Keeping track

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

Sunday, Mar 1 (Here, March did not come in like a lion.)

For Feb 28 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 4 min with AHI = 0.49
Events: 3 H, CSR-1m42s, 1 PP No major mask leaks (max=9 L/min)
Then after SpO2 entered: 9 hrs 36 min with AHI = 0.31

Another day (last night) of problems with Word Press to get the blog out, so John could get up at 5:00 a.m. to head for a WTA work crew day across the pass at Tiger Mt. near Issaquah, again at Poo Poo Point. (See story about the name below near the end of this blog.) He was supposed to take along a friend but she woke up feeling awful with a sore throat, called at 5:18 and cancelled. John continued getting ready to leave, but somehow walked off without his backpack. I didn’t find it until I re-awoke. It had his lunch and camera and other stuff I’m sorry he won’t have with him. He will not return until 5:45 p.m., having to go through EBRG for gasoline to be ready to take the trip to White Heron for pruning in the morning. I returned his lunch to the fridge and gave Woody her morning food on her pallet perch. I went out and called, and then watched from the house. She first went to the bed backboard in the 3-walled shed where she hangs out, sleeps, and in bad weather, eats–and got up to look inside. When she didn’t find it there, she came on across the driveway to the special pallet dining place (a.m. only). Evenings 3 ferals eat in the hay mow next to the cat house. Woody is the only one who gets morning treats.

John called about 10:00 a.m. to tell me what I already knew, and asked me to put his lunch away. I beat him to it, having done that as soon as I found it. His battery ran out while he was talking to me. So much for having a cell phone for emergencies. The car charger does not fit his phone. I continued with chores and projects.. After noon, I went to take pictures of John’s tree-felling work yesterday. I got 3 taken from the between the barns looking in the direction I took before shots, and then walked forward to take on-the-ground pix, only to have my camera retract its lens and say Battery Exhausted. So, back to the house for charging. When it’s done (I think it takes awhile), I’ll try again.

Eventually, I got the photo; below are before and after shots.

More work done on dishes and yea, I put in my meds for the week (time-consuming). I decided not to eat anything for lunch because John is not able to eat his. I also had my breakfast a lot later than he did.

Much happened this afternoon–finished my volunteer paperwork to send in the first of the month, to R.S.V.P. group, two more batteries died (the camera one said, Battery Exhausted and the cell phone had red bars). Then received an unexpected call for help from a friend in a nursing home. Took me >1 hour to sort that problem out, and luckily I did not have to drive to town. AOK now. John got home 11.5 hrs after leaving. He had to get gas at a very high price, sadly, because he didn’t stop on the way out of town. He paid $2.99 / gal in North Bend. Yikes, it was higher than recently here in Ellensburg, but the price here was cheaper, $2.19, but now at the end of this week, is $2.39.

This was an interesting occurrence today for a Captcha Code, I received for a verification I needed to add someone to the jobs list serve I moderate. Normally it is boring, undecipherable numbers.

We were both very hungry and so had a breakfast for dinner: two eggs over easy, ham, and an English muffin. Dessert blueberry pie and ice cream.

I noticed bruises on the smallest knuckles of my hands ????? they were gone by morning, and I have no clue (nor do my doctors and nurses and pharmacist) what might have happened.

Monday, Mar 2

for Mar 1, CPAP report. Reported figures. 10 hrs 14 min with AHI = 0.00 Events: no H No major mask leaks (max=6 L/min)

John left at 7:40 for wine grapevine pruning at White Heron today.
Mario came and unloaded another large trailer full of hay. I don’t know how much hay we now have, but more is coming.
I wrote an email to my cardiologist, Dr. Kim’s nurse, and I called my family physician’s nurse. I searched on line last night and didn’t find much helpful information. One suggested cause is stress. Well I’m under stress a lot, but never have had this in my life. I should have taken a photo, but didn’t.
I wrote an email to my cardiologist (via his nurse), which is the way they prefer such conversations. Last night I had bruises on my lower knuckles (near the finger nail). No pain, and no memory of doing anything to cause it, especially on both hands. I can think of one thing, but it’s only with my right hand; or, another, (wearing and changing the oximeter), but that is only on the left hand.
My dosage doubled to 20mg of Telmisartan (Micardis), a couple weeks ago, and I was supposed to be on the lookout for dizziness or feeling tired. I wondered if bruising was a side effect of that drug, so I got the literature from my pharmacist. Indeed, it does suggest to watch for increased bruising. However, by morning it was almost all gone — I could make myself see lighter bruises if I tried. Sadly, I did not photograph them.
I’m scheduled next week to see Dr. Pham (Mar 10) about my ICD upgrade. Perhaps I will ask him.
I called my Pharmacist to see if she had any ideas. She only thought that Coumadin might be involved, but I have been on that for many years, and I do not bruise easily or for no reason. My INR will be checked Monday, 3/9, but it has been in the right range for the past 3 times. If you have any thoughts or ideas, please share.
Nancy
P.S., I did a little research on line — and didn’t learn what I thought applied to me, so with all yours and the doctor’s knowledge about my situation, I thought I would contact you.

Called our family physician, Dr. Schmitt’s office for his nurse. Karen called me back late afternoon and was very attentive and would pass along to my family physician (never heard anything).

A day later, I received this from the cardiologist’s nurse:
Hi Nancy,
We have no idea what would cause the bruising. Certainly, as you know, warfarin (coumadin) patients bleed and bruise more easily. As your INR is now therapeutic, and the bruising did not worsen or persist, I would chalk it up to happenstance. Some things we really do not know the answer to.
Sorry it took so long to get back to you.
Colleen

Managed to finish the summary of volunteer hours for February for both us and a guitar-playing friend who does not have a computer, but goes to the same gigs I do.

John got gas on way home. I think he got it for $2.19 at the “lower Circle K” on Canyon Road.

He spent more time on disassembling the rock crib by our entrance.
Here’s a before and after comparison.

Have to show dinner. John made a neat concoction for our vegetable with brown sugar, butter, and cubed honeycrisp apple cooked in the half of an Acorn squash. With it we had a super-baked chicken in an iron skillet, and a whole wheat croissant buttered and toasted.

Tuesday, Mar 3

For Mar 2 CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 17 min with AHI = 0.27 Events: 2 H No major mask leaks (max=8 L/min)

John left for pruning at White Heron, in the Mariposa Vineyard.

I called Super 1 Pharmacy about receiving Telmisartan warnings for the drug’s side effects to see if it might have been related to my bruised knuckles. They will have them ready for me to drive by and pick up.

Picked up my neighbor at 1:25 and took him to the car repair shop, but they were not ready for him, so I took him along to Jazzercize and he visited with two people he knew there, while I went through the class. That was exciting, and even fun, but quite tiring. I got my pulse up, that’s for sure. Below is the pulse rate as recorded by my oximeter, and it went to a high of 150 for a few moments during this segment.

I’m not sure of the dip (about 25 minutes in) after the stair-stepping move upward, to above 150 bpm. It might be related to movement on my finger, but I don’t recall switching fingers as I do overnight, when I awake. My pulse was above 70 for the entire time, and over 100 for 12.5 minutes.

Stopped by Louaine’s on way home. She had a surprise for us. She gave us her pineapple that took 4 years to grow. Boy, what a special gift! And, she also has a couple/three lemon trees, with huge lemons, and she shared one of them. She grows these delicacies in the corner of her living room. You saw her Amaryllis and pineapples in last week’s blog, but also hidden behind the Amaryllis were a couple of her lemons. See below for more on the size of these beauties.

Worked on music, and got two copies ready to go. John has put in some more time trying to get the scanner to listen to the signals, but apparently, this is a problem many others have had for some time. I surely miss having my scanner for the music packet production and sharing.

John worked this afternoon on moving trees he had cut down and on removing barbed wired from the old fence that has to come down so that the bulldozer can grade a road link off the driveway, to get to the barns in a straighter line. You can view in the picture below, the old wire woven on the fence. Our male Black Butte’s Chocolate Dandy is sitting in the driveway in front of the to-be-new gate posts for our newly planned wooden dowel fencing. The 2012-built Pole Barn is in the center, and the new drive access will go through that fence (John’s been disassembling all week), through the trees (now cut down) to the right of the V-shaped one on the edge of the large brush pile. Old barn is to the back right of the picture a little out-of-sight.

Then John came in and made a chocolate cake in two pie pans. After dinner, I turned one upside down (should have sliced off the convex top), frosted the bottom (now the top), to be the layer, put the other bottom on top of the layer (frosting was coconut/pecan), frosted the top, and then the sides of the whole, strangely-shaped cake. It may look funny, but it is quite yummy. The center layer of frosting doesn’t show very well in the photo. Perhaps I should have spread it thicker between the cakes.

Wednesday, Mar 4

For Mar 3 CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 1 min with AHI = 0.00
Events: 0 H No major mask leaks (max 7/min)

Worked on several things and left at 11:10 for town; to food bank soup kitchen, where we played, sang, ate (Shepherd’s pie, with green beans, and a fruit salad with blueberries and apples in a creamy sweet sauce). Dessert was a rich chocolate cake I only had a little of (2 bites). On to SAIL where I took my oximeter for readings to compare to Jazzercise yesterday. It was much milder, indeed, as expected.

Nick Zentner describing a map, but look at the shadow of his hands — I see a CWU wildcat! I describe my videos below, but I captured this as an image from the video (hence low resolution).

We went to Nick Zentner’s talk tonight, “The Dalles to Portland: Interstate-84 Geology” and took my old Exilim 7.2 megapixels camera, because it does not make such huge video files as my 18.1 megapixels Nikon. I charged both batteries I have for it, but I didn’t realize the card was full. Actually, I looked, and thought it said I had 1 hr 59 min left, so I did not change to my card from my other camera. While there at the talk, I recorded the first introductions, but was taking too long to delete the other stuff individually, so, I deleted all the stuff from it so I could get most of the information from the evening’s presentation. I have the first blackboard/green board lecture parts separated from the other visuals. Got about 28 min of the latter. It took forever to upload to You tube, but that will be the only way I can share the file. It’s hundreds of megabytes large. We grabbed some ice cream on the way home and came home to a late dinner of turkey/cheese sandwiches, cake and ice cream.

Apologies in advance for not taking my tripod, but not sure I could follow Nick around while he lectures.

Nick_Z: Part 1

Here is the You Tube link to the visuals, Part II, of Nick’s lecture, described above.

Nick_Z: Part 2

Working more on music for tomorrow and continuing to have WIFI issues with printing and scanning. HOWEVER — good news. John awoke in the middle of the night, and thought for an hour, coming up with the idea we might scan to a USB card, rather than to either of our computers as we had been doing for a couple of years. IT WORKED!! so I’m back in business for scanning my SongWriter 2010 .mus files that cannot be read by any other software, and also it will not send out to another format, such as a .pdf or .jpg. This is my work-around for sharing with other members of our music group (with computers) and with friends around the US.

Thursday, Mar 5

For Mar 4 CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 34 min with AHI = 0.26 Events: 2 H No major mask leaks (max=13 L/min)

I called SiriusXM satellite radio, to get a better price for the next 6 months. If they had not allowed me the option, I was going to cancel. However, I got coverage for 6 months, at $27.68. I’m to call back on 9/1/15 to ask for another promotion to save the automatic renewal of $91.86 for 6 months. I talked to “Dale” in Nova Scotia! They have had too much snow, and were having a heat wave to minus 3 after minus 34 (That’s centigrade I’m sure, but is still very cold). Oops, showing my age, make that Celsius! (-34 Celsius = -29.2 Fahrenheit) — but as I was talking with her it was -3 (-3 Celsius = 26.6 Fahrenheit). I laughed and said, “You’re having a heat wave~!” She agreed.

I managed to complete a letter of recommendation for a Ph.D. program for a student from my past. I’m happy I’m still around to be able to help. Current procedure is to do everything on line; no getting it printed on letterhead, signed, and mailed, anymore. Interesting, but still requires effort and time.

Speaking of students, I also got a request today from Megan Walsh, my successor as Geography faculty member in charge of the scholarship committee. She wrote early morning to check on how many scholarships we wanted to fund this year. I called the CWU Foundation and asked my friend to give me the balance in our account for the scholarship. We will likely give two $500 awards but this is still to be decided.

Today, we had 10 people at Royal Vista, providing music to the residents. Afterwards, the activities director gave us cherry juice and chocolate chip cookies. After the last song in their books, ‘Til We Meet Again, we did some encores, T for Texas, Mountain Dew, and then to resident requests for Golden Slippers & Red River Valley. Very cool indeed; we don’t do that very often. The group very much enjoyed it, and so did we.

Friday, Mar 6

For Mar 5 CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 13 min with AHI = 0.28 Events: 2 H, 2 CSR,2.5m No major mask leaks (max=9 L/min),after the SpO2 was added, it was 8 hrs 16 min with AHI= 0.24

I made one of my needed contacts with our local telephone company actually owned by a firm back east in Maine and New York, Fairpoint. My bill had jumped $9 in Oct, 2014, and I just realized it while collecting my paperwork for taxes. I haven’t paid attention because it is automatically deducted from our bank account. I requested another promotion to lower it to what it had been for 2 years. Nothing is available right now, except for raising my DSL speed at $9.00/ month, which I don’t need to do. So, will wait till that promotion is done, and another comes out in May to lower my “advantage rate.”

I left for the AAC (Senior Center) before 11:00, and stayed until 2:45. We had “thick as fog” pea soup for lunch for Dr. Seuss day, with exercise class following at 1:30 to 2:40. No, I did not take green eggs. They added ham to the green pea soup, but it was quite thick, and more brown than green. At first I thought they used lentils. I was planning for liquid soup, and had some bagels with jalapeno pepper cheese on top. I cut them in half and toasted them, buttered, and then cut into large size croutons for the soup. The center staff makes the main dish, and all the people coming to the party bring something. My croutons went over well, even though the soup was not soupy. They had sour cream to add as well. Someone brought a plate of deviled eggs, but by the time I went through the line, none were left. I wish people would have just taken one half. I had some apple/celery salad (left the cranberries), and a couple of potato chips, an apple-something for dessert, and a couple of cups of lemonade.

