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Sunday, Oct 25

For Oct 24 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 6 min with AHI=0.42 Events: 3 H, 3 CSR, 13 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=15 L/min); no oximeter.

Good progress – huge load of dishes washed. John fixed the seam and cleaned the rug in the walkway to the kitchen, and fed all the cats and horses. It is a pretty and sunshiny day, so I took a photo of our mountain ash to start this week’s blog.

He’s out working on the ladder rebuilding, and stopped to repair sheet music hold-downs (for windy days) on a folding stand I have. I now have two good ones I can clamp, with another to share on the Buy Nothing Ellensburg site that needs a stronger finger squeeze pressure to keep it standing without flattened legs.

I heard from Sonja Willitts that her pup, Tug, our dog Daisy’s sister, and his father is Kip from our breeding, got his 14th point today in the show ring. He needs only one more point for his show championship (Ch) title. His mom, Ginny, needs only 1 pt for her field championship (FC) title.

A collage shows him as a puppy with an autumn colored play toy, between his mom, KWK Windswept Guinevere of Camelot JH, and his tri-colored dad, Cedaridge Tri-Tip Kip.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . Ginny . . . . . . . . . Tug . . . . . . . . Kip

Been a crazy day. Offered my special music stand free on BNE site; no takers. Most of day working on getting the email addresses ready for notification about new domain for our web information stuff.

Monday, Oct 26

For Oct 25 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 41 min with AHI=1.17 Events: 9 H, 1 CSR, 9 RERA. Different comment: You had a small but acceptable amount of major mask leakage. Wonder what caused that. No oximeter recording.

Searched back room for plus-sized clothes to share, not that it will make an iota of difference to the clutter in that room. But still, it will be out of my way. I found my large blue winter jacket to share with the same person. Put it all in a large bag to take to the park. Put the found music stand in a package to share tomorrow. John is going to load three boxes of Honeycrisp apples for me to give away at the park. Worked on email addresses, and other computer-related things.

Wrote the music group about our upcoming meeting locations in Nov/Dec and the ordering of the music. We will start December songs the 3rd week in Nov, and start a new set for Jan/Feb of 2016. They are already compiled from last year, so I can rest easy, save money, and mostly time, to put toward other things to get ready for the end of the year, and my upcoming battery-replacement surgery. All I will need to do is to provide music for those players who were not with us last year.

Tuesday, Oct 27

For Oct 26 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 53 min with AHI=3.60 Events: 30 H, 8 CSR, 14 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=19 L/min); no oximeter. Awoke at 3 for 1/2 hr, no sleep till after 4:00. ??? what was going on. All activity was after 5:20.

I went to 2:00 Jazzercise and three of us worked rather hard. From there to Anne’s to care for the cat, plants, and mail, and then to Mt. View Park at 3:30. I took my mother’s kitchen timer to Steve Verhey for his offer to try to fix it. I also carried a Halloween hanging and a doggy magnet frame to Kathryn Carlson as a gift for all she does for our BNE group.

A Day at the Park Meet and Greet was full of fun, although a bit chilly. I met April, Nia, Alexi, Susan, Kassandra (and kids), Joni & Skye, Ann (& hubby), Kathryn & Jim. All but Kathryn and Susan were first time meets. I also met Steve V and gave him my timer and some Honeycrisp apples. A few people took most of them off our hands, and I dropped off some on my way home to friends. I managed to present a gift to Kathryn and get her and her hubby’s pix; while no one there would take my special record-player stand (I later found an interested person on the BNE site), and no one went for my classy music stand, I did succeed in finding a new owner (April) for my bright yellow reversible fluffy vest (see right of middle picture). And, best of all I correctly (closest) guessed the number of Rolos in a little bucket, at 50 (there were 55), and I got to choose the first of the trick or treat bags created by Kathryn. I lucked out and got the Treat bag (see photo). The trick bag was neat too, but I didn’t get a pix of it. We want to thank Ann Draper and her hubby for bringing the little Halloween mini muffins. Yum. Till next time!

Okay–in order to get rid of something I had at the park today, hoping I could find a new home for, I put the following on line on the BNE site. I turned the description into a guessing game of what it might be. “My hubby thinks it’s a TV stand. I think it is a record player stand, with room at the bottom for record albums? Or maybe it’s for magazines, or? Whatcha think? And who wants it before it goes to the dump? I thought of Kathie Howard but I don’t think it is sturdy enough for her cows’ needs. Maybe she could turn it upside down, and cut the metal legs off ? Someone, please take it off our hands. I think it was Susan at the park who said she could use it but she didn’t have any room in her place (that’s our problem too). Please share your idea of what it is supposed to be used for. THANKS, and then tell me where I can deliver it, ASAP.

Read on for a newly found home tomorrow!

Wednesday, Oct 28

For Oct 27 CPAP. Reported figures. 4 hrs 9 min with AHI=0.72 Events: 3 H, 1 CSR, 4 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=14 L/min); no oximeter.

Went to the Food Bank and had a good music day. They fed us well. I met a woman there and gave her the record player holder stand. I found out she played classical violin in her past, and so I’m hopeful we can convince her to join us. Sadly, I since found that she works out of town on Thursdays. Maybe we can get her for 3rd Saturdays of the month to play at Briarwood. I dropped off our voter ballots at a drop-box near the Courthouse, so we have done our citizenry duty. We’re not too sure about the enlightened bit — (per Thomas Jefferson: “An enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic.”

Before my SAIL exercise class, I visited Starla at Kittitas Medical Supply (a new local sub-unit of Howards) to pick up my new Dreamwear CPAP mask (along with new filters & tubing), and gave her some apples. She was grateful. I hope to wear it tonight. She also gave me a nice coffee mug with the name of their new store here in Ellensburg. Some of our mugs have been used too long and need to be replaced. So happy I no longer have to travel to Yakima for my CPAP supplies.

On to SAIL class where I took the rest of the apples and many of my classmates were thrilled. They were all emptied from my basket by the time I left the building. Ann Draper forgot to bring me some large rubber bands yesterday to the park, so I went to her place of work on my way home.

Thursday, Oct 29

For Oct 28 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 27 min with AHI=3.56 Events: 23 H, 1 CSR, 11 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=20 L/min); no oximeter. First night of my new mask, which obviously needs adjusting. It is a totally different setup, but certainly MUCH more comfortable. Main problem was my neck position hurting a bit because of the change in the air tube entrance of forced air. Now it comes in from the top of my head, not from beneath my chin. So the positioning of my pillows and backrest to allow overhead tubing to connect to the CPAP machine needs to be arranged differently.

NO FIDDLERS AND FRIENDS TODAY – the 5th Thurs of the month, because with the loss of one nursing home in town, we are back down to four, the most prevalent number of Thursdays in a month, and we exchanged a week to the assisted living facility who was relegated to the 5th one of the month.

We went to town to pick up newly acquire Buy Nothing brass andirons and clean up Rosewood. For now, here is a link to a story on andirons, and we will in the future show our use we plan to make from them.
Andirons link

Friday, Oct 30

For Oct 29 CPAP. Reported figures. 10 hrs 2 min with AHI=8.27 Events: 83 H, 19 CSR, 14 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=23 L/min); no oximeter.
I have no clue. The first 3.5 hours were with the new mask that didn’t seem to fit right, so I took it off and went back to sleep (after over an hour trying), with my old mask. The counts were worse on the old mask. This is very weird. Tonight, I will go back to the old, and await a smaller head gear for the new. Did I mention the strangeness of this entire event? Makes it feel as if it was April 1st !!

I called the Kittitas Medical Supply store in EBRG where I picked up my new mask on Wednesday. I told her the problem and the outrageous parameters measured by the CPAP machine, and she said she would order a smaller headgear to be drop-shipped to me by next Wednesday.

John worked on various chores, including fences, gates, splitting some dry wood for kindling – now in a 5 gallon bucket by the front door. He brought a couple of pallets and a cart of firewood to near the rear patio. After the door is brought around (see later), he’ll cobble a covered firewood stand on the outer edge of the concrete slab. I talked with a friend who plans to arrange for a few fellows to come out and move our new patio door from the front yard shed to the back for installation. They plan to be here tomorrow late morning. Sadly, rain is expected. (Here the rain will be an inconvenience, but west of us there will be flooding.
Wettest Halloween on record for Seattle

I packed some stuff in my car ~~ a bag of L & XL tops to give to a woman who needs them. When I dropped it off at Hospice Friends, I picked up a nice leather (might be plastic) seat-pad for my car to lift me up a little. I really need it for driving John’s Subaru, because he is so much taller when he sits than I am that I look over the steering wheel only with a pillow.

No need to go by my friend’s house today to check on her cat, mail, and plants, because she and her son were coming back this afternoon. They were delayed (reason unknown) by a southerly detour off of I-90 while still east of the Columbia River. On the interstate they had 15 miles to get to the bridge. They got to enjoy 30 miles of beautiful Grant county on 2-lane roads. They arrived in EBRG about an hour later than intended. God laughs when you make plans.

Now, here’s my story of the main part of the day, the annual Halloween Bash at the Adult Activity Center (Ellensburg’s Senior Center), where I spend a couple of hours each week. Today, I took my camera to take photos of the event, which I do a lot because the staff is busy waiting on us and providing food and fun things to entertain us.

Today started with receipt of a bag with some candy, a pass for a free dessert at McDonald’s, a necklace with a battery-operated light on a pumpkin, and an envelope of Monopoly play money in $50, $100, and $500 (totaling, $1,500). We also had the name of something associated (animal, vegetable, insect, or ??) pinned to our back, and were not allowed to know what it was, except by talking with others. We had to ask questions of people or answer theirs to figure out what we were. It was meant as an icebreaker. Worked pretty well, but most everyone is friendly and do not need urging to communicate. My back had “Full Moon.” A friend came up and asked me a few questions, and I asked him if it was an animal or a natural object. He said, yes to natural, and he said that we have experienced it for the past few days. I said, rain, and he said no. Then I guessed full moon. He was a spider so I commented and asked him to ask me some questions. I answered one thing by saying it scares some people. He asked if it flew and I said no, but it crawled. He figured it out on his second guess.

Then we were introduced to volunteers from CWU students and staff who managed each of the games provided. A person had to pay $50 to play each. My favorites included picking tootsie rolls from a pumpkin, randomly, especially because two of the three I picked were worth $700 each. Another game I liked was dart throwing, and also beanbag throwing. I made the most money on that last than any other. Oh, I also played one hole of putt-putt golf, and got two of the three balls in the pumpkin’s mouth. We also had “walk around the pool table” and when the music stopped you needed to be on a number. If you were on the number called, you won. There were 10 games to play. Two were guessing games – one the number of candy corn in a small glass jar, and another, guessing the weight of a large pumpkin (52#). I did not win any of those.

Left to right, Nancy overhand throw bean bag (did better underhand), putting golf stance, 2 holes in one cheer, ring toss, and throwing a plastic ball at heavy pins.

After playing a good round of games, we were given a bag lunch. Choices were Ham & Cheese sandwiches, or Peanut Butter/Honey. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the bags, the only thing left was PB/H. I only ate two bites. In the bag was a mandarin orange, Cheetos, and a bag of licorice (not my favorite), so I gave that away. I didn’t really eat much, so had a bite to eat when I got home. I heard my friend over on the west side of the state had steak and oysters at a Peninsula Senior Center dinner, that same evening.

After lunch, we had the costume contest. I was not going to enter, but was urged on by a few people, so I did. We had 16 people competing and we had to describe who we were. I said I was a pumpkin in love. The audience applauded for each of us. I made it to the top 12, and for that received a $4 gift certificate at the Utopia Frozen Yogurt place in town, which also has sandwiches and fruit smoothies. I have never been in the place. Then the final three were chosen, and finally, it was narrowed down to only one. (I don’t know that winning gift.) My favorite was the Orange Cowboy and his Pink Haired wife. He had a stroke and went through physical therapy with me at the Rehab in the first two months of 2010. Willie Nelson’s son was also in the top three placements. The other was a “Hippy Lady.”

After that we were sent back to play more games and gather more money, because the staff had gone around town getting very nice donations from businesses to give out. Things included $20 at several restaurants, free pizza at different places, free combo meals at Dairy Queen and Jack in the Box. Free men’s haircuts, tee shirts, sweatshirts, salsa, BBQ sauce from Rodeo City BBQ, a fishbowl with food and the opportunity to get a fish for it, puzzle and game, Johanson books, some mugs and a Frisbee from Knudson Lumber – a lumber/hardware retailer in EBRG. There were also rose bushes from a nursery.

I got a quite large sweatshirt with the imprint of Knudson’s, one of the Frisbees (which actually glows in the dark) and tall metal travel mug. I gave the metal mug away to a friend because I already have a nice water bottle and do not drink coffee on the road. I bid for two jars of BBQ sauce from Rodeo City BBQ (one for my friend Gloria, and one for us) that was auctioned with Mango-Lime Salsa from Ellensburg Floral. I also received a Large – 2 topping free pizza from Domino’s, and a free men’s haircut from Northwest Barber Shop. The best thing I got was the last purchase of the day for $5,000, and to break a tie, we had to be closest to a letter chosen and told to Olivia (our AmeriCorps volunteer) by the auctioneer. The woman bidding against me was the Hippy Lady. She picked the letter P. I laughed and said, okay, I was going to pick P for pumpkin, but I will pick O for Olivia. I won because the letter was E, and I was closest to it. That is a free trip (any one next year) from the Adult Activity Center. They go to all sorts of neat places, and the trips include lunch, a bus ride, and entrance to whatever it is. The usual cost is $50-80, but this fall, there was an overnighter to Mt. St Helens for $200. I hope there is one next year I can arrange my schedule to attend.

On my way home, I drove by Radio Hill (location of the radio station KXLE), and took some photos and a video for your enjoyment (and mine). John had seen it from a distance, and then drove me by to see it. This supersedes other decorations in Ellensburg, for sure.

Halloween Decorated House on Radio Hill, Ellensburg, WA

This video surely shows our windy days.

Then I tried a selfie and I think a blue ghost got in the way of my black mask — very spooky, indeed! I swear I did not Photoshop that picture.

Saturday, Oct 31 HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

For Oct 30 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 35 min with AHI=2.24 Events: 17 H, 3 CSR, 17 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=17 L/min); no oximeter. All night with old mask.

Morning awakening to blue sky and overnight rain, but now a couple hours later, surrounded by fog. Now, the fog is lifting but the clouds are encroaching. But guess what? The sun just arrived. I spent a bunch of time working on more dirty dishes, and John cut a 5″ strip of the rug away so the new patio door can fit in as intended.

It is raining, not real hard, but it is still rain like we don’t get much of here in the lee of the Cascades. At Noon our moving crew arrived, missing the 15 minutes of sunshine. John explained the situation and advised. The 3 friends, youngish and fit, moved the package and propped it against the back of the house under the soffit, and drove back to Ellensburg, refusing any compensation, except our sincere thanks, for their time and effort. Thanks with great appreciation to Eric Jackson, my friend and former student, and his two helpers. What a great gift of community giving.

I documented as much as possible. “And the rain came down”** before, throughout, and continues after the project – the most we have seen in quite some time.
**”The Rain Came Down”

And now back to Nancy’s video:
Halloween Day: Moving from Shed to Patio

Eric had picked up two strong fellows, one his brother Aaron, the other his friend Alex, and they came out to move our new patio door around from the front of the house to the back patio. It has been in our shed where I park my car, since the summer. (John was out of sorts with Giardia or this would have been done sooner.) Happy to know and report there are still nice young helpful men in our valley. In the video, that is Eric out front pulling the John-made “door dolly” – with wheels from a child’s toy we acquired many years ago, like this:

and this is the final collage of the move onto our patio …

The left photo shows the door on the dolly, middle is final picture against current door, under eaves, and the right is pulling it up the hill on a plank onto the patio.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Just kidding, sort of —

Sunday, Oct 18

Rain all day kept John inside except for necessary feedings of animals. I worked on house chores and the blog. John’s computer and Internet connection worked long enough to publish it. Phew. We are back on track.

On the Buy Nothing Ebrg (BNE) site, I won some jewelry to share with two other friends. One was a Rhino gold necklace (even though it looks silver in the photo below, and the others were beaded bracelets I wanted to give to a friend who is into bead-making projects). The interesting small-world connection is the giver is someone from my past. She was an anthropologist at CWU and married a former student (also an anthro major) who took my Intro GIS class at the turn of the century. In addition, I put a request out for deodorizer aerosol sprays receiving two, and a request for old wooden mousetraps brought me five, to protect our produce (apples) in open boxes in our garage. The mice are ignoring onions and thus far the potatoes, but aggressively going after the Honeycrisp apples. [Local paper headlines a story of rats in EBRG – the brown type “Rattus norvegicus”, not the black type “Rattus rattus.”] {We have little mice and would not know a R. norvegicus from a R. rattus if either bit us on our patooties.} { norvegicus = of or from Norway}

The following collage is of the jewelry, more attractive than the other mentioned acquisitions. Later in the week, I picked it up.
Beaded bracelets on left, rhino gold necklace on right.

Monday, Oct 19

For Oct 18 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 4 min with AHI=1.99 Events: 16 H, 5 CSR, 13 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=16 L/min); no oximeter.

9:30 a.m. we expected the Culligan service (out of Yakima) for our under-sink water system annual service and filter replacement, and at the same time our farrier, who we had to cancel last week for the wood stove installation. Arrivals were such that the Culligan truck got in (John had a few questions), and then the horse shoe truck came (John had to fetch horses.). Both finished before 11. We had noticed the filtered water flow had decreased and it doubled after the new filters were in. One of the joys of living in the country is keeping clean water coming out of the faucets. There will be more about this because the iron removal (whole house tank) died last year and ought to be replaced. It significantly cuts down on the bacteria in the system as well.

After they left, I got ready to go for my haircut, just a mile from my home, at my neighbor’s, who has cut my hair since 1988 (when I started going to her beauty shop she retired from, after surviving breast cancer). We always visit about photographs she has taken on her trips to the hills, and this time we went to her yard to view a beautiful white Iris that is confused, and blooms in the spring and again in the fall. She has given us iris before that you have seen in the blog, planted near our barn, (and are nice because deer do not eat them), but we did not get one of these special twice/year blooming iris.

Below are collages of Celia Winingham’s photography.

We started talking about the top-left one, taken this morning from her front yard on Thomas Road. I saw her photo on Facebook this morning and had also seen the fog in the Kittitas Valley this morning, but we do not have a view as they do. The fog looks like a lake filling the valley. That made her remember another fog picture she took this month on a hunting reconnaissance trip. The bottom photo above of the sunset is taken from Cook Canyon over Coleman Canyon (east of us), and what looks like a lake in the foreground is actually the layer of fog in Coleman Canyon. The photo to the right is her fall iris, taken 10-24-15, with the fall colors and leaves on the ground to show it’s no longer springtime.

That sunset photo made us start talking about our love of sunsets, and she sent me a photo of a recent sunset with Mt. Rainier showing (from the hills above our home), and also others of Rainier from that perspective. The farther east one drives on I-90 toward the Columbia Basin, the better the view of Mt. Rainier. Rye Grass Summit is the high point before dropping into the River gorge.

These views are from our valley, the bottom one being a zoomed image. What a majestic mountain, 14,440′ in elevation.

Back home to lunch with John and to deal with issues over our scholarship donation that was supposed to be handled from our CWU Foundation scholarship account without our intervention in May. There was a mix-up and we didn’t find out until today the money was never dispersed from my scholarship fund to the two students.

Late afternoon I went out with John and picked a bunch of small golf-ball size tomatoes. The plants are mostly gone from shorter days and cold (a modest freeze). There are hundreds of cherry-size fruits and many of the golf-ball size ones. Two plants revitalized after the rain. Their vibrant green in the garden contrasts with all else there.

John found his recently bought wood treatment (one-step stain and polyurethane finish) for possible use on the frame of the screen part of the new patio door. He wants to try it on a pine board so we can see if we like it. The stain part is a color called “pecan” and is slightly reddish. The rest of the door frame has been done in a clear (pine) finish. Minwax has one and here is a photo.

We will be here in the morning, but leave before noon for Yakima for my echocardiogram appointment at 12:45.

I just heard tonight our music is cancelled tomorrow night at the Rehab center because half the building is on lock down (quarantined is a better word), and the piano we need is on that end of the building. This is the group named, The Connections, which sings church anthems with the residents, who have large print lyrics to join in the “choir.” Many of them remember the words to the old songs, including those folks with dementia and Alzheimer’s. This occurrence is always appreciated by us, but especially the staff who have to deal with them daily and realize they cannot remember a conversation five minutes ago.

Late this evening I put another request on the Buy Nothing site for a 60-minute timer. Ours quit working, and it had been a replacement for one we’d had for years that belonged to my mother. Finally on the major clean-up for the wood stove installation last week, I found and threw away the old one of my mom’s. I knew I had thrown it in a garbage bag in our kitchen, but it had gotten carried out with other boxes and furniture and gone into the pole barn in our stock trailer until further processing. A gentlemen on the list who was a CWU prof now retired saw it and said, “Bring me your mom’s timer, and I’ll take a stab at fixing it. I think I can.” Well, that was a great offer but I no longer knew where it was. I spent this week searching garbage bags, and just found it on the last possible bag (after we retrieved it from the stock trailer, and John poured it out in the back of our old pickup). EUREKA !! about 4:00 pm. 10/24/15.

Here is my photo I posted on the BNE site to let people know I will be meeting with the fellow to deliver the timer to see if he can fix it.

My mom and dad married October 13, 1937. I do not know when they bought this timer, but I remember using it all my life. The only Minute Minders I could find on line were no earlier than the 50s, and I never found a like image of any.

Tuesday, Oct 20

For Oct 19 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 28 min with AHI=1.34 Events: 10 H, 4 CSR, 15 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=20 L/min); no oximeter. Slept for another 2.5 hrs.

We worked on a few chores and then left for Yakima for Nancy’s Echocardiogram. Actually, we were 1/2 hr ahead of time for checking in, so John detoured toward Cowiche Canyon, but we actually went up around a basalt outcropping and found a multitude of orchards and nice views near Naches Heights. We came on around, down Schuller Grade Road, off the hill, back near the river and continued on, on Powerhouse Road back to 40th Street, to Tieton Road, and to the Yakima Heart Center, right on time. I was called in at 12:45 and my echo took a little over a half hour. It was on a new examination table that was the most uncomfortable I have even been on. Next year I will take a couple of pillows and a large comforter to make the experience bearable.

We left there for Costco, putting almost 6 gallons of gas in John’s Subaru, and paid the same price as I paid last week, $2.15/gal. We went in for a late lunch, and had something different with our Polish dog & drink. We had a BBQ beef/Cole slaw sandwich. I was not impressed and will never order that again. We had not planned to get much, but (they had special sale items) ended up spending over $100 – most frozen items. We drove back through Ellensburg to take care of my friend’s cat and plants, and then dropped by two Buy Nothing Ellensburg folk’s places to pick up items discussed and shown above.

We forgot to take the parts of the wood stove unused to return for credit, and we meant to take our bill along to pay as well. Guess John will now have to return with the truck and metal cans to recycle, return them, and go to Lowe’s and/or Home Depot to look for wood panel plywood and, possibly, a front door. {Never mind: That has been changed. Now, I have to return Nov 3 (see below), and we will worry about it then.}

I have been working on things such as my mailing list for notifying people of the change in our domain for our various presentations on the web. This time-consuming project has to be completed before Nov 1 when the web address no longer works.

I could not figure the name and password last week to put files onto the web page site on our new domain. Today, I spoke to our provider and he gave me the details of what he used. I was successful in loading two files to work with for our next annual send of greetings for 2015. They will be on the new site

I was happy not to have to go play music tonight.

While at Costco today, we received the cash reward of $63.24 for having a Premium membership at Costco. It costs $110 for the year, but it pays back 2% on all Costco purchases. In February, we also get cash back from using our AMEX card. That will change next March to a VISA card. Currently, with the Costco AMEX we get an additional 4% off all gasoline purchases anywhere. I wonder if that will continue with the Costco VISA. If not, we have another AMEX to use that will pay us 3% rebate. [John says: These cards with rewards and so on are massively fraudulent and immoral. They take your money and invest it until, months later, they give some of it back. Not much wrong with that – just marketing. But, less well off folks – without the fancy cards – pay the same initial price and never get anything back. It is an extra cost to them that helps support the entire system. Sort of a reverse Robin Hood thing. And that’s wrong.]

Wednesday, Oct 21

For Oct 20 CPAP. Reported figures. 9 hrs 9 min with AHI=0.98 Events: 9 H, 4 CSR, 20 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=17 L/min); no oximeter.

I carried a few apples to 3 friends in town, and a box to the AAC and another to the Food Bank. Also, deposited our $250 check received for the wood stove recycle, from the WA Dept. of Ecology. Thanks, taxpayers.

I spent much time on chores with much more time needed. John continues with outside chores, and we have made connections to get some strong young folks to come help move the patio door into place for installation. Only the time now needs to be determined. As mentioned earlier, my biggest chore now is checking through email addresses to be able to notify all our contacts about the new location of our web page annual greetings and this blog. Each in slightly different places on the web.

Thursday, Oct 22

For Oct 21 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 12 min with AHI=1.22 Events: 10 H, 1 CSR, 14 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=18 L/min); no oximeter.

My implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) called – Houston and said “Houston, we have a problem.” Actually I think it called Portland (at 2 a. m.) and left a message with the company saying, in effect, my battery needs swapped out for a new one. So Portland notified Yakima and the Yakima Heart Center called me at 10 a. m. to schedule pre-procedure appointments. Back on August 25, I had 4% left. Therefore, my first appointment is Nov 3 with the surgeon, and another on Nov 11 with my cardiologist, and we’ll likely do the surgery before the end of the year. Phew. Now for planning and arranging the scheduled procedure, and what will be done, as well as altering my Coumadin and other drug medications before the operation occurs.

I went by the home of a gal on the Buy Nothing Ellensburg site to pick up a tablecloth I can use for the upcoming scholarship luncheons and then re-gift it to someone on the list. It is for a 6′ table and we just moved ours out of the den/dining room to be replaced by a hexagonal rounder table & chairs we have had packed out in the shed for several years. I delivered a box of apples, and took a large box and bags to Hearthstone where we played music today, giving to many people there. After that, I went by the courthouse to pick up 4 mousetraps to protect the produce in our garage. [The apples seem to be not keeping as well this year, so we are rapidly giving them away. Ripening apples produce an odor, usually not noticeable. However, with several hundred pounds in the garage (and the temperature has not been very cold) a smell seeps into the kitchen when the door is opened. Ethylene is not supposed to smell, so there’s our mystery.]

Our music venue was delightful. We had 5 guitars, 2 fiddles, a bass fiddle, and a flute. The audience was filled with many good singers who seemed to enjoy themselves very much.

John and I went back to town to hear a talk on the removal of
the Elwha Dam.

It was interesting. On our way to a front row seat, we stopped for hamburgers and chicken nuggets to eat for our supper.

Friday, Oct 23

For Oct 22 CPAP. Reported figures.7 hrs 55 min with AHI=1.89 Events: 15 H, 4 CSR, 14 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=15 L/min); no oximeter.

On the phone with Group Health about the phone call yesterday at 2:31p.m., from 1-978-703-9231. Jeez. S C A M !!!! My insurance provider in Seattle called me back to tell me what they had found out and not to return a call if I got one again. The company, I since found out on line, is in Lowell, MS and is considered a telemarketer.

I went to a scholarship luncheon in Bouillon, near where my old office was. We had sandwiches and a choice of pies: plum or cherry. I had cherry. From there I went for my INR blood draw and on to SAIL exercise class afterwards. From there I visited Rosewood to check on the cat, mail, and plants. My friends are on their return leg but are currently in Arkansas, which I just found out from a picture they sent to Facebook, is The Natural State. That’s a strange moniker for a state nickname. It made me look up the history of nicknames for Arkansas because I guessed it was something else as I was growing up and looking at license plates in the south, and I would have been correct. Here’s the story: It has been nicknamed, The Natural State, since 1995. It had been the Land of Opportunity since 1947. Prior to that from 1923, it was The Wonder State. Other unofficial names have been the Razorback and the Bear state. I grew up in the Peach State (GA), John in the Keystone State (PA), and we live now in the Evergreen State (WA). We have lived in the Buckeye State, the Hawkeye State, and the Gem State. {And the state of confusion!}

Saturday, Oct 24

For Oct 23 CPAP. Reported figures.9 hrs 41 min with AHI=0.10 Events: 1 H, 1 CSR, 13 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=9 L/min); no oximeter. Wow.. What a quiet & long night of good sleep. I guess I needed it.

Cloudy today.
I am going to switch back to working on the blog. I have been spending recent time periods home working on the corrected email address list to send warnings to our friends of the change in the domain for this blog (which you already know about) and for the web pages for annual greetings, and other stories in our life (of WTA trail maintenance trips and log rolling off trucks in our front yard, on the curve we live on). It happened on President’s Day this year, so it will be a part of our 2015 greetings this year, and again, all past blog readers have had the opportunity to see it.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

New wood stove, long awaited, Installation!
Rock N’ Ponderosa {aka Nancy’s Place} launches

Tuesday, Oct 13

For Oct 12 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 19 min with AHI=1.27 Events: 8 H, 6 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=19 L/min); no oximeter.

Today was an exciting and long day. It started late yesterday with a phone call from the installer of our new stove. He was checking to be sure he had everything needed – and to ask to come early so he could finish and get back to see his girl (6th grader) participate in track and field. I had to leave at 8:20 in the morning but I did get to see the arrival – greeted by Annie and John at the back of the house. My 2 photos from early Tuesday:

John took the next 3:
First the stove, still in its protective cradle, sits on the dropped tailgate of the trailer.

The next is picture is of the “Stair Climbing Hand Truck.” The wheels slide up and down and allow an easy movement up and down steps. In our case there was the move from the lawn to the concrete patio, and then from there up and into the house. This machine makes the difficult, easy.

The next photo shows the stove within the stone-tile lined alcove.

He had already rebuilt the “support box” – that is just above the ceiling and firmly attached within the attic trusses. This box protects the ceiling and anchors the insulated and triple wall pipe (through the roof). Black pipe – from the stove – will go into the support box from below. From the web, here is what the support box looks like in new construction. The 4 red stars show the wood supports that need to be added, and to which the black metal is anchored. The set-up built when the house was constructed was not the correct size. Those four pieces had to be removed and reset with the new dimensions. He managed to do this while standing on a ladder and working though the existing hole in the ceiling (drywall). We never had to enter the attic, although we did have to go onto the roof to add the new pipe, collar, and cap.

When we fire the stove up in a week or so, we’ll show the ash drawer, fans, and other stuff. Oh, and flames. It has a glass front. We are curious about this, so will investigate.

Back to Nancy’s day: I took my laptop to town because I’m having trouble with (I think) a worn USB port. One has to take the computer to the store so as to enter the queue. Then it takes its turn, but mostly waits on a bench. It was not ready until evening, so I got it at 6:00 p.m. [on my way to play music at Hearthstone, with The Connections]. The computer crew also fixed a few other things that made it run better. Cost: $43.

Back to morning. I took a large container of chocolate chip cookies I made last night to the retired geographers meeting starting at 9:00 a.m. We had a guest speaker, Jim Pappas, on his month in Greece. Mostly, he was living with relatives in Athens, walking around the city, driving to other places with a nephew, and going on a ferry around many of the nearby islands. It was an interesting discussion for an hour. I left at 10:30 for my drive to a doctor’s appointment in Yakima. John was home assisting with the stove installation. I made it to my appointment and was called in rapidly, but then had to wait 1/2 hr for the doctor to come do the 12 minute (or less) laser treatment on my right foot’s toenails. From there I went to Costco. Gas was ONLY $2.15, and it is $2.34 for the lowest in Ellensburg. Most station are $2.52. The price of oil is going down. What’s up? (I think our cost in Ellensburg is excessively out of line for the region!) Our towns are less than 40 miles apart. [John says: It’s complicated and involves geography and politics.]

I was driving John’s Subaru and not my own, and with the road noise and radio reception not that great, I listened to Trisha Yearwood’s CD all the way down and back. I missed having the Satellite radio (Sirius XM) in my rig. His car needed more gasoline than mine, so that’s why I drove it, and got just a little over 10 gallons, so that was a decent savings. Picked up a few things at Costco, and decided to use a $10 gift card (won at the senior center bingo, I think) at The Olive Garden … nothing (that I wanted) can you get that cheaply for lunch, so I had an appetizer of mushrooms stuffed with seafood. The mushrooms came with very nice bread-sticks, which John and I shared with the leftover mushrooms the next evening for dinner. He fixed up the bread-sticks with butter and Parmesan cheese after halving them. Still the total was $9.19. Wow. I will not go there again; not if I’m paying. I think it has been 20 years since I ate at one. They are celebrating their 25th anniversary this year. Home by way of Super One for my pharmacy needs, and a call to the computer guys alerted me it was not ready to pick up. I went on home, arriving about 4:00 p.m. but just rested and turned around and went back to town for playing music. On my way, I grabbed a dozen marked-down fancy donuts after I stopped and picked up my computer.

Wednesday, Oct 14

For Oct 13 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 5 min with AHI=1.13 Events: 8 H, 5 CSR, 12 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=10 L/min); no oximeter.

Did a few last minute things on the computer before I set it to do its chkdsk. It actually had been started yesterday evening by the computer guys who fixed my USB port and ran other disk verification routines. I only needed to initiate it by doing a restart on my system. Chkdsk was set to clean up my disk storage. I started the program as I left at 11:00 am today. It ran until 5:00 p.m. In case you are wondering what this is, I have Windows 7 as the operating system on my laptop, and it includes a disk-checking tool called CHKDSK, which is similar to the “scandisk” tool from older versions of Windows. This application scans hard drives for errors such as lost sectors, bad sectors, and corruption – then isolates them. One result is that it speeds up the computer processing time. For the record, its performance has changed, noticeably.

I went to the Food Bank for music, and carried 25 pounds of Honeycrisp apples for dispersal at the Food Bank to those in need. I also carried another box to the senior center. I participated in the SAIL exercise class, and members of my class took most of the box of apples. Then went by my friend’s house to clean up her cat’s litter box and get her mail. On home to take care of things and rest, because I was hurting from all the recent activity of cleaning up the den.

Before I left, I wrote our provider for the computer disk space for the blog and for our web pages. We mentioned previously in the blog the need for changing our domain from ellensburg.com and from ccsoe.com. Today that change happened.
The blog is accessible simply by typing in

rocknponderosa.com

No longer will people have to login with a username and password.
Our web pages will be hosted on the same domain – but with a longer address for each. Anything from the past will be there, such as this from 2013,

http://rocknponderosa.com/nancyh/SilverFrost2013.html

Late afternoon we had a nice long telephone conversation with John’s sister Peggy in Ohio, and Pat, 1st cousin once removed***(see below), and her hubby, Ken, who were visiting from PA for a couple of days. I should have called Pat’s mom, Ethel, on my minutes that restart the 18th of every month on my landline allowing me 120 minutes, but we were too swamped on the next 3 days to get together by the phone. John did not come in until after dark, and that is too late to call back to PA.

***Relationship chart

That chart is from here:
http://www.irish-genealogy-toolkit.com/family-history-chart.html

Thursday, Oct 15

For Oct 14 CPAP. Reported figures. 3 hrs 57 min with AHI=7-35 Events: 27 H, 4 CSR, 2 OA, only 2 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=15 L/min); no oximeter.
I don’t know what is going on. I need to see if I can get my Oximeter working again now that my USB port was fixed yesterday. I thought it was the connector cord, but perhaps it was not.

Today was music at Dry Creek/Brookdale assisted living home with only 4 guitars, one singer, and me on fiddle. We did all right, and had an appreciative audience. We received many walk-up thank-yous from the audience, and also got many comments upon leaving, from residents already out in the vestibule. Receiving their thanks makes it worth the effort. One woman said, you give us something to look forward to each month and it is such a nice change of pace.

Friday, Oct 16

For Oct 15 CPAP. Reported figures.8 hrs 12 min with AHI=0.24 Events: 2 H, 20 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=18 L/min); no oximeter. Surely makes one wonder the extreme difference from yesterday, even though I was having trouble with my mask and finally took it off after 4 hrs.

Finally, I cut John’s hair this morning. Long in coming, and only took 20 minutes. A bolt fell out of the stool and a connector cracked. I think his clean up of the kitchen and repairing the barber-stool took longer.

I have done a few easy chores, but I sat most of the day. I was somewhat wiped out I guess from the frenzied cleaning before Tuesday morning, then a long full three days after.

This morning, John managed to figure how to put photos and text onto our new domain for the blog. It will be accessible, as mentioned before, via rocknponderosa.com

We are going to make a sign for the entrance gate with Rock N’ Ponderosa either incised into a log or as raised letters on a big plank. We’ll pass on the fancy laser cut “metal art” name with scenery – See this – unless people send lots of money.

Now my chore is to figure how to do a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) of HyperText Markup Language (html) files up to the domain so I can send links and information there. I failed on my chore on my first attempt Friday. Unfortunately, the name and password for the new domain I do not know, and I have to have that to create the pass though of the files.
[John says: What?]

Here is an example of one web page that used to be on ellensburg.com [such as all our Greetings (annual) are for several years, skipping some]. This is one for 2014 that only a few of you have heard about. I was waiting to notify people when our location domain changed. This is for the year of 2014 annual greetings.

http://rocknponderosa.com/nancyh/2014Greetings.html

We skipped 2013, so don’t look for it. There are ones for 2012, 2011, and 2010, however. Until Nov 1, 2015 all our old ellensburg.com, or our old blog entry will work, but then it’s toast. That means I have to notify everyone of the change. Although anyone going there today will find John’s TEST of the new link from the old. It seems to work for the limited experiment we can do here at home. Seems best, then, just to leave the page there as is to forward people to the new until the end of October.

John cleaned some in the big old shed (a real mess after the squirrels loaded the insulation with walnuts, and all came tumbling down) and came up with a couple of wood-framed antique maps. We have no memory of getting these. Must mean we have too much stuff. I imagine I picked them up at a yard sale, but normally my memory is good. Right now, neither of us has a clue.

His computer just crashed while he was working on a document. It will not restart. That means we are out of luck and any work on the blog until the middle of next week – or maybe not.

We shall now have a late dinner of a pot roast John made today.

Saturday, Oct 17

For Oct 16 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 39 min with AHI=1.44 Events: 11 H, 4 CSR, 10 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=20 L/min); no oximeter.

Early morning we went grocery shopping and to deliver a giraffe horse (stuffed door draft remover) to a family in town. Try this in an images search – drafty door blocker stuffed – . The receiver is a non-traditional student, majoring in Geography at CWU, with 3 kids, one a running start student. The item was too cute to be kept in our dirty house (we used an old shirt), and we are planning to replace the door so it will not have the space at the bottom, allowing the influx of air.

Besides going to 3 different grocery stores, we stopped at Bi-Mart for bolts. John’s making a cart (photo next week) to carry the Pella Patio Door on from the car-park shed to out in the rear to enter where the wood stove was brought in. I have been trying to locate some manpower to help him.

After thinking his computer was toast, he turned it on tonight and it came up. We do not have a clue what happened. He tried the same thing, including unplugging from the wall, yesterday with no luck. Just a blank screen. He had not tried it in 24 hours. He wondered about it running hot because of dust. Before turning it on he vacuumed the dust from the air vents but still needs to open it up and blow the dust and moths out. Once started he deleted 2 programs that came with a copy of ‘WinSCP Setup’ I had asked him to put on his computer. A third one he kept. He thinks there are too many things changing all the time (multiple automatic downloads and so on) to pinpoint the cause of a glitch. So, move on.

I left at 12:55 for town for several drop-offs. To one person I took a box of National Geographics and a selection of science-type magazines. They are to be used in a Discovery group for youngsters to teach science. On my way to play music, I stopped to take care of things at Rosewood for a friend who is traveling out of state. Once at Briarwood Commons Retirement facility, I carried in my stuff and an Easter basket full of Honeycrisp apples for the table.

For the entertainment before eating, we had 4 guitarist and me, on fiddle. One of our members brought his son (guitarist who played with us), and his wife, a singer. After our 23 songs for the group, the couple sang two beautiful songs. The audience was thrilled. The residents had fixed a great green pea soup with carrots and ham. It was not as thick as often such soups are. They had also fixed two types of sandwiches and many desserts for us. I did not need to eat any supper tonight. They said leave the apples but take the basket home. Darn.

I had to stop and pick up some stuff we forgot this morning and some ice cream because we had not taken a cooler with us. On my way home, I dropped off another box of materials to a former geography colleague that she can use in teaching her classes. It was a couple of years of Aramco Worlds, a very nice publication.

Tonight I received on Facebook the fantastic news from CA that our co-owned Brittany’s mom, Ginny, won a 5-point major in an Open Gun Dog event at the S. San Joaquin Valley Brittany Club field trial. An impressive win! with 26 dogs entered. That’s half the points required for a Field Championship (FC), and she already had 2, so needs only 3 for her FC. Earlier, I received photos from Jeri Conklin, of our Brittany, Daisy, who is training to be a gun dog and doing quite well on her education required for holding & retrieving, and from Karen Barrows in Oregon with a first placement on her T’Quila–who has our Brittany lines behind both sides of her pedigree. So, we consider her one of ours.

Left is Ginny with her blue, Daisy on whoa, watching bird fly, then the retrieve, and right is Karen Barrows stacking T’Quila beside 3 of her recent ribbon placements. Blue are 1st place (with field points) & gold (bronze) is 3rd. (2nd is red & 4th is white)

It started raining ever so little about 10 PM.

Sunday, Oct 18

For Oct 17 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 1 min with AHI=1.62 Events: 13 H, 4 CSR, 14 RERA. No major mask leaks (max=15 L/min); no oximeter.

We slept in until after 8:00 a.m., and it is either still or again raining. John took Annie our for about ½ hour, fed hay to the horses, and puttered about some. The NWS (Nat’l Weather Service) thought the rain would go away, then changed their mind. Now at about 3:30, we have cool temperatures, clouds, drips off of things, but no rain. The wind is shifting from out of the NW to more just west where there is dry air. That might not get here until Monday night or Tuesday.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

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