Category: Weekly report by day

John’s favorite place to work on trails is Mt. Rainier. This photo was taken out of a commercial airplane last week by Evie Schuetz on her trip south. Mt. Rainier by Evie
Taken from the northwest, looking toward Salt Lake City. The small lake (low, center) is named Mowich Lake with the South Mowich River on the right.

Sunday, May 12

We published the blog at 11:27 p.m. and went to bed ASAP.

Monday, May 13

I sent out the KV F&F note about scheduling for this week, for BOTH venues with a link to the blog last week on the wedding of two of our players.

John has to leave 9:50 a.m. for an appointment at Subaru for his Crosstrek at 11:00 and I have to be at the AAC by 10 minutes before 11:00 with the toaster to give to Calli Ristine. We met up just fine. I was there for a Silver Sneakers exercise class, followed by a 20-minute meditation / yoga session by Karen Johnson.

From there I went to the FISH Food bank, where we were fed sliced pork roast, cheesy sliced potatoes, and a nice salad with yellow & red pepper chunks, with a fruit punch, and dessert.

Several stops in town kept me busy. I went by and picked up my repaired button on the silk blouse they dry cleaned and lost the button. I drove by Landons for some bags and caught up visiting about family. Then I went by The Gym and climbed 2 steep flights of stairs to buy a new bottle of Klaire Probiotic. On down Capitol Ave to pick a bag of clothes from Pam, but most of these I will be passing along to others—many are size 8, too small for me. A nice white denim jacket marked L is not large enough to fit me and I will pass it along to a friend to whom I pass all tops I cannot button, and they fit her perfectly. It must have shrunk.
I dropped off one of the bags (a backpack for a toddler) for my 2-year old neighbor, Sophia. I stopped at Safeway for a chicken special, and when I got home, John had a leg of the fried chicken for a late lunch. We had fried chicken, butternut squash casserole, yellow pepper slices, apple slices, and cocktail tomatoes, for supper.

I filed more stuff.
John mowed near the road.
We cleaned 4 pounds of strawberries John bought at Costco from Salinas, CA.

Tuesday, May 14

Nothing special on tap today. Stayed home, skipping checking Bi-Mart today, and hoping I don’t win a big prize. Rained on John as he planted the 3 tomato plants. I’ve been sorting through things needed completed, and one awaits to fill in my medicines for the week, plus reordering those I’m out of. Already did Entresto, and need to finish before calling in Amiodarone I also need. That’s finally done, and took my first pills of the day, plus loaded some dishes in the washer. Now to go back to filing receipts into dated order. Then will need to sort by day within the month. So much of this needed to be done in a timely fashion.

I received an email planning for Friday’s scholarship luncheon and realized two members were not on the email recipient list, so I went to work notifying them and the hostesses about the planned lunch.

John came in and fixed us a pancake, summer sausage, and we had strawberries on top that we fixed last night.

He has settled down for an hour’s nap. I’m continuing to work on going through stacks of things, and just spent 2 hours off the computer sorting and recycling. I’m afraid there’s one more stack to attack before putting them in order by day of the month.

Staying home today was a good choice. I wish I could do that more often. Unfortunately, it’s only going to get worse in the next few weeks, not having the time to use for things that must be done.

I just found some more receipts to add to the correct filing folders, in a storage place for another year. And, some checks found under my stack where my weekly medicine box resides, with some receipts for medications (just in case I don’t take the standard deduction). I have three more hanging folders to go through to be sure all the things in the folder are for the correct year. Yeah – I know, keep up to date, and this year I am filing as they arrive, not just stacking them up on a table or shelf.

John made a nice soup for our dinner with beef, onions, mushrooms, asparagus, green beans, carrots, yellow pepper, and stuff, served with crouton like baguette chips, infused with butter, spices, and toasted. It was quite tasty. I ate a big bowl full, and plan to have a piece of fruitcake for dessert.

Renewed our IAFI membership. That’s the Ice Age Floods Institute; we are members of the local Ellensburg Chapter.

Wednesday, May 15

This morning I called the Yakima office and paid via VISA, a doctor’s bill for $46.63 for John, as his Medicare deductible had not yet been reached. John tells me they are considering increasing co-pays on such, so our costs continue to rise. A receipt is being snail-mailed to us. Seems like email would save money.

Thanks to John for cutting the smoked turkey and apple cubes for my salad today. I am leaving for music at the FISH music bunch, at the Liberty Theater to set up stands, which thankfully we have left there in a back room container.

I will come home afterwards to cut John’s hair – we were supposed to do yesterday. Should have done it during the rain. I managed to cut it in only ½ hour.

Got the attendance finalized for KV F&F tomorrow at Pacifica. We ended up needing 11 arm-less chairs and one with arms.

Thursday, May 16

John goes to the dentist very early, being there at 8:30 a.m. Was done faster than expected, and he’s going by Super 1 Pharmacy to pick up my medications. Today’s music is at Pacifica. We had a dozen players present and a large involved audience. Got my mic battery charged and am taking some clothes to a few folks. I washed a load of dishes.

Need to drop off a package on my way home from music, and we need to eat to be at the KAS meeting tonight at Hal Holmes for a lecture on Birding in the islands of Trinidad and Tobago.

From The Hooter Newsletter, May 2019

Home to 482 species of birds, not forgetting 68 different bats, 45 snakes, 50 spiders, 30 frogs and toads, 120 Dragonflies, 765 butterflies and close to 3,500 moths—the islands really are an introduction to the natural history of South America. Get a great taste of tropical birding in Trinidad’s high mountain rain forests, sandy beaches with nesting turtles, and mangroves with Scarlet Ibis evening roosts, as well as on Tobago’s seabird nesting islands and huge protected preserves.

The Asa Wright Nature Centre is a jumping off spot for most field trips, itself set in 200 acres of forest and home to more than 170 bird species. Renowned for great access to specialties including Bearded Bellbird, Tufted Coquette and Oilbirds on site, more than 40 species can be observed from the verandah before breakfast! The Centre is a not-for-profit trust, and eco-tourism funds the conservation and education programmes. For nearly 40 years of the Centre’s 50 plus year existence, Caligo Ventures has been the booking agent for North America. Fully committed to the conservation and education mission of the Centre, Caligo is pleased to sponsor Martyn’s visit to celebrate and highlight this bucket-list birding destination.

Our speaker and the front row tonight at the presentation.Locator map of Trinidad & Tobago (TT), in Lesser Antilles Islands

Videos of the evening’s presentation:

Martyn Kenefick, KAS 5-16-19, Birding Trinidad & Tobago

Martyn Kenefick KAS final Q & A

Friday, May 17

John took Annie to the vet at 8:15 am. Dr. Fuller (Mike) did not find anything wrong with Annie, but she has a slight give in her back so he gave us a sample bottle of Rimadyl Chewables to try to see if it helped. She hasn’t yelped since returning from the vet, and I haven’t yet read the instructions or given her one.
Mike came to EBRG about the same time we did, and we likely met about 1990 or ’91.

I called Laura at the Cle Elum Physician’s KVH office, where our PCP is located; and went through the new system phones. Dial 0 and then 8 to get to an operator. To get to the doctor’s nurse is another number. Listen – might be 3. Laura says most people are upset by the new system. I’m okay with it once I know which numbers give me what. Unfortunately, it includes no way to get to a Triage nurse – except through the operator. Most of my communication is from a Triage nurse, with monthly blood draws.

8:20 a.m. Darren arrived for heat pump. He replaced the 20×20 filter I handed him (we must check more often).

He cleaned (blew dust out) of two very dirty small metal filters, which are supposed to be checked monthly. He did not have a pressure hose for cleaning the dishwasher ones, so he hooked a regular hose to the back faucet and cleaned them at my special request. They need to be checked monthly too. I told him about the clicking sound, and he said it might be the defrost control. Then he went out to the heat pump and found the reverse control wasn’t working. That part changes the heat to a/c at the water pump. It is what the warning clicking I was hearing was telling me. Now the power to the heat pump is disabled and we are on Emergency/Auxiliary heat (only) until the part is put in. “Emergency” is misleading. This just means the heat is coming off the hot coil normally only used when the outside temperature gets down about 20°F. This week our lows have been in the mid-40s.
The part has to be ordered from Trane and might be in by Monday. Darren will call us and come back to finish the job so we will have access to a/c, when needed, in a month or 6 weeks.

I called Cle Elum to report the refill Entresto problem. Now need to call Kaiser Permanente. Did, and am out of the 30 pills without paying extra for them. I haven’t asked the cost of only 30 pills using insurance, but the cash price is outlandish, at $500. I was supposed to get 90, but only got 60. Tough; but, it won’t happen again.

An alternative is to switch to Kaiser Permanente, Renton, WA mail order, which I have decided to do. I can request a 3-month supply for the cost for 2 months here. So, $80 vs $120. Weird.

Scholarship luncheon is today at the main CWU services building, Jongeward (door keys and vehicles; for us in our past). I picked up Amy Davison at Gallery One, after her art class ended, and took her to campus where I can park for free; she cannot.

We had a nice Oriental Chicken Salad made by Christine Tufts, served with a Mandarin orange, roll if wanted, an incredibly good Lemon Cheesecake made by Peggy Eaton, and 2 fruit punches.

Here’s the cheesecake (photo by Amy Davison) along with photos of today’s efforts with 7 students, 10-11:00 art class for 3 to 5 yr. olds, at Gallery One, where the students made an egg carton based caterpillar. Class is an hour, drop in, for $5; parents stay.Student Charlotte’s caterpillar, eyes on another, & cheesecake

Saturday, May 18

John left at 5:40 a.m. for Crew Leader College, a WTA education event for the Crew Leaders and Assistant Crew Leaders. After a photo of everyone in attendance, John drove another 20 minutes to Cougar Mountain Park, once a source of underground coal and timber for the folks trying to get rich in the young Seattle area.
Tomorrow he will be returning for another session on First Aid, but that will be in North Bend at the Forest Service compound.

I was working with emails this morning, and saw a photo come through at 7:48 from a WTA “leader” I know, Rick Zitzmann. He sent a photo taken last year of John near a huge tree along the trail at the West Fork of the Foss River. Taken in 2018 on West Fork of the Foss River trail by Rick Zitzmann.

Here is a valuable link to information provided by the Washington Trails Association (WTA):
WTA Trip Reports
To see a recent report (5-1-2019) on this trail mentioned above, check below, especially for a photo of the same tree with 3 WTA workers & Crosscut saws standing in front.Three WTA workers – Crosscut saws
John says: About 6 years ago, I spent about an hour cutting Devil’s Club from this favorite stopping point. The photo on the right shows the reason for its name – Oplopanax horridus. The ‘oplo’ part means armored and the ‘pan’ part means all. It is very well armored and hikers (especially small children) can ruin a hike if they happen to touch it. Note the large leaves of this plant in the upper right of the photo with me in front of the tree.
Wikipedia has info and photos of the flowers and bright red fruit:
Devil’s Club

Nancy back: I left for town early and went by the Driver License Tabs place at the Meridian Theater, to update my Car Registration, to remove the Lien by Chase Bank, that had never been done 2 years ago when I paid off the loan. They had not sent me the correct paperwork. Now I have received it. Cost me $31.00; I paid in cash rather than put on a credit card, which would cost me 3% more.
While in the same parking lot, I went to Bi-Mart and bought 6 boxes of Fisherman Friends, because I was down to one. From there, I went with all my stuff to Briarwood.

We started the day by welcoming Evie Schuetz back to the fold. She hasn’t been able to play her violin with us since January, so this was an epic moment. She is a chocoholic, so we welcomed her back with a Chocolate bunny. We were all so very happy to have her return, able to lead us with her violin again. She’s still in pain, but it is going to be better with time.We played until about 3:00 and had desserts: several kinds of cookies and a piece of cheesecake with cherries, homemade by Connie. Betty made her chocolate chip cookies and sent 3 left on the plate home to John. She always does.

Before coming home, I dropped by Windy Chevrolet; 10 minutes there and walked out with $5 gift card to Fred Meyer. I’d received a flyer because they are collecting names for future needs of vehicles. The salesman talking to me was rather impressed we still are using our 1980 Chevrolet pickup truck.

John called from Issaquah and I was not yet home. Then from North Bend. So I reached him nearing the Snoqualmie summit. I tried calling him after 4:00 but only got my message that meant he didn’t have his phone turned on. I tried calling later on my way home, but the reception wouldn’t connect.
He told me to put the chicken breasts (all seasoned) in the oven, and I did. By the time he gets home, we will have the main part of dinner cooked.

We ate after 7:00 after we added cut cocktail tomatoes, John made a butternut squash casserole with mini-marshmallows, and we just finished a great meal. That was my first real solid food of the day (except for the desserts I ate at Briarwood, after music).

Sunday, May 19

John left this morning at 6:00 a.m. to be at Bill Weir’s house by 6:20 to carpool to CLC today using Bill’s truck. John’s involved with a First Aid course that includes CPR & AED (automated external defibrillator).

I’m staying home to work on the blog and on bill paying, and filing. Will likely do some more clean-up chores, as clothes and dish washing and sorting through things, recycling paperwork.

This arrived today in email from a longtime friend through Brittanys, Bob Showalter. The introduction follows here ahead of the link to watch below:

This is from within the TED series of presentations, this is a fabulous work of art concerning Birds, Bees, Bats, and Butterflies!

• Take a look and enjoy Mother Nature at her best!  
• Check out the Monarchs toward the end.
• Be sure to watch this on the largest computer screen you have and have your sound turned on.
• Don’t miss the hummingbird doing rolls chasing a bee
• Check out the baby bat under its mother.
• If you never knew what goes on in the garden when you aren’t paying attention, watch this fine photography.

Birds, Bees, Bats, and Butterflies!

John just arrived from his all day trip to North Bend, WA, and had not taken his cell phone, so he didn’t call me on his way home. He arrived at 5:45 p.m.

It’s now 8:15 p.m. and we still haven’t eaten supper. Just finished at 9:00 p.m.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Tulips, between strawberries, onions, and asparagus. You’ve previously seen the purples that bloomed ahead of the shorter ones. Happy they hadn’t been windblown away.

Sunday, May 5

We published the blog at 9:02 p.m. and went to bed at 10:30! You’ve already heard about that day, in our last week’s post, but this one has some photos from John’s WTA trail work here in the valley, shown on Tuesday, when the final report arrived, including photos for the whole past weekend, with additions from workers.

Monday, May 6

I sent out the KV F&F note about scheduling for this week, and tried requesting feedback for the whole month again. Got a few more added.

John worked outside a lot today. Sprayed weeds and watered strawberries, onion, flowers, and trees.

I went to town for a Silver Sneakers exercise class and was extra cautious about taking it easy, after how hurtful I was last week. I opened up the “hatch” back of my car for a gal to leave a bunch of feed bags. She’s done that before, when she is in town and I’m at the AAC. Easy transfer that saves me a long drive to Badger Pocket in the SE part of our valley. They filled the back of my car. We use them for various trash bags to take to the transfer station and once John used to bag noxious weeks to remove from a local trail.

From there I drove to the new location of the FISH Food Bank lunches, now being held at the Liberty Theater in the back room, accessible from Pine St. We were vacated from the back of the Mercer Creek Church facility on 14th and B streets, for our lunches, but the food distribution for community members remains there, until new facilities are built with a kitchen and room for serving. We are not privy to future plans.

The Food Bank Senior Nutrition lunch menu was especially good today. Dan was the cook and it was in the new location I needed to check out for going on Wednesday to volunteer playing music and setup a place to keep our own music stands. Today’s meal was Pulled Pork (nice & tender), served on rice, with Cole slaw, and a bowl of peaches and pears. I didn’t take a dessert. Once home, I finished the Chocolate Chip cookies John brought home from the trail work yesterday.

On the way home, I went by our bank, and deposited 2 checks: another returned one of $127 from a procedure I was charged for after my deductible had been met. I realized that at the time, but didn’t have any choice except to pay it. Luckily, the Yakima Memorial Hospital’s account department is honest and refunded the money. The second check was from the local Co-Op and is part of a reported PATR for income taxes, so I had to deposit the $5.12 for the record to put in my tax file. Then I stopped at Safeway for their Monday Fried Chicken special. In the checkout line I was visiting with a gentleman in front of me in, and when I looked at his face, I realized I recognized him, and asked his name, because I couldn’t remember from where. He told me, and I returned mine, and said I think I know you from the university. He said he is a retired geologist. Of course, I said, well I am a retired geographer, and we shared the same building.
We enjoyed visiting further after realizing our past connection.

John just returned from putting the license tab on my Forester. He realized the paper showed the car still had a lien on it from the original purchase. (It has long since been paid off). I called Chase Bank and found out I had to go by in person, with my registration and social security number to request the lien transfer, and then I will have to go to the Department of Vehicle licensing to have it re-titled. I asked if there was a charge and he didn’t think so. If there is, I will request Chase Bank pay for it. It should not be on my tab, in my opinion.

We are having fried chicken for dinner, with butternut squash casserole by John, and I will finish the rest of the salad I carried along today and didn’t need to eat at the food bank.

Well, I suppose I should tell another bank story; this one is my current bank. February in 2017 we paid off our 30-year mortgage loan on our house. That meant we had to start arranging for our property taxes and insurance. I went to my Umpqua bank and set up a recurring payment for every 6 months for the value of taxes owed. This year, the Kittitas Treasurer’s Office notified me that I could have my taxes automatically paid through my bank at their office. I didn’t realize that the taxes had changed (gone up), nor did I realize the recurring payment did not apply.

After I had deposited my checks and got home, John said, did you have them tell you the balance in the account. I had not requested it, so I got on line and looked at the past month’s figures. There were two withdrawals marked to the Kittitas County Treasurer’s office for similar amounts in the same month. The one for $892.65 had been 4/16/19, but there was another deduction of $913.99 drawn on 4/30/19. A call to the KC Treasurer’s office alerted me to what had happened – the bank was acting as though they still had to pay but took the money from the checking account rather than an escrow account that had vanished. I called my bank, and asked how to alter it. Brandy helped me through the cancellation process, and now all is well. Come October, when the $913.99 is due, I will only pay the difference, $21.34. That was simpler than being refunded the $$ by the county. I have cancelled the reoccurring one for last year’s taxes, and all should be well. I’m glad I reviewed the activity and found the problem.

Started the washer with clothes and my red bag with blue cheese dressing spilled inside it. That was from a leaky container of salad I carried for lunch. It all made it through just fine.

Tuesday, May 7

Had my morning shower, drank a protein drink, so that I had something in my stomach, took my Amoxicillin at 10:00 a.m., and left ~ 10:15 for a stop at the Dry Cleaner. I arrived around a couple of blocks to the dentist before 11:00 and was invited back to start the process. Meant to go by the bank, but forgot, and will save for tomorrow.

My dentist visit went the entire time. I am happy with the results, but have to hope the temporary stays in until I return May 28 for the crown. The crown will be gold, rather than porcelain, because gold is sturdier, and the impression for the new crown it is rather thin from being taken on the old tooth that had worn down significantly. I do not know how long that one has been in my mouth.

I finished too late at the dentist to eat at the Senior Nutrition program, where they were having Chicken with gravy today.

Therefore, I went directly by the Chase bank office in Fred Meyer with my Forester Registration to speak with banker, John. He was off at lunch and when he returned, had 2 people waiting, so the manager listened to my story when I said I wouldn’t wait until 2:15 and he gave me a 1-800 number to call to process the information I needed to remove the lien on my Subaru Forester, that was never returned to us after the loan was paid off 2 years ago (in May). Now the paperwork is in the mail, and when it arrives, I will need to take it and my registration by to the correct office.

While at Fred Meyer’s building, I was next door to Goodwill, where on Tuesdays Seniors get 10% off purchases. I went to the head guy, Jay, and told him the reason I was in search for music stands. An employee standing with him heard our conversation, and she said she would go check in the back. He walked with me to the place any would be on the sales floor. Sure enough, there was a sturdy fold-up metal one, for $4.99, & with my senior discount, it was $4.49. After figuring out how it worked, I bought it, and he pulled out his little notepad and took my name and phone number, saying he would call me when one came in. Nice service. Now I’m busy printing my name to attach to the stand and to the case of another smaller one I have. I’m taking the two of them in a wheeled carrier to collect others from people in the group, so that we can leave them in a backroom standing collected in a corner, and not have to cart them maybe a block from a parking space downtown.

These Nick-Links arrived today from Nick Zentner, the last one of this season is here for the first time; I will put all in here for anyone who might have missed it. The first three have been out for a while.

Nick thanked us all for attending and reminded us the “downtown” series will continue next April at Morgan Performing Arts Center, our new location. Below are the locations and each is followed by a brief description of content.

1-Supercontinents and the Pacific Northwest

Montana’s Belt Series featured.  Tales of supercontinents Rodinia and Columbia.  Glacier National Park.

2-Plant Fossils in the Pacific Northwest

Palm Fossils at Blewett Pass and Petrified Tree Trunks at Vantage featured.  Includes excitement of finding George Beck’s original journals from the 1930s.

3-Supervolcanoes in the Pacific Northwest

Water moved ashfall into a 30 foot deposit (now lifted and exposed) near Mattawa; southeast of us. This is now known to have come from a significant explosion of a volcanic hot-spot. This ash is tied to Bruneau-Jarbidge Caldera in Idaho.  The video includes a visit to Nebraska (ash went that far), and central Oregon.  

This is the latest you have not yet been told about from me (the professional copy) – you have already received my personal front-row videos of Nick in a previous blog.

4-Hells Canyon and the Ringold Formation

Connection between Ringold sediments and Hells Canyon development.  Includes fish fossil work by Jerry Smith. Also, new zircon work by Lydia Staisch.

Change of subject: to WTA trail work in our Kittitas Valley.

Here’s a great report from Beth Macinko on the WTA work on the Manastash Trail that happened this past weekend.

Thank you everyone for coming out to work on Manastash Ridge on Sunday. You built 400 ft of new tread and did the finish work on 200+ more feet for the Westberg Trail reroute – this reroute will avoid the steep grade sections on the original trail that are causing erosion and vegetation loss. Thanks for working hard to move all that dirt from the steeper side slope to make a nice level tread. Your work will make the trail more sustainable to support generations of hikers and the health of the ecosystem. 

Congrats to Jennifer for earning her hard hat today with five work days! Many thanks to Elizabeth for 100 days of trail work with WTA, thanks for bringing your enthusiasm to work parties all over the state! Special thanks to Leighton, Henry, and David for making this your first WTA work party. Thanks to Craig, John S. and Mark for gaining more experience with new tread construction. And thank you to George, Jennifer, Elizabeth, John H., Tim, Jill, and Alan for coming out both days, 1100 feet of trail was built over the weekend, over half of this reroute section.

As Alan mentioned, this work party earned you 8 hours towards a Discover Pass. Volunteering on state lands for 24 hours (3 WTA work parties) earns you a free Discover Pass. Once you have completed 24 hours, you can email volunteer@wta.org, and let them know which work parties you’ve been on. Attached is a link to a shared album with photos from both Saturday and Sunday this week, you can see the trail progress and feel free to add your own photos. Happy trails, Beth

Link to the photos from the weekend:
WTA work May 4 & 5, Manastash Trail, 2019

From that are some favorites, with 3 flower ones below on Saturday’s post.

Here are a few of interest to me from Beth Macinko on May 5th, Sunday.These and one below shows the fantabulous Kittitas Valley from the new trail on Manastash Ridge. Right side, orange hat is Jill – a CWU grad that had friend Ken Hammond as an adviser in 1986, before I arrived. John has orange hat and orange shirt.The photo on the right, taken on the hike IN, carrying all the work tools – by Elizabeth DeVos. Note, John’s orange hat is hooked to his backpack. Two tools are the maximum for carrying and gloves are a must. When actually working, a hard hat is also required, as are boots and long pants. New volunteers get a new green hat on their 5th day; with name or nickname.

I came home to a bunch of deadlines, after running around town doing errands. Went by the dry cleaners, and have my fingers crossed the shirts will be okay for pick-up on Thursday, after I play music at the Meadows Place.

I had to sort out medical bills not covered by Medicare because the deductible (for John) had not been met. I have been in to see doctors enough already this year, that mine is paid up. Also needed a snack after missing lunch. I had not made it out of the dental office in time to go by the Food Bank for a planned meal.

Printed name tags for music stands and for the container to store them at the new location. Thanks to John for his help in adhering them in the right places.

Wednesday, May 8

Got the attendance finalized for KV F&F tomorrow at Meadows. We ended up with 11, with 3 folks making it up from the Yakima Canyon Bluegrass jam.

On my way to the Food Bank (Liberty Theater), I stopped at Umpqua Bank for 3 colorful Frisbees so we could go some not-too-hot day to one of the Disc Golf city parks in town, with another family. It’s supposed to be a lot of fun, but I need to read up on the rules (on line, with demonstration videos). They were given to me by Brandy. John and I both were Frisbee throwers from the beginning of meeting each other, and we also taught our first Brittany, Wisty, to jump up and catch them. She was good at it. We got her in Iowa in 1971. I wish we had had a video camera then to have captured the actions, but all we have now are neat memories.

Food bank music for the first time at the new venue, at the back of the Liberty Theater, in the room managed by the Calvary Baptist Church, Pastor Stephen. Monday, I got a tour from a church member, Steve, when I went in to see the set-up and asked about a secure place for us to store music stands so we didn’t have to haul them in every time we play. Many of our members are just singers and didn’t have their own music stand, so several of us (Evelyn, Joanie, and I) combined our extra pair to come up with 6. Our harmonica player brought his own stand, as did our guitarist. It worked just fine. We had 9 players. Everyone there in the audience thought the music sounded better than in the old place. It’s probably because the floors are a nice heavy tile and not carpeted to absorb the sound.

I took my camera today to get a photo of me taken by Joanie in the new dining area (with a full kitchen and industrial dishwasher), wearing a shirt she gave me last week. I received many compliments on it, especially the embroidery on the neckline. The collar on my right is not set right, but you can see the new venue, and in the back of the photo, the kitchen and serving line.Fellow in red hat is Bob, one of our singers; and me, after music.

Today’s menu was macaroni and cheese with chicken that all I talked with said was very good. I had my own salad, so I did not get a plate, but I did take a bowl of fruit (peaches, pears, apricot, pineapple, and a maraschino cherry). Dessert I also took, but brought home to share with John. We haven’t tasted it yet, but it is a yellow lemon looking cake, with white frosting topped with almond slivers. All who had it at my table loved it. It was made by a volunteer who always is there on Wednesdays and makes desserts to share. I took a Ziploc bag to bring home whatever was there today for dessert. After we played, put up all the equipment into the “back” room, there wasn’t much time to eat and still make it to my exercise class on time. It doesn’t help that the AAC clocks are set 5-6 minutes ahead of the actual time.

I went to SAIL. The new daily schedule program was finally available, delivered just today during our class. I brought one home, went through it, and hung it on our fridge. It covers activities, events, and trips for three months offered by the AAC.

On my way home I stopped at Bi-Mart for some Progresso soup on sale, our favorite: Chicken with rice (and a whiff of wild rice), and veggies. It was priced nicely at 3 cans for $5.

Thursday, May 9

Today’s music was at Meadows Place. We had a dozen players present and a large involved audience.

I went by the dry cleaners to pick up my silk shirt and John’s WTA orange shirt. His is a cotton shirt with an iron-on patch from a WTA promotion of 2 years ago. We did not want to put this in our washing machine. He has orange polyester shirts to work in and washing is okay for those.

Also went to Super 1 for some smoked turkey (planning ahead for my salads); then to Joanie’s to return a carry bag and offer some clothes to her in exchange for what she gave me earlier in the week. She invited me to stay for dinner, but I had two other stops before coming home, so I declined.

My first stop was going back to the cleaners to ask about a button missing on the bottom of the silk shirt. They do have a catch thing that will retrieve buttons that come loose during the dry cleaning operation. However, the fellow behind the counter didn’t have access to the drawer and wouldn’t until tomorrow morning. So I left my shirt and said I hoped they could locate the matching white pearl button, but if not, then a white one that would fit the buttonhole would be fine.

Friday, May 10

Awoke to an early morning call from the Dry Cleaner’s. They found a button that would work and have sewed it on my yellow silk shirt. Will pick up Monday.

Hot weather is not far off, so it is time for an inspection and tune-up of our heat pump. Darren, from Brad & Burke, will come on Friday the 17th, at 8:30 a.m. John wants to remember to spray the outside unit for wasps, and make it safe for Darren, who has a reaction, if stung.

John went to meet Ric Gearhart on Clerf Rd to pick up 20 wood pallets. The old Chevy truck doesn’t have a canopy, so he took it. I went along to take some photos and meet the fellow who gave us the pallets and thank him. These were under hay, outside. Now he has a shed.
Ric outside with some; more are in the shed in front of the truck. They are in good shape, and a few have clean fresh wood that can be used for a neat project.
The internet has lots of ideas, like a box.

Once home, I took a photo of the load. They did a nice job of putting them into the pickup bed. I counted roughly ~ 23.Different sizes and shapes makes counting not straightforward.

I’m switching back to a message I received this morning on Facebook, which I accidentally saw. I do not have time to see all things that come across my timeline in one day.

Jennifer Lipton, whom I taught with in Geography at CWU, sent it about an award ceremony for the College of the Sciences. Here’s her comment (about two students I know); others were included I do not know.

Awesome evening at the College of the Sciences award ceremony, with my amazing graduate student in our Cultural and Environmental Resource Management graduate program Beth Macinko and fellow co-Director Pat McCutcheon. Geography student Caleb Valko has decided to go to grad school at UNT for his Masters after I connected him to my fantastic UT Austin Geography friend, Dr. Matt Fry!  Pat, Beth, Jen, Dean Tim Englund ^.^.^. ^.^. ^ Caleb with Jen.

I spent a lot of time this afternoon, going back to my old Toshiba computer I hadn’t used in a while. I needed to find backups of a previous year’s tax data to use with the TurboTax program. My Dell had an incomplete background folder that needed to be on here (the Dell) to give the history needed to move forward to the software. That meant I had to find my external CD/DVD drive I had bought to use with the Dell (because they do not have CD options on new laptops). Then I had to install the software to run the drive on the Dell.

The process took a lot longer than expected, using a lot of C drive space. I’ll have to back up and delete some of the unneeded things. I don’t like the time to take to do this. Thankfully, once installed, it returned some space on the disk.

Got that done. Now am installing Turbo Tax. I finished and got started but have gone as far as I could without looking up some receipts to put new numbers into the template.

Saturday, May 11

A wedding of musical friendsHumor at beginning – collaring and the rings shared during vows
Today I planned to drive into the Yakima Canyon to the 1:00 wedding friends, Maury & Marilyn. I made it there in time to get a seat but stood through the ceremony, videotaping it.

Wedding Ceremony–Marilyn & Maury, Big Pines, 5-11-19

After ceremony, Marilyn’s daughter Tammy sings Love Songs

Maury’s grandson Liam sings, ‘Old Man Look at My Life’

If you’d like to hear the songwriter, Neil Young, sing his song, and tell his story of the origins, check out this link. The entire lyrics are posted with the video. Liam might appreciate this. (I don’t have his email to share, if someone in the family can, please.)

Neil Young – Old Man

After the wedding, I drove to Costco (21 miles, r.t.) for filling my car with gasoline (@3.249/gal). Circle K in EBRG is the lowest at 3.399. So, the price went down in EBRG from yesterday, and I only saved 15₵/gal instead of the expected 20₵. Still worth the trip, as I needed Acetaminophen. And the drive was beautiful today, down and back. I traveled back to the Big Pines Campground and visited with the family & friends. I took my fiddle, but they were on a rest break, in the shade, and had already served their wedding cake. I got there in time to get a piece with frosting, and brought some of the second layer of 3 small pieces back to John without frosting, which had been left on the tray. He likes chocolate cake and I think got some of the raspberry layer on the top. Visited for about an hour and had another photo made on my camera, by Tamara, with the newly married couple and me beside the tree which provided the nice shade which kept us cool for the service. The temperature was 89 in the canyon, but thankfully with a light breeze. Marilyn, Maury (changed from his bib overalls), & Nancy without her John Deere wide-brimmed straw hat for the sun we escaped by this wonderful shade tree. Maury & Marilyn met in the canyon here a year ago at this Bluegrass Jam event and chose this as the site of their wedding. Several years ago, John and I met Maury for the first time here as well, inviting him to join our Kittitas Valley Fiddlers & Friends music group. The rest is history.

On my way to and from Costco, via SR 821, Yakima Canyon Road,I passed and missed some great photoshoots on the river, of boats and fishermen (& fisherwomen), but I did take some photos on my return trip from Costco: From my Economic Geography teaching days, I love hops fields and the stories accompanying growing, harvesting, and transporting them to users, in different forms. These vines are new in the Pomona area on State Hwy 821. Right photo is farther upstream on the Yakima River with a boater. Many fishing. It is a catch and release stream through the Canyon.

The green hills were lovely, but most of the Arrowleaf Balsamroot golden flowers were past their prime. They were perfect our last trip down. Here are flowers reserved from earlier this week.Manastash Ridge Trail flowers by Vikram Bisht (member of the WTA work crew); Maryhill vicinity south of Goldendale: Phlox and Arrowleaf Balsamroot near the Columbia River, by Jack Powell.

Arrowleaf Balsamroot Plant Description

Sunday, May 12 Mother’s Day

John’s out working before the temperature rises too high. Mostly, he was watering plants in the garden, primarily strawberries.

He came in for brunch, and we have finished a nice Mother’s Day meal of eggs, summer sausage (fried slices), peaches, orange slices, and English Muffin bread toasted with apricot preserves.

Temps have risen in the house to 74, front porch 79 in shade, 76 at the airport 5 miles south, with 27mph gusts to cool things some. All our windows are closed, with no a/c turned on.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Sunday, April 28

We published the blog at 10:43 p.m. and we spent another ½ hour making correctional updates.

Monday, April 29

This morning I sent out the KV F&F note about scheduling for this week, and requested feedback for the whole month. Three people replied.

John worked outside today. Multiple projects going on. Nothing notable or special.

I left in time for my blood draw prior to Silver Sneakers.
It went well and I got to the AAC before they started the class. Got my equipment and went through the exercises. I tried to take it easy with my left arm, but I was still aching when done. When I attend next Monday, I’m going to be extra cautious about taking it easy. My muscles are just not yet ready to have a hard workout. Two months away takes its toll.

From there I drove to the Food Bank Senior Nutrition lunch for a very nice free lunch. It was beef & mushrooms in gravy over rice, veggies side, a roll, skipped the dark mixed greens salad, and had a piece of red velvet cake with white icing, for dessert.

On the way home, I stopped at Safeway for their Monday Fried Chicken special of 4 thighs/4 legs ($4.99) normally $3 higher, and picked up small mini marshmallows for topping butternut squash casseroles.

Once home, I moved the music for May/June into my music book and also into the one I carry for two guitar players in the group: Gerald and Charlie. I have yet to put the audience copies into my carrier and replace the ones from March/April. That got done Thursday morning, just in time.

One thing John did after I got home was harvest our asparagus. I made a package for our neighbor, Ken, which he just picked up on his way down to feed his father supper.

John harvested an ice cream bucket full, and here’s a collage of it. This is the first harvest. He will harvest more on Friday this week, and hope for the winds to die down so he can spray the ground to get rid of the weeds and grass.This is a combo of two shots of the same container of asparagus.

We had Fried Chicken for dinner, with French fries, and tomatoes.

I spent a bunch of time unplanned working on changes in Google Groups relating to the NW Geography Jobs list I co-manage with Caitlin LaBar (who got involved when I was in the ICU in 2009). She managed the list until I was able to return to run it. I shall be ever grateful to her. Tonight I sent her the alert and we decided all probably will be fine taking their deferred settings. We are the only two owners of the group, and no one else has privileges to post or otherwise be involved in the process.

Tuesday, April 30

We have an appointment in Yakima this afternoon for a special test to measure our circulation to our feet. More below.
While there, we will go to Costco for a few things.

We ate a brunch before leaving and took off about 11:20 a.m. First stop, WinCo, for our All Bran Buds. Then across the street for gasoline at Costco, at 20₵/gal. cheaper than in Ellensburg! On inside for things we and a neighbor needed. From there, we drove to our foot doctor’s office for the special vascular test.

I tried finding a good explanation on the web and failed, so I will go with my own experienced testing.

Our appointment was for 2:30 p.m. We were not brought in until closer to 3:30 because they were training a new person to administer the test, and she was the one who gave me my test, after John’s. I watched the test being given to John (by the teacher) so I had a good idea of the procedure. They use two measuring devices (a blood pressure cuff to fit the part of the body measured) and an oximeter to measure one’s pulse and SpO2. The parts recorded / examined, included a large cuff around the thigh above the knee, another of the calf below the knee, then the ankle, and then the ankle BP with the SpO2 on the Big Toe, and finally a small BP cuff on the Big Toe along with the SpO2. The order is top down, first the right and then the left for the thigh measurement. Then below the knee (right & left), and on down the same way to the calf, then ankle, and then big toe.

It was accomplished on an uncomfortable examination table. Normally, the test is completed in 15 minutes. With the training happening, and retesting necessary, John’s went ~ 40 minutes and mine was ~ 30 minutes. We did not walk out of the building until 4:30, so going straight home was not going to work.

We were scheduled at the Iron Horse Brewery at 6:00 p.m., so we went to Burger King getting a Whopper for John and a Crispy chicken for me. The mix & match is still on for $3.00/sandwich. We carried our own bottle of Coca Cola. Then we drove to the Ales and Trails meeting, an outreach for WTA (Washington Trails Association). We parked in our bank’s lot next door.Top left, John (orange WTA shirt) talking with our friend and local wind farm guide, Kristin Ashley. I’m to the left in front of them, out of view. She and John went to get glasses of beer, met and talked to one of the firm, and he gave them their beer. Neat.

Daily Record Link:
Story of WTA Trails & Ales

It was a nice presentation and I saw folks from my past there, and also met some new ones. Everyone received a free raffle ticket, and the prizes were nice. I wanted the pair of socks called Darn Tough with a Lifetime Guarantee. They are expensive. We did not win any prize with our tickets.

Read through the article above to Beth Macinko’s message at the end. That will prepare you for this coming weekend’s WTA trail work party even John is serving on as an Assistant Crew Leader (an orange hat), with Beth as the blue hat, crew leader.

Tuesday is also the day to check Bi-Mart numbers, so we stopped there on the trip home. I was tired of standing and walking, so John did the honors of going inside to check. We missed one gift by “300”, and did not win anything for the last digit either. We didn’t make it home until after 8:15 p.m.

Wednesday, May 1

Dave Hazlett, farrier, is coming at 10:00 to trim Myst.
I have to leave ~ 10:50 for the Food Bank to setup music stands and chairs. I’ll make my salad with John’s help cubing cheese, apples, and smoked turkey, to take along for lunch. I will not go to SAIL today, because of special programs at the AAC which cancelled out this Wednesday and Friday’s exercise classes at 1:30 p.m.

Washed dishes, never got to clothes.

After running into Gloria, Jeb, Gia, and Gary at Costco yesterday, I remembered I had never completed sending the videos and report of the KAS 30th birthday party.

I’m now updating the Kittitas Audubon Society’s meeting for the 30th birthday coverage the first week of May and sending to the members for whom I have emails.  I found these after I published the blog on April 18, while cleaning up my camera for Nick Zentner’s talk.  Here they are to finish the evening’s presentations I captured on a different camera.

Gloria Baldi on looking for Sandhill Cranes

Jan Demorest Introduces the Silent Auction

The next one is Lesley McGalliard presenting a delightful step into the past 30 years of our Kittitas Audubon Society’s local chapter beginnings. Check out the comments of when a speaker couldn’t come at the last minute, and CWU offered an 8-track movie of the Life Cycles of Egrets. The content was different from the expected title and provided an interesting evening.

Lesley McGailliard reads Steve Hall’s letter

Gloria Baldi Introduces Speaker, Wendy Shaw

I then changed cameras and you have already seen the videos captured of Wendy’s presentation.

I visited our neighbor Louaine Magnuson this afternoon. I told her about this photo, and will have to follow it with a photo when it flowers. It is a Hall’s Hardy Almond tree. She gave us a dozen seeds but they did not get planted when they should have. Still, we managed to get two trees that are now several years old. This is the largest and looks the best. We will take another photo to put beside it, when it flowers. I hope that happens before Sunday night, at publishing time. Not quite, but half is flowering.
Louaine’s Hall’s Hardy flowering almond-start almond blossoms

Thursday, May 2

John left a little before 8:00 a.m. for the dentist for an 8:30 a.m. appointment.

I finalized the count for chairs today at Rehab and reported them: ten needed. I put the audience copies in their bag and charged the battery in my mic. We may not need it today in the smaller room except for Charlie’s singing to be heard over the players.

John made it home but couldn’t call me on his cell phone, either dialing or through the Bluetooth. He later figured out (but doesn’t know how) his phone got set on Airplane Mode, and would not do anything.

Now I need to eat brunch, get dressed, and go to town to play music.

Before I left and before he ate, the cement on his temporary tooth cap came unglued and the cap fell out. He had to go back to town to have it re-cemented. Sad – it took him 40 minutes to drive in and return, but only 10 minutes to fix. Good thing his appointment was early this morning, because they are not open tomorrow for business. I managed to schedule his trip back in, and then I left for town.

We had 10 players and a large responsive audience. It went well. After playing, I left for Joanie & Ken’s house to offer some tops, but she didn’t want them. So, she offered me some tops and pants that she couldn’t use. I brought home a bag of new clothes and still haven’t had time to try them on yet.

John took a photo of some “yellow” goldfinches on our back feeder. The males are brighter now than when we first started seeing them this spring. See below for that description. Feeder on the patio behind our house on the Naneum Fan. The one red one is a house finch, not a red finch; other are goldfinches. Top right is a pair – male and female (both top pix are from the web). On our feeder, you can see the brightest yellow ones (males) and the duller are females. Interestingly, they are monogamous, having one brood annually.

More colorations with males:Breeding male . ^ . ^ . ^ . ^ . ^ . ^ . ^ . ^ . ^ . non-breeding male

Here are some of the female with her coloration through year:Winter coat – others to the right for other parts of the year.

Description of the goldfinches’ color scheme: (worth following)

David Sibley about Goldfinch Colorations

Be sure to follow the above link and watch the slide show. It is very well done and illustrative, especially for children.

More information from David Sibley:

Molt is the process of feather replacement. All birds do it; they have to grow new feathers once or twice a year to stay warm, dry, and airborne, and in many cases they grow differently colored feathers at different seasons to match their surroundings or to impress others of their species.

Among the small songbirds, virtually all species have a complete molt (replacing all of their feathers) in late summer, and in addition many species have a partial molt (replacing some of the body feathers but not the wing or tail feathers) in the spring.

American Goldfinch follows this pattern. Beginning in September, and continuing for six to eight weeks, they molt all of their feathers, ending up with a completely new and pristine set of feathers (and drab colors) as they head into the winter. In the spring, as they grow new body feathers the males especially transform into bright yellow breeding plumage, but the wing and tail feathers remain from the previous fall. As these wing feathers get older the pale buff edges fade to white and disintegrate, so that by the end of the summer the wings look essentially all black. And in September another complete molt begins.

Watch the slideshow, or click on the main image to advance, and see what other patterns you can notice.

Friday, May 3

The rest of our day was busy with outside chores for John and inside ones for me. First he picked asparagus and I gave some to three neighbors. It was not as much as was picked the first day that you’ve seen above. He picked everything today, so he could spray the ground for weeds and grass.

The purple tulips are in Garden #1, red are across the driveway.

Saturday, May 4

At 3:00 a.m. our friend Evie Schuetz was driving over by the Columbia River near Vantage, WA and capturing star gazing photographs that will blow your mind. She posted two. I recognized the location of one (explained below), and she shared some more information.Skies above the Columbia River at Vantage, WA, 3:00 a.m. Sunday, over the Wild Horse Monument (aka Grandfather Cuts Loose the Ponies),
{ Unfinished, described here }
. . . a neat sculpture high on a hill above basalt, upriver from Wanapum Dam and Sentinel Gap. Once years ago, John and I and several others from the Kittitas Valley Trail Riders club, rode our horses in from the north to the top of the hill right next to the sculpture. It’s really quite amazing close-up as it is from far away. The 15 horses are made from iron sheets and are about the size of our riding horses.

The last one she sent me after I made some comments and asked some questions. On that one, she said: Nancy, here’s a composite photo of the images I used for this shot, only difference is I used a different stack option, so you could see all the meteors. I (Evie) didn’t post this one because it’s so noisy, but I thought you might be interested in seeing it. I (Nancy) was and I share here as the bottom photo above (look for the streaks) – because of the predicted meteor showers starting this morning.

I sent this link below to Evie when she shared this photo. I received it yesterday from space.com about the predicted meteor showers over the next couple of days (nights). The photo below came from that link.Taken by Astrophotographer Mike Taylor, of an Eta Aquarid meteor streaking through the sky on May 6, 2014 in Maine.

ETA Aquarid Meteor Shower for 2019

John left for Manastash Ridge WTA work party at 7:25 a.m. Not as far to travel as usual. This will be excellent for the next 4 trips serving as an Assistant Crew Leader (Orange Hat), and even nicer being an assistant to the Crew Leader (Blue Hat), Beth Macinko.

John’s day on the trail – Beth put out a nice report this evening with photos. Here are a few I chose with John involved. I was hoping for one of John and Beth together in the same photo.Top left, John explains his saw during the safety use of tools talk, and then is pictured using a McLeod tool (rake) on new trail build.

Jacquie Lawson issues with card dispersal
I’m having problems with no sends and multiple sends on my Jacquie Lawson greeting cards. I need to finish reporting today’s activity to the people in the United Kingdom. It finally was done mid-afternoon. I had about 5 problems to report. No response yet. Might have to wait until Monday.

I continued dish and clothes washing. The relatively new clothes washer is a funky slow thing. Progress!

Sunday, May 5

John left for Manastash Ridge WTA trail work about 7:20 a.m.

He made it home and said the creation of new trail was through more difficult terrain today, but they added 400’ to yesterday’s 700’. Everyone was pleased at the accomplishments.

We’ll end our week with our neighbor’s solar panel installation:April 22 – April 24 – April 28 – 30 solar panels on an old, unused, cattle barn. House is 200 feet past and to the right of the solar array. John took the photos from near the end of our driveway, with a 200 mm lens.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Sunday, April 21

Still Happy Easter and we have not yet published the blog. John’s been doing many different outside chores and is out again.

We just now published the blog at 9:31 p.m. and are both tired and ready to go to bed. I found some changes needed in my YouTubes from Thursday night, so I will make those corrections and then hit the hay. First, I had to recharge my FitBit, because it was dead, so I stayed up longer than I wished.

Later this week, after our blog was published with the photo of some decorated Easter eggs, we were sent a photo of some fancy decorated eggs from a long-time blog reader Nancy Bridges, in Sandia Park, NM (north central part).These are amazing. They came from her neighbor. I asked for a higher resolution images of the egg photos sent, for an explanation, and learned that Donna and her young daughter Addie live across the street from them and are like family. Nancy says she gave them a web site that tells how to make them using silk fabric from and old tie. Nancy’s husband, Denney had a tie with birddogs on it that he gave them to use. (Side note: the Bridges had Brittanys from our lines. Denney is a pilot, and flew into the Ellensburg airport from Montana, bringing officials of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation to a meeting. On their flight back, he carried back a puppy to deliver to folks in MT to a town near the Canadian border, far away from a commercial airport. John thinks it was Wolf Point, MT, but I do not recall. I should have asked Denney, but they will see this and maybe remember the details better to tell us.

Monday, April 22

John leaves for White Heron for pruning, and I’m get work done that needs to be sent soon – or done yesterday.

Guess I was tired. I awoke to say goodbye to John and earlier to put out the cat, cat food, and greet Sue’s morning arrival with a pet. Then I laid back down and slept until 9:30 when a blocked call came in. I’m so happy our new Panasonic land line system allows blocking calls. I have managed to block two which have been harassing us for months. (Now later in the week I’m up to six being blocked). It still rings in – but only once, and immediately hangs up. I wonder what happens on the calling end, and if they can tell it is blocked or if it just indicates the call was answered and hung up. We are still getting calls (up to four/day from some places, namely the Fire Charity Fund). That is a definite scammer call with only 4% of the funds collected going to fire victims.

While editing a resume for a friend in New Jersey, I recalled a long-ago memory of my Business School education, between college attendance in fall, 1961 (starting with a $500 scholarship at Emory University) and then during the summer of 1962. I’m happy for the memories, but quite grateful I re-entered college at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, GA (Brookhaven), for summer classes and caught up on all my freshman English and Mathematics courses. In fall quarter 1962, I began classes at Georgia State University in downtown Atlanta, from which I was graduated on time, allowing me to catch up with John at the Univ. of Cincinnati for our graduate work in 1965. We both were 1961 high school graduates.

This postcard depicts the Marsh Business College, formerly located at the northeast corner of Peachtree and Harris Streets in the heart of the Atlanta downtown business district. The corner is now part of the Regency Hyatt property.

I was off working on my jobs list, forwarding an opportunity for graduate school in CA, and while using the Pacific Coast email for transfer of a job, this came up… an interesting history of APCG of which I am a member (through AAG, the main Association of American Geographers, of which I’m a lifetime member, my reward after 50 years of paid membership.
History of the APCG:

Founded in 1935 by a gathering of geographers including graduate students and faculty from universities, normal schools, and junior colleges, the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers has a long and rich history promoting geographical education, research, and knowledge. Members gather at its annual meetings for social and intellectual interaction. They receive the annual Yearbook, first printed in 1935, that includes abstracts of papers from the meetings and a number of full-length peer-reviewed articles. The Yearbook is now part of Project MUSE, a widely used academic database that provides full-text coverage for over 400 journals. We thank the Yearbook’s publisher, the University of Hawai’i Press, for helping make this possible. Members also receive the bi-annual newsletter Pacifica. Since 1952 the APCG has also been the Pacific Coast Regional Division of the Association of American Geographers, serving AK, AZ, CA, HI, ID, NV, OR, WA, BC, and YT.

John arrived home from pruning and we ate separate lunches. He went outside to shovel manure into the pickup, and I returned to filing receipts and paperwork for the current and past year. John came back in to invite me to tour the yard to see flowers, trees, and garden things he’s growing. So I took a break and went on a tour with him, our companion cat, Czar (Mackerel Tabby), and Annie, our companion dog (Brittany).

These daffodils and tulips are in 3 locations in our “front” yard.

Upper left is long-haired mackerel tabby, Woody; rest are of Czar, short-haired mackerel tabby. Czar is the most recent one in the family of four “feral” cats. We wonder about Czar’s origin. He must have been dropped off in the neighborhood, because he is < 3 yrs. That was determined when he was neutered. He befriended us and we did not have to use a trap to capture him, as we did the other three several years ago.

Neighbors in our 1st garden; hens & chicks beside asparagus.

Today has been a crazy day. John just left to pick up tabs for our 2003 Ford Truck which expired 3/12/2019. He has to get there before they close at 6:00. He needs to drive the truck to White Heron tomorrow with a load of manure. This will be their last day of pruning.

Fortunately, he noticed the expired tab and came in the house to look for where I might have put the registration. We could not find it. I started going through the stack of paid and unpaid bills on the table beside my recliner. I didn’t find it, and decided to check my computer for receipts for vehicles. Not there. He couldn’t find anything but 2018 and 2017 in the truck’s glove compartment. So as a last minute hope, I checked the DOL site where one renews tabs. Sure enough, they needed renewed and had not been done. I rushed through to request it, and got almost to the end and realized it was 5:20 p.m. and they closed at 6:00 p.m. I gave John the phone number and he called to ask if he could come get them tonight. Yes, and I printed a receipt for him that it was paid, even though the cashier said she could check on line. I was still processing it when he called her. He took my Forester papers too, because I had just renewed them a couple days ago and not picked up yet. He got there in time to receive both. So it was a good deal all around.

He left there and went to Bi-Mart, where he bought some spray (like Round-up but cheaper), 3 tomato plants, some seed packets, and came on home. He was tired from his long day of pruning, loading manure, feeding livestock, and so he sat down for a nap. I went and took my shower, so I could do it while he was in the house. Once out, we fixed our supper. He had cut an apple and some smoked turkey into cubes for me, so I fixed a salad with Iceberg lettuce, turkey, apples, pistachios, tomatoes, and bleu cheese dressing, using Cheez-its® as croutons. He had tomatoes & broccoli with dressing and a bowl of chili with the few pieces of smoked turkey I didn’t need in my salad.

I have been processing the photos I took on our tour of the yard this afternoon, which you have seen above.

Tuesday, April 23
John left for White Heron and the last day of pruning. The back of the truck under the canopy was filled with dry horse manure. Eventually it will get put on the purest sandy parts of the vineyard. After the morning pruning, Cameron and John unloaded the manure. Sadly, while John had his camera along, he did not take a photo of the load. Instead, I’ll show you what he brought home after a stop in Kittitas for a load of Poplar chips given to us.

The picture below shows the pile of chips and it’s alongside of a photo of the load when John arrived home this afternoon. He backed the truck to the pile, and shoveled/raked into truck bed. He will use it to cover paths in his gardens and up through the sagebrush & steppe vegetation on our property closest to the road.

Chip pile in yard and truck bed what got brought home (about 6x8x2 = 96 cu. ft.). The load of manure filled the entire space, except a small amount at the back. [about 8x6x4 = 192 cu. ft.]

I had other tasks I was working on this morning before I left for my haircut. The biggest was trying to sort out the return trip for the chips, as John did not have the telephone contact to call the fellow in Kittitas with the expected time of arrival.

There were other things I spent time doing – getting ready to leave and trying on some clothes to see which would work for an upcoming event, and checking the size of another few. Also had to finish emptying the dishwasher and reload and soak more dirty dishes. I still am not through with that.

John fixed us a pizza tonight. I’m continuing work on filing and mixing in cleaning up the cameras for tomorrow’s last Nick Zentner presentation for April. I need to charge camera batteries.

I’ve been working on several different projects, and now we are ready to have dessert and crash for the night.

Wednesday, April 24

We called our farrier and scheduled Myst for a trim, May 1.

I have to get ready for leaving at 10:50 for the Food Bank, to setup music stands and chairs. I’ve made my salad with John’s help cubing cheese, apples, and smoked turkey, to take along for lunch. Need to fill my car with expensive gasoline, go by the pharmacy, and grab some razors for John. I may not have time to go to SAIL today. I need to get home and be sure my cameras are ready to film tonight.

I succeeded in downloading a camera manual for my Nikon S9500 a couple days ago. I have been searching the manual for the way to get rid of the sound of the shutter when taking a still photo. I just finally found it and made the correction. A search on sound settings revealed the directions. I turned off both sounds for shutter and button sounds.

From the front row of Morgan Performing Arts Center in Ellensburg, WA:

Nick Zentner’s fourth (and last this year) “downtown” lecture April 24, 2019 is titled: Hells Canyon and the Ringold Formation.Nick begins his lectures with chalk boards and moves to visuals.

Here are the links:
{If these don’t start at the beginning, move the dot back to the left.}

Hells Canyon & the Ringold Formation (Part 1: Boards)

Check the visuals near the end for the story of Lydia Staisch’s (** SEE BELOW **) research on our area and the USGS changes she is providing with her research. She was on campus last year and introduced many to her procedures of studying the zircons in sandstones from sites of the past.

Hells Canyon & the Ringold Formation (Part 2: Visuals)

. . . and a special entry:

West VA story from Nick’s past, Whitewater Rafting New River

The one above was filmed on my Nikon camera – the story about Nick as a recent grad trying to predict the age of the river canyon of the “oldest” river in North America. It’s hilarious and worth viewing the separate clip. Because I was operating one camera with my left hand for the Part 1 (Boards) of the entire lecture, and this with my right hand, following Nick around the stage. Trying to keep his head in view was difficult, but you can follow. This story goes back to 1990. He arrived at CWU in 1992.

** Lydia Staisch was with us last year, the end of May:
Lydia Staisch-Research Geologist–Ringold Formation White Bluffs

FOOTNOTE: regarding Lydia Staisch’s May 31, 2018 presentation at CWU to the IAF chapter meeting (abstract):

Lydia Staisch, USGS Research Geologist, will present her team’s research on the “Sedimentology and U-Pb detrital zircon provenance of the Ringold Formation: implications for the ancestral Columbia and Snake River drainage” at 7:00 PM on Thursday, May 31, in Central Washington University’s Science II Building, room 103.

The research team of Lydia Staisch, James O’Connor, Christopher Holm-Denoma, and Jeremy Alexander have been using detrital zircon provenance and age dating of volcanic tephra to potentially rewrite geological understanding of the ancient river courses of the ancestral Snake River.

The Miocene–Pliocene Ringold Formation has been an important marker for understanding where and when the ancestral Columbia, Snake, and Salmon/Clearwater Rivers flowed. Over the past century, many researchers have provided important insight into the river history, and most studies have focused on fish fossils and river cobbles as evidence. However, the details and mechanisms for river reorganization are still debated. To add to the story, we provide a new data set of detrital zircons, which provide a unique fingerprint to identify source terrane.

We analyzed fluvial sandstone samples from the Ringold Formation on the north side of the Saddle Mountains for detrital U-Pb zircon provenance. Above and below the sampled sandstone, we dated interbedded tephra layers that bracket the time of sandstone deposition between 7.0 and 3.4 Ma. Importantly, these new ages show that the Taunton fish fossils are older than previously interpreted. For comparative analysis, we dated detrital zircons from modern Columbia, Okanogan, Spokane, Methow, Yakima, and Salmon River sands, and supplemented this with existing detrital zircon ages from the Snake River Plain.
Our new evidence, along with extensive paleontological data from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, entirely change the story of drainage reorganization. We show that the Snake River was in Pasco Basin and depositing sandstones before 3 Ma, which is when most other researchers suggest it flowed elsewhere. Whether this means that Hells Canyon was carved before 3 Ma is still up to debate, but we have several weeks of fieldwork immediately before this talk that is specifically aimed to answer that question.

My videos while she was here from Thursday night: May 31, 2018
{If these don’t start at the beginning, move the dot back to the left.}

Lydia Staisch Ringgold Formation Sedimentology & Provenance

Lydia’s Q & A

Nick Zentner’s invite to tomorrow’s noon lecture by Lydia
2+ minutes

I also followed her to a noon lecture on the Yakima Folds the next day, which if anyone is interested, let me know and I’ll pass along my video of her talk and one of the Q & A.

John and I also went on Nick’s Field Trip June 10th, and filmed as much as possible. If you are interested, let me know. It will be a hassle to share but I’m willing. I have ~ 10 videos at the 4 stops on the field trip. It was a great exposure followup to Lydia’s lecture.

Current 2019 Information on Nick’s “downtown” talks at the new venue – Morgan Middle School.

Follow-up Professional Filming by Julian & Sierra:

Meanwhile, below are 3 of the ones on the CWU YouTube Channel.  You can search on that and subscribe, and you’ll be able to reach much of Nick’s stuff, and next week you’ll have access to the professional version of the April 24th lecture.

However, check his own collection at his own website for all of his story.

Nick Zentner’s Personal Web Site

The professional versions of the first 3 lectures at Morgan are now posted on the CWU YouTube Channel:  with one more to come, next week.
{If these don’t start at the beginning, move the dot back to the left.} 
1-Professional version of Nick Zentner’s 4-3-19 lecture:

Supercontinents and the PNW

2-Professional version of Nick Zentner’s 4-10-19 lecture:

Plant Fossils in the PNW

3-Professional version of Nick Zentner’s 4-17-19 lecture:

Supervolcanoes in the PNW

Thursday, April 25

I charged the battery in my mic, good thing, because I had to loan it to Charlie as his was dead. He leads the singing and he needs the mic so the players can hear his interpretation of the music. Also, I called Gloria and Clare to remind them we would be there today at Hearthstone to play the last of the March/April music.

When I got there I was excited to be presented with a gift from Sharon Jenson (our bass guitar player), who knows my desire to dress in clothes for the music we are playing. I had worn a green shirt and green pants for the Irish music we were playing still from March. I put on the gift vest and wore it today. I did not get my photo taken while there (should have), but came home and took this to show her and thank her for the gift to add to my box of clothes for special music occasions. I have a whole wardrobe for Christmas as well. And, patriotic stuff for July.

Irish vest (Thanks very much, Sharon!)

John and I went to the CWU Foundation Scholarship Donor and Recipient Reception, at the Lombard Room starting at 6:00 p.m. It finished earlier than planned and we got out before 8:00 and were home before dark. Cats were happy to see us returning.

We were seated at ~16 tables, and once there, we were unable to mingle with other tables. The desire was to have the donors meet their recipients and to share their progress since the award.

We succeeded with one of our recipients this year, Mallory Triplett, a graduate student in the Cultural & Environmental Resource Management [CERM] program. Our conversation was enlightening; we learned about her current assistantship research and about her planned thesis research to be completed this coming year. She will be studying a stone used by the Native Americans for implements (arrowheads, spears, projectiles, etc.). It is Tachylyte, a glassy volcanic rock found in thin dikes or sills of basalt near where the basalt has come in contact with water, and was cooled rapidly. Her topic is fascinating, and I will be following her progress. She has a geology minor and also majored (with husband Josh) in Anthropology with an emphasis in archaeology at the University of Idaho, where John and I were before arriving in WA. Josh is also in the CERM program at CWU.

Here’s our photo last year at the time of the award presentation, to 2 recipients of the Hultquist Distinguished Service Award: Caleb Valko (undergrad Geography) and Mallory Triplett (graduate Cultural & Environmental Resource Management). Caleb, Nancy, & Mallory

Nancy & Mallory *********** Josh, Daphne (~5 mos.), Mallory

Dale Comstock was at our table (he is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics) as the donor of scholarship awarded to a young man who is an Abstract Mathematician, well above John’s and my head (knowledge) of mathematics.

Also at our table was Tim Englund (originally a mathematics faculty member), but now he serves as the Dean of the College of the Sciences. He and John worked on a trail maintenance trip through Washington Trails Association (WTA), where they volunteered together in 2006 and carpooled to the work site. It is an amazingly small world. They will be joining the trail work again on the first weekend in May and June, working on our local Kittitas valley’s Manastash Trail, with ironically, the crew leader being Beth Macinko, who is also a student in the CWU Cultural & Environmental Resource Management program. Beth is the granddaughter of George & Mary Ann Macinko. Mary Ann was there tonight, at a table across the room from us, visiting with her scholarship recipient.

Shortly after we were seated, we were encouraged to go for food. It included such things as meatballs, skewers with onions, peppers, mushrooms, pastries with various contents, shrimp on lettuce leaves, several cheeses (Brie, Cheddar, Gouda) and crackers. Desserts: mini pies (pecan, cream & fruit), brownies. Beverages offered were coffee, flavored water, and canned drinks. The meal was served buffet style. After eating and visiting, there was a program with a few speakers; two were scholarship recipients, one remotely by video from Japan, and the other, a Hispanic student, first in her family to attend college, only possible through scholarships, and a part-time job.

I did not see Caleb (he was likely at a table elsewhere with another donor, or he might not have been there because the other donor was unable to come because of being in the hospital for 3 weeks in Seattle). Caleb received more than one of the scholarships presented by Geography.

The principal reason for the meeting tonight was to introduce donors to their recipients. While I do still know some of the students, other donors do not. We enjoyed many stories among the 3 of us, Mallory Triplett (CERM grad), John, and me. John was also talking WTA/trails with Tim.

Mallory explained the assistantship she is working on and I asked about her thesis topic. I have described a little about that above. I learned that her minor was Geology, she is from Sandpoint, ID, and had a horse while still there. I found out she’d be interested in many of the lists I moderate/maintain to share videos taken at CWU on Geology or Ice Age Floods research. As well, I provide a service weekly to send Earth Science Web Sites to over 100 people, and those are passed along from a geographer friend in central Michigan, Mark Francek. He sends his out weekly, except during major school breaks (as December and Spring), and he does not publish them in the summer months. One year he went with a few students across the country on bicycles studying U.S. geography. I succeeded today in adding Mallory to all the lists.

Friday, April 26

I am going to a Scholarship Luncheon today, in Barge (oldest building on campus), Room 115. We had a nice lunch of Tortellini soup, BLT pasta salad, and cookies (which I forgot to take). It was held in the office of the CWU Foundation, the folks who put on the Donor/Recipient Scholarship Appreciation program last night.

At 10:40 a.m., I sent out this week’s links for Wednesday night’s Geology lecture.

The rest of our day was busy with outside chores for John and inside ones for me.

Saturday, April 27

Below the Wind Gusts map are the temperature and winds recorded at our airport this afternoon. We never made it to 52 mph, thankfully, as forecast as a possibility by the Pendleton National Weather Service.

We did experience high winds today. At 9:53 a.m. the airport weather station, 5 miles south of us, reported 43 mph gusts. Down the road a couple miles from us, we shall put in an appearance today at the Bar 14 Ranch for a party. The party will have a Taco Bar, grilled thin marinated steak (Carne asada), salads, desserts, and more. There is live music, and they are planning to hang a Piñata. We got there just in time to see the kids trying to knock it open for the Mexican candy inside.

Composite photo description: Piñata (day before), Birthday boy, Jude eating cake outside at the party, live music behind Uma (purple hat), mom Raychel (light blue jacket) holding Jude. Taco Bar behind photographer.Piñata, Jude 1st BD “spring” party, Uma, Raychel, Jude-Live music

John needed to go to town for some colas and for some Black Oil Sunflower seeds on sale at Ace Hardware, so we hit the party on the way home, hoping we wouldn’t get blown away.

Once there, we visited with Dave & Linda Lundy (Grandparents of Uma & Jude), and the rest of the family. We decided to give the Lundys the wine to share, one a Red Blend of 2/3 Merlot & Cabernet Sauvignon (1/3), and another, Rose’ of Syrah, one of my favorites. In addition, we gave them 3 large lemons from our stash sent from the Resslers in Cathedral City, CA, which Linda is going to use to make her favorite dessert (from the UK), called Lemon Posset. I wish we could taste her creation, but I asked her to send me a photo of them when she makes it. Luckily, she can freeze them after they are made, because the lemons need to be juiced soon. Lemon juice & zest, cream, and sugar are the main ingredients. Can be served with fresh fruit, if desired.

Visited with a couple of my former students and their children, ate from the great taco bar, had dessert (awesome cake made by Linda covered with strawberries), and we left because we were getting cold in the wind. The temperature was below 50, the wind was constant and creating a cold wind chill.

Once home we continued house projects. I followed up on searching for the map above of wind gusts, and learned of this NWS forecasting maps current for the week. I went back & forth with a meteorologist at Pendleton about this. Open the link and click on None Selected. I selected Day 1 and for the forecast, I selected Wind, and I clicked GO. It gave me similar information and I found out the software used to make them is Python; also learned that the National Weather Service still relies on much weather related software written in Fortran (which was the programming language I learned in the sixties and taught during my graduate assistantship at the University of Cincinnati Computer Center, where I was stationed.

Access to Nat’l Weather Service Forecast Maps

Sunday, April 28

John has been outside late morning, doing yard chores. He just returned for our brunch. I have been working on computer issues, mostly finalizing my blog draft for him to review. Also, tried to straighten out problems with a Jacquie Lawson card sent to our friends the Wests, in Yakima, to a valid email address. For some reason it is not being delivered. I just sent another entry they can add to their address book to allow the delivery. We will have to try that by sending another card, to test the theory. My fall back is I sent a copy to myself, so I can always forward that from my account (which won’t be blocked).

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Sunday, April 14

You’ve already heard in last week’s blog what we did today.
Most of our evening was spent working on the blog, or doing email correspondence. John read some more in his book, loaned by a friend, Tim, titled “Longitude.” He already knew most of the story, but enjoyed reading the details.

We published the blog at 11:55 p.m.

Monday, April 15

We left for town at 9:15 and didn’t get home until afternoon. Our original trip was to have our toenails trimmed by a foot doctor (Medicare covers the cost, after deductible paid). We were an hour late being seen, because of a busy morning and only one doctor being there. We also learning of a vascular test we should have once a year to check on the circulation in our legs to our feet. The test takes about 15 minutes, and a blood pressure cuff is wrapped around your thigh, and on down your leg to your ankle. We decided to go to the Yakima office for our tests because the only day they do it in Ellensburg is on Thursday (afternoons), and I cannot get out of music at assisted living homes until too late. So, we will combine our trip with going to Costco, which we need to do anyway. We are scheduled for 2:30 and 3:00 p.m. Tuesday afternoon, April 30th.

Once in we had a nice visit and found out he and his family were going to France in May & June. Once home, John turned on his computer while eating brunch, and saw the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris being destroyed by fire. So sad, but I have the memories of being inside there in 1965 on a Geography Field Trip to 17 European countries, which ended in Paris after 9 weeks.

The rest of our morning trip was to two grocery stores. We loaded up on drinks, chips, ground beef, bananas, and on BBQ sauce of which we now have a lot, on sale for $1. John splurged and bought a container of Maple Syrup, which was still expensive, but marked down $16.00. I told John that for me, I’m fine with the sugared water in regular Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup or something cheaper. I think I paid 99₵ last time I got a bottle. Then, off for Fred Meyer’s special on PowerAdeZero for me at 59₵ each, and some Colas for John, 77₵ – and two boxes with 24 Pepsi cans, each – $6/box. I dislike shopping there, but certainly don’t mind taking advantage of their tremendous mark-downs. I guess they are “loss leader” specials to get you in the store. I have always been intrigued by that concept pricing strategy.

I came home to some magnificent news. I had a phone call from Colleen Meyer at the Yakima Heart Center. She had delivered my report and request to Dr. Dave Krueger, and he has agreed to take me as his patient. What a huge relief! He is in charge now of all the cardiologists and was not taking any new patients. I wanted someone who was there at the time I had my open heart surgery and during the time building up to it in the fall of 2009. I’ll be scheduled to see him in 2 months and get another device check while there. The appointment has been made for June 24th.

Below is what he writes in his biography on their providers’ site, and I LIKE this, particularly his comment, “On Patients”:  

On Patients:  I strive for full patient involvement in their own care and their medical decisions. I love prevention and a healthy lifestyle is the best medicine.
On Cardiology:  What an exciting time to help cardiovascular patients- new medicines and tools keep improving patient care.
On Yakima Heart Center: I am proud to be on Team YHC, where every individual is dedicated to “patients come first”.

You can see the whole statement and his photo at the link below, but you have to click on the bottom of his picture (Dave Krueger):

Dave Krueger, MD (my new cardiologist)

Returned to some more email requirements. Have to set up the attendance for two music events this week; one at Pacifica and one at Briarwood. I just finished that. It was more involved than usual.

I still have not figured out what it is that is on our kitchen calendar in John’s handwriting, that says we are out for dinner at 5:00 this coming Tuesday (23rd). We’re hoping it was accidentally put on the wrong day (maybe in the wrong month).

John went out to work on the logs and house-number sign at the end of the driveway, which got knocked off their “podium” a couple months ago. Note the yellow marker added to the photo indicating our structure. Approaching our driveway from the north there is ½ mile of straight road, then a turn. In the photo, a driver has to make a sweeping left turn, and come toward the camera. Once every 3 years or so the vehicle (sometimes pulling a trailer) follows a more straight path and either comes out the neighbor’s drive, or makes contact with the fence support. Less frequently the vehicle turns onto its side.

John made a fabulous meatloaf tonight, cooked a little bowl of carrots, and cut us some Jarlsberg cheese slices.

I worked on the jobs list.

Tuesday, April 16

John left for White Heron and pruning today.

I have to go drop off size 18 pants and 2 blue medicine bottles to Karen at Briarwood; and look later for any 2X blouses. I’m sure I have some stashed around the house in stacks or containers. We need to have a serious purging of our house contents.

I first stopped by the Ellensburg Community Clothing Center with some things to donate and check out what’s there. Wow – a treasure trove! Stuff for John and for me and for others, if they don’t fit me. One thing is a leather coat for me with embroidery on the sleeves and back (but not the front). Very nice; made by Roper. I found a similar one on EBay that claims the original cost was $250.

Another item (for John) was a brand new Helly Hansen manufactured jacket with a logo of UniSea Renton, WA (Seafood company in Alaska), on the front left side, instead of their normal HH logo. We assume it was paid for by the company for their employees at their Renton, WA facility (cold storage, in the global market). Their company is involved in harvesting wild, seafood products in a sustainable manner, including: Alaskan Pollock, Alaskan King Crab, Snow Crab, Bairdi/Tanner Crab and Golden King Crab, Pacific Cod, Halibut and Sablefish. They are proud to describe these are sustainably harvested from the deep, pristine waters of the Bering Sea, according to Federal law and State of Alaska law. A visit to their web site (particularly to the Galleries tab for some videos), is worth your time.

UniSea, Inc.-Pride of Alaska

The economic geographer in me and my past teaching made me provide the information above.

Another geography connection:

This appeared on Facebook today from Cameron Fries at White Heron Cellars with a glimpse at part of the Mariposa Vineyard, where John has been pruning wine grapevines since February. Cameron’s comment is below the photo.“We lived in the wine making region of St. Saphorin in Switzerland for a while. The vineyards there are very steep and terraced with rock walls. Those walls have thousands of the same flowers that you can see flowering in this photo. When we had to terrace the hillside next to the winery we deliberately recreated a small part of that landscape, including training the vines into the traditional ‘Gobelet’ style. And thus we welcome spring to the Ancient Lakes Viticultural Area.”

On my timeline on Facebook, I shared this comment:

We hold a special place in our hearts for our friends, Phyllis & Cameron Fries, owners of the White Heron Cellars winery and Mariposa Vineyard. Starting in 1998, Cameron started coming to our class at CWU in summers to discuss the cultivation and history of wine grapes, and to provide a tasting of wines in the classroom. Our jointly taught class was held every summer through 2008, and hasn’t been taught since. It was called, Wine: A Geographical Appreciation.

We had field trips, and when Cameron & Phyllis moved to their current location, west of Quincy, WA, we continued his participation at the vineyard and winery. There, they arranged for a 6-course dinner with different wines for all the students at an incredibly reasonable price.
John and I drove CWU vans of students each year there for our first field trip of the year. With the view over the Columbia River, it provided a beautiful setting for learning and enjoyment. Below are some of our photographic memories of their vineyard, winery, and one view from their house on the hill above.Mariposa vineyard – Summer, Fall, Winter by Nancy & John – Columbia River

If you want to see why the vineyard is named as it is, it is not because it’s Spanish for butterfly. In fact, it’s because of the Mariposa Lily found throughout the vineyard in grassy areas.

Check out their own web page and look at the first photo you see:

White Heron Cellars & Mariposa Vineyard

More memories at White Heron Cellars winery events:Sept 2018 John, Phyllis (Altesse dog), Nancy, Cameron (tall guy) & Nancy

Memories inside the winery:Cameron, Pétanque balls, Nancy, John, more White Heron wines for tasting

I have great memories of an event I attended alone for playing Pétanque, while John was volunteering as an Assistant Crew Leader for WTA (Washington Trails Association). My involvement on the winning team of 3 members brought back memories of my earlier life bowling skills. The Moscow, ID bowling lanes closed after I left the state and my high series record was never topped. It was a 679 series accomplished in sanctioned league bowling.

Wednesday, April 17

Finally got in touch with College Subscription Services to renew my Smithsonian and Discover magazines. I reached my old friend Shaku Ext 212 again, back after being gone from May to November last year, traveling around the world. I thought she had gotten another job. It’s nice to have a continuing contact at such places we do business.

Sent my chair count for KV F&F music for tomorrow at Pacifica.

Nick Zentner’s third “downtown” lecture is tonight. We got there just after 6:00 p.m. to get our seat up front for me to film. My videos are below. Following later will be a professional edited version on YouTube that will be distributed by Nick Zentner to the email addresses he has in his system. I have also subscribed to the CWU YouTube Channel so I’m aware when they are published.Cougar Point Mattawa, WA Tuff from Idaho Supervolcano, Jarbidge-Bruneau (these photos from the Nick Zentner lead, IAF Field Trip November, 2018 (John was present on the trip).Nick Zentner’s 4-17-19 lecture on Supervolcanoes in the PNW

Be sure to always check the beginning of the video to be at zero minutes… and move it back (as on the Visuals).

Audience for Nick at Morgan Performing Arts Center

Supervolcanos in the PNW (Part 1: Boards)

Supervolcanos in the PNW (Part 2: Visuals)

While we are on Geology, check this out. Joseph Kerski, my geographer friend in Colorado, sent this to me. You saw his photo in last week’s blog. I used to cover this technology in classes for years. I wish this local coverage existed at the time.

Geologists in Washington State use different bare-earth LiDAR products to map geology, landslides, and faults, to study volcanoes, glaciers and rivers, and to model tsunami inundation.

Give it plenty of time to load – much information is included. Yakima River in the canyon south of us in Ellensburg, WA is featured nicely, early in the presentation.

LiDAR exposes Geology and Natural Hazards in WA

Thursday, April 18

It was raining this morning, but turned into a nice day by the time we left for town at 12:50 p.m.

I used the time to finish loading and start the dishwasher so we had something to eat on and with.

John fixed us a nice breakfast: home fries, cut banana, fried bacon, and I fixed two eggs over easy for myself.
John had things to do outside after the rain stopped.

I charged the battery in my mic for music and called in the count of 11 to Pacifica Senior Living, where we played today. We had a large audience turnout and they were appreciative, with a couple of comments about how they wished we would come more often than once a month. We get that comment often, and have no control over it, with all the places we already are locked into from years past.

Tonight, I went back to town with John to attend this gala.

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 30th Anniversary of the Kittitas Audubon Society ^ ^ ^ ^ ^The meeting tonight was planned to be a silent auction of donated art work, books, statues & figurines, bird houses & feeders, and other paraphernalia associated with birders. It was a fundraiser for the scholarship fund to provide to college students to help with their research, given annually by the Kittitas Audubon Society (KAS).

I arrived early and took a tour of the tables set up with art and books. Each one below is a small amount of viewing time. The two videos of the speaker on snakes, Wendy Shaw, are longer (with 8 and 9-minute viewing times).

First, are the tables of materials:

(1) 1 Prints Priced $1 – $5

(2) Prints by Donation

(3) Silent Auction Bids (Jewelry priced)

(4) An auction item, Figurines priced, rest free things

(5) Many books, Matted Prints, & 2 birding vests

(6) High-priced books and framed prints

This was before the speaker program began:

Wendy Shaw Gopher Snake & Haley

In the above video, at 19 seconds in, Haley says, “I’m used to touching snakes at the STREAM events.” In case you’re wondering – What are these? They are educational meetings with youngsters.

STREAM educational events for kids – build on STEM events, which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics—into STEAM by adding the Arts, and now the accepted acronym is STREAM, by adding Reading (which includes writing). 

I asked Amy (Haley’s mom) to describe the local program for me so I could educate myself and put in this blog for our readers. Here’s her helpful description:

Yes, there is a group called the Early Learning Coalition of Kittitas County that offers a free event for birth to 5 (kindergarten) to get parents and kids “playing with purpose” and talking to kids about the STREAM areas of education before they start school. The kids get lots of hand on activities and then get a bag with an age specific “learning tool” aka toy – things such as magnifying glasses, counting blocks, scissors, rulers, and a free book each event. I think there are like 16 events, 8 in Ellensburg – 8 in Kittitas. Each month is themed and so both towns get the same theme each month. This month was Farmers Market. There is also Science of the Night, Frozen, Helping Hands (police, firefighters, construction).  I love these events.

The next two are of the program speaker (total time 17 mins):

KAS with Wendy Shaw, Rattlesnake Conservationist

KAS Discussion – Q&A with Wendy Shaw

We bid our adieus and drove home, only to view a beautiful almost full moon (not yet pink).

Our Moon View 4-18-19 Coming Home

Friday, April 19

We worked around the house, inside and outside. I mostly worked on the blog.

I finished the descriptions on Nick Zentner’s videos from Wednesday night, and now need to get them sent off to the folks for whom I have emails. DONE !!!

I have spent much time uploading videos to You Tube, from Wed & Thursday, and keeping the two inside-outside male cats who dislike each other, from tussling.

Saturday, April 20

John worked on loading a pickup with dried horse manure (destination, Mariposa Vineyard), and on cutting our backyard lawn. The soil of the vineyard is short of organic material, being mostly sand deposited in a temporary lake at the time of the Ice Age floods.

I left for Briarwood music at 12:50 p.m. to get there in time to carry all my stuff in, and also help set up. We had a good turnout considering so many people had conflicts with Easter being tomorrow and having family away or coming into Ellensburg. We ended up with a good bunch of players: Marilyn, Maury, Kevin, Gerald, me, Dean, and Amy. Also had our usual happily singing along audience.

We started a little early and finished an hour later, ready for the pretty tables of Easter-themed cookies and iced water (or coffee).Colorful cookies shaped as bunnies, eggs, chicks, crosses, and others.

My morning was spent working on the blog. Afternoon was spent working on emails, after returning home from Briarwood’s music.
I still have a ton of emails to finish, but the first thing is to finish this blog draft, proofing, and additions.

After Briarwood, I took Amy by Jerrol’s to spend my $10 coupon and she got some pompoms (pea-sized) and a can of Masters Brush Cleaner for her paint brushes. She will use them to help teach her Gallery One art class with young children.

I picked up 4 pies at Grocery Outlet and a fistful of broccoli for John. The pies were Marie Callender’s Cookie Dough Cream pie with chocolate bits atop; already at a discount. One cost $4.99 and the other was free BOGO (buy one get one). So I bought two and got two free. $2.50 for a pie is not a bad deal! We didn’t have freezer space for any more. Amy found some Oreo cookie candy on sale that Haley likes.

I went from there to Mt. View Park to let her off at her car with all her stuff, and then she could go meet her family at the birthday party in the park pavilion. From there, I went to Super 1 to pick up my 3-month supply of Lasix. Now I’m all set to put my meds in for the whole week.

We enjoyed Lasagna for dinner tonight with Key Lime pie for dessert.

Sunday, April 21 ^.^.^.^ HAPPY EASTER !

Evelyn gave us and others fancy decorated eggs. We put mine in a salad. No photo. Some of her family came and they made more today. We did receive her photo that we now pass on as a Happy Easter good wishes.
For a look at some fancy eggs do a search on the web with the phrase ‘decorated Easter eggs’ – use the Images tab. Wow!

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Sunday, March 10

Left, below, is March 10, with cold fog in the Valley. We left for Seattle in the middle of the night and the temperature down there was about 2°F.
We were in the sunshine much of the day, and the Kittitas Valley lower elevations were covered in fog, and all the trees we saw the next morning on our way to Seattle, were covered in frozen fog and iced all over. Even the cattails in the side ditches were sparkling. Now a week later on St. Patrick’s Day we are in bright sunshine with beautiful blue skies, and outside our temperature is ~ 40°. At the airport 5 miles south, it is 37°. By 3:00 p.m. today, at the airport it reached 50°. Spring has arrived with a foot of snow still on our place.

Monday, March 11

For today, we are at the long-awaited trip to Seattle to consult with the shoulder surgeon, Dr. Rick Matsen III, about the potential of solving my severely arthritic shoulder with a complete shoulder replacement. Recall that I fell a few weeks ago, and could barely function. We are approaching this with a lot of concern about the ramifications on me with all my related heart issues that might throw a monkey wrench into the process.

Years ago, my original cardiologist – Dr. Kim, warned that it was a life threatening operation, that I should not consider, because of the general anesthesia required. We were hopeful that medical technology had moved ahead and perhaps it would now be possible, under the guiding medical eyes of the best surgeon team, with MDs, cardiologists, and anesthesiologists from the best hospital in the west (UW). I was referred there by my now-retired Primary Care Physician, who had Dr. Matsen replace his shoulder 2 years ago, successfully.

The two doctors consulting with us allowed me to videotape all the information and comparison of my shoulder x-rays from 2016 to the present in January after the fall, and the 3 x-rays taken Monday morning at UW. (They are advanced in their radiology capture!). John and I got to see views of my shoulder, on an x-ray taken with me lying down, viewed from under the ball and socket to see an unusual (but telling and educational) view of the actual proximity and relationship of the ball in socket.Left normal view of my left shoulder, showing bone-on-bone with ball in socket, bone spurs, and bone cysts, & my ICD that looks like a mean man starring out from inside my body. The image on the right was taken from underneath the shoulder, providing a totally different perspective to view the misalignment.

The surgeon, Dr. Rick, was incredibly concerned and honest, telling us about his personal life. He said he was 75, the same age as I, and has been married for 52 years (we have been married for 50 years, this year). His wife has an unusable right (dominant hand) shoulder problem she will live the rest of her life with, but without a complete shoulder replacement. His recommendation for me was with my heart issues, the same life-threatening issues still exist for me as I had been warned about in 2016 by another surgeon from Yakima. He was pleased how much I had stretched and exercised to recover almost the range of motion I was experiencing prior to the Jan 24 fall, and asked if I was coping well? Was there great pain? (No.) Could I live with it? Of course, my response was a definite yes.

Since 2016, I have learned to make adjustments and I am able to participate in fiddling, sometimes 3-4 times weekly, in assisted living homes, FISH food bank lunch, and retirement homes, providing music; I also participate in exercise classes at the Senior Center (SAIL, Silver Sneakers, Jazzercise, and Dancing there), just by altering certain of the over-the-shoulder moves. Our music group (Kittitas Valley Fiddlers & Friends) also visits the Senior Center for special days, with patriotic music (July 4 celebration and Veteran’s Day).

Our consultation meeting lasted from 7:00 a.m. until after 10:00 and involved two medical doctors and a technician (including the radiology technician at the start of my day). They are thorough and it was a great experience. Young Dr. Matt did initial things, much like physical therapy, noting what I could do, or not do. Elder Dr. Rick continued with questions, explanations, and advice. They agreed the shoulder was in bad shape. That they could replace it. And, that they advised against doing so.

After obtaining a CD with the x-ray imagery taken today of my left shoulder, and watching the fish swim in the waiting room aquarium, we proceeded to the kiosk to pay our $12.00 parking fee for the underground parking on Roosevelt Way, and continued our day by heading toward Seattle’s waterfront.

The office had several tanks of fish. Several were of a half-round type. See this one. Back in the early 1980s, John suggested to the owners of the mall in Moscow, Idaho that they get something such as these. They are a great attraction. These at the medical facility get cleaned every week. Very nice. We wonder now whether or not other buildings at UW have similar things?

Video: The Aquarium in the Radiology Waiting Room

From the parking garage, we drove south on old streets of Seattle, through Capitol Hill (disputed source of name thereof), en-route to Pike Place Market.

First, a few photos of the Capitol Hill neighborhood in Seattle.Street scene Capitol Hill Seattle – Boxwood sculptured
We stopped because it was a beautiful structure and the Seattle Tower can be seen from the back parking lot of the church. We didn’t know until later that Cameron’s mom’s ashes are enterred in this church. She was a minister.

We had a fun trip down the hilly streets to the piers and market. We saw familiar places as REI Co-Op where we have shopped.

Trip down Stewart to the bay, hilly terrain and fun views First views of the Pike Place Market:

We took a right here and were lucky to find a free parking space.
Passed other lots where the cost was $5.00 for a half hour!

We walked in by a bunch of vendors and I snapped photos.Woodworker’s crafts appealed to me.
Lots of fancy flowers. Who buys them? Why?
Maybe helps to cover the smell of the fresh seafood?

Lots of fish selling going on.. have to put in two:

I’d rather go gather my own Morels. No price listed, and no one to ask. The dates looked good, but expensive as everything else.

We spent a couple of hours in and out of the 5th floor Northwest Tastings shop, overlooking Elliot Bay, with a view of cruise ships, ferries, tugboats, the snow-capped Olympics, and even the demolition of the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Did not see a big ocean-going container ship.

We were there with the owner, Cameron Fries (Vigneron & Vintner) of White Heron Cellars & Mariposa Vineyard (west of Quincy, WA), where John volunteers wine grapevine pruning and occasional bottling. We enjoy their winery events throughout the year as well.Made it to:
Northwest Tastings in Pike Place Market

A 2 minute video. Watch for the huge timber behind Cam’s head.

After we had an interesting (not the best in my book) Pike Place BBQ lunch, Cameron gave us a tour of the market, which we had already seen some of the crafts and farm tables going through to get to his shop. We learned the history of the market (started in 1907) utilizing very large timbers to build the structure. Big trees were plentiful and cheap, back then.

We met other vendors he has gotten to know there, and got an excellent behind the scenes view. We walked all over, and my Fitbit recorded almost 2 miles for the day. A young lady in need of mental help came by. We even saw the original Starbuck’s on the street in front of the market. We left and drove home, not arriving until about 3:00 p.m.

Ending this day with a prize winning photo from our friend, EvieMae Schuetz, winner of the Old Farmer’s Almanac Weekly Cover Competition for her sunset tonight, of the Stuarts.Sunset in the Kittitas Valley over the Stuarts, by Evie Schuetz.

Tuesday, March 12

I dropped my effort – it got increasingly complicated – about helping with getting Meals on Wheels for taking food to a person who had back surgery and cannot drive for 6 weeks. I arranged for volunteers to pick up the meals and deliver them to his rural house, and also had people willing to travel to another facility to pick up frozen dinners for the weekend and other meals through the day, other than the hot meals made at the FISH food bank for Senior Nutrition, Mondays – Thursdays. In order to set it up, the person in need had to be interviewed in his home and examined at his house to determine his eligibility, making the request himself. Originally, it was meant as a good wish and nice gesture by his friends to help out, but we knew he would not want to participate in the qualification process, because he felt he had enough food on hand and did not want to bother anyone.

We also stopped by my Pharmacy with a prescription for my Amoxicillin, to pick it up later in the day, so I would have it for my Wednesday dental visit for teeth cleaning and full mouth x-rays
.
I had to go to the hospital lab today to have a recheck on my INR and potassium midday. That was accomplished.

John and I stopped by the Bi-Mart store to check our numbers for prizes, and look for the place to pick up WA license tabs for our plates, on the south side of town (rather than the courthouse). By going there for pickup, the $5.00 fee goes to our county funds, whereas, if we go to the courthouse, the $5.00 goes to pay for Ferry Funding on the west side. We’d rather the money stay in our Kittitas County.

Before we left town, we went to Fred Meyer and took advantage of their special sale for Gatorade G Zero (means zero calories) and if buying 10, we get the price of 77₵/32 oz. bottle.
While there we ran into several people we knew, so it was a useful stop to catch up on news.

Wednesday, March 13

I started at dentist at 11:00 for my teeth cleaning and full mouth x-rays. Here is the evidence I succeeded in making the appointment: The one on the lower left shows the socket for the recently extracted tooth (#30) in potential of infecting my bloodstream with bacteria to eat on my Mitral valve (porcine) replacement.

Then after scheduling 3 dental appointments for the future, I drove to the FISH food bank and participated (late) in singing with the group—Irish songs and others.

Stayed and had lunch with the bunch until 1:30. I probably didn’t get home until a little after 2:00, and did some computer work, and then was sitting in my recliner going to sleep, so I turned off my computer and lay down. I got a phone call at 3:30 talked for a few minutes and went back to sleep until 6:25! Guess I needed it.

Thursday, Mar 14

John left at 11:30 to drive to White Heron to prune wine grapevines from 1:00 – 4:00.

Today, I went to help with music at Meadows Place. We had a great turnout and a good audience, with lots of thank yous and compliments at the end.

Friday, Mar 15

John left at 11:30 to drive to White Heron to prune wine grapevines from 1:00 – 4:00.

I left earlier today to get gasoline before going to the AAC for St. Paddy’s Day party.

Then I was off for the Senior Center, and a great day of entertainment and reconnecting with friends, as I have been away from there for a long time with all my recent health issues.
I have missed exercise, Silver Sneakers, and dancing classes in my time away, and have not been to any weekly events since the end of January. For lunch they served corn beef, cabbage, and carrots, and a banana pudding for dessert.

What great news on the Ides of March!

Buttons Cle Elum Elk-New Home at Woodland Park Zoo

Needed to figure how to print (after numbered) the last 7 songs for March/April audience music copies. I need to print a few copies back to back to add to old copies from 2016 & 2017. John helped me finish this project.

I took a bunch of pictures of the folks there, and have some photos of myself as well. Maybe I’ll just include it here and send you the link to the others next week.

Nancy in her wearing of the green.

My musician friends, Barb Riley, Roberta Clark, and Tim Henebry (with Celtic music group, Prairie Spring), played music for us for an hour.

Barb (Violin), Roberta (on Bodhrán and also Autoharp), and Tim (on Guitar & Cittern). Cittern is the instrument in the photo standing at the end.

Saturday, Mar 16

I went to Briarwood for our 3rd Saturday fun of the month.

We retrieved my old mandolin case from the back room covered with > 15 years of dust, and I’m slowing vacuuming it to take to a player to see if he wants to buy it for his friend. Mine is a Fender. I cannot play it, except for picking individual notes (it’s strings are tuned the same as a violin), but my left hand cannot get the range of motion to do chords on it, and I took a week long course at the WA Old Time Fiddlers Summer Workshop years ago, only to realize I was unable to play it. It’s a nice mandolin. Because paper-proof of our Car Insurance was ended today, March 16th, I spent time putting all the updated paperwork in envelopes. Now we need to get those to the glove compartments of all our vehicles. It felt good to have that behind me. I took my own with me today to drive to town, and John put his in his Crosstrek, but the pickup trucks will have to wait until later. We have those near the door, ready to go out.

I also had a canvas shopping bag with a 4” seam missing, so I asked Rita (our singer), if she would be able to sew it up on her machine. She told me to bring it today, and she would be happy to. Not only did she take it and sew up the hole, she brought me another lovely handmade (by Rita) shopping bag that is lined. It’s lovely and would have been just the ticket for carrying my medical paperwork over to Seattle, this past Monday.

John’s onion starts arrived today in the mail, from south Texas near the Mexico border, Carrizo Springs, TX, a little ahead of time to plant, but that’s the breaks. Happened last year as well.

Thanks to the ladies at Briarwood, headed by Lee, Jo Ellen, with helpers Connie, Kathy, and Deirdre for putting on a fine dinner after music. No picture here of Lee’s homemade Chicken Soup with Wild Rice and Veggies (carrots, celery, mushrooms), and large chunks of white meat of chicken. It was scrumptiously good, as was everything. Betty’s great corn flake cookies and Lee’s Shamrock sugar cookies added a special touch, but the birthday cake not shown cut in these pictures was a highlight. Chocolate cake two-layered, with the yummiest cream-cheese frosting you have ever had. Everyone enjoyed it.
Dessert table on left, and sandwich and salads on right.

Sun, March 17 Happy St. Patrick’s Day

I slept in until 8:30 a.m. and John has now been out to feed the horses, and I have been working on the blog. He’s headed out to move snow, to make a place to plant the onions starts. We have had a foot or so of snow on the ground. All of February and to Wednesday of this week, none of it went away. Over the last 3 days the snow has gotten softer and sagged some. Still there. Still freezing at night. With snow off the onion beds, and the brown surface, maybe he can plant by next weekend.
I’m continuing with my chores. Off to the kitchen to load a couple of sinks full of soaking dishes, into the washer. Now enjoying a cup of coffee after taking some more morning pills and my BP.
More things happened all afternoon, but I quit taking notes.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan