. . . all that goes with it: Tax preparation, Easter, gardens, and daffodils:
http://www.cornwall365.co.uk/cornwall_image/4,A-Host-of-Golden-Daffodils,_MG_4865_250207.JPG
Saturday, Apr 7 Took it easy today, caring for my cold, however, we loaded three large Honeycrisp apples into the dehydrator. John also finished the blog, while I designed a picture he made of a very large apple (on a scale to measure its heaviness) for putting on the web. We gave you that link in last week’s blog.
Sunday, Apr 8 Happy Easter. We will be joining our neighbors for a mid-day feast. Early this morning, while running with the dogs, John had the pleasure of seeing “our Naneum owl” down in the swamp. A couple of years ago he was able to get a photo of a pair. They were in adjacent trees but very close to one another. A student is using one of his photos for her presentation and labeled it the Naneum Owl (That’s because she did a Google Image search and I’d named the photo Owl-Naneum; it picked it up from our newsletter greeting). Here is a link to the type of owl and relevant information:
http://www.kidzone.ws/animals/birds/great_horned_owl.htm
We are back from a great fun dinner, including ham, potato salad, applesauce, broccoli, green bean casserole with fried onions on top of the mushroom soup mixture, rolls, raw carrots, plums, sweet pickles, and rhubarb blueberry cake for dessert with ice cream if you wanted.
Monday, Apr 9 Neat day. I stayed home to recover more from my cold. I’m still coughing but I believe I’m much better. Only sad thing is that John has caught it.
The reason it was neat was that I accomplished quite a bit, as did John. He did his normal feeding for the neighborhood livestock and ours. We went to play with the kitties and talk to Big Sue. They are slightly growing and getting faster on their feet.
Then John spent the afternoon planting trees – Grand Fir and Ponderosa Pine.
I stayed on my computer going through the tax program and getting questions that I needed responses to from Turbo Tax advisors and from our Mutual Funds Investment counselor in Arizona — (HQ is in Pennsylvania). I reached her on the phone and figured out the answers to those questions about retirement rollovers, and then waited a long time for help from the Turbo Tax advisors (had to speak to two different ones and the wait was longer than the solution). I got my answers I needed so I’m truly on a roll again. Oops, Rascal came in with John from feeding the outside cats and is awaiting some special food himself.
Last week I wrote about the dog Rhu that likely would need a new home but they decided to keep him. They live near Reno and another friend, Sonja, lives in South Lake Tahoe with one of our Brittanys and my childhood-sized (3/4) violin. They met in between their homes at a convenient place for a longish visit. Then Rhu’s owner, Julie got the violin from Kip’s owner, Sonja, and has now carted it to EBRG for me. I missed seeing her but she was able to drop it off at the Adult Activity Center. What nice friends I have.
Tuesday, Apr 10 I am not busy tomorrow until leaving at 3:30 for a massage appointment and then meeting an Olympia College geographer friend for dinner and then off to play music with The Connections. Will be a busy afternoon and evening. It all went well, but I was very tired and didn’t spend much time awake tonight, going to bed a little earlier than usual.
Wednesday, Apr 11 Today started out with all the regular chores, but I stayed in the recliner after breakfast and worked on filing tax receipts. I didn’t spend much time at all on email and the computer. Left for the Soup Kitchen at the food Bank, and played music. Did not sing as much as normal because it would start me coughing. Got through it and then we tried to eat. This was the worst lunch they have ever served there. The meat was a sausage cut in two and fried, with cheese on top and on top of that a piece of lean (mostly) bacon, sort of like ham, with fat attached. Then there was a half of a green pepper stuffed with a mixture of rice (sticky) and cut up veggies, dessert or bread was a thin slice of tortilla (I guess) with sugar and cinnamon on it. There were small cubed peaches (canned) for dessert, so I skipped that. It was really weird and I wasn’t alone in my thoughts. The head cook came over to thank us (as we were eating) for playing the music. She leaned over to the two of us (musicians) and said, “What do you think about lunch? No one said anything, so I said, “Well, it surely is different.” She seemed pleased and said, “that’s what I intended.” No one else at my table liked any part of it either.
Went on to Bi-Mart and picked up more canned cat food on sale. Then off to the hospital for a blood draw for the INR test (blood thinning). Turns out it was back down again to 1.7, and they are not happy with that. I complained of my cold symptoms, and the nurse was alarmed I had yellow mucous, so she talked to the doctor, who put me on Amoxicillin at 3/day for another 10 days. It doesn’t seem that long since I had the same thing prescribed over a month ago. We had an interesting meal tonight of leftovers. Much better than my lunch today.
Thursday, Apr 12 Not much today. Still a lot of coughing from me. John’s sneezing is about gone too. John went out to work on chores for the neighbor and to plant our strawberries. He ordered 25 but got 27 (typical for strawberries by mail-order). I went to play at the Rehab center and it was a good thing. Only 6 of us showed up. I made it through without coughing, but had taken a mask in case I started. I stopped by the new Carl’s Jr in town and bought a special BBQ bacon/cheddar/fried onion hamburger (two for $5). John ate his not realizing it was supposed to have cheese on it. Mine did; his didn’t. Or maybe he had a ‘senior’ moment.
Spring seems to have sprung. The Willows are blooming . . .
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Willow_catkin_2_aka.jpg
and the Black Cottonwood . . .
Grasses (and weeds) have grown enough that our neighbor told John to stop feeding the horses on the pastures. Then he decided the six mares could do with about half of what they had been getting. There are a couple dozen mule deer helping with the nibbling of anything green. It has been so cold here this spring that everything, even grass, is late. Two years ago trees were leafed out and flowers were blooming by April 1st. Two severe frosts in the first week of April froze the cherry buds and killed the leaves of the black walnut trees. They did come back but there were no nuts in 2010. Anyway John’s feeding chores have lessened just in time to do some gardening.
Friday, Apr 13 I started the day not feeling well after wheezing and coughing all night. I wrote an email to my Dr. and called to alert them to its being there. He responded that starting me on a diuretic was not a good idea, and to keep my antibiotics going, and come in Monday or Tuesday if I wasn’t better. Therefore, I stayed home and worked on taxes all day.
Interestingly, last night I only ate half of sandwich, and we had the remainder for lunch today. John had told me last night there was no cheese on his burger, and I said, “Well there was plenty on mine.” When he cut it today to heat up for lunch, he verified there was lots of cheese on mine, but had been none on his. I wanted to call the store, but they don’t yet have a phone number listed. We both went back to work for a couple hours, and he came in to tell me to come out and bring my camera to record what he had done. Today, he was working on a long trench (~20 feet) digging down to just above a rock layer, putting in a layer of dry manure and straw, and preparing where he will plant his 25+ asparagus plants. Then I also got some pictures of the strawberries he planted yesterday, and last year’s strawberries from which he removed the straw cover. They are already showing new light green growth from uncovering two days ago. You can see the pictures on the following link below, which I put out Saturday night and John wrote the details on my beginning template.
http://elixant.com/~nancyh/NaneumFanGarden.html
The oven’s got chicken thighs baking and in the fridge’ there’s a can of sliced peaches.
Saturday, Apr 14 John got his haircut by me this morning. If we had put even $5.00/haircut in since I began cutting his hair (before we were married), we would have at least $100. We did our separate chores, him outside in the garden and me inside on the computer. Ate a small lunch (for me, not for him), and then both went to town to Briarwood. He shopped while I entertained with a few others. Pretty good turnout of 3 guitars, accordion, two violins, and a viola, with an occasional mandolin. We had a new gal from the college join us today, who plays the banjo. She also plays with the Bluegrass Jam group at the Grange, and likely will tomorrow too, third Sundays of the month, but this is our last this year. There will be a group campout and jam the end of May. Most people, who take this more seriously than I do, go to competitions, festivals, and events through the summer. Back to this afternoon. We surely had an appreciative group who really got involved; one lady got up and did Hawaiian hand movements and dancing to Tiny Bubbles and Pearly Shells. This group of retirees always puts on a great spread for us. Today were ham sandwiches, egg salad sandwiches, cut into 4ths, diagonally, three nice salads, and many desserts.
John and I came home and he buried asparagus roots. It is a chore but once done the plants will likely live here as long as we do.
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/1000/1603.html
The stores have had Mexico grown asparagus for about $3.50/pound. The Washington commercial harvest has just started and locally it is sold in road-side stands in boxes of 25 pounds. We haven’t seen this year’s price though.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/04/12/2104569/asparagus-season-starting-in-tri.html?storylink=fb
I worked on tax input while John was in the asparagus trench. Then, after he ran the dogs, for their evening exercise, we went to visit the kitties. John pulled them out of their nest and put them on the hay lined floor in front of me (I was sitting on a bale of hay). Mama (Big Sue) watched from the rafters. John laid down and played with them and I picked each of them up and also petted them from above. They are getting more mobile and interested in things. John plans maybe tomorrow to build a little enclosure to give them more light, but high enough to keep them in. In our small hay barn they are well protected from the wind (it was high today) and rain. We’ll document the arrival of spring here on Naneum Fan and get some more photos posted for next week’s blog. Meanwhile, check out the garden pictures mentioned above in the blog with a link.
We are thankful we do not live in the mid-west – storms and tornados all over today – and wish the best to anyone in that region.
Hope your week was a good one.
Nancy and John
still on the Naneum Fan