Reflections - Amish Shadow Lap Quilt

Amish Shadow Quilt

I made an Amish shadow lap quilt for my sister Anita for selfish reasons. I wanted a picture of a quilt in my 2022 shadow calendar. The Amish would have used pastel strips to contrast with the black, but, when I asked Anita, she said green, brown, and black were her favorite colors. She also needed sturdy fabrics on account of her Tibetan Terriers. These requirements limited the selection.

I added a piano key border for her piano expertise then quilted two Tibetan Terriers in each of the thirty blocks.

 

Tibetan Terrier Quilting

Both the piano key border and the Amish Shadow quilt were firsts for me. When calculating yardage for the lap quilt, I mistakenly accounted for squares not triangles. I bought twice as much material as the quilt required. 

 

Quilters never have too much fabric.

Ever since a woman at a quilt retreat collected our scraps to stuff her dog mattresses for shelters, I’d pondered making dog mattresses for Anita. So with dog strength material, I made my first dog mattresses For Anita’s Tibetan Terriers—Mr. Mumbles, Emma, Smidge, and Gilbey. I sewed zippers into the ends and stuffed the covers with old blankets for easy laundering. The mattresses have quilt blocks but no quilting.

Dog Mattresses - Tops

 Reflections - Walnut Snatcher

Baskets of Black Walnuts

The cats discovered the theft Monday morning, October 4. Sitting side by side by side on the hewn log table, they gazed through the window at the porch desk. Tails twitched. Ears swiveled. Ande whimpered. Eh eh eh.

If one of the brothers had acted that way, I would have suspected a butterfly or grasshopper. All three meant a critter like the mouse with a nest of babies under Spence’s printer or the gray squirrel that carved wood sculptures. I mentally rooted for the mouse because of our black walnuts. Mice don’t have the teeth to gnaw through walnuts. Squirrels do. 

Our venerable black walnut tree dropped fruit with each wind event starting late summer. Though plum size at first, I scooped up every lime-green fruit, fingered the bumpy husks, and inhaled their spicy fragrance. I stored the first nuts in an empty flowerpot on the porch desk. 

Fall came. The walnut tree dropped lemon size fruit. Spence and I crisscrossed the yard under the old walnut tree as if following the lines on a checkerboard. I stuffed the fruit into my picking apron. Spence dropped them into a five-gallon bucket. We transferred the fruit to a bushel basket and covered the bounty with newspapers to hide it from the squirrels. 

 I even lured others into snatching the walnuts away from squirrels. When our nephew Patrick came to haul away the old dryer, I bent to great-niece eye level and used my excited first-grade teacher voice. “Want to go on a walnut hunt?”

Addy, age six, whooped.

Amelia, age four, hopped.

Their grandma Cindy gave me a thumbs-up signal. “That sounds like fun.”

Chestnut-brown hair swaying, Addy leapt across the yard as gracefully as deer leapt over Spence’s garden fence. Searching for the camouflaged fruits in the six-inch grass tickled her sense of adventure. “I found one!” She snatched the fruit and tossed it into Spence’s five-gallon bucket or into the bushel basket her sister and I had fetched from the garage. Thunk. Addy bounded off for more. 

Cherubic Amelia pranced across the grass with her head bent and blonde curls bouncing. She lunged, grabbed a fruit, and dropped it into the bushel basket—never the bucket.

The walnut adventure didn’t hold Addy’s attention for long. “I want to go to the house.”

I glanced from the empty porch to Cindy’s wrinkled forehead. Imaging Patrick and his sister Sarah maneuvering the dryer down the ramp with Addy’s grandpa and great-uncle supervising, I said, “Not yet. We have more walnuts to find.” A twinge of guilt poked my heart because we didn’t have to gather all the walnuts. The squirrels could have a few.

“But I want to see my daddy,” Addy threw her hands to her sides as if trying to reason with a dense old person.

In a soothing voice, Cindy said, “We have to help Aunt Janet.”

Amelia scampered cheerfully through the grass. “Found one!”

I’d stopped picking up walnuts. Instead, I pointed my shoes at the fruit saying, “Here’s one,” for the energetic Amelia to find. 

When no more fruit could be found, Cindy and I glanced at the empty porch, shrugged our shoulders, and granted Addy’s wish. 

I hefted the basket to rest on my hip. Cindy toted the bucket. We marched. On the porch,  I set the bushel basket beside the full one already there, dumped the walnuts from the bucket into the second basket, and called to Spence. “Are they done?”

He rounded the corner. “Yeah. They’re just talking beside the van.”

“Addy wants her daddy.”

Spence cupped his hands and yelled. “Patrick. Addy wants you.”

Within five minutes the six adults selected porch chairs. Addy snuggled on her daddy’s lap. Amelia put a hand on Spence’s knee and pointed to the walnuts. “What’s inside?”

Spence selected a fruit, pulled his utility knife from a pocket, and cut into the husk. 

“Can I do it?” Amelia reached for the knife.

Exposed Walnut and Walnut Brown Fingertip

“No, honey.” He made another incision. “Your hands will turn brown.” Cutting away a section of husk, he exposed the nut. Juice dripped from the fruit, and his fingertip turned walnut brown. 

Amelia clasped her hands behind her back.

Cindy asked. “How do you process black walnuts?”

I explained.

Spread the fruit on the driveway.

Ask Spence to run over them with his tractor.

Twist and scrape the husk off.

Drop the nuts into a bucket of water.

Discard the floaters—they’re empty.

Scrub the sinkers with a wire brush until all the pulp is gone.

Dry the nuts on a screen for a couple of months.

Crack the nuts with a heavy-duty walnut cracker.

“That’s why I never complain about the price of nuts.” 

While the family muttered about grocery bills, I fetched a handful of frozen black walnuts that I’d processed the previous year. To test if frozen nuts were edible, I popped one into my mouth. A bold, earthy flavor exploded over my tongue. Yum. I dumped the nuts into a bowl and went back to the porch. “Only take one at first. Some people don’t like them.”

Addy grabbed one and munched. “They taste okay,” but she didn’t reach for more. 

Spence and Sarah declined. 

Cindy munched. “It has a fruity flavor.” 

Bruce smacked his lips. “Tasty.”

Amelia spat hers onto the floor.

“I don’t like it. But I swallowed mine.” Patrick picked up Amelia’s half-chewed nut and tossed it into the wastebasket. 

If only squirrels had taste buds like Amelia. They don’t. Squirrels fancy walnuts. They would gather all the nuts if Spence and I dallied at harvest time.

Still rooting for a mouse to be mesmerizing the trio of cats, I tiptoed to the porch and stayed a COVID-19 safe distance from the table to give a squirrel jumping room. 

No mouse.

No squirrel.

No walnut sticking out of the husk Spence had cut for Amelia. 

Judging from the husks on the table, the critter had absconded with at least two walnuts.

Squirrels taking nuts under the black walnut tree is fair. I didn’t appreciate them stealing nuts tucked under newspapers on the porch. For a temporary fix, I added a canning kettle lid over one bushel basket and an empty Amazon box over the other. The lid might baffle the squirrel. The flimsy carton wouldn’t. The real fix would be to move the bushel baskets, but each weighed as much as two sewing machines. I left them on the porch desk.  

As if the guard cats had expected me to bring them the thief, their ears, eyes, and tails drooped when I came back empty-handed. 

“We need to move the walnuts into the cold cellar, Spence.” I explained the theft and the gray suspect. 

He jotted a note on his clipboard. “I’ll do it with the dolly.”

The dolly resided in the garage, and the Mahindra—his dolly hauling vehicle—was in the tractor repair shop. I had to wait until we ransomed the tractor on Wednesday.

In the meantime, Rills provided more comfort than the ad hoc covers. He sat on the hewn log table and stared at the porch desk. No body parts twitched.

Three days after the theft, we moved the fruit but not to the cold cellar. We rolled the baskets to the bottom of the ramp and dumped the walnuts into the tractor bucket. 

Spence spread the fruit across the parking pad out front and drove over them to break the husks. He trundled off to gather the latest windfall. 

Dressed in the walnut-stained clothes I only wore for black walnut processing, I pulled on red rubber gloves to cover my hands and forearms. Perched atop a step stool, I grabbed the nearest smashed fruit, twisted the husk off, and scraped the freed nut with an old knife. I scraped off most of the pulp—stringy tan or slimy black depending on the freshness of the fruit. I also scraped off every single wiggling, white maggot.

Wild turkeys clucked in the woods. Spicy walnut fragrance mingled with the scent of decomposing leaves. A large insect landed on the back of my neck. I could feel its feet but couldn’t brush it off with my wet, pulpy gloves. Instead, I wiggled my shoulders until a grasshopper jumped away.

The husking process attracted yellow jackets. They buzzed over the mashed fruit. They landed on the scraped nuts extending their tiny tongues to the juice. The yellow jackets crawled on my pulp-splattered pants and flew at my face. I let the feisty wasps fly wherever they wanted, because, when riled, they sting repeatedly. At least they didn’t steal any walnuts.

Eight days after the walnut theft and four sessions of scraping with yellow jackets later, Spence stored the scraped nuts in the cold cellar. The walnuts are safe from squirrels while I scrub four or five dozen at a time—a task I hope to finish by Thanksgiving.

In the meantime, the cats take turns sitting on the hewn log table and staring out at the porch desk in case the walnut thief returns.

Walnut Processing Clothes

 Reflections - Turtles and Snakes and Salamanders, Oh My

Audubon Community Nature Center Garden

Dear Julie,

I hope you’re enjoying fall, especially the mums you said your dad liked. 

Spence and I met Norma and Bob at the Audubon Community Nature Center in Jamestown, New York. In the main room, we peered into a 4X6X3 foot tank to find Oneka and Tweeg, two female eastern hellbenders. The giant salamanders were over a foot long. Their stony gray faces blended with the rocky bottom. One had crawled into a white pipe. The other lay under a rock and twitched her tail. Were they watching us? Hard to tell. 

Across from their tank, windows overlooked bird feeders. Nuthatches dined at the only one with seeds. The windows had frosted patterns for an experiment. Scientists tested which pattern—thin parallel lines, squares in regular rows and columns, and squares alternating in even and odd rows—if any, reduced birds flying into the glass.

We left the main room and dallied in the live reptile room. I glanced at the California corn snake and the yellow rat snake briefly but stared intently at turtles staring at me.  From Wells Wood encounters, I recognized the box turtle and the wood turtle. I watched the spotted turtle the longest. Its shell had tiny polka dots as if someone had measured and painted them in an exact design. A painted turtle slid off its platform into the water. All four of its legs paddled as it maneuvered and scraped against the glass. It got one leg onto the platform only to slip into the water. Repeatedly. I wanted to reach in and lift the critter to the platform. Norma warned, “No, you can’t do that.” Spence said, “The turtle wouldn’t appreciate your intentions.” I moved on.

Love,

Janet

P.S. If you want to see all ten postcard stories of our Jamestown vacation with Bob and Norma, use this link:

https://sites.google.com/site/wellswoodpa/vacations/visit-with-norma-and-bob-jamestown

View of Audubon Community Nature Center from the Marsh

 Reflections - Wash, Rinse, Repeat . . . If Only

Stacked Laundry

At breakfast, August 23, clean clothes never entered my mind. I devoured a zucchini-carrot patty, Spence sipped black coffee, and our son Charlie ate a cheese omelet. We chatted about the fate of Geronimo, an alpaca with bovine tuberculosis in England.

Bing, bing, bing sounded in the bathroom.

“That’s an unusual sound for the washer.” I said. Sipping rooibos tea, I mentally reviewed the washer’s normal sounds. It clanked, ground, and roared. It never binged.

Charlie swallowed then checked on his third load of laundry. I’d encouraged him to use the Wells Wood washer-dryer—a deal giving him clean clothes and letting us see him at least once every three weeks.

“It’s flashing an error message,” he called from the bathroom.

I investigated. The Maytag flashed F4 E1, whatever that meant. Following the infinite monkey theorem, I hit buttons. The code disappeared. The door remained locked. I turned knobs. The machine stayed on but wouldn’t spin.

Holding my breath so I didn’t inhale the stench of fresh cat poop, I crawled over the litter box under the utility sink, reached through cobwebs behind the washer, and pulled the plug. After a minute, I replaced it. The washer door clicked to unlock.

“It's probably clean enough to dry.” Charlie tossed bed sheets into the dryer.

Monkeying hadn’t worked, but Carl had resuscitated the washer several times. I searched for C&A Appliance Repair’s phone number.

When Carl’s wife answered the phone, I gave her the code.

“I have no idea what that means, but I’ll write it down,” she said. “Carl’s awfully busy this week . . . I can squeeze you in on Friday afternoon at six.”

Friday would have been laundry day, but I could cope. “Great. Thank you.”

On Friday. Ande, our ambassador cat, met Carl at the front door. Ande sniffed while Carl slipped out of his loafers and into his slippers. I led the man and cat duo to the washer, explained the dilemma, and left saying, “Let me know if Ande gets in your way.”

“He’s fine.” Carl closed the door.

A half hour later, he and Ande found me peeling apples in the kitchen.

“The washer has two panels.” Carl counted on his fingers. “One controls the motor and water flow. The second controls everything else.” Carl glanced toward the bathroom. “The second panel needs to be replaced. But it’s costly . . . around a hundred seventy dollars.”

“I would spend at least a thousand to get a new machine.” I picked Ande up so that Carl could change his shoes without a cat nose in the way. “Order the part.”

The following Tuesday, Carl returned with the part. “I’ll put this in. We’ll see if it works.”

If?

He walked to the bathroom and shut the door. Ande sniffed Carl’s shoes then lay in front of the door. He twitched his ears while tools clinked, metal clanked, and Carl’s slippers rubbed against the tile floor.

The bathroom door squeaked open, and Carl lugged his gear to the great room where Spence checked his email to see if Ford had set a build date for the Maverick he’d ordered. I pulled the checkbook out of my purse.

“I made a mistake.” Carl ran his hand over his forehead. “I ordered the wrong part.”

Spence looked up from the computer. “That happens.”

Carl shifted the gear to his other hand. “I’ll order the other part tomorrow morning. It should come Thursday or Friday.”

We didn’t hear from Carl Thursday.

Friday, with only two pairs of underwear and Santa Claus socks in my dresser drawer, I answered the phone on the first ring.

“This is Amy from Medical Services,” said a cheery robot voice.  Frustrated, I hung up.

Ring. ”Join the class action suit against Zantac.” Click.

 

Ring. “A prescription is ready for Janet Wells.” Click.

Finally, Carl’s voice came through the line. “I’ve got the part. I can come tomorrow at one.”

My heart dropped to my heels. “Spence will be in Cleveland, and I’m leading a ZOOM meeting from one to five.”

“Maybe,” Carl hesitated, “I can  finish my morning jobs faster.”

What was I thinking? “Come whenever you can. We’ll make it work.”

At twenty after twelve Saturday, Carl lugged armfuls of gear into the house. “Let’s see what we can do this time.” He changed shoes, strode to the bathroom, and closed the door.

Ande took up his guard post.

A drill buzzed, metal clanked, and tools clinked.

I finished lunch and started Meadville Vicinity Pennwriters meeting via ZOOM with the caveat that I would have to break away to pay the repairman.

After two and a half hours, Carl stepped into the hall and whispered, “I’m finished.”

Holding up a finger, I interrupted a ghost story discussion. “The repairman’s done. Take over, Maggie.”

I muted my microphone and followed Carl to the kitchen.

He flung his arms to his sides. “It isn’t working.”

Not working!

“I tried everything I know. Usually I can figure out what’s wrong. I’m puzzled.” He handed me a bill for the equivalent of one service charge. “I suggest you buy a new washer.”

Ande Sniffing Carl's Shoe

“This isn’t enough.” Carl had come three times and spent over five hours on the washer.

“It is.” He changed his shoes. “I didn’t fix it.”

Carl couldn't perform a miracle. I would have to buy a new washer and wait for delivery. Sheesh.

I wrote Carl’s check and finished the ZOOM meeting. Then, regretting my dependence on machines, I sorted through two baskets and the hamper of laundry. Pulling out necessities, I created two small loads—underwear, socks and tank tops for Spence; underwear, socks, and bras for me. In the utility tub I hand agitated clothes in soapy water, wrung each piece, agitated the clothes in rinse water twice, and wrung each piece extra tight. I didn’t wring the clothes as efficiently as the washer. The dryer took five times longer to fluff and dry.

September 7, leaving eighteen days of laundry—minus a week’s worth of underwear—stacked between the shower and commode, I drove Spence to Fullerton’s, an appliance store in Meadville. The owner dragged himself toward us and, in an annoyed voice, asked, “May I help you?”

I explained needing a washer to put under my dryer and handed him a paper with the serial number for the washer.

“They don’t make them anymore.” He handed the paper back and rubbed his hands together as if ridding himself of something nasty. “The movers won’t stack the old dryer on a new washer. It’s too dangerous.”

Turning his head to survey a customer with another salesman, the owner said, “The safest thing would be to buy both and give the dryer to a friend.”

Spence whispered, “He’s more interested in solving his problem than yours.”

I looked at the only stacking washer-dryer pair in the store. They totaled more than two thousand dollars. As much as I wanted to end my laundry saga, I didn’t like that deal. “I need to think it over.”

The owner spun around and power-walked to his office.

Spence opened the door for me. “We can look at Home Depot.”

Home Depot had two rows of stacked washer-dryer pairs. A polite college student listened to my wish to replace the washer then shook his head. “Manufacturers change the designs. Unless you find the same model, it’s unsafe to stack them.” He topped that bad news. “The earliest this can be delivered is October fifth.”

Forty-six days of laundry? Absolutely not.

We drove to Flicks at the traffic circle on Route 322. Three salespeople helped different couples. Beyond a maze of TVs and microwaves, washer-dryers filled the next room. While I stared at capacities and price tags, Spence folded his arms across his chest and watched a cherubic four-year-old run away from his grandma. “He’s energetic,” Spence called to her.

“At least his brother and sister are in school,” she said, hustling into the room with stoves and refrigerators.

I settled on an LG washer-dryer set and reached for the Consumer Reports ratings chart on top of a stand alone washer. Matching model numbers to the store’s machines stumped me.

A saleswoman, having finished with a couple looking at TVs, approached quietly.

“How do I find the rating for this machine?” I touched the white front of the washer.

She flipped pages and pointed to a line. “This is the closest model.”

The chart marked Excellent and Very Good for nine of the ten characteristics. “What’s the Good rating for?”

She squinted. “Gentleness.”

Not a deal breaker.

Spence asked, “Could we just buy the washer?”

She shook her head. “It’s not safe.”

Remembering how the washer-dryer stack shook and shimmied during the spin cycle, I didn’t begrudge the extra cost of buying both. It wasn’t worth the risk of having the dryer crash onto one of the cats.

The saleswoman kept her cool demeanor while I peppered her with a dozen more questions. I learned the movers would deliver the pair on September 17, cart the old washer away, and move the dryer to the porch until our nephew Patrick could take it. I didn’t ask, how will I manage twenty-eight days of laundry?

I spent the next day in the bathroom hand processing four utility tub loads of laundry.

The afternoon of September 17 brought sunshine, actual and metaphoric. Brian, a twenty-something with a trimmed black beard, and Brett, a fifty-something with a gray ponytail, arrived. Both wore baseball caps and looked ready for a marathon.

Ambassador Ande greeted and escorted this new delegation to the bathroom. Then, as Brett banged the bathroom door off its hinges and pounded the dryer off its mounting rack, Ande watched the rest of the move from under the couch.

With the dryer strapped to the dolly, Brett pushed and Brian guided the load down the hall. Without a word, they paused at the front door and, as if dancing a well-rehearsed ballet, lifted the load over the threshold and onto the porch.

“Looks like you’ve done this before,” I said in awe of their ease. “How many do you move a day?”

Brett grinned. “Six to ten.”

As smoothly as they dealt with the old dryer, they removed the trouble-making washer. After patiently waiting for me to scrub the floor, they stacked the new machines. Brett tested to make sure the dryer heated and the washer took in water. Then he gave me papers to sign.

Back in the bathroom, I sorted the mountain of laundry into seven piles. Tossing the whites into the shiny tub, I closed the washer door, and took a deep yoga breath. My index finger trembled when I pushed the power button.

A fluty arpeggio sounded and slits of white light blinked on the panel. After spinning the drum a couple of times, the machine posted ninety-one minutes. My old machine only took two-thirds that time. Maybe I’d done something wrong. Water spurted into the drum. Maybe not.

Next I loaded Spence’s jeans and, because he’d worn the clothes many more days than usual, turned the dial to heavy duty. The washer spun, blinked, and posted 3H. Three hours? YIKES! What kind of monster did I buy? I’d never finish the laundry at this rate.

The washer posted sixty-nine minutes when I selected the towel cycle for the third load. Why was the machine choosing such different times? Gaining new insight for the phrase “go with the flow,” I kept loading the washer.

Within thirty-six hours of signing Brian’s papers, Charlie and I had washed and dried nine loads of laundry. The washer cranked and sloshed to wash, oohed a ghostly whine to rinse, droned in a high-pitch to spin, and ended with a sixteen-note fluty melody that reminded Spence of a Barney song.

Whatever noises the washer made and whatever time it chose was fine with me—as long as it got the laundry clean.

LG Washer-Dryer at Work

Reflections - Aunt Nellie’s Diary 

Strand Magazine February-May 2020

Wow! A previously unpublished work by Louisa May Alcott? I borrowed Charlie’s February-May 2020 copy of The Strand Magazine to read the discovery—an incomplete work of fiction called “Aunt Nellie’s Diary.”

The story starts on Aunt Nellie’s fortieth birthday. She cares for her teenage niece Annie who has invited her friend Isabel for the summer. These friends are stark contrasts. Anne is pure good and duty. Isabel is beautiful but cold and manipulative. Into the household comes Edward, the invalid son of Nellie’s friend. The story ends abruptly with Annie telling her aunt about Isabel breaking her engagement because “. . . she no longer loved him and would not be fettered by any bonds. I begged and prayed she would . . .”

 

Did Alcott tire of the too perfect Annie? Perhaps she realized the story was a bit too melodramatic? Whichever, I’m sure The Strand Magazine boosted their sales offering the fictional tidbit to curious readers like me.