Much of today was spent on chores inside and outside. For late August, we managed to get the blog out on time. Then missed entering the following picture, just received today. This is Cedaridge Kip’s Tug Toy after his first major show win (3 points) from the Puppy 12-18 class !! His handler is Sonja Willitts, my friend and owner of several of our Brittanys since 1977. She now lives in South Lake Tahoe, and owns Tug’s father, Kip, Cedaridge Tri-tip Kip. (Yes, he is a tri-colored Brittany).
We also received a great photo of John after his work yesterday (8-29) at the Snow Lake Trail, just north of I-90’s Snoqualmie Pass. Under John’s right boot the rock is white. The rest of the rock is the color of the soil – all but the white part was buried.
Well after the lunch break, the WTA crew leader, Kayla (right side, no hat), following directives of the Forest Service trails manager, determined the rock was a tripping hazard and had to go. There seems to be a version of Murphy’s Law that says the nearer to quitting time starting to dig out a rock, the greater proportion of it will be buried in the trail and the more compact the soil. The short story is that just at the time to leave, 2 Johns and a Christie levered the rock from Earth’s grip, then grabbed packs and tools for the hike out. Kayla and another volunteer filled the hole with soil and then, they too, got ready to hike. The short interlude gave Christie time to get a photo of John on the rock. This was John’s 5th or 6th time on the Snow Lake Trail and he still hasn’t seen Snow Lake.
Sunday, Aug 31
Early morning sadness from GA that a family member, Brady Brannen (only 41) died. He was the only son of Maribeth and my cousin, Bill Brannen, Jr.. Bill (Sr.) and Nelle Brannen are alive and living in Alabama, at ages, 92 & 91. The funeral will be 9/7 with an Anglican service provided by Bill’s brother, David. Interment will occur in the Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, GA, near my father’s grave on the Brannen-Eiseman lot. Check out the interesting history of this place.
Winds high, but temperatures down. I’m working on music. John is doing yard work, but part of the time did not involve much real effort. John did a Hultquist trick (I’m a Hultquist, so I can call it that as it includes me, and I practice this all the time). We have a knack for working with something, and immediately covering it and losing it. He went for a file to smooth inside the curve of a new metal hook meant for the end of a chain. Note the green arrow in the picture.
Having found the file, the hook had disappeared. A search was undertaken and steps retraced. Repeatedly. Finally, he found it covered up with a piece of plastic near where the file had been.
Monday, Sept 1 MY BIRTHDAY and Labor Day (only coincides every 7 years)
Doing nothing much today, but resting. Thanks for all the birthday wishes that started a couple days ago and really starting pouring in this morning, via Facebook. Many special cards received, but this photo by David Covert is a favorite worth sharing.
I have been resting while putting music notation into my computer and printing the master copies for our playlist for the next 3 months. (December we switch to Christmas music). I’m rather pleased with the list, and have included some new ones as well as creating more legible scores from some we have done in the past.
We had a wonderful lunch of BLTs with our own Early Girl tomato we picked yesterday. John found a picture taken in Fort Collins, Colorado – posted this week on the internet.
Note the price. Holy cow! In small print (lower left on the sign) it says Grown in California. At about 6 oz., these will cost $1.87 each. That’s about what the baby plant cost us back in the spring and it is loaded with ripening fruit. One of our best returns on investment.
I heard from my friend that she had succeeded in placing the single chick from another hen’s chicken with one mama of hers. Now she has been accepted and is running around with the others, about the same age (2 weeks).
John’s been out doing various yard chores in the nice weather. He has moved chips, watered trees, picked pears, mowed near the road, and will pick blackberries later.
One birthday wish sent said that someone once told him, “Life is like a roll of toilet paper, the closer you get to the end, the faster it goes.” Although the rest of the message was very positive, I don’t believe that is a very positive statement for a birthday wish, at our age. Ha ha.
Tuesday, Sept 2
Finishing up the master-sheets for music this morning, and checking email. I also received a gift certificate for $20 from the local book store, Jerroll’s — a nice surprise. John caught me with Rascal in my lap while I worked.
Need to write a sympathy note with Rainbow Bridge photo I took from our front yard, along with my memories, thoughts, and meaningful poetry to share with Maribeth and Bill and the rest of the Brannen family.
We will be going to town to copy our group’s music for the next 3 months’ playlist of 24 songs, arriving by 3:00, with John to help with the stapling. While in town, we also delivered tomatoes and zucchini to folks at the Briarwood retirement home and to a friend at CWU, who returned the favor with a bag of peaches.
Wednesday Sept 3
Before I left for my normal activities at the Food Bank and SAIL class, I was on the phone, and John came in to tell me the wild turkeys were back. By the time I got off the phone, grabbed my camera, and went out, they were in trees near the creek, unseen, but quite vocal. The dogs had scattered them and they were regrouping or at least checking in with each other. While out there, I took some pictures of our fruit trees, one pruned: red apples, (missed recording the pears already picked), yellow apples, smaller darker plums you saw in last week’s blog, peaches, and blackberries.
On the way to the uphill part of the orchard, I saw a lovely bunch of asters along the irrigation ditch:
We talk in this blog about John’s pruning fruit trees and moving the brush resulting after the deer have cleaned off all the leaves. Here is a partially pruned apple tree (beneath the red arrow).
On a nearby apple tree are these pretty apples, yellow with a distinctive red tinge, and red ones (probably old fashioned delicious).
Next door to a yellow apple tree (not shown) is a different kind of plum as you saw in last week’s blog — more tear-dropped and purple throughout. They are behind our other tree, so we are still enjoying them.
On back around the house to the thornless blackberry bushes.
John picked a dozen or so yellow squash, which I delivered to town to Gloria, Carole, CJ, Minerva, and Joanie. Later in the evening, I took some blackberries, squash, and tomatoes to neighbors. On my way home from town, I stopped by a nursing home (Royal Vista) where we will be playing tomorrow, to drop off some music, and also to visit two friends there. Our neighbor dislocated her shoulder when she fell on her right hip, but luckily no broken bones, just bad bruising. The shoulder was reseated properly at the hospital.
We fixed a good dinner tonight: baked chicken, Early Girl tomatoes, with deep-fried onions (half of a large white Ailsa Craig) in a beer-infused batter. Some folks claim the batter works better with egg white and/or corn/potato starch, and some say to “dredge” the raw onion ring in flour. We have lots of onions. Time to experiment. The beer (maybe too ordinary) did not seem to add anything so it might be best to just drink it – or buy a more flavorful type.
Thursday, Sept 4
A cool day today, full of photography, gardening, and music, and then home to rest.
For brunch, John fixed pancakes and we had our own strawberries (thawed) on it, with bacon. He had 2 eggs, but I passed on the eggs.
I wrote a 3-page letter of sympathy to my cousin and his wife, about their only son. I filled it with personal memories and stories meaningful to me and them.
Afternoon was our play date at Royal Vista. Wow, we had 10 musicians there today – more than in recent years! Received my free birthday dinner from the Palace Cafe in EBRG and a gift subscription to THE WEEK magazine from friends here in EBRG.
Below are a couple of photos from the newest garden, taken this morning before I left for town, carrying packages of Pear and Cherry tomatoes for the music group members in a cooler to deliver at the end of our playing.
The first is a long shot of the new garden’s south side, with corn and squash. The Acorn and Butternut squash are vining types and they have grown across everything – into and up the corn stalks and into the yellow summer squash. The big Ponderosa Pine in the distance is on the edge of our 3 acre “swamp” – mostly to the right (west) of the pine. A branch of Naneum Creek is in there, as are a couple of very old stream channels. There are wet spots and a couple of springs and the growth of the vegetation in this riparian zone is relentless. We like to keep a couple of winding paths open through there and to take out some of the dead wood for a neighbor that uses it for heating.
On to the tomatoes, only the cherry ones and an Early Girl.
Friday, Sept 5
Today, I received a birthday dinner card ($10 off) from the Cottage Cafe in Cle Elum. My favorite any time of day is Cottage Corrned Beef Hash, and John’s is Black and Blue Steak salad; look it up on their menu. They have been doing this for 9 years and now have a mailing list of 6,000 folks. Mentioned above is the salad with black beans and steak that is worth the 25-mile trip. Or, we can combine eating a meal when we go for our annual physical, this year Sept 16. The coupon can be used any time in the year, not just in the month of your birthday. Besides our b.d., they also award us one certificate for our anniversary.
John and I left at 9:00 a.m. to Yakima for an oil change at 10:15. I had to take my Subaru down for its oil change/lube/filter that was supposed to be every 7000 miles, but my car started telling me it was required now, with notices on the panel in the middle of the car, saying, Time for New Oil Filter; Check your Engine Oil. Somehow it was reprogrammed in our last time there, but we were never notified that our owner’s manual was revised to require a change every 6000 miles, and the little sticker also was reporting it was not required until 1000 more miles. Summer time usually includes a wash, but they are expanding and the excavation work required the water lines to be relocated. So the nice metallic blue paint is still dusty.
After that service, we drove by the Recycling center to check prices paid for aluminum cans, paper, and plastic. They no longer take glass, but the fellow told me that in Ellensburg someone still does. We have just been recycling it and other stuff (donated only), at the transfer station. If we can get a monetary reimbursement, I need to check. I had heard they no longer had a buyer for glass. Ten years ago, they were crushing it and selling to the highway department to use on road beds. I never quite understood that. [John thinks they use it to cover the surface at the disposal site; helps reduce dust.]
We need to take the truck to Yakima to retrieve a chipper loaned to friends who no longer have a need for it. John has created many piles of brush needing chipped that has built up over the years, and he is currently adding a lot from pruning cherry & apple trees. We have plenty stacks of branches for the quail to use for cover, so we need to get rid of the other stuff. If this little one won’t do the job we may hire a local person with a large one.
John and I went to Costco today to get one of their pork loin roasts, because we had none in the freezer to fix for the 20 people coming to a music potluck at our friends house, Sunday night. I carried along my laptop and while waiting for my car, I put in 1/2 hour getting ready to figure out the problem with the first song in the songbook, “A Little Street Where Old Friends Meet” that we found yesterday had a serious problem. I realized the discordance (pun intended), but am still unsure how it happened. I had moved parts of the song from several places (versions) into my computer music-writing software, and added chords for the changed keys we need it in (no way our group could play in E Flat (3 flats)), and somewhere along the way I screwed up, having notes from one key, on a staff with another key’s designation, which didn’t go along with the chords in that key. What a mess. I restarted in order to correct it and finished late afternoon with an additional 2 hrs+ work. I transposed from E flat to C for us, and to D for our clarinet player. It was never meant to be so involved, believe me. This song was originally written and recorded in 1932 in the UK, but later made popular in the USA by Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole and others. It’s a very pretty song. If you don’t remember it, check this You Tube of Nat King Cole (you hear his voice but only see his picture, sitting at a piano).
Saturday, Sept 6
Has been spent mostly involved with finishing my draft of the blog for John’s revision later today. I thank him for that and for his catching up on yard chores, mostly this morning I think was watering blueberries and new plum trees, moving more trimmed limbs into stacks, and cutting some others. He arrived to fix a wonderful huge brunch, of Blueberry pancakes, topped with cut-up nectarines from a friend, with hash browns & our own onions, bacon, and an egg from our neighbor. That should keep us going until 8:00 p.m. tonight. For your viewing pleasure: here’s my plate:
John and Annie just left for another hour’s yard work; cleaning out an overgrown lane along the south fence line. Good that he is in the shade – the temperature went up in the last hour from 80 to 85, and on to a high of 88; yet the predicated high today was 79.
Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan