Sunday (the 3rd) – hopefully this will be another gentle day of rest. The day has started out cool. Temp at 11:00 a.m. is up to 70 but is not supposed to be as hot as yesterday. Winds are sustained at high 20s with gusts to 37 mph the past 3 hours. I spent most of the day on email chores, and fixing up a July 4th wish to send to all our friends and relatives. Hopefully you got yours, but if not you can check the links below:
Please click on EACH link below and view to enjoy both.
Please do not respond on line unless you put your name in the message, because of the way I did these, when read, the reply comes back as if it was from me, not you. I won’t have a clue who wrote the message if you don’t identify yourself. That happened to several of my sends, and is frustrating.
About the cards:
The first one is a new card (from the UK) with the central character a kitty resembling the female we adopted (from our barn), last Dec 4th. She is now quite the member of the family and romps and plays with our 4 Brittanys inside and outside the house.
Under the greeting, Happy Independence Day, click on the line that says: Click here to learn more about the music, and continue by clicking on Next, at the bottom right. It’s a neat story.
http://www.jacquielawson.com/viewcard.asp?code=2944613764619&source=jl999
The second one is a beautiful rendition of State flowers that ends in a unique way. It’s beautifully done and appropriate for the Fourth of July.
http://www.jacquielawson.com/viewcard.asp?code=2945120134619&source=jl999
Be sure at the end you click on the left side after the Eagle of Flowers has drawn, to see your (or any other) state flower.
John has been doing some brushing, irrigation ditch clean-out and moving small rocks around in a blue wheel barrow. About a dozen more loads and a gravel topping will complete a very old project – one, getting rocks out of the way, and two, making a parking place in shade most of the day.
HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY … started out trying to sleep in from a poor night’s sleep, but we were awakened by an early morning call. Is it just us, or is it a courtesy only East of the Mississippi that one doesn’t call someone before 9:00 a.m.?
We put a pork loin roast in the oven to take over to our neighbors for dinner (at lunch time). It went off as planned, with the neighbors providing all the stuff to go with the roast. We had salad, mashed potatoes, green beans, celery & carrots, blueberry muffins, and strawberry shortcake for dessert. Too much food and only 6 people.
The folks have an over abundance of vegatation on the place – especially Hawthorn trees that grow along fence lines and lean into the fields.
John has sharpened his chainsaw and is off just before 6 a.m. to the upper pasture – with stout gloves — to take out a couple that are in the way of the swather.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swather
In the following link, picture three shows why it is called a thorn tree:
http://www.bellarmine.edu/faculty/drobinson/WashingtonHawthorn.asp
John calls them Ironwood trees as something similar grew in the region where he lived in Pennsylvania; maybe this one, the Carpinus caroliniana subsp. virginiana.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpinus_caroliniana
He remembers hearing of the wood’s use to make pegs, dowels, and nail-like items as the wood is very tough. No thorns on this one though. The rest seems to fit.
http://www.woodweb.com/knowledge_base/Qualities_of_Ironwood_Also_Called_Hornbeam.html
At the local airport the temp got up to 78 but is headed back down. The house siding is brown and warms up in bright sun, making the south and west facing rooms heat up in the late afternoon. I switched to shorts and a 100% cotton top. The A/C is back on to keep it at 76 in the hallway, but the room I’m in is in the bright sunshine and one of our blinds broke over half the glass sliding door. Too much stuff to fix around this house. The house was built in 1981-82 so some of the old things are wearing out – just like us. We should stay home and fix things but it is more fun running all over. We’ll have to decide on what sort of replacement will be suitable for the blind – a web search turned up about 1,000 & 1 things and wasn’t much help. After a look through the “big box stores” we may get the terminology figured out and try again.
Day after the 4th, Tuesday, was supposed to be a light day, with no trips to town, but John started out early by going over at 8:00 a.m. to the north pasture of our neighbors to clean up the mess he created last night with cutting the Hawthorne trees. He put a chain around bunches and dragged with his 4WD old pickup (’80 Chev), over to a wet portion of the field that cannot be planted with grass hay.
I stayed home and took care of things around the house and emails. We’ve rested a lot after he returned, because the temps went up to 93 and it is not conducive to working outside till it cools down.
Had leftovers plus cantaloupe for dinner.
Wednesday found me sleeping-in because I did not sleep well last night, or the night before with all the fireworks. This morning I didn’t have much time before leaving for playing music at the Food Bank Soup Kitchen. Normally I do this 3 Fridays a month, but now for July and August, we (3 of us) will be doing the music on Wednesdays. They feed us too. Today was prime rib meat soup with lots of green beans and a few noodles. I cannot say I really enjoyed it and only ate a little, but it was tasty. Also a nice salad w/ dressing, lemonade (mine) on ice (theirs), and a small piece of yellow cake with orange frosting. Problem today is the heat. It is 92 and most places I was today had no A/C, so I stripped down and went barefoot too, when I got home.
Today/Thursday was an interesting WINDY day. I didn’t have to go to town till leaving at 1:25 p.m., for a nursing home where we played. We played over an hour, and I got out as soon as possible driving home because I didn’t want to leave my violin in a hot car (turned out the wind whipped up a lot–up to 49 mph gusts and lowered the temperature significantly). However, I drove home, dropped the fiddle off, and went back to Kittitas for a baby shower at 4:00 p.m. We had a blast and there was plenty of food to fill up on and cake for dessert. I do not need to eat any supper. Played only one game and it was neat, but mainly we sat around and talked.
Most interesting find there among the group was what a small world it is. After looking at a familiar-looking person for much of the time, she realized she knew me and had been in several of my geography classes at CWU, along with her husband, also a Geography major. They met in our Wine: A Geographical Appreciation class. We last saw them in 1998. Stayed till almost 6:00 and had to fight the wind all the way home. My car was only getting 19 mpg because of fighting the raging gusts. Normally, it will cruise at 27 mpg. The temp is down to 56 on our front porch and for the past 2 hours the gusts have been 45mph! Highest this afternoon was two hours (apart) of 49mph, one already mentioned for gusty Ellensburg.
Friday was different from most. Started with a Sears’s repairman to evaluate our freezer part of the double fridge. As expected, it would not make the singing and screaming noise while he was here. We have to wait till he hears it before he can replace the fan, which he fully expects is the culprit. I left for a shoulder massage and it was relieving. I didn’t really feel up to waiting around for exercise class, because I was rather beat from the heat and my reaction Tues and Wed, so I went to the grocery store and by one yard sale ($2.00 bought me a brush for our cat’s tail to get out the seeds she is bringing back from her outside yard jaunts, a pair of denim pants for John, and an acrylic sweater for me, in red/white/blues. If the temps were as cold July 4th as today I could have worn it. Then tonight we went to a party. I’ll wait and describe later, but essentially it was to meet the Brittany puppies (6 weeks old) and have snacks (pretty substantial) with the Chemistry and Science Education faculty. Very much fun. Snacks included little Smokies (pigs in a blanket), fruit salad bowl, chips, dip, veggies and a couple of dips, and salsa.
What a day Saturday turned into. We met up for lunch and a visit with folks from CA coming to pick up their Brittany puppy from friends here in Eburg, where we were last night at the party. Our friends from CA bought lunch for us. It was a great visit.
From there we took them to the house with the puppies, visited a little and then drove to town for gasoline. John’s car was running on vapors. After that we drove to two yard sales, and found a few good things. John found a pair of NEW high topped strong irrigation/mud boots, in his size for $3 (probably worth 45+ bucks). He saw a nice large blue blanket for 50 cents. At one other sale he found two glass lids that will likely fit our crock pot that needs one. Or one will work on another pan or skillet. For a quarter each, it was a real deal.
From there we went to Briarwood Commons (retirement center), where I was scheduled to play music with my “group.” We had a really small number today. I was the only fiddler, and there were two guitarists, a base fiddler, a clarinetist, and two singers. While the audience was also smaller than usual, they had words to most of the music and sang along with many of the songs. It was quite nice. This is the group who also feeds us afterward. Today were two types of salad (mixed green & mixed fruit), egg salad finger sandwiches, and a table of desserts with whipped cream topping (homemade pumpkin pie, Bundt cakes: cherry, blueberry, & orange, and cookies). Wasn’t necessary to eat dinner tonight, but John had a little of the lunch leftovers with other chicken leftovers and carrots from a recent dinner here at home. I ate more than him at Mexican restaurant lunch (Prawn Fahitas) and after the music, so I won’t have anything tonight. I’m still full.
This morning before 10:30 a.m. John and I rushed and struggled to get out the newsletter that John writes for the Trail Riders club, and I helped him fold, stamp, and get 48 copies of the 6-page newsletter out to the mailbox as we left. We SHOULD have taken them with us to town to the Post Office. Our postal person did not pick them up out of our box (John always arranges them in a plastic bag), and instead, the carrier threw in the mail and magazines over the top–Damn. We were not happy campers. By the time we found them left in the mailbox, (a very large box and they were at the front), it was 3:53 p.m., and the pickup in Eburg on Saturday is by 4:00 p.m. outside the USPO. There’s no pickup on Sunday, and so club members will be late getting theirs before the meeting on Thursday.
Once home, we were both tired and slept for two hours ! Over the last day or two I’ve developed a swollen lymph node under the jaw line on the right side. We both have blood draws scheduled for Monday morning for annual physicals on Tuesday. Meanwhile, I’ve started taking amoxycillin that I keep on hand for pre-treatment before dental appointments. A couple of weeks ago John had a tooth pain that the dentist checked out but they (he and John) settled on treating with amoxycillin, although he wrote a prescription for Medrol DosePak, in case, over the weekend, John wanted (or needed) additional relief. That hasn’t been needed.
I’m late finishing this up for this week, but I will now, and send off to John to put on the WordPress blog.
Our best regards
Nancy and John
in windy Kittitas County