Category: Weekly report by day

Monday, Dec 7

Slept in until 7:30 a.m. after going to bed at 10:00 last night.
Need to get the photos thank you sent to people who gave me permission to use their photo in our weekly blog. That’s done.
Cut John’s hair. Took 35 mins, with set up /cleanup taking more. Our freezing fog is getting worse outside, so happy we do not have to be on the road with ½ mile visibility and treacherous roads.

Get in touch with Cle Elum Clinic to let them know about leaving a pkg. for a family in Ellensburg with the for us to pick up when we go for our Medicare Medical Wellness test this Thurs afternoon Nov 10 – go through Stephanie Walker (office manager there (via email to save the cost of a long distance call). We have no cell phone reception in our house; only our landline.

A little bit of dishwasher unloaded, and none yet reloaded.
Need to finish putting in my night pills for the week.
Supper: Sliced Beef roast, mashed potatoes and gravy with onions, a sliced half of a red apple, fried cauliflower, and diced beets. PowerAde.
The total number of robocaller connections for Dec 7=3.

Tuesday, Dec 8

Get up early to take pill, and drink ½ hr. later, drink coffee and milkshake. We need to be at our first two stops before noon.
Set up my external back-up for its noon backup. It completed the backup while we were gone.

This is our day for important errands, and we had many; review here. We’re using this symbol to indicate stops: ∞∫∞ First, was to Take the F-350 Ford to Seth Motors’ to be worked on at 11:00 a.m., to have its battery tender evaluated and the manual emergency brake ∞∫∞ John wants to take our insulated shopping bag by Winegar’s for quarts of their Ice Cream we like. We did, but he sat in the car while I went inside for it. ∞∫∞ Bi-Mart to check numbers ∞∫∞ No luck. ∞∫∞ Picked up 2 boxes (empty) from where we often drop things off. ∞∫∞ We stopped at Super 1 Grocery store for John to buy only a few things needed for supper, but he got carried away and bought lots more. The temp while spending time in town was 28° – so said the car.

Mid-afternoon snack: John had piece of peach pie and some small candy bars; I had 2 Reese’s peanut butter cups. Girl cats in new room had beef.
Late afternoon check in call from Gerald; he’s fine. Today his daughter took him to the skin specialist (dermatologist) to burn off spots on his back from walking in the sun without a shirt. They topped the Manastash Ridge and left the sunshine and clear blue skies.

Put all the dirty dishes in and ran them before supper.
Supper: John’s planning Beef Stroganoff, with peach pie and ice cream for dessert.
Started raining last night after supper, and sometime overnight switched to a little snow.
The total number of robocaller connections: Dec 8=3.

Wednesday, Dec 9

Up late to start the day. John’s now taken care of cat cleanup feeding, and visiting in the new room, and fed the horses. I’ve been catching up on emails, and Facebook activity. Finally, at 11:11 we left for town, stopped off to pick up a donation of Christmas Cards from my rural neighbor for me to deliver while I’m in town to a person who cannot drive. Then I took John to Seth Motors to pick up the pick up, and run more errands before he came home. Main thing were bags of pine pellets to use in the cats’ litter box. Clay sticks to their feet and ends on the floor. Also, John thinks the wood does a better job of handling the urine.

Supper: John had leftovers from last night; I had a special salad later, after my shower, and a serving of blueberry cheesecake ice cream.
The total number of robocaller connections for Dec 9=3.

Thursday, Dec 10
Mt. Rainier Sunrise from Puyallup by Cheryl Keisel White

I found research papers after looking up Siletzia on duck-duck-go. I loaded those up to a new Dropbox and made a link to send to study group for Friday’s Nick Zentner’s afternoon lecture.
Printed my medications to put it in my paperwork for my annual physical exam. –
Ate a piece of fruitcake and fixed a salad for my lunch to eat before the Game Play began. I need to play my Zoom Game Day at the AAC with 5 others; it is Yahtzee. I enjoy that game.

Get dressed to leave for Cle Elum at 1:00 p.m.
9:33 a.m. call from Gerald; foggy over there, otherwise all is well in Thorp, WA.
John’s outside at 10:00 at 21 deg. We got his meds in a bag to carry. We’re driving up leaving at 1:40; didn’t get home until 6:04 p.m. With the first doctor we had there, we were seen together. Since then there seems to be something new to the routine each visit. It seems way long, but the blood draws got done up there, saving a visit to the EBRG facility.
The total number of robocaller connections for Dec 10=1.

Friday, Dec 11

We had had a scattering of snow overnight. Overcast and cool today. Snow is sticking on the higher slopes north of us, above 4,000 feet. Over the next week we are expected to get just a little bit more. High temperatures are still expected above freezing.

We both slept in late, but I’m tired from a restless night with interruptions. I don’t have time to consider a nap until later, but maybe should because contractor Walter is due at our house at 6:00 p.m. tonight to discuss projects yet to be completed, so we are all on the same page. I’m falling asleep now. Maybe I should rush a short nap currently, before the lecture starts.

While I’m involved in managing the Nick Zentner lecture live comments, John leaves at 11:15 for town for the Community food distribution (plus local Cattleman’s beef). They are promising a variety of things – much from the big conglomerate, Conagra Brands. The local paper says beef, fresh fruits, vegetables, other perishables, and canned and packaged things. John arrived at 11:45 near staging by the Armory Bldg on 7thAvenue, near the north entrance to the Fairgrounds. They offered a lot more than they announced in the city Daily Record newspaper invitation. There is a 3-pound Beef roast, two bags of apples, one Pink Lady and one of Fuji apples; a small bag of baking potatoes; cans of pinto beans, two packages each of dried beans and dried fruit & nuts; a small carton of small curd cottage cheese; a large container of yogurt & a gallon of milk. There is a bag of yellow onions, and a bag of small oranges. There are “tater tots’ and flat potatoes of the same sort. Most of this stuff was in dreaded plastic bags, but there was one sealed cardboard box. We’ll dump about 2/3 of this stuff with the usual family next week, but she doesn’t want onions (and we have plenty). The gallon of milk needs a home too.

I began collecting comments at noon (with my computer), and ate my own lunch. I needed to set up the WordPress format to put the various descriptors in to fill it at the end of the lecture in the afternoon. This was supposedly all ready to go but somehow my document totally lost the links I submitted. I did not realize it Sunday night when processing the final copy that it was missing until after it was published at 12:30 a.m. Monday morning, and it was too late to fix it then.

I’m setting it up now at 9:30 am. Monday, Dec 14, 2020, as I previously.

#100 – Exotic Y: Siletzia

I e-mailed Carl Hurlburt’s research papers on Yellowstone Hot spot information to the study group along with some other links from him that are pertinent for Sunday’s last lecture by Nick.

Late afternoon photo at 4:22 p.m. taken from a drive around town by photographer, Lori Waters, and displayed on the Facebook page, Kittitas County Visual Delights.

I finished loading and running our dishwasher so we had clean dishes, bowls, and utensils for us and the animals.
The total number of robocaller connections for Dec 11=1.

Saturday, Dec 12

Had to be early morning to still have ice on the needles around this colorful Ponderosa pine cone:Christopher Cyrus Peterson took this early morning and published it on the Kittitas County Visual Delights site.

Not sure why my Friday nights are always becoming restless nights, that screw up my ability to get to sleep and make it imperative I always set up all the proper parts of my recording devices for my ICD measurements every time I’m out of bed and back in again. Guess I’ll also have to insert an afternoon nap into today’s schedule.

This morning was a mess and unfortunate situation with Woody in the new room.
John didn’t see Walter coming down the driveway and he got to the front porch window and knocked. John jumped up and went outside the front door and not back through the house, and so he’d not replaced to block to keep Woody from coming into the walk-in pantry/utility room. After he returned inside, he came in and we heard her meowing it the washroom, behind the gate, which she jumped over, and ran down the hallway hot on the tail of a cat she likes, Czar. I ran and closed the outside window on the doggy door so she couldn’t escape outside. I first found her in the back guest bedroom. After an hours relaxation time, we searched for her. John found her in the middle bedroom under the far corner of the bed. He had gotten a probing stick and flashlight. I stationed to watch where she went, and had blocked off some rooms of the parts of the house farther away from the kitchen access to the now opened gate.
Unfortunately, she came into the den, an okay thing, but ran over to the kitchen and not out through the washroom, and instead got up on a kitchen cabinet behind some dirty dishes. She stalled there and had to be encouraged off. She next ran under my recliner and then under the woodstove! He pulled the fencing from the stove and closed another spot in the den, and then he managed to get her out from under the stove, back through the washroom, and into the pantry. We got that door shut. Next, the swinging door to the new room – their room – could be propped open (Sue being still there) and with more encouragement she headed “home.” She hid in the back of her house bed (box), so we left her out there for quite a while. Finally, she came out and seems to have no hard feelings about her failed attempt to escape.

Walter is expected to come and work near the entrance in the morning, so John went out after lunch and took down the wire fencing he had used to capture her last week.
I have to get the dishwasher loaded and run before John wants to cook tonight’s supper. I completed that about 4:00 p.m.

We have to clean near the patio door in the den so the workers can come in and rebuild the edging and the frame around the wall. WE need a before photo. Will need to move the buffet out probably on the right hand side and a small wooden table that holds my ICD (Implanted Cardioverter Defibrillator) recorder (via a landline connnector–cell phones do now work with the unit, and it is read at 2:00 a.m., daily. Boxes, and other containers and other things piled on the floor under the table need to be moved out. I hope not my electric recliner. Now we’ve postponed that from Monday morning.

I wonder if I should send the late research papers that came in yesterday for Sunday morning lecture. I forgot this morning with all that happened. I decided to send them.
Brunch: John fixed bacon, eggs, fried Tater tots with purple onions he grew, and I had leftover instant coffee and PowerAde.

Supper: John started making Salmon Croquettes by a recipe I did not remember from my childhood. They had them at their family dinners too, but we have never had it since being together as a couple. He failed. It was strange. We had it with steamed rice and served with a bowl of canned peaches and lo-fat cottage cheese, small curd sort. That made the “quiche” more palatable. I don’t care to eat any of the leftovers. It started as canned Pink Salmon and ended more as a baked something, like quiche – no patties.

The total number of robocaller connections for Dec 12=0.

Sunday, Dec 13

I got up at 7:35, enjoyed a hot cup of coffee to warm up, plus a chocolate Ensure with French vanilla yogurt. Then on to readying my software and computer to collect information. I was ready to support and watch Nick Zentner’s 9:00 a.m. (this morning started at 8:40) for thank-yous.
Nick’s lecture at 9:00 a.m. (part two) ~ 10:00 when the first quit working. This still had the most viewers (ever I think), which were 1082 worldwide.
I began collecting comments at noon (with my computer), and ate my own lunch. I needed to set up the WordPress format to put the various descriptors in to fill it at the end of the lecture in the afternoon. This was supposedly all ready to go but somehow my document totally lost the links I submitted. I did not realize it Sunday night when processing the final copy that it was missing until after it was published at 12:30 a.m. Monday morning, and it was too late to fix it then.

#101 – Exotic Z: Putting It All Together!

#101 part 2 – Exotic Z: Putting It All Together!

Supper: Small pieces of chicken breast meat, fried, with crusty onion rings, large potato patties (nice & brown), almost like potato pancakes, & strawberries with cottage cheese in a little bowl. For dessert we’ll have Dutch Apple Pie.

The total number of robocaller connections for Dec 13=0.

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

Monday, Nov 30

I slept in until 8:30 a.m. It’s snowing but changing to rain and John went out to feed horses before the rain starts. I spent a fair amount of time doing beginning of the month maintenance on my computer accounts, and a lot more time soaking and cleaning dishes to put in the dishwasher.

The sun came out, snow & rain stopped, and John went out to work until coming in for a late brunch, but we didn’t finish until almost 2:00 p.m.
I sent my thank-you email messages for photos posted in our last week’s blog.

Whoopee! Dishwasher loaded and started at 3:06 p.m.

Supper: Steak stir-fry with carrots and onions and a sliced half yellow apple. PowerAde, hot peach pie with ice cream for dessert.

Lots of work on planning for tomorrow using the web, and on working on email from a number of friends about a number of different topics.
The total number of robocaller connections: Nov 30=1.

Nice way to end November, with a photograph of Mt. Rainier by a daughter of Lee Kiesel; a friend from Briarwood Commons. Some days “the Mountain is out”; some days it’s not. This view is what Cheryl Kiesel White sees from her Puyallup location. An amazing view of ‘The Mountain’. Puyallup {pew-AL-up} is 30 miles south of Seattle.

Tuesday, Dec 1

Get up early to take pill, and wait ½ hr. later, drink coffee milkshake. We need to be at our first two stops before noon.
Set up my external back-up for its noon backup. It completed the backup while we were gone.

This is our day for important errands, and we had many; review here. We’re using this symbol to indicate stops: ∞∫∞ Our first stop was to drop off several boxes of groceries to a family at their house, who cannot drive because of being seeing impaired. ∞∫∞ Then on 2nd Avenue close to our next stop. ∞∫∞ Safeway, for a Just4U special, 89 ₵ head, Iceberg lettuce. ∞∫∞ then on down to the AAC to hand in and pick up materials for Thursday’s Game Day via Zoom, and deliver something else there too from last week’s game day.

Mid-afternoon snack: John had piece of peach pie and some small candy bars; I had 2 Reese’s peanut butter cups. Girl cats in new room had a bite of beef – very old 6 oz. from the freezer and now cooked for them.
Afternoon check in call from Gerald; he’s fine.

Supper: Leftover sirloin beef stir-fry with carrots & onions, yellow apples; John had a sausage patty.

Need to send links to study group, after capturing them in a Dropbox. I had severe trouble with Edge and Opera browsers on my computer, finally had to restart completely.

The total number of robocaller connections: Dec 1=3.

Wednesday, Dec 2

We are expecting the pick up of the trash bin today. Time: 7 am to 3 pm. Quite a wide window of time. John was out to open the gate at 6:45, but now it’s 9:00 and he needs to go through freezers for frozen food trash for the landfill.

I was up a couple times during the night with the dog, so I slept in this morning till 9:00 a.m.!
This morning I’ve enjoyed my coffee and milkshake (chocolate Ensure with strawberry yogurt), and gone out briefly to visit the cats in the new room.

John saved all frozen food we’d had in our freezers until this morning to load into the dumpster. It’s 11:00, and I must take my Acetaminophen. John got up in the dumpster and stomped on re-positioned boxes that cannot be showing out of the top rim of the dumpster. A cover has to go on.

Now John’s out trying to get a picture of the loaded dumpster. This was a comedy of errors. First, he went out with his own camera, climbed atop the old Chevy PU truck to get a better view from above, went to take the photo, and realized his camera battery was dead. He came in to get mine, I told him which buttons to push, and set it up for him to look through the viewfinder because he detests looking at the screen, with reflections. He went back out, climbed up again, and got a couple of photographs.
Photographs on top are the setup, when John realized he had to come get my camera. The bottom is the filled 30 cubic yard dumpster.

Truck came about 1:30. The driver was pleased, loaded quickly and was off to the transfer station. Trash is weighed, and compacted in EBRG, then off to a landfill in East Wenatchee.

Gerald reporting in fine today, before 11:00. All’s well, just chilly for exercising outside, so he’ll walk around inside his house.

John brought a scratching log to the kitties. They weren’t impressed. Next, maybe is a carper covered post. Such are sold, but to cats use them? They are expensive. I plan to ask on the free-giving site for one from someone who may no longer need theirs. I’ve gotten so many great things free recently from those sites for moving the cats into the new room of our our house.

Brunch: John came in and fixed ham, scrambled eggs with cheese, and hash browns for our midday vittles. We gave a treat of white tuna (canned wild albacore) to the cats.

Our electrician, Todd, came by at 3:10 and worked 20 mins. and fixed our problem. The electrical power on the water heater in the horse’s water trough was not working. Two days ago it had over an inch of ice. He fixed it by replacing the old outlet with a new one. I’m supposed to look up ground fault interrupt (GFI); needed where water might be near.

I was very tired this afternoon, so I took an afternoon nap for well over an hour! Much needed.
Then, I worked on “duckduckgo” search tonight looking for research papers for Friday’s lecture on exotic terranes and the Baja/BC connection. Nick announced the topic for Friday’s lecture was going to be Plutons. So, I have gone back to finding additional research papers to share.

Supper: John fixed steamed rice, gravy with onions, fried ham slice cut-up, a serving of BBQ baked beans, and sliced apple. We each had a piece of heated peach pie with vanilla ice cream. Sun setting on Mt. Stuart from Manastash Ridge Summit, 45 miles away. [at 4:10 p.m., photographed by Andrew Caveness]

John went to bed early. to leave early in his Ford Truck for White Heron to deliver a pickup load of horse manure to be used in the Mariposa Vineyard.
I unloaded the dishwasher

Thursday, Dec 3

Mail isn’t being delivered until after dark. So, John retrieved the mail and my mail order meds, and opened the gate. Delivery was at 5:35 p.m.!
Early a.m. call from Gerald; cold over there, otherwise all is well.
John took care of the cats and horses.

He left (10:20) for White Heron with a full truck load of manure, his camera, and lunch. The very top of the vineyard was dug out for sand many years ago. When re-contoured, the replacement sand had very little organic matter. Most parts had about 100 years to grow a cover, and start a soil. The bottom image shows the location, with the Columbia River 600 feet lower. This is water impounded behind the Wanapum Dam, 25 miles away. Top are Cameron & John; bottom the excellent Tennessee Walking horse manure for the Mariposa Vineyard. The view overlooks the Middle Columbia Valley as it turns at West Bar and flows directly south. Top-dressing of organic matter isn’t the optimum solution, but it does help – seen by inspecting adjacent rows of treated versus untreated. This is the 3rd load; and we have more.

I’ve been working on study group Dropbox entries all morning, need to finish that. That allows me to create a set of research papers at a link to allow viewers to download directly onto their C drive, the PDFs, rather than sending individual ones through email that are 4 & 5 or more Mb large.
Attend Zoom Game day at noon. Get my prompts ready. It was a game called, Catchphrase. It was a fun game to play; I’m sure we will play it again before 2020 is over. Next week, we’re playing Yahtzee, another favorite.
Having my morning milkshake of chocolate Ensure with vanilla yogurt with game play and probably cup of coffee to warm up.

For lunch I had one of my famous salads, made with Iceberg lettuce, (only lettuce I’m allowed on Coumadin, smoked turkey cubes, pistachios, Cheez-its for croutons, and threw in some grape-size tomatoes that were awful. I took it out and visited with the cats in the new room, Sue and Woody (mother/daughter).

Supper: beef & onions, baked beans BBQ, steamed rice and gravy. Dessert: piece of fruitcake, Nick’s symbol or icon of exotic terranes.

Finished emailing all the research papers to new members of study group for Zentnerds. Only 3 more lectures to go after tomorrow at 2:00.

Need to call Panasonic support. My blocked call storage space has been filled. I think it allows 250 numbers. I hope I can delete the earliest ones in the system.
The total number of robocaller connections for Dec 3=2.
I loaded the dishwasher, but no time to run it until tomorrow morning. Taking my Acetaminophen and going to bed.

Friday, Nov Dec 4

I slept in until almost 8:00 a.m.; John was late getting up, after me! He says he’ll get up when Mr. Sun does.
I started trying to start the dishwasher, and it is not working to hold the soap in the dish when closed. It was raising my blood pressure so I made a cup of coffee and opened my computer. When John checked it, he found the same thing, so just closed and started it anyway. The dishes were fine when put in the washer and the hot water and soap in the bin will still produce clean dishes.

Our dog had us letting her out every two hours.
John is busy every morning cleaning the litter box and feeding, watering, and giving the girls some loving attention.

Coffee for me with chocolate Ensure milkshake with peach yogurt and I am enjoying it, while frustratingly filling in my Medical records for next week’s Medicare Wellness Exam.
I need to process my medical records from the portal at the hospital, in anticipation for next week’s visit for our annual physical and the background paperwork they need. Why they cannot access it from their portal is beyond me, but if I have to, and cannot locate something, I must call Medical Records at the hospital during weekday work hours. What do people without access to computers do? That was a PITA. Took me 17 mins to find out there are problems with their system. Wrong dates entered in the Medical Record, some procedures not entered at all. I was given a national support number to call, and they told me there was a 25 min. wait. I hung up. I called my pharmacy and got info on when we had our Shingles immunizations. I called radiology at the hospital; and found the CORRECT dates this year which were not entered in the system for my Bone Density test or mammogram. This is the portal for the same hospital for where they were performed. I knew it was this year, during COVID times. Those are now corrected on my form, but have not been corrected in the Portal records. How useless if they are updated incorrectly even within the same hospital where the test or surgery was performed.

Later, I’ll be getting ready for Nick Zentner’s Friday afternoon lecture at 2:00 p.m., when I start gathering pre-show comments at 1:00 p.m., actually, my computer is grabbing them now.
In between we have to have our lunch. I had a salad for my lunch, starting before 1:00 p.m.
Call from Gerald about 11:20; all’s well there.

We had some technical problems with YouTube today, and lost the first 18 mins of the start, so Nick had to restart a new livestream. The final outcome, made Take 2 require additional time (2 hrs 13 mins)

Nick Z, Take 2: #98 – Exotic W: Plutons

I worked on the blog.

Supper: Beef sirloin tip steak with onions, onion rings and apple slices. No dessert. I had fruitcake this afternoon for a snack.
The total number of robocaller connections for Dec 4=1.

Saturday, Dec 5

I had another restless night with many interruptions from animals and from my own inability to get to sleep. Maybe I’ll have to take an afternoon nap. I did nap for 45 mins quite late afternoon.

John took care of the cats in the new room, cleaned their litter box, and checked news via the computer there. Then he went out for the papers and the mail and to feed horses. I stayed behind working on cleaning up dirty dishes and loading the very full dishwasher. John’s out working for a couple hours in 26° temperatures; cool but nice, he says.

Late afternoon, I finally sent a note to the study group for Nick Zentner’s lecture tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. It has the link to the YouTube location and suggestions for a background study guide to previous research papers, and I remembered to add Nick’s recent audio Podcasts on Exotic Terranes.

John worked outside in the cold this morning and gathered the last of the needed rocks to fill the drip line trench at the edge of the carport. He raked leaves and pine needles and carried them to the garden. Then added a cart load of excellent TennesseeWalking horse manure. Actually, he has added 3 or 4 carts of each (leaves, needles, manure) this week, and may till it if the surface doesn’t freeze. Coming Wednesday looks promising.

In cleaning out the freezer on Wednesday morning he found an old 4+ pound roast. He put that in the oven about Noon.
Then we had a midday meal of bacon, eggs, canned peaches in a little bowl, and toast of English muffin bread.

Supper: Oven roasted Sliced Beef Roast, Steamed rice with onion gravy, and a bowl of canned pears.
The total number of robocaller connections for Dec 5=2.

Sunday, Dec 6

Up all night off and on unable to sleep, and being awakened by our dog to go out; why can’t she go out the doggie door she has used for over 13 yrs? {John: she is finding the ramps more difficult than when she was 4.} I am going to need an afternoon nap, but first have to finish the blog.

I got up at 7:35 to fix my software and computer to collect information. Enjoyed a hot cup of coffee to warm up, to start my computer set up to load the needed software so it was ready to support and watch Nick Zentner’s 9:00 a.m. (this morning started at 8:42).
Nick’s lecture at 9:00 a.m. went long at 2 hr. 22 mins.

#99 – Exotic Y: Baja-BC

John came in from outside yard work, and fixed us a brunch: each an egg over easy, bacon for me sausage patty for him, piece of toast, bowl of canned peaches, & home fries. I had a small PowerAde drink.

I need to put all my medications for a week in a carrier for dispensing daily.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Monday, Nov 23

I slept in until 8:00 a.m. Had a changed appointment call from Cardiopulmonary at KVH moving me from Wednesday to Friday, at 9:30 a.m.
Thanks Lise McGowan for sharing your photo. Much is going on there.

Paul Liebenberg, a viewer of Nick Zentner’s Live from Home series, sent this a reply to my public comment on the Sunday morning lecture (yesterday’s replay), asking for a link to the video.
Below is the link to the 7-minute video from the North Cascades National Park mentioned last week about the archaeological record of the use of Chert (flint stone) by Native Americans there in the hills of the North Cascades:

Hozomeen: A story about Chert, identity, and landscape

I wrote to Marlys about her mom’s birthday card and leaving it at KVH with Jill or Yvette to pick up. Need to call Jill and check if I can do that. I never heard back, so I didn’t ask Jill.
I sent my thank-you email messages for photos posted in our last week’s blog.

Tuesday, Nov 24

Get up early to take pill, and drink ½ hour later, drink coffee milkshake, drink water to get some hydrated with liquids in my system to make blood draw go easier. I needed to be at the lab before 9:30 a.m.

Set up my external drive for its noon backup. It completed the backup while we were in town.

We had to deal with serious fog today and that slowed down the driving time quite a bit. I was thrilled this was not a day I had to travel to Yakima for a test at the Heart Center. I-82, our major Interstate connecting Ellensburg, with Yakima was closed both directions for 26 miles coming into the Kittitas Valley. Fog was seriously affecting visibility. Closed from 10:50 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. I wish I had captured a view from the camera on Manastash Ridge.

We left at 9:00 a.m. to get to blood draw before 10:00 to make the centrifuge timing before pickup. Kim does the centrifuging now at 10:00 cause the pickup can be between 10 and 11. I remembered to request Cle Elum Family Clinic to send more orders, because the lab had to use the one for Jan 2021 to draw it, but did it anyway, realizing the immediate need.

This is our day for important errands. Reviewing those here. We’re using this symbol to indicate stops: ∞∫∞ Started with going for my blood draw a week later for the same standing order (INR). Last week’s reading was quite high (4.0); with no explanation of the reason. I had not had alcohol or an antibiotic nor changed my diet in any way from normal. Today’s was back in the proper range, (2.1). ∞∫∞ Next stop Bi-Mart Pharmacy, where I picked up my prescription of Amiodarone and bought more packs of Fisherman Friends cough drops. John walked up to get the sheet of numbers, but we did not win anything. ∞∫∞ From there I drove to the first exit for Ellensburg on I-90, coming from the west. There’s a large truck plaza with the best prices in Ellensburg, PILOT Flying J on Dolarway, at $2.399/gallon. We get 4% off our Costco CitiBank VISA card and it’s paid to us in the beginning of the new year in February. Sometimes we earn hundreds of $. With COVID however, this year will be a lot lower, because I’m not running forth and back to EBRG, and John has not been going on WTA Trail Maintenance trips, although WTA did carry on with masks and distancing. Our last stop before home was to drop off 3 boxes of groceries to a woman who cannot drive because of being seeing impaired.

Today’s photographs bring back memories of trains:Both photos by EvieMae Schuetz, south of EBRG not far from the Yakima River. The top is a current train; the bottom is an old depot on lower Canyon Road, before one reaches Thrall; unseen from the road.

This brought back old memories about trains from my life. I was not yet 2 years old when Franklin Delano Roosevelt died 4-12-45 in Warm Springs, GA at The Little White House.
When the funeral train came north on the Southern Railway lines near our house, my parents took me down the hill to watch the train come across the trestle bridge over the road we lived on. I still recall seeing the train rolling by, with one car draped in a US Flag, where the casket and honor guard were.

Mid-afternoon snack: I had a Nanaimo Bar; John had a piece of chocolate frosted golden yellow layered cake.
Supper: more of our white salmon (cats surely like it–well 3 of the 4; the girls in the new room, Sue & Woody, and Czar male inside/outside doggie door in main house; but Rascal does not like fish. Strange. With the salmon, John and I had breaded cauliflower fried with fried onion rings. For his dessert, John had a Nanaimo Bar. I didn’t have anything.
John went to bed early. I’m going to try to stay up another hour. I’m tired from getting up very early to leave this morning, and not taking an afternoon nap.

Wednesday, Nov 25

Up at 8:00 a.m. but with problems on the Internet.
I’ve been on the phone with CWU help desk, and checking on numerous other start up activities for a day. Everything is taking too much time.

We were up a couple times during the night with the dog. She is old and sleeps soundly, a sometimes weeps a pool of pee. Between the two of us, if we remember, we get her out about every 3 hours during her naps.

This morning I’ve enjoyed my coffee and milkshake (Chocolate Ensure with Vanilla yogurt), and gone out and visited with the cats in the new room. I need to unload the dishwasher and probably should wash clothes.

John’s out in 38° weather (but it is nice and sunny today), working on getting more garbage into the big green dumpster, and moving rocks around. He was up near the gate working on ideas for putting in a wooden sign to identify our place as Rock’n Ponderosa. I know he still needs to bury leftover food.

I need to check the A-head on yesterday’s WSJ and check my subscription with them. It is supposed to be reduced by my association with CWU, and the price I’m paying monthly doesn’t reflect it is. Talked to them, and cannot change either. Price has gone up to $12.99/month for educational usage, ($156/yr.), which is fine because the regular yearly cost is $600! We truly enjoy access to the articles in the print and the digital formats.

Lunch: John’s having cheese bits-filled sausage links with eggs and potatoes. I’m going to have the rest of my soup from yesterday, maybe or just wait and have an afternoon snack with turkey dinner coming for supper. And have the soup tomorrow for TG Day lunch.

Going to town – I’ll be there close to 3:00 p.m. for Community Thanksgiving Dinner for take-out turkey+ dinner, we’ll have on thanksgiving eve. This weekend is always meaningful for me to give thanks for my life being saved after the reaction to Heparin (blood thinner used in operations and in cleaning IV tubes) in an otherwise successful surgery to remove a blood clot in my heart from a heart attack the day after 2009 thanksgiving. I received a hit {Really, it is called Heparin induced thrombocytopenia (HIT).} from the blood thinner used in the surgery, and the next evening all my systems shut down, putting me on life-support for 8 days. Luckily, I stayed in ICU until the end of December of 2009 and they performed a risky open heart surgery to replace my Mitral valve and give me a 2-way bypass. I have plenty to be thankful for still being alive.

Left-flyer inviting people to Thanksgiving Dinner served take-out this year. Right: servers putting parts of the meal into containers: including turkey slices, dressing, mashed potatoes all 3 with gravy; corn, roll & butter; cranberry sauce; and a pumpkin pie piece. Delivery to cars by volunteers.

Gerald reporting in fine today, late afternoon. All’s well.
Late afternoon snack, a Nanaimo Bar and piece of pumpkin pie.
Supper: John had a rolls toasted into 4 pieces, with turkey, mashed potatoes, buttered corn, cut up a yellow apple and halved with me. Also, he had a piece of layered yellow cake frosted with all sorts of chocolate and twirls. Nancy had turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes all covered with gravy, a little bit of buttered corn.

Our only special Thanksgiving treat this week was a baked Cosmic Crisp apple, with Cinnamon crisp topping. Cosmic Crisp apple description:
This new apple on the market results from 20 years of research by the Washington State University tree of fruit breeding program. The apple is a cross between an Enterprise and a Honeycrisp.
Large, round, crisp and super juicy, these apples have a rich red that almost sparkles with starburst-like lenticels—which is where the name “Cosmic” comes from. The natural balance of acid and sugar in Cosmic Crisp® apples give them an unmatched sweetness, making them perfect for snacking, baking, and entertaining.
I worked on ‘duckduckgo dot com’ search tonight looking for research papers for Friday’s lecture on Nanaimo and Mélange Belts. Also requested help from a few folks and had a wonderful response from the Geologist Jerome at Vancouver Island University. He’s a huge contributor and supporter of our study group.
The total number of robocaller connections: Nov 25=1.

Thursday, Nov 26 Happy Thanksgiving!
Lovely sunrises: top by Keith Kleinfelder from south of town, and bottom from east of town, farther north, by Sid Peterson.

Slept in till 8:30 a.m., up a couple times during night with animal demands. Had my morning milkshake of chocolate Ensure with vanilla yogurt.
Coffee and starting to send papers for tomorrow’s lecture. Sent all the papers and images I needed to send for tomorrow’s lecture. Took me 3 sends to get all the materials to study group.

For brunch we had a pecan pancake with maple syrup, strawberries and cream atop, and bacon. I had coffee.
John spent most of his afternoon tossing boxes of trash from the hay barn into the landfill dumpster. He’s got more to do during the daylight, tomorrow. He was concerned about the large size of the dumpster, but says that’s no longer a concern. He knows he can fill it.

We had a bunch of Happy Thanksgiving wishes from friends in the states. We did them all on email, no telephoning.

Always a funny memory of Turkeys at Thanksgiving to share on this day. If you are old enough you will remember this TV Show. We viewed this original showing in 1978 while living in Troy, ID, and teaching at the University of Idaho, in Moscow, ID.

WKRP Turkey Drop

Telephone call from sister Peggy in Ohio, to wish us a Happy Thanksgiving. We had a nice visit for 25 minutes. I’m sure she was worn out. She’d had a couple hour phone call, plus another long one with someone else today.

Supper: Turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing, and gravy; the rest of baked Cosmic Crisp apple. For dessert, we had a Nanaimo Bar (our last in the package).

Sunset on Thanksgiving with thanks for his striking photography talent, Christopher Cyrus Peterson

I went for a late shower to be ready to leave for my PFT test tomorrow morning to get to the hospital at 9:15 a.m. I’m going to wear my N-95 mask to protect me. They are the chosen best MASK to protect against COVID-19 virus, so I will wear that mask from now on in grocery stores and in hospitals. And in other close proximity to many people places. I’ll use my cloth masks for the fewer folks I’m around. I suppose I’ll try to clean a few more dishes to load in the dishwasher before going to bed. Now I can’t. Rascal just got in my lap. He’ll stay here until I take my Acetaminophen and go to bed, so I can awake at 8:00 a.m. to get ready to leave.
The total number of robocaller connections for Nov 26=1.

Friday, Nov 27

1:00 a.m. early awake from dog wanting out. I went back to bed and John put her out at 3:00 a.m. I slept until 5:00 and awoke at the right time to take my Acetaminophen (every 6 hrs.).

John is busy every morning checking internet news, and cleaning the litter box and feeding, watering, and giving the girls some loving attention. They are both warming up to us (and will finally come to him), from across the room, when he calls them with special treat food. For a while, Sue would only come to me, but now they both will. Woody is still a bit tentative. It’s only been in the last couple of months that Woody would even let us touch her, (while she was eating). She was the longest coming around to be “domesticated.”

Appointment at Cardiopulmonary for PFT test for me at 9:30 a.m. Check in a few minutes before. I left at 8:45 a.m.
Checked in early with Yvette with my N-95 mask on, but couldn’t breathe so I went to the restroom and exchanged it for a cloth mask. Went back to get my paperwork to the front desk, and on down to Cardiopulmonary. Jim Allen, the head technician was the only one there, so he took me right in at 9:15 a.m. I was out in the car ready to come home at 10:03. I brought my report results with me, and it was shipped off to my cardiologist and to my PCP. I have written an email to my cardiologist’s nurse with my comments. I await hearing from him.

Now am getting ready for Nick Zentner’s Friday afternoon lecture at 2:00 p.m. I start gathering pre-show comments at 1:00 p.m., actually, my computer is grabbing them now.

John’s in the sun and chilly temps (39.7°) throwing more garbage into the dumpster. He usually only works at a single task for 1.5/2.0 hours. Changing tasks involves different muscle groups, or in different ways. He claims this to be a good strategy for old folks.

Call from Gerald about 11:20; all’s well there.
Fixed my chocolate Ensure milkshake with vanilla yogurt and I am enjoying it.

Nick began ~ 1:45 for 2:00 p.m. with his 2 hr. 7 min. lecture:

#96 – Exotic U: Nanaimo & Mélange Belts

I worked some on the blog.
I had a late afternoon snack (never really had lunch) of ripple potato chips and salsa, have been cleaning up dirty dishes in the kitchen, and packing them into the dishwasher. John’s napping. We got up really early and I had an interrupted night’s sleep, no afternoon nap, so I may really go to bed early tonight.

I tried to take my blood pressure and the batteries were dead. I finally found the AAA ones in a different part of the house from where the others batteries are stored (in the new utility room on shelves). There are a couple (flashlight and the AAAs in the living room on a shelf. Guess we need to combine them with those in the utility room. Those batteries are packaged too securely, in a tight wrapper that takes a knife to separate. I got it done without bothering John, while he napped. He just awoke at 6:12 p.m.

Saturday, Nov 28

What a difference a day makes.On the left (Saturday) there are high bright clouds over western WA and Oregon. On the right (Sunday) the clouds are gone but low grayish fog fills the Puget Sound, the Willamette Valley {Portland area and south}, and our own area of central WA.

I was up a couple times in the night to take care of cats and a dog. Last time was 4:00 a.m. and it took my 5:00 meds and went back to bed. Slept in until 8:45 a.m.

John took care of the cats in the new room, cleaned their litter box, and eventually went out for the papers and the mail and to feed horses. I stayed behind working on cleaning up dirty dishes and loading the very full dishwasher. Got it started at 10:00 a.m. while John’s out working for a couple hours in 48° temperatures, sunny, and windy, giving it a chilling factor.

Once on my computer this morning, I cleaned up the various things on our joint account and my personal email account. They’re always loaded overnight with unwanted mail. Have not looked at Facebook yet, because it is a huge time user I don’t have time for. If you want me to see something on Facebook, you’ll have to “tag” me so I am notified differently without being on board FB.

Oh, at 10:00 a.m., I finally sent a note to the study group for Nick Zentner’s lecture tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. It has the link to the YouTube location and suggestions for a background study guide to previous research papers, or roadside geology books. I should have added Nick’s recent audio Podcasts and forgot.

I fixed a chocolate Ensure milkshake for me with vanilla yogurt, to have before my hot soup for lunch.
At 11:15, I sent my note to the study group with suggestions about tomorrow morning’s background prep materials for lecture. I put all my medications for a week in a carrier for dispensing daily.

Before I had my own supper, I took a couple of tablespoons of drained tuna on a plate and broken up for the female cats on the new room. They scoffed it down.

Supper: I had a tuna melt (grilled cheese & tuna sandwich) fixed by John, with strawberry lemonade PowerAde. John had Panko breaded shrimp, baked and French fries, with cranberry sauce.

The total number of robocaller connections for Nov 28 = 1. It was from an Out of Area “number”, which was not displayed so I could not check on the type of scammer it was but they were alerting me to a security breach of an unspecified account to tell me if I pressed 1. I did not answer. Without a # I cannot block a future call.

Sunday, Nov 29

I was up at 7:25 to fix a hot cup of coffee to warm up and also to tide me over, a milkshake or chocolate Ensure with French vanilla yogurt. John reported that the cats made it through the night all right in their new bedroom and bathroom facilities. He’s going to give them a little treat of tuna fish this morning.

Nick’s lecture at 9:00 a.m. went long at 2 hr. 8 mins.
I started collecting pre-show comments about 7:40 a.m. but people are late coming on board this morning.
Temperature here is 30.9°. I’m sure Nick will be broadcasting from his porch this morning.

#97 – Exotic V: Restore the Fruitcake

John went back outside to work without brunch, I’m here too, inside the house working on the blog draft and on creating emails to 4 new study group additions. That got put off until after the blog is done.

I got myself an afternoon snack, first Ripple potato chips with salsa, followed by two Resee’s peanut butter cups.

John was out moving horse manure into the pickup, rocks into the under drip-line ditch, and more trash into the landfill dumpster. Now only have enough room for frozen food trash from the last 6 months to be added when we know the pick-up day. The horse manure is destined for the vineyard over at White Heron; some to our garden.

Supper: Bowl of Progresso wild rice and chicken soup, with chicken breast meat added. Another bowl of our leftover Acorn squash cooked with cut–up baked apple; the remaining half of the Cosmic Crisp.

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

Monday, Nov 2

I slept in, but we need to go to Yakima Heart Center for today for two routine visits for me for a device check and an appointment with my cardiologist. While there, we’ll make a Costco run.

I started early with hot coffee and then added a nutritious protein milkshake of chocolate Ensure with peach yogurt.
Printed my immunization record and added info for Dr. Krueger.

Morning call from Ellensburg Animal Hospital about Annie’s medication. We just cancelled it. Long story, but they “by law” cannot refill a prescription from 2019 without another visit. She’s doing fine without it (it was a pain med). She’s not showing signs of needing it any longer.

John has been outside feeding horses, opening the gate, getting the paper. Temperature is freezing.
Need to send the current blog published last night to a few people whose photographs I used. We’re leaving here about 11:30 for Yakima.

John drove us to the Yakima Heart Center for my appointments. The first was for 1:00 p.m., for my ICD device check (good, with 12 yrs. battery life left), and the cardiologist followed at 2:00 p.m. ECG given at the beginning by his technician. That went fine, and I just received a transcription in the mail on 11/7, in time to acknowledge it here. ECG was fine and unchanged from the last time (6-mo interval between appointments). I’ll have a Pulmonary Function Test (PFT) in 2 weeks, and those test results plus my blood tests for thyroid & liver will be ordered by my PCP and sent to him yearly. At my spring appointment next year, I will have another pacer check and an echocardiogram the same day in the new location, “Heart Central of WA” on 64th Ave., near Walmart on W. Nob Hill Blvd., west of town. This is a new center being created from about 20% of doctors and staff. It is related to one hospital closing in Yakima and the remaining one consolidating functions unto itself.

From the Yakima Heart Center (next to Memorial Hospital, now owned by VA Mason from Seattle), we drove to Union Gap, WA to the Costco store. Did a lot of shopping for us and our neighbor. We had to load up on paper products (TP, Kleenex, Paper towels), sugar, canola oil, pancake mix, some things we get only there for the better price (dog food, Kirkland brand “almond drink”, bacon, their fantastic “Christmas” Fruit Cake I like so well. There was a good price on 24 containers of Yoplait yogurt (31₵/container). The Hershey Company, responding to the diverse lock-downs around the Nation, have introduced packaging to encourage more consumption at home. There was a package of 30 of 3 different types of Hershey chocolate candy bars @ 50₵ each. We’d been paying 80₵ in EBRG.

Brunch: Bacon, eggs, fresh pears, and I had 2 pieces of English Muffin toasting bread, while John had French fries.

John went out to mow on the other side of the irrigation ditch, near the road.

10 robocallers thus far today from two different numbers in White Swan. Just had the last. Times started a.m. at 9:30.
Go tonight to Kittitas Pantry, a little before 6:00 to get donation receipt for 16# cat food, John delivered last Friday before 1:00 p.m.

Worked on sending requests for background research papers and links to web resources for Friday’s lecture this week. Contacted Chris Mattinson, about Friday topic background materials. Received help from Jerome (Geologist) in BC, at the Vancouver Island University, in Nanaimo. Got one research paper back from Chris. I added his email address to the Bcc: list.

Supper: Sandwiches grilled cheese with crumbled sirloin tip roast, cinnamon pears, yellow apples, fried onion rings, and French fries. Dessert: Nanaimo bars with blueberry swirl ice cream.
The total number of robocaller connections for Nov 2=13.

Tuesday, Nov 3

Strange wake-up to a fiery a.m. sky at 6:27 a.m. with cats at the front door wanting food.
This captured from Badger Pocket vicinity just before 7:00 a.m.Incredible sunrise photographed by Keith McGowan, published on his wife, Lise McGowan’s Facebook page. Lise provides the majority of their photos posted, but this is a winner in my book!Sunrise capture by Lori Waters from Ellensburg at 6:39 a.m.

I went back to bed and slept in until 8:20 a.m. (through a rude 7:22 a.m. -5107-robocaller from White Swan, WA which is blocked and only rings once. We got 4 calls this morning from different numbers (the 4 digits, following the time): 8:27-5145, 8:49-5108, 9:14-5145, 9:54-5145.

Slept in until 8:15 and John helped me get my medicine tablet out of the new container. Took and set timer for ½ hour, but the timer did not work. Luckily, I was paying attention to the time and set my computer timer to notify me. I had previously plugged in my external backup drive for its weekly backup at noon. Chocolate Ensure shake with peach yogurt.

Today is our day for many important errands. Reviewing those here. We’re using this symbol to indicate stops: ∞∫∞ First stop, by Eva Frink’s porch to drop off a thank-you box of John’s onions, pick up a cat litter box she’s giving us, and leaving her a couple of egg cartons. ∞∫∞ We were able to skip Bi-Mart because Connie B. checked my number and called me before we left to tell me. ∞∫∞ Went by the AAC to pick up my Bingo cards for Game Day with CLC this Thurs. ∞∫∞ On by Amy’s & Haley’s with some things to share. ∞∫∞ Went by Jerrol’s to pick up my Roadside Geology of Alaska book that arrived late in the afternoon when I was in earlier that day expecting to pick it up. Then down to Fred Meyer to get Red Baron pizzas for $2.50 each. ∞∫∞ From there out to Pilot Gas Center to fill John’s rig ($2.399/gal). ∞∫∞ On from there around the round-about to the office of the local gravel and concrete place with his question about landscape rock, and while there, I was able to use their restroom. ∞∫∞ From there back a neat route to Dry Creek Rd right to the location of our next stop to deliver groceries to a family. ∞∫∞ Back by Grocery Outlet for our gallon & 1/4 Ice Cream tub of vanilla, because it was nearing last two stops before home. ∞∫∞ On from there up Water St. to pick up the two 35mm slides we left last week to be transferred into digital images to share with the Hultquist family, and pay our bill, plus hand off 3 onions as a thank you. The trip to Jade Cove probably took place in 1963, in Aug/Sept. Look below in the blog to see the digital images with an explanation. ∞∫∞ On to our last stop off Wilson Creek to leave a donation of a box of 4 place settings of flowered dishes for Naomi’s Hope to give to women who have suffered domestic violence or another crisis in their lives. (See credo below).

Afternoon snack: heated brownie bar with cup of coffee.

Mentioned above was our picking up our two 35mm slides. Peggy Hultquist and brother Richard (30) in 1963 at Jade Cove along the California coast, south of Dick’s location in San Jose. Dick was working as a rocket scientist for Lockheed Missiles and Space Company at Sunnyvale’s Moffett Field.

Peggy (22) and brother John (19), in the photo below.
John went by train, starting in Pennsylvania, then the San Francisco Chief out of Chicago. Later, Peggy flew out and we bummed around some more. There are lots of photos somewhere, and Peggy recently found two slides. An EBRG fellow did the digitizing for us.

Supper: Pizza by John with a little help from Red Baron. Appetizer, cinnamon pears from Louaine. My dessert was strawberry ice cream.
The total number of robocaller connections for Nov 3=12.

Wednesday, Nov 4

Before 9:00 a.m. our landline had 5 robocallers. This is irritating. First one came at 7:22 a.m.! My mom always told me not to call anyone until after 9:00 a.m. in the morning.

The technicians finally came up from Pendleton, Oregon to fix the Automated Surface Observing System (ASOS) at the KELN Ellensburg airport. It has not been reporting any figures for the past few days. Such things are often near runways for your flying safety. Watch for one, if you are flying.
Morning milkshake of chocolate Ensure with Vanilla Bean yogurt.12:27 pm, Reecer Creek, Irene Rinehart Riverside Park, from the Middle Bridge, photographed by Glenn Engels.

Warmer today, with no wind. John worked a lot outside and I worked inside.
Lunch: Progresso soup, chicken with wild rice, carrots, diced tomatoes, and Cheez-its.
Late afternoon snack for Nancy: 2 Reece’s peanut butter cups. John had his right after his lunch.
Supper: Pork, rice & onion gravy, with fried breaded cauliflower. Dessert: Brownie bar heated, with strawberry ice cream.

Need to do some tax receipt filing tonight. I never had time today between other projects I was working on included loading the
dishwasher, emailing background scientific papers to the study group members for Nick Zentner’s lecture this Friday where we have a guest lecturer, who is the chair of Geological Sciences Department at CWU—Chris Mattinson.
I have decided, for a time, at the end of each day to report the total number of robocaller connections: Nov 4=14.

Thursday, Nov 5

7:12a.m. robocaller from White Swan, WA. Slept in until 8:15 a.m.
Hot coffee and chocolate Ensure shake with strawberry yogurt.

Washed my hair in the morning to be ready for Celia’s haircut.
Got bottles packed for her with WSJ auto stories for her hubby, Bobby. This is a series of “me and my car” as told to reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Involves the owner, the car, and the history thereof.

Pick a birthday card for Gloria Swanson to get in the mail next week before Nov 11 when there’s no postal mail delivery.

NOON to 1pm: Game day AAC led by the Center for Leadership & Community Engagement (CLCE) at CWU – Bingo via ZOOM. We played several games, and I won a horizontal Bingo, a vertical Bingo, and two of us won a Full Blackout card game. When done in person at the Senior Center, they have actual raffle tickets to give for winning games, and then prizes donated from town businesses are given and people put their raffle tickets into cups, near the prize. A couple years ago I won an Ellensburg Rodeo Baseball cap I like and a gift certificate somewhere from the chamber of commerce.

It rained this morning and may this afternoon too.
My lunch was chicken flavored Ramen pasta soup with added cooked chicken breast meat and Cheez-its.

Get $cash ready.. Pack up bottles for Celia, and newspaper articles for Bobby, and present of stuffed pink pig for Celia. Haircut at 2:30 p.m.

