Sunday. Going to the Bluegrass jam session in Upper County (Kittitas) from 2:00 to 4:00. John is going to help a friend move at 2:00 p.m. in Ellensburg.
Meanwhile, an early morning phone call put us on a different track. We had found last night two misspellings in the blog sent and were going to correct them, but this morning our 88 year old neighbor called to ask for John’s help today to load hay from his upper field. He called at 8:00 a.m. I was still drinking coffee and reading an article on Jim Skinner, 66, from the Midwest, who is the interesting, successful and laid-back CEO of McDonald’s, the burger and Golden Arches corporation.
I asked the farmer when he needed the help, and he said, “Today”. I told him John was not available in the afternoon because he was helping a friend move. So, he said, “Well how about now.” I told him it would take him about 10 minutes, and so he said he would meet him there. He will not be able to help but just observe. Don’t even know why he is going. Well, a son showed up and the farmer drove the “little” truck (holds a lot less than John’s) and so they took out about 10 bales per trip and John can carry more than twice that amount. They had to drive .5 mile down to load it into the barn. John just got back home at 10:00 a.m. Our nicely cleaned out pickup (yesterday – for moving stuff this afternoon) needed to be cleaned out again. There was a light rain for most of the morning. You have heard the phrase “Wait for rain to make hay.” No, I guess not.
Rascal is STILL in bed. He must have had a hard day yesterday. The temp is 53 out and the heater is running in the house, keeping it at 69.
Went and checked on Rascal and told him I was going to feed Woody. I did and he joined me. Woody’s food bowl was totally empty, but now is filled and he was eating when I left. I didn’t see the yellow cats – now being called Little Sue and Big Sue.
Fixed some breakfast and took meds.
Now John’s out feeding our hungry horses. They whinnied at me when I went out to feed Woody.
Yummy, John made us a basic grilled cheese sandwich for lunch, and I ate yellow and red cherry tomatoes with mine. We just got off the phone with his older brother in San Jose’, CA, whose birthday is today. He’s 11 years older than John. Now John’s in the backyard taking out the roots of an old Nanking cherry tree and talking with Woody. They visit a lot that way, and it helps in the taming-of-the-wild-one process. We hope.
In the afternoon, John’s help with moving apartment furnishing things went all right (with a few glitches), such as being stopped by a cop for driving with the back end loaded and the tailgate down, so the license plate was not visible. A co-mover stopped somewhat out in front to wait as John didn’t know where they were going. Her back right taillight was out. John talked him out of even talking to her by telling the officer what they were doing and that “we have enough trouble” with the move; we don’t need more.
My bluegrass jam session was a lot of fun, and ran later than planned.
We will go back next month, and in fact, we have been invited to participate in the Hunter’s Breakfast, a fundraiser for the local field & stream club. We get a free breakfast from our participation jamming for 3 hours. Breakfast will be pancakes with ham and eggs, homemade apple butter, piping hot coffee and fresh orange juice. It’s being held at the Swauk Teanaway Grange east of Cle Elum, and about a half hour from our house. Did you see the story of the Department of Justice holding meetings and paying $16 for each muffin. Must be a damn fine muffin. This whole Hunter’s breakfast is offered for $7 – no muffins, though. It does include coffee while the DOJ paid $8.24 per cup for their guests.
http://news.yahoo.com/16-muffins-8-coffee-served-justice-audit-023623142.html
On the way home, I called John and he said to go by Bi-Mart to pick up a dehydrator they had for us. He tried earlier in the day and none was on the shelf. It is a $29.99 cost for a much higher valued product, a Nesco dehydrator with a Jerky Gun included. John found that on the web, he could order the same without the Jerky gun, for a total of over $40. This seems to be a good year for fruit – apples, plums, pears (more below) – so rather than rely on friends for the service. we will try it ourselves.
Monday. Nancy got Montezuma’s revenge again. ?? from what? maybe bacteria on tomatoes ? I had some little yellow ones that John did not have. However, I washed them, but had them last night, and for yesterday’s lunch.
