Keeping track

I had three things happening this week: a) a routine teeth cleaning, b) and open-house meet/eat/greet at my lawyer’s place, and c) an afternoon of activities at Sara & Mike’s place with multiple family and kids. (Mike’s family we first met in 1975. He is a grandson.)
Weather was the story in Washington this week. I had some wind – not much, and none of the flooding.

The mountain rains caused flooding in the Puget Sound Lowland. There’s a clue. Such storms occur about every 3 to 5 years. Urban growth means more hard surfaces, faster run-off, and higher peak water. Snoqualmie Falls was in the news, again. It has a drop of 268 feet, about 100 feet higher than the Horseshoe Falls at Niagara.

Winds to my north came down-slope off the Cascades, were funneled by a narrow valley and slammed into Washington’s false Bavarian Village of Leavenworth. The town was isolated for a couple of days until access from the east was achieved. US Hwy 2 through Stevens Pass remains closed until Monday or longer.
That wind continued east across the ridges. 13 miles north of me is Mission Peak, 6,730 feet elevation (4,500 ft higher than me). The weather station there recorded a 112 mph gust. From Wed at 10pm until Thursday at 10am the average wind speed was near 60 mph. I had an average of about 25 with a few gusts approaching 40.
Just up the road from me about 100 yards an old tree broke off. Thursday morning a crew with chainsaws and a chipper cleaned it up in less than half an hour. Fortunately, the electricity lines are on the opposite side of the road. I suspect one of the locals pulled the trunk off to the side before the highway department learned of it. Had a chainsaw been used I likely would have heard that.
The National Weather Service thinks I will get rain Monday and our standard wind that evening. Stronger winds and snow in the mountains north and northwest of me. As yet there is not serious cold in our forecast, unlike much of North America from Winnipeg to Nashville. Even today, Ellensburg is warmer than Atlanta.

Keeping Track
on the Naneum Fan
John

The Big Cut refers to extensive logging in Pennsylvania and the near-total deforestation of large areas, particularly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mom’s family lived in Clarion County, western PA, where the young men were involved in the mid-to-late stages of The Big Cut. Trees were cut and logs were floated to Pittsburgh on the Clarion River (95 miles) and then the Allegeheny (72 miles).
The walk back was shorter because the rivers meander, the roads less so. The log-trips ended in the early 1920s when the Piney Dam was completed. In a straight line, the Dam is just 4.5 miles down river from where I was raised. Meaning, growing up, I knew the river as a (polluted) reservoir. Up river there is an old-growth forest near the town of Cooksburg with a State Park and a place called the Forest Cathedral.
A search with “Forest Cathedral, Cooksburg state forest park” can get to info and images.
Back to the Naneum Fan: My big cut!

Bob Ross (The Joy of Painting) would not have used this as a “happy little tree”!
I planted Ponderosa Pines and other trees shortly after moving to the place. The area is near both forest and dry-land plants. With lots of early care the pines develop roots that reach sustaining water. At 30+ years they are 10 to 15 inches through above the flare near the ground.
Trees frequently do not grow the way I think they should. The tree in the photo was one such. [I’ve also cut lower branches off to support their fire resistance.]
A limb on the (south) sunny side took over the growth. That’s the limb on the ground in front of the chainsaw. Called lateral branches, these cause imbalance. {More below.} In this case, this side growth was reaching toward the driveway. For many years I’ve been contemplating cutting it down. The larger the side-wise growth the more dangerous it looked. And, the bigger the tree, the greater the issues become in taking it down.
I would rather it not fall on the driveway but because it was over weighted in that direction, that was the safe and obvious choice. I cut the green parts away so the structure is visible.
Reaction wood in trees is a mechanism to help a misshapen tree to compensate. PennState Extension has a page on “Reaction Wood in Trees”.
When a lateral limb curves upward the growth rings adjust, in conifers this is called compression wood, typically on the lower side of the bend, while in hardwoods, it’s known as tension wood, found on the upper side.
The photo shows what happened in my Ponderosa Pine. This is about 18 inches after the separation from the original main trunk.

The top (1st) photo was taken about Thursday Noon. After lunch I cut all the limbs off. Freshly cut, I tree will be about half water. It is very heavy. After cut to firewood size it will take a year or two to get to about 15% water. This tree won’t be ready to burn until about February 2027. Cutting, splitting, and stacking is good exercise.
I saw a small bundle of wood for sale today. It was $6 for 0.75 sq. ft., or about 10 pieces of a 3 inch thick tree limb. Ouch. Folks that actually heat with wood don’t buy it that way.

I went to a scholarship lunch at CWU on Friday. There was a very small group. Just before Christmas (& quarter end), university folks get very busy.

Washington is at the beginning of three “atmospheric rivers” or what once were called Pineapple Expresses. I guess because the Hawaiian Islands are no longer major pineapple producers the name is no longer relevant. During the next two weeks, higher elevations in western Washington may get 20 inches of rain. Mountain tops will get snow. Some rivers in the Puget Sound basin will flood. News stories will be appearing. Snoqualmie Falls, 70 miles NW of me, will become a “must see” event. Here is a link:

Weather was nice today, although a bit breezy.

Keeping Track
on the Naneum Fan
John

Here is a satellite view of central Washington State. My places is the red star. Moses Lake is 55 miles east. The orange Q is Quincy. The green lines are 120°W Longitude and 47°N Latitude. That thinner green line passes almost over the Ellensburg Street along which Central Washington University’s first buildings were constructed.

The Kittitas Valley is filled with fog. That’s the gray stuff. The brighter white is snow.
Thanksgiving Day – bright and sunny – I went 8 miles SE for the afternoon. Lots of people, lots of food. While still light, but with dusk approaching, we could see fog creeping down the hills to our northwest. I encountered fog just a mile south of home. It has been here ever since. I had a few sunny minutes on Saturday.
Often, there will be clear sky here with fog starting about 4 miles south. Today I have fog near the ground and can see only about 100 yards. On I-90 near EBRG, the fog is not on the ground. Traffic cameras show clear driving with fog about 700 feet up. The National Weather Service thinks I am “Mostly Sunny” with a temp of 37°. It is 27° here and no sun. I was hoping to do a few things outside today, but will pass except for carrying in some firewood and taking sunflower seeds to the little birds. Monday about 2:00pm there may be enough wind to clear the Valley of fog.

I don’t need to go anywhere until Friday, so no big deal
Happy December!

Keeping Track
on the Naneum Fan
John

This week the meeting of the local Audubon group was a presentation of the connections between birds and dinosaurs. {It’s complicated.} The presenter is knowledgeable and the information was interesting. No issues.
The problem – and this may be just local – was getting started.
With a start time of 7:00pm, at about 10 minutes to 7, the local coordinator turned on the computer and the projector and proceeded to bring up a ZOOM screen. At 7:15 the hassles reigned. We were treated to watching the arrow cursor move around the screen with clicks here and there – or not – with sometimes something happening. What didn’t happen was a working system. The cursor moving and clicking repeatedly move to the same buttons with similar results.
We could see the intended presenter and several people in their homes waiting. They could hear the speaker. The in-attendance folks could not. At about 7:20 I was about to leave. At the moment my attention left the screen the proper sequence of clicks brought the system to life. I don’t know what was done and I don’t think the coordinator knows.
The blame is laid on others that use the system. Audubon meets once a month in an annex to the public library. Three or four times each year a ZOOM meeting is tried – always with the same results. The library owns the equipment, and others do use it. Do they muck it up or is it too complicated for an average human to learn how to use it? Inquiring minds want to know.
Of the presentations I have seen – maybe 30 total – a major drawback is the lack of awareness of the speaker. A common problem is too close focus on the face and moving away and back. Waving hands across the view is a problem. This might not be an issue if you are in a 200 to 500 seat auditorium watching a person up front on a stage. On Zoom, the speaker almost always has something distracting going on. Last night several pages of notes repeatedly traversed the screen, no purpose, just distracting.
On other occasions the speaker holds something to show but it is as frequently off screen as on. Often the lighting is dim. Sometimes the speaker seems to be looking everywhere except at the camera.
Count me as unimpressed.

I was in town 20 minutes early and so did a circuit of several blocks. I was walking past a small bus stop shelter and noticed a small bicycle therein. I stopped and when my sight adjusted to the view I recognized there was a blanket covered human there. Temperature was 40°F. From under the bench and the blanket a medium size dog’s head appeared, giving me an inquisitive look. We made eye contact and departed company.
A cold weather shelter in Ellensburg will open on Monday at a local church and operate nightly until March. It will be about 15 blocks (¾ mile) from that bus stop.

Local lure on the Naneum Fan has it that we will get snow on the ground 10 days after the hills just to my north. The weather folks that hill snow will come Tuesday evening. For me, then, snow should appear on December 5th.

I need to be done with outside chores by then.
Keeping Track
on the Naneum Fan
John

This week I had the opportunity to go into the ranching business.

It reminded me of the cartoon I used a few months ago.
I was 100+ yards from the house cleaning up a dead tree and loading burnable parts into the truck when I heard a noise behind me. I had a small herd of cattle passing behind me on their way south into the field. There are 5 or 6 ranches within a mile of me and I did not have phone numbers for any of them. I didn’t want to chase them back onto the county road where bad things can happen and the sheriff deputies might get involved.
The ole’ Swedberg pastures are rented out to a neighbor, so I called Dale S. and got the phone number of the suspected owner. He was an hour away, but headed this way.
On arrival he came into the driveway only about 100 feet, but the cows recognized (I think) the distinctive sound of his flatbed truck. They headed in that direction – also the open gate onto Naneum Road. We visited for a minute as they filed out and turned north, from the direction they came apparently. Then he followed to make sure they found a way off the road.
Dale had told him the fences were good around a plot, but that (no surprise) was not the case.
If I’m out and hear cattle coming I can close the gate. On a regular move operation there are usually several riders, a pickup, and a dog or two. Two days before, a different rancher moved a herd and cows came onto my place. There were horse prints indicating a retrieve. Cows, with cloven hooves, versus horses with iron shoes, even I can tell apart.

I continue with making firewood and some garden/landscape things. Otherwise, nothing exciting happens. I did make brownies with walnuts and chocolate chips this morning, Sunday.
I’m hoping the temp will go up some. I have one outside unit still reporting 38° but another is saying 48° and a near-neighbor has an on-line site that says 49°. The one reading low (given to me two years ago) quit a month ago and then mysteriously started again. Maybe it is time for a new one.

Keeping Track
on the Naneum Fan
John

The grill I won at the Super1 Grocery store is something I have no use for. It is listed on Amazon for $473. {Search if you want: Blackstone Omnivore Outdoor Flat Top Gas Griddle w/ Hard Cover, 36” flat top griddle with 4 independently controlled burners.}
The cooking surface, the griddle plate, is heavy, with a system total weight of over 140 pounds.

I gave it to the Kittitas County Sheriff Department (home to Search and Rescue, also). Two deputies came to pick it up. The photo was taken just as darkness settled around us. That’s officer Mike, the grill, and me in the photo. I was asked if they could put the photo on their Sheriff’s Facebook page. With my good behavior, I expect this to be my only appearance there.

Mike’s colleague has an older model and was aware that the table and legs could be folded up. That made getting it into the back of a pickup (F250) with a hard tonneau* cover much easier than when I brought it home. The package does not include a propane tank. I was assured the office had a few.

*The term “tonneau” comes from the French word meaning “cask” or “barrel.” It originally referred to an open rear passenger compartment in early automobiles, which had a rounded shape similar to a barrel. [I had to look it up.] The Wikipedia page for “tonneau” has photos of two historic autos with tonneaus.

I had the grill parked under the back patio roof where I store ½ cord of wood. It is a stash I use when the winter temperature is near Zero or the weather is nasty. When I came home with the grill I backed the pickup close to the pallet-structure and rolled it off – thereby obstructing the place for the wood.

The pallet size for a 53-foot trailer measures 48 inches long by 40 inches wide. For half of a cord the size needs to be 4 feet on each side (4X4X4), so filled fully it is a bit short. I now have it about half full – to be completed this week. I have it in a shed 100 yards away. When the weather is 10°F, it is snowing, and the wind is 20 mph this is not a fun chore. This, then, is wood for hard times.
I’ve been using the 14″ SKILL electric chainsaw for cutting branches and trunks into wood-stove-size. The weather was nice so I dropped three 10″ size trees [dead 2 years], cut the trunks into sizes I can lift (fresh wood is 40% water and much heavier), and loaded them in the truck. Then unloaded them in the shed for being cut to size. The battery lasts about as long as I do for such work. While the battery charges, I find other things to keep active – – eat, or nap.

Keeping Track
on the Naneum Fan
John

The weather report for today was for not much wind, sunny, and 50ish. Cameron had to be at the winery in case visitors came. None did.
Seven of us met at Noon for lunch and the 5 guys held a pétanque game. Just one, then back for more food, wine and conversation. Phyllis and Cameron are soon headed for SW France for 3 weeks.

There are too many Washington wineries, just over 1,000. There is too much wine and gasoline is about $4/ gallon. Cameron has a couple of acres of Cabernet Franc left unpicked. Rumors of several tasting rooms, and maybe the wineries, being shut down. A winery south of Yakima, about 60 miles from here, is selling there prior year’s wine but not producing more. I haven’t heard if they managed to sell grapes. Because White Heron has a tasting room in the Public Market at Pike Place near the waterfront (think cruise ships) they sell lots of wine there, either by the glass or bottles to go.
Pike Place Market is Washington’s largest tourist destination, attracting over 20 million visitors annually. It is renowned for its vibrant atmosphere, fresh produce, and unique shops. {So says the internet.}

Note the “Halibut” sign. When a buyer requests a fish a worker will toss them through the air from a cold case to the wrapper and cashier. There are always people just watching the show with no intention of buying. The blue sign – under the ‘M’ of farmers directs one to a viewpoint of the waterfront. That view point and the tasting room are down a ramp and in the lower market level.
This page has photos of and from the tasting room, and from the winery and vineyard.

Northwest Tastings

Our weather looks wet for the next week. Stories of western WA streams reaching flood state will be in the news.

Keeping Track
on the Naneum Fan
John

Here it is Monday afternoon and I just realized I didn’t write any notes about last week. Holy cow!
I’ve been using my new electric chainsaw (SKIL 14″) to cut wood into fit-in-stove lengths. The saw isn’t as heavy as a gas one and it is on/off like a ceiling light. Flick a switch. I harvested the trees last year and some this past spring. Trees that were alive in the spring will need to dry (“cure”) until next year.
I got rain this past week. The WA mountains got snow. The Puget Sound got wind and power outages. The excitement this past week was the over-size cargo truck that took out an overpass in I-90 west.

This is 25 miles west of me. The locals care. I-90 traffic is normal, again, until the re-build gets underway.
They put plywood up to protect the pillar-supports and promptly knocked part of it down.

At the end of this week our clocks have to be changed. Oh good, said no one.

Keeping Track
on the Naneum Fan
John

I baked brownies with home-grown walnuts. That almost didn’t work.
I forgot to set the timer so after about 5 minutes, or 10, I opened the oven to look. A brilliant spot flared on the front of the heating element. Oops! Bits of food, sauce, or grease – that is, keeping the oven and its elements clean – will create hotspots that lead to damage. Did I know this? Sure. Have I cleaned the oven? Maybe 10 years ago. Because the oven had been on for some unknown minutes, I closed the door and allowed the hot oven to continue its job. However, a had a couple of pieces of chicken ready to go when the brownies came out and that wasn’t going to work.
I managed the chicken with the low setting of broil, turning it off and on about every 5 minutes.
After the oven cooled, I reached to the spot that had flared and gave it a little tug. There and at another spot the element separated as can be seen in the photo.
To order a new element one needs the model number. The web helped me find the information, and then I had to find a source. Searching, I found Appliance Parts Pros in Cleveland, TN (just east of Chattanooga). Apparently, they have distribution facilities elsewhere because the package arrived sooner than I expected – from Fresno, CA. The element claims to be made in Mexico. Now I have to clean the oven and install the unit. The company’s web site has videos of doing such things. Something to do before I bake again.
The local BI-MART store’s flyer offered an electric chain saw with a price reduced from $200 to $150. That was for the saw, battery, and battery charger. On Amazon, the battery is $139, the charger is $56. The full kit on Amazon is $219. Color me confused, but I don’t have an idea about how these numbers work. Well, I went to the store, examined the demo on the shelf, and decide to buy the kit.
I already have a 16″ Stihl gas saw. It is a bit of a trick to get started but does a great job on the trees that I work with. For small limbs it is more than needed. A lone operator has to saw, stop and clean up, then start again. Letting the gas saw idle for a few seconds is reasonable, but for 5 minutes? That seems a bit much. I’ve now used the electric one three times for, maybe, a total of 1.5 hours. It is lighter than the gas one, and stopping, starting, and carrying it around is easy. I think of it as being a more friendly option.
Registration: The company has a 3-year warranty for home owners (that is, not commercial types). Registering within 30 days of purchase up that to 5 years. I couldn’t get the web site to work so had to call. That went well but I was required to send an image of the receipt. That didn’t go well. Three (3) – actually 3.5 letters on the left side did not print. Example: it has THANK YOU on it, except only the K is fully printed. Similarly on the last of the word “October” only the “er” is there. The date appears as “er 16, 2025”. The registration team at SKIL objected to this lack of clarity.
I went to the VISA credit card site and copied the billing info from the store. It had only the total billed (not all 8 items) and the following day’s date – the 17th. The SKIL folks accepted this, that I had legitimately purchased the saw kit. Did I mention I had to provide the model and serial numbers for the three parts of the kit?

The weather: The wind gusted to 64 mph on Friday at 1:53 pm. That’s more than the 50 mph speed limit on Naneum Road and the 60 mph on State highways. A steady wind of 44 mph was recorded; 36 to 40 was common. About midnight the wind dropped and went to zero during the night. Unfortunately, I have Black Walnut trees along the driveway and hundreds of the nuts came down. I’ve pushed them to the side and now have to load and cart them off. Rain happened. After about 5 months of very little rain, this morning the barrels are nearly full. I will give the trees a drink.

Keeping Track
on the Naneum Fan
John

Both the Black Walnuts and the cold-hardy Carpathian ones (variety of the English type) now have yellow leaves.The photo here (Star Nursery, NV) shows the husk splitting just before the leaves yellow and the nut falls. The Black Walnuts do not naturally open like this. They are a pain both to de-husk and to get the nut-meat out. It is fall and the nuts are falling.

The new bird-feeding station is complete. About 25 years ago I cobbled one together quickly. It has slowly succumbed to weather and gravity – a metaphor for those of us born in the 1940s. The new one is more sturdy and built of better material.

The deceased one had a flat top and was on posts sufficiently high I could not see the top and it accumulated snow, so brushing it off was an issue. The 2×4 wire is meant to allow smaller birds while preventing large birds (Eurasian Collared Doves & Black-billed Magpies) from scarfing the sunflower seeds.
This station has a sloping top with a metal ridge cap. The width is 40 inches and the hammer is for scale. The hammer is placed over an opening that can be covered. I can remove the piece and reach in to get to the small boxes that hold the seeds.
I had to buy a packet of 10 small sheet metal screws ($1.48) to hold the ridge cap down. Other than that, all parts are things that I scrounged from “stuff” accumulated from prior projects. The blue paint is that used on the house siding done three years ago. I now have to mount the station on posts where I can see it from the house. New, battery powered tools have helped much in this project.
I came late to battery powered tools – mine are the Milwaukee M18 brand. The local lumberyard and hardware store has a “Milwaukee Day” with sales and company folks to answer questions, so that’s my source.
Related: I noticed I had used “flat head square drive” wood screws to hold a 2×4 on a garden post. This would have been before I had the battery tool. So, I would have had to use extension cords to reach the spot about 100 feet from the nearest outlet. I would have used two of the 50 foot type. Black & Decker introduced a cordless electric drill in 1961 – my high school graduation year. I bought my first one in 2020.
One of my two circular saws has worn out. My other one is a hand-off from a retired geographer that moved to an apartment. It, too, is old. Maybe there is a new one in my future.

Keeping Track
on the Naneum Fan
John