This morning I contacted Ken Hammond’s son (an avid bowler) about bowling trophies, we’d uncovered in our stash. I have more somewhere. Late afternoon, I received a call from David Hammond (no more bowling trophies given out in leagues not in at least 10 years. No trophy place left in town.) Guess I’m stuck with them. Found one that went back to 1959/60 for me in the American Junior Bowling Congress (AJBC). I was 16. I worked across the street from my house in Atlanta, GA, at Broadview Plaza Lanes, started $1.00/hr. and increased to $1.50. I did every imaginable job in the business. Opened and closed sometimes, because I lived so close to the plaza location and had keys.

Supper: French fried onion rings, thinly sliced sirloin tip roast in onion gravy, fried battered cauliflower with cheese, round seasoned baguette toasted crackers. Dessert: Tart cherry pie with Phoebe strawberry ice cream for me; vanilla for John and the cats and dog.
The total number of robocaller connections for Nov 5 = 14.

Friday, Nov 6

Up with a hungry cat (Sue) outside at 5:00 a.m., 6:00 with the dog. Woody arrived later in the morning. Stayed resting until almost 9:00 a.m., but was interrupted with robobcallers yet none during the 7:00 hour as in the previous two days.

Made two orders this morning first from ECP to be delivered next Thursday AM – a load of landscape small river-rocks (called oversized washed; 1.5 inches up to 5), probably $200+ on credit card. John hopes they will include some colorful flatish rocks. Me too.

Unsure the timing of this from Waste Management, a large metal dumpster 30 cubic yards paid $500.06, in advance and will only be charged the amount of the final pickup and delivery. The receipt is stored in my computer photos for Nov 1st week.

Today, Nick Zentner is joined by Chris Mattinson, as his guest lecturer on his rock research specialty. Chris is the chair of the CWU Geological Sciences Department and also his neighbor.Green rocks photographed by Nick

‘Nick from Home’ #90 – Exotic O: Green Rocks

Lunch: John had dinner leftovers and I had a protein drink of chocolate Ensure with peach yogurt. Was going to have afternoon leftover soup from yesterday, but decided to wait until tomorrow for it.

During the show I had two Reese’s Peanut Butter cups, and a class of Strawberry-Lemonade PowerAde.

Over ½-hour putting my medications into my weekly dispensing tray, with John’s help halving some of them.

Supper: 3 things: side dish of chicken & BBQ sauce & Macaroni & cheese (like a baked chicken pie); chicken stir fry with onions and red peppers, butternut squash baked with pecan halves. Dessert: heated tart cherry pie with vanilla ice cream. Sunset by Tom Harbaugh at 5:00 pm from Brickmill Rd

The total number of robocaller connections for 11/6 =14.

Saturday, Nov 7

Up at 8:00 a.m. to start the cold day, (still below freezing), after being up at 4:00 to feed Woody.
John and I watched about 10 deer walk through our pasture gate and up the driveway. He walked Annie up the drive and get a birthday card into to the mailbox for pickup to my 95-year-old friend, Gloria. Cle Elum is just 30 miles away, but it won’t go there directly. Hoping for a Monday delivery, but John thinks Wednesday. Veteran’s Day is a USPS holiday. She never gets mail on her birthday; maybe it will make it there before. I’m hopeful.

Got all my suggested background reference links emailed to the study group members, with the link to the lecture for tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. Sent before 11:00 a.m.

Dialed phone in GA of my first geography teacher to wish his wife, Jolayne, a happy birthday at 1:17 p.m. today, but no answer. Maybe they went out for an early birthday dinner. She and he (Sandy) were our chaperone leaders in 1965 for a Geography Field Trip to Europe for 9 weeks. Tried calling later but no answer, so perhaps they are off visiting their son’s wife.

A little before 5:00 tonight, John popped us some popcorn and buttered it. Nice treat.
Supper: Chicken soup with added chicken from last night’s stir fry and diced tomatoes and all sorts of things. Very tasty and full of surprises. Also had some panko crusted fried shrimp, also good; dessert was warmed tart cherry pie topped with vanilla ice cream.

I’m loading the dishwasher, and working on emails.
The total number of robocaller connections for Nov 7 = ZERO. Guess the scammers do not work on weekends. What a nice reprise from the past week of too many interruptions. {John wonders if many were election related – now over.} Nancy’s comment. Election day was Nov 3. We got them (a lot) after that day.

Sunday, Nov 8

Up at 6:00 a.m. with Woody and Sue wanting fed. I was late getting out there for them this morning. Back to bed for more rest.
Up 8:00 started 8:18 collecting pre-show comments.
Having a hot cup of coffee to warm up.

Nick’s morning talk lasted for 2 hrs. ~900 viewers worldwide; temperature was 37° in his backyard at the start of the lecture, and up to 40° at the end. Still pretty chilly.Tomyhoi Peak is one mile south of the Canada-US border. {Picture}
Gary Paull’s perspective of the rugged “foothills” in the Eastern Cascades titled lecture this morning. Gary is a photographer extraordinaire, which you will see in the Cozy Fort in today’s last part of the video lecture before Q&A. Check it out. Gary gifted (in a previous show) this image as a framed picture for Nick & Liz’s home wall. There are no annotations on that photograph. This was for help with the lecture today.

‘Nick from Home’ #91 Exotic P-Eastern Cascade Foothills

Didn’t get my milkshake of chocolate Ensure with French vanilla yogurt fixed until the end of Nick’s session. Now enjoying it. John will be coming in around noon to fix breakfast.Our view ability today.

Breakfast: Bacon, blueberry pancake, cinnamon pear, and Bartlett pear shared; coffee for me.

36-minute call talking to our cousin, Ethel Reynolds, 103, in Brookville, PA. She is so wonderfully alert and with the world around her. Caught up on much family stuff, as well as many other topics about our world! She’s amazing. A friend brought her a plate of pork and sauerkraut she grew the cabbage for and made! The woman’s mother was named Ethel, so she always calls our cousin, “Mom.”

Supper: Sauce with meat and spaghetti.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John

Monday, Oct 26

John says: “Nancy and Elise introduce autumn colors today. My hometown of Clarion, PA began an Autumn Leaf Festival in 1953; I don’t remember it. Soon after the town and the College combined home-coming week with the Festival. An outbreak of influenza at Clarion College slowed the growth in 1957. In 1962 a young lady from our neighborhood – a year ahead of me in HS – and now in a sorority wanted real “autumn leaves” for their float. Another neighbor, with a Jeep and small trailer, and I visited numerous trees not far from town, and a colorful float was made.” Link to History
Autumn Leaf Festival in Clarion, PA postponed this year, by COVID restrictions. Usually held in September.

Autumn colors in New Jersey – Photos by Elise Schlosser

I realize Poison Ivy is not the normal photo pictured in autumn leaves photos, but Elise took it at the same time and I was drawn to it, because of my past history in GA with poison ivy on an adjacent lot to the house where I grew up in Atlanta, GA. I was extremely allergic to it.
I knew to avoid it when in the woods, but I never saw the red-colored leaves of it, probably because we received a lot of rain in Atlanta, GA. I looked that up and found this explanation online: Poison Ivy with red stems and/or red leaf edges are less common, but hardly rare. When poison ivy doesn’t get enough water, the leaves will turn red.

Back to now: I slept in, but I need to go to Yakima Heart Center for two routine visits for a check of my implanted defibrillator and an appointment with my cardiologist. While there, we’ll make a Costco run.
Printed my Immunization record and added to info for Dr. Krueger.

Morning call from Ellensburg Animal Hospital about Annie’s pain medication (TRUPROFEN – chewable tablet 100 mg). We just cancelled it. Long story, but they “by law” cannot refill a prescription from 2019 without another visit. She’s seems to be doing fine without it. She was only taking a ½ tablet a day, first a.m. & p.m., but recently, only ½ a day.

John has been out to feed birds and horses, and confirmed the temperature is freezing.
Need to send the current blog to 3 people whose photographs I used. We’re leaving here about 11:30 for Yakima.
I’m having an Ensure chocolate shake with peach yogurt, and John’s having bacon and fried potato.
Supper: Sandwiches grilled cheese with crumbled sirloin tip roast, cinnamon pears, yellow apples, fried onion rings, and French fries. Dessert: Nanaimo bars with blueberry swirl ice cream.

Tuesday, Oct 27

Slept in until 8:25 and John helped me get my medicine tablet out of the new container. The company changed what was an easy peel back method to a more difficult one in my opinion. Thanks, John. I’ve taken it and have to wait a half hour to eat. So, I set up my backup drive.
Today is our day for several important errands.

I will review those briefly below. We’re using this symbol to indicate stops: ∞∫∞ First stop, to drop off two 35mm slides from long ago of John with his sister and brother at Jade Cove in CA to transfer to a digital image we can share with the family. ∞∫∞ By another friend’s house to leave some things. ∞∫∞ I took the paperwork to the WA Dept. of Licensing, for a handicapped yearly parking sticker, for use on CWU campus, and was surprised it was issued right away. ∞∫∞ Next to Bi-Mart to buy slippers for John, as his fell apart, and to buy some cat food on sale. While there, I bought some OTC ointment for my “dry skin” that Dr. Krueger recommended, Eucerin cream. ∞∫∞ Next, we’d both decided to go to Super 1 Pharmacy for our 2nd Pneumonia shot (supposed to be a good thing if we get COVID virus; makes it a lighter case), but it was to be only for me. (I called ahead and found out) that they were not marked with our names, so they gave away all but one dose. They ordered another for John and he will get it another time, but his name will be put on the serum and he’ll be called. I received mine today. ∞∫∞ Next, I went by Jerrol’s to pick up my Roadside Geology (RG) book that arrived last week. It’s RG of Southern CA.

Set up the stuff for the study group tomorrow to send to newly added members.
We ate dinner late but this sunset was taken by a friend who submits many photos to the Kittitas County Visual Delights Facebook site, and she’s given me permission to include them.
This was taken late in the evening-she called the fading sunset. The bottom two clouds earlier on other photos submitted looked like salmon swimming upstream. Photo by Barb Bailey.

Supper: Stew heated, added fried long sausage split, half yellow apple, half cinnamon pear, Cheez-its; dessert was another of the Nanaimo bars with blueberry swirl ice cream.

Wednesday, Oct 28

Morning sunrise 7:23 a.m. by a friend south of us with a better view than we have.Lovely sunrise at 7:23 a.m. by Sid Peterson

Before 8:00 a.m. robocaller (blocked) so rang only once.
Warmer today, and sunny. John worked a lot outside and I worked inside.

He left with the Ford truck, with canopy, to drive to town for supplies: grain, cat food, returned to Bi-Mart loafers too small, for slippers that fit, and was able to get his 2nd pneumonia shot.
I got off the note to the study group about this, but now am listing some research paper links.
Talked to Summer at Cle Elum Clinic and reported John’s 2nd Pneumonia shot received today, and she updated his immunization record.
3:01 Blocked another robocaller from Colville, WA (690); 3:14 Jeez, another robocaller from Darien, WI.

John called from Bi-Mart and will be here about 3:50 p.m. So I need to get Annie out to great him. She’ll be happy.
Supper: Hamburger with cheese, sliced yellow apple, last of the summer squash fried with onions. John grew the last two. Dessert: shared two small Nanaimo bars with blueberry swirl ice cream.
I did a lot of tax receipt filing before and after supper.

Moon rising photographed by Lise McGowan, in our valley

Thursday, Oct 29

Morning call from Gerald reporting in fine today. John’s now out taking care of the animals morning feeding. Sunny day, still chilly temperatures.

NOON to 1:10 pm: Game day AAC led by the CLC at CWU – Jeopardy. Dress in orange shirt/jacket via ZOOM. Neat; I was on the winning team (we played with volunteers). Our team had 4000 points vs. the other with 1,200.

Had a late lunch of leftover Oriental flavored Ramen pasta soup, with added cooked chicken breast meat and Cheez-its.
Was 66° at airport 2:00 p.m. but due soon for an update.
Outside house was 56.3° and at airport 67° at 3:00 p.m.; our sensor needs relocated – or theirs does.

I need to post for a cat litter box (open, no top). Posted request on Buy Nothing East Ellensburg, Kittitas FB Free site. And on Ellensburg The Free Box. Just got my first offer from the lady who gave us the child’s gate, Eva Frink. We’ll pick it up next week (Tuesday). And, we need to carry her the empty egg cartons.

Supper: Spaghetti sauce with ground beef, mushrooms, onions, diced tomatoes covering spaghetti pasta. Strawberry Lemonade flavored PowerAde for Nancy’s drink. Dessert: Nanaimo bar with blueberry swirl ice cream. End of those.

Friday, Oct 30

We completed our voting ballots this morning, and John drove to the Courthouse to deposit them in the Ballot Box. On from there he went to Kittitas, to deliver a 16# bag of cat food to the Kittitas Pantry, as a donation. They repack it in smaller Ziploc bags for clients.

2 robocallers today; blocked for future calls.
Geology stuff: #88 – Exotic M: San Juan Islands, 2:00 p.m. went very long today, until 3:45 p.m.! Good program.

‘Nick from Home’ #88 – Exotic M: San Juan Islands

Added another study group member today.

The local paper reported on a need: I talked to Peggy Beals via email about donation to the Ellensburg Community Clothing Center to help buy a new more secure drop-off bin for clothes. She gave me the address to mail my check, and we got the check in the mail. Also, mailed another check to pay for our reconfigured plumbing in the new utility room and the well “shocking”. So, that’s behind us.

Lunch: John had bacon and fried potatoes. I had a late lunch, a bowl of chicken soup, with cooked chicken breast added.

Saturday, Oct 31

Woody was ready to eat on the front porch at 5:00 a.m. So I fed her, took my Acetaminophen, and went back to bed.
Set some of our clocks back an hour to daylight saving time tonight. A couple more need doing.
John took mail for pick up to the mailbox.

Early a.m. I had a Chocolate Ensure Shake with Vanilla Bean Yogurt.
Brunch: Bacon with Blueberry Pancake.
John went to feed horses, and I finally finished loading the dishwasher. Phew. Started it at 6:00 p.m.
Two more robocallers blocked today (within a half hour of each other).

Supper: Fish, Sausage, Cheese Biscuits – Dessert: peach pie with sea salt caramel ice cream.Lise McGowan’s Masked Halloween Blue Moon not to happen again on Halloween until 2039. Last time it happened was 1944. The mask is very appropriate for our 2020 pandemic year!

“Blue Moon” is now used when there is a 2nd full moon in a month. Rarely do atmospheric conditions cause a blue colored moon. But it does happen.

Sunday, Nov 1

Moon is setting as the sunrises in Kittitas Valley this morning:Taken early 11-1 by photographer, Tamie Schaut published on Kittitas County Visual Delights site.

Two more robocallers blocked today (within a half hour of each other).
Up before 8:00 a.m. to follow the geology pre-show comments.
Nick’s 9:00 a.m. lecture, went long this morning for ~900 viewers worldwide—1 hrs. 51 mins.

‘Nick from Home’ #89 – Exotic N: Western Cascade Foothills

Having a hot cup of coffee to warm up, and sipping a French vanilla yogurt in chocolate Ensure milkshake.

Brunch: Small (& simple) Philly cheesesteak sandwich (Costco purchase) shared with John, with a cut-up pear.

From last week’s 3 yr. old Birthday Party for Natalie Sandman:

Our entry into the family was in 1974 because of Brittanys and attending all-breed pointing field trials and shows, and our friends, Karen & Bob Oppie, also Brittany breeders. Top left is Karen Oppie, Nancy & John Hultquist, right is Karen’s daughter Chris Sandman, grandma holding Nora (1 yr. old) and Natalie in front opening one of our gifts, sharing with Nora a smaller version of a Unicorn. Bottom photos, Natalie with homemade cake by a family member, Christina Frantz and someone else.

We were treated to much food before dessert: pizza, fruit, and appetizers, hot coffee, or cold drinks.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Monday, Oct 12

It rained most of the night.
Starting this morning with an October image from the Super 1 grocery store entrance by my friend in Kittitas, WA:
Captured the fall scene on a nice cold morning, from photographer EvieMae Schuetz.

At 9:00 a.m. it’s cold (50°) and breezy (38 mph gusts), but sunny. The horses are way down in the 7-acre-pasture at the south end, standing in the lee of the trees to cut the wind. John drove his pickup with hay down to them to feed there.

Here’s the morning view from the GOES West Satellite:The visible brown area is dry central Washington.
I have several projects to complete and then, I’m switching entirely to filing and organizing tax receipts. Never made it until late night, and now need to change folders. I did the rest of the ordering, but had two things from a different month I have to refile.

Brunch: I had leftover chicken soup and also a milkshake with Chocolate Ensure and blueberry yogurt earlier this morning.

Supper: John fixed a stir-fry of chicken breast meat, with gravy, onions (our own), mashed potatoes, corn, and carrots.

Ending with a photo I just saw today, that was taken Sunday in the hills NE of our home on Colockum Ridge, south of Wenatchee,Photographed by Kevin Dwight (my friend & former student)- Larches (Tamaracks) turning yellow, 4600′ Colockum Ridge, 14 mi. NNE, 10-11-20
That ridge on the south side is NE of our home and would be the way Kevin drove to where he took his photos.

If you like helicopter rides, you may enjoy the following video by Wenatchee woman named Maria, who lives on the north side of the ridge, and who pilots a helicopter we’ve been along on trips with, with her sidekick Nick Zentner describing the geology seen below. This one is a survey of the fire damage from an arsonist set fire that swooped up the canyons of Colockum Ridge in July 2020, and you will see its proximity to her home she’ll point out as well. And, there are more comments below her video. You can stop the video and read about before or after you watch it.

Wildfire Damage, Helicopter Survey (12 mins)

Tuesday, Oct 13

Miles and miles of clouds. Raining again here this morning. Cats never appeared for their Monday a.m. feeding, and now their dinner table is inaccessible until later this afternoon, probably.
Early a.m. arrival of contractors to put the rock face siding on the bottom of the house along the new concrete at the front door.

Our trip to town has been delayed in its intended starting time. No problem, as John cannot work in the rain, anyway. Will give me time to start loading dirty dishes to soak and to unload the dishwasher’s clean load.
I took my weekly medication tablet on an empty stomach and hooked up the Backup Plus drive for its noon backup.

We did not win anything on our Bi-Mart numbers today. John drove and took extra set of his keys for me to go back to the car at different stops, and make phone calls from his car in the parking lot. Stops are separated below by ∞∫∞. He drove me by the Senior Center (AAC) to drop off materials from the game day last week.
∞∫∞ Then, we were off the KVC Medical Arts Building, south of AAC, across from Super 1 Grocery. There I received a blood draw for my INR (monthly) and also my Potassium (quarterly). ∞∫∞ From there we continued to Super 1 Pharmacy for our Flu Shots. The paperwork required was very involved and time-consuming, but we got our shots from our favorite Pharmacist. She’s given us our shots for many years, and I have known her as a fiddle player with our group, earlier until she started working full-time. ∞∫∞. After that, John went shopping for groceries, and I went to customer service with a receipt from last Tuesday, for Reese’s peanut butter cups for which I was overcharged higher than the on-sale price of $.78 for some of them. The cashier was surprised, but agreed, and handed me a $2.20 cash refund. Normally, I check my receipt while still in the store, but I didn’t last week. Then I went back to John’s car to complete some telephone contacts. He bought some boneless sirloin tip roasts at a great price/pound. All he bought were at a sale saving prices. ∞∫∞ From there, John drove us to Midstate Coop and bought a bag of Senior Horse Complete grain and a 40# bag of Black-Oiled Sunflower Seeds for our birds. ∞∫∞ To Safeway, for Just for U bargain coupons that end today, and got some other on sale items. We got 2 dozen large eggs @ 99₵ ea., Bananas for 56₵/#, Red Seedless Grapes for $1.70/#, and PowerAde at 49₵ ea., by buying 5 bottles.

Lunch: Leftover chicken stir fry with onions, gravy, corn, and red seedless grapes.

3:00 p.m. the winds have increased for the past two hours to 40 mph gusts. John is sitting in a chair across the room from me resting, and the winds are hitting our house very noisily. The contractors finished their work and left before they got knocked down putting up our house siding. They accomplished a lot in the time here this morning. Finally, one of our outside cats has made it in for food this afternoon, Woody. Her mom Sue hasn’t shown up yet.

John and I just spent 16 minutes in a frustrating conversation with Citi Bank about our Costco credit card, trying to replace his credit card lost (?) Aug 4, that we’d put a hold on. Now we should get a replacement card in the regular mail in a week or less. After originally telling us that, the card came priority delivery via FedEx in 2 days.

The very same day, later in the afternoon, we got a phone call from our neighbor who works at Fred Meyer that our card had been found Aug 4 at their store. He noticed our name and called us. He doesn’t get them until they’re over a month old. So, we thanked him, and told him to cut it and dispose of it. Interesting.

At 7:15 I took 2 Acetaminophen and have to figure the remainder to take before going to bed of two 2 smaller Mg ones.
Supper: beef stew with biscuits atop, including added chicken meat, carrots, potatoes, with Cheez-its on the side, and red seedless grapes on the plate around the heated stew.

Nice sunset tonight from the west side between storm clouds:Water is Puget Sound; the land in the background is Fox Island. Photo by Pat Jack, long-time friend at CWU, who now lives in a condo, in Tacoma, from where she took this photo.

Wednesday, Oct 14

Morning call 8:20 a.m. from Haley in the Coumadin clinic KVC-Cle Elum, INR=2.1 (monthly), Potassium=4.3 (quarterly). I asked her to update our immunization record on the Hospital’s Medical portal, to record yesterday’s Flu Shots for each of us on 10-13-20; I checked and our last pneumonia shot was 10-22-18 (it’s the first dose, so we only need the 2nd). That’s ordered for us both, and Tuesday (our pharmacist’s name) will give it to us on Oct 27.

Started first thing this morning, loading dirty dishes in dishwasher.
John’s back out working again. Shorter day length and some not so nice weather has cut into his exertions. He’s starting to cut calories to compensate.
Need to send papers from Jerome to the study group.

Brunch: Bacon, blueberry/pecan pancake.

John worked outside on various projects moving lumber – – sorting out a few of the better discards (side planks and others) and piling the rest for a 5-mile distant neighbor. [Fellow that removed the concrete slab with a big backhoe.]

Supper: Long-roasted boneless sirloin tip roast, onions, and baked potatoes, with a bowl of red seedless grapes.

Thursday, Oct 15

After a late night staying up, I slept in until 9:00 a.m. and then have been doing double time ever since with emails and telephone calls.
Started with setting up my computer for the day, receiving a phone call from a friend about her medical emergency of having congestive heart failure and looking for the cell phone # of a mutual friend to give her, writing an email to another neighbor about coming down today to cart home some firewood. We had a morning visit from FedEx to deliver John’s replacement lost credit card, and a phone call to arrange filling a drug prescription to pick up next Tuesday. I did email the study group the 2 scientific papers from Jerome in BC to prepare for Nick’s Oct 23 lecture on Wrangellia Exotic Terrane.
I sent the next email to the Zentnerds study group, both To_& Bcc_ lists, and to other friends interested in Native American Culture, and especially our Native American storyteller and legend spreader, Randy Lewis.

John reads this link daily (wattsupwiththat) and asked me to send this to Randy to see if he was aware of this: about the Ancient North American cultures and/or the history of the domestication of the dog). It’s probably reflected in your native American storytelling of legends.

Shaggy Dog from Watts Up with That

Finally, here is the link you might want to follow to learn more about Randy Lewis, himself. After reading the “biography,” then visit to the right, the link to his video there, and then follow the icon to get to the other YouTube links of videos by Randy.

Overview of the man Randy Lewis

Once there, you’ll see this:

and to the right, you’ll want to click on the icon to the right of his first video’s name header, the 4 lines with right arrow after the words: Randy Lewis Seattle Civil Right… That will access all 9 videos in the playlist for Randy.

Robocaller blocked again from Colville, WA (we receive so many from that exchange that I know the 509-690 prefix by heart; yet, it always comes from a wireless caller. Blocked another from same prefix as this, 29 min later with another Colville number.

John loaded a month’s worth of firewood into the neighbor’s truck. He was cutting with the chainsaw and she showed up early, so she got less than he had intended. He was also cutting a few pieces with knots to take to one of the bottlers for “turning” pieces. He had some Black Walnut, Carpathian Walnut, Mountain Ash, and Poplar.

He is now fixing lunch. He’s having left over onions and sirloin tip meat from last night’s dinner. Later this afternoon, he’ll be getting our new slicer set up, to slice the roast into thin pieces that I can chew. And, he’ll take a plate for the bottling crew’s lunch after bottling Malbec, next Tuesday. That will work nicely, but had he realized he’d be going there he’d have waited to cook the roast. Now he’ll have to freeze it today to use next week. Will have 2 Reese’s Peanut butter cups for my afternoon snack.

John’s back to the wood culling (the milled wood) as some was left 12 feet long. Some odd pieces he cut for firewood, but most of the rest is being carried off by Pat, who said he fired up his wood stove this week. We anticipate below freezing temperatures next week.

Just had a phone call from Katrina about foot care at the Senior Center. She hopes to have us scheduled for Thursday Oct 22 at 10:15 & 11:00. She will let me know by tomorrow. She’ll send the material we need to bring via email. Yes, both happened, and I’m very grateful for the special treatment.

I’m busy with activating John’s new CitiBank (Costco) credit card that came via FedEx today. Unanticipated, so the driver had to hang it on the fence. I’ve first had to update my records on the computer in a folder under Credit Card-Info. It’s now activated. Apparently, the first time you use it, you have to swipe it, and after that it becomes a contactless chip card (touch and go).

Need to work on proofing Janet’s Word document, then, put time in the kitchen on dishes, and have my snack, and get some tax filing done! Guess what did not get done.
I worked and made good progress on unloading the dishwasher and putting up all the silverware and stainless steel flatware. Time to get my snack for the next round. OK, it was a DARK chocolate one instead of the regular. Interesting.

John just returned inside from his latest chain sawing project, but it is completed now before rain and snow gets it wet. Now he will return to landscaping – rocks, dirt, gravel.
We’re about ready for a heated popcorn feast John is fixing. My second snack of the afternoon.
John set up our new meat slicer and is thin slicing the sirloin tip roast from yesterday’s slow-oven roast. We will have some for supper tonight, and then freeze some for later.

Call at 7:30 p.m. from Walter Davenport that he is delivering the rock wall siding that needs to be attached on the porch house front. He’s coming tonight to deliver it, and John will get on his boots to help unload the sheets. Willie and Jesse will first finish a job in Cle Elum, and then come down here.

Supper: Thin-sliced sirloin tip roast, fried onion rings, cinnamon pears (gifted by our neighbor, Louaine).

Imagery below is from a sagebrush/steppe part of the region 25 miles southwest of us.

These two photos were taken by Jessie Walling (my friend and former student) on her trail running journey this evening. Evidence of the wildfire’s destruction is consistent with the fiery sunset colors.
The Evans Canyon Fire started on the afternoon of Aug 31, 2020. Photos from the week are on the web if you search-up images with – – Evans Canyon Fire. And if you look back to our weekly blog during that time you’ll see our views from our valley.

Friday, Oct 16

Dark and dreary here. Beautiful sunrise elsewhere in the valley.

Published in KC Visual Delights. Gayle McIntosh’s photograph from her back porch looking east from Hwy 97; posted by a son. I neither get up early enough nor have the viewpoint from home to take such gorgeous scenes.

I won the Wheel of Fortune Game Day at the Senior Center. 1600 points, next was 950, and lowest was 650. Sad because the lowest started ahead of us all, and then the wheel spun a bankrupt. We all had a good time, regardless. We played it on Zoom.

No Nick lecture today at 2:00 p.m. He’s back in Wisconsin visiting his mom and sister.
Cheryl Paul’s birthday is today; I called her and sang happy birthday to her voicemail.
Call from Susan Donahoe that my voter ballot was not in her mailbox. I’ll wait a few days to see if it shows from farther down the road. Then report it lost. John’s was delivered fine yesterday. Didn’t have to wait long, as it was included in delivery today with no explanation.

Brunch: Bacon, eggs, Cinnamon Pear (shared with John), eggs over easy with cheddar cheese, and I had a slice of English Muffing Toasting Bread, with Apricot Preserves atop, made as gift by my neighbor Ken.

John’s afternoon on yard projects were affected by the high wind gusts:

Supper: Appetizer, cheddar cheese in Fritos Scoops. Progresso soup with beef added for rest of meal.

Saturday, Oct 17

Up and down a lot through the night, so ended up sleeping late.
Cat fight on front porch; unsure who was involved but Rascal was the aggressor. Likely Woody – she dislikes Rascal which is befuddling. Czar was inside sleeping on his blanket.

Morning greetings from Gerald who is doing fine, and had talked with Maury and learned they were fine as well.
From LethaLee sent the link for Nick’s October 23rd Friday afternoon 2:00 lecture, but that channel is not showing up dated links on mine. Checked out later after a restart of my computer, and it is still not listed. However, I can access the URL.

I finished an email to Jana Goodey and sent it, and then work an hour or a few pages on the thing for Janet Lane on COVID-19.

John’s out working for an hour, and will come back in and cook some pork sausage we don’t know where we got. It is one pound in a “not for sale” wrapper from 2017.
Worked on proofreading Janet Lane’s COVID -19 chapter of a book on the use of GIS and sent her what I have as of today, to be sure it was useful and understandable.

John retrieved the afternoon mail and it included a statement from Costco about my enrollment. It was misleading, but I opened it and found a certificate inside I need to take there to cash for only $33, our next time at Costco. It reflects the excess bonus of 2% on purchases through the year only on Costco goods within the store. We get another much larger check in February, for reward paybacks for using the VISI CitiBank card to buy gasoline at a 4% discount, among other perks such as using it at restaurants. We’re on automatic renewal (Dec 1) for the next year’s business card membership. We haven’t been doing much because of Panic2020, so these perks are reduced.

I read through John’s Not So Nasty News this afternoon and found a nice link to the story of the lemur stolen from the San Francisco Zoo. He re-opened his report and it is there now.

I worked on filing some tax receipts and will do more tonight before going to bed.

Brunch: spicy pork sausage patties someone gave us with a Blueberry/pecan pancake topped with cutup nectarines and maple syrup.

Supper: John created from some leftover Chicken Alfredo, our main dish for tonight. He added red & yellow bell peppers, pepperoni, cheddar cheese, cashews, & I’m not sure what else. I washed and destemmed some red seedless grapes. I also had two different kinds of crackers with my supper.

Sunday, Oct 18

Slept in again, but not soundly. Awakened throughout the night with various interruptions including rain at 3:20 a.m., so I am kind of slow starting, on a dreary overcast day.

Restarted my computer this morning hoping it will correct some of the errors I’ve been having accessing data.

John went to feed the birds, and the horses about 9:35 a.m.

10:23 a.m. a call came from Gerald Gordon, my 90-yr old friend in Thorp, and we had a 10 min conversation. Then at 10:36, he called back and said he had a gift for me, and started singing every word of the song, It’s Just a Little Street Where Old Friends Meet, in his beautiful voice he has not at all lost with age. We had been talking about getting together with our group in a jam session and having him play again with us (as our lead singer). I know that will happen and it will be healing music for us all.

Load my gift cards for Jerrol’s bookstore) in my wallet for Tuesday. I suppose, also, I will take the ones for Winegars’ (local ice cream), although the ice cream one will just be in my wallet for when we run out of the 5 quarts we bought last week.

Fixed a protein drink for this morning. It was one of my Strawberry Ensures mixed with strawberry yogurt.

After restarting my computer this morning, I logged into the KVC medical portal for Nancy’s records and succeeded, but I was unable to find my Immunizations record, as I had found John’s yesterday on his account.

Brunch: Spicy sausage, with two eggs over easy covered with melted cheddar cheese crumbles; John had potatoes and onions (his own little white ones, called Sterling, that will store for 8 months), and I had a cup of coffee.

John went up to the irrigation ditch today in 40mph gusts, to fill the dog & cats watering bucket. There is also a similar pail outside. We’ll soon have to switch to the heated bowl. He had on his bucket hat, and the wind blew it off his head into the ditch!

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

. . . brought welcomed change

Monday, Sept 21

I began the morning with a Zoom Game Day session of Scattergories. I won today but only 2 played and we had fun.
We made our own scoring cards, place for the Letter, and 10 slots for categories. Then the dice thrower called the letter, and we chose the category we wanted, alternately.This is only one category which the leader put on the screen all possible categories to choose from. This is just one example.

Rest of the day filled with computer work, cleaning dishes, and going shopping to drive John’s car which had not been moved in a while. We donated some onions, summer yellow squash, and about 15# of two kinds of dry cat food to the Kittitas Pantry. Side activities decreased both our work time. Mine needed more than anything is working on back taxes. But all these medical things also need done.

I made my appointment for a lung PFT test in November. Put all my meds in for the week, and arranged for some other stuff with respect to my Yakima Heart Center visit in October.
While on the road tonight we talked with our sister Peggy, and with John driving I could call several friends long distance to touch bases. So I called to wish a happy wedding to a former student and to another former student to check her health which had been getting better finally, after a year of pain and surgeries without much improvement. She’s finally feeling better.

Supper: Chicken pot pie, with macaroni & cheese, and pork pieces added by John, a French Cruller donut, and piece of Lemon Boston Cream pie for dessert. The latter was the best part of all.

Tuesday, Sept 22

Took my weekly medicine of the stand up & empty stomach type. I hooked up the Backup Plus drive for noon backup protection of all the files on my computer’s hard drive.

Made a call to Jeannie at Cardiopulmonary at our local hospital, about to where/whom the PFT results are sent– to attn. of Dr. Krueger, or to Yakima Heart Center only, or to my medical records file, so the Dr. or his nurse can watch for it after Dec 1. My PFT test is not until the day before Thanksgiving, Nov 24. The answer is they go through the same notification with the cardiologist doctor as for all his patients. So, that relieved my concerns.

Disk drive backed up and said so at 1:38 today. Due next Tuesday for another backup.
My lunch today was leftover chicken noodle soup with extra cooked chicken breast added.

Called about Atorvastatin. Kenna, Pharmacy Tech is taking care of it; unfortunately, there were no refills on the Safeway one, and they did not have Bi-Mart Pharmacy one sent on file (I’m sure I had requested that be sent to BM Pharmacy, through my PCP’s nurse).

We first went for our higher dose Flu shots we scheduled a couple of weeks ago. Got to our pharmacy, and they said they were out of serum. I was upset because I had made the appointment and they should have saved 2 for our appointment. We are now on another waiting list.

We took ~20# of John’s home grown onions by to friends Joanie & Ken. Last year they took them to Quartzite, AZ, and they lasted until Christmas.

Took a few things by Amy’s house in town, and added a special present for Haley (now 7 yrs old), and still planning to be a scientist.

Called in my refill prescription today for Alendronate to Kaiser Permanente Mail Order, and it was delivered 2 days later. The place is on the west side of our mountains.

Wednesday, Sept 23

Nancy called the CWU User Desk early morning, to use Quick Assist with Tech to resolve problems of Microsoft Account –most likely a password change, through shared experience setting. Request either Paris, or Casey, or Brian K. to share my screen to help with that primarily, and one other question I have.

At 9:00 a.m., Telena Hunter arrives to set up chlorination of our well water, and there’ll be no running water in our house allowed (except for flushing toilets) for 36 hours (which increased later in the week, details to come). She did not arrive until 9:50 a.m.
She and her assistant, Melissa, got everything completed and will be back tomorrow to flush it out of all the in house faucets and system.

Another Robocaller blocked by the Panasonic answering system on our land line—claimed a source of Longview, WA.
Lunch: I fixed a nutritious drink for me of blueberry yogurt with chocolate Ensure; but, I intend never to buy Chobani yogurt again. The blueberry is particularly awful. John made his lunch entirely from leftovers. Sent an alert for the next two Nick from Home lectures this week, 9/25 and 9/27 to the study group members’ emails.

Late today, I called ComputAbility and talked to Matt the owner about how they handled advising people who wanted to have a specific domain name of their own choosing. Need is to publish a blog on, as we do, with our rocknponderosa.com and host the space to store the whole blog from the start of it (ours started Dec 4, 2009). A report on this and his answer is in tomorrow’s posting.

Supper: Spaghetti with pork added to Arrabbiata sauce, or sugo all’arrabbiata in Italian, is a spicy sauce for pasta made from garlic, tomatoes, and dried red chili peppers cooked in olive oil. The sauce originates from the Lazio region, around Rome. It’s a little too spicy for my tastes, so what’s left of the jar, John is going to add tomatoes and use ground beef as the meat. We also had a bowl of peaches with dinner, and a cool drink (PowerAde for me). Dessert: Vanilla ice cream on top of heated apple fritter shared and ½ donut.

It’s been raining here much of the afternoon and evening and is going to be rainy all this week. That should clean up all the smoke and suppress fires.

Thursday, Sept 24

I’d received an invoice from our domain provider updating our membership for the next 3 years. It has increased in cost amazingly from what it was 3 years ago in 2017. So I decided I would shop around. That’s why I had called Matt last night, here in town to see what he could offer.

He’s worked with Network solutions since 1994. However, they do not provide the service through their business at ComputAbility here in town. He has to buy his own domain name, for their business’ web site, but he doesn’t require hosting capabilities, yet he understand the concept and the pricing schemes, of such companies.
He uses Hover.com only, which “sells” domain usage only, does not have hosting which we need. Matt (owner at ComputAbility) says $160 / year is not bad, because we need both hosting and domain name usage. We were unaware of the “blog” stuff when I was ill and our computer guru (at Complete Computer Services) set up a WordPress site for John to use to talk to friends and relatives about me, when he didn’t have time to spend on the phone talking individually with them. The business must have done the hosting locally, in EBRG. When that business closed we transferred (we don’t remember doing this) to a new hosting place. It is their billing renewal we have just received.

John needs to turn on the frost free faucet at 8:00 a.m. today, out by the horse tank. A gallon of chlorine bleach was dumped into the top of the well, and now all that has to come out. We have only a small submerged pump, and not a hefty aquifer, so slow removal is expected. So any animals won’t get into the chlorinated water, the drain hose is emptying into a rocky space.

John and I spent 31 minutes and $160 on the phone today to continue our domain name and hosting for another year. The e-mail indicated a 3 year renewal and the total cost, and what was happening, caught us unaware. Phone consultation finally got us on track.

Sent an alert to study group at 2 PM with a bunch of references from group members to share about geology.
Telena came by, but the chlorination of the well water still needs to continue. It’s going more slowly than planned. She’ll be gone a few hours and back to finish later.

It just started raining again at 4:00 p.m.
Another Robocaller previous blocked just rang once: (Longview, WA). They don’t quit. Glad it didn’t wake me from my nap.
I was tired and lay down for an hour nap.

I fixed a nutritious drink for lunch, peach yogurt with chocolate Ensure. John ate leftover meat loaf for his lunch.
Short phone call from Gerald at 4:30p.m. his grandson took him for a drive today up Taneum Canyon toward where their family hunting cabin. He enjoyed the ride and is feeling just fine. All’s well, so that’s excellent news.
Supper: Vegetable, Chicken soup, dessert, hot peach pie w/ vanilla ice cream atop.

Bad news: After dinner, I reviewed the order confirmation from the payment of the domain & hosting site from IML this morning before noon. I saw one (the one I was expecting) for $160.41, but I received four, totaling a lot more. The lady sent all previous invoices – but none were dated. [We got it straightened out on Friday, and now we’re in for 3 more years].

Friday, Sept 25

Water well “shocking” turned into >12 hours more + some, because of low well pressure, so our bathtub’s faucet ran hot water all night to cleanse the hot water tank (50 gallons) of chlorine. Kelly Hunter came back at 9:20 to finish flushing the chlorinated water from the inside faucets, changed the filter on the water softener; John changed the one on the hot water tank, and said we should give the pump a rest. That is, use minimal water for 3 hours or so.

We decided to call back to IML and pay the $ for 3 years / which would be ~$133/yr. instead of $160.41 we paid. We need hosting plus use of the domain name and protection for what we do.
They do not send receipts of the purchase on my credit card. I have to look for that on my statement from VISA Citi Bank. But it had been put on my card for the $160.41 for the one year. And Sunday’s email arrived with access to my statement through Sept 25th, so I checked and that was posted on there, from Thursday, but we’ll have to wait until the end of October’s statement to see what was charged exactly for the upgrade to 3 yrs., of the domain name, the hosting, the protection and the added tax.

Called PCP’s nurse and left voicemail message request to refill Atorvastatin, 40 mg for 45 tablets (because they will ½ them) for my 20mg dosage once a day for 3 months, and to “email FAX” it to Bi-Mart Pharmacy. The pharmacy has requested a couple of times since Tuesday this week with no response. Finally, LATE afternoon, right before 5:00 p.m., I received a call it was sent!

Peggy Eaton is honchoing the leadership of a scheduled Zoom meeting noon, 9/25, for our Ruth Harrington Scholarship meeting group, held on 4th Fridays, and not able to be held at CWU this year.
I joined the Zoom Meeting – Scholarship Luncheon Meeting—fun meeting with Ruth (who is looking good from her stroke 6 wks. ago, able to walk around the block, allowed to drive her car, and she’s done with her physical therapy sessions), Peggy from campus at the Dean of Students office, Monica from home working there, Christine from facilities Mgt on campus.

I have a 2:00 p.m. viewing of a Nick from Home today.

‘Nick from Home’ #80 – Exotic E: Paleogeography

Much work on different projects.
I spent a little time on Facebook messenger evaluating a LOGO for a Brittany. This person lives back east and has one of our Cedaridge Brittanys in her breeding program. She got her Brittany pup from us in the 1990s. Her name is Michelle Gamblin, and her breeding kennel name is N-Vee Brittanys.She had many responses, and I think #5 (my choice) was winning the battle. {John likes #7.} I haven’t checked to see her final decision. To me this logo shows more of the field and show (Dual) aspect of the Brittany, and is something that will look good on stationery, a business card, or a bumper sticker without using color.

Supper: beef, bean, mixed-cheese (good) grilled sandwich with canned peaches. Dessert, peach pie with vanilla ice cream.

Saturday, Sept 26

Weird wake-up procedure with sounds of everything magnified into a note. Even single bites of dog food being tossed into a pan, by John. Gerald called at 8:45 a.m. and I was having first cup of coffee. Talked to him for 12 mins about him and me. Will start my computer, and do the dishes first thing.
John unloaded most of the dishwasher except for the silverware. I need to wash a load leftover from Wednesday when our well water was chlorinated.

Friend Louaine gave us a dozen small pears from an orchard on the other side of the valley. Thanks, Louaine. They claim to be Cinnamon Pears. Trying to search for such brings numerous recipes using the spice. I found a photo of a dwarf Bosc Pear tree with Cinnamon colored fruit. Interesting, maybe we’ve been given Bosc pears. John will ask a few folks that might know, and report next week.

John made Blackberry cobbler in the slow-cooker (aka crock pot). He mentioned his intent in his Not so Nasty News, but failed to mention he was following a “Blueberry” recipe. {I used a plastic liner in the crock. Best idea since sliced bread. John}
Another Robocaller blocked on our land line. We don’t get cell service out here on the Naneum Fan, so wonder how that problem is on those mobile phones.

Brunch: Bacon, English Muffin Toasting bread, and eggs.
Supper: Bowl of Spaghetti with Ground beef, tomatoes, and sauce. Blackberry cobbler made by John with his homegrown blackberries in a Crockpot recipe!! with Vanilla ice cream for dessert.

Tonight’s night view from Cove Rd (SW of town):Lovely photo by Michelle Schock posted in Kittitas Valley Visual Delights; taken toward Manastash Ridge, about 8:00 p.m.

Sunday, Sept 27

Clear, sunny, no rain, and nice for Nick’s 9:00 a.m. program. Went with bicycle ride at the end, to 1 hr. 33 mins.From the GOES west satellite from UW Atmospheric Science

Started at 8:03 a.m. on line with comments on lecture by Nick.
This was a premiere showing this morning by Nick Zentner in ‘Nick from Home’ fall series on Exotic Terranes.

‘Nick from Home’ #81-Exotic F: Strike-Slip Faults

To appreciate what follows you MUST click on the video link and do the following movement to 1:38 (1 hr and 38 minutes to the start of the bicycle ride with the camera going in his Iphone. You’ll see the reason for Nick wishing to do it for his worldwide audience to show our agricultural valley so close to the city limits of Ellensburg. 872 viewers watched the ride from worldwide locations. The ride goes by fields and barns, once out of town.

The lecture went long today with the bicycle ride at the end; Go to 1:38 in the video to make the bicycle trip from Nick’s house on 3rd Ave south a bunch of blocks to Mt View Drive (extension of the Kittitas Hwy), into Rosewood neighborhood complex, where across the fence to the left we could hear the outside rock band in a congregational meeting outside in the sun, for a service at the Ellensburg Foursquare Church, on from there onto Umptanum Rd, and south down Bull Rd, to agricultural farm land there.

This photo two below looks very much like the view we got from the bicycle ride Nick took us on, to the southern part of our valley to see the snow cap on Mt. Stuart, which was not there on Thursday, so it received its snow Thursday night. Winter’s on its way. This first photo shows Mt. Stuart on the left with snow, but was not taken on today’s bike ride. Another photo of the valley near Ellensburg looks more like the close up agricultural land we were riding by. Our view from the bike ride of Mt. Stuart was very small because Nick couldn’t zoom his I-phone in as close as the view above.This photo was actually taken in a different direction from Mt. Stuart, and yesterday by Barb Bailey, on her way back from fighting Seattle traffic, and she was happy to be coming home to her agricultural Kittitas Valley.
This view is very similar to the views we got from the bike ride at the end.
(Check out the video’s ending above). Again, for the bicycle ride, start at 1:38 + a little.

I fixed a nutrition drink for midday, of strawberry Ensure with Chobani strawberry yogurt.
I just finished taking a bunch of time creating a problem notification email to the contractor with a photo John took of a Design Flaw in our construction project. It’s related to the rain we have been having not being directed properly to avoid hitting on the to-be-concrete wheelchair access ramp, so it doesn’t become a sheet of ice in rainy cold weather. Red line (arrow) shows where the rain went. It needs to fall 18″ to the right.The contractor received the description this evening, and knows how he will fix the problem. He’s coming over to consult with John tomorrow afternoon.

I’m currently working on my part of the blog. I need to get it to John, and then unload the dishwasher. One more load and I’ll be caught up.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Monday, Sept 14

Checked email from RN Chris Aman for Dr. Dave Krueger; we changed the date to Oct. 26 to be able to combine my visit to the Yakima Heart Center for my Device check with Toni to the same day as a visit with my Cardiologist. It’s a 50-mile trip one way for us.

Called Ethel today (our 102 yr. old cousin in PA) at 2:45 & talked 20 minutes. As usual, it was fun and informative visiting with her. She’s quite amazing.

Called the help desk with my questions ask about the Skype for Business which we supposedly shut out completely, and there are other things we may need to get rid of permanently, but I want help not to try anything myself that might screw up my computer. One thing I need help on is the Dell Support updates it keeps asking for.
The “out of memory” issues have not returned after all Brian K’s work and it’s sitting at 78% used right now. This morning Monday, it’s using only 63%!
Call back from BK (Brian K) at CWU 3:24 p.m. to 3:50 p.m. cleaning up system more and needs a RESTART, after saving my Word Docs, and closing other programs before restarting.

5:48 p.m., 21 mins on the landline with friend from childhood, Dot Smith, about things in Decatur, GA. She called with concerns about us and the fires, but called my cell phone, which gets no reception in our house. I only accidentally found her two voicemail messages when charging my cell phone to make ready to go to town tomorrow. When I turned it on to check the charge, it beeped, and I found the first message from Saturday.

I called Jeannie at the Cardiopulmonary (KVC) and found my PFT (stands for Pulmonary Function Test) last year was 11/22/2019. To qualify for medical insurance to pay for the test, this year’s test has to be scheduled a day later, which is a Monday, Nov. 23. I now need to have my cardiologist send a request referral to the department at our local Ellensburg hospital before I can be scheduled for the test. That process is underway.

This morning turned into a week of work piled into one-time slot.
Noon call from water system guru, Kelly Hunter, indicated he was on his way to meet us. Stayed 45 minutes and fixed some stuff and scheduled a future time for coming to install corrections and additions, to our well-water treatment setup. Meanwhile, his wife, a different type water person, will visit to “shock” our system – – meaning bleach poured into the well, a wait period, then flush all clean.

Tuesday, Sept 15

Call from Kelly Hunter. Our cost will be $2,300 to add an iron filtration system to our well water treatment machines. That will happen in several weeks when he has time to add to his schedule and get the equipment ordered and available to install.

We both spent a lot of time with reading and sending a note to Cameron Fries, about things at the winery, White Heron. A bottling session will occur in the future, Oct. 2. I won’t be able to go along as I must attend a meeting at 2:00 p.m. and I wouldn’t be home by then. John has to remember to take some small bottles over to give to Cameron.

Early, turned on heater in bathroom for taking shower.

Took my weekly pill at 8:50 a.m., planned to eat ½ hr. later, but our morning was interrupted and I didn’t actually get to eat until 10:00 a.m., when I had only a nutrition drink and coffee.

We left for town later than planned but got to my monthly INR blood draw before time for my favorite phlebotomist to go to lunch. After that, we ran a bunch more errands. Dropped off Apples to Apples decks of cards at the AAC used in a Zoom game. Went to Fred Meyer shopping for drinks, bread, drinks, red grapes, and then drove to a lady’s house who makes and gives cloth face masks she’s made. We each got 3, and very colorful they are. John needed one because all he’s been using is a paper mask, supposed to be for one-time use only. Today was about its 8th use. He carried one in his pocket for a time. Hay and dirt loved it, and it still worked – he lived. We said our thanks and left. Next stop in town was to The Palace to cash in my September free meal birthday dinner. We got it to go from Molly, our favorite waitress there. On our way home, we put egg cartons near Eva Frink’s front porch.

Supper: We had my Birthday dinner from The Palace. Cobb Salad and John had Chicken Fried Steak. {He says that’s a strange name for a beat up piece of cheap beef.}

Wednesday, Sept 16

Mid-week photo today, all the way from Chile, from a gal we knew when she was a student at CWU a long time ago, Mérida López Nualart. She looks as young as we remember her; no clue how old she is now. She was here as a language student, then returned to teach English to folks in the Chilean Air Force.

I called the dental receptionist and paid my $90.40 bill for John; talked to Edgar. He emailed me the receipt to joint account, and it’s now stored in my tax 2020 file. Also, printed it and filed in the hard copy paperwork filing cabinet.
My day has been filled with working on emails and switching between tax filing, and unloaded dishwasher, and needing to reload dishes and soon.
This morning I had a nutrition drink (Strawberry Ensure with Chobani dark cherry yogurt). Makes a nice “milkshake”.

Washed a new load of dishes tonight to get ready for our well to be filled with a lot of bleach, because no water can be run inside the house for 36 hours and we would not be able to turn on any faucets in the house. We can only flush our toilets.

Supper tonight: John had a steak fry; I had the rest of my birthday dinner Cobb Salad ½ from yesterday evening. I added pieces of our yellow summer squash sliced and raw, some red grapes, and had with a buttered hot roll I brought from The Palace Café.

Thursday, Sept 17

Washed clothes in the morning before Noon expecting our well’s water to be chlorinated or “shocked”. Now the first load is in the clothes dryer at 11:00 a.m. and the second load is my polyester stuff needing dried on a lower heat.

I’m currently finishing the necessary startup of my computer to check emails and then will switch chores to filing back taxes, my most urgent need right now. John’s out front working in the shade (actually the smoke cover is blocking the sun). The temps are below normal now (62°), and the visibility is only 1.5 miles, with the thick haze.

The person to chlorinate our well canceled and rescheduled for 9:00 a.m. next Wednesday. She was in the Teanaway (a long valley to our NW) where there’s no cell reception, and could not get a phone call to tell us until afternoon.

I fixed a nutritious drink for lunch, peach yogurt with chocolate Ensure.
Called Sadie Thayer this afternoon and see if she received my email about donating some stuff to the Kittitas County Historical Museum. She had NOT received it, because someone had hacked their website and she has been unable to access any email. More about this in tomorrow’s report.

You may need to enter the password Patrick917 to open it. Or you might not!
Go here, please to view responses for Patrick’s 7th birthday.

The link is necessary to see all the wishes from worldwide people who have met since St. Patrick’s Day on a Geology site for Nick from Home lectures. Just Sunday morning at 9:00 we had over 1000 viewers.

This link was set up to give viewers a place to record their birthday wish to Patrick on his 7th birthday. Patrick Swan has been the student at the head of the class, asking the best questions of Prof Nick Zentner through now 79 episodes of Nick from Home. I’m not giving this link to view what I said, and in fact, you should skip over mine and follow Greg the train conductor from East Tennessee, and Gerrit who shows his Countryside (The Netherlands), and others who have neat insights to their surroundings. Check out Yelli (from Japan). Frances from Germany. James from Australia, and also Kathy from Australia. Another from Japan is Denise. Spend your time on the others, not on my post, please.

Supper: Orange chicken, leftover lasagna, red grapes, fried slices of yellow summer squash. Ice cream for dessert.

Friday, Sept 18

Today needs to be completely spent on tax preparation, except for these next things at 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m.

Wrote an e-mail to Janet Perkins (violinist) about a note in WOTFA News, pg. 8. People we know are dying while this Panic2020 thing drags on. Her husband, Dave, our Double-Bass Fiddle player, did not die from the virus.

Friday Sept 18, was Game Day at 10:00 Heads up I’m only an observer, not playing the head piece & acting out. I did get involved some with providing sounds or words to describe the words for them on their headpiece.

I have a 2:00 p.m. viewing of a Nick from Home today.
‘Nick from Home’ #78 – Exotic C: Craton vs Terranes

I talked to Sadie Thayer at the KC Historical Museum about donation of our treadle Singer Sewing Machine and her not responding to my message about it last week. Their website was hacked and it included involving their email receipts. She had not gotten it. I also paid my dues this year through the website on PayPal, and that was never acknowledged. She will email me Monday to see if I get all the information I was supposed to. Meanwhile, she would like a photo of the sewing machine. They have 3 there, one in storage maybe 2 and one on display, but none of them work. I am sure ours should still be working and we have all the attachments for zippers and buttonhole maker. In talking to John, he says he thinks the drawers are packed separately in a box, and we do not know where the box of drawers is. So, this may be a future give once we find the box.

I spent quite a bit of time this afternoon, working on attaching a new external drive DVD/CD reader on my system, so I could load Turbo Tax software from a CD. Then I spent a bunch more time downloading updates to the software. Once that was done, I started the form filling in all the details for the beginning of the software, which will compare and transfer the information from the previous year’s tax return, so all the columns for deductions or income will be indicated on the form as organized in the past year.

Supper: Fried chicken breast with BBQ sauce, battered cod, John’s homemade applesauce, baked beans, canned peaches. Had Deluxe Caramel Crunch Frozen dessert (looks like ice cream, but we wonder why they call it that).

Saturday, Sept 19

Continue filing 2018 receipts, check on Excel eventually.

Another Robocaller blocked on my Panasonic land line. Did 2 or 3 yesterday.

Brunch: John had leftovers from last night’s supper; I had a bowl of Maruchan Ramen noodle soup with roast chicken flavor, but added a bunch of cooked chicken breast meat and Cheez-its crackers.

Supper: Pork roast oven-baked at 250° all day; bowl of canned pears and red grapes, fried yellow summer squash (John grew); dessert last of the caramel crunch frozen dessert with thawed strawberries on top.

Sunday, Sept 20

Good to go at 8:00 a.m. on the GOES west satellite imagery, sunshine, no smoke coverage, and blue skies in Ellensburg, At the blue star. The Cascades and the Bitterroots in Idaho’s panhandle have clouds.From the GOES west satellite via UW Atmospheric Science

Started at 8:03 a.m. on line with comments on lecture by Nick.

This was a premiere showing this morning by Nick Zentner in ‘Nick from Home’ fall series on Exotic Terranes.
#79 – Exotic D: Passive Margin

Brunch: John had leftovers from the freezer, and I went through this morning with a large glass of protein drink, Chocolate Ensure & Blueberry Yogurt. If I get hungry later (which I doubt), I have leftover lunch chicken soup to heat up.
John’s resting after lunch and planning to go out and work in the shade this afternoon.

Currently, working on the blog.

Supper: Pork, onion rings, fried yellow summer squash, red grapes, mashed potatoes with gravy.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Monday, Sept 7

ALERT to study group sent out at 9:30 a.m.

Spent the morning setting up to drain the hot water tank to try to get rid of the muck inside. Brunch: Bacon, blueberry pancake, and fruit cocktail. As it was nearing done, the smoke severity changed and smoke started flowing into through the patio door, where the hose draining the tank was. We had to close the door, and started researching the source of the smoke blocking the visibility to 2.5 miles or less. The temperature lowered with the smoke, from 81 at Noon to 71 at 5:00 p.m. We could not see the hills east of us. Late in the afternoon, the sun was a red disc.John worked some with the landscaping process, digging, sorting, and moving rocks and dirt. The loading ramp is filling with rocks, the garden soil is growing, and the front area is taking shape. All slowly. The smoke is not helpful.
Before the week was over, we had down to ½ mile visibility for several days. A week later, 9-13, it’s only at ¾ mile.

I called two neighbors to see if anyone knew the source of the smoke, and we got online to look for fires to the west of us.
Allen, our friend a mile up Naneum Rd. has relatives in Monse, WA near Brewster, and he knew there was a fire there. We found it on the MODIS Fire Mapping in our Google Earth Pro. I kept a watch on it, until it updated because all we had was the last 24 hours and the last 6 hrs.Less than 2 hrs. later it had increased in coverage. The orange in the bottom image is the red in the top images now, as orange. The top right image shows the measurement of the miles as over 20 miles to the south from the original start of the fire at the northern tip of the pattern.

I received burned photos from the area on 9/12 which are too depressing to publish, but here are a few. Heat was so hot it melted aluminum. The winds were clocked at 83 mph. People stayed behind to water down their house structures, and saved a few, while getting burned themselves.
Monse, WA after fire swept through:Burned trees-ground cover, heat melted aluminum, burned fieldsFORD Bronco & Allen Aronica helping family with cleanup efforts

Smoke coverage was severe by mid-afternoon, seen in this backyard video from our patio (only 19 seconds long). Using straight-line distance, we are 76 miles from Brewster and Monse is 6 miles farther away.

Smoky Atmosphere Ellensburg, WA 9-7-20

Tonight at 6:00 p.m. is the last of the Nick on the Fly (NOTF) series, with a new series beginning this Wednesday night, 9-9.

NOTF #26–North Cascades talk w/Ralph Haugerud

CWU’s Nick Zentner travels to Wenatchee to visit with longtime USGS geologist Ralph Haugerud. 52 mins. Recorded 9-4-20. Topics: North Cascades field mapping, Baja BC pros and cons, & future work in the North Cascades.

See you tonight, and then Wednesday night this week with Nick again with his start of the new Fall episodes of Nick from Home. That day of the week is being changed this coming week to Friday, and the time will be 2:00 p.m. This will mess up a few people from watching the live broadcast and they’ll have to watch the replay.

Supper: Beef Stew with Cheddar Bratwurst, Fried cauliflower, and Cheddar Biscuits, caramel praline crunch/vanilla ice cream for dessert.

Tuesday, Sept 8

I cannot keep up with all that’s happening around this place. Latest is that our water heater, water pump pressure gauge problems continue, and the filters on the water coming from our well are clogging with gunk faster than we wish.

John went to town and I stayed home. He picked up his own meds at Fred Meyer Pharmacy, and my med at Super 1 Pharmacy, buying groceries while there. He went to Mid-State Coop for a O-ring washer for the 10″ Big Blue filter that takes sediment out of our well water. The installed O-ring has stretched and thinned, and leaked with this removal and re-installation.
He went to Bi-Mart for some white petroleum (silicone grease is recommended) to put on the O-ring to secure the seal, and while there picked up a sheet of their membership card winning numbers (we won nothing). I checked other friends’ numbers when he brought it home. Above photo by EvieMae Schuetz. Particles in the smoke filter and scatter sunlight. When the atmosphere is too filled with smoke the sky goes dark.
I tried to take a photo but what we saw would not reproduce on my camera, nor on John’s. I asked Evie if she could get a photo. She said she’d try. The results are fantastic as seen above.
Sun photography is not easy; See here at B & H Photo
Scroll down there and you can see the sort of photo I took.

Supper: Pizza and our cherry tomatoes, with caramel praline crunch / vanilla ice cream for dessert.
Take pills, fluoride teeth, and go to bed.

Wednesday, Sept 9

Today’s local news, the Daily Record, printed the Obituary for Charles Larry Firkins, our friend whom we’ve known since my joining the Kittitas Valley Fiddlers & Friends music group.
I captured the digital version of the Obit to email to our music group and to the family.

We had many chores, mostly in the house because of the temperature outside, but about noon, John left for town to buy 4 desks at CWU surplus sale for $2 each and to fill his old 1980 Chev farm truck with gasoline. The price of gas was $2.55 at Pilot, 34₵/gal less than Circle K that’s often the least expensive in town! So, it was worth a little extra drive to the west side of town.

The desks he brought home are shown below. To have room and access to clean them up, he had to remove more junk from our big shed. We are going to get a large 20’ dumpster to empty most of this into to get it off our property, he has moved some of these things many times. Top shows the purple top of the desk barely as John demos the way the desk drawers work. Bottom: with the desks out, junk was moved to the truck and backed into the hay barn. Now he has to unload and stack it. About 8 of the boxes are, in fact, empty. Eventually, I will have my computer set up in the new room, using one of the desks, and the desk top will be enhanced with the lavender (came out pink) painted ceiling.

I stayed home to receive phone calls while he went to town. I contacted several people – searching for a plumber. Luckily, we later made contact on the weekend (Saturday) with plumber, Kelly.

The following video was on at 6:00 p.m. tonight as a premiere:

‘Nick from Home’ Livestream #76 – Exotic A: Geologic Time

Thursday, Sept 10

This morning at 9:00 a.m. I was on Zoom to play Yahtzee. I won today with 391 points and 3 Yahtzees! (that’s a record for me forever).
Gerald called at 11:20 and I told him about the Obituary. I need to send it to Jarred and to Connie and have them coordinate who will print it for him. I’m guessing Connie would be the best. But I wanted Jarred to see it too, because he once played with the group, and would have known Charlie.

I fixed a nutrition drink.
Brunch (Surf & Turf): Chipped beef, Boiled/Iced shrimp, breaded Cod fish.

I finished contacting four new study group members.
I wrote Sadie Thayer about making a donation of OLD Singer Treadle Sewing machine to the Kittitas County Historical museum. (Over 80 years old) – was my mom’s and what I learned to sew on.

Supper: Corn-on-the-cob, bowl of chili (with Cheez-its), and apple crisp with strawberry ice cream for dessert. The Rascal-Cat doesn’t like the strawberry ice cream. Dog is happy with any flavor ice cream.

Friday, Sept 11

This morning I had a nutrition drink (Strawberry Ensure with Chobani strawberry yogurt). Makes a nice “milkshake”).

Called the CWU Help Desk about out of memory problems on browsers, Edge and Opera. Had changed a month ago from Google Chrome because it was using so much memory space. Was told to change to Firefox, but it gave me severe problems too, so I switched to Opera. Now both it and Edge crash without much on either one, and right in the middle of things. It’s killing my production. I regularly have to RESTART and then rebuild my system to make it operate again. My question to them was, “Can you go through my task manager with me and help me see what I can end task on and maybe which I don’t need in my system at all! What they do is set up a shared screen entry, so I can watch what they’re doing but they have control of my computer.

50 minutes on the phone, reduced the memory usage to 75%, from 88%. I should be good to go!! Need to restart my machine before bed and after logging in, in the morning. Then things will be updated properly. I should have updated my Windows 10 this afternoon. It will take at least 30 minutes, which I didn’t have this afternoon. So, morning will have to work for that. The “rest of the story” is that everything was fine after time passed and I got all the stuff completed. So I have successfully been able to operate both browsers without problems throughout the weekend.

Also, unloaded the dishwasher from yesterday, and reloaded it and ran it this afternoon.
I spent a lot of time transferring videos from my Exilim camera because its memory was filled. I still have 2 years of work to backup, when the battery is recharged. I charged one today, but used it until it lost its charge. Have been recharging the 2nd battery, which will probably be charged in the middle of the night, so I can use it tomorrow. The second battery will need to be charged. Still have some more cleanup with that, but I’m making progress.

Supper: Fried sliced yellow summer squash, beans and pork, garden (to accompany our own summer squash). Dessert was apple crisp with strawberry ice cream.

Saturday, Sept 12

I actually slept in this morning. Lots to do.

We talked to a plumber who will come out to our place next week sometime to check out all that we need done, but he said he could handle it all, Kelly Hunter is his name.

I spent a lot of time finishing a long letter with photos to people we have known in Idaho for 40 years. We had 40 acres of farmland north of Southwick, ID, which we eventually sold them after they rented it for several years. It was to be our retirement home, but instead we left Troy, ID to move to Ellensburg, WA.
We kept our horses there and went riding in the hills while they were renters. They were originally from Iowa, and had a large family (5 kids).
Various snacks through the afternoon for each of us.

Supper: Beverage, orange juice, a cheeseburger with BBQ sauce, our homegrown onions fried, very hot oven baked scalloped potatoes, with strawberry ice cream for dessert. Orange juice.

Played cat rotation all day, and I just captured a mouse (dead) brought in as a gift for her dinner by Sue. Added it to the plastic bag in the freezer. She brought it in after John was already in bed, and wanted to exchange for a late dinner. I obliged her wishes and then went to bed myself.

We’ve run the fan of the air-handler all day and I stayed inside to stay out of the smoke. We have been socked in all day with only a ½ mile visibility with an orange tinge to the air. It may continue for a couple of days.
At 5:00 p.m. today, this was the extent of smoke in the PNW states: Not nice. Still, we are not threatened by fire, so we are lucky.From the GOES west satellite from UW Atmospheric Science

Sunday, Sept 13

Still socked in at 8:00 a.m. on the GOES west satellite imagery.

This will be a premiere video showing this morning by Nick Zentner in ‘Nick from Home’ fall series on Exotic Terranes.

#77 – Exotic B: Basement Glimpses

Brunch: Bacon, eggs scrambled with cheese, fried {from frozen} hash browns, bowl of our own frozen (thawed a little) Bing cherries. We had no cherries at all this year.

We are eating old stuff out of our very old and inefficient chest freezer we bought in Iowa at an auction, and brought here. That makes it well over 50 years old. We are trying to empty it to buy a newer standup freezer that is more efficient and accessible to put in our new utility room. We need to empty this old one and take it to the dump. There are not any freezers available in Ellensburg until late this fall, as they are all back-ordered at every store. People bought them out when Panic2020 arrived.

Since March of 2017 we’ve had a big pan of Costco Chicken Alfredo in a freezer: 3.89 pounds at $3.99 per pound. We cooked it for supper. Some will have to go back in the freezer, ’cause four or five days of leftovers does not make for happy times.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

We are the red dot north of the smoke. A map for Tuesday, below, is a zoomed image.
Mt. Rainier is the white place to the left.

Monday, Aug 31

At 2:30 p.m. today, a fire arsonist is suspected to have set a fire about 25 miles SW of us in the dry grass and trees near Wenas Lake north of Naches, WA. Official name is the Evans Canyon Fire. Many images are now on the web.

I spent a bunch of time talking with friend and former student, Kathryn Buckholz south of the fire on the other side of Cleman Mountain. She is currently in an area with an evacuation notice #2 (get ready to leave home). Spellings in the area are confusing. The fire came up Umtanum Ridge [The Road is spelled with a ‘p’, Umptanum; while most spelling of “tanum” are “taneum”], The first ridge south of EBRB is called Manastash Ridge, then Umtanum, then Cleman.

Kathryn sent a couple of photos of the smoke from her backyard, and Wayne Erickson took one from the north side of the fire:Top two photos from south with Umtanum Ridge in the background, left was 2.5 hrs prior to 2nd, by Kathryn Buckholz. Bottom taken from Cove Rd in the Kittitas Valley, the North view over Manastash Ridge, the next day, by Wayne Erickson. Story continues through the week.

A related new Nick YouTube video is scheduled at 6:00 p.m. tonight,
From WikiPedia: Manastash Ridge is a long anticline mountain ridge located in central Washington state in the United States. Manastash Ridge runs mostly west-to-east in Kittitas and Yakima counties, for approximately 50 miles. The ridge is part of the Yakima Fold Belt of east-tending long ridges formed by the folding of Miocene Columbia River basalt flows.
‘Nick on the Fly’ #20 – Manastash Ridge Field Trip, 8-31-20 (42 mins)

Supper: Pan fried chicken breast pieces with onions and lots of red grapes, strawberry ice cream for dessert.

Tuesday, Sept 1 – – Nancy’s Birthday! – –
A beautiful valley sunrise starts my special day:Sunrise over lovely “quilt-barn”, photo by EvieMae Schuetz

Today was our day to go to Ellensburg for the 10% off Senior Discount the first Tuesday of each month, to check our Bi-Mart numbers, plus pick up a bag for a Game Day this week at the Senior Center. While on the drive in, we saw significant smoke coming from the Evans Canyon Fire. Once home, we immediately added the Modis Satellite Imagery (Active Fire Mapping) to our Google Earth Pro to check out the fire’s hot spot history. An early image is below and the spots are all are bright red, meaning they started within the previous 6 hours.

Also, the fire is still not under control, and people have been evacuated. More than 100 dwellings threatened & high winds continue and fire acreage more than doubled. It has made it to MODIS satellite view. John just snipped this image for me to share, with the study group I was going to be sending a reminder for the video to be presented Wednesday night.I’m showing this here for you to compare in 4 days with what I will post below on 9/4 of the entire footprint of the fire, which has all the values (in the map legend) of the boxes and the colors and the spot in the center of the square, indicating the initial posting of a fire at that location. The dark red is 0-6 hrs since starting.

Supper: For dinner: spaghetti with meat sauce (93% fat free ground beef) we got on sale today, pears, and Rose’ wine. Rather than “birthday” cake, we are having peach pie and ice cream for dessert.

Wednesday, Sept 2

I haven’t figured the best way to thank everyone on so many platforms (Facebook, Email, Postal mail, phone calls) for all the birthday greetings I received. Do not have time to thank individually, with all this fire problem up to 13,000 acres now, major evacuations, extra firefighting crews called in, and high winds continuing. I’m sure this bunch is exhausted from fighting overnight. Not nice.

The Fire continues out of control to 15,000 acres, 0% contained, topped the ridge and now will be advancing down into the Umtanum Canyon which slopes eventually to the Yakima Canyon river road. Also, some rural areas nearby adjacent cities (Naches, Selah) are on immediate evacuation notice.

Right now our valley is not threatened, but the footprint is spreading rapidly. During the day they have airplane assistance and bombers with pink retardant spray. The jet resupplies at Moses Lake as it did when if flew over our house for the Snag Canyon Fire, 2014. Other planes and helicopters are involved.These I snipped from a video taken by a firefighter on the ground.

Unrelated: Not good 18 min waiting to renew our blog’s domain name, and never got my call back. I deleted the charge box and closed it. Will wait for Oct 2 automatic renewal and hope my change in credit card number worked and they renew for $16.99 for 2 years. That up significantly from the charge for two years in 2018, last time we renewed. Jason was supposed to return my call, but he did not.

For Nick fans, a short introduction to a new series started in a week on Sept 9th.
I know you have already been warned about this tonight, but want to add to the story, as you get on to watch:

‘Nick on the Fly’ #21 – Thorp Cliffs Field Trip

CWU’s Nick Zentner leads a virtual GEOL 101 LAB field trip from the Thorp Cliffs in central Washington. 30 minutes.

While you are waiting, watch the 2-min video below at the start, announcing a new series starting in a week on Sept 9th evening.

‘Nick from Home’ Livestreams return Wed, Sept 9th!

CWU’s Nick Zentner launches a new set of livestreams…this time with a theme. ‘Exotic Terranes from A to Z’ begins on September 9 and runs through early December of 2020. Wednesdays at 6:00 pm Pacific and Sundays at 9:00 am Pacific. Join us!

Thursday, Sept 3

Starting with a cute picture of a 16-year old girl in Idaho with her new puppy, a French Brittany. Back in the late 1990s we sold an orange and white Brittany to the family, we’d had for 3 months, and had named Brick. They actually picked him up from us in Ellensburg, but then they moved from WA to the Midwest (Iowa), and we lost track. They were moving back to Idaho, and decided to search for us. Found us still here. When I explained we were no longer breeders, they searched and found this puppy. He and she are so cute. Rebecca with her puppy Brooks, a French Brittany.

This is a video Nick put on for anyone to watch at any time. It was not published as a Premiere version with a livestream chat. He’s checking options to prevent buffering on his Premieres that have been happening.
This is well worth the watch for the two field trip stops 1 and 2, especially now that this lab will be viewed by the first meeting of his Geology 101 freshman class, next Wednesday, the first day of classes this fall quarter as a virtual field trip. Currently, it’s good he was practicing with us and filmed it in advance because now that road is closed and he could not even get there because of the current wildfire. Next is the field trip he was filming for them to take for their first Virtual Field trip of the quarter.

‘Nick on the Fly’ #22 Yakima River Field Trip (32 mins)

CWU’s Nick Zentner leads a virtual Geol 101 LAB field trip from the Yakima River in central Washington.
The Evans Canyon Fire increased to 52,000 acres and evacuation 3 notices (GET OUT NOW) posted to the Yakima Canyon Road. The road is closed at Thrall Rd (entrance to the canyon just south of EBRG), all the way to Selah. So any locals who planned to go to the two Field Trip stops Nick showed us last night, will have access only to the Ringer Loop Stop 1, and NOT to Stop 2, at the debris flows. (as of tomorrow, the fire jumped to Ringer Loop Rd, so Stop 1 is unavailable too).

Be sure to note to have read the Martin K. Kaatz publication before viewing yesterday’s Yakima River field trip. (Thanks again to Jessie Bunker-Maxwell for researching this for the study group).

July 3, 1998 Yakima River Debris Flows – Martin R. Kaatz

Marty was a CWU geographer, and hiking friend of John.
This was presented as a premier, and at a time when all could view it. (6:00 p.m.)

‘Nick on the Fly’ #23 – Snoqualmie Pass (26 mins)

CWU’s Nick Zentner improvises at Snoqualmie Pass in central Washington. The Yakima Valley Glacier and Guye Peak sandstone are discussed. Recorded on August 22, 2020

Friday, Sep 4

John and I had setup our Google Earth Pro with Active Fire Mapping Software to capture MODIS Satellite imagery of the hot spots of the fire, so we could be following its path. This is from 9-4-20 just to show the location of the fire jumping down near the entrance/exit we usually take at Thrall Rd, when returning north on I-82 {aka WA 97}.The fire has crossed the ridges and has come into our valley, and is at Ringer Road.

High winds overnight advanced the footprint of the fire from 2,500 acres to 52,000 acres; eventually growing to 64,000 acres. And changed evacuation orders at 9:00 p.m. last night to #3 (get out immediately), in several areas.

This is 3 miles from the south edge of Ellensburg. Not likely a threat to town because of being surrounded by irrigated agricultural farmland and roads. Everything north of there is on irrigated farmland, and will not be sagebrush and burnable cover (cheat grass) for many miles. Except our property is north of the highest canal, so we are in the semi-desert shrub-steppe.

However, I’ll add some fire photos made today to show the view during the late afternoon today, by EvieMae Schuetz.The hills are a’fire; taken from Alkali Rd (marker in prior map) by EvieMae Shuetz; The smoke picture she took from Clerf Rd east of Kittitas, WA.

This morning at 10:30 a.m. I joined a Zoom session at the Senior Center with 3 others for Game Day this week. I was playing a card game with two decks of special game cards, one Red and one Green. Neither of the players had ever played the game before. It is called Apples to Apples. A staff member was the leader and the judge, keeping the scores and explaining the game. The youngest gal there, was the winner with 16 pts. I had 9 pts. It lasted the full hour plus a few minutes. Next week the same folks will continue a game we played last week, Yahtzee. We all like that game and are happy to repeat it. It’s a short week because they have a Holiday on Labor Day. Our leader will actually be on vacation at the beach all week so the director will likely be our game leader. It will be at an earlier time on Thursday, next week.

Afterwards, we were scheduled to go to town for Flu shots with our pharmacist, but with the severe smoke in the atmosphere, I decided to stay home and inside with the a/c in our house to filter the smoke particulates. We rescheduled for a later date in Sept.

Today, we got 4 scammer calls, with two each coming from the same number, one from Missouri and the other from Issaquah, WA. I blocked them both for the future.

I’m not sure all of the outside chores John accomplished today, and I was worried for his being out in the smoky air. He says it was “not too bad.” We had worse smoke in our valley today than in recent days, because of the wind direction. The Evans Canyon Fire is still raging. The Yakima Canyon Road at Thrall Rd is now closed to any traffic (except evacuees and firefighters, until Tuesday, 9-8.) Firefighters are poised to prevent its crossing the Yakima River and burning upslope to reach Interstate 82.

Tonight at 5:00 I went on line on Facebook: to this site, the inciweb.nwcgov/incident/7132/ link to get the Facebook link to a meeting with the community about the Evans Canyon Fire. It was a bit disappointing and did not provide much information I didn’t already know from local social media. The only new information received was depressing, and that was that 6 structures (homes?) were totally lost in the fire along with several outbuildings. We have yet to hear if any of our friends who were evacuated lost anything.

Clarinet music from Kathy Williams-DeVries in Brisbane, Australia.

Kathy Plays Reger 9-4-20 (80 mins)

Supper: tonight we ate late, but had meatloaf & potatoes, and a piece of Key Lime pie for dessert.

Saturday, Sept 5

This morning at 9:00 a.m. is a premiere YouTube showing.

‘Nick on the Fly’ #24 Seattle Glacial Till, 9-5-20 (37 mins)

CWU’s Nick Zentner visits glacial deposits in Seattle, Washington. Recorded on September 1, 2020.

I was tired from a restless night, so decided to take an afternoon nap. Guess I needed it, as I slept for an hour. Might not have awakened if John hadn’t come in the front door.

Worked on the geology study group necessities planning for the future (the first, tomorrow a.m. at 9:00 a.m) and then adding a new member to the study group. Also, had to load the dishwasher.

Supper: Meatloaf, potatoes, and fried cauliflower; butter pecan crunch ice cream for dessert.

Sunday, Sept 6

‘Nick on the Fly’ #25 – Icicle Creek Exotic Bedrock 9-6-20 (49 mins)

Nick’s explanation of this video when introducing it:
“We started up canyon at the Chiwaukum Schist and viewed that, (coming on down the canyon, we realized that the Mt Stuart Batholith is younger and intruded into the Chiwaukum Schist, and at the same time also intruded up into some of the Ingalls Terrane which was all that Ultramafic Mantle material. This area is a key portion for the Baha-BC discussion and unraveling the exotic terrane history in the northern Cascades.”
It’s our lead into a new Nick from Home livestreaming on Exotic Terranes in WA, accreted on from Mexico when Mt. Stuart was moved from Mexico to British Columbia, but because of offset eastward rotation, Mt. Stuart stayed in WA. Geological history of our region, this theory is now well-followed by the science community. Those lectures officially start this coming Wednesday evening at 6:00 p.m. and continue for 26 episodes two days/week until December. The 2nd day is Sunday morning, at 9:00 a.m. to pull in the European community.

Brunch today: cheese bratwurst and Protein shake.

At 12:40 we received a disturbing call that there was a fire a mile west of us headed east, so I have been logged onto the police scanner listening. Sandy Meier called to warn us the fire was in our vicinity and 6 fire trucks had gone up Wilson Creek Rd by their house. John got in the car and found a deputy sheriff at the Corner of Naneum and Thomas Roads, who told him the firefighting crews knocked it down, and there was no longer any danger or need to evacuate. The cause was a backhoe hitting an electric utility pole on Frontier Rd, which fell, starting the fire within the Rustic Acres subdivision, in the “rural area” north of Ellensburg, with Wilson Creek Rd on the west, and an east-west road along the south side, Thomas Rd. This development is accessible about a mile west of our home. At the time, of the fire report, the winds were blowing from the west, at 21 mph across dry shrub-steppe vegetation and much cheat grass toward a forest of trees along a creek.

Another warning we had was from our neighbor a mile north on Naneum, who saw the smoke (we had not seen, and can’t because of the trees to the west). Allen and his son drove down to check it out and talked to a sheriff’s deputy at the closed road on the north side to get to Wilson Creek, Rd, closest to the start of the fire on the west side of Thomas Rd. So he had heard the same story as John did on the East side of Thomas.

As they drove up, I received a return call from a friend on Thomas Rd east of the start of the fire. They were receiving a lot of smoke in their location and realized how they might be evacuated, when hearing the fire engines arrive. They were packing their motor-home with all their important papers, to be ready to leave. They were notified by a deputy sheriff very quickly when the fire was contained. The Public Utility District crews are now replacing poles and wires.

At 3:00 p.m. today, temp at airport is 94°; temp on our front porch in the shade is down from 94° earlier to 90.5°.

John is preparing a major chore today for a Monday happening. We will be draining and flushing our water heater to get out the crud in the tank, and the hose has to come out of the back patio door, which is the west side of the house and our hottest outside part of the house. Power to the tank has been shut off and we have continued use of that water. Thus, it is now cooled. Those in the know suggest this flushing be done once a year. Don’t ask. Okay. Never. New tank 15 years ago.

John started his nap at 3:25 waiting for the temp to decrease before going outside, and slept for over an hour.
I need a nap too, but I need to finish this blog as well so we can go to bed earlier tonight. I’m enjoying a cool PoweradeZero drink of Strawberry/Lemonade while working on photo insert creations for the blog.
Today’s activities now include finishing the blog, unloading dishwasher, putting medicines in for the week. Enjoying Labor Day holiday. Ha! Retired. Every day is a holiday.

Supper: Cheezy biscuits and Beef Stew.

Wind is still blowing but John just opened the windows in the house and the temp is down to 79°.

Here’s one last view of the fire extent ending this morning and still okay. The fire is contained with a “footprint” of 75,800 acres. Not everything therein burned. Report by authorities will follow.Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan