Flash back to Scott Niccolai’s talk in last week’s blog about Stream Restoration. John found this reference accidentally while searching for photos of a helicopter moving logs. 
Caption: People watch helicopter lift logs to be placed in stream for habitat restoration.
Helicoptering in Logs for the Northwest’s Largest River Restoration
Monday, Oct 21
I’ll start off the week, with more awesome photos from my friend in Michigan of her friends, the Sandhill Cranes. Hope you like these as much as I do.
Autumn leaves flight and fluttering of wings 
Early morning stroll and foraging
John’s out feeding Myst her concentrated food. She is putting on some weight. Our vet, Dr. Dan, stopped by the other evening on his way home (he lives a mile NE of us on Charlton Rd, and took a look at her. She has gained weight, but we’d like another month of good weather. Instead it feels like winter. Report is that winter just hit Boulder, CO. Here is what the NWS thinks the remainder of the week will be like there:
If the high of 18°F, on Wednesday, happens it will set several cold records for the date and the season. Holy Cow!
Here on the Naneum Fan, a gal came for the pine cones we put into a 5-gallon bucket for her, and brought me a blouse and a hand-knit scarf she made. I had never seen one like it before. It’s close to an infinity scarf, if you look up images on google. I will likely wear it for the Raclette at White Heron, coming near the new year.
This afternoon, I drove to the Kittitas P.O. and submitted an extension tax form. Best place to go where I was the only one at the counter and handled rapidly. The best 10 mile trip I can make for such needs. The wait at the Ellensburg USPS is often met with a long line out the door, with only two agents (if you’re lucky).
Tuesday, Oct 22
We stayed home today. John’s done his outside chores in high wind gusts, but he was wearing his full coveralls.
I have been working on scheduling, emails, medications, updating my Medic Alert information (on line, changing providers and medications list), helping give Glenn Engels some information about donating food to the FISH food bank. He is starting to empty the house where his mom lived. I never mentioned about our friend, his Mom, Anne Engels. She died a couple of weeks ago at Fire Island, her favorite place on Earth, while vacationing there for September and October. She has made that trip as long as Glenn can remember.
Soon, we will be having brunch: egg, pancake, & peaches.
Working on my addition to Medic Alert meds at the moment. Just updated doctors (only PCP & Cardiologist). And ready to change emergency back up to Geography secretary, and add another friend as 3rd contact. Spent a lot of time updating my medications list, with dosages and frequency.
Called two places to update my vaccination history. Flu shot this year (10/7), and am up-to-date on pneumonia shots. Cle Elum mailed me that record, which didn’t arrive until Saturday.
Changes in schedule this week; add Scholarship luncheon group, this Friday, at the Tower Theatre lobby on campus.
High winds blew all night, and continued early here this morning, but the airport didn’t start registering them until 9:00 a.m.— then hourly, it has reported: Gusts: 32, 41, 45, 49, 44, 47, 47, 39, 38, 30, 31, 29. Gets worse later this week.
Afternoon snack, fruit cake; later, Cheez-its. I worked alternately on the computer, emails, filing, planning music attendance for this week and looking forward to the Veterans’ Day presentation at the Senior Center on Nov. 8.
Sustained wind speed has been consistently in the 30s, & dropped to the 20s at 4:00 p.m.
Supper: Cauliflower, ham with elbow macaroni, and a great apple creation baked by John using Red Delicious apples from high up in a 37-year old tree. [via 1st owners of our house] He cut and sprinkled cinnamon on those, added cashews, and a batter made from pancake mix.
We have been busy getting our voting ballots done tonight. I can put them in the ballot box when I go by the Courthouse to the Food Bank Lunch tomorrow at Liberty Theater annex on 5th. Our ballot has a dozen ‘advisory’ items – we get to express our feelings about these, but the legislators get to ignore them.
Too much time spent on projects; not going to bed until too late.
Wednesday, Oct 23
Get ready for Food Bank lunch and music. Fixed a protein drink just in case the pasta is not okay. I brought it home. Had spaghetti and one piece of chicken from a pesto pasta (but didn’t take any pasta), fruit (including mango, papaya, pineapple, & pear on cottage cheese, and a little of the mixed salad, mostly ate halved cherry tomatoes.
As planned, I went by the ballot box and deposited our ballots. Stopped by Dollar Tree and searched for nylon bags (in with laundry bags) but none were available. Shipment arrived today and needs to be processed. A clerk took my name and phone # and will call me when / if it comes in (they never did). Needed to get John some tooth picks too, but they also did not have the kind I was looking for in the dental section.
I’m dealing with music for future Veterans’ Day celebration at the Senior Center, Nov 8, doing our patriotic and USA songs (13 of them).
Supper: Lasagna, chicken nuggets, and fried shrimp. Dessert: best part was the apple creation from last night, heated, and topped with vanilla ice cream.
Thursday, Oct 24
This morning, after an hour outside, John came in and we set up to give him a much-needed haircut. I managed to do a nice job in just over a half hour. We are both very pleased.
I started the morning by soaking dishes, which need to be loaded into the dishwasher. Called in the count for chairs for music today. I also responded to a horribly constructed telephone evaluation of my yesterday’s quite positive experience dealing with a customer service representative at Genworth Life about our Long Term Care Insurance Policy. The prices keep increasing yearly (as expected). We hope never to need it, but it is important to have. This year’s amount is going up from last year’s by $1,093.97 to a total of $4,740.95. Official notification will not arrive in our mail until Nov.20th, but I received the amount, when inquiring, as I was setting up an automatic electronic funds transfer to go from our checking account directly to the company, without having to write and send a check.
I’m going to Hearthstone today. We had a huge turnout (a baker’s dozen) and a large audience who enjoyed singing along with us.
This evening we are attending a talk at the Kittitas County Historical Museum presented by Harriet Baskas, “Washington on Wheels: Odd and Innovative Transportation Ideas from the Pacific Northwest.”
Here’s my discreetly obtained from my lap, video of the lecture, put “unlisted” on YouTube. Please be careful how you distribute this. Just watch it for your own pleasure and education.
Washington on Wheels: PNW Unusual Travel Modes
Friday, Oct 25
John completed his normal early morning outside activities. I worked inside on mine but only made a slight dent.
RSVP’d “no” to David Bederman’s “legacy” lunch/lecture in Atlanta, GA at Emory University. David was the son of Sandy, my main geography professor at Georgia State. David was a specialist in Law of the Sea activities.
I went to the scholarship luncheon meeting on campus. Met our new member, Sarah Feeney and mom Bonnie, (missed meeting her baby). She was sleeping and I forgot to look in the carriage on my way out. I was there early, so I could leave for all my appointments in town.
Today’s offerings were good, especially with a second story view of falling yellow leaves. We had turkey chili with beans, topped with shredded cheddar cheese, Mini-Fritos and a small chunk of cornbread, there was a salad, but I didn’t have any because of the greens included, and a sugar cookie for dessert.
From there I went to Safeway, to get colas for John on a special 4 for 69₵ each (2-liter bottles). Then on to the $ Tree to look for wooden tooth picks for him. Our dental hygienist gave him fancy mint flavored things. Nothing at all was there, so still looking.
Left there for the bank to pick up my 4 copies of duplicates of our checking account checks so I can VOID one, which has all the routing numbers and account number on it to send to Genworth Life Insurance with our request for an Electronic Funds Transfer in 2020. That went smoothly and because I was there on a Friday, that is the bank’s day to put out donut holes next to the coffee pots for people to have. Today, it had more things on the food tray, so I took two large M&M cookies to bring home.
On my way home, I stopped at Bi-Mart and first looked in the dental section, finding no such wooden toothpicks, so I sought regular toothpicks in the grocery section and hit the jackpot. I had the choice of two boxes, only 99₵ each, one with 750 picks in it, and the other with only 250. Checking the difference, I found that the 750 were FLAT and the 250 were ROUND. The flat was definitely what I needed, and I was pleased. We figure the price difference (by type & number), is that there is a lot more wood wasted in the production of the round ones. Interesting. Flat is superior in this case, anyway. There wasn’t more than a dozen of the picks, if that, in the little sample container given to John by the hygienist, so this is a much better solution.
Once home, I was in the kitchen reaching for something in the refrigerator, the electrical power shut down without warning, right before 3:00, at 2:54 p.m.
I called two neighbors to be sure it was not just our isolated problem. Then I called the Kittitas PUD (Public Utility District) at 933-7200, shortly after 3:00 p.m., to report the outage. At that time, I was only the second person calling in, and no details were yet known. The woman I spoke with (Mary-Dawn) was only working until 4:00 in the office, and told me I could call back the same number and press “zero,” for updates. She registered our reported outage, also took my phone number for a call back when power was restored. I told her I would know when it was restored, because the lights would come on, but thanked her and accepted the offer.
Obviously, with no electricity, we had no connection to the Internet. Our landline was working until the battery needed recharged. I actually had other phones I could have used, but didn’t need to. I’ll present a photograph taken from a report on the web on Community Connect Kittitas County Facebook site, I received after the fact from a friend in upper county who had seen it, and saved it. 
Red oval shows where top of tree snapped off. Below right of that is the remainder of the pole, with the top upright on the yellow road lines. Cross arms are left hanging in the middle of the road, held up by the wires. Pieces of the tree are in the road, in shadow, around the pole. Hard to see – this was a copy from a ‘Facebook’ post by a PUD worker.
Tree across the road that sheared the pole (orangeish thing on left) on its way down from the high winds. Spot is at a small bridge.
Obviously, we would have no access to the web or to lights when it gets dark about 5:30 p.m. Phones are working and that’s about it. My laptop is operating on its battery, so I can proceed with a few things, just not email, where I imagine there are several messages waiting for me from my several hours away today, 10:30 to 2:20 p.m. At the time I wrote that, I wasn’t even thinking that my batteries were not being charged without the electricity on. By the time I looked at my computer, it only had 1 hr. + a little left, so I turned it off.
We still have leftover frosted brownies made by Karen Eslinger from last night’s KCHM lecture. I wish I had a way of heating water to make coffee to have with the brownie. Perhaps I’ll just have cold coffee or a PowerAdeZero drink. These sorts of outages are usually fixed in under 4 hours, so we haven’t gone to “survival” mode, yet.
The wind is severely blowing. John checked when I got home and I think he said it was a high of 47. I think it was much higher on my drive home, and now outside everything is being picked up and thrown around. I hope he stays out from under trees with limbs that might fall on him. He is outside working now.
Here are the winds of the day: 
Don’t miss the 60 mph gust before 4:00 p.m. Broken pole is 3 miles from the airport weather station.
Whoopee! Just off the phone with Laura at the Cle Elum Clinic requesting mailing of a handicapped sticker okay for the state. CWU has eliminated the sticker for on campus only parking which I use about 9 times a year to access the Discovery Building in the middle of campus for IAF & geology science lectures, the first Thursday of each month (except summers). The only access close to the building, now is only handicapped parking, previously, there were 8. They recently switched all 10 parking spaces to only handicapped. I have the CWU Parking permit that is also required with the CWU h/c sticker, but it expires Dec 1, this year, and after that I am only allowed there with a state one, which it has to have a doctor’s approval, before I can get one from the vehicle licensing department. My CWU Emeritus Parking Sticker Permit does not expire until December 31, 2020.
Still no electricity. This is not as serious as people in CA are experiencing, so no complaints here.
We finally got our power back at 5:54 p.m., 3 hours after it went off.
However, friends on Game Farm Road, ¼ mile from the downed telephone pole still do not have power this evening. They must have re-routed ours, but those closest to the break will be the last restored. Many folks in the Kittitas, WA area (some on PSE, another utility district) were also without power. There are similar events, with road closures from dust, over a large area.
Saturday, Oct 26
Home today trying to pick up the pieces from yesterday’s power outage that affected so many people’s lives. I had other needs but those got put on the back burner while the power was off. Maybe it is time to clean up the wood stove, before winter does come.
I need to update my vaccine record at Medic Alert, and this morning’s mail brought my history, but I need to add to it, a flu shot I had Oct 7, 2019. Also, we both had notices for our upcoming wellness and chronic ailment appointments, but I have to call Monday to find out why the supposedly “attached” paperwork to fill out in advance was not included. That happened last year as well, and we had to fill it out in the waiting room (not the best place to do such stuff – having to rely on memory only). Feels like we already saw this movie. [Déjà vu, some would say.]
I had washed a load of dishes this morning, which were meant to be done yesterday afternoon. John has been out taking care of several projects, he is working on alternately. He says he is using different muscle groups so as to not stress any, and getting cramps later. I’m doing the same thing inside the house.
He took time to come in and fix brunch: Sausage patty, with blueberry/pecan pancakes, and bowl of cut canned peaches.
We both worked on afternoon projects, John’s mostly outside, except when a strong wind whipped up, and blew him in the door, because it got dark, and threatening, as if a hurricane was impending. Amazingly, it only sprinkled here, but others in town and in Thorp got a short but heavy rainstorm. After a while, the sun came out, the wind stopped, and John returned outside. Feels like the weather spirits went crazy.
I used the time he was out for the next couple of hours to upload the video I took Thursday evening.
Supper: Fried chicken thighs from the freezer (actually from Safeway’s cheap chicken Monday), with French fries, and beets. Dessert of a brownie and M&M cookies.
John’s in bed, and I’m on my way. Will continue in the morning working on this blog.
Sunday, Oct 27
Home today working on the blog and many other projects. John’s already come in and eaten leftovers for lunch, and I am having a late one.
I finished lunch and was cleaning up preparing to get back on the blog, and to set up washing clothes, when John came in and I asked him to allow time tomorrow to deal with some of the shoes we got a few weeks ago. Instead, he brought a large cardboard box to the front porch. There are 10 boxes of nice shoes and a black lawn-bag filled with casual shoes and belts. I recorded shoes and sizes to share with someone on Tuesday. Now I will just process these and return to it later after the blog is completed. I took the pix from the camera. Hope to complete this shoe and clothing home-finding process real soon now.
Completed the communication between a Thorp friend and a Naneum Fan friend; I was the intermediary.
Managed to start the clothes washer, finally, at 3:20 p.m. Now most is dried, but I need to empty the dryer and put in the socks and panties on a lower heat.
John came in and heated beef stew (from the freezer) for dinner. This was from a couple of months ago, but he hadn’t dated it.
Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan