Sarah Lynn's Nature's Splendor: Journal: Air Lifts, Broken Hitches, and Seaweed

Last Tuesday afternoon, I heard a lawnmower start up. What in the world? I peered out the window. It was the neighbor man, mowing his lawn. We haven’t had grass-growing (or mowing) weather for a month. He hardly had any leaves on his lawn, so I doubt if he was doing it merely to gather up leaves. Or maybe he was. I declare. Some people don’t have nearly enough to do.

Ah, well. It is nice to look out the windows and see a pretty yard across the lane. I reciprocate by giving them lots of pretty flowers to look at, at least in the spring and summertime. 😊

My brother Loren came to get some wood that day. He didn’t have to cut much, because Larry had cut quite a bit the night before.

A quilting friend had her eyes dilated, and they were still being a bit troublesome several hours later. I heartily sympathized. There must be something in the solution that I’m slightly allergic to, as I feel a bit ill the rest of the day after having it done, and my eyes don’t recover for two or three days. One time when the children were young, I had it done for the first time right before Christmas. I realized my eyes were not getting back to normal when, hours later, they still couldn’t focus on anything at all, and there was a tall stack of Christmas cards that needed to be signed, stuffed in envelopes, and then names written on the outside of the envelopes. None of the children were old enough to do it, as their writing wasn’t nice enough yet; but the older three helped me by reading the names on my list, then helping me position my pen on cards and envelopes where I needed to write, and I wrote without really seeing at all. And so working together, we got it done.

Fortunately, as I was the pianist, I could see again by the time we had our Christmas program a few days later. I learned not to have my eyes dilated immediately before anything important!

In the last few days, the Goodwill and the Salvation Army have had their inventory increased by several Jeep-loads of A-One, First-Class, Top-Notch Stuff and Things. As I cleaned and sorted and emptied bins of stuff I didn’t want to keep, I found some soft, fine linen in the bins of fabric and crafting things that used to be my late sister-in-law’s. It has a pretty border design of purple and yellow pansies printed on them. It was quite a long piece, so I cut it in half, hemmed the raw edges, and now have two large, soft tea towels.

After a month-long hiatus during which the birds must’ve found plenty of other seeds, they’re back thronging the feeders.

Here’s a video of a Eurasian Collared Dove... and more pictures of Birds at the Feeders.

When it’s chilly, the birds are all fluffed and poofy. Imagine being able to adjust the thickness and warmth of our coats by doing that.

Here’s a young English sparrow who has not yet learned that one mustn’t sit in one’s dinner bowl, if one is ever going to be invited to the palace.

It started raining Wednesday evening about the time we got out of church, and the temperature fell into the lower 30s during the night.

Thursday morning, we went to Lincoln; Larry had an appointment with his dentist. Two more months, and he’ll get his permanent dentures.

Before leaving home, Larry put the hitch head on the Jeep and hitched onto the flatbed trailer – because we were going to Chapman, Kansas, after leaving Lincoln in order to pick up an automotive air lift Larry bought through an online auction.

After leaving Affordable Dentures, we went to LensCrafters to have my glasses adjusted. Then we stopped in a few stores around that outdoor mall, looking for some comfortable but nice-looking shoes for me. I finally found some in Von Maur: gray suede loafers with a rouched ‘bow’ on the vamp. They’re very comfortable; but they sure were pricey! 😑 We first looked in a little room to the back of the shoe department where they have racks and racks of discounted shoes that are either discontinued or returned, but I didn’t find any that looked nice and fit, both at the same time. The only ones that were comfortable were some boots that looked suitable for a juvenile chain-gang member. So... the pricey shoes it was.

It was a cold and windy day. We got to Chapman shortly before 5:00 p.m., loaded the lift, and headed back north.

We ate supper at El Puerto Mexican Restaurant in Concordia, Kansas. Yummmm, the food was scrumptious. I had chicken mango with rice, broccoli, and cauliflower, and flan for dessert. Larry had a plate containing a variety of Mexican entrées.

Look at the email I got Friday morning!! –

“CONGRATULATIONS! The jury has accepted your quilt for further consideration in the 2020 AQS QuiltWeek ® Contest in Daytona Beach, Florida February 26 – 29, 2020.”

In January, I will learn if the quilt has been accepted in Lancaster; and in February, I’ll find out if it’s been accepted in Paducah.

The Daytona Beach, Lancaster, and Paducah shows are February 26-29, March 25-28, and April 22-25, respectively. If I am able to attend just one, I think I’d choose Paducah, partly because I’d like to see the museum... partly because I like the location, and would love to take a riverboat ride; plus, there are national forests nearby that I would like to explore... partly because late April would be a better time of the year for us to travel... and partly because Larry could probably be done renovating our camper by then. Staying in the camper would be quite a lot cheaper, and motel rooms are hard to find during quilt week anyway. The average weather there at that time of year is between 50°-70°F.

Oh!!! Guess what I just discovered! Google Street View can take you right inside the National Quilt Museum! Just take a look: Inside the National Quilt Museum

If I show this to Larry, he will ask, “Then why do you still want to go there?” heh

Nearby Shawnee National Forest is beautiful: Shawnee National Forest

We’ll wait until early February to decide if we go to one of these shows, and which one.

That night, I wrote to a friend, “I have a whole lot of stuff I still need to do tonight – and I’m so tired, my brain is moving in slow motion! Reckon a steaming cup of herb tea and a couple of large corn chips will perk me up?”

She wrote back, “Have you ever eaten seaweed snacks? I know, most people wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot-fishing-pole, but I am strange, and I love them. They’re a good source of minerals. Yum. It’s like eating salted paper that just almost disappears.”

I replied, “Not to my knowledge, and not on purpose. Where do you get such things? Now I want to try some.”

I looked it up, and found some at Wal-Mart. There are several different flavors. Here’s the description:

100% compostable tray. Pure & natural sea salt. USDA organic. Lightly roasted. Full of B-12 & iodine. Swim against the tide. Eat seaweed. What’s better than a regular old seaweed sheet? Our yummy organic seaweed snacks are made with sustainably harvested seaweed, packed with good-for-you vitamins, like B12, and rich in minerals, like iodine, that are super important to your health. Like them? Tell us: Facebook: fb.com/oceanshalo. Twitter: (at)oceanshalo. Please recycle this bag.

It’s $.74 for a .14 oz. bag. But there might not be any left, because someone wrote in the reviews that they loved it so much, they went back and cleared the shelf!

Review #2: I was absolutely not the audience for these seaweed things. I put one in my mouth and it got stuck to my tongue like a Listerine strip and I couldn’t get it out. It was gross.

As soon as I looked for seaweed snacks, the Wal-Mart page started showing me all kinds of things that I hadn’t ever seen before: Annie’s Organic Cocoa Bunnies (oat, corn, and rice cereal), Cascadian Farm organic chewy vanilla chip granola bars, Organic Chocolate Hazelnut Granola Cereal, Health Valley Organic Blueberry Cobbler Multigrain Cereal Bars... Mmmm, those last two sound good.

I then found a gazillion brands of seaweed snacks on Amazon. I chose the one that says “America’s #1 selling brand” (Annie Chun’s) and looked at the reviews:

From Dadstradamus:

Flavor: Sea Salt

Eat only if you hate your kidneys or have murdered your taste buds with twenty years of chain smoking. Holy cow. WHY do you need to salt this stuff to death? I mean, it’s seaweed for dog’s sake. It’s already naturally salty. Also much oilier that it needs to be. Two of these and you’ll save your family the cost of embalming fluid upon your untimely demise - brought about from renal failure as a result of your having consumed this product. I guess what I’m getting at here, the general theme if you will, is that the product is a skosh saltier that it need be.

From Holy Salt Lick Batman:

Flavor: Wasabi

I am a complete salt fiend. I LOVE salt. When I die my body will probably crystallize rather than rot, and if they plant me in the ground nothing will ever grow on my gravesite. But these are WAY too salty for even me. I really wanted to like them, but they got overwhelming quickly, and I’m the person who salts my popcorn in layers and then brings more packets into the theater to make sure there’s a gross excess.

From Anon:

Flavor: Sea salt

I’ve tried a lot of seaweed snacks and so far these are the best tasting I’ve tried. Sounds odd, but many seaweed snacks are much thicker and end up tasting ovelry seaweed-ish or too strong. These have a lighter crispy taste, perhaps because they are pressed so thin. The sea salt doesn’t taste overly salty, I also like the sesame flavor, but the wasabi flavor was too hott for my liking. Only downside is these little .16 oz packs are really small. I tend to eat 4-5 in a sitting so finding them in cases or on sale makes them a better deal. They do make larger sized packs, pricing is all over the place from Asian stores to the Internet, sadly my local store is constantly sold out. Best tasting seaweed snacks around.

From Good Stuff:

Flavor: Sea Salt and Vinegar

Salt & Vinegar flavored seaweed snack?? I know it’s good on potato chips but on dry seaweeds?? I had to try it. And pleasantly surprised! The first bite was like.. Wuh.. and the 2nd one was like.. hmm.. and the 3rd was Mmm... 4th.. not bad!... 5th.. kinda like it.. 6th.. can’t stop eating!.. 7th.. 8th.. and the next thing you know.. finished the bag!

I generally like seaweeds and eat them once in awhile with rice. They’re typically flavored with sesame oil and salt so used to that mostly. But I’m getting open to new flavors now thanks to this one. And actually enjoyable on its own. Good stuff for sure!

Daechun Seaweed Snack reviews:

From Anon: So...says on the back a warning about lead and cadmium?? Excuse me? Caution product could cause cancer and birth defects? Well that would have been good to know BEFORE my purchase!

From Rugburner

Why don’t they show anywhere on the page that the No 1 ingredient is rapeseed oil and sesame oil? Green tea powder? I cannot eat seed oils and the fact that they conveniently leave it out is very deceptive.

From Leo’s Mom

One of the Best! I just bought these yesterday and its soo good. My 4yr old is a picky eater n expert with his seaweed and he loves it he finished 4packs in one seating. These are on salty side with lot of olive sesame oil coating on with a hint of green tea flavor. Its very very good. Perfect to wrap it with the white sticky rice. Will buy again!!

Yikes, they’re really salty, but she let her 4-year-old have four packs???

Sunday afternoon after our church service, we stopped at Hy-Vee to get a bag of Starbucks Christmas coffee beans to add to the box of Color Catchers we were giving Larry’s brother Kenny for his birthday.

While we were there, we went into the Health Food Department and looked for Seaweed Snacks. We found one brand and one flavor only: Annie Chun’s Roasted Sesame Seaweed Snacks. We bought a package, and tried them out on the way home.

Upon arriving home, I wrote to the friend who had told about this ‘food’, “We got some sea urchins at Hy-Vee. Tastes sort of like if I was swimming along in the ocean, forgot to keep my mouth shut, and went blundering through a bed of kelp.

“But they’re growing on us! Figuratively, not literally. I hope.

“We got the Sesame variety, since that was the only kind available. Wal-Mart might have other flavors; we’ll look next time we’re there.”

My friend responded, “Next you’ll be having barnacles!” to which I replied, “Barnacles! haha Like I said, they’re growing on us.”

After eating a lunch of Larry’s supah-dupah pancakes and eggs, we went up to the neighbors’ place to care for their chickens and goats, as they were gone for a few days. There are five baby goats – two sets of twins, and a single. If there’s anything funnier and more fun to watch than baby goats, I sure don’t know what it is!

We will be going to church for a big Thanksgiving dinner in our Fellowship Hall Thursday. But first, at 11:00 a.m., we will meet in the sanctuary for a short Thanksgiving service with music and verses read by Robert Walker, my nephew and our pastor. If you’d like to watch it, here’s the link: http://www.bbccolumbus.com/index.htm It’s being streamed live. Bobby is the director for the horns, and writes most of the arrangements.

It’s a time we always look forward to. My father started these church dinners in the mid-50s, before I was born, because there were people in the church, which was quite small then, who either had no family, or their families were too far away for them to visit. Things were different then – many people were poor, and they certainly weren’t as extravagant as we are these days.

Everyone enjoyed the get-togethers so much, we have never stopped. We have Christmas dinners, Easter breakfasts and evening luncheons, and Fourth-of-July picnics together, too. And now, instead of the 26 members my father started with, we have somewhere around 425! (There have been a number of new babies lately [including several great-great-nieces, a great-nephew, and a few second cousins two or three times removed], and I keep forgetting to look at the membership plaque to see exactly how many people there are now.)

Today I did a bit of scrubbing in the bathroom... then started the laundry, including a couple of bins of my winter sweaters. They were clean, but I like them to smell nice and fresh. I spritzed the bins with Thieves Essential Oil, in preparation to putting some summer tops into them. Mmmm... that stuff smells sooo good. (But couldn’t they have thought up a better name for it??) 🙄

I watered the houseplants and filled the bird feeders. As soon as I post this journal, I’ll get back to my Christmas letter, which is close to being done. I need some ink for my printer, as I still mail out quite a number of printed letters. Many people on my Christmas list prefer a letter in hand to an email, it seems.

I’ve ordered three dark purple wool skirts from eBay in various shades and shapes, hoping that at least one will match a dark purple and teal plaid double-breasted jacket I got for Christmas (to me, from me, heh, with Larry’s money, heh heh). I got matching leather dark purple shoes with a pretty buckle across the vamp. Now I need a purple clutch! Don’t I??

The extra skirts will go with a couple of sweaters and knitted vests.

I also bought several cute little leather or bead clutches in red, maroon, purple, and beige. Here’s the red one. I’ll bid on a navy one tomorrow. If I decide not to keep some, I’ll give them to the granddaughters for their birthdays. Most of the clutches I carry to church are decades old, and showing wear. I decided it was time for new ones – and these were all under $5 except for one, which was $7.45.

I made an offer of $2.25 for one purse that was listed at $3.25. The seller made a counteroffer ----- for $5.00. Huh? Does she not understand that her counteroffer should be somewhere in between her original price and my offer?

I spent a while over the last three days looking up literary works, both audio and text, for one of my blind friends. She’s pleased, and I am, too, because now I have a few more audio books to listen to while I sew, books I wouldn’t have thought of looking for otherwise.

The last load of dryable sweaters is in the dryer, and other sweaters and vests are hanging around all over the house. I always forget how many pretty sweaters I have!

We’ve been issued a winter storm warning – we could get up to 10” of snow tomorrow, and the winds will be over 40 mph.

We are having clam and corn chowder for supper tonight, and instead of crackers we’ll have Dot’s Homestyle Pretzels, which have some sort of spice in them that makes them almost hot – sort of a Cajun flavor. Maybe it’s cayenne?

>>reading the back of the bag<<

Ah-ha!!! In the ingredients list, it says ‘spices’.

See, I was right!

We also have cinnamon applesauce, soft-boiled eggs (because the neighbors’ chickens were biiizzzzzEEEE! last week, let me tell you. We have EGGS! – and I love soft-boiled eggs, any ol’ time of the day)... and in the oven is --- oh! Just a minute, the timer is beeping.

+++++++++++

Okay, I’m back. Did you miss me?

Anyway, now atop the oven is pumpkin spice quick bread, made from the mix Andrew, Hester, and Keira gave me for my birthday. We’ll have Schwan’s Peppermint Stick ice cream with it.

I sent a note to Larry: “Are you going to get the Miracle Whip (lite) and relish (so I can make deviled eggs)? And if you do, could you get some butter, too? And orange juice? And syrup and yogurt?”

“Okay,” he texted back.

Then, a few minutes later, after smelling (and drooling over) that fresh-out-of-the-oven pumpkin spice quick bread, “Could you get a container of cream cheese frosting, too?”

“To put on the deviled eggs?” queried Larry.

“Yes, mmmmm, yummy,” I answered. “With ketchup and Ragu and apricot jam.”

He didn’t even bother answering that nonsense.

Let’s hope he hurries up with the cream cheese frosting! I want some pumpkin spice bread... NOW.

When Larry got home, he told me about the excitement he had today. He had just driven over a rough bridge north of Fremont, going about 55 mph, when he heard a loud BANG, looked in his mirrors, and saw that the pup was swaying alarmingly from side to side. The cradles of forms are tall; it would be disastrous to get a loaded truck or trailer overbalanced.

Had a tire blown out? But the pup has tandems! It didn’t seem likely that a blowout would cause the trailer to sway like that.

When he started slowing, watching in his mirrors, he saw the tongue of the trailer go down, and then he knew: the hitch connecting his pup (trailer fully loaded, carrying 30,000-40,000 pounds of aluminum forms) had broken! 😲 He had thought from the time they got that truck that the hitch was too lightweight.

He quickly let up on the truck brake and instead used the trailer brakes to slow everything, truck and all, in an effort to keep the pup straight. By so doing, he was able to slow gradually and get stopped on the shoulder. He walked back and looked at it.

Sure enough, the hitch had broken. Thank goodness for safety chains. Furthermore, it looks very much like a defective hitch, as there is a hole – an air bubble, of sorts – in the middle, where holes shouldn’t be.

Wanting to get the rig off the busy four-lane highway, and seeing that he was stopped just in front of an on-ramp, he backed up sloooowly, carrrrefully, until the broken hitch met up with the tongue of the trailer. He then managed to back the pup up the ramp and park it on the shoulder.