Journal: Suddenly, Twins!

Remember the song, There’s A Place in My Homeland, that I included with last week’s letter?  I could not remember the name of the title of the original Irish Melody, but then a friend recalled that the first few words were ‘The Green Glens of...’  I looked for it on youtube, and found it.  Multiple times, I found it.  The title is The Green Glens of Antrim. 

Paddy Reilly sings it beautifully, but someone wrote in the comment section, “Another painfully slow and dreary version of the song.” 

Paddy Reilly, The Green Glens of Antrim

Here are several other versions:

Bridie Gallagher, The Green Glens of Antrim

Eileen King, The Green Glens of Antrim

Bonnie Stewart, The Green Glens of Antrim

Now, that voice sounds familiar.  I believe I’ve heard her sing other Irish songs.

Callum Kennedy, he of the sometimes rolled r’s, The Green Glens of Antrim

And then there’s Big Tom, The Green Glens of Antrim

Last, but not least, is Eimear Hughes playing it on the harp (she misses the accidentals and minors in the chorus; but it’s still pretty):  Eimear Hughes harp, The Green Glens of Antrim

Some of these clips have beautiful videos along with the song, showing the lovely countryside and the sea in that area of Ireland.  I really am quite fond of the old Irish melodies.

Look what I found on the USPS Tracking site Tuesday morning!

January 14, 2020, 10:22 am
Delivered, Front Desk/Reception/Mail Room
PADUCAH, KY 42003
Your item was delivered to the front desk, reception area, or mail room at 10:22 am on January 14, 2020 in PADUCAH, KY 42003.

The quilt had finally made it safely to Paducah.  Whew!

A few days ago, in discussing People Per Square Mile and Other Matters of Import, I informed a friend that Nebraska’s population in 2018 was 1.929 million. 

She then asked, “And many ears of corn does Nebraska produce each year?” 

She was kidding, really, but that’s the sort of question that I can’t let lie; just gotta learn the answer.  So here it is, in the sequence taken to get to the result, using various particles of data I found here and there:

Nebraska produces about 2,500,000,000 (2.5 billion) bushels of corn a year.

There are 56 pounds in a bushel of corn.

That’s 140,000,000,000 (140 billion) pounds of corn a year.

There are about 1,300 kernels in a pound of corn.

That’s 182,000,000,000,000 (182 trillion) kernels of corn produced in a year.

There is an average of 800 kernels of corn on an ear of corn.

Therefore (((((drum roll))))), Nebraska produces about 227,500,000,000 (227.5 billion) ears of corn per year.

Next question?

We had an especially yummy supper of venison, frozen ‘homemade’ noodles (well, I did unfreeze them before eating them), homestyle gravy, California blend vegetables, and purple grapes.  I also made banana bread, putting in the walnuts and Brazil nuts we got in our Christmas bags from the church. 

Of course, every time I make a supper that’s a little more elaborate than usual, especially if it involves food that’s particularly good fresh out of the oven, or things that aren’t as good rewarmed, Larry will be sure to be late.  That night was no exception.  Murphy is alive and well, at our house!

Notice all the butter on that slice of banana bread?  I like butter!  My mother said that once when I was two years old, I climbed up into my chair (a tall, backed red vinyl stool with a couple of swing-out steps and no tray), scanned the table, and announced, “Somebody better move the butter, or I’ll get in it!!!”

When Larry got home, it was approaching 9:00 p.m.  He’d been hunting – and he’d lost his phone.  After supper, we headed out to the place where he’d been, as he thought he knew where he may have lost it.

I went along merely for the ride. 

So there I was at a quarter ’til eleven, way out in the boonies somewhere sitting in the Jeep waiting for Larry, who was stumping along through nearby pastures and woods, flashlight in hand, looking for a phone that had long since gone dead.  It was pitch black out there, and even a very bright flashlight doesn’t shine all that far, really.  We had not seen a single vehicle, ever since we left Monroe.  It was 24°.

I was soon wishing I’d put on boots and another sweater under my coat, so I could’ve helped look for the phone.  When Larry returned, having retraced his steps as best he could, he had not found the phone.  We headed for home, phoneless.  (Well, I still had mine.)

Though I didn’t have much time to quilt that day, I did get a few hexagons quilted.

Wednesday, I quilted about half a row of hexies, some before church and some after, with the usual speed bump is at my feet.

Thursday, a cousin of mine who lives in North Dakota posted the following on Facebook: 

WENT OUTSIDE TODAY

IT WAS COLD

THERE WERE PEOPLE

☆☆☆☆☆

ZERO STARS

DO NOT RECOMMEND

That made me laugh.  It’s those people who are so objectionable and disagreeable, even more so than the cold!  😄😅  

Reminds me of the time Hester, 5, was in the grocery store with me, and we witnessed a self-important clerk being nasty to a poor little bagger.  We, therefore, snubbed the clerk with all our might and main, and went all double-duty-nice to the bagger.  Upon exiting the store, Hester sighed hugely and said, “People are just soooo ... ... ... peoplish!”

Early that morning Larry made sure both cats were in the house, then shut the outside walk-in garage door, in order to keep it a little warmer in the house.  Depending on which way the wind is blowing, it will sometimes come whisking in the back walk-in garage door that we keep open a few inches for the cats, and cause the rubber pet door to lose its seal and swing inward a few inches, sending a stream of Arctic air right into the house.

Except... there was a problem.  Larry didn’t make sure all stray cats were out of the garage.

Sooo… one came into the house through the pet door.

Tiger alerted me to the fact by howling like a banshee.  I leapt out of bed and dashed to the kitchen to chase out the intruder – but the poor little thing, a gray stripe, didn’t seem to know how to go back out the pet door.  I held it open for him, and he made his escape.

Larry reopened the back walk-in door so the stray could make his way back outside.  🙄

Upon hearing this story, Hester said, “I miss the excitement of a pet door.  Sometimes.  A little bit.”

“Yeah.  Rrrrright,” I answered.  “Especially when baby raccoons come through it.  Or the cats bring in baby bunnies.  Shrieking baby bunnies.  Or birds that they then let fly, whilst said cats dash after them, trampling on piano keys as they go.  The baby raccoon was not frightened and cuddly.  He was ferocious!!!!”

That time, I had to make like a bull fighter and fake him out while I blocked him from coming into the kitchen, then dashed around to the back of the house and opened the patio door for him.  He waddled out – and tumbled head over heels all the way down the deck steps.  😣

By midafternoon it had made it up to 15°, but the wind chill put it at 6°.

Guess what I got Friday morning:

“CONGRATULATIONS! The jury has accepted your quilt for further consideration in the 2020 AQS QuiltWeek® Contest in Lancaster Downtown, Pennsylvania March 25 – 28, 2020.”

I’ll find out February 21^st if it will be accepted at Paducah.  It’s in Paducah right now, awaiting transfer to the Daytona Beach show, which takes place February 26-29.

I may also enter it in Lancaster – The Nook (whatever that means), Grand Rapids, and Charleston.  And one more, for good measure:  Road to California. 

Maybe I should try it at the biggest quilt show in the world – Houston International!

“You may not have to worry about a cream and white quilt in a house with mud-spatted, chocolate-bedecked kids after all!” I told Lydia.  “You won’t be seeing it again before they’re all done growed up!”

She laughed.  “I’ll probably hang it on the wall in my room for a while until they’re a lot older and not coloring on things.  Hopefully before I’m so old I start coloring on things again.”  🤣

This is the Thomas Kinkade suncatcher my mother gave me two or three years before she passed away in 2003:

When I rolled the Atlantic Beach Path quilt forward that day, the top of the central panel showed up!  All that sky... it’ll be a place for all sorts of free-motion fun.  😊

Several have asked how I have come up with the quilting design variations for these hexagons.  The answer is, I look at a lot of pictures of beautiful quilting... and then I just go with whatever pops into my head at the moment.  I’ll probably repeat some of the designs, especially those that are more difficult to see, in those busily-printed hexies.  I doubt if there are 439 different designs in ze ol’ grey mattuh. 

That afternoon, I washed a big box of favorite winter sweaters that turned up in the bathroom cubbyhole last June after being ‘lost’ for many years.  Soon the final load was in the dryer.  Those that couldn’t be put in the dryer were hanging here and there in the bedroom, making the whole room smell good.  I’m so glad I found those sweaters.

I finished another row of hexies on the Atlantic Beach Path quilt before bedtime that night, and got back at it again Saturday. 

I have 285.5 hours in the quilt so far, with 83.5 of those in the quilting alone.  I ordered more light blue So Fine #50 thread from Red Rock Threads in Pahrump, Nevada; it should get here before I run out.  I order from Red Rock Threads for the express reason that I can then say ‘Pahrump’.  🤣

285.5 hours comes out to almost 12 days.  Wow, just think how fast I could have this quilt done if I did nothing, nothing at all, but quilt!

Speaking of funny words, how about this:

If GH can stand for P as in Hiccough,

If OUGH stands for O as in Dough,

If PHTH stands for T as in Phthisis,

If EIGH stands for A as in Neighbor,

If TTE stands for T as in Gazette,

If EAU stands for O as in Plateau,

Then the right way to spell POTATO should be:  GHOUGHPHTHEIGHTTEEAU.

‘Hiccough’ is usually spelt ‘hiccup’, these days.  So, if ‘ough’ and ‘up’ make the same sounds, just think what travesty one could perpetrate on the English language on that basis alone!

Larry went out hunting again Saturday afternoon (hunting season was extended in a few areas), but the one deer he saw as he entered the property high-tailed it while Larry was donning his cold-weather gear.  One day last week, he heard the other man who is hunting the property shoot – just once – which is generally a sign the person got something.

It always makes me nervous when others are hunting the same area where Larry (and sometimes Bobby) are.  They do wear high-vis coats.

I once found an XS hunter’s vest (in a dark brown color) at a secondhand store for about $2.  It had about 3.5 gazillion pockets (give or take half a trillion), and was perfect for hiking about in the boonies with camera, lenses, filters, film (that was before the day of digital), and other necessities.  I wonder whatever became of that vest?

When I quit quilting for the night late Saturday evening, I made myself a cup of Bentley’s Pomegranate tea (one of the flavors of tea my sister and brother-in-law, Lura Kay and John, gave me for Christmas), put a Tiger Balm pain patch on my left shoulder, which didn’t help much, then sat down in my recliner with my laptop and put a heating pad behind my back, which felt very nice indeed.  The infrared heater on the other side of the room struggled to bring the temperature up to 69°.  It was 3°, with a wind chill of -10°, and this old farmhouse is drafty.

I found a big discussion (nice word for ‘Big, Bad Argument’) going on in one of the Facebook quilting groups, started by someone informing the group at large that she had been told by a reputable quilting teacher that ‘overquilted’ quilts have had the ‘love quilted right out of them’.  Other segments of the debate concern whether or not ‘overquilted’ quilts have ‘lost their warmth’.  These ‘ladies’ (I use the term loosely) get pretty wild and wooly in their various arguments pro and con.

I stay out of such things, although I must admit to reading them with some amount of relish (A1 sauce is good, too) and frequent eye-rolls.

However, when a nice lady asked me politely (on my own post) about ‘stiffness of the quilt’, I did answer her.  In case you’re interested, here’s what I wrote:

The quilt will be soft, and drape beautifully, on account of the nice quality of 80/20 batting that is the base, and the Quilters’ Dream wool that is the top layer of batting.  That wool is my favorite batting.   It has such a soft hand, such a lovely drape. I’ve quilted the stuffin’s out of quilts before, using that batting, along with So Fine thread, and the quilts are soft and cuddly, even before they are washed.  And after a wash?  Soft, soft.  There’s a debate going on right this minute on another quilting group, with almost everyone saying, “Too much quilting = stiff, stiff, stiff!”

But it all depends on 1) fabric quality, 2) batting, 3) thread, 4) washing, and 5) fabric softener.  However, I will not wash this quilt before entering it in some shows.  I like quilts that are all new and crisp! 😃

Sunday, Bobby and Hannah invited us for dinner after the morning service – scrumptious venison stew and fruit salad.  It was icy and slick on the residential roads.  Larry stepped on the accelerator, and the Jeep actually spun a little bit.  He stepped on the brake, and the ABS rumbled a wee bit.  The Jeep rarely spins or slides.

I exclaimed, “Do you want to smack into a pole two blocks from Bobby and Hannah’s house?!”

And then we learned immediately upon arriving there that Aaron had just slid into a pole, and deeply creased the side of his pretty little blue Ford Escape, breaking out the side windows.  Joanna and Nathanael had been with him, and Nathanael hurt his neck and got glass in his hair.  Hannah got out the Spring Chicken topical rub I had given her a couple years ago; I think it did help Nathanael’s neck feel better.  Maybe our sympathy made him feel better, too.  Aaron and Joanna said they were okay.  But it must’ve been a bad jolt.  Poor kids; I felt so sorry for them.  It’s upsetting when such things happen, and sad to mess up one’s nice vehicle.

When Bobby prayed before our meal, and thanked God for keeping his protecting hand on the children, I came precariously close to shedding tears onto my dinner plate.

That night after church, Keith wrote to tell me that he and Korrine had had an ancestry DNA test done.  His test results are as follows:

England, Wales & Northwestern Europe                                     75%

Ireland & Scotland                                                                       16%

Norway                                                                                           5%

Sweden                                                                                           3%

Germanic Europe                                                                           2%                                                                                                        

“Norway!!!” I promptly responded.  “Wow, are you a descendant of Eric the Red??!!!”

Our children get the English from Swiney, Winings, Jackson, and Jenkinson, all four.  I learned just a week ago that there is Irish and Scottish on the Winings (my mother’s) side of the family.  I hadn’t known that before!

They also have a strong strain of Sioux.  Larry’s great-great-grandmother on the Jackson side was a full-blooded Sioux, and her husband, his great-great-grandfather, was French Canadian.

(Good thing the DNA people write ‘Ethnicity Estimate’ on those things! ha)

The Swineys (my father’s side of the family) are mostly Irish (and a whole lot Scot, too), and mighty proud of it.  But I was recently surprised when I was going through some Winings ancestors on FindAGrave.com, and the trail led straight back to Scotland – and then Lura Kay told me that if I had’ve followed a slightly different trail through a different great-great-great-grandparent, it would have gone to Ireland. 

Somewhere, amongst all my old photo albums, I have a copy of the Swiney genealogy Uncle Bill, my father’s youngest brother, put together.  I need to pull it out one of these days and make copies for my children.

Uncle Bill said that in some of those little villages in Ireland, one could walk down the lane and shout, “SWINEY!!!” – and a head would pop out of the door of every single cottage in the village.  Hee hee  Of course he was kidding... mostly. 

He learned that almost every person with a name of Swiney or any variant thereof was related, if one goes back a couple of generations.  Here are a few of the names:

Swiney, Sweeny, Sweeney, Swinny, Swinney, McSwiney, MacSwiney, (and just add Mc and Mac to every variation of Swiney)

Our son-in-law Andrew and daughter Hester vacationed there a couple of years ago.  Many people asked Hester if she was Irish – but nary a one inquired of Andrew!  😃

Back in 1982, when Dorcas was only 6 weeks old, Hannah was 1, and Keith was 2, we were at an amusement park in Denver, Colorado.  Neither Larry nor I had ever been on a roller coaster, and we decided to give it a try.  We went one at a time, while the other stayed with the children.  I climbed into the car next to a cute little black boy.

The cars started, heading first into a long, dark tunnel.  The little boy looked up at me with big brown eyes, and said, “Did you know there are lots of big spiders in here?”

“Yes!” I answered, “because one just landed on your left shoulder!”

He yelped.  “What?!  Where???!!!!” twisting his neck to look at his shoulder.

I laughed. 

“Hey!!!” he protested, then flashed me a huge white grin, realizing I’d pulled his leg just as he’d tried to do to me.

So over twist and turn and hill and dip and curve we went, having become good friends in those first 15 seconds.  😊

We were invited to Teddy and Amy’s this evening for supper and to exchange gifts and give Warren his long-overdue birthday gift, finally, now that everyone has recovered from the flu and colds and suchlike.  The get-together became somewhat topsy-turvy on account of twin lambs being born smack-dab in the middle of it.

They hadn’t expected the lambs to be born tonight, and the only reason it was discovered was that Emma brought a one-week-old lamb into the house to show us, and when she took it back out, she found the other ewe on the verge of giving birth.  She dashed back in the house, told Amy, and then both ran out to help, as it was very cold out.

One little lamb was born... they wrapped it in a big towel and started for the house – and then Emma cried, “Mama!  There’s going to be another one!”

And sure enough, there was.

Soon, both little lambs were in the house, being rubbed dry and warmed in front of a heater.  It wasn’t long before they were both on their feet.  They began crying for their mother, and trying to suck on the towels or each other’s ears.  As soon as they were warm, back they went to their mother, who was anxiously awaiting her babies.

Meanwhile, it was getting late, and it was a school night, so, despite the fact that Larry and Teddy were outside with the sheep, I doled out the gifts, and the children dug in.  😄

Teddy is staying out there with the lambs all night, as he did with the little lamb born a week or so ago.  That mother had twins, too – but no one knew there was a second lamb until morning, and the other baby didn’t make it. 

We headed for home, hoping neither Teddy nor the lambs freeze.

He has his insulated coveralls on, snowpack boots, a heated coat under the coveralls, and there’s a heat lamp; but... still!  It’s a cold, cold night for baby animals to be born, and for humans to spend the night outside!!  It’s -6°, with a windchill of -14°.

Teddy keeps one little lamb at a time inside his coveralls, while the other one is with its mother nursing.  One had just started eating when we left, and the other was trying. 

At 11:03 p.m., I wrote to Teddy, “You doing all right?  You won’t get too cold out there, will you?  How are the lambs? and the mother?”

He assured me, “I have a heated coat and am dressed for the cold.”

He sent a video of the lambs and their mother, all up and doing well.

They seem strong and healthy; now if they can just stay warm enough.

Home again, I dressed in a flannel nightgown from my sister and Sherpa-lined slipper socks from Jeremy and Lydia.  They’re soooo soft and warm!

Bedtime!  I must get up at 4:15 a.m., in order to be ready to leave for Lincoln with Larry by 6:30 a.m.  He’s having his temporary dentures remade into ‘back-up dentures’, and they will also be making his permanent dentures.  

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