Journal: History, Histrionics, and Migration

 

It’s the time of year when southern migrations are taking place in our neck o’ ze woods.  The Sandhill Cranes are passing back through, though not at all in the concentrated numbers that show up in the springtime.

My cousin Fred told me, “When we lived in Winter Haven, Florida, we would sit on our patio and the Sandhill Cranes (parents and offspring) would walk by.  They would stop, stare at us over the thigh-high fence, then move on!”

That’s so different from what we experience here in Nebraska.  The cranes are quite skittish, and no one can get very close before they fly.  And of course there are no colts; any young ones are as big as, and indistinguishable from, the parents.  The only time I’ve ever seen any colts has been at the big Aviary at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha.  

Here’s one.  It was such fun to watch the parents peck at the ground, then pull back to let the baby scurry over and grab the insect or worm or bit of grain or vegetation that they were ‘pointing’ out to him.

This photo was taken from the Gibbon, Nebraska, bridge by Rich Hoback a few springs ago.

Last Monday evening, I put Alaskan salmon into the oven and mixed vegetables (corn, carrots, green beans, peas) into the microwave.  I added homemade applesauce from Hannah to the menu, and then, after a bit, I popped a Dutch apple pie into the oven.  Larry was quite happy with that supper.

I sent Hannah a note:  “The applesauce is scrumptious!”

“I’m glad you like it!” she answered, and sent these pictures of Chimera and Willow.

Willow often has this slightly worried look about her, like she’s wondering, “Am I getting everything done that I need to do???”

“The downside to walking there (at my niece Christine’s property) is that burrs get in the dogs’ fur,” said Hannah.  “At least they get regular brushing!”

And this time of the year, those burrs are all ready for harvest.

Here’s what I get all over me (below) when I work in my flower gardens lately.  These are from a flowering weed called Devil’s Beggarticks, of all things.  That plant is in the genus ‘Bidens’.  They’re also called Spanish Needles and Bidens Frondosa.

Tuesday morning at 11:30 a.m., it was overcast and 50°, on the way up to 57°.  The crickets and katydids were singing much more lustily than the birds were.  Though I didn’t see it, my Merlin Bird ID app picked up the sound of a Dark-Eyed Junco.  That’s a sure sign of autumn.

Here, get a load of this line from a news-scanner Facebook page:  “They seen us waving to reduce speed had they didn’t their would of easily been a crash.”

One short sentence, and they made two grammar errors, one spelling error (specifically, a confusion of heterographic homophones), and two punctuation errors.  Maybe the stalled vehicle they were talking about had produced AISD?  (That’s Anxiety-Induced Speech Disruption.  It’s a thing!  Really, it is!)

We had Dutch apple pie for dessert again Tuesday night.  I generally cut pie into eight pieces, and then we have enough for four days.  If I let Larry cut it, he divides it into six pieces, and we only have enough for three days, and we’re stuffed plumb full after each helping.

There were 6.7- and 6.8-magnitude earthquakes that morning along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, halfway between Africa and South America.  The quakes were quite shallow, but fortunately didn’t cause tsunamis or damage, as the underwater topography spreads out the effects.  The quakes were about 674 miles north-northwest of Georgetown, Ascension Island; all was well there.  I like to keep track of earthquakes from this website:  Latest Earthquakes

I worked on appliquéing the flowers and butterflies onto Keira’s quilt that day.  By suppertime, I was ready to quit for the night, as my shoulders, neck, and arms were complaining.  It takes oomph to push a big quilt top through a domestic sewing machine, turning it this way that in order to get the stitches exactly right!  I was using a narrow blanket stitch to appliqué the pieces.  I’d hoped to be done that day, but when I spread out the quilt to see what was left, I found I still had at least three butterflies and five flowers to appliqué.  (There were more than that, as it turned out; I missed some when I counted them.)

It felt like autumn Wednesday, what with a high of only 54°.  It was sunny in the morning, but was raining by 5:00 p.m.  The rain continued off and on until the next afternoon.  According to the USDA’s latest crop report, Nebraska’s corn harvest was 27% complete and the soybean harvest was 26% complete.  The crops were 91% and 95% mature, respectively; so the farmers weren’t wanting rain interruptions.  But after those two days of rain, it will be sunny and nice for the next couple of weeks.

That afternoon, Hannah sent me this picture of Willow, writing, “She can see the dogs on this blanket.  She likes it when it is spread out.”

That doggy’s eyes and brain are... plumb different!

Dorcas then sent pictures of some lined, zippered pouches she’s been making, which she plans to sell on her Etsy account.  She had all sorts of trouble when she started, as the thread and the needles kept breaking; but after buying some heavier, ballpoint needles, things went better.  “The third time was the charm!” she wrote, then added, “I’d actually rather be out in the garden than sewing, or even crocheting or knitting.  😄”

I, on the other hand, try hard to convince myself of all sorts of things, in order to make myself go out and pull weeds amongst the dirt and the mosquitoes:  “Pretend you’re having a little vacation, right out in your yard!”  “Think of all the pretty flowers, and how everyone will ooh and ahh!”

And yet... 🙄😄

She then sent pictures of Trevor and Brooklyn with their well-loved kitties.

Dorcas told the following story:  “The kids wanted ramen noodles for lunch.  I buy organic broth to use instead of the packet that comes in them (on account of numerous allergens).  Trevor ate his and came back for seconds.  Well.  The only ‘seconds’ was my bowl.  So I let him have it and made myself scrambled eggs instead.  And Brooklyn said, ‘Trevor, tell Mama she’s the best mom in the world.’  So Trevor said, ‘Thank you, mom.  You’re the best mom in the world.’”

Sweet little kids!

I was glad the rain paused long enough for me to walk out to the Mercedes when it was time to go to church.  Larry was some four hours away at a farmplace near Ainsworth, collecting an old combine that he would haul to a scrapyard the next day; so I was on my own that evening. 

Look at this scary load!  Larry had to remove the big tires and wheels on that old combine in order to haul it on that trailer.

He sent me the picture, and I forwarded it to Teddy, who wrote back, “Wow.”

I answered, “I agree.”

It rained fairly hard on the way to town, then stopped just long enough for me to walk into the church, thankfully.  It didn’t resume raining until after I got home.

After the service, I gave Caleb a birthday gift – a knife and flashlight set from Cabela's and a dual tool for breaking a car window or cutting a seatbelt.  I also had an anniversary gift for Caleb and Maria – a cookbook I’d gotten at the Nebraska State Fair.  Our youngest son is now 33 years old and has been married for 13 years, imagine that.

We learned that evening that Larry’s brother Kenny was in the hospital with pneumonia and sepsis.  By the time we found out, he was improving, and would be able to go home in a couple of days.

Thursday morning, it was still raining at 10:00 a.m. and just 49°.  The high would be 54°.

In looking at some pictures on a Facebook birding group, I came upon a post with several worthwhile suggestions for naming birds that show up at one’s feeders:

Birds that act like they’re from opposite sides of the track:  Rockafeather and Squawkabilly.  Birds that look like they’re from the Middle Ages:  Sir Flapsalot and Queen Guinebeak.

(Illustrations by Jim Sorenson.)

That morning, I asked Gemini AI a question.  Upon receiving the answer, I replied, “Why, thankee kindly!  >>curtsy<<  ”

Look at Gemini’s answer:  “You are very welcome! >>bows gracefully<< ”

I thought, though I wasn’t totally sure, that I had only one circular flower center to appliqué, and the quilt top would be done.  I trotted up the stairs in anticipation of finishing it.

I was wrong.  There were at least three flowers to finish, and a couple of butterflies.

I tell you, the Shoemakers’ elves have been gluing extra flowers and butterflies on this thing overnight!  How else could unfinished patches keep appearing??!

I got back to work on it at 11:30 a.m., and finished the appliquéing at 4:00 p.m. – right about the time blue sky showed up to the north, in the middle of all those dark clouds.

After pausing for a picture or two, I spread the quilt out, checked carefully, and saw that I was indeed all done with the appliqué work.

Next, I needed to put together a backing.  Might as well make it a wee bit busy, too, to go with all the busyness on the front, eh?  😄  Anyway, I didn’t have enough of any one fabric for a backing, so I chose two that I liked:  a dark mauve/purple with tiny dark cream flowers on it, and a light dusty pink batik with swirls of teal, purple, and cream.  

I decided to put these two very contrasting colors together with narrow-to-wide-to-narrow diagonal stripes where they meet in the middle, and so set about combining them into a piece that would wind up approximately the correct size. 

By the time I got it put together, I’d used up nearly all of both fabrics. 

Joseph’s wife Jocelyn sent me a note:  “Thank you for the anniversary present!”

It was a box of sausages, cheeses, and crackers – the same gift I sent to Keith and Korrine and to Todd and Dorcas.  Six of our children have anniversaries in October.

I responded, “You’re very welcome!  I hope there’s enough for everyone.”

She replied, “Joe is eating it all!  haha  He’s eating right now.”

“Tell him his mother says, ‘Share!  Share!’ 🤣” I wrote back, then told her this story:  “A friend found her kids having a fuss over a toy and gave them a lecture on sharing.  She then went out of the room.  She heard another scuffle... rushed back in... and found the little boy tugging on a toy the little girl was holding, and the boy was exclaiming as he tugged on it, ‘Share!  Share!’”

Jocelyn continued, “He gave me two pieces and said he’s had to put up with me for 15 years, so he deserves it more.”

“Haha!” I texted.  “Guess I should’ve given y’all boxing mitts!”

I’m pleased when my children’s spouses know they can joke around with me. 😊

By late afternoon, I was getting hungry.  Wanting to finish the quilt backing before supper, and since Larry wouldn’t be home for a while, I had a handful of mixed nuts and a cup of David Rio orca spiced chai tea with French Vanilla creamer.  That’s yummy tea.

Larry brought home a Subway sandwich for me.  It had lots of meat and vegetables in it (and a bunch of jalapeno peppers and banana peppers – hot hot hot!).  I gave him all the rest of the venison vegetable soup in return.

That night, grandson Levi texted to say that he’d gotten a new French horn.  “It’s beautiful and it plays very well!” he exclaimed.  He sent me an audio clip of Jerusalem the Golden, wherein he played multiple tracks with himself.  It sounds like an entire horn ensemble.  It’s wonderful, but he apologizes, “I only did one take per part when I recorded this so you can hear some mistakes; but the tone is nice.” 😄 That kid.

Indeed it was a nice tone.

The wind blew at a near steady 45 mph for several hours during the night.  We’d been issued a freeze warning for the night and the following morning.  I had the furnace set on 67°, and it came on once or twice through the night.

It got up to 52° Friday.  It was still windy, with gusts up to 37 mph.

Larry went to Versailles, Missouri, that day to pick up a truck for a former coworker; but the truck was much heavier than he’d realized, and started bending his trailer after he got it loaded.  So... he unloaded it and left it there.  He’ll pick it up tomorrow, using a heavier trailer.

He called Kenny to see how he was doing.  Upon learning that the doctor was about to discharge him, Larry asked, “Are they sending you home because Dad isn’t there to help hold you down?”

That’s an old family joke from the time Kenny was little, and was supposed to get a shot.

“He laughed,” reported Larry.

After a bit of housework, I headed upstairs to load the quilt, which included cutting some batting.  Two and a half hours later, I was ready to start quilting.  Part of the reason it took so long is because I had to be very careful with the backing with those diagonal strips, so as not to stretch it or rumple it.  Also, I roll the flimsy onto the front bar, rather than ‘floating’ it, i.e. letting it drape over that bar.  This takes a little longer at the beginning, but saves time during the quilting process.

I wound a bobbin, and then quilting began – and re-began, because, after making one swirl, I decided the green thread was too dark, picked it out, and started over. It took 15 seconds to make the swirl and 15 minutes to pick it out.  Who would ever guess that John Deere green would match this swirly digital green print better than dark teal green!

By suppertime, the top three borders were done, and I’d rolled the quilt forward.  The above photos show how I keep track of which rulers I’ve used, so that I may properly duplicate the quilting at the other end of the quilt.  I quilted until 8:00 p.m., then quit for the evening and had some supper:  a big salad, grapefruit, rice pudding, and an oatmeal cookie.  Oh, and pineapple banana juice.

After supper, I headed to my recliner and began typing the Saturday Skim for my Quilt Talk group.

Back in the DHC (Days of Having Cats), they’d all sit calmly and watch me get all sitchee-ated in my chair.  The very instant I was perfectly comfortable, one would get up and go meow at the door.  I’d clamber out of my chair, go let him out, invite the others to go out... they’d decline.  As soon as I got all re-sitchee-ated in my chair again, .. .. .. Yep, you guessed it.

By 9:30 a.m. Saturday morning, it had gotten up to 38°, though an 18-mph wind was creating a windchill of 34°.  The high would be 62°.  It’ll be sunny and warm for the next week and a half, so harvest will be progressing apace.

I showered and shined the bathroom back up, played the piano, and made myself a thermal tumbler of Dark Chocolate Raspberry cold-brew coffee.  While I blow-dried and curled my hair, I listened to news on my tablet.  After some breakfast, I cleaned the kitchen, then headed upstairs to my quilting studio to continue quilting the Dresden Flowers & Flutters quilt.

The October birthdays in our family are now duly celebrated and past, as are all but one of the anniversaries:  Kurt and Victoria’s is on the 30^th.  My late mother and sister-in-law had birthdays in October, too.

It was 40° Sunday morning at 7:30 a.m.  The high was 68°; we’ll be having warmer days for the next week or so.  As I blow-dried my hair, my eyes were being troublesome, as they have been for the last several days.  I really didn’t properly appreciate just being able to open my eyes and see what I was doing, when I could!

I need spotters to tell me if I’ve made some dreadful clothing or hairdo faux pas.  😄  (And no, Larry would not make a good spotter.  “You like fine!”  [without even glancing in my direction], that’s him.)  At least I could sing and then sit and listen without too much trouble!

When I walked past my quilting studio on the way to the little library to get some church clothes from the closet where I keep them, I paused and peeked into my quilting studio to admire my own quilting.  It’s always especially pretty in the early morning, when the sun through the eastern window makes the quilting show up so nicely.

When I was all ready to head out the door for church, Larry was still rushing around putting on his suit and tie and tie tack.

Finally he was ready except for putting in his hearing aids – and one side of his shirt collar was sticking out like a wing, hee hee.  It had been folded backwards while it hung in the closet.  There was no time to iron it; he’d just have to wear it like that.  😄

Larry fixed his scrumptious French toast for our lunch that afternoon.  He put a generous amount of blueberry yogurt in them.  Mmmm, good.

I accidentally wore my craft glasses to the evening service last night.  Everything beyond my fingertips was a blurry mess.  🤓🥸

After the service, we chatted with Caleb and the little girls, then went to Walmart to pick up a grocery order.  Before going home, we stopped at the Speedy Gonzales Mexican truck for some tacos.  We each got three:  one pork, one steak, and one chicken.

The people who own that food truck serve some of the best Mexican food in town.  I like the slices of radishes, the lime wedges, and the caramelized onions.  I even like the big cooked pepper – but I can’t eat nearly so much of such things as I used to, or my stomach complains.

Victoria sent pictures of Baby Russell in his car seat, and it occurred to me how much he looks like my brother Loren’s late son John Mark.

I sent Victoria a picture of Loren’s oldest son Richard holding his little brother John Mark back in 1961.

She showed the pictures to one of her cousins, who pointed out that Victoria looked like Richard when she was little.

Victoria sent me this picture of herself to prove it.  “I remember the helmet and when I got it,” she said.  “I loooved it.”

“You wanted to sleep in it,” I told her.  😂

Here’s one of the biscuit sandwiches Victoria made for their breakfast Saturday.  

Below is a bunny Victoria crocheted.  “I’ve been working on it for a long time.  It’s been a slow project, not because it’s hard.  I just don’t get to it.”

“I used to say someone had short-wired my sewing machine to the baby’s crib, and it electrocuted him or her to wide-awakeness every time I sat down and stepped on the foot pedal,” I told her.

She replied, “😅😅 Babies smell productivity the second your intention moves in that direction.”

This morning, since I used up the last of the cold-brew I’d made, I fixed myself some Dunkin’ Pumpkin Spice cold-brew with Italian Sweet Cream CoffeeMate.  It isn’t bad; but the stuff I make from beans I grind coarse and steep in the gallon jug with the diffuser is sooo much better.  Ah, well; the creamer is a rare treat, so I’ll just [try to] enjoy it!

Corn harvest here is now at 50% and soybean harvest is at 60%; farmers have been making good use of the last few sunny days.  Those should continue for a couple of weeks.  The high will be 67° today, and there’s even a heat index of 10-12° higher.

Dusting is one of the things I don’t do often enough.  The house gets especially dusty during harvest, when fields all around us are being worked.  If I could invent a dusting robot, I could Get Rich Quick!  Reckon I could come up with one that would gently dust flower and bird figurines?  If you knew how many porcelain hummingbirds lost their beaks in this house, back in the days of teenagers.  The toddlers knew they had to be careful of those things.  But the teenagers??! 😮

A friend remarked, “I think I used to have this figurine.  If so, it got sold when we sold our house and most everything in it and moved into an RV.”

I commiserated, “Figurines and RVs aren’t... compatible! 😂”

I thought I had the bathroom all nicely scrubbed and dusted and shined, as I do various parts of it every morning after my shower – but just a few minutes ago, I noticed the front of the cubbyhole door (leading to an area under the staircase where I keep a lot of supplies and even a couple of bins of off-season clothes):  that door is all dusty! 

Siggghhh...  There’s no end.

See, this is why quilting is better than housecleaning:  the quilting, once done, stays done!  (Unless you accidentally stitch with water-soluble thread, that is.)

Baby Russell is more roly-poly every time I see him, I think.  I asked Carolyn and Violet, “Do you feed him doughnuts every time you walk past him?” – and right about that time Arnold came hippity-hopping over to see us, and kept hopping while he stood there greeting us, so I added, “and you feed him (gesturing at Arnold) springs!”  They were both laughing at their funny little brother.

I’ve just made half a gallon of cold-brew coffee with the Kenya Peaberry coffee Andrew and Hester gave me for my birthday.  The description on the little box reads, “Distinctively fruity with a cherry brightness.”  On the back, there’s more:  “This single origin coffee from Kenya’s Central province is crafted purely from prized peaberries – a particular type of coffee bean formed when the two seeds of a berry fuse into one.  With its wonderful medley of ripe tropical fruits, a tangy acidity and crisp, clean aftertaste, this is the perfect cup to accompany a bright breakfast or a light lunch.”  Just reading all that should make it taste better, eh?

Late this afternoon, I got totally sidetracked on family lineage and ancestry.  I fed AI known information about my grandparents, great-grandparents, etc., including that Pocahontas is my 13^th-great-grandmother.

It wasn’t long until it filled in the missing slots.  I scanned down through the dates, just to make sure children weren’t born before their parents were alive and suchlike, and then, not reading carefully enough on account of my eyes being a bit troublesome right then, and being entirely too trusting, I gleefully sent the list to various members of the family.

It wasn’t long before I began spotting errors. 

First, I clicked on a name that was a link, in order to learn more about this great-great-somebody-or-other – and I discovered that the dates of birth and death were wrong.

Figuring that if there was one mistake, there were probably more, I put some eyedrops in my eyes and took another look – and found that AI isn’t half as clever as it thinks it is.

The father of my father is not my 2^nd-great-grandfather.  This meant that there were at least a couple of generations still missing, somewhere.  Yep, AI is still kinda stupid, after all.

Shortly after saying, “I’ll try to sort this out another time; too many other things to do at the moment,” I couldn’t stand it any longer, and delved back into the matter.

After several major scuffles with AI, I gave up with that, and went to some reputable ancestry websites.  Trouble is, to really take a deep look, one must become a paying member.  I have not drummed up enough ‘want-to’ for that yet.

My mother had given me a handwritten family tree back to my 2^nd-great-grandfather, John Swiney (1823–1909).  Working from the other end, I know names from Pocahontas down to William Gay, Jr.

·                  13^th-Great-Grandmother:  Pocahontas (Matoaka) (c. 1596–1617)

·                  12^th-Great-Grandfather:  Thomas Rolfe (1615–1675)

·                  11^th-Great-Grandmother:  Jane Rolfe (1650–1676)

·                  10^th-Great-Grandfather:  Col. John Bolling (1676–1729) – married to Mary Kennon Bolling (1679-1727)

·                  9^th-Great-Grandmother:  Elizabeth Bolling Gay (1709–1766) – married to William Gay, Sr. (1705-1749)

·                  8^th-Great-Grandfather:  William Gay, Jr. (1731-1815), married Frances Trent (1753- )

 

Here’s the list from myself up to my 3^rd-great-grandfather, Thomas Swiney (or Swinney).  His dates of birth and death are a bit iffy, though the variation of spelling in the last name is to be expected, since we do know that all the Swineys and those with name variations in Ireland are related – Swiney, Sweeney, Sweeny, Swinny, Swinney, McSwiney, MacSwiney, etc.:

 

·              3^rd-Great-Grandfather:  Thomas Swiney (1795-1850) or Swinney (1787-1869)

·              2^nd-Great-Grandfather:  John Swiney (1823–1909) – married Hepsie Ann Denny (1829–1904) in Kokomo, IN

·              Great-Grandfather:  Jesse Franklin Swiney (1859–1939), born in Kokomo, Indiana

·              Grandfather:  George William Swiney (1889–1938)

·              Father:  Rev. George Dean Swiney (1916–1992)

·              Me:  Sarah Lynn Swiney Jackson (born October 6, 1960)

 

So the 4^th through the 7^th generations are missing.

Victoria told me, “If you’re rude to AI and tell it not to lie to you, and to use actual credited sources, it’s definitely more trustworthy.”  hee hee

This is quite true, funny/odd as it sounds.  

This entire EVWT (Endeavor and Venture of Wasted Time) started with a news article I read about a house whose foundations were compromised by shoddy construction.  A big, nasty lawsuit has been going on for a few years in – would you believe – Babylon, New York, which is listed as an ‘unincorporated village’, despite having a population of 12,281. 

Here in Nebraska, a settlement is called a ‘village’ when the population is anywhere from 100 to 800, and unincorporated ‘hamlets’ have 100 people or less.  New York State has obviously gotten their population system warped by New York City having 8.8 million people, and the entire metropolitan area having a population of 22.5 million.  Wow.  And yikes, too. 

The population density right here in Platte County, which I consider pretty well populated, is 53 persons per square mile.  The population density of New York City?  29,303 people per square mile!  Wowww, that’s just unbelievable, to a li’l ol’ country hick like me.  Why, the population density of Cherry County, Nebraska, off to our west a ways, is roughly only 0.93 inhabitants per square mile!  (I wonder what happened to the other 0.07 parts of those persons?)

Anyway, back to that news article.  I asked AI, “Who in the world would ever name a town or village or hamlet ‘Babylon’?!”

It told me of a Nathaniel Conklin who built a nice big house for his family – and his mother.  He moved in, brought his mother from wherever she’d been living – only to have her ‘yelling’ that the new house he’d built was ‘just like Babylon’, because it was right across the street from a busy tavern, with lots of comings and goings, not all of the comers and goers steady on their feet.  

Nathaniel, evidently not much in subjection to his saintly mother, promptly had a plaque engraved and embedded into one of the chimneys which read, “Na. Conklin, 1803, The New Babylon.”

And the entire community promptly called themselves ‘New Babylon’. 

I asked AI, “Did she really ‘yell’, or did you make that up?”  

AI admitted to some ‘colorful imagery’, and I said, “I prefer the facts, thank you kindly.” 

It apologized, and instantly became more factual.  (But the ‘colorful imagery’ was more entertaining, gotta admit.)

Here’s the home, which has been moved and restored, and can now be toured. 

‘New Babylon’ was the community’s name from 1803 to 1830, when government officially renamed the local post office to simply ‘Babylon’.

I then went down a rabbit hole to see if those New York Conklins are related to the Conklins of the Midwest who, a century later, started the Conklin Company, with its many products for home and health, animals and vehicles, and more.  They are.

(Sidenote:  My brother-in-law John – and now his son Kelvin sells – Conklin products.)

This all being so interesting, I got lost in my own ancestry.

And now you know The Beginning of the Story (with a nod to Paul Harvey).

Victoria sent a video of Arnold playing with her knit hat.

I texted back, “From now on, two heads will have to share that hat.”

“Good thing my head is XL,” responded Victoria.

“And you have lots of hair you can pile inside it,” I added.  😂

And now there are dishes to wash, and the only way that’s going to get done is if I sign my name to this wandering missive and get on with it!

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