sunflowers fanciful, and cats mysterious
Sunday, Aug 25
Spent a good amount of time yesterday finalizing the blog to post for our few faithful readers. Actually, it’s a good record for us when we have to check back on something. John doesn’t allow comments on the blog ‘cause he won’t look and respond in a timely fashion. Many acquaintances have moved their social media efforts to Facebook but we don’t do much there. We do check e-mail at nancyh@ellensburg.com on a regular basis. Nothing was on tap for us today, so I will continue going through stacks of things piled around my recliner, doing emails, and John will work in the yard. The temperature only went to 80 today, so he can work in the shade brushing. I took some photos this morning when we harvested a large sunflower to fix seed-side up so the little birds can get to it. On the smaller ones they can hang upside down to retrieve seeds.
The back of the seed head shows foraging by Grasshoppers. There are also Earwigs hiding along the inner sides by the seeds. John’s blue-fingered gloves appear by the butt-end of a male Earwig.
John’s gloved hand holds some of the disk-florets. Most of our Sunflowers grew from the “black-oil” seeds put out for birds. Usually the plants produce multiple flower heads only as wide as a softball. The one shown (note John’s shirt covered wrist) on the lower right seems to be a larger version and the plant grew only one other flower – about half this size.
Also took a cool photo of an onion gone to seed (aka bolting). Our supplier of Onion plants included many more than anticipated but some of the extras were smallish. These mostly got planted but were less than well cared for – a little short of water during some hot spells – and at our elevation the night temp can get chilly. Such things onions do not like. But are they not pretty?
Very slowly making progress, but stopped to do some other stuff in the kitchen. And, to eat a nice brunch of Pancake, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, and a tiny bit of bacon.
Spent some time following the MODIS imagery for the fire near Lolo, MT, and happily it is calming down for our friends nearby.
As John left to go brushing, he mentioned I should eat the tomato he left on the counter. It fell this morning when he picked a bucket of them. I just ate the whole thing, except for the one ouch spot, and the stem. It was tasty–something about vine-ripened tomatoes from your own garden.
I managed to assemble reports from the meeting of the WOTFA (fiddlers) with the Kittitas School Board, and community members, plus supportive members (as I) of the summer fiddling workshops. I emailed it off late this afternoon, and have received 8 responses to share with the two WOTFA folks who came all the way from Port Townsend and Shelton to represent the Fiddlers.
Monday, Aug 26
Nothing on tap for today either, except we need to get some plums and yellow squash to a few people in Ellensburg, but that won’t likely happen until tomorrow. Wow.. busy morning on the computer. Now getting off later than desired, to work on receipt stacks. John’s out doing something in the yard. Oh–first I need to take off a picture of a “new” frog that was clinging on our back patio door, last night. John rescued him and put him under the raspberries. He was tiny and I think looks like a tree frog I found on the web. I haven’t managed yet to identify any of the frogs we have this year.
Wow–just got a phone call from Jason at the CWU Surplus. Our bid got the pallets, with tax will be $36.18 and they take Discover. This will be enough pallets for awhile. :- ) Have to take the horse trailer down to retrieve them. I worked on paper things and then walked down into the field where John was working on brush removal, to take photos, and took two dogs along for the walk, saying hi to the horses on the way by. I mainly went down to tell him the storm was coming in from the SW and headed north along the Cascade crest, so we were not expecting a direct hit — just noise of thunder. He had seen some sky lightning in the distant west so my news wasn’t. After having him show me around, we walked back up through the woods and more of his clearing work toward the road to pick up the mail.
Many of the trees need to come out. Likely they are all one large organism (or several) as the roots send up shoots that become little trees – and most die at 3-4 inches in diameter. The horses will strip the bark in the spring so any to be kept will have to be protected at horse-height with poultry wire.
Back in the house I decided to have him search for the Crockpot so we could make some peanut/chocolate candy. We had all the ingredients and just haven’t taken the time to do it. I have loaded it all (layers) of dry roasted peanuts, sweet cooking chocolate, chocolate chips, and almond bark into the pot. It awaits his return to plug it in the garage to cook for a couple hours. We started it before eating a pizza John made from a 4-meat base, adding beef from last night, bacon from this morning, onions, and tomatoes from our garden, and grated cheddar cheese. After the last such effort, I expressed a desire for more of the big white Ailsa Craig onion so he loaded it on top. Okay, the onion link is here.
With the pizza consumed we busied ourselves with computer things until John finally remembered the chocolate in the crock pot in the garage. We searched for muffin papers, and put 48 or 49 pieces of candy (about two tablespoons per cup), on trays to cool. If you’d like the recipe, find it here. Warning, don’t use a slow cooker, but an old fashioned crock pot. Read the comments on the linked-to site. Regardless, these things vary in their heat output so check for stir-ability and don’t let the bottom layer – the peanuts – get overdone. We used our 5 quart Rival (got as a wedding gift), and it was filled with the mixture. Here’s a picture of some of our creations.
Tuesday, Aug 27
My former student, hearing-impaired, is over in Montana (Clancy) helping his mom with sorting out years of belongings. I made a call for him to the Forest Service headquarters in Superior, MT, about a campground where he wants to stop overnight. He will be coming through after Labor Day. I wanted to be sure he could pull in for the night, put up his tent, and stay, without the campground open (the host leaves on Labor Day). The ladies I got on the phone were very nice, helpful, and said he was welcome, & that it was a very nice campground. It will be free now, but it is open, just without running water. Otherwise would be $6. I and others are able to communicate with him by email on his Iphone, so these things most of us take for granted get accomplished without too much difficulty for him.
John got the trailer all hooked up and I got the squash, onions, and plums all set to take to people in town when we go pick up the pallets. That took awhile, but was well worth the effort. I think I made 6 trips down out of the truck, delivering, and back up the long step into the high truck. Good exercise for the day. I didn’t do any of the labor of loading the pallets, but John had some help from one of the guys who runs the place, with a front-end loader doing most of the lifting, as well as some manual help.
A few are longer than average. Some have full plywood, and two very light ones are made of cedar. Perhaps, if we have 70, the price will be 52 cents each. Either way, it’s not bad considering the cost of wood. I just went and helped him back the trailer between trees for unloading. I just got back from a count. He removed 26 from the trailer that I counted. He counted another 32 left inside the trailer, and 4 in the back of the pickup bed. So, that’s a total of 66, meaning they each cost us 55 cents.
There are 7 full plywood (43″ square sheets) and several with 2x4s. Last month we under-bid and this month we were way higher than needed. Life’s that way. [No kidding! Man with the hay wants a few pallets so after taking them all out we put 9 back in the next day.]
Wednesday, Aug 28
John finished taking all the pallets from the trailer, so we are ready to go fill it with hay tomorrow. For me, today was Food Bank Soup Kitchen, where we were fed a great (and) huge baked boneless chicken breast dish and two salads. I guess there was not a dessert today. I gave some of our tomatoes to a couple of our music participants and went on to SAIL class with the rest of the squash, yellow cherry tomatoes, and red ones. From there I went to a retirement party at the CWU SURC (Student Union & Recreation Center) to attend a friend’s (Teresa Youngren) retirement party. Hard to believe she has worked there for 28 years. She was surprised and happy to see me. They had a nice cake and fruit tray. Not a ton of people, but was fun to see a few old friends, and her! I had to park at the far end of the parking lot to have shade because of my violin and some food being in the car.
Thursday, Aug 29
Started off with a 12 hr fasting blood draw. My INR for Coumadin was also run. The first test was 2.7, so we’ll see what the second is (it was 3.5). John and I both went in for our tests in advance of our annual physical next week. We were both starved, so went by Carl’s Jr for a special Monster Biscuit, using a special half-priced coupon. (It has two eggs, two kinds of cheese, sausage, Canadian bacon (we substituted for bacon strips for no extra cost), and all stacked between a huge sliced biscuit homemade there. They take all the calories out. A nice breakfast which acted as a brunch for us. On to the grocery to load up on things we needed. Today is the 5th Thursday of the month, so I played music at Mt. View Meadows. We had a good turnout and a bunch of admiring residents. They would like for us to come more often, but there aren’t enough Thursdays to go around. Afterwards, I drove to Super One to park my car, and meet John in the parking lot where there is room to pull through with the truck and trailer. We drove across the valley to get 42 bales of hay.
Funny / sad story tonight about an attempted stolen truck and trailer from a friend. The funny part is related to learning the skills of long ago. The friend emailed a photo and told us of someone trying to steal her truck. Our connection is via the horse trail riders group. She lives about 14 miles away, south and east. Her truck was connected to her horse trailer and the “foot” (part that goes to the ground when you want to disconnect) was down. This is frequently done when parked as it takes the load off of the vehicle and makes the trailer more stable for loading or unloading horses. Also, being in the country and miles from town she had left the keys in it.
Those trying to make off with it did not realize the situation. This next bit is from her email:
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“The trailer was jammed into the corner railroad tie fence post. That is what ultimately saved my rigs from being gone. Most of the damage was to the trailer, it had the jack completely broke off and the side scraped up and door handle broken off. Truck had no damage, but did have the culprit’s new San Fran baseball cap on the seat. Had Sheriff out, and it seems they had an incident at the detention school up the road.”
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The local news report follows:
KITTITAS COUNTY, Wash. – Kittitas County Sheriff Deputies say two boys, last names Potter and Adams, escaped from the Parke Creek Group Home, a juvenile rehabilitation center, late Wednesday night after they attacked the night watchmen.
During nightly checks, deputies say the boys struck 72-year-old Duane Bangs from behind, knocked him unconscious, tied him up and stole his wallet, personal key, and a key to the facility.
Bangs was able to free himself and called 9-1-1. Paramedics took him to Kittitas Valley Hospital, and later to Harborview.
Deputies say the boys also loaded bags with their clothing into Bang’s car, but couldn’t drive a stick shift, so they ran off (not having the skill of driving a stick shift was the funny part of the story we mentioned at the start).
Deputies say early Thursday morning, Adams stole a car from Parke Creek Road, but a Washington State Patrol trooper stopped him just east of Kittitas and booked him into the Yakima Juvenile Detention Center.
A few hours later, deputies found and arrested Potter near the Hemmingston and Parke Creek Junction, just south of the group home. Deputies were able to recover and return Bangs’ stolen wallet.
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The reporter missed the part about the truck and horse trailer and that the two boys were 17 years old. When did you learn to drive and what sort of transmission was used?
John wrote the above report to send to his sister and cousin back east.
Nancy’s answer: I knew how to use a stick shift to drive up and down the driveway when I was under 10. My Dad taught me. It was the old ’35 Ford I drove during my high school and college days, and we eventually took to Idaho, in 1974. I have many stories about that. To further answer John’s question, I took a Driver’s Training class in high school, in a stick shift car, and Atlanta, GA has many hills. The original gear-shift one was on the floor, and the driver training one was on the steering wheel, because I remember the practice issue of stopping at a red light on the downhill side, and having to learn how to release the clutch without stalling the car or drifting back.
Friday, Aug 30
John left at 6:48 for the hills, and I slept in another 1.5 hrs. Saw a smaller version of the little green frog in the same location on the plastic bag as the white one, which I haven’t been able to photograph. The grapevine is now climbing higher and onto our weather vane.
First the little (new) green frog.
Made a little progress on the table and boxes stacked to my left. Some things go back to June, and at least one back to April. Jeez. Still sorting, but took a break when the vacuum cleaner shut off. It does that about every 10 minutes (or so) of use.
HAPPY NEWS.. tonight Big Sue returned for dinner. John said she looked fine, and came along the ouside of the fence — right by the dogs — as if nothing had changed. Wish they could talk so that we could understand. She is the large female who has been around our place for several years, and has had 3 litters (we know of) in our barn or under the brush pile next to it. We managed to capture her last year after the birth and rearing of the five little orange cats in our barn, which John found early enough to tame. Once captured, we also got two other of her offspring from the year before. All of them got spayed or neutered, and we have been taking care of them daily. We hadn’t seen her in a week. I’m glad she wasn’t picked off by a cougar or a coyote. She’s too big (I had hoped) to have been taken by an owl.
That happened right at dark, before we had dinner, and we just finished. Our own corn (clearly the best thus far, from a different patch of corn John claims is called Bodacious, but I think it should be called Princess — because it was delicate and sweet); tomatoes, left-over salmon & chicken, and a little piece of the roast beef deli kind (bought for John’s sandwiches this weekend on trail work and for my lunch salad today). Tomorrow, he stays home to put up the hay, from the trailer, and then Sunday, off to the hills again. The head WTA trails leader is on the crew and John only gets to see him once or twice each year. I, on the other hand, exchange e-mails quite frequently.
Both of us are very tired, but happy all the animal family is back together.
Our grape vine we showed you last week is climbing toward the soffit, and adhered itself to our weather forecaster (Vermont Maple Weather Stick). I tried to find the “science” behind the weather stick, and found only one mention of the results of an experiment in which a weather stick was placed beneath an overhang to protect it from direct precipitation (where ours is situated), while allowing it to be affected by all other atmospheric conditions. Measurements of the amount of light, the air temperature, and the relative humidity were taken over a two-week period, and the only significant factor in the bending of the stick appeared to be relative humidity. It points up during fair weather and down during foul weather. Our grape vine is covering it like Kudzu – wonder how that will affect it?
Saturday, Aug 21
Late getting to bed last night because I was responding to a friend about Laser therapy for toenail fungus. Turns out since I decided to tell a few people, I have found many others with the same condition. Now I’m supposed to get this in order for John to post when he comes in from watering the gardens and packing away the hay from the trailer to the barn. Tomorrow, he goes back to Denny Creek for WTA work. This morning, I took the other photo, on the right above, of the very small green frog on the plastic at the front door beneath the grapevine and of very small sunflowers planted by birds dropping them off the feeder in the backyard – I guess they finally got enough moisture under the drip-line of the feeder.
For contrast, I have to show the front yard sunflowers, and especially want you to look at the difference in color between two of the plants.
Sunday morning, Sept 1, my 70th birthday! I’m happy I don’t feel it. Thanks for all the wishes I have been receiving for a week, on Facebook, for the cards in the postal mail, and I’m sure I will have some more in my email on the actual day!
Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan