Journal: Birds, Squirrels, & Nasty Ol' Scammers

The American goldfinches are starting to get their summer plumage.  Their body feathers are getting more yellow, and their little caps are beginning to turn black.  They must’ve looked at the calendar and noted that the first day of Spring was Saturday.

Last Tuesday morning, a friend remarked that they were having thunderstorms.  “You have weather?” she asked.

“Yep,” I told her.  “We have weather.  It’s over me, and I’m under it.”  ((...pause...))  “Not that I’m under the weather.  It’s so foggy, I can barely see the neighbors’ house just across the lane.”

I like foggy days.  That is, so long as I don’t have to drive in it, whilst not being able to see beyond the end of the hood.

Victoria has been enjoying the Bernina 830 Record I gave her.  She sent several pictures of little dresses she’s making her girls and Keira for Easter.  They’re going to look like little rays of sunshine in these pretty yellow dresses.

Loren called at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday to tell me that someone had called from the ‘sheriff’s office’ telling him there was a problem with his social security number, and if he didn’t give them the number over the phone, they’d have to send the sheriff to his door.

Despite my multitudes of warnings to never, never do that, and that it’s fraud, they’re liars and thieves, etc., etc., even printing a paper for him to put next to his phone telling him to HANG UP! on anyone he doesn’t know who even mentions the word ‘social security’ or ‘IRS’ or ‘bank account’ ------- he gave them his number.

Fortunately, it troubled him enough that he then called me.

So I spent the next couple of hours calling his bank, the company where he has investments, the Social Security office, and the local police to file a report.

There is now a ‘block’ on his social security number so no one can change anything, such as the bank where he gets his auto deposits.  They will not be able to get a credit card in his name using his number.  The lady at the Social Security office said there had not yet been any activity with that number, thankfully.

Loren was upset enough about it (after all, I told him he could very likely lose the money in his checking account and in his investment accounts, plus they could run debt up on credit cards and loans in his name), maybe, maybe, he’ll remember for a little while.  It wasn’t really that he forgot that I’d told him not to ever give out his information, it was more that he didn’t really agree with me.  Once when I told him these are scam artists, and he should hang up on them, rather than engage them in conversation and ask all sorts of questions, as he likes to do, he protested, “But we have been taught to treat people right!!!” 

“Well, you won’t think they’re so nice when they leave you without a penny to your name!” I said – but he didn’t really think anything like that would happen, because, as he said, “I can tell when people are trying to pull my leg.”

Wednesday he said, “They sounded so sincere!” 

“Yes, they’re good at lying,” I agreed.  “They do it all the time; they’re well practiced.  That’s how they manage to steal so many people’s money.” 

I told him of a man in Omaha who lost $90,000 to scam artists last year.

He said they’d been calling every single day for a week.  (That may or may not be true; but I know he has always gotten quite a lot of telemarketing calls.)

“They could tell they had a fish on the hook!” I said. 

He was unamused. 

That’s okay; I was not amused, either.  Nasty scammers!  The punishment for doing that should be worse, and the methods for catching them should be improved upon.

We changed his home phone number; that’ll help for a little while, at least.

Wednesday night after church, Larry put together a Gorilla Cart he got for me at Bomgaars to use in the yard.

When you pull the handle at the front of the frame (behind the pulling handle), the box dumps as the rear wheels slide forward to get out of the way.

Loren’s supper Thursday consisted of chicken breast filet and a vegetables/potato mixture with country gravy poured over the works, Greek strawberry yogurt, mango juice, prunes, and a biscuit fresh out of the oven.

I often fix the same thing for our supper as I fixed for Loren’s; but that evening I baked lasagna.  We had applesauce with it, and oatmeal M&M cookies (Schwan’s; I only have to bake them) and vanilla ice cream for dessert.

By 1:30 a.m., I was too tired to scan any more photos, and should’ve gone to bed; but instead I watched videos of the most expensive private airplanes in the world.  Some have gold fixtures in the shower and sink – and the bowl itself is polished gold.  Not goldplate; solid gold.

You know, I’m not dissatisfied with my porcelain sink with its gold-colored fixtures.

I followed this with a tour through Bruges and Brussels, Belgium.  Beautiful old cities they are. 

Next, I wanted to know what it’s like inside those old buildings, so I looked at interior photos of apartments for rent.  Most are quite lovely inside, with up-to-date appliances and comfortable furniture placed into their quaint and picturesque settings. 

I find this intriguing... and I’ll probably never travel there, so I’m glad I can see pictures and videos.

Time out; Teensy just came begging for food.  He particularly likes beef pâté.  Oddly, he does not much care for whitefish and tuna pâté.

Cats, unlike dogs, often won’t eat something they dislike, even if they are hungry.  Dogs don’t really care much what they eat, so long as it doesn’t try to eat them back.

Here’s Victoria on Easter Sunday, April 15, 2001.  Hannah crocheted the pinafore with fine thread, and I made the white underdress.  This shot was taken before the main Sunday School-and-church services.  

The photo below was after church, after she had made a mad dash home, across the street, in high winds.  So much for her pretty curls!  (I got them back in order for the evening service.)

Saturday afternoon, I took Loren turkey, potatoes, carrots, onions, applesauce, strawberry jello with peaches, and grape juice.  That’s what we had for supper, too.  Yummy, it was scrumptious!

Later that afternoon, about a quarter after five, Larry came rushing in to tell me he’d collected his 12,000-pound winch and was heading off to some field north of Genoa where first Amy got stuck with their front-wheel-drive Explorer, and then Teddy with his Suburban, trying to extricate the Explorer.  There being nothing on the back of the Explorer to hook onto, Teddy had tried working his way around toward the front — and got stuck.  The four-wheel-drive stopped working on the Suburban, too.  So Larry hurried off with his old blue pickup and his big winch.

He informed me as he headed out the door, “That pickup goes through anything.”

“Now you’ll get stuck,” I retorted.

He did.

Fortunately, the 12,000-pound winch rescued them all.

Larry then went on to Genoa to work on a pickup.

Here I am taking Victoria for a ride in the pull-behind-bicycle trailer, in May of 2001.  Do you like my socks?  😆

That front wheel on the cart could drop down, and then the thing turned into a stroller.  See the handle at the back?

Yesterday morning, I opened a window and found a squirrel hanging upside at the feeding station, the better to get to the suet.  Wouldn’t you know, the small lens was on my camera, and the 300mm was upstairs in the case.  The little one didn’t do too badly, I guess.

Loren has been late to the last three church services.  We figured he was just mixed up on the time – and he wasn’t late enough – only 20-25 minutes, or so – to ever make us wonder if I’d forgotten to set one of his clocks forward.

Ben, one of Larry’s first cousins once removed, figured it out last night when Loren arrived at the front church door, needing in (we keep them locked during services).  Ben, always friendly and helpful, hurried to let him in.  

Loren looked at his watch, and asked Ben, “What time does the service start?” 

Ben told him, “6:30 p.m.” 

Loren stared at his watch, puzzled. 

Ben took a look, too – and realized it hadn’t been set forward.

I took care of his clocks – and forgot his watch!  That makes me feel bad, especially since he’s always so careful to never be late anywhere he goes.

We went to Shelby after church last night to get gas, after first putting two or three gallons in the tank in Columbus, to ensure that we would actually get to Shelby without running out.

We got Junction Burgers, Elephant Ear pastries, strawberry cream cheese Danishes, and Sicilian lemon and honeysuckle tea in their little store while we were there, and ate our supper on the way home.  We saved some of those pastries for dessert today. 

A friend sent me a video clip of her newly-hatched button quail.  As I watched, one wee bird viciously pecked another, knocking it flat.  Mind you, these are fresh-hatched, teeny-tiny baby button quail! – they are less than half the size of the standard Coturnix quail chicks, which aren’t very big themselves.

 I wrote back, “Wow, they’re having a rumble!  One guy was almost down for the count!”

I learned that these little quail are known for being aggressive.

I was amazed to see how brutal bald eagle chicks can be with each other, while watching a live streaming cam from ...  Alabama, maybe?  I had watched a streaming cam from Iowa for several years, and had not seen that behavior.  The Iowa chicks were not as aggressive because they lived in a giant cottonwood tree directly over a fish hatchery, and there were also rabbits, voles, and other prey galore, and those little birds were perpetually stuffed fuller’n ticks.   The Alabama chicks, on the other hand, suffered higher mortality in their area, because there wasn’t as much food available.  There are usually three eagle chicks in a clutch.  They are not all born at the same time.  Often the older ones kill the youngest one.  That has never happened at the Iowa nest.

Our neighbors have gone on a trip, and Larry is caring for the chickens.  He brought home a couple of eggs earlier today.  The people have their house on the market, as they are planning to move back to Texas, so the man has given his goats to their daughter, and has gotten rid of most of the chickens.

When I took Loren his food today, a steady rain was coming down, as it had been all day, and still is.  I took him a chicken egg roll, green beans, corn, Dannon Greek yogurt, cranberry juice, cranberry sauce, a couple of lengthwise-cut Vlasik dill pickle slabs, and French vanilla ice cream.  It wasn’t really as much as it sounds, as some of it was in rather small servings.

When he exclaimed over the number of containers, I laughed, “I thought I’d bring you a variety today!”

He grinned, and said, “I really like a variety!”

Now, that, I’ll have you know, has never, ever been the case.  But if he wants to think so, well, then, that’s fine and dandy with me, because I try hard to give him a variety, a healthy variety, whether he wants it or not!  😄

He was very happy to have figured out why he hadn’t been able to get to church on time for the last week, and pleased to learn that his State IRS refund is now in his bank account.

Here’s a picture of me holding a brand-new baby Aaron, our first grandson, on April 24, 2001.

And now I shall trippity-trop (Hester’s word, when she was about 3) up the stairs to scan more photos.

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