Journal: Ducks & Ducklings; Geese & Goslings

 

Last Monday by midafternoon it was 94° here in middle-eastern Nebraska, not quite as warm as predicted.  I was in my quilting studio scanning photos.  Wondering how many albums I had left to scan, I trotted downstairs to the hope chest to count them.

And the answer was... 18.  I’ve completed two more since then, so there are 16 to go.  Sixteen more albums.  Most have about 300 photos in them.  I think there are no more of the gigantic ones that hold 600-800 photos.  And there’s a large box of loose photos that I need to scan, too, old family photos I found in a box at Loren’s house.  So... how long will this take me?  How about... let’s say... another two months.

Wheeee!  I’d better get moving, if I’m going to meet that deadline!

It’s been warm up there in that studio.  But I turn the AC down a notch... turn on the fan... and drink cold coffee, if it gets too hot. 

That very evening, I finished an album that had 532 pictures in it.  So much for saying these last albums only have about 300 photos in them!

Here’s a picture that was taken December 26, 1992.  I’m wearing a necklace Dorcas made for me in school, using Christmas bulbs, colorful beads, and even jingle bells.  I thought it was so nifty.  I still have that necklace.  😊

Wednesday News! – there was at least one itty-bitty, teeny-tiny baby cardinal in the nest just outside my kitchen window!  I was wishing I would’ve taken the screen out of the window a week earlier so I could get good pictures; but it probably wouldn’t’ve helped a whole lot in any case, because the Boston ivy that’s growing all over that bush has put out so many new leaves and berries, the nest is almost hidden from view.  Here’s a picture of baby cardinals from On The Feeder .com.

I just finished the bag of Jazzy Java coffee beans from Christopher Bean and started on the bag of Jingle Bell Java.  I’m grinding the beans... Mmmmm, they smell good!

Yeah, leemee alone.  I can drink Christmas coffee any ol’ time I wanna.

Double knock-out roses

Oh!  The male cardinal just fed his baby!  This is so neat, even if the view is partially obstructed.  I’ve never before had the opportunity to watch cardinals caring for their nestlings.

Unfortunately, the lilac bush is nearly dead.  It doesn’t look it, because it’s covered with all that Boston ivy.  The matching bush on the other side of the porch died over a year ago.  Larry cut it down last spring.  They died because Loren decided to be helpful back in 2017 and clean our gutters.  The bushes were in the way of his ladder.  So he trimmed them.  He trimmed the main trunk right out of the middle of the bush.  The bushes were afterwards shaped like crescent moons.  As soon as I saw them like that, I knew they were going to die.  ☹

No, I didn’t breathe a word to Loren.  He was only trying to help, and I didn’t catch him in time.  Never dreamed he would do that.

Those bushes had just started proving their names – ‘Reblooming Lilacs’.  One had rebloomed that very autumn.  waa waa waa

I had already asked Larry to take this last bush down, and I need to pull out a bunch of Boston ivy – but that’s on hold now, while Mr. and Mrs. Cardinal raise their small chick.  I’m glad we didn’t get those jobs done yet!

One day last week, a friend posted a picture of her nice, neat closet after getting rid of a whole lot of clothes.  I promptly retorted, “See, my closet is much more efficient than yours:  everything is squished in so tightly, the clothes automatically press each other!  hahaha  (Really, I don’t need so many clothes.  But I like this one and this one and this one and this one and this one... 😏)”

Look at this picture I scanned, from early 2000:  There’s Maria Tucker, Amanda Jackson (Caleb’s first cousin), Lynette Walker (Caleb’s first cousin once removed), and Caleb.  Maria and Amanda are first cousins, and Lynette is a second cousin to both girls.  A little more than thirteen years later, Caleb and Maria would be married.

For over an hour Thursday night, I could hear thunder rumbling, and the clouds looked menacing; but the main part of the storm was passing immediately to the south.  I walked out to the Mercedes-Benz to get my camera, and discovered everything was damp – the sidewalk, the yard, the car.  Did it rain when I wasn’t looking?

As I walked back into my sewing room, I spotted a small cat treat under the quilting frame.  Funny how such a thing makes me miss my kitties, especially Teensy and Tiger.

I got 183 pictures scanned that day, and passed the 30,000 mark.  When I quit for the night, I had a total of 30,046 photos scanned.

Here are Black Kitty’s three kittens shortly after their eyes opened.  They were born in early 2000.

By midmorning Friday, it was 78°, heading for a high of 89°.

In the scanning of old photos, I now and then come to pictures of people whose names I can no longer remember.  Here’s a little girl for whom Kurt’s step-grandmother used to babysit.  This was taken in late May of 2000 when several classes, including Hester’s, were on a field trip to a farm belonging to Amy’s grandparents.

I sent the picture to Hannah, asking if she knew the little girl’s name.  She looked for them on Facebook, and soon found the child’s name. 

The last name of the family is Dicke.  As soon as I saw the name, I wondered how I could’ve forgotten.  The father was related to my 7^th-grade math teacher, Miss Dicke.  Students in classes before ours said she was an old crab, but my class liked her a lot, little white curls and all.  ’Course, my class behaved better than those classes, too.

Usually.

That was the class where Philip Smith, who sat behind me, once had about six pieces of bubblegum in his mouth (gum was against the rule) – and he blew a great big giant bubble. 

We were supposed to be hard at work on our geometry assignment, which entailed the use of a compass.

There are other uses for compasses besides making circles.

Yep.  Hearing the familiar sound of a large bubble filling with air, I, after waiting a strategic few seconds to let the bubble grow, turned around and poked it, quicker’n a wink.

Unexpectedly, when that huge thing (about the size of a small beach ball) popped, it ka-smacked his face and wrapped itself all the way around his head!  😲

Philip frantically tried to pull it loose.  I got claustrophobic just looking at him.  We weren’t supposed to talk in that class (probably weren’t supposed to stick compass points in other people’s bubblegum bubbles, either), but I hissed, “Take it out of your mouth!!!”

He did, gasping for air.  Then he slowly pulled what he could from his face and his hair. 

There was a muffled noise from the front of the room, and we all looked up there to discover our very business-like math teacher with her hands over her face, laughing ’til the tears streamed down her cheeks.

I wonder if I ever apologized to Philip Smith for nearly suffocating him? 

Ah, well.  Maybe an apology was unnecessary, since I immediately thereafter saved his life.

Here I am in the spring of 2000, sewing one of the bridesmaid’s dresses for Hannah’s wedding.

There was a bat in the basement Friday night.  By the time Larry went down there, racket in hand, it was gone.  I informed him that from now on when I discover a bat down there, I’m going to leave the stairs door open so that it can have free access to the upstairs.  Should Larry happen to be snoozing in his recliner, he will be right in the bat’s line of air flight. 

>>evil sniggle<<

I went to bed at 1:30 a.m., woke up at 3:30, went back to sleep, slept until 5:30, and could sleep no more, though I gave it studious effort for another 45 minutes.  We’d been issued a heat advisory for the day; it was expected to get to a high of 95°, with a heat index of 105°.  But right then, the sun was just peeping over the horizon, and the temperature was in the low 70s.  So I headed outside to work in the flower gardens.

It was quite lovely for a couple of hours, with a nice breeze, and birds singing away.  The red beetles are back on the milkweed.  Guess what their name is.

Did you guess?

Why, it’s Red milkweed beetle, of course!  😅

Larry emailed, texted, and called, all within the space of a minute at about 1:30 p.m. to say he was working on vehicles in Genoa and would be home at 3:30 p.m. so we could go visit Loren.

It was after 4 when he arrived.  This time, his excuse was a little more interesting than usual:  he’d driven his old farm truck home, and, since it will only go 45 mph, he came via back country roads, and it took a lot longer than expected. 

Now, we all know that accurately estimating arrival times is a fairly straight-up process involving ratios of speed and the distance one has to travel.  But Larry will assume ’til the day he dies that no matter how far he has to go, or how fast he can (or how slow he must) travel, if he needs to arrive at 3:30 p.m., then he can leave his point of origin at 3:30 p.m. or later and still get to his destination right on time.  He’ll never admit it, but he is obviously a believer in Time Wrinkles.  The fact that it hasn’t happened yet is no sign that it won’t.

After he took a bath and got ready to go, I made the error of remarking that the grass and flowers were dying, and I couldn’t find any decent hoses, connectors, or sprinklers.  He immediately decided to set up the hoses and sprinklers. 

“It’ll just take a minute,” he informed me. 

Rrrrrright.

30 minutes later, we were finally on the road.

We got to the nursing home a little after 6, and found Loren and his friend Roslyn in the sitting lounge where the TV is.  I had a couple of Messenger newspapers and a Reminisce magazine for him, and Larry had gotten him some of the red grapes he especially likes.

I showed him pictures (on my phone) of Carolyn, Violet, and Willie that Victoria had posted on Instagram.  I found a video of Kelvin and Rachel’s Labradoodle, Oakley, and some pictures of Kelvin’s grandchildren.  Loren loves seeing these pictures, and he very much enjoyed a video of Baby Brooklyn that Dorcas had posted.

Roslyn admired the baby pictures and videos, too, and informed us that Loren’s baby – “almost a toddler, now,” she added – was over in the parlor.  She gestured in the direction of the dining room.  Loren did not seem at all fazed with this information.

I smiled and said, “Huh,” in my best ‘How ’bout that’ tone.

Someone had moved the Yamaha grand piano into the sitting lounge from the adjacent dining room, so I played a couple of songs.  It really is a beautiful piano.

Upon leaving the nursing home, we went to the Olive Garden for supper.  We both had Chicken Gnocchi soup with those scrumptious (and hot!) bread sticks.  Then they brought our main courses:  grilled chicken and steamed broccoli for me, and Tour of Italy, which included Chicken Parmigiana, Lasagna Classico, and Fettuccine Alfredo, for Larry.

When one orders coffee there, they bring a cup along with a small silver coffee pot.  They pour a cupful, and then leave the silver pot on the table so one can serve oneself.  It’s usually exactly the right amount, and it’s excellent coffee.

I also ordered a slice of Sicilian cheesecake with strawberry topping, and was full enough to willingly share it with Larry.  😉

We brought home enough from our main courses for supper Sunday night after church.

After leaving the Olive Garden, we walked around the nearby lake at Lakeside Park (‘Lake Lakeside’?), and had discussions with a whole lot of ducks and geese.  A pair of mallards had several ducklings nestled snuggly along the bank, and a pair of Canada geese had five more-than-half-grown goslings.  Even though those goslings looked big enough to fend for themselves, as the family waddled their way down to the lake, the parents, flanking their youngsters on either side, hissed threateningly at any geese or ducks who didn’t move out of the way soon enough to suit them.

The waterfowl were all quite tame, and many of them strolled closer, eyeing us hopefully, obviously expecting some tidbits.

Sorry, geese and ducks.  The only tidbits we had were a couple of leftover breadsticks, and we weren’t giving them up!  We were saving them for Sunday night’s supper.

We took a more scenic route home, traveling west to Wahoo, north to Colon and Cedar Bluffs, west to Morse Bluff, north to North Bend, and then on west to Columbus instead of going through Fremont, where the countryside all around the city is totally flat, the same elevation, with nothing but the occasional barn and silo to break the horizon for miles on end.  Too bad we drove the majority of the route in the dark.

We saw some impressive fireworks off to the east as we headed north toward North Bend.  They were probably being shot off from Ventura Lake west of Fremont, where the houses, most of them new and large and beautiful, sit on an island in the middle of the lake.  We have sometimes gone there on the Fourth of July to watch fireworks.  It was fun to sit on the banks of the lake and watch the colorful explosions immediately overhead, and to see them reflected in the lake.

Sunday was Father's Day – and it was also Malinda’s 5^th birthday and Nathanael’s 16^th birthday.  After the morning service, we gave Malinda a pretty mint green zippered bag with roses printed on it, inside of which there are many sections, velcroed in so they can be adjusted, with small loops for markers.  Accordingly, we gave her a large set of markers to put in the bag.  We also gave her a set of tiny teacup magnets I found in one of Janice’s boxes, buried in the cubbyhole under Loren’s steps.  Malinda loves miniature anything.

We gave Nathanael the tack pin that says “As a matter of fact, I do own the road!”, the souvenir key ring set from the Durango narrow-gauge steam engine, a pair of jersey gloves, a set of State quarters, and a pocketknife with a colorful wooden handle.

Kurt and Victoria invited us over for dinner.  Kurt grilled a couple of large chicken breasts on his outdoors grill – at over 700°.  Mmmmm, it was sooo good.  Victoria fixed baked potatoes and carrots to go with it.

They sent Larry home with a bag full of various packages of frozen meat – ground beef, a large steak, bacon, and sausage.  He forgot it in the Mercedes for three hours – and it was over 100° out there!  😦

He remembered right before the evening church service, and dashed out to get it.  It was still very cold, but partially thawed out.  He worried that we might have to cook the whole works after church.

“No,” I told him, feeling the various bags.  “Just put it into the freezer.  Thawing and refreezing can diminish the quality a little, but it will be all right.  It’s still quite cold.”

He hesitated, really wanting to put it in the refrigerator.  (Maybe he really wanted to cook that meat, too!  😄)

“The longer it’s out, the more prone it is for bacterial growth,” I said in my patient (ahem) way.

He then presented his favorite old argument, from which he cannot be dissuaded:  “But it’s all sealed!”

He thinks just putting a bowl over the top of something on the table ‘seals’ it.  The fact that food has spoiled by doing this has not messed with his opinion.

Contrariwise, when we were first married, he strongly believed that all vegetables, canned, frozen, raw, or fresh, must be boiled a minimum of 15 minutes.  He said his father had told him this, and he knew his father was right.  People who had not followed this absolute rule had died!

His father was doubtless talking about home-canned vegetables.  Specifically, green beans.   In February of 1924, there had been 12 deaths in Albany, Oregon, and 5 deaths in Sterling, Colorado, from botulism.  The causative food was string beans, locally grown and home canned by the ‘cold pack’ process at bath-water temperature.  The beans, after having been stored for probably two years, were then served cold in salads. 

Tests on beans still in jars at these homes revealed some that appeared and smelled ‘normal’, and some that very definitely looked and smelt ‘spoiled’, though all showed the presence of the toxin of B. botulinus, type A. 

The lady in Albany had removed the top layer of beans in the jar she’d opened because they ‘didn’t look right’, and then served the rest in her salad.

Good grief. 

The 12 people in Oregon who died were adults and children from three neighboring families.

This news made big headlines in the United States, and people thereafter recommended boiling canned produce for at least 15 minutes to kill  the bacteria.

If you wish to read about these tragic events, here’s a link to a pdf file:  Botulism

So... one evening back in 1979 when I was particularly ill from ‘morning sickness’ (which I contrarily preferred to get in the evening), Larry helpfully prepared the supper.  He poured a can of Del Monte creamed corn into a pan (despite my recommendation to use the microwave), turned the gas burner on high, and set the timer for 15 minutes.

I protested.

He informed me of his father’s 15-minutes-of-boiling rule.

Now, I knew this wasn’t going to turn out good, but I was too sick to argue.  He probably wouldn’t have listened anyway.  I decided to live and let live.  Haha! 

Actually, that would be ‘live and learn’.  As in, ‘Let him learn.’

Five minutes later, the smoke alarm went off.  Simultaneously, the pan boiled over.  And the bottom half-inch of creamed corn in the pan had turned into a stinkin’ mess of charcoal, permanently discoloring the bottom of that nearly brand-spankin’-new Society pan.

The rank odor of burnt creamed corn did not improve my queasiness in the least.

Larry did not again boil vegetables for 15 minutes.  When I wasn’t feeling quite so nauseous, I explained what I knew about botulism, along with Salmonella, E. coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Campylobacter.  A lot more has been learned about such types of bacteria in the years since then.

Several of the children gave Larry gift cards, some to Bass Pro Shop... another to Olive Garden... and Lydia gave him a big package of Bueno Crispy Creamy Chocolate Bars, which he shared with such generosity that they are now almost all gone, except for one lonesome bar.  He’s nicer than I am.  I hide such treats, and then eat them sparingly when no one is looking.  Or if I must share them, I do so grudgingly.  😂

Bobby, Hannah, and Joanna came over after church last night, bringing Larry a gift of a shirt and a navy cap with the words “BEST GRANDPA EVER” embroidered on the front.  The thing is, they also gave Bobby’s father a cap like that, only his is maroon.  If Larry and John meet up one of these days, both wearing those caps, reckon they’ll get into a first-class knock-’em-down, drag-’em-out, fight?  🤣

Bobby and Hannah and their family have made plans and reservations for visiting Yellowstone National Park in a few weeks.  They were planning to stay in Cooke City, Montana – which is right where some of the worst flooding occurred last week.  After the initial bad news that sounded like the entirety of Yellowstone might well be closed for weeks or months, they have already begun opening the Park back up.  South Loop was opened a couple of days ago, and the North Loop will open soon, except for Lamar Valley.  Cooke City is once again accessible from Cody by way of Highway 296, the Chief Joseph Highway.

After they left, Larry took a folding chair downstairs, and while he was down there, he looked around to see if he could discover where the bats are getting in.  He found a small hole at the top of the south basement wall where some animal had chewed through the insulation and wood.  Probably mice – but they made a way for the bats to get in.  Larry fixed the hole.  Hopefully that will stop the bats.

A friend recently posted a picture of their first four children, entitling it, “Batch #1”.    They would add a couple more children, several years later.  That made me laugh, as we, too, had our ‘Batch #1’ (the first five kids) and ‘Batch #2’ (the four youngest, with a four-year span between child #5 [Joseph] and child #6 [Hester]).  We referred to the four youngest as ‘the littles’.  There were two ‘big girls’ (Hannah and Dorcas) and two ‘little girls’ (Hester and Lydia); but the two ‘little boys’ (Teddy and Joseph), who were part of Batch #1, had to give up their label when their little brother Caleb came along.  This all made good sense to us!

This afternoon I canceled the trash service at Loren’s house.  Next, I finally remembered to cancel the insurance on his camper, which was sold last month.  I sent the final invoice for his roof and gutter repair to the insurance company, so they will send the other half of the payment.  The shingles and gutters were damaged by the tornado and high winds in the middle of December, and worsened by many days of extreme winds this spring.  The company we hired to do the work has been swamped with work because of the bad weather, and they weren’t able to get to Loren’s house until a week or two ago.

Hester, 3

I was glad to get these things taken care of.  I rewarded myself with several yummy slices of dried mango and a fresh cup of coffee.

Later, I put the steak from Kurt and Victoria, along with a couple of big potatoes, two small ears of corn, handfuls of carrots, and half an onion, into the Dutch oven and set the oven temperature on 385°. 

Lydia, 1

The baby cardinal is about twice as big as he was last Wednesday, the first day I spotted him.  His little beak is orange now, instead of pale yellow like it was shortly after he hatched.  He can hold his little head up better when his parents arrive with food for him, and he’s less liable to topple over.  Sometimes the parents get sunflower seeds from the feeder on the back deck, swoop back around (or over) the house, feed Baby, and fly straight back to the feeder for more.

When Larry got home from work, he repositioned the sprinklers, then came dashing into the house exclaiming over the mosquitoes that will never leave him alone.  Sometimes I don’t even notice they’re around, while he gets covered in red welts.

When I was little, my mother put rubbing alcohol on my bug bites to keep them from itching.  It helped prevent infection, too.  Cheap bit of prevention. 

I found nearly a dozen full bottles of rubbing alcohol at Loren’s house, stashed around all over the place.  Even if we applied rubbing alcohol to every bug bite Larry gets, we couldn’t use up that much of the stuff in a quarter-century!  I kept one bottle, and, when no one else wanted any, pitched the rest.

These pictures were taken on July 4, 1992.  Looking at the whole series of like shots, one after the other, is so funny.  Take special note of both Lydia and Aleutia in photo #2.  🤣

Bedtime!  It’ll be nice working outside tomorrow, if I head out early enough.

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