This is getting to be a pain. I don’t feel like eating lunch, nor going to exercise class. John has been really busy all morning mowing the backyard, moving the root-clump of the Nanking cherry tree from the backyard, carting off logs from the back woods beyond the backyard fence, moving a 20-30 pound rock – practicing for another WTA trip, I guess.
I took care of a lot of emails, planning for the upcoming scholarship luncheon at the University and our contribution (will be a salad and 2 desserts, for 12 people), and getting the information for a CWU sticker for my car that allows me to park closer to the building because I’m still limited in my walking distance while carrying things. I did get some envelopes for sorting tax receipts so I suppose I should get to work on that. Also washed a load of clothes this morning, so all was not lost. I did spend the couple hours while John napped, putting tax receipts into large 9 x 12″ envelopes for further sorting before I can enter them into my computer EXCEL sheet. I just bought 25 in a package Saturday. Very strange today, when I took out 12 for the months of the year, and counted the remaining envelopes in the package, there had only been a total of 22. I called Bi-Mart to ask if I should complain to the company (Mead), and they said no, they would just open a package, and give me 3, and would leave them at the pickup desk for me to get tomorrow afternoon. Now is that good business practice or what ! ?? This is the same place that sells a complete Corona hand saw and, nearby, a replacement blade that is meant for a different handle. Uff da.
Tuesday. Been cleaning dishes this morning, and John did outside chores, moving around trees, rock, manure, filled the hole in the backyard where the cherry tree was removed, visited with the cats, and then loaded the pickup with gravel and took it to our friend to repair holes in driveway. I’m now getting ready to go for my afternoon massage and to pick up meds.
I’m going back to town to play music at a nursing home, with The Connections.
One other fiddler and I were the only musical instruments there tonight. There were 3 singers. Really a small group, but we did our best. The other fiddler played base chords, and I played the melody on the old church anthem favorites. I remember a few we played: Fairest Lord Jesus, The Old Rugged Cross, Just As I Am, Amazing Grace, and In the Garden. I just got out and found a bunch more gospels on the web. I copied the words, so we can try them one of these days. We have requests for gospel songs from the residents of the nursing and retirement homes we attend.
John fixed chicken and squash (our own home grown), fried onions, and I added tomatoes.
Wednesday. Started with things around the house, and then I went to town to play music at the food bank, and eat. We had a nice turn-out with 4 of us musicians. The food was probably the healthiest lunch any of us have had in awhile. Was zucchini fritters (squash, onions, garlic, cheese, egg), cooked on a grill. With it was a cucumber (I don’t like, so they pulled them out), onion, tomato salad, and watermelon for dessert (I still cannot stomach that). I came home and had an apple fritter (shared with John). Because of my morning Vascular Ultrasound in Yakima tomorrow, I was unable to eat anything for supper but liquids, and Jell-0 did not seem appealing, nor was it made.
Thursday. Medical day for me and for Brittany. Annie. We had to be in Yakima this morning at 8:45 for me to have a Vascular Ultrasound. My cardiologist requested it because my blood tests recently have shown kidney dysfunction. (I don’t know yet what that means.). So this is to test to be sure I don’t have any disease in my kidneys and also to be sure my veins are working properly from my heart to my organs.
Came home and had to turn around and get our Annie dog to the vet at 1:15.. She’s the one who had puppies last year, and this year had mammary tumors and had to be spayed. She was doing fine, but we noticed a swelling around her mammary gland where they took out the tumor, and last night it turned red. Before we left for town, I gave her 500 mg of Amoxicillin from our stash. She is scheduled for surgery on this coming Monday. They need to open it back up to see what’s going on in the soft tissue.
As soon as we were done there, John dropped me off at Hearthstone to play music with “my group”. Then he took Annie home and came back to pick me up. Off to the grocery and bank and finally back home very late. He has been making a tart cherry pie for me to take to the Scholarship Luncheon tomorrow. And, he has made a peach cobbler to take too. He needs to get packed and his lunch made so he can get out of here at 5:45 a.m. to get to a WTA work site near Index, west of Stephen’s Pass. WTA lists this work party on the Lake Serene trail. It is 3.6 miles to the Lake with a 3,000 foot rise – explained by the “towering and formidable Mount Index.
http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/lake-serene
On the small Google map you can hit the minus sign and zoom out. A wide view will show the nearby cities of Puget Sound and Ellensburg too – at the right scale. Click on a few of the thumbnail photos in the first few trip reports provided at the bottom of this WTA page. On the 2nd page of reports the one for Aug. 13, by Kelbell is worth a click.
Friday. John left at 5:55 and I got up to work on the chilled salad I have planned.
As I was working in the kitchen I saw Annie licking vigorously at her incision. I checked and found Annie’s swelled tissue broke and released much fluid, mostly pus. I put towels beneath her and she cleaned and cleaned for 1. 5 hrs. It looks pretty good, considering. Perhaps it was a reaction to a suture, and they won’t have to search for more tumor they missed. I can always hope.
I returned to making my salad: (Lettuce, peas, red onions, sour cream/mayo, topped with Parmesan cheese. A friend brought a hot casserole with stuff from her garden, and I carried about 60 yellow bite-size tomatoes I got from my friend in Thorp. It was a great meal for 10 people, but we had enough leftovers to bring home for John. Only a tiny amount of pie and also peach cobbler remained.
On John’s return trip, he stopped east of Leavenworth at a roadside stand. He brought home several LARGE specimens of different varieties of apples — Honeycrisp is new and large and pretty: http://www.groworganic.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/f/t/ft043-d.jpg
Another great find was a scarlet hued pear – see the info here, especially the 4th paragraph about trying to tell if they are ripe.
http://www.oregonlive.com/foodday/index.ssf/2009/09/select_starkrimson_pears_by_th.html
The lady at the fruit stand explained this “bright red is mush” thing to John, found one to show him and then tossed it.
He also brought a few Bartlett pears, yellow plums, red plums as equally colorful on the inside as out, and a box of nice looking peaches. He often stopped at a different (nearby) grower’s stand but they have been disrupted by this:
Use Google Earth, and go to 47.558932, -120.592671
[Cut, paste, and zoom in just a little.] The current image is dated 6/30/2006, but note the yellow lines! In 2006 this was planned highway relocation to remove the dangerous intersection in the lower right. That has now been completed and all the fruit trees south of the new interchange have been reconstituted as a rock and gravel surface. This orchard produced many types of apples, including Romes. No Romes now. Progress!
http://www.nyapplecountry.com/images/photosvarieties/redrome04.jpg
Saturday. I guess when he comes in from morning chores around the place (moving gravel), we will be busy putting the fruit up, freezing some, and trying our new dehydrator (turns out we never got to that, so maybe tomorrow).
This morning started with a surprise. We had left food and water for the outside cats, and decided all were doing fine, except Woody was missing (till later). So we sat down for toast and coffee. A large strange noise came form the living room where the doggie door is set in a window. Rascal brought in a Stellar’s Jay (big as him almost), through the doggie door window. John went and picked up a dazed, but alive bird, took it outside to the backyard, and when he went to throw it over the fence, it flew to a nearby tree (without its one feather that was dislodged).
http://sdakotabirds.com/species_photos/photos/stellers_jay_1.jpg
Cat report: “Woody”, and his sibling (Little Sue, a yellow cat) has joined him plus Big Sue (another yellow cat), who we figure is Sunshine’s mother, and the mom of these two kitties born under a quail brush pile next to our barn. John had seen them when they were VERY young.
Neither of the 3 outside cats are tame yet, but they are eating out of a dog house (protects the food from the rain), and drinking water from a Pyrex dish. They live in the wood pile. Rascal is very good about trying to tame them. He can play and eat and walk beside them, but we cannot yet. He still comes and goes out the doggie door.
That’s about it from here, this week. We have a light weekend, so hopefully this will get put out tonight (Saturday). This week, had I not been retired, I would have had to begin teaching my three classes. Thank goodness, I didn’t have to work that into my schedule this week. I don’t know how I would have had the time. I still don’t know how I taught full-time all those years and still had a life.
Nancy and John
on the Naneum Fan