Category: Weekly report by day

So, the web is a big and confusing place but
if you can find Earth in the vastness of space
you still have to find the speck that is the
Rock N’ Ponderosa.

So, greetings!

Nancy & John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Monday, Oct 5

For Oct 4 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 21 min with AHI=0.47 Events: 3 H. No major mask leaks (max=14 L/min); no oximeter.

Finally got last week’s blog published at 12:05 a.m. today.

Rain in South Carolina. Oct 3, 2015. This is my cousin’s daughter’s backyard in Mt. Pleasant, SC where they got 24″ of rainfall.

Check this site for some history of flooding in South Carolina.
Click this link.
John taught me how to put links for html files and you Tube videos into wordpress tonight. Now I have to learn how to enter pictures.

I put out the announcement for Fiddlers & Friends for this week to get a count for the number of armless chairs needed.

John wrote a note to the installers of our wood stove next Monday, and I sent it off.
(Sadly, they never responded and I’m not sure they even saw it).

Received a call from Jason B. at CWU Surplus that we did receive the pallets we bid on last week. John has to unload a few things from our stock trailer and then we can pick them up. Probably, he will do tomorrow while I go to Jazzercise. Our cost (with tax) is just under $75. We’ll have to get a full count when we go to load them. We got the count as 82 but there were also 3 – ½ sheets of qtr.-inch plywood. Not quite true – 44 inches on one side, not 48.

Call from Tanya returning my msg. We can merge our schedules and go for apples Tuesday morning. Made cookies, started clothes, and then put them in dryer (not the cookies. Cookies were a test bunch for using frozen dough (Pillsbury in a bucket) to make cookies for the retired geographers’ meeting next Tuesday. It worked all right but might be better if I bake them at 350° instead of 265°. John noticed. Don’t know why I did that. There are no instructions on the bucket, and I was just remembering incorrectly.

Sorted out my CPAP materials and the nasal pieces to return that are the wrong size. Now to find the address of the new place in Ellensburg. Luckily, they got back to me before closing, so I know right where the office is. Fixed up my new mask, nasal piece, and tubing. Packed away the rest. Sorted some stuff on table and boxes next to my recliner. Slow but steady progress.

We made the chocolate chip cookies and are having some with ice cream and going to bed. They’re not bad, even after having to be put back in the oven to finish cooking.

Tomorrow at 9:30 we’re going for apples across the valley.

Tuesday, Oct 6

For Oct 5 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 10 min with AHI=0.12 Events: 2 H, 4 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=9 L/min); no oximeter. Maybe the new stuff made a difference. First night with new mask, nasal piece, & tubing, and new CPAP filters of both types.

Well, we left a little after 9:00 a.m. to drive to the other side of the valley to pick apples. We took lots of boxes, not knowing how loaded the trees might be. We picked mostly Honeycrisp and filled the back of the truck and put a final box in the crew seat. John sorted out some to take to the Activity Center where I was going for Jazzercise, after already being tired from 2 hours of picking (with the help of our friend Tanya and her 4 yr old son, Michael. We were picking from the Eberhart’s Orchard. We were welcomed at the AAC and many people there took some apples home with them. Tomorrow I go back for SAIL exercise, and will take along more, a larger box this time (actually two smaller ones so I could carry them), and I also took some to the Food Bank, and by the Meadows, an assisted living home. Everyone was thrilled.

When we left there, we went to my friend’s home to pick up her mail, water her plants, and clean up after the cat. Our own mail brought the good news that my mammogram showed no sign of cancer.

On home to more sorting of apples by John, and delivery of non-perfect ones to a neighbor to make applesauce for his parents.

Here’s the back of the Ford pickup with all but the forgotten box behind the driver’s seat.

I took photos from the ground, but John went and got a ladder to stand on and take a bird’s eye view (well, maybe if the bird perched in a tree).

John shopped for stir fry materials, and made a nice dinner.

Wednesday, Oct 7

For Oct 6 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 47 min with AHI=0.23 Events: 2 H, 10 REPA. No major mask leaks (max=16 L/min); no oximeter.

I waited to take a shower when the electricity went back on, which thankfully was less than 1/2 hour. We don’t know the reason for the outage (see Friday’s entry), but we have seen them working several miles down our road putting in new power poles.

Today was full of chores for me. On my way to the Food Bank, I dropped off a small box of apples for a friend (note later in this blog she gave us a dozen of two different kinds of cookies–caramel/nut and peanut butter), we had nice play day with an unusually responsive, appreciative, and involved group. Lunch consisted of spaghetti, salad & bread for lunch, but the best part of the lunch was an apple pie made by one of the volunteers there. I also dropped off a fiction book (by Jance), near the Pasta Co, went on down by a new CPAP office in EBRG of my provider from Yakima, to drop off some wrong-sized nasal pillows. I drove by an assisted living home where we will play music tomorrow to deliver a box of apples for them. On to SAIL with two more boxes of apples, much appreciated by the folks there. I stayed for our exercise class, but had to leave promptly for a 2:45 check in to get a Holter (heart) Monitor installed, then pick up mail at Rosewood.

John stayed home working on chores around the place, and getting the horse trailer set up (cleaned out and hooked up), for going tomorrow to get the pallets.

Thursday, Oct 8

For Oct 7 CPAP. Reported figures. Reported figures. 7 hrs 59 min with AHI=0.75 Events: 6 H, 2 CSR, 13 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=17 L/min); no oximeter.

John and I went to town for couple hours to pick up a load of pallets. We got 82, with a few ripped up ones, and a few excellent hard wood ones, a couple of unique plastic ones for food service, and a bunch of good usable pallets. It took us two trips. One with the horse trailer full along with the back of the pickup. We came home, and he took off the trailer, unloaded the pallets from the truck and returned by himself for the rest, which would fit in the pickup bed. From there he went to a meat sale at Super One, with good reduction on prices, and bought $100 worth of stuff. The only non-meat w diced tomatoes – 12 cans..

I stayed home and got ready to go to play music. We had 7 group members there today, and a new person who plays the flute, joined us, with her 2 yr old daughter. We were at the Meadows Place. They had a good crowd, and I had called ahead to have my friend who is a resident there be sure she knew we were coming. The activities director made some pastries for the audience and us. I brought two home for our dessert tonight. From there, I rushed off to the KV hospital to have my Holter Monitor removed. Turns out one of my connections came off at 2:45 toward the end of our playing music (I thought that might have happened), but it did not affect the results enough to redo. I’m grateful for that.
After that, I went by my friend’s house again, and cleaned up after her cat, took some photos of her lawn (questioning if she needs the service now), and picked up mail, plus found a bill hanging on the door knob for irrigation water winterization, and a delivered package stuffed between the front door and screen door. I imagine it came from a UPS or Fed Ex delivery and I wonder if it were bigger where it would have been delivered. Maybe it was from the post office and their boxes are not large enough for more than flat mail. It cannot be more than 2″ (if that) high.

John took a couple of neighbors some apples, and got some Asian pears in return. The others we reached by phone, while they were elk hunting. They will be home after dark, so John left them in their garage shop, to keep the local deer out of them. Our resident deer, particularly the little buck, were very interested in the smell emanating from the boxes of apples under cardboard that John left in the truck Tuesday night.

Friday, Oct 9

For Oct 8 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 56 min with AHI=0.56 Events: 5 H, 7 CSR, 15 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=20 L/min); no oximeter.

Well, we didn’t stay home today. Started by delivering apples to our neighbor as he came by the end of our driveway, and then another neighbor a mile away came to look at our Yanmar Tractor we wish to get rid of. From there we went to the Kittitas Public Utility District for an appreciation day. It is where we get all our electric power. They had door prizes, promotions, demonstrations, and food. We picked up an Embertec Free Energy saving power strip (worth about $40), and found out we could go back in the truck later for a large cable spool (or two) free. Our big one has seen better days. While there, we visited with the staff and got a bunch of goodies. We entered a raffle and hope to win a headlamp for John’s hat for night feeding of animals. (It’s now Monday night, and we did not receive a call, so neither of us won the raffle). We had a large hot dog, chips, and ice cream, and got to visit with some friends, whom I know from the Adult Activity Center. She had gotten some of the Honeycrisp apples we took to the AAC, and wanted to know the location to go pick some more. She grew up near an orchard. The orchardist is our friend, and cannot afford the insurance for people to be coming for U pick. So, when she will be leading my SAIL exercise class on the 19th, I will take her a special box to make her happy. Here I am in the picture below (taken by the PUD fellow for putting on their Facebook page).

[John talked to a lineman about the power outage we had on Wednesday. If they know they will be shutting the power off they will notify all the residents. This time they had an unexpected (glitch) event but it lasted only a few minutes. If an errant tree or driver hits a pole the down time is usually close to 4 hours.]

In the photo, I’m displaying my gifts, a nice coffee mug, a little carrier with 5 Band-Aids, actually from the kids table, but John and I both got one; him for his backpack for trail work, and I for the glove compartment of my car. The hat was a gift for a donation of $3/month extra on my electric bill to pay into the fund that goes to needy families, who are approved by HopeSource, to help pay their utility bills each month. I know of at least two neighbors who qualify. I particularly like the style of that baseball hat, and it feels nice and smooth. The other nice chance meeting was with the person in charge in the Engineering building. I admired a newish wood cable spool we use for tables, and sought him out to request one, or to be put on a list. He said the list was for telephone poles they take down and goes out for 2 years waiting, but we could drive our truck in and get one of the cable spools any time — just ask for Bryan. Therefore, I called John over to meet him, as he will be driving our truck in to pick it (them) up. I think there might be room enough for a small one too. One more wonderful connection (pun intended), was meeting another person on the staff and having John tell him the story of the pruners coming to cut the trees at the front of our property which potentially affect our lines. They discussed it and amazingly someone came out in person on Monday (10-12-15) to review at the situation and told John we would be first on the list in the spring.

We left there and went for gasoline in my Subaru, and the price was up to $2.34, cheapest in town. I guess next week we will go to Costco and find it a lot less. Actually, damn, I just checked, now today it is $2.19/gal. Only 30+ miles down the road from EBRG. Phooey. I guess we will take John’s car next Tuesday. I should have thought today that I would be going down Tuesday and not filled up. Dang.

We need to make progress on the den, and so far that hasn’t happened. Getting off this computer would be a beautiful start, but I still have things keeping me busy.

Saturday, Oct 10

For Oct 9 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 24 min with AHI=0.31 Events: 1 H, 1 OA, 8 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=17 L/min); no oximeter. Back to sleep w/o CPAP for 3 hrs.

Slept in but have to work hard today. Two hours of computer problems now resolved. Nice call from Peggy, John’s sister, but sadly he was out working on a fence construction (triangular rock crib) from the pallets to support a substantial fence for horse access to the heated water tank during winter or when their water source through the irrigation ditch will be shut off. Yet another use for the pallets we got on Thursday, now all unloaded.

Back to the den work.
Speaking of dens — if you have a Facebook account you will be able to see this scary video of a Rattlesnake Den in Montana.

Link to Rattlesnakes

Sunday, Oct 11

For Oct 10 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 5 min with AHI=0.42 Events: 3 H, 1 CSR, 3 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=21 L/min); no oximeter.

Catching mice in garage and in house. Need more or better-working traps. Or maybe stop feeding the cats store bought food. Sometimes the bait is eaten but the release doesn’t let go. The traps look like old style ones but they are not exactly the same. Maybe this is just a memory thing – old was better.

I stayed off the computer after 10:40 a.m. for almost 8 hrs. That’s a record when I am home. We worked very hard organizing, packing, tossing, recycling, and moving boxes and furniture. John brought the stock trailer recently full of pallets (now emptied) to the back of the house near the patio where the wood stove needs to be brought into the house. He moved out the structurally failing 2-cushion couch (aka love seat) and a very large table that took up much of the center of the room. We will replace it with a smaller dining room table with 4 chairs, and not sure what chair we’ll put in for a replacement of the love seat. It came too close to the stove alcove. We’ll have to wait until later to determine what happens.

Sad part of this is that the boxes loaded into the trailer will have to be re-handled again to put into their appropriate place. We were just out of time, and had no choice. [John says – this movie is getting repetitive.]

Monday, Oct 12

For Oct 11 CPAP. Reported figures. 4 hrs 20 min with AHI=5.32 Events: 22 H, 1 CSR, 1 OA, 8 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=17 L/min); no oximeter. I did not have a good night and now I know why. Maybe I was too full of dust congestion, and exhausted. Clearly, the worst AHI ever. Whoa.
Still haven’t heard when the installers are coming. So I called and Fosseens is checking with ACT. Jeez. Tomorrow will NOT work, so it had better be today.

Well, I actually emailed too, but sadly, they did not return the call and emailed me instead. We were not scheduled for today, but tomorrow. I was not happy, but John decided to go ahead and stay home tomorrow and I will go on my own to all the events.

Instead, today, we cleaned a little more and put more boxes in the stock trailer, and then went to town for cookies from a friend, and to buy potatoes (delivered from the basin to the front yard of a couple on the west side of town). We took boxes and chose from large bins our potatoes for 10 cents/pound. We got 110 pounds {$10.10}.

On our trip over the skies were beautiful and the lenticular clouds were exceptional.

The photo on the left was taken straight out the end of our driveway, through the windshield, and the right one was taken a few minutes and miles later, looking north. Mt Rainier is known for this type of cloud but we do not get them that often over here.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

All good things come to them that wait.

We’ve been cleaning out the main space in the house because folks are to come today to install a new wood burning stove. The install company and the stove selling company are separate and the seller told us last week to expect a Monday event. We have not (about 8 AM, Monday) heard from the installers — so who knows.
The stove event is for this new week. Last week’s blog — the one overdue — has no major life changing events. Nonetheless, we will get it done and posted later today — Oct 12.

Sun is up and I need to feed horses.

john

Sunday, Sept 27

For Sept 26 CPAP. Reported figures. 4 hrs 38 min with AHI=0.86 Events: 4 H, 2 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=15 L/min); no oximeter.

Beginning just 14 miles NW of us (and then on north) there are historic gold mining areas. Washington’s lands & rocks are so complex we might as well be on a different planet. No gold here. Given the opportunity for a guided tour – we went, and can share with others. Skip to below to the links for personal notes on our trip.

These following links are related to the topic, but are from earlier times, to give a preparation for the field trip that follows.

Old Blewett Pass Road History

Old Blewett Pass Field Trip handouts

Exciting gold nugget discovery, Sweet Sixteen

Another Video of the Gold Nugget Finds in Liberty, WA

Al Rinker Recalls Driving with Bing Crosby from Spokane to Hollywood

Liberty Gold Mining lecture (w/ Rob Repin)

2013 Ellensburg Blue Agate lecture by Nick Zentner

Notes on our trip:
We left in time to arrive at CWU campus west side by 10:30 a.m. to be sure we got a spot in the lead van. We succeeded. This discusses our trip to Old Blewett Pass with Nick Zentner, using CWU vans for partial transportation, and with ~ 40 cars in the entourage. We will follow the outline below, leaving CWU Hebeler Parking lot at 11:00 am. John and I were in the lead van with Nick the entire day.

On the road: Nick driving our van, up Hwy 97 and by the wind turbines on our way to the first stop, the T intersection at Lauderdale of two historic, and now modern, highways. There we were joined by more people from the upper county and some from as far away as Seattle.
{click on the map for a big view}

Map showing four of our destinations today. See below for the first two, off the map. The stops are numbered in yellow on the Old Blewett Pass road.

11:30 am 1. Lauderdale Junction. Nearby, at the intersection of Burke Rd and Ranch Rd. This was at the junction of the old Sunset and the Inland Empire Highway, near intersection of today’s US 97 and WA 970. An old structure still stands that used to house the Lauderdale Lodge, a stopping place for travelers.

Top, the intersection for Stop 1, near present-day Hwy 97 & 970; middle photo of the old blue Lauderdale Lodge, still standing in the trees, with Blewett Pass behind; bottom at the same stop, looking south on the old Sunset Highway.

Access to my videos are interspersed below.

STOP 1 – Lauderdale Junction, Burke & Ranch Rd

Tom Lyon on Possibility of Glacial Lake near Junction Hwy 97-970

12:15 pm 2. Liberty Town Hall
Q & A with Liberty historian Wes Engstrom.
Q & A with Liberty gold miner Rob Repin.

Stop 2 – Liberty, WA, Intro to Gold Mining

Nick on Geology & Gold’s Location Liberty

Rob Repin, Gold Miner, Liberty, WA

Wes Engstrom – Dredging & Mining Co. Claims to town

Wes Engstrom on Indian Trails, Blues, & Arrastres

Undershot Water Wheel Arrastre

1:30 pm 3. Basalt Dike on Old Blewett Pass Road

Teanaway Basalt feeder dike through Swauk Formation sandstone.

2:15 pm 4. Echo Point on Old Blewett Pass Road

Group at turn on Echo Point, view from there to Red Top Fire Tower on the remaining Teanaway basalt layer eroded from above the basalt feeder dikes we saw above, and, on the right, a photo of the switchback on 9/27/15. Check the handouts or the web page to see the historical black and white photos of this hair pin curve.

3:00 pm 5. Plant Fossils on Old Blewett Pass Road

Hunting for plant fossils in Swauk Formation just north of the pass; John on the far right, found nothing.

with some close-ups below.

Left and right, checking out some broken rocks, and middle are the two finds of a young boy along on the trip (with his new rock hammer).

4:00 pm 6. Conglomerate on Old Blewett Pass Road
Surprisingly large river cobbles are in Swauk Formation. These are tied to rocks found only on Mt. Stuart and in the Ingall’s complex, rafted in by ancient streams.

Hole from which large cobble came, middle photo for scale, and the hillside on the right.

Last stop 6: Conglomerate on Old Blewett Pass. My battery ran out before finished.

Conglomerate on Old Blewett Pass-battery died

6:00 pm return to CWU — made it at 5:55 pm

Monday, Sept 28

For Sept 27 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 5 min with AHI=2.72 Events: 21 H, 7 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=11 L/min); no oximeter.

Sadly, we had to help another dog across the rainbow bridge. Dan (Black Butte’s Chocolate Dandy) was almost 15, but finally could not get up without help and moved poorly. While he was drinking water, still he was eating less and less by the day. It was not a decent life. Now we are down to one Brittany, born in 2007.

Other than cleaning dishes and clothes, I worked on the blog, and John worked on a number of outside tasks and feeding us and the horses, cats, & Brittany, Annie. She is his companion dog for all outside chores.

With the canopy off of the PU, John installed his homemade racks and started loading firewood – harvested last year from here; cottonwood and aspen, plus a few odd things – hawthorn and wild cherry, mostly.

Tuesday, Sept 29

For Sept 28 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 13 min with AHI=1.83 Events: 15 H, 9 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=19 L/min); no oximeter.

John finished loading the rest of a cord of wood and delivered to a friend 1.5 miles away.

This morning and last night was filled with writing a recommendation for a student I’ve known for 20 years to enter a Ph.D. program in Tasmania. This is the part of living life after a close touch with the other side that makes it interesting to continue to represent my students and university after all these years.
In between times, I cleaned out the dishwasher and filled with more.

We left for town to eat a lunch (took a free meal ticket to Burger King (BK) and split it), went shopping, picked up meds, went for my mammogram, got gasoline, dropped off 6 garbage bags of plastic pop bottles at the transfer station, and went by to care for the cat and pick up the mail. We met folks at BK that prepare a meal (hosted at a local church) Saturday afternoon about 5 PM. The dinner is mostly meant for those more needy than us but because of my connections (via music) in the community, we get invited. I knew the workers and about half the dinner regulars.

John signed up today to go back on trail work this Saturday on the Annette Lake trail just over the Snoqualmie Pass (about 60 mi. from EBRG on I-90), so he expects to be back in time for the dinner, and he will have time to shed his work clothes.

Wednesday, Sept 30

For Sept 29 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 19 min with AHI=3.37 Events: 27 H, 5 CSR, 1 OA, 1 PP. No major mask leaks (max=18 L/min); no oximeter.

I was late leaving the house this morning for Food Bank music because of a late call (as I was dressing to leave) from a scheduler at the Yakima Heart Center. I took the phone call and walked to the other end of the house stark naked to get to our wall calendar. She had called yesterday afternoon and missed us, but I tried returning the phone call, to no avail. This morning I called again, early, and said I would only be around until 11:00. I should have said 10:30! She called right at 11:00, and I’m supposed to hit the highway no later than 11:10. I didn’t get out until 11:20. We set up an echocardiogram, a Holter heart monitor setup for 24 hours, and I learned about the new government rules for having to see a P.A. for my cardiology visit, and my regular heart doctor is only there available on call. I find that extremely disturbing.
I dropped off several tomatoes at a friend’s on my way to the food bank. She was off at physical therapy but got back in time to find them and give my cell phone a thank you call. I made it to the food bank in time to move a table and all the children’s toys out of the way, to set up chairs for our playing. Our food bank music today was a good time. After presenting music, we had lunch consisting of Chicken Alfredo, salad, and a brownie for dessert with the front table crew (our fan club).

On my way from the Food bank, I stopped off at the Courthouse to pick up license tabs for the 2009 Subaru; October deadline for the 2016 year. Now John’s set to drive legally on Saturday.
I dropped off some donated VHS tapes of movies at the AAC, but I did not stay for SAIL exercise class. I had too many other things planned for the afternoon, and was running short of time. Picked up meds too.

I went by Hospice Friends to donate some stuff, and picked up something for me while there. It’s an egg carton type foam pad to use in a hard chair for comfort. I have it in my recliner. My other pillow had worn out. The organization provides them free, along with medical supplies and implements to borrow. When I finished needing my walker, in 2010, I donated it to them. I have turned in other things as I find them, such as a gait belt, used in nursing homes to assist lifting/exercising a person who cannot use their own muscles to get up and move safely.

On my trip from picking up mail and watering plants and taking care of the cat for my friend, I stopped off at an assisted living home where we will play next Thursday, and visited my old roommate from the assisted living home next door that I was in (2010). She was my first roommate there. Today was her 94th birthday, so I dropped by with a card, and a surprise singing of happy birthday. She and I visited for almost an hour. It was a nice visit, but sad too, because she is so frail.

Thursday, Oct 1

For Sept 30 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 58 min with AHI=0.25 Events: 2 H, 1 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=19 L/min); no oximeter.

We heard by email that our date for having the new wood stove installed is Oct 12, (next Monday) so we must get this den opened up and cleaned up. We have to cancel a farrier’s visit that morning, but a message went unanswered. Must be traveling.

We left early for town because of going by our pharmacy to get a flu shot. Mine was in my right arm and it hurt for me to go play music and bow, leading the group. I guess it will hurt more tomorrow, however. I am feeling rather beat tonight. Medicare picks up the cost and places advertise them as “no cost” or “free.” But for each of us there is a fee of $104.90 per month and high income folks pay more. The program does cover much of our health care but “free” in is not. It seems to be a secret as to the actual cost. Also surprising is that every run-of-the-mill place dispensing pills has these shots, but the clinic where our doctor works does not. When we went for our annual physicals 9/17/15, we could get a pneumonia booster, but not a flu shot. Makes no sense.

We came home by way of dropping off a Stephen King book for a gal on the BNE site. She is an optometrist in town, so I was able to drop it off at her office. We are trying to cull things around this place, but it is a slow process. Today, I packaged a very large stuffed Panda to give to another gal on the BNE site, for her kids, and I threw in some other stuff for her.

On our way home, we stopped at the CWU Surplus sale and put a bid in on about 78 wooden pallets. We have missed recent ones, so we will not know until next Monday if we “won the bid” on these. There we ran into some folks we have not seen for 7 years who were members of the trail riding group we were part of for many years. Now that I am not allowed on horseback any more, we are no longer members of the club. John was the Club’s newsletter editor for a time.

Pizza tonight for supper, using part of the spaghetti sauce with Italian meatballs from last night.

Friday, Oct 2

For Oct 1 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 42 min with AHI=0.60 Events: 4 H, 1 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=19 L/min); no oximeter.

John’s computer came out of its “sleep” mode and woke me at 5:00, and my nose was running like a faucet. Maybe a result of flu shot? The paperwork with the shot warns that Minor problems following a flu shot include those below. I have bolded those I experienced:
*soreness, redness, or swelling where the shot was given
. . . (& in my case in the right arm muscle as well).
*hoarseness
*sore, red, or itchy eyes (actually mine were scratchy and dry)
*aches
*cough
*fever
*headache (only last night)
*itching
*fatigue

If these problems occur, they usually begin soon after the shot and last 1 or 2 days (mine lasted 2 days). John passed on the above but did have a sore arm from the pneumonia shot the week before. He thinks it was because the needle hit something it should not have – nerve, bone, ?. I had no bad effects at all from that shot.

This morning, while fighting with a sporadic Internet connection, I set up a new domain for us to use in the future, when all our old files have been moved from a server in Wenatchee, to a new server. Our new domain will cost us $9.99/year and we will have to pay a hosting/deluxe fee of $8.99/month, in order to keep our blog alive and have a web site to display our web pages. Our addresses will change for the blog and for annual news reports via web pages, but our email will remain the same, nancyh@ellensburg.com.

The new domain will be rocknponderosa.com, and we will let you know any changes from the current ccsow.com/hultquist for the blog, when it is all moved. For now, stay as before. If you were on earlier, you might be accessing as ccsoe.com/hultquist. That currently still works as well.

I stayed home today to make progress in the den and work some on the blog, but very little has gotten done. The flu shot wiped me out big time. In addition to the above list, pardon the repeats, I’m aching, sore, with runny nose, sneezing, eyes scratchy and dry, and generally feeling cruddy. Good thing I did not have to perform anything in town today. It would have been difficult, or very uncomfortable.

I have managed to complete email chores, do a load of dishes, eat a few bites of food, get some Chocolate Chip dough from the freezer to thaw and will see about making cookies later tonight.

Wind gusts have been 45 and probably higher. John has managed to do outside work away from trees that might shed a limb. He has to get ready for his WTA trip so will be in soon.
I have managed to complete email chores, do a load of dishes, eat a few bites of food, get some Chocolate Chip dough from the freezer to thaw and will see about making cookies later tonight.

Wind gusts have been 45 and probably higher. John has managed to do outside work away from trees that might shed a limb. He has to get ready for his WTA trip so will be in soon.

Here was one thing I accomplished today. John saw some turkeys coming down the driveway, and I got my camera and captured a fast 21 seconds. Six Merriam Turkeys passed by under the black walnut tree, in 45 mph winds (you can hear in the video), and you can see the walnuts on the ground. A neighbor wants a box and we’ll get a dozen eggs in return. That did not happen, as the winds stopped and the tree still has probably a 5-gallon bucket more of the nuts. John has raked the early fallers off the driveway so we will not drive over them.

Merriam Turkeys, Oct 2, 2015 Naneum Fan

Saturday, Oct 3

For Oct 2 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 43 min with AHI=2.53 Events: 15 H, 4 CSR, 2 OA, 2 PP. No major mask leaks (max=19 L/min); no oximeter.

Miserable first 4 hours messing with mask. Got up, took care of cat and dog, and went back to sleep with no activity. Then took off mask when John awoke and slept without it fine until 8:30. Interesting differences in CPAP parameters. Probably congestion related.

John took off for the Annette Lake trail work over Snoqualmie Pass, just before 6:45. That’s earlier than the distance warrants, but I-90 has construction and single lanes in a couple of places.

I started working on the blog, particularly the 9/27 field trip, and we’ll see how that proceeds, as I mix with cleanup work for the stove installation. Grabbed a nice big apple fritter for sustenance. Now sorting my music and bills to different containers, and I’m ready to process the first of the Field Trip videos, reported on at the start of this blog. That will continue through the day, and one long one uploaded in my absence.
WTA tries to get folks away from the trail head parking by 3:30 so John should not have a problem returning to EBRG by 5:00, and I will meet him in town to eat dinner and pick up our 50# bag of onions which were delivered to Ellensburg, Thursday afternoon late, and we didn’t learn of until we were already home. I need to do a few more chores too in town. We met at the Safeway parking lot and walked to the Lutheran Church for a good baked chicken dinner with mashed potatoes, white country gravy, salad, and a cinnamon bun for dessert. Beverage: raspberry/apple juice. We were invited guests and knew many of the people there (from the AAC, the Food Bank, and Briarwood).

Sunday, Oct 4

For Oct 3 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 53 min with AHI=0.25 Events: 2 H, 1 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=18 L/min); no oximeter. What a difference a day can make!

We both slept in this morning, and John did the morning chores, I fed Woody, the outside cat, and we just finished lunch.

I’m switching tasks. Just replaced the filter in my CPAP, so maybe that will filter out the rabbit brush pollen that may have been making me sneeze the past several days. Maybe it wasn’t related to the flu shot at all. The Cascades have had some rain and hikers were doing some sniffling – and wondering if mold or something was in the air.

John and Annie have been out a lot today and I have been working on things in the house, alternating between various chores. If John gets too involved with a chore Annie may come back to the house and want in. Cutting and stacking brush is her least favorite task.
Now he was in for an hour because it got too hot, and put together a nice dinner to cook. Chicken, rice, onions, and mushrooms, in a heavy duty roaster. We shall try to put this blog out tonight. He taught me the trick to put links into the text, and I spent some time on that chore, to help with all his set-up work. Now in the future, he’ll need to show me how to include the photographs.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Sunday, Sept 20

For Sept 19 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 4 min with AHI=0.49 Events: 3 H. No major mask leaks (max=15 L/min); no oximeter.

Blog out at 5:00 p.m. today.

Monday, Sept 21

For Sept 20 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 61 min with AHI=0.00 Events: NONE. No major mask leaks (max=10 L/min); no oximeter.

We got away for annual medical exams in Cle Elum this morning about 11:45, but did not return until after 5:00. Our appointments were at 1:00 and 2:00 and we didn’t leave until about 2:45. Normally, we get a family special of back-to-back appointments, but they goofed with a new person assigning, and squeezed someone in between us. These were for our annual physicals with our family physician. Learned that next year (wasn’t applied on today’s visit), Medicare will treat timing on annual physicals differently. One goes in for their first visit and sees only the nurse (or ?), to discuss & review & “whatever” health issues. Following, two weeks later, the patient sees the doctor for 15 minutes. I have to ask if the blood work will happen prior to the first appointment, and I imagine it is. John adds: For years we have spent the first 15 minutes with the nurse and about ½ + with the doctor. It is hard to see how this is better for the person – although it may save the government some money. The future will be a “med-app” for the info and than a humanoid robot to poke and prod and listen to your heart rhythm. Currently, we have blood drawn in the hospital lab, without seeing a doctor, and the results are sent (soon electronically) with a note about each test – providing your number within the range for your sex and age. Maybe if something is wildly out-of-whack** there will be a warning to get help soon.
**link out-of-whack

Nancy again: My BP was 122/68, after an initial reading of 150/74. My exam went fine, and from my computer records there, while looking over the nurse’s shoulder at the computer database screen, I found I was allergic to Ambien, which I never recall taking, in Nov 2009. We both had pneumonia boosters today. I swear we had it last year (in combo with a flu shot at Rite Aid, after our annual physical). I have to check on that. Maybe it’s all right to have yearly boosters. I stayed with John for his visit (with our Dr.’s okay). John’s heart rate is customarily low (50+) [usually gets mentioned] while blood pressure is often a bit higher than suggested. So far he is in the “watch” category. Dark chocolate is supposed to help – he is going to try some.
After leaving, we drove to the transfer station between Cle Elum and Roslyn to check out the location (we had previously found on Google Earth), for our intended delivery of our old wood stove for recycling, hopefully with a bounty. From there back to Burger King for a late lunch. We split a whopper, with fries and a special package of chicken fries. Turns out they are just elongated chicken nuggets probably fried darker. Rather interesting, but greasy. No chocolate there, though.

We skipped supper and had dessert only.

Tuesday, Sept 22

For Sept 21 CPAP. Reported figures. 4 hrs 51 min with AHI=0.62 Events: 3 H. No major mask leaks (max=13 L/min); no oximeter.

Dogs interrupted my sleep at 5:30, so I did some computer work, then went back to sleep at 6:30, & I managed to sleep another 2 hours.

John drove me to town for Jazzercise, and he went to Les Schwab at 81,500 miles for new tires around on his 2009 Subaru, came back, picked me up, and then we went to take care of mail and the cat at Rosewood. On the way home, we delivered a spatula gift for making French toast to a CWU student on the buy-nothing site, picked up peanut butter cookies from my friend Gloria to whom we deliver tomatoes (& squash in season). She likes to bake and give, and we enjoy the gifts.

Had to change some medical appointments to allow for a mammogram (after 2 years).

Today we heard from Jeri Conklin in CA about the training on our jointly-owned dog, Daisy. She is doing quite well on her retrieving work she will need to use in Gun Dog events (which match a hunting situation). They use pigeons in training, but the field trial competitions use Chukars mostly.

Daisy, ears flying, running toward area of the planted bird, next shot, Daisy standing watching the bird fly, then Craig shot it, and she retrieved to hand. I realize this is going to upset non-hunters who read this blog, but it is all part of the training necessary to fine-tune a dog to hunt with manners and delivery. They must point the bird and not put the bird up (flush it). The handler flushes the bird in a shoot-to-retrieve stake, and the dog must wait until told to fetch.

Our interesting feline is pictured below. She’s one of 4 of our cats. She is a feral, and usually eats out back with two others in the evening, but now she has started coming to the front of the house again for breakfast, now that the mice maybe have dwindled. She comes inside the fence near the front door and perches on a round piece cut from a tree and waits for us to appear with food. Then she talks to you and jumps on the cable-table (see base of that behind her) to eat.

She’s a long-haired version of our inside/outside Rascal male cat, with short hair, but also tri-colored. Normally, in cats, only females are tri-colored.

Wednesday, Sept 23

For Sept 22 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 55 min with AHI=1.59 Events: 11 H, 1 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=13 L/min); no oximeter. Up 3 times with the older 2 dogs.

John left before I did this morning to take his Subaru in for an oil change and lube (Yakima). It was over the normal expected 3,000 mile mark. His power steering fluid also needed replaced, so that was an extra $100 (half labor). Newer cars use higher pressure and temperature fluid than older cars did. That’s why there is confusing and conflicting advice about the need to do a power steering flush. Then afterwards he went by Costco.
I carried tomatoes to Gloria on the way in and got to the D&M Coffee shop by 10:20. Here is my report on the first day of autumn celebration. One of our more active Buy Nothing Ellensburg (BNE) site members, Kathryn Carlson, honchoed this and the recent community-clothing share. She brought mystery gifts, which four of us took home. The rules were that one could not open it until they got home, and if it was something they wanted to keep, they could; if not, it needed to be passed along on the BNE group. I’ve presented a collage of what I received (note the autumn colors) and what was in mine. You can see it was a lovely glass with owls (one of my favorite birds), filled with yummy chocolate nuggets. The photo on the right is taken on our property along a trail in the riparian land, in a tree above a natural spring. A few folks, me included, carried some items for the center of the table to be taken, if desired. I gave away a white spatula and took away two frames to give to my neighbors to put pictures in that I had printed on glossy paper for them on our color printer.

I went to the food bank soup kitchen to play music and afterwards to SAIL. I went by Anne’s to water plants, check on the cat, & mail.

I made it home to enjoy John’s cleverness of canopy removal to allow use of newer truck to transport the wood stove to between Cle Elum and Roslyn, ~ 40 miles, for the region’s Stove Roundup. He will also take a cord of wood to a neighbor – while the canopy is off. Last year he built side-racks to accommodate a full cord.

Here’s the canopy off the truck, and the truck waiting to be moved back to capture the old wood stove from the 1980s, which was in our home when we bought it. The yellow trees to the right of the truck are Carpathian walnuts and Tamaracks.

Thursday, Sept 24

For Sept 23 CPAP. Reported figures. 3 hrs 36 min with AHI=0.28 Events: 1 H. No major mask leaks (max=6 L/min); no oximeter. Bad night with dogs keeping me awake and up, needing cared for.

Playing at Hearthstone, a number of people gone, but we had a surprise visit from one I did not expect. It was nice. We had fun with a large appreciative group, and stayed after for a cup of tea and a cookie.
I drove by my other friend’s house on the way home and picked up her mail; normally, when in town, she plays the tambourine and sings with our group.

We had an email from our next-door neighbor that her cat is out of food. John and I went over and met Gracie (our neighbor’s cat) at the front door (she was on top of a car in the carport). Someone had been staying in the house for a week, but the cat ran out of hard food. We took a small bag of food along with, and she was quite happy to see us. I filled her eating place, refilled her water, and gave her a pet and rub. She’s seen me a lot over the past few years, so she was quite friendly and happy to greet me. We have a key to the house for such reasons.

Tonight, we took off for town again for a 6:00 p.m. presentation by another neighbor (a mile up the Naneum), Allen Aronica, at the Kittitas County Historical Museum. It was about the Kittitas Band of Indians. He has donated a lot of his family’s Native American artifacts to the museum, to keep them together and in the county. It was about his mother, Ida Nason-Aronica, and her desire to preserve the culture of the Kittitas Band, and care for some of the elders. Now Allen is trying to carry on her wishes.

Allen Aronica at the special Indian Village during our Ellensburg Rodeo Fair Weekend, on Labor Day weekend this year. Allen uses the non-PC term Indian, but note in the photo, it was termed the Native American Village.

Friday, Sept 25

For Sept 24 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 1 min with AHI=0.12 Events: 1 H. No major mask leaks (max=18 L/min); no oximeter. Nice night, eh?

John was up exceedingly early to leave by 5:00 for WTA trail work on the Summerland trail (part of the WonderlandTrail) on the east side of Mt. Rainier National Park. There is a road repair underway near Chinook Pass (an avalanche took out the eastbound lane), and he did not know if he would be delayed. He wasn’t, so was first to arrive at the parking area. The crew experienced light rain most of the day. John made the trip okay, but the long drive (round trip ~236-mile) makes for a long day. He worked with a National Park Trail crew member and several WTA “green hats,” who worked on placing large stepping stones across a small creek.

Rocks such as this, carried in this manner – photo from web, though.

There is an old log but many folks prefer any alternative and the spot has become a mess. The next crew in there may flatten the top of the log and that will help, also. They carried mineral-soil and covered roots by putting a rock boundary on the down-slope side, and then filling the space and making firm and smooth tread, so that people will stay on the trail. That’s the plan and the hope.

I stayed around to take care of the dogs and cat and then went in ahead of time for a blood draw for a new INR reading (too high a week ago). It was normal today, back to 2.4, so I don’t have to go back for a month. From there I went to the first scholarship luncheon of the year for the Ruth Harrington Scholarship Fund. We had white chili today, with a vegetable plate (my favorite was a mini yellow sweet pepper), and a great dessert called pumpkin delight. The luncheon was held in my old office building, so I ran into many people I know. On the way out I saw two custodians, one retired now, who was the custodian for much of my time while I was next door in Lind Hall (from 1988 to 1997), and then the other who still is the custodian for Bouillon Hall where I had my office from 1997 to 2008. It was fun to visit with both of them. Saw others from various places in the building — human resources, mathematics, computer center, and career services.

I came home, stopping off at our neighbors to deliver two 8 x 10 frames, and a loaf of bread. Then in to take care of the older dogs and work on chores. A dishwasher load was the biggest.
We are going to bed early to get out of here by 6:45 tomorrow morning with our wood stove.

Saturday, Sept 26

For Sept 25 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 11 min with AHI=0.70 Events: 5 H. No major mask leaks (max=9 L/min); no oximeter. Awakened by Meghan at 5:20 a.m.

We left at 6:50 and got up there finding a line with ~30 cars ahead of us. We slowly crawled in the line doing paperwork along the stop and start progress. First, was a questionnaire about our use of the wood stove and what we would do in the future. Finally, we got to near the spot to dump it and answered more questions, showed something that proved we were county residents and had a postal address, and then filled out a form for our $250 check to be received within 4 weeks. I took a few pictures of the process. There is also a lotto-type change for an additional $50 for a survey participation.

Here are two collages of the experience and a link to a video of the final deposit.
The first collage is the start of the wood stove roundup, sponsored by the Air Quality folks at the WA State Department of Ecology in Yakima, WA. This roundup was only for residents of Kittitas County, and for approved (old polluting, non-certified ones). There was to be a bounty of $250 each for the first 85 stoves. One vehicle could deposit 2 stoves. The timing of the event was 8:00 a.m. to 3:00.

Left is the line of cars (we were about 33 in line), taken at 7:56 a.m., then the entrance to the transfer station between Cle Elum and Roslyn, WA. The second and third photos were taken 3 minutes on either side of 8:30 a.m. Note the naming of No 5 Mine Rd (that’s from the historical coal mining district around Roslyn, WA). The last photo on the right above shows the cars behind us, as we made the turn toward the entrance gate, at 8:35 a.m. It took use another 70 minutes to get close to our delivery spot, and check in for eligibility to deposit and claim our bounty. We drove out at 9:50 a.m.

Above is nearing the end of our visit. Top left shows Jordan, from Hopesource, Ellensburg, walking toward Karlen and Jay. Behind them, you can see the deposit part. Second middle photo above is Jay Carmody (DOE, Yakima) filling out forms and asking questions. We had to show proof of being a county resident. The right photo shows 3 workers and John (black jacket) moving the stove out of our truck. John was able to put rollers (old broom handles) under it to roll-push it out of the bed of the pickup. Then the county guys heaved it off into the pile of stoves. (See the short video, below.). Continuing around shows the door of our stove, and illustrates the comments about it in the video. Finally, the last shot is the line of trucks it took us 70 minutes to wind around on, to the deposit spot. When we drove out the gate, we drove by the last vehicle, inside the gate. Stoves were to be in working condition but one trailer held a very old stove that looked like it had been in a house that burned down. If he gets paid for that there should be a fraud charge.

Here is the link to my short video of the removal from our truck. The person at the end of the clip asking me if I want in the photo is Karlen, an employee of the county we talked to in the waiting line, when she handed me a questionnaire to fill out about the experience. I was hoping I would win an additional $50 for filling it out. We figure we saved somewhat less than $350 by disposing of our wood stove in this manner. We would have had to pay the installers $99 to remove it and get rid of it. We might win the $50. Still driving the truck isn’t cheap – as it has the heft to pull a large travel trailer (think evacuation in wildfire season).

We went to a truck stop east of Cle Elum and bought a tad over 10 gallons at $2.19 cash price. Turns out we only saved a nickel, for not using our AMEX card with 4% off on gasoline purchases. So, next time, we’ll just pay the 10 cents more/gal and use that credit card. We each had a $10 gift card from the Cottage Cafe and so went there for brunch.

Nice talk with John’s sister Peggy in Parma on the way home, but missed getting a photo of a gaggle of Canada geese from a perspective above them (road incline over a railroad track). I would have liked to have sent a picture to a friend of mine traveling back east who saw a large V-shaped flock of them heading south. Miami? That is a cool sight. (Terms: gaggle versus flock; look ’em up)

Came home to find our oldest dog Meghan crying in pain, so we decided it was time. She has had a nice >15 years life, and is now buried next to her favorite trail through our property by the Mariposa lilies and other shrub-steppe vegetation. Skittles was her nickname between John and me, so she would not know we were talking about her. Registered name was M-C Meghan It Happen. She was a full sister to our Cedaridge Legacy of Shay, whom many of you know, or of pups out of her. Skittles never had any puppies because of a malformed cervix and uterus that prevented breeding.

Left above in the photo collage is her original owner, Michele Sherer Brocious, holding her at a field trial at Madras, at almost 2 yrs, after which she came back to live with us. The middle two photos, top is Meg along the driveway, the one below & wrapping up shows her looking at 4 wild Merriam turkeys on our back hill, and the right is her in her recent favorite sleeping spot on the loveseat in our den, taken June, 2015. Previously, she slept on the left side of the bed – Michele to be thanked for that. RIP, pretty gal.

Sunday, we spent the whole day on a Geology field trip to

the old Blewett Pass area

… where gold miners had to build a wagon road to get materials in. It is believed that young Bing Crosby came over this road on his way from Spokane to Seattle and later to California — with his drums. See this link and Al Rinker: Bing, Al, drums.

While we are not publishing this until Tuesday morning, I still haven’t had time to get photos off the camera. Maybe to be included in next week’s blog for your enjoyment. We had a very nice (but long day).

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

it was a busy day.

We won’t get a blog out until late Sunday.
Field trip with a group beginning before Noon, for us.
Do want to have you keep the eclipse in mind.
Look for a site for your area, or use this:
Where does the Moon go?

Cheers,
John

. . . we are back getting things done again

Sunday, Sept 13

For Sept 12 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 38 min with AHI=0.30 Events: 2 H. No major mask leaks (max=5 L/min); no oximeter.

I used most of the day to get the blog ready for John to fine-tune.
Only in the early morning was it very windy (45 mph gusts). Then when we finally got around to posting it on WordPress, the server was down, and still is at 9:00 p.m. tonight. The server is in Wenatchee, and while I have a cell phone for the owner, we first thought they were doing maintenance, as has happened in the past. Therefore, we didn’t call until Monday morning.

Monday, Sept 14

For Sept 13 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 24 min with AHI=1.35 Events: 9 H,1 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=18 L/min); no oximeter.

Needed to go in to the foot doctor for toenail trims (paid for by us and tax-payers via Medicare), and while there I learned the results of my culture. I have trichophyton rubrum on my nails of my right foot. What a nice thought. We have previously been doing laser treatments for a different fungus for over 2 years, and will begin again, because while the better cure supposedly is an internal medication, I am not willing because it can affect my liver. I already am on several meds that are a potential threat to that organ.

While we were in town, we went by to check on kitty’s water and other stuff at the home of the folks traveling back east. This is in the south part of EBRG – along with most other places we visit. The older part of town is about a mile north and in between is a residential area with houses of the 1940s to 1970s variety. Then there are land uses requiring more space – hospital complex, large grocery, small department store, and a new fire station (under construction on a site once used for hay storage and a scales for weighing hay trucks). Very recent housing and retirement complexes have been spreading southeast from this. The house with the kitty (Anne’s place) is in a single-family [lease the land – own the house] community area called Rosewood. Here are the Google Earth coordinates for the community center (the locked mailboxes for the whole community are on the NE side of that building, as you will see pictured below):
46.982299, -120.533150

The west part is mostly filled in. On the east there are many lots but for the past 6 or 7 years most housing construction in the EBRG area has stalled. This year building permits have increased significantly and there is a new house or two going up in Rosewood.

Here is another area, NW of town: 47.024493, -120.569513
This parcel was purchased by a major builder about 10 years ago. The area was fenced and ditches for sewer, water, and grading was started. Then it sat that way until this year. Work has started again, as has controversy from people nearby that apparently missed the previous activity.

Okay, enough about urban geography.

Came home for lunch, finished the blog, and got it published by 1:30 pm.

Tuesday, Sept 15

For Sept 14 CPAP. Reported figures. 5 hrs 5 min with AHI=1.18 Events: 6 H, 1 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=7 L/min); no oximeter

I put a crop of one of the pictures from White Heron on 9/11/15 on Facebook and have gotten a ton of messages from friends around the world. As of now, I have received two from Chile and one from France. Here is the photo you saw zoomed out version of in last week’s blog, so this actually looks like a different picture.

Nancy & John at the Chef’s Extravaganza, 9/11, with the Mariposa Vineyard behind us and the Columbia River beyond that. That’s the vineyard John volunteers 3 hours/day each spring for 3-4 days/ week, pruning wine grapevines.

I left to make it to the CWU BBQ for starting the new year for staff and faculty members. I got there early behind the building I had my office in for over a decade. Parked and realized my parking permit expired 6-30-15. I moved my car to a regular spot and took the sticker into the human resources dept. They set me up with new ones for two cars for a year.

On in the same building to donate a Macintosh power cord to the computer folks for a laptop I no longer have. Then, I walked over to the location of the BBQ. I found a table in the shade with a bunch of custodians from various buildings on campus including the one I last was housed in (Dean Hall), almost 6 years ago. Had a nice lunch with a fun bunch of people. We were very happy to have arrived at the start, because as we sat and ate, the line got longer and longer until it was out of sight. The food served was grilled hamburgers, long hotdogs, veggies with dip, and soft drinks. Dessert was a sundae with two choices of ice cream and about 6 different toppings such as Butterfingers & Reese’s peanut butter cup pieces, with the normal caramel and chocolate syrup toppings. The ice cream was served, but we could add any toppings we desired. We all thought that was the best part of the meal.

From there I drove several blocks south to drop off an $8 payment for a 50# bag of onions being delivered from the Columbia Basin, provided through a local church. Then on to get gasoline because my Subaru was in great need–$2.58 /gallons for a little over 10 gallons. Now at the end of the week, the price is down more than 20 cents off what I paid, and we are still higher than most of the nation, except for California. [John went through Leavenworth on Sat., and it was $2.99.] On by the Palace Restaurant to leave a thank you card with the postcard I received (not until 9/13) for my free birthday dinner that I already collected on 9/1. It has to be used in the birthday month.

Then on by another friend’s to leave the last of the yellow straight-neck squash on her front porch. Her cat met me and was very vocal asking to be let in, but the door was locked, and I couldn’t help her. Found out later she was only out for an hour.

Then I drove about 5 miles out to the west end of town to pick up a single mattress, freely given to a family across town who had no means of transportation. It barely fit in the back of my Subaru, but John had taken out the “Cargo Cover” and that helped. While on the same side of town, I stopped by another house to deliver some of our tomatoes and pick up two plastic containers with tops, being given to me. Thank goodness the containers were small.

From there I went to the AAC for Jazzercise class. I called and talked to a friend from there who was in Yakima Memorial for having a pacemaker installed this morning. He was doing much better. We have the same surgeon. Then, inside to share that news with the folks there, because he is on the board of directors for the “senior” center. Only two of us were there today with our teacher. We had a hard workout and I am still hurting from it. I left there and drove by to give the mattress to its new owner – their youngest child, a little girl. She now will have her first very own bed. From there, I went by another friend in the same neighborhood to leave two containers of tomatoes on her front porch. It is in the shade all day, so it is a good drop-off spot.
On home to rest an hour before turning around and going back to town. I arrived at Rehab at 6:00 to visit with a married couple living there who were moved into the same room (first time in 8 years), from Royal Vista (the facility that closed its doors 9/17). While there, the rest of our group came in. We had the largest turnout of residents I have ever seen at that facility.

I arrived home to chili John fixed for dinner. Now he is on no-food intake for a fasting blood draw tomorrow morning.

Wednesday, Sept 16

For Sept 15 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 30 min with AHI=0.93 Events: 7H, 3 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=13 L/min); no oximeter

Normal busy mid-week action, starting at the Food Bank’s Noon meal. We had a big group with a mandolin, fiddle, banjo, ukulele, guitar, harmonica, and two singers. We met a new person who arrived in town from near Kooskia, ID, where he lost several buildings on his property in the recent fires. He loves geology, so we spent a lot of time introducing him to our local geology and the players in the area, including getting him on the local geology list serve for events in the community. A field trip to Blewett Pass is coming up the last Sunday of the month, and John and I will participate. Also, the community is invited free to attend the fall course at CWU, Geology of Washington, presented by Nick Zentner.

After that, I drove to the senior center for SAIL exercise class, after which I went to my friend’s home to do the “kitty run” again (watering her plants, checking food, water & litter for the cat, and picking up mail). These places have central mail delivery, near the community center.

Those of a certain age can remember when mail was brought to a container by your front door, or to a slot in your door, as I used to deliver the money mentioned yesterday for the onions. An example:

Thursday, Sept 17

For Sept 16 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 27 min with AHI=3.1 Events: 20 H, 4 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=17 L/min); no oximeter

I worked on Oklahoma Hills (added verses) and Shenandoah (chord changes) and printed music for those who didn’t have it.

John made a large pancake filled with many blueberries and pecans, served with crisp bacon. He had raspberries on his; I usually pass because I don’t like the seeds. I drove myself in for music at Dry Creek / Brookdale. We had a nice turnout of audience and players. We stayed and visited among ourselves and with some of the residents who wanted to share stories and information. On my way home was also another mail & house stop.

This evening we both went back to town for the first meeting of this year of the Kittitas Audubon Society. We enjoyed an excellent presentation on the I-90 corridor development across Snoqualmie Pass. It has been going on for a decade and several of my students have been involved in the research for wildlife connections in the corridor. The presentation covered the research on wild-land communities, on blasting the rocks away that threaten the highway, on constructing walkover bridges and underneath tunnels for movement of deer, elk, amphibians, and small mammals, in addition to raised highway sections to avoid the snow avalanches that threaten the highway. The bridge-like sections are aligned with the known snow chutes and snow will go into the lake, rather than on to the roadway. I-90 is built along Keechelus (pronounced “catcha luss”) Lake. Snoqualmie Pass and the Lake are landscape features carved by a glacier that formed just NW of the Pass and moved in a southeast direction.

Let me explain my collage of Keechelus Lake. I-90 skirts the eastern edge on its way over the lowest pass through the Cascades (the road surface is less than 3,000′). The area is a recreational destination and lake water and snow-melt is used for irrigation purposes in the Kittitas and Yakima Valleys, via the Yakima River (that originates here). Note the dam in the lower right of the imagery on the left and the middle bottom shows the draw down toward the end of the season. It is an often-seen sight adjacent to eastbound I-90, and people from outside the area probably wonder about the scene of all the dead trees on the bottom of the lake revealed by lowering the lake level.

The work on I-90 is shown in the photos here {about 1 photo per 4 seconds}:
Lots of big machines, explosives, and rock.

Friday, Sept 18

For Sept 17 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 24 min with AHI=0.62 Events: 4 H, 1 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=12 L/min); no oximeter

Today is John’s brother, Dick’s, 82nd birthday. He and his wife live in San Jose’, CA in a condominium ‘village.’ It’s nice for them to be secure and not have to take care of the upkeep on a house and grounds. We had a nice visit and tomorrow their sons and families are taking him to a Basque restaurant. When we traveled to CA we timed the trips to reach Alturas (just south of the OR border on US 395), for a family style dinner at the Brass Rail. Those that want elegance may want to go elsewhere, but we traveled with dogs and horses and were looking for good food and lots of it.

I forgot to go for my monthly INR blood draw earlier this month, because the expected month away date did not get written on the wall calendar, so today I went with John to town and to have it done. When we got home, I had a message to call the doctor’s nurse about my INR. It was down to a 1.7, low for me. She asked if I had changed my diet or medications. I am good about not eating leafy green veggies (high in Vitamin K) which lowers it. I have not been on any antibiotics to affect it. I did miss one pill a couple nights ago, but I did not think it would make that much difference and I did not want to double up when I realized it. She said it could have affected it, but she would have done the same thing. So, I will have it checked again in a week, to see if it has returned to normal. I have to be in town next Friday anyway for our first of the season Scholarship Luncheon at CWU and for SAIL exercise after.

The main reason for going to town today was to fill John’s Subaru with gasoline, and also to get something for him to take on the trail for lunch. When we stopped at the grocery for that, I also get my meds. Cheapest of all my meds, 3-month supply for $2.75 !!! His lunch tomorrow turned out to be leftover BBQ pork shoulder, red grapes, chips, cashews, and M&M peanuts. Nice hearty meal.

On our way to take care of the cat, we stopped at a yard sale at one of the places I play music (a retirement community where they have their own apartments). We walked through several places but only bought two little leather zipped cases that I can use for change or for wires that connected to my camera. The lady wanted a nickel for each and I gave her a quarter for both.

The neatest thing that happened was we parked on the shady side of a garage. I walked in and said, are you selling things out of here? She laughed and said, “No, I’m helping organize my parents moving in from a house.” I asked where they were moving from. She said, locally, they’re moving from their house on Thomas Road. I laughed and said, who is it? We live .5 mile north of Thomas Road. She said the name and I said, “Oh, he is our neighbor we share water with. On our way to town, I was just talking with John about them probably moving to Arizona. They go down every winter, but we thought they might relocate there. The woman we were talking with was their daughter, and she has talked with John on the road while moving cattle and talked with me on the phone, and via email, but we had never officially met in person, until today. How funny and again, what a small world. We have to meet the new owner as she will need to know about the irrigation water sharing (John & I and 3 others south/downstream of us).

Tonight, I filled out my medications report to take to the doctor Monday for our annual physicals. I will attach it to the 3-page form on my medical history I have to work on tomorrow.

Saturday, Sept 19

For Sept 18 CPAP. Reported figures. 5 hrs 26 min with AHI=0.18 Events: 1 H. No major mask leaks (max=15 L/min); no oximeter

John got up at 4:15 a.m. to get out of here early for work on the Blanca Lake trail accessible by Stevens Pass, then north of Skykomish. Up valley from the lake is a small glacier and NW of that Google Earth will show Monte Cristo as a town site, now abandoned but once a thriving mining area. He pulled out the driveway at 4:55 a.m. allowing for a pit stop at the top of the Pass where the Pacific Crest Trail crosses and the Forest Services keeps the “facilities” open. The hike to the lake is a lot of up and down for about 4 miles, but luckily for John the work will be only about a mile in and up. I wish he would get to see it because it is a lovely azure blue from the glacial “flour” source. Note, if you open Google Earth and search for these location coordinates, 47.942042, -121.343999, you can get the view I did below in the collage and see the glacier feeding the lake from the north. Notice also the other lakes in the area are dark, not the light blue turquoise color.

This collage above starts at the top left with a locator map I created on Google Earth, with the coordinates John gave me as he was leaving this morning. Then I turned on photos on Google Earth and picked up the rest of the photos above. The middle top photo shows the lake at the end of the trail, but it is ~3 miles from where today’s WTA crew ended their work.

This photo below is of an interesting piece of trail work and rock moving today that John and 3 others worked on.

Crew Leader Evonne took this photo and John wrote the following back to her:
The photo of the two guys with “feet on rock” is a fantastic job. It seems the rock is about twice the volume of its actual size. And you got the feet just about perfect. Great stuff.

[John adds: The 2 guys are actually about 4 to 6 feet behind the rock and balancing each with one foot in the air while Evonne was telling them to raise or lower each foot so it would appear to be on the top of the rock. The rock came from the dark area to the left.]

We teamed up on getting the rock out of its nested spot along the side of the trail. After they got it uncovered, I dug under it (just to be sure I could) and then got a tree trunk about 4″ across and 12 feet long. With that, we pried the rock up and got a shovel and a grub hoe (holding and pulling) while continuing with the long lever. Once the rock was standing upright, the 2 guys were able to flip it up onto the re-veg site, twist it 90 degrees and place it with the weathered side up. If the rock were really as big as it appears in the photo I doubt we would have even started on it.
In fact, before we started on that section of trail, we did a “WTA” – We Talk Alot – finally agreeing we could accomplish what we wanted to do. At first they had some difficulty visualizing what I thought it should look like, but they quickly caught on and the project zipped along. I can’t remember the young lady’s name but she honchoed the vegetation part – doing a lot of the work, with the rest of us helping some.
So, I don’t know whose idea that photo was but it turned out great. Nice finish to a good project.

Nancy – early morning, again:
I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I fed the oldest dog (the next in line wasn’t hungry yet), loaded dishes, took some photos of books we are giving away, grabbed those photos for the collage above from Google Earth. I started going through the stacks around my recliner created from the collection of bills, receipts, needing filed, on my way to locating our medical records request –3 pages sent in advance a month ago– to fill out to take to our doctor Monday for our annual physicals. It was before dawn when I began, and I happened to be in the kitchen fixing a cup of coffee, when I saw lovely colored clouds viewed from our front yard, looking east before the sun rose over the hills. I grabbed my camera and took a few photos, some of which I made into another collage for your enjoyment.

This scene only lasted a few minutes. Soon the sun crested the hills east of us and all this changed rapidly.

I made a good brunch today for myself, after missing breakfast except for coffee. It was a large bowl of oatmeal, with pecans, peaches, almond milk, and brown sugar. Then I had a dessert of a half a doughnut and a half an apple fritter, leftover from yesterday’s breakfast.

After lunch, I spent almost an hour filling out 3 pages of forms on medical history for each of us for Monday’s annual physicals. I was only given 2 lines for medications, dosage, and frequency, so I just wrote, SEE ATTACHED PRINTOUT, and attached a full page of morning and evening meds information. I have it updated for every doctor’s visit. I had printed that out last night, so I just attached it to the filled in form.

It was relatively quiet on the home front with just one phone call today, but a bunch of emails, and more Facebook activity than I had time to do. Also, we received an announcement for a couple friends’ 68th anniversary. I had to pause what I was doing and design a card to send them. It didn’t take long.
John stopped at the pass on the way home, but couldn’t locate his phone, so he wasn’t able to call me. Later he found it in the used lunch sack at the bottom of his backpack. Such is his disorganized life. (last sentence added by John)

Finally, here is more activity on our place. Below are two collages I will explain about the entrance to our home.

This is a new paint job John surprised me with this week on our large mailbox. He changed it from a lighter baby blue to this brilliant blue. It is a complement to our chosen blue roof color of our pole barn in the distance. The close-up on the right is to show the red flag addition.

This final collage shows the main driveway to our home and the yellow tree at the end is a Black Walnut tree in fall colors. The green trees are Ponderosa pine, spruce, and cherry trees. Earlier this week but at a later hour, the right photo was taken nearer to the house. The right edge of the driveway is native vegetation, Rabbitbrush. There is quite a lot of this around (some seen behind the mailbox) and now, with not much else blooming, there are bees gathering pollen. There is a bee keeper on Naneum Fan although we do not know him nor whether or not these are domestic or wild ones.
Rabbit Brush & Bees

In the above page is a non-working link though the text is there, but if you want to see the source, you can go to:
This one, and scroll down.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

NOTICE — the delay in publishing this was because of the server failing over the weekend

Sunday, Sept 6

For Sept 5 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 16 min with AHI=2.07 Events: 3 CSR, 15 H. No major mask leaks (max=21 L/min); no oximeter.

Before leaving today, we finished and published the blog.

We left for town by going north first to leave some yellow squash and tomatoes with a neighbor a mile up the Naneum. From there on to another friend’s who was off at church, but we left squash and tomatoes on her porch, and picked up a bag of towels she was thinning. Our towels have been with us as long as we’ve been married and are getting threadbare.

We went by Safeway for sale prices on canned tuna, DiGiorno self-rising crust pizzas, and canned food for the old dog, Dan. John also picked up some nice red grapes. Safeway usually has the best price/value on mushrooms, so one of those packages came home with us.

Then we went by Rite Aid for some lancets to take back to our neighbor to have to poke her finger to test her glucose. I managed to get them for a special price on their rewards club I joined, and although it meant another card to carry, I can just type in my phone number and proceed. Yippee. From there across the street to Super 1 Grocery, where we bought a few necessities on sale there, and another something for the same neighbor.

On to Bi-Mart for a special price on blackberry and strawberry preserves, and while there, I got one of my eye needs, a GenTeal gel for severe dry eyes. They have the best price in town. In a bigger urban area these many stops might require travel that would negate any savings. In EBRG, all these stores or more or less in a line with our major provider, Super 1, at the south end of town. Rite Aid is across the street and Bi-Mart a block away. Safeway and Grocery Outlet are directly north and on the way home.

More of the leftover chili from John’s work last night, with our own onions and tomatoes, mushrooms, ground beef, two kinds of beans. Along with that, we had sliced early girl tomatoes fresh from our garden with some large tasty red grapes.

Monday, Sept 7 Happy Labor Day

For Sept 6 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 33 min with AHI=0.29 Events: 2 H. No major mask leaks (max=9 L/min); no oximeter.

I went for a haircut to my neighbor’s around the rural block, carrying a bucket of tomatoes, came home, and had to return to another neighbor’s with more tomatoes that John just picked.

Need to make toll-house cookies for the Geography Emeriti meeting tomorrow. I’ll do that after cleaning up the dishes and loading into the dishwasher. I have pretty much wasted the whole day.

John made us a dinner my mom taught me years ago to fix in a Dutch oven (roaster) on top of a stove burner. Chicken, onions, rice, but he added mushrooms, tomatoes, and a can of clam chowder. The last was a can we have had for awhile and not used because of the high salt content. In the rice dish, that will get divided into about 8 portions so the “salt-hit” is not so significant.

Tuesday, Sept 8

For Sept 7 CPAP. Reported figures. 5 hrs 22min with AHI=0.37 Events: 2 H,1 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=10 L/min); no oximeter.

We had an early start to arrive at 9:00 until 11:00 for our monthly Emeriti Geographers Faculty meeting at the “Stone” (Hearthstone Cottages), where two of our members live with their wives. We reserve the Activity Room on the second Tuesday of every month. Today, I carried the chocolate chip cookies I made last night.

We had a visit from Urban Eberhart, son of one of our Emeritus Profs. Urban is the Manager of the Kittitas Reclamation Irrigation District. He explained the plans for restoring fish in our streams by providing water to dry places in the existing network. John gave a presentation on his bout with Giardia, and then later on a Geography topic about demographics; one part was of the aging (and costly) population in Washington State, and a second part about the changes taking place in the European countries, especially the United Kingdom compared to Germany.

Left clockwise: Jo Hammond, Ken Hammond, Bruce Seivertson, Michelle Sievertson, Urban Eberhart, Diane Huckabay, Jim Huckabay, Lillian Brooks, Jim Brooks in his happy 85 tee shirt, which he will replace this year with one in October for his 90th, George Macinko, John Hultquist, and where I was sitting. Plate of cookies there, which were sent with Urban for his parents, Dee (retired Geog prof) & his wife, Barbara.

Bruce & Michelle were visiting from Eureka, CA, where he has retired, but Michelle is still teaching Geography at Humboldt University. He taught Geography at CWU for 3 years, back in the 1990s.

I skipped Jazzercise today. Instead, I worked on music corrections this afternoon, Jobs list serve announcements, etc. Never did the dishes I was supposed to do, or cut John’s hair.

I drove back to Hearthstone to play religious music with The Connections. Picked up a dozen donuts (nice) for $3.00 off regular price. Played and enjoyed being there for the second time today.

My trip home was lovely but frustrating. I viewed a spectacular sunset but I did not have my camera, and I couldn’t get home in time to get it and go back a mile or more down the road to get a good photo. My cell phone doesn’t take photos.

I asked on two local Facebook sites, if anyone had a photo taken that night they were willing to share. I lucked out and received four, which I combined into a collage to give a view of part of what I saw, but the best panorama I will keep in my memory.


The top left photo was taken from University Way in Ellensburg, by Marlana Monroe, the second was taken from East Wenatchee [50 mi. N.], by Amanda Heilman, the third was taken from east of Ellensburg, by Rachael Morrow, the far right one was taken from Othello [65 mi. E.], by Linda Uptain. They were kind enough to share their awesome captures with me. Sunday morning I received another, but I could not easily add it to the bottom of the collage with other four, so I have placed it separately, below the others. The sunset with Mt. Rainier’s silhouette was taken by Terry & Bruce Oergel, from No. 81 Road, east of Ellensburg. You now will realize how meaningful that sunset was and to have images from different locations makes it even better. Thanks to all the photographers involved.

Wednesday, Sept 9

For Sept 8 CPAP. Reported figures. 4 hrs 46 min with AHI=0.00 Events: NONE. No major mask leaks (max=7 L/min); no oximeter.

I managed to get to the Food Bank Soup Kitchen early and pick a couple loaves of bread and some rolls & biscuits for my neighbor’s parents. We are given access to the bread room and encouraged to take (because those rapidly deteriorate), but we are not offered other foods available, such as eggs, milk, meat, or the canned and boxed goods. There is quite a variety of food for the needy. One of our players already had set up our chairs, so my work was less taxing, and I could visit with some of the patrons. Three of our musicians started early and then our 4th arrived. We played for a half hour, doing mostly cowboy songs, and a few other old ones. The audience was quite responsive today. That always makes it fun.
After playing for over a 1/2 hour, we ate. Today’s menu was Chicken Alfredo, butternut squash, mixed green salad, and for dessert, a Boston crème type cake with chocolate. I had made some serious changes to a few of our songs for tomorrow’s group, and after our meal, Evelyn and I went through them to be sure I had them correct.

From there to exercise at SAIL. I got there a little early, so went into the computer room and checked my email to find a note from my friend Glenn Engels, at Niagara Falls today, for a ride on the Maiden of the Mist (the 5 hr tour). The USA is on the left and Canada on the right – looking south or up-river.

I finished my exercise class and then went on to his mom’s house to take care of watering her plants, cleaning her cat’s litter box, and picking up the mail.

John took a quick nap while I worked on some music corrections to give tomorrow, based on our work today. He’s fixing dinner now– cheeseburgers.

His recent bout with no or little eating, he claims, reminds him of:

Tried to amend my carnivorous habits
Made it nearly seventy days
Losin’ weight without speed, eatin’ sunflower seeds
Drinkin’ lots of carrot juice and soakin’ up rays
But at night I’d have these wonderful dreams
Some kind of sensuous treat
Not zucchini, fettuccine or Bulgar wheat
But a big warm bun and a huge hunk of meat
Cheeseburger in paradise
Heaven on earth with an onion slice
Not too particular, not too precise
I’m just a cheeseburger in paradise

[Jimmy Buffett, 1978]

Finished majority of changed music, but we must test it further tomorrow. Sadly, we found more changes needed. I will work on those for Saturday’s group.

Thursday, Sept 10

For Sept 9 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 6 min with AHI=0.16 Events: 1 H. No major mask leaks (max=3 L/min); no oximeter.

I went to Mt. View Meadows Place. Nine players today. The most interesting thing that happened was I invited my neighbor to bring his mom to the event to meet a fellow I had met there several months ago and learned he grew up with her on the southwest side of our valley (Manastash). She enjoyed our music, and then visited with him for a nice long time afterwards, as they reminisced about their past.

I realized my laptop battery is alerting me it needs replaced. I had a bunch of trouble tonight making my computer do what I needed. I finally shut it down to load all its updates and went to bed early (10:35 pm).

Friday, Sept 11

For Sept 10 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 24 min with AHI=0.78 Events: 5 H. No major mask leaks (max=21 L/min); no oximeter. Up to take care of animals and back without CPAP for 3 hrs sleep, much needed.

I took out the battery and John went to work on finding a replacement battery for my Toshiba Portege R835-ST6N02 laptop. The warning message says it needs replaced or my computer might shut down suddenly. It’s back in now that we have ordered one, and I’m running all the time on hydro-power from Columbia River dams. The replacement batter is supposed to arrive on Friday, the 18th.

I have been working on stuff all morning, including cleaning out my car to allow people in the back seat for our drive to Trinidad, WA and the White Heron Cellars winery and Mariposa Vineyard’s Chef’s Extravaganza celebration in honor of Grant County’s Farmer’s Consumer Awareness Day weekend.
We left at 3:30, from home, in order to pick up an EBRG couple and leave there at 4:00. We want to arrive before the start time to get a good parking spot and set up our table, take pictures, and visit a little with the folks we know there.

I started my evening with my camera in the tasting room, visiting with Lynne Snyder who is married to Tom Snyder, who is on the wine grapevine pruning team that John joins each spring for 5 weeks, and Tom (& Lynne) also serves on the Quincy Beautification Committee, as volunteers to provide lovely flowers along the drive through Quincy from spring to fall. We enjoy viewing them each year on our trips to White Heron. I should have stopped for a photo, but have asked Lynne what the flower beds consist of, and who is on the volunteer committee.

Here’s her response: Thank you for the kind words about the Beautification.
The people involved are Chet Pedersen -the boss, John Bennett, Judy Bryant, Joyce Weaver, Mary Kikuchi (retired), Zip Zimbelman, Shirley Zimbelman, Eva Smith, Uncle Jessey’s Crew of volunteers, Tom Snyder, and Lynne Snyder.

The flowers common to all/most the areas include: cannas-tall red ones, phlox middle row purple, day lilies yellow, fall crocus pink, Geraniums (red) in other areas but not Tom’s, and then miscellaneous others. Each area has different flowers, whatever the volunteer likes to add. I hope to have a photo to share in a future blog.

Here is Lynne in the Tasting Room, which closed at 6:00 p.m. for the start of the Chef’s Extravaganza, pictured to the right of the wine bar is the lamp, and it’s seen in the collage with a white heron on the ceramic base. I bought it from a geographer friend moving from Ellensburg and gifted to Cameron and Phyllis Fries, at White Heron Cellars winery and Mariposa Vineyard, our friends since 1998.

Lynne Snyder and, note on the far right, the white lamp. Then on the right of the collage is a close-up of the lamp, and now you know the reason I originally went to the tasting room with my camera, before the party.

I met a young couple there when they arrived early for the evening’s activities. I took them from the Tasting Room of the Winery, on a little tour through the winery (tanks, barrels, full & empty cases, and so on). Not a lot going on just yet; most grapes are still hanging on the vines. The local produce for the evening was there, though, near the back. At that point I introduced myself as Nancy, and learned they were Kristin and Casey. Throughout the evening we spoke on a couple of occasions, and below, you’ll see an interesting video with them.

My next visit was with the chef of the evening, Tim Putnam, for 20 years the chef in his own catering business, housed in Cashmere, as Smokeblossom. He showed me around all the food preparation and described what we would be served.

Tim near his cooking preparation area.

Below is the SMOKEBLOSSOM menu served at White Heron for Chef’s Extravaganza, the kick-off for Farmer’s Consumer Awareness Day Weekend, the 2nd weekend of September every year. John and I have attended for many years. I’m not sure when the first one was held, but it is my birthday celebration (late, for 9/1 each year).
on 9.11.2015 (from his Facebook site)

Tearin up the Heron

Pre Func Funk

Naan Sense
50 mile Ricotta, HOODOO & heirloom toms
hit w/ port bombed balsamic syrup

Confit Clobbered Papas
Fried Russets, shredded duck & Pecorino Romano
(’nuff said)

Burned Offerings

Herded Through the Grapevine
Vine smooched sliders w/ sweet onions, Emmentaler
charred roma-bacon mayo & local greens

Belly Batons
Sweet comino pork belly, IPA (India Pale Ale) braised pintos
& tomatillo pico w/ queso fresco

Rainbow Maize
Cedar planked trout, Quincy sweet corn chop w/ Pepita-Poblano pesto

Finale

Limoncello Longshots
Lemon liqueur infused crème anglaise teamed
w/ Cameron’s berry (blue) foraging prowess

Ginger Gold Betty
Monty Bickford’s apples, browned butter,
pulverized pound cake streusel & frozen Calvados custard

From there I returned to our table with friends from Ellensburg. One couple with we have known since arriving in 1988. Ken Hammond began his chairmanship of Geography, the year I arrived. He was chair until 1997. They were on one side of our table, and I was on the other with our more recent friends from Ellensburg, Joanie Taylor & Ken Matney. After visiting awhile, we did a picture shoot over the Mariposa Vineyard, down to the Columbia River & West Bar.

~ ~ ~ ~ Nancy & John ~ ~ Ken & Joanie ~ ~ John, Jo, & Ken

I did not take my normal photos of the food served, but here is the wine bar:

Above, Lynne Snyder, Phyllis Fries, and Cameron Fries.

With dinner, we had a couple of bottles of Mariposa Red (a Bordeaux blended red wine that can contain only those varieties that are authorized for use in the red wines of that region of France. The six varieties allowed are: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Malbec, and Carmener). White Heron’s blend in their “meritage” Mariposa Red consists of 38% Cabernet Sauvignon, 36% Merlot, 20% Cabernet Franc, and 6% Malbec (Cot). [In Bordeaux and Cahors the variety has traditionally gone by its local name, Cot, but because of the success of Malbec in Argentina and the US, it is increasingly known by the internationally recognized name.]

Before the food was ready we enjoyed a special wine, Arvine, a varietal from a Swiss white wine grape (Petite Arvine) from the Valais region. It is fragrant and fruity (as are all of Cameron’s wines), but with low acidity, and as we noted around the table, no bitterness. The name is derived from Latin, indicating the vine comes from the Savoyard Arve Valley in Valais. It was appreciated by those at the table who are primarily red wine connoisseurs. Arvine and Roussanne are still favorites of mine. We and the Fries named our dogs, after the white Swiss grape, Roussanne.

The last entre — Limón cello Longshot with blueberries from Cameron is seen below. See above on the menu for the description of the offering on that plate.

While eating the last entre of the evening, I got up and videotaped my newly met couple dancing, and their interesting story follows.

(follow link below for the action)
Lights, camera, action!

I asked them what their last name was so I could send them a copy of the video. She said Ashley and he said Cranston. I paused, and said, Casey Cranston. That’s a very familiar name ~ ~ did you happen to recently join the NW Geography Jobs list serve? He said, “Yes, within the last 2 weeks.” I laughed and said, I’m Nancy Hultquist, the moderator, you’ve been emailing. So we shook hands and commented about what a small world it is. He is a recent CWU graduate in environmental studies with a geography specialization and a GIS certification. Interesting, because that’s where I taught many geography courses, and all the GIS courses offered from 1988 until I retired for medical reasons in 2010. I have kept up the jobs announcements list serve I started in the early 1990s on email (via Bitnet). Now it is run through Google Groups.

We didn’t leave until late, and arrived home just before 10:00. The dogs were all fine in our absence, but the feral cats expect supper at dusk. We called but they did not show. They didn’t go hungry as they have a cat house with 24 hr dry food available.

Saturday, Sept 12

For Sept 11 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 51 min with AHI=0.29 Events: 2 H, 2 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=8 L/min); no oximeter. Added another 1.5 hr sleep to my night, without the mask.

I worked on a serious rewrite of the chords for Shenandoah, after some suggestions from Manord, one of our group. I took his suggestions, made some changes of my own, and then looked on line ~ ~ finding the version by the Statler Brothers, and revising more. We will have only 5 of us there today, so we can practice it together.

I leave at 1:00 today for Briarwood, and will make a short visit to check on the cat and pick up the mail at Rosewood.

Nice ending to a new “free” story. You have heard about my use of the Buy Nothing Ellensburg (BNE) Facebook site, but here’s a new switch to another free site, The Free Box, Ellensburg. Last night I was messaging with a gal I knew through the BNE, and she was catching me up on her recent move. She mentioned needing a twin mattress for a bunk bed for two of her little boys. I put a request on the free site late afternoon, and a friend of a friend responded he had a nice clean one he gave her, and she was able to pick up last night. Nice ending.

Sunday, Sept 13

For Sept 12 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 38 min with AHI=0.30 Events: 2 H. No major mask leaks (max=5 L/min); no oximeter.

Early morning view of New York City, from my cousin, Sandy Brannen Tatum, who just had a birthday too, and is visiting NYC and going to Radio City Music Hall for a tour today. Here’s her view of Central Park from the 37th floor of where they are staying.

Spent the day working on the blog, and John fished out the remaining piece of flue in the old chimney, and capped the top above the roof – because we might get showers this week. I wasn’t ready with the blog so he went and cut a piece of aluminum sheet to cover the broken window (behind the driver’s head) of the 1980s pickup. After a couple of years of duct tape and cardboard (not doing the job), the hole is now closed. Meanwhile, I’m putting the final touches and coordinating the photos with the text.

Problems ensued when we tried to post the text and photos on WordPress. Our server at ccsow.com is down. As you now can tell, it was fixed this morning (Monday), but we had to go to two appointments in town, so weren’t able to finalize and publish until 1:33 p.m., 9/14/15.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Sunday, Aug 30

For Aug 29 CPAP. Reported figures. 2 hrs 23 min with AHI=1.26 Events: 2 H. No major mask leaks (max=15 L/min); no oximeter. No clue why I took off the mask, and no clue why the AHI was so high with only 2 H. One of life’s mysteries.

Heading off to town to visit my friend whose house I’m watching while she’s away, and to take some squash and tomatoes to people. Hopefully to trade for some fresh eggs. We received two dozen eggs, and gave away a fair number of squash and tomatoes. Squash are becoming less productive. Tomatoes are starting to come on better.

John is so much better today — all systems go, and this week, he has gained 10-12 pounds back from the 25 pounds lost over the past month. Most importantly, he is feeling better. I’m happy to have him back. (I seem to utter those words every day.)

Monday, Aug 31

For Aug 30 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 48 min with AHI=0.29 Events: 2 H, 1 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=8 L/min); no oximeter.

I spent most of the day working on music masters to take to Xerox after my first stint at the community clothing share. I also put a few more sacks of stuff from our place together to add to the clothing share. I have already submitted about 6 bags of things. I spent more time arranging for people from the community involved with charity clothing operations to come to the end of our share tomorrow, in order to carry away leftovers.

Tuesday, Sept 1 (MY 72nd BIRTHDAY). For the next 4 months I’m older than John.

For Aug 31 CPAP. Reported figures. 5 hrs 20 min with AHI=0.19 Events: 1H. No major mask leaks (max=7 L/min); no oximeter.

My day started early, so I could be at the LDS church by 10:00, but on the way I had to stop for a vase of cut flowers donated to me for my birthday, and then I put the arrangement on the welcoming check-in table. At the end of the day, I gave them to the main organizer of the event. The next 1.5 hours was spent carrying in bags and boxes of clothing into the church gym, sorting and setting on different tables for Women’s (petite, S-M, L-XL, Plus), similarly for Men’s, for baby clothing, sized if possible, children’s and teen, maternity, and an accessories table. All shoes were placed along a wall. I’ll show several pictures below in a collage.
First though is this cheerful greeting near the entrance:

This grouping was along the edge of the welcoming table, where we had name tags for the worker volunteers. The birthday tiara and the cake were given to me by the main organizer of the event, Kathryn Carlson, at the start in the parking lot as we arrived. For the first 2 hours of work, I wore the tiara. The Buy Nothing Ellensburg group on Facebook sponsored this community-clothing share, and the use of the LDS facilities was donated. Many of the congregation also donated clothing. The Bishop of the second Ward is my eye doctor and he had told me 6 months ago we would be welcomed there.

My first trip away from the building was to go a short distance around a long block to my friends Joanie Taylor and Ken Matney for a birthday lunch. I carried some veggies to them too, and they reciprocated with a bag of pears from their tree. The menu was great, including a Southwest Salad with Avocado on the side, a generous helping of hot homemade Shepherd’s Pie, and for dessert, Tiramisu. Wow–what a treat! Also great company and a lovely card full of cool cultural-historical bookmarks.

I left their home, and went to copy sheet music to use over the next 2.5 months with our Kittitas Valley Fiddlers & Friends group who entertain in assisted-living and retirement homes, weekly. On my way there, I needed to think about the number of copies with one page for each song and the number of copies of ones with back-to-back songs. I pulled over into a shady neighborhood street that was in front of the CWU President’s house. I rolled down my windows and was sitting there figuring counts, when I heard a loud cracking sound (of a tree limb breaking). I looked up and saw a large limb crack and fall until it was hanging straight down, but still connected. It was still shaking, when I took a picture of it, and I knew it would be dangerous if anyone pulled a vehicle up to the front door, got out and walked into the house. I took a photo, and then called the President’s Office to report they needed to get someone down there fast.
There is a second tree behind the hanging limb. That trunk is easy to see in the left photo (below) while the entire tree shows in the right photo – with the limb gone. {Click to Zoom.}

. . . . . . . . . Tree limb hanging . . . . . . Tree limb removed

The copying turned into a huge chore because the Xerox machine kept jamming or quitting on me, making me late for my next stop at the Adult Activity Center. I went to jazzercise class (and paid my $2.00 monthly fee), but only joined the activity for the last 15 minutes, and then I returned to the clothing share to help and also to meet a friend. It was proceeding smoothly, so I actually sat in front as a greeter, visiting with friends, which was nice, and allowed me some relaxation time on a comfortable sofa. I had done a lot of lifting (heavy bags and boxes of clothing) and carrying-in exercise with the input of stuff from the parking lot earlier in the day.

I arranged to go by the Palace Restaurant on my way home to get my free birthday dinner. I chose a chicken-fried Angus steak, with corn-on-the-cob, rice pilaf, and brown gravy. I called John and told him to pull out of the freezer, a small portion of chicken Alfredo we could eat on the side (to which he had added mushrooms and mixed vegetables). It was a great birthday dinner, with a nice dessert, and 3 different ones to choose from, to which we added vanilla ice cream, with strawberries and pecans. {A handful of nuts is good for health, someone says.}

I left the clothing share that was going until 7:30, but I had helped by contacting three of the local charity givers (church and other), to come at the end and carry away items for their uses. We did NOT want anything to go to a place such as Goodwill or even Habitat for Humanity that would charge for the clothing, but wanted it to go to places who would give the clothing freely to families in need. That also saved our group the effort of carrying away all the leftovers and distributing them. We had invested enough time on collecting them from all over town, packing them to the parking lot, and into the room for dispersal. Kathryn had devoted a room of her house to the organization and sorting of all the incoming bags of clothing, and with help from two nieces over a several week period, she did her magic. A collage below

shows the extent of the clothing, and was taken early in the day, so more was added throughout the day. When people arrived with a bag or box, we requested that they sort their offerings onto the appropriate table. They were happy to do that and we were grateful. Then, they could go through and take whatever their family needed. The whole day was a complete success, but I was worn out, along with all the other volunteer workers.

Wednesday, Sept 2

For Sept 1 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 34 min with AHI=0.93 Events: 7 H, 2 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=6 L/min); no oximeter.

Today was my day to go to join others at the Food Bank Soup Kitchen for music. We decided to go through as much as possible of the new music for the group that plays tomorrow–especially needed as about half the songs are totally new. Near the end of our 40 minutes of playing, we deferred to be the backup to our singer/guitar player as he played several songs on his harmonica. It was cool. The audience loved it.

From there I went to my SAIL exercise class at the Adult Activity Center, and assisted some with one of my classmates who is in her nineties and needs a little support on some of the out-of-chair exercises, and to be handed her walker for going around the circle.

Thursday, Sept 3

For Sept 2 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 42 min with AHI=1.56 Events: 12 H, 1 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=20 L/min); no oximeter.

This morning I put music into final form for this afternoon’s gig. Things are getting a bit chaotic in EBRG because this is the first day of the County Fair & Ellensburg Rodeo. The two events together make for a lively region and bring many visitors with all their money – the raison d’être. {John says, I think that means don’t eat raisins.} We sort of participated for a few years but now try to avoid as much as possible. My first office at CWU looked out on the street where the parade started and I was moving in that weekend, back in 1988, and had a front row seat.

One of our guitarists had to go to the Fair with his wife (confined to a wheelchair and living at that assisted living place), and their son. We had about the same number of musicians as members of the audience because the facility took 2 busloads of residents to the fair. We had 2 fiddles, mandolin, 5 guitars, and a bass fiddle, plus the grandson of one of the guitarists who played several Beethoven songs on the piano. He had to fix a pedal first (the soft one had lost its bolt). He is almost 13 and is from Deer Park, north of Spokane.

John’s digestive system is back to normal, and he has put in some yard work over the past several days.
Over the past year or so a wood-plank bridge has been deteriorating. The bridge is for getting across the irrigation ditch with wheelbarrow, cart, or just carrying something. The horses don’t need it but use it anyway. It has gotten to its use-by date (for horses). John built a new stronger bridge in the back of the old pickup, so he could transport it. This set of photos shows the in-progress building with old lumber. The existing bridge is just one layer – like the top layer of the new one. Only the bolts are new.
In the top photo, note small nails holding the rail in place. Drilling holes for the Carriage bolts was an effort because we have only a 3/8 inch power drill and it is 40 years old. A new ½ inch one would be nice. The yellow pencil in the bottom photo points toward one (of 3 per side) of the bolts with only the round shallow dome-head visible. {Zoom to see detail.}

The 2×4 rails (often called ‘bull rails’ from nautical usage) prevent slipping over the side, and would usually have spacers under them say on a dock (or quay). Note how the rope can go under the rail before being tied. See here: The link.
He moved the worn out one up to a walkway for people only, over the irrigation ditch, nearer our house. The ends have “face-plates” and, when completed, a ramp of gravel will slope up to the bridge deck.

This is the new one, and the horses are using it. For hiking trail bridges the corners often get treated with large rocks (one crew leader calls them gargoyles) – a visual indicator to direct foot-falls away from the edges. For now there is wood to be used and the approaches (rock & gravel) are to be added.

The old one John moved closer to a place with human access only, near the walking trail across our upper part of the irrigation ditch, to view our Mariposa lilies and other wildflowers on the way from the house to the mailbox.

Here is the old bridge repositioned in its new location. It is still under construction so I will show you both bridges after completion (in a future blog).

Face-plate needs to be placed and nailed, then the approach added.

Friday, Sept 4

For Sept 3 CPAP. Reported figures. 10 hrs 18 min with AHI=0.58 Events: 6 H, 7 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=17 L/min); no oximeter.

Friday, we stayed home. We delivered veggies to a neighbor to pick up a 5-gal bucket and other containers we’d taken over previously.
Yesterday, John moved our old wood stove from the back patio, on to the pickup and then out front, and (temporarily) onto pallets stacked pick-up bed high.
Today, he cleaned out the ash from the fire-box and then the bricks lining the inside.

We knew we were hoping to recycle this in a Department of Ecology buy back bonus for turning in the polluting stoves. We have been planning for this for 6 months, and the original date for taking to Cle Elum, came and went in June. I was on several agencies’ notification list, but I never received a phone call or an email. John is very good about reading the local paper daily, and saw this announcement in the evening paper. We are very fortunate he saw this.

We did not know previously that the firebricks and the ash had to be removed. He succeeded in removing 28 firebricks weighing 3.5# each for 98 pounds of brick, and 10 pounds of ash.

Picture of stove, bricks, close up of brick. It is set up so he can back up the truck and load it into the bed to take the 35 miles to the transfer station between Cle Elum and Roslyn (of Northern Exposure fame). Now we just have to be sure we are there an hour early and get in the first 85 for our rebate and disposal needs. John chose to remove it himself and not let the installers of the new stove do the job and take it away, because they wanted to charge $99 for that service. We must dispose of it, because it cannot be sold or given away, because it cannot (legally) be used. It would be nice to receive a bounty instead of having to pay to dispose of it.

Saturday, Sept 5

For Sept 4 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 3 min with AHI=1.13 Events: 8 H. 1 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=18 L/min); no oximeter.

We finally made time to call John’s cousin, Helen Burgoon, in Bradford, PA, who celebrated her 90th birthday on the same day as mine, 9/1/15. We talked to her for 1/2 hour and had a very nice visit. No one was around, so we had her all to ourselves. Had we gotten through on her birthday (the line was busy), we would not have had but a few minutes with her, with all the kids, grandchildren, and great grandchildren there.

It has been very windy here since last night, as you can see on the report at the airport south of us 5 miles.

John worked some outside – in the wind – and we took pictures.

To end the day, we thought we would share a cool photograph of the Orcas (often called Killer Whales) near the San Juan Islands, WA. Back in 1991, I went on such a viewing trip out of Bellingham, WA, and with my friend from GA (since 6th grade), Nancy J (Maude) Buszek, now in Michigan. We saw many pods on our trip, including babies. This photo shows all the people looking away from the action behind them. There are fines and patrols to keep boats away from the Orcas. The animals didn’t get the message. Interesting.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Sunday, Aug 23

For Aug 22 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 11 min with AHI=1.94 Events: 11 H, 4 CSR, 1 CA. No major mask leaks (max=16 L/min); no oximeter.

Finished and published the blog. John is recovering some. Keeping food down, and actually ate the majority of a chicken pot pie for lunch.

Our temperature made it to 78° today; with no wind, and apparently less smoke in the valley.

I’ve been fighting with music. Finally, after about 4 different keys, timing, and arrangements, I settled on a nice rendition of Shenandoah, but had to change some notes and keys to fit the way I believe it should be. It is not unusual for scores to have errors, and this one, although on a teacher’s site, was full of them. Maybe it was a test, to see who was paying attention.

Monday, Aug 24

For Aug 23 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 23 min with AHI=0.41 Events 2 H, 3 CSR, 1 PP. No major mask leaks (max=12 L/min); no oximeter.

Our farrier arrives at noon for trimming two horses, Ebony & Myst. He was earlier than expected because someone failed to keep their appointment. John had picked some squash before he arrived. We had one neighbor stop and pick up yellow squash and tomatoes, and on our way to town, we delivered to 3 others, and picked up another bag of cookies from another neighbor on our way home. Nice treats for all involved.

I finally made significant progress on finishing one piece of music, with the help of Dr. Dave, who sent me some different scores of Take Me Home, Country Roads (John Denver, et al.) with the score I’m doing clearly presented on two pages. This will be a great addition to our music for the next 2-1/2 months.

Tuesday, Aug 25

For Aug 24 CPAP. Reported figures. 5 hrs 45 min with AHI=1.39 Events: 8 H, 4 CSR (all at end of session). No major mask leaks (max=11 L/min); no oximeter..

Early morning 8:02 call from our doctor’s nurse, that four bacteria had been ruled out as John not having (ecolae, salmonella, and 2 others).

Then 20 minutes later a call from our Dr. saying if there wasn’t something identified soon in the culture, for John to come in Friday. They made an appt., and meanwhile we were to pick up a refill on the nausea pill he’s been taking. Then, on the road to Yakima, the Dr got through the dead cell reception spaces, with a call to say it was Giardia, and it was treatable (where a virus would not have been). He was calling in a prescription to our pharmacy that we could pick up on our way home. We did, and then on the north end of EBRG, we dropped off a full set of Canon printer cartridges we bought for our 89 year old friend in Ellensburg.

We left early to take John’s car to Subaru for a 10:30 a.m. appointment and then by the Yakima Heart Center for my ICD check. We learned that I have 4% left on my battery, so I can expect an alert from the system in November (it’s read every night at 2:00 a.m. from a landline connection that ties in to the medical community in Yakima to warn them of any events of concern). Then, when the battery alert happens, they will have me schedule a health history review. Then I will get a date set, change the dosage of blood thinners to make ready for the surgery. There’s a window for all this of 90 days after the alert. That change in my ICD’s battery will probably occur in January, at Yakima Memorial Hospital (by surgeon, Dr. Pham, a nuclear cardiologist). The details are yet to be determined. Stay tuned.

Shopped at Costco for the inks (mentioned above) and chocolate covered almonds for our neighbor. Just bought regular stuff for us. John didn’t feel like having his regular artery clogging “Polish Sausage with Bun & Toppings”, so we shared a chicken Caesar salad for lunch (while we watched all the funny-looking people) and had a Very Berry (Strawberry) frozen Yogurt Sundae, split into 2 cups – for the trip home.

Wednesday, Aug 26

For Aug 25 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 34 min with AHI=0.93 Events: 7 H, 2 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=6 L/min); no oximeter.

I worked on dishes and cleaning ants off our counter. They seem to be coming and going under the switch cover for our disposal. They are quite tiny. We’ve killed a bunch, but maybe it is time for a more aggressive tactic. I worked on dishes, arranged clothes to take to the clothing share (part of the Buy Nothing Ellensburg group) for next week, and arranged for John to write his documentary on his illness to the patient portal in Cle Elum (today is our Dr.’s day off). John has started working on another documentary report for me to share later in this blog. I’m working on music to take to the food bank group (mandolin, banjo, fiddle, and guitar) to test for our other larger group for the next two & ½ months. These are several new pieces, for which we will check the chords, notes, and lyrics. We made a few corrections, in several songs. Songs include: Oklahoma Hills, Shenandoah. Sweet Betsy from Pike, Take me Home, Country Roads, The Cowboy’s Dream, Whoopee Ti Yi Yo – Git Along Little Dogies, and Shall We Gather at the River. There are more new ones to be added before next week, for Thursday, our first performance of this play list.
The chow at the food bank was great today, and we had an appreciative audience, with people coming up at the end to thank us for the music. We play away from the entrance and exit door, so they have to make a special trip down to tell us, when we break to go through the buffet ourselves. They didn’t seem to mind our practicing music on them. We started early, and only went over the noon hour a few minutes, before switching to the songs for which the audience who wants to follow along, has a set of the lyrics. Normally we play from noon to 12:30, and then sit with a few members of our fan club, and have our lunch, and conversations.

Today was a very smoky day in our valley from fires north of us.

The pictures below do not do it justice, but you get the idea. The large orange ball is the sun filtered through a heavy layer of smoke in the valley, and the other orange sun in the trees, taken later in the evening, still displays the changed color from the smoke. Note also the stressed Ponderosa pines in our back yard. The creek is just beyond them, and their roots (some more so than others) can reach the water table, but the drought and hot temperatures this summer have stressed them. {This picture (only) can be seen a bit larger by clicking on it.}

The orange sun was so spectacular to the naked eye** that our 14 yr old neighbor called us on her cell phone to be sure we saw it. She was standing at the back fence of her family’s property just east of us. Photos don’t do it justice. [**search for – Moon Illusion – on Wikipedia to find this is a confusing issue.]

Thursday, Aug 27

For Aug 26 CPAP. Reported figures. 5 hrs 49 min with AHI=0.17 Events: 1 H, 1 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=7 L/min); no oximeter.

John packed the pick-up with-canopy completely for delivery to the transfer station (aka “dump”). I worked on emails, honchoing music and clothing distribution for next Tuesday. We left in time to stop by 4 places before dropping me off at Hearthstone to play our July/August playlist for the last time this year. Next week starts a new list with some totally new songs included. That will take us through Sept, Oct, and half of Nov. Then, mid-Nov, we start on our Thanksgiving, winter, and Christmas playlist. January starts anew with a yet different playlist.

We had a nice time and an appreciative large audience today with a good crowd of players, at Hearthstone Cottages.

While we were playing, John delivered 280# of trash to the transfer station. In addition, he went to two grocery stores for goodies, including picking up one of my heart meds.

Our supper was Stroganoff with our own squash, onions, tomatoes, and grocery-bought mushrooms, red grapes on the side, and cheesecake with ice cream and our strawberries on top. Nice to have John eating again and feeling like cooking our meals.

Friday, Aug 28

For Aug 27 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 7 min with AHI=0.33 Events: 2 H, 1 CSR. No major mask leaks (max=7 L/min); no oximeter.

Today, we started the day with a trip to town to visit our friend, Julie, and her 3 yr old daughter, who were in Ellensburg (from Nevada), for the past week fixing up their house they have owned since 2003. Her two boys stayed with their father because their school has been in session for 2 weeks. {In EBRG school starts later because of the County Fair and Rodeo and then mid-school breaks are much shorter.} I think they always wanted to move back to town, but it doesn’t look possible now. It was Julie’s birthday today. We did not even take her a b.d. cake, but sent her a card she could access on her I-phone. We went early in the cool of the morning, because her mother-in-law was coming at noon to take her out for lunch. From there we went to the other end of town, to check out some keys for a gal I’m looking after her house, cat, plants, and mail for the next 2 months, while she and her son drive east and south and back here in a big loop.

She wasn’t at home, and because I was dialing the wrong phone number, we didn’t meet up, but I checked the house key in the front door, and it worked. Then I went around a long block in the subdivision to the location of all the mailboxes. Checked that key and it did not work. Back another day this weekend to sort out what I missed today. Luckily, they don’t leave until Wednesday.

Once home, I took a photo of a Truck Dolly I picked up last week for $5. John had searched and found a like one, in slightly better condition, for $175 (asked price). I was feeling good about my find. Mine is serviceable.

My $5 one has worn out Glide Belts, a frayed belt, and worn steel-covering plastic pads. Still, it is very usable.

We had another bit of leftover stroganoff with new squash, mushrooms, onions, our garden-ripe Early Girl tomatoes, and red grapes on the side. Dessert was a little sliver of red velvet cake and of cheesecake, vanilla ice cream, with strawberries on top.

After bedtime, our oldest dog Meghan, 15, apparently had a seizure. I don’t know how to describe it other than this way, and it is the first such activity we have ever witnessed with her. She started by sitting up, then standing, and turning her head back and forth, as if she had something caught in her teeth. I then I wondered if she was biting her tongue. She lay on her side and I tried to comfort and hold my hand on her. Her four legs were running at a breakneck speed, but finally slowed. I called John from bed and he carried her outside in case she was dying (and lost fluids). She was very wobbly, and walked a few feet and fell on her side. He waited 20 minutes, and went back into the yard and found her at the far end of the yard, stood her up and she was wandering in circles, and then propped herself next to the fence. He came in and we decided it was not too cold to leave her outside. She had access to the doggie door, if she became able to return inside the house.

We did not get to bed until after midnight, and neither one of us had a decent night’s sleep.

Saturday, Aug 29

For Aug 28 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 8 min with AHI=0.28 Events: 2 H. No major mask leaks (max=8 L/min); no oximeter.]

Started with a surprise that Meghan was still alive and with us. She was up walking around the back yard, and came onto the patio to be let in the back door.

Both of the older dogs–Meghan, nicknamed Skittles, the one with the problem last night is 15, and Dan is 14. The oldest a Brittany in our house lived to slightly over 16.5 yrs, many died at 12 or 13, and at least one before that, of natural causes.

It’s strange, but this morning both she and Dan ate a morning meal of canned food. Now they just asked for a second helping and I obliged. We wonder if Dan (who goes into the irrigation ditch, lays down and drinks) also had a case of Giardia, but he managed to expel it on his own? He is eating again and motoring around, but 3 weeks ago he had no muscle strength in his back legs and had to be helped up the ramp. He lost a ton of weight (over many months) too, because he quit eating. Never noticed diarrhea. Neither of the old dogs hears or sees well, but do do both.

Then it started raining, but now at 10:45, the sun just arrived. John has fed the animals outside, and I fed the ones inside. We are ready to have a brunch of veggies and eggs, in a frittata-type concoction, with bacon pieces, sausage, and an orange on the side. John’s been out a bit, got sprinkled on, came in, put on a dry shirt. Later repeated that sequence. Oh well. Where the fires are burning they are getting the same weather and it helps. High winds and downed trees in the Seattle area are causing havoc with 450,000 without power tonight. Many photos are on the KOMO news site.

We plan to spend today putting out the blog, including the story of the past month of John’s gastrointestinal event, in his words. We even had a telephone visit from a public nurse, whom I actually have known in the community through music. He interviewed John about his experiences, knowledge, and suspected acquisition. They were definitely on the same page. I found it interesting that the state was notified of such cases, and County Health is doing follow-up interviews. We learned there are 400-600 reported cases of giardiasis in WA each year. Actual numbers are unknown because some folks apparently don’t get very sick and don’t contact medical professionals.

Just this morning, John shared his current documentary with me, to add to the blog this week– here goes:

John’s report on Giardia
with some info pulled from [this link].
Giardia lamblia exists in two forms, an active form called a trophozoite, and an inactive form called a cyst. The active trophozoite attaches to the lining of the small intestine with a “sucker” and is responsible for causing the signs and symptoms of giardiasis. The trophozoite cannot live long outside of the body; therefore, it cannot spread the infection to others. The inactive cyst, on the other hand, can exist for prolonged periods outside the body. When it is ingested, stomach acid activates the cyst, and the cyst develops into the disease-causing trophozoite. It takes ingestion of only ten cysts to cause infection. [my bold]
{I wonder how many can fit in a drop of water? My best guess is that our irrigation water is the source – that is, Naneum Creek. Seems that a single drop of water, or less, would be enough. For example, Annie, our Brittany dog sometimes gets very muddy, on her own, but doesn’t like for me to try to wash her off. I occasionally lower her into the ditch and try to splash water on her legs and underside. Lots of fun. Water flies everywhere. I sometimes get droplets on my glasses. Surely seems as if I could get some smeared across my lips. I have also eaten a fresh strawberry or cherry tomato without first taking inside and washing – not often. The next line below suggests why I might not remember such an incident as compared to, say, someone that drank from a stream during a hike.}
Symptoms and signs of giardiasis do not begin for at least seven days following infection, but can occur as long as three or more weeks later.

{I first noticed fatigue on July 31. I checked Mayo Clinic and other such web sites after getting other symptoms. Some things only last 1 to 3 days, so for an adult, the suggestion is to wait it out that long before seeking treatment. So, on the 4th day, feeling a bit better – I relaxed. The next day, feeling the need for something, I ate a handful of chocolate baking chips. Bad idea! About 15 minutes later, they came back up. I did not eat for a day – then started with a small amount of canned pears. Seemed OK, so I repeated.}

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{I need to find out about the following.} The most common treatment for giardiasis is Metronidazole. It has an efficacy rate of 75% to 100%, but it often causes gastrointestinal side effects such as nausea and a metallic taste as well as dizziness and headache. Despite its effectiveness, Metronidazole is not approved by the FDA in the U.S. for treatment of giardiasis {but is approved (still) for many other things. This was the medication prescribed for me.}

The approved one is Tinidazole. It is chemically similar to Metronidazole—a drug with some unpleasant side effects that is used in the United States as first-line therapy for amoebae. Tinidazole has similar side effects but has a shorter treatment course.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Tuesday, Aug. 11th, Nancy went to a we’re-closing-down Barbeque at Royal Vista Nursing Home and met our Doctor there. He’s been the visiting physician in charge there for many years. She has played music there many years in several different venues. When he saw her, he asked where I was. She told him, and he said, “Bring John to see me.” We did that Thursday AM. Got pills called Ondansetron (AKA Zofran) to prevent nausea and vomiting. Got a stool kit consisting of a big plastic hat to ‘go’ into and two vials with strange chemicals to place the item of interest into. I had quit eating and so had no stool either. Took the pills and starting eating in small quantities. Only took a week to ‘go’ and then get the test kit vials to the lab at the hospital. I had been assured that they did not want the plastic hat back. [A lab tech friend in the Cle Elum office told us a woman tried to return one to her a few years ago.] We saw her when getting a blood draw in the lab, at the visit.

Therefore, the samples went in on Thursday morning. Cultures do not happen in hours as does the blood work. Blood work was fine. Folks at the lab reported on no-shows on Monday (such as ecolae, salmonella, and 2 others) – then found the Giardia. We were on the road to Yakima on Tuesday morning and Dr. Paul Schmitt called. The road has long hills and deep cuts into the basalt layers. The cell phone kept fading and cutting off completely. He was going to have a prescription called into our EBRG pharmacy – we got it at about 3:30. That stuff is called Metronidazole, mentioned above. I did take another anti-nausea pill – but then no more of those.

I did not feel sick going to Yakima or coming back and had a small chicken Caesar salad while there. Took the first pill at about 4 PM and another near Midnight (it is a 5-day deal, with one every 8 hours).

As near as I can tell, I lost about 25 pounds in 25 days. I don’t know for sure, at what weight I started. It is now Saturday Noon (8-28), and I have eaten regularly since Tuesday Noon. Interestingly (or not), everything I am eating is apparently being redistributed to my body tissue. Nothing is allowed through, although the kidneys and bladder are working well.

The Metronidazole pills will end Sunday afternoon.

=======now Nancy=========
John’s been resting while I finished this draft, and I need to make 2 composite collage photos to add before he starts on WordPress entry.

After his nap he’s been out and beginning to restart all the delayed projects – a bit at a time. Thankfully he was able to feed the animals and water plants all along. {Just barely – says John}

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan