Smoke still gets in our eyes
Sunday, Sept 16 We already covered never on Sunday, in last week’s blog. Therefore, we will move along to Monday.
Monday, Sept 17 Bad smoke-filled valley this morning producing low visibility. Early up to get to the hospital lab for a blood draw (fasting) for both of us. I also had my regular monthly INR. We went afterwards for a biscuit with Canadian bacon slice, regular bacon pieces, cheese, and an egg from Carl’s Jr. and then to the grocery and pharmacy with the idea of our both getting a Shingles shot as recommended in our last annual physical by our family physician. Today, John’s shot cost us $87.50 and insurance will pay the other half. Rather expensive, I thought. So, I decided to wait and talk to my Cardiologist this week before I get one. There are all sorts of warnings on the allergies and medications and supplements a person takes, they have you read before taking the shot. (I did ask him, and he deferred my question to my family physician.)
Do not have to show up for jury duty for this week; have to call again next Monday. I’m relieved because I had several appointments I did not want to miss.
Tonight, besides taking a break to make large BLTs with our tomatoes primarily, I was busy going through a 90-minute class on line so we can pass the human subject review required of us by the university for protecting the privacy, confidentiality, showing no coercion, etc., of interviewees in our proposed study. I passed all the modules, answered all the 4 questions correctly at the end of each, and got a certificate in return, saying:
Responsible Conduct of Research Training
COMPLETION CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that
Nancy Hultquist
has completed the Human Subject Review Committee tutorial, Protecting Participants in Social and Behavioral Science Research, on 09/17/2012.
This course included the following topics:
• Historical events influencing the ethics of human research
• Current ethical standards
• Risks and harms
• Benefits
• Informed consent process
• Privacy and confidentiality protections
• Research with protected populations
• The review process at Central Washington University
• Researcher’s responsibilities
Tuesday, Sept 18 I picked up John B at Dean Hall at 12:45. Went to Andersons for a tour of the compressing of hay, and loading for transportation by containers to world ports (most in Asia), and afterwards we headed to Wesco International to interview the owner.
[John says: Container shipping was the idea of Malcolm Mc Lean in 1956 —
The Truck Driver Who Reinvented Shipping
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5026.html
or this —
http://www.isbu-info.org/all_about_shipping_containers.html
Photo here:
http://www.carexshipping.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/container_shipping.jpg
You see them on the highway looking like regular trucks but they come apart and go to sea.
http://jiyolive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/2.jpg ]
I am off again after a long afternoon to play music in town, and John is going along to fill up his car so I have gas to drive myself to Yakima tomorrow to see my cardiologist. He’s got too much to do to go along with me, and I have to rush back to play music at the Food Bank Soup Kitchen and then go to my exercise class.
I got enough exercise today more than for a whole normal week. We walked all over Anderson’s (an exporter’s) container yard from barn to barn and looked at various hay compressing units required to produce the product for export. Then drove 14 miles to past Kittitas to another exporter (Wesco) and had a long conversation with the manager/owner. Both were very interesting and educational.
Tonight John and I will pick up some tomatoes from a friend to whom I delivered squash today, and then we will go get a charbroiled chicken sandwich with some fancy Mexican name, TORTA. I don’t know what it is. Perhaps I should look it up on the Internet. I just looked at the coupon. It has beans, cheese, guacamole, and charbroiled chicken, tomato, and lettuce and salsa… supposedly . [John says: It is a linguistic advertizing trick to get you to buy their flat-bread sandwich.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torta ]
Wednesday, Sept 19 Early start this morning, leaving at 7:45 for Yakima for two Heart Center appointments, the first with my cardiologist (last visit was May 1), and I also needed a 3-month check (digital read out) from my ICD. On my way to the freeway, I passed a field of corn being harvested, so I took some pictures to share with my colleague, John B.. Then on down and up the hill on I-82, to the view point. Took a couple of photos of the smoke-filled valley and the ridges behind with all the smoke from the fires. On to Yakima, and got there 20 minutes before my scheduled appointment. Even though it was my doctor’s first appointment of the day, he was over at the hospital and was about 20 minutes late. But they took me in early and did an EKG and a chest X-ray, (normally done once a year). My report was good. He doesn’t want to see me back for 8 months. Wow–cool. After his care was completed, I walked around to the ICD check place and was a little early for my appointment. That went well, and while I was there, I asked if I could have my BP checked because it was a little high when I started (138/74), which I attributed to my driving myself down and seeing and worrying about the fire. However, I had been relatively relaxed for the rest of the hour while there, so she called in a nurse to retake it. It was 120/70, not bad, even though it is still a little higher than when I take it at home.
Off to Ellensburg to play music and be treated to lunch at the Food Bank Soup Kitchen. On my way down the hill, I pulled to the other viewpoint and took a movie panning around the valley, of the smoke on the far ridge, and also took a couple of still pictures. I came via the same road I had taken pictures of earlier of the corn harvest, and the whole crew with 3 large corn harvesters had moved farther down the road to another large field. I stopped and took a movie of the machinery working close up (cutting and stripping to just the corn cobs). Pretty cool. On to the Food Bank.
Once there I visited with a couple of the volunteer cookers and servers, and set up padded folding chairs for 4 people. We had our usual banjo and fiddle, plus two singers today. At the beginning and end, we were joined by an 82 year old man who carries his harmonica and plays with us when he can. Today he played, You Are My Sunshine. After we had a nice meal — chicken Alfredo with nice large slices of tender chicken, nice green salad, and homemade sweet biscuits (similar to shortcake, but cooked just like a hamburger-sized biscuit), with a fruit compote poured over it. Boy, was that scrumptious. From there to SAIL exercise class. I didn’t have to lead the class today because another of our group did. After that, I drove home, but saw big billowing smoke clouds and stopped to photo them, and then realized there were new fires in the canyon drainage west of us (Wilson Creek). Those continued to grow and burn on the ridge. My friend took his binoculars and looked across the valley and saw flames and also several fires and flare-ups in Wilson Creek. I decided not to go out after dark to look for the flames, because I figured it would give me nightmares. I did walk up the driveway twice tonight to get a better view of the smoke, and took some more pictures. I will post them on our continuing “web page.” http://www.ellensburg.com/nancyh/August2012Rock’NPonderosa.html
There is a report here (with photos):
http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Table-Mountain-fire-in-Wash-triples-in-size-3880802.php
On from there we continued with chores. John picked a box of pears from our tree we inspected on a first walk together up the driveway to get the paper. So I just took several photos of the clouds of smoke. He bought some peaches on his way back from the trail work last Saturday, and we fixed them tonight to freeze into little packages and kept some to have with ice cream and blueberry muffin for dessert. After we put the peaches up, we drove to the end of the driveway to check on the fire. We saw nothing alarming. Here is a note John wrote to a friend in WTA (WA Trails Association):
I’ll be coming Friday to Issaquah to work on trail to get out of the smoke. Our first big fire was west of here and came to about 6 miles away. There isn’t much to burn between here and there, so it stopped. Now, the forest north of us** is burning. The fire is up at 5,000 feet or so; we are at 2,200. Trees (P. Ponderosa) come down to about 3,500. Then there is low grass and intermittent brush. A downhill fire is not so fast moving and may not progress too far. Still it is just about 6 miles from us tonight. We are in the watchful/waiting mode again. Haven’t hooked the truck to the travel trailer yet – as we did last time. ** Some nice trails up there. I cleaned out a couple of downed trees for the Cle Elum district a few years back. I think the fire burned through there this afternoon or a bit earlier. Later this fall or next spring, I’ll go have a look. John
Thursday, Sept 20 Began the morning early, logging on to the website,
http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us which allows mapping active fires by downloading a .kmz file and using it within Google Earth. An example of the first one Sept 19 evening and the next Sept 20 will be on the evolving web page (above link) on Wednesday’s entry. Maybe more, because we have kept up the vigil. (NOTE update Sept 23 just before posting this blog; a 10:00 a.m. view showed no red dots; meaning no new fires within the past 12 hours.) Then we spent a lot of time doing various chores and left for me to play music at Dry Creek, while John went shopping. Came home and at 4:30, I pulled a new image from later this morning, and we are in MUCH better shape. The only reds are way north of us. Note, this is the explanation of the data mapped:
CONUS MODIS 1km Fire Detections This KML displays the MODIS fire detections at a spatial resolution of 1km for the past 6 hours, 6-12 hours, 12-24 hours and the previous 6 day period. Each 1km MODIS fire detection is depicted as a point representing the centroid of the 1km pixel where the fire is detected. The 1km footprint of the MODIS pixel for each detection is also displayed.
Data current as of 20-Sep-2012; 1715 Mountain Time (20-Sep–2315 UTC). 2012; KML file generated by the USDA Forest Service Active Fire Mapping Program. Please see http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us for additional fire mapping products and information.
[MODIS image is here: http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2012-09-21
Note the right side where 3 resolutions are available to download. Open one of these; the largest one if your computer can handle it. Then your pointer should appear as a “+ sign” and clicking on the image should expand or zoom – You will have to find our area – central WA — by using the scroll bars on the side and bottom. Wind is blowing from South-to-North and the smoke is drifting into the valleys to the north. This was taken on Sept. 13 but for the past week the wind has brought smoke into the Kittitas Valley – we are at the upper point of the greenish triangle, also know as the Naneum Fan. ]
We had a late dinner; beef roast, squash, lentils & barley, tomato sauce, cooked in the crock pot. I fixed some corn on the cob in the microwave, and we had some of our own yellow pear tomatoes (thumb size). I didn’t get the work done on my hay project I had intended. I took my camera to town, and stopped to take some pictures of a wheel line, shooting out water. Well, my battery got low, and it only let me take ONE picture. Will have to try later.
I got a note that the field trip I was signed up for in Olympia didn’t get but 4 people signed up, so they are cancelling it. I’m so disappointed. Now I will decide if I need to spend an extra night there–or if I couldn’t just drive over for Thursday and Friday nights–must decide soon. Actually I moved to another all day field trip to the Port of Gray’s Harbor and Aberdeen, WA redevelopment.
Friday, Sept 21 John left at 6:30 for Issaquah Highlands, east of Seattle, (Google Earth location is ‘grand ridge drive, Issaquah, WA ’, to work on trail with a Microsoft volunteer “Day of Caring” group. Go to that image and find the word ‘King’ (in green) and the trail is in the woods between the location marker and King. There are enough MS-folk (33) that several WTA assistant crew leaders are needed.
The air quality decreased enough last night to cause me to get up in the middle of the night and put on a face mask, and to turn on the fan to clean the air inside the house. A check of the active fire site shows they have stopped the advancing fire across Hwy 97 at the big curve where John has to travel in the morning. I have not checked the DOT site yet to see if the road closure has been lifted. (It was at 7:00 p.m.) [John says: On the quite steep east side of the road – crews cut many trees and all the low brush and moved most of it off the slope – only large downed logs and large standing trees (trimmed to ~8 feet up) are left. I think they then started a fire at the top of the slope but that is not visible from the highway. Lots of non-local, even Canadian, fire crews are up there working.]
Stayed home from getting out when I didn’t absolutely need to. For much of the day the visibility at the airport (5 miles south of us) was a half mile. Wow.. never saw it that low here. And the winds were calm since last night, but just before 2:00 we registered a 3mph wind from the NNW. It seems to be a little better.
I called my doctor’s office to get a prescription for a good mask to wear in this, because of my heart condition. I can pick it up from the hospital tomorrow when I’m in town. Have called around to a few people in need to let them know about that. I had to do the leg work on this, because the first comment from the Dr’s office in Cle Elum (45 minutes away) was you will have to pick up the prescription here. I said, I’m sure you can FAX it to the hospital, and I will find the number and call you back while we’re waiting for the Dr. to write the prescription. Jeez. I found the number and the location is Respiratory Services at the local hospital. I called back with the information and then an hour later, the nurse called to tell me the doctor wrote the prescription and it was being faxed. Rest of the time I’m spending on my part of the hay project. John made it home about 5:00 p.m.
===== Happy Fall Equinox! 10:49 am EDT
http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/tours-events/sky-this-week/the-sky-this-week-2012-september-18-25
See the 3rd paragraph. Therein the phrase “apparent disc” is used. This alludes to the fact that our Sun is so large that a spot on Earth gets light from an edge of the Sun’s surface and then, more and more of it as the two move in relation to one another. Such issues are explained here:
Saturday, Sept 22 The sun is barely shining through the smoke haze. When I left for town, and while there, the visibility was only 5 and 6 miles; now it is better, at the airport, but not up here close to the hills. The breeze has started again, however, so that might help a little as long as it doesn’t aggravate the fires. John is still on the road, coming down from the north through the fires. On my way to town, I stopped off at the post office and put a card in the mail for a special friend in my home town, Atlanta, GA. And, then on to the hospital, where I picked up 4 heavy duty masks for being out in this smoke. They know me in there from coming in for my yearly pulmonary test and occasional heart monitor checkouts. It is the Respiratory and Cardiac Services department at our local Kittitas Valley Community Hospital. I thanked them for being there to distribute them on the weekend, when all the public offices (health dept, and school health services) are closed. They thanked me for coming to participate, as it is a health need particularly now in our valley.
I had my camera along and on the way to town, I took some photos of a wheel line with water. On the return trip, it was cool that I came up Naneum, face to face with a LARGE herd of sheep with their Basque (or Peruvian) shepherds, walking them down Naneum Road from the hills to the north. I pulled off the road into a driveway type cut off, and took pictures of them all. I even got a snippet of a movie. Too bad I’m no longer teaching Economic Geography, but I will share my treasures with John Bowen. Talk about being at the right place at the right time. After I pulled away and watched them proceed down the road, I saw the other shepherd pulling their house trailer turn in front of me to “go around the block”. They will camp down the road for a couple of days in different pastures on their way south, over the Yakima Training Area south of us to Moxee, a town east of Yakima. Actually, they must have turned and gone west because John saw them on his way home over southwest of where I had seen them. Maybe I will go tomorrow and take a picture of them in a field. They usually stay a couple days, and move on.
We had a good time at Briarwood Commons (Retirement Community) with a very few folks playing and singing, but the audience was good, and they all contributed. They had made us a feast to thank us for coming to play. We had little chicken salad (mostly chicken) sandwiches, two pasta salads, wheat rolls with butter, wonderful green pea/ham/carrot soup, a fruit drink, and coffee to go with a table full of desserts. There were oatmeal/raisin cookies, zucchini bread, red velvet chocolate cupcakes, with homemade boiled white frosting, sweet crackers with peanut butter. I had one of each of the last two selections.
Guess that about does it. I need to work on loading the dishwasher I never finished yesterday, and to return to inputting my words and photos into our presentation on the hay industry we have to present in 2 weeks. It’s coming along well. That’s the presentation in Olympia, with John Bowen, my CWU colleague.
John made it home a little after 6:00 p.m. tonight. Today the WTA group included five Boy Scouts plus 7 or 8 others. They were west of Skykomish about 3 miles and then a little SW up a 6 mile gravel road on a trail that circles Lake Elizabeth [See at: 47.70271, -121.518423 ].
He came home and is fixing his dinner, but I have eaten too much this afternoon to need anything to eat.
John was sitting talking to me about his day, when Rascal brought a live bird into the den. Luckily John picked the cat up and carried him outside with the bird in his mouth. He was still alive and when the cat let go of, the tiny thing flew away. YEA! Glad John got him outside and we didn’t have a bird flying around our house. It was a little sparrow (?), maybe.
Hope your week was a good one.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan
I hope to find some time to update the page you have been reading for the past couple of weeks, but it will probably just happen in spurts. I have mentioned some stuff in this week’s blog, but the content is not yet there. If you log on and see a red notice toward the top about adding something by Sept 9, then nothing has been added yet. Please visit again soon. Here is the link.
http://www.ellensburg.com/nancyh/August2012Rock’NPonderosa.html
My emphasis and concentration is now on the presentation upcoming in less than 2 weeks. Thanks for staying tuned.