We posted last week just a few hours before the State of WA dropped the estimate of the missing in the big slide. The latest report has 30 dead and 13 more missing and presumed dead. Oddly, one male was found who has not been identified. He had some gold teeth (?, crowns), but other than that there has been nothing found to help with identification. The latest news is that about 10 years ago the County Gov’t. studied the issue of buying-out all the properties in this area and decided not to. Instead a barricade of logs was placed at the bottom of the hill in hopes of preventing a slide. Yeah, right!
Saturday, Mar 29
Finished the blog and posted this afternoon. Much of the rest of the time was involved with continuing chores, and visiting with a few folks by phone. John fixed a neat dinner tonight, chicken thighs with brown rice, onions, red peppers, mushrooms, celery, and pinto beans. We got a super phone call in the evening from Jeri Conklin about our dog Tre’ who won her Amateur Puppy Walking stake for 2 points. Here is a photo of her TWO blue ribbon wins– Open Puppy with 8 starters [Paul Doiron handling] for 2 pts toward her field championship, and Amateur Puppy with 12 starters [Jeri Conklin handling] for 2 points toward her AFC (Amateur Field Championship). Click image.
Sunday, Mar 30
We both have been working on chores inside and outside. John took a hand saw and walked up “the ditch” (1/4 mile) to remove small trees (parts thereof) that had fallen over the path to the irrigation diversion or take-out. Tonight we go to a potluck of our music group to eat and then practice for our performance next Saturday night at the Swauk Teanaway Grange, for the Anniversary Celebration of the Blue Agate Square and Round Dance Club’s dinner and dance. I managed to get a load of dishes washed in between working with records sorting.
Monday, Mar 31
Arranged for some insurance referrals from my primary doctor to another foot doctor. Always something. Most time was spent on redoing the changes to music from last night’s practice session. That was a huge slice of time. New music and new players create time sinks for me.
Tuesday, Apr 1
No fooling that I got almost 9 hours of sleep last night. John stayed home today because the pruning was postponed today and tomorrow. He’s taken off for Yakima to have his Subaru’s transmission line-leak fixed. It will take 1.5 hrs, but thankfully the replacement and the part are covered under our warranty. It took a long while, but I just sent off the new changes to the music packet we will practice this Thursday and play on Saturday at the Grange. Now to get something to eat and back to tax preparation.
Wednesday, Apr 2
Nice day. John’s going to do garden work. Four packets of tiny Onions have arrived from Texas and want planted, and more stuff is on the way. I’m taking off for the Food Bank Soup Kitchen for music and going after to SAIL exercise. At least I’m out and about, play music, get fed, help others less fortunate than me in the exercise class. And the dogs are happy to seem me when I get home!
Thursday Apr 3
John’s going back to prune. I started early with Group Health Insurance, and then some paper shuffling. Still way behind on tax prep, but I am making slow progress. More excitement when a uniformed, badged livestock inspector drove down the drive and was coming to the front door (heading toward the wrong gate). He wanted to know if I’d seen any stray cows. We think this would not happen unless some cattle are missing, as in old western rustling. Many fences in the area are 70+ years old so they are fallen over and cows are out someplace a dozen times a year. So something is special about this time. Then I spent a bunch of time trying to help a graduate student get a better price on a “hood” for graduation so she could borrow my master’s gown. Some students have plenty of money and others are broke. Some have massive debts that you and we will have to suck up along with a bunch of other failed government interventions in the economy. [John’s read that many of the auto recalls are from the little cars built on-the-cheap that the Gov’t. insists the manufacturers build and sell as sacrifices to the green-movement.] My music gig this afternoon is Royal Vista, and we have a bunch coming. Eleven were there to play, including our tambourine player Jeanne who is a resident there herself since last week. We played all the changes made Sunday night, in practice for Saturday night’s performance at the Grange. Tonight was an Ice Age Floods Institute lecture on the geology/geography of Terroir (sun, slope, soil, and more) in the Columbia Valley Winegrowing Area. It brought back many memories of our past teaching efforts.
Friday, Apr 4
Staying home to work on taxes. My right eye has been bothering me all day– scratchy and dry. Missing potluck and SAIL at Sr. Center. Well, it was a waste of time. I stayed up from early and with only 6 hrs of sleep, and I’m not doing well. Spent way too much time on emails and searching files time. Am turning off my computer, maybe taking a nap to rest my aching eyes, and then will work later on record keeping. John just called at noon and will run errands in Ellensburg on his way home. The local conservation district started distributing plants (ordered in January) today and we have 5 trees (Ponderosa) and 5 shrubs = 10 holes to dig. The shrubs are commonly called Ocean Spray but grow locally on the surrounding hills – so renamed Mountain Spray. Flowers are a light-cream color, then turn light brown with age and hang on into the winter. Going by them and brushing them with shirt or horse-flank gets a liberal sprinkling of the dry but soft petals.
Saturday, Apr 5
This is a planting garden preparation weekend for John. And the local grocery outlet store sold CA strawberries for 99¢ a pound, so we have 5 pounds of berries to do something with. We have lots of frozen black and raspberries, but I don’t like all the seeds. John eats them and we trade some with neighbors. We only have 1 or 2 small packets of strawberries still in the freezer. Hope to have a better-bigger crop this year. Tonight is Grange where our group, Kittitas Valley Fiddlers and Friends is providing music for dinner at the 39th Anniversary of the Blue Agate Square and Round Dance Club. I awoke at 4:00 a.m. with 5 hours of sleep to “finish” this to send to John to post. Am still needing rest, so off here now and back to bed for a couple hours, I hope.
Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan