Journal: Birds and Blooms

 

The Rembrandt tulips are blooming.

I used to have hundreds of tulips all along the fence line and beside the front sidewalk.  Nearly all of them have disappeared now.  Some have doubtless fallen prey to chipmunks, gophers, mice, squirrels, whistlepigs, and even rabbits.  Others expired because I planted them too close to the hundreds of daylilies I put in the ground at the same time.  Unbeknownst to me, daylily tubers put out so many roots, the underground becomes quite dense with them, essentially choking out other plants and bulbs.

I learned the trouble from a giant gardening book my sister gave me – too late for the tulips.  The book is as big as an encyclopedia volume, and I read it through from cover to cover, partly because that’s what I do (I read the dictionary straight through when I was about ten, after all), and partly because it was such a jolly entertaining and educational book, well-written and funny besides. 

As for that business of reading the dictionary through, I was working my way through that hefty tome – Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, circa 1963 – when my father happened into the room. 

He looked at me, all snugged into the big overstuffed chair in the living room, book in lap.  He looked at the dictionary.  “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Reading the dictionary,” I responded, feeling as though that should have been obvious.

“Why?” he inquired.

How do you answer a question like that?!  “Because...” I paused, considering.  “Because it’s interesting,” I finished.

Daddy clapped a hand to his forehead.  “Just what I need,” he groaned, “a know-it-all kid in the house.”

hee hee

I was in my 20s before I found someone who had done the same, when she was very young.  It was none other than my blind friend Penny! 

Before the dictionary, I read through an old encyclopedia set that I found in our basement.  It was printed in 1955.  My mother’s hair would’ve stood straight up on end, had she known what all I learned from that.  I did glue a few pages together, for conscience’s sake, when I got to the Painting and Arts, using some of that Elmer’s School Paste in a jar with the application stick in the lid.  And I skipped through Aeronautics and Diesel Motors when it got a little too deep and convoluted for my 6- or 7-year-old brain.

For the most part, though, I made it all the way from Aardvark to Zyzzyva (that’s a South American leafhopper).

How’d I get off on that tangent??  Oh... yes.  The gardening book.  Tulips vs. daylilies.

Tuesday evening for supper we had beef stroganoff, Oui yogurt, strawberry watermelon juice (I always get the 100% juice with no sugar added), and a cherry Danish (so much for no sugar, heh).

I alllllmost got all the borders sewn on the animal print blocks, but I ran out of steam.  I would finish them the next day.  The last border needed to be precisely the right width so that the blocks would exactly fit a section of three Cock’s Comb blocks with sashing between them.  That’s easy enough; but what should be easy can easily turn into a mess when one is about to snooze off on one’s feet.

Wednesday, I finished the borders on the animal prints and began joining them with the Cock’s Comb blocks.

That afternoon, I saw the first wasp of the season, hovering malevolently right outside my sewing room window.  (Not that that particular wasp was the first one of the season; but he was the first one I had seen this season.)

When my late niece Susan was a little girl, about 2 ½ years old, she was outside playing one day while my sister was working in the kitchen.

Suddenly the back door flew open, Susan came dashing in, slammed the door behind her, and stood leaning on it, panting.  Then, “A wäps (wasp) was chasing me!”  She gulped down a few more breaths of air, then exclaimed, “I don’t wike wäpses.  Dey toon dayo heads and dey wook at a witto grill!” 

(Translation:  “I don’t like wasps.  They turn their heads and they look at a little girl!”)

We got sandwiches at Arby’s after church that evening.  I got a Smokehouse Brisket, and Larry got a Crispy Chicken (I think).  

We could’ve done better; those aren’t the healthfullest sandwiches we’ve ever consumed.  Why anybody needs anything breaded inside a bun, I have no idea.  Next time, I’ll get a salad.  Or make one, at home.

Thursday was son Joseph’s 40^th birthday, his daughter Juliana’s 11^th birthday, and our oldest grandson Aaron’s 24^th birthday.  Larry works with Aaron, so he took him his gift – an electric lunchbox that can heat food, like the one we gave his cousin Ethan earlier this month.  We plan to see Joseph and his family next Saturday.

The plum bushes are blossoming.  I wonder if there will be any plums on them this year?  I haven’t ever seen any on those bushes, probably because they weren’t yet old enough to bear fruit. 

Thursday was a cool, misty, drizzly day with a high of 53°, which was good, because there were two or three wildfires in the state that were not under control.  One still is not.  The Plum Creek Fire in Brown County, 175 miles to our northwest, which started as a controlled burn by a private landowner in coordination with Nebraska Game and Parks, has burned over 7,025 acres and is currently only 70% contained.  Governor Pillen has declared a state of emergency and mobilized the Nebraska National Guard to assist in fighting the fire.  A statewide burn ban has been issued due to high fire danger.  Crews from over 60 local, state, and federal agencies are responding to the Plum Creek Fire.

You’d think of all people, the Nebraska Game and Parks personnel would know they shouldn’t let someone burn anything, prescribed or otherwise, on a dry, windy day!

Here are a pair of blue-winged teal, female on the left, male on the right, that I saw at the David City park last week.

And over here we have the camouflaged and the blue-hoodied fishermen.  They’re similar to the blue-winged teal, but less likely to catch any fish.

As I sewed that day, I listened to (and periodically glanced at) a YouTube video about the Pethericks, a British family who is restoring a chateau and an old convent in France.

The British accent alone makes it fun to listen to.  Here’s Billy Petherick, attaching studs to old stone walls:  “I have to do a Brico (France’s version of Home Depot) run, because the timbahs I have left ah all buh-näh-nuhs.”

A bit after midnight, I finished the Safari Animals quilt top, except for the borders.  I sure wish I had a decent place to take good photos of large quilts!  I keep mentioning this to Larry... and he keeps looking at me with a pondering expression.  Reckon I’ll wind up with a snazzy large-quilt holder one of these days?

A few days ago when I cut the animal-print panel apart, I suddenly noticed the printing in the selvage and then understood why the prints were the size they were, and why there was only a small amount of border print.  It said, “Pillow covers and cases.”

Friday, I attached the borders to the Safari Animals quilt, and that finished the top.  Next, I put the backing together, and then paused for supper.

Soon I was pulling a pizza out of the oven – Italian Wood-Fired Prosciutto and Arugula Pizza.  Mmmmm, yummy.  It’s one of my favorites.

Larry is unimpressed with it:  “It has a few skinny slices of some kind of ham on it, so skinny you may or may not be able to taste it; a few green twigs, two drips of sauce, and possibly a scattering of cheese.  That’s it.”

After supper, I got the quilt loaded on my quilting frame.

“Tomorrow I shall quilt!” I told some quilting friends, then added, “Lord willing, that is.  As the Apostle James said, ‘For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.’”

Saturday, while the Safari Animals quilt patiently waited, I looked through my panels and fabrics, deciding what to make for Jeffrey’s older brother Lyle, in case I needed to order anything for it.  After pulling out a printed panel I liked, I decided to work on a design for it in EQ8, so I wouldn’t be stymied when the Safari Animals quilt is done.  I don’t like getting stymied!  😄

Here’s the EQ8 design I plan to use for Lyle’s quilt.  It’s called Wolves’ Dream Catcher (since that’s the name of the panel).  I’ve ordered the backing, and will need to order fabric for the top.  I’ll do that as soon as I sign my name to this letter.

That done, I headed to my quilting studio and started quilting the Safari Animals quilt.

I briefly considered some vertical lines from the edge to the arches, but decided against it.  This is supposed to be a soft, cozy bed quilt, after all.  I’d put those lines in... and next, I’d feel obligated to put ovals between the tall and the short arches... and then I’d want some background pebbles and spirals in every other triangle... and then... and then... and then...

A friend was telling a story about vehicles, including her husband’s tractor, getting stuck in mud near her house; and that reminded me of my own story.  Here it is, from an old journal of March of 1998.

We were visiting Larry’s Aunt Lynn in Raton, New Mexico, and decided to head south to Gladstone to visit her two sisters and their husbands, as they couldn’t come north to visit us, being smack in the middle of calving season.  With that short intro, I’ll sort of jump into the middle of the story:

We all, including Aunt Lynn, headed for Gladstone.  The aunts and uncles lived about ten miles from this little town, on ranches on opposite sides of the highway.  We went to Lois and Earl’s, and Lorraine and Bill came there to visit and eat supper with us.

But it wasn’t as easy as it sounds.

You see, some time in the afternoon, it started raining, and it kept at it all evening and night.  So the country road to Uncle Earl’s house was nothing but wet clay and slime.

Mercy.  It was awful.  There were deep ditches on each side of the road where the road grader had pulled the dirt up onto the road, making it extremely humped in the middle, which made it even harder to stay in the center of the road.  We slipped and slid and skidded one way and then the other, constantly threatening to slide right into the ditch.

And then we’d see a cattle guard up ahead – a cattle guard that was positioned high atop a steep rise in the road! – a cattle guard that looked to be about three feet wide, whilst our lovely Suburban was all of nine feet wide, sliding sideways as it was.

But do you know what happened, each and every time we arrived at one of those guards?  I’ll tell you:  the Suburban miraculously straightened out and squirted through, its pretty teal and metallic sand sides unscathed.

I told Larry that the only reason it went through like that was because the terrified occupants all gasped in unison, which sucked the sides in and made it skinny enough to fit.

Finally, we spotted Uncle Earl’s spread up ahead through the darkness and rain, and it seemed like it took an endless amount of time to travel the distance to the driveway, which was to the right.  Just before we got to it, the Suburban began skidding uncontrollably to the left.  There was no stopping it.  Fortunately, there was no deep ditch at that particular location; but there was a two-and-a-half-foot bank.  We thudded hard against it.  That jarred us back toward the road, and we found ourselves pointed straight at Uncle Earl’s drive.  Larry steered into it, and we slipped and slid along until we at last reached the house, where we managed to get stopped before we hit the picket fence.

I thought sure the left side of our Suburban would be severely damaged; but, amazingly enough, we couldn’t find a single scratch or dent.  It took a good long while, however, before my hands stopped shaking and my heart started beating regularly again.

The whole while we were in Uncle Earl and Aunt Lois’ house, I could hear the rain pouring down, and I knew that hideous road was getting worse, and worse, and worse . . . . .

But I’ll have to say, Larry didn’t win all those motorcycle and dirt-bike trophies for nothing.  I tell you, if it had’ve been me driving that Suburban, I’d have slowed to a petrified stop in the road, whereupon we would’ve slithered right on over into one of those roadside gullies, and there we would’ve been then, stuck until the next ten-year drought came along.  And probably not right-side-up while we waited for it to come, either.

Anyway, we did have an enjoyable visit, in spite of the difficulties.  On the way back, Uncle Bill led us through the pasture for part of the drive, so we didn’t have to contend with that awful road for such a distance as before.

Nevertheless, I informed Larry that he’d’ve never made it safely, had he been all by himself; for then he would’ve had only one guardian angel; whereas, with all of the rest of us along, including Aunt Lynn, there were no less than twelve of them.

I’ll take Nebraska’s ice and snow any day, as opposed to that.

The crabapple tree is budding.  It’s so pretty!

Below are buds on the apple tree, from a couple of weeks ago.  It has already blossomed, and the blossoms have nearly all lost their petals.  Little green leaves are beginning to unfurl.

Sunday, I was reminded of a time when I was a little past 2 ½, not yet 3, holding my little New Testament in hand as I sat there in church beside my mother while my father was preaching.  I was staring at the print on the page, and thinking, There’s a story on this page, and I can’t read it!  By the time a year had passed, I was beginning to read, and absolutely delighted over the accomplishment.

Last week, just as our church service started, someone’s phone went off.  The sound quickly faded away, and I figured the person had either managed to shut it off quickly, or they had fled out the door with it.  Even though we generally have well over 450 people attending services three times a week, this seldom happens.

Years ago, friends of ours with a number of kids brought along a favorite teddy bear for the baby.  It played music when it was wound up, but the mother didn’t worry, because Baby couldn’t wind it.  Problem: the older sibling could wind it.  And wouldn’t you know, Baby dropped it, big brother picked it up -- -- -- and wound it.

So right in the middle of the service, there was Lullaby, and Good Night tinkling away.

The father grabbed the bear and rushed out the door with it.  

Usually, people only exited that fast with a crying baby, not with a singing teddy bear.  😄

Yesterday at about 6:30 p.m., a tornado struck a BNSF train near Bingham, Nebraska, in the northwest part of the state, almost in the Panhandle.  It knocked a long string of coal cars onto their sides.  The engine stayed upright, and the two men inside it were not injured.

I spent an hour working in the flower gardens this morning, while birds of various denominations in all the surrounding trees made concerned and sometimes downright nasty remarks at the back of my head.  There are nests, eggs, babies, and fledglings in them thar trees!  Tulips and Lily-of-the-Valley are blooming, and there are buds on the irises.  Here’s a juvenile house finch in Floof Mode.

This afternoon as I was washing dishes, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, looked out the window – and saw a rabbit rushing out from underneath one of the fir trees.  He immediately froze in place – because, not 25 feet away, the friendly black neighbor cat strolled stealthily along.  The black neighbor cat is friendly to me, not to bunnies.  The bunny didn’t move, and the cat never even glanced his way.  It’s a full-grown rabbit, and he’s pretty close to the same size as the cat; but bunnies aren’t carnivores, and cats are. 

I like them both.  Why can’t cats just eat straw?  Dandelions?  Something other than the neighborhood bunnies?! 

Ah, well.  Bunnies do have a habit of eating hostas, so the cats do save the flowers.

Siggghhhh.

I have a nice-sized patch of Lily-of-the-Valley now after starting with just one lonesome little plant several years ago.  Every time I walked past them this morning, I could smell their sweet fragrance.  After I came in the house, I lit my Lily-of-the-Valley candle that Hester gave me.  Mmmm... I love that aroma.

There are white-crowned sparrows grabbing spilled sunflower seeds under the feeders, and I hear them whistling in the trees.  

Earlier, I saw a Baltimore oriole on the suet feeder.  Maybe I’ll work up a smidgeon of want-to, and fill and hang the oriole feeder.

A couple of Eurasian collared doves just landed on Larry’s scissor lift out front.  Did you know that most doves mate for life?

Okay, now the female has flown down to the sidewalk right below my kitchen window, and the male has quickly followed her.  As she waddle-bobbed along in the usual dove-walk fashion, gobbling down seeds, leaf buds, and the occasional wayward insect, her mate, more concerned about impressing his lovey-dovey than in having supper, hurried along behind her, bowing his chest right down to the walk as he intoned, “HOO-hoo... Hoo!  HOO-hoo... Hoo!”  A few more quick steps forward, then several more deep bows, repeating, “HOO-hoo... Hoo, HOO-hoo... Hoo!” 

The female bobbed along, seemingly impervious to his birdy charms. 

Mr. C. Dove scampered forward, close enough to the missus that his deep bow nearly caused him to bump his little round punkin on her pretty tail feathers. 

“HOOO-hoo... Hoo!” he yelled (as well as a dove can yell), so loudly that his voice cracked in the middle of that first ‘HOO’. 

Mrs. Dove turned and looked at him.  “You okay there, honey?”

And now it’s 7:25 p.m., and woweee, the winds have suddenly begun blowing somethin’ fierce!  My weather app still says ‘32-mph winds’ and ‘Fresh Breeze’, as it’s been saying all day; but these winds are more like 50 mph, at the least.  It’s really roaring through the trees.

There are tornadoes and severe thunderstorms in Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and northern Nebraska.

And that’s right where Larry is picking up forms with the boom truck – in northern Nebraska, near Yankton, South Dakota, to be exact.  Black threatening clouds with a lot of lightning are headed his way from the west, so he’s hurrying to get the job done and come home before the storm strikes.

According to the radar map, we’ll be getting some rain between 10:00 p.m. and midnight, but after that it should clear.  Therefore, I plan to hit the hay a little earlier than usual, in order to again work in the flower gardens in the morning.

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