’t seen many monarchs here this year
at all, even though I let a lot of milkweed grow. Milkweed is their only host plant. They lay their eggs on it, the caterpillars
eat it, and then they spin their cocoons on it.
I was happy to see a large number of monarchs at the Gardens.
Here’s one of the brick garden paths, leading
to the Pavilion. In the cut metal dome of
that Pavilion, amongst the silhouettes of tree branches, there are birds, water
towers, windmills, squirrels, butterflies, etc.
Off I go to sew a few more rows of hexagon
halves together before I fall into the feathers!
,,,>^..^<,,, Sarah Lynn ,,,>^..^<,,,
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