Saturday, Aug 15
For Aug 14 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 3 min with AHI=0.00 Events: none. No major mask leaks (max=7 L/min). Oximeter on 7 hrs 17 min AHI = 0.00
Finished and published the blog, and John picked tomatoes and squash. Now I need to get those delivered, ’cause tis more than we can use.
Our temperatures only made it to 73° today; wind gusts to 40 mph. At least it cleaned the smoke from the valley.
I made it to town by way of one of our players’ front porch to pick up music for another player she had carried for me on Thursday when I thought I might not make it (as I didn’t). On to Briarwood and went in to set up. We had a couple of guitars, a fiddle, a tambourine, and a small, but appreciative audience, who fed us some excellent desserts afterwards.
On my way home, I drove by a house 5 miles east of us to pick up a nice flat pillow to replace my worn-out one; actually, I have alternated pillows to keep my neck pain at a minimum. It’s only apparent when I somehow change my positioning while always sleeping on my back. (I know the danged CPAP machine with facemask and tubing causes the discomfort; so, luckily it is sporadic.). While I was picking up the pillow, I shared some of our garden goodies, partially pictured and described below. In addition, while I was there talking with her dad, she reached around and said, “Can you use this carrier? It is a super neat carry-on type bag, which I might have made good use of when I was traveling by air to conferences and reunions. Now, however, I have quit flying, but I carry around much music paraphernalia weekly to places in town. I mentioned that it would be perfect for that use. The tote is a classy, REXFORD Ricardo Beverly Hills brand, with a zippered side pocket, a good carrying handle, and a nice shoulder strap. I am all set. I checked online and found it is a black, Montecito 16” Boarding Bag, retailing for $80, yet on sale for $40. Wow, what a nice gift, of which I shall make good use.
Our garden delights I shared consisted of yellow straight-neck summer squash, which they grilled that night with their steak dinner. Accompanying that dinner was the described uses of the tomatoes we shared. Below is her thank-you note posted on the Buy Nothing Ellensburg (BNE) site:
Thank you, Nancy! Your Earlygirls are yummy in my bruchetta…and the cherry and pear tomatoes on top of a cracker with fresh goat cheese from the farmer’s market…yum yum again! I love fresh produce! I will probably dream of you tonight!
My collage follows with the description beneath it.
Above, please enjoy Tanya’s presentation of our tomatoes (Early Girl on top), cherry and pear tomatoes on bottom. Not pictured are the Sun Gold ones. Then we have the pillow in the middle and the fancy carrier tote on the right.
Sunday, Aug 16
For Aug 15 CPAP. Reported figures. 5 hrs 51 min with AHI=1.88 Events: 11 H, 1CSR. No major mask leaks (max=16 L/min).
Winds have ceased to nothing. Nothing to report today. We both worked a little and rested a lot.
Monday, Aug 17
For Aug 16 CPAP. Reported figures. 5 hrs 51 min with AHI=2.19. Events: 13 H, 3CSR, 3 PP. No major mask leaks (max=16 L/min); oximeter on 7 hrs 20 min; no other details.
At 11:16 last night my computer was on hibernate and experienced an unexpected shut down. Getting it going again has been a multi-hour project. John is feeling better today and put in a few hours outside working. One project unplanned for was charging the battery in a truck, which has not be started for several weeks. All the little drains make a difference.
Tuesday, Aug 18
For Aug 17 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 44 min with AHI=3.42 (AN ALL TIME HIGH). Events: 4 CSR, 23 H. No major mask leaks (max=13 L/min); oximeter on 7 hrs 7 min, AHI = 3.23. That is my worst, since Oct 2014. The stop in CPAP at 4:00 a.m. was to pick up poop in the hallway by oldest dog. She’s gotten better or I have about her getting out the door before such happens.
John was out for a long while (moving slowly) with horse and garden chores.
I was inside working on music and household chores, and then left for Jazzercise at 1:25.
Wednesday, Aug 19
For Aug 18 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 1min with AHI=1.00 Events: 6 H. No major mask leaks (max=13 L/min); no oximeter data available. Connector cord has stopped working again. I’m not looking forward to the cost of packing and sending to Illinois again. I don’t know that they would replace it a 2nd time, in a year. We’ll see.
Off to food bank, played music, and ate. Back from there to Bi-Mart for my replacement watch for the Casio that died. I now have an Armitron. Have to learn how to set it, but it is smoother to operate than the Casio. The Armitron is priced $5 more. So I had to pay that additional cost and they credited me with the entire price of the old one. From there, I went to SAIL for exercise, and picked up a cherry muffin and two cookies for dessert or breakfast. I went by the house of a new acquaintance from the Buy Nothing Ellensburg (BNE) group, named Kathryn. She had a dozen pears to share, and I shared some yellow squash and tomatoes, and carried her a large black garbage bag full of blouses and pants I was given or I no longer wear because of size or selection preference. This is for the 9/1 BNE clothing share. I have much more to comb through, including going through John’s stuff. Time-consuming because we also have to wash them.
Thursday, Aug 20
For Aug 19 CPAP. Reported figures 6 hrs 51 min with AHI=0.44 Events: 2 H, 1 CA, 1 PP. No major mask leaks (max=6 L/min); oximeter not on.
Success !!! with many things in town today.
We visited today with friends from Michigan, Fred and Ann Joyal, whom we met in Iowa in the early 70s. They see us annually because his step-mom and other relatives are near Spokane. They helped us move across country in 1974 to Idaho. We started with an early long lunch, and visited afterwards until I had to go play music at the Brookdale Assisted Living home. They and John came along for the fun, and then we bid them adieu for their trip back to Spokane. We felt guilty for the long travel time they had to do, but we surely enjoyed our visit. We had a huge lunch at the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet at the Golden Dragon. The place was filled, a testimony to the excellent food presented. {click image for big one}
From there John and I went to the grocery and on by CWU geography to pick up some donated clothes for the upcoming Buy Nothing Ellensburg clothing share (on my birthday).
We didn’t get home until 4:00 and our old dog had taken himself outside but could not get back in the ramp and was waiting (in the shade) on the back patio, but panting heavily. I felt really bad for him, knowing the a/c was on in the house with the other two dogs, who can come and go on their own power. His eyesight and general health are on a cusp, or something. Sometimes he will come in the ramp on his own and other times he seems to forget that he can. Oh well – he survived. John was extremely tired from his long day and took a nap for a couple hours. I should have done the same, but did not.
Tomorrow he plans to take a truckload to the transfer station (the dump). That never happened, because his illness flared again.
Friday, Aug 21
For Aug 20 CPAP. Reported figures. 5 hrs 34 min with AHI=0.72 Events: 4 H, 2 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=13 L/min); oximeter off; I cannot extract data so there’s no sense in submitting myself to the annoyance of moving from finger to finger throughout the night.
John picked a bunch of squash. Winds blew all night, topping at 45 mph gusts, and still are blowing. I’ve been busy on the computer and switching chores around the house. We talked to our family physician this afternoon (phone). He was checking in with John. He told us to call if he didn’t get better because he was on call for the weekend.
Now John’s out picking strawberries, which I will fix when he returns (I didn’t). We still have some angel food cake left to have them on for dessert tonight. (We never did).
Then, we had a nice phone call from Richard, John’s brother, in San Jose’, CA,. He was concerned about the fires in north central WA and how close they might be to us. Thanks to all our friends across the U.S., who have been checking in. We are away from the activity, but have friends very close and have other friends whose families have been affected. A couple of days ago the number of houses lost in the Chelan area fires was 75, and while most of the fire is burning in inaccessible terrain where people do not live, it also threatens many buildings and houses in places that are not “firewise”. We’ve mentioned “firewise” before, but here is a [link].
We are working on making our space more defensible – it is slow going. We did get a new road laid out and that also made a break in the trees. There are several more to cut down but it is progress.
Today’s grab from Google Earth shows the severity of the extent of the fires around 2 small Washington towns, Tonasket and Omak.
Here’s a link to a broader based map with some photos embedded and videos. [link].
Saturday, Aug 22
For Aug 21 CPAP. Reported figures. 5 hrs 36 min with AHI=0.36 Events: 2 H, 1 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=18 L/min); oximeter not on.
A clever photograph of a local landmark in Zillah, WA came in this morning on our friends’ Facebook account for their winery, Paradisos del Sol. We used to take our class there for a field trip each summer. Barbara Sherman held her hand up and made this photo. The old gas station was previously on an old highway by-passed by Interstate-82, and a couple of years ago, the building was moved to the main street of Zillah, and now operates as a tourist information center.
If you are into history, look here: [Teapot link]
Fires report: A check of the new fires shows a smaller amount near Tonasket, WA. We have smoke in our valley that arrived last evening, and our winds subsided. That may be from increased activity in the woodlands and hills SW of Lake Chelan.
I worked a little on the jobs list I moderate and sent 7 job announcements around the U.S. Last night I delivered another 7, but several of those were multiple listings of GIS jobs in several states. Not all the job announcements are GIS related, but vary all over the disciplines, from biology, earth and environmental science, to forest service, fish & wildlife, parks and recreation, fire fighting, National Parks jobs, geology, geography, and computer science and even Google & Expedia.
I’ve been working on the blog with hopes of publishing today, if John is up to helping edit and get it on WordPress. {Not a chance!}
Our valley is filling with smoke, and our visibility has been down to 4 miles for the past several hours.
About 3:00 p.m., I decided to call the pharmacy to see when they closed, and if there was a refill on the nausea prescription John was given over a week ago. There was not. I called our doctor and was able to speak with him. He said he would call in the prescription (now with refills) and encouraged John to stay hydrated, and if he was not better by Monday, to come back to see him in the office. We hope the results of the culture are back by then to see if it is a known virus, or what.
On my way in, I could barely see the hills on the south side of the valley, from 10 miles away (on Brick Mill Road); I could not see the hills north (behind us) from the same location, which is only 6.5 miles from the hills. See below.
Left is looking south toward a relatively high ridge (Manastash), almost impossible to see today. It is about 10 miles away. The right is looking toward the hills to the north, only 6.5 miles away, but hidden by the layer of smoke. One benefit of the smoke is to make the bees and yellow jackets more docile and, also, scarce. Why this happens seems to be an ongoing debate among bee folks.
On the way home via Bar 14 road, I could barely see the northern hills from about 4.5 miles away, behind the dead tree that (to me) resembles a horse or a horse’s head. I have taken photos of it before, with the hills visible, one of which amazingly I found! The one on the right below was taken 8/3/2012. Today’s shot is on the left. Weathering over the past 3 years is evident.
We’ve had more intense smoke but this is beginning to get a bit thicker, hour by hour. Early morning sunlight is giving everything a reddish cast. Our wind is expected to blow this out by mid-day Monday. John’s voice has been a little husky – illness or smoke, we don’t know. If the smoke goes, we’ll find out. Or maybe not. He is, again, beginning to feel better.
Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan