Saturday, June 9 Not a good day in my memory of 2009, but I survived and that’s all that really matters; thanks always again to all my caregivers, particularly John. Today is CWU graduation and until I got sick, I attended every graduation. I sat on the front row, got up and took pictures of my students, as they came down the ramp, and gave each a hug. I often also participated in the “hooding” of our Resource Management graduate masters students. I watched the 2009 event on TV from the ICU at the Kittitas Valley Community Hospital in Ellensburg that year. This year the afternoon commencement ceremonies end at 3:30, so we will not be going in till later to meet my former student. The wind is whipping at 41mph, so I’m happy I’m not out there in the stadium. Now it is up to 43mph in the last hour. Now an hour later it’s “down” to 40mph! [John just took the dogs for another short exercise before we get dressed to be ready to “run” to town.] We both got dressed early but we will be ready to rush out when he calls. I emailed a few folks some pictures of the new travel trailer, the old motor home awning, and of the fixed feral cats. Great advice from my Arizona John friend. He made a good comment about the problem with opening the doors with the awning down, and ripping it, because of the small distance above the doors on the trailer. The RV folks will be installing it, not us, so they should know, but I will suggest it.
We cannot drive the motor home (needs motor repaired), and we cannot repair the roof, which has leaked and rotted from snow piled up on it. So, we are going to take what we can from it, have it towed in, and “give” it to them. It gets rid of it. We could not sell it; that we know. They have the trailer now, to estimate how much it will be to install a new a/c unit and buy a generator, which we will be able to use around our place (the Rock’n Ponderosa) when not needing it on the trailer.
We ended up not going to town to meet my former student. He cancelled out because he was tied up till after 6 and still needed to drive home to Renton. He will be back later with his wife. He was waiting to surprise me, but she couldn’t come with him this trip. The wind is still blowing hard, has been all day and night, and we are ready to hit the hay.
Sunday, June 10 Awoke to more sustained breezes. John’s out working in it, and I’m inside washing clothes, dishes, and sorting. The sun is out. Nothing on the agenda today that requires our going to town. I am scheduled to do John’s haircut today, however. (It didn’t happen.) John managed to unroll the awning today. It almost blew away in the wind, but he was able to see it only had one tiny little “hole” at the top by the clamp, probably from a bee’s nest, but otherwise it is in fine condition. Nothing else new. John watered specific plants and moved around irrigation water (plastic dams in ditches), some with hoses. We haven’t seen Rascal since last night. Really hope the cat screams we heard last night were not him being caught by an owl or a coyote. He usually comes in during the night or early morning and he’s not been around. Usually he sleeps on the bed through the day. Our plans changed at 3:30 this afternoon when I got a phone call from the friend who had to leave yesterday. He was back in Ellensburg with his wife, Sarah! We got ready and drove to town to meet them for a visit. When we got home, Rascal had returned. Who knows where he was all night and day. Too bad animals cannot talk. They try, but we cannot understand them.
Monday, June 11 I went to acupuncture today and he worked on the pain in my neck and tight muscles there. Also determined he thinks I’m anemic, so I have a call in for my family physician and to my cardiologist. I cannot eat the prescribed spinach, and so we wonder if I need to take iron pills. Then on to SAIL exercise class and home to put heat on my neck. My family physician called and talked with me and suggested I get another blood test with my normal INR test, next week before I leave.
Tuesday, June 12 Appointments in town today, one a dental one, and the other closer to home, for my haircut, plus in the evening I go to play religious music with The Connections, this time at Hearthstone Cottage. John said I would be wiped out from the dentist, and I am, but it went okay, the build-up. Only problem is I still have a food catching hole (missing tooth) behind it, and so my dentist said we could fix it with a bridge. Problem with that is I have to pay for 3 teeth, and the two on either side of the missing tooth must have crowns. We already started the one today. Then I’ll need to have the filling taken out of the back one and replaced with a crown to support the bridge. It will cost me 3 times $750, and I can only have one bridge in a year covered by insurance. The insurance pays the rest of the $3102. The only nice thing is that if I have to have another isolated crown, I still can have it, and pay $750. I still will save a little money, even with the insurance costing $70/month. The cost on one crown at my dentist is $1072. The only bad thing is I am scheduled for 9:30 the day I return from my rural Georgia reunion. Thus, from Guyton, to Savannah, Seattle, Atlanta, Yakima (ETA at Midnight), and then home. When I went for my haircut today, my hairdresser sent a bunch of different colored Iris home with me for John to plant. There are purple (light and dark), yellow, white, blue, a variegated one called ‘stairs to heaven’, and a salmon colored one. Neither horses or deer eat iris, so he is planting in an enclosed space between two dry-lots where he has some young Ponderosa Pines. The Iris will be taller than the Pines for a few years and then the trees will start to shade them for a few years. In the future the lower limbs of the trees can be cut off and then there will be shade directly under them during mid-day. Now I went to work in the kitchen, opened the window and it is raining !! Well, enough to wet the concrete. While John was still in the house and I was eating my late lunch, we got a phone call about the travel trailer. They have assessed that they can get a roof top a/c unit (Dometic Brisque Air) and install it for just under $1000. Still need to get a generator and pay them to replace the awning from our motor home, and then build a building for protecting it from snow buildup and have extra space for hay (just now ripening in the Valley). We are doing our part to kick-start the local economy.
Wednesday, June 13 John has taken off early for the dentist for his teeth cleaning. Mine is next week before I take off for GA. Tonight we attend a talk on the causes of Ice Ages and Glaciers using evidence from of the Cascades, with emphasis on the Valley of Icicle Creek (near Leavenworth). I finally left for town (no I never yet did John’s hair, and won’t till Sunday, probably). Today I played at the Food Bank Soup Kitchen. We had quite a group of singers. Three people (our groupies) sat at the table right in front of us and sang along, along with one of the volunteer workers (who does dishes) sat with us and sang. He has a great voice. It was really a good performance today. Also, on some of the songs, two of the servers sing along with us (while serving). The menu was Mexican casserole that was mild and very good; spicy hot rice with peppers and sliced hot sausage, a mostly spinach salad, but they picked out the other stuff for me to have, and chocolate cake with chocolate frosting they put on the cake while warm, so it was good. Then from there on to SAIL exercise class. Home by way of a woodcraft place to pick up some more pieces for free. Today they were nicer than last week. I got pieces rectangular or square about two feet on a side. I only picked ones without holes or odd shapes, and none of the narrow ones like I picked up last week.
Thursday, June 14 We spent a lot of time this morning cleaning up junk and loading into the pickup for John to take to the dump (aka the transfer station). [Who else is old enough to remember when unwanted stuff was just dumped over the side of a hill? Then rats, raccoons, snakes, and folks could pick out the good stuff. Bears came too. And then, at night, people with lights would come to see the bears. Others would come with 22s to practice their shooting skills on the rats. Oh, where have the good times gone? There are now “apps” of all these fun things but it just isn’t the same.] John dropped me off for music at the Rehab center (where I spent 7 weeks in 2010). Nothing much else today. John went back into town for a trail riders meeting that was uneventful. Well, folks reported on their riding but because we haven’t been doing any he didn’t have stories to tell. Did they want to hear about him trimming and rasping Jazz’s hoofs? No!
Friday, June 15 We went early Friday morning with Diane Huckabay to use our Costco card to help her buy foodstuffs for the celebration of Jim’s retirement tomorrow. Jim was my chair for several years and we have known him since he began teaching as a geographer at CWU in 1993. John and I went by one yard sale on the way to her house and John found a 20′ very heavy duty chain. Then on the way home, we drove by a friend’s to drop off snap peas she ‘ordered’ and on to another yard sale at a friend’s place out about 8 mi from our house. There I found a extendable legged tripod for taking pictures with my camera (paid $2.00). I plan to take some footage tomorrow of the celebration “roast” part. I took out time to walk through the pasture with John and the dogs and check out the south 40 – more like the south 3.
[For reference, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_40#Popular_culture
Just for fun, follow the last link in the section to hodag.]
Then we came back and he showed me the garden. Strawberries are looking nice. Corn is coming up slowly (surely won’t be knee high by the 4th of July), and the squash, yellow beans, asparagus, tomatoes and pepper plants are growing.
Saturday, June 16 Retirement celebration was held from 2:00 to 5:00 at the Northern Pacific Rail Depot (under renovation).
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2450/3910369837_7c75365c98_z.jpg?zz=1
It was an exciting afternoon. Many people from my past were there, and the venue was interesting as well. We hadn’t been in the old Depot since 1989 when there was a little winery there (Cascade Mountain Cellars). It didn’t last long. I took two cameras with me and was the self-appointed photographer and videographer (and of course am a geographer)! I took 90 pictures on one camera, in the first 1-1/2 hours, and then transferred to my other digital camera that I had attached to the tripod I bought yesterday and set up in the room for the roast as soon as John and I arrived. I captured each person who spoke individually on a separate “movie”. I have taken the stuff off my camera, but I need to transfer it to a CD — one of these days. Probably won’t happen till I return from GA. It will be another gift to my friend(s). Note: I leave Thursday for the reunion (~40 miles from the Atlantic Ocean near Savannah), and I am not sure that John will put out a blog in my absence. I probably won’t have my computer along so cannot send him any information. He’ll have to translate from phone calls.
Sunday, June 17 (Father’s Day). We started out with John going to fix the irrigation water going to our neighbors. The winds were high. He did not take his cell phone, so when I got a call from the neighbor about the water diversion, I had to walk down and tell John. I about got blown away on the way down, but the trip back was even worse. Good thing I gained back some weight or I doubt I could have made it down and back without getting blown to Idaho. He was at the lower end of our property and I was walking from the top end. I’m not sure how many feet that was [about 1,000 – so says John], but with the wind, the exertion was greater than normal. I also remembered I have to write a summary of our family to send to the gal accumulating information on the family for the Wilkins family reunion booklet. Too much to do in too little time. Yes, I need to cut John’s hair too. Maybe he won’t return outside to work in this wind, after already spending a couple hours in it. Today the airport gauges claim the winds are gusting at 36, 38, 40, 38 , 44, and back to 43mph for the last several hours, up to 44, 47, and 45, before this got finished ! (but out here I KNOW they are higher). Also today had a call this morning from a friend from NM that they wanted to visit us this afternoon. I talked them into visiting after my return from GA, and we would drive over where they are. He taught Geology at CWU and we team-taught GIS from 1988. He retired and now travels the country and lives in a huge motor home (their home) with his wife. They are up here for a month at Crescent Bar, which is about an hour from us, and down the hill from our friends at the White Heron Cellars winery where John volunteers grape pruning. Time to turn this over to John to enhance and post.
Hope your week was a good one.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan