Journal: Again, the Weather! -- And We're Under It (literally, not figuratively)

 

It was a pretty day last Monday; but by Tuesday, severe weather was again expected on the east side of the state.

I decided to wait until Thursday to visit Loren.

One of my cousins whose late father suffered from Alzheimer's asked, “Does Loren know when you are coming, or is he just happy to see you anytime?  Does he like any special kind of treat?  Dad liked animal crackers, so I always took him a couple of bags when I got to see him.”

Loren wouldn’t have any idea when I’m coming, regardless of the fact that I go there at nearly exactly the same time every week.  Even when he was still at home, and I was taking him meals each day, I’d call at 4:00 to tell him I was bringing him a meal at 5:00 — and sometimes during the ensuing hour, he’d forget I was coming and go off to pay a bill or something (he thought that was the only safe way to do it – deliver the payment directly to the place of business).  Other times, I’d walk in and he’d look at me all astonished and say, “You’re back again?!” even though I hadn’t been there since the previous day.  Sometimes I’d come in and he’d say, “I didn’t think you were coming!” or “I expected you several hours ago!”  There was no telling what he might say or think, but whatever it was, he almost invariably thought I was the one with the time all mixed up.  😄

These days, Loren likes candy and cookies and cake, and he’ll eat more of stuff like that than he ever used to.  When I was taking him meals, one day he would tell me he absolutely loved something, and a few days later he’d declare he could not eat that same thing, and never had been able to, and why did I keep bringing it?!!

I never took him any kind of junk food, and desserts were only fruit or yogurt.  Sugary sweets are known to make most types of dementia worse.  Nevertheless, the residents of Cedar Creek get some sort of sweets, every day without fail.

Ah, well.  Somewhere, there’s a balance between ‘what’s good for them’, and ‘what makes them happy’, I guess.

There was a lot of bad weather that day, stretching from Texas up through Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota; but here west of Columbus, Nebraska, it was bright and sunny all day, with only one period of high winds.  Omaha was pretty much the same, meaning I could have gone to visit Loren after all.  The severe weather of which we’d been warned had veered east.  This was one of those times I was thankful Loren cannot keep track of days and length of time!  I would see him soon.

We had Red Baron Supreme pizza for supper that evening, and then I went on working on the Farmall Scenes quilt.  By 11:30 p.m., the appliquéd pieces were all trimmed, blocks were cut from the new barn fabric, and I was sewing the Attic Window sashings on them.  When that was done, I quit for the evening and retired to my recliner.

I’d barely gotten settled in with my laptop, a fresh cup of coffee on the warmer beside me, when a mosquito went drifting between me and my laptop screen!  We’ve gone from wintertime to mosquitotime.

Remember in my last letter, I said that it was reported that 30-40 homes were destroyed in Elkhorn?  Well, it was much worse than that:  it was 160 homes that were destroyed.

At least one person died in one of the tornadoes in Kansas Tuesday.  There seemed to be one tornado after another, especially in Oklahoma and Kansas.  By midnight, the weather had calmed considerably.

Hester sent a picture of Keira.  “She wanted me to take a picture of her with the new backpack you gave her for her birthday,” she wrote.  “She loves it.”

I wrote back, “Tell Keira she looks pretty as a daffodil, all bright and cheery, in her pretty yellow jumper and top!”

Wednesday, I spotted a Harris’ sparrow on the front porch.  Several of the migrating sparrows are coming through our area, particularly the white-crowned and the Harris’.  The Harris’ sparrow is the largest sparrow in the states.  These two sparrows have high-pitched whistles, rather than warbling songs.  They are ground-feeders, and are busily cleaning up all the black-oil sunflower seeds the other birds drop from the feeders.  (Picture of Harris’ sparrow from Eastside Audubon Society.)

Can somebody please explain to me how, after sewing happily away for a good long while, I get up and iron something... sit back down at my machine... put my bare foot on the pedal ---- and come up with a rose thorn???

After our church service and a late supper, I went back to the quilting studio.  By 1:30 a.m., the Farmall Scenes quilt top was together.  As you can see, I changed the location of the cow; I didn’t really like it smack-dab in the middle.  I’m much more pleased with it, a row down and a row over. 

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve switched to decaffeinated coffee, because I’m trying some homeopathic pills that are supposed to help Benign Essential Blepharospasm.  After previously deciding that these little pills were of no use after trying them for 2-3 months, I read an article that said caffeine would negate their effects.  !  I didn’t know that!  So... I switched to decaf coffee, and am giving the homeopathic protocol, as they call it, another try.  I sure wish it would work, because the Botox injections are expensive, and our insurance will not pay for it.  I cannot tell yet, because the last Botox treatment is still in effect.  But when the Botox starts wearing off in a few weeks, I should be able to tell.

Thursday, we finally had a day with no severe weather warnings, so I went to visit Loren.

I took this picture southeast of our house, shortly after leaving home.  The sky was so intriguing, with layer upon layer of clouds.  The high, thin layer was slowly traveling north.  The low, fluffy layer was moving south, fairly quickly.

I drove into Omaha from the north, going through Arlington and Bennington, was glad to see that those pretty spring-blossoming trees along Main Street in Bennington were not damaged by the tornado, and that Oft’s Bed & Breakfast had survived unscathed.

Loren was delighted with some notes with hymn verses and colored drawings his great-great-niece Kate and his great-nephew Warren (my grandson for whom I am making a quilt) made for him.  Their 3^rd-grade teacher had them make the cards and papers; it must’ve been a handwriting assignment, because both wrote the same thing.  And both have remarkably nice cursive handwriting.  (Yes, our students learn cursive writing.)

I had a picture of Warren on my tablet and showed it to Loren.  

Problem: I had also shown him pictures of last week’s tornado aftermath.

He looked soberly at Warren’s picture and said, “That’s amazing.”

I asked, “What is?” – already knowing the answer:

“That he made it through that tornado.”

I assured him that none of our family and friends were in the tornado.  “Warren was just in a rip-roaring football game with his brothers and cousins; that’s why he’s a bit disheveled,” I said, and Loren laughed.

He’s usually quite interested in the weather; but maybe I shouldn’t’ve shown him tornado pictures.  🫤😐😏  Or at least not in the same timeframe that I gave him notes from Warren and Kate.

Anyway, he very much loved the notes, and even got tears in his eyes over the verses.  He’s sentimental, and has always appreciated notes and pictures from the children.

He’d been in the ‘living room’ – they sometimes call it the ‘activity room’ in the back of the nursing home.  “I thought I should wait for you back here in the –” he paused, pointing around the room, trying to think what it’s called.  There’s a pool table on one side, a TV on the other, and against one wall is a large, wheeled popcorn machine.  He looked at me for help.

“The Popcorn Room!” I supplied, gesturing at the popcorn machine. 

That made him laugh.  “Yes, the ‘Popcorn Room’,” he said.  “You’ll always think of something, won’t you?” he remarked, grinning at me.

I used my tablet to take a picture of this photo hanging just outside Loren’s door – of Loren holding a big rabbit from Scatter Joy Acres.

As we later walked toward the dining room, he paused and pointed out a large window at the enclosed courtyard.  “Just look how torn up everything is,” he started, then paused, looking from one side of the courtyard to the other. 

It was neat as a pin, with new plants emerging, and pale green leaves opening on the bushes.  

“Not all of it is,” he conceded, since, after all, he couldn’t see any of it that was.

I spent the entire walk from living room to dining room coaxing him along, and he seemed to get sidetracked every five steps or so.  So different from the way he was not so long ago, always in a rush, hurrying from one place to another, wanting to be more than on time – intending to be early everywhere he went.

In the dining room, he spotted one of the staff, a young black man who had just helped a woman from her wheelchair into a regular chair.  Loren stopped beside him and said, “Wasn’t that astounding?!”

The man looked blank.  He glanced at me.  I smiled at him.  (It wasn’t my conversation.)  So, “What was?” he asked Loren.

“That tornado!” Loren told him, clearly surprised the man didn’t know.

“Oh!”  The man pondered, trying to decide if he should acknowledge the existence of a tornado, or not.  Then he evidently concluded, Might as well, since his sister must’ve already told him; so he nodded and agreed, “Yes, it really was.”

Upon leaving the home, I drove west on Maple toward Elkhorn.  Above right is Rocky’s Stone & Design – and the office building is gone.  This picture shows what it used to look like.

I could see only a small part of the tornado damage from Maple Street.  However, to the north of Rocky’s, where I knew there should be trees and houses on those hills, there was nothing.  160 homes were totally destroyed and reduced to rubble, with another 400+ having at least some damage.

This big, new church that is going up in Elkhorn, just a block or two from that severe damage, seems to have weathered the storm just fine.

Here’s the Elkhorn River, a couple of miles to the west.

Work continues on the new four-lane north of Ames and North Bend – and look!  They’ve color-coordinated the crane and their mixer!

I got home at about 6:30 p.m. and headed straight for the sewing room, with a short break for supper an hour later.  I got the first border put on the quilt, and the next one ready to sew on.

At 6:30 a.m. Friday morning, I awoke to what I thought was the smell of burning toast.  Since I could hear Larry racketing around in the kitchen, I left him to his miseries and went back to sleep. 

But upon getting up a while later and finding the house still reeking, I went to investigate – and found one of our very nice microwave bowls full of charred, stinking oatmeal. 

He must’ve hit 14 minutes on the microwave, instead of 1 minute, 40 seconds.

The bowl was in the sink and filled with water.  The front and back doors were open, purportedly to air the place out.

It had not aired.

I scraped out the bowl, finding, as expected, that the plastic was all bubbled up.  It’ll still hold stuff, but...

Later, I opened the microwave to warm up a mug of coffee gone lukewarm – and the aroma of Eau de Charred Oatmeal parfum came blasting out and assaulted my delicate little nostrils.

But that wasn’t all.

I opened the refrigerator – and was nearly bowled over by the same Burnt Oatmeal fragrance!  Aarrgghh, how could that be?

Turns out, Larry had opened the refrigerator to get out some yogurt shortly after the disaster, and I well know how long it takes him to look over the contents and make his decision.  Long enough to balance the stench of burnt oatmeal between room and frig, that’s how long.  😝

I spent an hour and a half that morning working in the flower gardens.  At least three of the gardens look considerably better.  There are tulips, lily-of-the-valley, and irises blooming.

When I came in, feeling a bit stiff and creaky, I decided it was the perfect time to take a bath instead of a shower, and use up the jar of bath salts Victoria made for me.  It had spearmint, peppermint, and basil essential oils in it.  Ahhhhh, that felt good.  

I ate some breakfast, and headed back upstairs to Warren’s quilt. 

By midnight, three borders were sewn on, including the one with the appliquéd tractor blocks.  One more border to go, and it would be ready to load on the quilting frame.

It rained hard for several hours that evening, and thunder kept up a steady rumble and the occasional CRASH. 

Saturday morning, I tidied the bedroom, then went wandering into the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face, stepped on the big fluffy rug – and discovered it was soaking wet.  Ugh, what in the world?!

I would later learn that Larry had started the water in the sink, forgotten about it, and the overflow hole didn’t take out water as fast as the faucet was putting it in.  The flood wasn’t too bad, so he said – until he put his hand into the sink to pull out the plug.

“I thought I got it all mopped up!” said he with a somewhat sheepish mien.

Yeah, well... you can’t ‘mop’ a thick, fluffy rug that’s totally drenched.  🙄

I scooted the rug out of the way, and continued with morning ablutions.  After washing my hair, I gave myself a haircut.  Then I shined up the bathroom, put the rug where it would dry, and went to find myself some breakfast.

That morning, there was a male Rose-breasted grosbeak at our front feeders!  (Photo is from the American Bird Conservancy.)  

Today a photo of a bird went scrolling through on my screensaver.  I know from just looking this up last night that it’s a female Rose-breasted grosbeak.  But I’ll betcha anything I have it labeled as a female Red-winged blackbird.

Here is the female Red-wing:

They are similar, but look at the difference in their beaks.  The eyebrow is different, too, and the Rose-breast is lighter in the front.

After eating breakfast, I headed upstairs to sew the last border on the Farmall Scenes quilt.  When that was done, I put together a backing for it.  I had quite a bit of the barn fabric left, but not enough for the entire back.  I decided to put some red fabric along the sides.

I had originally planned to put narrow dark blue sashing around each tractor block, but then I would’ve had to make the red border wider, and there was not enough fabric for that.

Now I’m sorta glad I didn’t, since I like the way the cream-colored borders flow into the cream color of the background on the tractor blocks.  Anyway, it’s the way it had to be. 

The quilt measures 82” x 82”.  There wasn’t enough red fabric to make mitered corners on the tractor border, so I sewed in dark blue corner blocks – and discovered I like it better that way anyway.  As you can see, the quilt has outgrown the library floor!  Maybe I can coax Larry into power-washing the back deck when the quilt is all done.

The backing is pressed and ready to be loaded on the quilting frame.  I used every speck of the barn fabric, and all but a few small scraps of the red fabric.  It was then just barely big enough, so I had to add some throw-away fabric to the sides and the top for the frame clamps to fasten onto.  If there’s any of the barn and red fabrics left at the bottom of the quilt when I’m done quilting it, I will use it in the pillow I plan to make, with the extra appliquéd tractor block on the top.

Supper that evening was cheesy scrambled eggs (with a whole lot of mild cheddar cheese; next time I’m going to try Sharp cheddar cheese), root vegetables in garlic, thyme, and butter, yogurt, applesauce, and cranberry-elderberry juice.

Larry was working on a pickup at a coworker’s house in town.  The house is right next to Andrew and Hester’s house.  I was debating whether or not to leave Larry’s food out for a wee bit longer or put it in the refrigerator when he called to say he was on his way home – and Hester had given him ham and cheese sandwiches with thick, seeded buns, strawberries, and banana-bread/chocolate chip cupcakes to take home with him.

Trouble was, by then I had already eaten my share of supper, and I was plumb stuffed. 

When Larry got here, we put the pretty little boxes with the food in them into the refrigerator.  He had already eaten one sandwich and a big strawberry.  I mean, a huge strawberry, since he said it was bigger than the biggest strawberry in my box, and that one was really big.

We saved them for lunch after church last night.

Here’s a Chipping sparrow, or ‘Chippie’, for short.  It gets its name from its high-pitched twitters that sound like, “Chip! Chip! Chip!”  It looks very small, next to the Harris’ and the White-crowned sparrows.

Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny, with the birds singing like anything.  As I walked down the front sidewalk, I saw a Red admiral butterfly alight on a dandelion blossom.

Our children had a lovely little Bible story board book when they were little.  One day, unbeknownst to me, one of them brought it to church, hidden between a couple of other innocent books.  

Problem:  That Bible story book opened and closed with Velcro!!!  

During a verrrry quiet part of the service, RRRRIP!!! – one of the littles opened the book.  😯

Kurt and Victoria invited us to eat lunch with them after the morning service.  She had fixed beef and vegetable stew, and baked buns and sourdough bread.  Dessert was rolled strawberry cookies and a strawberry cake roll that Kurt’s mother Ruth had made.  Mmmm, it was good.

But the best part was holding and playing with Baby Arnold.  He had a soft blankie wrapped loosely around him.  As he smiled up at me, his fingers encountered the edge of the blanket, and, quick as a wink, he lifted it up until it nearly covered his face.  He held very still for just a moment, then pulled the blanket back down and grinned at me.

I laughed.  “Peek-a-boo!” I exclaimed, and Arnold beamed.

I thought what he had done was an accident, the first time.  But as soon as I made a big deal of it, he went at it with gusto.  There was absolutely no doubt that he was doing it on purpose.  And he’s only 3 ½ months old!

I asked Victoria, “Has he been doing that game for very long?”

“No, I’ve only seen him do it once before that,” she told me.  “He’s the smiliest baby,” she said.  “He laughs a lot for his age, big deep laughs.”

Victoria then sent a few older pictures she had taken, including a cute one of Carolyn, her arm around her little cousin Keira, and Violet, the baby, sitting on the floor in front of them, head turned around backwards to look at her big sister and older cousin.

I, of course, had to caption it with dialogue:

Violet:  “Why is she getting a hug from my sister instead of me?”

Keira:  “Do I like this?”

Carolyn:  “I’m the big girl, and I’m carefully doing the right thing.”

Victoria laughed, “That’s her (Carolyn’s) life motto, I think.”

Carolyn and Violet are 13 months apart, and their cousin Keira is smack-dab right in between.  Looking at Keira, who’s somewhere around a year old in that picture, it’s hard to believe that she had only been 2 lbs., 8 oz., when she was born.

I sent this to Hester today: 

From an old journal of mine:  One time when Hester was little, about 3 years old, she was playing in the tub, having such fun that I let her stay in there a little longer than usual.  When I got her out, she looked at her hand, and said in alarm, “I’m an old woman!”

Then she looked at her other hand and added, “AND an old man.”  😄

Hester responded, “😅😅😅😅 I love it when my kids stare at their fingers and wonder what in the world happened to them after a long bath.  Oliver was just talking really seriously about it last week.”

“Funny little boy,” I said.  “He tickles my funnybone.”

“He’s pretty funny!” Hester agreed.  “The last couple of weeks, I’ll tell him we’re going upstairs for a bath or something, and he then walks into the office or the kitchen and says, ‘This is upstairs.’ 🤭 😅😅”

“You used to pretend you were in a big fancy house with a big kitchen, when playing in the little kitchen I set up under the stairs,” I reminded her.

“We had so much fun in there!” she said.  “I remember that kitchen being one of my favorite things to play with.”

“You liked to tip those pitchers that looked like they had coffee or milk in them upside down to make me say in alarm, ‘Oh!!!  You spilled it!!!’”

In these pictures, Hester is playing with a little kitchen set that was mine when I was a toddler, not the ‘little kitchen’ I put under the stairs.  This was when Hester was younger, and the kitchen pieces are a lot smaller. 

The microwave has not gotten over its Episode of Burnt Oatmeal, despite using it multiple times, and despite putting baking soda in it.  Every time I used the microwave, it made the whole house stink all over again!  Ugh.

So today I put a bowl of water in it with a generous squirt of lemon juice, and heated it for four minutes.  I gave the bowl another healthy dollop of lemon juice, and stuck it back in the microwave for another three minutes.  When the lemon water cooled a bit, I heated it again, and let the steaming bowl sit in the microwave afterwards.

I do believe the poor thing is in some state of possible recovery now.

I brought in the bird feeders earlier this afternoon, because we had been warned of an extreme probability of severe weather, including 70-mph winds.  I poured water out of the birdbath that Larry just filled yesterday, removed the heavy stone bowl from the pedestal, and put it on the ground.  I didn’t want it to fall and break like the other one did a couple of years ago.  It had stood through bad weather for several years, and then I brought it out early in the spring, filled it – and that very night we had 65-70-mph winds, and it fell and broke.  Victoria had gotten it when she worked at Earl May Gardening Center.

Hester brought me this one last fall after finding it at a secondhand store.  It’s exactly like the previous one, except it’s a different shade of blue.

After all that trouble, we had only a little wind, and a bit of a rainstorm that gave us half an inch of rain – and that’s it.  There are many reports of tornadoes in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Iowa, and two in eastern Nebraska, though.  A little while ago, the small town of Barnsdall, Oklahoma, received a direct hit from an EF-3 tornado that was 1 ½ miles wide.  A good part of the town is in total shambles.  Two fatalities have been reported so far, and there have been multiple severe injuries, multiple people trapped.  A nursing home has been hit.

This is a screenshot from a video someone posted on X, taken in Oklahoma.  Look at all those vortices making up that huge tornado.

It’s a quarter ’til midnight, and I hear thunder.  It seems another wave of rain might hit us, though nothing is showing on radar.  There are tornadoes in Arkansas and Missouri.  It’s snowing in the Black Hills and in various parts of the Rockies. 

I just put away the last load of clothes; the laundry is done.  Bedtime!

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