Author: admin

Sunday, Jun 16 HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!
Warm here today and not windy. John has taken care of much garden activities, mostly watering. In addition, he picked almost 2 dozen big strawberries, filling the box fuller that was pictured yesterday. I have cleaned them and much of the kitchen, and am tackling other chores. The a/c just came on, so the hallway temperature must have reached 77. We had 89° high outside for a couple hours. We called a few friends/relatives, or left messages on their recorders. John and Rascal are napping, but I slept in a little longer this morning, so I’m up, and answering the phone (or not). We have been getting 1-877 calls labeled TOLL-FREE. I looked it up on the web. It is a non-located prefix, just as 1-800 or 1-888, and most likely is a telemarketer. If I don’t answer, they never leave a message, but now with caller ID I can see it to ignore. Two calls came this afternoon two hours apart. Every day we have at least one call from such. I believe the caller ID is worth the money. I have it free for 2 years, but at the end I will be so spoiled, I will subscribe. John’s cooking a pork loin (seasoned) roast. Been setting up with AAA to come pick-up John’s pickup on Tuesday to take to the repair shop. While going through things today, I found I’m almost out of checks, so needed to order them. It’s highway robbery. Last ordered 150 duplicate checks in Sept 2011, for $13. Now they want $21.50 for 120, so I will wait and see if I can find a source cheaper than that.

Monday, Jun 17
Called Pittman towing, but I cannot schedule through them, and must wait until tomorrow to see if he is free, after I call Auto-AAA. There is one other AAA provider in town, and we will get, whoever is available to come out. We got the other, McIntosh.
[John adds: Here’s how to waste time. Nancy spelled the car-tow place’s name as Macintosh. Worth a check, and made the correction. Her spelling could have been either an apple or a computer (now known as a Mac) marketed by a company called Apple. Now about the fruit. You can read about this red/green wonder here.
The second paragraph tells you of John MacIntosh discovering, in 1811, a new sapling (you do know that apple seeds do not “breed true, right?). In the first link – the wiki page – there is a comment about the MacIntosh farm in “Upper Canada.” If you click on that link and look at the map you will see an “orange” place in the very southern part of Canada. A first this seems strange. I used this in classes I taught to try to get students to question things they read and how they, versus others, thought about the World. Imagine you are on a sailing ship from merry ol’England or France. You approach North America and the Gulf of St. Lawrence and sail until rapids stop your passage. You have just passed through “Lower Canada” and must go beyond the rapids and to higher elevation to get to that “orange” place on the map. Upper Canada meant “higher” not the northern part.  A student once asked to be excused from class because she was going “up” to Canada, so I questioned where.  Toronto, she said.  Well having friends in Toronto, I knew she was headed mostly east but also south – about 220 miles south of Ellensburg.  And that’s how to waste time – now back to Nancy and paper bank checks.]
I didn’t have to call about my checks today, because in cleaning off a flat space loaded high, I found 3 sets with 50 checks each!  I moved them to the Roll-Top desk where we have kept them for years.  Managed to package two books to send to a friend in Alabama, and another to a friend in NM.  Those got mailed today.  Then on to my SAIL exercise class.  I picked up a couple of sympathy cards there for my friend’s family, and 3 copies of the local paper she was pictured in the day she died.  Then “SAILed” through class, and on to Super One to use some good coupons for less expensive ground beef, provolone cheese, French bread, Almond Breeze for me, Diet Cola and Cola for John (also on sale).  The pharmacy did not have my prescription ready for Metoprolol that I called in last week.  They said they had faxed 6 requests.  I was going to call or email when I got home, but was too busy with other things, and got a call from my Pharmacy late afternoon saying they had finally received the approval from my cardiologist in Yakima.  Good thing it wasn’t an emergency need.  Actually, if that should happen, they will give me some to take until the prescription arrives.  Now I call a week ahead (for good reason).
After the grocery, I stopped by Briarwood to pick up a card for Lois’ family. That gave me two cards from the EBRG Senior Center-AAC, one from Briarwood, one from me (us), and 4 copies of the paper write-up she never got to see.
John picked another pound of strawberries, and I cleaned them.

Tuesday, Jun 18
Called AAA and arranged for the pick up of Chev ’80 pickup to carry to our repair garage. It left here just after 1:00 p.m.. John’s been building a scarecrow and yesterday put up an owl (plastic blow-up). He’s trying to protect the strawberries from birds. Today he also picked another pound of strawberries for me to clean and freeze what we don’t eat tonight.

We both have been “startled” by the “guy” in the garden.
I had planned to be busy with cleaning up boxes in the house all day, and in the evening to go play music at Royal Vista. But, all those plans changed this morning, and I have been worrying with planning for music for July 5th, canceling July 4th’s music, recording a CD of America Songs, notifying people of the change in date of the Celebration of Life for friend Lois. My trip to Royal Vista was cancelled for tonight, as well, because of double booking in the absence of the retired activities director. Need to finish cleaning the strawberries in the morning.

Wednesday, Jun 19
I went to play music at the Food Bank Soup Kitchen and to SAIL exercise class afterwards. Between times, I got important paperwork in the mail for co-ownership of a Brittany female that was bred in California to carry on our lines (bred to our Tri male from S. Lake Tahoe), Cedaridge Tri-Tip Kip, Cork’s full brother. Cork was our almost Dual Ch. Brittany, who died in PA of a heatstroke in 2011. The pup will remain with Jeri Conklin in CA because we cannot take her back into our house. Her name is Cedaridge Kip’s Camelot Shay Trἐ.
While I was gallivanting all over town, John cleaned our filters in the heat pump system (heat and a/c), plus two filters on our water system.

Thursday, Jun 20
Morning was busy mostly with arranging and searching for music. I have misplaced some July 4 patriotic songs and went through 7 or 8 loose leaf 3-ring binders searching for it and for one song we were doing today, to give to a member of our group who couldn’t locate her copy of Faded Love. Our printer scanner is broken, so I couldn’t just scan a copy of mine from my music book for her. Then I put into my computer generated music program, Down By The Old Mill Stream, for us to try (first time) as a group. John heard from our garage they had fixed his truck so I dropped him off to pick it up, to fill with gasoline, and to pick up eight 5-gallon buckets at CWU surplus plus put in a bid for a large amount of pallets. As well he took advantage of the Thursday 12-hour sale at Super 1 grocery. He got home only a few minutes before I did. It was raining hard on me on the way home.
Recap on today’s music at Dry Creek: We had a fine turn-out of players and also a big audience. We had 4 fiddlers, banjo, 3 guitars, mandolin, Timbrel, and our singer. Wow.

Friday, Jun 21
Will not go to town today, tomorrow, or Sunday, to make headway on this messy home. As I go through things to sort, it creates more work and all takes time I haven’t had. John has already run the dogs and then hung extra bottom rails around the new garden. A little dear deer entered and ate tops of 10 plants before he found her and ran her out the gate. He worked on another fence around a planter box (pallets) in the front of the house that box has flowers and strawberries and the deer like both. Small trees also have to be protected.

John’s morning involved constructing a ramp for our older dogs to access the window inside the house to the doggie door. One was having trouble jumping up 2 feet to get to the previous exit, atop two boxes – those, now, I have to sort through. I found a box for putting in my old CDs in plastic cases after I back them up on my USB port for music in the new Subaru. If we leave CDs around on a shelf, the dust in this house builds up on them, as on everything else. I have to vacuum boxes and items around before I can sort through them. Even with a filter on our heat pump, much dust circulates and deposits itself. You should see John’s two new computer screens and tower. Static cling at its worst.
Also today, I have been trying to set up using one of our timeshares for friends going to New Orleans, and RCI has a special deal on today at a reduced trading power. Turns out the dates and availability are not there & open. Oh, well, we tried. Any of you out there who want to travel, check with us for using one of our timeshares. The price is right for a whole week anywhere in the world that’s available for ~$189, with a $50 (I think) added on for a gift certificate, required if I’m not available to go along at check-in. If however, you pick a room at our home base in Idaho, there is no gift certificate needed. We have one expiring Dec 31 2013 and need to use it or lose it. Now that I no longer attend conferences, I don’t have the opportunity to use them as I once did. (John prefers to work on trails in the Cascade Mountains.) I used one for week in Honolulu, another time in San Francisco, in mid-Texas, at Lake Tahoe, and in the hills above Denver. Often, the daily conference rate for a hotel room almost reaches the cost for the entire week for a traded timeshare.

Saturday, Jun 22
Morning. John is out doing yard chores, exchanging the owl on a pole overlooking strawberries, for the scarecrow, or vice versa. We did succeed in mailing details to our friend in Moses Lake about meeting July 4, in George, WA for the annual day of music, cherry pie, and other celebratory stuff, under the shade of some large trees.
John just picked 2.5 pounds of strawberries and brought them in a little before 1:00; now we will have leftovers for lunch, and I will tackle cleaning them later, after I complete this blog. He’s also filling the water storage tanks in the new garden, using gravity flow from the irrigation ditch. He brought in the mail and a paper, with this thank you to an unknown somebody.

Hope your week was great.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Sunday, Jun 9
Bad date in my memory. 4 years ago, during CWU Graduation ceremonies at the Geography Department, colleagues convinced me I looked and acted ill. I took myself to the local hospital and the admitting doctor sent me to the intensive care unit. Thank God, I’m still around to enjoy life. And play the fiddle, which I will be doing tonight. Today the wind is still blowing, and will be interesting for playing music outside tonight after 6:00 p.m. Morning was spent trying to put a tour together of our area for a friend from NJ, but it just won’t work with all the distance involved. We were hoping to go to Mt. Rainier, but the road to the best viewpoint, Sunrise (in good weather), is still winter-closed. Then we considered north and east of us, but that has the same problem in a different way (time), between all the important sites to share. There are few close-by. She would be driving up 4 hours from Oregon, where she is visiting, and then we’d have a whole day of driving with me after that. We were planning to stay in a motel and have her head back the next day, but it’s too much for both of us. As mentioned above, tonight we played outside on a porch in 41 mph gusts. Just three of us gals, clarinet playing first violin, me on fiddle, and another gal on guitar. They had us play before and after dinner as a gift of music to the man having his 80th birthday party with family and a few friends. Fiddle music is his favorite. They fed us a great BBQ pulled pork dish (I had mine without the bun), several salads, and fresh Bing and Rainier cherries. They were awesome. The whole meal was fantastic. The older contingent seemed to really enjoy our music and the b.d. boy really did. He stayed with us for every song, and sung along on many. We did about 16 songs. The only problem was the noise of the flapping tarp, and the 3 wind chimes in the wrong key. A funny comment we heard from our hostess on our way out — thanking us again. She said, “We really love the choices.” Had to laugh at the comment her grandson said, “Grandma, do you like that kind of music?”
Going to bed 2 hours sooner tonight than last night, when I only got 6 hrs of sleep. That’s no longer enough for me.

Monday, Jun 10
Appointment at podiatrist at 1:00 p.m. My time was spent with Dr. Cardon — at Cascade Foot & Ankle, in Ellensburg. I got there early to fill out paperwork, but they didn’t do anything until the starting time, inviting me in to prepare for the doctor. The assistant asked me a few questions, took my blood pressure (I thought it was way high, 152/82). Maybe I was anxious. It was done with one of the little wrist devices, not one with a wrap-around thing. She noticed my tee shirt (with mandolin, fiddle & guitar), and asked if I was a music teacher. Her father manages a music store in Yakima. Wasn’t too long until my Dr. arrived. Shook my hand and listened to my story, and looked at my feet (the right one is the one with the affected toenails). He said he would test it and send for a Dermatophyte test (I think that is the one). He mentioned that my condition could be one of at least 5 possibilities. He claims they will know within 2 weeks, and I am scheduled to come back to visit with him about the results. I asked him if he would be able to help me with trimming my nails. He told me he could do it before I left today. I got on the table and he clipped (for the sample to send to the lab), and then clipped the rest of the nails. On the right foot (the “infected” one), he used a fancy precise Dremel tool, to scrape the “stuff” off the tops of the nails. (It was much larger than the little one that had been used previously at the Adult Activity Center by the nurse there). It’s almost impossible not to hit the skin beside the nail (with a small one too), but he had a silver nitrate stick to stop the bleeding. He went ahead and did my left foot’s nails (they are normal). I was very appreciative. I asked him if he had an assistant to do the foot care and he said no, “I prefer to do it.” So, I said well I hope you will write my insurance company that it is necessary for me to come back every 3 months. He said he doubted it would be a problem and he would be happy to. (Since the office help in charge of Insurance, had a different opinion. Meanwhile, we await the story on what ails me. This type of “fungal like infection” is known in patients with Diabetes, but I am not diabetic. Just the fact of knowing I’m being looked after by someone who seems to know what he’s talking about and is easy to talk with, and professional, makes all the difference in my attitude today. I was truly a happy person when I left his examination room to go fill out my new patient paperwork. It didn’t take too long, and I still had time to go late to my SAIL exercise class. I was able to do a couple of the exercises that make us rock on our toes, and raise our foot up to “stand” on our toes. I had ceased doing those because it hurt my “fat” nails pressing on the shoes. No problem today.
I took my own blood pressure tonight, and it is way down from earlier. It was 113/63 in the evening, and 106/53, pulse 61 at 10:35 p.m. I spent over 2.5 hrs sorting through 3 boxes of stuff left over from the early years of my CWU teaching that I kept for some reason. Managed to recycle a box full of paper, take off paper clips, throw away old disks, and overhead transparencies, other obsolete things, and retrieve reusable file folders, organizers, pens, and another box with magazines I can recycle but not even take to the table at the Adult Activity Center. We are donating a lot there and to our dentist’s office. John fixed some good breaded fried cauliflower to go with beef burger (why is it called hamburger?) and some fresh grapes.

Tuesday, Jun 11
Morning meeting with the Geography Emeriti that lasted from 9:30 until 11:00 a.m. Then we took off for Yakima and Costco. After lunch and a trip to Lowe’s to walk through and admire their trees (amazed at the prices, even of plants such as Oregon Grape that we cut out around our place), and then flowers, we went inside the store. I found a comfortable chair, put up my feet, and relaxed. One of our largest tomato plants had suffered wind damage so John stood it back up and piled dirt and straw around it. While I rested, John went looking for stakes. He found 50 lath stakes for 30 cents each; the first ones we found outside were 60 cents each with a small square cross section. Winds crested today at 46 mph, and for 8 hours were in the forties. We left there and drove to the Yakima Heart Center, and spent time with a cardiologist ‘assistant’ for my results of the Echocardiogram, from last week. It was very positive. My blood pressure was good, the lab blood tests were all within appropriate ranges, and the echocardiogram was evaluated at 35% efficiency. All signs point to increasing heart health. I was incredibly relieved because there was some concern by my Cardiologist 2 weeks ago, that if the echocardiogram showed less than 35%, it would be necessary to consider re-doing my implanted device to add another wire to stimulate the heart. I was NOT happy at all at the thought of another surgery. Those results reported today explain my happiness with the trip to Yakima.
In addition, after thinking I had figured out the Navigation system on my new car, I tried to show it to John. I’m not so smart, as I thought. On the drive home, I set it in the parking lot at the doctor’s office for my destination, our home address on Naneum. Main problem, I tried to change the route and go home on a street east of the hospital, when it wanted me to go to a main road 10 blocks west of where I was. I figured that was too much out of my way and the traffic wasn’t bad yet on the one I headed to instead. I told John it would work and it would just re-calculate the route (as it did with me yesterday on my trip home from Ellensburg, but nope– the guy could not catch up with my choice and wouldn’t shut up regarding his chosen route. We could not find any way to shut him up. Finally, I got to a traffic light, turned off my engine and restarted, and didn’t worry with him anymore that trip. I knew how to get home. I wanted to show John the cool summary once you get to a destination, that had shown the ETA before arrival, but then once at my destination, showed the total time, the miles, and even the top speed, as well as the mileage (which I know from another screen). I wonder if I could have said to Voice recognition, STOP, or RESTART, or if I have to have recorded commands to say to the system. More research needed with the manual. I have since found the way in the manual, and if it ever happens again, I will know how to fix it without stopping the car.

Wednesday, Jun 12
Whoopee — John got my new license tags put on my car. I fixed up the car records at CWU, for parking, and am ready to leave for the Food Bank, picking up my banjo player buddy at her work, because her car is in the shop. We didn’t have much either one of us could eat at the food bank soup kitchen today. Too much Vitamin K stuff for me. When I walked in, however, I saw two Heirloom tomato plants about 2′ high. I went and asked the fellow in charge if I could have them, and told him about the wind destroying ours yesterday when we were in Yakima buying stakes to stake them up. He told me I was welcome to them. After that, I went to SAIL exercise class and on home.

Thursday, Jun 13
Productive morning — harvested some Lavender for my friend and banjo player to deliver today when we go to the Rehab center for music. It turned out it is not Lavender, but some other plant with pretty purple flowers, which Evelyn identified Saturday as Salvia, of the mint family. John said the Arbor Day Foundation or some other group sent us two plants supposed to be Lavender. It has a very Lavender-like look but not the fragrance. An imposter. Here is my photo taken in the morning sun. Click on images for bigger photo.

Also, finally documented our new dental coverage on the retirement medical plan through CWU. It will cover a lot more things than the previous plan I was on for a year, and most preventative treatments at 100%, with no deductible. Other fixes are usually at 80%. I managed to get on the web and download my ID card, after talking with a woman in Seattle. I don’t know what a person without a computer and printer is supposed to do. They no longer issue cards for people. Actually, I got the .pdf of it, and emailed to my dentist’s office supervisor. Needed to get it set up for John’s teeth cleaning and evaluation coming up soon. Talked to a friend from our past who is coming to EBRG this Saturday, so we have arranged a meeting at the place where we provide music and they feed us (story below). Today is our regular weekly music gig and that went well. We had a good turnout, of 3 guitars, a banjo, a singer, 2 fiddles, and a Tembrel.
Sad news tonight received about 8:30 p.m. My 87 yr. old friend Lois died of a heart attack yesterday morning. She had macular degeneration and I often took her places (especially on the weekend, when she couldn’t ride the Hope Source bus). It was a total shock. I had just seen her Monday by my side in exercise class. Such a sweet lady. Last night I was calling her to remind her of picking her up tomorrow to go listen to music and eat at Briarwood. She always went along on the 3rd Saturday of the month. Loved going; it was sad today to not have her with us in exercise class and will be sadder tomorrow. It really hit me hard because unlike the rest of my friends I have recently lost, I wasn’t expecting this. At least she went fast.

Friday, Jun 14
John went with me to the AAC where they had quite a brunch spread for Father’s Day: Scrambled eggs, ham, fried potatoes, pancakes, toppings, and a ton of fresh fruit, along with orange juice. He drove separately to get gas in his car and to leave me there for garage sale-ing before going to my SAIL exercise class. I also took a 100-hikes in Colorado book to a gal who has been working in the center for a year. She is taking a job there helping homeless and almost homeless ones get assistance. This book will be a great introduction to the state, and give her something to remember us by.

My garage sale-ing escapades today. Only two, which I hit after dropping off my house insurance check a few blocks away. The first sale was exciting, and I didn’t even look at all the stuff there. I looked at a baseball hat with a flag (that lights up). With today being Flag Day, I wish I’d had it for our brunch, as there were several military people there with their Service hats on, and one lady with her red/white/blue flag shirt. The cap was brand new, but too expensive ($5.00) for my pocketbook for once or twice a year (today, 4 July, and Veterans’ Day). I was talking to the lady of the house and she asked if I wanted something special. I told her I want a set of small metal (aluminum) tongs like some we have misplaced. She didn’t have any. So, I said, do you have any pillowcases? She said, oh, I forgot to put those out; they are still in the house, come with me. She pulled out 25 individual cases, and said, well, I need to keep these dark purple and the black, and these for my RV, but you can have any of the rest. I asked her what she would charge if I took them all. She said $5.00. I didn’t try to bargain further. I knew I just priced a pair at Bi-Mart for $5.99. For 19 that makes 26 cents each with no tax due. I said okay. She was walking out of the house and her husband said, here put them in this bag. It is a nice carrying bag with a pretty design. It will be great for carrying my music and stand. I mentioned that, and thanked them. Coming on out she asked about my playing. I told her about our group and said to the man, I really liked your baseball hat with the flag, but it is more than I want to pay for wearing only a couple times a year. He went out and picked it up and brought it back to me and said – look, it has a battery that lights up the flag. I said, oh cool, it would be great for patriotic days such as today. After we talked, I told them we needed a fiddler to join our group, because I was the only one left now. She blurted out a name and I didn’t have anything to write with, but she did, so I asked her if the woman had email, and if she could call her and give her mine. I hope this works. We truly need more fiddlers. Meanwhile, the gentleman took the hat, put it down in my bag, and gave it to me. What a nice surprise. After leaving class, I drove by another garage sale, which I should have attended earlier. They apparently had good prices on a range of tools. But, while there, I saw some pillowcases, sheets, and nice clean pillows for a very good price. Now I don’t have to find the missing pillowcases around the house, and I can replace pillows the oldest dog chewed a hole in. Now she can no longer get on the bed, so blankets, sheets, pillows, and cases are safe :- )

Must go finish the letter of reference and fill out the form to get in the mail tomorrow. I didn’t make it today, with all that happened last night. Then I planned to tackle more boxes in this room. John is losing patience with my slow clean up, sorting, tossing, and recycling. I never got to them, but I did tackle a few things needing done. Neatest was strawberries. He picked a little less than a pint, because he saw robins in munching on them, and ants were going after the punctured ones. I took a photo, and then cleaned them up for our dessert last night. These are the June bearing Cavendish type. They didn’t need added sugar because they were so sweet and tasty. For your enjoyment:

Saturday, Jun 15
Morning was filled with cleaning up receipts, paying bills, washing some dishes, doing email, and getting ready to go to town for music and to meet a friend (Brittany times in the 1970s and 1980s). Still trying to get to the box clean up. Everything takes so much time. I drove us to Briarwood, by way of the Post Office, to be sure the letter got in today’s mail. I cannot depend on our carrier to always pick up stuff we leave turned up on its side, and the flag lifted. Then on to Briarwood, where we arrived the same time as our friend from Moses Lake. She brought a kennel for her dachshund and while she was here to enjoy the parade (city puts on a dressed parade each year), she bought a 7-week-old one. Cute. They had to sit in the crate while we were in there because food was served and that’s the health rules. She and John sat back on a comfy sofa while we played and sang with the group… for an hour. At the end, they fed us. Today was choice of chicken salad sandwich (excellent) or turkey-salami/cheese (John & Trudy said they were also good). Chips, grapes, a 5-bean salad that was sweet, not vinegary, a mandarin chiffon salad, and a Caesar salad. They go all out for us once a month. They fixed a punch of lemonade flavored with raspberry. Or, a person could have coffee if desired. There was a dessert table as well. I had a homemade blueberry muffin.
We had a nice turnout of folks for playing music. Our bass fiddler from Winlock, WA was in town, I was the only fiddler, and we had 3 guitars, a singer, a Tembrel, and a mandolin.
We got home and I was still trying to wind up some projects, and realized we still had minutes on our landline to use this month, so we called Peggy, John’s sister in Parma, OH. Heard all about the tornado that was coming down on them. She was ready to go to the basement at 11:00 p.m. one night this week, but it died out just as it was to hit Cleveland.
Now John is out mowing behind the back fence. The horses have been eating down the grass, but some things they don’t eat and he is mowing a space 20 feet wide to reduce the fuel for a fire. There’s very little space back there on our side of the creek to work with.

Sunday will be Happy Father’s Day.

Hope your week was great.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Sunday, Jun 2
Recap: the party last night was a lot of fun. We arrived early, carried stuff in, and showed off our new car. Everyone who sees it loves it and wants one. Food (hamburgers and hotdogs were supposed to start at 4:00), but not everyone was there until closer to five. That put the awards off until everyone ate. We added 2 Pecan Pies to the dessert table but there was so much food only one was eaten so we brought the other home. The Geography Department’s awards were announced during the gathering. One of the awards (actually 2 this year) is named the Hultquist Distinguished Service Award – sponsored and named after me! Here is the description of this fantastic award. I got last year’s winner to join the photo (click for big size). Last year, he was off fighting fires as a Hot Shot, sky jumper. What a happy group – don’t you agree?

Jessica Giblin, Nancy, Taylor Steele, and Jeff Bortner

Today, the wind has been screaming for the past many hours. My day started with finding that a person in Romania at 5:47 a.m. hacked my cedaridge@gmail acct and sent crap (bad links) to everyone in my address list (lots, since 2005). I found out that I have many replies that capture every email sent, even if I reply to someone’s list with people on it I don’t know, their names are put into my address book. I have changed my password, and am cleaning up my files before sending a note to everyone in my address book (many bounced and I don’t want them to bounce again). I have decided to let it ride and just clean up the file. Most everyone has responded or ignored it. Several friends early on reported it to me because it was so unlike email links I send, having no explanation or introduction.
John worked on irrigation issues this morning. Mountains wear away making sand. Water carries sand and makes unhelpful deposits. We are close to the steep hills of Naneum Canyon and the water – much appreciated in a land averaging 8 inches of precipitation each year — carries much sand. Here’s a look (from 2011) at what happens when rain on snow with warm temperature gets the water rolling off of the hillsides.  Here is a picture -essay of the area before the fires of last year. The State lands start about 2 miles north of us and extend for many miles. A few years ago the State, Feds, and private land owners managed (after several years of meetings) a series of swaps to aggregate a very haphazard ownership pattern. So this is the area that is the source for our water and the sand that comes along for the ride. This settles in the ditches where there is a lessening of the grade and the worst place is at the lower end of our property as the water goes onto the neighbor’s place. Yesterday John shut water off in that ditch by sending it to our east side with part of that going to neighbor Louaine’s small pasture with the apple tree. The 35 mph winds were topped a half hour ago by 39 mph ones. It has slowed down a bit, but only to 36 mph. Finally before bedtime, was slowed to 15, and no gusts.

Monday, Jun 3
Early up from bed and back for another couple of hours to be ready for a phone call about a “gig” this weekend. We have a graduation party to attend Saturday, and a surprise birthday party for an 80 year old, who likes fiddle music. I only have myself to “offer as a fiddler” –and will be joined by a mutual friend on the clarinet (playing the first violin part), and another friend on guitar. Rest of the day was full of things to keep us both busy. I had to take care of making appointments for my echocardiogram tomorrow, and a follow-up appointment next week, back in Yakima, on Tuesday. Must go for a fasting blood draw in the morning before I go for the echocardiogram. Bummer. Then I had to worry with a bunch of stuff on email, and paying bills, so I walked for my exercise up the drive to put a letter in the mailbox — a donation to a Brittany Specialty show. Last year I contributed and WON the $250 gas-card prize. This year the prize is larger and worth more money – although of a different sort. It is a 6-gun wooden cabinet with room for 6 cases of wine and wineglasses, plus a piece of art (a flying pheasant) on canvass on two side doors. They are $700 on the web, with $100 delivery charge. Whoever wins it has it delivered to their house. After the 100 yard trip out to the mailbox I trekked around the gardens and pasture edges. Near our mailbox is native buckwheat. Search the web with the term “Eriogonum compositum” with images selected. A lot are bright yellow (Sulphur), but ours are more the white and pink colors shown in this site.
Here is my best photo for the effort.

Our Iris are new this year, obtained from my friend a mile away who cuts my hair, and shared a number of different ones with us; planted here last year. So far, only two colors have bloomed. I think we have some yellow and other colors, or variegated ones. The wind makes taking pictures of flowers and garden plants frustrating. That’s why we used a web link for the buckwheat. Well, that and the Strawberries are still all green leaves, with a few white blossoms.

Tuesday, Jun 4
Well, today was an interesting day that started too early, on a fasting blood draw prep, so I couldn’t have breakfast (nothing but water) before leaving for town. Before I left I had early morning phone calls and emails to deal with, and had to get my shower. Got there, checked in for both places I had to go in the hospital. Went off to the first (the lab). I didn’t have to wait too long, and they drew several vials of blood for many tests wanted by my cardiologist. Because I was 45 minutes away from my next appointment (for the Echocardiogram), I went to the hospital cafeteria for breakfast. At just before 10:00 a.m., it ended up being brunch. I only had two choices for breakfast specials that had been prepared and kept warm — Eggs Benedict and a stack of 3 large pancakes with two large pieces of bacon. I decided on the Eggs Benedict, and to re-heat it they had a microwave. While there I saw a gal who had been the “cleaning” and set up person for Outpatient services, whom I got to know back in 2009 and again in 2010, when I had to go for 8-9 weeks for daily IV for the bacteria in my blood. I walked by her on my way to the microwave and stopped to introduce myself, and thank her for all her special attention when I was there so much. She was thrilled to be told she was appreciated, and thanked me. Then on back to the Radiology dept. Earlier they had told me they would give me an images CD that I would have to deal with. They used to, but no longer, send to medical folks outside their system. My cardiologist is in Yakima, 35 miles from them, but he is having an assistant go over the tests with me and so they need to evaluate it before seeing me. The Doc is going on vacation and duty time in the hospital cardiac unit – so he needs it now! Where’s the digital records technology when you need it? My blood pressure was increasing with the response I was getting. So, when I got to my echocardiogram technician, Bill, I explained and the need to get the images delivered, ASAP.
He was cool and said, no worries, I will make you a CD to carry to your appt next week, but this afternoon I will send it to them electronically. That’s what I originally asked for from the appointment maker, at the hospital, who said it wasn’t possible. So I wrote my doctor’s nurse an email, for her to be on the lookout for my explanation directions of getting the image videos from my web site, today, as well as the note that the results of the Echocardiogram from the technician, so that Dr. Kim can evaluate it. She called back and told me they had lost their IT man, and couldn’t receive the information from Bill. Plan B. She was going to a supervisor’s meeting to see who could obtain my sends (it was a straightforward 9 minute download), to get on a computer my doctor could view. Short story, it happened.
Scoop on blood pressure, at the start today, my BP was 132/72. I asked Bill to take it at the end before I left the room. He did, (don’t know if he recorded it on the records, hope so, because it was 115/70 ! ) I wanted Dr. Kim to know that. I wish we had taken my BP at the end of my appt with Dr. Kim last time.

Wednesday, Jun 5
Morning catch-up sleep and chores. Leaving for Food Bank Soup Kitchen music, then SAIL class, and a haircut on my way home. Morning spent with getting photos from June 1 Geography Awards to the people who would appreciate it (the students, and a few faculty members). I took 3 videos and a bunch of pictures. Now I have a zipped file for anyone who might be interested, and it can just be downloaded from our website, because it’s too large to email. That’s a pretty nice feature. (It was the same way I delivered the radiograph imagery to my cardiologist. Today, I drove home directly from SAIL class, because it was too hot to leave my violin and food-bank-acquired bread in the car while I got a haircut. My hairdresser only lives a mile away, so it was fine to come back home, dump the stuff, and head on over there. This afternoon I have been sitting in an a/c house (temps outside are 87°), working on my computer. Tonight, we are going to go to town for another Nick Zentner Geology of WA lecture. Tonight it is on the Wenatchee Area and the Ice Age Floods influence there.

Thursday, Jun 6
This morning was rushed with getting music ready to give two people for our Sunday trio performance. John went along with me to Royal Vista, dropped me off, went across town for the Thursday special 12 hr sale (groceries), and by Bi-Mart for duct tape, blue jeans and a couple of other odd things. We had a fairly good attendance today, but didn’t expect to play for a party (with food) saying good bye to the Activity Director (for 19 years). Julie (a friend working at Royal Vista) saw John outside and told him he was invited for food inside after we ended playing at 3:00. It was good. 3 cakes (I had a piece of carrot cake), after having crackers, cheese, salami, strawberries, cantaloupe, pineapple, and nuts. Quite a spread and nice because we had skipped lunch. Supper was smaller by necessity, and followed our trip to town again for another geology lecture, this on the formation of Lake Chelan. It was quite good. Winds started at 5:00 p.m. gusting at 31 mph, blew all night, and into the morning.

Friday, Jun 7
Another windy day of several this week. Today I almost was blown off the road driving home. We were having 43 mph winds at the time. They were higher today than yesterday, with figures such as 30, 32, 36, 37, then 3 hours of 43, 44, 43, and back to the high 30s, still blowing, at 9:00 p.m. I started by going to the potluck at the Adult Activity Center for the main dish of Gyro sandwiches (but made with ground beef). Many good salads, fruits, and side things. I ran around town for shopping errands between the end of that and my exercise class. In addition, I went by the Chase bank to pay our first month’s payment on our loan on the new car. Next month it will automatically come out of our checking account, and I won’t have to worry. I was late getting home, and had a bunch of chores waiting. Finally, John encouraged me to assemble brownies to take tomorrow. He got some of our walnuts and roasted them. I cut a few up and added to the dough, and then we left some to put on top of the chocolate frosting. I think I will use that, but may change my mind and use a butter cream one. Nope, I think the half walnuts will look better on the chocolate frosting. These are special, our own homegrown Carpathian walnuts.

Saturday, Jun 8
I will not be going to graduation ceremonies as I did starting in 1989, and never missed a year until I was in the ICU in 2009. I haven’t been back since retiring. Later today, however, I will go (with my brownies and John) to a party in a city park following the ceremony. A family is throwing a party for two sons. The older one was my student; his younger brother is graduated from Geography this year, and I met him 2 years ago at that year’s potluck party like the one mentioned above. The family has invited us, ‘cause we’re special.

Hope your week was great.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Invitations, music, rain, doctors, cars, food, geology, food, awards

Sunday, May 26
The new week started with a little rain. John’s back in after morning yard chores. I’ve been working on things on the computer and in the kitchen. He’s back out in the garden planning to be in for lunch (rest of the last apple from the Honeycrisp purchase awhile back, with the remaining chili). After that, I will be off this computer and dealing with things in the room, needing sorted. {Never got there.} Email from Joel Andress’ son about the planned celebration of life in Quebec this coming Sept 14. I was invited, but don’t expect to make the trip. I would rather see people while they are alive and remember good times together. Party music started up again across the creek. Broke for an hour, perhaps to eat the Luau dinner planned. Installed a program to convert CDA files (from on a CD) to MP3 / WMA. It’s called ConverterLite. Puts track(s) into a folder on my MUSIC site on the hard drive. I moved two bluegrass songs from the Falderal String Band and Mariah Carey to jump drives to move to my car audio system. This is really neat. Party and loud music continues. I may get rocked to sleep with music. Actually it stopped right on the hour of 11:00 p.m. Either the band was only paid for that long, or the police enforced a curfew on the noise.

Monday, May 27
Happy Memorial Day –We did not start, as planned, by putting out flags at the end of the driveway today, because it was raining and still is. I’m very happy I was not scheduled to play music or go to anything at the park, outside, not under a tarp. I have, however, succeeded in spending several hours (really) off the computer going through boxes of stuff. Still haven’t gotten to things on the table yet, because I was making room to put more boxes for recycling items.
I finally wore myself out and sat back down in my recliner for awhile to check email. No one except John seeing the results would imagine the work that has been accomplished, and truly MANY more hours will be required to make a dent. It’s 4:00 and still raining. John’s buckets from the rooftop drip line are almost all full. Back on the computer to figure the route for tomorrow. Now to print out all the stuff from the backroom computer that is connected to our only printer. Now waiting for my bathroom heater to warm it. It’s 55 here outside and the back of the house is cold; no thermometer back there; just as well.

Tuesday, May 28
Started out very early to be in Yakima by 8:55 a.m. for an appointment with my cardiologist, who will be gone the months of June and July, so had to squeeze it in. He’s not really gone most of that time. The doctors take turns in the hospital and appointments are not made for them during that time. Usually another doctor or an assistant can be scheduled and they can be in touch with all concerned. There is a code word for that but we’ve forgotten what it is. Anyway, my next appointment is with a physician’s assistant named Scott. I met with him before (after an experience with one with poor bedside manner) and get to request who I want. Okay, then – back to our doings in Yakima: While there we’ll make 4 other stops for various reasons. Got some more paperwork in the mail today on the new blue Subaru. It is called Marine Blue Pearl. Took it and left it today for its protection to be applied to the paint job and to the upholstery. Pick it up tomorrow about 4:00. Will see my salesman about meeting him for a run through the audio system. NO.. I just realized, I cannot do that. We have to be back for the Yakima Canyon Geology lecture in EBRG no later than 6:30. So, I will put it off until Thursday morning, on a day when I don’t have to be back in EBRG until 1:30 for music.
We left at 7:50 a.m., arrived just 59 minutes later, filled out the required paperwork, had vitals taken, and the doctor got to me about 9:19, and stayed with us until almost 11:00, including an ECG. Interestingly, my doctor wanted an ‘electrocardiogram’ done and we have always heard it as an ‘EKG’ but he called for and ‘ECG’ – it’s cardio with a ‘c’, not a ‘k’ unless you use German. One of his med-school instructors insisted on the ‘C’ – we wonder if that person did not have a fondness for Germans? John and I were both hungry, but first had to drop off my car at the Subaru dealer several miles back down the road toward home, so did that and picked up a loaner car (a 2013 red Outback). That was a good thing, because I drove it the rest of the day, and compared to mine, I do not like the feel, the reach for various buttons, and the options different (and fewer) from the Forester. The salesman thinks some of these subtle changes will also make it into the newer Outbacks but they are not yet available. The Wall Street Journal claims the new Forester is selling as fast as they can make them and send them here. They are made in Ōta city, Gunma Japan, not the plant in Lafayette, IN. From there back to Big 5 (Sporting goods, with our 10% discount card, and John bought a new pair of leather work boots, sticker price of $80 {wink, wink}, but got for $34, which we’d seen in the weekly ad received by email. They seemed to have only one pair in each size. John wonders if a retail outlet ought to have more of some sizes and fewer of small and large extremes. We were hungry from only toast early for breakfast, so stopped a block down the street at a Burger King and got a chicken sandwich halved, fries, drink, and a cheeseburger. It was supposed to be a double cheese burger, but the cost matched what we were served so I let it go. From there to HAPO Credit Union to pay off our loan on the white 2009 Subaru –loan was at 4.5%. Chase Bank (via Subaru) made a 1.9% loan on the Forester so we paid the old one off and enough of the new one so as to not have to buy GAP coverage. Next we went to Costco where we had to follow through on our new upgrade to an executive membership that we paid for and started at the counter a week ago, when in there. We did that paperwork, presented our cards and information, and had our pictures taken plus filled in a new application (free for members) for an American Express card. Benefits from that include a percent cash refund on gasoline and on all purchases at Costco. Also, a cash refund at some restaurants (not the type where we normally eat). Previously, we could use our Costco business card to charge items, grocery and gasoline, but we never got any payback rebates. On through the store getting more dog and cat food, and a few other things. Except for needing dry cat food we could have skipped Costco – well, the sign on the way out suggests having a “very berry” sundae, and we did (it’s frozen yogurt chocked full of big strawberries in a sauce). Returned through EBRG, to stop at Super 1 Pharmacy for my new high test vitamin D pills I have to take for 20 weeks. It’s a weekly pill of 50,000 units!! After that, I go to 3000/day of OTC vitamin D. I wonder what causes Vitamin D to decrease in my body. Apparently, I’m not alone. My pharmacist says they fill a lot of such prescriptions. While there we had planned to get ice cream on sale, some of my Almond Breeze milk, and Red Baron all meat (4) pizzas on sale. The rear storage of the red Outback was packed for the trip home and we had already filled the cooler we took to Costco. We didn’t hit our driveway until 4:00 p.m.
Once home, John went out and worked in his garden (the new one) for several hours, and also ran/exercised the dogs (twice), the first shortened because of running into deer in several places. He’s fed the feral cats, and I fed the inside/outside one. Trying to catch up on emails and chores, but haven’t yet succeeded.

Wednesday, May 29
Another crazy day with Food Bank and SAIL (22 people in that class today!). Once home, I took care of a few things with vehicle registrations, paying the utility bill (we still have to turn in our meter reading each month–within a month or so, they plan to install a meter that will not have to be read and reported by us each month). I took a photo of John making wood-chip walkways in the new garden – this one between future corn patches. Chips came free of charge a few years ago. Click the photo for the large image.

Tonight is Nick Zentner’s talk. It was on the Yakima Canyon. Very fine presentation, as usual. We have been catching up on a few emails (and me on the jobs list), since arriving home. Now it’s time for a late dessert and going to bed.

Thursday, May 30 Today early morning, we drive to the Subaru dealer to pick up my new car from the garage where it got a special treatment on its upholstery and finish. I took along a few things to check out with the salesman about my new audio system. One thing was the USB jump drive, with MP3 files on it. (All went fine, and I have extended my listening abilities for on the road without a connection to a working radio station.) I no longer have to miss my 6 CD system on the old Subaru.
5th Thursday of month — means Mt. View Meadows today for fiddlers & friends. Today was particularly fun. Besides the residents of Mt. View, we were joined by 10-12 preschool students (who sat or reclined on the wood floor in front of us). They had been there drawing pictures to give to the residents. They introduced themselves to us and told us their ages (ranging from 4 to 6). We showed off to them and involved them in the presentation throughout. At Evelyn’s great suggestion, we each explained the instrument we play and explained something about it, and played a couple of notes. I learned something today too. What I had been calling a Tambourine, is actually a Timbrel, played by our oldest member (82), who used to play the Accordion. Then we played a few waltzes and some of the kids kept time to the music and enjoyed rocking back and forth. They were very cute and quite well behaved. They were there for an hour with us, and toward the end, a couple of boys sacked out on the floor. At the end when they had to leave, we asked for a favorite song, one little boy, Malachi, wished for Turkey in the Straw. As a group we don’t really play that, so a couple of us played a few notes of it. We asked if they knew She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain, but they really didn’t. Some sang along with us on simple things as, “I’ll Fly Away”, Oh Susanna, and I’ve Been Working on the Railroad. Their teacher had been singing along with us all the time on most songs. Evelyn suggested, You are my Sunshine, and one little girl on the end of the row who had been smiling throughout, was elated. She sang almost every word of the song, as did many residents and helpers in the room.
Here’s the funny for the day, which is causing us to make another trip to Yakima, tomorrow afternoon. Got a call late afternoon that they found the dog food and cat food in the loaner car, we got Tuesday, and forgot to take out!! So, tomorrow we need to drive back the 55 miles to the Subaru dealer to retrieve our animal food, and fill my car with gas while there, because the prices are 14 cents cheaper per gallon than here.

Friday, May 31
Scholarship luncheon and trip to Yakima, plus by the Leather Shop for a sheepskin cover fitting for my seatbelt, which doesn’t hit me right. Here’s what happened. Trip to town excellent, even finding a parking space in the shade of a tree not too far from the entrance to the new Student Union Recreation Center (SURC). Our scholarship luncheon was in the special boardroom with a huge mahogany table and leather chairs. John came along so we did not have to drive two cars to town – he usually only lunches with us at Christmas when he brings Pecan Pies. Today we had green salads, Focaccia bread with different toppings, and for dessert, some walnut-covered biscotti. We had nice conversations around the table. Only 8 people there today; usually a dozen. We always learn about all sorts of things going on around the campus. It’s still my finger on the pulse, which I used to thrive on from 1988 since I have been a member of this group, meeting for lunch every month, except over the summer. I was always the only faculty member in the group, so I had connections across campus with staff in many different situations, departments, and colleges.
From there we went to the local hospital for my blood draw (INR check for my Coumadin dosage). It was in an acceptable range (2.3) so I do not have to go back again for a month. On to Yakima to the Subaru dealer to retrieve our dog and cat food. From there to Costco, where we filled the new car with 14.9 gallons of gasoline, at $3.69/gallon. It is still $3.83 here in EBRG. Our temporary card couldn’t be recognized. So, we won’t get our 4% off until next time once we get the actual card. The bar code they gave us worked on Tuesday, but not today, for in the store, but never works out at the pumps. Oh well, we have been buying Costco gas for many years with no rebate. This will make up for it in the long run. Into the store where John bought Costco/Kirkland/San Jose beer. Funny how they make the producer put Kirkland (a Seattle suburb) on their stuff. I bought a set of 3 jump drives each 16 gigs, so I can put music on for playing over the audio system (through a USB port), for tripping. Very cool.
On back to the leather shop (our neighbors half mile away), to see about the seat belt sheepskin cover. We all decided that might not be the way to go, but instead to look for adjusters on line. I have found one that I believe will work well. It’s called a Heininger 1027 CommuteMate Seat Belt Strap Adjuster and comes two to a package. Now I just have to find the best price with added shipping or maybe a local source. I found one (new) on EBay for $7.99 with shipping included. I will search farther. Or, have John search, starting with what I have found. He usually is a better on-line searcher than I. He’s busy now making pecan pies for tomorrow. He has followed through and sees how it’s made and says he can create something that will work for nothing.
Those pies got done late, and we spent until after midnight on line with Rebekah who was chasing tornadoes in Oklahoma, and trying to find a place to spend the night after the “evacuation” of people from Oklahoma City with flooded streets (from the tornadoes nearby).

Saturday, June 1
Awakened early (7:00 a.m.) by a call from John’s sister to talk about cameras. She thought we got up early to take care of the animals. Not really, especially after such a long night. Sure, we were up at 5:00 but went back to bed for more rest. Today is the end of year Geography and REM potluck party and John made the Pecan Pies (his mom’s recipe) to take along. It’s not until 4:00 p.m. about 5 miles from our house, out in the country. This afternoon Rebekah sent a map showing where she and all the other chasers were at the time The Weather Channel (TWC) crew got tumbled by the tornado. She wrote: “Hmmm…according to my slightly stale spotter network icon, I was right next to Mike Bettes when they got slammed! In actual fact we never saw TWC and were . . . to the southeast…”
She then adds a graphic showing the surge of chasers to the south just after TWC cars got hit. All “trying to get out of the way” of the tornado.
We should all have such exciting times.
Hope your week was great.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Suggested title: Covered bridges, failed bridges, tornadoes, bear in kitchen, covered wagon trail history

Sunday, May 19
I forgot to add the neat journey yesterday morning when we phoned Michelle and Bruce Seivertson. They were leaving the motel in Cottage Grove, OR and taking themselves on a covered bridge tour. They really wished to visit a railroad covered bridge, which all in the breakfast room were raving about. There is no brochure available so they tried directions from people at the motel. It wasn’t working. When they returned our call, we followed them along their route on Google Earth and found the first one east of town, but it was not the RR covered one. We found the one they wanted, SW of town so they drove back to find it. We were calling out road intersections. They made it there, but couldn’t access it so they drove around through a residential area on the east side. What’s strange is that while it is a renovated covered railroad bridge, it has been reconstructed in a different spot away from the original rail lines. We all find that rather strange. At one time it looked like this.

You have to go here to see what they did and why.
Slept in until 9:00 a.m., still tired from the past two days. Been trying to play catch-up on emails and jobs list and just finished cutting John’s hair. Has been needing done for weeks. We used my new chair, and it was nice with the rotation so I didn’t have to climb around him. Also used my new clipper guards on the blade. Our neighbor came over with both an old and a new irrigation (small) pump. The idea was to remove the connections or fittings from the old one and attach those to the new one. He needing a pipe wrench bigger than our largest, so he will have to go to town and buy new fittings to go with his new pump. Bummer!
We took time for leftovers for lunch: salmon, cheesy asparagus, red fresh pepper, and Cheetos. Colorful. While eating we talked about planning for me to drive to Oregon in June to visit my email friend from New Jersey, who will be back to Oregon to receiving her Masters in Geography. I think we will be able to pull this off, but have to keep working on it to mesh our schedules. I also have a friend from Florida who will be in the Portland area during May and June.
We went across the valley to get some tomato plants from our friend where we were at dinner the other night. They have more than they need and are 2 ft tall, maybe the ones we got are a little shorter, but hardened and already have blossoms. We got two varieties: Early Girl and Early Pick, plus a small pot of hens and chicks.
Cold is always an issue here with our elevation but while most tree fruit has already been lost, the tomatoes were not yet in the garden. Late spring cold and early fall frosts are too common. We always have trouble with ripening tomatoes and end the season with lots of green ones. So, that explains getting the larger started/hardened ones. A couple of years ago a warm fall allowed us to harvest tomatoes and yellow squash to mid-October. So, with trying to grow things – Hope is the Plan. Therefore, we bought 4 more at a local store – all different varieties. Also, we got a pot with 3 plants of yellow squash. You’re thinking “Why not start your own?” Well, all was in place to do so but the bag has hidden itself and refuses to be found. So, little pots and little seeds, if found, will go into storage for next year. Now, two types of corn and 2 types of winter squash are waiting their turn to go into the soil.

Monday, May 20
I think I started out on the phone with our car insurance company and need to print off my insurance card before I drive the new car on the road again. The company we deal with in Moscow, ID sent me a .pdf file via computer email. Nice. Faster and cheaper than a stamped envelope. John moved horses around to the back yard behind the fence to eat grass. They were happy. Never did go to town today. I stayed inside working on emails and calling about various bills and reports and insurance claims. Had some interesting notes from a friend (Sonja) in South Lake Tahoe, who returned home after two days away to find the front door broken on the stained glass window by a bear, entering to eat chocolate chips from a kitchen cabinet. Animals in the house were not hurt. A couple of years ago a bear broke into her SUV and got food from under the passenger-side front seat. That story was superseded by the occurrence of deadly tornadoes in the mid-South, where we know people. And there is Bekah! She being an ex-student, friend, and storm chaser. A team of 3 guys and she started last week in Northern Texas and Oklahoma chasing. They were south of the bad one today in Moore, but not too far last week from Granbury, Texas.
John put the two tomato plants in the garden and watered the potatoes. Sadly, the winds have been so high they snapped newly emerged asparagus spears. He put some ammonium sulfate in water today to use tomorrow on the blueberries. In addition, he put the Hen and Chicks two different places. The ones outside the fenced garden, he had to place in a private jail – aka a ‘chicken wire’ protector from the deer.

Tuesday, May 21
Everything took longer than planned today. Early morning long distance call. Then I tried to answer emails built up from yesterday’s absence, but I didn’t succeed with much before having to leave. I did get my insurance coverage printed out to put in the new car. Then we left for town for my lab work blood draws a week in advance of my appointment with my Cardiologist in Yakima, and while there, I had an INR check. From there we went for a bite of lunch and then on to the Rehab center where I was for 7 weeks in 2010; today we visited the wife of an Emeritus Geog. Prof., who was in for physical therapy following a complete knee replacement. On to Fred Meyer where I went to the JP Morgan Chase bank where my loan on my new Subaru is being financed. I wanted to set up an automatic pay monthly from my regular bank’s checking account. The interest rate is rather appealing (1.9 %), with no prepayment penalty. Finally, we were able to get home (later than planned). After John picked up the mail, I followed through on a note from my health insurance for dental that I’m changing effective June 1. I had sent in the forms supposedly required, but they wanted a different form from the previous insurance company verifying on letterhead the specific date my policy would end. It kind of put me in a shaky position. I was unwilling to cancel it until the other went into effect, but the one I was changing to wouldn’t initiate the new policy until they have written evidence of the termination. Well, I think I have all the information now after talking for an hour to two different companies; one in Wisconsin and the other here in Washington. Oh my, it’s late again, and we need to get to bed.

Wednesday, May 22
Another crazy day and night. Spent the morning on working on the dental insurance again and got it sent off (email), received a reply they had received it, but no action was taken, yet. Then off to the Food Bank to play music. Terrible Pasta today. It was supposed to be chicken Alfredo, but all I got was pasta and a little cheese. Shouted “Where’s the chicken?” Do you remember?

. . . but no one paid a bit of attention.  Maybe they weren’t around a TV in the ‘80s.

They had lots of green veggies I cannot eat, but decided to try the asparagus, red pepper, celery.  I am spoiled on our fresh nice asparagus and this was stringy, tough, and small.  Guess one should not look a gift horse in the mouth, but we had played and sung for 1/2 hour for our “lunch.”  There was an apple/plum cobbler like thing with oatmeal.  It had a couple of spices I could recognize and at least one I couldn’t, so I asked (they create most of parts of the meal there except for the pasta, donated by a local restaurant).  I think I know cinnamon, ginger, and another, but I did not know the taste of Cardamom.  I really did not like the spice, and it permeated the “cake” between the plums and apples.  I just ate the fruit and left the rest.  I sat in my new car at the Adult Activity Center yesterday before going in and figured how to change the date and clock.  Also, how to move the screens, so now I can see from the beginning of EACH trip (car turn on until turn off), the time in minutes, miles, and average miles/gallon for just that trip.  Today’s trip to Hearthstone is mostly downhill all the way, with flat sections.  For that segment I was getting 36.7 mpg !! Wow… huh?  Luckily, I went into the Adult Activity Center for SAIL exercise class and found some cherry pie (turned out to be rhubarb in a cherry sauce) that they put out for us.  I picked up two pieces to bring home for our dessert tonight.  On my way home, I stopped at my hairdresser’s house (she’s a mile around the block from us) and gave her money for some Nioxin shampoo, conditioner and treatment for thinning hair.  As a former beauty shop owner, she still gets a 50% discount on materials (which she passed along to me).  I learned about it from a friend (another Nancy) who knew a friend in NM who used it after her Chemo, and it worked.

We were LATE eating dinner, not getting home from the lecture tonight until almost 9:00 p.m.  John fixed some clam chowder (canned) and added red peppers, pasta shells, and warmed some ginger chicken nuggets.  I threw mine in the chowder and it was very good.

Our trip to town was for another of Nick Zentner’s geology lectures, this tonight was on the local petrified forests found in layers of basalt across our region of central WA.  Locally, most folks are aware of the Gingko Petrified Forest (near Vantage), but there are at least two other layers that have familiar names:  Saddle Mountains and Umtanum.  It was a very interesting presentation.  Next week’s talk is on the Yakima Canyon’s geology.  Tonight was very interesting about the petrified forest layers and their location in between the pillow basalts mixed in with the occurrence of layers 15.5 million years old, 15.7, and younger.

Thursday, May 23
Our State’s transportation agency is making a hire and I had a morning wake-up call for a giving a student job reference for a job in Yakima.  {Email Friday a.m. announced SHE GOT THE JOB!! whoopee.}  Lots of rain, but sunny in the afternoon.  Never got above 58°.   Finished paperwork to mail for the WA Health Care Authority’s dental insurance.  Then there’s the continuing story of the Tahoe Cinnamon Black Bear.  The bear returned to Sonja’s in South Lake Tahoe, CA and she and her barking dog chased it off.  Seems locals have been seeing this bear for 3 years.  Maybe the Game Dept. should move it.  Cinnamon bears are beautiful.  When I was in the ICU in the hospital in Ellensburg (June 11, 2009) John was hiking a couple of miles NE of home and came face to face with one.  Asked “How close?” he said what part of face to face are you having trouble with?  He has pictures. Yikes, tonight right before 7:00 p.m. on the west side of the state the I-5 bridge over the Skagit River, near Mt. Vernon, WA collapsed, taking a couple of cars and 3 people into the river along with the broken structure.  No fatalities, except for a guy in the traffic jam that ensued, who got out to look and was hit and killed by a semi.  The name of the River and many other things in the area is pronounced ‘ska-jit’ – think of the ‘ca’ of the word cat with an ‘S’ in front.  Then, note the ‘j’ sound, rather than the ‘g’ sound. Think that’s odd – try the home of the WA State Fair – Puyallup. Said I would post the Sinlahekin butterfly story when it was on Caitlin LaBar’s blog.  Now it is, so click here.

Friday, May 24
Rained this morning, but has cleared up, got overcast, then sunny, and temps went to 53°, eventually at 5:00 p.m. getting to 62°. I stayed home to tackle all the stuff needing tackled, and have been busy with more pressing things. One is with an REM graduate student who needs some support to get through her thesis project after a bunch of snafus here. She is very qualified and a sharp cookie. I recommended her once for a $1,000 GTU (Gamma Theta Upsilon) scholarship, and she won it at the national level. I will support her and contact other people who can help describe her situation. It’s going to take some time (so what’s new)?
John fixed us a wonderful bowl of chili for lunch. I tried to get off here at 2:00 p.m. to hit the other chores off-line. Staying on-line just creates more needs for feedback. (I wrote that 4.5 hrs ago). Also did research this morning on The National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center for my friend from NJ who is coming out in mid-June to Oregon and wants to walk on the Oregon Trail. Talked to my Subaru salesman this morning too. He will show me how to download music from my laptop to my car (and supposedly from a CD of music) to a jump drive which I can plug into the USB port on my car and play through the audio system. I’m pretty excited about that. (Next Tuesday when I’m down to see my Cardiologist, we will do it then.) Also, will check with Costco about a new executive membership we signed up for, but they didn’t give us the code with packet to get a free American express card, which gives us 3% or something back on the gasoline we purchase there or at any U.S. gas station. 2% on restaurant purchases, and 1% on all Costco purchases, plus provides at the end of February each year a one-time $55 coupon for cash or products from Costco for $250 of purchases. We spend >10 times that each year.
John just made a pecan/walnut pie and used the excess dough to make a cinnamon/sugar crust in a pan for “snacking.” I have been in charge of checking the oven to see when it’s ready. Just took both out. Now I have been on the phone and computer about our Costco Membership. What a PITA. I’ll be able to straighten it out next Tuesday when we go back for my doctor’s appt. Tonight, we are getting music from across the creek and through the woods, coming through the patio doors (not opened). I think it would be eardrum-breaking to be at the party (to which we weren’t invited). The music is not really bad from afar (1/4 mile). Ten more minutes and we can set the thermostat and go to bed. We need to re-program the thing but it seems never to get done. John dug the booklet out with instructions and it is now laying on my weekly pill box, having just been unearthed again a day ago.

Saturday, May 25
Sunny for a nice change and not too windy. John’s been out with his garden chores, and I managed to get some bills and letters in the mail to a few places. Walked them up the driveway and beat the postman to the mailbox. I realize they will not make it to people any earlier than by Tuesday for the Ellensburg one, maybe. Later for the Portland one, and maybe another day to California. I took a break to check in on John’s progress with the new garden. He took me on a tour. Started with his cutting “stakes” to put in to hold the “logs” from moving in his stair-stepped plots. We admired the potato plants he started from potatoes we forgot in the house and they sprouted. Looked at his strawberries, squash, and tomato plants (the two large ones mentioned earlier in this blog on last Sunday), and places for four more small plants he picked up 4/$5.00 from Bi-Mart. Some corn (Early Sunglow) is planted but not up, and others will be planted over the next day or so. I didn’t have my camera along for any pix. Our neighbor (whose apple tree we photographed and John watered this year), gave him a 75 gallon water tank, large heavy-duty plastic. He has it set up in his garden, downhill from the irrigation ditch so he fills it to give an at-hand water source for use while planting. Now back to tackle a few in-house chores. We have eaten dinner and I was busy all day on things and never got to the 3′ high stacks on the table. But, I did talk to a friend, who recently lost her husband, a wonderful friend from the 1980s, I met when I arrived in Geography to teach, in 1988. She made the trip across the country, to Oregon, from Vermont where they had retired to and lived for 23 years. It was good to hear she was safely there with her 16 yr. old cat and their belongings in an apartment closer to hers and his family. More stuff happened, but I will spare you the details. You will not see this until Sunday, the day before Memorial Day. Hope your long weekend was/is enjoyable. We are staying home.
Hope your week was great.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Saturday, May 11. After we posted the blog, we took off for town to pick up some colas (2 liter) for John at Safeway, for only $.89 each (significantly better than any other price in town). While there, we decided to buy a roast beef, cheese, and tomato sandwich for the road. It was only a regular 6″ size meant for one person. I decided it was enough for us, but then when we checked out, the cashier said, “Next time you buy a sandwich you get one free.” I said we’ll I hope we don’t wait as long as from the last ones. She said, you don’t have to buy a $5.49 one, but can get a breakfast sandwich for $1.99, and they are quite good. Therefore, I decided to get one tonight to go with our other 1/2 sandwich. It was egg, cheese, and ham heated on some type of square bread John says is Italian–I looked it up; it’s focaccia (related to being cooked on a stone and like pizza dough), but was cut rectangularly not in circles. I had her cut it in half. By the time I got back to the car, John had eaten his 1/2 of the other one, so I did too. The breakfast sandwich was hot in an aluminum foil cover. By the time I finished, John was driving down the canyon, but was able to eat his half. That made a nice supper. Got down there and visited a bit and then played a bit and came home, getting here after 10:15. The ferals were happy to be fed, and the one John calls “Johnny” (Cash-ew), came up, and rubbed against him. He is the only one who lets us get close. Wonder what time will do. He comes and talks to John while he’s working in the garden, but only lets him touch him when at the feeding station in the hay loft.

Sunday, May 12 Happy Mother’s Day.
We went down the canyon again this morning and didn’t get home till after 5:00 pm. We visited a little and then drove on a few more miles to Yakima and to Costco for gas and a few items. Playing catch up with a few phone calls to my aunt back east who entertained me last summer for the Wilkins reunion. Called a few moms in EBRG, and just got off the phone with a mom of two of my best students ever. They had gone on a 4 day butterfly photo and collecting trip at the Sinlahekin Wilderness, staying in the bunkhouse (where I used to stay to visit them while they were interning there). I will try to write up some of the story for the blog and add photos of their trip, which no doubt will be on Caitlin’s blog (we’ll give a link to that). There are 300 bats in the attic of the bunkhouse. Her daughter thinks she got a few good photos. (The work has not yet been posted, because she has a full-time job, but here is the link you can check.
The temperatures have gone down considerably so that’s very nice, but the wind is still blowing. Oh, — John fixed the nicest Mother’s Day dinner. It was colorful and tasty.

John’s first asparagus harvest but the rest sourced from the grocery store — chicken, peppers, mushrooms, pecans.

Monday, May 13 Interesting link to a story about an ice “tsunami” blowing into and over houses on a lake in Michigan and Canada. I emailed to a lot of friends the You Tube video that John found through his internet blog reading, but that one is now gone. It’s been removed from there because apparently Darla Johnson sold the rights to ABC, (so you can see part of hers in the above link). It is nowhere near as amusing stemming from her amazing lack of understanding of nature. I had no way of capturing it, unless I had taken a video of the video, but I didn’t think to do that. OKAY — I found another site where someone managed to capture it. The first on the link above is the original Darla capture from her vertically-held cell phone. The second is the link from ABC above, called Sam Champion explains what’s happening.
Everything was okay at my Dr.’s visit. My blood pressure was good at 110/60 and pulse 60. It took longer than anticipated, good meal after, bought for a $20 discount at a Cle Elum restaurant for each of our last birthdays. We are fixing chocolate turtle brownies for dessert with ice cream and heading to bed—have to leave the house in the morning about 8:30.
The picture below made my day. A former student (Tanya) who gave us Rascal (orchard born Mackerel tabby, our inside/outside cat) took two of our orange feral kitties last summer. Of course, we had them all tamed and handled. She just sent this photo today. Amazing how much our Johnny Cash-ew (their older brother) resembles Soda; though he only has a white spot on his face between his eyes and his chin. No white feet. Well, the same tail. Johnny also comes and talks to him (and me) when we are in the yard. John is out in his gardens much more than I am out, so he has more conversations.

Photo on the left is from May 13, 2013 (now); . . . April 30, 2012 was when eyes opened.

Tuesday, May 14 John and I left early at 8:30 for a monster biscuit (Canadian bacon, sausage, egg on a huge good biscuit) at Carl’s Jr., on our way to the Copper Kettle for the 2nd Tuesday morning meeting of the Emeriti Geography faculty. I took along copies of an obituary for Joel Andress (dead of a brain tumor), with a color photo, because he was a Geog Prof here for many years, from 1966, I think. I’m notifying some of those folks the family doesn’t have contact with.
Today, I did a load of dishes (have been keeping up with that), but two loads of clothes. I HAD to; I was out of underwear :- ). Now I’m working on my jobs list and getting handouts ready and distributed to the Emeriti for attending the potluck and awards ceremony for the end-of-the-year Geography party, June 1. I got my dental insurance change paperwork done and mailed from Cle Elum yesterday, but have stacks of things to go through still. I must order license tabs for two vehicles, and the list goes on.
I picked up my tube of cream Nystatin for my rash (Dr. Schmitt decided it was a yeast infection), and the damned thing cost $20. My Coumadin for 90 days was only $13. Jeez.
The rash is not what’s on my foot. He took a sample cut from my toenail which has to be cultured to determine what fungus it is. He says there is a drug that takes 3 months, but is not 100% effective. Have to wait 6 weeks for results from the culture. Kind of surprised me the length of time required. It is only on the toenails of one foot. Meanwhile, he will approve a referral for a trip to a podiatrist to see if I qualify for foot care on my insurance, or if I just have to find a local practitioner (seems to be a bigger deal in the UK than it is here).

Wednesday, May 15 Our friends the Seivertsons, now from Eureka, CA are scheduled to arrive today/tonight. We are heading to town for a lecture on Ellensburg Blue Agates. It was a great lecture. They were filming it, so I hope it gets put on the web as his 3 years ago did when downtown at Raw Space. Then, we will notify you of the URL.
I missed going to town today for playing music at the Food Bank, because my banjo playing-singing friend was sick. Therefore, I just stayed and worked on many different chores needing done. Our friends from CA made it to town and to our mutual friends’ house.

Thursday, May 16 At 1:20 I must leave for Dry Creek, taking John’s car because mine is short on gasoline, and I want to save it to drive to Yakima Friday. Several phone calls this morning and we will be going to dinner tonight at the friends’ house where they are staying, to visit with our CA friends. John is making a cherry pie and pecan pie to take with us. It was a long evening but loads of fun. We had pork loin roast our friends got from Costco, with raspberry sauce made by Jo Hammond (it was at their house and where our friends were spending the nights), potato salad, veggie salad (broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots), garlic bread, and a several bean salad. And wine with crackers and two fancy cheeses. We had ice cream with John’s pies for dessert.

Friday, May 17 Have to be in Yakima for an 11:15 appointment at the Subaru dealer. So tired after a late night, and sleeping in some this morning. Yesterday and this morning we spent a lot of time cleaning out things from the ’04, and some on cleaning the floor mats from much gravel. I had a six-CD player, which SADLY no Subaru any longer has. Even John’s 2009 has only the one. We didn’t get home until 7:00 p.m., after leaving just after 10:00 a.m. (I was so tired I slept in till almost 9:00 a.m.). Now we are the owners of a new blue Subaru (2014 Forester). The 2004 was an L. L. Bean model with 58,000 miles, 6 cylinders, and wanting premium gas. We have hardly driven it since getting the 2009 4 cylinder one. That one now has 60,000 on it. The sales team (led by Mat, whom we met last year and “talked trucks,” but they only sell used ones and had no full sized 8’-ft. beds) are a gregarious bunch and insisted they were giving me a really good deal on my 10 year old trade-in, plus knocked off money on the one we liked best. We wouldn’t have ordered all the accessory packages (such as TomTom Navigation, the backup-TV camera, and the fancy transmission) but they seem to have traded something they had to a Spokane dealer and got this one in return—and wanted to sell it. That’s the “story.” Outbacks are longer and heavier and more fancy with 1 mpg less fuel rating. So the new-blue one, while quite fancy, is actually lower priced than the similar driven Outback. Also has some other cool features and gadgets the Outback didn’t have. The 2014 (really!) Forester has been streamlined and it takes a careful look to tell one from the other. It’s no longer boxy, but is lighter than the Outback for better gas mileage. Yes, I’m excited. However, very tired.

Some day we will replace with our car’s photo, rather than one driving down the road.
We talked and bought the car and then went to Costco for a polish dog and large piece of pizza (We had never had lunch) at about 4 P. M. Then home by way of Ellensburg to pick up Almond Breeze milk for me and Pepsi for John (really a good price in cans), so he bought 1/2 diet Pepsi (he mixes them).
He took the Brittanys for a run, and then is packing in the stuff we bought at Costco (more frozen chicken (ginger & teriyaki) on sale. We had checked it out earlier on our last trip to Costco, and liked the teriyaki. The ginger is actually 4 ounces larger and made by a different company, but we figure it will be fine. John got himself 8 solar lights (walkway path type).

Saturday, May 18 Mt St Helens in 1980 — we remember this eruption day; then living in Troy, Idaho. Today we have winds again to 37 mph gusts. This morning we saw a bunch of Evening Grosbeaks (our first this season and here). I think this photo shows 4 pair and two red wing blackbirds.

I am going to go into town for music at Briarwood Commons Retirement Center, where they feed us after we play and sing. Only 4 of us are going today, 3 instruments: fiddle, guitar, & tambourine and an extra singer, who also hands out and picks up the books of lyrics for the audience participation. Today we used 2 books and they all enjoyed singing along. The food was particularly good today; we had a homemade Enchilada soup from a dry mix prepared by a lady in the town of Thorp, near the old Thorp (grain) mill, and former owner of the store there that burned a few years ago. She produces them for commercial distribution, and they can be bought locally at Super One and Fred Meyer groceries. The lady who made it added tomato sauce and generous pieces of chicken. I wonder if the beans came with it; they were like chick peas or white beans. She served it with grated cheddar cheese on top. It was scrumptious. We had several types of sandwiches: turkey, roast beef, and ham, with tomato slices in them, a nice oriental chicken salad, a green salad, and several desserts (brownies, two kinds of cookies and a spice cake frosted with what looked like maple frosting). From there I went to Fred Meyer with my friend for her to get a few things, and while there I checked out their sale on dining room stool type chairs. I was looking for a nice sturdy one that I can use on uneven ground to play music outside (as at the Yakima Canyon last week). I found a nice heavy duty, stable one, which has a seat back and rotates. (That will be especially good for my neck for me to be able to turn my head to look to the right or the left at people in the horseshoe-shaped group, and not bend my neck, which usually hurts after an hour’s session. The chair was on sale through today — a free dining chair with the purchase of one at regular price. They only had one of what I wanted, and it was a damaged demonstrator. I talked the floor manager down to a little less than half the cost, and tried for more and a vinyl patch kit to be thrown in; he didn’t go for that extra request, but gave me 10% off the 1/2 price of the original chair. I’ll just use duct tape or a vinyl patch to fix it. It has a slice about 2 inches long along one side of the seat pad. I think it will be perfect. It’s not light but I need it to be a little heavier for the outdoor usage. We had taken my mom’s old fifties kitchen stool to many outdoor events, but it is really not sturdy, unless on a flat hard surface. John stayed home today and worked with putting up a temporary fence so the horses could go behind the house to “mow” down the grass there and wrapping around the old shed, and the 3-cornered building where I park my Subaru. With some strategic brush removal and the horses help with the grass there is slightly less danger of fire reaching the buildings along the ground – if fire should come. Please not – last year’s close call was scary enough to last me a lifetime!
Happy Sunday.
Hope your week was great.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Sunday, May 5 Happy Cinco de Mayo. We didn’t get last week’s blog out until today, and you have heard about most of the day already. John did take me out for a jaunt through the pasture where we took some photos of stuff I haven’t seen in almost a year. We also took a photo of our neighbor’s apple tree in full bloom. John sees that it gets water. We came back and checked out some of our tulips, irrigation ditch, and a bridge John built across it, which is better for me (and one of the horses prefers it) to use than trying to jump across the ditch. Today begins the annual Bluegrass Jam session in the Yakima Canyon at the Big Pines campground. The photo is of the correct area but not the actual river bend where the camp is – there it is a bit wider. I was too tired to try to attend today.
Monday, May 6 Luckily, we both had a good night’s sleep to regain our stamina (at least me). We started the morning with a grand tour of the grounds around the gardens, orchard, and house. I just took my photos off my camera and will no doubt include a couple in this week’s blog, to follow on John’s 4 from last week of various blossoms. Then dealing again with medical appointments and insurance issues, a never-ending chore. Later this afternoon, when it cools down, we are going to town for my INR blood draw, and to grab some food, and head on down the canyon for the bluegrass jam.
I got the photos from this morning (and yesterday afternoon) off the camera, but haven’t yet looked at them all. They were mostly vegetation, native and bought, -service berry (or sarvis berry), elderberry, blue spruce, white spruce, black pine, Ponderosa, apple, pear, cherry, plum trees, garden things (onions, strawberries, asparagus [plus the FIRST harvest],

blueberry, blackberry, raspberry, and the new plum trees. Carpathian walnut trees, lilac, and crabapple.

I took pictures of the pallets John bought for .50 each. They are double the size of any I’ve ever seen. One has five good long pieces of 2 x 4 in good condition which itself is worth at least $15.00 for the wood. Two have solid plywood tops. I don’t know how he managed to get the longest one into the truck.
We had a coupon for $5.00 for 2 full KFC dinners, so we carried those along down the canyon to the bluegrass jam for dinner, taking our drinks with us. It’s hot today — 86 at 3:00 p.m., hotter later. The campground is along the river with big beautiful Ponderosa pines for shade and usually a breeze. It cools down fast. Nice trip down, there, and back but not until after 10:00 – and had to pull over for a come-from-behind emergency medical unit, but it turned off 2 miles down Naneum from our neighborhood.
Tuesday, May 7 INR results back, in correct range, 2.1, so everyone is happy. Horse farrier came to trim 3 older horses this morning, and did it under the full shade of John’s White Spruce trees along the driveway. The temps were reaching 81, but I didn’t measure it in the shade of the trees. I went out twice and talked to them, and it wasn’t too bad; of course, I was not doing anything but standing. I spent most of my time this morning, and still have one medical insurance item left to do. Been catching up on all jobs-list e-mail updates from the recent week before when I had very little time.
Tonight we are going back to the canyon for more music. Last night, I chose to play “You Are My Sunshine.” Someone asked who wrote it and I didn’t know. Everyone thought a different person, and all I did was say, no I’m sure it wasn’t Gene Autry (although he sang it), and not Stephen Foster. Well, the internet has the story and John printed out about 5 pages cut and pasted from several sites.
Oh WOW…this is really good news about my latest time (seems like a lot…2 hrs) working with the health care system to transfer our dental insurance coverage to the CWU retiree’s plan and get out from under the individual account I have had since last June 1, 2012. Their coverage, while something, was nowhere near as good as the retiree plan from CWU. Our medical is already there, so the paperwork could be filled out ON LINE in a pdf document that accepted information, and then I printed. Had to go back to John’s computer where the printer is set up because it didn’t allow me to save edits. John is exercising the dogs, and we will grab something to eat as we drive through town to the Canyon, and eat down there under the Big Pines. Okay, we got out at 6:15 and drove by Burger King for our dinner. Two burgers and a chicken sandwich split. We got a cup of ice and took our own drink along. Got there in time to eat before playing music. I didn’t know as many of the songs tonight as last, and the wind was worse tonight than last night. We left about 9:25 and it takes us 45 minutes to get home. Rocks and dust came off the hill and on to the road just seconds before us on the way home. Orange dust swirled about as we went through but nothing was falling then. (Learned later others were encountering similar events.) I am running on an empty energy tank and am ready to crash.
Wednesday, May 8 Today is the normal day to do several things in town, but I didn’t write any notes at all for this day. Went to the food bank soup kitchen and played music, had a great chicken pasta and an awesome fruit salad, which I can eat — no dark green stuff. On to the AAC for SAIL class, and back home to get ready to leave for the Canyon bluegrass again. Tonight we stayed even later than last night, not getting home until 11:15.
Thursday, May 9 Today was about the same except I went to the Rehab center for music. We had dinner at home. Then we drove to the canyon.
Friday, May 10 Worked on a number of things during the heat of the day. John tries to do most stuff — watering our own trees, and garden — before the real heat but the last two days has had neighborhood irrigation water duties to tend to. One of the days he came in so wet from sweat I had to help pull his tee shirt off. We went back to potluck in the canyon taking two Razzelberry pies Marie Callendar (raspberries & blackberries baked together with a touch of apple. Nice evening with great potluck items– Dutch Oven Chicken and another pot of beans with sausage, two Cole slaws, grilled cheese burgers, spicy (VERY) meatballs & pineapple, nice fruits salad, and several desserts. Home late to find 6 horses loose in the front yard. Luckily, they had not left the premises. John put up a gate and my horse was the first we saw, closest to the road. I got out and talked to her, and looked down and saw our 3 Tobiano horses in the driveway. John walked down to them pushing them into the corral area, and he came back to retrieve Ebony. I had stayed with her as she walked down the driveway in the lights of the car. He came back and put her in, and then I drove on farther, shining the lights to the back of the house where the last two horses were, near the gate they left from. John had forgotten to close it late afternoon when setting hoses. Normally he doesn’t open that gate. The horses found it, though, and there was enough grass around to keep them occupied and out of trouble.
Saturday, May 11 the day before Mother’s Day, our scheduled day to get the blog posted. We were both so tired from a late last night (didn’t go to sleep until after 1:00 a.m.), that we slept in late. I slept in longer than John, after getting up and turning out the yard light and hall light. He spent a lot of time last night on another research project for the jam session regarding a song played and sung last night, “Amelia Earhart’s Last Flight.” He found a bunch of interesting stuff about it, and we will take it down to the group. It’s a song written by Red River Dave McEnery shortly after Amelia Earhart’s disappearance. It was copyrighted in 1939, and was first performed by David McEnery on a pioneer television broadcast from the 1939 New York World’s Fair. That was the issue of John’s research to find out all about the “first television viewing of a song over the air waves.”
The other thing he researched and wrote about this week and we took down Thursday night, was about Leather Britches – the song. It seems long garden beans were threaded and hung for future use and the motion of threading reminded someone of hand-sewing leather into pants, or britches. The sewing movements are similar to a fiddler’s hands and wrist motions as the bow is moved to “cross over” the strings (or strangs — if a southern mountain speaker). A song with many such movements acquired the name Leather Britches. Another term is shucky beans, but you knew that. Right?
Hope your week was great.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Sunday, Apr 14 Heard last night the Brittany puppies in CA (Kip, our puppy, Cork’s brother, is sire, and Ginny, belonging to Jeri & Kurt Conklin, is having puppies tonight. At 8:00 p.m. a little o/w female was first born. Owner of the sire is Sonja Willitts. We await news of more. Seven seemed to show to some viewers in an X-ray this week. (Only 6 were there, and sadly, one didn’t make it after a couple of days). Five remaining ones are fine and growing. Last night also, I found, with John’s help, the rest of the tax data needed for some stock dividends, to put in our return. This is a good thing! Oops, need to go back and print the right side of two of the pages; cannot read the 1099-INT totals. Got the 1099-DIV fine, however. Will need to wait for John to come back and access the account from his computer, where the information is accessible (from the web), and the printer to print out for our tax files. He’s out working on fencing his new baby Ponderosa pines. Lunch eaten and all forms reprinted to size. Actually, we had missed two pages last night. Do not know how, but we have them now. It took me another long while to add the data to Turbo Tax, but John reminded me when I was complaining, that he used to have to do all those calculations by hand (for stock/mutual fund capital gain or loss). Okay, so I am happy again.
Monday, Apr 15 I had a crazy night’s sleep, dreaming about the nuttiest things, awoke early and couldn’t get back to sleep, so just got up to use John’s computer to finish the correction on the tax form. I had to get his signature and help making a postcard to include for the IRS to send back when they receive the form.
I began early working on our “hay” paper, but left at 11:00 for the Kittitas, WA USPS, figuring my wait there would be a whole lot less than in EBRG. I was correct; no wait. Drove on to town to get some things at the grocery and Bi-mart. Now we can make Crockpot chocolate candy because I bought some dry roasted peanuts (1/2 normal price), and the last ingredient we need(ed) for the candy. Eventually, I came home finally, had a small lunch, watched John nap in the chair after his, and continued working on my paper, combining it with slides from the PowerPoint used in Olympia, and cutting out and adding text from the article submitted. We have to lower it from the 19 minutes for presenting in October to 15 minutes here as well as incorporating additional information learned since. I will be presenting it because my co-author, John Bowen, will be busy chairing the conference and listening to some of his students’ papers.
John just awoke and went out to work in the sun (changing weather here, that’s for sure). He did take some photos of the snow, and the little birds in the Nanking cherry trees with the snow covering the cherry blossoms!

[*Click on photo to see a large version.*]
Once home, all the snow gone, I looked out and saw what I think is a female Red Wing Blackbird. Got a photo and will check to see if I’m right. (I was). They are entirely different from the males.
Tuesday, Apr 16 Finally, a good night’s sleep. Guess I was truly exhausted. Today was filled with catching up on projects, and then I played music tonight at a nursing home on the NE edge of town closest to our home. Only 21 miles r.t. John’s got nice sun and not too much wind to work outside in today to make room for his plants on their way here from Indiana Berry Co., due this Friday. Temperatures at 11:30 are up to 49, but the wind has also moved up to 20mph. Lunch and back to work. Went to play music after computer chores all day. Was home for dinner after and we had leftover spaghetti and meat sauce that we didn’t eat all of last night. I have been working more on the PowerPoint for the hay paper, but now am going to fix dessert and hit the hay (ha ha). For now, I’m very tired of describing the hay forage industry geography.
Wednesday, Apr 17 Today, the usual, play music at the Food Bank Soup Kitchen, exercise, and then I’m getting a haircut at my neighbor’s. I don’t know how long it has been since the last but it’s getting straggly. It was almost 8 weeks ago, and necessary, even though my hair seems to be thinning again on top. Might be from all the meds I’m taking. I do take a multi-vitamin daily. I left this morning before 11:30 a.m. going directly to the food bank’s Soup Kitchen where Evelyn (our banjo player), I, Mary Ann (along with Bob, a server, after he finished helping) sang with us. Okay on to St. Vincent’s looking for a pair of SMALL aluminum tongs, which we’ve had and LOST over the past couple of months. You may wonder, how did they do that? I wish we knew. Then on to Exercise class at the adult activity center, where I picked up a couple pieces of cake to go with our ice cream tonight for dessert.
Once home was a time-out to deal with medical insurance over a 15 min. device check required every 3 months for Nancy’s Implanted Defibrillator Device. Jeez. It’s going to cost $44, because Medicare and Group Health won’t pay anything if I have not yet met my deductible for 2013. I think it is $250 for GH and less than that for Medicare. Nevertheless, the point remains, I should have made that appointment earlier by 2 weeks to have it in 2012 where I had built up a COB (cost of benefits) balance. (That’s an account built up through the year that can be tapped for savings). Message to self: remember for next year to arrange so that I don’t go in right after the first of the year (it was 1-15-13), and force it to end in December this year. Of course, as John says, it really doesn’t matter. We have to pay for the first few medical charges at the first of the year, regardless. I was just trying to figure what I could move to the end of the year (such as that), which benefits from being able to use COB monies, which do not carry over. They are lost in the system, if unused. John has added the next little bit to explain the procedure. A technician reads the record with a wand (non-invasive procedure) scan of the ICD in my body that keeps track of everything my heart has been doing. Under the drawing is an explanation of what the read-out is used for and what else can be done, if needed. I have to drive to Yakima for the service, because it cannot be done here. We usually combine it with a trip to Costco.
Later I received a tour of the place to see all John’s recent yard work. First, the garden from prior years, now with Blackberries, Strawberries, and Asparagus – some annual things will be planted later. His newly planted onions (3 special ones – we get yellow cooking onions for 6¢/pound so don’t plant any) are looking good. He cut back the thorny blackberries so we can walk the path through the middle of the garden. He has culled a bunch of the strawberry runners and has rows again. His asparagus from seeds is coming up, and his asparagus from roots is looking really good. He also removed two poles at the “back” of the garden and extended it a little more. We next went over to the newest garden, downslope from the work last year on the round pen (still under construction). One of the last landscaping projects after the snow fell was to move the excess dirt (with rocks) down into the depression. Now he is fencing that, removing rocks and making the soil ready. He plans to receive some strawberry plants this Friday, and wants to get them in there. As well, he will plant some corn, and winter squash there. Remains to be seen if anything else goes in. Last year he was talking putting tomatoes there because of its having a higher amount of sunlight there than in the older one. He finished giving me the tour of all the stuff he’s been doing over the past couple weeks. He’s been busy sorting rocks and moving them and dirt. He dug a trench (no rocks but just next to the new garden space) to put the rocks in so he doesn’t have to haul them away, and he can use the dirt from the trench for the garden. Rocks, sand, and “dirt” on an alluvial fan is a never-ending puzzle. I came on back in the house to tackle my several projects. Later we had a late dinner that was quite tasty. I had not eaten a lot for lunch because it was pasta with tough steak, lots of dark green salad so I just got a little of the non-dark green stuff, hoping to avoid high Vitamin K content.
Thursday, Apr 18 Busy day. Morning filled with chores. Left for Kittitas to have taco lunch with members of the Kittitas Valley Trail Riders — 4 of whom left the fairgrounds in EBRG and rode the John Wayne Trail to the Old Milwaukee Railroad Station at Kittitas, WA and hitching posts there that we helped build. Eight others joined the group for a nice visit, until they turned around and rode back west into the wind. From there, we went back to town, where John let me off at Dry Creek to play music until 3:00 and he went on to do several things. Nicest for me was he filled my car with gas. Then he went to Bi*Mart for some supplies for the yard, and on across town to get his new two sets of glasses. Once home, he gave me an instructive demonstration. I had seen his normal glasses (progressive lenses, auto darkening). His extra free pair (a special just this month), he had made into computer reading glasses. They really are cool. Thankfully, I don’t need any glasses – my lens implants do all I need.
Outside, it’s clouding over and might rain again. I brought home more than half of my Taco Salad from lunch. It was HUGE. It will be my dinner. John got some ground beef with the idea of making a meat loaf, but I’ll bet he waits until tomorrow for that and just has a hamburger tonight, with one of the fancy cheese rolls I brought home yesterday.
Friday, Apr 19 Today, I went to town mainly for a Pro-Time test (INR) blood draw, but it turned into an exciting day. First, to exercise class, and sadly someone had something go wrong, perhaps an anxiety attack, but we’ll never know. However, when she beckoned our teacher over, I realized it was distracting and possibly embarrassing to have everyone staring at her, and they had called the EMTs, who arrived rapidly. I moved to the leader’s chair, picked up the place in the class where she left off, and gave the class of 19, instructions. I am not certified to do that, but I figured there were 3 people there qualified and they were all busy with the person needing help. I went through 4 different exercises before one of the others arrived to take over from me. Shortly, our instructor came back and they carried the person out of the room, in her chair, to the entrance hallway, where they must have gathered more information and taken some vitals. We finished the class, and they were still there with her. I made my way to the hospital, for my blood draw and INR reading. When I got there, no one was in the lab. I waited around and a person ahead of me was taken in, but then I waited longer for the gal to come back to help me. I realized they were short handed and she had to leave to take blood from someone in ER. I know where the doors lead, having been in there regularly for 5 years. Turns out it was the person from our class. I told the story about drinking lots of fluids for the past hour of exercise, but not having any for the past 45 minutes while waiting for her return from ER. I told her about what happened and that we would never know because of privacy, but I was concerned. She asked where I had been. I said at the Adult Activity Center and the EMTs came to check her out. I assumed she would end up in ER. She told me she had and that she was doing fine. I made it home, finally. Brought some cookies home for our dessert with ice cream tonight. We both had an advanced one this afternoon. Late in the day after 5:00, I received my INR report, which was down a little, so I threatened to have a glass of wine with dinner (meatloaf), but we didn’t. Darn. John received his UPS package delivery of strawberry plants, all the way from Indiana, via a distribution center near O’Hare Airport, on to Spokane, EBRG, and here – arriving late afternoon just as predicted (and tracked the whole way).
Saturday, Apr 20 Spent a little time this morning cleaning kitchen counter build-up, and going through this blog. I am going to play music at Briarwood this afternoon, where they feed us afterwards. Today they had a green pea soup with ham and carrots, wonderful chicken salad sandwiches, other things, and desserts, plus an orange/mango/sprite drink. We only had two instruments there, and 2 extra singers. Occasionally, one of the singers accompanied with her tambourine. Fellowship and food was good.
John was down in the field with the dogs when I got home. We are adding a photo John took of the vineyard work. (He started early March with the pruning that you have heard about in earlier blogs.)

The cane has been cut and is dropping to the ground. A short piece (spur) is left with just 2 or 3 buds from which will come new growth and a cluster of grapes.

Hope your week was great.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan