Thanks for all the birthday wishes on email, animated cards, postal snail mail ones, and phone calls. I repeat some of this below on the real day, with added touches. I started receiving wishes a week in advance.
Sunday Aug 26 After a bunch of bloodcurdling cat screams awakening us in the middle of the night and finding our Rascal asleep on the loveseat, we went back to bed. Early this morning, John saw all 3 ferals (Woody, Sue, & Cashew), leaving their haymow loft and walking off through the corral into the swamp, so we know they all are okay. Now John had to begin his morning out moving horses out of where they are not supposed to be, up by the new pole building. My horse, Frosty, is notorious for going through temporary ill-built fences and teaching the others to follow. I also went next door to feed, water, and give attention to the neighbor’s cat while the owner is overseas. Need to water her plants too. A few days ago, John mowed her blooming knapweed, so it would not spread throughout the neighborhood. It is nasty stuff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffuse_knapweed#An_invasive_species
http://www.mtweed.org/images/client/diffuse-knapweed/weed-id-1453265453_3bba542399_b.jpg
Today has been slow, but both of us have been busy on chores. I have worked on various projects inside, and John has been outside, except for a 40-minute much needed nap. High temperatures were up to 91 today, and he tried working all outside ditch digging in the shade of our cottonwood trees. He has managed to construct a new diversion and short ditch to water the pasture on the north of the new building without impacting the construction site or approach thereto. Previously water went past the front of the building and that is now an entrance driveway of dirt, rock, and crushed gravel.
We had a nice late lunch with leftovers from Friday night’s potluck and a new ear of corn from our garden, plus some other stuff in the frig. We had crackers, Jarlsberg cheese, the rest of the kippered salmon and tuna . . .
[John says about “kippered” — seems to describe another food product insofar as this fish is in a small glass canning jar and much like tuna from a can you might buy in a grocery store. Not this sort of thing:
http://www.sausagemania.com/kippermania.html ]
{Sorry, Nancy here. A fellow who spent much time in Alaska referred to it by that name, after tasting it. He said it had been smoked and salted.}
. . .from Friday, two kinds of grapes, and our shared ear of corn. John worked until late and so did I, but we had leftovers (pork, sauce, tomatoes) on toasted hamburger bun, with another ear of our own corn, and a bunch of grapes. Nice.
Monday, Aug 27 Taught SAIL exercise class and rushed to a 2:30 meeting with my co-author at Dean Hall, CWU. We had a productive meeting, and I took along a box of books and materials to distribute to colleagues there in Geography and History. I think I have said we are preparing a paper to give in Olympia, the first week of October, on the Kittitas Valley hay industry and export market. I am in charge of setting up interviews with a few growers, and John Bowen is setting up the interviews with processors/exporters. We start those interviews next week.
Tuesday, Aug 28 Today started early with getting ready for our annual physical exams, and driving via I-90 to Cle Elum, because Hwy 10 is still closed, from working on the bridge (the infamous Taylor Bridge that caused the fire). We both had good reports and went to lunch afterwards in Cle Elum. Then we visited the Kubota dealer to check out a tractor with a backhoe and front-end loader. Very pricey! From there we came on home via highway 970 and 97 with views of some of the fire damage at Bettas Road and at the wind farm east of 97. Was rather amazing to see where the fire had run up the hill, crossed 97, and went on eastward. John had his camera and I had two of mine. I put one on a movie to get a round perspective of the Bettas valley. Close to the road John took some pictures of the large trees cut down to stop torching and firebrands – See this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildfire
and search the text for ‘firebrands.’ It didn’t help. The fire came up the slope to the road and burned the guardrail posts. Long stretches of railing will have to be rebuilt. The county put up large orange cones to warn people of the fragile nature of the guardrails. The location where we stopped is here:
47.151655, -120.696388
Zoom in to see where we parked. Follow up the gravel road and there are 4 wind towers. Just east of this are two ridges of 3-bladed wind towers (blades are white, shadows are black). The fire burned through all the grass and brush on both sides of the road. The large trees along here are Ponderosa pines. Zoom way-in across the road from our parking site. This location is 11.2 miles from our house to the east-south-east.
From there we drove down by some burned out houses and some that were saved. Went cross-country east at Smithson road, but missed part of the burned area, getting closer to us going across Reecer Creek Road. We came on home, after stopping and taking a couple of pictures for the presentation on hay growing and export from our valley with its importance in the global economy. Best news today/tonight on the local newspaper’s Facebook page: Tuesday, August 28, 2012 5:14 pm posted By DAILY RECORD staff —
Fire officials expect the Taylor Bridge Fire to be 100 percent contained by 6 p.m. today, according to an update from the type 3 incident management team that’s been managing the fire since Saturday morning after taking the reins from the larger type 2 team that managed the fire for the first 12 days. “Because of the number of residences that were threatened, the team utilized palm infrared thermal units to ensure that heat near the containment line and homes was located and extinguished by fire crews prior to determining the fire was 100 percent contained,” said incident commander Alan Lawson in a news release.
Wednesday, Aug 29 I don’t remember much about this day except many uncomfortable feelings. I got up and saw John off for his trail work, at 7:00 a.m. (see below). Then I got ready myself and started in the dental chair at 9:00 a.m. My dentist and his ace assistant worked on two major molars in the left upper side of my mouth. The work had a few glitches, such as the clamp for the rubber dam flying off from my mouth and hitting the wall. There was much cleaning and build-up needed, and then impressions taken because they are going to put a bridge in the next time I am in there (about 3 weeks) that fits onto the two crowns and puts in a tooth where I’m missing one. I didn’t leave the chair until 11:30. A very long 2.5 hours. I had taken squash from our garden with me, and the dentist, secretary, and 2 assistants, came out to my car to take what they wanted. I still had some left, so my next stop was to set up to play music at the Soup Kitchen of the Food Bank. My mouth was all numbed, but I managed to sing and play, and eat a little lunch they offered us. I gave another squash to my friend that plays and sings with me. After that was over, I drove to the Adult Activity Center, set up the music and told them I did not feel like staying. I was beat. Drove home by way of our Geog. Dept. secretary’s house. She has been in that job since 1997. I dropped off two plastic grocery bags of squash, mostly yellow, inside a brown paper grocery bag with handles I used to hang it on her front locked gate. Then once home, I rested all afternoon with a couple of breaks to feed Rascal (he was asleep on the loveseat with Shay, when I arrived). Eventually he awoke, wanted fed, and then left. He was hanging around when the 3 ferals were in to the haymow for dinner, and then left to go over to the swamp area. Today, earlier, we saw all three orange cats; that means there is one un-caught and un-fixed roaming around. John talked nice to it but even that shooed it away.
John left early for a WTA work “party” near Stirrup Lake, on the Pacific Crest Trail. Here is the report from the crew leader back to the 12 folks there: Well, a wet day, sort of, but a good day’s work done by all. Didn’t get to see the process, but MikeT and MickiK and MartaS led the teams that rebuilt some 150 feet of rocky, grassy, rootbally, generally BAD trail into GOOD trail (that team included Dana, Mark, John, Carli, and Louise…she of the WFPie hat) . Up above, Pete and MikeH finished off yesterday’s retread/regrade/ford with a rock wall and still more retread (as MikeH put it: “Not bad for two septuagenarians and one octogenarian”). The work looked good…as a matter of fact, were I a thru hiker I would feel I’d fallen into heaven while walking all that new trail. Thanks, mikeo
John will explain the WFPie hat comment above.
[ After 5 work trips a volunteer earns a new Green hat with their name or chosen nickname. Louise wanted her nickname to be “Works for Pie” but that is too long so she has WF Pie on her new hardhat. This photo shows a temporary name-tape one wears until the 5th trip.
http://farm2.staticflickr.com/1052/525907456_eeb436a412_z.jpg
More experienced workers can earn an orange hat and if one develops the skills and wants the responsibility the next step in the rankings gets you a blue hat. Beginning workers = green; Assistant Crew leaders (ACL) = orange; Crew Leaders = Blue. Other agencies have other colors.
http://www.wta.org/magazine/1023.pdf/at_download/file
Note in the write-up that a most important function of the “Blue Hat” is to distribute snacks – trails don’t get built without a lot of chocolate! ]
Thursday, Aug 30 Today is Mt. View Meadows entertainment. Nine of our music group showed up, and without some of the regulars, that was amazing. I stopped and visited with friends who are having some serious medical issues, and took them some squash, yellow beans, and clothes that no longer fit me. Came on home arriving just before John returned from his trail work today. He stopped by a fruit stand and bought some larger beautiful tomatoes, a huge onion and some peaches. Tonight we had BLTs for a late dinner. I will get up early to put another together for John to take for his lunch tomorrow. I forgot to get lettuce today, so our neighbor kindly shared some with us. I went over to pick it up after going to our other neighbor’s to take care of her cat.
Friday, Aug 31 Stayed home today. Had offers of tomatoes from a friend and needed to pick up a thesis at the library, but I didn’t see any need to drive to town for that with a gallon of gas costing $4.15. One trip to town without any running around would take a gallon. Our exercise class was cancelled because of the fair and rodeo.
An interesting phone call came in from a neighbor who reported that a black bear had gotten into another neighbor’s bees. Apparently, there are several bears around, and there was the cougar around last month, over the creek and through the woods from our house.
Saturday, Sept 1 Happy birthday to me! I have had an incredible number of birthday wishes, more on Facebook than I’m able to respond to, but I’m reading them. I will wait until the end of the day and send a blanket post on my wall to everyone acknowledging their kind wishes. Also, I have appreciated all individual emails, animated cards, and even telephone wishes (the old way, huh), and certainly the postal mailed ones. THANKS. While I stayed inside working on chores this morning, John picked a large box of squash and a smaller box (but large amount) of yellow beans. We will have to sort them later and put into the outside shed refrigerator, until we next drive to town and can deliver some to friends. We figure we have given over 80 pounds of squash away, and we have frozen a little for us, and eaten a lot as well. Also, while he was out working (more on that below), I made us BLTs for lunch.
Lovely day for butterflies outside my window. Just saw a beautiful Lorquin’s Admiral on our Nanking Cherry trees on the side of the patio. Also have been pale yellow ones flitting around today.
Here is the report on John, who spent an hour moving the borrowed heavy magnet on wheels around our driveway and front yard graveled parking. Totally amazing how much he retrieved (full nails, metal, and paper clips). That page (link below) begins with pictures of the large magnet’s results from the floor of our new pole building. Today, I have added a picture of the box of things picked up since John started using it, just including today’s additions (or should say retractions!). I will add to the page that is continuing to be constructed to back up images of things we’ve been talking about in this blog through August. Next week after the fair/rodeo/Labor Day weekend is over, the owner will return to pick the magnet up. He was the contractor for our pole building. (That link, again, with changes from last week, is
http://www.ellensburg.com/nancyh/August2012Rock’NPonderosa.html
Another interesting chore of yesterday and today for me was tallying our volunteered miles and hours. They have to be reported each month to the RSVP program in Ellensburg. RSVP stands for Retired Senior Volunteer Program. I volunteer all my music around the county and John volunteers his time in the forest working on trails for the WA Trails Association. He most recently worked 3 days this week and that time is reportable to RSVP, as is mine. I also record the mileage we both use to get there. That is no longer of interest to the RSVP folks, but it is something John and I can deduct from our income taxes as a mileage donation. FYI, I put in a total of 46.75 hrs and drove 402 miles over the month of August, and John put in 25.75 hrs and drove 386 miles on the last 3 days of August.
Today is the first day of hunting season, and there have been several rifle shots to the west and north of us. Could be deer, or someone shooting a cougar or a bear, or as John says, perhaps someone just got a gun for a birthday present.
Okay… that’s enough for this week. I will go work on the page still under construction whose link I have given above. I have added a few pictures of the new pole building and some of the fire. I will keep working on it, and share with you when I add more.
Hope your week was a good one.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan