This blog will start with autumn colors, which around our house are not as beautiful as back in Pennsylvania, where John’s hometown, Clarion, has an Autumn Leaf festival. Some places in our valley have red-leafed trees, but our only leaf colors are yellow on the walnut trees and eventually the tamaracks (Larch).
Fruit trees are mostly still green. A few more colors below.
Yellow Carpathian walnut, Red Mountain Ash, and bottom right – a few different gladioli in colorful bloom.
Monday, Oct 3
For Oct 2 CPAP. Reported figures. Events: 2 CSR, 10 H, 20 RERA. Time on 6 hrs 3 min with (max= 15 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 87, all rest above 88, with avg. 92.9%.
I sent off the photos to AAC for possible use on Facebook from the 9-30-16 Fall Prevention and Exercise Bingo party. They posted a few, and you already saw a selection from me in last week’s blog.
Now need to finish music for this week: Cotton Fields (I never finished) but changed to Anytime, along with Faded Love. We have a total of 20 tunes with lyrics, and backup instrumentals at the end, if needed.
Tuesday, Oct 4
For Oct 3 CPAP. Reported figures. Events: 1 CSR, 4 H, 19 RERA. Time on 7 hrs 46 min with (max= 17 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 had 2 spurious blips to low 80 caused by finger change, all the rest high, with avg. 92.7% lowered by the changes.
Off to get an INR at the KVH hospital lab, and report back in the afternoon it was low, 1.8. Probably because I took my pill late, missing it during the normal night period. So, that gave me a chance to have a glass of wine with dinner (alcohol raises it).
On to pick up mail at Anne’s, talk to her neighbor, and water plants. I was involved in a huge rainfall downpour there and on my way to Jazzercise, where we only had two participants. For a change, I did not have to leave for a PT session. I have been in that mode for the past 5 months.
I left the AAC to copy our group’s new music for October / November. Once home I had to sort and clip packets for the players to deliver to them this Thursday. It is a lot of work, but someone has to do it and I know it is appreciated.
Wednesday, Oct 5
For Oct 4 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 6 hrs 9 min with AHI=1.79. Events: 1 CSR, 1 CA 10 H, 29 RERA. Oximetry: Just fine all night. On the SpO2 review chart, SpO2 showed 2 blips to low 88% with avg. 93%. Awoke at 6:40 and back for 2 hrs without either recorder.
This Wall St. Journal delivery is turning into a pain. Now two days without anything and we have paid for two subscriptions. The merge attempted 9/29 failed. I tried again today, and we will see what happens. We will miss two days until they get it straightened out, and so I asked to be credited for that. Then John wrote a note to our deliverer, who responded saying she usually has an extra and will leave it for us the next 2 days.
I went to town, picked up Gloria, and we made it to the Food Bank, just as it started sprinkling. That was all we saw the rest of the afternoon, but the weather alternated between overcast with occasional sunny times. We had a good crowd singing along with us on a number of old songs, with a few religious, such as, Shall We Gather at the River, Count Your Blessings, and Just a Closer Walk with Thee. I carried cooked beef to put on my plate today for my main course instead of the garlicky pasta, had some salad, and a nice chocolate frosted brownie for dessert.
After we left, we stopped for me to fill up my gasoline tank, which was running quite low. From there on to SAIL, where we arrived a couple minutes late and found a full house. Katrina squeezed two chairs in for us to max at 15!
When I returned, I took some more yard photos.
Left is the Black Walnut tree with an old unsplit Cottonwood round that allows a table for the Douglas squirrel to feast on the walnuts. I picked up one off the ground and added to his plate. In the middle is Lemon, one of our feral cats, looking toward his own flower “bed.” John planted a 4X4 ft. pallet sided box with daisy seeds, and there is a wire fence with an opening. Lemon climbs in the opening and uses the surface to roll and rest on. One plant survived, started with one bloom, and now has several.
Thursday, Oct 6
For Oct 5 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 7 hrs 21 min with AHI=0.27. Events: 2 H, 20 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 6 L/min). Oximetry: Just fine all night. SpO2 showed one blip to low 87 with avg. 92.4%.
Going to town in John’s car today for gasoline and his trips to the grocery while I play music at Prestige Acute Care and Rehab today. I am carrying all the new music, and we possibly will have 11 people coming. We ended up with more and not enough room for everyone to sit. On our way leaving the house, we found a dead battery in John’s car, so had to get stuff transferred to my car and drive it. Now tomorrow he will take the battery in for a new one. It is the original in the car, a 2009 model, so probably in use since 2008. It is good it did not quit 10 miles back a gravel road at a trail head.
Here’s a thought: If your car’s battery is past its likely to die date (LTDD), consider having it replaced.
We fed the animals and went back to town to Joanie and Ken’s for our joint birthday celebration — mine late and hers coming the end of October, when they will be gone. Ken is the master chef for tuna melts, and we had that with a salad and Joanie’s special recipe of an apple, date, coconut no-bottom pie. So tasty. John and I carried some wine to have with dinner, a Moscato (low alcohol, and goes with fish) and White Heron’s Malbec goes with anything!!!
Color is better in the top photo but my name gets lost. John wore a shirt with colors to match her plates. How did he know? Coincidence. I think not. I still had on my music notes shirt from playing this afternoon.
We left and attended a Geology lecture at the new Science II building on campus. It was a very interesting presentation by Andy Buddington, Spokane Community College, “Unroofing the Ancient Precambrian Basement in the Priest River Complex of Northeast Washington and northern Idaho.”
(Abstract) — The Priest River complex is one of several Inland Northwest metamorphic core complexes that formed during Eocene time by crustal extension and unroofing. Here, metamorphic rocks of the middle crust, including Precambrian basement as old as 2.6 billion years, are exposed. This presentation discusses the geology and development of the complex along with glimpses of the poorly known Precambrian basement history for this part of the North American continent.
These are really old rocks and no one knows where they came from nor how they got here. Andy has a working hypothesis that includes Australia, or Antarctica, or Siberia.
Friday, Oct 7
For Oct 6 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 6 hrs 38 min with AHI=2.56. Events: 4 CSR, 17 H, 23 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 10 L/min). Oximetry: Fine all night. SpO2 showed 6 blips to the low 88 with avg. 92.6%.
We made our appointment as 11:00 a.m., next Tuesday, with Rose Shriner, from the Kittitas County Conservation District. Rose is my former GIS student at CWU. We’ll meet her at home after our Emeriti Geographers’ meeting.
The purpose is for her to review our fire-wise preparation. We will request being on their list for a chipping crew. Funding is via the WA Dept. of Natural Resources and requires a contribution by the landowner. John’s work will probably suit that requirement. One complication for us is that one of the threads of Naneum Creek runs about 130 feet behind our house. Thus, WA Fish and Wildlife folks have to be involved. Uff da!
Some of the smaller brush piles near the northeast of our property. John started this brushing years ago and the first piles were built with inside open spaces for wildlife hideouts. Quail find them useful. Early clearing was to open up some space, make a trail from one part to another, and clean up rotting trunks and limbs of fallen trees. These were on the southwest (swamp) end of our acreage, and has continued all around now. It provides good quail habitat, but now there is too much and some of the piles need to go. Chipping and removal or spreading is the only safe way. Burning is not good and the county only allows small piles to be burned.
This older picture shows an interesting early morning photo with two large brush piles behind the doe and her baby fawns. Those piles are are of material cut close to the house and moved to a safer spot.
John took the free shelving out of the truck so he could pack it and take to town. The shelving now is at our front entrance, which is a roofed alcove, but still gets wet on the concrete floor. Having this organizer off the concrete and being constructed from water resistant materials is a nice addition. We had a rolling cart there but it was much deeper and less wide. This shelving is a better solution. The stuff on the shelving came from the cart and is there now just to keep it from getting rained on.
This is cluttered now, but it will make a nice addition for sorting as well as using temporarily for unloading at the front door.
John went to town in the truck, taking the old battery, bought another (least expensive but still a 5-year life expectency) for $114 from Les Schwab, took plastic by the transfer station, and went on to Elmview with newspapers and office paper for recycling.
Saturday, October 8
For Oct 7 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 5 hrs 46 min with AHI=0.00. Events: 0 CSR, 0 H, 12 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 13 L/min). Oximetry: battery died after an hour, so nothing to report. Awoke at 5:00, up until 6:30, and back for 3 hrs without CPAP.
I didn’t get to bed until late again last night, John got up to leave by 6:20 for Cowiche Canyon, but I awoke at 5:00, stayed up until he left, and went back to sleep until 9:30 !!
Guess I needed the rest. I know through the night I awoke several times, the past 2 nights, listening to the rain. Nice though, when I went out to feed the cats, to hear the creek running. That means will get a little more water in the irrigation ditch that flows through the pasture.
Two of the feral cats and the dog were anxious to be fed.
I spent the rest of the day on continuing processes of dishwashing, computer chores, and bill receipt coordination/filing.
John had driven to town to ride down to the WTA work trip with Bill Weir, in Bill’s truck. Bill is in the first photo below but seen walking away in the second – in the orange hard hat.
In the first photo Hannah is raking large rocks into piles and John is following along scooping them out. Tiny rocks and gritty material stay for the walking surface, or tread. This is on the Wildflower Trail and a springtime photo is here:
A massive rain shower in May removed the small soil grains and left only rocks in the trail. Hikers moved to the edge and destroyed the vegetation there. This trip was a quick fix. Next year the trail will be widened some (on the right here) but the work is slow. The thin soil is hard and rocky and on top of a lava flow that is millions of years old. Very little rain is the norm here so only if they are very unlucky will this happen again.
They actually finished early and got home earlier than expected.
This is a photo from the end of the day.
Bill is on the far right without his hat. Chris Baldini (orange hat & red shirt) drove over from Spokane.
Sunday, Oct 9
For Oct 8 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 8 hrs 12 min with AHI=0.61. Events: 4 H, 1 OA, 23 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 20 L/min). Oximetry: Just fine all night. SpO2 showed one blip to low 84 (a spurious one occurring with changing the finger the oximeter is on, and that lowers the avg. to 92.2%. Otherwise the SpO2 readings were higher in my graph I can generate with the data, but I have no ability of omitting the outliers to calculate the avg. percentage.
We decided to move our pizza and apple picking date until Monday, because it is going to be raining today. Good thing – the rain started before 5:00 and is still sending many drops down at 9:30 p.m., as I’m proofing the last of this treatise.
John had been working outside waiting for the rain, but finally came in for a late lunch at almost 2:00 p.m. He fixed scrambled eggs with chipped ham. After that, he went out and cut a few firewood rounds with the chainsaw. Sprinkles started almost as soon as the chainsaw. After about 40 min. the sprinkles got to be heavier and he came in and started some brown rice in the steamer. We’ll eventually have the blog done and supper too.
Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan