Sunday. Today holds the treat of a potluck with our Trail Riding club, and while we haven’t ridden this year we will join them to eat and for fellowship, however. The temps predicted have been revised downward. Some wind is expected and if not too much will make for a nice day and also keep the bees away from the food.
Last night, we decided (after the blog was posted), to make the crust for our cherry delight dessert. That starts as a big cookie sheet of a runny mixture. Well, it came out thinner on one side and corner than the opposite side. John thinks he pushed it into the oven and the pan road up on the back of the rack. It will have to be. This morning brought great news from a friend in Atlanta that she and her beau will be getting married next July 2012. Unfortunately, if I go to my mom’s family reunion in south GA next year, it will be on the weekend two weeks ahead, (June 22), and that is too long for me to be away or so I think right now. John’s already picked raspberries this morning and now has just returned from running the dogs and feeding the horses but returned to the yard to move more of the brush he’s cut.
Well, just before leaving for the afternoon KVTR potluck, we finished putting together the dessert. We took the lop-sided crust and divided it into three parts. The really thin part John ate. The rest ended up taking two pans (one rectangular and a small pie pan). Yummy–everyone enjoyed it but there were a dozen pies and cobblers and so on, so there was some left. We shared with another couple and so had some for later.
There were lots of wonderful fresh fruit desserts there, and grilled hotdogs, many salads, beans, and more salads, and quiche. We didn’t eat as much as we could have, but surely enjoyed what we did.
The temperatures were lower than expected and the wind was blowing. It was actually very pleasant underneath the shade of a shed on the property of one of the members, out northwest of Ellensburg. While there, we bought 18 pounds of blueberries from a club member who raises them south of EBRG in the Yakima Canyon, and brought a few boxes along, in case anyone was interested. Last year John drove to Naches (50 miles) and picked – started at 8 and quit at 11 when the heat became a bit much. He had 24 pounds. Got a pretty good price, but that place has changed hands, and no longer provides the same service for the good price. Well, you can pick for $2.50 – 3.00/pound elsewhere. The folks there had plastic buckets and the cost was $1/lb. up to heaping full which was charged as 10 pounds. About 12 for the price of 10 pounds. Not counting travel time and gas – just berries – cost us $0.84 per pound. This purchase yesterday of beautiful already picked boxes of 6 pounds, at $3.00/ pound was a great savings on John’s time, efforts, and gasoline. Except for 2 pounds, John has frozen the blueberries in 8 oz. packages. Kitty is playing zoom zoom. We were very tired and full from the potluck, so went to bed without supper, and earlier than usual.
Monday: John worked some on brush cleanup in the yard and pasture. He found another water hemlock plant near where he found the other, and so he dispensed with it. I went to town for exercise class and to buy canned food for Rascal (Tuna & Egg is his favorite). We were down to the last can today. Came home to a bunch of emails, predominantly associated with the jobs list serve I maintain. And we heard from a few others about safe travel home from their summer vacations. Others are still at the beach having fun. We are here in Ellensburg, in the wind, having fun. The temps got to 75 today and tomorrow they are calling for 80. The winds yesterday topped out at 41 mph gusts. Today they are “only” 29 mph. The house is still cool, so we won’t have to use the a/c. this afternoon and evening. John, kitty, and dogs are napping. I slept in this morning.
The other thing I forgot to write above is that I received a CD in the mail from a local radio station, and it came postage due for forty cents. I’m taking it back to the p.o. tomorrow to complain. It weighs 4 ounces and had 1.48 on it. Guy at the p.o. tried to tell me it couldn’t be thicker than 1/4 inch. Now I ask you, how could a CD holder envelope with bubble wrap hold a CD case and be only 1/4 inch. Makes NO sense.
Tuesday was full of surprises. John mowed on the other side of our back fence, and it looks nice. The idea is to have a no-brush fire-break – it is not yet as wide as he would like it to be. I took off for a foot care appt, stopping first at the post office to question the charge on the CD envelope mailing. I had to pay the 40 cents because it was mailed as a large envelope, first class, and it was really a Parcel, because of its thickness. I should have asked what Media Mail would have cost. So, I called and asked the p.o., and they told me I could check on line. (Pissy, not to give me information I requested.) Then on to an Echocardiogram. It was scheduled for 1:45 and I was there ahead of time, but wasn’t taken in until after 2:00 p.m., and it took the better part of an hour for the Echo, but I’m glad for the test. My cardiologist will be back in Sept and hopefully will interpret the results. That was my request anyhow. Then I set up an appt with him for Sept 13 in Yakima.
While I was gone, John took Annie to the vet to check on her mammary “tumor”. Their recommendation was to have all removed, but, I’m going to get a second opinion from my regular vet. I was planning to breed her at least one more time, because she is the only one who can carry on our lines, now that her brother, Cork, is gone at an early age.
Wednesday. Morning starting slowly, but have just about handled all the incoming emails. Just about; not quite. John is back out after running the dogs and feeding the horses, picking a few pie cherries for putting with blueberries on a dessert to take to friends tomorrow. Wow. That tree has really produced a lot of cherries this year. I must go to the Food Bank Soup Kitchen at noon for music and after to exercise class. We only had 3 people provide music for about 25 folks at lunch. They fed us taco casserole and salad. There was watermelon for dessert, but I cannot eat it. (A childhood event of too much sun and too much watermelon and I’m averted.)
Thursday. John’s just picked the LAST of the raspberries and now is making 3 pie-cherry/blueberry treats for taking to dinner at others’ houses, tonight and tomorrow, and one for the freezer for the future. I went off to play music at Dry Creek and we had a really good turnout with 8 of our group there. It was a nice fun time, and we even had one lady up dancing to Five Foot Two followed by Yes Sir, That’s My Baby.
The dinner tonight was interesting. We had a couple of curries and brown rice, and a really yummy shish kabob, with marinated beef, peppers and onions. Along with the dessert we took a Cabernet Sauvignon from Texas (gift from a Texas friend). I had a sip but the others said it went well with the grilled beef. John wondered where shish kabob came from so here is the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kebab
Friday. Long morning, getting the kitchen cleaned up for the Culligan repairman to check out the unit’s leak and replace filters. Now John is out cutting brush (a wild (Autumn) clematis, choke cherries, wild roses, cottonwoods and a few other unidentified things) under the large Cottonwood tree. It’s good the wind is not blowing and making it dangerous for him to be there. If you search the web for Autumn Clematis you mostly get pictures of pretty white mounds of flowers. Ours is not so nice. I’ll just say that it grows on fences and with our wind and its weight, the plant can destroy a fence in a few years. Try this site:
http://www.arthurleej.com/a-wildclematis.html
. . . where the next-to-last paragraph claims our (east of the Cascades) vine in not exactly the same. It is still a pain.
I have mostly been working on the computer on email, but I need to switch to other organizing chores.
We are invited to dinner again tonight. We again are taking along a yummy blueberry / tart cherry cobbler that we made (John mostly, who has started calling it 4th of July crumble) yesterday morning. Rascal and the dogs coexisted tonight in the house from 5:45 to 9:45. Long and nice dinner, of roast beef (excellently cooked), vegetables with about 8 different things in it (very, very good), watermelon that I don’t like, but the lady of the house pulled out some purple grapes just for me. How nice! Their daughter and husband were there and we had a lot in common (horses and non-horse medical things) and great conversations. Pretty cool.
Saturday. John’s been working in the yard this morning, watering and sawing a broken top from a pine that was hurt in the wind. Now he is napping, but we have to leave shortly for my playing music at a retirement center, where they feed us when we are done. John will go grocery shopping and drop me off and pick me up. He did, and joined us for the last song, “She’ll be coming round the Mountain,” and for dessert. The rest of us went ahead and chowed down with a choice of half sandwiches (tuna salad or egg salad), two types of pastas (I passed), a great potato salad I loved, yummy, Mandarin/orange Jell-O salad, and a card table full of desserts (several types of cookies, cakes and strawberry fixings with Cool Whip on top). Guess who doesn’t need to eat supper tonight.
Missed getting a great picture yesterday of Rascal sharing the chair with Meghan. He cuddled up beside her as he does with John and me. This afternoon we didn’t get home till after 4:00 and I was really tired, so I slept until 6:30. It finally cooled down from 93 to 91 (at the airport), and just before 7:00 p.m. it got to 89. Now later tonight it’s down to 67. John was out. He claims he was ‘reding-up’ things. I always thought the term should be spelled, read, because to me it is Making “Ready” the room. “Red up” is the sixth line in the table here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Dutch_English
. . . where line 2 is “outen the lights” – another phrase used in non-Dutch western Pennsylvania, although his mother’s folks claimed German ancestry. Still the folks in Clarion County (PA) have over 200 words and phrases often confusing to outsiders and they sound funny, too!
Nancy and John
still on the Naneum Fan