Sunday, Dec 1
Trying to get over my cough that returned, and work on bills, records, Christmas music, and rounding up Christmasy clothes. We also just worked for a good while on things on the kitchen counter and floors, looking for missing items. It was worth the work. John uncovered the missing favorite carving knife and my mom’s old oval aluminum cooker. Part of the effort was looking for a top for our round crock pot in which John has fixed a nice beef concoction (with tomatoes, onions, and rice). That will be dinner – with leftovers. Now he has taken off for upstream (the diversion from the creek) to adjust the irrigation water in our ditch so it won’t ice over and run out into our pasture, creating a skating rink for us, the horses, & dogs. We don’t need that as we had 2 winters ago. [Ice forms on the ditch water that, then, runs like in a hose until it pops up and, quickly spreading and freezing as it moves over the frozen ground. We had about an acre and half of irregular ice one year.] The horses have had their heated water tank for over a few weeks now, so do not need access to the ditch, and the cats have access to the horse’s trough if it is full enough, plus the “cathouse” is now heated to just above freezing with a pan of water and extra dry food. Yea! I got the dishwasher loaded and started, so am back working on Christmas music. Have to do a major job after getting the new improved version of Frosty the Snowman, using my computer software. Still working on and off on that project. Scanning now, and shortly, I have to redo Jingle Bells to match the words we have on the lyrics being used by the audience to begin with the chorus, instead of the first verse. Finished Jingle Bells and almost completed, We wish you a Merry Christmas. Phew. I wish I got paid for all this work. It’s good volunteer work, however, for the community.
Monday, Dec 2
Our farrier trimmed feet of 3 horses today. John went to town for gasoline in his old farm truck, filling both 20 gallon tanks for over $100, but it won’t need gasoline again for a long time. It is just used on our property for pulling around cut trees, delivering cords of wood (okay, that’s off the property), and countless other carrying of rocks and horse manure around the place, but that doesn’t put the miles on as a regular on-road truck. A current project this week is the removal of an Elderberry bush that is heading toward our electric wires. The 2 pictures below were taken Dec 7; top one is before and bottom one is after the tops of all the parts have been cut off and some loaded into the pickup.
but none gone to a resting place
I stayed inside to do various things, and one was to check on Medicare D coverage for drugs. After 1.5 hours of telephone calls (mostly waiting), I now know that my Group Health Retiree Coverage is superior to any other private provider I can obtain for Medicare D, and I get better coverage, with no donut hole, deductible limits; just a co-pay required and with a large top limit, $20,000. More medical today: spent a ton of time on medical lab test histories and set up for an upcoming cardiologist visit for which I was supposed to have two lab tests, one for my thyroid and one for my liver, because of a drug, Amiodarone, I’m on. I just received the request to go in for the two tests, but I remembered I had probably had them recently for our Sept 3 appointment at our family physician. So, I contacted the nurse there, and she verified indeed I had, and the results were within the right range. So, she will mail me a copy of the results, and I have contacted my cardiologist’s nurse. John cannot do any more work in the yard until it dries up or freezes, with rain for 24 hours, it turned everything into mud. Now working again on Christmas music. Thought I was done yesterday, but have to get Here Comes Santa Claus into a different key. It is fairly simple to enter with only 16 measures in ¢ (“cut time”). Speaking of cut, John cut the carpet we bought at CWU surplus to fit the kitchen floor. The mat there was smaller and had started to fall apart. Now we can walk around from the den to the kitchen without stepping on linoleum. The dogs and cat seem to appreciate it as well, and spend lots of time there. Shay has found if she lays on the rug next to the heater vent, she can stay warmer and comfortable. Also, this afternoon I found the information on a new Orthopedic Surgeon in town (whom I met and heard speak earlier this year), so I could recommend him to the mom of the family at Thanksgiving who is having rheumatoid arthritic problems with her knees. I expect this fellow can fix her up, and he is local, hence saving a trip across the pass.
Just printed off a few more newly entered Christmas songs to try out on Wednesday with our banjo player/singer, and then I will have to figure how many to run for people coming to play on Thursday. I hope they will heed my request because I am not going to phone everyone; just the two people without email.
Tuesday, Dec 3
I’m going in today for my INR blood test check at the KVH hospital, and also to the bank & Super One pharmacy. John went along, and we went to Bi-Mart for a 2014 desk top calendar, and ended up finding many other things (including it) on sale. The calendar was 30% off making it a very nice time to be there shopping. Last year it happened too, so I just marked my new calendar to try for about this time next year. Also we found a very good sales price on Bounce dryer tissues, and we were almost out. John likes to stash up on the Aplets & Cotlets boxes when they are on sale for 1/4 of the retail price in Cashmere. [They sell different things on their web site using 14 oz. rather than 12 and different photos and names on the boxes. Comparison shopping is impossible and they have much more and very fancy stuff in the catalogue. Pretty gifts if you need one, though.]
We received the photos today from the Tiger Mountain Work party on December 1. I requested our friend Jon N. take photos of the completed work that John H. was involved with in Oct., and later on his way home from another work trip, stopped and took a few in-progress photos. We worked on the ones to use and he trimmed and brighten some of them for me to include in my “old” page — as a finished project.
It’s not finished yet, but if you check in a few days, it should be there — at (cut & paste)
http://ellensburg.com/nancyh/WTA-TigerMtnOct20-13.html
I’m really excited to have these photographs to add, even though the weather did not cooperate much for nice clear photos. On the web page, I have changed the first line to state the DEC 1 photos to be added and then the header and footer will be changed.
Wednesday, Dec 4
Today was Christmas music at the Food Bank. Can you believe Christmas is only 3 weeks from today ? We had a LOT of participation from the audience and the servers. Much more than usual. Wow. Went from there to SAIL class. Home to work on Christmas music, and then off for a Geology lecture on the Ancient Lakes area east of us. The talk was in Ellensburg, by Andy Bach, geographer from Western WA Univ. I have known him since 1995 when he came to WA. Nice guy, and interesting lecture. We have ridden horses all through the area. (John more than me, but I have been at least twice). It is the landscape of old coulees, ripples, and scablands caused by the Missoula Floods, and more recent modifications of talus slopes and “ponds” in old potholes, caused by the Columbia Basin Irrigation project.
Thursday, Dec 5
This afternoon I went to Royal Vista (nursing & rehabilitation) to play Christmas music. Prior to that I assembled the music for some of our group (more time than originally planned), but this should be it for the rest of the month, until someone else comes in to play who isn’t planning to be there today. While I was working, John went on normal morning chores and then came back and left again to fill the horses’ heated trough. They are having to get all their water from there now. He was gone longer than I expected, so I found out all the additional things he did while the tank was filling. Now at 12:30, it is just finally beginning to be sunny. That may warm things up a little. Meanwhile, the plum trees got covered with straw, a fence got moved, and some other things. As I pulled in the driveway I saw him out back trimming more bushes from behind the shed where I park my car. The location is where the fence he moved earlier (made out of pallets) was moved to allow him access to drive the old truck around back. Ever so slowly he is widening the space between brush and trees and our buildings. Being “Fire Wise” the pros call it.
Getting colder here. John considered putting a block heater on my new Subaru, but it is a special part that will cost $150 + labor and 8% tax. We are not sure it is worth that much. He has one on his car and if it is around zero, we can just drive his, and let mine sit.
Sadly, my work is not over on the Christmas music. We had a few glitches today I have to work on to give out next week. I just put We Wish you a Merry Christmas into the right Key for Ellen & her Bb clarinet, so we could all play off the “same” page.
Friday, Dec 6
This afternoon is the annual Holiday Celebration at Dean Hall put on for all university employees by the Anthropology and Geography departments. It’s a real tradition. It is major finger food, but we’ll have plates, and can make a dinner from the offerings. It begins at 5:00 p.m. so many people come from their work on their way home. We arrived 10 minutes early, put our offering on the dessert table, secured a comfy chair in an adjacent room, visited with some early arrivees, and then were there near the head of the line for the opening buffet. All sorts of food was on the table, and we had plenty to choose from. Meats included ham, little meatballs, pepperoni pizza, chili with cornbread/cheese on top, deep fried homemade (pork egg rolls), herring on crackers, many hot pasta type dishes such as spinach, other stuff: a plate of cheese covered with little shrimp, rolls, plates of cheese, fresh fruit, and deviled eggs. I’ll stop there, but there was more. Desserts filled a table, including cakes, cookies, pies (apple and banana cream), candy, and (on both tables) some things known only to the makers.
Saturday, Dec 7
This evening from 6:00 to 9:30 we are invited to a concert and dinner put on by the Music school for fundraising for student scholarships. We already are funding two yearly scholarships in the College of the Sciences, so they are treating us to dinner as a thanks ($50/person). The entertainment is by 100 members of the CWU Choral music program. They will also be our servers. We picked chicken over vegetarian for our meal choice. The invitation claims there will be wassailing and a social mixing hour preceding the seated dinner. John thinks their use of “wassailing” is a bogus throwback to European traditions and thinks there will be few was hail called out tonight and likely no replies of drinc hail. Neither will anyone proclaim “Old apple tree we wassail thee” – but someone thinks wassailing is a neat sound and thinks we should be doing it. We dressed up and had our picture taken.
That’s my old sweater I talked John into wearing, and the choral conductor came around to greet people and thank us for coming. He told John he really liked the sweater. That made my day. The vest I’m wearing is filled with icons of the Nutcracker Ballet.
Sunday, Dec 8
Today there are several parties, but we haven’t figured out how to be two places at once, so we have chosen the Grange’s Christmas dinner, at 1:00, during which turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes are donated by the Grange, and attendees bring pot-luck side dishes or desserts. We are taking one of our Golden Health Squash (a winter squash) chunked up and wassailed in butter, walnuts, brown sugar, cinnamon and a dash of ground cloves. It worked. Lots of folks said “Oh golden squash, we wassail thee!” We got home about 4 degrees and had the horses fed, the dogs exercised, and the feral cats tended to – all done just as the sky went dark.
The weather folks are looking for zero tonight and then 14 on Monday night. The cold air is draining into the low spots and so we have been about 3 degrees warmer than they think we ought to be. Folks we know down in central Oregon are getting -15 or so. Look around. Some place and somebody is always less well off. We can wassail to that!
Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan