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Saturday July 28 and Sunday July 29:  Everything is sort of running together this weekend.  We both slept in longer this weekend than all of the past week, and John picked strawberries and raspberries yesterday that we fixed and ate last night.  In addition, both days he mostly worked on removing fences and thinking about adding another to keep the horses away from the pole building rising in the pasture.  I tackled a few chores in the kitchen and den.  Mostly I worked on getting the pictures and videos off both cameras, arranging an email list for my 2012 WOFTA class members, and working with the stack of bills and other things needing attention.  I spent over an hour on the phone with John’s sister Peggy about using Google Earth, because John had added stuff to the blog that required navigating with their controls.  We had a good time and both learned a lot, but on her dime.  John napped through most of it, but got involved at the end.  Off he went to move some more gates and poles, and next door to set up a charger on our neighbor’s battery on her riding lawnmower.  After that, John took me out to show me all he had done and I took a few pictures, pet 3 of the horses, and came in the back yard by the outside cats.  John came back around later, and they were waiting for him in the loft of the haymow.  So funny, they are trained quite well for being wild cats.  Cashew is the friendliest.  I took a picture of him twice today.  Once on the top of a fence post and now watching the pasture from atop the hay.  I took a movie clip of him jumping from a 6′ fence post in the backyard.  On my way in, I got some pictures around the place.  John fixed a great dinner with our own yellow squash in it, penne noodles, tomatoes, chicken, zucchini, and cashews.  Except for the squash and cashews, it was from a bag we bought at Costco last time there.  Not bad.  However, we forgot his wonderful applesauce we’d thawed today.  Will just have to have it tomorrow!  Rascal came home, ate, and went to bed.  He was warm, so perhaps he had come from a visit to a neighbor or slept in the hot cathouse today.  He was out cattin’ in the middle of the night, and back this morning for food.  I wish he could talk and tell us about his day.  He doesn’t seem to pal around with the other 3 cats outside except in the evening at feeding time.

Monday, July 30  Time to pay more bills by phone and postal mail.  Never seems to end.  They piled up from being away last week, and many places are not open on the weekend to reach by phone.  Wind is blowing hard again but at least that saves John from spraying the horses’ faces :- ) to keep the flies off.  He’s run the dogs and now is out trying to figure where to put the new fence across the pasture, replacing the one he removed.  I doubt that I can talk John into going, but the two of us have to go to a 1.5 hr presentation in Yakima to qualify for a gift of a Norwegian or Carnival cruise for 8 days free with a ticket for two round trip tickets between two major airports.  I have till 8:00 tonight to accept.  Any two people can participate in the trips, but a “couple cohabitating” in the same house have to listen to the talk, and have to be approved by a list of questions; one of which was about being retired, annual family income, and speaking and understanding English.  I may be able to get him to go with me, but he is rather skeptical and doesn’t want to waste his time on such things.  I will see if I can check it out on the Internet.  I did, and found out that the Dream Vacation setup is a scam.  It is not surprising, actually, and I’m really not the cruise ship type anyway.  I would have taken a friend or relative along if it had happened.

I went to town for exercise and to return the violin I borrowed, pick up apricots from them and deliver raspberries and squash.  I took a free on-line class at 6:00 my time for an hour and a half (getting on at 5:50)  more about that later.

Tuesday, July 31  Today started before 8:00 a.m. with a call from our contractor who will be building our pole barn.  While John was out with them, I took care of several things, including a phone call to Ohio to speak with Christian (Chris) Howes, the violinist, whose class I took last night.  I wanted to take him up on his offer of a phone call because he cannot use his hands for long periods of time to type emails.  He has a class that meets in Ohio for a week and people from all the world come.  I was in south GA during the time, and I don’t know if I will ever participate, but meanwhile, he has on line classes called Creative Strings.  Right now he has a one month free subscription which I want to start the end of August, so I called after I had written a question in an email and he sent me his phone number and requested we talk in person. Check this link

http://creativestrings.christianhowes.com/

and watch the two videos.  I saw him give a free concert in Ellensburg at the University and bought two of his CDs afterwards for only $10 each.  He plays a conventional violin, but also an electric one that he records back ups he then plays with.  It is totally fascinating.  He really promotes improvisation; well, if you look at the videos you will get a preview.  I should have given you a video to his mixing.  This is the closest I can find, and I know I had access to one earlier, but if you listen to this, you’ll get the idea how he blends with himself, using improvision, harmonies, and chord chopping.  That’s Chris on the right of your screen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovdYxQhVoRI

Had a tough acupuncture/massage followed by meeting about music with our banjo player at her office in EBRG.  Came home to very sad news from a friend in Montana that her 41 year old son had died.  She was very supportive to John while I was in ICU because she has been an ICU nurse herself.  This death was sudden but maybe we can offer some support from a distance.

Wednesday, Aug 1  This morning started very early with an accidental phone call from a friend who dialed wrong at 5:27 a.m., but it was good to awake because the contractor was to come close to 6:00 a.m. to work on digging the holes for the poles and putting in concrete footers.  I had not slept well last night, so I went back to bed and slept in late.  John stayed out working with them – and says:  Local building codes apply.  Years ago pole barns involved digging holes, putting in posts of the desired height, packing rocks and dirt from the digging back where such came from.  Not now.  Much of our area has compacted river cobbles as a soil and digging a 40 inch deep hole requires an excavator:

http://www.publiquip.com/photo/-944441708.jpg

Sometimes the sides of the hole collapse and the hole grows outward.  Each pole has to be on a concrete footer that is 3 feet below the original ground surface.  Then the entire hole has to be filled with concrete.  The footer keeps the pole from sinking and the “mass” of concrete keeps the building from being blown into Grant County (east, across the Columbia River).  Our little barn will have open ends and will face so the prevailing NW wind can go in one end and out the other. This diagram is called a “wind rose” and shows the direction and speed of wind for our area.

http://www.efsec.wa.gov/kittitaswind/addinfo/A14_Wind%20Rose.pdf

Several barns in the valley were built with closed backs and the wind has torn the tops and/or sides off.  We had to locate the new structure according to the County’s “Flood Zone” map, so it is not exactly where we wanted it.  Our preferred location would have had it on ground a foot or so higher but “the map” claims that is in the flood zone – as is our entire house!  Except the map is crap!  Done before all the tools of GIS (Nancy’s specialty), so they just drew a line from the center of the creek.  In our case, we are on higher ground to the east and on the other side the land and the creek are at nearly the same height and there is no high ground beyond.

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/such-is-life.html

Nancy’s back:  Later I went out and took some pictures of the progress.  Then I had to drive to town to play music at the Food Bank Soup Kitchen, go to SAIL exercise, and pick up meds I was out of.  Came on home and the inspector had come and left, and while they waited for the inspection, the contractor cleaned out our center ditch while his son mixed and poured the concrete footings.  The irrigation ditch clean-out is a major project that would have taken John forever by hand and pulling out trees on the sides with his truck and chain (that he has worked on some every year).

I got home and then a delivery truck dropped off the big treated poles and lumber.  The lumber will become the “girts” as shown in this drawing in blue –

http://www.builderbill-diy-help.com/image-files/purlins-girts.gif

to which the metal sides will be attached.  See last part (Walls):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_buildings

Before that, some will be used to hold the poles vertical while the concrete sets.  I hope the wind goes down some when they are trying to set the poles.  It was 39 mph today.

Thursday, Aug 2  Builders were here (3 of them) at 7:00 a.m. and have put in 7 poles.  John took pix of the process and I went out to see the 7th one being seated, and took a couple more pix.  Now I’m back in to run off some music (Kaiser’s Waltz) that my friend in Winlock scanned and sent over to complete our playlist for this August.  Forgot to say our “pay” yesterday was in day old bread that really wasn’t “expiring” until Aug 7.  I got a pkg of Whole Wheat & Sour Dough English muffins and a package of nice sandwich rolls called Crustina.  We halved and toasted one last night to go with dinner.  At 2:00 today will be our normal music in nursing home gig, and we will be at Royal Vista, the closest to my house (21 miles r.t.).  Nothing else much on the docket, except trying to organize and toss.  Whoopie — I got a load of dishes washed before leaving.  I ended up taking more time getting home than I wished.  I’m sore and probably ought to take some Acetaminophen.  While scanning my machine for viruses and malware, I read the WA Old Time Fiddlers’ newsletter that came in today’s mail; it had a nice report on a lady fiddler who died and for whom there was a celebration of life with fiddle players from her WA district and around the state.  The person who wrote it up, ended with this sentence, which is beautifully said, and I will pass it along to the family of my friends.  Here is the quote that was not identified as to who said it:  “Death leaves a heartache no one can heal; love leaves a memory no one can steal.”  I looked it up on the web and found that it is from a headstone in a cemetery in Ireland.

The poles all got set today and ECP – ‘the only game in town’ —

http://ellensburgcement.com/about_us.htm

sent enough concrete to nearly fill each hole around each post.  John took pictures this morning and I followed getting some of the pouring.  Good thing they are well anchored as the winds have been blowing all day and are up to 39 mph.  Also, the builder’s wife brought their grandson, who collected a frog and water skipper.  He will bring it back soon and put it back in our ditch.  Cute kid, 7 years old, named Andy.  Tomorrow the builders come back to put up the horizontal crosspieces (girts) on which to connect the metal siding.  The trusses were supposed to arrive next Tuesday, but they arrived early.  Must be the metal siding and roof that will arrive next week.  Everything is going faster than planned.  We are very happy that nothing is called for this Sunday outside.  It will be hot again… 95, then a little less on Monday.  John came in tonight to tell me to look through a south-facing window into our small round pen.  Two little fawns were there (eating tops of weeds?) and their mom was keeping an eye on them.  Dan (male Brittany) followed into the room and went out the doggie-window and mama took the two little ones off into the creek-side brush.  I updated my volunteer hours for July today:  24.5.  June had been 25 hours; both months I missed a whole week, first in GA and then in Kittitas, WA, so that August should be higher.

Friday, Aug 3  I was gone from 11:30 till 3:45, to a luncheon (bring your own) of the ladies’ auxiliary of the Swauk-Teanaway Grange of which I’m a member.  They meet for lunch every first Friday of the month.  Normally I cannot go, because there is an Adult Activity Center (AAC) free potluck and afterwards I usually play fiddle with an accordion player and we both sing, giving the audience large print lyrics so they can sing along.  It’s a different set of songs each month, in conjunction with the season.  I cancelled on the AAC lunch in favor of the Grange thing — it was at the house of a lady I have known for a long time.  It’s a huge log home built by her and her husband (who died of cancer).  She has a lovely garden (flowers, bushes and trees) all around her house and a pond in the back yard.  Instead of her fixing dessert as planned, her son went to town and bought dark chocolate and lemon bars.  I had a half of the lemon, one of my very favorites.  It’s from Vinman’s Bakery a very good but quite expensive “in place” in EBRG.  It’s in the high 80s today.  I started in the shade but the sun moved and my car was over 90 when I left the party.  It was a work meeting to assign people to do cleaning chores at the Grange.  I was let off the hook till I am better able.  (I didn’t ask, but the President offered that I not be).  She saw me when I was much worse from my open heart surgeries.  She plays the Mandolin and is whom I got mine from.  The Grange is a very nice new building, replacing the old one after a fire burned it down.  I have played music there for several occasions (the grand opening and the annual Hunter’s Breakfast on the first day of hunting season in October each year.  They rent it out ($500 for 3 days) for community affairs such as weddings or parties.   It is a real deal, but cleanup has to be done prior, and while the renters are expected to clean up after themselves, sometimes they don’t and the ladies of the Grange have to get it done.  Occasionally the husbands will help out.

Last night John took me out after it started cooling down to see the progress on the pole building and all the rocks that were moved to the holes onto the base of footers.  Piles of rocks near the ditches have probably been accumulating since the 1880s when the first modern settlement happened.  Near one pile there were remains of a stone boat:

http://www.inquiry.net/images/stone_boat.gif

The following link has discussion and a photo (scroll down) of an old one:

http://www.mytractorforum.com/showthread.php?t=98481

Our contractor scooped these stones up and used them as part of the “fill” to make the inside of the barn have a level floor.  Some are soccer-ball size.  With other “dirt” collected on-site we are now ready for a cover of crushed recycled concrete:

http://www.hedbergaggregates.com/graphics/products/mediumsize/recycled-concrete2.jpg

This will make a nice floor inside the barn.

Also, yesterday the trusses (24 feet span) were delivered (ten of them), but without the overhang and butt cut:

http://www.hitec.ca/images/basicTruss.gif

and next week the metal siding, roof, and trim will arrive.  We used an on-line color-visualizer to select the colors.

http://www.fabral.com/colorvisualizer/

On this site, choose (on the left) “Post Frame” and click on the middle photo of a red barn.  A random selection of colors comes up.  Whatever appears, you can change it.  Below the photo are 3 horizontal strips of colors in small squares.  Top row is for the roof.  Click on one of the blocks and the roof will become that color.  We picked Caribbean Blue, the 9^th from the left.  For the side we picked Ivory, 3^rd from left, and then Tan trim from the bottom row.  Our building is even simpler than the one used but if you want to play with this idea, choose “Residential” from the very bottom of the page.  Pick one of the photos or try them all.  Some colors work well together, some not so much.

John takes time to keep the garden growing with watering and pulling weeds.  Thus, we were able to pick 7 pounds of yellow squash and a small number of blueberries off one of the new plants.  I talked earlier about the “trained” wild cats, but tonight was a funny story.  John was out working on a fence around the pasture not too far from the cat’s haymow loft, in which they are fed and watered every night.  Cashew (Johnny Cash) and Sue (his mom) came over talking to him; he figures telling him they were ready to be fed.  They went under a nearby horse trailer still meowing.  He finally finished and told them to go back — that he was coming to feed them. They were in their feeding places by the time he got there with the food.  Woody, the darker colored long haired female was there also, but from where she came, we did not see.

Saturday, Aug 4.  Morning started with our builder coming for his backhoe for a day job over past us a couple of miles.  Then John moved the horses out of their pasture into the orchard area to “mow” the grass.  I will finish this blog for him to embellish and post, and return to room cleanup, sorting, recycling, and tossing.  This is a horrible project, but okay for days like today when there are no other events and it is in the 90s outside.  I’m almost out of Acetaminophen, so tomorrow when it will be 100 degrees, we will drive to Yakima to go to Costco (10 AM opening).  Again, it will not be conducive for outside work.  While there we can also fill up with gas at a much better price than in EBRG.  Today the regular is .18/gal cheaper and the premium is .22/gal cheaper.  I don’t know which Subaru we will take.  My 2004 is supposed to use 92-octane (premium), and John’s 2009 takes regular and I think gets better gas mileage than mine.  Still I really like to drive my car better than his.  It is much more comfortable for me.  I don’t know why that is, and his is much more comfortable for him (more head room) than mine.  Go figure.  The more headroom thing is because mine has a sun and moon roof and the 2009 doesn’t.  I’d best stop and get this on its way to you, via John.  He always proofs my writing, adds something and web links to what I start with, and then I have to proof his again.  I need to make a web page of some of the recent pictures, but that will have to wait.  I till haven’t organized the ones from the GA family reunion, nor from the week at music camp in Kittitas, nor the recent pole building documentation.

Hope your week was a good one.

Nancy and John

Still on the Naneum Fan

Friday, July 20  Sent out the blog early, but things still happened after it was published.  John went back outside working on removal of the cross pasture fence.  My accomplishment for the day was sorting, cleaning, and tossing 10 boxes of paper to be recycled, plus a box of used batteries (such as AA).  It was mostly piled on the floor in front of the curved glass china cabinet in the den, in boxes with open tops.  I had to clean out the dust, and dog hair using the vacuum, then pack the boxes full, taping them, and writing on the outside with indelible ink:  Recycle Paper (or Magazines).  The last box I opened had materials from my Urban Geography class.  I sorted through pullng out books and materials to give to geography colleagues still teaching at CWU.  I have already shared all my PowerPoints & notes & books with several for all of my classes, not just Urban.  Tons more stuff is still packed.  We didn’t get around to eating dinner till right before 9:00 p.m.  It was a good stir-fry with pork, cashews, red peppers, onions, all cut up and fried, with cut-up toasted bread the size of croutons on top.

I took a break while John was in the back of the house either working on the computer or contorting his fingers into guitar chord positions.  I spent time washing and picking through drained raspberries and giving them a sprinkling  of sugar.  We had a generous serving over ice cream and hit the hay.  We have a resident doe with twin fawns – still with white spots.  They just went by along the back fence about 30 feet away.

Saturday, July 21  John started the morning by picking more raspberries that I need to clean up and “fix.”  Meanwhile, we had lunch and I have been cleaning out more boxes.  I found a framed certificate of my standing record bowling at Bowlerama in Moscow, ID (when they closed).  My friend Suzanne got it for me and gave it to me after I was in WA.  It’s a nice memory.  The framed certificate reads:

Award of Merit

Nancy Hultquist

bowled a series of 679 in sanctioned competition

at Bowlerama during the 1979-80 season.

This series stands at the highest ever bowled

at Bowlerama from 1958 through the 1996 season.

                                         May 15, 1996

Once I got to WA in 1988, I quit bowling after many years.  I had started in 1957 before I had a social security card and thus could not work for pay, except by bowling and for trade for merchandise or services (free bowling, bowling balls, shirts, and related goods carried there).  It was across the street from my house in Atlanta, GA, in the Broadview Plaza Shopping Center.  There were 32 lanes.

Today our day was full.  We got home late (after 7:00 pm.) from the fun filled party across the valley.  We played a lot of music and had a great audience.  We had 5 very small children dancing and keeping time to the music and one little guy was completely entranced.  I had the microphone for leading the singing and we had 5 fiddlers, 2 mandolins, 2 guitars, and a bass fiddle.  They fed us and it was good.  BBQ chicken legs, the biggest I have seen.  Normally I’m not a leg fan.  Then, salads of all types.  Then a table full of desserts.  I had my share, for sure.  Then we played another hour and finished with a group National Anthem.  No music.  When we got to “the bombs bursting in air” there was a fly-over by seven Air Force B-2 Spirits (aka stealth bombers):

http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/b2/

Okay, just kidding there, but it was a good picnic just the same!

John drove the truck and loaded in comfy plastic lawn chairs and my music stuff, plus a chair for me to play music in (my mom’s old kitchen chair with double fold-out steps).  Had a nice little stool, for putting our drinks on, and a cooler with my lemonade and his Pepsi mixed drink (with soda water).

Tomorrow is a lighter day.  I unloaded two more boxes of stuff today, but these required more thought and decision-making.  Have one for recycle, one for me to put elsewhere in a filing cabinet, and a box of books and materials to take to school for my friends.  It’s going slowly, but it will get done.  Tonight I fixed the raspberries John picked this morning.  During the day, a bunch more ripened.  After we eat these tonight, we will freeze the remainder because of another couple of pounds being picked tomorrow.

Sunday, July 22  Morning included picking another pound of raspberries we shared with friends.  We were away from home a lot today.  Had to run to town and to deliver the berries, and while there, hit 3 yard sales.  Nothing at the last two, and at the first, I bought several packages of some wooden sticks (all for 50 cents) that hopefully we can use as chopsticks on the Cajun fiddlesticks songs we will be learning with cross-tuned fiddles.  I think they were meant for skewers–wooden things to BBQ veggies & meat on.  Don’t know if they are big enough.  We’ll see.  (They turned out to be very usable, and I shared with everyone in the class who had not brought chopsticks.)  I will explain the cross-tuning below.  Also got some free things; one a large circular Christmas glass platter that will use for a potluck dish such as cookies or a pineapple upside down cake.  We went to the school in Kittitas where the music workshop will be to sign in and signed up for some mini-workshops, held after class, later in the day (4:00 to 5:00).  The other thing was to buy a tee shirt for me for the week, and we both picked up our name tags.

I’ve been off working on both violins, mandolin, and tuning John’s guitar.  I thought of taking a mandolin mini-workshop but decided my knowledge and chording ability was not sufficient to gain anything. There is an aging and arthritic fingers class (mini-workshop) John will be taking.  I ended up sitting in on that one too.

I’m taking two violins for the regular classes.

Heard tonight that a woman who plays guitar with our group had a large spruce tree fall on her house in today’s high winds.  It didn’t get above 52 mph at the airport, but the firemen told her there were several downed trees in EBRG and that the winds were 60 mph.  She’s okay but her house is damaged.

Monday, July 23  Today begins the WA Old Time Fiddlers Association summer workshop in Kittitas, WA about 11 miles from our house.  We are scheduled to be there for the organizational meeting, first thing in the morning at 9:00 a.m. in the Gym.  Things got so busy I have forgotten to make notes on this blog.  We both went to our respective classes, and John returned home after his was over at 11:30.  I stayed till the end of mine at 3:30, plus then I went to a mini workshop at 4:00 to 5:00.  John came back and picked me up.  Then that evening I drove back to Kittitas to play in the city’s Gazebo

[Google Earth at:  46.98506, -120.41839 ]

Before zooming in to see the Gazebo, note the red-roofed building in the upper part of the image.  This is the elementary school where the WOTFA meets.  After zooming in to see the Gazebo – zoom out to see the green irrigated Kittitas Valley and the surrounding hills.  Zoom out more and Mt. Rainier will show up to the west, 64 miles from Kittitas.

Anyway, back at the Gazebo, a dozen plus musicians from around the state play tunes for those community members (and ourselves) who showed up.

Tuesday, July 24  This morning started with getting ready to leave for the workshop.  I had to take two extra fiddles today for use in class (to tune differently to play Cajun and an Appalachian tune we are learning in class).  One was my old ¾ size fiddle I had from the 4^th grade.  The other was loaned to me from a friend in our music group who came out to play at our Gazebo performance.  A young girl in my class borrowed my fiddle for the week.  Took my own lunch and stayed till 3:30 when John came to retrieve me and take me to the hospital for a blood draw for my Thyroid test and my INR monthly test.  We came home and John fixed an early dinner, and I drove back out for the Gazebo performance again.  It was very special because a couple of friends from our trail riding club and a lovely lady and two of her family members came out to watch.  The sweet lady was my roommate in 2010 when I was in the rehabilitation center learning how to walk again.  She was such an inspiration to me.  I sang a song just for her and dedicated it to her (You Are My Sunshine), and she was mine.

Wednesday, July 25  Wow, today was another very full day.  We started by leaving home at 8:15 for Kittitas and the old time music workshop.  I had my class from 9:00 to 3:30 and John  took his from 9:00 to 11:30 and went home to take care of the animals.  In my class today, we learned about playing with “fiddlesticks” to add rhythm to Cajun and Appalachian songs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=PY2Z3EQzwGE

The fiddler has to hold one position so the partner keeping time on the neck of the instrument doesn’t have to chase.  The tuning of the fiddle strings must be changed to something called cross-tuning.  Normally they are tuned from low to high, G D A E, but cross-tuning is G D G B.  The A string is tuned to a G an octave higher than the low G string, and the E is tuned down to a B.  WHY? asks John.  I will try to explain.  We used an Open G Tuning.  This allows a drone to happen on adjacent strings, and it is easier to play both strings at once.  Say your melody is on the A string (G in this case), then you can bow the open adjacent string, usually D, and it will fit fine.   If you want to learn about the term drone in music, look at Wikipedia, but shortly, here is an idea:  a drone is a monophone effect (an accompaniment) in which a note (in this case an open string) is continuously sounded along with the tune on an adjacent string).  That’s an explanation for a violin.  Drones on a bagpipe are the 3 higher pipes over the piper’s left shoulder.  On a five-string banjo the fifth string is a drone.

John returned at 3:30 and we both attended a great mini workshop on planning for shows in the community, and all the warnings about things to consider (is the instrument in tune?).  We left there for town to meet my teacher and her daughter for a Chinese dinner.  We had a great visit, and didn’t get home till almost 9:00 p.m.  It was just before dark, so John could still see to feed the outside animals.  I sat down for a 10 minute rest, but spent a lot of time instead on emails.  Now I have to get up and put up raspberries that John picked this morning.  Early morning picking is in the shade, it’s cool, and there are no bees or wasps.

Thursday, July 26  Supposed to be warm today (lower 90s) with no wind.  It’s another long day with a performance tonight in the Gazebo, all day classes, and the mini-workshop for “aging fingers, etc.” at 4:00 to 5:00.  John’s been trying hard and practicing each night but it is still a very hard “reach” for him to get his fingers on the chords.  He is using small-chords, such as fretting the first string (on the 3^rd fret) for the G note and then using just the 4 strings as D G B G  — not doing the low (5^th & 6^th) strings; those on the left in this diagram:

http://www.play-acoustic-guitar.com/images/GMaj-Free-Guitar-Chord-Chart.png

Well, the workshop on aging was nothing like we expected.  It was a little weird, actually.  Mostly people were sitting in a circle sharing stories about things wrong with the body that affect music playing.  John and I BOTH expected something entirely different–such as simpler ways to finger a chord if your hands were stiff and arthritic like (as the above explanation).  Nothing like that.  I don’t even think I will try to describe it entirely.  I guess a few people there enjoyed it and shared some similar dietary and pain control items, but many of them were into the need for no caffeine, no sugar (yet they all ate fruit in some form, so John and I both wonder how they rationalize the natural sugars there).  Also, we were advised to avoid red meat and even chicken, maybe allowed some fish.  Nothing from the “nightshade” family that includes potatoes and tomatoes.  Yikes!

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=george&dbid=62

We weren’t convinced.  We got home about 5:30, did the usual chores, and fixed a late dinner of stir-fry “red” meat (beef), red peppers, sweet potatoes, and toast.  It was wonderful.  I went back in to the park Gazebo tonight and had a really nice time.  Several of our friends were there, and we got to visit a little before and a little after.  John stayed home to take care of the animals.  Tomorrow is our last day of the workshop.  We’ll have morning classes, and then the all week class recital will occur starting at 1:00 p.m.  Those are always fun.

Friday, July 27  Well we both made it through the week.  Hard to keep up with the 10-yr old hot shot in my class, but I made it and memorized our play tune medley for class.  It was very well done, but I failed to start the video on my camera.  I turned the camera on, but didn’t hit the button– duh.  So I did not get our performance on video.  Dang.  I had a great place set up on the table out front with the sound controls that would have captured the whole group.  I did get one in the classroom on our last practice session.  So all is not lost, but I failed to get the recital and Roberta Pearce and her daughter Katrina Nicolayeff played the Cajun cross-tuned fiddle piece together, Fiddlesticks, with Katrina hammering on the strings with the “fiddlesticks” (chopsticks).  I had hoped to put this out for folks to see, and because that is not possible, the one linked to above will have to do.  That will come later when I get some of them out on You Tube and fix up a web page linking to them.  All that takes time I do not have a lot of.  We didn’t get home till 3:30; gone since 8:10.  The dogs and Rascal (cat) got along fine without us.  All of them go in and out of the house through the “doggie door.”  That was good.  John took them for a run soon as we got back, and I went through the mail.  Our building permit (for a pole building) was delivered, but with restrictions (two) to the design criteria.  I would have never thought to call and be sure that a copy had gone to the contractor, but John said I should call the County and ask.  Sure enough.  Ours was sent and there was a copy in the file, but the contractor was not sent a copy.  Wouldn’t you think?  We certainly cannot revise and resubmit the specs about the height of the building (above 16′) or the Truss plan change.  Jeez.  I got on the phone to the County and reached the contractor on his cell before 5:00 p.m. so I could tell him about the required changes. The county had sent him a copy of the letter although they said they had not.  The reviewer apparently did not turn the pages over because what he wanted had been submitted (truss plans and specifications, properly stamped) – he just didn’t “see” them.  And we were wanting an 18 foot clearance but must have an architect review and stamp plans for heights over 16 feet.  That used to be 24 feet in the code.  Nothing much would be gained to have the extra 2 feet but it would cost a fee and delay of about 3 weeks.  No thanks.  [Unloading hay from a Harobed with 18 feet is easier, but can be done at 16.]

Then we turned around and went back out to the evening performance.  I had not signed up with anyone, because I didn’t expect I would have the energy to return, but right before 7:00, John asked if I felt as if I wanted to go.  I had invited some friends and I thought, well, why not.  We did, and it was interesting.  I carried my violin, and I could have joined a group at the end for the last two songs, I’ll Fly Away, and Red Wing, if I had had a clue they were going to do that.  By the time I realized it, they were well into the first song, which I thought was the last.  It wasn’t — so next year I will know to put together a small group of friends for our own performance, and then play at the end with others.  Live and learn.  We got home late but before dark so John could feed the horses and the cats, but we hadn’t eaten dinner.  He fixed a frozen pizza – after a week of running back and forth to places the fridge was depleted of fresh food.  Nothing special is happening with us for a few days, but we have plenty to do around the house, yard, and garden.

It is Jazz in the Valley weekend, but I am not interested.

http://www.jazzinthevalley.com/

Several years ago my friends and I would perform in the Kittitas County Historical Museum, but they have gone to more commercial groups being brought in.  It’s not our cup of tea, metaphorically.  Other drinks will be abundant in EBRG these 3 days – a good reason to stay out of town.  They are going to have nice weather – well, out-of-town visitors may sense some wind, but for EBRG folks, gusts under 30 mph go unnoticed.

Hope your week was a good one.

Nancy and John

Still on the Naneum Fan

Subtitle: Happy findings about Wilkins Family History in Seattle

Saturday, July 7.  Got the blog out at 4:00 p.m.  Phew.  Spent the day as much as possible in the house because of the high temperatures.  Supposedly, at the airport, 5 mi. south of us, it got to 100, but it never went above 93 on our front porch.

To compare locations, put the following coordinates [  47.033, -120.53  ] into Google Earth and then zoom in (and out).  The temperature sensor and other equipment is inside the circle (made of large concrete Jersey-barriers as seen on highways):

http://www.americanconcrete.com/commercial/barriers/Jersey-Barrier.jpg

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mtr/cpm/mmts.php

There are established standards about the location of these things but many are not properly sited.  See here for an example:

http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/2007/06/how_not_to_measure_temperature_12.html

Our small thermometer closely resembles this one:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005NN9E.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

. . . with the unit on the right located under the overhang near the front door.  By late afternoon shade is all about but there is still lingering heat in the house and concrete from earlier in the day.  So, we measure temperature at the house and the airport measures temperature very close to the runways.  That makes sense to pilots.  If we had a unit that would send a signal about 200 feet we could have one out under the big trees down by the creek.  That would be interesting but we don’t live down there.  Well, no one lives in that little circle at the airport either, but that’s what the National Weather Service uses to report our Ellensburg temperature:

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?CityName=Ellensburg&state=WA&site=PDT&textField1=46.9967&textField2=-120.547&e=0

So, back to our activities:  We finished putting up the strawberries and then had some for dessert on ice cream.  Tomorrow, it will be warm again.

Sunday, July 8  I expect John will be up early to get the chores done before it gets hot.  He was, but it got hot anyway.  The high for the day was 104 and lasted over 3 hours at the airport.  We never saw the temperatures as high on our front porch; only got to 96 or so.  It was a lot hotter in the direct sun.  John watered the thirsty raspberry bushes, and they were quite happy ~~ not ours, but soon:

http://www.raspberries.us/three-raspberries-636.jpg

We stayed inside during the heat of the day; doing all sorts of things.  I spent time writing music for our group.  Today I finished Hi Li-li, Hi Li-li Hi Lo as well as I Want a Girl (Just like the girl that married dear old Dad.)  Those scores were given to me by our banjo player Evelyn, who found them in a songbook she has.  Now I’m ready to start I’ll Fly Away.  I brought that sheet music back from GA.

Also today, John and I got on separate computers with Google Earth, and found the spot where my grandparents (from GA) raised 3 children while in Seattle, while my granddad worked on construction of the Smith Building (built from 1909 to 1914).  Today it’s called the Smith Tower, and once it was the tallest in town.  They built their house in southwest Seattle, south and up the hill from Fauntleroy Way (the end of the electric trolley line south from Seattle), on the NE corner of SW 44th Ave and SW 102nd St.  My cousin Susan and her husband John (yes there are many Johns in the family) plan to fly to Seattle July 18th and wanted to see the old house.  John and I had taken Granny there back when we were still living in Idaho.  She flew up, and we drove to Seattle, picked her up at the airport, spent the night in a motel, and then came back to Idaho after showing her around Seattle, and the finding old house.  I don’t remember the date, but someday we will turn up the old slides we took and they will have a date on them.

Still hot; but cooling off.  There are thunderstorms south of us.  The lights are occasionally blinking.  Apparently, there were some serious (lightning-ignited) house fires south of us in Yakima.  It was colorful and very windy and rainy here.  I heard from a former student in Moxee that lightning struck some houses.  Very sad.  We didn’t have any strikes or even noise here; just lots of flashing lights.  It beat the neighborhood fireworks on the 4th.

Monday, July 9  Wonderful progress on finding out about the house my grandfather built in Seattle.  I’ll outline what I found out.  Here’s the scoop– from what I wrote Susan and John who plan to visit the house next week.  I’m sure they were only planning to drive by, but they are thrilled they will get to go inside and see the work of our grandfather, long ago.  The house was built in 1913.

I found out the real address of the property is 10122 44TH AVE SW Seattle, WA 98146.  You can look that up on Google Maps or Google Earth, and drag the little orange man to get street views.  However, be careful, the photos are taken before the garage was built there in 2004 on the old foundation.  I got access to the King County Assessor’s records on line, and found  many details about the house as well as the owners.  My former student Nizar (now working in Renton, WA) sent me the link and then a worker from King County Assessor’s Office called me (in response to an email I sent them).  He didn’t know the address, which Nizar had found, so I gave him the information, and he walked me through the extra pictures in their database.  I had only found one photo, which was of the garage.  Then he gave me the name of the Archive where they put all information from before 1982.  I have yet to contact those folks in Bellevue, WA.  The Assessor’s office does not have that much room on line to store it.  I found the owners’ names in the database records for the parcel, and then I looked them up on switchboard.com finding out where they live and their phone number.  Their son is living in the house.  I talked to the lady for almost a half hour.  She was very happy and interested to hear about the history of the house.  Her name is Sue W., and her husband is Roy.  Their son is Matt.  She is willing to give my cousin Susan and her husband John a tour of the house next week.  Ironically, the son is a Carpentry Contractor.  My granddad was a carpenter working in construction projects.  I find that really ironic.  The son added a garage on the old footprint (which had rooms in the back probably used for a chicken house), and he kept the architectural design of the main house.  There have been some rooms added in place of the old sun porch out front, and the son uses that as his office space.  He also refinished the “fir” floors in the kitchen and has not destroyed the bin-type (tip out) cabinets for potatoes and such off the kitchen, that were built into the space by my granddad. This couple bought it in 1986, for $58,000.  [Likely within 2 years of our visit with Granny.]  It only has one bedroom, but now has an appraised value (for taxes) of $266,000.  I forgot to say that the stained glass windows are still in the front room of the house.  Susan and John are going to visit the owners next Thursday afternoon/evening and get an inside tour of the house.  How exciting!  We have appointments we cannot change, which keeps us from driving over to join them for a few hours and for the tour of the house.  Susan assured me she would take her camera and record the event.

Meanwhile, I also managed to call about my violin shoulder pad that didn’t fit my violin (too large), but it fits my viola.  I called to see if I could figure out what I should have ordered, and I asked if they sold medical tubing I could use to recover mine that has  deteriorated over the past 15 years.  The sales rep I spoke with said she had the same need awhile ago, and she went and bought two feet for 50 cents.  She is in Rhode Island.  She was willing to share some with me, and took my name and address to send it.  I hope that happens.  I am anxiously awaiting it.

I was able to send out 9 jobs today from the jobslist.  It now has 520 recipients.

John went outside for an hour with our farrier to put the wedges in shoes on Ebony’s front feet to relieve some of the stress on her bowed tendon.  John is still doctoring her twice a day.  I threw leftovers together for supper while John took care of the horses and cats.  It didn’t start cooling down till right before 9:00 p.m. when it finally reached 81, from a high of 105.  I haven’t looked to see what’s on tap for tomorrow.  I do have to go to town for an appointment at 5:30.  I had made it later in the day, to coordinate with music at 6:30 on Tuesday night, but that was cancelled for the month of July (and August).  John and I will soon be enjoying raspberries on ice cream (from last year).  He picked only five raspberries today, and within a day or so, he’ll be able to start adding to the freezer.  Tomorrow may produce some more strawberries for him to pick as well.  The strawberries really don’t do well in this much heat.

Tuesday, July 10  Nothing till 5:30, a shoulder/neck massage for Nancy.  It was a rather rough session, but I think it was successful.  My shoulders are quite affected by the tenseness of the tendons and muscles that control them and are near my neck.  I wish I knew the names of them and something about the condition.  It seems to be aggravated by my playing fiddle, which is unfortunate considering how much I enjoy doing that.

Wednesday, July 11  Noon playtime at the Soup Kitchen/Food Bank, followed by SAIL exercise.

It was awfully hot (no a/c) at the noon lunch & play/sing date, but the food was super–donated by Ellensburg Pasta Company, including spaghetti, tomato sauce w/ bratwurst pieces and all topped with cheese.  Quite yummy, and included sides of mixed green salad with tomatoes, watermelon, pears, and garlic bread.  Once home John and I had an afternoon snack — a piece of carrot cake covered with strawberries from yesterday evening’s work.  John went out this morning and picked about 5 more pounds and he fixed them while I was in town.  They haven’t been frozen yet, so we will have some for dinner, and then before bed, we put them in freezer Ziploc bags.

I took in the 3 new songs for Evelyn and me to try out, and we made some changes that I have to do.  I need to lower Hi-Li-li, Hi-lo to the key of C from G, so we can sing it.  I also have some note changes and one chord to change in I Want A Girl, and I made up and added a newly created verse, “I want a guy, just like the guy that married dear old Mom.  He was a jewel and the only one that Mamma ever had;  A neat old gentleman with heart so true, one who loved nobody else but her.  Oh, I want a guy, just like the man that married dear ol’ Mom.

I added two more verses to I’ll Fly Away; there was only one on the music I transcribed from.  Evelyn knew at least one more.  I found a nice rendition of a You Tube video by Randy Travis, where I got the rest of the lyrics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLka8rRyIGg

However, there is a great story that goes with the original lyrics, written in 1932.  I have reproduced it on our new web site, at the link below:

http://www.ellensburg.com/nancyh/LyricsPlusStoryI’llFlyAway.html

I really don’t need any more work to do, but it is too hot to do anything anyway… even house cleaning.  God forbid I should want to do that!   I did load the dishwasher when I got home.

Thursday, July 12  Our 43rd anniversary.  We had a rather busy day.  John worked a lot outside on chores including with the horses.  I stayed inside most of the morning working on music corrections on the 3 songs we tested yesterday.  Today I carried copies for everyone, and we did amazingly well as a group, on the new ones, before we played our regular stuff.  Charlie brought their visitor from Belarus (Paulina, till Sept 9th), who is part of the Children of Chernobyl project here in the states.  Today’s meeting was 2:00 at the Rehab where I had physical therapy for 7 weeks after ICU in the beginning of 2010.  It was amazingly cool in there today.  Normally it is very warm.  We didn’t have much time after getting home, but we both rested.  Then we took off for a 7:00 meeting of our trail riding club.  A local veterinarian (Sam, for Samantha) spoke on the topic of laminitis in horses.  Sadly, we have experienced this twice.

Friday, July 13  Nothing much planned but I went to SAIL exercise and took my 86 yr old friend to do some shopping afterward.  She needs assistance with reading labels, because of her macular degeneration.  John did an amazing amount of yard and animal work yesterday, until late.  He was worn out and so I helped put together dinner.  That’s about the first time in 3 years for my creating a dinner from scratch.  He has been extremely supportive of me forever.

Saturday, July 14  This is our day to play music and be fed at Briarwood Commons retirement home (a series of individual apartments at a reduced rate).  I picked up my friend again on the way in and she enjoyed visiting with old friends and listening to us play music.  She was able to sing along on many songs (we gave them the lyrics to most things we played).  There were only THREE of us there today, two violins and a mandolin (occasionally he was on violin).  What a nice food spread today!  Three plates of little ¼ -sized sandwiches of tuna salad, chicken salad, and egg salad; a bowl of green salad; a bowl of cut fresh large strawberries; a bowl with cut up pineapple, cherries, and mandarins in a white sugar sauce.  Wait, there’s more! Another bowl of a different and very good homemade chicken spread with Triscuits.  Some Sun Chips and a whole table full of desserts including a birthday cake for one of the residents.  We sang Happy Birthday at the start and at the end to her.  Also on the dessert table were homemade chocolate chip cookies, frosted butter-sugar cookies, pound cake, and other goodies.  One of the residents who sat on the front row with my friend is 99 years old.  Afterwards, I took my friend to Fred Meyer to pick up her meds.  On the way home, it started looking like rain and a few drops fell on me on the way home and for my walk into the house.  I put on my large sombrero from the car, to act as an umbrella.  The clouds never produced much rain, but there was a storm with thunder north of us on the mountains.  Now it is cloudy and cooling down.  John rested and then went out to work in the yard again, leaving me to finish the blog for this week.  He is removing a fence between two parts of our pasture where our new pole building will soon be.  Film at 11 – just kidding.

Sunday the high is supposed to be just 78 – then slowly rising through the week with some thunderstorms in the area.

Hope your week was a good one.

Nancy and John

Still on the Naneum Fan

Saturday, June 30  Some of this you heard part of the story in last week’s blog, but the afternoon BBQ changed a little from the original plans.  We drove to Roslyn, the place where Northern Exposure was filmed between 1990 and 1995,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Exposure

up through town on Pennsylvania Ave, to our friends’ house on the hill on the way up to the old cemetery.  Roslyn was historically a mining community and the cemetery is filled with numerous cultural artifacts from all the different nationalities and ethnicities, represented in the town over time.

This comment is from Wikipedia:

“Between 1886 and 1929, workers came from countries such as Italy, Poland, Germany, Lithuania, Slovenia, Serbia and Croatia as well as from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales to work in the mines. These immigrants maintained the traditions of their homeland, as seen in the historic Roslyn Cemetery with its 26 individual ethnic and lodge cemeteries. Many Roslyn residents today are descendants of these immigrant miners.”

What’s neat to me is that my grandmother, Alouisa Petash Wilkins, was from present-day Slovenia.  Okay, back to the BBQ.  We were there early, but actually sat around and visited until the bratwurst, all beef hot dogs, veggie burgers, sirloin burgers, and corn were grilled.  People brought some neat salads and we had taken a large pan of our Cherry-Blueberry-Walnut Cobbler.  We didn’t get back to EBRG to pick up some music for tomorrow until quite late, and got home, even later.  John still had all the animal chores to do (exercising dogs, and feeding all the outside cats and the horses).

Sunday, July 1  Truly this is a day of rest (at least for me, as I slept in).  John started early on the computer and then out to move the rest of the hay into the barn.  He loaded all but 19 bales, because he had to stop to train (remind) Jazz that he is not supposed to walk away from him in the field when he walks toward and calls him.  John has been fitting in horse-training sessions with the younger horses for some time now.  It is sunny and no longer rainy, so that is nice.  He came in to cool down and for a mid-day nap, and we just finished the last of the Jewel strawberries fixed in the fridge.  He will go pick more this afternoon and give me another chore.  Today I must spend time on getting the music together that a few folks were missing for tomorrow’s EBRG – BBQ & musical performance.  It’s in fairly good shape so won’t take a lot of my time.  The major thing I must do today is give John a haircut.  I have needed to do it for several weeks.  I surely wish we had put in the price of a haircut over the years since I have been cutting it.  We would have a nice nest egg for retirement!  (Unfortunately, the haircut never got done in time for the events we attended this week).

Monday, July 2  Patriotic music in Ellensburg today (our group played for an early 4th of July Picnic inside the Hal Holmes community center next to the city library).  We began playing music at 11:45 and played for over an hour.  The first and last songs were the same, and everyone in the room stood and saluted the flag.  We sang the national anthem a cappella with the audience.  It was moving.  After we played and sang a number of songs, including patriotic ones and songs about the USA, we were treated to a free lunch, consisting of hamburgers, hot dogs, beans, potato salad, macaroni salad, large sliced tomatoes, lettuce, chips, watermelon, lemonade, and ice cream.  We also had a nice visit over lunch.  Shortly after I almost finished my lunch, my friend Karen, came in with her accordion and her packets of music lyrics for everyone in the audience to have access to the words for the sing-along.  I went on the stage with her and we lead the group, singing and playing our respective instruments, for another 45 minutes.  It’s no wonder my body ached from all the bowing activity.

Tuesday, July 3  Today marks the day 2 weeks ago that I received a box in the mail from John’s sister, Peggy, in Ohio, with a neat Hohner Melodica with a 27-key keyboard.  It is a German-made instrument her friend Kathy had for use in the classroom years ago (she recently died at 86).  It is an instrument one blows on and plays similar to an accordion, with a smaller keyboard–the only problem is you cannot play and sing at the same time! (Ha ha).  It was so nice that she shared it with me.  In addition, she included two music books, one of them songs of the sixties by Peter, Paul, and Mary.  I’m thrilled with that so I can put the music into my software to make for the groups with which I sing.  Folk songs are ALWAYS popular.  It is impossible to find music scores on line free anymore.  The other book is a beginning guitar book, which John can use to learn.

John picked over 5 lbs. strawberries this morning, and we fixed them and froze 4 packages before I went to the imaging session at the hospital for a mammogram follow-up to the one 6 months ago.  It was a tough session; being a complete regular mammogram, followed by four magnification X-rays.  Lifting my arms out of my range of motion, and leaning in and turning my head was painful, and trying to get around the ICD while being squeezed for the X-rays.  Filled the car’s gas tank on the way home and came back for lunch.  John is taking the truck and dropping me off for an acupuncture treatment at 2:00.  He’ll go do some shopping and then pick me up and we will go over to pick up the travel trailer.  It took us an hour and a half to deal with the trailer.  The head of the service department charged me for certain things, but also threw in other stuff free (e.g., fixed the screen door that was missing a push piece to close out bugs; steam cleaned the carpet; gave me the battery warranty free).  He installed a new 12-volt battery.  Filled our water tank, propane tanks free, and put gasoline in the new generator.  This afternoon we bought a water line replacement and the connections for the sewer hose.  He showed us how to start the propane fridge and water heater, plus the inside room heater.  Before that, he had shown us how to start the generator, turn on, and adjust the newly installed a/c.  They had fixed the wiring on the tail light that was screwed up, and replaced all running lights, tail light bulb, and many little things on the trailer for connections or door access that needed fixed.  They had to change the wiring connection to the electronic brakes and the power to the trailer.  So much for buying an old trailer “as is” at a good price.  We paid for the rest of the work and left for home.  I have been hydrating myself with lemonade ever since getting home because of all the stuff done to my body today.  I should have taken a nap, but now it is too late.

Wednesday, July 4  Happy Fourth of July!  Both John and I slept in, worn out from our activities of yesterday.  We drove an hour to George, WA for two free concerts and a free piece of a giant cherry pie (with a slab of ice cream for an additional 50 cents).  While there, we met and visited with our friends since 1988 at CWU, Jim Hinthorne (and his wife Jean), who was a geologist that I team-taught GIS with, once arriving.  There were 3 courses we teamed on, all with UNIX based G.R.A.S.S.  (Intro GIS, Advanced GIS, and Database Development).  He has since retired and they own a large motor home that is their home on wheels, pulling a car behind it.  They have come up to Crescent Bar on the Columbia River to stay for several weeks, and come to Ellensburg to visit their daughter’s family.  It was a nice reunion (only 20 miles up the hill from the Columbia River, to meet us in George).  The music groups playing were “Jangles” (Seattle’s Premier Western Swing Band) at noon, and at 1:30 a young group of boys, called “North Country,” played Bluegrass.  We met our friends about 1:00 p.m. and enjoyed a great visit under a huge Hackberry Elm tree, with a view of the stage and the two musical groups.  They brought their dogs, and many of the youngsters enjoyed petting them.  We stayed until 5:00!  I was so tired when we got home I laid down for at least an hour; never went to sleep but vegetated well.  Our neighbors started fireworks before dark, and finally have stopped, we hope.  Two of the dogs get anxious and the horses get excited but what they think is unknown.  Even though the Britts are “bird” dogs we haven’t done much with the current group.  The CWU era was not conducive to training and field trails. We transitioned to short horse rides early and that has waned with my health issues.  One dog settles for a crate and the youngest one goes between John and me, wanting attention and assurance.  I think she picks up on her mom’s anxiety.  Thankfully, the other two Brittanys were fine with the noise.  John also went out twice to give the horses some carrots to keep them calm.  Our neighbor – other side of a row of trees from our pasture – was setting off large firecrackers and a few aerial rockets.

Thursday, July 5  Nancy slept in and John started early with chores.  We will be playing music at Royal Vista nursing home and delivering packing boxes to a friend for moving across town.  That got done along with several other things.  Now it is after dinner, and it’s late, but we need to fix strawberries.  They are lovely looking.  John picked a big mess of them; all beautiful and large – variety = Jewels.  They would win a blue ribbon at the county fair, but it is not till Sept 1 weekend, and they will be done by then.  We just fixed them up and have 3.5 pounds of strawberries to freeze.  Now from last night we will have some on our ice cream before falling into bed.

Friday, July 6  Started with having an estimate for a pole building to house hay and our travel trailer.  John took Ebony to the vet for a bad front left leg – bowed tendon.

http://www.mdhorse.com/showarticle.asp?kk=50

$150 later, we have medicine for her pain and will need to get her front feet shod with lifts to relieve some pressure.   She’s getting rather old and we haven’t ridden her in the last 10 years or more – for the very reason that she has had this before, and as the linked article indicates, these injuries easily get worse and never really fully heal. Late in the afternoon, I drive to Silver Ridge Ranch to play music for a square dance for young people on the (Puget Sound area) Mormon trek re-enactment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon_handcart_pioneers#Reenactments

[Start at the top of the link for a fuller story.]

We will be there from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m..  Here I am, reporting back after the last 4+ hours.  I am quite tired from my escapades.  I stopped off at the Cottage Cafe in Cle Elum and had a nice layered breakfast for dinner at 4:45 p.m., a Corned Beef Hash Skillet, with hash browns, choice of eggs (3 I think), corned beef hash and covered with cheddar cheese.  Last time I had my eggs over easy, but this time I had them scrambled.  I had salsa on it.  Also, it came with toast, so I had an English muffin with strawberry jam.  It was funny how I ordered it.  I asked to have 1/2 of it packaged to take with me, and I intended to eat a half there sitting at the counter on a barstool.  Well, not exactly.  I had one piece of the toast, and couldn’t eat all of the 1/2 served, so I added the remainder into the package to go.  I should have asked for only 1/3 to eat, as it is an extremely generous portion of food.  I put the carton inside my cooler for the trip to the square dance play date and then on home.  We will eat the remainder tomorrow.  I was frustrated to see the price of gas in Cle Elum at a cash-only place, was $ 2.43/gal., when I had paid $2.61 a few days before in EBRG. They will take credit cards but add 10¢ per gallon.  John had found this place last week when I was out of town, while traveling to the Buck Brannaman horse training clinic.

Where we played tonight was only 15 miles west on I-90 from supper and is called Silver Ridge Ranch.  The place is mainly an RV park but horses are encouraged, and John and I have ridden before on the roads and trails there.  I was vaguely familiar with the surroundings, so I managed to find the area where we played without too much effort.  The musicians had never played together before (not more than a pair).  Two Asian violinists are brother and sister.  Bob and I play together in two groups.  The other violinist has never played with any of us.  The keyboard player and bass had played together, the guitar player has played before with Bob, and once, I guess with me, long ago.  It was our first time to play together as a group, and we did amazingly well.  The violins and guitar had electric pickups on our instruments so we could be heard.

The kids were good sports, but they had not had any lessons in square dancing, and there was not a caller there.  We started them out with Oh, Johnny, Oh, which has square dance calls in the words of the song.  Therefore, we had to teach them dosado, allemande left, promenade, and a few other movements.

http://noriks.tripod.com/ENGLISH/514100e.html

The leader could not carry a tune, and kept getting out of synch with our musical accompaniment.  So, after several failures, I took the microphone from him and lead the group.  Considering I have never done that in my life, it was rather neat.  I think I last square dance I danced was in elementary school.  I only called the one song, multiple times.  After that we just taught them the moves, described it, or had someone from the audience demo (for example, a couple from the RV park joined in and taught them to waltz, later, after the Oh, Johnny, Oh stuff).  The kids eventually got very good at that.  We also taught them the Grand March, where they pair off finally up to 8 people across.  It was fun to watch, finally, when it all came together.  We played from 6:00 to 8:00, and for the 15 minutes previous, trying to get used to one another and get the volumes on the microphones correctly balanced.  The drive home was troublesome because of the setting sun that was blinding in the mirrors.  I had to keep changing them (side ones and the rear view one).  It took me just under an hour to return, however.  My body was also aching from all the action playing and climbing down and back into the bowl, carrying instruments, and other equipment.  I used my mom’s old kitchen chair (with steps), a nice old stool, that I can prop my feet on the stairs, and also put a pillow in it.

While I was gone, John picked a bunch of strawberries and fixed them.  We had a bunch on ice cream when I got home.  We are planning for Sat. — in the heat of the day — to freeze the rest and include some to be picked in the cool morning.  Also, while I was gone, my family physician reported in an email that my mammogram was fine and showed no more signs of calcification for which to be concerned.  That’s a big relief.

Saturday, July 7  I was very tired and slept in, putting a heated bag of flaxseed on my upper right arm and then on my neck.  John went outside to do many chores, especially watering things, as we are expecting full sun and 96 degrees today and 98 on Sunday.  I am extremely happy we have a/c in our house.  We opened up the windows last night and brought the inside temp to about 72.   Now we’ve closed the windows and won’t need the a/c until late afternoon.  Well, we both just went out in the hot sun nearly to the far end of the pasture, to doctor Ebony.  John hollowed out a carrot and inserted powdered phenobarbital and sugar.  Once she got a taste of it, she spit it out.  He held her mouth shut and tipped up and got most of it ingested.  He removed two bandages and put on a liquid spray called equine leg paint.  Good I was along to hold her lead and shoo away the other horses.  Maybe he will get this posted on the blog in a timely fashion now, and we will then do our work in the kitchen on the strawberries.  Thankfully, we do not have any scheduled events for Saturday or Sunday, and not even Monday, except for my SAIL exercise class, which I have missed all this week.

Hope your week was a good one.

Nancy and John

Still on the Naneum Fan

 

Well, Nancy went off to rural Georgia for a family reunion.  Did I mention it is in the deep south?  And rural.  Far enough away that she doesn’t have cell phone connection and the in-house computer is a WOW:

http://mywowcomputer.com/

We were expecting her to send some info for me to cut and paste into a report, but that isn’t happening.  Also, I have been leaving every morning to observe at a horse clinic by Buck Brannaman

http://www.brannaman.com/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_Brannaman

I can say that Nancy has been very busy and is having a good time.

She is to fly back into Yakima late Tuesday, just before Midnight.  I don’t expect her to be doing much for a day or so after that.

South Georgia got a bit of rain and temps in the low 90s.  Here the weather feels like mid-February.  Did I mention we sat and watched the horses with rain, sun, rain, thunder, a small bit of hail, and more rain.  A slight chance of all of the previous – plus wind – on Monday.

We will try to post again early Saturday – last day of June.

Cheers,

John

 

Saturday, June 9  Not a good day in my memory of 2009, but I survived and that’s all that really matters; thanks always again to all my caregivers, particularly John.  Today is CWU graduation and until I got sick, I attended every graduation.  I sat on the front row, got up and took pictures of my students, as they came down the ramp, and gave each a hug.  I often also participated in the “hooding” of our Resource Management graduate masters students.  I watched the 2009 event on TV from the ICU at the Kittitas Valley Community Hospital in Ellensburg that year.  This year the afternoon commencement ceremonies end at 3:30, so we will not be going in till later to meet my former student.  The wind is whipping at 41mph, so I’m happy I’m not out there in the stadium.  Now it is up to 43mph in the last hour.  Now an hour later it’s “down” to 40mph!  [John just took the dogs for another short exercise before we get dressed to be ready to “run” to town.]  We both got dressed early but we will be ready to rush out when he calls.  I emailed a few folks some pictures of the new travel trailer, the old motor home awning, and of the fixed feral cats.  Great advice from my Arizona John friend.  He made a good comment about the problem with opening the doors with the awning down, and ripping it, because of the small distance above the doors on the trailer.  The RV folks will be installing it, not us, so they should know, but I will suggest it.

We cannot drive the motor home (needs motor repaired), and we cannot repair the roof, which has leaked and rotted from snow piled up on it.  So, we are going to take what we can from it, have it towed in, and “give” it to them.  It gets rid of it.  We could not sell it; that we know.  They have the trailer now, to estimate how much it will be to install a new a/c unit and buy a generator, which we will be able to use around our place (the Rock’n Ponderosa) when not needing it on the trailer.

We ended up not going to town to meet my former student.  He cancelled out because he was tied up till after 6 and still needed to drive home to Renton.  He will be back later with his wife.  He was waiting to surprise me, but she couldn’t come with him this trip.  The wind is still blowing hard, has been all day and night, and we are ready to hit the hay.

Sunday, June 10  Awoke to more sustained breezes.  John’s out working in it, and I’m inside washing clothes, dishes, and sorting.  The sun is out.  Nothing on the agenda today that requires our going to town.  I am scheduled to do John’s haircut today, however.  (It didn’t happen.)  John managed to unroll the awning today.  It almost blew away in the wind, but he was able to see it only had one tiny little “hole” at the top by the clamp, probably from a bee’s nest, but otherwise it is in fine condition.  Nothing else new.  John watered specific plants and moved around irrigation water (plastic dams in ditches), some with hoses.  We haven’t seen Rascal since last night.  Really hope the cat screams we heard last night were not him being caught by an owl or a coyote.  He usually comes in during the night or early morning and he’s not been around.  Usually he sleeps on the bed through the day.  Our plans changed at 3:30 this afternoon when I got a phone call from the friend who had to leave yesterday.  He was back in Ellensburg with his wife, Sarah!  We got ready and drove to town to meet them for a visit.  When we got home, Rascal had returned.  Who knows where he was all night and day.  Too bad animals cannot talk.  They try, but we cannot understand them.

Monday, June 11  I went to acupuncture today and he worked on the pain in my neck and tight muscles there.  Also determined he thinks I’m anemic, so I have a call in for my family physician and to my cardiologist.  I cannot eat the prescribed spinach, and so we wonder if I need to take iron pills.  Then on to SAIL exercise class and home to put heat on my neck.  My family physician called and talked with me and suggested I get another blood test with my normal INR test, next week before I leave.

Tuesday, June 12  Appointments in town today, one a dental one, and the other closer to home, for my haircut, plus in the evening I go to play religious music with The Connections, this time at Hearthstone Cottage.  John said I would be wiped out from the dentist, and I am, but it went okay, the build-up.  Only problem is I still have a food catching hole (missing tooth) behind it, and so my dentist said we could fix it with a bridge.  Problem with that is I have to pay for 3 teeth, and the two on either side of the missing tooth must have crowns.  We already started the one today.  Then I’ll need to have the filling taken out of the back one and replaced with a crown to support the bridge.  It will cost me 3 times $750, and I can only have one bridge in a year covered by insurance.  The insurance pays the rest of the $3102.  The only nice thing is that if I have to have another isolated crown, I still can have it, and pay $750.  I still will save a little money, even with the insurance costing $70/month.  The cost on one crown at my dentist is $1072.  The only bad thing is I am scheduled for 9:30 the day I return from my rural Georgia reunion.  Thus, from Guyton, to Savannah, Seattle, Atlanta, Yakima (ETA at Midnight), and then home.  When I went for my haircut today, my hairdresser sent a bunch of different colored Iris home with me for John to plant.  There are purple (light and dark), yellow, white, blue, a variegated one called ‘stairs to heaven’, and a salmon colored one.  Neither horses or deer eat iris, so he is planting in an enclosed space between two dry-lots where he has some young Ponderosa Pines.  The Iris will be taller than the Pines for a few years and then the trees will start to shade them for a few years.  In the future the lower limbs of the trees can be cut off and then there will be shade directly under them during mid-day.  Now I went to work in the kitchen, opened the window and it is raining !!  Well, enough to wet the concrete.  While John was still in the house and I was eating my late lunch, we got a phone call about the travel trailer.  They have assessed that they can get a roof top a/c unit (Dometic Brisque Air) and install it for just under $1000.  Still need to get a generator and pay them to replace the awning from our motor home, and then build a building for protecting it from snow buildup and have extra space for hay (just now ripening in the Valley).  We are doing our part to kick-start the local economy.

Wednesday, June 13  John has taken off early for the dentist for his teeth cleaning.  Mine is next week before I take off for GA.  Tonight we attend a talk on the causes of Ice Ages and Glaciers using evidence from of the Cascades, with emphasis on the Valley of Icicle Creek (near Leavenworth).  I finally left for town (no I never yet did John’s hair, and won’t till Sunday, probably).   Today I played at the Food Bank Soup Kitchen.  We had quite a group of singers.  Three people (our groupies) sat at the table right in front of us and sang along, along with one of the volunteer workers (who does dishes) sat with us and sang.  He has a great voice.  It was really a good performance today.  Also, on some of the songs, two of the servers sing along with us (while serving).  The menu was Mexican casserole that was mild and very good; spicy hot rice with peppers and sliced hot sausage, a mostly spinach salad, but they picked out the other stuff for me to have, and chocolate cake with chocolate frosting they put on the cake while warm, so it was good.  Then from there on to SAIL exercise class.  Home by way of a woodcraft place to pick up some more pieces for free.  Today they were nicer than last week.  I got pieces rectangular or square about two feet on a side.  I only picked ones without holes or odd shapes, and none of the narrow ones like I picked up last week.

Thursday, June 14  We spent a lot of time this morning cleaning up junk and loading into the pickup for John to take to the dump (aka the transfer station).  [Who else is old enough to remember when unwanted stuff was just dumped over the side of a hill?  Then rats, raccoons, snakes, and folks could pick out the good stuff.  Bears came too.  And then, at night, people with lights would come to see the bears.  Others would come with 22s to practice their shooting skills on the rats.  Oh, where have the good times gone?  There are now “apps” of all these fun things but it just isn’t the same.]  John dropped me off for music at the Rehab center (where I spent 7 weeks in 2010).  Nothing much else today.  John went back into town for a trail riders meeting that was uneventful.  Well, folks reported on their riding but because we haven’t been doing any he didn’t have stories to tell.  Did they want to hear about him trimming and rasping Jazz’s hoofs?  No!

Friday, June 15  We went early Friday morning with Diane Huckabay to use our Costco card to help her buy foodstuffs for the celebration of Jim’s retirement tomorrow.  Jim was my chair for several years and we have known him since he began teaching as a geographer at CWU in 1993.  John and I went by one yard sale on the way to her house and John found a 20′ very heavy duty chain.  Then on the way home, we drove by a friend’s to drop off snap peas she ‘ordered’ and on to another yard sale at a friend’s place out about 8 mi from our house.  There I found a extendable legged tripod for taking pictures with my camera (paid $2.00).  I plan to take some footage tomorrow of the celebration “roast” part.  I took out time to walk through the pasture with John and the dogs and check out the south 40 – more like the south 3.

[For reference, see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_40#Popular_culture

Just for fun, follow the last link in the section to hodag.]

Then we came back and he showed me the garden.  Strawberries are looking nice.  Corn is coming up slowly (surely won’t be knee high by the 4th of July), and the squash, yellow beans, asparagus, tomatoes and pepper plants are growing.

Saturday, June 16  Retirement celebration was held from 2:00 to 5:00 at the Northern Pacific Rail Depot (under renovation).

http://digitum.washingtonhistory.org/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/genphotos&CISOPTR=22&CISOBOX=1&REC=1

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2450/3910369837_7c75365c98_z.jpg?zz=1

It was an exciting afternoon.  Many people from my past were there, and the venue was interesting as well.  We hadn’t been in the old Depot since 1989 when there was a little winery there (Cascade Mountain Cellars).  It didn’t last long.  I took two cameras with me and was the self-appointed photographer and videographer (and of course am a geographer)!  I took 90 pictures on one camera, in the first 1-1/2 hours, and then transferred to my other digital camera that I had attached to the tripod I bought yesterday and set up in the room for the roast as soon as John and I arrived.  I captured each person who spoke individually on a separate “movie”.  I have taken the stuff off my camera, but I need to transfer it to a CD — one of these days.  Probably won’t happen till I return from GA.  It will be another gift to my friend(s).  Note:  I leave Thursday for the reunion (~40 miles from the Atlantic Ocean near Savannah), and I am not sure that John will put out a blog in my absence.  I probably won’t have my computer along so cannot send him any information.  He’ll have to translate from phone calls.

Sunday, June 17 (Father’s Day).  We started out with John going to fix the irrigation water going to our neighbors.  The winds were high.  He did not take his cell phone, so when I got a call from the neighbor about the water diversion, I had to walk down and tell John.  I about got blown away on the way down, but the trip back was even worse.  Good thing I gained back some weight or I doubt I could have made it down and back without getting blown to Idaho.  He was at the lower end of our property and I was walking from the top end.  I’m not sure how many feet that was [about 1,000 – so says John], but with the wind, the exertion was greater than normal.  I also remembered I have to write a summary of our family to send to the gal accumulating information on the family for the Wilkins family reunion booklet.  Too much to do in too little time.  Yes, I need to cut John’s hair too.  Maybe he won’t return outside to work in this wind, after already spending a couple hours in it.  Today the airport gauges claim the winds are gusting at 36, 38, 40, 38 , 44, and back to 43mph for the last several hours, up to 44, 47, and 45, before this got finished ! (but out here I KNOW they are higher).  Also today had a call this morning from a friend from NM that they wanted to visit us this afternoon.  I talked them into visiting after my return from GA, and we would drive over where they are.  He taught Geology at CWU and we team-taught GIS from 1988.  He retired and now travels the country and lives in a huge motor home (their home) with his wife.  They are up here for a month at Crescent Bar, which is about an hour from us, and down the hill from our friends at the White Heron Cellars winery where John volunteers grape pruning.  Time to turn this over to John to enhance and post.

Hope your week was a good one.

Nancy and John

Still on the Naneum Fan

 

Sunday, June 3  John drove to town in the old ’80 Chevy farm truck for gas.  Price today cheapest in town is $4.14 – our area is served by several refineries that scheduled maintenance and just as they went down a fire at another place took out all the backup.  So, as the rest of the nation has seen a price drop, we have gone the other way.  We are fixing carrot, walnuts, and toasted marshmallows casserole, and biscuits, for us, along with another couple of friends, to take to dinner tonight.  On the menu is elk ribs, salad, and green bean casserole being served at a friend’s house.

Monday, June 4   Cheapest gas in town today is $4.11.  We awoke to no cat in the trap.  We have all three fixed ferals with us being fed and watered every day.  We haven’t seen the extra orange cat in days, so if we don’t catch one in the morning, we will quit.  We went to the brunch and awards presentations at Dean Hall/Geography.  There were waffles and pancakes, sausage, bacon, much fruit, preserves, and so on.

Tuesday, June 5  We are done with capturing feral cats.  We re-caught Cashew this morning.  They don’t have bad memories of being caught.  I’m sure they have forgotten the connection to going to the vet, and just relate to the 2 weeks in the cage in the house where they were treated like royalty.  John is currently disassembling it.  Wind is 40 mph and threatening rain (which we had more of last night).  After taking down the cat-holding cage we have a large table again to work on for sorting, wrapping, or even eating.  How nice.  I spent most of the day completing a large email list announcing the retirement party for my colleague.  I have a store of emails for students back to early 1990s.  I have kept them current and the only problem is they are in several different places, so I have had to assemble into one list.  It’s a lot of work, but will have double value the way I’m using it.  I got it mailed tonight, and only had 21 returned for bad email addresses.  Not too bad, I suppose.

Wednesday, June 6  The wind is still howling.  All the cats were around tonight but this morning Cashew got most of the food.  Tonight Cashew was up on the loft and talking with John when he brought food & water.  Tonight he actually came to the back patio next to my recliner, sat outside, and talked to me.  He has such a deep expressive voice.  This morning before noon, I left to go to the Soup Kitchen food bank for music playing, singing, and then eating.  They had a great tuna casserole today, a salad of beans (Green, Garbanzo, and Kidney Beans).  Also garlic toast, and for dessert a full banana, with chocolate top covering (hard because they cooled the bananas).  From there to SAIL exercise class, and on the way, I picked up some free pieces of scrap cabinet plywood from a cabinet shop in town. Maybe we can find a use for it (mostly long narrow pieces), but no rush.  The table saw quit (motor or switch) a few years ago and it is now behind multiple stacks of other stuff.  That will become an issue if we can clean out the two rooms over which we now have skylights in the roof but not the openings in the ceilings – the light shaft.  Oh, back to this afternoon — I got home and tried to sort through emails.  There were several coming as RSVPs for the retirement celebration June 16.  John fixed baked chicken, fried mashed potatoes from last night and homemade applesauce from the freezer.  Tonight will be our own red raspberries on ice cream, and morning, on cereal.  I spent time on the phone this afternoon setting up with the RV place in town, talking to the Service Manager, about adding a/c to my “new” travel trailer.  We’re taking it in on Friday for an evaluation & estimate.

Thursday, June 7  All’s well here; except we lost Dan our Brittany male this morning on his morning exercise with John.  He has not showed up and is not dead on the road.  NO idea what happened.  He was right with him and disappeared into the brush.  Don’t know what to do.  He has a collar on with our identification and phone number.  Ideas?  Maybe he had a stroke, shot by a neighbor, caught by a cougar …

Weird and sad.  I figured when I went to town for music, and to pick up medicine for Rascal’s tapeworms, that he would be here when I returned.  But not so.  I wish I knew what to do.

Spent over an hour on the phone again, with Toshiba about the mini mouse that malfunctioned, and I think I finally have a replacement on the way to me.  I’m out the cost of mailing it back to CA with my invoice.  I think they should have covered that.

Twelve hours later, Dan (wayward Brittany) showed up; 9:30 p.m.  He was wet, tired, and hungry, but not hurt in any way.  Wish he could talk.

Friday, June 8  John’s inside wasting time looking at odd stories from around the globe.  Try this:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10811873

It raises the question:  Does the NZ dialect not include the term roast?

He wants to be outside doing something but it is cold and windy.  No fun.  It got just cold enough early Friday morning (about 5 am) to freeze leaves on a yellow summer squash plant.  Not even beans just a few feet away noticed the cold.  Today an air mass was swirling by and about every 2 hours it would rain for 5 or 6 minutes.  John worked on taking the garbage out of the truck that pulls the trailer, so we could take it in and leave it for an estimate today on adding a/c and installing it.  In addition, we’ll need to get a generator.  Turns out, they didn’t want to keep the truck, so moving the trash was unnecessary.  John covered it with a tarp during one of the short spurts of rain.  Rained on me too on my drive to massage and exercise.  Oh, while in there, I filled John’s Subaru with gas (and the price had reduced to $4.059, today; guess I should just say $4.06).

Saturday, June 9  The only thing on tap is a visit with a former student from Sudan, who will be in town for CWU’s graduation ceremony.  I’m happy I don’t have to be there this year, but we will meet with the fellow either before or after the afternoon ceremony.  He visited me 3 times (driving from the west side of the Cascades), while I was in the rehab/ nursing home for 7 weeks.  I last saw him in Seattle, last year, when I was there for a conference.  He met me with other geographers at a Chinese restaurant and we had a very nice visit.

Guess I’ll finish this and send to John to tweak and post.

Hope your week was a good one.

Nancy and John

Still on the Naneum Fan

 

Sunday, May 27  Today is a quiet day at home.  John carved a path to the living room to watch a DVD on horses that our friends from Yakima thought we would appreciate.  He moved 8 boxes and has given me instructions to clean up at least one a day.  (I have already failed this week; adding this on Saturday).  The movie is called “Buck” and is the story about a horse trainer named Buck Branaman.  Years ago (18 or so) John took his horse Teak through one of Buck’s clinics here on the outskirts of Ellensburg.  Our player did not work (starting and stopping erratically; perhaps a dust overload), and we saw only about 10 minutes of the movie.  Something else to fix or replace.  Today, it started out sunny and windy.  The temperatures are expected to go to 70, but the gusts last hour (when John was exercising the dogs) went to 41.  Glad I’m not out trying to play music in the park for Memorial Day.  A couple of folks who play with our group have another professional group they play with, and they will be at the Odd Fellows cemetery (IOOF) and related city park with celebrations for memorial day, a day ahead today.  The Independent Order of Odd Fellows began in 18th Century England, it was deemed odd to find people organized for the purpose of giving aid to those in need without recognition and pursuing projects for the benefits of all mankind.  Later that day here, there were 43 mph gusts, and sustained winds all day were about 30 mph.  The City turned on sprinklers in a park and the the National Weather Service declared a severe extra-tropical cyclone.  Just kidding.

John found a nice listing of Vitamin K content of foods I should OMIT.  Follows, a list of those (most of which I knew):  kale, collards, spinach, turnip, beet, dandelion, or mustard greens, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, spring onions or scallions, parsley, asparagus, sauerkraut, endive, or green leaf lettuce.  Also recommended not to eat because they are high in Vitamin K, are okra, cabbage, rhubarb, plums dried or stewed, cowpeas or black-eyed peas.  John has stayed inside most of the day, with the winds sustained at 31 mph and gusting to 41 for the past 4-5 hours.  I stayed in the house doing chores needing done.  Cleaned the kitchen and have been sorting through things on the counters, and filing, paying, tossing, or whatever is required.  I need to clean up and sort through a box/day and keep at it.  This long weekend I have to do more than that.  Every room is piled high and there is no flat space anywhere.  We said we would do that over a year ago, but I didn’t have the stamina.  I might have it now.  Now I have to change my attitude and do something!  I did manage to tune his guitar and show him how.  He is getting ready to go out for a while.  He’s trying to dig posts out of the ground from part of the old fence that needs replaced, near our Carpathian walnut trees and tamaracks, and now near his set of blueberry bushes.  If it is too windy, he’ll move to another chore where there is less dust.  For sure, he will not be near the cottonwood trees because large limbs (or entire trees) fall in this situation.  The horses are smart enough to stay away as well.

Holy mackerel.  John went back outside to work, and there are now 32 mph sustained winds with 43 MPH GUSTS.

I did locate enough white cardboard mailers I once bought to mail membership certificates to GTU members.  GTU is Gamma Theta Upsilon, an international geographical honorary society.  I’m invited to the initiation ceremony this week at CWU Thursday night with dinner.  That will be nice.  When I was there, I was the chapter adviser.  I’m happy it is continuing in my absence.

John and I are having a late dinner tonight, because the pork roast was put in late.  Boy was it ever good!  John cooked it slowly and with onions and cherries (two kinds from our orchard, which had been frozen).  He fixed lima beans (that I can have, even though they are green), and we had one of his large biscuits.  Our inside/outside cat was thrilled to eat some of the pork roast.

Monday, May 28  Happy Memorial Day.  My dad was a veteran, and I’m proud of him.  John took two flags and put them at the end of our driveway.  We mostly did chores all day.  I went through a couple of boxes of papers left over from over 40 years of teaching.  Am recycling most, but also giving some books to colleagues or donating to the Map Library and Gov’t Documents Depository.  It is such a time-consuming chore.

John set up the trap to again try to capture the last kitty from near the camper where he’s been sleeping.  Tomorrow is another day, with a luncheon engagement with a former student who hasn’t been in Ellensburg in 15 years.  He’s been teaching in South Korea, and has a wife and two girls over there.  It was his vacation and he needed a validation of his diploma; a new ruling for teachers from foreign countries, particularly teachers of English.  They are trying to put their own folks into most of positions.  Interesting that his wife is a Korean, who teaches English.  Therefore, he has not learned the language as well as he might have.

Tuesday, May 29  Started out by catching Woody, one of our cats who already has been spayed.  They said that would not happen.  So much for experts!  I invited the Huckabays to go with me to lunch today, and John went on to Yakima to Costco.

Lunch was enjoyable but the price was NOT.  I didn’t pick the place; Huckabay did.  I don’t like eating there because they have weird things on the menu and charge TOO much for them.  A tuna salad sandwich cost me $7.95, and was mostly sprouts and grated carrots, with a little bag of awfully hard potato chips.  (Tim’s ?)  I bought Jeff’s lunch and it cost $9.95 !! for a French Dip Roast Beef sandwich (also with chips).  It was listed on the board as a Blue Plate special and I figured that was the “special, lower cost for the day,” but there was not a price listed.  I about died when I was given the total $20.51.  (He had coffee and I had water).  Rats.  If I had known he could have had a hot sandwich off the menu for the same price, but had soup or salad with it, instead of only a tiny bag of chips.  Go figure.  I’m back from the Dentist with a free temporary on the broken tooth, but it was cracked badly enough that I will need to have a porcelain crown.  It won’t  get done until I’m back from Georgia.

I meant to say about our tonight’s dinner.  On my way home from the dentist, I stopped by Carl Jrs and got two nice chicken/bacon/cheese sandwiches for $5.00 (coupon).  Also two yummy-looking tacos with chicken and beef (one of each), for a buck apiece.  That’s for John’s lunch tomorrow.  Then, I bought some cool crosscut fries for 1.29 (normally 2.19).  I had coupons for everything, meaning I couldn’t get my 20% Sr. discount.  After eating them, I decided I didn’t enjoy what I had and will not order that again.  I don’t know how John felt.  It was filling, and parts of the chicken in the sandwich were okay.  Carl’s has great biscuits (only on breakfast sandwiches), but other stuff seems to be more standard.

Wednesday, May 30   John asked me this morning when I was going to retire! (Officially, I did April 2010).  However, today I went in at 8:30 a.m. to 10:50 for hearing final project presentations for an Intermediate GIS class I taught for years.  I have been invited back every year since I was recuperating winter 2010 (for this class’s finals).  I help evaluate and ask questions and give compliments to the students.  Today only 3 were given and they were all excellently done.  I go back Friday for the last set of presentations.  After I left there I went to the grocery store for meds and half a piece of coffee cake (my late breakfast), and then on to play music and sing at the Soup Kitchen at the Food Bank (where I and a banjo player perform every Wed. from  noon to 12:30), and then they feed us.  Today was a great meal with baked potatoes and toppings plus a vegetable soup more like Brunswick Stew to me.  Then off to my exercise class at the Adult Activity Center, afterwards I went a 1/2 block to view an older fellow’s travel trailer which I hope to talk John into my getting for driving short distances to stay overnight for jam sessions.  Then I drove back to CWU to listen to a public talk by a candidate (last of 3) for the chair of geography.

Thursday, May 31 was a long, long day, and tomorrow will not be any better.  Today’s started about 6:00 when John came in to say we had not captured a cat.  Then I was tired and went back to sleep.  He awoke me at 7:30 saying it was time to call the vet to cancel the neutering.  I did, but I was not feeling ready to get up yet, had a neck ache and so I sat in my recliner and went back to sleep after the phone call.  John suggested I not put this in the blog, because people will think I’m mentally challenged, but it is a rather funny story, so I will share.  I went back to sleep and had a very realistic dream.  Guess the cat capture has been on my mind.  I dreamed very vividly that John went back out and brought back the kennel with two orange cats in it.  The one we wanted to catch plus Cashew.  I looked in the crate, talked to them, and then told John I needed to call the vet and see if they could still neuter one of the cats.  (I was still dreaming, but I apparently woke myself up when I reached for the phone, redialed the vet, and the line was busy).  I kept trying until they answered, and told them what happened and they said to bring them right in.  I got up to get dressed and walked down the hall, after looking on the top of the “cage” on the den table, and not seeing the cats .. saying to John .. (at the computer in the back room, “Where are the cats?)  Of course he was confused, and I realized it had not happened and was a dream.  Yes, I had to call the vet and tell them what happened and that we would not be arriving.  Hope you get a laugh from it.

I have been bargaining with a fellow in town on his travel trailer.   My friend Bill went to check it out after I had looked at it, because John and I do not have the knowledge.  He verified we could add an a/c unit to the top, and get a little (Honda recommended) generator to run it.

Tonight at 6:00 in the 3rd floor Dean Hall atrium was a nice GTU (Gamma Theta Upsilon) induction of new members.  This is the “club” I was chapter adviser for, for the time I was at CWU (starting a couple of years after I got there in 1988).  That CWU chapter had been around since 1963.

Friday, June 1  I went to the university for the rest of the final GIS project presentations, followed by Acupuncture, Potluck with tacos and fixings as main dishes at Adult activity center.  Home for a little rest, and then off with John in our ’89 Ford truck to buy the used travel trailer.  We got it home safely, but had trouble getting it backed into a good place at our house.  John pulled forward into our pasture and was trying to move the trailer backwards, into a graveled place in our “orchard” beside the garden.  He couldn’t see what he was doing (and I couldn’t give proper directions).  Then he turned it around in the pasture, pulled back up into the driveway, heading out, and backed up to the place in our front yard (gravel), and then pulled down off the driveway in front of the gates to the pasture.  Sadly, that revealed another problem with the scraping metal pieces (of the manual levelers, which hang down) on the rear end.  He had to build up the depression with a series of boards (like a bridge).  After he got that done, I volunteered to drive it and back up with his directions.  Part of the problem was I could not see the back of the trailer, just as he had found earlier.  Finally, I got situated to see it in my mirror, and could see to go straight by the Forsythia bush beside a black walnut tree.  He was calling directions until I got to where I could see the whole back of the trailer.  The movement of the trailer with turning the steering wheel is extremely sensitive and took some getting used to.  Got it positioned in front of our large shed, but it sticks way out with the truck attached.  We can get around it with both cars so I think we will be fine for a little while.

Another part of the frustration parking story was that John had tried seeing if it would fit in another place in our front yard between the front of the fenced “yard” and the line of Tamarack trees on the south of our house.  When he came in, I said, “Did you decide about the other place?”  To which he responded, “Yes, I have decided to get a divorce and move to an apartment in town.”  Luckily, we got it finally positioned properly.

We plan to hire our friend to help install the a/c.  Yesterday was very hot, and we were inside the trailer plus outside getting it hooked up, and it was totally obvious I cannot exist without a/c.  Also, John asked me this morning (after I suggested it last night), for me to ask our friend if he might be able to assist in moving a large (side) awning from our OLD motor home to this trailer.  Twenty years ago we spent $800 for it, and it is still in excellent condition; not used a lot, and never here in Ellensburg with the winds.  I don’t know if there is anything else that can be scrounged from that motor home or not.  It is a 1977 Pace Arrow, with a rotted out roof, and the motor doesn’t run.  It has a furnace, water heater, a/c, large Onan generator, and might have some other things that could be transferred.  I am not suggesting transferring the generator, because a small portable Honda will be perfect.

This travel trailer was missing the hose to hook up to the drain for the brown and gray water.  We definitely have one of those on the motor home.  In addition, the sliding plastic on the screen door of the travel trailer is missing half of it.  Ours on the motor home is in fine condition, so we could perhaps remove it from there.  I imagine there are other small things like that we could transfer.  I need to go step inside and review my memory.  We haven’t used it since the 1990s.  I have to get the paperwork processed Monday, because the tabs will expire that day!  Timely, eh.  Also, we need to replace the back right light because it doesn’t work for turn signal or for brakes and rear lights.  The previous owner was very helpful and generous with the tongue hook up.  He gave us his extension with a larger ball (than is on our one for the horse trailer).  Also, he gave us an extra fan (not sure for what it is to be used, but it’s a backup) and a spare tire, which had not come with the original.  He left all the stuff inside the closet, cabinets, and drawers, spreads on the beds, tools, and such.

I have been out on the web looking for a/c units and Honda generators.  The Honda portable generator is a cool idea, because we could also use it around our place, year-round.  I noticed that the few places I looked the cost for an a/c unit was $750-$900 but shipping would be $110 or so.  Sites do a poor job of explaining the differences versus the cost.  More busy work.  I imagine we might be able to buy a unit locally (or in Yakima) without the shipping charges.  The Honda generators are closer to $1000.  So, that’s the story of my new purchase (at a very reasonable price).  The seller came down considerably on his original advertised price.  I’m happy I looked at the bulletin board at our grocery store when I went in for my meds earlier.  Now I have a home-away-from home for over-night stays while at a music event.  The first one will be the end of July, a week-long workshop in Kittitas.  The next is a Bluegrass jam over at George (yeah, WA), in the community hall city park.  John doesn’t think we have any other need for it, because he cannot travel places with me, because of all the animals.  It wasn’t a good idea to pay to fix up a really old motor home whose roof is rotted out from leaking around the roof vent and a/c unit, and it would require motor work to repair a gasket that blew the last time we used it.  The tires (six of them) need replaced, but those on the travel trailer are practically new steel-belted radials.

Saturday, June 2  John has been busy with outside chores.  The wind is blowing but the temperatures are in the lower 70s.  His first concern was to empty the rain barrels and water his blueberries with the “distilled” water.  It rained a little overnight.  He wants to use rain water on the blueberry plants because the creek water is loaded with minerals that “buffer” the solution and make adjustmets difficult.  Blueberries need their soil a lot lower than pH 7 and rain is suitable – even though a bit rare in this location.  Aquarium owners face this problem and seem to discuss it in more common sense terms.  For example, here:

http://www.liveaquaria.com/general/general.cfm?general_pagesid=94

This afternoon we are heading to a Geography Club end-of-year potluck a few miles from our place.  We are taking slices of the last of the large Honeycrisp apples.  They are in very good shape for having been harvested last October.  Two in the final box were over-the-hill and went to the compost pile.  Since John got them at Quincy during his pruning trips they have been individually wrapped in newspaper and stored in the fridge.  Prior to that they were in Controlled Atmosphere (CA) storage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPOkWE7HKvk

The students are preparing the meat (large beef hot dogs, and Bratwurst), and it is a potluck for the rest of us.  I think John said we have 8 of them left, so we will cut and set up the dehydrator (4 fill it), and then take the rest with us to the party.  We completed that and all is well.  We are back, after spending three hours there, eating and visiting, and the stuff available was incredible, including fresh strawberries, a number of different salads, cooked chick thighs, on with savory sauce marinade and another with spicy jalapeno, grilled yellow peppers and purple onions, peach rhubarb cobbler, apple and cherry pies, and white/choc chocolate cookies.  Really a great amount of good food.  The wind was blowing but the sun was shining.  It was held at a faculty member’s house out in the country, only 5 miles from ours.

John came home and fed the cats, horses, and took the dogs for a run, while setting up irrigation.  I’m late getting this to him to post but at least we had enough to eat starting at 5:15 that we will not need any dinner for sure.

Hope your week was a good one.

Nancy and John

Still on the Naneum Fan