Saturday, Aug 4. Morning started with our builder coming for his backhoe for a short/small job southwest on Look Road – partly doing a friend a favor. After he left and the gate to the road closed, John let the horses up into the driveway area with grass beneath the orchard trees. The fellow planned to return at noon, but he got here 2 minutes before John got to the road to open the gate at 11:30. John had moved the horses back to their pasture and opened the (second) gate to our work site. I spent much of the day on the blog, paying bills, and cleaning, and we had leftovers for dinner. Now we are waiting to have raspberries on ice cream and go to bed. I hope that the house will cool down tonight because tomorrow will be a very warm day.
Sunday Aug 5 We planned the trip to Costco to get Acetaminophen and a few other necessities, and because at 100-degree temps it is too hot to do anything else outside, other than drive an a/c car to a store with a/c and return to our house with a/c. We did, and spent 5 hours away. For lunch, we had a piece of pizza (large combo) of which I had two little bites, and I had a polish sausage, giving John about a 4-inch piece of the “hotdog.” We had a VERY BERRY Sundae (it’s a cup of soft serve frozen yogurt with LOTS of strawberries mixed in, and more dumped in on the side). All that cost us total $5.14. I guess that’s a decent price for a lunch for two with the dessert and refillable drink (Pepsi/diet pep mix). We spent $267 dollars (over $7 was tax), but bought $26 worth of stuff for one neighbor and $10 for another. We got red seedless grapes (from Richgrove, CA) and blueberries (from Oregon), and salmon (a bag of pieces that we have had before that is very good), some marinated boneless turkey breast that we’ll have tonight for dinner leaving leftovers for this week, and dog and cat food. We also got 3 colors of bell pepper (red, yellow, orange), bread (Rosemary), and some Crystal Light (I still drink for my drink of choice, after giving up Pepsi, many per day); and toilet paper, which is cheaper than I ever remember. We should have bought two packages! Have any of you had those pretzels filled with peanut butter? They’re HK Anderson originally made in PA and we got a huge canister of them under the Kirkland brand. Also some mild German Sausage, frozen beef patties for when we want something quick without a lot of effort. John even bought some large blueberry muffins so we’d have something different for breakfast. Oh, yeah, and my two containers of Acetaminophen I went down there for, along with the gasoline for my car. It was driving on vapors when we arrived, and I saved $3.14 on 14.25 gallons! It cost us $14 to drive the 100 miles, however, (if I’m getting 25 mpg)–oh well. Mostly we make such a stop on a multi-purpose (doctor or car care) trip.
Oh–I bought one of the $20 phone calling cards to share with John’s sister. We still have $12 left on the one we have, but this one is cheaper and has more minutes than the one she is getting. I called and gave her the numbers to use when hers runs out. John watered the garden and (unrelated) has gone to lie down. I think I will take a nap too. It’s too hot to do anything else, but our a/c is keeping us cool. John was down for 2 hours and I slept at least that much and maybe more. Guess we really needed it. Yum, turkey tenderloin with squash, onions, peppers for a late dinner and blueberries on ice cream for dessert.
Monday, Aug 6 John picked 5 pounds of lovely yellow (mostly) and green squash this morning, and 9 ounces of yellow beans. We have had a few of them and they are wonderful. Also ran out and took some pictures of the building floor, and they came today with a large dump truck full to put in the base of recycled concrete. Two guys are working on screwing the little pieces of board onto the trusses that will be propped up on the poles and cross pieces. John went back out with his camera to take more pictures of the last load of recycled (broken concrete pieces) that will be compacted into the flooring. It is 1/2 as expensive as standard gravel. Clouds moved on and temperatures are up again. At noon, up to 91, and John just came back in, very hot and tired, and frustrated he’s lost his wire fence tool, maybe buried it in the stuff in the back of the pickup where he’s been throwing things.
http://www.etoolsetc.com/images/products/CHA-85.jpg
A little searching and John found the darned thing was in a bucket in the shed.
I’ve been transferring some You Tube videos up to the web so people can access them. More building supplies and machinery delivered this afternoon. John showed them where to put the boards needed and then showed a different guy, later in the afternoon where to leave a piece of machinery they will use to lift the trusses. This is quite an operation. Tomorrow or soon, they will come out with a load of gravel to smooth out the edges of the base of recycled cement pieces. Good thing John was around to coordinate. I also didn’t go to town this afternoon, so I could use my ears to hear the arrivals. I heard the brakes squeal on the last delivery before the dogs saw the machinery coming down the drive. John was outside when the boards arrived earlier. Tonight, just before dinner, I looked out the window and up and saw the most beautiful Mammatus clouds. Not ours, but here’s one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mammatus-storm-clouds_San-Antonio.jpg
We both took our cameras out and starting shooting photographs. We have more color (orangeish) in ours — awesome. I will put the best out on the web one of these days and point you in their direction.
Tuesday, Aug 7 Today started very early as expected. The building crew with an extra person arrived at 5:55 to put up the trusses. John and I went out for 1/2 hour to photograph the work from 6:30. I was very tired, and still am, because of not sleeping well last night. Unusual for me. It got to 59 last night but the house didn’t cool inside as much as desired. Morning has broken and the temps are expected to reach 97 today. Bummer. At 8:15, it is up to 68. Today I go to town to deliver some squash and get a massage for my aching shoulder muscles. I did and went shopping for some CO2-drinks for John. While there I got half my meds order and a sirloin roast on sale (for the Crockpot), so that we don’t have to heat the house using the oven. We are both tired, especially from no afternoon nap. Dinner is late, but we’re eating and going to bed early. John picked raspberries this morning and blueberries tonight and I just finished cleaning, sorting, and sugaring them. Turned out not to go to bed early.
Wednesday, Aug 8 I slept in this morning, while John got up and opened the gates for the builders at 6:00 a.m. They worked all morning and left at lunchtime. The temps never got above 85 and the winds were above 33mph up to 38 from early morning. I left for town for playing at the food bank and going to SAIL exercise. They fed us a good lunch today (pasta w/cheese, tomatoes, mushrooms, sausage, chicken salad on large tomato slice with grapes and celery, green salad, garlic bread). We played music and had a good time. John stayed home and put the roast in the Crockpot about noon, added tomatoes, onions, carrots, and barley. It was truly scrumptious and served with the red grapes. We went out tonight after it cooled some to take pictures of the building progress, and John explained what they did today. They finished all the top roofing supports and cross pieces having to do with the trusses. Tomorrow the metal will arrive at the builder’s house, be put on his long trailer and he will bring it in the morning for attaching to the roof and sides of the building. It’s beginning to take on a personality, and I like the shape it’s in. Then we picked 9 lbs. of yellow and a few green squash and 10 ounces of yellow beans. We had some of the yellow beans last night and they are very good. The squash have a hard time sucking up enough water in the hot dry air. John splashes their large leaves with water a couple times each day and they seem to applaude that relief:
http://tinyfarmblog.com/tag/summer-squash/
Scroll down to “Perfect (market garden) squash!” – this is what ours look like now.
Thursday, Aug 9 Only thing on tap in town is playing at the Rehab where I spent 7 weeks. John is going with me because there is a Thursday 12 hr “produce sale” at Super One. We took our 9 lbs. of squash in and shared with our music group. Morning was filled with assembling music, taking pictures of the building, and cleaning the kitchen. The building now has its metal roof and one complete side finished with metal. It’s looking nice. After we got home, I spent a lot of time helping students and friends with projects. We got Bing cherries for our neighbor and for us, more red seedless grapes, which we will share with our friends from South Lake Tahoe who arrive tomorrow night. In addition, nice ears of corn that we had one of tonight with beef Crockpot concoction from last night with fresh Bing cherries from Chelan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UtoaUVKiNA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelan_County,_Washington
[I think the first one has audio, but a power-outage maybe has knocked that function out here – something to fix.]
Friday, Aug 10 Most of last evening and this morning was helping proof and provide content suggestions to a gal from CWU who is applying for a job gotten from an announcement on “my” jobs list serve. We were getting help from my geographer friend, Miriam, in Indiana on vacation. John picked yellow beans this morning, and we are taking them by to friends with more squash. We traded one person for some of her tomatoes.
It was a crazy day, and as we were fixing dinner, our power went off, and stayed off for 2 hr 22 min. We were frying “babies” (yellow squash), and sausage to have with beef leftovers that had not yet been warmed. I’ll let John tell that story of fried babies. [In the early 1900s, my mother’s family lived on a farm with very little dollar income and a big distance to the nearest store. The young girls used yellow squash as “baby dolls” to dress and play with. My thought is that they used the ‘extra’ ones (perhaps larger and tougher). The best for eating are tender and when scraped will ooze liquid that is slightly sticky (sugar?). These squash, sliced to half-inch rounds and fried in butter, are a treat. Thus, “fried babies.”]
We needed to go to town to meet our friends from Lake Tahoe. We didn’t leave until almost 8:00 P.M. and then didn’t return ’til after 11:00. It was scary to come into the house and smell hot iron skillets — we had left turned on and not thought to turn off when the electricity went off. Luckily they were both heavy cast-iron!! And, nothing flammable was nearby. See Point #2, here:
http://www.macheesmo.com/2010/07/ten-reasons-for-cast-iron/
The few pieces of squash we had not taken out were quite crisp. So the stove and all the lights – including all those indicators on the stove back – went out when a tree fell from the wind. About this — John’s going to make a suggestion to the power company for their monthly booklet.
Saturday, Aug 11 Morning started with waiting for a phone call from our friends – mother, daughter, and daughter’s friend (both recent H.S. grads) from South Lake Tahoe, CA. We were going to meet them and take them to breakfast at the Wagon Wheel in Kittitas. We got there about 9:50. Had a nice breakfast and brought home a doggie bag with pancakes, sausage, English muffin, and sourdough toast. Sent them off to have a tour of the Wildhorse Wind Farm a few miles east –
http://pse.com/inyourcommunity/kittitas/Pages/Wild-Horse.aspx
but haven’t heard if they stopped or what they thought. They are headed for Rathdrum, ID, from where they will leave tomorrow for a raft trip on the West Fork of the Clark Fork River in Montana. It was a nice visit. It’s been about 7 years since they were here for a visit.
After we ate, we drove home by way of a yard sale with horse things just a mile north and west of us. We purchased a large professionally constructed round pen (used very little), and with perfect bottoms on the panels to prevent horse injury. Somewhat like this one:
http://www.hideawayfarm.co.uk/H-Images/images/Round_Pen.jpg
Search images for [ “round pen” +horse ] and see the variety.
We have one we put together a bunch of years ago, but it is unsafe at any speed. Like this:
http://www.wyattlivestock.com/horse-round-pen.jpg
If a horse caught a foot in the lower rail making up the “foot stand for the panels,” it could easily break a leg.
You can find videos on horse training using a round pen on the net. Have at it – interesting stuff. Example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhRq2AiegC8
John had already decided to move the panels in our current round pen to encircle the new pole building to protect it from the horses messing up the metal sides, or getting to the hay inside. The lady’s son has a 20′ flatbed trailer and in the cool of the morning (Sunday) he and friends will dismantle it and bring it to us. He claimed he only needed some beer to convince his buddies to come along and help him and John with the move. I know what you are thinking. Did we win the lottery? Nope, but we have a couple of bank CDs about due with a 4% rate about to roll over to an actual rate of just above zero and an effective rate below zero. Also, we had a bit of individual stock in companies that were doing zilch, so we sold those too. And our bank is so thrilled to loan us money they make it easy — we have a ‘protection equity’ (house; almost paid for) loan attached to our checking account that prevents our checks from bouncing and we get stuff and they get their money back in monthly installments and our interest – and that is still tax deductible. Whew. Govt., taxes, rules – the head spins. Besides, our government spends money it doesn’t have, creates more, making ours less valuable and encouraging purchasing things now that will be worth more of the funny money they are creating. Or, something like that!
Temperatures are high enough (max. of 98 at the airport) this afternoon to keep us in the house.
Hope your week was a good one.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan