Sunday, Sept 8
Today, started earlier than usual for me, so I could help John put a pork roast in the Crockpot. We cut up some freezer-chilled (to lower tear production) purple onions and some tomatoes. We put the Crockpot in the garage so the extra heat will not be in the house. Then as he was setting that up, I started working on his sandwich. I got it all layered, and he packed it and 4 plastic coke bottles ½ liter drinks in his backpack (one frozen). Any carbonated drinks have to be opened and “fizzed” here at home because at 4,000 feet the air pressure is sufficiently less that such bottles make a mess when opened. Traveling in a backpack doesn’t help either. WTA has been working between 3,000 – 4,000 feet elevation and if in shade they are about 15 degrees cooler than here at the house. Without clouds the sun gets a bit intense. They need to drink lots in either case – one of the many safety precautions covered every morning before they leave a trail head. Also, for additional liquid we packed a couple of the Pluots and a Bartlett pear. (The pear came home with him so we ate it before dinner tonight.)
After he left, I laid back down and slept in late, but I rationalized it was all right after a rough night with broken sleep and odd dreams. Must have eaten too late? I spent a lot of time on a bunch of projects, but have little to show for it. Well, the roast turned out tender and tasty so the early effort paid off.
Monday, Sept 9
We went to Costco after lunch, because John decided to go work at Mirror Lake on WTA trail again, tomorrow, negating a planned Tuesday trip. The Forester was almost out of gas so with Costco gas 20 cent per gallon cheaper than EBRG gas there is some small compensation for the extra miles. We were also going to be out of cat food in a day or so, so we bought needed animal food for the most part. Not counting the very berry sundae (frozen yogurt with generous strawberries. We did buy large packages of ground beef and pull-apart pastries to go into the freezer. We keep it quite full in case the power goes off and to prevent spur of the moment trips to a grocery store. Rural living has its little “gotchas.”
Tuesday, Sept 10
John left for a WTA work party at 6:30 a.m. I was up and then back to sleep until too late to get everything done in a timely manner. I was 15 min. late to my 9:30 a.m. meeting with emeriti geographers (only 3 others today) at Copper Kettle. I took a case of Roslyn beer for the hay-load-helper son of one of the fellows who comes to our meeting. I also dropped off some garden produce at 2 friends’ houses, yellow squash, scalloped and straight neck, red tomatoes, little sun gold cherry ones, and on to Mt. View Meadows, to see Jay Gorman, wish him a happy 86th b.d., and give him a gift of lyrics to songs we sang the last time our group visited there, (only the 5th Thursdays of the month)–not a lot of those in one year. Oh, good; just checked and October is one such month. He sang along on most of the songs, but his favorites are You Are My Sunshine and Red River Valley. I made a special edition for him with his name and a big sunshine clip art, and a total of 12 songs. He was totally thrilled. He calls me Nancy with the laughing eyes. This is another rewarding experience of playing music in nursing homes and retirement centers.
While there I had my eyeglasses adjusted (meeting the new MD at Boys-Smith), who had come over for a special event for anyone in town. I told him about my cataract surgery, and that someday I would need to have the little film removed but for now it is fine. He said that is a very easy and safe operation. We visited because no other people were there for the free clinic, and I found out he is from Brewster, WA. I think he was surprised that I knew of the town and had been there – it is not a big place but is in sunny eastern Washington
( 48.099670, -119.780907 ).
I also asked his optometrist assistant, who’d adjusted my glasses, what I could recommend to John to clean his. They had a table of cloth rags (soft), and little spray bottles of some blue liquid thing to use; they gave me two of each and said when I ran out I could come back by and they would refill for free. I only wear my glasses when I need extra good vision (if in the back of the room at a lecture, or in a strange town, needing to see little road signs, or for night driving because they correct a slight astigmatism, and make on-coming lights less aggravat-ing. With them on, I have 20/15 vision. Without them and with my intraocular lens replace-ments, I have 20/20 with both eyes, and close-up vision without glasses.
I must say I never liked Dr. Boys-Smith because he incorrectly diagnosed my eye problem (when it was really cataracts), and so I told Dr. Hanson the story and said, now that he’s dead, I can talk about him (not that I didn’t already, even while he was alive). I had been pret-ty upset at the way he treated me, especially when I found out the real cause and let him know he was wrong. He had sent me to his buddy in Yakima first and I spent > $100 on the “treatment” of a special fit contact lens for one eye. The procedure didn’t work.
It was still lunch time, and I had not had anything but a small piece of toast so I took myself to lunch at the new IHOP in town, using a special 50% off coupon. Had a fancy Chicken Fajita Omelet and 3 pancakes. I brought home half of it and 2 pancakes. I have to be back at Hearthstone at 6:30 to play music.
Wednesday, Sept 11
Historically a bad day – 9/9/11 – 2,996 people died of terrorist attacks in the USA.
Hard to believe the coming of age generation will learn of this as history. If 5 then, and 17 now, what experience most defines your life?
Back from several events & sitting down resting. It’ s after 4:00 and I left home just after 11:00 a.m. First stop, to pay the rest of my dental bill that insurance wouldn’t cover because it was not a metal filling!! (Jeez). I had paid $102 already, and now $35.00 more. So much for dental insurance. It was a TINY repair, not a major deal. While going there, I carried along a box of corn, tomatoes, and yellow squash and invited the only two people there on staff today (secretary & hygienist) to come to my car and take what they wanted. They loaded up pretty well. While there a little old lady emerged from the back room, having just had her teeth cleaned. She looked at me and said, “You’re the singer !” I laughed and said, “Yes, we play various places around town.” She asked my name and the name of our group, and I told her. Then she thanked me again, and wanted us to come back soon. (She’s at the same place where I was visiting on Tuesday, and our performance there was 2 weeks ago). I asked her name and where she lived. She didn’t know, but the staff told me it was Mt. View Meadows, and her daughter brought her in. Well, the fact she remembered our music, was great.
On to the Food Bank to play music and deliver some of our homegrown blackberries to our banjo player. She is limited on her fruit intake because of chemicals (she’s allergic to) used in growing commercial ones. The food bank has much bread for Wednesday morning pick-up, and they like for us to load up on bread while there after the pick-up is done (nothing else though, but bread deteriorates or molds rapidly because they have no way of refrigerating it). The offerings weren’t so good last week, but today I got a loaf of 3 Cheese French bread, one of Rosemary Olive, and some Holland Dutch Coffee Cake (isn’t that redundant?). Then for lunch, we were fed a nice baked boneless chicken dish, with a casserole I didn’t think I would like so only got a small serving, but it was very good. It had egg plant, quinoa, and garbanzo beans with some nice spices. Next was a cucumber/purple onion salad in a sweet vinegary sauce; I don’t like cucumbers, so just had a few onions. Then a large green mixed salad, but the only thing I could eat in it were the tomatoes. For dessert I had a piece of dark thick chocolate cake with dark chocolate frosting. [John says, Life is good when veggies are taboo and double chocolate is a better alternative.]
From there, off to the Adult Activity Center, where I unloaded the rest of the vegetables. I pulled up in front of the door and gave the box to one of my exercise classmates. Then across the street to park under the shade of a big tree, because shade is sparse in the parking lot at the AAC. By the time I got in the building all but one piece of squash and two little corn-on-the-cob were left!! People descended on my friend as she walked in. I was setting up the CD music and saw a large sweet muffin and two pieces of cheese cake, so I wrapped them and put in my empty box to bring home for John and me. We’ll thaw some strawberries to have on it later. My left foot inside ankle has been bothering me so I didn’t do any exercises today that would stress it. From there on to the pharmacy to pick up some of my meds, and cokes for John, dog biscuits for the dogs because Costco had none yesterday. They expect a treat when they return from their exercise — it’s part of the deal, with them. Annie, the youngest, lets us know with a very interesting (funny) vocalization. So, we comply. They have us trained pretty well. Finally, home and it is 95 degrees, but John helped me unload the car. We are waiting for the temperatures to go down so that I can help John pick tomatoes. We picked Sun gold cherry tomatoes, other larger red ones from three different bushes, and some more blackberries. I’ll take some to town tomorrow and John will freeze the rest.
John decided tonight to go on Sept 14 to the Cascades Beckler Peak Trail to work for the 20th Anniversary celebration. He only got started with WTA 7 years after their first work party. Read about it all, here. He’ll go to the Beckler Peak trail.
Thursday, Sept 12
It is the PCT near Mirror Lake for John today, and hopefully will get some photos of the “after” of the work he helped with Tuesday. My day only has a play date for music at the Rehab center, but with stops at the bank and a couple of places with produce to share from our bountiful garden. I thought many people would be missing, and that was true, but also two came that I wasn’t expecting. We had 2 guitars, a banjo, timbrel, 2 fiddles, and a clarinet. It was hot outside, but we had a nice time with the folks there. I carried in some veggies to share with a couple of people. It is the 83rd birthday of one of our members, so we sung happy birthday and gave her a present and card. (When I was at the bank, I got her a nice gold-looking coin, $1, but failed to note which one) to put in her card, along with a bag of Sun Gold tomatoes. Now that I look for it on the web, I believe it was the George Washington one because I did see a silhouette of a man.
And, I found a pretty red blouse to share with her. Many of our group are out of town, and one couple will be gone until December, traveling (their comments) doing music across the continent and attending the largest Celtic celebration in the world in Cape Breton Island (“Celtic Colours”).
I started packing the produce which we had to move from the kitchen to the garage because of the high density of fruit flies that seem to appear as mysteriously as virtual particles. We reduced their number with the vacuum cleaner but new ones appear each time. Updated more pix on the web page from last Sunday (now I completed this just on Saturday). Widen your window to see three pictures on the third row, for best results.
John came home from the mountain work trail work. After a short nap and slightly lowering of the temperature he has just finished the feeding of horses and cats. He already ran the dogs, in the heat. Now the temps have gone from 96 to 88. I had a lot of work on the jobs list today, and never got back tonight to my web page on John’s trip last Sunday. Today he brought me photos of the finished rock ramp and a co-worker will (later) send a few of the stepping stones (for hikers) and and rock ‘ford’ (for horses and mules) crossing at Mirror Lake’s small out flow stream. So that’s also put off until a future blog.
Temps today were strange. Highest was 97, and then it dropped tonight from the 88 mentioned above to 77, and now has gone back up.
Friday, Sept 13
Tonight is our annual trek to the Chef Extravaganza at White Heron winery. I plan to take photos, and have one taken of me in my newest musical shirt, made by Ellen Fischer, she just brought me yesterday at our playing at the Rehab. She is our clarinet player, and a great seamstress.
Heat is up to 91 here at noon, and we leave in a few hours for the hour+ trip to White Heron vineyard. John picked tons of tomatoes, squash, and even blackberries this morning. We made a trip around the block to share produce on the way to town to get gasoline before leaving for the dinner. Stopped off at a new neighbor’s house and had a nice visit. Finally, we left for the evening – John drove and I had a long visit by phone with John’s sister, Peggy. She wished she could be going with us, and John says, considering the variety of places in the Universe, Parma, OH is not the arm pit thereof, but you can see it from there. The weather was warm and the food tasty and interesting (pictures to follow), but for now, here are ones of us. The right shot shows the location of the vineyard, but John is talking, so I cut him out of the picture. The left one shows the area where people eat and listen to music. We sit up on a grassy terrace, to enjoy the evening in our folding chairs not far from the food tables. It is in the shade just as we arrive about 6:00, the start of the meal serving.
The performer’s platform is in the background, over John’s shoulder. Nancy’s fancy colorful shirt contrasts with the green of the vineyard. Grapes are doing well as harvest nears.
We left early and got home at 10:00 – John will be up at 5 and gone by 6.
I’ll fix up a web page later of the goodies we experienced at our favorite commercial event at White Heron. Our favorite is a private party of the volunteer pruners. This year’s was held Jan. 5 and was an authentic Raclette using French cheese, complete with wines made there, but with grapes developed from regions in Italy and Switzerland. We did that story back then and expect something similar this coming winter.
Saturday, Sept 14
John left at 6:00 a.m.. I spent the day, wasting a lot of it, on computer problems. John’s not expected back until after 6:00 p.m. and it is now after that. This was John’s trip to a 20th anniversary of WTA work party mentioned earlier in this blog. He just arrived about 6:40 and brought each of us light blue commemorative tee shirts. I’m very excited. He always wears long sleeved shirts out and/or working so a shirt like this is wasted with him, but I wear such things all the time. He put it on for the group photo of 4 workers, on today’s crew. I guess I am entitled because of being a volunteer, putting up web pages of photos taken on WTA trips, for over a decade. I will put that photo below. It was just after lunch; they didn’t work in those shirts all day. The Blue-Hat crew leader took the picture because he claimed he wasn’t allowed to have one of the volunteer shirts. He also claims a picture taken of him captures part of his soul or essence and leaves him depleted. Did we mention that after safety, fun is goal #2 of all WTA trips? The real fun for this trip was that Jon N. (who is known for food surprises) brought a pan of popcorn and a small gas burner and lunch was augmented with freshly popped corn. Then later, back at the trail head, he retrieved a large Canon printer carton that contained a large red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. Sometimes that carton hides a small cooler with dry ice and containing the hardest frozen ice cream sandwiches you have ever had the pleasure of waiting for the softening. Also, this was Husain’s 5th work trip and so he got a shiny new green hat with is name/nickname one it. He chose ‘Who-sane’ but after digging and carrying 5 gallon buckets of rock for several hours he thinks he might change it to ‘Who-insane’. 20 more trips to go and he gets a black WTA vest.
John Hultquist Kevin Crandall Jon Nishimura Husain Barbhaiwata
Photo by Alex Ray, WTA “blue hat” crew leader ~~ 9-14-13
Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan