Journal: Mountains & Molehills

 

Last week, I told about the two times our church was rebuilt, and mentioned that I had a front-row seat, living in the parsonage next door during the first rebuild in 1969, when I was 8 years old.

One day when the exterior of the building was nearing completion, the workers departed around noon to go have lunch.

They left a ladder leaning against the low eave on the back of the church.

I stood there and looked at it.

I glanced around.  Nary a soul was in sight.

If I didn’t ask permission, and didn’t have permission denied, I wasn’t disobeying if I climbed the ladder, right?

Up I went.

I stepped from the ladder to the roof, heart beating a little faster, and climbed right up that roof to the peak. 

I can see the entire town! I thought, exhilarated.  Even the five-story courthouse uptown, tallest building in Columbus back then, was in view.

I looked down at the avenue in front of the church and parsonage.  It was a loooong way down.

Feeling a little odd, I sat down.  That didn’t help much.  Suddenly and abruptly, I was on my stomach, arms and legs hugging either side of the peak, trying not to breathe too deeply, for fear it might unbalance me.

A man walked down the sidewalk half a block away.

It occurred to me that if I could see him, all he’d have to do would be to tip his head up a bit, and he would see me.

Ooooo, embarrrrrassin’.  Plumb mortifyin’, in fact.

Quicker’n a wink, I was back up again, stepping carefully down the side of the roof to the ladder.  There were a few hair-raising moments as I went from roof to ladder, but I made it.  Down the ladder I went, lickety-split.

I did not do that again.

Furthermore, I didn’t tell on myself until I was past 40 years of age, staying with my mother one evening.  As might be expected, she was first horrified, and then struck funny.

Here are some pictures of Teddy and Amy’s Anatolian shepherd puppies, which are now old enough to go to their new homes.

This little puppy kept climbing into its water dish when some people arrived to look at them.  They thought it was so adorable and full of personality, they decided that was one of the puppies they wanted.

Larry left that evening at about 9:30 p.m., driving the truck he got the previous week, heading for a town north of Detroit to pick up one of the container trailers he’d bought. It’s a 12-hour drive each way.

At noon Tuesday, it was 61°, on the way up to 77°.  77°!  Almost unheard of, in mid-February in middle Nebraska.  We’d gone from flood warnings and watches to fire weather watches – and it had just been upgraded to fire weather warnings.

I rehung the bird feeders, showered, shined up the bathroom, played the piano, and made myself a tall mug of Gingerbread cold-brew coffee to sip while blow-drying and curling my hair.

After eating half a bagel, I washed the dishes, finished the laundry, and then headed upstairs to edit some pictures and then continue with the photo-scanning.

It was granddaughter Maisie’s second birthday that day.  We gave her a cute hardback book with a gold-trimmed cutout of the numeral 2 on the cover, full of stories and poems especially for two-year-olds, and a soft stuffed puppy.  Later that afternoon, I took the gifts to her.

For Eva, who’s 5, I cut 13 little thumbnail pictures from the back of a big, outdated calendar, then cut and folded a smaller picture of the calendar that was also on the back, taped the sides closed to make an envelope, and put the little pictures into the envelope. 

Caleb and Maria live on the opposite side of town.  It’s a 20-minute drive. 

Maisie was so cute; she kept hugging and kissing the stuffed puppy, and saying ‘thank you’ in her sweet, low-pitched voice.

Home again, I went back to editing photos.  Speaking of old photos, here’s one a friend sent me.  Ever hear of a car crashing into a submarine?  It happened – just once.

Below are some of the fish we saw in the Suzanne and Walter Scott Aquarium at the Henry Doorly Zoo.  These are Yellow tang (Zebrasoma flavescens), aka Lemon sailfin, Yellow sailfin tang, or Somber surgeonfish.  They don’t look very somber, if you ask me.

The one below is a Sohal surgeonfish, also known as the Sohal tang or Arabian tang (Acanthurus sohal).

Did you know there are over 35,000 species of fish in the world, with roughly half of them freshwater and half of them saltwater?  Furthermore, that number increases regularly, as new species are found frequently – a good 300 every year , especially in deep-sea and unexplored habitats.

At a quarter after seven that evening, I saw that Larry had programmed ‘Home’ into the GPS on his phone half an hour earlier; so he must’ve picked up the first of the two trailers he bought there.  He’ll have to return to get the second one.

For supper that evening, I fixed meatloaf, made with a pound of ground beef, two big stacks of Hawaiian Sweet crackers, and eight eggs.  I also had California blend vegetables and a skinny piece of French bread, fresh out of the oven, with plenty of butter on it.  Oh, and strawberry kiwi juice.

At 8:45 p.m., Larry sent me this picture and texted, “I’m going to sleep for awhile.  I’m twelve and a half hours from home.”

It would be 27 hours before he got here, however.

Late Wednesday morning, it was 51°, on the way up to 61°.  It would be the last nice day for some time.

The starlings and the red-winged blackbirds were back, and chowing down at the feeders.  Female red-winged blackbirds look so different from the males that, when I was young, I thought they were totally different birds.

“Look at that big sparrow!” I once exclaimed – and then my mother told me what it was.

She gave me some pointers, in order to better ID them:  “If they stay beside each other during the springtime when birds are staking out their territories, and if they fly together – usually with the female just a little behind the bigger red-wing male – they’re male and female.  The male sometimes feeds the female – especially when she’s on the nest.  Watch for them to be flying just above the reeds in swampy areas.  Also, their beaks are shaped the same, and their eye color is the same.”

I watched – and was so surprised to learn what the female red-winged blackbirds look like.  [Photos from Indiana Audubon and Birds of the World, respectively.]

That day, Denver & Front Range Weather posted a warning on Facebook about delays at Denver Internation, with this gif accompanying their post.

Some woman promptly wrote, “So fake”

Denver & Front Range Weather’s response:  “Wow, nothing gets past you, does it?  🤣🤣”

Plenty of others had retorts to the brilliant lady, too.  These are a few of the nice ones.

“I don’t know about that.  I was on that plane once.”

“You had to be there to appreciate how accurate this is.”

“I watched it with my very own eyeballs.”

“You don’t say, Einstein??  Who would’ve guessed,” accompanied by this gif.

And last but not least, “It’s just an ornithopter.”

I continued editing photos, this time from an album of the northbound part of our trip to Canada.  Here’s Joseph with Aleutia, our Siberian husky.  We’d camped at Big Sky, Montana.

Aleutia lived to be 12 years old.  That’s about normal for a Siberian husky; but it sure didn’t feel long enough, to us.

When I scanned all those photos 4-5 years ago, I scanned the ‘southbound’ album, and was so sorry the ‘northbound’ one had gone AWOL.  I feared I’d never see it again!  I’m so glad I found this lost bin.

At ten ’til seven, Larry texted, “I am 20 miles east of Altoona, Iowa; so I have four hours or so until I get home.”

After church that night, I picked up an order of groceries from Walmart, glad I hadn’t ordered much, since Larry wouldn’t be home to help carry bags into the house.

It was about midnight when he got home, after dropping off the trailer at the out-of-town property of a coworker who wants to buy it.

At 10:30 a.m. Thursday, it was 19°, and we’d been issued a Winter Storm Warning.  We were to expect up to 5” of snow, with 35 mph winds.  The birds acted like they knew something about this, as they’d been thronging around the bird feeders ever since I hung them earlier in the morning.  I always put out black-oil sunflower seeds, nyjer seed, and nut and berry suet blocks.

As I curled my hair, I listened to the news on my tablet (while answering emails and posts on my laptop), and heard the following:  A man in Wisconsin (who had forgotten to get dressed) drank half a bottle of Fabuloso floor cleaner, went outside (snow is on the ground there) and did pushups on the sidewalk.  Then, while paramedics were putting a patient who is dying of kidney disease into the ambulance, Fabuloso Man got into the driver’s seat and made to drive off! 

The paramedics tried to stop him, but decided it was too dangerous and jumped out, leaving the patient inside, strapped to a gurney.  “Every man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost!”

(I prefer my paramedics with more backbone, thankee kindly.) 

A chase ensued, and lasted for 40 minutes.  Eventually, police tossed out a spike strip and the ambulance went over it, blowing out a front tire.  This made the ambulance go zooming off the highway, down through the ditch, and out into a field, fortunately right through a gap in a line of trees.

The ambulance wound up stuck in the field.  The hijacker was captured, and the patient was conducted on to wherever she had been originally headed.  They did not get injured.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

That day, I finished cropping and editing some recently-scanned pictures, and then began scanning the second-to-last album.  

My late niece Susan’s daughter-in-law texted to ask if I had any pictures of Susan I could share.  I started a search on one of my external hard drives, and wound up with 220 photos, after eliminating a couple dozen or more pictures of quilts at big quilting shows, made by ladies named ‘Susan’.  😅

Here’s Hester at Jackson Lake and the Tetons, looking at... uh, ... something, through those little yellow toy binoculars.  They did actually make things look bigger.  Sorta.

Actually, upon zooming in on the photo, I suspect she is taking a close look at her own fingers.  😂

We’d camped nearby, and I’d just washed the littles’ hair, in case you’re wondering why her hair is wet.  She had not fallen into the Lake. 😅

Here are Keith and Caleb, our oldest and youngest at the time, at a campground at Swan Lake in Montana.

I sent this picture to Dorcas, saying, “We were in Kootenay National Park, British Columbia.  Do you remember the dress you’re wearing?”

“Yes, I loved that dress,” she answered.

“Do you remember that it had been Grandma Swiney’s?” I asked.  “She gave it to you when she discovered you were almost the same size she was.  Your Aunt Janice had made it for her, years earlier.  It was double knit polyester.  That stuff will still be in immaculate shape 5,000 years from now.”

“I thought it was hers,” replied Dorcas, “but thought I was remembering wrong. 😊  It was itchy, but I loved it.”

I can imagine!  That yoke had metallic threads in it.  I should’ve thought to have her wear a soft undershirt underneath it.  

Because of the plaid wool skirts Janice made for me when I was little, I grew up thinking all wool was horrid and scratchy.

Then I discovered sofffft, sofffft wool.  You just had to PAY for it, that’s all.

I did appreciate the many things Janice made for me, and especially all the things she taught me.  She was so good to me.

I was so involved with editing pictures, I didn’t even notice it had started snowing that afternoon.  But by 4:30 p.m., everything was already covered – or pretty much, anyway; a lot of it was blowing away, as the wind was gusting up to 27 mph. 

By the time daylight faded, it looked like we may have gotten a couple of inches of snow, possibly.  It was hard to tell, though, because the wind was scouring it from the earth in some places and blowing it into little drifts in others.

I was surprised Friday morning when I headed out to refill the bird feeders to find the back deck covered with about 4 ½ or 5” of snow.  It had snowed a lot more after I quit looking!  It was 11° at 10:00 a.m., with a windchill of -1°.  The high that afternoon would be 25°.

After a little housecleaning, I headed upstairs to edit and crop the latest scanned photos.

Here’s Lydia with the pink thermal mug I got her at a convenience and gift store in Montana.  She’d been sleeping when the other children went into the store.  I suggested they should get themselves each a little Montana memento with some of the money my mother had given them for souvenirs, since we would soon be heading into Alberta, Canada, and did not plan to come back through Montana.  We would instead be coming south through Idaho and then into Wyoming.  I knew Lydia, who was 3, would feel bad if she didn’t have a souvenir, too; so when the older kids came out, I went into the store to get her something.

There were only a couple of racks of souvenirs, and the only thing I could see that would be remotely acceptable to a three-year-old girl was this pink lidded mug that said Montana on one side and had an elk silhouette on the other.

Wow, I hit the jackpot with that choice. That little girl loved that mug.  In most of my pictures throughout the rest of that trip, she has it in her hand.  She even took it to bed with her (empty, of course).

When my mug of Dark Chocolate Raspberry cold brew was gone, I made myself some hot tea – Thompson’s Irish Breakfast tea.  It was cold upstairs, after all.

‘Breakfast teas’ have more caffeine in them than some teas.  In Ireland, they’re usually drunk with milk and sugar.  But I don’t put any additives in mine.  When I was quite young, I used to have a little tea in my sugar.  😏

That afternoon, part of its enjoyment came from wrapping my cold, cold hands around the thick, warm mug.

A few years ago, Victoria gave me this Pioneer Woman tea kettle.  It whistles when the water is hot.  I put it on the stove with the burner on low, so I could refill my teacup now and then.

(On low, it doesn’t whistle.)

That evening, I sent the photo below to Joseph, captioning it A Wrinkle in Time --- Henry Doorly Zoo, a quarter of a century ago, 2001.

That was Victoria’s stroller that he was pushing.  It could also be towed behind a bike, which was the way I most often used it.

Saturday, Kurt and Victoria, with Willie and Arnold, headed to Gillette Children's Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota.  We are hoping one of the specialists there can help Willie with his walking gait.

It was 19° that morning, on the way up to 29° – and that was the warmest it would be until Tuesday.

By early afternoon, I was a third done scanning the last big album.  There were still those four small ones to scan.  Could I finish them that day?  Maybe.  I was sure going to try.

I am fond of gmail’s ‘Undo Send’ feature.  But I do wonder how many of my friends scratch their heads when they see an email arrive from me, sans attachment or link, only to have it vanish and then re-arrive moments later, sporting said attachment or link.

Nary a one has commented.  Maybe they think their router has a glitch!  🤣

As I scanned photos, I listened to various audio clips.  Here’s an excerpt from an old Irish book, read by a lady with a heavy Irish accent:  “Her habit of overindulgence had produced rather more chins than a body required.”

In midafternoon, the same thing happened as occurs now and then, particularly through the cold winter months:  diesel fumes – from trucks on the highway, half a mile to the north, I presume – float over the hill and descend right down over our house.  I am particularly sensitive to diesel, gas, and oil odors, and I’ll get a bad headache before it even registers that I’m smelling such.  So, in spite of the cold, I opened both of the windows in my upstairs room an inch or two, and turned on the ceiling fan.  The EdenPURE heater tried its best to keep it warm in there.

At 6:45 p.m., I scanned the very last picture.  That makes 6,498 photos scanned since December.  All my old photos are scanned, every last one!  I still had 594 pictures to crop and edit.

After a quick supper break, I made myself another cup of tea – blueberry this time – then continued with the photo editing.

My sister Lura Kay gave me a large tin with a variety of teas a few years ago, and I’m still working my way through them.  There are mango, Oriental Treasures, pomegranate, raspberry, blueberry, and mint flavors.  It’s from Bentley’s Tea Company.

Here’s the tin she gave me.  There were 120 teabags in it.  I found this online:  Bentley’s Tea is a brand of tea sold by the Boston Tea Company, which also sells loose tea under its own brand name.  Some time around 2013, most of Bentley’s teas were discontinued.  The brand still exists but there are far fewer flavors.  Boston Tea Company’s website lists only three items for the Bentley brand.

Here are a few photos from our Canada trip in August of 1994.

A friend, upon seeing some of the pictures, commented, “The lake water in those western mountain states and provinces always looks cold.”

She’s right; it is cold.  The average yearly water temperature of Maligne Lake, for instance, is about 38°.  During the warmest summer months, it might get to 50° around the edges; but not very far beneath the surface, it’ll only be 39°.  At the moment, it’s fully frozen and snow-covered.

That’s the case for quite a few high-elevation lakes, such as Yellowstone, Grand Lake in Colorado, and of course Echo Lake and Summit Lake on Mount Evans (renamed in 2023 to Mount Blue Sky).  Yellowstone Lake freezes over by early December and can remain frozen over until late May or early June, and the ice is about three feet thick, except where shallow water covers thermal springs.

Even in the hottest part of the summer, if you go wading in mountain lakes or streams, you don’t wade long before you scramble out, dry your feet, put on warm socks, and sit in the sun.  (You don’t do that too long, either, unless you have a healthy coating of suntan lotion on.  You can get thoroughly burnt in ten minutes flat, at that elevation.)

“Frozen and cooked within 10 minutes,” mused my friend.  Then, “I like the south, thank you.  The lake near my house approaches bath water temp in August, and the Atlantic is bath water temp in the summer.”  She paused before adding, “And the bull sharks are mostly friendly.”  😂

“So are the polar bears,” I assured her.  “Mostly friendly.”

Anyway, here’s a nice little marmot.  They can out-whistle my teapot!

Looking at the toy binoculars the little girls were using reminded me of this story:

When Lydia was about four years old, we were trying out our new binoculars, which had a nighttime feature of some sort, on the new moon that had just risen.  The older children were taking turns looking through them... then I took them, got them focused a little better, and folded them together a bit to make them small enough for Lydia.  She’d tried looking through those binoculars earlier in the day, but could never get them quite right so as to see anything.

I put them into her small hands, and she held them very carefully and tightly, knowing they were breakable.  “Now, here’s what you do,” I told her.  “You look at the moon; then, still looking at it, lift the binoculars up to your eyes and just keep right on looking.”

Lydia did as instructed.

Then she stood bolt still and silent, barely breathing, and I knew she was really seeing that big ol’ yellow moon.

Still not moving an iota, she breathed in amazement, “It’s a ball!  I thought it was just a circle.” 

My parents and I once had a scary occurrence in the Wyoming High Country.  We had our International Travelall and a 27-foot Airstream camper.  It was wintertime, and the roads were bad – snow- and ice-covered.  It was also nighttime. 

We topped a high hill and discovered a pileup of cars and big trucks down at the bottom.  Our lights glistened on the icy highway ------- and then they went off.  The alternator had failed.

It was pitch-black; we couldn’t see a thing.  Daddy tried braking – and the rig started sliding, threatening to jackknife.  He took his foot quickly off the brake and pressed down on the accelerator to bring it out of the skid.  And he said, “Pray like you’ve never prayed before.” 

I was already doing just that.

We didn’t get slowed down much at all before arriving at the bottom of the hill.  Somehow, some way, having seen that there was a narrow, crooked path open between the smashed vehicles, Daddy, relying on his memory, managed to wiggle that Travelall and trailer through it.  We caught a glimpse of a dim glow now and then as we rushed through – lights in the cabs of the trucks. 

Just as we shot out the other side of the wreckage, our headlights came back on.  Immediately ahead was a long hill, and it was shiny with ice.  If we wanted to make it over that hill, we didn’t dare slow down.  Daddy stepped back down gently on the accelerator, and we built up just enough speed that we made it, though the tires were starting to spin, the last few yards to the top. 

We stopped in the next little town, found a phone, and my mother called the police and reported the accident.  That road was shut down soon after we came through, so at least no more vehicles would add to the pileup.

It was only 5° Sunday morning at 8:30 a.m., and the high would be 26°.  Soooo... I decided to give this sweater a try.  I got it two or three years ago, and have tried to wear it a few times, but gave up after just having it on a few minutes, because, despite being soft to the touch, it winds up horribly scratchy before it’s on very long at all.   It’s made of 58% silk, 30% nylon, 10% angora rabbit hair, and 2% lambswool.  I’ve thrown the sweater into the ‘Donate’ box several times, but extracted it before I got to the thrift store, because... pretty! – and it feels soft.

Recently, I ordered a soft, soft, turtleneck to wear underneath the sweater, hoping it would make it bearable.

I blow-dried and curled my hair, getting ready for church.  “Don’t let me forget to put the turtleneck and the sweater over my head before I comb and spray my hair!” I told some quilting friends.  “And ask me later if I survived The Sweater.”

We were two or three minutes late to church that morning, because, once again, the Mercedes wouldn’t start, even though Larry had it on low-amp charge since the day before.  He had to get out his bigger jump pack, hook it up, start the car, and then disconnect everything again.

When somebody among us gives themselves no extra minutes to spare, three minutes of attempting to start the car will make us three minutes late.  Ugh.  I hate to be late.

We definitely need a new battery for the Mercedes.

It was Keith’s 46^th birthday that day.  We sent him a Gerber multi-purpose tool. 

When I texted him a ‘happy birthday’ note with a bunch of animations, he relayed a message in return from his wife Korrine:  “Happy Becoming-a-Mother Day 46 years ago!”  😊

I remember the day well – and especially remember the middle of the night when I woke up in my hospital bed and heard a door open and shut way off down the corridor, then a nurse’s rubber-soled shoes coming my way – and a snuffling little baby who was about to announce he was hungry, and I knew immediately, That’s my baby!

I sent Keith a couple of pictures taken when he was tiny, remarking, “Too bad all I had was a cheap little 110 camera.”

“It could have been the days when they had to paint me,” he laughed.

“You were a happy baby,” I told him, sending this shot.  “One of those gadgets on that hanging toy made a squeaking noise; another one didn’t.  You’d pull on the quiet one, and I’d make the squeaking noise myself.  For some reason, you thought that was totally hilarious.  It didn’t take long before you’d pull on it – and immediately flip your head around to look at me, one eyebrow up, waiting for me to make the ‘squeak’.”

Well, that new soft turtleneck did the trick.  The sweater was warm and comfortable, with the turtleneck underneath.  I’m so glad I didn’t donate it.  (Reckon people go to the Salvation Army thinking, I need me somethin’ itchy and scratchy today.’?)

Last night after church, we had chicken, rice, and vegetable soup, with Pretzel FlipSides crackers, applesauce, peach Oui yogurt, and cranberry-cherry juice.

A friend sent me a picture of apples for sale in Barrow, Alaska:  $12.99 per apple.

Good grief.  If you lived there, I guess you’d have to load up yer 7mm magnum and shoot you some caribou and bearded seals for meat.  And make yerseff a greenhouse to grow carrots, ’taters, ’maters, blueberries, lingonberries, raspberries, kohlrabi, rutabaga, fiddlehead, etc. 

However, the price of those apples pale in comparison to the price of fruit in Japan:  $469.99 for a Japanese muskmelon – one melon – in a giftbox!  Premium Japanese Fruits 

At 11:00 a.m. this morning, it was 12°, on the way up to 30°, and bright and sunny.  I filled and rehung the bird feeders, did a bit of housecleaning, played the piano, then blow-dried and curled my hair whilst sipping Dark Chocolate Raspberry cold-brew coffee.

An old picture of my dog Sparkle scrolled past on my screensaver, reminding me of how she used to point her nose skyward, shape her mouth into an O, and howl when I played the piano.  She didn’t do it as a puppy; only as she got older.  I had to let her out in the back yard while I played the piano.  Did her ears become more sensitive as she aged, I wonder?

Tomorrow is Victoria’s birthday.  Our youngest will be 29 years old.  How does this happen?!  Saturday is Hannah’s birthday, and she’ll be 45.  Thursday is Todd and Dorcas’ son Trevor’s 10^th birthday.  We have eleven family birthdays in February.  

Here are Keith, Hannah, and Victoria at six months.

Dorcas sent pictures and videos of Trevor opening his birthday gift from us this afternoon – a solar-powered robot kit.  In the video, Trevor is looking at the gift, saying ‘thank you’, and Brooklyn, who’s 4, is all excited about his gift, too, and chattering away about it in the background.

I got an email from Nebraska Quilt Company today telling about the longarms they have for sale.  The very first time I ever saw a longarm, it was there at Nebraska Quilting Company in Fremont, and Larry was with me.  They had a machine set up so people could try following a floral pantograph.  

Larry got a grip on the handles and quilted a couple of pretty flowers and leaves.

Next, I got a grip on the handles – and wound up quilting a dozen doughnuts in the bakery next door.

Larry left again this evening to return to the town north of Detroit to pick up the second container trailer.  Hopefully, he won’t have as many things to fix on the truck as he did last week, and the trip won’t take so long!

And now I’d better finish editing photos and backing up all my data, so as to get back to the quilting.  (I have a little more control over a longarm, these days.  😉 )

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