Keeping track

Fires, floods, flowers

Sunday, May 3

For May 2 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 14 min with AHI = 0.61 Events: 6H. No major mask leaks (max=15 L/min).

We are even later posting the blog today than last week, now afternoon.

About 5:00 p.m. at Exit 115, I-90, about 11 miles from our house, we met our friends from White Heron Winery to exchange things. They were on their way home from a weekend at the Farmer’s Market in Seattle where he sells wine and trades other vendors for things they grow or make. We got a loaf of spelt (ground floor) bread and a scone made from whole wheat bread, apples, nuts, and I don’t know what all was in there. We had picked up a lamp with a white heron motif for the winery.

On the way home right off No. 81 Road, about 6 miles from our house, we stopped for a package of dark chocolate baking squares that she was giving away. We will eventually find time to make our Chocolate Crock-Pot Candy and share with her family. This was the same gal we gave our old wheelbarrow too, and it was nice to pull up and see it sitting in the yard.

Most of the day was spent on finishing the blog, but tonight late, John fried some bacon, which I finished cooking in the microwave to make it crispy, while he made a very large pancake with blueberries and pecans. Atop it we had some of the real maple syrup we received from family in PA, and wrote up in yesterday’s blog page with a photo of the special bottle (check back to see last week’s story, if you missed it). We’ve since gotten an email address for a member of the syrup making family, and John wrote some cute memories for me to forward.
Here’s only one paragraph: “The collection and sale of produce from the land has a long history. I remember picking wild strawberries on the hill west of the house. I think your father carried them to Leeper and exchanged for Orange Soda – or some such thing. That was a while ago (60 years?) and I do not recall much about it. I do remember riding bicycles on the road to Leeper. There was a bike with half-circle handlebars, unlike most that have bends or angles. I rode that one. I don’t actually remember being in Leeper on the bikes – but, maybe your Dad returned with cash for our strawberries and then we took the bikes over there to spend it.”

I spent a fair amount of time working on music for our group to start anew with this Thursday, and we will play these tunes for 2 months. I’m still creating it. Will have to manufacture a master and go in to make paper copies, so we have some for each of the players, and more for the audiences. I can do those back to back.

Tomorrow is my main work day to make good progress on music. I hope to use Tuesday to go in for the copying because my Wednesday is too full.

Monday, May 4

For May 3 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 51 min with AHI = 2.03 Events: 18H, 8CSR. 1PP. No major mask leaks (max=8 L/min). All activity was in the last two hours. Weird. After SpO2 oximetry data added, AHI=1.99, and machine was on for 9 hrs 3 min.

Last Saturday we drove north on US Hwy #97. We soon saw this:

My 8 sec. video of the wind towers in action

Then we passed a locally famous photogenic scene. We did not stop and so are using a photo by David Covert. He was working in the same building I did when I arrived here in 1988. During the last couple of fires David reported on the status of this place. People who did not know kept reporting that it had burned. David actually checked.

This landmark was not touched by the Taylor Bridge fire, but many of the trees near it were burned. My next short video:

The Old Barn in 2015

In last week’s blog, I mentioned that any reports on the Fire-Wise presentations/activities would have to wait until I could process the information. It took me an hour just to move the photos from my camera. To upload 12 minutes of a talk took 3 hours and another 15 min one took 4 hrs. While that’s happening, neither of us can use our computers on line, or print anything to our printer. Here’s the start of some, and more are given later in the week.

First – some views on our way to the workshop in the Hidden Valley east of Cle Elum, not far from the Swauk-Teanaway Grange, where the fire crews were stationed and camped. We drove Hwy 97 to get there.

FIRE-WISE WORKSHOP: May 2, 2015

Part I – Carolyn Berglund [about 11 mins.]

Part II – Carolyn Berglund [about 17 mins.]

This is a photo of different types of metal mesh to have on the soffits of your house for best protection. Carolyn Berglund showed us during her talk, and at the break John brought it over to me to photograph.

Part I-Intro Jim Gylling [fire-zone resident; about 9 mins.]

Part II from within Jim’s presentation
[70 seconds of fire fighting information]

Part III Jim talks about large on-site water tanks [under 2 mins.]

Call came today from Lori, a scheduler at the Yakima Heart Center, to make a June appointment with a Physician’s Assistant (PA) for Dr. Kim, and he will staff it (be available for any questions). He is seeing fewer patients (probably because of the time limitation put on him by the system); he usually takes a minimum of an hour with his patients. He only has five days scheduled there in June. July is not published yet for scheduling. I mentioned that I did not want to see a PA, and wanted to see him. He has been with me the entire time and knows all my history since June 2009. He made the decision for my valve replacement, when the team of doctors thought it was too risky an operation for me. His comments were, “We’re going to lose her anyway, so we should take the risk.” John and I were in on the decision-making and aware of the concern.

I talked her into waiting for my 18 May appt with Toni to see how much battery is left, 5 years now having used it. I need to find out if Dr. Pham (surgeon for the implanted defibrillator) discussed the situation of just replacing my battery in the current unit, without making any changes or adding wires. I will take my calendar and check with Lori after we find out the battery life left. I don’t want to visit a PA. I want to see Dr. Kim.

John gave me the info to write the Pella salesman to tell him the outside framing was completely removed, and he hopes we can visit May 18 to finalize the order for a new and fancy sliding glass patio door. Also, the white Subaru is overdue for its oil change. We’ll go by COSTCO for gas and a few things – 8” scissors are on sale – 3 for $7.49, but not much else we need.

Tuesday, May 5

For May 4 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 21 min with AHI = 1.44 Events: 12H, 5CSR. No major mask leaks (max=15 L/min). All activity was in the last two hours, again. Weird. After SpO2 oximetry data added, AHI=1.43 and machine was on for 8 hrs 24 min.

I spent much time on music and accomplished very little else. At least it is done (or so I thought until the first time through with the group on Thursday). Guess that whole project has stressed me the past few days. I rushed to town before 5:00 p.m. with the copies I had to Xerox for the players and the audience.

Wednesday, May 6

For May 5 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 42 min with AHI = 2.09 Events: 14H, 9CSR. No major mask leaks (max=13 L/min). This was my record high AHI since I started the CPAP machine in Oct, 2014.

Today was my day to play music at the Food Bank, go to SAIL exercise after, and by the hospital for my routine blood draw for the INR (required when taking Coumadin). I had a 35-minute wait. I visited nurses in the Outpatient Services to say hi and thanks again for all their help back in 2009 and 2010, on two different occasions when I had to have daily IVs of broadband antibiotics to fight the bacteria in my blood. Each session was 8 weeks. So, I got to know them pretty well. They still call me by name when I walk into the office.

I decided to call the Yakima Sleep Center and leave a message for the nurse of my Sleep Doctor (Kumar), who told me if I ever had any questions to call. My question was if there was anything to explain the high AHI numbers, and if someone would call me when they could.

Tonight we went to a fantastic lecture on the area in central WA as viewed and recorded and described by Tom Taggert, who owns his own Trike 8.

More about that later this week.

Thursday, May 7

For May 6 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 30 min with AHI = 0.35 Events: 3H, 1CSR, 1PP. No major mask leaks (max=13 L/min). After SpO2 oximetry data added, AHI=0.33 and oximeter was on for 9 hrs.

Note the more reasonable AHI recorded last night. My rationale for my high AHI readings for the previous 4 days is that it is stress related.

I finished two extra pages to take for people for today’s music that didn’t make it into our original copied packets – She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain and I’ve Been Working on the Railroad”. Those are at the end of the packet in case we haven’t run out of time by the time we’ve played all the others.

I made it to Royal Vista with all the music, and people got there on time. We had 7 people show to play, and I was able to distribute the music before all the audience arrived.

I talked to Dan at KVC Cle Elum (doctor’s office) about yesterday’s INR=2.5. That’s good and I don’t have to have it checked for another month, or change my Coumadin dosage.

Once home, I had to take my pills and fill up my box for the week. I was 3 shy of one of the meds, so it has been ordered.

I have continued working on the videos taken last Saturday. Here is Suzanne Wade’s Intro to the day and to Matt Eberlein’s talk, which I don’t yet have recorded to You tube to share:

Suzanne Wade’s Introduction to Firewise Day [50 seconds]

I do have the videos of Ken Bevis from the Methow Valley to share with you about his personal experience with the Carlton Complex Fire, and also he is involved with the DNR’s Landowner Assistance Program with Scott Chambers here in Ellensburg to help people suffering losses from wild land fire.

Part I Ken Bevis Carlton Complex Fire [a bit over 12 mins.]

Part II Ken Bevis — his story [about 16 minutes]

Part III ‘FIRESTORM’ — Ken’s own song [about 8 minutes]

My battery quit and so the song video is compliments of another person, Lynnea Thibodaux. She lives in the fire area, about one mile north of the Old Barn.

John fixed an interesting dinner tonight, made from our asparagus (in a peanut butter sauce with cashews), served on baked potato, with our leftover pork from last night. I had so much on my plate, I only ate part, and we shared the remainder the next day for lunch.

Friday, May 8

For May 7 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 8 min with AHI = 0.14 Events: 1H, 1CSR. No major mask leaks (max=10 L/min). After SpO2 oximetry data added, AHI=0.11 and oximeter was on for 9 hrs 26 min.

We were awakened at 7:11 by a neighbor asking about shared irrigation water. We didn’t get to bed until after midnight, so we were not happy. I stayed up a little while, but laid down off my CPAP and with my oximeter on and slept almost another couple hours. John stayed up but then took an afternoon nap.

John is spraying weeds, building fence, watering, and reported a sad finding: only two of his 10 blueberry bushes are alive; hopefully, they will come back from the roots?

I’m working with bills, filing, updating monthly and daily records, blog, music, and all manner of things, including taking videos from my cameras and posting on You tube.

Here’s the good news, mentioned earlier in the week. I did not have to wait until May 18. Got my call from Lori about Dr. Kim, and she was able to schedule me with HIM, Dr. Kim, my regular Cardiologist on the 14th of July. I’m quite happy.

John will be able to pick up my meds tonight, when he goes in for gasoline, spray paint (photos next week), lawn mower blade/filter/spark-plug, cat food, and doughnuts for next week’s Emeritus Geography Faculty meeting. He also stopped at the (cheap) Grocery Outlet store.

Saturday, May 9

For May 8 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs with AHI = 0.43 Events: 3H. No major mask leaks (max=14 L/min).

John left at 7:00 a.m. for working on trail at Denny Creek (over Snoqualmie Pass) but they worked on the Franklin Falls trail instead. They use the same parking area. As John left, Woody was ready to be fed, so I did.

Late last night I wrote Tom Tabbert asking for links to his great videos he showed us Wednesday night. This morning he responded, from their cabin in Elk River, ID (near our old stomping grounds when we lived in Troy, ID for 15 years).

I’m staying home today (with a very irritating runny nose) and not going to the Bluegrass Jam session in the Yakima Canyon at Big Pines Campground. I need to finish this blog and accomplish other tasks needing done, cleaned up, by the back patio door needing replaced. My time was wasted a lot by lack of an Internet connection to complete the work I planned, so I washed dishes and did other things not requiring being on line. It was very frustrating. Finally, after resetting my router twice, the connection returned.

The first video from Wednesday is mine of Nick Zentner introducing Tom Tabbert, then Tom introducing the night’s program, and the Trike, via video. You’re better to just watch the first 3.5 minutes of the following video, and then switch to Tom’s Channel on You Tube to pick up the original video.

Nick’s intro

Tom Tabbert explains what he flies

ICE AGE FLOODS PART I
LAKE MISSOULA AND THE CLARK FORK DAM
Tom’s video here: LINK. Questions & Answers next. LINK.

ICE AGE FLOODS PART II
EFFECTS ON EASTERN WA
Tom’s video here: LINK. Questions & Answers next. LINK.

ICE AGE FLOODS PART III
GLACIAL LAKE LEWIS AND WALLULA GAP
Tom’s video here: LINK. Questions & Answers next. LINK.

Sunday, May 10 HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY

{Photos below of plants along our driveway (a dry sage brush – steppe environment) blooming this week.}

{Columbia Puccoon}

{white Lupine}

For May 9 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 57 min with AHI = 0.38 Events: 3H No major mask leaks (max=15 L/min). After SpO2 oximetry data added, AHI=0.29, and oximeter was on for 10 hrs 12 min; I was not sleeping all that time, though.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Mother’s Day

Word Press seems not to want to post the full week’s blog so until we figure out what is happening you get to see flowers.

Lots of starts – stay tuned

Sunday, Apr 19

For Apr 18 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 49 min with AHI = 0.26 Events: 2H. No major mask leaks (max=15 L/min).

I ended last week with the offer of hens & chickens to the Buy Nothing group. We had 5 requesters until I cut off accepting “orders.” My first idea to carry each container to one person to separate further and share with others, did not “pan” out. So, I found that my friend on the other side of the valley, from whom we got our starts several years ago, would give a pot to the person living closest to his end of the valley (SW). We are NE of Ellensburg. Then I had 4 people to cover. John and I parceled the larger pot into three and I was able to share with 4 happy people, and meet them in town to deliver from the back of my car. Therefore, that good deed is done.

We actually worked on last week’s blog until late into the night (early morning). It was not published until near noon (this Sunday’s will be after noon). We ate lunch and went about 20 miles away to the NW for picking up a give-away item from the Buy Nothing site.

On our way, we slowly traveled a long rocky road (driveway) to pick up the freebie. I was the passenger until we got to the first gate, which John had to open and close, and I became the driver. [Seasoned rural travelers either drive or sit in the middle and let the ‘shotgun’ rider do the gate thing.] Before that exchange, I took the photo below of Arrow Leaf Balsamroot, Lupine, Columbia Desert-parsley (dark purple bunches middle bottom), the white – not identified, and rocks.

We visited for ½ hour. The freebie was a truck toolbox, seen below, loaded behind the cab of the Ford. Previous occupants of the place just left it, and the current occupant wanted it gone. There are no keys but it is in very good condition. Haven’t found a date. We came home slowly, talking to John’s sister, Peggy, in OH, most of the way back. The photo below shows it and the trees blooming in our orchard (cherry left, plum right).

Dinner tonight was Copper River Salmon, baked potato with cheese, mushrooms, and asparagus (now from the garden), and a side of tomatoes (from glass-houses in British Columbia).

Monday, Apr 20

For Apr 19 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 15 min with AHI = 0.00 Events: none. No major mask leaks (max=12 L/min).

Called Nelle Brannen for 91st birthday today, but had to leave a message, so I sang her Happy Birthday!

Nothing much else to report today. John worked outside on many different projects (one today was planting more onion starts you saw in last week’s blog), and I worked inside, getting ready for the big trip tomorrow, to Yakima, early.

Tuesday, Apr 21

For Apr 20 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 47 min with AHI = 0.15 Events: 1H. No major mask leaks (max=11 L/min).

To YAK: I drove on the trip down, and John drove home. We went by the Medical Supply place and got my 3-month replacements on filters, tubing, mask, and parts for my CPAP machine. I cannot believe the amount of money they charge Medicare. I do not plan to spend that much every 3 months, $358.33, when my 13 months of free supplies is over. I can find filters and such a lot cheaper on line and with free shipping. I should have been initially set up with a medical supply place in Ellensburg (there is one, but I didn’t know and was assigned to one in Yakima, where my doctor is). Knowing after the fact is not good. I thought I was on top of things, but obviously, I was not. At least I can share information with those needing supplies but living here.

We went next for a laser treatment on my right foot’s toenails. It is finally doing some better, and my next appt is 3 months away instead of one. On to Costco for gasoline (a dime a gallon cheaper than Ellensburg; we get another dime/gal. off using our AMEX card with 4% payback), and while there we picked up a few things and ate lunch. We drove back through Selah to check out a Pella door (very nice) to replace our old patio door, badly in need after 34 years of use, and probably it was not a decent door to begin with. This house was shoddily built in 1981, with inexpensive materials by a construction company who did not have a good reputation. (We didn’t know any of this until we bought it and moved in, in 1989.) One of the first things we realized was the towel racks in both bathrooms, main and guest (smaller), were put through the dry wall but not into the 2×4 support. It has gone downhill from there. Don’t get us started.

Here are a few photos of the Pella Patio Door in their shop in Selah, combined to a collage.

John Mayer, owner, in front of a Pella door as seen from the inside of the house. The display door in this photo is knotty alder, but we will be getting unfinished pine; but there are several options. Note, there is a screen on the inside. There will be blinds as well, in the glass, but not pictured here. Because the blinds are inside two layers of glass, there isn’t a cord hanging nor do they gather dust. The middle photo is of the outside. The photo on the right is from the outside (the white), looking toward the sliding door wood frame, and past to a Pella sign over another Pella window. Our current door’s handle is dark metal, inside and out, and when receiving full sun, I need a glove or potholder when touching the handle. {John says: Why didn’t I spray paint it white after the 1st summer?}

We were late returning home, but I had to turn around and head back to town, stopping off at friends to deliver Tylenol and pick up eggs. On to Royal Vista and to the room of a 92-yr old friend who was transferred there from the hospital to recuperate and get back on his feet. He is in our exercise class at the senior center, so we all anxiously await his return. I went to play religious music with The Connections (a monthly offering). I had told his wife we started at 6:30, and she planned to be there. I went to his room, and wheeled him down to the dining room. Shortly, she arrived, and then a bit later their daughter and her husband arrived. It was a nice family affair. He was particularly happy to be singing the anthems, because he was moved in there on Sunday, and they missed going to church.

I came home for a late dinner; John had heated chicken Alfredo – Costco style with several additions, because theirs is quite plain.

Wednesday, Apr 22

For Apr 21 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 53 min with AHI = 0.45 Events: 4H,1CSR. No major mask leaks (max=10 L/min).

I left home before the excitement of the day with the road across the street from our driveway entrance. Our neighbor, Ken, saw the ditch (irrigation canal) was eroding the gravel beside the road. [This use of road-sides for carrying irrigation water is historical but now causes headaches for the county road folks.] He came and told John, and John went to retrieve a shovel and rake. The two of them cleared out the obstructions (mostly cattails) and sent the water on down until the county can come fix it. Stay tuned.

On my way to the Food Bank, I drive near the house of someone who had a pair of black jeans to give to John. I called when a block away to see if the timing was good for him. I stopped and got them, thanking him very much.

Next stop was the Food Bank to provide music. There we have an appreciative and participatory audience. The photo below shows the main leaders having a blast. I do not know the song we were singing when this photo was taken, but we obviously were whooping it up.

Above we have Peg, Bob, Kyle (a high school student on ukulele), Evelyn (banjo), Nancy (fiddle), and Joanie (viola). The table in front of us fills up with our fan club after they are served. We start playing before folks go through the line for food. They are given packets of music with the lyrics, so they can sing along (and many do).

Food today was chicken Alfredo (funny my having it twice in two days), salad, and nice green beans. Dessert was peach cobbler.

Today was the scheduled delivery of Hens and Chicks to different people and picking up another gift from a gal on the Buy Nothing site. You have already seen the photo of the pots of hens and chickens we shared (last week’s blog, Saturday). Today, I met a gal who lives out on Hwy 97, but she met me at the center where I was going for my exercise class. Once inside, I met the other person, for receiving her gifted inflatable travel pillow that she did not realized leaked until after she posted it. I took it anyway, in case I could fill it otherwise and use it. Below is the photo she posted on line.

The black thing on the bottom is the valve to blow it full of air. The black label at the top is the maker of this Sandman travel pillow, from a company in CA called Eagle Creek. Note the top has a pocket. Turns out that is the way to fold it into a smaller item to transport it when deflated. Look further down this blog to learn the rest of the story.

After class, I drove a few blocks north and stopped to drop off another pot of hens & chicks. Then I stopped by another place to pick up several pairs of jeans for John. Thus far, he has tried on only one pair, and they are 6” too long, so we will have to hem them. Meanwhile, Saturday this week, he put them on in the morning and worked in them all day with rolled up cuffs. The others are marked 38/32 and should fit just fine.

While I was at that place in town, I called about my next delivery person to let them know I was on my way. She answered her phone and said, “Oh, I forgot you were coming by, and I’m down at Ace Hardware, but getting ready to leave.” I told her where I was, and she said she would be there in 5 minutes. We had a nice visit and exchanged the plants. That saved me an out-of-the-way trip to her home.

Once home I worked with the travel pillow and decided it truly was broken, so I looked on line to see if I could find it perhaps to buy a repair part. Look what I found!! It is sold with a lifetime warranty, assuming normal wear. This one is in new condition (except for the valve on the bladder not working). They now cost $24.00 and do not come in the fuchsia color. This link will provide a description of its use. I want it to support my neck while using the CPAP machine, because I never can make a regular pillow work. In certain situations, I had used a small pillow given on airplanes, but this seemed better. We’ll see.

I continued searching on their site and found the closest repair shop to me was in Portland, OR. I found their phone # and decided I needed to call to be sure they were still providing the service. The person I talked with said they did, but he thought I was talking about a piece of luggage, so he checked and found out they could work with the pillow too. The bladders cost $7.99 (I had found from the main site), so I suspect they can just replace the bladder and send the pillow back to me. I must pay the postage to get it there, but they cover the return. Stay tuned.

Thursday, Apr 23

For Apr 22 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 12 min with AHI = 0.49 Events: 4H,1CSR,1PP. No major mask leaks (max=10 L/min).

More medical appointments needed made this morning at heart center regarding a time to check the battery on my ICD. That will happen May 18, 11:00 a.m. (in honor of Mt St Helens’ 1980 eruption). I hope my battery still has lots of life left in it, so I do not have to be “opened” to have it changed. New ones last 8 years; mine has been in for 5 years.

I also called around and found a person to notify at the county about our eroding road situation. She is at the Kittitas County Public Works. She gave me her email address so that John can write a report description and add to the pictures to send her. She will then forward it all to the director to make the work order – if warranted. Stay tuned. Here is the photo that John sent along with the description. He had to outline where the erosion was happening because he did not think to take a “before” photo. If this gets cleaned out, we may get the material (soil and plants) deposited on our land and can then use it on the landscaping scars created earlier in the month.

Today, we entertained with old time music at Hearthstone and had a good turnout of audience and players. Everyone enjoyed themselves. Volunteers always serve the residents tea, coffee, and cookies while we play and then offer some to us at the end. Our diabetic player was not there today, but they always provide sugar-free cookies for her. Pretty thoughtful.

Dinner is at the Moose Hall tonight, for Volunteer Appreciation to all folks throughout the community who provide free services around town. John and I are both invited, as are the rest of our group. We only had 6 of the musicians there. We had a nice dinner of spiral ham, scalloped potatoes, salad, and a roll. Desserts were numerous, but our favorite was fruit (strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries) on our cake pieces. We both chose the same things independently, an Oreo cheesecake and a lemon coconut cake, topped with the fruit combo. I also got a large cream puff later that I shared with John, and he got two other pieces-chocolate peanut butter and carrot cake. We picked up our friends from Hearthstone and took them with us. Because of illness, it was their first time out in public with a bunch of (non-family) people in almost 9 months, but they did well and were happy to be seen. That’s a line I used to use when people saw me after I was in the hospital, and said, it’s so nice to see you. I’d return with, “Yes, it’s good to be seen.” We got home before dark and John was able to feed the outside critters.

Friday, Apr 24

For Apr 23 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 48 min with AHI = 0.57 Events: 5H, 1CSR, all at the end of my session with phone call interruption, John’s leaving, and mask needing adjustment.
No major mask leaks (max=12 L/min).

John was up early and left at 6:45 for working on trail maintenance at Asahel Curtis, on the other side of Snoqualmie Pass. He ran into light-wet snow on the pass, but only had to work in mist for most of the day. There was snow at an elevation above them. He got his clothes rather muddy, but luckily had overalls on so could strip them off for the trip home. He did not have his camera along, but saw many yellow blossoms on a Skunk Cabbage. The plant is common in these wet areas on the west-facing slopes of the Cascades. His crew dug a trench across the trail and installed a plastic culvert, like this:

. . . then covered it with rock and sandy material, the latter gathered from the pit where a large tree had toppled over that pulled the roots out. Hikers do not see the culvert while hiking. What they see is a rocked-in trail over a wet spot, as this:

I spent time this morning filling out the paperwork to send with my travel pillow for repair. John had found me a nice heavy-duty box, just the right size, but I had to black out the labels I could not remove. The one side was completely white so I made nice readable labels for the return address and the address, taping them on with clear strapping tape. Here is a photo of the pillow folded into itself, and then I packed it into a Ziploc bag, wrapping the instructions around it.
I needed to leave about 11:25 to get to CWU for a scholarship (donation) luncheon. I lucked out and found a spot in a parking lot near the oldest building on campus (Barge Hall), where our lunch was. I’m certainly glad my retirement gold watch was a free permanent campus parking sticker. We had a very nice full chef’s salad (fix your own), with lettuce, carrots, sunflower seeds, shrimp, ham, tomatoes, and 3 different dressings, with garlic bread on the side. For dessert was angel food cake with whipped cream/strawberries layering. We had two fruit drinks to pick from.

After that, I drove to the post office to mail my package with the pillow. That was an experience. I had researched the day before and found nothing about parcel post, only priority package mail. I called and talked with the postmaster at the university mail services and he told me to ask for parcel post. When I did, the postmaster at the Ellensburg P.O., said they no longer offer that, and it would have to be sent Priority. It weighed less than a pound, and did not exceed 12″ in any direction, but the cheapest price was $5.75. I get automatic tracking on it, insurance to $50, and it is due to be delivered Monday. We’ll see about that. Yes, another stay tuned.

Before I went to my SAIL exercise class, I stopped to pick up my meds from Super 1. As I rounded the curve off Main St., I saw a sign for free trees at a local realtor. I got my meds and still had time to drop by and pick up a Ponderosa Pine in honor of Arbor Day. John planted it in a plastic pot – when he got home.
Also, on the way home, I stopped at the Grocery Outlet, to take advantage of two “WOW!” offers. I got a bag of navel oranges, some creamy peanut butter, which we spread on cookies from Hearthstone, plus I got some canned food for the kitties and the doggies.

Saturday, Apr 25

For Apr 24 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 45 min with AHI = 0.39 Events: 3H. No major mask leaks (max=4 L/min).

I spent time today downloading the last video on the heart course, as well as the quizzes. Had to do that before it disappeared from the web.

John was pulling a garden hose across the driveway and a large mud-encrusted pickup approached. The driver, Bret Daugherty (with Keaton, his daughter), is the timber contractor harvesting the fire-killed trees up in Naneum Canyon. I had asked Bret (via e-mail) about a load of smaller logs that we could use for firewood. He has to make his bid for the entire parcel, but mills don’t want trees under a size that can be used for a 2 x 4. Large damaged trees are not wanted, so there are those too. He has a load with about 15 chords ready to bring down – next week. I went out to say hello (John had Bret call me).

Keaton had picked flowers for her mother. She had 3 varieties but a tiny red one isn’t showing in this picture. She is almost 6 years old and knows how the timber harvest machines work but needs to grow some to reach all the pedals and levers.

It’s cooler today, and the wind is blowing again. It was only 58 F at 2:00 with gusts up to 31 mph. The wind increased, finally sent John in after 4:00 p.m. — blowing the fine grit into his face. The gusting to 38 mph, lasted for two hours.

I washed and dried a tub full of clothes, but John still has heavy work clothes on the front porch, wet and muddy from yesterday’s trail work. We’ll get to them tomorrow.

We have had a very large lemon on the counter for weeks. It is a wonder it didn’t spoil. Recipes for lemon bars and other such things seem complicated and want things we do not have. Thus, it just sat there. But today we are also out of anything that qualifies as dessert. When John came in he decided to fix something. He started with a boxed chocolate cake, added the lemon (juice, pulp, & zest {colorful outer layer}), and a bunch of blueberries. While that baked, he started supper. We had spiced chicken thighs with mushrooms and onions, and toast with melted Havarti cheese, and I cut a tomato. About the name of the cheese (and 7 others): see this: Famous Cheeses

Sunday, Apr 26

For Apr 25 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 7 min with AHI = 0.70 Events: 6CSR,5H. No major mask leaks (max=14L/min). All the activity happened in the 45 min, so I suspect it was mask related.

Sadly, John just came in and said it was cold enough to freeze all 8 of his tomato plants. We weren’t on top of the weather, and thought it was not going below freezing, but went to 28 F at the airport 5 miles south.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Sunny, Windy Week

Sunday, Apr 12

For Apr 11 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 39 min with AHI = 0.30 Events: 1H, 1 OA. No major mask leaks (max=17 L/min). Battery off much of the night on Oximeter.

Day going by too rapidly. Not doing well. My congestion is back and I have other problems with my system and my computer system. My oximetry USB port is not working. It shuts down my computer system and presents a blue screen. I will stop using it until I can get a replacement. I need to make more progress on taxes and forget all the external stuff.

I did another Simply Saline solution through my nostrils and hope it helps. Downloaded all my heart course lecture videos and notes for another day, when I have time. Washed a load of dishes and made some progress on the counter. Rest of the time was spent on tax preparation.

Monday, Apr 13

For Apr 12 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 1 min with AHI = 0.12 Events: 1H, 1PP. No major mask leaks (max=12 L/min).

We learned a lot about taxes this week and will explain, in bits. First, CWU (a screwup there years ago) sends a “make-up” payment to me twice a month. After 20 minutes or more on the phone with 5 different people or leaving messages, Melany in Benefits called Payroll for me. They will send me a W4P (withholding for Pensions). Five years ago they told us tax withholding could not be done because of the manner by which they were paying for (fixing) their mistake. Apparently they discovered they could but never told us. Anyway, that amounted to over $600/month that required us to keep in mind for tax purposes. Easily said, and easily forgotten when other things happen. More follows through the week.

Meanwhile, John has a multi-delivery trip planned for the vineyard folks at White Heron and left about 8:30 A. M. He has baby pine trees and firewood, and also fire-bricks (from Troy, Idaho – 30 years we’ve had these). Cameron wants to build an outdoor pizza oven. He also thinks he can buy a greater variety of pyrotechnic devices for a 12-gauge shotgun than for a 20 g., that he has. So, John is loaning his semi-auto Browning 12. A couple of years ago a device fired from the 20 g. mis-behaved and set the county on fire. Well, that part of the county just outside the vineyard. John took the newer truck, loaded with about 1/3 of a cord of wood – think Raclette, come January.

I continued working on my Turbo Tax software, and Jeff T helped me from Tucson, AZ on line with me co-browsing on my computer, trying to fix my problem. I accidentally did something that worked, as we worked through it, so I ended up teaching him something too, and he helped me with the other problem (an override needing removed in a column).

Tuesday, Apr 14

For Apr 13 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 35 min with AHI = 0.26 Events: 2H, 1PP. No major mask leaks (max=18 L/min).

We both went to the Emeriti Geography meeting. Quite a crowd there, at Hearthstone’s Activity Room. We carried along a dozen donuts along with napkins and plates, and they have coffee, tea, and hot chocolate available there for the residents and their guests. While in town, we stopped for 5 gallons of gas for my car to tide me over until I’m back in Yakima next week. The price there is 20 cents less/gallon than what I paid today. Then by the grocery store for a sandwich to share for lunch, and by the post office to mail my USB cord on my Oximeter that quit working. It’s going back to Wheeling, Illinois, where I purchased it. They are replacing it with a new cord. Wow. I never expected that! I’ll probably be a week without it, or almost. I wear it every night and coordinate with my CPAP data for the night. I paid for 2-day Priority delivery that was supposed to get there by Thursday. [John says – there being no proof the cord is the culprit.] (Nancy says, oh yes, I tried it on two different computer receptacles and it does not work. I have my mouse hooked into one, and the other is on the opposite of the laptop, and where I put the flash drive to load pictures, and blog stuff to transfer to John, and upload the oximetry data. The cord does not work in the other one either, but all the other stuff (including the mouse) still works in the normally used receptacle.)

We came home and found Fed Ex had left a very large and heavy package in front of our garage door, inside the front fence. It is John’s new purchase to replace the old wheelbarrow he gave away last week via the Buy Nothing site. It is called a (Gorilla) dump cart as demonstrated on the right.

Meanwhile, this photo above on the left shows the cart and the sturdy tires; it will fit 3 five-gallon buckets he can use to carry water to wayward plants (now, where are the lids?), or just the right amount of hay for 5 horses. The handle can be reset to pull behind a lawn mower or tractor using a pin-hitch. The company uses the rating for the tires (300 pounds) multiplied by 4, to claim a maximum load of 1,200 pounds. That’s crazy – as is the hypothetical assembly time of 30 minutes. That’s fantasy. And, a long reach or 2 people are needed to tighen the bolt on the screws. Still, it is a nice cart and more functionable than the old wheel barrow.

I finalized our taxes, wrote a check for thousands of $, and drove to the P.O. at Kittitas, WA (10 miles away), to mail them. It was a rocky ride, particularly on the drive north, as the winds were gusting from the west at 49 mph. I had to hold both hands hard on the steering wheel to keep it on the road.

This afternoon I got a call from a fellow named Jay, in Yakima, with the Dept of Ecology in charge of air quality. He talked to John and me about the grant he helped write. We have to see if we qualify to participate in the program. He thinks we might. (John says we won’t.) I don’t expect we will either, because it is not our sole heat source, and we are not polluting the air quality. At the least we will be able to receive $200 for our old Earth Stove, but we’ll likely have to carry it to Cle Elum in June.

I’m still congested with my sinuses, and tonight I skipped singing and playing with The Connections at the nursing home.

The other thing that came in the US postal mail was a large package of whole cloves. The one pound package cost $15. The local grocery wants $7-$10 per ounce. That’s outrageous. As needed, the whole cloves can be placed in a plastic bag and smacked with a hammer – or we can get a grinder (now trying the Buy-Nothing site).
I’m rather tired today; hope to sleep well tonight.

Wednesday, Apr 15

For Apr 14 CPAP. Reported figures. 5 hrs 35 min with AHI = 0.36 Events: 2H. No major mask leaks (max=8 L/min), should have worn Oximeter even though I cannot unload data until I receive the new replacement cord. Turned off CPAP during the night, and don’t remember why. Regardless, it was off from just after 2:00 a.m. to after 4:00 when I realized it. Don’t think the electricity blipped; no clocks to reset.

Today was Food Bank music and SAIL and by south Pearl St. to pick up a box of wool and cotton socks for John, given by a gal through the Buy Nothing Ellensburg list. As an introduction, here is an image from the Buy Nothing site. It is around the U.S. You can check for a location near you. Today attached to my bag of goodies with 3 shirts and more socks, was a printout of this with my name on it.

I began tracking my package to Illinois today. It claims it will arrive tomorrow, and it left Yakima, WA last night at 9:06 p.m.

I sent a Wall Street Journal article on water in CA to the Geography Emeriti (neat article that is a good follow-up to one of our many discussions yesterday). The State of Washington has a large irrigated part and expects water shortages and fires this summer. Such are the consequences of a naturally dry region and poor planning, or lack thereof.

The final thought on the tax problem. When one begins receiving Social Security Benefits nothing is said about taxes. If that is about all one has, there are no taxes. However, if in a given year you receive too much other income, then the IRS jumps you into a higher line in their tax-table where the numbers a lot larger. Two things happen: first you now owe taxes on 85% of your SS and the rate is higher, and the base tax has an extra zero. Ouch. We took extra money out of my IRA for a purchase and triggered this hit.

After an inquiry and some searching, we found the form to change from no withholding to a percentage amount. John had already upped the amount coming from our funds at Vanguard so we went with the lowest (7%) with the SS. Now if we don’t trigger the tax-table-jump, we will be on the receiving end of a IRS refund. Oh well.
I found and printed the required forms for withholding taxes from our Social Security Benefits and we can mail them. Thankfullly, we do not have to go in person to the (unpleasant) office in Yakima.

Corrected two notes in our Red River Valley music score, and already had changed one of the lyrics mistakes from site to sit. There are only 3-4 of our folks who actually follow the notes, and the rest need only the chords and the lyrics. Violins, viola, and clarinet require the notes.

Thursday, Apr 16

For Apr 15 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 29 min with AHI = 0.27 Events: 2H. No major mask leaks (max=11 L/min), with SpO2 added, x hrs xx min AHI = 0.xx. may be able to add when USB cord is returned.

John left for town to buy railroad ties for his project of constructing a loading dock; note, a 45-second explanation video in last week’s blog, on the end of Wednesday as Loading Dock Plans. Look back for that link if you care, and realize we do not own a motorcycle or a snowmobile, as John mentions in his description, but yes, we do own a riding lawnmower, and maybe the only reason to load it in the truck would be to get its tire, engine, or belt fixed. [John says: this will be less useful to us than to some future owner; thus it is an investment and selling point.] The direct cost will be less than $200 and it is a place to hide some of the rocks turned up by the recent land scalping.
John stopped on his way home and got roasted turkey meat for a sandwich that we put together with cheese, tomato, and an onion-infused bun.

Here’s the picture (on left) I took on my way to town, of John’s truckload of railroad ties. To the right of the truck is a blooming plum tree. The ties weigh almost 200 pounds each. When I returned he had 5 of the 10 unloaded beside their intended site.

We had 9 people today at Dry Creek and a number of satisfied customers. I stayed and talked with two gentlemen after everyone else left. They love our music and the attention before and afterwards. It is rewarding to us to see their reactions.

Sadly, my package that was supposed to make it in 2-day Priority mail made it to the Illinois town, but only just before noon at the post office, without enough time to make the delivery routes. It won’t be delivered until tomorrow. Bummer.

The mountains got a bit of new snow and are bright white. Happily, on my way home, I had my camera and was able to stop along the side of Look Rd, only 7 miles from our home, and take a photo of Mt. Stuart, a gorgeous mountain, 9,415 feet high. It is about 33 miles away. At the house we do not have a view of it.

Here is a brief explanation:
Mt. Stuart Range

Nick Z. has a full lecture with slides following the 46 minute mark, and we heard the original lecture in 2010.

Watch Nick talk about Mt. Stuart

Once home, John gave me a tour of the work he’d done in my absence, and while walking around the yard, I took a shot of our lovely native Oregon grape plants, near the piled rocks from the recent clearing up from the proposed site of the loading dock. Interestingly, the roots (split open) are the same color as the flowers – bright yellow. Very early new leaves (or dying ones) are often reddish or fringed with color. There is some of that at the bottom of this plant just left of the center in the photo. Deer do not bother them.

Here, we have tall bushy plants, but there is a similar (lower growing) plant in the Cascade Mountains.

On the Naneum Fan

In the Cascade Mountains

Friday, Apr 17

For Apr 16 CPAP. Reported figures. 9 hrs 9 min with AHI = 0.11 Events: 1H. No major mask leaks (max=7 L/min).

Below is a photo of the fence we mentioned in last week’s blog made from part of our pallet collection donation of 7. Note the cinder block base.

When I put a request for concrete blocks on the Buy Nothing site, I used the pictures below of what we sought. The ones in the photos have small openings as they are intended for load-bearing walls. The ones we got have bigger openings. They will be laid sideways to provide drainage so either type can serve this simple purpose.

I only received one return (from the person with whom we’d shared our pallets).
This afternoon, we picked up 6 cinderblocks from her front steps on the way to a Geography colleague’s retirement party. It was held at a noisy bar, so we didn’t stay to eat, just visited, had a piece of cake, listened to the congratulatory remarks, presentations, bid our adieus, and left.
I won a pair of rubber soled boots on the Buy Nothing site, and picked them up Saturday afternoon on my way home. I was supposed to get a travel pillow Saturday but the gal did not make it there as planned. Sunday, we are picking up a metal tool box for John’s truck, from a place about 20 road miles (but just 9 mi.) NW of us (another offering on the BN site). We have some mesh-fence (aka chicken wire) that might work for her desire to build a chicken coop. So this will also be an observational trip – she being an ex-student friend.

Yesterday, I added this on the Buy Nothing site and have had a couple of hits. Only one for sure that I will pick up next Wed. Here was the request. While I’m on a roll, how about I put another wish out for my better half who works so hard around our place, and others. He’s in need of jeans — no matter if holes, as we have the iron now and the patches to fix. Anyone with jeans or heavy-duty work pants, size 38/32? Would love to take any extras off your hands [ or legs, :-)] I suppose a longer length would work as well, and he can roll them up, or hem them. Thanks for your consideration.

Today’s shipment came in the mail late afternoon, delivered Priority Mail ~~ John’s onion starts for this year’s garden.

Saturday, Apr 18

For Apr 17 CPAP. Reported figures. 5 hrs 50- min with AHI = 0.17 Events: 1H No major mask leaks (max=9 L/min), but turned off from about 1:20 until just before 3 a.m.

Going to play music at Briarwood. I took two packages of cut-up small pieces of cheese bread to give to them to serve with soup. It was Minestrone, full of great vegetables. They also provided enchiladas, sausage and rice, and several salads. Our bass fiddler, husband on violin, and their baby born the end of December joined us today. We only had a few others: 2 guitars, viola, & me. It was a fun group and they made special baby cookies in honor of Lev (the baby).

Tonight, I put out an offering (below) to the Buy Nothing site and had an incredible response. Now we have to figure the easiest way to distribute them. My preference is to deliver the two containers and let the recipients take what they want and share the rest. I cut it off Sunday morning, and we have five to share the goods.

Instead of our multitude of recent requests, here is an offering from “farmer” John. He has raised these “Hens & Chickens” inside one of his gardens (6′ fence keeps out the deer), who dearly love them. Mostly these two containers have chicks, but need to be thinned and replanted. We hope there are two families to share with and each could share what you don’t want with other families. To be considered, please tell us (1) your favorite plant and why, (2) one you remember from your childhood, and (3) what you will do with these? 🙂 Nancy & John H

The metal can on the left is 6 inches wide and has over 25 segments. Information at this link:
More than you need to know

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Loose Ends

Sunday, Apr 5

For Apr 4 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 22 min with AHI = 0.41 Events: 3H, 1CSR. No major mask leaks (max=7 L/min).

Finished the blog today because of being too busy the past couple of days. It’s sunny and cold, with rain or snow maybe possible tonight.

I have had a horrible time with my Oximetry reporting. Printing I have done for months is no longer working. Finally, I realized none of my printer sends would work. I used the troubleshooter, and amazingly, it started working. I was not happy being unable to print anything.

Monday, Apr 6

For Apr 5 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 44 min with AHI=0.00 Events: none. No major mask leaks (max=15 L/min).

John’s hoping the last 3 hours of landscaping will be completed today. He’s been out moving rocks, and now is out searching again for an old survey marker. He may later go across the creek to look for the NW corner supposed to be there. I don’t believe the latter ever occurred, and he still has not found a marker at the NE corner.

I’m hoping to get a lot done in the house. I found out my 2010 SongWriter is still operational on my computer in the back room – our old ‘XP’ system. [This system was originally released in late 2001 and Microsoft ended support, more or less, last April.]
I made it back from a photo shoot out front; the bulldozer is working on the front part where the new fence will be built, and the backhoe was working on digging the ditch to either side of the culverts to reroute the irrigation water. Now the bulldozer is headed back to move rock piles, but I don’t think I will try to capture that. Meanwhile, here are photos of part of the efforts:

Above left is the before of the front area needing re-contoured. On the right is it in progress. Note the dirt-scar of the rock crib that was there a few weeks ago. You have seen previous photos with it standing with the fence going west from it.

These two processes were happening simultaneously with bulldozer (son operating) and backhoe (father operating). Left is the unfinished leveling of the old topography in our front, looking into the driveway. The right shows the work on the channel downstream from the new culvert diversion. In this picture the original irrigation ditch is flowing still in the left channel. Just beyond the logs (tree parts) the channel will be filled where the new-drive will go.

Pat Jenkins Working on Culvert

Culvert Work Showing Old & New Channels

Chance Jenkins Recontouring Front Yard

Heading back to tax organization that I keep being drawn away from (blog creation 4/11 is making it happen again).

Tuesday, Apr 7

For Apr 6 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 49 min with AHI=0.77 Events: 6H, 5CSR. No major mask leaks (max=14 L/min), with SpO2 added, 9 hrs 11 min AHI = 0.65

I’m having issues with uploading my oximetry data again. I will wait until later now to try again, but the connection shut down my computer to a blue screen. Such things are always scary. I had to do a number of things before getting back to my tax stuff. Until it is backed up from today, off this computer, I will wait to try again. I called the bank about “mortgage insurance paid” that didn’t show on my 1098 as in years past. Still haven’t gotten that resolved (and might not be until Monday). Managed to download and print my 4868 form to apply for an extension to file my 2014 taxes. Now I have to fill in and mail by the 15th.

For a relaxing break, this link is worth a look, especially if you like turtles and/or diving.
Take a turtle break

While mentioning animals, here is an owl story from our friends at the Paradisos Del Sol Winery and their vineyard in Zillah.

That’s Paul in pink shirt and straw hat.
They used to be one of our lower Yakima Valley winery stops for our Geography class each summer. The two photos above are from one of our field trips. They also are family, having had one of our Brittanys. Barbara was walking home from an adjacent vineyard (friends) and saw an injured Great Horned owl. She stopped to give it assistance and found it allowed her to pick it up. She walked home two miles, carrying it. Pictures below. The next day, it allowed her to pick it up again and they carried it to a rehab facility. More of the follow-up story will follow when she hears. This is an amazing shot of the two of them.

That’s Barbara with her newly found friend.

I successfully updated my Turbo Tax software, which took 15 minutes, and was able to enter medical information with still more to go. I am currently working on charitable donations and medical expenses.

Wednesday, Apr 8

For Apr 7 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 51 min with AHI=0.89 Events: 6H, 1CSR, 1OA. No major mask leaks (max=21 L/min), with SpO2 added, 8 hrs 4 min AHI = 0.87

I took my late Easter card by Swedbergs and they were in the front yard in their car, leaving for Yakima. Perfect timing. She loved it (pictures of daffodils and Yellow bells). I drove on to the Food Bank, played, and ate there. We had Strata (egg dish with sausage), homemade salsa, apple strudel made with waffles as the dough, fruit salad, and frosted white cake for dessert. From there I went to the hospital lab for a routine blood draw (monthly) for my INR rating to determine the dosage of Coumadin. I skipped SAIL exercise to get home to work on taxes, but it was good I didn’t plan to go there, by the usual 1:30 start. I wouldn’t have made it. I got in at 1:00, was second in line, but was not seen for a 1/2 hour. People arriving after me were called in first. Go figure. I came home stopping to take a few photos of clouds and of a new rock crib. I had my camera so I could take pictures of the progress of the landscaping before leaving the driveway, because the sun was shining and rain was expected. Below are my cloud photos today along with some other interesting views on my trip home.

Above, top left is a view toward Manastash Ridge to the south of our Kittitas Valley. Top right is Mt. Daniel behind the sun-struck wind towers off Highway 10 to Cle Elum. Lower left are snow clouds over Colockum Ridge that is between us and White Heron Cellars on the Columbia. Lower right is taken from 1/2 mile south of our house, looking north to the same hills. It snowed only a few small flakes on the process of finishing work noted below.

I arrived home to the final changes of the passage across the culvert under the new access road. Finally, John and I took a tour on foot to see all the completed projects (well, some have much clean up by John of rocks and soil scraped from the top, and some roots). The once standing trees are only about half cut into firewood lengths, so that’s left to do too.

View of New bridge — Old & New Channels

Panoramic View From New Bridge

Once Piles of Rocks Moved Are Gone

Loading Dock Plans

Thursday, Apr 9

For Apr 8 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 52 min with AHI=0.51 Events: 4H,2CSR. No major mask leaks (max=17 L/min), with SpO2 added, 8 hrs 11 min AHI = 0.49

I emailed NCGE, and others about expenses, and fiddled with the CPAP daily reports. John saw and tried to get a photo of buzzards with wings spanned in our old snags, but missed. Here is a picture from wikimedia: [from Marlin Harms; near Santa Margarita Lake, CA]

I spent good time on the phone with Dan, the triage nurse who participates in the Coumadin clinic in Cle Elum. My INR was 2.0, but no need to have a dosage change. I told him that meant I could have 4 ounces of wine with dinner tonight, and he got a good laugh from that, and said, go for it!
John just took off for many stops in Yakima and then back to Ellensburg. He’ll hit the wood stove place, Big Five for boots, Costco, and then come back by Super 1 in town and Cruse & Nelson Surveyors to discuss our boundary marker needs. (Sadly, the surveyor he needed to talk with was not there). I went to the Rehab to play music with 6 folks, and drop off some egg cartons to a gal’s husband at his work. She wants to use them to start plants for her garden. I checked and got negative responses from our chicken-owning friends.
My banker, Don Reid, at the Ellensburg, WA office said he could access my information but he was unable without my okay. He gave me a number but also said I could do it on line. That effort failed, and I await news on Monday.

Friday, Apr 10

For Apr 9 CPAP. Reported figures. 2 hrs 11 min with AHI=0.91 Events: 2H, 2VS, 1 PP. No major mask leaks (max=11 L/min), with SpO2 added, 8 hrs 36 min AHI = 0.23 Last night was an extremely bad night with sinus interference with the CPAP usage.

I have sneezed a lot in the past couple of days, and the past two nights, I have had trouble adjusting my CPAP mask not to leak. My solution was to tighten the straps on my head to push the nasal cushion harder into my nose. I dislike doing that because of the chafing that occurs. I try to put aloe lotion on it, but yesterday I didn’t and one of the music group members asked me if I had a dermatitis problem. Last night I adjusted it tightly again. It was difficult starting. At 2 hours into the session, I was awakened with a strange smell coming through the tube. I removed the mask, cleared my nose, which was running, and tried again. It wasn’t working so I took the mask off. My nose was extremely cold. I held my hand on it to warm it and decided to turn the humidifier to 5 hoping the warm air would help. I never have had warm air coming from the system, and it always reports it is disconnected. I guess I need to ask the Medical Supply place and take it with me to the next visit. The first response I got when I asked was that if I was running on zero (which I do a lot), it would register as disconnected. That change has failed to show a difference.
The air blasted pretty hard, I ramped it down, but I never felt any heat in 11 minutes. I left it turned on. My sinuses were so painful and my nose was running that I had to remove the mask. I spent the rest of the night off the CPAP, but with the Oximeter running. My sleep was seriously disrupted. I remember last looking at the clock at 3:30, so perhaps I went to sleep after that, but I did not sleep until then. I remember looking again at 4:30 and maybe 6. I finally got up to blow my nose again, although I had a TP roll with me using it all night. This morning I gave myself a Simply Saline treatment. My nose is so chafed the little pitcher pourer hurts like heck and has a little sharp bump on it from a bad mold, I guess. I’m still sneezing off and on. It is still irritated. As for the CPAP, this morning, I changed the nasal piece on my mask to a brand new one, and I replaced the main air tube as well. Maybe that will help.

Much time spent on CPAP reports and on talking with the bank about my mortgage stuff regarding taxes.

John is working outside, and I am inside. Now he’s left for Friday specials at 3 stores (garden/hardware, and 2 grocery) and I’m keeping busy. We can deduct all the mileage for John to volunteer for the WTA, so I’m compiling that for August through Nov., his last trip of the year. Interruptions, so what’s new? Back to work again, at 5:40.
Hope Source Jordan L. is in charge of wood stoves. I left a message and he returned my call. We talked and exchanged emails. Heard from Carol (RSVP) to check with Reno at Solid Waste. It was after hours. Also talked to Lana Smith at Blue Ridge Insurance; we do not have to do anything. New stoves are certified, and nothing needs changed or noted on our insurance. I sent an email to Sue Billings (DOE) but got an automated reply that she’s not back until April 15. She is the air quality person for our region, and I asked her when the next buyback on old stoves was expected in our area. Supposedly, we can receive $200 for the old stove; it is against the law to resell it, or give it to someone to use.

Saturday, Apr 11

For Apr 10 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 59 min with AHI=1.25 Events: 8H, 1CSR, 2OA, 1PP. No major mask leaks (max=18 L/min).

It is sunny, but cold, and very windy, making the wind chill penetrating. Wind was slight (3mph) until 4:00 a.m. when the sustained rate jumped to 30 mph and a gust of 38 mph. It stayed near that all day but did not reach the NWS forecast of 45. About 6 PM it started to fade and at 9 PM we are down to 5 mph.

We are under a Wind Advisory until 9PM. Here’s the discussion on line.

A WIND ADVISORY IS ISSUED WHEN SUSTAINED WINDS ARE FORECAST BETWEEN 30 AND 39 MPH OR GUSTS RANGING FROM 45 TO 57 MPH. WINDS OF THESE MAGNITUDES CAN MAKE DRIVING DIFFICULT, ESPECIALLY FOR HIGH PROFILE VEHICLES. MINOR PROPERTY DAMAGE MAY ALSO OCCUR.

Morning delivery of wheelbarrow to a new “Buy Nothing” friend 6 miles away. She picked it up on her way home from town. She brought us a red iron-on patch to fix the hole in John’s shirt and threw in a jar of her homemade plum jam. Now we will remember to share plums with her this year.

The picture above shows our old “farm truck” on the new access drive, sharing with a deer, and in the back of the truck are the old wheelbarrow and 7 pallets another person comes this afternoon to pickup. The idea is to transfer from the bed of one pickup to the other (neither happened). If you look past the deer, you can see our blue&white wind gauges on the posts (bumpers) next to the old barn. The newer pole barn is to the left. The right photo is of the gift bag, with the pint of plum preserves, the iron-on patch, sitting on the plum colored (actually red) shirt showing one of the holes needing repaired. Another little piece can fix another hole on the sleeve. The old wheelbarrow is being replaced with a 4-wheeled cart that can be pulled behind the small garder tractor/lawn mower. More next week. It’s due to be delivered Tuesday.
With the wheelbarrow transfer done John headed to the Kittitas Conservation District to pick up 25 baby trees – Ponderosa & Austrian pines, and Blue Spruce. He helped with this plant sale many years ago but it grew larger than volunteers could take care of. AmeriCorps teams have been doing it. Apparently many folks are treed-out, and now the number of sales has declined over the past 3 years. We only got as many as we did because we intend to share.

This afternoon at 3:00, the folks came in a truck to pick up the pallets. John was using the chainsaw on the old wood piled south of the house. He wears somewhat heavy clothing (Personal protective equipment, commonly referred to as “PPE”) that seems less burdensome with a bit of wind and cool temps. We got up to the truck with pallets just as the folks finished the transfer. Perfect timing. John went back to the chainsaw and finished with a fresh tree from which he cut 3 ft. sections to contain hot coals from the raclette fire.

He is now back and said there is a raging storm north of us in the Wilson Creek & Naneum drainages. It’s sunny here, but there is a just noticable mist. It was dark before the clouds passed. We’ll likely see some snow up there in the morning.

A final note from Nancy; I’m much better tonight.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Action on the Fan, with photos

Saturday, Mar 28

For Mar 27, CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 32 min with AHI=0.12
Events: 1 H No major mask leaks (max=17 L/min), with SpO2 added, 8 hrs 57 min AHI = 0.10

A “Lucky 13” people of our group attended and provided dinner music for the local square dance association mentioned in last week’s blog, and then we shared their meal. We played over an hour because the food preparation took longer than anticipated. The food was awesome, and we all pigged out: pulled pork in sauce, beef brisket, BBQ beef ribs, with many different kinds of salads. We ate while they held a fundraising auction of desserts. Their dance (round and square) followed.

We had taken care of most of the animals before leaving at 4:30 p.m., all except the 3 dogs, so they were anxious to eat when we arrived. Once home from the fun, I spent the rest of the evening working on emails, on sending out jobs list announcements, and I spent time on CPAP data reports that I had not previously completed.

Sunday, Mar 29

For Mar 28 CPAP. Reported figures. 5 hrs 57 min with AHI = 0.34
Events: 2 H No major mask leaks (max=14 L/min), with SpO2 added, 9 hrs 49 min AHI = 0.20

We don’t know what frightened Rascal this morning. While John was in the kitchen fixing his breakfast and lunch for being gone all day working trail, the cat baled off his perch, knocking John’s computer back-up drive onto the kitchen counter, sending a bowl of hard cat food onto the floor, spilling on its way onto the counter and “feeding” stand. It was a mess and caused a lot of noise. Mid afternoon, I finally finished cleaning up the mess on the counters. The dogs love cat kibbles and they cleaned up the floors all around in the kitchen and “dining” room that we use as a den.

John left at 6:00 a.m. for his last day (4 this month) working on the Poo Poo Point trail at Tiger Mountain. They will not be back at that trail until the fall. Here is the thank you from the Crew Leader, Zach. This will give you an idea of their accomplishments today:
You all worked super hard to get those berms out, drains cleaned, switchbacks swoopy, and culverts verted. I was impressed by the sheer productivity of all groups out there. The work you put into those trails Sunday will go a long way. Especially with all the traffic that Tiger gets! Every footstep takes a bit of the trail with it, and it is our job to get that trail as durable as possible so as many feet as possible can fall upon it. With the water removed, drains cleared, duff and backslope just so, we can ensure that it can stay tenable for many more years. PooPoo (named after the whistle sound of steam donkey loggers, not the other thing) is a great example of how people of the Puget Sound love to get out there and huff and puff up hills covered with beautiful trees. Your work out there Sunday has helped those people get up the hill safely. And who knows, maybe inspired a few people.
I love seeing you all out there expressing your love for the trails and giving back to a community that you already love and enjoy. Please keep coming out; I would have any of you out again to work on my crew any day.
Wow, our temperature went to 65° today. I will be interested in hearing what John worked in on the trail. All I heard was they got muddy, and in giving part of the crew a ride back down to the parking lot, people got his white seat covers very dirty. He had removed the towels and shirts protecting the upholstery from the week before. Oops!
I accomplished a bunch of things today including setting up stuff for a few people to search for transfers of timeshares to travel. I worked on a letter of recommendation for a student I had in 2007. I worked a bit on filing receipts. We are also considering getting a new Blaze King Chinook woodstove. The current stove (1980s model of Earth Stove) hasn’t been used in 15 years and has to be uncovered (things & dust) so John can measure the size of the alcove.
I worked a lot on data reports from my CPAP using two different software packages. I’m favoring the old tried and true one from Australia, Sleepyhead. It took way too much time to upload my data from my oximeter. First, I recharged the battery in the unit after it ran out 1/2 hr before I awoke the second time. This reaction is not new. The USB port will not recognize the unit after being plugged into a wall outlet for charging. I have found that letting my laptop do the charging is more successful. Interspersed that chore with others, managed to wash a load of clothes, with more needing done, with dishes still needing to be cleaned.
I did find some bills to check on Monday morning regarding payments needed for doctor’s visits, because I expect we have not reached our insurance deductibles. I hate paying so much monthly for insurance to have so little covered; the dental is twice as bad.

Monday, Mar 30

For Mar 29 CPAP. Reported figures. 9 hrs 3 min with AHI=0.00 Events: none. No major mask leaks (max=9 L/min).

Received a message from sales clerk Ivan about the stove; he needs some more measurement information from John. Ivan claims to be working on getting the price down a bit.
I submitted a recommendation letter for my former student Michael J and contacted some friends whom I know he could meet there in San Diego.
Talked to Group Health about the deductible and all my medical expenses the first of the year. As of 2/9/15, I met MY deductible ($250) [John’s is separate]. I found out the deductible for Medicare is $147 for everyone. I imagine if I met the $250 already for Group Health, that I am okay for the rest of the year on Medicare. There are still other costs that continue.
I spent time on line with a person from the Association of American Geographers. At the next annual meeting in Chicago, I would get a certificate/award for 50 years of membership. A reward is free membership dues for the rest of my life. I won’t go so there is a need for the AAG or someone to pick it up and mail. The AAG plans to send the information by mail, so all I miss is the free lunch (which it wouldn’t be to get to Chicago).
Next I talked to an AMEX rep in Arizona about our credit card through Costco. Will likely start a new card (Simply Cash is the name), for no annual fee to obtain the 3% gasoline purchase AMEX advantage. We can use the current card (for 4% discount on gasoline) that we have on our premium membership with Costco through next March 2016, when Costco changes from using them to using VISA. I already have a visa acct through Chase, but I believe this will be another VISA through Citigroup. I dislike having so many different credit cards, but it beats carrying around large sums of cash.
Now back to other busy-work. Almost finished my volunteer hours to send into RSVP. That will be changed a lot after this month too. Someone thinks volunteers don’t do the ‘right’ things and want us to get with their pc-program.
I spent time reminiscing with a 9th grade classmate that I haven’t seen since my wedding (1969), and we only recently found each other on Facebook. Today was her birthday, and I was notified by FB. This is one of the few advantages to the system, which otherwise is a waste of time.

Tuesday, Mar 31

For Mar 30, CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 29 min with AHI=0.00 Events: none. No major mask leaks (max=7 L/min), after the SpO2 was added, it was 9 hrs 32 min, with AHI=0.00

Wow! Windy all night and morning, up to 37 mph over 3 different hours, then to a high of 39 mph and continues. It has been gusting > 30mph since 4:00 a.m. There is even a Wind Advisory in effect from 9 AM to 9 PM. Central Washington can get dust storms and road accidents follow.

Massive cleaning in our den today. Guess the wind blew the jobs inside, and John is on full throttle. I am trying to keep up. Now he went on the roof to make measurements of the flue, and happily, for me, he came back down safely. So he would have a way down, he tied the ladder to the house. I was worried with the 39 mph winds. He took photos inside and outside and measured all the things needed for the stove purchase.
I managed to submit our volunteer hours for March to RSVP (for John, me, and one of our guitar players, who does not have a computer).

Wednesday, Apr 1

For Mar 31, CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 49 min with AHI = 0.44
Events: 3 H No major mask leaks (max=7 L/min), with SpO2 added, 9 hrs 36 min AHI = 0.31

Crazy dreams awoke me too early this morning. I was back teaching, late to a final exam on campus at a place I didn’t recognize, and without my final prepared. Guess that was the result of yesterday’s massive clean up of CWU course materials, among the boxes sorted and moved.

My friend bought me a new copy of SongWriter 2012 so we can share music creation, and it was delivered as I was leaving for playing music at the food bank. We had a bunch of players today — a viola, 2 fiddlers, banjo, plus a couple of singers. We have quite a following and are much appreciated by many at the Food Bank. The food was pretty good. Large fruit salad, turkey sandwiches, very generously endowed, such that I brought home a half of my sandwich. We had that with our leftover beef Crockpot stew, along with toasted Italian (filone asiago) cheese bread with grated cheddar melted on top. [The town, Asiago, 50 miles NE of Venice, is the source of a cow’s milk cheese of that name put on a long skinny (filone) loaf of bread. In Italy it is often called the “poor man’s bread” but with an American wrapper decorated with the word Artisan it sells here for $1.59 for a 6 ounce loaf. Now you have a rich man’s bread!] After that, I drove to my SAIL class to add some exercise, there obtaining two granola bars to bring home. They often put goodies on the counter next to the coffee pot.
While there, I was asked to invite and arrange for our music group to play at the July 4 celebration on July 3rd, at the Adult Activity Center. I have done that, and we will have a few players participating at two places that day, with a nice picnic lunch provided by the Adult Activity Center, before we take off for playing music at a nursing home. This is probably our 14th year of providing music for the community event. We do patriotic songs and U.S. ones they know (This Land is Your Land), and we sing the National Anthem at the end, acapella, with everyone in the room standing and saluting the flag. It is always moving. We do that for Veteran’s Day too.

I sent out many jobs to the jobs list. I received a request from a Ph.D. student in the Midwest to fill in an on-line survey on GIS internships in Education and their importance to students. It was supposed to take only 10 minutes, but it took me 17. I knew the adviser of the Ph.D. student, so it made it a little more personal to help out, and I wrote him some extra useful information I had gleaned over the years. I got a few photos of our landscaping-in-progress — pulling out the tree stumps and root systems of the trees John fell a couple weeks ago. More on this in the Friday section, below.
Thankfully, I managed to fix the Overview feature in SleepyHead to get my data on four items displayed for the past 3 months of 2015. Somehow, I accidently shut off the graph display (no clue how), but I fiddled around until I found a reset feature in the software.

Thursday, Apr 2

For Apr 1, CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 3 min with AHI = 0.12 Events: 1 H No major mask leaks (max=15 L/min), with SpO2 added, no change, same time both.

We took a morning walk to see Yellow Bells (Fritillaria pudica) on our property, to take photos, and then we came back and researched them on the web. Let me explain this photo collage below. First, these are the first found on our place and we have lived here 26 years. There are only two clusters, close to each other. The one on the top-left was redder (a significance of being older blossoms). The one on the right is more yellow. The middle bottom is a close up superimposed between the photo of the two plants to show a single Yellow Bell.

A map of their distribution shows eastern Kittitas County, where we are, is a populous area for the wildflower. All sighting are east of the Cascade Crest. This is the source, with a lot of other useful information from the Burke Museum.

Note the large number of sightings (bright green circles) in eastern Kittitas County.

I found July/Aug playlist and a carrier with the ~ 50 copies of large typed lyrics for the July 4 celebration at the AAC, which we will do July 3, 11:30, eat, and then go to Royal Vista.

Today at 1:10, I have to leave for Royal Vista for April’s play date. Lorene (neighbor) comes home today, so I missed seeing her in the room, but am happy she’s able to return home. John dropped me off, and drove the truck completely filled with boxes of office paper, magazines, and newspaper, to take to the recycling center. Also, he was able to fill the large gasoline can to carry in the open truck bed. As well, he went to the grocery for foodstuffs and the pharmacy for my meds.

We got ready and left at 6:00 p.m. for the Mt Baker volcanic lecture on CWU’s campus. It was a fascinating presentation. Mt. Baker is 133 miles NW of us and 50 mi. NE of Seattle. If you are interested, go to the web site
by clicking here.

Explore it by submitting your email address and following the directions.

The photo above is of the annual research team going into the fumarole field of Sherman Crater on the mountain, to sample temperatures and chemistry of the different holes venting the gasses.

Also, here are a couple of short You tube videos to watch. The first is:
Fumarole gas sampling, Sherman Crater, Mount Baker

and the second is:
Tour of Sherman Crater, Mount Baker

Friday, Apr 3

For Apr 2, CPAP. Reported figures. 5 hrs 43 min with AHI = 0.70 Events: 4 H, 2CSR. No major mask leaks (max=9 L/min), with SpO2 added, 8 hrs 12 min, AHI = 0.49

Early morning picture of our plum tree blossoming, a Methley plum tree John recently planted.

The center photo is from the web of what to expect as fruit plums, surrounded by this year’s blossoms on a young tree in our backyard.

Potluck first of the month at AAC, also a goodbye for Brianna who is at the end of her internship, but will be continuing helping with the SAIL exercise classes. Today I took dried fruit and flaky rolls. The center fixed two large green salads: one with chicken cubes, the other without, and one of the nicest fruit salads I have had in awhile. It had strawberries, cantaloupe, pineapple, blueberries, peaches, and probably something else. People brought deviled eggs, potato salad, cookies, cakes, pies, and cheesecake. There was not a lack of food. We played putt-putt golf games (4 different holes), and then after the tables were moved, five of us played hovering soccer that took a lot of energy, and then I took photos of people there and of the staff all together at the end with their new pretty AAC tee shirts, a fundraiser for $15/shirt. Brianna has one on below.

Nancy and Brianna on her last day there. She’s been leading one of our SAIL classes, and helping with all sorts of events at the center during the last quarter at CWU on an Internship.

John worked on landscaping projects, from digging out posts, to moving temporary fences and gates awaiting the backhoe man to show, which he did about 2:00 and stayed until after 5:00. He pulled out more trees and root systems and deposited these where the pasture drops into our “swamp” area. While down that end of the pasture, he moved four concrete culverts to make a buried connection of the irrigation ditch we have to drive over on the newly fixed road access to the two barns. We originally obtained those from John LaBar (thanks, John). Now they all have been put to use. These are a larger diameter (& much heavier) than the ones used a few years ago when we leveled the track/road into the new hay shed.

The following collage gives you a little idea of the work accomplished and still in progress.

The top two pictures are on the access road being constructed. In previous blogs, I have shown the preparation of tree cutting and marking that John has accomplished. I thought the action shot of the backhoe suspended in air was interesting, as the backhoe struggled to remove one of the stumps. A video would have been more exciting. To the top right is one of the several (five?) tree stumps and root systems that were removed. The trees crowded the ditch and so taking them out made a mess, but will be filled in as the culverts are part of a re-routing shown in the bottom 2 photos. Bottom left photo: Current water flow is toward the camera; yellow arrow. The new path is to the right (north) and the end of the culvert is within the yellow circle, with the close image – note rock on top holding down a metal sheet. On Monday the down-flow end will be dug, then a cut will be made to re-route the water, and then the old ditch will be filled. Stay tuned.

Change of subject. Have you ever heard of, or seen a white deer? I have not. John said there were some near where he lived in PA when he was growing up, but he never saw any – except for a photo in the paper. These lovely shots come from my friend Elise, in New Jersey. She has been photographing them since they were small fawns, and now there is only one left, but apparently she is healthy and people are feeding her.

Top photo & left bottom were taken when they were younger. Mom is on the far left in the top. The current doe discussed below is seen 4/3/15 in the bottom right. These are in New Jersey.

Here is Elise’s description to go with the photos:

She’s not albino, but she is pied (or piebald) by definition. Albino would be all white, with red eyes. They were born spring 2013. The white one is a female (doe) and the sibling, a buck (the true pied one) is nicknamed 1/2 & 1/2 in the neighborhood.
I think the mom was hit by a car last year, late summer? I have not seen the pied since around Oct. height of the deer season. People a couple blocks away have been feeding them all winter, so I have heard. But it’s been way too long with the pied, not to see him. He was a button buck last year.

I think the white one is pregnant. I have not seen her standing since Jan/Feb, but I could see a little distention in her abdomen then. I think gestation is about 7 month. She will birth in May / June.

I am always happy when I see her!

Here is a short description of the coloration, from the web:

Abnormal coloring in a deer is usually because of the presence of a defective gene. Consequently, some of these abnormally colored deer exhibit other abnormal characteristics as well. Piebald deer, together with some of the other odd color combinations are generally not as healthy as the whitetail deer having normal coloration.
Piebald Deer. Most, if not all piebald deer have white legs and a white underbelly, while the rest of the body may be either completely or partially covered with patches or spots, usually reddish brown or gray on white. A few piebald deer are mostly, though usually not completely white, and may be mistaken at times for albino deer.
White Deer and Albino Deer. There are all-white deer as well. These deer have no spots, just white hair. White deer also have a recessive gene and are generally not as healthy or strong as a normally colored whitetail. White deer are naturally easily mistaken for albinos, which they are not. The true albino, besides having all white hair, also has pink eyes and pink hooves, something the white deer do not have. Both the white deer and the albino deer, and perhaps, to a lesser extent the piebald deer, are at a disadvantage in the wild as they are easily spotted except in conditions of heavy snow. This lack of visual protection, combined with somewhat poorer health, no doubt serves to keep the population of these abnormally colored deer low.

Saturday, Apr 4

For Apr 3, CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 34 min with AHI = 0.00 Events: 0 H No major mask leaks (max=8 L/min).

My day started as usual with uploading data from both units, checking email, washing the first load of dishes, thinking about adding some pix to this blog, feeding the outside cat, Woody, and looking at the temperatures to see our blossoms did not freeze. John thought it was safe for him not to cover the small plum trees.
I did backup my entire 2010 SongWriter music folder in two places just to be on the safe side before installing my 2012 version. It’s 101 megabytes, and has some files that need to be deleted, but I do not have time to do that now. I need to spend the rest of the day on tax prep, finishing the blog, and get outside to take photos of all the work that happened yesterday that’s undocumented. You can see I made the photo shoot that is described above, but as a review, the buried concrete culverts were done 2 days ago. They were buried and covered with dirt and rocks, after John placed used metal roofing over them. There are 12 feet of culverts that will permit the new road access to the barn/shed area.

John just returned from the neighbors delivering (for their cow), old hay taken from the shed. Our horses do not like it. They returned the favor with a dozen colorful eggs from their free range chickens. He has returned to their property and the three lots north of ours, with a borrowed metal detector, searching for property boundary iron posts. We are hoping to save the $1,900 registration fee for our NE corner, and the $800+ surveying costs before installing our new fence. We don’t want the county to decide in the future to widen the road and take out our fence (unlikely, considering the layout). He found yellow-capped posts north of us that are 18″ inside the current fence, and thus that fence is on the county property. With a bit more effort he will get “a fix” on the previously unsurveyed corner where there was an old rock-crib (all the wood burned), leaving a pile of rocks. It appears the SW corner of that is where the builder of the rock-crib thought the corner was. Here is a picture of an old one:

Now burn the wood out and there’s a pile of rocks. So, the saga continues.

Our Brittany in California, Daisy, won her Bred-by-Exhibitor class today at the Apple Valley KC show in Victorville. Below is co-owner, Jeri Conklin, showing her.

Sunday, Apr 5 HAPPY EASTER!

For Apr 4, CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 22 min with AHI = 0.41
Events: 3H, 1CSR No major mask leaks (max=7 L/min).

John started at 9:00 a.m. on outside chores at 39° (on our front porch); supposedly is 35° at the airport 5 miles south and went to 24° at 5:50 a.m. John says it was 28.6 about 5:30 AM here. That’s not good for plum blossoms. We may get rain or snow tonight. Just a dozen miles north of us the ridge is above 5,000 feet, so snow is expected.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

It feels like SPRING —

Well, here it does!

Sunday, Mar 22

For Mar 21, CPAP. Reported figures. 5 hrs 21 min with AHI = 0.00 Events: none. No major mask leaks (max=8 L/min), after SpO2 added, no change, but 9 hrs, 46 min.

Early morning call at 5:08 AM from my friend who wasn’t feeling up to going along with John today to work on trail on the other side (the alarm had already woke me at 5:00 a.m.). I remained awake until John left at 6:20, and then I attempted to go back to sleep. No longer on my CPAP machine, I was very comfortable, catching up on much needed rest until 9:30, when I finally got up and fed Woody on her outside perch. I managed to do some corrections to last week’s blog that we published late last night. John was having problems with Word Press not inserting my photos he had uploaded to the server, but I am glad he stuck with it, because early morning today, his sister acknowledged it with a nice note about the variety of images last week. I do not know how to add a photo to Word Press (guess I should learn) and there was one I left out. So here it is.

Mario used a smaller flat-bed truck for 2 loads of about 5 tons each, all of which he handled alone. This load is just over 9 tons and he brought a helper and the elevator (orange thing on the top of the hay). The middle photo shows the old red barn on the left and the new pole barn (2012), on the right. The empty trailer with elevator is parked for unloading into the red barn – just finished. The bottom picture is inside the pole barn, where most of the hay is. About 15 bales got put into the red barn.
` ` ` ` I took care of more kitchen stuff. Most importantly, John will be happy to know I finally killed the large fly that has taunted us for several days. Now back to music prep. Realized my tummy was growling, so I fixed (at John’s suggestion as he left), a Marie Callender’s Chicken Pot Pie, with more sodium than I need in a day.
` ` ` ` Whoopee–Dr. Dave found a copy of You Can’t Be True Dear (for you Germans out there: Du Kannst Nickt Treu Sein), and Charlie and Helga will sing a verse in German), at our request. Now I can put it into SongWriter and will be able to change the key so that our clarinet player can join us on the melody. I finally finished that and one other, and I am ready to send off for proofing.
` ` ` ` John made it home, bought gasoline (cash price) for $2.359 in Cle Elum, and it was one cent higher at Costco in Union Gap (Yakima). He did not have enough gasoline to get to George tomorrow to buy at the much better price of $2.219. Maybe on his way home, he can fill up there. He fed the horses, and I walked down into the pasture at the feeding place and gate, so I could doctor Myst’s eye. It is looking fine.
I installed the new SleepMapper App. We’ll know in the morning about its usefulness. (It was okay but is not nearly as useful and informative as the old SleepyHead software I have used since last year.)

Monday, Mar 23

For Mar 22, CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 39 min with AHI = 0.13 Events: 1 H No major mask leaks (max=16 L/min), after the SpO2 added, it was 8 hrs 36 min, with AHI = 0.12

John left at 7:40 a.m. to prune wine grapevines. I spent a lot of time today on music matters for this entire week. Somebody has to be the organizer. Also worked on CPAP data reports, a daily affair, but sometimes more involved. Doctored Myst’s eye and we got her bill for $125 (rounding off). I took a picture of the first limb blossoming on our Nanking Cherries, behind our house. See below for the before (3/23) and after (3/27) picture collage.

Tuesday, Mar 24

For Mar 23, CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 35 min with AHI = 0.12 Events: 1 H No major mask leaks (max=18 L/min), after the SpO2 was added, it was 9 hrs 43 min, with AHI = 0.10

We had a long night of rain and filled our rain barrel. Also it started snowing at some point, and the hills are bright with snow this morning, including snow on all the passes and high spots (Blewett, Snoqualmie, and even Ryegrass hill that John has to go over this morning on his way to prune).

I have downloaded some CPAP data (or uploaded I guess) from my SD card to both my software programs for information tallies. I do not like the new SleepMapper one because it does not provide input for my Oximeter, my main reason for my using the machine nightly. The older SleepyHead is my preferred reporting system. Last night I think my finger (middle) wore the oximeter all night, and I did not change fingers, as I normally do. It was very painful this morning, after 8.6 hrs on.
` ` ` ` Sad news of the brother and son of good friends in the valley who died of a heart attack, at 64.
` ` ` ` Much of the morning spent on computer clean up, dishes, clothes, and paperwork continues. In addition, I worked on the jobs list and a tiny bit on music.
` ` ` ` Searched a little for a tulip flower like tree my neighbor’s sister found in Burien, and they did not know the name. John came back from pruning, searched for 1/2 hr, and found what we think it is, but it is a slightly different type from what he originally thought. It is a Paulownia tree (type, Tarentosa). First, he thought an Empress Paulownia. Here it is:

Wednesday, Mar 25

For Mar 24, CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 1 min with AHI = 0.14 Events: 1 H No major mask leaks (max=9 L/min), after the SpO2 was added, it was 10 hrs 2 min, with AHI = 0.10

Not much time before I take off at 11:00 for the Food Bank. I slept in until 9:30, after John left at 7:40 for wine grapevine pruning. More rain last night and snow on the hills. I need to run some music, but my inks (except cyan) are all down to almost empty. The first to go will not allow me to print anything. I did not realize my Magenta has an exclamation point and so I cannot print anything. I will have to change the cartridge first. I just finished making corrections to Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ra for tomorrow. I will need to make some changes for people. Oh, apparently, the magenta is not yet out, just running low. So, I can print for a while.
` ` ` ` Today we had two singers with us and Evelyn created a nice songbook for the Food Bank bunch. They were very appreciative and many sang along. Today, we had a very nice meatloaf, quite colorful potatoes (purple, brown, yellow–all small with mushrooms), large green salad, but no dessert. It was to be apple cobbler, but when they were removing it from the oven, it fell and went all over the floor. I came home and had a donut. I went by the bank to cash a check. John has been buying apples (cash needed) & food in Quincy, and needs cash in George for gasoline that is much cheaper than in Ellensburg. I am tempted to have him drive my car and fill up at the lower price. (Unfortunately, their price went up a dime and so he did not take my car).
Guess I need to get the cat’s food ready, and change my shoes to doctor Myst’s eye.
` ` ` ` Got some great pictures today from my friend from long ago, Anne Bennett, and our maid of honor, who, with her hubby, went as our representatives to a dinner honoring the two David Bederman scholars from the Emory Law School (for which we had donated money in his honor). David died from cancer, at 50, in 2011. In his own right, he was a scholar and an excellent teacher, I am sure he was taking after his dad, Sanford Bederman, who was my first Geography professor in 1962, at Georgia State University. Sandy’s wife, Jolayne, and I were friends early on, and I babysat David when he was a youngster. Sandy and Jolayne guided a Geography field trip to Europe, for 9 weeks, in 1965. We visited 17 countries with 19 girls and 4 guys, studying the geography before and during the trip. We each took the Geography of Europe class spring quarter, picked a research topic, and presented our report while on the trip. It was a memorable experience that I have carried with me throughout my life and teaching career, which Sandy was also very instrumental in supporting. On that trip was my friend, mentioned above, Anne Bennett, so it seemed appropriate that she and Richard go to the event. Richard was kind enough to take some pictures for us and the Bederman family. Here is one of the three of them for our memories: Anne Bennett is between Sandy and Jolayne Bederman.

Thursday, Mar 26 Special Irish tea today

For Mar 25, CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 36 min with AHI = 0.30 Events: 2 H No major mask leaks (max=14 L/min).

Early morning call at 7:45 a.m. from Dave Lundy, to say he was in town and would be playing with us today. This is our normal day for playing music at Hearthstone, but the facility decided (without our knowledge) to make it into a community event. Ninety people were invited into a very small space. We could barely hear ourselves play. Meanwhile, here is a collage without our group (we were squeezed into a long narrow line to the right near the windows and sadly, we could not hear one another). Luckily, one of our players brought her Irish drum, and was able to keep time for us to hear. The collage below shows the community invitation and a couple of photos I took before the start. Description is below the picture.

The flyer distributed around town caused the large number in the audience. The Kittitas Valley is left off the front of our Fiddlers & Friends name. The top right photo is of our friends Mary Ann Macinko standing near center, with George behind), who are residents there. The bottom right photo shows a table setting, with an offering of fruit (blackberries, strawberries, cantaloupe, little mocha chocolate cupcakes, and cranberry scones). A bartender was there to add some whiskey to those wanting a real Irish tea. All the extra visitors made for a very raucous hour.
` ` ` ` It was a very stressful day, all around, and I was very tired from so little sleep and so much activity that I came home and took almost a 2-hr nap. I know I needed it. I have not taken afternoon naps in many, many months.

Friday, Mar 27

For Mar 26, CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 28 min with AHI = 0.54 Events: 4 H,1CSR. No major mask leaks (max=21 L/min), after the SpO2 added, it was 8 hrs 48 min, with AHI = 0.45

John went to his last day of pruning wine grapevines. He and Cameron (owner) worked the last 2 days without others – one to PA and one to TN on trips, the timing of which they could not control. They might be faster workers if they didn’t take so much time watching trains and train-track repair/replacement – massive machines this week. They get to see (and hear) fighter jets going through the Columbia River Canyon on training flights, and there are also BNSF trains carrying Boeing planes from Wichita to Seattle.

A web sourced photo near the vineyard.

Here’s a video of the machinery and folks fixing track: Click here.

No SAIL today but a potluck & practice session tonight. We’ll eat at 6:00 PM. I worked some getting music ready. We played about 1.5 hrs and found some more problems I have to fix tomorrow, and print out for the evening’s dinner music for the 40th Anniversary Dance of the Blue Agates Round and Square Dance Club of the valley. A regular caller will be there for the dance part.

Saturday, Mar 28

For Mar 27, CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 32 min with AHI = 0.12 Events: 1 H No major mask leaks (max=17 L/min).

We are both working on the blog today, and I am finishing music corrections for our playing tonight, where a few of our group are playing instrumental music for dinner at the 40th anniversary dance of the Blue Agate Square & Round Dance Club’s celebration.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John

Still on the Naneum Fan

Animals and Music

Sunday, Mar 15

For Mar 14, CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 59 min with AHI = 0.75 Events: 1 CA, 5 H. No major mask leaks (max=10 L/min), after the SpO2 added, no change.

John and I are staying home today. I must work on paperwork. It rained last night, but he still spent time outside. Good he didn’t go to the wet side or it might have been very muddy trail repair. They received 2.2 inches of rain, breaking a record. I received a note from a pointing dog field trialer friend, who was at Scattercreek grounds for the East Seattle Pointer club’s trial, this weekend. He reported that 3.1 inches fell from Friday midnight to 6am Monday morning (the official total at the Palmer/NOAA weather station in Orting, WA – but the rain was region-wide).

Below is a beautiful greeting I made from California pictures Jeri Conklin put on Facebook of our Brittany, Daisy, in a field of poppies. The leather jacket is Jeri’s in honor of Daisy’s placement. Daisy is admiring the field of flowers and the jacket. Thanks, Jeri, for all you do for our sweet Brittany, officially registered with AKC as Cedaridge Kip’s Camelot Shay Tre’ JH.

John got a lot of stuff done outside including limbing some of the trees he cut down on the path toward the barns where the access road will be. I paid a few bills, including WTA membership until 4/26/2016. Work on many different projects, set up my meds for the week, did more filing, with much more to do. Have only barely started inputting a little of the computer data records that will be necessary for tallying for taxes. Goodie, going through recent paperwork paid off. I found a cash reward at Costco of $123.03 I can pick up at the warehouse on Tuesday.

Monday, Mar 16

For Mar 15, CPAP report. Reported figures. 8 hrs 13 min with AHI = 0.37 Events: 3 H No major mask leaks (max=5 L/min), no change after the SpO2 added.

Today Dave Hazlett came at 10:00 to trim two horses’ feet, and John stayed home, instead of going to prune wine grapevines. I am glad because it was cold out this morning, 36°. I had a haircut planned at 1:00, at my neighbor’s house a mile away, so I washed my hair while John was fixing lunch. We had left-over (thawed) spaghetti sauce over a croissant roll with cheese. After the cutting, my hair looks much nicer. I had a lot in the lower back that showed in the Friday picture at the party–almost looked as if I had a pageboy haircut or a ducktail flipping up. Celia and I decided this was only 7 weeks between cuts, so I should consider switching next time to 6 weeks. I just wish the hair on top of my head would return, but it is still quite thin. Ended up working most of the afternoon on paperwork. Much to do. I did take some time to follow an on-line free course from The University of Pennsylvania (commonly referred to as Penn), a private university, located in Philadelphia, PA. The course is “Vital Signs: Understanding What the Body Is Telling Us,” by Connie B. Scanga, PhD, Professor of Nursing. The first lecture is on the heart. I know a lot about that part of my body, but I still learned several things from the lecture. Here’s a decription about the course: The vital signs – heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, respiration rate, and pain – communicate important information about the physiological status of the human body. In this course we explore the anatomy and physiology underlying the vital signs so that you will develop a systematic, integrated understanding of how the body functions. The next lecture I started watching is on heart valves, very appropriate in my case.

Continuing with medical issues, I checked with my dentist about my bill; the insurance required a $50 deductible, I’d already paid the estimated amount owed, $66.80, but I owe $40 more, because while they would have paid 80% on a stainless steel filling, they won’t on a resin one. So much for insurance loop holes. I probably couldn’t have one anyway because of conductivity between the metals. My total bill was $210, for which they approved $134, but then paid only $27.20. I thought later that when I paid the amount at the time of the work, I would get a 5% discount, and I did not believe that had been applied. Later in the afternoon, I called, and I will have $5.34 credit. Pays to be on top of charges.
Called in and emailed my Metoprolol prescription request to Colleen (my cardiologist’s nurse). Will pick up tomorrow on my way home, along with Micardis and Furosemide.
The professional videotaping of last week’s Gold Mining lecture by Nick Zentner is now produced and was just distributed.
Central Washington University geology professor Nick Zentner discusses gold deposits in the Swauk Mining District at Liberty, Washington. Includes a Question & Answer session with Liberty gold prospector Rob Repin. Zentner reads audience member questions. 250 folks attended the lecture at the Hal Holmes center in downtown, Ellensburg, Washington. March 11, 2015.
Nick explains why there is gold in the region.

It’s worth a watch for higher quality than those I gave you last week that I had captured and put on You Tube.

Tuesday, Mar 17

For Mar 16, CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 51 min with AHI = 0.25 Events: 2H 1CSR. No major mask leaks (max=7 L/min); no change after the SpO2 added.

John went to White Heron, and I went to Yakima to have laser surgery on my right foot’s toenails. It is slowly proceeding and I go back in a month, because he has starting more aggressively treating it. On my way back, I stopped at Costco, and bought 1/2 tank of gasoline for $2.319/gal. Cheapest in EBRG was $2.459. Phew. John is taking cash along tomorrow to stop off at George where it is $2.219. On the way home on Interstate 82, I called 911 to report large tire-tread pieces in the roadway. Apparently they came from a truck and were huge pieces, blocking the lane. Another truck went out and around that debris, calling my attention to it. I reported it between milepost 19 and 18, after 911 put me through to the State Patrol.

Made it back to EBRG in time to pick up my meds and get to Jazzercise where we had 4 participants for 45 minutes of movements and activities to raise our heart rates and then cool down. We have a leader (Katrina) to call the moves and we do them to music.
Today I wrote this on my Facebook timeline, as a warning:
If any of my Facebook (FB) friends (already friends) get a request from my account with my patriotic picture, do NOT accept the request. Fraudulent “scams” via Identity theft are rampant through FB. Yesterday, a friend requested being my FB friend, and I accepted, thinking I was already her friend, but not enough to call and ask. Results were a conversation (chat) on messages from her account about applying for an IMF grant and she’d just gotten $100,000 cash delivered to her door (for an outlay of money). Bottom line: if it sounds too good to be true, it is false and a scam to get your money. If you want to see the FB conversation, which disappeared this morning from FB messages, I captured it last night and have it. Does anyone know how to report such to Facebook? These crooks are using FB as a vehicle, plus, the link to apply is on FB (I did not).

Off to Royal Vista tonight to play music. Only two instruments there (piano & fiddle), and 3 singers, in addition to me. I got Lorene’s pictures ready and delivered them (from her 89th birthday party 8 days ago). She was pleased. Came home to a late dinner – roast beef cooked 2 days ago.

Wednesday, Mar 18

For Mar 17, CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 40 min with AHI = 0.00 Events: 1 CSR No major mask leaks (max=10 L/min), after the SpO2 added, 10 hrs 8 min, with AHI= 0.00

There is an eye problem with one of the horses. Called Dan Charlton, our vet, but he cannot come until tomorrow at 4:30. He lives on the road just ½ mile north of us and stops on the way home. Their office is 10 miles south.
Off at 11:00 to the Food Bank. Today we played Irish music and sang some other stuff with the patrons joining in. We had a decent meal, and I picked up some apples for the horses, and a little bread for us.
Tonight was the last lecture of Nick Zentner’s geology presentations. It was great – a bit exciting and scary too, on newest information about earthquakes in WA State. Sadly my battery (back up I charged fully before going), has bitten the dust. It was from a company not associated with the camera manufacturer, at half the price and has been working fine since the early 2000s. Now it’s toast and I lost my chance at videotaping the night’s lecture. My original camera battery was charging and not reached “green” yet when we left. I should have taken it anyway, but didn’t. My fault. On the way home, we bought a tub of vanilla ice cream.

Thursday, Mar 19

For Mar 18, CPAP report. Reported figures. No report; forgot to push in my SD card.
Oximetry was on all night. Minimum after CPAP off was 82 SpO2.

This morning something special appeared on Facebook on the Central Washington University page in Facebook, under the following picture:

There we are behind Nick’s right ear.
(John says: looks like Nick is the youngest person in the room. There is often a teenage girl that comes but she doesn’t show here, and I did not see her this evening.)
The following comments appeared below the picture on the Central Washington University Facebook site (there are more, but I chose to share only the first two).
Amanda H. S. Taub (says): Great pic of 2 former professors of mine – Nick Zentner and Nancy B. Hultquist.
Nancy B. Hultquist (says): Thank you, eagle-eyed Amanda H. S. Taub. Yep, John and I were on the front row behind Nick, for the last of this year’s fantastic Zentner community geology lectures, at the City Library, Hal Holmes Center, Ellensburg, WA, on “New Discoveries – Earthquakes in Washington.” We and the rest of the community look forward to his next set. Attendance was the highest last week for Liberty Gold Mine Geology, with 250 happy folks.

Before I left for our play date at Dry Creek today, I set up copies of music and prepared for today a new edition of the lyrics of Mountain Dew (we did in Part II below).
John left at 7:40, for White Heron, and wine grapevine pruning. I left at 1:00 for Dry Creek. I carried all our music for the audience (19 copies) and handed them all out. Some people had to share. Once there, I set up my old camera whose battery wasn’t working last night, but today the other one was fully charged. I made a couple of videos. They are not the best because I didn’t have a place I could set it up, and no one to “run” the camera. But we have something for the season of St. Patrick’s Day week. We play this list throughout March and April.

Irish Music by KV Fiddlers & Friends, 3-19-15, Part I

Other music by KV Fiddlers & Friends, 3-19-15, Part II

Myst’s eye evaluation occurred at 4:30 p.m. by vet Dan Charlton. Thankfully, it was not a sty, but an injury from a sliver, no longer there. Being less serious of an injury he was able to work on Myst without using a tranquilizer and she behaved well. The Charltons (family long in the Valley) have a cabin up where the fire went through last year. They had time to wet the area and there isn’t large vegetation close to it so the place did not burn. We wrote last summer of a cabin near there that did go up. Dan said the explosions were propane tanks. The fire came fast and hot and melted the brass fittings while also generating high pressure in the tanks. The design is for it to leak (vent) and burn (so we heard), but it didn’t have time to do that.

Myst’s Eye Injury, Visit by Vet, 3-19-15

Click on the line above to see the video of the examination and treatment, which now we are doing twice a day. It’s much better as of Saturday evening.

Friday, Mar 20

For Mar 19, CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 34 min with AHI = 0.26 Events: 2H, 1 CSR No major mask leaks (max=16 L/min), after the SpO2, 9 hrs 20 min, with AHI= 0.21
Today, we had 9.81 more tons of hay delivered (total is just over 21 tons and should last about 15 months +). The money to pay for it has been in the checking account doing nothing, so that, now, is no longer a burr under John’s saddle.
Before John left for White Heron at 7:40 a.m., we walked down in the pasture for me to put ointment in Myst’s eye while John held her head. She likes apples and is enough interested in the apple that she hardly notices the treatment.

I went to a Scholarship luncheon today in Bouillon (where my old office was from 1997 to 2008–before that my office was in Lind Hall from ’88, and that’s how I got to know Nick Zentner so well). We had two salads, one Chinese chicken pasta, and the other broccoli (I am not supposed to have because of high Vitamin K content), large red grapes, cheese, and turkey bacon bits (homemade). Quite good. We had a V8 fusion drink peach/mango that had carrots in it. For dessert, a super cake, a peppermint one – 3 layers, dark chocolate crumbs similar to Oreo cookies, a layer of creamed sweetness, and a frosted pink top.

Then off to SAIL, where I got a call from our hay broker that he would be at the house after 1:30 (when John was due back). We received the last 9.81 tons of hay into our barns, to keep the other 11.44 tons of previously delivered hay, company. We are short one horse, so this should be plenty for this year and well into next.

I came home by way of the fence building crew up the road a ½ mile north & west, that we heard about last night from the vet, and went up to check it out. The builder and a co-worker were there today, and I got their information, and told him why we were interested. He’s 6 weeks out on being able to do anything, and we won’t be ready either until we get the land re-contoured and the property boundaries verified. When we are ready, we can call him for an estimate.

Here’s an example of their work, a mile northwest of our house.

This collage I made with 3 different pictures. The Sweetwater property is owned by doctors from the west side. Kittitas County Fencing is installing the fence. We do not plan a fancy gate such as that, and it has been there awhile. We would like a similar fence, however. The shot above (top) is the long view along Charlton Road, and the lower left is the work in progress, actually east of the other two pictures, but on the same property. Note that while the fence is near the road, the gate is set in far enough that a pickup with horse trailer can get completely out of the traffic lane. The in-set is shaped like a ‘V’ so that wide turns by big trucks, into the lane, are possible. When we first arrived at out place the gates were in-the-fence-line and not wide enough for a big rig.

Saturday, Mar 21

For Mar 20, CPAP report. Reported figures. 8 hrs 22 min with AHI = 1.20 Events: 10H,1CSR leaks (max=20 L/min), after SpO2 added, 8 hrs 46 min, with AHI = 1.14

This morning early, I went with John to feed the horses, doctor Myst’s eye, and walk back by his work on reassembling the round pen. Then he went out and dug/pulled 5 more posts from the old fence along the driveway. Now I don’t know what he’s doing. He took a break and came in to fix a cheese & mushroom omelet. We had toast and locally made rope-style sausage.

P12366019322B is the serial # for my Philips Respironics. Sometime this weekend, I have to make time to install a new CPAP review program for my SD card. John found an article on CPAP machines and a doctor in North Carolina, who wrote an “app” for individuals to check their parameters collected each night on an SD card. I told my friend (who previously told me about the Sleepyhead software he’d been using, and taught me how), he downloaded it a couple days ago, and he sent me some suggestions about being sure I had all my information correct the first time, because it couldn’t be corrected (at least not easily). I will do it right the first time, thanks to him. First, I have to finish this blog, so John can get to it today, as he leaves at 6 AM for WTA trail work again on Poo Poo Point trail, Tiger Mountain. It’s supposed to be almost-dry until late in their work day. Hope that remains the case. He’s taking along my former student again, who lives here in the valley about 15 min. south of us.

I’m going to Briarwood for music (and food) today, and will take some onions to give away, and also 3 large HoneyCrisp apples for them to cut and share with the people there. This is always a fun play date every month. They go all out for us. We had several conflicts for players today so the crew of musicians was small.
I decided to take my camera with a rejuvenated battery, and capture today’s event.
So, this is the music presented by Maury, Gerald, Charlie (on guitars), Nancy on fiddle), and Anne (on tambourine) for the group.
Note the start is with Happy Birthday singing to celebrate two birthdays. One was our main cook today (Lee, at 83, last Thursday), and “Weed,” at 92, next Tuesday.
Then watch 23:40 minutes in for “Weed” dancing with Margo to Let Me Call You Sweetheart.

Briarwood music on 21 March 2015

They returned thanks by feeding us a nice holiday feast, of three salads (green chiffon with Mandarins, Broccoli, Potato), deviled eggs, and chicken salad sandwiches, to go with a birthday cake for Lee, and other goodies with pineapple juice and lime/orange sherbet, zucchini bread, chocolate covered peanut butter bars, a strawberry frosted Bundt cake, and fig newtons.
Here’s a collage of the afternoon’s fun. I’ll explain below.

The top picture starts with desserts and punch. The birthday cake has “Happy Birthday, Lee”– she’s the one at the top right, with the burnt rolls (she laughingly asked me to document that). I wish I had a picture of her split pea & ham & carrot soup. It was scrumptious. On the bottom is the main table with 3 salads, sandwiches, and deviled eggs. The lady in the middle in blue is Collette, who just returned from surgery at Swedish hospital (Seattle) (for cancer in her back). She has recovered well from that, and just found out yesterday she has cancer in her throat, but they don’t know what type yet. She requested prayer from us all at the end. We’ll all keep her in our prayers, and seek others to add to their prayer chains as well. The couple dancing on the right is the other birthday gal, “Weed,” (in green) with Margo, in purple. They were dancing to Let me Call you Sweetheart. They had been dancing to the Anniversary Waltz, but were out of the view of the camera. You’ll have to watch the video about 23 min. in to see them dancing. The snag above from a low resolution video does not work well for clarity. We all had a good fun time today, darkened by Collette’s news, but she was happy to be there and very much enjoyed herself, thanking and re-thanking us for coming.
I had enough to eat I don’t need dinner. I brought home two desserts for John and me to have later, after his dinner.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Medical, Mining, & Merriment

Sunday, Mar 8

John and Chantelle took off early to work on the Poo Poo Point Trail, on Tiger Mountain, near Issaquah, WA. (218 mile round-trip for John).
Remember recent blog discussion of the history of the name of the Poo Poo Point Trail? It was related to the sound of the whistle on the (steam-powered) Donkey engine.
Historical Digression:
John says:
The linked-to article mentions wire rope, also called a cable. You can read about that at this wire-rope page. Lots of history can be learned by following the wire-rope story. Being from Pennsylvania we learned of the cross-State canal and Allegheny Portage Railroad. John Roebling of suspension bridge fame was involved. For those interested, here is a starting link.
Map and drawings are here.
Many years ago I (John) stopped along the route of the inclined rail section. There wasn’t much to see but I was impressed by the native grape vines climbing high into the trees. We did not have wild grapes in the part of PA where I was raised, on the west slopes of the Alleghenies, often called the Allegheny Plateau. (Calling it a plateau makes no sense. But they didn’t ask me.)
~~~~~~
Back to Nancy:
I accidentally found this link, a Steam Whistle On Compressed Air. I looked further and found 3 minutes of actual Yarder logging with 2 steam whistles being used, the loudest from the log uphill puller. View Yarder Logging

We now have before and after photos of the wet spot on the trail where WTA volunteers have been working. Unfortunately they are from opposite directions. Thus, note the tree just behind the blue-vest on the left photo. To the right of the tree and the man’s feet you can see puddles, rocks, and branches – all in a mixture of wet clay and decayed vegetation. In the right side photo: that same tree is on the right, opposite Chantelle whose right foot is in the ditch dug to drain the seepage away from the trail. After all the muck was removed the space was filled with rocks with large ones along the edges. Buckets of mineral material were “zip-lined” to the site and packed as the tread. Ferns were brought from the forest and planted along the sides of the path. This is a high rainfall area and plants grow thickly. By summer’s end the trail’s sides will have lush growth covering the disturbed soil.

John worked at this spot for 2 Sundays with others. He was up-trail for this day working with 3 others. Chantelle worked with the crew putting the rock base in, then the mineral top tread, and revegetating the sides. These stories always seem unfinished – it would be nice to have a photo of the site in a couple of years, but the probability of that is real close to zero.

Monday, Mar 9

For Mar 8, CPAP report. Reported figures. 6 hrs 41 min with AHI = 1.20 Events: 8 H, 1 CSR, No major mask leaks (max=13 L/min), after the SpO2 was added, 8 hrs 39 min, with AHI= 0.93 I’m still unclear on the calculations for AHI.

More medical stuff for us and some merriment too — we both went to the foot doctor for toenail care (covered by Medicare every 3 months). From there for my Protime blood test; INR=2.9, with no required changes in dosage. On to a surprise happy 89th birthday party for Lorene Swedberg. Son Ken picked her up at Royal Vista (rehab, where she is recuperating), telling her he was taking her for a Reuben sandwich (her favorite). She was surprised to find 10 long-time friends and relatives from the valley there to celebrate. Pretty neat.

Tomorrow we take off for another medical issue in Yakima. John will go along to be my trusted assistant to discuss my “condition” with the cardiologist. This one is my “other” cardiologist, the one who will do the upcoming surgery on me. He’s the one who replaced my previous doctor who retired in 2012. My ICD unit will be 5 years old June 1, and will be needing a new battery inserted before the end of the year (maybe a bit later). My regular cardiologist has been pushing for some time to have an additional one or two wire leads inserted into my heart. He feels it will make my heart pump more synchronously on the right and left sides, and that my “weaker” heart parts (as displayed on the numbers of different tests), will be improved and cause my heart to function at a better efficiency to get blood to my vital organs. Mind you, I feel fine and do not experience any of the symptoms associated with a “bad” heart (shortness of breath, pain, atrial fibrillations, etc.), but if they have to replace the unit, then that’s the time to have it all done. I realize I have an artificial pig valve replaced for one of my own, but my cholesterol, blood pressure, and pulse are all okay too. I do know my regular cardiologist wishes to raise my pulse into the sixties all the time. During sleeping it does drop into the 50s. That doesn’t sound real low except that it isn’t as efficient as an average healthy heart.
If I have the extra wire(s) added, it will be more of an operation, requiring an overnight stay. Of course, my preference is just to replace the battery and not have to have the surgeon mess with finding a way through veins (one for each lead) to reach both left and right chambers of my heart.

Tuesday, Mar 10

For Mar 9, CPAP report. Reported figures. 8 hrs 3 min with AHI = 0.12 Events: 1 H, 1.5 CSR, No major mask leaks (max=7 L/min), when SpO2 added, 8 hrs 43 min, with AHI= 0.11

We left very early (8:15 a.m.) for town. First, I drove to Carl’s JR for 2 special sausage-egg-cheese biscuits), which we carried to our CWU-retirees meeting at Hearthstone. On the way there we stopped for gasoline at a better price than in Yakima ($2.36). All prices are up now. Then off to the meeting of most of the Emeritus Geography profs from CWU. We had a brief tour before others arrived of the two-bedroom apartment of our friends Jim & Lillian Brooks. Another couple of geographers, Mary Ann & George Macinko, have the only other 2-bedroom apartment in the complex. Jim & Lillian have assisted living help there too, but still have their home with the possibility of returning to it when they are better. John and I walked back to the meeting room to eat our breakfasts, awaiting the others. We had a good visit with 7 folks attending, until almost 11:00 a.m., when our room was being given over to a bible study group.
John (driving) and I left for Yakima, taking the canyon road (rather than the Interstate). Your choice of Canyon images here.
The green is beginning to show, and it was a lovely sunny day for the drive at 45 mph, so we got 41 mph/gal on the trip down. Looked for, but did not see, any Big Horn sheep on the hills, as often one can. We stopped at Fred Meyer to use two $6.99 coupons to buy some Almond Roca of that exact price. We were both surprised there was no tax.

On to the Yakima Heart Center a few minutes early for my 12:40 appt. Without a wait, we were ushered back to the office for vitals. My blood pressure was good 120/70 with a 60 pulse. I’m sure driving the canyon road as a passenger was helpful. Shortly, the doctor (Dr. Dao Pham) came in, and we met for over an hour. John and I had a bit of trouble following him and understanding things today. It was a little confusing. I think the essence was that he did not know if my ICD would provide any help to me by adding another wire (or two). If my Metoprolol dosage is to be increased, it would require an upper wire in the chamber above where the current one is. He was uncertain about the benefits of the additional wire to the other side of the heart as well. We were under the impression my ICD would be replaced with a new unit, but his advice was only to replace the battery and not the whole unit. It’s been working well as is. My heart does not require it to provide pacing and has been doing its own thing at 60 bpm.
We received a copy of his comments on our visit intended to go to my main cardiologist, Dr. Kim, who asked for the consultation regarding additional wire(s). We hope the two doctors will get together in person to review the situation instead of depending on email messages. They are there in the same hallway of the Yakima Heart Center.
Here’s what Dr. Dao Pham wrote: [click image to enlarge]

See below (Wednesday) for my follow-up communication with my primary cardiologist after the consultation with the cardiac surgeon for devices.

Then about 2:00 p.m. we left and went to Costco. Bought some stuff and came home talking to John’s sister Peggy the whole way. I drove home, but dialed Peggy from the parking lot while John was still loading the groceries. Nice conversation, only interrupted a couple of times when passing through basalt cliffs on either side of the Interstate. We got home about 3:30, and I tried doing a little catch up work, such as calling my family physician to see why they never contacted me yesterday (or today) about the INR reading from yesterday noon. In the past 5 years they always have called and at least left a message. Oddly, they claimed they had mailed it. But I got the results anyway, and the mailed one took 2 days to arrive. There is a newly hired someone up there – I think.
The Connections (music) was tonight at Hearthstone and I participated. Nice appreciative crowd.

Wednesday, Mar 11

For Mar 10, CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 38 min with AHI = 0.00 Events: 0 H No major mask leaks (max=10 L/min), no oximetry, my oximeter’s battery ran out.

Busy with emails to Cardiologist about yesterday’s visit with the surgeon to review my case and consult over the upcoming battery replacement in my ICD. Basically, I requested through email via my cardiologist’s nurse, that the two doctors meet in person to discuss my situation, rather than communicating digitally. I want to be sure they are on the same wavelength (pun intended).

Then took off for the food bank, where I got a few apples (old not desirable for people) for the horses, and some bread. We sang mostly Irish songs today. The meal was a large chef salad, with an excellent piece of coconut-cream frosted white cake for dessert. I left early to get to a Jazzercise building to meet a gal getting out of class there at 1:00 p.m. It was to deliver two sets of raspberry starts (one of reds and one of yellow Anne raspberries). From there to my SAIL exercise class, but I was not feeling great today. Came on home and rested a little before going back to town to Nick Zentner’s lecture on Gold Mining in Liberty, WA. It was fantastic as usual. I took my tripod tonight, and thought I had a newly charged battery in but it didn’t last very long. Luckily, I did have my extra battery along that I charged this morning. I need to take the videos off my camera, but it is late, and now I must go to bed… and worry about it in the morning. But now we know why there is gold in them-there hills – and where it is too!

Thursday, Mar 12

Began taking videos from my camera of last night’s lecture on Liberty – Gold, and my Internet connection went down. Bad timing. I’m troubleshooting it now. If that doesn’t work, I’ll reset my router. Finally, that worked. I have part two up currently; working on part one.
Part three will be Rob Repin, a gold miner in Liberty, WA, answering questions from the audience. This link was sent before we attended the lecture, to interest us in attending last night.
Watch [bad words] Corbley’s potato patch mine. Part 1 (5:00 mark is the moment!) to see a large gold nugget find (recently), and to enjoy the excitement and expletives.

Below are the video links I made from last night’s evening lecture at Hal Holmes center in Ellensburg. This week I took my tripod and took a little less shaky version of the evening, than last week’s videos. For this week, there will be a professionally done video available later, but meanwhile, here’s mine (pun intended).

Nick’s Liberty Gold – Part A

Nick’s Liberty Gold – Part B

Nick’s Liberty Gold – Part C

Finally, below is a combined shot of a Liberty Gold mine tunnel into the gravels and a photo of Rob Repin, with one of his larger gold nugget finds. He is in the right of each photograph.

Now that those are posted, I’ll stop and upload my CPAP and Oximetry data for last night.

?? For Mar 11, CPAP report. Reported figures. 1 hrs 16 min with AHI = 0.00 Events: 0 H No major mask leaks (max=4 L/min), after the SpO2 was added, 7 hrs 3 min, with AHI= 0.00, but something happened, and I don’t know what. I had the CPAP mask on all night, and the oximeter too. I do not know how it could have been turned off after an hour. We did not have an electrical failure to my knowledge; at least none of the clocks were reset. I have to make a decided and purposeful reach to turn it off. This remains a mystery.
Today at 1:00 I leave for music at the Rehab facility, newly added to the prestige care network, giving us two such facilities in town.
We had a good turn-out and an appreciative audience. Our dancer, Helen, was not up to snuff today, but she did get up and dance one waltz.

Friday, Mar 13

For Mar 12, CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 19 min with AHI = 0.41 Events: 3 H No major mask leaks (max=16 L/min), after the SpO2 was added, 8 hrs 58 min, with AHI= 0.33

Off to AAC, then to CWU Dean Hall to deliver Honeycrisp apples (from Quincy), and home by Water Street, for old apples for the horses.
We had an early St. Patrick’s Day Potluck at the Adult Activity Center in town (Senior Center, but I guess that’s not PC). The center provided corned beef stew (with carrots & potatoes) and cabbage; people were supposed to bring side dishes. I took a pretty green bowl of spiced sweet pickles, canned by Phyllis Fries of White Heron Cellars (winery) over on the Columbia River. That’s where John was pruning wine grapevines today (in their Mariposa Vineyard) and couldn’t attend the party, as he has in years past.

While we ate, Dave Lundy played Irish songs and sang other cool songs from the past. Here are some videos of him and his music.
First, was with a member of the audience, who played, You Are My Sunshine.
Jim Cummings on Harmonica & Dave Lundy

Dave Lundy singing Danny Boy (only a little part, 1 minute)-’cause I had to go be served.
Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side

Next, we have a special rendition of a Sneaky Snake song (by Tom T. Hall) that Dave usually does for entertaining the kids of the valley, in their schools. As you can see from the video the senior kids had a good time with it. It’s Friday night, and I am sending it to You tube. I only have 9 minutes for it to finish processing, and then I can go to bed at 11:25. Phew.. didn’t finish until midnight.
Sneaky Snake’s Interaction with the AAC Audience, with Dave singing in the background.

After lunch, we teamed up at the tables and played a fun St. Patrick’s game (similar to Jeopardy), with WHO, WHAT, WHERE questions. I was sitting at Team 2’s table with fewer people than the other two tables, and our team won the match points of the day. Many people had left by the time we had a door prize drawing at the end, only for those still present. Three nice gifts and I won the last — a fancy water bottle with a pair of Irish knee socks inside.

Above is Olivia Estill, the leader of the game who is our SAIL exercise teacher and our YOGA instructor. She’s from Louisville, KY, here for a year on an AmeriCorps community service appointment. I’m holding the water bottle with the Irish socks inside. Before we started our exercise class, I put them on and rolled up my pants such that it looked as if I had on knickers. I went through >1/2 hour of exercises with them up, causing many chuckles and comments, before I finally released the pants from the socks’ hold. Below are some photos to entertain you more.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Well, if you SMILE, I’m Irish ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Saturday, Mar 14

For Mar 13, CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 36 min with AHI = 0.13 Events: 1 H No major mask leaks (max=8 L/min), after the SpO2 was added, 8 hrs 40 min, with AHI= 0.12

Goodness — a beautiful sunny day, with rain expected this afternoon through next Tuesday. Well, we are in a spot the National Weather Service seems to know little about but, somewhere, in their multi-county forecast area, they think it will rain. Here? Not likely. We have been hearing our friendly frog out front and I heard him again this morning. I went out to see if I could find him, but I could not. He must be hiding beneath the planks of the wooden porch. John’s up by the road moving old woven-wire fence into the place of the one torn down. The dogs finally realized the fence was gone and apparently decided their yard had expanded.
We had partially cooked bacon in the refrigerator, from a couple days ago, so I cooked it, and John made a large blueberry pancake, which we shared and had a side of canned pears. I am inside setting up stuff for future musical events with a deadline approaching, and now coming back to work on the blog. Oh, darn, I just remembered to take my diuretic, so will be walking back and forth to the bathroom the rest of the day. One way to get exercise. Part of my process for blog creation is to make side-by-side “pair” shots to submit as one, because with Word Press, it only accepts one picture at a time, and causes lengthy posts, not allowing before and after shots adjacently placed.
Meanwhile, John is moving hay out of the shelter we call the hay mow – kitty loft above – and that is the last of the old hay; about 1 ton. It will go into an old horse trailer that is now backed up to the fence wherein the horses are. Some of the hay is 2 seasons old – soon to be gone and replaced with 2014 hay.
I just took a walking trip out (with John and the 3 dogs) to see the work he did on the fence-moving project. He took the large woven wire fence from the posts along the driveway, and repositioned it where the old leveled fence was. Now we have a way to keep the dogs (or horses) from going down the hill where he fence was removed. He has made a make-shift gate of fencing, too, to keep any cows out (from the road as they are moved from one pasture to another), and the horses in, if they should find a way out of where they are supposed to be.
Here is an overview of what you’ll see in a total of less than a minute below–John’s crafty creativeness at work:

From the left panel comes the fencing from now standing fence posts only. The middle shot of the temporary fence is along the front part of our land where the logs rolled in and over, and the right one is the temporary gate pull from along the fence (top right middle), to close the driveway entrance.
Here’s 25 seconds of a demo of the temporary gate & fence. (Note the now mostly dismantled rock-cribs.)

Gate and Fence A

. . . and John replaces temp gate on temp fence.

Gate and Fence B

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan