Sunday, Jul 14
Early morning start after late night working on the computer. Never took an afternoon nap, and I should have. John did. I worked on several projects today. I cleaned the kitchen, collected sweaters, packed them away, and still have more to do. John cleaned the raspberries and put away 4 packages, then went out and picked more for us for dessert tonight. He then tackled the kitchen counter between the “den” and kitchen. What a fantastic job. It’s not all done, but a huge start. I printed several things for friends in CA and in GA. Oh, and I printed off a letter to my podiatrist to take by tomorrow, with a copy of the one I wrote 6/25 and thought was being forwarded to him by his office assistant. This printed copy hand delivered on the day he is in the office in Ellensburg will be better than depending on someone else to forward him an email, and then to have him read it. I hope he will read this and act on it soon.
Oh, the most important thing I finally did today was cut John’s hair. We cannot wait as long next time, or I will have to buy another guard to thin out what’s there before “cutting it.” Going to bed now. I need more sleep than I got last night.
Monday, Jul 15
Just when we thought things had settled down, more excitement. I had my coffee and toast and John had headed out with the dogs for a morning run. Before he returned, I saw one of the Tobiano horses heading along the back fence as they often do, but then in awhile, I heard a loud noise of metal. I ran out the door and saw 4 horses still in the pasture near the gate where the others left from (it’s open for them all the time), and they were whinnying. I walked on out on the patio past the Nanking cherry trees, and saw 2 horses inside the backyard. They had pushed down the fence. I put my walking shoes on and went out the front of the house, screaming for John, but he was down in the woods/swamp with the dogs and didn’t hear me. My yelling brought the other 4 horses around to the front and the two horses in the yard to the side of the house, where they could see and talk with the others. That was good because otherwise all of them might have ended up in the yard and perhaps tangled in the downed 6′ fence. I eventually walked out to a shade tree and waited for John, after he finally heard me. He went to put up the fence, got the horses out, and shut off the access back behind. I went around and turned off the barn lights, which John usually does on his way back from his doggie walks.
John went this afternoon back to Buck Brannaman’s clinic, and I went to town. My back is still aching, and I don’t know why. I managed to get through the SAIL exercise class by leaving out things that made it hurt. Went to Goodwill for some new socks at a good price. Went by the US P. O. to be sure my mail got into a box to leave for Yakima, and not depend on my carrier to pick it up, and Super One to take advantage of a few special deals, for John (Pepsi) and both of us (cake, ice cream and old fashioned donuts). Ran by the podiatrist’s office to deliver the “Special Delivery” request.
Tuesday, Jul 16
Succeeded in getting the rest of On Top of Old Smoky into my computer, transposed it for the Bb Clarinet and Trumpet, and ran copies for everyone. Got teeth cleaned this afternoon, and unfortunately, I have to go back to have a cavity under a crown fixed. Wonder how that could happen. Nothing really else exciting today. Lots happened, but not worth bothering you with. Weather warmed again, and storms threatened in the afternoon, but never really came to us, although the 3-state region had lots of lightning (8,000 strikes; WA had ~2,500) and many small fires.
Wednesday, Jul 17
John went to the dump. I went to the food bank for playing music and by SAIL. I have to work up the playlist for August that I can give out before we play Aug 1. I’m sorry we don’t have a 5th Thursday this month so I have a little leeway. While in town, I stopped by the sale where we bought John’s ’09 Subaru right before I got sick and ended up in the hospital. They have a tent sale each year in Ellensburg (the Yakima dealer). I drove my Subaru by to claim my prize, hoping it would be one in 14,888, a 2014 Subaru, for John. I got a pair of pearl earrings (for pierced ears, which I don’t have), and a little 25 piece tool kit. While there I asked my favorite salesman, and he jokingly said, I know you don’t want to sell yours but I’d like to get John’s ’09. I told him that was not likely, and that we had to find a good used truck first, to replace our old falling apart Ford ’89. Last year he had lots of trucks and we drove in to see them – no deal, they were all short-box types. But this time he said, I do have just the truck for you, here on the lot, and another coming in that is newer. I told him I had an appointment for a haircut, so to check what he had, and call our home number with the details. We have to have a full size bed for hauling things not bought at the grocery store.
I received a call from him later about what he found. He had a 2003 Ford, 1 ton, with a full bed, and only 53,000 miles, for around $18,000. He said he would be getting another in a few days, a 2008 Chevy diesel, 1 ton. Price on it would be closer to $30,000. It was hot and he needed to drive back to Yakima and was going to return later. We told him to call us when he was heading back to EBRG. He did, and we drove to town in our old Ford truck, after cleaning it out, and John loaded the 5th wheel assembly into the bed (we let the old broken canopy go too). While on the dump run John filled one of the 2 tanks with $60 of gasoline – oops! Well, he didn’t know what I was doing until after he got home. We met “Mat in the Hat”
at the temporary EBRG lot about 8:00 pm and John drove the 2003 Ford around town. I squeezed into the rear seats of the super cab. Before driving, we had an all-around description. It is silver, pretty high up, but with nice running boards and a handle on both front seats to grab to get into the front seats. I seriously doubt I could have made it in this time last year, so I have improved a lot. For several months, John had to take a stool for me to get into the old truck, and it was much lower than the new one. Okay.. what else, it’s an F350, V10 Triton engine, and has a set of all four brand new tires. It won’t get great gas mileage but has power for towing, including the single overhead cam (SOHC). It is amazingly clean, even under the hood. Has flint colored seat upholstery, some fancy radio we haven’t learned how to use yet, and a CD. It’s a little rough riding for my tastes, but I’ll get used to it. It certainly will be great for pulling any trailer full of hay, or horses, or an RV trailer. The mileage for those vehicles is very poor, but that’s not what we bought it for. We got it for hauling.
Here’s what it looks like:
I intended to take a photo with it all hooked up to our gray horse trailer full of hay, but it’s been too hot to bother.
Thursday, Jul 18
Morning working on music and playlist to hand out today. To Dry Creek, with music list for Aug 1 and the rest of August. We had a small bunch there, but it went all right. Only 2 guitars, a mandolin, 3 fiddles, and a singer. Small but responsive audience. I came on home rapidly, by way of the US P.O., and the courthouse, where I dropped our ballots into a receptacle to save postage. WA uses a mail-out/mail-in ballot and for some reason a few local issues are decided (poorly timed) in summer. This was a single item: namely, shall we continue a 3/10ths of 1% sales tax for public safety. I wonder what the cost of the voting was? We voted “yes” but the official date is Aug. 6th so we have to wait to see if this tax is continued for a 2nd seven years. On to get gasoline for my car. Sadly, at a price 30 cents higher than the last time I filled it in Yakima. I was running on vapors I think. There was nothing showing on my gauge, no mark whatsoever. They are little squares, and the yellow warning light was on. I don’t know for how long it was on, because it is below my sight without leaning forward. It took 14.5 gallons. I haven’t checked but I assume it is a 15-gallon tank. The new truck has a 29 gallon tank. Sadly, we need to fill it. It only had 1/4 of a tank when we bought it.
Friday, Jul 19
Rested a little, worked some in the kitchen, and working on printing music from my Songwriter program into a .pdf (scanned image) that might work. I’m not sure it is as clear and large as the original, but it saves me having to print and hand to a person directly (for example), if I’m not there or they’re not there and need the music. I would go broke mailing copies to people. I already have to mail things to our player from Yakima, because she only comes once a week, and if I don’t have it done by Thursday, I have no choice. She doesn’t have email. John made the trailer wiring work with the lights, so he came in and said we could go today for hay. I canceled my trip to town, and we waited for Ken’s son to come help with the loading after he got off from work, meeting him there at 3:00 ish. That was nice. I sat in a wooden chair with a towel bath mat and was comfortable for the duration. They loaded 4 bales into the back of the pickup and 36 bales into the trailer. Ken gave us a pint or more of blueberries as a bonus. Nice. We’ll have them later on ice cream.
Once home we both had a bunch of fresh cherries (from our frig). I think we have 6 packages left – cherry story is in last week’s blog. I started the dishwasher, and John is taking a nap. I will join him when the washer finishes its cycle, so I can turn it off before the dryer comes on. It’s way too hot outside to do anything there until the sun goes down and things cool off. It is 99 now at the airport. It’s only 95 on our front porch, but that’ s plenty hot enough. I finished the music for Fraulein, finally, this morning, having to run a copy of the music, and get out my violin to play and sing along to get the melody correct. It was not written properly in the “score” of the music I had, and I had it in a couple of keys. I finally changed it to a key I thought I could sing in, and that our group could play (key of G usually works). I had my pen and as I played it I changed the notes on the copy, and then entered it into the computer, and played the midi tune back. It was much better. I also played a video of two people singing it from the fifties to check against my memory as I was rewriting the notation. Guess I’m having fun with this software, even though it is a PITA for taking my time from needed sorting and clean-up. Next I’m going to do the same with Jamaica Farewell (Harry Belafonte’s special calypso music). Not sure which key it will end up in for us. Now I have two versions, one in C and another in D. It’s taking a long time to enter everything. Now the temperatures have cooled down to 80 right before 9:00 p.m. and the wind is still blowing in the 20s.
While eating a late dinner, a message came in from Nampa, ID (from my music teacher for next week). She needs a keyboard for her daughter Katrina to use in her class. I imagine she’s doing the Hot Shots class again this year. We have one, so we will need to get it out to her teaching room, probably Sunday evening.
Finally, I checked everything, all lyrics, chords, notes and printed out in 3 keys: C, D, and G. I had started with F and a different timing. Now I have to get my violin and my singing voice out and decide which key is best for the majority of the singers to sing. Most of the women are altos. Once I decide on one of the three, I have to run it off in a key 2 sharps higher for our clarinet and trumpet players. It’s a rapid transpose, using the software.
Saturday, Jul 20
To Briarwood today. Only a few of us came — our bass player, a couple (he on mandolin, she on guitar), me on fiddle, and another on timbrel and her husband on guitar. Small but lively group with a great audience. We did our patriotic and US songs because it’s still July and also we have all the lyrics typed up for 12 songs. They fed us well as usual, macaroni & cheese with Kielbasa, green salad with almonds and mandarin oranges, various kinds of bread, banana nut, zucchini & pineapple, two kinds of cookies, watermelon, and garlic bread with paprika (very good)–and I’m not usually a garlic bread fan.
It was hot again today, up to 95 or higher, and now wind starting and it has cooled to 85, but it is 7:00 p.m. Right before 8:00 it went to 81. We’ve opened the house and will start cooling down over night. We only have to run the a/c about 6 hours/day to stay comfy.
Full moon is Monday. We will have clear skies so will have a nice look. Daylight minutes are decreasing now as the Sun’s vertical intense rays move toward the Equator. Northern latitude onion growers will soon see their onions “bulb” and prepare for harvest. Thus far, we have harvested about 4 of our onions, for example the purple ones four photos down on the ‘Onion Patch’ page, on the link above. John’s still harvesting raspberries and day-neutral strawberries are just starting. June strawberries are done. We have fewer yellow squash than last year, but plenty for us. Winter squash have nice vines and little baby fruits. More to come.
Hope your week was great.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan