Sunday, Jun 16 HAPPY FATHER’S DAY!
Warm here today and not windy. John has taken care of much garden activities, mostly watering. In addition, he picked almost 2 dozen big strawberries, filling the box fuller that was pictured yesterday. I have cleaned them and much of the kitchen, and am tackling other chores. The a/c just came on, so the hallway temperature must have reached 77. We had 89° high outside for a couple hours. We called a few friends/relatives, or left messages on their recorders. John and Rascal are napping, but I slept in a little longer this morning, so I’m up, and answering the phone (or not). We have been getting 1-877 calls labeled TOLL-FREE. I looked it up on the web. It is a non-located prefix, just as 1-800 or 1-888, and most likely is a telemarketer. If I don’t answer, they never leave a message, but now with caller ID I can see it to ignore. Two calls came this afternoon two hours apart. Every day we have at least one call from such. I believe the caller ID is worth the money. I have it free for 2 years, but at the end I will be so spoiled, I will subscribe. John’s cooking a pork loin (seasoned) roast. Been setting up with AAA to come pick-up John’s pickup on Tuesday to take to the repair shop. While going through things today, I found I’m almost out of checks, so needed to order them. It’s highway robbery. Last ordered 150 duplicate checks in Sept 2011, for $13. Now they want $21.50 for 120, so I will wait and see if I can find a source cheaper than that.
Monday, Jun 17
Called Pittman towing, but I cannot schedule through them, and must wait until tomorrow to see if he is free, after I call Auto-AAA. There is one other AAA provider in town, and we will get, whoever is available to come out. We got the other, McIntosh.
[John adds: Here’s how to waste time. Nancy spelled the car-tow place’s name as Macintosh. Worth a check, and made the correction. Her spelling could have been either an apple or a computer (now known as a Mac) marketed by a company called Apple. Now about the fruit. You can read about this red/green wonder here.
The second paragraph tells you of John MacIntosh discovering, in 1811, a new sapling (you do know that apple seeds do not “breed true, right?). In the first link – the wiki page – there is a comment about the MacIntosh farm in “Upper Canada.” If you click on that link and look at the map you will see an “orange” place in the very southern part of Canada. A first this seems strange. I used this in classes I taught to try to get students to question things they read and how they, versus others, thought about the World. Imagine you are on a sailing ship from merry ol’England or France. You approach North America and the Gulf of St. Lawrence and sail until rapids stop your passage. You have just passed through “Lower Canada” and must go beyond the rapids and to higher elevation to get to that “orange” place on the map. Upper Canada meant “higher” not the northern part. A student once asked to be excused from class because she was going “up” to Canada, so I questioned where. Toronto, she said. Well having friends in Toronto, I knew she was headed mostly east but also south – about 220 miles south of Ellensburg. And that’s how to waste time – now back to Nancy and paper bank checks.]
I didn’t have to call about my checks today, because in cleaning off a flat space loaded high, I found 3 sets with 50 checks each! I moved them to the Roll-Top desk where we have kept them for years. Managed to package two books to send to a friend in Alabama, and another to a friend in NM. Those got mailed today. Then on to my SAIL exercise class. I picked up a couple of sympathy cards there for my friend’s family, and 3 copies of the local paper she was pictured in the day she died. Then “SAILed” through class, and on to Super One to use some good coupons for less expensive ground beef, provolone cheese, French bread, Almond Breeze for me, Diet Cola and Cola for John (also on sale). The pharmacy did not have my prescription ready for Metoprolol that I called in last week. They said they had faxed 6 requests. I was going to call or email when I got home, but was too busy with other things, and got a call from my Pharmacy late afternoon saying they had finally received the approval from my cardiologist in Yakima. Good thing it wasn’t an emergency need. Actually, if that should happen, they will give me some to take until the prescription arrives. Now I call a week ahead (for good reason).
After the grocery, I stopped by Briarwood to pick up a card for Lois’ family. That gave me two cards from the EBRG Senior Center-AAC, one from Briarwood, one from me (us), and 4 copies of the paper write-up she never got to see.
John picked another pound of strawberries, and I cleaned them.
Tuesday, Jun 18
Called AAA and arranged for the pick up of Chev ’80 pickup to carry to our repair garage. It left here just after 1:00 p.m.. John’s been building a scarecrow and yesterday put up an owl (plastic blow-up). He’s trying to protect the strawberries from birds. Today he also picked another pound of strawberries for me to clean and freeze what we don’t eat tonight.
We both have been “startled” by the “guy” in the garden.
I had planned to be busy with cleaning up boxes in the house all day, and in the evening to go play music at Royal Vista. But, all those plans changed this morning, and I have been worrying with planning for music for July 5th, canceling July 4th’s music, recording a CD of America Songs, notifying people of the change in date of the Celebration of Life for friend Lois. My trip to Royal Vista was cancelled for tonight, as well, because of double booking in the absence of the retired activities director. Need to finish cleaning the strawberries in the morning.
Wednesday, Jun 19
I went to play music at the Food Bank Soup Kitchen and to SAIL exercise class afterwards. Between times, I got important paperwork in the mail for co-ownership of a Brittany female that was bred in California to carry on our lines (bred to our Tri male from S. Lake Tahoe), Cedaridge Tri-Tip Kip, Cork’s full brother. Cork was our almost Dual Ch. Brittany, who died in PA of a heatstroke in 2011. The pup will remain with Jeri Conklin in CA because we cannot take her back into our house. Her name is Cedaridge Kip’s Camelot Shay Trἐ.
While I was gallivanting all over town, John cleaned our filters in the heat pump system (heat and a/c), plus two filters on our water system.
Thursday, Jun 20
Morning was busy mostly with arranging and searching for music. I have misplaced some July 4 patriotic songs and went through 7 or 8 loose leaf 3-ring binders searching for it and for one song we were doing today, to give to a member of our group who couldn’t locate her copy of Faded Love. Our printer scanner is broken, so I couldn’t just scan a copy of mine from my music book for her. Then I put into my computer generated music program, Down By The Old Mill Stream, for us to try (first time) as a group. John heard from our garage they had fixed his truck so I dropped him off to pick it up, to fill with gasoline, and to pick up eight 5-gallon buckets at CWU surplus plus put in a bid for a large amount of pallets. As well he took advantage of the Thursday 12-hour sale at Super 1 grocery. He got home only a few minutes before I did. It was raining hard on me on the way home.
Recap on today’s music at Dry Creek: We had a fine turn-out of players and also a big audience. We had 4 fiddlers, banjo, 3 guitars, mandolin, Timbrel, and our singer. Wow.
Friday, Jun 21
Will not go to town today, tomorrow, or Sunday, to make headway on this messy home. As I go through things to sort, it creates more work and all takes time I haven’t had. John has already run the dogs and then hung extra bottom rails around the new garden. A little dear deer entered and ate tops of 10 plants before he found her and ran her out the gate. He worked on another fence around a planter box (pallets) in the front of the house that box has flowers and strawberries and the deer like both. Small trees also have to be protected.
distant hills had fire in 2012
John’s morning involved constructing a ramp for our older dogs to access the window inside the house to the doggie door. One was having trouble jumping up 2 feet to get to the previous exit, atop two boxes – those, now, I have to sort through. I found a box for putting in my old CDs in plastic cases after I back them up on my USB port for music in the new Subaru. If we leave CDs around on a shelf, the dust in this house builds up on them, as on everything else. I have to vacuum boxes and items around before I can sort through them. Even with a filter on our heat pump, much dust circulates and deposits itself. You should see John’s two new computer screens and tower. Static cling at its worst.
Also today, I have been trying to set up using one of our timeshares for friends going to New Orleans, and RCI has a special deal on today at a reduced trading power. Turns out the dates and availability are not there & open. Oh, well, we tried. Any of you out there who want to travel, check with us for using one of our timeshares. The price is right for a whole week anywhere in the world that’s available for ~$189, with a $50 (I think) added on for a gift certificate, required if I’m not available to go along at check-in. If however, you pick a room at our home base in Idaho, there is no gift certificate needed. We have one expiring Dec 31 2013 and need to use it or lose it. Now that I no longer attend conferences, I don’t have the opportunity to use them as I once did. (John prefers to work on trails in the Cascade Mountains.) I used one for week in Honolulu, another time in San Francisco, in mid-Texas, at Lake Tahoe, and in the hills above Denver. Often, the daily conference rate for a hotel room almost reaches the cost for the entire week for a traded timeshare.
Saturday, Jun 22
Morning. John is out doing yard chores, exchanging the owl on a pole overlooking strawberries, for the scarecrow, or vice versa. We did succeed in mailing details to our friend in Moses Lake about meeting July 4, in George, WA for the annual day of music, cherry pie, and other celebratory stuff, under the shade of some large trees.
John just picked 2.5 pounds of strawberries and brought them in a little before 1:00; now we will have leftovers for lunch, and I will tackle cleaning them later, after I complete this blog. He’s also filling the water storage tanks in the new garden, using gravity flow from the irrigation ditch. He brought in the mail and a paper, with this thank you to an unknown somebody.
Hope your week was great.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan