Sunday, Feb 24 Worked all day on emails, mostly creating a list of my family members to add to the sending out of our 2012 greetings. I also have at least one other list to check for friends who are not currently listed on my Cedaridge account from where I am emailing to a 2012 Greetings Group. I sent requests to a bunch of family members and am receiving feedback with corrected emails. John worked outside, some on digging holes for fence posts, and I do not know what else. Then he came in and worked more, putting up 7 to 8 ounces of walnuts, in the freezer. I cannot wait until he makes them into a praline sauce and roasts them. Then we are going to add to our special Crockpot chocolate (in place of the salted dry roasted peanuts). I continued working on the web page for the reunion last summer, to go out with our 2012 greetings. Most of my work now is with answers to questions, and trying to finalize a good email list for family members.
Monday, Feb 25 Off, with John, to town. Stopped for a burger and fries, and on to drop me off at exercise, and he took off for the grocery store where he bought some frozen Stouffers’ Lasagna on sale. We are having it for supper. Smells really good. I think we are having the spicy version tonight. Been working more on gathering information about my mom’s family for the reunion page. Temperature went to 47 and the wind blew a lot, but now it’s not even 8:00 p.m. and already is down to 35.
Tuesday, Feb 26 Stayed home today, working most of the day on the mailing list for my family who were at the reunion last June and those who couldn’t attend. I am merging the unknowns using an old email acct we have had since 1995 and used to use as our only email account. Didn’t have all the accounts that I now have on Gmail. There are some old-reunion-information-gathering ones on there to help me out. The rest of the day we completed some other chores. The biggest was John cleaning out the freezer to put in some choice wholesale meats he bought: beef, chicken, pork, and seafood. This is expensive but everything is fast frozen in dense/thick plastic in portions for 1 or 2. We have been buying in large size packages at the local stores to get the lower price but then stuff has to be repackaged and put in our old chest freezer – a 1950s model. That’s both a PITA and a cost. Nancy went to an auction in Iowa (we left there in 1974) and out-bid a fellow that wanted this freezer to store worms (night crawlers) for his fishing trips. She only paid $35. Yes, we know it is old and inefficient but it is also in the back of the garage now filled with “stuff” – so there it stays until its last resting place is nigh. The garage is semi-heated and as the freezer is a solo affair it works fine there (so far). We have a fridge with a large top freezer in an unheated shed. As the temperature in the shed gets to about cold-milk temperature that unit doesn’t get its thermostat triggered and things in the freezer part get too warm. Several 2-liter soda bottles of ice act as a buffer and stay solid but things such as sliced and sugared fruit (Peaches, Strawberries, . . .) begin to soften. Other than turning heat on in the shed, there doesn’t seem to be a way to fix this issue without spending time and money.
Nancy likes a yellow Plum called Shiro. Plum trees (usually) need a second different chum for pollination. After some local and regional searching to little success, John found an on line source – and bought a 5 tree package. Oops! Now he needs 5 holes. This photo shows 2 of the 5 with just the sod removed; on right with markers in the center of circles 4 feet across.
uncovered, straw moved, holes for trees started
He decided to do this inside the existing fence, where the twigs, shoots, and foliage will be safe from the deer, and as they are dwarf trees the promised fruit will be out of their reach, also. All fruit trees outside the fence (we call that ‘the orchard’) are full size trees but pruned by the deer to their browse height. The so called “browse line” as shown in this image pilfered from the web.
This image is from a Texas location
Wednesday, Feb 27 Today, I have had two more responses from family members, and I need to get to work this evening on finishing the email list and get this thing sent off. Yesterday, I had some more input for the reunion web page. Today, I was tired from staying up until after midnight last night, so I slept in this morning and was late with breakfast but had to rush out for playing at the food bank soup kitchen and then go to exercise afterwards. There were VERY few people there today. Usually it fills up, with at least 8 tables (I have never counted them) with 6 chairs at some tables and an extra on the ends of the table in front of us, because we are on one side and need room for our stand and so people don’t walk through and knock it over. On a busy day, there may be 50 to feed, and the servers and we eat too. I am sure there were only about 15 there today. People do sign in but I didn’t count (we are always the last), only the servers are after us. I’m not sure they sign in. Today was an especially good meal, except for one dish I couldn’t eat. The main dish, donated again by the Ellensburg Pasta Co. was Chicken Alfredo with large slices of chicken. The dish I couldn’t eat had kale along with spinach or broccoli (something dark green), with other stuff but I couldn’t have any of, because of the Vitamin K (abbreviated: VitK) in dark green veggies. They had a mixed green salad, with very few spinach leaves, so the server could pick around them for me to just the iceberg or lighter lettuce. It had walnuts and cranberries (which I can’t have, but can easily pick out). For dessert, an in-house cobbler like thing, with large Bartlett pears in a dark brown sugar sauce, with a shortcake/coconut topping, all nicely cooked. I do not usually like pear pies, but this dessert was really quite good. Okay, back to chores on the addresses compilation. I did try to copy (on our multi-function printer, scanner, copier) some mileages from my car log [John says he will explain this term sometime when I’ve written less] for 2012, but only one page printed and the next went all gray ?? I left it and a couple hours later John tried. His first page came out well, but the same thing happened to the second. I hope our printer is not getting ready to die. We use it a lot. [Scan and copy are gone but it still prints.]
Thursday, Feb 28 How did I miss writing anything about the day? Must have been too busy with things. Major trip of the day was with John to town for me to play violin with the group at Hearthstone, and to visit with friends afterwards, who came to listen and participate. It was Glenn Engels (now living in Ellensburg), and his mom, Anne from Montana. Anne worked as a nurse and corresponded with John when I was very ill. She had come over to visit with her son and give him support and help for his eye surgery last week, in Pasco. It was a success. He lives across the street in an apt. right near where we were playing, so they could walk over. We stayed after and had cookies and hot chocolate and a nice visit. Then John and I went to the grocery store to take advantage of the specials that happen all week but also some are only for Thursdays. Finally, they had restocked the bulk Sweet & Low on the shelf. I met two friends in the store so got to visit while John looked for things.
Friday, March 1
[or, 1. März in German] Absolutely no trips away today. John got a lot of chores outside done. The first was cleaning dog poo from the now snow-free backyard and bringing straw into the yard to cover bare spots.
used for Blueberry plant protection
on bare spots. A thin cover is already in place.
To protect blueberry plants from cold and dry winter air he filled their protective wire containers with straw. So he up-ended these, turning them into wire baskets, and filled them with the straw to be carried to the yard. (photo at left)
I took a couple of pictures for the record, and later he spread it around the back to cover the mud (photo below) which might otherwise happen, before the grass grows. I spent almost the entire day working on emails, help with proofing for some people, organizing events for future music contributions by our group, distributing jobs via the jobs-list, and continuing building the email address directory for sending our 2012 greetings, soon. Also, I got involved early with a mistaken email announcing the AWG (Assoc of WA Geographers meeting) this spring to be held at CWU hosted by the Geography Department. I knew about it and have been in on the planning and of course, I’m on the email list. The president sent out a note to everyone on the list telling them to keep dates in the first week of April on their calendar. She was mistaken and I realized the dates were given wrong and should have been the first week in May. I got back to the person in charge (John Bowen), and he got back to me and then sent a rejoinder to the list with the correction and attached the program of planned events. I’m glad I caught it early.
Saturday, Mar 2 Nothing special today. John will be working on outside projects and me on inside ones. I plan to finally give him much-needed haircut. Just struggled through it without proper clipper attachment combs that fit my Oster machine. I know I have them somewhere, but wouldn’t have them before he needs his next haircut. I just called Drs. Foster & Smith (pet supply place) for a couple, hoping they are the right size. The ones I have been using fit an old Wahl one, which died right after I finished his last haircut. I thought they would fit on my other clippers, but they don’t. So, for $12 (less that the cost of a haircut), I will get two .. one a 3/16 and the other a 1/16 inch cut. Hope that works. I should have ordered a couple of dog collars. The shipping is $5.99 regardless of what you get up to $49, and then free after that. At least coming from Wisconsin, I do not have to pay 8.1% (or higher) tax. Right before 7:00 p.m. the temp went to 49 from a high of 58 today but now the winds are gusting to 37 mph.
Hope your week was great.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan