a memorable week

Back to Friday, 10-27-17 AAC Knighthood Medieval Party
(Apologies for the unfocused left of my camera – no clue why. Maybe I need a new one.)
Dancers, Women Joined by Men

King Curtis & Queen Marilyn Enter

Early Jousting

Final Jousting with Winner

Pictures on Facebook site of Ellensburg Adult Activity Center are the best, so I made a collage from a few of them.The medieval cast, dancers, and one of two tables for lunch.

Back to yesterday, Sunday, October 29

This next link goes way back to Oct 13, when John went to work on a trail at Candy Point trail, near Grand Coulee Dam, WA. The local newspaper sent a fellow, and he interviewed Alan of WTA.
News of Candy Point Trail

Monday, October 30

We published last week’s blog at 9:30 a.m. Whoopee!
We left at 10:15 for Valley Vision. Ran into all sorts of morning issues with road construction, bridge out on Bar 14, slow moving tractor with a front end loader carrying a dead cow, beauty of living in a rural area. On through bicyclists, a runner on a too narrow street, and more traffic, on our way to the eye doctor. Nancy drove in, and John drove home.

My appt was for 10:45 a.m. I got checked in and right away was back for 15 minutes of eye testing, pressure readings 17 & 18, and prep for the surgery. My eyes were dilated, with drops, and I waited 15 minutes for Dr. Li and his assistant to enter the room. He explained the procedure, and had me sign a Medicare form, and date that the eye surgery was happening on my left eye. His assistant explained the eye drops I will be using 4 times a day for 4 days. Prednisolene Acetate, which we picked up at Super 1 pharmacy. John went in for it, as well as getting me some English muffin toasting bread and some hamburger to cook for our lunch (with Swiss cheese).

Tuesday, October 31 HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Started early with loading the dishwasher and running it. I doctored my left eye, and sent last Friday’s videos to the AAC. Now to finish the photos – took me a couple hours, but I sent off 30 to AAC. They’re not up to my usual quality. Maybe a few will be of interest to someone.
My temperature at 9:00 a.m. on 10-31-17 is 96.5° F.

Went at 12:30 p.m. to my rural mile-away neighbor, Celia, for a haircut. She has cut my hair since I arrived in town, in 1988! Now she continues out of her house. I took her a bunch of jelly and salsa jars all wrapped up in paper, for the trip. Someone gave them to me long ago and I just uncovered them in the shed where I park the Forester.

John’s driving me in the truck to drop me off at AAC while he picks up a large barrel composter, bricks, and concrete, and he also brought home bags of leaves. Those from a neighbor 3 doors east of where he picked up the other stuff.

I consulted with Katrina and Tina about the plans for Friday’s Veterans’ Celebration. Then the 3 of us did 22 minutes of vigorous exercise.

On to get gasoline for $2.82/gallon and we put a lot in the Ford 350, and also into two containers for lawn mower, chain saw, and emergency refill of any of the autos getting home on fumes.

I found out my “floater” is normal with the laser surgery procedure used to break up the film on my lens. It will go away in a couple weeks. Let’s hope. John has had Weiss Ring Floaters since December of 2009, so he is not impressed.

Supper was salad with iceberg lettuce, Bleu cheese dressing, cut up Gala apple, cut up smoked chicken breast, and I had Cheezits for croutons. John fixed a casserole he had some of, but I waited for a later night. It had chicken, celery, soup, green beans, and walnuts. And a tiny amount of Lentils – end of bag.

Need to take my meds and get some sleep. Might be difficult with 47 mph gusts banging things around outside and sending noises into the house.

Wednesday, November 1

Winds last night were awful — keeping me awake most of the night, less so for John.
My temperature at 8:38 a.m. 11-1 was 96.7° F.

I had a good breakfast with John before I left for town: Sausage, 2 eggs over easy, and a piece of toast. Late morning I headed for the Food Bank. I got a parking space right by the door, carted my stuff in, checked in, and went back to the bread room, then talked to the new Volunteer coordinator (named Elise). After music and lunch, I was back in the car.

I went on to SAIL class at the activity center. There was a meeting this afternoon from 3:30 to 5:00, which I came back to attend, after filling my car with gasoline, and going by Bi-Mart for supplies. I stayed almost the entire time at the meeting, visiting with all sorts of people I knew and did not know.

Supper: A good salad, apples, lettuce, smoked turkey, pistachios, hard-boiled egg, Bleu cheese dressing and Cheezits. John had some of his casserole, but I didn’t have any tonight.

Thursday, Nov 2

Breakfast: sausage, 2 eggs over easy, toast, and fresh pears.

John had a bunch of outside chores, mainly to repair a fence and get water to the horses, as the irrigation ditch is drying up as water in the creek drops below the outtake. I primarily worked on music to take some today to give to a couple people needing it for tomorrow’s shindig at the AAC for Veterans’ Day celebration (early).

We left for Rehab music at 1:10 p.m. John helped me carry stuff in, and sat in the TV/visiting room to catch up on his WSJ reading. He then came down for the ending and carried my stuff back out to the car.

We left there for the AAC to deliver music for the audience tomorrow, so they have it. While there, I received news of the change in plans for the content order of the program for tomorrow. Our music has been moved to the end, and then we will eat after that.

I worked on music tonight for tomorrow. Changed the key for singing the National Anthem, because I need to start (with the help of our accordion player), the first 3 notes of the song so that everyone is in the same key.

We have to get to bed earlier tonight, to get our rest for the long day tomorrow.
Casserole for dinner. Very good.

Friday, Nov 3

I had forgotten to take off my Oximetry, so did it at 12:32 am. Saturday, before settling in for the night.

Today, John and I left home at 10:30 a.m. with the music and stands I needed for the crew. We had 14 musicians there, and we were last on the program. Our group is the Kittitas Valley Fiddlers & Friends. I played the fiddle with 2 others, one was on a viola, an accordion, guitars, bass mandolin, bass guitar, 12- and 6-string guitars, banjo, and (flute, penny whistle, mini washboard), and harmonica).

Then, the different branches of the military were asked to stand and be recognized. While they were standing, Karen Eslinger (accordion) played each branch’s theme song, and the audience sang along and clapped in time to the music.

Then the staff began serving lunch: meatloaf, baked potato, mixed green salad, apple slices, and a nice celebration piece of cake at the end.

After about ½ the people had been served, and talking dwindled, we started playing our 13 songs (patriotic and USA songs), with the audience having copies of the lyrics to sing along if they wished. Many did. And we received many compliments afterwards. We do this every year at the Senior Center.

Here are some pictures John took and I’ve made into collages.

Apples, plates, and cake for lunch.

Honors for veterans and double MCs leading the ceremony.

Dean was in the Navy. * * * * * Charlie was in the Air Force.

Nancy introducing the musicians & the music, and the band.

They served the musicians our meals at the end of our music.

We left as soon as we could to get home, change clothes, get our boxes of apples ready to take to the WTA office crew, get the directions for getting there loaded, and packed for our trip over. I drove over with John giving me pacenotes along I-90, and leading me through the maze of streets in Seattle. The whole trip was a little over 2 hours. We had 30° temperatures on the pass, with just a bit of snow showers. There was light rain at lower elevations. At the Pass it is 3,000 feet.

We got there in time to visit with a bunch of people we know, and some we did not know quite as well. We ate a nice catered dinner, and began the Volunteer Recognition program. John was recognized for his Work Bench award received after 250 work days on the trails. He started with WTA about 2003 on a week-long trip and now has 265. Full Bench(250) Crosscut Saw (500 days on trail), Greg Friend

Here are two videos I took during the ceremony.

White Hat presented at WTA Volunteer Recognition 11/3/17 Tim Van Beek & Andrea Imler present thanks to Greg Paull
White Hat WTA award

Reya Fore speaks of her involvement in trail work & hiking
Youth Ambassador

Our trip back was fine, and John drove. We got almost to the Pass, and saw a miles long parking lot on the other side of the valley (the westbound lanes of I-90 from about MP 50). Stoppages occurred at Easton and just west of the pass, because of “spin outs” on ice or slush. People go too fast and follow too closely, so when one loses traction there usually are several cars involved.

Saturday, Nov 4

While looking for information on the I-90 closure at the pass after we passed through last night heading west, and then seeing the long stoppage of traffic, after 8:00 p.m. on our way home (we were Eastbound, and saw it on the westbound), looking like a linear parking lot.

I found this from Oct 19 on the Tumwater Canyon (Leavenworth), fall colors, in a “Hyperlapse” video of fall colors. Warning is from Trooper Brian Moore (who is the WA State Patrol District 6 Information Officer for Chelan, Douglas, Grant, Kittitas, and Okanogan Counties). Several weeks ago, we posted his photos of the turnover of a semi trailer rig on Hwy 97, Blewett/Swauk Pass, north of us, on the way to Wenatchee and Leavenworth. His comment with this video – Use pullouts for photos. Do not park on narrow shoulders. (Nancy’s comments from reading the comments following the story): The following video is 31 seconds long, taken from a stationary camera in a patrol car, at 9:03 am., 19 Oct 2017; safety turned on and off parked off the side of the road, and edited afterwards.

John made a barricade by the old red barn from old 2 x 4s we got from our friend Evie’s dismantling of a deck/porch. It was to keep the horses out of where they shouldn’t be, but allow them to get to their horse trough (heated) of water for the winter. John took part of a fence down for our recent hay delivery but did not get it pulled back into place. Today, he moved two 12-foot panels to prevent Breeze from pushing under a temporary rope fence. He’s good at escaping, and stepping through places you would not expect. If none of the other 3 follow him he will soon go back.

Lunch: egg/Swiss cheese omelet (1/4 piece), bacon, fried baked potato, with the last of the Alisha Craig white sweet onions. They are not keepers so over the past 3 weeks or so we’ve been using them. The sales info says they keep just a month. True for some, but these were harvested about 11 weeks ago.

I worked on email chores, photography stuff, medical records (Oximetry), and notes to people about various things. Sent birthday cards (I am very behind), sent out the Earth Science Weekly list, sent to me by a fellow geographer in Michigan I have known many years, put away cleaned dishes, and all the normal chores around the house we’d ignored the end of this week. I need to spend a bunch of time on the photographs John took yesterday at the Veteran’s Celebration, and I took last night at the WTA Volunteer Recognition Event at REI.

Finally finished the letter to Alan Carter Mortimer at WTA. Alan had been north of Seattle during the day, and got snowed on. He thought maybe we would not try to come. John knew the storm was going to arrive later at the Pass, and we zipped up and down into Puget Sound without incident.

Worked on music tidying up for next July 4, using the stuff from yesterday’s Veterans’ day, so I’m set to go then. We use the same music. I need to change the stuff I’m carrying back to the Oct-Nov music through the end of this month. Then we change to December and Christmas music, with a couple lead-ins of Thanksgiving songs.

Supper: shared two chicken TV dinners, both chicken different types.

John beat me to bed, but now I’m collapsing there. Supposed to snow tomorrow, and the field trip he was planning to go on was cancelled. Glad we made it over to Seattle and back last night. The Seattle weather forecasts are good for 2 or 3 days out. Systems develop on the Ocean and how they come into the Puget Lowland is well understood.

Sunday, Nov 5

John started by broom pushing snow, feeding the birds, and two outside cats. He also ordered more ink cartridges for our printer and a new heated water bowl for the outside feral cats that now arrive morning and night and throughout the day at our front porch.

I’ve worked a lot on email changes from the old account, and on emails about last week’s activities. I need to get to work on the blog and all the Veterans and WTA photos.

We are about ready to have breakfast: omelet, bacon, toast and a few fried potatoes – mostly left from yesterday.
Supper was a nice salad, and then baked chicken, a half of a baked potato, with baked apples on the side.

Great news from Jeri Conklin, right before I ate:
Daisy had a nice weekend of runs as well with a 4th place win out of 18 dogs in the Open Gun Dog yesterday. Today, she had another nice run with great bird work and didn’t place, but I’m so proud of her. She handles so nicely for me. Thank you Nelson Kennels, Scott and Deanna Beals-Azevedo and Linda Azevedo. Nancy B. Hultquist – I couldn’t have asked for more from her. 7 birds on Saturday, 3 birds today. No pictures as it was so late yesterday. Thank you judges Greg Knight and Warren Eizman for yesterday’s recognition. Judge Jeff Rhine, it was a pleasure to present her to you today.

Hope Your Week Was Fine
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan