Sunday, Apr 14 Heard last night the Brittany puppies in CA (Kip, our puppy, Cork’s brother, is sire, and Ginny, belonging to Jeri & Kurt Conklin, is having puppies tonight. At 8:00 p.m. a little o/w female was first born. Owner of the sire is Sonja Willitts. We await news of more. Seven seemed to show to some viewers in an X-ray this week. (Only 6 were there, and sadly, one didn’t make it after a couple of days). Five remaining ones are fine and growing. Last night also, I found, with John’s help, the rest of the tax data needed for some stock dividends, to put in our return. This is a good thing! Oops, need to go back and print the right side of two of the pages; cannot read the 1099-INT totals. Got the 1099-DIV fine, however. Will need to wait for John to come back and access the account from his computer, where the information is accessible (from the web), and the printer to print out for our tax files. He’s out working on fencing his new baby Ponderosa pines. Lunch eaten and all forms reprinted to size. Actually, we had missed two pages last night. Do not know how, but we have them now. It took me another long while to add the data to Turbo Tax, but John reminded me when I was complaining, that he used to have to do all those calculations by hand (for stock/mutual fund capital gain or loss). Okay, so I am happy again.
Monday, Apr 15 I had a crazy night’s sleep, dreaming about the nuttiest things, awoke early and couldn’t get back to sleep, so just got up to use John’s computer to finish the correction on the tax form. I had to get his signature and help making a postcard to include for the IRS to send back when they receive the form.
I began early working on our “hay” paper, but left at 11:00 for the Kittitas, WA USPS, figuring my wait there would be a whole lot less than in EBRG. I was correct; no wait. Drove on to town to get some things at the grocery and Bi-mart. Now we can make Crockpot chocolate candy because I bought some dry roasted peanuts (1/2 normal price), and the last ingredient we need(ed) for the candy. Eventually, I came home finally, had a small lunch, watched John nap in the chair after his, and continued working on my paper, combining it with slides from the PowerPoint used in Olympia, and cutting out and adding text from the article submitted. We have to lower it from the 19 minutes for presenting in October to 15 minutes here as well as incorporating additional information learned since. I will be presenting it because my co-author, John Bowen, will be busy chairing the conference and listening to some of his students’ papers.
John just awoke and went out to work in the sun (changing weather here, that’s for sure). He did take some photos of the snow, and the little birds in the Nanking cherry trees with the snow covering the cherry blossoms!
[*Click on photo to see a large version.*]
Once home, all the snow gone, I looked out and saw what I think is a female Red Wing Blackbird. Got a photo and will check to see if I’m right. (I was). They are entirely different from the males.
Tuesday, Apr 16 Finally, a good night’s sleep. Guess I was truly exhausted. Today was filled with catching up on projects, and then I played music tonight at a nursing home on the NE edge of town closest to our home. Only 21 miles r.t. John’s got nice sun and not too much wind to work outside in today to make room for his plants on their way here from Indiana Berry Co., due this Friday. Temperatures at 11:30 are up to 49, but the wind has also moved up to 20mph. Lunch and back to work. Went to play music after computer chores all day. Was home for dinner after and we had leftover spaghetti and meat sauce that we didn’t eat all of last night. I have been working more on the PowerPoint for the hay paper, but now am going to fix dessert and hit the hay (ha ha). For now, I’m very tired of describing the hay forage industry geography.
Wednesday, Apr 17 Today, the usual, play music at the Food Bank Soup Kitchen, exercise, and then I’m getting a haircut at my neighbor’s. I don’t know how long it has been since the last but it’s getting straggly. It was almost 8 weeks ago, and necessary, even though my hair seems to be thinning again on top. Might be from all the meds I’m taking. I do take a multi-vitamin daily. I left this morning before 11:30 a.m. going directly to the food bank’s Soup Kitchen where Evelyn (our banjo player), I, Mary Ann (along with Bob, a server, after he finished helping) sang with us. Okay on to St. Vincent’s looking for a pair of SMALL aluminum tongs, which we’ve had and LOST over the past couple of months. You may wonder, how did they do that? I wish we knew. Then on to Exercise class at the adult activity center, where I picked up a couple pieces of cake to go with our ice cream tonight for dessert.
Once home was a time-out to deal with medical insurance over a 15 min. device check required every 3 months for Nancy’s Implanted Defibrillator Device. Jeez. It’s going to cost $44, because Medicare and Group Health won’t pay anything if I have not yet met my deductible for 2013. I think it is $250 for GH and less than that for Medicare. Nevertheless, the point remains, I should have made that appointment earlier by 2 weeks to have it in 2012 where I had built up a COB (cost of benefits) balance. (That’s an account built up through the year that can be tapped for savings). Message to self: remember for next year to arrange so that I don’t go in right after the first of the year (it was 1-15-13), and force it to end in December this year. Of course, as John says, it really doesn’t matter. We have to pay for the first few medical charges at the first of the year, regardless. I was just trying to figure what I could move to the end of the year (such as that), which benefits from being able to use COB monies, which do not carry over. They are lost in the system, if unused. John has added the next little bit to explain the procedure. A technician reads the record with a wand (non-invasive procedure) scan of the ICD in my body that keeps track of everything my heart has been doing. Under the drawing is an explanation of what the read-out is used for and what else can be done, if needed. I have to drive to Yakima for the service, because it cannot be done here. We usually combine it with a trip to Costco.
Later I received a tour of the place to see all John’s recent yard work. First, the garden from prior years, now with Blackberries, Strawberries, and Asparagus – some annual things will be planted later. His newly planted onions (3 special ones – we get yellow cooking onions for 6¢/pound so don’t plant any) are looking good. He cut back the thorny blackberries so we can walk the path through the middle of the garden. He has culled a bunch of the strawberry runners and has rows again. His asparagus from seeds is coming up, and his asparagus from roots is looking really good. He also removed two poles at the “back” of the garden and extended it a little more. We next went over to the newest garden, downslope from the work last year on the round pen (still under construction). One of the last landscaping projects after the snow fell was to move the excess dirt (with rocks) down into the depression. Now he is fencing that, removing rocks and making the soil ready. He plans to receive some strawberry plants this Friday, and wants to get them in there. As well, he will plant some corn, and winter squash there. Remains to be seen if anything else goes in. Last year he was talking putting tomatoes there because of its having a higher amount of sunlight there than in the older one. He finished giving me the tour of all the stuff he’s been doing over the past couple weeks. He’s been busy sorting rocks and moving them and dirt. He dug a trench (no rocks but just next to the new garden space) to put the rocks in so he doesn’t have to haul them away, and he can use the dirt from the trench for the garden. Rocks, sand, and “dirt” on an alluvial fan is a never-ending puzzle. I came on back in the house to tackle my several projects. Later we had a late dinner that was quite tasty. I had not eaten a lot for lunch because it was pasta with tough steak, lots of dark green salad so I just got a little of the non-dark green stuff, hoping to avoid high Vitamin K content.
Thursday, Apr 18 Busy day. Morning filled with chores. Left for Kittitas to have taco lunch with members of the Kittitas Valley Trail Riders — 4 of whom left the fairgrounds in EBRG and rode the John Wayne Trail to the Old Milwaukee Railroad Station at Kittitas, WA and hitching posts there that we helped build. Eight others joined the group for a nice visit, until they turned around and rode back west into the wind. From there, we went back to town, where John let me off at Dry Creek to play music until 3:00 and he went on to do several things. Nicest for me was he filled my car with gas. Then he went to Bi*Mart for some supplies for the yard, and on across town to get his new two sets of glasses. Once home, he gave me an instructive demonstration. I had seen his normal glasses (progressive lenses, auto darkening). His extra free pair (a special just this month), he had made into computer reading glasses. They really are cool. Thankfully, I don’t need any glasses – my lens implants do all I need.
Outside, it’s clouding over and might rain again. I brought home more than half of my Taco Salad from lunch. It was HUGE. It will be my dinner. John got some ground beef with the idea of making a meat loaf, but I’ll bet he waits until tomorrow for that and just has a hamburger tonight, with one of the fancy cheese rolls I brought home yesterday.
Friday, Apr 19 Today, I went to town mainly for a Pro-Time test (INR) blood draw, but it turned into an exciting day. First, to exercise class, and sadly someone had something go wrong, perhaps an anxiety attack, but we’ll never know. However, when she beckoned our teacher over, I realized it was distracting and possibly embarrassing to have everyone staring at her, and they had called the EMTs, who arrived rapidly. I moved to the leader’s chair, picked up the place in the class where she left off, and gave the class of 19, instructions. I am not certified to do that, but I figured there were 3 people there qualified and they were all busy with the person needing help. I went through 4 different exercises before one of the others arrived to take over from me. Shortly, our instructor came back and they carried the person out of the room, in her chair, to the entrance hallway, where they must have gathered more information and taken some vitals. We finished the class, and they were still there with her. I made my way to the hospital, for my blood draw and INR reading. When I got there, no one was in the lab. I waited around and a person ahead of me was taken in, but then I waited longer for the gal to come back to help me. I realized they were short handed and she had to leave to take blood from someone in ER. I know where the doors lead, having been in there regularly for 5 years. Turns out it was the person from our class. I told the story about drinking lots of fluids for the past hour of exercise, but not having any for the past 45 minutes while waiting for her return from ER. I told her about what happened and that we would never know because of privacy, but I was concerned. She asked where I had been. I said at the Adult Activity Center and the EMTs came to check her out. I assumed she would end up in ER. She told me she had and that she was doing fine. I made it home, finally. Brought some cookies home for our dessert with ice cream tonight. We both had an advanced one this afternoon. Late in the day after 5:00, I received my INR report, which was down a little, so I threatened to have a glass of wine with dinner (meatloaf), but we didn’t. Darn. John received his UPS package delivery of strawberry plants, all the way from Indiana, via a distribution center near O’Hare Airport, on to Spokane, EBRG, and here – arriving late afternoon just as predicted (and tracked the whole way).
Saturday, Apr 20 Spent a little time this morning cleaning kitchen counter build-up, and going through this blog. I am going to play music at Briarwood this afternoon, where they feed us afterwards. Today they had a green pea soup with ham and carrots, wonderful chicken salad sandwiches, other things, and desserts, plus an orange/mango/sprite drink. We only had two instruments there, and 2 extra singers. Occasionally, one of the singers accompanied with her tambourine. Fellowship and food was good.
John was down in the field with the dogs when I got home. We are adding a photo John took of the vineyard work. (He started early March with the pruning that you have heard about in earlier blogs.)
The cane has been cut and is dropping to the ground. A short piece (spur) is left with just 2 or 3 buds from which will come new growth and a cluster of grapes.
Hope your week was great.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan