Colorado snow while we prune

The recent heavy snow in Colorado damaged many things, including solar panels: see @40 sec.
Snow downs solar panels in Denver (kdvr.com)

I was at a meeting in Boulder in April of 1973. A storm warning was issued and many left early – I was headed to Iowa City, 100 miles east of Des Moines. Those that left in time (me) got home before the snow shut down most of the middle of the Country. Many reports – Denver to Chicago – are available.

Iowa weather: The blizzard of 1973 was dubbed Iowa’s ‘worst spring storm in at least 80 years’ (desmoinesregister.com)

We got 3 afternoons of pruning this week. Next week, with warming weather, we switch to mornings: 9:00 to Noon. We pruned in an area that had lots of damage from the fire – last July. Here is the link:

Cherries on sale & fire


At the bottom there is a link to “Visit to the charred vines”


There is no new growth now on the vines, but before long buds will swelland new leaves will appear. The new parts are very tender and easily broken, making for more difficult work. We have not yet seen “weeping” – sap flowing from the just-cut canes.

Back to fire damage. The roots of the vines are not damaged. Plants will send up one or more new shoots and the best will become the new trunk. Three years from now the vine will be producing again.
At home, I have a dozen flowers to plant and two apple trees. The forecast high temperature is 63°F and sunny. This will be a good weekend for outside chores.

Saint Patrick’s day is Sunday and a new “spring” begins, for me, at 8:06 pm on Tuesday, March 19. Our overlords snuck in an extra day at the end of February, otherwise spring this year would be on the 20th.
For other locations, go here: https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/spring-equinox.html

Keeping Track
on the Naneum Fan

John H.

Still heating with wood

Cold snuck into Washington State in early March and continues. A University Professor (u. of WA) says it is the coldest early March since 1989. That March, Nancy was in EBRG and I was still in Troy. A few months later we began moving into the current house.
It looks like this coming Wednesday will be the tip-day into spring. Nighttime temps are still in the low 30s, but days are near 50 and soon to be in the 60s.
The wood stove, a Blaze King Chinook 30, is doing 97% of the heating. The hall thermostat is set on 69°. If I sleep late or am away, the heat pump comes on and the fan pushes air around and it takes only a few minutes to move warm air from the area of the stove. The compressor does add a little heat (not much) and the electric resistance heaters do not turn on.

The Blaze King stoves are manufactured in Walla Walla, about 125 miles SE of me. The photo is a promotional one from the web.
When gone for many hours, I turn the thermostat down to 65°. When I get home, I add fuel to the stove and set the fan to “circulate.” It then runs for 5 minutes, shuts off, and comes back in about 10 minutes. Running the fan also pushes air through filters. Smoke I manage to introduce while fueling the stove is soon gone.
A complication occurs when the outside temperature warms into the 60s. The stove is best run at a high temperature with the hot air and gasses going through a catalytic burner. What goes up the flu is quite clean – so says the EPA that tests these things. Operating the stove I have at such a temperature makes the house too warm. Then it is time to let it burn out, clean it up, and let the heat pump warm the house. In July and August, the system reverses and cools the air.

We have been pruning vines from 1:00 to 4:00, trying to hit a sweet spot of temperature and low wind. Some days are better than others. In a week I suspect we will switch to mornings.

When I create one of these posts, the default setting is to allow comments. I have to remember to change that. Last week I forgot. Near the end of the week I got a notice from Word Press that I should moderate the comments.
There were about 30. Half of those were in Russian or some other script. The other half were nonsense stuff by people suggesting I buy something, look at their web site, or order a wife from the Philippines. A few years ago I missed re-setting the comments box on a dozen posts. It took 2 or 3 hours to clear up the mess.

Keeping Track
on the Naneum Fan
John

Check your spare

I realized this morning – Monday – that I wasted away the weekend and didn’t post exciting news. – Because there wasn’t any.

I did read a story of a family from southern California that drove north to visit college towns with a young son. They had a Tesla that they bought without a spare tire. Apparently the tires are large and expensive and take up space where one would normally place groceries, golf clubs, or other important stuff.
Something happened and a tire was damaged. Their problems began.
Local tire dealers did not have a Tesla size tire. Via phone, one was found and delivery was arranged. The driver went to the wrong town – hours in the wrong direction.
Eventually, the car was again operational, but they barely made it home by Monday morning.

Moral: Check your spare.
On my pickup, the spare is under the bed and has to be lowered with an affair like the handle of some jacks used to raise a car. This is done through a hole near the rear license plate.
I went to the local Les Schwab tire center and being a loyal customer they checked all five tires. The spare was about 7 psi low. Now fixed. At home I watched a video showing how to lower the spare if it is needed. I hope I won’t ever have that opportunity.
So, a suggestion: Have a look at your spare and make sure there is proper air pressure therein.

My sister lives in the Cleveland Metro region. They did have a bit of excitement when a pair of police horses got out and took a stroll on I-90. There are videos from the TV stations. I snagged the image below from one of those.
Animals seem to know where home is. These two got back safely, but not before causing a commotion of the interstate.

Yesterday I got an inch of snow and this morning it was 19°F. It has been on-and-off windy. The saying about March coming in like a Lion fits.
Friends in South Lake Tahoe are dealing with several feet of snow. Parts of that area lost power. Not them.

Maybe I will have a more exciting week. I expect to be pruning grape vines.

Keeping Track
on the Naneum Fan
John

Seeing spring ?

Pruning of grapevines just started. I’ve only managed two days of 3 hours. We have completed the rows (unseen) to the left of the cat’s head and neck. The others have done 4 or 5 days, but I’ve been doing other things.
The medical checkup showed no changes since last year. Next month is a visit to the optometrist.

I’ve trimmed the lower branches of more pine trees but still have lots of clean-up to do. Half of the stuff will go to compost and the larger pieces will go to the firewood pile. Pine needles and the small branches take several years to decompose so that gets piled out of the way. The branches need about 18 months to dry to about 11% moisture.

I made several dozen cookies (chocolate chip & pecans) so I would have a snack on the drive home. Also, I have made and frozen pork ribs in serving-size packages and a couple of other meals. Altogether I think a have three weeks of evening meals without having to get serious about cooking. Microwave ovens and freezers are two of the greatest inventions since the pith of the papyrus sedge was used to make a flat surface to write on. That was about 5,000 years ago.

Weather folks claim the mountains just to my west are going to get two or three feet of snow this coming week. Me? Four to six inches. We’ll see.

Keeping Track
on the Naneum Fan
John

Mountain snow / chance here

Warming up by this coming Wednesday, when I expect to start pruning vines at White Heron.

TIAS – there is always something

#1: For 8:00 am, the Ford dealer’s repair shop scheduled my truck for a partreplacement. Last week their computer system showed the part was on the shelf. It wasn’t. I was less peeved only because I had two other errands in EBRG. Truck and me are rescheduled for 9:00 on Friday. I don’t want to have to be in there again at 8.

#1-a: The truck was attended to on Friday (9am to 1 pm) and only cost me $835.83 , including $71.28 tax. WA does not have an income tax so I guess I shouldn’t complain. The problem started when the connection to the Third Brake Light (on the canopy) connection corroded and also damaged the factory installed brake & trailer hitch module. That part’s cost was a little more than half of the total, $442.22. They did not attempt to reconnect the 3rd brake light and suggested not to do so.

#2: I ordered a used book from ThriftBooks (via Walmart website). The shipping info started in Dallas on Feb. 7th. The book is well traveled.
Dallas, TX
Grand Prairie, TX
North Las Vegas, NV
Portland, OR
Seattle, WA
Spokane, WA – delivery is expected Thursday

On Wednesday, I was asked to rate the purchase by Walmart before the book arrived.

TIAS #3
Thursday – “Medicare Wellness”** visit at the Cle Elum clinic
Tues – next – “Chronic Conditions Visit”

The government claims this is a “free” visit – Medicare takes $174.70 per month from my Social Security. How is that free?

It would make sense to call these “Annual health check-up” I & II.

We have a two part medical deal.
Today it is called “Medicare Wellness” and not much is accomplished. There is a questionnaire, vital signs, and a blood draw. Draw a clock face and remember 3 words for 5 minutes. I remembered 2 from this trial and 1 from last year. Oops!
Next Tuesday the visit is called the “Chronic Conditions Visit” where the same vital signs are again taken and then the “doctor” goes over the blood test results. “Chronic” got attached to this because thyroid, blood pressure, and cholesterol are things we always have with us.
Chelse (PA-C, my doctor) and I also completed a new POLST form. You can look it up.
Use the search phrase: polst programs in your state

I guess if one had medical issues of a serious and continuing nature there would be more to this visit. For me, we’ll discuss blood pressure, cholesterol, and thyroid – – I have a pill for each.
My preferred method would be to go have the blood drawn and skip the “wellness” part – – I think that is for the Medicare agency to collect information on smoking, drinking, and a few other items so they can have data on the overall health of USA old folks.

So, I really won’t learn much until next Tuesday. My appointment is at 9:00 There is a slight chance of rain or snow, likely rain when I leave at 8 am.

That is all the stuff going on here.
Keeping Track
on the Naneum Fan

John

Cool and Calm

The rest of the world is anything but cool and calm, but here on the Naneum Fan nothing happened this week. The deer wander around occasionally finding something to eat. A few years ago with deep snow and cold they would eat the buds and green needles from limbs I cut from pine. This year they have mostly ignored such things. I plan today to cut a young Black Cottonwood to see what they think of the tips and buds. (I trim some in the cold weather thinking there are fewer diseases floating around to land on the scars. And, the activity is vigorous enough that I don’t get cold. High today was 45°)
The forecast for the mountains claims snow, noonish and not much is happening. Matsaaruti (sort of a wet mist; a term from Siberia – I think) reported at Stevens Pass and graupel (snow pellets) at other places above 4,000 feet. After dark, all the passes are messy with rain, snow, and slush. Accidents expected.

I mentioned on January 28th that my retirement funds advisor at Vanguard
had been replaced. I had a discussion with the new person on Wednesday. Her name is Kelsey Ertmer – rare last name in the U.S. of A.
The past couple of years I have taken the Required Minimum Distribution (called the RMD) in January and used it to fund scholarships at CWU. Part goes for this year – called “current use” and a larger part to the endowment fund in Nancy’s and my name. I am also going to send a small amount to the Cascade Carnivore Project – If that doesn’t ring a bell, see “A Red Fox named MICA”:

A Red Fox named MICA

Monthly, I also will be taking a small amount for expenses because over the past 14 years (since Nancy retired from the University) prices of have gone up a bit over 40%. Below is a dollar in 2010 and on the right in 2024.

When we came to EBRG in 1988 a loaf of English Muffin Bread sold for 98¢. Today the same bread is $3.50. Ouch.
The price of seeds for wild birds has also exploded. Luckily, the birds are still the same size as they were 30 years ago.

The Superbowl game ended just now with the Kansas City Chiefs winning in overtime. I hope your team won. I don’t care.

Keeping Track
on the Naneum Fan

John H

January Thaw & the house

What I sent sister Peggy for her birthday: Had I really sent such things I would be much poorer. In the lower center is a blooming shamrock. {We have an Irish Grandmother.}
Having no idea how to obtain a shamrock, I just called her and wished her well.

In her honor, I went and got a haircut, so I am no longer an Albert Einstein/Bernie Sanders look-a-like.The site, Bored Panda, linked to here has interesting snow photos:

https://www.boredpanda.com/freezing-cold-winter-temperature-pics/?cexp_id=87417&cexp_var=9&_f=featured

The ice and snow one has redundancies. I found this one more interesting:

https://www.boredpanda.com/stupid-people-work/

Work on the house: {including stupid people at work}
Water (snow melt) has been dripping from the roof onto the covered patio at the back sliding door. Today is the third time we have tried to figure out what is happening. Will 3 be the charm? It has been a frustrating thing because why it drips isn’t apparent. Until the roof was put over the patio there wasn’t any notion of a problem. Something might have been going on prior to the new cover. With the new covering, there should not be dripping.

A hypothesis today is that water is running along a metal flange at the roof’s edge after flowing down a “valley” – – photo:
At noon, the roof is torn apart, problems found and so, Fix#3 is underway.

New (LED) ceiling lights are being installed in the kitchen. Adjustable colors are built-in to the lights and the wall switch can be a dimmable type. There are two types of adjustable color temperature LEDs: those that shift to the lower temperatures when you dim, referred to as “warm glow” or “warm dim,” and those that are adjustable at any intensity, which are referred to as “selectable color temperature.” Bedroom lights, also LED, will be dimmable at the wall switch; or just on/off. [Well, that didn’t happen.]

The kitchen lights will be above translucent panels (with a pattern the supplier calls Mosaic Highway ). The color temperature switch has 3 settings so one will have to be chosen with the idea that it will be semi-permanent. I’ll have to leave a note for any new resident as to how it can be changed.
The options are 3,000, 4,000, and 5,000 K {temperature}. For now the wall-switch is standard on/off. The lights are “warm glow” capable and give a golden appearance to the entire 4’x8′ opening.

Under the heading “There is always something” …
With a new light in a bedroom and a dimmer switch installed and all working fabulously . . . a few minutes later nothing in the room worked.. . . and the ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) just outside on the wall failed. An attempted reset “clicked” but that didn’t help. Flipping circuit breakers in the house panel didn’t help. But, we did know enough to stop.
Next day we requested a visit by Todd, local master electrician, who solved all the problems in the time it took him to shake his head three times and look at us in a disdainful manner.
We also determined the newly installed light was not of the dimmable type and/or the dimmer switch was incompatible. Another light – claiming to be dimmable – did not work either. For that one, the directions give a web site to learn what switches will work, so, more to do.
At this point, all the lights in the house are energy efficient light-emitting diodes {LEDs}. A small shed – where lights are rarely needed – still has screw-in fixtures (E27 type) patented in 1881 by Thomas Edison. I have bulbs.

If a parent tells you their child is an angel, remind them that so was Lucifer.

Here the “January Thaw” is not very strong, but still appreciated.

Keeping Track
on the Naneum Fan

John

Fog and Mist

File under:

There is always something


The truck, a Ford 150, has a fault that relates to the non-existing trailer. It beeps and displays a message such as shown above. It goes through a series of four messages. The trailer is either connected, disconnected, or the left or right blinker is not working.
The message appears in the space where mileage, mpg, and auto-speed normally resides. Hitting the OK button on the left side of the steering wheel gets a momentary replacement to the desired information, then seconds later a fault message appears again – with a beep.

This is the vehicle that had a electrical failure in the dealer’s parking lot in late September. My post of Oct. 1 has that story.

Cat in a box ~ truck in a quandary

I have an appointment on Feb. 6th to have the electrical stuff examined. In a few weeks I will start the trips to the vineyard for pruning. I’d like to have the issues resolved before that starts. One way is 65 miles.

Meanwhile, I need one more document before getting the 2023 taxes underway. Supposedly, it should be sent to me before Feb 1st. Further, I have a Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) from a mutual fund retirement account. My contact at Vanguard vanished – no information given to me – and a new person has been assigned. He and I got along well and I hope for a good relationship with the newly assigned one. All I know so far, until Feb. 7th, is that she is better looking than he was. Well, also, she has been doing financial stuff for 5 or more years.
I use the RMD $$ to fund scholarships. That way I don’t have to take it as taxable income and push me into a higher tax bracket.

Weather has been fog, mist, and warm enough that the snow has sagged. Now it is only about 6 inches deep. With no sunshine and air temperature not much above freezing, a thick blanket of snow just sits there. Not much change expected this coming week.

Keeping Track
on the Naneum Fan

John

Winter holds

Winter isn’t done with Washington or North America. There is very cold air in northern Canada but it is moving eastward across Hudson Bay. Here on the Naneum Fan the highs are in the upper 30s and the lows just below freezing. It snows on and off, just enough to compensate for the sagging, so the amount on the ground stays about 10 inches. This past week brought about 5 inches that was cleaned off Friday – shown below.

Deep snow, say two feet, is difficult for the tractor and blade-behind configuration. Then a front-end loader has to be used, and Allen’s is not enclosed as is the Ford tractor. While most folks on the Naneum Fan can go through 8 to 10 inches, visitors and delivery trucks cannot.

I’ve kept the quail, doves, and song birds well supplied with seeds. The wood stove keeps consuming wood.
It has been a slow week.

There have been a large number of interesting images on the web. Here are three.

In my case, it is the right hip and it just turned 80.

Keeping Track
on the Naneum Fan

John

Snow and Cold

A small snowfall Monday into Tuesday had me cleaning up enough of a space so a Culligan Water technician could park in a clear spot. With that done I drove the truck out the driveway and, after several, trips I felt the tech, Casey, would not have an issue {no 4 X 4 he}. Before he arrived, Allen came in his farm tractor and “bladed” all around. I hadn’t expected him because there wasn’t but about 4 inches of show, and he knows that isn’t enough to shut me in.
He said he was practicing for the “big one.”
Expecting cold Thursday evening, I went to EBRG for a prescription and seeds for the birds. Near town there was some mist and some sun, just above freezing. I picked up a wood pallet from Petsense, a store where I buy cat food. I’m keeping new pallets in a shed and cutting up the old ones. That one is still in the truck, but I did unload the rest of the stuff.

Cold air and snow came late in the evening and by Friday morning close to a foot had accumulated and the temperature was near Zero F. Ouch.
Allen showed up about 11 AM and, so, the driveway, and more, is clear of snow.
I cleaned the bird feeders of snow and loaded Blackoil Sunflower and smaller seeds. Often the small birds, Chickadees and such, will be hidden in the pine trees and stay away until I’m 50 feet away.Today with all the snow and a temperature of 3°F, they were in my face as I brushed snow away and starting pouring seeds out. Quail are much more furtive and usually show up just before Mr. Sun disappears beyond the Cascades. They come in early morning too, so on these very cold days I will add feed when I go for the mail – their breakfast will be easier.
The National Weather Service (NWS) claims increasing temperature by this coming Wednesday – all the way up to 24 degrees.
Photos below are from a bedroom window. The trees on the left are Western Larch (Larix occidentalis), a deciduous conifer, that turn golden in the fall and drop their needles. The small cones hang on the trees, commonly for many years.


The Arctic air continues to push south. Stay warm and safe.

Keeping Track
on the Naneum Fan
John H