Saturday, Apr 27 Left off this blog last week on my way to volunteer at our Grange fundraiser, at the Fairgrounds, held in conjunction with the Barn Quilts of the county (and a national organization as well), and two buildings full of quilts of all varieties.
John and I made a nice chocolate cake the night before, and frosted (choc), adding our homegrown roasted walnuts to the top. The only problem is it was a little thin on one long edge (15″), because our replacement stove needs leveled, but I just put more frosting on that side, so it didn’t look too bad. The middle had thicker cake pieces. We donated it for the dessert table and the workers cut it up and put on little plates with a price tag. The cakes were all different prices. Ours was priced at $1.50/piece and they were about 3.5″ x 3″ for 15 pieces. Nice looking and that was pure profit for the fundraiser. All pies were $2.50/large-slice. For my own lunch, I took a tuna fish sandwich cut in 1/2 but didn’t have time to eat until almost 3:00 p.m. because of all our business, so I only ate 1/2. I bought a cup of roasted garlic tomato soup to have with it, although I am not a garlic lover it was a nice addition. We took in over $700. I was primarily a cashier, along with taking orders, but did get up to help a woman who was very unstable on her feet and shaking a lot. She had a walker but I helped her get her change into her purse, and walked with her to a table, helping her into her chair from the walker. Then I got her coffee, went back for her food, and delivered it.
Two of us worked at the “ordering table,” with one delivering the orders over to the kitchen. When we were swamped, someone from the kitchen came out to pick up the orders, so we both could continue setting up orders and making change. We also sold Grange cookbooks, picturesque note cards, and homemade cookie packets, besides taking money and orders for beverages, soups (choice of Chicken & Rice, and Tomato–cup or bowl), salads (green mixed with 3 dressing choices, Caesar, and Grilled Chicken Caesar–small or large. Desserts were various cakes and pies. I ended up working from 11:45 to 5:00. The food stopped being served at 4:00, but desserts and beverages still were available. And, the last hour, I helped mark and stack trays filled with little plates with pieces of cake for the evening sales (Barn Dance), and next day’s lunch. That was good because I was able to bring our large “old” cookie sheet type pan home. We realize it is larger than such sold today. The sales out of it brought $22.50.
Poor John was working in the wind all afternoon. I drove in it but while I was inside the building, the gusts were the highest (4 straight hours of 44 mph). The hours either side of it were in the high 30s. He was primarily working today on planting his new strawberries, and managed to plant 40 plants.
Having fed and exercised all the animals, he just presented me with a large plastic plate of Honeycrisp apples and low-salt potato chips for the first course of dinner. Nice combination. We were scheduled to have a bowl of leftover chili for dinner, but I didn’t have any because I was still full from lunch. The chili was a great deal I received free on Friday. I went to a scholarship luncheon, but the Adult Activity Center had a free chili meal with a movie (free for members). There was some chili leftover, so they kindly packaged in square plastic containers for people to take home. At least 5 people in our class got some, and perhaps more that I didn’t see who took it earlier. It was a good amount, we have had 2 meals off it, and I think John might have had a bowl for his lunch today.
Also, I received comments today from my co-author on shortening the text for my talk next Saturday. He reworked one of the slides for the PowerPoint into a more professional rendition than the one I made to illustrate the article on Virtual Water Export from the U.S., which just was published in April, in a professional geography journal. We needed to include it in our summary statements because it relates well to our research on hay export.
Sunday, Apr 28 I was very tired from yesterday’s activities and did not have a good full night’s sleep. The winds have been high today, but less than yesterday, and John has managed to plant 40 more strawberry plants and set hoses all around the orchard using gravity flow from the irrigation ditch. He sends along the following photos. Click each for the large version.
I was all happy about loading a counter-full of dishes into the washer, and washing them. Once it was through the cycle to the dry, I turned it off to turn over the cups and anything with accumulated water pockets, to drain. I was almost done with the top shelf when it collapsed and dropped all the dishes and the front part of the drawer forward to the door below. It was a mess and noisy. At least no china or glasses were broken this time, as last, just one soup bowl chipped. John picked it all out for me, and set them out to dry, but I still had to individually dry things later.
Monday, Apr 29 I didn’t write anything down for this date, so wonder how to reconstruct it. Oh, I remember why; I had to spend time on the phone setting up heart-related appointments. First is tomorrow with the woman to perform a device check on my defibrillator (occurs every 3 months). We decided to clean off the counter between the kitchen and den, and all the stacks of boxes and materials (many in large 9 x 13″ envelopes), all covered with dust. John could only do so much when I had to step in to manage sorting my old teaching materials. Most can be recycled, but have to be vacuumed (our house is dusty with 4 dogs and John tracking in mud and dirt). For several hours (literally), I worked through the stacks to see what goes where. A few things I can pass on to colleagues, and some are historical, so I will first show the Emeriti Geography professors at our monthly meeting, and then possibly store in the archive library at CWU. One thing I found was from an older friend (geographer) back east of two newsletters he found in his office while moving. They were published from our CWU Geography Department in the 1950s (even with some color on maps on the covers). I remember the colored masters for red and green and blue run on a ditto machine (mostly with purple-colored typed text) that we used in graduate school in the sixties. This was first run through a black mimeo and color added to the base map of WA. One was a silk screen process.
Tuesday, Apr 30 Up early to drive to Yakima for my device check; then to Big 5 Sports for some work boots for me. We took a short drive through the older residential areas near Nob Hill, to admire all the colorful trees and blooming ones, such as pink and white dogwood. Also, we saw many lovely hydrangeas, red maple trees, other bushes and trees we couldn’t identify from the street distance. Their situation is quite different (1,000 ft. lower, & warmer) from ours. The amount they are ahead of us is amazing. Went on to Costco, where we got gasoline for 40¢ less per gallon than in EBRG. That’s also amazing to us. There’s even a 20¢ difference in our town a mile (or less) between stations. Back to our town for Black Oil Sunflower seeds for our birds, which is a little cheaper here than there and we can buy 50 lb., rather than 40 lb. bags. On to Pizza Hut to collect a special on a large with any toppings pizza for $10. We made dinner and lunch out of it. For dinner, John added mushrooms we bought today at Costco, and chicken from what he cooked last night, adding some cheese – more nutritious this way. On back by our normal grocery store for another couple of sale items that expired today. Might as well take advantage of significant 50% savings (both on meat).
While there he had to get ice cream.
Wednesday, May 1 Another busy one, but we both went to town. John dropped me off at the Food Bank, and went to see the new computer and talk with them. He delivered our old (1981) computer monitor, an old printer, and an IBM keyboard. The shop recycles metals (with a guy who drives by from Seattle to pick them up from their backroom). While there John took his speakers to see if they would connect to the new system. (A-OK). Meanwhile, my banjo friend and I entertained and were going through the line for our food, when John arrived. He signed in, and they were happy to serve him a meal. Only 25 people attended today, down from normal. The meal was pasta as usual (always donated on Wednesdays by Ellensburg Pasta Co.). It was a really good spicy chicken/cheese and little snail-shaped button-like pasta, thankfully for me, not green (made with spinach I can’t have). I looked on the web and found the name and image. -Insalatonde is the closest thing, although there are several shapes. They made a salad with green beans, chick peas, red beans, green olives, and some other stuff in a sort of vinegar like sauce. I didn’t expect I would like it, but it was palatable and tasty. For dessert was a special cake thrown together from flour, Jiffy muffin mix, something else, and cherry pie filling. They covered with chocolate sauce and then ice cream on top. Different, rather interesting, but filling. John and I left there to drop off some magazines (from our cleaning up job) at the Activity Center and tell them I was too busy to come to class, but I said hello to all, and set the music up to play. While there, I picked up two pieces of a Bundt blueberry cake for eating tonight with our ice cream. From there to CWU to deliver books and VCR tapes to 3 colleagues. On home, where I continue working on shortening my paper for Saturday. We got a call that the computer is ready to be picked up, so that means cleaning more of the counter tonight and tomorrow morning, before John drops me off at Royal Vista for music, and goes on to the computer place to get his new toy. Guess we are going to have a grilled roast beef and cheese sandwich for supper.
Thursday, May 2 Oh my goodness, I never wrote anything down from today. What a day. Mainly we worked on projects (mine on the paper, and got it done and printed off for Saturday’s presentation), then John unloaded all the boxes and stuff from the newest truck (’89 ) into the older one (’80), and drove me to town for music. While I was there, he drove to the CWU surplus sale loading 10 pallets (50¢ each) & six 5-gallon buckets (50¢ each). John came back and picked me up, and we went back to load in the truck the packed up computer system, except for one monitor, which I carefully carried on a pillow in the front seat, going home. John spent the rest of the night (until too late), setting up the system. Then he set up the newly provided modem from our DSL/phone company. The old computer has a wired link to the modem but my laptop and the new one are to be of the wireless type – that is, we will have a “Home Group” network. We had not set up anything like this before and things did not go well.
Friday, May 3 Morning began with over an hour on the phone with the DSL provider and the computer shop. The Fairpoint tech guy got two-thirds of the problem solved, but something was wrong and he suggested talking to the computer shop. The symptom was a weak signal as shown by the “bars” at the bottom corner of the screen. John’s initial thought was that we jarred loose the wireless card or something, but as it did show up, that didn’t make good sense. In talking to the tech at the computer place the conversation was moving to “put the tower back in the box and bring it in” – when John remembered on pick-up day someone at the shop saying – prior to John heading to lunch at the food Bank – “The 2 wireless antennae need to be unscrewed before the tower and be re-boxed.” Oops! Found the antennae! Screwed them in. Uff da. Glitch solved. We now have wireless connection to the Internet with all 3 computers, and a Home Group sharing documents and pictures. When we get a new printer/scanner (the current all-in-one has a dead scanner) it will be “wireless” and now that we know to screw on an antenna or two, we will have entered the 21st Century (computer-wise).
This evening is Robert Michael Pyle’s talk on Butterflies and we will take our boxes of books to donate to the AWG at the registration table tomorrow. I have to be there before 8:00 a.m. to be at the table during the AWG business meeting, and then our session starts at 9:00 a.m. My paper starts at 10:05. After that, I’m free of any duties, except probably attending to the book table again. John has meat loaf in the oven. Don’t know if we will get some before leaving or not. Turns out we will wait till we get home. Might be a late dinner but we are used to that. Turns out it was MUCH later – talks about Butterflies go every which-a-way just like the flight pattern of the animals on a windy day.
Saturday, May 4 We had the Association of WA Geographers meeting this weekend here in EBRG, and I started participating quite early, leaving the house at 7:30 a.m. I helped with set up and put out all our books for donations to the Student Awards for the organization on a table adjacent to the registration table. I gave my paper in the morning session. I did fine and received many compliments, especially from my co-author, who presented our similar research paper at Olympia, WA for a different geography conference last October. We have added to it and changed a few things since then. He told me later that today was the Kentucky Derby, and we should have mentioned that (because the export hay trade in our valley began in 1971 with 200 tons delivered to Japan, after they learned our valley’s hay was being shipped to feed racehorses in Kentucky!). The day and presentation was neat because a lot of my students from the past and friends (colleagues) from around WA in community colleges (& universities) were there. I also got to meet a bunch of the students currently in the programs who I had met through my jobs list but never in person. One gal giving a poster is the daughter of one of my former students for whom I was an adviser on her internship at the Pacific Northwest Laboratory in Richland, associated with some of the Hanford waste studies and the leaking tanks of radioactive materials into the Columbia River. I didn’t stay for the afternoon paper session but left after the group returned from lunch. I stayed and took care of the tables, and viewed the last of the poster presentations. From there I went on to our favorite grocery store because a special Saturday-only sale was occurring, on many things we needed and use. My cart was totally full, contents including: packages of paper towels, ice cream, diced tomatoes, cans of fruit, canned cat food, and I think that was about it, except for a couple other items, marked down as well.
Once home, I finally collapsed and took an hour’s nap. Unfortunately, we stayed up later than I should have working on the computer, this blog, and things that have been ignored all week.
Finally, it is now Sunday morning, and we were getting ready to have John post this blog, but the WordPress he uses is from his old computer. It lost its connection to the new modem. He has spent the past two hours moving back and forth between the back of the house and the den, trying to coordinate and figure all the passwords, workgroup issues, and allow our computer to speak to one another. FINALLY, we THINK we’re up to be able to have him post the blog from his new computer. However, he will have to transfer the picture file information from the old computer, so he can add the pictures for today’s issue.
He got that done, but then we have had to spend lots of time figuring how for him to retrieve my Word document, with his LibreOffice Writer, an open-source free word-processing software on his new machine. Now that we are home grouped I can revise his files on my computer, store on mine, and he can come back to my computer files on the Home Group for me. I think we’re nearing posting time Sunday afternoon, but wow, we have accomplished a lot today.
Hope your week was great.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan