Journal: Cats, Meat Grinders, {Blurry} Ducks, & Geese

 

A friend who wanted no cats has somehow wound up with four – a mother and three young’ns.  These were evidently dumped at her lakeside home in the woods.  Since they were all in seeming good health, she assumed they belonged to the neighbors; but since they all appeared hungry, she fed them.  She later discovered they were living in a shed on her property, and they don’t seem to ever leave her property.  She therefore now has four cats.  They are willing to eat and play on her front porch, but they are not yet tame enough to allow her to pet them.

Her young granddaughter is trying her best to befriend these kitties.

I recommended Temptations Cat Treats.  “Show her how to make little trails with them across the porch, leading the cats closer to her... and tell her to sit perfectly still and just let the cats come nearer.  Eventually, she can end the trail with a few treats on her leg (though when one of my girls did this with a leery stray cat, she suddenly got struck funny – or maybe the kitty’s paw on her leg tickled – and she laughed quite abruptly and nearly put the cat atop the Douglas fir).  If she’d like to make the treats herself, here’s a good recipe:  Homemade Cat Treats.”

Victoria used to like making homemade treats for the neighbor dogs.  She sometimes had three or four Labs, a Shepherd, and/or a Doodle or two following her to the mailbox or up the hill on Old Highway 81, tails wagging (or, contrariwise, snarling at each other, if the Brindle got involved).  She managed to teach several of those dogs a variety of tricks, to the surprise of their respective owners.

Late morning Tuesday, it was 24°, on the way up to 34°.  After a bit of computer work, I started a load of clothes and then got back to scanning photos.  The stack of finished albums was slowly getting taller.  I try to look at that instead of the huge bin that looks almost as full as it did when I first opened it.  I feel sort of like the widow in I Kings whose ‘pot of meal wasted not, and the cruse of oil was not diminished;’ only in my case, I want to empty that bin!

Soon the house smelled pleasantly of Lavender Vanilla from the washing machine.

I like scented everything – April Fresh, Rain Fresh, Lavender Eucalyptus, Vanilla Spice, Apple Pie candles and scent warmers, Peony dish soap, Passionflower all-purpose cleaner, etc.

But I pretty much stopped wearing perfume – especially to church – years ago.  Nothing like several hundred people wearing clashing varieties of perfume and cologne, all squashed into tight proximity.  😛😜😝

Also, I’m careful about scents in the house when any of the kids with asthma come over.  The good-smelling body lotions I like and use every day never seems to bother anybody, thankfully.

Tuesday evening, we had more of the deer meatloaf Hannah gave us, with corn on the cob, and big, soft, baked pretzels.

That evening, I sat down in my recliner and wasted a few minutes of my time watching people making calamitous errors with forklifts.  Realizing how many of my menfolk run forklifts at various times, it occurred to me that I have been quite negligent in worrying about them at these particular endeavors.  Hopefully, though, they have a few more brains than the people in the YouTube videos I saw.

Don’t you think this little fox squirrel is saying, “Thanks for the sunflower seeds; but... do you have any walnuts?”

And look!  He has a perfect little snowflake smack-dab in the middle of his forehead.

Wednesday dawned looking sunshiny and pretty, 32° on the way up to 42°.  Appearances can be deceiving, though.  It wasn’t long before we were issued a High Wind Warning:  northwest winds of 30 to 40 mph with gusts up to or possibly over 60 mph.  Wow!  That’s windy.

Why does it invariably seem to happen on Wednesdays, when I’d like to look neatly put together, not totally windblown, for church?!  😃

I set about trying to get another album scanned before time for church.

By 2:00 in the afternoon, the wind was rattling our half-done roof something awful.  The trees were bending to and fro, even the Douglas firs and the Blue spruces.

By 4:30, though, the wind had died down to 35 mph, and it wasn’t rattling the house so loudly.  Maybe I would arrive at church with mah wig still intact!

I once said to a boy at Menards who was helping me gather up some plants, “It’s so windy, my wig nearly blew off!” – and he thought I meant it. 

He said, “Oh, I’m sorry; do you want to wait inside?”

I laughed and told him I was kidding.  “If I ever wear a wig, it’ll be bright red instead of gray!” 

(He thought I meant that, too.)  (Today’s youth have had their senses of humor warped.)

I turned a page in the album I was scanning – and there were the two pictures of Dr. Luckey holding Victoria when she was just a few hours old.  I was so afraid the pictures were lost.  In fact, these very photos were the very ones that alerted me to the fact that a number of albums were missing. 

Dr. Luckey was my doctor from Teddy (1983; our 4^th child) on down through the next five children, and he was a wonderful doctor.  I finally worked up enough, uh, chutzpah, to ask for a picture with him holding my baby, which I figured might very well be my last.  Dr. Luckey retired a few years ago.

A whole raft of Victoria’s first photos as a newborn – and first smiles – are in that album, too, along with several pages of Teddy’s senior pictures.

I finished scanning that album, and duplicated each page as many times as necessary to match number of photos on the page.  I labeled each one; now they only needed to be cropped.  There were eleven large albums to go, and four quite small ones, as opposed to the six sorta small ones I thought there were.

I got half of the next album scanned before time for church.  That left 10 ½ albums to go.

That night, I slept a couple of hours between 1:30 a.m. and 3:30 a.m., finally fell back to sleep around 7:15 a.m. – and promptly got awoken again by Larry getting clothes out of the bureau.  Fifteen minutes later, I gave up; I have better things to do than to lie in bed scrambling about trying to get comfortable enough to go back to sleep.

By 10:00 a.m. Thursday morning, it was 21°, on the way up to 28° that afternoon.  After that, the temperature would drop... and drop... and drop.

After reading the news, I texted Keith:  “Did you feel an earthquake this morning?”

“Yes,” he responded.  “It didn’t last very long, though.”

“Was there any damage?” I asked.

“Haven’t heard of any,” he said.  “I don’t think it lasted long enough to do much, if any.  I was sitting in my ready-mix truck waiting for it to warm up.”

The earthquake measured M4.7, and hit 56 miles east of Salt Lake City.  Keith and Korrine live in Layton, 25 miles north of Salt Lake City.

For breakfast that morning, I toasted half a bagel, slathered it with butter, and spread on some lemon curd an elderly friend sent us for Christmas.

I usually love lemon curd.

Usually.

But wheweeee, this stuff is sour.  I mean, it’s SOUR! 

I don’t like it much.  I do like the friend.  Unfortunately, I didn’t thank her for it before eating some.  (With some friends, I know I must thank them for various ‘food’ items before we attempt to eat them.)  😅

 So... it’s not lying, is it, if I send her a thank-note note for the ‘yummy’ lemon curd?  After all, just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s not ‘yummy’ to somebody, right?  And I am thankful.  I’m thankful for two specific things:  1) that she is my friend, and 2) that she only gave us a small jar of lemon curd. 

Maybe she used Eureka or Lisbon lemons rather than Meyer lemons.  Maybe there’s too much zest and not enough sugar.  Maybe she used a reactive metal pot.  Maybe Larry can use the rest of it in next Sunday’s waffles!

It’s a cute little jar, though, isn’t it?

When Larry came home for lunch, he asked if I’d like to go to Cabela's in Omaha that afternoon to get a meat grinder.  Sure!  I’m always game for a trip to Cabela's or Bass Pro Shops.

“I’ll be home around 5, then,” he told me, and headed back to work. 

Yes, he has ‘retired’, but only partially.  He’s been doing work around Walkers’ shop in the last few weeks, rather than driving the boom truck.

I started a load of laundry.  I probably wash nearly twice the amount of clothes in the winter as I do in the summer.  I went on scanning photos for a few hours before pausing to gather up the things we would take with us to Omaha.

Larry didn’t get home until shortly before 6:00, and he needed to shower and change clothes.  At least I got the laundry done! 

Cabela's closes at 8:00 p.m. during the winter; but Bass Pro Shops, according to their website, would not close until 9:00 p.m. 

It’s almost exactly 100 miles to Bass Pro Shops.  It’s about 93 miles to Cabela's in La Vista, Nebraska.  (La Vista is a suburb of Omaha.)  The driving time to Bass Pro Shops is only about 5 more minutes than it is to Cabela’s.  We would therefore go to Bass Pro Shops in Council Bluffs.

However.  Bass Pro Shops has not updated their website to their winter hours.  They, too, it turns out, close at 8:00 p.m. during the winter.  Good thing we didn’t make any pitstops all the way there!

We skedaddled in at about 7:52 p.m., and a friendly lady at one of the checkout stands informed us that the store would be closing in less than ten minutes.

We kicked in the afterburner and raced headlong up the stairs to the campware/cooking department.  

There, with help from a very nice young man who worked there and didn’t even act like we were running late, we found the meat grinder Larry wanted.  We grabbed a package of freezer bags especially for ground burger, a knife, and the metal clamps for securing those freezer bags.  Then we dashed back to the checkout stands, where the one lonesome clerk, no doubt waiting for us, praised us for being so fast.

We paid for our purchases with our Cabela’s points, and thus we didn’t have to pay a dime.  I was sorry I didn’t have time to pick up some gifts for upcoming birthdays in the General Store area.  I like their jellies, soups, bread mixes, and jerky.

Siggghhhh... I live with the person for whom the song ‘Always Late!’ was written.  Ah, well.  At least now we can grind our own deer meat.

We then went and ate supper at Primo’s Modern Mexican Restaurant.

I got the Carne Asada plate, and it was delicious.  

Larry’s plate arrived, sizzling, on a cast iron skillet on a board, and had all colors of sweet peppers, with chicken, steak, and shrimp, along with side dishes of rice and beans.

We were half starved half to death when we went in that place; but we still exited with Styrofoam boxes containing almost as much food as the amount we’d eaten.  There was plenty for supper the next night.  Good grief, no wonder 43% of the world’s adult population is overweight.  How anyone can eat as much as most restaurants dole out is beyond me.

“How does a ‘modern Mexican restaurant’ differ from a ‘nonmodern Mexican restaurant’?” a friend wondered.

“It has lanterns instead of candles and they cook in fireplaces instead of over campfires,” I told her.  “I think.”

The online reviews were correct, though:  “One of the best authentic Mexican eateries ever, anywhere.”

As we headed home, Joanna sent me a link to this (supposed) book, Blurry Ducks at a Distance, a Waterfowl Identification Guide.  The picture on the front shows four extremely blurry ducks in flight.  

The caption reads, “Finally, a duck-identifying book that is helpful.  We all had a copy of Ducks at a Distance growing up, but when have you ever had a duck pause with wings perfectly outstretched so you could easily identify its secondary feathers?  Never!  They’re usually nuking past over your decoys with a 50-mph tailwind.  Now with Blurry Ducks at a Distance, you can train yourself on what they actually look like!”

There were lighted signs all around Omaha saying, “EXTREME COLD IF YOU GET STRANDED!”

That means that the weather outside is either hot or cold, depending on whether or not one is stranded, right?  😅  (Okay, there was a bottom line on the sign that said ‘Call *55’.)

It was 7° as we left Omaha.  We got home at a quarter ’til midnight.  By then, it was 4°, with a windchill of -25°.  The overnight low would be -7°.

At noon on Friday, it was 4 below 0, with a windchill of -14° – but, would you believe, we had an ongoing flood warning!  There was an ice jam on the Loup River, and water was beginning to rise in low-lying areas.

Our high that day would be -1°.

I gathered the papers I needed and started doing our taxes.  I was soon stymied, with no idea what the answer to this question was:  How much of the retirement contributions from your W-2 (box 12) went to a SIMPLE Roth IRA plan?

BUT! – Andrew is now the accountant for Walkers!  I texted him, and he promptly gave me the answer.  I texted Larry at the same time, and he soon answered, too.  His answer was exactly and precisely the opposite from Andrew’s.

I went with Andrew’s answer.  😉

I soon had to quit, though, because I didn’t have a 1099-R form, and Edward Jones wouldn’t have it ready until February 8^th.  Or so they said. 

It arrived today.  🙄

Guess what I’ll be doing tomorrow?

You know, I could move to Monaco, the Bahamas, Bahrain, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, or Vanuatu, and then I wouldn’t have to contend with this aggravatin’ tax stuff.

I saved what I had done so far, and went to work on pictures.

Larry called to say he was in Kansas, heading to some little town near Topeka to get a large hunk of metal of one sort or another that he got on Purple Wave.  He was in a hurry, because a snowstorm was coming.

He managed to pick up his items – a utility box and a sweeper that attaches to a mower – before the snow started, and headed toward home.  It started snowing in southern Nebraska, though, sometimes coming down hard enough that he could barely see the road.

He got home before midnight, relatively unscathed.

By 4:15 p.m. that day, I had one more album scanned.  There were eight to go.  I paused with the scanning to do the cropping and editing of the last three albums.

Brrrrr, it was cold in this house.  Not bad upstairs in my sewing room where I was working on pictures, though.

I sent this picture to Joseph, asking, “Remember this?  Your teacher (Helen Tucker) asked you boys to bring her some wood for a fire.”  😅

Joseph is third from the right.

Caleb and Maria and family gave me a soft, plush bathroom rug for Christmas.  That is, it said ‘from Caleb, Maria, Eva, and Maisie’ on the tag; but I know who really picked it out and wrapped it.

The rug is white.  White.  Beautiful white.

Larry only had to vacuum it twice before he remembered not to walk on it in dirty boots.

By 7:30 p.m., the temperature had dropped to 1 below 0.

I had a little text conversation with Joanna, then said, “I’ll leave you with this cute picture.”

I then got this note from Google Messages, the program I use for texting from my laptop:

“Einem Bild ein Herz hinzugefügt”

I quickly copied the line, pasted it into a translator, and then wrote back to Joanna, “Somebody from Germany just told me you added a heart to that image.”

“Oh!” replied Joanna, “That must be because my keyboard language is set to German right now, haha.”  😅

Here are Caleb and Joseph in their room, January 3, 1997.  We’d just moved Caleb downstairs in order to turn his upstairs room into a nursery, as Victoria would be coming along in less than two months.  Joseph is in the upper bunk.

That evening, I baked fruit and oat squares.  Hannah had given us the layered mix in a jar, and jars of fruit spread for it, too, for Christmas.  Yummy!

It was another cold morning Saturday, only up to 2° by 11:00 a.m.  The high would be 8°, a little warmer than the previous day.  We got maybe half an inch of snow overnight.  It was cold enough that my boots squeaked on the snow on the back deck when I walked outside to rehang the bird feeders.

Meteorologist Ryan Hall, reporting on the ongoing snowstorm to our east, showed picture after picture from his subscribers showing empty grocery store shelves, even in places where the weather was not expected to be very bad at all.  Why were the sheep in such a panic?

And then I found this picture on Facebook, which I shall caption, “Somebody’s kitchen somewhere.”

I headed upstairs to scan more photos.  It takes 55 seconds to scan a page at 600 dpi.  I seldom scan at resolutions that high, because it takes too long.  300 dpi gives a decent quality, and takes only 15-20 seconds.  When one has somewhere around 50,000 photos to scan, that much time matters.

Here are Hester and Lydia in the outfits they wore to our Christmas dinner in 1996 (though the picture was taken January 5, 1997).  I made their skirts, and what looks like ruffly blouses were actually just ruffled neck and wrist pieces that buttoned into place.  I cannot remember if I threaded strips of velvet ribbon through Lydia’s sweater or if it came that way.  I made their hairbows, too.  The horses and riders they are playing with were Christmas gifts.

Quilting ladies wonder how I can stand to work on pictures for so long.  Photographers wonder how I can quilt for so long.  Well... I enjoy both!  I’m happy as can be to have found these pictures I feared were lost.

Here are Victoria’s very first pictures.  This one was taken when she was just a few hours old.

In the one below, it looks like her siblings weren’t sure what they thought of her just yet.  😅

She was only a few days old when I captured photos of her smiling.  She smiled so soon after she was born!

I debated whether to ‘clear up her complexion’ (below) with PaintShop Pro, but decided not to, in favor of ‘truth in photography’.

I sent the pictures to Victoria, remarking on the complexion debate.

“Nahhh,” she answered, “Babies need to just look real.”  Then, a few seconds later, “I had very exciting hair.”

“Haha!” I laughed,  “It started out being a little curl on top – but the furry hat ruined it.  Static electricity, and all that!”

I sent another, showing the hat in question.

“🥰 I love these,” responded Victoria.  “My babies haven’t bothered to look very much like me, except here and there.  Arnold was the most similar for a while.”  She sent a picture of him at four months, saying, “He did a pretty good job looking like me at this age.”

She’s so funny.  As if her babies were picking and choosing whom to look like and when.  Hee hee

That afternoon, I started to make a new gallon of cold-brew coffee – and the coffee bean grinder fell apart.  I texted Larry with this dire news:  “Call the National Guard!  The CIA!  The FBI!  The coffee bean grinder just went kaput!”

He promptly responded, “Try using the new meat grinder.  😉”

Fortunately, I was able to grind beans in the blender.  Not well, but ... they were better than whole beans.

Soon Gingerbread cold brew was steeping in the refrigerator.

I had a little Jingle Java cold brew left, and there’s always Celsius or a large variety of hot teas.  If I wanted more cold brew, I did have a bottle of Dunkin hazelnut vanilla.  It’s concentrated and has to be watered down a lot, and it’s not nearly as good as the home-brewed variety. 

“But I reckon I’ll survive!” I ended, after relating all this to Larry.

When he came home that evening, he brought a grinder he’d gotten at Menards.

Here is Hannah with her cousin David’s little girl Lynette, 03-30-97.

“She was afraid of people for some time,” Hannah remarked when I sent her the picture, “so it was really special to me when she began to like me.”

There’s a dark-eyed junco in the tray of one of the bird feeders, industriously doing his signature jump-forward-scrape-feet-backward endeavor, which of course is totally unnecessary in a tray at the bottom of a half-full bird feeder.  Juncos normally feed on the ground.  But a lot of the seed other birds spill on the ground and the juncos usually consume is covered by snow and quite probably frozen to the ground.  So... this little junco obviously figures he’s gotta do what he’s gotta do!

I posted on Facebook the two pictures – the only two pictures – I had time to take in Bass Pro Shops, saying we had gone there to get a meat grinder.

A woman promptly wrote, “Did you find one?  Hope it wasn’t made in China.  They break down in one month.” 

That woman’s name really ought to be “Mrs. Agitator,” or perhaps “Mrs. Abrasion.”  😅

I looked it up, and it was indeed made in China.  Neither Bass Pro Shops nor Cabela's sells any that are not made in China.  However, this one is commonly reported by users as lasting around ten years.  There were many in the store that were much bigger, more heavy-duty, a lot pricier, and doubtless longer-lasting than the one we got.

I didn’t answer the woman for a couple of hours, because I couldn’t think of anything nice to say.  Then I thought of the perfect retort.  Is my response okay, do you think?  ((snerk)) 

“We did indeed find a nice one... and it was in fact made in China.  Online reviews by users report that it lasts approximately ten years.  I’m sorry yours only lasted a month; maybe you accidentally ran a titanosaur through it, bones and all?”

She didn’t seem to find my answer humorous, but replied in a bit nicer tone, “Glad you found one but most appliance, pots and pan etc have not lasted a year.”

Pots and pan [sic] don’t last a year?  But... why??  Because people hit each other over the head with them and dent them?

Hester commented on the pictures, “Oliver would enjoy going to Bass Pro Shops!  Is there one in Omaha?  He and Keira are very into and slightly scared of taxidermy animals.”

I gave her the locations.  Then...

Speaking of being scared of taxidermy animals, my mother used to take me to the courthouse with her when I was little, and tell me I could sit on one of the long benches in the hallway beside the windows where she conducted whatever business she needed to conduct.  She had no idea that I was nearly paralyzed sitting there, on account of the humongous bison heads on the walls overhead!  I thought they were real, and were sticking their heads through holes they themselves had created up there, and they must be terrrrrribly tall, in order for their heads to be waaaay up there – and therefore any minute they were going to knock down the entire wall and come stampeding out, and what would become of me?!

See, it didn’t matter which side of the hall I sat on, one bison (we always called them buffalo, until people have recently gotten all up in arms, because ‘buffalo’ should only refer to Africa’s water buffalo, and these large critters in America should only be called ‘bison’) anyway, one buffalo/bison was glaring at me from the opposite wall, while the other was ready to crash through the wall and trample me at any moment.

Here’s someone’s blurry close-up that I found online.

Friday night and part of the day Saturday, I had a headache, and by Sunday morning it seemed I had finally caught the bug multiple friends and members of my family have been attempting to share with me for the last two months.  I didn’t take my temperature, but it was probably a little bit higher than usual, since my head was hot and felt somewhat similar to what a hot-air balloon must feel like.  My throat was tight and a little bit sore, and my ears hurt.  So I stayed home from church.

Larry got ready to go – and the Mercedes wouldn’t start, even with two fully-charged battery packs on it.  He left it charging for over an hour, and it finally started; so off he went to church.  He got there in time for the main service.

When I hung out the bird feeders at a quarter ’til ten, the temperature was 0°.  It was 10° at 10:30 a.m., with a windchill of -8°.  I was blow-drying my hair and sipping Gingerbread cold brew coffee – and I was piping hot.

Aaron’s car wouldn’t start that morning, either; but at least he had others he could ride with.

Here’s a blue jay at the suet feeder, and another one looking on from the railing.  They’re not quite as skilled as the nuthatches at hanging upside down, but their agility is nothing to sneeze at.

Larry no sooner went to church than I discovered he had in fact walked on the white bathroom rug in his boots.  He would later admit to the vile act, saying that he imagined his church boots to be pristine.

They were not.

He’d walked outside in them, after all!

I guess there’s nothing else for it but to toss the rug into the washing machine.

The Mercedes wouldn’t start again when church was over until Larry put one of his battery packs on it.  Bobby and Caleb were on hand, in case he needed a jumpstart.

By 3:45 p.m., the temperature had climbed to 14°, but the windchill was still at -8°.

At 7:00 p.m., Larry went out to see if the Benz would start.  It would, and it did.

Earlier, he had unscrewed the posts where one connects the battery charger cables (the battery itself is under the passenger seat), then screwed them back down tightly.  It is now putting out the correct number of amps.  Perhaps those posts were not making good contact?

After the evening service, the vehicle started just fine.  Hopefully the problem was just those posts needing to be tightened, and not an expensive battery going bad.

When Larry got home, he put together the new meat grinder and then ground into deer burger the seven pounds of venison scraps that he’d saved in the refrigerator when he cut some of the meat into steaks.  It worked perfectly; he was pleased with it.

Here are three more recently-scanned pictures – Lydia in her black and gold brocade, chiffon, and velvet dress, and Hester in her blue jacquard and lace dress, both of which I made them for Christmas.

Below is Hannah, also in her Christmas dress.  I did not make that one.

 There are large dog pawprints on our front porch.  They’re probably from the neighbors’ big, friendly Black lab/Rottweiler mix (I think that’s what he is) who goes on jaunts through the neighborhood now and again.  If I pop out the front door when he’s coming through (he’s always in a bit of a hurry; he’s got lots of business to conduct!), he’s a little concerned over whether or not I mean him harm.  But if I talk nice to him, he wags his little stub of a tail, and once in a while comes to have me scritch-scratch the side of his neck before he trottity-trots off.

The 1099-R form from Edward Jones that was not predicted to be done until February 8^th – arrived in today’s mail.  I’d better get back to those terrible taxes!  (I guess I shouldn’t have that attitude about it, since, after all, we’ll be getting a refund.  But... why don’t they just let us keep that money in the first place, and not make me go to all this trouble?!)

I’m always happy when I open an old album and find more of my photos of the mountains, particularly the majestic Tetons.

I love the mountains, and I enjoy traveling over them and gazing with awe at the astonishing views from way up there on the rocky steeps; but I prefer to be in green valleys beside fast-flowing, cold mountain streams, tall pines all around me, with the mountains looming high overhead.

I love the jagged mountaintops that are nothing but rock and shale and snow and tiny, hardy little snowdrops and glories-of-the-sun and wee alpine daisies, with marmots and tiny chipmunks scurrying about, along with the occasional mountain sheep.  I have enjoyed clambering about up there and taking pictures, with views that never end; but I want to go right back down into the valleys, and leave the treeless rocks up there above me.  😊

A large flock of snow geese just flew over low, heading northwest.  There are always a few that overwinter nearby, as there are bodies of water that rarely freeze over completely.  They are probably heading to Wilkinson Wildlife Management Area, about five miles to our northwest. 

Snow geese are almost entirely herbivores.  They forage in agricultural fields and wetlands, feeding on waste grains such as corn, wheat, and barley.  They will also eat roots, tubers, and green plant materials, even fresh grass and marsh vegetation.  So the area around Wilkinson Wetlands is exactly what they like and need. 

It’s ten ’til nine, and a helicopter just went over for the second time this evening.  Unusual.  I thought earlier it was possibly monitoring the ice jam situation; but it’s been dark for a good three hours now.  Maybe the first one was indeed checking out the ice on the Loup, which is a mile to our south.  And maybe this is a different one (though the motors sound alike, and were hitting the same note) and it’s the LifeFlight going to get a patient.  It’s heading northwest, away from the hospital.

We had Red Barron Supreme Pizza for supper earlier tonight.

I have now downed my Gingerbread cold-brew coffee and made myself some Lemon Blueberry Celsius.  The contrast is startling.

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