Journal: Fourth of July

 

We didn’t go to any professional firework shows last week, but some of our neighbors put on quite a display, so I wasn’t too awfully disappointed.

So many people were worrying about the effects of fireworks on their pets, it caused me to remember our big Siberian husky, Aleutia, and how she reacted to fireworks.

We were setting some off in front of our house one year.  Aleutia was in the back yard, where she had access to the garage.  But... someone had left the bungee strap unattached that held the gate clasp shut.  Aleutia could lift that clasp with her nose, easy as pie.  Thus, the bungee strap.

I was standing on the drive with the littler kids, watching as the older ones lit off a few big boomers they had splurged on.  (You’ll never catch me splurging on fireworks; I’d rather use my money on something more lasting!  But kids...)

Anyway, a few loud ones had already gone off, and the younger children were lighting little firecrackers, too.  All of a sudden, a cold nose pushed into my hand – and there was Aleutia, ‘grinning’ up at me, her big bushy tail flagging happily.  The gate to the backyard was wide open.

“Did you get out?” I asked, and her ears went up, down, up, down – her way of saying ‘sorry’ (but not real sorry).

“OOooooo—” she started to say – but just then a rocket went SIZZLE! and shot skyward.

The kids tilted their heads back to watch – and so did Aleutia.

“Oooooo,” said the kids in unison as it exploded loudly and showered pretty sparkles all over the sky.

Aleutia wagged, made a small O of her mouth, and, in perfect imitation of the kids, said, “Oooooo!” 

Everyone burst out laughing, so she did it once more, for the fun of it.  “OOooooo!!!”

From then on, after every rocket that flew into the sky and burst, Aleutia tipped back her head, watched, and then in inimitable Husky fashion, announced, “OOOooooOOOOOooo!”

What a dog.

Here are Teddy and Aleutia back in the summer of 1992.

Tuesday morning, I got up fairly early, and immediately began rushing around, getting ready for our church picnic, which would be held at our niece Christine’s property on the west side of town beside a small lake.

I fixed fruit salad (strawberries, blueberries, green grapes, and red grapes), corn on the cob, ground venison meatloaf, and a couple of gallons of strawberry lemonade.  We always take a five-gallon thermos of ice water, too.

It was a nice day, not too terribly hot, and a pretty place for a picnic.  This year, they’ve added a big toy set to the property.

Approaching storms were polite enough to wait until our picnic was over, though they did drown out a number of evening fireworks shows across the state.  We hadn’t been home long when thunderstorms came rolling through, and there was a tornado just a few miles to our north.  We could not see it well, but we could see the rotation in the clouds.  It was totally still for a time, even though we could see clouds swirling and racing this way and that, dropping down, lifting, then dropping again not very far away at all; and then 55-60 mph winds hit, along with hard rain and a few pieces of hail.

By 7:30 p.m., the storm had passed, and things were calm again.  There were still storms in the area, and a few could pop up overnight.  But the worst was over.

We got 2” of rain.  5” of rain fell about two miles southeast of the Utica exit on I-80, and there was also 5” just south of Beaver Crossing.  Meanwhile, a few places right in the middle of all this rain got nary a drop.  In southwest Nebraska, it hailed for 48 minutes straight with up to baseball-sized hail.  The second cutting of hay is gone.

This is one of Amy’s pictures.  Teddy and Amy live a mile to our east, and there are no trees on the hill to their north, so she had a clearer view of those threatening clouds than I did.

At 8:30 that evening, Amy texted me:  “I think if you wanted to enter anything into the fair, it’s tomorrow.”

I had not thought of it once, since Sunday afternoon.  And it was photos and pies and bunnies and suchlike that were to be entered Wednesday.  Quilts should have been entered Monday morning.

I wrote back, “OHHHHH!!!!!!  I forgot, I totally forgot — quilts were supposed to be in yesterday morning.  waa waa waa”  Then, “Well, there’s still the State Fair.  🫤”

Rats.  I knew I should’ve made a reminder on my computer.  Siggghhhhhh...  This is the second time I’ve done this.  Plumb aggravatin’.

From Sunday evening on, I was busy thinking about Instant Pots, housecleaning, journal writing, the food I needed to make for the picnic Tuesday, and all the things I needed to take, such as the picnic basket with plates and silverware, paper towels, and my camera.

I couldn’t even enter any photos, because I had no mats for them, and they were not printed, in any case.

Ah, well... the county fair doesn’t display quilts very well anyway.  Quilts are folded, and people can see very little of them.  (I’m trying to console myself.)

But it is fun to win Best of County sometimes.  Now when I enter that quilt in the State Fair (if I remember to do that!), it won’t get to be in that category.  I had several things I planned to enter, too – Kurt and Victoria’s Birds of Colorwash Patch quilt, Carolyn’s Split-Blade Pinwheel quilt and pillow, Oliver’s Little Ones quilt and book, and Willie’s Split-Blade Pinwheel quilt and pillow.

It’s {probably} all because I bought that Instant Pot, and used it for the first time Sunday night after church, and was all enthralled over it.  I even went to bed at a fairly decent time, got up fairly early Monday morning – and never once thought of the fair until Amy texted.  I missed last year, too, on account of scanning photos.  🫤  Ah, well.  I’m giving someone else a chance to win.  Isn’t that nice of me?  But it probably doesn’t count, because I didn’t want to be humble and generous two years in a row.  (Or maybe someone else would’ve had a better quilt than me, and then I would’ve been humble and generous by force, ha.)

This is one of the three or four tractors and wagons that were used to ferry people around the lakes.  

Annnnd... the first bat of the season flew down the stairwell and ka-bonked into the door that night.

“I heard something hit the stairs door!” I told Larry.

“It’s the house creaking,” He-Who-Is-Partially-Deaf informed me. 

“No, it isn’t,” I disagreed. 

“It was probably just a miller,” he said.  “Or a fly,” he added.

Yeah, haha.  Rrrrrrright. 

“Nope,” said I. 

(So long as Larry is anywhere on this earth, it is not my job to wrangle bats.  Huh-uh, nosireee.)

He sighed, dilly-dallied a bit, picked up the tennis racket we keep stowed between the refrigerator and the wall, dilly-dallied some more, and finally opened the stairs door. 

Yep.  Bat.  Little brown bat, to be precise.

I looked up the online entry date for Open Class items at the State Fair, and the date delivery to the fair must be made, and then set notifications on my computer for the nights before said dates (August 8 and 18, respectively), complete with loud and long songs.  (Maybe I should set a reminder not to mute the computer?)  And perhaps I should also set a reminder to pick the quilts up again!  😏

This is our friend Paul Tucker pulling the children’s barrel train he made.  Three of our little granddaughters are riding in it.

Wednesday, I cleaned up the kitchen, which was showing the aftereffects of going to a picnic the previous day.  Then I spent the rest of the day until our evening church service quilting the Little Darlings quilt.

Note of the Day:  You know, something’s... uh... not quite right, when you think, Uh-oh, one of the neighbor dogs just got skunked.  And then, Oh, never mind.  It’s just my coffee brewing.

It was Chocolate Raspberry Crème from Amana, and it’s scrumptious; but this is not the first time I have mistaken a coffee with chocolate in it for skunk spray!

Here is my nephew Kelvin fishing with his grandson Mitchell.  

Below is Teddy fishing with some of his boys and their friends and cousins.  

And that’s Kurt’s little sister Wendy standing on that stump.

In the middle of the afternoon, I found a baby cardinal trapped in the garage.  It had evidently been in there when we closed the door the evening before, just before the storm hit.  I opened the big garage door; but cardinals – especially babies – are not programmed to swoop under doorframes to exit places like swallows do.  He perched atop the open door... atop the railings... atop anything.  He chirped forlornly and anxiously; but he would not fly out that open door.

At 6:00 p.m., he was still in there, cheeping away.  I could hear adult cardinals out back chirping, too, trying to coax their baby out of the garage.  That baby bird was doubtless awfully thirsty and hungry. 

“There are plenty of insects in the garage,” said Larry.

“He’s too little to catch them and eat them on his own!” I objected.

When Larry got home from work, he spent 15 minutes trying to herd the baby cardinal out of the garage.  He was unsuccessful.  And that made us late for church.  We walked in after the congregation had already started singing.  Ugh.  I hate being late.  I often accuse Larry of hating to be on time, or, heaven forbid, early. 

We left the garage door open while we were gone. 

When we got home at a quarter after 9, the baby cardinal was nowhere to be seen.  Hopefully, when it started getting dark outside, the big open garage door presented the only light spot, and the baby bird headed for it.  I do hope he’s not having a nap somewhere in the garage, on his back with his toenails up.  😬

I got two more rows quilted, minus one block, on the Little Darlings quilt that day.

Thursday, having received a call the previous day from Nebraska Quilt Company telling me my Bernina 730 was ready to be picked up, I headed to Fremont.  There were no serious problems with the machine, just a few sensors needing to be cleaning, and it was a little ‘out of balance’, the lady said, whatever that means.  Probably the same as saying ‘the timing is off’.

This week, the Bernina tech had brilliant turquoise hair!  (You’ll recall, it was John Deere green, last week.)

That was the day Bobby had surgery on the knee he hurt by badly hyperextending it when he fell from a ten-foot wall several weeks ago.  We’ve been so worried about him. 

Ms. Turquoise had just loaded my Bernina back into my vehicle and wished me safe driving when I got a text from Hannah.

Bobby’s surgeon said the surgery went very well, much better than he expected.  He only needed to reconstruct the ACL, the ligament that connects the thighbone (femur) to the shinbone (tibia).  The two menisci (crescent-shaped cartilage positioned between the ends of the femur and tibia) were healed enough to not need anything done.  The PCL also is healing well.  That’s the posterior cruciate ligament, the strongest ligament in the knee.  It extends from the top-rear surface of the tibia to the bottom-front surface of the femur (bone that extends from the pelvis to the knee).  The only thing the surgeon couldn’t fix was some bone damage, which he said will most likely cause arthritis down the road.  

“All in all, I’m very thankful for this outcome,” Hannah wrote.

It was certainly better news than we had feared.

Bobby said, “I think it's certainly the grace of God and an answer to prayer.  The meniscus situation means that, instead of being on crutches for 4-6 weeks,  I’ll be able to walk and put weight on it right away.  All things considered, it’s the best possible outcome.  God is truly good.”

Leaving Fremont, I headed on to Omaha to visit Loren.  I arrived just as everyone was being summoned for supper.  Loren was coming down the hallway from his room, so I walked with him into the dining room and ate supper with him.  They had salad, chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, apple juice, and ice cream bars for dessert.  It was a good meal.  I finished before Loren, and, as usual, he immediately offered me the rest of his meat.  I assured him I was completely full, and he proceeded to clean his plate.

We looked at pictures of friends and relatives and animals and birds on Instagram, and I left a newspaper and a magazine in his room when I departed.

I got home a little after 7:00 p.m., and was soon back at the quilting machine.  By 11:30 p.m., the quilting on the Little Darlings quilt was complete.

Friday, I paid some bills, and then put the binding on Eva’s quilt. 

The quilt measures 53½” x 63½”.  I used pale yellow 40-wt. Signature thread on top, and dark yellow 60-wt. Bottom Line thread in the bobbin.  The batting is high-loft poly.

The backing fabric is left over from the Atlantic Beach Path quilt I made for Eva’s parents, son and daughter-in-law Caleb and Maria.  Some of the blues in the quilt top were purchased at The Quilt Crossing in Boise, Idaho, with the gift certificate I received when the Atlantic Beach Path won Best of Show at the Boise Basin Quilt Show in 2022.

The printed blocks are from the Little Darlings collection from Henry Glass fabrics.  I drew the pattern in EQ8.  More pictures here: 

Little Darlings Quilt, Completed

I debated whether to do custom quilting or just hurry up and do a pantograph – there are 22 quilts to go, after all!  I decided I really couldn’t bear not to give it a custom quilt job, and now  I’m glad I did it.

I’m keeping a tally of the grandchildren’s quilts, with their ages and the size of the quilts in a simple chart, in the hopes that I don’t wind up giving the 22-year-old a crib-sized quilt and the new baby a king-sized quilt.  

I wrote to thank Dorcas for the pretty prayer plant she gave me for Mother's Day:  “It’s in my laundry room on the bureau that’s in there,” I told her.  “Plants always seem to do well in that room, probably because of the sunlight and humidity.  It has two little blooms and a few buds, and a new leaf ready to unfurl.”

“You’re welcome!” she replied.  “I’ve learned to propagate them and now I have a problem 😂.  All of mine (she sent pictures of several) plus yours started from one plant.”

haha That’s what happened with hostas and lilies around here, some years ago.  Sooner or later, we’re going to need machetes to hack our way out.

I spent all of Saturday working on Brooklyn’s Little Sweethearts quilt.  She’s Dorcas and Todd’s little girl, and she’s 19 months old. 

Supper that evening was Maria Calendar’s turkey pot pie.  Yum.  She doesn’t just make good pies for dessert!

By bedtime or later, the middle part of the quilt was put together.  The fabric is left over from Eva’s quilt and is from the Little Darlings collection by Henry Glass Fabrics.  There are three more (colorful!) borders to add to the quilt.  I had only ten of the color-printed blocks for this quilt.

Some time after midnight, raccoons got into a rip-roaring, screaming, screeching fight on the back deck.  I chased them off.  Shortly thereafter, they recommenced that rip-roaring, screaming, screeching fight in the front yard.

 Next, a couple of cats had a rip-roaring, screaming, screeching fight right beside the front porch.

Why must they do this on a Saturday night, when I need to sleep?!

Last night, Larry worked on the chain on his bicycle.  He was glad to see it only needed a thorough cleaning, and nothing major was wrong with it.  Once it was working smoothly, he went for a bike ride.

The geranium from Caleb and Maria is blooming like anything.  When Maria brought it to me, it was covered with blossoms.  When they faded in a couple of weeks, I deadheaded them – and it was soon setting buds again. 

The daylilies are in bloom, too.

Here are two of the long tables at our picnic, heavily laden with food.  There was another one full of desserts.

Once when I was a little girl, Daddy and Mama and I were traveling in Montana, and weren’t able to go to our church picnic.  I’ve never forgotten what a great disappointment that was!  So I try to make sure we’re the last to leave every picnic.  Someday, maybe all those extra minutes will add up enough to make up for that missed picnic!  

Tonight I cooked four small deer roasts, a couple of large potatoes, and an onion in the Instant Pot.  Mmmm, it was all done to perfection. 

Amy texted to tell me there was an oak shelf at the Goodwill for $6, and it was for hanging a quilt on.  Since supper was cooking and I didn’t want to leave it, I called Larry.  He was at the shop loading forms on his truck for tomorrow, and could stop at the nearby Goodwill before leaving town.

“I have my motorcycle,” he said, “but if Herkimer (name changed to protect the identity of that certain friend of ours) can bring home a mattress on top of his head while riding that small step-through motor scooter he used to have, I otta be able ta handle a shelf!”  haha

He paused for effect, then said, “Actually, I could take one of the company pickups over there to get the shelf.”

Then it started raining, and he changed plans.  He hurried home on the motorcycle “dodging raindrops all the way,” as he said, and returned to the Goodwill in his pickup, in order not to have to ride the motorcycle home in a downpour.

When he got there, he found no oak quilt shelf – but he found something even better:  a heavy, stand-alone quilt rack in cherrywood!  It was $8.00.  (Oh – he also found a brand-spankin’-new bug shield that will fit one of his pickups, and a large can of new wood nails.  But what’s a bug shield and a can of wood nails, compared to a quilt rack?!)

Bedtime!  Tomorrow I shall work at adding some bright and colorful pieced borders to Brooklyn’s quilt.

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