Saturday July 28 and Sunday July 29: Everything is sort of running together this weekend. We both slept in longer this weekend than all of the past week, and John picked strawberries and raspberries yesterday that we fixed and ate last night. In addition, both days he mostly worked on removing fences and thinking about adding another to keep the horses away from the pole building rising in the pasture. I tackled a few chores in the kitchen and den. Mostly I worked on getting the pictures and videos off both cameras, arranging an email list for my 2012 WOFTA class members, and working with the stack of bills and other things needing attention. I spent over an hour on the phone with John’s sister Peggy about using Google Earth, because John had added stuff to the blog that required navigating with their controls. We had a good time and both learned a lot, but on her dime. John napped through most of it, but got involved at the end. Off he went to move some more gates and poles, and next door to set up a charger on our neighbor’s battery on her riding lawnmower. After that, John took me out to show me all he had done and I took a few pictures, pet 3 of the horses, and came in the back yard by the outside cats. John came back around later, and they were waiting for him in the loft of the haymow. So funny, they are trained quite well for being wild cats. Cashew is the friendliest. I took a picture of him twice today. Once on the top of a fence post and now watching the pasture from atop the hay. I took a movie clip of him jumping from a 6′ fence post in the backyard. On my way in, I got some pictures around the place. John fixed a great dinner with our own yellow squash in it, penne noodles, tomatoes, chicken, zucchini, and cashews. Except for the squash and cashews, it was from a bag we bought at Costco last time there. Not bad. However, we forgot his wonderful applesauce we’d thawed today. Will just have to have it tomorrow! Rascal came home, ate, and went to bed. He was warm, so perhaps he had come from a visit to a neighbor or slept in the hot cathouse today. He was out cattin’ in the middle of the night, and back this morning for food. I wish he could talk and tell us about his day. He doesn’t seem to pal around with the other 3 cats outside except in the evening at feeding time.
Monday, July 30 Time to pay more bills by phone and postal mail. Never seems to end. They piled up from being away last week, and many places are not open on the weekend to reach by phone. Wind is blowing hard again but at least that saves John from spraying the horses’ faces :- ) to keep the flies off. He’s run the dogs and now is out trying to figure where to put the new fence across the pasture, replacing the one he removed. I doubt that I can talk John into going, but the two of us have to go to a 1.5 hr presentation in Yakima to qualify for a gift of a Norwegian or Carnival cruise for 8 days free with a ticket for two round trip tickets between two major airports. I have till 8:00 tonight to accept. Any two people can participate in the trips, but a “couple cohabitating” in the same house have to listen to the talk, and have to be approved by a list of questions; one of which was about being retired, annual family income, and speaking and understanding English. I may be able to get him to go with me, but he is rather skeptical and doesn’t want to waste his time on such things. I will see if I can check it out on the Internet. I did, and found out that the Dream Vacation setup is a scam. It is not surprising, actually, and I’m really not the cruise ship type anyway. I would have taken a friend or relative along if it had happened.
I went to town for exercise and to return the violin I borrowed, pick up apricots from them and deliver raspberries and squash. I took a free on-line class at 6:00 my time for an hour and a half (getting on at 5:50) more about that later.
Tuesday, July 31 Today started before 8:00 a.m. with a call from our contractor who will be building our pole barn. While John was out with them, I took care of several things, including a phone call to Ohio to speak with Christian (Chris) Howes, the violinist, whose class I took last night. I wanted to take him up on his offer of a phone call because he cannot use his hands for long periods of time to type emails. He has a class that meets in Ohio for a week and people from all the world come. I was in south GA during the time, and I don’t know if I will ever participate, but meanwhile, he has on line classes called Creative Strings. Right now he has a one month free subscription which I want to start the end of August, so I called after I had written a question in an email and he sent me his phone number and requested we talk in person. Check this link
http://creativestrings.christianhowes.com/
and watch the two videos. I saw him give a free concert in Ellensburg at the University and bought two of his CDs afterwards for only $10 each. He plays a conventional violin, but also an electric one that he records back ups he then plays with. It is totally fascinating. He really promotes improvisation; well, if you look at the videos you will get a preview. I should have given you a video to his mixing. This is the closest I can find, and I know I had access to one earlier, but if you listen to this, you’ll get the idea how he blends with himself, using improvision, harmonies, and chord chopping. That’s Chris on the right of your screen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovdYxQhVoRI
Had a tough acupuncture/massage followed by meeting about music with our banjo player at her office in EBRG. Came home to very sad news from a friend in Montana that her 41 year old son had died. She was very supportive to John while I was in ICU because she has been an ICU nurse herself. This death was sudden but maybe we can offer some support from a distance.
Wednesday, Aug 1 This morning started very early with an accidental phone call from a friend who dialed wrong at 5:27 a.m., but it was good to awake because the contractor was to come close to 6:00 a.m. to work on digging the holes for the poles and putting in concrete footers. I had not slept well last night, so I went back to bed and slept in late. John stayed out working with them – and says: Local building codes apply. Years ago pole barns involved digging holes, putting in posts of the desired height, packing rocks and dirt from the digging back where such came from. Not now. Much of our area has compacted river cobbles as a soil and digging a 40 inch deep hole requires an excavator:
http://www.publiquip.com/photo/-944441708.jpg
Sometimes the sides of the hole collapse and the hole grows outward. Each pole has to be on a concrete footer that is 3 feet below the original ground surface. Then the entire hole has to be filled with concrete. The footer keeps the pole from sinking and the “mass” of concrete keeps the building from being blown into Grant County (east, across the Columbia River). Our little barn will have open ends and will face so the prevailing NW wind can go in one end and out the other. This diagram is called a “wind rose” and shows the direction and speed of wind for our area.
http://www.efsec.wa.gov/kittitaswind/addinfo/A14_Wind%20Rose.pdf
Several barns in the valley were built with closed backs and the wind has torn the tops and/or sides off. We had to locate the new structure according to the County’s “Flood Zone” map, so it is not exactly where we wanted it. Our preferred location would have had it on ground a foot or so higher but “the map” claims that is in the flood zone – as is our entire house! Except the map is crap! Done before all the tools of GIS (Nancy’s specialty), so they just drew a line from the center of the creek. In our case, we are on higher ground to the east and on the other side the land and the creek are at nearly the same height and there is no high ground beyond.
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/such-is-life.html
Nancy’s back: Later I went out and took some pictures of the progress. Then I had to drive to town to play music at the Food Bank Soup Kitchen, go to SAIL exercise, and pick up meds I was out of. Came on home and the inspector had come and left, and while they waited for the inspection, the contractor cleaned out our center ditch while his son mixed and poured the concrete footings. The irrigation ditch clean-out is a major project that would have taken John forever by hand and pulling out trees on the sides with his truck and chain (that he has worked on some every year).
I got home and then a delivery truck dropped off the big treated poles and lumber. The lumber will become the “girts” as shown in this drawing in blue –
http://www.builderbill-diy-help.com/image-files/purlins-girts.gif
to which the metal sides will be attached. See last part (Walls):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_buildings
Before that, some will be used to hold the poles vertical while the concrete sets. I hope the wind goes down some when they are trying to set the poles. It was 39 mph today.
Thursday, Aug 2 Builders were here (3 of them) at 7:00 a.m. and have put in 7 poles. John took pix of the process and I went out to see the 7th one being seated, and took a couple more pix. Now I’m back in to run off some music (Kaiser’s Waltz) that my friend in Winlock scanned and sent over to complete our playlist for this August. Forgot to say our “pay” yesterday was in day old bread that really wasn’t “expiring” until Aug 7. I got a pkg of Whole Wheat & Sour Dough English muffins and a package of nice sandwich rolls called Crustina. We halved and toasted one last night to go with dinner. At 2:00 today will be our normal music in nursing home gig, and we will be at Royal Vista, the closest to my house (21 miles r.t.). Nothing else much on the docket, except trying to organize and toss. Whoopie — I got a load of dishes washed before leaving. I ended up taking more time getting home than I wished. I’m sore and probably ought to take some Acetaminophen. While scanning my machine for viruses and malware, I read the WA Old Time Fiddlers’ newsletter that came in today’s mail; it had a nice report on a lady fiddler who died and for whom there was a celebration of life with fiddle players from her WA district and around the state. The person who wrote it up, ended with this sentence, which is beautifully said, and I will pass it along to the family of my friends. Here is the quote that was not identified as to who said it: “Death leaves a heartache no one can heal; love leaves a memory no one can steal.” I looked it up on the web and found that it is from a headstone in a cemetery in Ireland.
The poles all got set today and ECP – ‘the only game in town’ —
http://ellensburgcement.com/about_us.htm
sent enough concrete to nearly fill each hole around each post. John took pictures this morning and I followed getting some of the pouring. Good thing they are well anchored as the winds have been blowing all day and are up to 39 mph. Also, the builder’s wife brought their grandson, who collected a frog and water skipper. He will bring it back soon and put it back in our ditch. Cute kid, 7 years old, named Andy. Tomorrow the builders come back to put up the horizontal crosspieces (girts) on which to connect the metal siding. The trusses were supposed to arrive next Tuesday, but they arrived early. Must be the metal siding and roof that will arrive next week. Everything is going faster than planned. We are very happy that nothing is called for this Sunday outside. It will be hot again… 95, then a little less on Monday. John came in tonight to tell me to look through a south-facing window into our small round pen. Two little fawns were there (eating tops of weeds?) and their mom was keeping an eye on them. Dan (male Brittany) followed into the room and went out the doggie-window and mama took the two little ones off into the creek-side brush. I updated my volunteer hours for July today: 24.5. June had been 25 hours; both months I missed a whole week, first in GA and then in Kittitas, WA, so that August should be higher.
Friday, Aug 3 I was gone from 11:30 till 3:45, to a luncheon (bring your own) of the ladies’ auxiliary of the Swauk-Teanaway Grange of which I’m a member. They meet for lunch every first Friday of the month. Normally I cannot go, because there is an Adult Activity Center (AAC) free potluck and afterwards I usually play fiddle with an accordion player and we both sing, giving the audience large print lyrics so they can sing along. It’s a different set of songs each month, in conjunction with the season. I cancelled on the AAC lunch in favor of the Grange thing — it was at the house of a lady I have known for a long time. It’s a huge log home built by her and her husband (who died of cancer). She has a lovely garden (flowers, bushes and trees) all around her house and a pond in the back yard. Instead of her fixing dessert as planned, her son went to town and bought dark chocolate and lemon bars. I had a half of the lemon, one of my very favorites. It’s from Vinman’s Bakery a very good but quite expensive “in place” in EBRG. It’s in the high 80s today. I started in the shade but the sun moved and my car was over 90 when I left the party. It was a work meeting to assign people to do cleaning chores at the Grange. I was let off the hook till I am better able. (I didn’t ask, but the President offered that I not be). She saw me when I was much worse from my open heart surgeries. She plays the Mandolin and is whom I got mine from. The Grange is a very nice new building, replacing the old one after a fire burned it down. I have played music there for several occasions (the grand opening and the annual Hunter’s Breakfast on the first day of hunting season in October each year. They rent it out ($500 for 3 days) for community affairs such as weddings or parties. It is a real deal, but cleanup has to be done prior, and while the renters are expected to clean up after themselves, sometimes they don’t and the ladies of the Grange have to get it done. Occasionally the husbands will help out.
Last night John took me out after it started cooling down to see the progress on the pole building and all the rocks that were moved to the holes onto the base of footers. Piles of rocks near the ditches have probably been accumulating since the 1880s when the first modern settlement happened. Near one pile there were remains of a stone boat:
http://www.inquiry.net/images/stone_boat.gif
The following link has discussion and a photo (scroll down) of an old one:
http://www.mytractorforum.com/showthread.php?t=98481
Our contractor scooped these stones up and used them as part of the “fill” to make the inside of the barn have a level floor. Some are soccer-ball size. With other “dirt” collected on-site we are now ready for a cover of crushed recycled concrete:
http://www.hedbergaggregates.com/graphics/products/mediumsize/recycled-concrete2.jpg
This will make a nice floor inside the barn.
Also, yesterday the trusses (24 feet span) were delivered (ten of them), but without the overhang and butt cut:
http://www.hitec.ca/images/basicTruss.gif
and next week the metal siding, roof, and trim will arrive. We used an on-line color-visualizer to select the colors.
http://www.fabral.com/colorvisualizer/
On this site, choose (on the left) “Post Frame” and click on the middle photo of a red barn. A random selection of colors comes up. Whatever appears, you can change it. Below the photo are 3 horizontal strips of colors in small squares. Top row is for the roof. Click on one of the blocks and the roof will become that color. We picked Caribbean Blue, the 9th from the left. For the side we picked Ivory, 3rd from left, and then Tan trim from the bottom row. Our building is even simpler than the one used but if you want to play with this idea, choose “Residential” from the very bottom of the page. Pick one of the photos or try them all. Some colors work well together, some not so much.
John takes time to keep the garden growing with watering and pulling weeds. Thus, we were able to pick 7 pounds of yellow squash and a small number of blueberries off one of the new plants. I talked earlier about the “trained” wild cats, but tonight was a funny story. John was out working on a fence around the pasture not too far from the cat’s haymow loft, in which they are fed and watered every night. Cashew (Johnny Cash) and Sue (his mom) came over talking to him; he figures telling him they were ready to be fed. They went under a nearby horse trailer still meowing. He finally finished and told them to go back — that he was coming to feed them. They were in their feeding places by the time he got there with the food. Woody, the darker colored long haired female was there also, but from where she came, we did not see.
Saturday, Aug 4. Morning started with our builder coming for his backhoe for a day job over past us a couple of miles. Then John moved the horses out of their pasture into the orchard area to “mow” the grass. I will finish this blog for him to embellish and post, and return to room cleanup, sorting, recycling, and tossing. This is a horrible project, but okay for days like today when there are no other events and it is in the 90s outside. I’m almost out of Acetaminophen, so tomorrow when it will be 100 degrees, we will drive to Yakima to go to Costco (10 AM opening). Again, it will not be conducive for outside work. While there we can also fill up with gas at a much better price than in EBRG. Today the regular is .18/gal cheaper and the premium is .22/gal cheaper. I don’t know which Subaru we will take. My 2004 is supposed to use 92-octane (premium), and John’s 2009 takes regular and I think gets better gas mileage than mine. Still I really like to drive my car better than his. It is much more comfortable for me. I don’t know why that is, and his is much more comfortable for him (more head room) than mine. Go figure. The more headroom thing is because mine has a sun and moon roof and the 2009 doesn’t. I’d best stop and get this on its way to you, via John. He always proofs my writing, adds something and web links to what I start with, and then I have to proof his again. I need to make a web page of some of the recent pictures, but that will have to wait. I till haven’t organized the ones from the GA family reunion, nor from the week at music camp in Kittitas, nor the recent pole building documentation.
Hope your week was a good one.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan