Journal: ♫ ♪ The Young Raccoon ♪ ♫ by the Light of the Moon ♫ ♪ Was Combing His Auburn Hair ♪ ♫

 

Last Monday, Hester sent pictures of Keira with a cicada shell, writing, “We’re trying to be brave and touch cicada shells.”

That meant, Oliver was trying to be brave and touch cicada shells.  😄  He just didn’t know about those ugly little critters!

I once stuck a cicada shell on me like a brooch and went down the street to visit a friend.  She let me in the house – and then, spotting the cicada shell, shrieked bloody murder.

I, who am not jumpy, alllllmost jumped.

My blind friend Penny just never asks for anything – or if she does, she wants to pay me.  But upon hearing about the quilt I am making for my son-in-law’s sister Esther out of fabric from their late mother’s stash and from dresses she sewing for Esther when she was little, Penny asked if I might have a small piece left over, about the size of a handkerchief, that she could have, and would I mind hemming it for her.

Penny and Bethany were good friends, as they taught together at our church school, and often worked on lessons and graded papers together.

Well, I wrote back, “Instead of just a small piece of domp r-r-r-rag (roll the r, like the original Winnie-the-Pooh narrator did), how would you like a pretty throw pillow?  I have enough fabrics to do that.”

(I imagine most of you know the story of Piglet and the burst balloon he’d intended to give Eeyore?)

Penny answered with a long line of X’s and O’s.  Yep, she was pleased with the offer, though she did say I should finish all the grandchildren’s quilts first.  But that won’t happen for a good long while; and a pillow only takes a few hours.

Esther, too, was pleased to learn I was going to make a keepsake pillow for Penny.  “Eeyore happens to be a personal ‘hero’ of mine,” she wrote, reminding me so much of when her mother and I used to exchange notes when we were in Jr. and Sr. High together.  “I find my outlook on life to line up with his quite often:  ‘We haven’t had an earthquake lately...’”

“I, on the other hand,” I told her, “identify with Piglet, who, if he did anything embarrassing, proceeded to do it several more times in a row ‘in an exercising manner’, in order to pretend like he did it on purpose.”

Since someone was worrying about rabies last week after I posted pictures of the raccoon, though I knew the bat was what she should have been more worried about, I looked up the statistics.  Here in Nebraska, we generally have fewer cases of rabies than many other states, particularly those states to the east.  There have been no cases of rabies in our county or most adjacent counties for the last 5 years, and only three cases in the previous 10 years.  By far the greater majority of rabies cases in the state are bats, at nearly 90%.  Next in order are skunks.  No raccoons in the state have tested positive for rabies in the last 5 years, and only one raccoon case in the previous 10 years.  I like to keep track of these statistics, particularly because there are so many bats in our vicinity.

The raccoons around here always look fat and healthy.  The one we’ve been seeing the most of for the last couple of weeks is a young male, all bright-eyed and cute.  In fact, he’s out on the front porch right this minute, cleaning up the remnants of sunflower seeds.

The cicadas were singing up a chorus a little earlier.  They’re loud, but no louder than they are most summers.  It seems we have not had the infestation of them that some places have had.  Speaking of singing insects, ever since I had a second bout of Covid, maybe in 2022? – I’ve had tinnitus.  Katydid of the ear.  That’s what it sounds like:  half a dozen katydids singing vociferously in my ears.  I can still hear all right, for the most part, though.

Tuesday afternoon, I picked up a grocery order at Wal-Mart.  Home again, I got everything put away (except two 40-lb. bags of black-oil sunflower seeds that were too heavy for me).  I paid some bills, cleaned the kitchen, watered the porch flowers, and was about to head upstairs to work on the Hanging Gardens quilt when my phone rang.

It was a lady from the County Fair calling to tell me that the Fisherman Fred Goes Canoein’ quilt had won Best of Show, the Puppies & Kittens in the Flowers quilt won Best of County (which gives it a special ticket to a special division in the State Fair), and one of the Fisherman Fred pillows won Best of County in Textiles!

I would later learn that the ‘You Are Loved’ fabric book won a 1^st-place ribbon, as did the other Fisherman Fred and the Farmall Scenes pillows; the Farmall Scenes quilt won 1^st-place, and the ‘You Are Loved’ quilt won a Judges’ Choice 1^st -place ribbon.

I promptly called daughter Hester and granddaughter Keira, 6 (they were on speakerphone), to tell them the news.  I was pleased as punch, because Keira was just sure her quilt would win something, and I really wanted it to, for her sake.  I promised her the ribbons and whatever money award it would win.  It’s never a whole lot, from the County Fair.  

And then I was finally ready to go upstairs and work on the Hanging Gardens quilt.

By 11:30 p.m., three borders, including the pieced one, were on the quilt.  There were two more to go.

Here’s the morning sunshine shining through the quilt as it hung over my frame.  Doesn’t it almost look like stained glass?

It was a lovely morning early Wednesday, so I did some work in the flower gardens, and cut down a few volunteer trees.  I filled the bird feeders, and even managed to drag those two 40-pound bags of black-oil sunflower seeds out of the back of the Benz and land them in my Gorilla Cart, then take them to the house and, with more grit than grace, pull them up the porch steps, ka-bump, ka-thump, ka-bump, and into the house.

The purple coneflowers are in bloom, along with tall lavender phlox, orange daylilies, hollyhocks, and lavender hostas.  There is one Rose of Sharon hibiscus blooming – and hundreds of buds, all over the bush, which has grown to be about ten feet tall.

After a shower and some breakfast, I headed upstairs to work on the last two borders of the Hanging Gardens quilt.  It went quickly enough that I even had time to put together the backing before our evening church service.  Hannah had given me a bolt of flowered fabric that used to be Bethany’s (her late mother-in-law, Esther’s mother), and there was just (barely!) enough for the backing.  

Thursday, before loading the Hanging Gardens quilt on the frame, I cut the pieces for the memory pillow for my friend Penny, since the fabric was on the quilting table, which I also use as a cutting table.  And then, before I could stop myself, I just hauled off and sewed it together.  The trim around the edges came from one of Esther’s dresses that I cut apart. 

It then occurred to me that I should sew one of the large pansy buttons that was on one dress in the middle of this pillow.  

When the pillow was done, I put all the fabric away, loaded the Hanging Gardens quilt on my quilting frame, chose a pantograph, taped it in place on the quilting table, and quit for the night.

Our grandson Levi, 14, had his first piano-tuning lesson that day.  By the next day, he had begun working on Hannah’s piano.  He has a digital tuner that helps him get the vibrations for each string correct.

“The machine is expensive,” he told me, sending a picture of it.  “If I’m not careful, I’ll be crying, ‘Alas, master, for it was borrowed!’”

(That’s from one of the stories of Elisha, when an axe head fell into the Jordan as a young man was felling a beam.)

One time when Caleb was a little guy, about four years old, he was sitting at the piano picking out a few tunes – and then he went to thumping on one note and one note only:  “DONG DONG DONG DONG DONG”

I yelled over the racket, “CALEB!!!!  What are you DOING?!?!”

He jumped out of his hide, looked sheepish, and explained, “I was tuning the piano.”

(That’s what a piano tuner does, isn’t it?  Just DONG DONG DONGs on a note to tune it?)

Friday morning when I went out to water the flowers on the porch, I discovered that the raccoons had figured out how to get to the black-oil sunflower-seed feeders hanging from a tall shepherd’s hook in the front yard by climbing a trellis next to the front porch, stretching out and grabbing a feeder, and pulllling it to them.  They bent that heavy-duty shepherd’s hook!  They’d already squished a couple of healthy hostas under the feeders. 

Hmmph.  It was not my idea to hang feeders directly over my flowers.

“I think you lie awake nights, dreaming up new ways to demolish my flowers!” I accused Larry.

He laughed.  He laughed!

I went to visit Loren that day, since I planned to go to the Platte County Fair Saturday.

He just could not stay awake enough to visit, though he knew I was there, and was pleased I had come.  His favorite nurse told me he has not been eating well – at least, by himself, he has not.  He does not appear to have lost any weight, though, as she sits down and helps him get started, giving him a few bites.  That evidently whets his appetite, so he picks up a fork or spoon and starts eating.

I got home around 5:30 p.m., and headed upstairs to my quilting studio.  I was glad I’d gotten the pantograph ready the night before, and that everything was ready for me to start quilting.  It’s so much nicer to be able to walk in, turn on the machine, and launch straight into quilting, than to have to get the pantograph adjusted, taped in place, and the machine positioned at the start of the design before I can begin.

When I had two-and-a-half rows done, I quit for the night.  The pantograph is called ‘Marigold’, and it’s designed by Patricia E. Ritter and Leisha Farnsworth.  It’s a somewhat intense pattern, and takes a while for one pass across this 113 ¾” quilt top.  (I just measured it; it’s not quite as big as I had thought it was going to be.)

Saturday, I quilted until Larry got home from work in the late afternoon, and then we went to the fair.

It was very hot here, and a heat advisory was issued.  A good many of the animals had already been taken home, as the barns were awfully hot.  It wasn’t bad in the big barn with the cows, but the smaller barn where the chickens were was so hot that all the chickens were panting, poor things.

Several animals were still in the ‘Petting Area’, including these curious alpacas.  Every time I tried petting the bigger one, she tried nibbling my coral ring right off my finger.  😄

After leaving the fair, we went to Pizza Ranch, where we used a gift card one of our great-nephews, who is also Larry’s boss, gave him as a thank-you for all the work Larry did on the company trucks.

Then we took the Benz through the carwash and came home.

When I went out to get the bird feeders, a bat swooped so low over my head, I could’ve reached right up and touched it.  They’re curious little things.  I like to watch the bats – so long as they stay outside and don’t come visiting indoors, and so long as they don’t lay eggs in my hair.

Yeah, yeah; I know they are mammals and do not lay eggs.

I quilted a little more, until the quilt was almost one-third of the way done.

We were just about to go to bed when Larry took a look at one of the news notifications he’d received – and learned that someone had tried to assassinate former President Trump.  A bullet hit his ear, and a bullet hit three attendees at the rally, killing one and leaving the other two in critical condition.  Horrible – and a serious breach of security. 

The Secret Service killed the shooter.

Sunday was another hot day, getting up to a high of 94°.

After church last night, we had a supper of chicken sausage gumbo and Flipside pretzel crackers, with Oui Mocha Chocolate yogurt for dessert.

This morning I picked up my things at the fair, and then took the promised ribbons and award money to Keira.  It was only $3.50, but that’s a nice little prize for a six-year-old.  I will leave her quilt with her until time to take it to the Nebraska State Fair.  I took a small tablet with a deer printed on each page to Oliver, too; can’t give Keira something without giving little brother something, too!

Oliver was still asleep, but he’s old enough to understand who gave him the tablet.

Keira carefully and artistically lined up rosette, ribbon, dollar bills, coins, and quilt on the couch, and looked everything over.  She couldn’t quit smiling.

Before leaving town, I stopped at the Daniels’ Produce stand and got some fresh produce.  They have the best food in the area, hands down.  Their big farm is just a few miles to our west.

I got a couple of tomatoes, half a dozen ears of sweet corn, a big sweet green bell pepper, and a large watermelon.  I love watermelon.  Cantaloupe and honeydew, not so much.

I was glad I had my red canvas wagon to haul everything into the house.

That done, I walked around the yard taking pictures of the flowers, watered the flowers on the porch, filled the birdbaths, and started the sprinkler.  This is a Stella d'Oro daylily.

I learned from Newsbreak Nebraska that last night’s brilliant sunset was caused by wildfires, as I had supposed – but not from those far away in California, but much nearer.  There’s a big wildfire near LaGrange, Wyoming, which is just over the Nebraska/Wyoming line, southwest of Scottsbluff, Nebraska.

For supper tonight, we had a couple ears of the corn and one of the tomatoes I got from Daniels’ Produce, crackers and cheese, and smoothies made with Kemp’s vanilla ice cream, frozen fruit, and a bit of milk.  The heavy-duty KitchenAid mixer with its new blender coupler worked just fine, though I didn’t blend the smoothie long enough, and we still wound up with pomegranate seeds in our smoothies.  Larry finally removed his dentures and ate his smoothie sans teeth, while I chewed a piece of gum afterwards to remove the seeds from my teeth.

That cute, not-so-little raccoon on the front porch just spotted me at the window, stared, came closer, and then stood up tall on his back feet, the better to see me.  The porch light was probably creating a bit of a glare on the window, making it a little bit hard for him to ‘look me between the face,’ as an evangelist we knew used to say. 

Then he heard something out in the yard that frightened him (the raccoon, not the evangelist) (was it a coyote? a Great Horned owl?), and he scurried away, stage right.

Today is our 45^th wedding anniversary!  Larry jumped the gun and gave me a gift on Saturday – a handmade Bed|Stu leather purse with a matching coin purse/wallet.

Wow, now there was an entire family of raccoons on the porch! – two big ones and three quite small ones.  Cuter’n all get-out, they are.  One of the big ones was about to haul off with the empty feeder, and was making an unearthly racket with it.  It’s glass, with a brass base and a brass lid.  It’s a wonder the glass is still intact.  I rescued the feeders, and the raccoons headed off to the trees.

And now I shall head off to the feathers.

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