Category: Weekly report by day

Monday, Dec 9

Prices of our medications at different pharmacies: I called Kaiser Permanente (KP) pharmacy and asked prices on all John’s prescriptions. Then I compared to GoodRx prices for his from Fred Meyer, versus KP’s and Safeway, where they had been sent by our PCP.

All for both of us is a 90-day supply. (Lacey changed all these on the records for us on Dec 11, 2019).

Need to change to Fred Meyer for Tamsulosin 0.4mg ($13.91) – but, will wait for the evaluation of a change in dosage before filing this one. John’s now on an interlude with this one.

Changed to KP MailOrder for Hydrochlorothiazide 12.5 mg ($10), and already received our first mail order.

Changed to Fred Meyer for Levothyroxine 88mcg ($20.13) and Lisinopril 30 mg ($11.96), and picked it up late this week.

Changed Nancy’s Metoprolol to KP. It will save me $20/yr below the cost at Super 1.

Call from Cle Elum, Paige in referrals, to Dr. Roux, NW Orthopedics, (EBRG), for appointment for my left shoulder. I think it was for a shot of cortisone? although I think he told me that would not cure my situation. Well, they are to call me about scheduling an appointment. The call came through from Yakima, and the scheduler said she would have to schedule me with Dr. Wong, because Dr. Roux did not want to be involved. I know he is mainly doing knees now, not shoulders, but I also know he told me shots would not help my condition, and he gave me a very complete analysis of the X-rays and my left shoulder condition. He said it was bone on bone, bone spurs, and bone cysts, and showed us on the X-ray. He also said I was not a candidate for a complete shoulder replacement, because of the chance of death from the operation. I can only have operations with a local. So I declined the requested referral and did not make an appointment.

Midday, I received an email on one of my accounts from a GIS person in Spokane, WA, Tim Leach. It came from the Central Puget Sound GIS User Group list, and is from the Spokesman-Review Newspaper there. We lived in Idaho for 15 years, and the closest big city was Spokane, so we were quite familiar with the paper and subscribed to it.

Check the link below for an interesting article, and that is preceded with a very old map of the world:A copy image of a more than 500-year-old map that was the first to use the name “America.” It also was the first to depict a separate Western Hemisphere and a separate Pacific Ocean. (Associated Press)

How do people name continents or places on Earth?

Supper: soup, fish, and a strange Café Steamers® Beef Merlot (Tender Beef Strips [not tender and not strips, but chunks] with Russet Potatoes & a Vegetable Medley [tough carrots and green beans] in Rich Merlot Wine Sauce). I got on sale at Fred Meyer. It was awful. The wine sauce was cooked in a plastic bowl beneath the other stuff, which was steamed through holes in the plastic container placed over the sauce. Literally, the weirdest frozen dinner either of us have ever experienced, and do not wish to again in our lifetime. I hope I didn’t buy two of them. It was a purchase of 5 different dinners (mix & match) to get $1 off each dinner.

Tuesday, Dec 10

We pulled out the roll of Pillsbury Chocolate Chip cookie dough, needing a snack for tomorrow morning’s meeting. When that thawed, I formed and cooked them on parchment paper.

I fixed a bag of undergarments with 3 new packages of nylon knee highs, to take to the Ellensburg Community Clothing Center to arrive about a little before 11:00 a.m. to look for a Christmas Sweater for John (did not find one), and other Christmas tops for me. I found more for me than he did, so he helped me carry it. I got two very nice Christmas sweaters, two Christmas tops, a pair of Christmas gloves, a cool pair of (I think) pajama bottoms, black with red/white candy canes, which I probably will wear with my not so ugly Christmas sweater and top to the party Dec 20 at the AAC (Senior Center).

We then went for lunch at the Food Bank Senior Nutrition dinner (had beef stew, bowl of fruit, rolls, and piece of frosted chocolate cake), with juice. The chunks of beef were tough, so we took most home and will re-cook another day. I went to Safeway for my meds which were not properly halved yet (so we had to return later), and then on to the hospital for a blood draw, which they screwed up by not drawing enough blood for analyzing it and will have to redraw in the morning (on a day that’s an even fuller day than today).

We had several stops to make today. Packed my pills and red bag to go to Food Bank and AAC, because the red bag has my entry swipe to the AAC. They keep track of attendance daily.

We went by Bi-mart with coupons and to check numbers. We found some thermal socks for me, and I don’t remember what else we got we went for. Not all the coupons were pertinent to our needs. Oh, we got some clothes and dishwashing liquid on sale. John found a flannel blue shirt on sale, but it did not show that price at the register. Meghan came up front to fix that glitch.

Wednesday, Dec 11

Today was the busiest day of the week – starting at Hearthstone at 8:45 a.m., with set up for the retired geographer’s meeting, on to the hospital for the redraw and then over to Imaging for a mammogram, which didn’t occur (see below), to Liberty Theater to play music for the Food Bank Lunch, take my antibiotics at the end of playing so I can be at the dentist at 1:00 for teeth cleaning (hour) followed by two teeth cracked needing repaired.

What a day this was! Started with both of us driving separately to Hearthstone, leaving after 4” of snow, on unplowed roads at 8:25 a.m. 2 miles from our house we had a wide load coming toward us taking up most of the narrow rood (Naneum). I move over as far as possible and it barely went by. Rather scary. We made it to town with only one slick spot on a right turn onto the Kittitas highway, from the north. I unloaded my stuff, and went back to park my car on the street.

We had several people make it in through the snow: Ken, Carla, Lillian (who lives there), Mary Ann, and the two of us. We set up the tables and put our Santa Claus platter full of chocolate chip cookies out, with little plates. Hearthstone provided the hot chocolate, coffee, and hot water. The cookies recipe was requested by a couple of ladies there, and for your information, they were made from a roll of Pillsbury Chocolate Chip cookie dough.

Lillian’s Family and her painting on the right

Top Lil holds her family members photo

Lillian Brooks tells her Family Reunion Story

Lillian Brooks continues her Christmas story

Mary Ann

Mary Ann Macinko’s Thanksgiving Story

I left at 10:20 for my trip to the hospital; having difficulty finding a parking spot (had to drive over the snow packed in the last available spot on a corner. Then I had to leave the spot and back in, because I couldn’t get out into the snowbank, but could next to a truck (which was parked too close). I walked around the back of the car, to pick up my violin, and not leave it in the cold car. Good thing, because our side mirrors were too close, so I couldn’t have gotten by the front of my car and the truck. From the back, there was a sidewalk I could use to get back to the front entrance of the hospital.

Checked in for two appointments: the repeat blood draw and a mammogram. They took me right in for the blood draw, and had to go through 3 vials before realizing the problem was the vials somehow shutting off the blood flow too soon. It is a problem that sometimes happens when they are roughly handled in the shipping process. Finally, my phlebotomist, Paige, told me the problem and got around it by using a different method of filling a different vial. Also, she said that the problem yesterday was the same; not enough blood was drawn for the test. That was not the first story I received by phone when asked to return for another draw. She was going to get rid of the box of vials before others had to suffer as I did.

Walked across the hall to Imaging for my mammogram, which they had scheduled. Luckily, Rose, my technician, knew enough to look at the last date I had one, and it was the same day, Dec 11, 2018. My test should not have been scheduled until one day later than last year’s. She showed me the Medicare form I was going to have to sign to have the test paid for. #3 on the form was the ability to say I refused to take the test and would reschedule. Otherwise, it would have cost me $400. I thanked her profusely and I will be writing an evaluation thanking her for her attention to detail. I’ll also suggest they arrange for all schedulers to have access to the date of the last one so that won’t happen in the future to anyone else. An alert by the system should be presented at the time of scheduling by the computer.

From there I made it to the Food Bank earlier than originally planned, so I was there in time to help with setup. We had a good turnout: 5 singers: Richard, Reta, Peggy, Robert, Bob and instrumentalists: Dean, Evelyn, Richard, & Nancy. We are still doing Christmas music. Soon as we were done, I had to take my Amoxicillin in preparation for my 2 hours of dental work.

For lunch, I had bought my protein drink (Ensure & Yogurt), and I went to the buffet line, but only took a bowl of fruit in yogurt, and a piece of spice cake with chocolate chips and a dab of chocolate frosting.

I left and made it to the dentist in time, and took my violin in with me. My cleaning started on time and it was successful. I was moved to another chair for my dentist to examine two teeth #10 and #7, which had been chipped. She decided that today we would do #7, to put in a composite filling. But, we’ll wait for the other until January. I bought a container of Prevident prescription fluoride toothpaste ($15), which lasts a long time, even using it every night. Checked out and tentatively made appointments for my next two visits: the January one, and the next cleaning, in April. I need to get them on the 2020 calendar.

From there, I went by with my camera and stopped at the AAC to use their computers for a quick glance at email in case anything important had come in. My main reason was to take photos of all the Christmas decorations around the senior center. They have done a beautiful job. I took a lot of photos I’m going to put in a Google photo album to share with one link. Here are two:Ellensburg Adult Activity Center (Senior Center)

Christmas at AAC 2019 photos by Nancy

From there off to Elmview for a glance at the bread room. Today I found some spicy baguette slices and a loaf of 3 cheese Semolina bread. John gave me an ultimatum of no more bread. No room in the freezers. However, if I find English Muffin Toasting Bread loaf, I will get it and separate into small packages and stick in small spaces in the freezers. He can take out a couple of ice packages (2 liter bottles).

For supper, we had pizza, compliments of the AAC, with roasted salmon from Costco. Fruitcake for dessert.
Got my photos and videos off the camera. I sent off the chair count for tomorrow at Meadows. We only had one last minute change.

Thursday, Dec 12
Cold Moon in Roslyn, WA 12-12-19 by Jennifer Lipton

This is a fantastic capture which she took when she arrived home safely from dangerously slippery surfaces on I-90 with multiple car spin-outs. I plan to use this photo to invite Jen into a Facebook photography group I just joined. It is UKC Photographers. You folks saw Jen in our last week’s blog taking their son on the search for a Christmas tree.

John stayed home today and push-broomed snow to clear driveways and area around our hay barn to get a load of hay delivered tomorrow. We tried to get it before the snow fell and requested it a month ago, but that didn’t happen.

I spent the morning on medical appointment planning, and getting the videos and photographs taken yesterday into shape. Still a lot of upload time required.

I left before 1:00 p.m. for town (in the fog), to get there for setup and took along my new camera to see if Evie could help me adjust the white balance because inside photos had too much orange. She succeeded and I took some photos, and set up my tripod to take a video of our performance. We had a good audience who enjoyed the music very much. They always are happy to see us each month on the 2nd Thurs.

This was particularly a great day because many of the players were dressed in their Christmas clothes.

Evie Schuetz & Nancy HultquistKittitas Valley Fiddlers & Friends: Manord, Evie, Gerald, Charlie, Dean, Nancy, Sharon, Amy, Charlotte, Sandy at Meadows Place, December 12, 2019

Here is the 51-minute video, of a longer musical performance:

Fiddlers & Friends at Meadows Place

I want to start this description with a humongous thanks to EvieMae Schuetz for taking my two very large video files recorded of us and using her talents and equipment to edit them and put together as a smooth flowing presentation and then upload to her YouTube site to send me the link to share with my friends. I am totally unable to do this with this camera because of the resolution, and my Internet speed would not allow me to ever upload the video to YouTube. We all owe Evie an amazing thanks and a big hug.

I’m looking into the possibility of getting this Internet speed at my house, but no one is open to inquire until Monday. I also do not have the software she has for editing, so I need to determine if that is a possibility for me to add to my computer.

This afternoon after music at Meadows Place, I gave my friend Sandy a ride home, but had to drop by two pharmacies for meds for me and for John, and grab another item from Fred Meyer while in the pharmacy, which Sandy was able to help me get, because she has some and knew where they were in the store. She went for it as I was waiting in line at the Pharmacy. I was not successful at the Pharmacy because I left the GoodRx coupons home on the counter. It will save me over $20 to get them and go back tomorrow. Turned out to save me $42! This difference in pricing is just wrong, but I’ll play the game and find the pharmacy with the best price.

Tonight I’ve been working more on emails, and more planning for things to be completed for the retired geographers and for the music group.

Friday, Dec 13

We do not know when the hay delivery will occur. I need to drive to town midday. We’ll see how that goes. It happened while I was away, and two tons were delivered to our hay barn. Good, because we would have run out on Monday.

My photo for the day came from a brief trip to Meadows to deliver some donated cakes from the Kittitas Pantry, and to share the contact for a woman from Kittitas, who wants to take her grandchildren to visit residents without family members. The activity director and caregiver present were thrilled at the prospect and pleased to accept the Christmas cakes.

As I was leaving Meadows, I saw a photo opportunity, and had my camera along, so I took it. Look below on Saturday to see where I published it.

From there, with my GoodRx coupons, I went to Fred Meyer Pharmacy for John’s medications. I saved $42. That was certainly worth the second trip to town.

Also, the purchase generated a bunch of fuel points, so I used them to fill my tank that was only ½ down, but the price with fuel points was 30 cents off each gallon, making the charge/gal only $2.69. Worth the trip to town. As I walked in the front door of Fred Meyer, a Salvation Army “ringer” was at the donation pot with his banjo, singing Christmas songs. I stopped and joined him singing, “Deck the Halls.” His photo was in the paper tonight, from the day before:A singing musician surely beats ringing a bell in a closed room at the store’s entrance.

I still need to read postal mail from the past two days. Finally, did. Thanks for all the beautiful Christmas cards. We are not getting any mailed out this year, and haven’t even thought about a wrap-up of this year’s activities for the blog. We’ll probably come up with a short one to have on our weekly blog, around Christmas.

I called Discover card after receiving a strange email. All is well, we have a new card since a fraudulent return was refunded 9-15-19, and all changes are made. If I get another email message about my old 3137 number, I have a “fraud report” email to forward it to at Discover, if I get another. Scams are on the upturn, especially this time of year. Now I need to be sure there are no auto-pays using that number. I’m looking at every transaction on the statement when it arrives each month.

Supper: Broccoli-Cauliflower-Havarti cheese in mushroom soup, with a little piece of John’s homemade meatloaf and a half of a Cordon Bleu on the side.

Saturday, Dec 14

Another sleep-in morning for me after a late night, and early 5:45 awakening by companion cat, Czar. Because of the errant raccoon, we have to close our doggie/kitty door at darkness. He went out the front door but did not wish to go farther, so after sitting awhile, I invited him back in, sat down and petted his head and under his chin (which he dearly loves), and he went back to bed on his blankie. So, I went back to bed too.

I’ve been nibbling on things, and need to dress and take a thumb drive over to my friend Evie Schuetz in Kittitas to help me get some overly large videos taken Thursday of our music up to YouTube. My transfer rate is too low to process, and she has a very good setup for transferring at high speed through Charter. She has offered to do them for me. I need to check on their offering and if it is even available in our location. Last time we checked, nothing except DSL was available, and it is not fast enough. Our local land-line company is now called Consolidated Communications.

John is out. A once-a-year thing is to cut live poplar trees and take two 3 foot sections to the raclette. The green wood resists catching fire when we dump glowing coals between the pieces. This provides the semi-controlled heat for melting an overhanging block of cheese. He got back in time for me to make the trip to Kittitas, and I took along my camera just in case I saw something worth photographing. Our Kittitas Valley was filled with fog again, and Kittitas itself was fog ridden. As I left, I drove back through areas of fog that weren’t there on my trip down. I’ll put some of my photos of that trip in a link below.Top: Fog in the valley, bottom a lone Bald Eagle

Follow this link to get to 30 photos of my round trip to Kittitas, WA:

Trip to Kittitas 12-14-19

I put my two videos from Thursday on a Thumb drive and drove them to Evie in Kittitas, to put on her porch for her to find when she got back home. I gave her accolades up on Thursday, when we performed it and I posted it.

I’d better finish the dishes after finding a bird photo to share with the photographers’ FB site: UKC Photographers. I found it and shared it, with this comment:

Birds on a Bush photo follow-up to Scott Seymour’s “A Gathering of Goslings” photograph: This I captured yesterday while visiting Meadows Place, an assisted living home in Ellensburg. I thought this was a great commentary pictured. {John says, birds can’t read.}Birds on a Bush, near the entry to Meadows Place.

John brought a bucket with ice water into the kitchen and we soon had water on the rug and composite flooring. A make-work project.

We had a piece of chocolate cake before hitting the hay. It had a lot of frosting so we left off the ice cream.
John managed to get to bed before I did.

Sunday, Dec 15

A week late on getting the photos from the Grange Christmas dinner, but here it is:

Swauk-Teanaway Grange Christmas, 12-8-19 pix by Nancy

Near the start, I met a photographer from Roslyn, Ginger Stogdell, and she told me of the UKC Photographers group on Facebook. She invited me to join, when she saw me taking photographs.

Busy all day with projects, still have to finish blog draft and get all the photos handled, blog text first. During the sunniest part of the afternoon John cut a little firewood that he will place up at the end of the driveway, with an “exotic” wood/free sign. Someone takes it within 3 days.

I just emailed the Emeriti group the stuff from last Wednesday’s meeting. I also called and had a nice phone conversation with my friend Morris Uebelacker. His birthday was yesterday.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Monday, Dec 2

We started early this morning, John before me, with him feeding and taking care of the horses. I started by unloading the dishwasher, and reloading it. I had things to complete on email associated with this week’s activities and planning for them and am still in the process. At least the planning for the music for the month of December has been sent. Now I await responses from the group, so I can arrange for the correct number of chairs to be set up for our arrival, Thursday at 1:30 p.m. This effort is much like herding cats, but is necessary.

Now John is out and the sun is shining, with the temperature finally above freezing, at 33.8° just before noon. He had to repair (soften the handle) on the push broom, and now is out pushing snow off the porch and driveway.
Below I caught photos of the new “lined” shirt (Merry Christmas, John!) when he was on the porch fixing the handle, and then doing a little push-brooming with Annie tagging along as his companion. John fixing handle, and then using it with Annie following.

He’s out of sight now, so I assume he’s down in the pasture loading manure into the pickup truck. He figured yesterday he had about 1/3 filled. After it is loaded he will have to fix a time to go to the vineyard.

I’m working on my report from the wellness visit with our PCP Chelsea Newman, to take to our appointment tomorrow morning.
John will be in later to make a list of his medications, such as I have, and we have to remember to have her write a prescription to refill two of his.

Email message just before Noon from our sister, Peggy, in Parma, OH, that her cataract surgery went well. We had forgotten to put her date on our calendar, so emailed her a note back, and then I queued up a Jacquie Lawson thinking of you card to send, with an autumn flower/fruit arrangement: Consisting of flowers, berries, leaves, pine cones, wheat, fruits (pomegranates), and one opened at the end of the animation to display reddish purple seeds. To my knowledge I have never eaten a pomegranate, nor tried to de-seed one). I wonder what use people make of them? This was part of the card which got me off on this track.I guessed the fruit that started in the animated card, whole, was a pomegranate, after seeing this at the end. I honestly didn’t know. So I looked them up and found this video:

The BEST Way to Open & Eat a Pomegranate

After watching that, I knew I had never held one before, and certainly never eaten the seeds. I now wonder what they taste like. Every day provides a new learning experience. Isn’t that cool?

John got back to the house at 12:30, having loaded only a little more manure into the pickup. We were both hungry, so he fixed some brunch: Leftover “stew” from freezer, warmed in iron skillet. The contents are: Chicken, carrots, lima beans, potatoes (home fries), onions, and red peppers. I had fewer of the potatoes with mine and two different pieces of toast (English Muffin bread & 3-cheese Semolina).

John went back outside while the sun is shining and the temperature is still above freezing.
I need to set up things to take tomorrow on our way back through Ellensburg to a young woman for her and her daughter, and get the stuff into the car we will be driving, probably John’s Crosstrek. We loaded some bins for organizing the 3 yr. old’s toys, and added some Christmas cards I had to others I’d picked up for her from a friend south of Ellensburg. This gal is visually impaired and cannot drive, so I (and others in town) try to pick up stuff and get it to her.

I wrote Katrina (senior center) about a suggested addition to the Agenda for the 10th Dec Senior Advisory Commission meeting.
I am finishing sorting the cleaned clothes, loading the dishwasher, and working on the schedule for our music group for this Thursday (and for the other 4 days we play in December).

Supper: Split Green Pea soup (given to us in a can), with John’s additions of crinkled sweet potatoes, mushrooms, and sausage link pieces. He made some awesome cheesy biscuits to accompany the soup.
Resting before taking my shower.

Tuesday, Dec 3

Sunrise by Lise McGowan, described by her on Facebook as “Rise and shine” say our pasture friends!!! 20°F and holding. Beautiful blessed morning to start the day!

We got up early to get to our Cle Elum PCP by check-in at 9:45, leaving our house at 9:00. John had to feed the horses and start his car to warm it up for the trip. Most of our trip was fine, but the last few miles were in dense fog. We got there in time and checked in. We didn’t have too much paperwork, and I went around to the lab to give a urine sample.

My doctor’s nurse was waiting outside the bathroom door and took me to be weighed and go through my vitals. That didn’t take long and she helped me with the gown for my examination.
My doctor came in and we went over a few things, reviewed my paperwork and the PFT report I brought. She looked on her computer and it had been sent to my file there, so that was nice. She ordered my refills for the year, and then gave me a thorough going over including different things I’d never had done before, and some I had.

Once done, I went back to the waiting room to wait for John. We were out and drove to the S. Cle Elum post office to mail a large envelope to friends on the west side we’d been with the Saturday before for an early family Thanksgiving (our neighbors across the road, the Swedberg’s). We wanted to visit our friend at the P.O. because it’s been awhile since we saw the family. I wanted to tell him how much we enjoyed viewing on Facebook their recent trip to Cooper Lake to cut their Christmas tree with their young son, Miles. I was a teaching colleague with his mom, Jen Lipton, at CWU Geography.Miles ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ Stefan, Postmaster ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ Miles & Jen

From there we went to the Cle Elum Bakery for more treats for lunch and later. Got two plates of day old bakery goods, Bearclaws and Danish pastries, and fresh, 2 Apple Fritters for me.
We called sister Peggy for her report of the follow-up to her eye surgery this morning. Talked all the way to Ellensburg. All is well.

Once in town, we stopped at several places: grocery shopping, checking numbers at Bi-Mart and buying cough drops, and then went by the Dollar Tree to return two purchases that wouldn’t work for my needs, after opening one and realizing it was the wrong item. On to climb stairs to the Maximus Gym for my Probiotic that will last 4 months. My FitBit gave me 3 flights of stairs credit for the two steeply stepped parts of the staircase I climbed.

From there by a gal’s house to deliver two plastic bins for organizing her daughter’s toys, a bunch of new Christmas cards, and on to the community bread room for some rolls. We are given the opportunity to get day old bread for volunteering music on Wednesdays at the FISH food bank. The rolls are for a Sunday dinner.

Wednesday, Dec 4

Called Genworth Financial, and we are set for our Long Term Care Payment increase in premium March 2, 2020. Talked to a gal in the Philippines, where it is currently 1:14 a.m. [Genworth was hatched by General Electric Capital in 2004.]

Finally got the chair count completed and sent off to request 10 chairs tomorrow for our playing at the Rehab. Now I have to organize the December music to use for 3 players and for the audiences. I managed to locate all of it this afternoon, at the end of our hallway, where I keep music to use through the year, and John was kind to bring in my music carrier with the stuff from October & November in it, so I can replace with December’s.

Finally, I think I have all the music together for tomorrow… for 3 players and audience. (too much paper used, but 20 copies).

Thursday, Dec 5

After an unintelligible email from Kaiser Permanente (KP) mail order pharmacy about an upcoming delivery, I called to verify what had been sent. I found out it was my 2.5 mg tablets of Coumadin (Warfarin). My prescription refills had been sent Tuesday from the PCP’s office visit, to the KP pharmacy for both strengths I take weekly. However, the 5 mg tablets refill should have been sent to Safeway pharmacy in Ellensburg, where they will halve the pills for me (and save lots of money on the purchase). KP will not provide that service.

Played December (winter and Christmas) music at the Rehab for a large audience. Those there: Gerald, Jeanne in wheelchair, Dean, Nancy, Amy, Sharon, Charlotte, Amy, Sandy. The group, with Dean’s leadership, crafted a beautiful Christmas card from the Kittitas Valley Fiddlers & Friends. I’m honored and appreciative. It’s worth displaying, so meaningful. I’ve put the front of the card at the top, and here is the rest.

On the way home, I picked up fast-food sandwiches (Johns fixing fries), my meds, signed a card at AAC, went by the bread room, and then came home and finished packing cameras and stuff for the IAF meeting at CWU. We ate supper, and I drove us in to campus, because of the special CWU parking sticker on my car. We enjoyed a good lecture, and got home a little after 9:00 p.m. It’s now after 11:00, and John has gone to bed. I’m following as soon as I shut down my computer. I did manage to take all the photos and videos off my cameras.

Tonight for the local chapter of the Ice-Age Floods Institute, we had an exciting lecture by Marli Miller, Senior Instructor II, in the Dept. of Earth Sciences, Univ. of Oregon, Eugene, OR, about two books she’s written on the geology of both states.

First, an Introduction video by Nick Zentner to the evening:

Nick Zentner Intro to Marli Miller

Video’s title slide–presentation at Ice Age Floods Institute, Dec 5

Marli Miller: Assembling the Northwest–A Roadside View of Oregon & Washington Geology

During Marli’s presentation she shared a fascinating comment of the Ice Age Floods height as being higher than the Vista House on the Columbia River.

Following the lecture, Marli orchestrated an engaging discussion session with our audience’s insightful questions.

The video link follows with the content:

Marli Miller: Questions & Answers Discussion

Top – during the Q&A discussion; lower – her incredible web site of hundreds of her photographs of geology around Earth, and her generosity in making them accessible to anyone (with credits to her). Definitely check out this educational site.

With its spectacular mountain ranges, lush valleys and tumbling rivers, the Northwest landscape attracts nature lovers and travelers from around the world. But the rain-soaked coast ranges, snow-covered volcanoes and expansive high desert didn’t appear overnight. They formed through a variety of geologic processes over millions of years.

Geologist and Photographer Marli Miller will outline the geology of Oregon and Washington as seen along our federal and state highways.

Beginning with our plate tectonic setting, she will describe the process of continental growth that forms the underlying but diverse ‘basement’ of the region. The basement is readily apparent in the Coast Range, North Cascades, Okanogan, Klamath, and Blue Mountains. Following that, a photographic “roadtrip” along I-84 and Washington State Highway 14 in the Columbia River Gorge will illustrate many of the younger features that make our landscape so unique.

Miller is the author of Roadside Geology of Oregon, 2nd Edition, and most recently, Roadside Geology of Washington, 2nd Edition, which she wrote with UW’s Darrel Cowan, her major Ph.D. adviser.

She is a Senior Instructor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oregon.

Copies of her books will available at the event.

Tonight after I was in bed, I heard a loud bump at our front door and had to take time to run off a raccoon that jumped up on the feeding ledge at our front door. Woody had come back for a night snack and we forgot to bring it in when she left. Those raccoon critters are NOT welcome around our home.

Friday, Dec 6

Early morning call from Linda Lundy, with a surprise gift from our musical past. I need to get back in touch with her and arrange a time to go over for a visit and receive it. More when that happens.

John’s leaving to arrive at White Heron Cellars’ Mariposa Vineyard with a pick-up truck load of horse manure for the vines. There is a section high on the slope where deer will come and eat the pomace (left over skins and seeds) that Cameron can use closer to the winery and house. Deer are not fond of horse poo so it will add organic material, and not get eaten.

Cameron sent a photo of the load of manure unloaded. The rear of the truck was completely full, and we have lots more. This was the second load of 1st Class Tennessee Walking Horse manure.

Cameron was kind enough to send me back 3 bottles of wine–Rose’ of Syrah and Roussanne).

I took a box of magazines from our place to Kittitas to give to a gal who is making Dream and Vision Boards (by working with people to cut meaningful words to their dreams or vision and pictures to display on the poster board. She was thrilled with the variety of the magazines we gave her.

Kayleen called about pharmacies at 1:44. I was bringing in groceries and heard the phone ring, so got it. I need to check the Good Rx price at Safeway for levothyroxine and at Super 1. Let her know if going to Safeway is preferred. Or to change to Super 1. Ending decision, change to Fred Meyer Pharmacy, it’s cheaper yet. Now I have to check the others at Safeway to see if they are also cheaper at Fred Meyer or at Kaiser Permanente mail order. This difference in cost is mind boggling and unnecessary. We wish all the medical expenses stuff was a lot simpler.

John got home a little after 2:30. He’d stopped for donuts for the trip home, and also got us a box of Honeycrisp apples. Big babies! (only nine in the box).. if smaller, they pack 12 in.

I had a long talk with Terri Towner and caught up on her health, and told her I would send her some materials about my losing weight in a healthy way, which was not dieting.

Saturday, Dec 7

I slept in incredibly long this morning, because I was quite late getting to bed with cat-related issues, and was up before dawn with cat-related activities. Woody gets up early.

I started by continuing with getting things into the dishwasher, but still need to finish that chore. And, then went to work on the blog, mainly working on the follow-ups to the photos and videos from Thursday night’s presentation. I have a lot of email things to catch up on that will have to wait until later.

We were late eating brunch at just before 2:00 p.m. (consisting of an egg with English Muffin toasting bread slices with Apricot Jam for me, sausage, & home fries). Now at almost 3:00 p.m., he’s taking off for town to buy horse feed at the Co-Op, drop off something for a friend,get some cat food from Bi-Mart, go by Super 1 for some eggs for us and some Sweet’N Low sugar substitute (bulk) for me.

John made it home at 4:05, and is out feeding the horses in the fast approaching cold and darkness.

This just arrived from my Brittany family in Lancaster, CA where Daisy (our co-owned Brittany) I have mentioned before resides.

This was published on Facebook this afternoon, with the following description by Jeri Conklin.

Congratulations to Emily Montoya of Team Stephen Cabral and to GCH Camelot’s Coppers Rollin Four Dice JH on their BOB and Sporting Group 3rd placement today under breed and group judge, Mr. Terry Stacy, over a nice ring of specials.

Jeez, a raccoon was in our house at 6:30 p.m.! It came in through the doggie door, and left that way. In the middle of the night, I guess he was in last night, and I walked down the hall to go to the bathroom, and heard the doggie door close, but when I got to where Annie normally sleeps she was there, asleep. The cats do not make a loud noise when they come through the door, but this was loud. I now know it must have been the raccoon. We have the window closed, but unsure what we will do for nights, other than close the window and let the animals use our doors (patio and front). During daylight we think we can have the animal in-out setup function as they need.

I forgot to put in this link to a Christmas In Kittitas celebration that occurred tonight.

Here is a link to my friend Evie Schuetz’s photos taken that evening. Only 15 but very nice. Kittitas, WA is the town we almost moved to in 1989. We had a house picked out, but the deal fell through. I have enjoyed being only 10 miles away, especially when the WOTFA (Washington Old Time Fiddler’s Association) had summer workshop camp there for 22 years. I was able to live at home and drive over for daily classes for a week, and participate in night events.

The town has all sorts of celebrations, and we only recently heard of this one (a day late).

Christmas in Kittitas, Dec 7, ’19 – Photos by EvieMae Schuetz

Sunday, Dec 8

This is a Grange community dinner day. I did not sleep in this morning. I cleaned up two platters and put my name on them. Packed rolls in 4 plastic bags. We loaded non-perishable goods in a box to donate for the food baskets in Upper County. We came up with 15 items; mostly cans. It was heavy and filled a box that had dog bones packed in it.

I sent a call for chair count out this morning for this Thursday’s playing at the Meadows Place. We may have a good turn-out.

Got ready to go to the Grange and left at 11:30. The valley closer to the Yakima River and I-90 [800 feet lower than our place] was hidden by a low cloud of fog. We were in full sun and the top of the cloud was brilliantly white. We took a back road detour and did not have to get into it.

We took a bunch of Whole Wheat rolls (24) and Multi-Grain rolls (24) to be our side offering for the Community Christmas Dinner at the Swauk-Teanaway Grange, on Ballard Hill, in Cle Elum. We go every year. John wears my old Merry Christmas sweater, and I had on a Cardinal vest today that is very Christmassy with a white blouse and dark green pants. You’ll see some photos in the collection we took today. We sat across the table with old-time friends from Thorp, Ellen & Roger Fischer.

The Grange furnished the turkey (they cooked one full turkey and 7 turkey breasts), mashed potatoes (they pared 90 lbs.). I wonder how many people were there. I asked and Bev got back to me their best estimate was 150. I estimated >100 and the servers ate after others had left.

Coming home we saw the fog bank again, still in the Kittitas Valley, but we had been above it in the sun all day.
View from 2,500 feet on Highway 97, looking south.

Wind Turbines Hwy 97 Fog Bank Kittitas Valley

And we came back through the fog for a little part of our return trip. We were soon out of the fog and then could see a new blinking STOP sign a mile ahead. It is at the ‘T’ where Hungry Junction meets Look Road. It, and several others around, are powered by the Sun. You will see a video of it now, short but sweet. We are approaching a solar-driven stop sign with lights around the edge. It really shows up nicely in the dark, from way away.

Special Solar-Lighted Stop Sign

I hope to have some photos to show tonight, from today’s Christmas dinner, but they may not get finished until tomorrow morning. So, if there is not anything here, check back tomorrow.

LINK TO COME to photos of the Swauk Teanaway Community Christmas Dinner.

Meanwhile, here are a couple of teasers: our garb & meals.Nancy’s meal and John’s meal. {We need to work on the in-door color settings for this camera.}

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Monday, Nov 25

John made corrections to blog on spelling of Evie Schuetz’s name. Remember U before E as in my friend, M. Uebelacker.
Unloaded dishwasher and loaded it again. Constant chore at our home. John’s the cook; I’m the bottle washer.

Sent out count for KVF&Fs last night. Follow-up today. Charlotte, Evie, Charlie, Dean, Sandy, & me are coming Wednesday.

Called Hospital Imaging Dept. to follow up on Susan’s call from Cle Elum that Chelsea’s referral was sent for my Mammogram and Bone Density Scan to KV hospital. Dates determined today were: Dec 11 – Mammogram, Wed. 10:30 check in, 10:45 supposedly takes 15 minutes, because I have to be at Food Bank for music at 11:15 a.m. I have an okay from Evelyn, if I’m running late. Then I must take my Amoxicillin at noon (while we are still playing), and be at the Dentist at 1:00 p.m. for a cleaning, but staying afterward for 2 teeth to be looked at that are cracked off. I checked with Tiffany that my antibiotic will last long enough for the 2 hours of work.
The Bone Density scan has to wait until January, and that’s scheduled on the new 2020 calendar for Jan 21.

I arranged clothes to take to the Discovery Shop tomorrow and John put a box of 10 cartons of shoes, some with more than 2 pair/box, in the back of our car for the first stop in Yakima.

John is out raking horse manure into piles for eventual use in the Mariposa Vineyard where he prunes wine grapevines. While outside, he plans to go drill some holes into a posts at the front gate entrance he’s been working on. Below is the start of this: Left setting new pole at Rd.; right; the new gate has red, white, and blue stiffeners to alert drivers, or the wayward cow, that it is there. Left at the end of drive; right the set-off of new gate allows trucks with trailers to get completely off of Naneum before encountering a gate. The 2 vertical posts (right image) were set 15 years ago with this in mind. Procrastination?!
The horizontal logs were placed the year after the logging truck tipped over – Feb. 16, 2015. They are about 40 feet long.

Talked with Mario about hay delivery. I have sent him the explanation of bill pay and the check will be delivered to his postal box a week after we have the delivery and know the cost for the 15 tons he’s bringing us. I have shared the setup of his company, High Valley Hay, on the bill pay system.

Supper: Smoked turkey, Cheez-its, butternut squash with toasted marshmallows top, and PowerAde. Dessert cherry pie with our pie cherries made by Ken Swedberg, and a small point of a chocolate cake piece. John shared some of the cherry pie too.

Tuesday, Nov 26

Today, we left at 8:45 for the Discovery Shop and Costco.
American Cancer Society Discovery Shops
EBRG does not have a Discovery Shop. The Yakima one is just 5 blocks from the main corner, and seems to have lots of visitors. John talked to one of the workers, and looked at the awards, plaques, and all the goods. They had sold a lot of Halloween and Thanksgiving things and were finishing putting out Christmas goods. The room for all the glass and plastic stuff (example in photo; from web) is separate from the clothing. There was a shirt that said something like “I’m saving Santa a stop. I’ve been very naughty.”

So that was our first stop. We dropped off a bag of clothes and accessories, picked up some blank donor receipts for future bags to get down there. Found out some more information, including they do not want any underclothes, except for excellent condition bras, no panties out of the package, but they would take camisoles. While there, we delivered a large box with women’s shoes in 10 boxes.

We bought $404.69 worth at Costco; that’s a record, I believe. And, as we were leaving, we had lunch there for $9.87, so total charged, $414.56 on our VISA Costco card will reward us 2% rewards in February ($8.29). Our lunch was a large piece of combo pizza, hot dog & Pepsi, and a Turkey Provolone Sandwich, most of which we brought home to add to other meals. While there we had dessert—a frozen Yogurt sundae, with a very large amount of strawberries swirled in. By the time we got home, it was finished.
Well, what an assortment of gifts for ourselves. John got a nice padded shirt jacket in a 2XL size. It was the only XX-large one of all the ones on the shelf (we both liked the Blue Plaid better, but all the other colors were available only in S, M, and L. No XL, except that one, in a green / gray color plaid. My chosen gift was an external disk storage drive of 5 TB for $30 off. My smaller one has been going on the fritz, and I need to back up everything on it, and the stuff currently on my computer, in addition to another smaller external drive. 5 TB should handle the need, with space left over for continuing. Also received $3.00 off on packages of AAA and AA batteries of which we seem to go through many.
Besides all sorts of food (many different kinds of seafood), we got a fruitcake only one because I thought we had another in the freezer, but John says we don’t. Once home we had a nice big piece. I wish I had bought two, although the space in our freezer is dwindling. We’re not planning to go back before next year, so will lose out on getting another this year.
Took care of the dog’s needs and our paper needs (towels & TP), plus some $3 off containers of Multi-Vitamins. I try hard to get our OTC meds when they are significantly marked down on price. To us the place was very busy, but we found an “end” lane that was not aligned with the main aisles so we saved time by not waiting in a long line. Luckily, we went through the pharmacy/pills section and that led to the (hidden) end lane.

We came back through EBRG to fill my car with gasoline from Fred Meyer and to check our Bi-Mart numbers. We didn’t win anything today, and only got 3₵/gal reduction in the gasoline. I thought we were entitled to a lot more. Oh well, live and learn. At least last week, John received 20₵/gal. off when he filled his truck.

Wednesday, Nov 27

We awoke to several inches of snow and by the time I left it was 4”, blowing and drifting.
I got some photos of the quail and John’s Crosstrek still covered with snow. He had put sunflower seeds out for the birds. Little birds will come and go all day, quail morning and evening. The invaders – European Collared Doves – have to be chased away except from a cage-like affair that they can’t fit into.These images show undisturbed snow on the car, and what we call the ‘cable table’ with the lower part covered with snow. Wind blew that in there. We call that part the veranda, and the cats like to lay there.

John push-broomed a lot of snow, fed the horses, and went to town for a fasting blood draw. The plows were scraping the road, and putting grit at the intersections, and we didn’t have any trouble except watching for slick spots along the way. Ellensburg did not have nearly as much snow. North of us Blewett Pass (4,100 ft.) had 14” and was closed for a couple hours because of spin-outs and collisions. The I-90 road from Ellensburg to Vantage was closed as well because of ice and blowing snow.

John brought me stuff from the back seat of my car from the Discovery Shop, I brought back home from yesterday’s visit they did not want. I need to summarize and change the content of the donation slips itemization. Still awaits being done.

I finished loading and running the dishwasher in the morning. Called Gloria, her sister Shirli, and Clare about coming today to the Garden Room to hear our music. I put music together for Charlie’s and my books and for Lou and Sandy’s. I wrote a note to the Emeriti group about meeting there on December 11 (2nd Wednesday).
Needed to get to Hearthstone before 1:30 to meet Glenn; I did and gave him his two loaves of bread from Costco. I went by Pam Brown’s house on the way from Hearthstone with Gloria on our way to the Community Thanksgiving Dinner, and picked up a gifted Xmas serving platter.

Gloria’s and my trip to the Armory was rewarded by a good meal: lots of turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, not so much gravy as I would have preferred, mixed vegetables of carrots, peas, green beans, and corn, a large roll w/ butter, and cranberries (which I love but cannot have with one of my medications. Dessert: pumpkin pie. We had nice visits with people at our table, and with folks walking by that knew Gloria from church, or from the SAIL class at the Senior Center. She enjoyed the trip very much.

Today while I was gone for music at Hearthstone, and then with my friend Gloria, to the Community Thanksgiving Dinner (CTD), John stayed home to work on projects. One of the most important projects he did was to remove and install lift supports on the truck’s canopy that keep the back window propped up, while loading or unloading the bed of the pickup. See the picture on the left below for those. On the right is of a gift I picked up after our music at Hearthstone, on my way to the CTD with Gloria. I had donated money to cover purchasing 10 turkeys for the dinner, so I thought I ought to eat. I know each year they plan food for 300 people, and this year they baked 34 turkeys for the event.

Through the weekend, this is free for a download of the music arrangement.
Christian Howe – Jazz Violin Solo Arrangement, Somewhere Over the Rainbow
I think the video will remain, but the free arrangement seems to be a limited time thing. I learned of this in an early morning email, but didn’t open it until this evening.

I’ll never have the ability with my range of motion in my left shoulder (with severe arthritis and bone-on-bone, spurs, & cysts) to ever play this, but he sent this video, and a free download of the score for the piece, and a special “Black Friday gifts” worth over $125 which I will download for review. It’s a set of lessons which will last for 30 days, and I will try to make time to go through them.
John and I went to his last concert here at the CWU Music Building in Ellensburg, and I went to a free afternoon workshop for community members and music students to learn various techniques for playing stringed instruments. He’s a great person and teacher. I don’t remember how long I have known him, but I follow him regularly and am on his email notification list for his planned concerts and teaching opportunities.

Thursday, Nov 28 Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving Day – – But we have snow.
If you did not get a Happy Thanksgiving Card from us, below is a link to take you there. I did not mail to everyone in my Jacquie Lawson animated card database. So, if you didn’t see it, please visit here to see the reason the card is so personal to us:

Happy Thanksgiving Card 2019 from Hultquists

I slept in this morning until almost 9:00 a.m. I’m sure I needed it. John went out to feed Myst and the horses, and gave the others some of the pellets and corn Myst has been getting to increase her weight. They were delighted to be included. It has been quite cold.

I called my friend Gloria’s sister, Shirli, to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving. They were having a magnificent Thanksgiving dinner today at Hearthstone: turkey and all sorts of side dishes, plus a choice of two desserts (pumpkin and pecan pie).
This morning was my diuretic pill day and I finished putting in the rest of my meds for this week’s mornings. Glad we stayed home.
It’s very cold here, 9° one morning, but days are low 20s, no sun, but no snow. We’ll be home for the next 5 days, so should be able to catch up a little on all the many projects.

We are giving thanks, however, for all the blessings in our lives.

I sent a few cards out (Happy Thanksgiving) and got some interesting responses: This from Donna Bates, in Condon, OR: “A very snowy thanksgiving here. About 10 inches but with the wind that came with it, we have waist high drifts. Had 18 people for dinner and 19 that couldn’t come!”
(John said we were fortunate that the storm was mostly south of us.)

Our friend, Jeri Conklin, sent a photo of her Brittanys playing in the snow in Lancaster, CA; 50 miles north of Los Angeles.Before the snow was over they received 2 more inches. Left to right, liver & white–Xena, orange & white—Daisy, my co-owned dog, registered as “Cedaridge Kip’s Camelot Shay Tre’ JH SH”, O&W Stormy, in front of Kurt Conklin standing, then O&W Chip, and L&W Ginny (Daisy’s mom). The letters at the end of the name stand for Junior Hunter (JH) and Senior Hunter (SH), awarded in Hunt Tests, different from field trials. She will be working on her Master Hunter title next year, with Jeri Conklin as her handler.

Long conversation tonight with a friend about her three recent surgeries, starting this September. Amazing what some folks are having to go through.

Friday, Nov 29

I called our medical insurance provider, Kaiser Permanente, and found out recommended shingles shots SHINGRIX (2 boosters 2 months apart) will be covered on our policy under the preventative care portion of our plan. That will save us several hundred $ and is good news (I checked the price and best estimate is $151/shot, but it varies widely according to the source.).

Brunch: Large blueberry/pecan pancake, with maple syrup, eggs, and sausage patties.
John worked outside a little, but it was only after the temperature went up to slightly over freezing. If it is windy he will wear a full coverall. Zip-up legs allows getting this off without removing boots.
Afternoon snack: piece of fruitcake from Costco.
Supper: Soup, Cordon Bleu, home fries, and buttered Parmesan topped toast. Dessert, brownie with dried tart cherries & nuts.

Saturday, Nov 30

Elise of NJ called. Lasted 45 minutes after we got rid of the echo; we had a lot of catching-up to do.
Carla Kaatz (wife of deceased colleague) called during my long distance call, and it just rings without allowing a message to be left. I called the number after my conversation ended, and her cell phone is now in my landline, and I need to put in my cell. Previously, I did not have it; only her landline.

Sunny and cold, still under freezing (30.2°) at 2:00 p.m. John left to go shovel manure into the back of his pickup truck where he placed a large tarp into the bed yesterday. He needs to fill it to take over to the Mariposa Vineyard at White Heron Cellars. He did that last year, and Cameron has spread the last of the pile, 11/11/19. He hopes to have better weather with no wind (which last year was intense) for the delivery.From the Naneum Fan, Tennessee Walker manure nourishes White Heron’s Mariposa vineyard.

Before he left he shoveled the snow off the concrete slab in front of our garage, which is part of the front yard where we feed cats and birds. During icy weather we carefully step through to the front gate and our vehicles and, if necessary, John spreads salt.

I’m working on projects: dishwasher loading & running, and about to start on the reference procedure for a student who started with me in 2005, has a job, but wants to become a substitute teacher on his days off. His oldest child is in the school, and he has been volunteering for two years.
Letters of reference as in the past are no longer used in many places. I have to go through a computer to fill in the information for his recommendation that goes to a folder on their computer.
I’ve only done the first step, and now must proceed with the rest. OK, I’m starting this procedure @ 3:41 p.m. & I lost my connection at 4:51; so glad I had snipped backups every so often through the process. I had to start completely over and re-enter all the responses. What a PITA! I finally finished, submitted, and logged out at 5:55 p.m.

Also, I’m editing a long message John wrote to our best man, Bill, in Cincinnati. He sent a link to an article about teaching large numbers of students and how times have changed. This is about a professor (from Australia) with 500 people in his class. In case you’re interested, here is a link below to the original article, which is so different from the teaching John and I experienced doing through the years.

High Tech for Higher Ed: An Australian engineering professor revamps student learning with teams

Sunday, Dec 1

It was snowing slightly this morning at 6:00, when I first awoke and put out food for Woody, but through the morning the rate of snow has varied – never a lot. John has fed the horses, and all the cats have been in for their morning vittles. The temps are warmer than they have been, so he intends to go out after lunch. Plans include cutting some brush and a small tree, moving snow, and getting more horse poo into the truck.

This morning we were taking care of filing our survey for the first Wellness visit to the PCP on Nov 22, and we are getting ready for the Tuesday follow-up Chronic visit this coming Tuesday, Dec. 3.
I also am following up on the correspondence started in previous days with friends around the world.

Brunch today: CheeseWurst sausage links, eggs, toast, & home fries.

I’m finishing up a few projects needing done yesterday, and then going to finish my part of the blog, so we can finish it before midnight.
I do have another list of things needing done – planning events next week.

I contacted Terri Towner about her health issues and her hubby Kevin’s right wrist/hand in a cast. They both have appointments with specialists this week, Tuesday & Wednesday. She’ll get back to my landline line with the results. We had an informative conversation this afternoon. They are down in Moxee, WA, east of Yakima.

Another afternoon snack: piece of fruitcake.
We’re planning leftovers for supper.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Monday, Nov 18

Beginning with two sunrise photos from my photographer friends in the Kittitas Valley, Lise and Evie.Barn Raising by Lise McGowan
This is a reconstruction in process of their barn destroyed by high winds that collapsed the barn onto their pickup totaling it, and flew a large piece of the roof into the window of their 2-story house. No animals or people were injured, thankfully.

Railroad house in Kittitas, WA by Evie Schuetz

Evie says: “That railroad house is right at the end of my street. There’s no story to it, it’s just been the neighborhood beacon as long as I’ve been alive. Pete said it was the water filling station for steam engines, but I don’t know how he would know that.”
[John guesses: this is a building that held a small wind-mill as shown in the (left) photo below. The bottom of the tank holding water need not be but a little bit higher than the storage tank on the train. Because water is heavy, the structure holding water (waiting for a train) has to be strong. Both tank holding structures have large “legs” that are vertical. The structures holding the blades to catch the wind (& pump water) are angled out as they come down. These have to deal with vibrations, but not a lot of weight.]

[Evie’s photo looks at the west end of the two buildings – the door faces north. The tracks would have been to the right, about 40 feet from the center. Sufficient room for a tank.]Called Bi-Mart, talked to Jordan, about GoodSense Artificial Tears problem, and will take mine in tomorrow to demo. Hopefully, he will take my warning today, for Megan (the buyer, who had already left the store), to remove them from the shelf.

Tuesday, Nov 19

I started at the Community Clothing Center to take by a donation of underclothes from friend that were too large for me; while there, I checked for some work shirts and stuff for John, and found several things for him (which I haven’t yet had time to show him), and two pair of socks and a knitted bucket hat for me made of St. Patrick’s Day colors. The neatest thing that happened was a chance meeting with the two women from Montana who are over to help Glenn sort out the craft things for weaving (looms, etc.) and knitting yarn from Anne’s estate to return to her friends in Montana. I thanked them and told them I would see them later at the house.

As I was coming out of the ECCC, I got a phone call from friend who wanted to deliver a document to me, so I told him where I would be in a few minutes (and he met me there—at the Liberty Theater annex). I was going there to eat a lunch (Homemade meatloaf, mashed potatoes, veggies, pears, and a piece of cake) before going by the AAC for a few shopping bags, and to take the rural electric utility’s magazine, RURALITE, to Gabe with stories of the history or their family’s Leather Shop (Don Bacon’s) on Thomas Road. They were the crafters of John’s western saddle, a beautiful piece of artwork he used for many years.

I went from there by Bi-Mart with eye drops, Artificial Tears, needed for the dry eye problem I have. I demoed the problem I was having opening the tops, and Megan realized that the company (GoodSense) had changed the top to a child safety lock opening one that kids could not open (so, it worked for me, this kid couldn’t open it). She showed me the trick, of squeezing the bottom of the cap to release it (still not easy), but she also showed me that the one I had from a previous bottle, could be exchanged. I will keep that and change it with each new bottle.

While there, I also bought a desktop calendar for 30% off and we will hang it on the wall in our kitchen to keep track of our scheduled appointments.

And, I checked our membership numbers. Ours matched the last digit, so I brought home a package of snacks (Almonds & Blueberries with sea salt). It will last until next spring’s trail work, unless we eat it first. From there I went to Fred Meyer. They and Safeway go crazy with special offerings on certain days but only if you buy a bunch – blah blah blah. With enough “points” you get some cents off a gallon of gas at their 2-blocks-away station. We don’t buy much at either store, but both are convenient, so sometimes we go.

When I got home, I called Rhonda (the manager) at Dollar Tree to see if she could order the mesh bags (3 zippered mesh bags in one bag). I can return the two I have not opened, when I find the receipt). Meanwhile, she will check to order the smaller ones I need (3 to a bag), and when they come in, she will call me. She has my number and home Ph.# home.

I sent Peggy Beals the information about Glenn, his email, and his address, and I sent his phone # for texting. I can’t text on my flip phone, so I did not have it, but I asked him on email. She is in charge of the Methodist Church’s Community Clothing Center, where Anne volunteered time, and all her clothes were being taken there.

Finally, this week we found that our attempt to use the bill pay system working directly from our checking account, worked when the check was cashed. Then the money is deducted and an image of the check is produced for our records on our monthly statement. Nice to have for charitable donations claimed on our tax form, and we don’t have to buy checks. I have run out of checks on one of my accounts that has a significant balance, so this was a way around it, a service offered by the bank. I guess we pay for it by them having some of our money in the checking account (with no interest). Currently, there is no direct cost having them do this.

Wednesday, Nov 20

A piece of Ellensburg’s History of downtown businesses.

Evie Schuetz alongside the sign displayed in the Kittitas County Historical Museum’s newly finished (almost) display of business history. This photo taken by Sadie Thayer, Museum Director. You have seen many special photos in this of Kittitas Valley scenes Evie has captured, and now you get to see her in the photo above.

This is the old Button Jewelers neon sign from a business that was in her family for many years, and she grew up from a little kid in her play area there, and working there later (see her memories inset below). The business closed the end of the year 2005; all family members always returned to work during the Christmas season.

The story of the business appeared in our local newspaper, the Daily Record (see link below).
The above photo preserves Ellensburg’s history through signs that have been restored and now able to be visited at the museum. The museum provides a treasure trove of artifacts from the region.

Check out their website, KCHM.ORG, and go in for an educational tour any time to view their displays. If you want to see them before the end of the year, the best time to mark on your calendar is Dec 18, from 6:00 to 8:00 for an open house, with refreshments. The special collections will be on display.

John and I are members of the museum. Recently, we donated a sign (metal, not neon) we were given. The sign was for a machine shop a mile from EBRG; and maybe the staff can find out more. I plan to take a photo of it when I’m there at the open house.

Here’s my introduction of some history I found on the web:

“End of an era: Button Jewelers closing at year’s end” by Paul Schmidt, Oct 12, 2005

1950s the store on the NW corner of 4th and Pine. Note the parking meters and traffic light. Today they’re gone.
Today, it houses Central Party & Costumes, owned by Eva Frink.

I am also friends with Eva and so this whole story interests me. I have been discussing the store with Evie and asked her for her memories of growing up there, of which she had shared pieces, previously. I think her story is worth repeating, so I asked for more and received these details 11/24/19 to include. I find this a fascinating piece of our local history.
Evie’s memories of Button Jewelers inset below:

As far as memories go…  My earliest memories are of putting together a rabbit puzzle in the giant playpen that mom had created for me out of the diamond cases.  She always arranged the cases in a way that would suit as a makeshift cage for me because I refused to be left with a babysitter.  I was well behaved, so I would sit in my playpen and do the same rabbit puzzle over and over all day long while she worked alongside me.  I didn’t like the puzzle much, but I thought the pink box it came in was exquisite.  I had other toys, obviously, but I spent most of my time with that puzzle. 

Once I started school, I was only down there on weekends, afternoons, or holidays.  I loved the holidays most because the store was always busy and everyone that came in seemed unusually happy.  At Christmas all the family members were there working, even the ones that were usually away at college.  We all got to wrap a lot of presents.  I was relegated to the bow making machine because making bows was considered a little kid’s job, but we all fast became excellent gift wrappers.  Aunt Gaye wasn’t having anything go out that was less than perfect.  She is a wonderful Aunt and I’m glad she taught us to be attentive to details.  That has served me well in life.

As I got older, I started working at the store, selling jewelry, engraving everything under the sun (a task I loathed–way too much pressure), cleaning (Lord, there was a lot of crystal to dust and silver to polish…), creating displays in the windows and throughout the store, and changing watch batteries and watch bands.  I preferred working in the repair department with my dad because it was tedious work that could be done in solitude – much the same as the rabbit puzzle from my early years.  Both Dad and I valued silence, so we worked well together. 

Lunchtime was also a family favorite.  Dad and I would get whatever sounded good that day, and we’d enjoy it in the repair department when business was slow.  The Destroyer from the old Sub Shop that used to be behind the Liberty theater…  What I wouldn’t give for another one of those!  When I moved back to town after having Little Peter, I started working at the store again, and the cycle repeated.  Only this time, during lunch, Dad would hold my little guy and feed him french dip sandwiches at the shipping counter.  Too many good memories to list…  Although I should mention the afternoon crossword puzzle we all worked on together once the paper had been delivered.  After that was complete, one of us was sent off to the ice cream shop down the block to bring back waffle cones for the crew.  Dad always had their licorice ice cream.  I alternated between that and blue bubblegum.  Delish!  In hindsight, we didn’t work all that hard.  Mom and I would go shopping downtown on our 15-minute breaks that more often than not lasted at least an hour.  We’d be shopping for decorations at Wood’s Hardware to use for the store windows etc., so was it really a break or was it work?  I learned how to justify things from my mom.  She was a riot, and confidently unapologetic.  Working with the family is where my best memories were created.  We were all so blessed to have the store and the opportunity to be together for so many years.
 
The downtown was so different back then and there’s a lot about it that I miss. The warm popcorn that Sprouse-Reitz always had at the front of their store. The chocolates and Coffee Nips that kept Ostrander’s high on my list of favorite places. Getting cheeseburgers, fries, and milkshakes at Carlisle’s, or a new pair of shoes at Mundy’s. Helping my dad freshen up his wardrobe with new clothes from Moser’s – a lot of dress shirts and ties, the occasional suit. Finding just the right top at JC Penney’s for a special date at The Liberty Theater. Ah… the 80s and 90s. Unforgettable.

In his Not So Nasty News (just prior) John explained we are reviewing a draft manuscript of 123 pages.
John read 50 pages of the manuscript the first evening we had it. By Sunday evening he has read the whole manuscript and is on his second time through with pencil. I have the digital version to use and need to get started.

Thursday, Nov 21

Our Kittitas Valley Fiddlers & Friends played music at Pacifica Senior Living. Players/singers were Manord, Kevin, Charlie, Nancy, Dean, Amy, Charlotte, Sharon, Minerva, Lou, & Sandy, and our mascot Haley (she’s in the 1st grade) was able to be there because it was a ½ day at school because of parent-teacher consultation day.After our music, Haley was showing her crocheting project to an appreciative resident.

Part of my emailing our group for planning chair count set up today included sending a photo of the card received from the Ellensburg Adult Activity Center thanking us for providing the music at the pre-Veterans’ Day celebration. The top part is the front and back of the card; the bottom is the inside of the card. This I preferred to passing the card around and also gave me the opportunity to email to everyone in the group.

After playing, I went by Burger King for supper to bring home, because we had to be back in Hal Holmes center by 6:30 to set up for the Kittitas Audubon monthly meeting were I was going to videotape my former student giving tonight’s lecture. Helen Lau is a Botanist with the USFS office in Cle Elum, WA and her specialty is Fungal Ecology. The lecture tonight was about Fungi.

Here was the write up in our monthly newsletter:
November Hooter of Kittitas Audubon

If you want to get to all the Hooters for this and previous years back to 2005, go here:
Kittitas Audubon Hooter: Current & Back Issues

From the Hooter: 7:00pm • November 21st • General Program

There’s a Fungus Among Us!

What lurks beneath us on earth’s carpet? Can I safely eat that? What purpose does that organism serve?
Helen Lau will introduce the audience to the secret life of fungi and discuss some of their ecological functions. She will share images of some of our most common local fungi and common edible fungi as well as their look-a-likes.
Helen Lau is a botanist for the USFS on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. She manages the rare botanical species (plants, lichens, bryophytes and fungi), native plant restoration and invasive plant program on the Cle Elum Ranger District.

Helen’s research interests are in fungi biodiversity and she received an undergraduate degree at Evergreen State College and her master’s degree on mycorrhizae ecology in the Biological Sciences Department at Central Washington University.

Tonight’s presentation:
Top Setup of dried fungi, computer, and visiting with John; bottom are the audience observers of all the books, prints, and specimens Helen brought.

The main talk is the next link:

Helen Lau, USFS Botanist: Intro to Mushrooms & Fungal Ecology

Helen & Judy during Questions and Answers, see video below.

Questions and answers at the end

Friday, Nov 22

We checked in at Cle Elum for our wellness visit and Kaylene, our nurse, invited us back for height and weight measurements. First we had to remove our shoes. She measured Nancy’s height at 5’4”. Boy did that make me happy! It was less last year by an inch, and now I’m still shorter than before when I was almost 5’ 7”. Weighed in at 137.9#. Wellness agenda appointment includes blood pressure, SpO2, pulse (with an oximeter), giving memory tests and telling time on a clock with hands, the patient has to draw from scratch (to show 11:10). Go over medications list, need for prescriptions, and several other subjects.

That’s followed by a visit with our PCP, Chelsea Newman. She reviewed expected test we need to schedule (such as for me, a mammogram, a bone density test, the need for the new 2-shot Shingles vaccine, a review of the vaccines we have had (such as a Flu vaccine, and in my case the blood test for Potassium in January 2020. I just recently had blood draws and tests performed for a Nov 5 appointment with my cardiologist, so I do not need to schedule any blood draws, but John will have to make time to go by the hospital lab here for his tests (the paperwork for the orders has already been sent into the system).

I don’t remember the other things we discussed. Some have to wait for the Chronic appointment which we have in 2 weeks, because our follow-up was supposed to be on Friday after Thanksgiving, but the office will be closed then, so we were scheduled for the following week.

We stopped at Cle Elum Bakery for 2 Apple Fritters for me and a Bear Claw for John. I ate one on the way home, and he had ½ his bear claw. This picture was the next morning, when I had my 2nd. Their bakery goods are excellent, but very pricey. Each item bought was $2. For special occasions such as today, returning from a successful visit to the doctor for both of us, we splurged. Also, we had to be out so early for our appointment check in that there wasn’t time for fixing a good breakfast. This tided us over until getting home for lunch.

Top is from the carry-out bag; bottom my Apple Fritter

After a small brunch for me, I was off to the hospital for my Pulmonary Function Test (PFT) [showing improvement on all from last year’s]. I have already mentioned that previously in the blog, when my original appointment was canceled, and rescheduled for today. I have to have this PFT annually to be sure I’m okay and free of side effects (lung scarring) of the Amiodarone medication.

Our supper was beef stew, baked potato, sliced huge plum. The plum was purple on the outside with a no-color inside, and about the size of a baseball.

Saturday, Nov 23

John’s going to be driving the truck to town this morning to buy 4 more bags of Senior Equine for Myst, also Rolled Corn for her needs, and we are pleased she is gaining weight nicely no longer seeing any ribs. He also will be getting another bag of Black-oil sunflower seeds for the birds. While in town with the truck, he’ll fill the tank at a reduced price/gallon with rewards we have accumulated from Fred Meyer (we normally do not have enough purchases there to get fuel rewards, but for November, we currently have 200 points and we are entitled to 20₵/gal reduction, which translates today to $2.879/gal. He also went by the pharmacy to pick up my prescription for Amiodarone.

I called the Pharmacy and we’re on a waiting list for both John and me for the new double (better and more expensive!) Shingles shots [Shingrix] at Super 1. Chelsea recommended that yesterday for our attention. The double dose is given 2 months apart. Need to call Kaiser to see if it’s covered and what the copay is. We heard they are expensive; perhaps $300.

I cleaned and cut clusters of red grapes to take with Grandma rolls & Whole wheat rolls to an early Thanksgiving family dinner at our neighbors, the Swedbergs, scheduled for 1:00 p.m.

John’s out to feed Myst and do morning things and the temperature just went above freezing at 9:30 a.m. At least the sun is out and the skies are beautifully blue.

I talked to my neighbor and found out our early thanksgiving dinner is not beginning until 2:00 p.m. (actually 3) today. That will mean John will have to eat and not stay around visiting because of early darkness, and needing to feed Myst her evening special feed.

Our early thanksgiving dinner was an amazing array of food. We had smoked and non-smoked turkey, dressing, gravy, mashed and scalloped potatoes, salad with all sorts of things in it, two kinds of greens, cut apples, cherry tomatoes, pieces of yams, cranberries, sweet potatoes with marshmallows atop, sparkling wine, special orange juice, rolls, red grapes, olives, cherry pie & pumpkin pie, with kids, dogs, adults.

Sunday, Nov 24

I made an early morning call to my friend Janet Perkins in Winlock, WA to have her wish her hubby David a happy birthday.

John was busy today, getting ready for cold weather expected late this week. He cut a tree off one of the paths through our “swamp”, worked on the front gate, repackaged the horse feed into liftable portions and got it out of the truck. He will load horse poo to take to the vineyard now that the truck is empty. He finished with cutting most of the water diversion off. A few years ago he did not do this and a very cold spell prevented getting it closed. The neighbor’s driveway and ours, and parts of the pasture, flooded, froze and made life miserable. That same cold spell managed to freeze the frost-free faucet for the horse trough. [That’s now enclosed and covered with a heat tape.]

We had a late brunch: eggs, sausage links, home fries, and English Muffin toasting bread for me with Apricot jam.

I continued working on the blog and on emails, plus planning for the next two day’s work load. We decided against going to Costco tomorrow, putting it off until Tuesday because the weather will be warmer tomorrow with less of a chance of snow. We are not expecting snow here. It is just that Monday will be a better day to get a few more things done outside.

Dinner tonight was smoked turkey (from yesterday) – John had a leg and I had breast meat. With it we had butternut squash with marshmallows atop, broiled. Also had some commercial lasagna from the freezer.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

First catching up with patriotic photos from Friday’s AAC with adding the photos to John’s of the Senior center celebration to include photos taken by the staff at the center. They are attached at the end of the 45 photos in this link below:

AAC early Veterans’ Day Celebration photos

Monday, Nov 11 Happy Veterans’ Day

The sunrise was lovely this morning, as viewed from the south side of our valley.

Sunrise from the viewpoint I-82, by EvieMae Scheutz
And another, The Mt. Stuart range overlooking our valley by Evie Scheutz

Below are photographs of the flags I saw flying this morning on my trip down Naneum Rd to Ellensburg. Because I had no camera with me, I called John and asked him to please go take some photos. We have admired them before on Flag Day and July 4th and never gotten a photo. He drove his Crosstrek down, and this is what he got. It was a good thing, because I didn’t come back by until it was almost dark. Also, interesting that the address on the mailbox out front, does not belong to the house in the photo, but to the house down the driveway that John’s car is parked in, in the first overall photo. Top: East side of Naneum road, looking north.
Lower: Looking out over Naneum toward the SW and Manastash Ridge. The display has USA flags on either side with the POW*MIA flag in the center. Wind and position did not allow for a photo, so we took an image from the web.

Thanks to the owners for displaying these several times a year. The place is about 5 miles south of us, on our main route to town. We and the nearest neighbor each had a single flag flying.

My first stop in Ellensburg was at the AAC with my flash drive and to pick up the package of minutes, agenda, etc. for a meeting there tomorrow and the left-behind copies of patriotic audience music from the event there, Friday, 11/8.
I was at Glenn’s to pick him up at 11:00 a.m., getting there a few minutes early and visited with neighbors I know, with their dogs.

Glenn came out and we loaded my car with two huge boxes and a smaller longer box bound for Yakima for returns of unopened merchandise his mom had purchased before her death. We have one larger box yet to take which will fit in my car, but not along with the other three we took today. We were successful in our endeavors.

After returning the boxes, and with help from Glenn’s Smart Phone’s GPS, we went to the American Cancer Society’s thrift store, called the Discovery Shop, at 513 W Yakima Ave, Ph#: 575-1236 open @ 9:30-4:30, to donate a bag of clothing, find out the details for bringing more, and the kinds of items they would accept. I believe I mentioned previously in the blog that this store exists in larger towns, is a registered non-profit, with all the proceeds from items sold in the thrift store going toward cancer research and other needed programs in town. The clothes and accessories that do not sell in the Shop are given to the Mission in Yakima.

I returned my friend home, and went next door to Hearthstone (assisted living home) seeking my friend on her 94th birthday. She was not in her room to answer her phone, and doesn’t have a cell phone. So I searched to find Gloria Swanson in the very large building, even traveling to the front (I’d gone in the rear closer to her room) to the Chandelier room and the (now only) dining room used for the entire facility. She is still a fast walker, and wanders all over the place for her exercise. I finally located her in her sister Shirli’s room, visiting with their niece by phone. I had a birthday card to give her in person, along with several hugs before I left. We had a nice visit and then we walked downstairs to the Garden Room, for a social celebrating Veterans there in residence, and their families. Gloria’s husband Paul was a veteran. That I knew, so I encouraged her to go to that social and I went with her and her sister. My car was parked right outside.

Once out of there, I went back to the AAC (Senior Center) to pick up my flash drive with the photos from Friday. They had not yet had time to remove mine John took, or to add the ones they took on their camera. Now I have all theirs to crop and add to my collection that was in last week’s blog. I have done that now, and placed a link at the top of this page.

Tuesday, Nov 12

Round and round we go, still with problems on the Umpqua Bank account’s Bill Pay system. It took all day for them to sort it out, and now we are back on track, supposedly, but I won’t really know until the check is deposited and reflected on my account.

I got my red bag ready to take to Food Bank senior lunch and the AAC meeting. Both places have something in my red bag in a wallet I have to use. Food Bank has a dinner pass to click into the system for counting attendance; AAC has another code for registering when I check into there.

I left the house about 10:50 a.m. and had to undo the front gate at the end of the driveway. My meeting at the AAC wasn’t until 1:00 p.m., so I stopped off at the Dollar Tree for some essentials.

I stopped off at the Food Bank for the Senior Nutrition lunch on my way to the AAC. They served Shepard’s Pie, very good and more than I could eat, a cup of applesauce, and great dessert.

At the end of our AAC meeting, we were given a shopping bag gotten on a grant for a special Fall-Prevention Program given by the AAC AmeriCorps staff at the Farmers Market), but the bags did not arrive in time for it. I took some for the Fiddlers & Friends who played at the Veterans’ Day thing and are not AAC members.

I went by Bi-Mart, to check numbers (didn’t win), but got some Artificial Tears and some more Alcon ointment for dry eyes at night. Oddly enough, later this week (Sunday a.m. I needed to open a new bottle of artificial tears, and did (using one of the 4 new ones), but it was from a lot that has a top that won’t come off. I tried two, and gave up to take them and the other two I bought back for a refund and alert to get them off the shelf.
I had one from a previous purchase, so I used it, and oddly it had a clear top, so at least I will be able to tell Megan the Bi-Mart employee who manages that aisle how to find the bad ones with the WHITE tops. The box can be opened without disturbing the container to see the color of the top screw cap. So, this Tuesday I’ll take them by, and Monday, I will call to warn them of the problem.

Wednesday, Nov 13

The massive amount of clothing I got several weeks ago is in black garbage bags in the “crew-seat” of the Ford truck. John split the over stuffed original bags into two, so now there are 8 or 9. Some stuff is in a shed. I got one bag and sorted through to list stuff for taking to Discovery Shop. Karen will take this one. I made a copy of the content list for her to carry along.
Busy day. I went to the Food Bank. Then took my red bag & new blue one to show AAC members. Put a carry along bag with Jeans & pants for Sandy in the Music Books box delivered today.

Picked up Christmas cards and small containers from Ann Draper for Stephanie & Sophie. When close to their house next week, I’ll deliver those.

Thursday, Nov 14

Went to Meadows Place for music by the Kittitas Valley Fiddlers & Friends. We had a good turnout of 10 and a good responsive and appreciative audience.

Friday, Nov 15

This morning we went for free railroad ties 11 miles away south on Tjossem Rd.Thanks to Cayla for giving us some of these. Previous owner had them on/in the ground. Many are in poor shape but still have a useful end-of-life period. Cayla and John loaded and I advised. There are 15, with 3 shorter than the standard 8 ft. 6 inches. Other folks were coming to get half-length ones (for flower boxes?), so we only made the one trip. The smaller ones had originally been used for a staircase on the property.

On the way home, we drove by a house in Ellensburg to pick up a free toaster replacement for our broken one. I asked for it on a free site and received this – a very nice 2-slice model. Supper was baked chicken, mashed potatoes, apples, and chicken gravy with mushrooms—another John specialty. Nice end to a day when we had little for brunch.

Saturday, Nov 16

Tired from a long day yesterday, and late bedtime (midnight), I slept in till almost 9:00 this morning.
John’s been up a lot longer and is now taking off to feed Myst. Weather is good so he will work until 11, then we’ll have brunch.

Briarwood today. 8 players came and we had a good audience turnout as well. Great meal they served us at the end: White bean with ham soup by JoEllen, salads – two Jell-O ones (red and orange), Caesar, and Macaroni, plus a table of desserts (with great cookies by Lee), and spiced hot cider, by Lee.

Must get jobs sent out to the jobs list. Did get the Earth Science Weekly send out from the jobsnancy account because the nancyb.hultquist account is too filled and won’t send to a lot of people. Another chore.

Sunday, Nov 17

I only answer telephone calls if I know the number on the caller ID, but now that is no longer dependable. They can now ghost numbers from our personal cell phones. I got a call on my landline yesterday that was from MY cell phone which was not even on because of no reception here. I did not answer and no message was left. I warned John that when I’m away, not to answer a HOME 925-3304 number, because it was ghosted from my cell phone, or his. Scammers are getting more invasive.

Today I did in-house chores, and John bounced from project to project outside, alternating from more physical stuff to lighter duty things. He says we’ll soon have a new stopgap/makeshift gate out near the road. This will be easier for me to open, when he forgets to. There will also be a much longer stretch between the closed gate and the road.

At noon there was “calm” and shortly after there were gusts in the mid-20s. Between 6 & 7 o’clock there was a gust of 38 mph. John found a task away from trees. However, horses dislike windy conditions (movement and sounds come from all directions). They get skittish. Late afternoon is a special feeding for Myst, but she did not want to move into the wind, and the others horses didn’t help with their erratic dancing around. They all went to a spot in the lee of trees. Myst has has a couple hundred dollars of pelleted food and rolled corn, and it hasn’t gotten seriously cold here. She has gained weight. Looks much healthier than 10 weeks ago. That reminds me that I have to call our hay broker, Mario, and set up a hay delivery.

Tonight was left overs with added flake-made mashed potatoes and veggies. The baked chicken was from yesterday, also.
Tomorrow about 10 AM we expect light rain, worsening by evening, and mostly gone by dawn Tuesday. The rest of the week will be clear and cool. We have medical appointments Tues, Thur, and Friday. At 37° our Subarus chirp a “freezing road surface” warning. Funny thing is, if you are not looking at the little screen at the right moment – you miss it. Maybe a “next” car will have a better system.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Monday, Nov 4

I’m beginning our week with a black and white of the photo published in color in last week’s blog, from Montana, and Tony Bynum’s creative photography.I love the detail in this, which better displays the mountain topography’s geology so well, plus highlighting the kayaker very nicely too. It’s a masterpiece.

Tony wrote me: Hi Nancy, that is a photo of Two Medicine lake in Glacier National Park. The lake is just up the road from my house in East Glacier. It was taken in 2016. It’s actually a two-shot panorama stitched together. I ran across the images the other day while I was searching for some other photographs for a client of mine. It is not unusual when I go digging in my archives to find something I shot but never processed or published, and this scene I was just lucky enough to be at the lake when there was a kayaker heading up the lake. [At the resolution we use the kayaker only shows as a small thing on the bright water.]

John and I are going to Cottage Café at noon meet Sharon & Jack for lunch, and to go by our PCP’s office to pick up some paperwork that I need tomorrow. Jack had a birthday the end of October, and I had one the beginning of September, so we get $10 off our meal with a mailed coupon.

I called the Umpqua Bank again about problems using their bill pay system on line, to pay from our checking account without writing a check. This has been a long on-going process, which should have been resolved last week.

We were gone from 11:00 to 4:05 p.m. today and tired of doctors. John went to the dentist early morning to reset the temporary crown, we went to Cle Elum to meet our friends at noon, and then to the doctor’s office after 1:00, back to the eye doctor in Ellensburg at 2:25 p.m., where my severely dry eye problem was diagnosed and treated.

We went on by the Coop for special horse feed for Myst, and then to Super 1 pharmacy for my eye medications ($40 later) and home for John to do chores before dark.
The day on the road meant postponing things at home.
Came home to messages everywhere – on email and phone.

One landline message was that my PFT test had been postponed a week, but unfortunately, that will also have to be rescheduled because it conflicts with our wellness visit to our PCP on Nov 22. It now has been rescheduled for 10:15 a.m. check-in on Nov 19th .

Tuesday, Nov 5

John’s out holding Myst for David to trim her feet, and then we are going to the Food Bank for a Senior Nutrition lunch before our appointment with my cardiologist. Our lunch was great (but we were late making it there, past normal serving time). Lori was kind enough to load our plates and microwave them for us. We had a slice of roasted chicken, with stuffing, and mixed vegetables (green peas, green beans, white pearl onions, peppers, and carrots), and a cookie for dessert. We’d stayed longer than we should having a nice conversation with a friend.

From there we drove directly to my cardiologist’s office, arriving with two minutes to spare.
I had printed my meds list and loaded a manila envelope with other records to show and ask Dr. Krueger about. He met with us for over an hour, and responded to all questions, comments, and reviewed all lab test results (including an echocardiogram) done since we saw him 4 months ago. He dictated his evaluation and discussion with us, in our presence (and accepts corrections) and it will be retyped for a printed version to be sent to my PCP and to me. He also listed 6 issues for me to take away and handle soon.

One was a reduction in a medication I’m taking, Atorvastatin, to only 20 mg. Sadly, I just refilled it recently for 45 tablets. Oh well. The prescription was for 80mg and I was taking ½ a pill, but to half the remaining halves would not be possible because of the shape of the pill, to get ¼ of a pill. So will order a 40 and then cut in half. (Oddly enough the price on the 80 is better than on the 40, and why I was using it). I need to check the 20mg vs. the 40mg. Maybe we won’t have to cut it at all! I think I’m better to quarter the 80 – For $5.10 vs. $9.34 =$4.24. I just worked a long time halving the ½ tablets I had, and with a pill splitter they pulverize into non-appropriate sizes, so I’ll pay the extra. His reasoning for the dosage reduction was actually good, as my cholesterol levels in the cardiologist’s words were “beautiful” – (HDL= 89 & LDL = 41).

I took a copy of the list of vaccines (to update my records), recent blood tests, and medications. I told him about my need for moderate use of opiates for when I am going to be playing music for over an hour, or dancing. I try not to raise my left arm over my shoulder, ever. He told me about a pain clinic in Yakima at the Aspen medical complex on 16th street, to which I could have my PCP make a referral – so I have to remember to do that at our annual physical coming up end of November.

Our farrier is coming to trim Myst’s feet tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. and we are scheduled to go to my cardiologist at 1:10 (but in Ellensburg, not in Yakima, so that’s helpful).

We also need to go by Fred Meyer for John’s colas, and I need to refill my dog’s prescription for Rimadyl there, if it has been delivered. They had to order it.
We bought a lot of Colas for him at a discount (their senior discount works on the first Tuesday of the month at 10%, but only on Kroger products). Although, I have to return to the store with my receipt to get the 10% discount. I should have asked for it at the end of the cashier’s check out. I did not; they require knowledge at the end, not the beginning because they might forget. This time I forgot. I got that knowledge late tonight from a customer service rep named Kira. They will give me the discount, which in this case applied to 2 buys at 1.69 each and 12 at .77 each. (all Kroger brands. That will mean a refund of $1.60).

Wednesday, Nov 6

Today starts with getting ready for going to the Food Bank. I leave about 10:45 to get there to set up chairs and music stands. We start playing as soon as possible after 11:30 a.m. We stop at 12:10 and are eating by 12:15.
We had 10 people today, did patriotic and USA songs, very well received. I had a big plate of spaghetti, cup of fruit, and juice, with a tiny bit of salad (most was dark green I couldn’t eat), and a small roll.

I then stopped off at the AAC to deliver a shirt to a gal for her daughter (a 2X), and then I made my way to my meeting with Glenn at his mom’s house at 1:15 p.m. to pick up some of my stuff that I had loaned to her.

I had filled out paperwork and so I dropped by for a temporary state parking sticker for special occasions on campus, where only handicap spaces are available. I’ll need to use it to get to the IAFI lecture where all 10 spaces near the building in the middle of campus have been changed. The university quit issuing their disabled parking space (campus only) coupon for the mirror. Now one has to get a PCP’s referral to obtain a state permit, even a temporary one.

Fred Meyer Pharmacy did not yet have Annie’s meds, so I got my $1.60 refund from yesterday’s mistake.
John fixed meatloaf, beets, and baked potato tonight.

Thursday, Nov 7

Normal morning, and getting ready to eat brunch and go to play music at the Rehab. We will be going tonight to the Historical Museum for a lecture, and I have my camera and tripod packed to take in ahead of the 6:00 p.m. starting time. We loaded an old metal sign for a machine shop. The sign featured Harley Davidson and had “1 mile from Ellensburg.” The museum director, Sadie, is going to include this in the collection, and try to find out about the business. We’ve had this for 15 years – given to us by a since deceased neighbor.

Tomorrow is our Veterans’ Day playing. I got the audience music ready 43 copies – need to pick up the remainder and my paperwork for the Nov 12 meeting at the AAC Advisory Board at 1:00, on Monday.
We had meatloaf and carrots for supper.

We left after 5:15 p.m. to drive to town for a lecture at the Kittitas County Historical Museum. The Wanapum people live (now) 30 miles to our southeast, near Wanapum Dam, a major structure on the Columbia River. I sat beside the presenter and his wife. Below are the videos I took with permission from Rex and his wife Andrea. During the first one below (Sadie Thayer’s introduction, is a song that Rex wanted to sing. It is part of the Washoni religion and they did not want that recorded because of the special spirituality.

Rex Buck, Jr. Intro to the Washoni Song (not recorded)

Rex Buck, Jr.’s Story of the Wanapum People, KCHM: 11/7/19

Answer to Sun Light Message in Song Lyrics

Now below, I’m adding after the talk by Rex, my finds on the web of Links to history about the Wanapum (River) peoples

Civilian Displacement: Hanford, WA

Wanapum People After Smohalla

Friday, Nov 8

Sunrise: we missed getting a good picture because of trees, buildings, and a hill. The sky was ablaze with reds & oranges.

I looked at my normal photographer friends in the Kittitas Valley, but didn’t find any, so I checked on line and found these from Ferndale, WA, northwest of Bellingham, and close to Canada.Church Rd, Anita Goecke; Unick Rd, Allison Trimble; Lummi Island, Colby Chambers. All are taken 11-8-19, shown in Ferndale News. Mt. Baker is 35 miles east; one of the snowiest places of North America.

Normal morning but heading for an early Veterans’ Day Memorial celebration at the Senior Center.
We arrived before 11:00 to setup things, for our music group, and to find out last minute changes in plans for the day. I brought the audience music to be distributed after we started playing as the dishes were being cleaned from the tables. John took photos. Our group was setup to play on the other side of the pool table, and I’m standing in front probably setting up my music stand. A singer (Lou) is standing behind me and he is one of 3 veterans associated with our group who were honored today. And the two tables with red tablecloths in the back of this picture, behind the tables with white tablecloths were reserved for the musicians and family. You see the red, white, and blue colored tables.

Each Military Branch was brought forward and Karen Eslinger, our accordionist, played the theme songs as they stood as a group. The official program began a little after 11:30 p.m.
It began with a 12 slide PowerPoint Presentation created by one of the AmeriCorps staff, Deborah Boudreau. She did an awesome job on the presentation. David Douglas, in his Army uniform, acted as MC and explained the slides – a timeline of the various services.

Next is a Link to the PowerPoint slide content: (I have no clue why the slides are shuffled in reverse order, with #2 at end)

Thank You For Your Service

When the branches walked forward to be honored, their branch’s history was presented (you’ll see on the slides above, if you weren’t there to hear, and the MC interviewed a couple of them asking the years served, where, what their specialization was, and what memory they took away from the experience. Each veteran was given a postcard for today (left below), and I shall place a photo of our day’s cake dessert beside it.

Here is a link to the photos of the day John took, and we’ll add others that the AAC staff took, when available.

Celebration photos

On the way home we stopped off to show my patriotic garb to some military friends, and Cheryl Winston took this nice photo of me to send to a lady who loves seeing me in the patriotic clothing because of her son’s being in the military.Supper with shrimp, carrots, French fried potatoes, and Honeycrisp apple. Piece of chocolate silk pie with pecans made a nice dessert.

Saturday, Nov 9

Started the morning with sleeping in, and then began with Facebook messages, about morning sunrises. I have two to share for today from our Kittitas Valley.This capture from Lise McGowan, commenting “Game Day Sunrise! Keith (her hubby) could only see Purple and Gold!!! Get your Gumbo on!!! Geaux Tigers!!!”

Another photographer in our midst is Evie Scheutz, who posted her morning pre-sunrise shot of our agricultural valley, for this 11/9 morning, with her comment, “Always a beautiful morning in paradise…” Evie’s photo was taken from Cleman Rd, south of Kittitas, WA

John’s in from chores and fixing brunch. This was diuretic day for me, so I’m traveling up and down the long hallway to the back bathroom of this L-shaped house. At least I get my exercise.
Sent the Nov 9 Earth Science Weekly PDF out, among other emails needing attention, and chores around the house.

John fixed fried smoked turkey to supplement a low calorie Marie Callender Roasted Turkey dinner with gravy, mashed potatoes, & carrots/broccoli.

Sunday, Nov 10

Finally getting started at almost 9:00 a.m. I am not rested yet. John’s been up since 7:00 (not his normal 6:00).
Okay. Time for me to load dishes to soak and finish blog that awaits. Been another busy week, with another coming on, even tomorrow on the holiday we have already celebrated early.
Okay, the first sink-full of dishes is soaking awaiting for me to load into the dishwasher. I’ve set our new timer John got for me to remind me of my next chore. It’s so cool, a metal one with a magnet that attaches to our metal kitchen refrigerator very securely, and has a loud and predictable ring. Our old timer was getting to the end of the timing and quitting before ringing (cause unknown).
The old one (right) was a Taylor (on a stand) for which we never easily had space available in the kitchen. Left one is by Myle, smaller and conveniently out of the way on the fridge door held on by a magnet. John came in and fixed us a late brunch, egg/cheese/mushroom/ham omelet, with toast. Now he’s outside working on a gate project. I will go out and review his work and grab a bag of clothes out of the back of our pickup to take to Yakima tomorrow for donation at the Discovery Shop (American Cancer non-profit for research). All the shoes, clothing, and hangers are either in the Ford truck or in a shed. This stuff needs to go – and make someone happy.

The new gate is a 4 ft. and a 10 ft. combination. These replace a makeshift pole and rope that has been in place for years. In fact, the new panels have been in the hay shed for about 3 years. It was time! New gate opened and closed; see explanation below in video:

John’s New Access Gate to the pasture and sheds
Supper was fried breast of chicken, large cheese biscuit with butter, and some chicken/bean chili.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Tony sent me a photo of Two Medicine Lake, Glacier National Park. Google Earth will show you the Lake’s location if you search.

Monday, Oct 28

We stayed home today. Nancy, computer chores, calling PCP for missing paperwork with call for Wellness Check and Annual Physical, now called Chronic Conditions Visit.
The Wellness Check is paid for by Medicare and is a useless waste of our time and mileage, to demonstrate we can tell time on a clock with hands. It’s mostly with the physician’s nurse and we might get to speak with our doctor for a few minutes. Labs will be ordered (most likely) to be drawn during the following week. Ours bumps into the day after Thanksgiving, so we have to wait until the first week of December. That upsets me because we keep being pushed farther in the year for our next year’s physical, all because of their mistake in scheduling our appointment when it was supposed to be (blamed on a change in computer medical records software change).

John took me out to view his progress and plans for his loading dock. Hopes it will add value, and it gets rid of lots of rocks from our alluvial fan, concrete sidewalk pieces (scavenged), mangled iron fence posts**, purchased railroad ties, and 10″ iron spikes remaining from a previous fence project. [**remember the load of logs that rolled over our front fence?]

I took a few photos, see this link below and click on each of the 8 photos included to get a tour and small explanation; be sure you have click the Info button (an ‘ I ‘ with a circle around it). It will provide details on the right side of the photo you’re viewing.

John’s Loading Ramp Construction

Came back in and loaded more dishes.
Tonight is showering time because tomorrow morning I have a haircut appointment around the rural block, at 11:30, followed by a trip to town for several reasons, with the last stop, probably being at 2:30 at Bi-Mart to check numbers and to transfer 3 boxes of pine cones to Izzy. She plans to bring some slippers for John that her hubby doesn’t wear. I guess that’s to thank him for all his efforts in getting pine cones to give her for her crafting projects. They fit him, and she brought me a pair of Bearpaw boots with sheep fleece lining and trim that also fit me. Nice.

Tuesday, Oct 29

I had a quite full day, and John was mostly outside, but some inside (cleaning out the refrigerator and old food for one). It was very cold today. I never saw the temp go over 30°. I couldn’t take my shower last night because of the high winds and the threat of losing our electricity again with a tree over the wires, so waited until this morning. All went well and I dressed in many layers but should have worn pants that were not polyester, but a thicker weave. The wind blew right through them. My first stop was my neighbor’s a mile away for my haircut. I needed it. She and her hubby lost chunks of their roof (of their porch, not the house roof) in the high winds last night.

From there I drove to town in time to get a lunch at the Food Bank and visit with two friends, Karen & Don. We had an interesting conversation and a great meal: Sloppy Joes, green beans, Hubbard squash, apple juice, and a piece of cheese cake with a pumpkin swirl.

I was running later than planned, and so went directly to the hospital for my blood draw. I checked in under my cardiologist’s name, and then requested at the lab, that everything be shared with my PCP. That worked well. I trust all the paperwork got to him, but I need to check the portal and print it so I can take it with me Tuesday, Nov 5, just in case.

Now, I went back to Safeway to pick up my Warfarin – 5mg tablets that I expected to be halved, thus 90 from 45. They had not halved them, so I waited for Charles to do the job. He suggested it, and we had talked when I ordered it about putting the instructions on to have it done, but when I asked him to check, he exclaimed that they had not read the instructions and it was not done. So, he did it. He said the other pharmacists would hear about his feelings on it.
Meanwhile, I took my month’s supply happily for $12.44 and left by way of the counter with marked down meat, which John usually checks when he’s in the store. Nothing worth bringing home today, however.

Next stop was Super 1 to pick up a few bulk carrots. I succeeded, and left for Bi-Mart for my meeting with Izzy, for the pine cones and slippers exchange.

Wednesday, Oct 30

Early this morning I found out my PFT (Pulmonary Function Test) is scheduled for 11:00 a.m. with the director, Jim, administering it at Cardiopulmonary Services at our local Kittitas Valley hospital. I have to have that annually because of one of the medications I’m on for my heart (Amiodarone), that potentially can scar the lungs. Happily, I have successfully been on it since 2010, and I want that to continue. It controls atrial fibrillation perfectly for me (NEVER had any since going on it 9 years ago). I don’t like the alternative medication, which requires 3 nights in the hospital to adjust the dosage.

Here’s what to expect for the upcoming PFT (which I have had for 8 previous years):
• Approximately one hour for testing.
• Albuterol, a bronchodilator, is used as part of this treatment to relax muscles in the airways and increase air flow to the lungs.
• The PFT measures how air flow, using a variety of breathing maneuvers.
• All PFTs completed at the hospital are over-read by a board-certified pulmonary physician.

Those expectations above are from their website. I also know that my cardiologist and I can obtain the analysis results on a CD sent after the test, and it comes with a comparison report to the previous year’s. My cardiologist wants to review all the records each year as well, and he has previous years in my file for a comparison. I have them too.

I spent the next part of my morning cleaning up and loading the rest of the dishes and washing them, and dealing with emails afterwards, before leaving the house for my stops in town today.

John left at 9:30 with the larger (Ford 350) truck loaded with stuff for the transfer station (aka, the dump). Then he will get bags of horse feed and Sunflower seeds. Next groceries, looking for sales. The F-350 uses lots of gas, so multi-purpose drive to town is appreciated. I used the Forester, as our timing didn’t let us go in one vehicle.

Photo back in the day by my friend EvieMae Schuetz, who grew up in Ellensburg and went to movies there as a child. She posted this photo from her past, this week on Facebook (You Know You’re from Ellensburg), and she received an incredible number of memories from others with their own memories of the old theater. It made for interesting reading. I’m sorry it was no longer in operation when I arrived in town.

John and I did go to the Roslyn, WA theater. I wonder if it still operates; looked it up, and it does! The general admission is $9 but being over 65 we can get in for $7.00. I also remember their being a drive-in theater in town, but it was no longer operational either. It was leveled eventually and replaced with more modern buildings.

This photo grabbed my attention because now it is where I go every Wednesday to the annex of the Liberty Theater for the Food Bank lunch. It is now the place where the downtown Calvary Baptist Church meets. The annex is their recreation/dining room.
My first stop was there today to set up for music. I took along a protein drink in case there was too much on the buffet I couldn’t eat, but it was fine. We played music for 40 minutes to an appreciative audience. There were a lot of people there today eating, and we had 4 singers and 4 instrumentalists. The building is in the center of town, so is very accessible.

After that, we had our food, once we’d packed up the music stands and chairs. Food today for me was spaghetti, a piece of sausage from a ravioli dish, mixed green salad/ranch dressing, fresh sliced apples and oranges, and a cake I took a bite of and brought the rest home to John. He got home about the same time as I did, helped me unload, and then he had leftover beef stew for his late lunch.

His day was worse than mine. (Item #4 of His Not so Nasty News, just prior comments on this.) He spent 2 hours in the dental chair for two fillings, and paid half of the bill ($500), plus scheduled another appointment for a crown for later in November.

I see the writing on the wall for medical (including dental) expenses for this year’s taxes. Three days later (Saturday) the temporary (plastic) crown came off. He cannot keep temporaries in his mouth for some reason. He’ll have to go in Monday to have another go at it. He is set for the real crown on the 21st!

I also went to Bi-Mart for some Fisherman’s Friends cough drops, Artificial Tears, and dry cat food. I got all but the Artificial Tears (none in stock), and also picked up a large bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide because I used the rest of what we had with doctoring the dog bite I received several weeks ago.

I went to the Senior Center to discuss plans for our Veterans’ Day celebration there on Nov 8. Our music group will be providing the music after lunch, of patriotic songs, and U.S. songs. Some program changes happened from last year we needed to plan for, so I was checking on that. I think we have it figured out now.

Boy is this a lovely colorful painting in the sky for the Halloween Eve’s sunset in the Kittitas Valley.
Halloween Eve Sunset by Lise McGowan, described later by Lise as, God did provide a masterpiece that night.

Thursday, Oct 31

John started the morning before I did and did all the outside chores. I have my work cut out for me, but had to take care of emails I was not expecting.

He’s back in at 11:40 a.m. to take care of brunch, for which I’m most grateful.

Worked on the Genworth Long Term Care Transfer Funds need. I eventually finished it and got into email. They received it but have not responded yet that it is completed. I await.

Called about Umpqua Bank problem. It took more than a day to resolve, and still is not apparently fixed. Calling Monday morning.

Started at 3:15 with Umpqua bank to remove cookies and straighten account problems so I can do a BILL PAY on line. This is really a PITA. I had a 9-minute wait for Tech Support after going through the first person Alysa in Roseburg, OR.
Another agent, named Chase, changed one thing, re-activated it and I’m set to go in 15 minutes from now (it’s 3:44). I talked to his supervisor to thank Chase for his service. However, I waited all weekend and the bill pay I submitted did not go through, so have to wait until Monday morning to call Umpqua to notify them.
What a helluva afternoon.

Received this morning from Cameron Fries (White Heron Cellars & Mariposa Vineyard), this note, “In case you didn’t see it” he sent a link to the Spokane NWS blog “Coldest October”, and he went on to say that this was their latest harvest ever. John will get the scoop on the ripeness, sugar levels, and so on – next time he goes over.
John does check this blog, but they don’t publish regularly, so he had not seen this specific one.

Coldest October in the Inland NW in a long time

We have certainly noticed the cold weather in October, but we also had not seen this blog report.

Day continued to get worse. Fixing the problem with the Umpqua bank online and deleting cookies DID affect more than just my bank transactions. It affected all my Gmail account passwords, and Facebook access, and Jacquie Lawson access, and probably more I haven’t yet found. It’ll be a cold day in hell before I ever do that again. I also have updated my list for John in case I’m not around when he has to access something. He doesn’t use Google Chrome as his browser. I could not switch to Edge because the bank does not support that browser. So, I had no choice. Now that I know the final reason it could not be accessed, I realize I did not have to delete all my cookies. Too late.
I THINK after a lot of wasted time, I have retrieved all my logins.
We still haven’t had supper.

Friday, Nov 1

Normal morning chores for each of us.
Get ready for going to Seattle. John has the directions there and it’s about a 2-hr drive. The event will start at 2:00 at the Mountaineers’ place. He has printed our instructions. We will wear our WTA labeled shirts to be dressed appropriately for the Volunteer Recognition Event. We navigate around the University of Washington, they have a football game with Utah.
Checked Motor Trend; and PayPal deductions we didn’t intend to make on a credit card account.

John dealt with Vanguard and we have spent incredible time on line with these two issues all morning. Vanguard is changing from mutual funds only to a more full service brokerage system. Their term is “transition”, and it just makes work for us.

One is allowed only to dispute CITI BANK VISA charges within 90 days, so read and check everything immediately when a statement arrives, especially on John’s account. But obviously on mine as well.

Motor Trend “on demand digital site” refunded 6 months’ worth of the last year’s incorrect charges ($29.94), because of niceness of an agent. It was part of the free 14-day subscription notice on line, so let’s not do that again for any magazine. Go through College Subscription Services, as we do with all other magazines. It was included in the online thing John did for the paper copy (at a good price, $18 for two years), but we will not renew that in the future. It cost us ~ $45 for this mistake.

Now John is out removing a tree off the fence that fell from Brashler’s property east of us. He mentioned it in his Friday column (‘Strays’, Not So Nasty News, so please refer there, and for other interesting comments, if you haven’t read them.

Saturday, Nov 2

Long day, for which we left later than we should have for Seattle. Most of the distance was in I-90, but it ends south of the City, junctioning with I-5, the Mexico to Canada, west coast major highway. The traffic was awful on I-5. Stop and crawl for miles. We finally made it to the Mountaineers’ place on Sand Point Way.
The Sand Point neighborhood of Seattle is northeast of the City’s center. The peninsula is the location of former Naval Station Puget Sound.

History, here.

Sand Point is the peninsula, Lake Washington to the east, with Pontiac and Wolf bays, north and south, respectively.We wanted to miss the UW area, so stayed on I-5 to about the level of Pontiac Bay. Then we cut across through an interesting old neighborhood using NE 95th Street. A quick search suggests that 95th Street is a boundary between a couple of “known” neighborhoods. Something to look into.John drove I-90 to North Bend, WA and I drove the rest of the way with him navigating. Back the same, and I drove to Issaquah for a Costco gas fill-up, and he drove the rest of the way home. We didn’t make it until 7:30 p.m.

WTA Volunteer Recognition Event, 11-2-2019

Sunday, Nov 3

John reset all the clocks, did morning chores outside, and visited with a neighbor at the road. I worked in the house: taking pictures off from yesterday. Worked on editing them some. Sent emails needing attention.

We fixed brunch and finished it. I cooked us 3 eggs over easy (1 for John), he cooked sausage patties, and fixed our toast, and opened a can of peaches. I had my neighbor’s Apricot homemade preserves on mine. Now alternating between the blog and other chores.

Okay, John just closed his computer and went outside. Now I can do things on line using the Internet and it won’t mess up his searching.

We decided yesterday not to take the Geology Field trip field trip by Nick Zentner to Drumheller Channels. We had gone on a trip over 10 years ago behind closed / locked gates with a summer intern I had there. He took John and me to some sites (say of the start of the irrigation system for the Columbia Basin), which few in the public are privy too. It was an interesting experience.
We do love Nick’s field trips and lectures, but this one was not timed well for us with other activities this weekend and coming week with two doctors, dentist, and events for Veterans’ Day (in advance).

A final photo by Lise McGowen. The little bump on the horizon is Mt. Rainier. Thanks, Lise.Lise’s comment about her photograph: I walked out to our back pasture to capture yet another amazing sunset! Of course, I was surrounded by our beautiful horses! They were very curious as to what all the excitement was about! Lots of nudges, photo bombs, sniffing my camera, etc …and then they went back to grazing! It was fun to hang with them this evening!!! Tonight was an “Evening of Solitude!” Blessings to you all!!

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Flash back to Scott Niccolai’s talk in last week’s blog about Stream Restoration. John found this reference accidentally while searching for photos of a helicopter moving logs. Caption: People watch helicopter lift logs to be placed in stream for habitat restoration.
Helicoptering in Logs for the Northwest’s Largest River Restoration

Monday, Oct 21

I’ll start off the week, with more awesome photos from my friend in Michigan of her friends, the Sandhill Cranes. Hope you like these as much as I do.Autumn leaves flight and fluttering of wings Early morning stroll and foraging

John’s out feeding Myst her concentrated food. She is putting on some weight. Our vet, Dr. Dan, stopped by the other evening on his way home (he lives a mile NE of us on Charlton Rd, and took a look at her. She has gained weight, but we’d like another month of good weather. Instead it feels like winter. Report is that winter just hit Boulder, CO. Here is what the NWS thinks the remainder of the week will be like there:If the high of 18°F, on Wednesday, happens it will set several cold records for the date and the season. Holy Cow!

Here on the Naneum Fan, a gal came for the pine cones we put into a 5-gallon bucket for her, and brought me a blouse and a hand-knit scarf she made. I had never seen one like it before. It’s close to an infinity scarf, if you look up images on google. I will likely wear it for the Raclette at White Heron, coming near the new year.

This afternoon, I drove to the Kittitas P.O. and submitted an extension tax form. Best place to go where I was the only one at the counter and handled rapidly. The best 10 mile trip I can make for such needs. The wait at the Ellensburg USPS is often met with a long line out the door, with only two agents (if you’re lucky).

Tuesday, Oct 22

We stayed home today. John’s done his outside chores in high wind gusts, but he was wearing his full coveralls.

I have been working on scheduling, emails, medications, updating my Medic Alert information (on line, changing providers and medications list), helping give Glenn Engels some information about donating food to the FISH food bank. He is starting to empty the house where his mom lived. I never mentioned about our friend, his Mom, Anne Engels. She died a couple of weeks ago at Fire Island, her favorite place on Earth, while vacationing there for September and October. She has made that trip as long as Glenn can remember.

Soon, we will be having brunch: egg, pancake, & peaches.

Working on my addition to Medic Alert meds at the moment. Just updated doctors (only PCP & Cardiologist). And ready to change emergency back up to Geography secretary, and add another friend as 3rd contact. Spent a lot of time updating my medications list, with dosages and frequency.

Called two places to update my vaccination history. Flu shot this year (10/7), and am up-to-date on pneumonia shots. Cle Elum mailed me that record, which didn’t arrive until Saturday.

Changes in schedule this week; add Scholarship luncheon group, this Friday, at the Tower Theatre lobby on campus.

High winds blew all night, and continued early here this morning, but the airport didn’t start registering them until 9:00 a.m.— then hourly, it has reported: Gusts: 32, 41, 45, 49, 44, 47, 47, 39, 38, 30, 31, 29. Gets worse later this week.

Afternoon snack, fruit cake; later, Cheez-its. I worked alternately on the computer, emails, filing, planning music attendance for this week and looking forward to the Veterans’ Day presentation at the Senior Center on Nov. 8.

Sustained wind speed has been consistently in the 30s, & dropped to the 20s at 4:00 p.m.

Supper: Cauliflower, ham with elbow macaroni, and a great apple creation baked by John using Red Delicious apples from high up in a 37-year old tree. [via 1st owners of our house] He cut and sprinkled cinnamon on those, added cashews, and a batter made from pancake mix.

We have been busy getting our voting ballots done tonight. I can put them in the ballot box when I go by the Courthouse to the Food Bank Lunch tomorrow at Liberty Theater annex on 5th. Our ballot has a dozen ‘advisory’ items – we get to express our feelings about these, but the legislators get to ignore them.

Too much time spent on projects; not going to bed until too late.

Wednesday, Oct 23

Get ready for Food Bank lunch and music. Fixed a protein drink just in case the pasta is not okay. I brought it home. Had spaghetti and one piece of chicken from a pesto pasta (but didn’t take any pasta), fruit (including mango, papaya, pineapple, & pear on cottage cheese, and a little of the mixed salad, mostly ate halved cherry tomatoes.

As planned, I went by the ballot box and deposited our ballots. Stopped by Dollar Tree and searched for nylon bags (in with laundry bags) but none were available. Shipment arrived today and needs to be processed. A clerk took my name and phone # and will call me when / if it comes in (they never did). Needed to get John some tooth picks too, but they also did not have the kind I was looking for in the dental section.

I’m dealing with music for future Veterans’ Day celebration at the Senior Center, Nov 8, doing our patriotic and USA songs (13 of them).

Supper: Lasagna, chicken nuggets, and fried shrimp. Dessert: best part was the apple creation from last night, heated, and topped with vanilla ice cream.

Thursday, Oct 24

This morning, after an hour outside, John came in and we set up to give him a much-needed haircut. I managed to do a nice job in just over a half hour. We are both very pleased.

I started the morning by soaking dishes, which need to be loaded into the dishwasher. Called in the count for chairs for music today. I also responded to a horribly constructed telephone evaluation of my yesterday’s quite positive experience dealing with a customer service representative at Genworth Life about our Long Term Care Insurance Policy. The prices keep increasing yearly (as expected). We hope never to need it, but it is important to have. This year’s amount is going up from last year’s by $1,093.97 to a total of $4,740.95. Official notification will not arrive in our mail until Nov.20th, but I received the amount, when inquiring, as I was setting up an automatic electronic funds transfer to go from our checking account directly to the company, without having to write and send a check.

I’m going to Hearthstone today. We had a huge turnout (a baker’s dozen) and a large audience who enjoyed singing along with us.

This evening we are attending a talk at the Kittitas County Historical Museum presented by Harriet Baskas, “Washington on Wheels: Odd and Innovative Transportation Ideas from the Pacific Northwest.”Here’s my discreetly obtained from my lap, video of the lecture, put “unlisted” on YouTube. Please be careful how you distribute this. Just watch it for your own pleasure and education.
Washington on Wheels: PNW Unusual Travel Modes

Friday, Oct 25

John completed his normal early morning outside activities. I worked inside on mine but only made a slight dent.

RSVP’d “no” to David Bederman’s “legacy” lunch/lecture in Atlanta, GA at Emory University. David was the son of Sandy, my main geography professor at Georgia State. David was a specialist in Law of the Sea activities.

I went to the scholarship luncheon meeting on campus. Met our new member, Sarah Feeney and mom Bonnie, (missed meeting her baby). She was sleeping and I forgot to look in the carriage on my way out. I was there early, so I could leave for all my appointments in town.

Today’s offerings were good, especially with a second story view of falling yellow leaves. We had turkey chili with beans, topped with shredded cheddar cheese, Mini-Fritos and a small chunk of cornbread, there was a salad, but I didn’t have any because of the greens included, and a sugar cookie for dessert.

From there I went to Safeway, to get colas for John on a special 4 for 69₵ each (2-liter bottles). Then on to the $ Tree to look for wooden tooth picks for him. Our dental hygienist gave him fancy mint flavored things. Nothing at all was there, so still looking.

Left there for the bank to pick up my 4 copies of duplicates of our checking account checks so I can VOID one, which has all the routing numbers and account number on it to send to Genworth Life Insurance with our request for an Electronic Funds Transfer in 2020. That went smoothly and because I was there on a Friday, that is the bank’s day to put out donut holes next to the coffee pots for people to have. Today, it had more things on the food tray, so I took two large M&M cookies to bring home.

On my way home, I stopped at Bi-Mart and first looked in the dental section, finding no such wooden toothpicks, so I sought regular toothpicks in the grocery section and hit the jackpot. I had the choice of two boxes, only 99₵ each, one with 750 picks in it, and the other with only 250. Checking the difference, I found that the 750 were FLAT and the 250 were ROUND. The flat was definitely what I needed, and I was pleased. We figure the price difference (by type & number), is that there is a lot more wood wasted in the production of the round ones. Interesting. Flat is superior in this case, anyway. There wasn’t more than a dozen of the picks, if that, in the little sample container given to John by the hygienist, so this is a much better solution.

Once home, I was in the kitchen reaching for something in the refrigerator, the electrical power shut down without warning, right before 3:00, at 2:54 p.m.

I called two neighbors to be sure it was not just our isolated problem. Then I called the Kittitas PUD (Public Utility District) at 933-7200, shortly after 3:00 p.m., to report the outage. At that time, I was only the second person calling in, and no details were yet known. The woman I spoke with (Mary-Dawn) was only working until 4:00 in the office, and told me I could call back the same number and press “zero,” for updates. She registered our reported outage, also took my phone number for a call back when power was restored. I told her I would know when it was restored, because the lights would come on, but thanked her and accepted the offer.

Obviously, with no electricity, we had no connection to the Internet. Our landline was working until the battery needed recharged. I actually had other phones I could have used, but didn’t need to. I’ll present a photograph taken from a report on the web on Community Connect Kittitas County Facebook site, I received after the fact from a friend in upper county who had seen it, and saved it. Red oval shows where top of tree snapped off. Below right of that is the remainder of the pole, with the top upright on the yellow road lines. Cross arms are left hanging in the middle of the road, held up by the wires. Pieces of the tree are in the road, in shadow, around the pole. Hard to see – this was a copy from a ‘Facebook’ post by a PUD worker.Tree across the road that sheared the pole (orangeish thing on left) on its way down from the high winds. Spot is at a small bridge.

Obviously, we would have no access to the web or to lights when it gets dark about 5:30 p.m. Phones are working and that’s about it. My laptop is operating on its battery, so I can proceed with a few things, just not email, where I imagine there are several messages waiting for me from my several hours away today, 10:30 to 2:20 p.m. At the time I wrote that, I wasn’t even thinking that my batteries were not being charged without the electricity on. By the time I looked at my computer, it only had 1 hr. + a little left, so I turned it off.

We still have leftover frosted brownies made by Karen Eslinger from last night’s KCHM lecture. I wish I had a way of heating water to make coffee to have with the brownie. Perhaps I’ll just have cold coffee or a PowerAdeZero drink. These sorts of outages are usually fixed in under 4 hours, so we haven’t gone to “survival” mode, yet.

The wind is severely blowing. John checked when I got home and I think he said it was a high of 47. I think it was much higher on my drive home, and now outside everything is being picked up and thrown around. I hope he stays out from under trees with limbs that might fall on him. He is outside working now.

Here are the winds of the day: Don’t miss the 60 mph gust before 4:00 p.m. Broken pole is 3 miles from the airport weather station.

Whoopee! Just off the phone with Laura at the Cle Elum Clinic requesting mailing of a handicapped sticker okay for the state. CWU has eliminated the sticker for on campus only parking which I use about 9 times a year to access the Discovery Building in the middle of campus for IAF & geology science lectures, the first Thursday of each month (except summers). The only access close to the building, now is only handicapped parking, previously, there were 8. They recently switched all 10 parking spaces to only handicapped. I have the CWU Parking permit that is also required with the CWU h/c sticker, but it expires Dec 1, this year, and after that I am only allowed there with a state one, which it has to have a doctor’s approval, before I can get one from the vehicle licensing department. My CWU Emeritus Parking Sticker Permit does not expire until December 31, 2020.

Still no electricity. This is not as serious as people in CA are experiencing, so no complaints here.
We finally got our power back at 5:54 p.m., 3 hours after it went off.

However, friends on Game Farm Road, ¼ mile from the downed telephone pole still do not have power this evening. They must have re-routed ours, but those closest to the break will be the last restored. Many folks in the Kittitas, WA area (some on PSE, another utility district) were also without power. There are similar events, with road closures from dust, over a large area.

Saturday, Oct 26

Home today trying to pick up the pieces from yesterday’s power outage that affected so many people’s lives. I had other needs but those got put on the back burner while the power was off. Maybe it is time to clean up the wood stove, before winter does come.

I need to update my vaccine record at Medic Alert, and this morning’s mail brought my history, but I need to add to it, a flu shot I had Oct 7, 2019. Also, we both had notices for our upcoming wellness and chronic ailment appointments, but I have to call Monday to find out why the supposedly “attached” paperwork to fill out in advance was not included. That happened last year as well, and we had to fill it out in the waiting room (not the best place to do such stuff – having to rely on memory only). Feels like we already saw this movie. [Déjà vu, some would say.]

I had washed a load of dishes this morning, which were meant to be done yesterday afternoon. John has been out taking care of several projects, he is working on alternately. He says he is using different muscle groups so as to not stress any, and getting cramps later. I’m doing the same thing inside the house.

He took time to come in and fix brunch: Sausage patty, with blueberry/pecan pancakes, and bowl of cut canned peaches.

We both worked on afternoon projects, John’s mostly outside, except when a strong wind whipped up, and blew him in the door, because it got dark, and threatening, as if a hurricane was impending. Amazingly, it only sprinkled here, but others in town and in Thorp got a short but heavy rainstorm. After a while, the sun came out, the wind stopped, and John returned outside. Feels like the weather spirits went crazy.

I used the time he was out for the next couple of hours to upload the video I took Thursday evening.

Supper: Fried chicken thighs from the freezer (actually from Safeway’s cheap chicken Monday), with French fries, and beets. Dessert of a brownie and M&M cookies.

John’s in bed, and I’m on my way. Will continue in the morning working on this blog.

Sunday, Oct 27

Home today working on the blog and many other projects. John’s already come in and eaten leftovers for lunch, and I am having a late one.

I finished lunch and was cleaning up preparing to get back on the blog, and to set up washing clothes, when John came in and I asked him to allow time tomorrow to deal with some of the shoes we got a few weeks ago. Instead, he brought a large cardboard box to the front porch. There are 10 boxes of nice shoes and a black lawn-bag filled with casual shoes and belts. I recorded shoes and sizes to share with someone on Tuesday. Now I will just process these and return to it later after the blog is completed. I took the pix from the camera. Hope to complete this shoe and clothing home-finding process real soon now.

Completed the communication between a Thorp friend and a Naneum Fan friend; I was the intermediary.
Managed to start the clothes washer, finally, at 3:20 p.m. Now most is dried, but I need to empty the dryer and put in the socks and panties on a lower heat.

John came in and heated beef stew (from the freezer) for dinner. This was from a couple of months ago, but he hadn’t dated it.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Starting off this week with the Harvest Moon.Harvest Moon over Kittitas Valley by Lise McGowan. (Mt. Rainier)

Monday, Oct 14

Today’s display is another Sandhill Crane photo from my friend, (see last week’s pair fly over):Nice take-off, Sandhill Crane from a lake in a local park in Michigan, captured by Maude Buzcek, my friend since 6th grade.

We are scheduled to be at the foot doctor in Ellensburg at 8:30 a.m. for a scheduled toenail cut. We picked the early time so we wouldn’t have to wait a long while. Hope it’s is worth the effort. It only took 15 minutes, once the doctor arrived, but we were accepted as we walked in, and placed in a very cold room.

Once home I received a call from Yakima Heart Center’s, Medical Assistant, Kim that Dr. Krueger wants labs drawn prior to my Nov. 5 appointment. They’ll be in the mail. All scheduled for 10/29, with my other standing order, so one blood draw will satisfy all.

On the phone with Vanguard getting help on Date acquired, form 1099-B on the Turbotax form. It’s missing on my form. Turns out it was because the dates acquired were split in several places, and impossible to divide. I just used the skip over and accept anyway, without.

I delivered messages about the passing of my friend to the people in the community who were involved with her, after receiving the okay from her son. I called Brad & Burke with my credit card # to pay my invoice for the recent winterizing checkup. The receipt is being mailed to add to my records.

Crazy busy with tax form and getting help from John. He is not good at writing down the volunteer trips, although they go on the hard drive as he schedules them. Log book in the car is another matter. He says, next week he will explain the term “log” as used in this sense.

Tuesday, Oct 15

Here is a beautiful way to start your day, with this autumn leaves photo of a lake in our town. I love the water’s reflection.A winning photo of Carey Lake by my friend, Evie Schuetz.

I’m staying home all day to work on taxes, so I need something beautiful to view.

Got through to Brandy at Umpqua bank and she’s ordered what I need for Mortgage Interest that was not properly sent on a 1098 Form. It should have come by Wednesday, but it didn’t. Maybe Thursday. Still wasn’t back by Friday, but they checked another source in their bank records, and found the information I needed.

Also, I contacted Vanguard, and know how to digitally transfer funds from our checking account to investments portfolio, securely, at no cost. I need to show the procedure to John. We have been too busy to sit down and go through it.

I’m working on taxes, but took a break to follow a noise outside and saw John mowing, or actually going or coming to where he did now. He came in & fixed us a brunch: Ham, eggs, and a blueberry-pecan pancake.

I soaked and loaded dishes. Dishes we dirty and dishes we clean. Continuing process.

Called Gerald Gordon and remembered to wish him a happy 70th anniversary. Quite an accomplishment.

Supper tonight was roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, with corn-on-the-cob.

Wednesday, Oct 16

Speaking of Big Horn Sheep – This will put a smile on your face to see the smile on this face. A beautiful animal “captured” by Tony Bynum

My day started too early, and I never got a nap this afternoon.

Wrote ladies at ECCC about clothing removal & my friend. Haven’t heard back yet. Have contacted another church group, and I hope this may work out.

I fixed a protein drink for lunch and got ready for Food Bank music.

Afterward, I went for my INR at KVH. The INR was 2.4. I shall go for recheck in 2 weeks, when I can combine with the labs for my Nov 5th visit with my Cardiologist.

I was having trouble with my TurboTax Premier software, being unable to get the tax form to insert correctly in the step-by-step procedure. I finally got through to an agent who was very helpful. The first 15 minutes of frustration had to be spent with a robot spelling out our long email account, and be understood. I was speaking clearly and slowly. God, I hate those front end answering machines when the end is a person I could have started with originally.

I’m very tired of tax preparation. I realize now I should be picking a day every month for putting receipts into an Excel spreadsheet so the tallying is easy by keeping every month up-to-date, throughout the year.

Supper was leftover roast beef, potatoes, gravy, and adding asparagus+cheese, and pears.

It’s raining again (and has most of the day).

I worked a lot on mileage for medical and volunteer service tonight. Need to add John’s WTA mileage, and that will push it up higher on our volunteer service donations. Mine is mostly music, occasionally 3 days/week, on the 3rd week of the month.

Thursday, Oct 17

All normal morning inside and outside activities.

I’m going to Pacifica this afternoon for music, and this evening, we’re going to the Kittitas Audubon meeting to hear a talk on Habitat Restoration, by Scott Niccolai. I’ll film it.

I picked up 2 crispy chicken sandwiches from Burger King on the way home for our early supper.

For the KAS Meeting, I took my dues and camera with tripod. We got there early to set up.

The meeting was late starting as the expected talk was preceded by a half-hour club meeting.Scott Niccolai-KAS, 10-17-19, Habitat Restoration

The presentation was Habitat Restoration by Scott Niccolai, who has been a Habitat Biologist with the Yakama Nations for 28 years, spoke about the Kittitas Valley/Yakima River watershed. He has had projects most recently in the Teanaway, the Yakima, and other smaller streams. The emphasis will be on fisheries, but he’ll have lots of other information (and pictures) on birds and wildlife to share as well. After all, we are all interconnected! Scott is a Central Washington University graduate, with a Masters in Environmental Management from Evergreen State.

Scott Niccolai-KAS, 10-17-19, Discussion

Ending this with reminders of our wealth of knowledge acquired this evening:The Swift Story (you’ll have to view the video to learn of), and the connection to our town.
A few riparian restoration issues (left), with Gloria Baldi greeting Kenneth Hammond. Ken was a professor when Scott was in college here.

Friday, Oct 18

We spent the day working on taxes, mostly on mileage for medical-related services and for WTA volunteer activities.

We had a brunch of ham & scrambled eggs with cheese, toast.

John completed his normal outside activities. I worked inside on mine.

Supper was left over (from the freezer) pizza. Dessert will be cookie dough frozen pie, (now thawed).

Saturday, Oct 19

This morning, I’m uploading a video to YouTube from Thursday night. That ruins the web connection for other activities, so John worked outside packing his truck with garbage bags to take to the transfer station (aka the dump). He paid $22 to dispose of 400#. Also went by Knudson’s to buy some concrete blocks for his loading dock he’s building – for uses to be determined. Maybe load the big lawn mower for travel. Otherwise, the volume behind the front will be a depository for busted concrete and some of our over abundance of rocks. As well, he bought more Senior Equine pellets and some crushed corn, Black Oil Sunflower seeds, and a 50# salt block with Selenium {a necessary trace element; toxic in excess}.

I went to Briarwood to play music and we were served a fantastic food fare: Lee made chicken soup with carrots, celery, huge pieces of white chicken, with noodles; salads (fruit salad, orange Jell-O chiffon, and a green pea and ham salad. Jo Ellen gathered the items on the dessert table, contributing several kinds of cookies she made (ginger, peanut butter, sugar, and someone else made chocolate chip, another made little white fancy pinwheel sugar cookies with orange and black sprinkles (for Halloween)—the whole room was decorated for the last day of the month, and Lee added some homemade pumpkin bread and banana bread to the dessert table.

On my way home, I went by Fred Meyer for a special 3-day sale on Red Baron (Supreme) pizza, Jimmy Dean (Regular) sausage rolls, and Progresso Chicken & Wild Rice soup. I bought the limit of 5 each of the pizza and the sausage for $1.99 each, and got the soup for 99₵/can by buying 8 (otherwise, $1.49/can). Our survival pantry is good for a major earthquake or snowstorm. I also bought a gallon of vanilla ice cream because we are almost out. It rained on me coming and going all the way home, where it had not yet rained, but did later!

Been working some on job announcements after ignoring that process need for 2 days.

Sunday, Oct 20

John drove to the Kittitas Highway to load 6 wood pallets, being given away. Not that we need them. Projects?Search images for wood pallet projects and see multi-possibilities.

Returned to fix us a brunch of a blueberry/pecan pancake, peaches, maple syrup, and shaved (thinly sliced) ham, from a rugby ball-shaped mass inside a plastic package. How do they do that?

Now he’s out picking up Annie-poo and cutting back raspberries; and the rain has resumed.

We thought Izzy might be stopping by for the bucket of pine cones today, but that is looking less likely at mid-afternoon.

Supper crafted by John was a chicken & veggie casserole with elbow macaroni, mushroom soup, and French’s-like crispy fried onions. Dessert after the cookie dough pie is eaten, will be a fruitcake from Christmas past John found while cleaning out the chest freezer.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Monday, Oct 7

I was in the house for the most part, but did take a trip up to the end of the driveway, with my camera, to record John’s latest landscaping project to plant a new tulip garden around a pine tree. He will have to encircle with a fence, however, because deer love to eat tulips.

He’s having to dig through bunches of rocks of various sizes because of our location on an alluvial fan. I took photos of the process and will only put a couple here, but will store the whole tour in one link on Google Photos to share with you. John put a photo in last week’s blog to show you the pretty peach color they will be.

Above left to right: Spot at the end of the driveway, tulip bed to be around the middle tree. Rocks are removed and sifted, with dirt retained and added to mixture with sand and manure to use as the soil. The mixture is growing to the left, in the left-most photo. Our truck load of sand is slowly diminishing as projects like this, or the garden, need a gritty addition. As for leaves, pine needles, and horse manure – we have a limitless supply. The rocks go for other projects.

Our feral cats and dog come along as companions. You’ll see their photos in the set below.

I encourage you to take the Google Photos tour of the northeast edge of our property, below. Be sure to have the Info set and look at each photo with the information to the right of the photograph. Click on the link below to be transported to the photos:

Google Photos Tour of Rock’nPonderosa

We went to town and picked up a package from a friend, and then went on to Super 1 pharmacy to our favorite pharmacist for a flu shot for each of us. That went well and while there, we also picked up a prescription for me.

On to the bank to deposit 3 checks. Two were refunds from the doctor because they had billed both of us for work because our deductible was not yet paid. I knew it had been, but they wanted it, so I wrote the check. We were refunded over $50. Crazy! The other was a tax refund check, which paid for my time and effort itemizing all my medical deductions to get more money off than taking the standard deduction allows.

From there to Safeway for another prescription for John (through GoodRx), and to get some Progresso soup on sale at a good price, 99₵/can if we purchased 8. We like one type more than any other, so that’s all we got. Wild rice with chicken & veggies. Then we always add something more to it, such as mushrooms.

Tuesday, Oct 8

I first went to the Ellensburg Adult Activity Center (Senior Center) for a Senior Advisory Commission meeting.

When it was over, I went to the hospital lab for a recheck on my INR for my blood thinner. It was lower than expected so we will be rechecking it again next Tuesday.

Checked our numbers at Bi-Mart and we won nothing. I went by Safeway for my $3.00 refund.

John stayed home to meet a technician from Brad & Burke to winterize our Heat Pump. He opened the unit and found the connection to the power supply with a serious issue. Connections are made using a plastic wire-nut – red, yellow, and orange, in the photo. The photo is from the web. John didn’t think to take a photo.

In this photo, only the red wire-nut is still intact. A connection once covered by the orange nut got hot and burned that connection. That damaged the yellow one, also. Although not this far along, our main power wire was close to burning through its connection to the heat-pump. Off went the circuit breaker; repairs needed but the service tech is not an electrician so for the next 24 hours our house had to be heated in another way. John immediately set up a couple of oil-filled electric heaters of the style shown here. These kept the house warm, not toasty, overnight.

When I got home I set about making contact with our electrician friend Jennifer, but had to call her sister first.

I worked on some surplus clothes. They are in a bag to take to Karen tomorrow for the Cancer Thrift Store.

The leather jacket is in a bag to take to WTA event at 6:00 at Iron Horse Brewery. We have another solution to get the coat back to Seattle’s main WTA office to our friend Kara there.

WTA staff from Seattle decided against coming across the snow-covered pass, and Beth Macinko stepped in, coming down from Leavenworth to lead the proceedings and introduce our two speakers Oct 8, in Ellensburg, WA:

• Michelle Capp, Cle Elum District Ranger for the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest
• Ethan Lockwood, Public Engagement Coordinator for the
Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust

Michelle Capp with Ethan Lockwood-9 min. of his talk

Below is a link to the still photos taken that evening, by Beth Macinko and me:
Google Photos WTA Meeting, Iron Horse Brewery, 10-8-19

Ethan and Michelle shared their in-depth knowledge of recreation in the Upper Yakima Basin – a region that stretches from the Stuart Range to the North, the Yakama Reservation to the South, the Cascade Crest to the West, and the communities of Yakima and Ellensburg to the East. This landscape corresponds with the eastern portions of Kittitas & Yakima Counties.

We were invited to the meeting at the Iron Horse Brewery & Pub, to eat, raise a glass with friends and chat about the places where we all love to play outside. Our feedback will help shape the future of sustainable recreation in the entire Upper Yakima Basin.
Another two such planning meetings are scheduled for Nov 1 and 2 in Ellensburg and Cle Elum.

Wednesday, Oct 9

We were awakened this morning by 4 raccoons climbing and making noises out front. Oops! We forgot to bring a bowl of cat food in last night. John thinks this was a mama with offspring. We had not seen any since last year.

Good we were awakened, because we had to leave for Hearthstone at 8:20 for a retired geographers meeting. I had to stay in town, and John had to get home before 11:30 to meet Jennifer to have her fix the electrical connection.
We left with utensils, plates, for Jo’s homemade apple cake. I took my violin in out of the cold, to take for music at Food Bank.

John started with feeding pressed pellets, flaked corn, and apples to Myst. She appears to be gaining weight. They are all getting hay.

When I got home, I checked my computer and found this photo posted by my friend since 6th grade, “Nancy J” (Maude Buscek). She changed her name later in life, from Nancy to Maude. I knew her as Nancy Johnson and I was “Nancy B” (Nancy Brannen). We sang around town at events as a pair, using guitars.

Sand hill Cranes in Michigan in a local park, by Maude Buszek

There is a migration south through Washington, centered near Othello, an hour east of us. The 23rd annual festival will be next March, with 35,000 cranes expected. This sunset was tonight in the Kittitas Valley by Lise McGowan.

Thursday, Oct 10

John stayed home hoping to get a couple of projects completed before snow falls. Freezing temperatures have already occurred, but most days have been nice.

Brunch was created by John: a blueberry/pecan pancake, one egg over easy, and thin ham.

I arranged for the chairs for this afternoon’s music at Meadows Place, and was surprised that 4 more people showed up than originally planned. We had enough chairs and space to accommodate them. Had expected 8, and ended up with a dozen. It went well, and the audience was happy to add voices to the music.

Supper was different for each of us. John had pork steak, fries, and peaches, I had a pre-frozen dinner, Roasted Turkey, potatoes, dressing, gravy, green beans & carrots; and peaches.

I spent time on computer projects, and email. We are going to bed early.

Friday, Oct 11

We are staying home today, except for my taking one short trip a little over an hour, to go fill my gas tank. Price of gas is very high now. I drove to Exxon, and found it for $3.15/gal. I also went by the feed store to buy more Senior Equine for Myst. John’s feeding about 10#/day.

Came home and found things to do I wasn’t planning on. Heard about the unexpected death of a friend. Her son doesn’t hear well so we communicate via e-mail. He was a student at CWU, and from that we met her, then living in Montana. She moved here, but was traveling (NYC) when she died. That’s all we know, now.

I added some photos from Tuesday night taken by Beth Macinko to the photos I had put out on Google Photos.

With the power outages in CA, we wondered how friends in Eureka were coping. We spent 48 minutes with Michelle & Bruce Seivertson. They had just one day with no grid power, but had a generator. Mostly we just caught up with visiting.

Saturday, Oct 12

We had our lunch: blueberry pecan pancake (BPP) and peaches for me; BPP and the remainder of the pork steak for John. A couple of years ago one of the grocery stores had a sale on 3 pound bags of frozen blueberries. They should have been used by now, so we are catching up with that.

The event of the day: a 2-year old’s birthday and Family Reunion of folks we have known since 1975. We’re invited. Natalie and her family, Mike, Nora, Natalie, and Sarah
Sarah and Mike Sandman are the parents, living 6 miles from us. Mike’s mother (Christina) thinks we first met her when she was 14.

The party started mid-afternoon with us getting home a little before 8:00 p.m. This was their oldest girl, Natalie’s 2nd birthday party. Younger sister is Eleanor (Nora), 6 months.

The party included supper with several kinds of pizza and salads, dips, chips, and with cake and cherry ice cream for dessert. At the dinner table, with John, Bob & Karen Oppie (great grandparents), Nancy reminiscing about our entry into the family in 1975 through field trials and Brittanys.

Opening gifts Saturday @ party & Sunday AM Natalie with Ponies

Our gift (a set of colorful plastic ponies) for Natalie had 3 bows on it with a nice card with pink on it in a pink envelope. We carried it in a gift bag with a horse on each side, which Natalie noticed as we arrived. All is reminiscent of our meeting the great grandparents of the little girl in 1975 field trialing our Brittanys (with horses). We have been part of the family since then; gone to most of the Oppies’s children’s weddings, and to many family celebration parties near Issaquah and Maple Valley. This was a combined family party with kids and adults, from as far away as Redmond, OR, for two great grandparents.

Myst did not get her extra Senior Equine grain and apples tonight because it was dark when we got home.

I managed to get dental deductions added to a tax form tonight via an Excel spreadsheet.

Sunday, Oct 13

Up early when awakened by the rain at 4:30 a.m., and back to bed.

John, Annie, and Czar have been out to feed Myst, get the mail from yesterday.

John returned Annie & Czar and then finished mowing part of the backyard that is fenced. I stayed in to take care of bill paying, organizing the mail, and other needs with the computer system.

I spent a bunch of time getting our Chase VISA account for Amazon.com fixed to get monthly statements for the medical records needed for taxes. Now tomorrow I have to call the phone number for Chase to see if I can request changing the pharmacy bills to be recognized as medical prescription payments and not as groceries. Reason is because Chase provides a 2% rebate, but only if it says Pharmacy, which my actual receipt does, but that is not reflected on the account.
This month’s statement had $119.06 for three different pharmacies – Kaiser Permanente Mail Order Pharmacy (filed under Health & Wellness (need to check to see if the discount was applied), Super 1 and Safeway (filed under groceries). If all are considered as they should be, this payment would be decreased by $ 2.38.

Well, on Sunday afternoon, I called Customer service and got through to an agent who clarified I was getting the 2% from Kaiser Permanente but only 1% from the Grocery Stores (Safeway and Super 1 Pharmacies) because of the set up the merchants have with Chase. I’ll call both managers of the grocery stores to see if they can separate the Pharmacy from the Grocery store, but my guess is it won’t happen. I’ll continue to use my Amazon.com Prime card to pay for all my medications.
At least I will have them all on the same account listing.

I received photos taken yesterday at the birthday party, and downloaded them to put in the blog above. Thanks to Jeff Sandman (father of Mike) for sending them to me this morning.

I’ve been working on finishing the blog, and organizing other things, loading dishes, and washing them so we have stuff to eat from and with.

I’m also processing the photos I took on Monday of John making a new tulip garden, by moving a lot of rocks from our Naneum Alluvial Fan! You’ve had a chance to see that story through Google Photos above, and if you missed it, go back up for a tour.

Next thing is to put in all my medications for the week – a normal Sunday chore.

We had our brunch and are back at work. John came in and fixed a can of Progresso Soup with chicken wild rice & veggies, adding a bunch of mixed vegetables from a frozen package. In addition, on the side, we had chicken nuggets and French fries. That will tide us over until supper.

Wind gusted to 30 mph today, and with recent freezing, leaves and walnuts are falling. We have two Black Walnuts along the driveway, so John cleans those off before they get smashed under the car tires. This was a low-yield year, so it isn’t going to be a big issue – just a nuisance.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan