Good visibility

We got up sort of early for us and was gone from here before 8:30...the rest of the week has rain forecast for almost every day. Or it did have...I haven't checked today. We were headed north to Jasper-Pulaski Fish and Wildlife Area to see the Sandhill cranes again and yesterday seemed the best day to make the attempt.

I am telling you now, if rain was not in the forecast so much for the coming week, there is no way I would have traveled yesterday. We were in fog so thick most of the way there...so thick you couldn't see what was in the road right beside you. Go here, and look what is right beside the road...notice the 3rd photo down especially. Now we were in the lane this photo was taken from so we were across the median, etc....but there are others almost as close on our side of the road and even though I was looking for the wind turbines, I never spotted a single one on the way north. That gives you a clue to how thick the fog was.

When we got so far north we were going to have to get off the 4 lane road, we decided to find a place to sit and have coffee and wait for the fog to lift. We did take our chances though and traveled a few mile on a two lane road to Watseka, Illinois....we went to this little mom and pop restaurant and ordered coffee.
The first thing the waitress told us there had been a 10 car pile up just right there close to Watseka....that all the ambulances had been used. We sat there at least an hour, and finally thought the fog was lifting, but as we left there I thought I saw a junk shop so stopped there for a few minutes before heading out. There we heard 12 cars, and this morn I did find a link and it said 12 cars.... These top two scenes were after we left there...
And these are the Sandhill cranes we went to see. I didn't get many good pictures...of course with all the waiting it was the middle of the day when there and though my focusing skills leave a lot to be desired, the lighting was also bad.

The quilt tester

I have finally finished the quilt...but no pictures yet. Hopefully before the week is out I will have opportunity to take some. I have not worked on it steady, but just when I had TV to watch.
I am sure this quilt is going to be well loved...in fact, it already is. The three youngsters of the cats have all laid in it, on it, under it every opportunity they could get. But the Puss Puss shown here has been the one that seemed to love it most. She has really given it the official test the past couple of days.

Bubbie usually wanted in it if he thought he could get some kind of game out of it...and would crawl under the folds. He crawls under anything he can...put a newspaper on the floor and he will try to crawl under it. If just his head is under, he thinks his whole body is hidden.

Now Cougar is a bit different...he likes to lay on anything he can that I have recently handled. If I lay a jacket down, and forget it, I will look around in a bit and he is laying on it. He has gotten in my lap while I was stitching the binding down and sat on it till he had to move, and he did this while I was quilting it. I would quilt, have to stop and move him to reposition the quilt, and he would crawl right back on it. You don't know what you are missing if you don't have cats!

Meet Sheba

Please click to enlarge to see how pretty she really was!

Roger and I was at the wedding of his cousin and she told us about the puppies that were just born and that they were collie and samoyed. At that time I had not heard of samoyeds. But I could not remember a time that I had not loved collies.

Attending his cousin's wedding was one of the first things we did together, and though we had not discussed marriage, we said something about liking them. Or maybe it was at our wedding, we mentioned them again...I don't know. Keep in mind we only dated a month and got married....anyway, we had not been married too long when here came his cousin bringing us this little bundle of love and energy.

I don't know where I came up with the name of Sheba, but that is what I named her. And I think by the time we got her, I had been home to Tennessee and brought my dachshund home. They were a pair...Snoopy the dachshund liked to play ball and Sheba like to play with an old sock with a not tied in it. She would have liked for Snoopy to play, but Snoopy preferred to play with us. But every now and then when Snoopy walked by Sheba, Sheba would reach out and bite her tail just to get a reaction out of her.

Roger and I both worked the evening shift, so they were alone for several hours, though my mother-in-law would come and let them outside a time or two before we got home for them to go to the bathroom. But still, I cannot remember all that Sheba chewed up with her sharp, puppy teeth. For one thing she chewed our checkbook to pieces, and another thing was a New Testament Roger's aunt had given him when he joined the marines.
The destructive phase of her puppyhood did not last long and she grew into a wonderful dog. She liked all women, and though she didn't hate men, she very seldom met any that she liked immediately. She knew family, though it might take her a day to accept them as family if she had not met them when young, but once she knew, she didn't forget them the next time she saw them. If it was any of Roger's male friends from work, she usually sat between us and them.

From the first minute she met our preacher, she liked him. And this one guy down home....that had been buddies with my brothers and been like family. She loved him the minute she met him.

Roger could pretend to attack me, and she would go up and would put her mouth around his leg
but not bite him....if he had really been hurting me she would have defended me I am sure.
We had had her about two years when we moved to Tennessee....where these photos were taken. All I had to do to was say 'here kitty, kitty' or 'where's the cat?' I do not know why, but she hated cats. Or maybe she didn't hate them, but just wanted to chase them. So, when I wanted a nice picture of her, the word to say was not 'cheese' but 'kitty.'

When we moved back to Indiana, it was sort of suddenly...my father-in-law's cancer had returned. We moved in with them for a month or so...and we left Sheba with my mom. Though we got to see her a more times, she was always thrilled to see us. A faithful companion always.