We played a Dr. Seuss game of hangman (Wheel of Fortune), for names of the Dr. Seuss book. They had copies on all the tables (checked out from the City Library). Our table was designated as team one; there were two other teams. Our team won the most games, but we had a former day care owner who knew her titles. It was fun. I knew only a couple, but I’m good at hangman. Each team got to choose a letter, and if the letter was in the title, then they could guess the title.

I stayed for exercise class. We had 20 there today; good crowd for a Friday.

If you like animals this 1 minute collection of antics will cheer you. It came to me from a high school friend, Bernie.

Funny animals

John made us a great dinner from the middle third of salmon caught (not by us) in the Columbia River. We’ve had it in the freezer since “cherry time” last year. We were picking cherries when the neighbor brought it by – so he got some cherries – but his nephew did the fishing. We had it with lemon sauce, fried potatoes and onions, and honeycrisp apple pieces.

I must hit the hay, very tired from another long day.

Saturday, Mar 7

For Mar 6 CPAP report. Reported figures. 8 hrs 8 min with AHI = 0.86 Events: 7 H No major mask leaks (max=7 L/min), after the SpO2 was added, it was 8 hrs 13 min, with AHI= 0.85

Managed a nice brunch today before our hay arrived. My partial pancake had strawberries and the last of our plum preserves, cheese omelet, and nice crisp bacon.

Mario brought another load of hay today. It was a day of a lot of outside work for John, including disassembling another rock crib and moving the rocks away to another place on the property. After finding our youngest horse out of where he was supposed to be John put him back and had to repair the loose fence where he apparently pushed under. That old line had not been an issue because it was not part of an enclosure. So when it became part of an enclosure a few days ago (connected to panels), it became the weak link. Now fixed. He also spent time moving implements (riding lawnmower and chipper), out of the old barn where some hay can be placed – just in case. In case what? Don’t have an answer for that. Work was mostly inside for me, with a trip out for some photo follow-ups in the afternoon, where I learned of some neighborhood activity. Some neighbors’ kids let a fire get away from them, into dry grass. Our other neighbor put it out with his tractor, driving through it quickly, scraping with a harrow, before it reached a house on the property, but the fire dept showed up and finished watering down smoldering parts.

One of the several county fire district trucks parked at the south end of the family property. That’s ½ mile from the fire. We are not sure why or what they did there – and we may never know. They brought a big (4,000 gallons?) water tanker, too; red – not yellow.

The other thing we did today was take photos of the pineapple, lemon, with something for scale.
We needed to disassemble the pineapple to eat tonight, and so I can return the top to Louaine to plant for another pineapple 4 years down the road. She offered it to us, but we do not have the a spot such as she has made in her house — humid and in the sun – we barely keep our ‘Christmas’ cactus alive. We don’t do exotic.

In the photo below — the apple on the left is a honeycrisp and is larger than many apples. This one weighs 3/4 lb. Next the pineapple, and the large lemon! On the right is a 15.25 oz can of peaches, for scale.

Then we have pictures of 4 pieces (the whole pineapple) that we had with dinner. It consisted of leftover salmon, peaches, toasted cheese bread, and fresh pineapple from our neighbor.
Thank you, Louaine.

Sunday, Mar 8

For Mar 7 CPAP report. Reported figures. 4 hrs 40 min with AHI = 0.00 Events: 0 H, No major mask leaks (max=6 L/min), after the SpO2 was added, it was 9 hrs 8 min, with AHI= 0.00

Did a load of dishes and of clothes. Put my meds in for the week, and realize I need to print my list to take with me to my doctor’s appointment on Tuesday in Yakima. I delivered the pineapple plant-top to Louaine, stopping to take a picture of the emptied rock crib (over the last week) for comparison above.

Knowing John had taken two pieces of thawed previously frozen pizza, I decided to eat healthy for lunch. I fixed a bowl of oatmeal with our own strawberries and pecans. I left off the brown sugar because the strawberries were sugared when frozen, and the juice acted as the needed liquid.

John’s off to Poo Poo Point, again today, and he is taking a friend (my former student) along with him. She has wanted to volunteer with WTA for some time. She was to go last week, got sick, but was able to go today. He picked her up a little after 6:00 a.m. We’ve previously discussed the Daylight Saving Time change. John set all our clocks ahead today, but I have yet to find the instructions to do my new watch.

Poo Poo Point history:

The collection at the Issaquah Train Depot includes a steam donkey.

The poo poo referenced in Poo Poo Point is not destined for the bathroom. Instead, the designation for a ridge on Tiger Mountain nods to logging. Loggers used a winch called a steam donkey to haul logs through Tiger Mountain forests to a loading point. “There was a steam whistle set up that they would blow before they started pulling these logs through the forest at high speed, which was dangerous,” Issaquah History Museums Executive Director Erica Maniez said.
The high-pitched whistle on the steam donkey emitted a “poo poo” sound. (The history museums’ collection includes a steam donkey parked outside the restored Issaquah Train Depot.)
Maniez said Poo Poo Point is a contemporary designation. The late William Longwell Jr., a longtime Issaquah Alps Trails Club member, described the tale behind Poo Poo Point in a guide to Tiger Mountain trails. Still, uttering “Poo Poo Point” prompts giggles from outsiders and recent transplants.
Read about the name.
Written by Warren Kagarise, July 2, 2011, The Issaquah Press.

John came home and made brownies. He had the box on the pull-out board and I ignored it all day. We have a tub of chocolate frosting with a ‘best by’ date of Aug-2014 that prompted this culinary action. I’m giving him this file to work on and now I’ll frost the brownies.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

We’ve had a busy week and Saturday likewise. Nothing very special happened unless we consider the neighbor’s (¼ mile north) trying to set the county on fire. Folks all over the area are burning the grass in the ditches and theirs got a bit rambunctious. More later.

The big news seems to be the change in the weather east of the Rockies. Cold air is no longer surging out of the Arctic Region and millions of folks that were just now getting used to below zero and single digit temps are headed for the 40s. Holy cow. It’s a heatwave!

Under the snow the Crocuses are ready to delight with the first sign of spring.

While that good news spreads, we’ll get busy with putting things together for a post but it will be late on Sunday (past bed time), so let’s call it Monday.

Cheers,
Nancy and John
On the smokey Naneum Fan

Sunday, Feb 22

For Feb 21 CPAP. Reported figures. 2 hrs 53 min with AHI = 0.35
Events: 1 H No major mask leaks (max=6 L/min)
I spent only a small amount of time on the machine because as I was adjusting my mask, I looked and saw an orange light on the humidifier. I assumed it was low on water, and I did not want to burn it out, nor did I want to get up. So, I left my Oximeter on and went back to sleep. Interesting after the SpO2 added, it was 9 hrs 10 min AHI= 0.13.

We got the blog out late last night, so John could get up at 5:00 a.m. to head for a WTA work crew day across the pass at Tiger Mt. near Issaquah. He will not return until 5:45 p.m., having to go through EBRG for gasoline. I gave the morning food to Woody on her pallet perch. She was waiting for me in the sun.

I spent the day on chores and projects while John drove to Poo Poo Point. He was able to see some hang gliders doing their thing up the trail from where the crew was working. The first part of the day was working on a very wet trail to re-route water and fix the trail. Then, after the work was completed, the crew took a quick look off Poo Poo Point for a nice view of Lake Sammamish and Bellevue. Some of the North Seattle area can be seen but most of downtown is blocked by the ridge just west of Issaquah.

Above left: John & 4 others worked on this wet spot. Hikers have thrown rocks and small logs on top of a seeping hillside. We’ll get an “after” photo on March 1. The next photo is a view toward the SW towards Tacoma.

Next is the view to the NW with Issaquah in the near valley and Lake Sammamish in the center, and Bellevue the bright spot near the left edge. Note the red sail – the most recent person to leave Poo Poo Point.

The photo below has a second gray-blue sail on the right side. That person has a red jacket on so zoom if you don’t at first see it.

Monday, Feb 23

for Feb 22, CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 41 min with AHI = 0.26
Events: 2 H No major mask leaks (max=12 L/min) Oximeter off finger for a couple hours.

John began his wine grapevine pruning 9:00 a.m. at White Heron today. I gave him my sweater I bought in Denmark in 1965 to take to Lynne, wife of one of the volunteer pruners, Tom. She told me at the January Raclette she would be able to re-knit the holes (from moths ?). I am very grateful. She also knitted me some leggings to wear for our January event among the vines. You can see last year’s Raclette write-up in our 2014 annual Seasons Greetings this year. I still have not notified all our friends and relatives (except those who see this blog), of the link. If you have not seen it, please check here:

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

I have primarily worked all day on the web page about the Logging Truck episode, answered emails, and unloaded the dishwasher for reloading. John got home and cooked a nice meal of salmon, fries, and an apple-crisp using pancake mix and 1 large Honeycrisp apple. We eat well, thanks to him.

Tuesday, Feb 24

For Feb 23 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 42 min with AHI = 0.15
Events: 1 H No major mask leaks (max=7 L/min)

John left for pruning at White Heron, in the Mariposa Vineyard.

Nancy had a 12:10 dental appt to prepare for (take antibiotics an hour ahead with food, to prevent bacteria from populating my bloodstream). It was a crazy procedure, on the back tooth in my mouth, a gold crown probably 49 years old, had a hole worn through the top (likely from use, or possibly from grinding my teeth). It was filled and should give me no more problems the rest of my life. Once done, I called my friend (neighbor to the north). I met him at the car repair shop to drop off his truck, and we came on home, with my giving him a ride to his place. On the way back, I drove by a place on the hill below the water tower on N. Willow St (an interesting dead end) to pick up a freely given large box of plastic planters, which shrubs and garden plants are sold in. We will use them when starting the garden. While at his house, I took a photo of our curve from the north for the web page. Earlier, I had taken a picture of 3 deer crossing the road, on the other end of the curve. That made it into the final edition of the page. If you have not seen the web page since last week, several photos have been added. There is a new photo near the top with the 4 U.S. Presidents’ likenesses sculptured into Mt. Rushmore. The ending photo is of the signage at the lower curve on Naneum Road, almost 4 miles to the south. Those flags are what we desire to have installed on our curve. If you have not seen this photo below, read the additional story on the link you checked last week, for UPDATES to the log-roll-off story:
http://www.ellensburg.com/nancyh/2015LoggingTruckDelivery.html

Before coming home, John returned to EBRG from pruning, to visit the county offices about our property boundaries on Naneum, and went by the surveyor’s office of Cruse and Nelson, oddly in the same building as our dentist, directly across the hall. One of my former students (long ago) works there. Her name is Marcia. When John introduced himself and told her why he was there, she recognized his name and told him she knew me. Small world.

Wednesday, Feb 25

For 2/24 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 11 min with AHI = 0.12
Events: 1 H No major mask leaks (max=9 L/min)

After being awakened by John leaving at 7:30 and a phone call from our hay provider, I laid back down to sleep at 8:00 a.m. I was awakened 1/2 hour later by a horse whinnying.
I went out front to check but saw only two horses. Came back in the house, for my morning coffee. Sat down with my computer and heard the whinnying again by more than one horse; I went out and saw all but Ebony, standing at the gate looking toward the orchard. I figured local ranchers might be running cows down the road, with horses, and that our horses heard or saw them. They do not whinny at deer in the orchard. Back into the house. I continued working on my computer and had to get dressed to leave at 11:00a.m. for the Food Bank and SAIL.

At 10:53 a.m., I received a call from Sara at KITTCOM (our 911), asking if I had lost any horses, that someone reported some on the road near our mailbox. I asked, “What colors”? I only remember hearing black and paints, and realized that would be ours. I rushed out and found the gate from the pasture knocked down on the right side. This is a photo of the gate in the closed position. Imagine the right side of the pole down on the ground and the left side still up. The horses managed to step through the opening to follow Ebony’s lead.

I walked up the driveway and saw one of the Tobianos (not Paint) horses, Breeze, on the hill behind where the fence had been that the logs rolled over. The others were down in the triangle where most of the logs fell. I walked up Naneum Road, and the 3 Tobianos (other two, Cheyenne & Jazz) went racing back uphill for home over the place where the fence once was. The other two, Ebony (black and oldest horse) and Myst (sorrel) remained below. I talked them into returning back through the driveway entrance by yelling, “home.” That is a command John taught them when getting them back from the bottom of the pasture to our round pen. As I followed them down the driveway, the 3 others came running back up the drive toward us. I waved my arms and again yelled HOME, hoping they would go back through the gate I had opened. No such luck. They did turn, however, and go back near the house. I kept slowly walking toward the gate, and managed to talk a couple of them in, and then the others followed. Phew. I was concerned I could not get past them to get to grain to lure them, without losing them all up the driveway again.

I closed the gate and reassembled the end Ebony had removed. Here’s a photo from the other side, of the pole Ebony removed.

Before I left for town, I returned inside to call 911 and let them know the horses were corralled and back in their pasture. I expected they would notify the deputy who had been dispatched to the scene. I started for town. I passed a sheriff’s vehicle on my way down Naneum, and tried to flag them down, unsuccessfully, so I turned around and followed them. I caught up to the vehicle past my house, over a half mile north. I kept following, blinking my lights, and finally they pulled over to the side of the road. I did the same, and got out and walked toward the car, saying, “Hello.” Deputy Blue (a female) said, “Are you Nancy”? “Yes,” I said as I walked up to the car. I told her I had gotten the horses back and called 911 to let them know. I asked why she was so far up the road. She said she was looking for the loose horses. She finished her paperwork by asking the details about the horses and colors. I thanked her and left again for town. Remarkably, I made it to town in time to play music at the Food Bank at Noon.

I called John (actually Cameron at the vineyard, because he always carries his cell phone and John does not). I gave him the message of what happened.

Once John arrived home from pruning, he spent the rest of the afternoon until dark making the new fence from panels to keep the horses in the lower part of the pasture, while the hay is loaded into the pole barn and the road is bulldozed between the barns. The gate-pole that fell is a thing that has to be set “just so” and obviously wasn’t. John had cut a second pole but it still had bark on it and the horses pulled it down the day before. Before allowing the horses back up this way we’ll put in a real gate. Because the span is 14 feet, and a steel gate is heavy, we’ll get a wheel, as shown here.

I went from the Food Bank on to SAIL class, where I picked up some free eggs, signed up for the Friday shindig at the Senior center and drove home.

I had to put in some time on the jobs list, on transferring my machine date from the CPAP’s SD card from last night and from my Oximeter, soak dirty dishes to put in the dishwasher, and answer a call and email from the surveyor company John met with yesterday. The cost is going to be $1,900 to set the property point on the north side of our property that never has been set and recorded. More than half of that is the county fee. Supposedly, another on the east end has been set, and we need to find that stake. The surveyor’s office sent us 3 plat maps of adjacent boundaries, and I called and talked to him about the issues. John has reviewed the paperwork, and we will decide what to do next, after searching for the metal post pounded into the ground. We may be able to estimate where to put our fence without major cost. The only real concern is the county road right-of-way.

I’m a bit tired after all that happened today. We had our first delivery of hay today. John got back just before he arrived with the hay. He worked for 3 hrs on fixing fencing (with panels) to keep the horses in the south end of the pasture, away from the loading and unloading process – and from the gate they now know how to open.

I came across a cute musical animal behavior story yesterday, and thought I would share. This could be you – you need a dog, a guitar, and lots and lots of time.

Cute – via Face Book -watch

Thursday, Feb 26

For 2/25 CPAP. Reported figures. 6 hrs 42 min with AHI = 0.45
Events: 2 H, 1 AO No major mask leaks (max=9 L/min)–lost my Oximetry figures for last night, because I stopped and restarted my oximeter, and did not upload first. Therefore, it erased the previous recorded data. Lesson learned the hard way.

I was up early to see John off and never went back to bed. Mario (hay broker) arrived after 9:00 to unload the hay delivered yesterday afternoon, and left on the trailer in the hay pole barn. It only took him 45 minutes for a trailer load. He returned with another late afternoon, but pulled it in the barn as well and will come back and stack tomorrow.

I took some photos on my way to play music, and it was a good thing because the sunny day turned into a gray and rainy one. After getting back from pruning, John got some work done between squalls. We had a small but effective bunch of players, and an admiring group of residents. I delivered a box of Honeycrisp apples from Quincy to a couple in the music group. A good deal (10+ #) for $10; twelve large apples.

Friday, Feb 27

For 2/26 CPAP. Reported figures. 7 hrs 33 min with AHI = 0.13
Events: 1 H No major mask leaks (max=7 L/min)

Up at 7:30, and it was raining, so John is not going to White Heron. He’s starting to dissemble the rock crib. Our Internet connection was down again. I’ve been working on music off line in the process.

I checked with circulation librarian, Kerry, about accessing article database on my nancyh@cwu.edu account, but that completion had to wait until late afternoon. Now, I know how to access databases available to me free as a benefit of being an Emerita professor.

I left to attend a scholarship luncheon at 12 (where we were served make-your-own sandwiches, salad, and a large cookie. I left early to go on to Bingo, a Cancer fundraiser at the Senior Center. It had a light lunch before, and Bingo was to start at noon. I had told them I would be late. I wore pink colors for the afternoon. I actually won a straight Bingo on the same card I then won the total filled (blackout) win, pictured below.

The string over my right arm is of a helium-filled purple balloon in the shape of a star. The pink hat is from Jeri Conklin, co-owner of our Brittany, Cedaridge Kip’s Camelot Shay Tre’ JH (Daisy), and on the back of the hat from the 2015 ABC (American Brittany Club)’s Western Futurity, is embroidered Daisy. She received a second place in the Gun Dog event.

On my way home I stopped by my neighbor, Louaine, with the balloon for her. It was her birthday. I took her picture with her cat Lexi and dog Spice. Behind her are two beautiful blooms of an Amaryllis, and two pineapples (one larger than the other, a flower still). Last year I included a picture of her blooming pineapple flower.

Saturday, Feb 28

For 2/27 CPAP. Reported figures. 8 hrs 42 min with AHI = 0.12
Events: 1 H No major mask leaks (max=4 L/min)

We started the morning with a nice almost hour visit with John’s sister, Peggy, in Parma, OH, where they have had some very cold temps recently. Same as with other family members in PA and friends in NJ and MI.

We talked about a video John found in the Cleveland, OH area, and will share the link with you. It occurred January 12, 2015. You may have to watch twice to see what happens. The black car hits a white car and then the driver of the black car is thrown out when it comes across the “gore point.”

Out he goes — video

Our conversation continued to the entrances onto Interstate freeways, and the occurrence of painted lines one does not want to cross when entering, especially in our state, where the fine is quite high.

Besides being Al’s last name, Gore has many meanings, but they all likely come from the Old English, gār, meaning spear. Therefore, being stabbed with a spear or other pointed object is to be gored (with gory results). Also, a pointy triangular (spear-shaped) piece of land, leather, or cloth is termed a gore. Additionally, a fish with a pointed spear-like head is a gar fish.

A well-written article appears on the web here, and is from where we got the diagram above. I checked on line for the history of the name and a couple of reports say the Gore areas on highways is named after a police officer (Gore) who was struck and killed while in one of this Gore areas. The legend is actually passed along in certain defensive driving courses. It’s an urban legend, so if you ever hear it in a class, please refute it. Our senior center provides classes for defensive driving that I think carry a reduction in insurance rates for those who participate (after a certain age). I need to find out the details.

One more link with an example of a rollover accident caused by an infraction of driving over the Gore point,seen on Komonews (Seattle).

Tonight for dinner is ham. Our scanner has stopped working and John has spent a bunch of time downloading new drivers, to no avail. Last year the procedure fixed the problem. Go figure! At least the printer is still printing, so I am not caught without being able to print music for next week.

Sunday, Mar 1 John’s off to Poo Poo Point, again today, and he is taking someone I know but he does not. She is a friend (my former student) and works as a fire-fighter on wild fires. This will be her first time on a trail crew. She has wanted to volunteer with WTA. Sunday is expected to have great weather, although there was some rain overnight Fri/Sat., so the trail will be wet.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Sunday, Feb 15

CPAP report. Reported figures. 6 hrs 26 min with AHI = 0.62
Events: 4 H No major mask leaks (max=20 L/min)

We got the blog out late last night, so John could get up at 5:00 a.m. to head for a WTA work crew day across the pass at Tiger Mt. near Issaquah. He won’t return until 5:30 p.m. I did give the morning food to Woody on her pallet perch. She was waiting and came right when called, at 9:00 a.m. Now I’m sure she is missing John, as he works around the yard and feeds the horses.

I actually had a weird non-restful night with the CPAP mask, so as John was pulling out the driveway, I took some meds, removed the mask, left my Oximeter running, and went back for a restful sleep for 3 hours. I did not report that above in the figures.

I spent the day on various types of paperwork. I had Internet connection problems.

Monday, Feb 16 President’s Day

CPAP report. Reported figures. 6 hrs 36 min with AHI = 0.15
Events: 1 CSR, 1 H No major mask leaks (max =21 L/min)

Day began quite early (5:15 a.m.) with noises (back-up beeps from heavy equipment) from the road that turned out to be the before-dawn cleanup of a load of logs that rolled off a logging truck at 2:30 a.m., in front of our house. More of the story below with links to videos and a report on the web. Photo below is from our driveway’s end, over 350′ from our house. The building in the background (corner of roof) is our shed. It’s 1.5 stories high, and our house only one. Our house is left of that shed (and out of the picture). This just shows the logs that rolled off the truck, from the road, across our neighbor’s driveway, over and through our fence, onto a little ridge. This photo was taken at 9:00 a.m. after the truck and rig had been removed and the logs rearranged to open the neighbor’s driveway. The truck was not damaged in the process and was driven away before we became aware of the activity at the end of our driveway.


The red line is our north-fence and to the right of that – our neighbor’s driveway. There is an open area and then Naneum Road. North is to the right and the truck was coming from that direction as shown by the blue line. The gray area was the spill zone. Right-center is an electric utility pole – missed it by about 8 feet. Below, seen in Oregon (from the web), is a photo of the sort of trucks seen on Naneum Road.

Later in the morning, I heard from Ken, my neighbor up the road, that he heard the noise of a truck setting its brakes, followed by a loud noise he thought was an explosion. He looked out and saw lights on the curve and called 911. The sheriff arrived at 3:30 a.m. We did not hear the initial activity, but did hear and then noticed the activity about 8:30.
John walked up to see what the noise was, but the workers had left, after removing logs from our neighbor’s driveway. He came back and told me to put on my warm clothes and bring my camera. Once the sun was up enough to see, we made some trips around the scene to see what we could determine must have happened. I took photos and some videos. Later at 11:00 when the sun was higher in the sky, we went out and I took more photos.

Here are two of the videos and more explanation will be on a web page I’m creating, with more of the complete story, or, “the rest of the story,” as we know it now over two days, Monday and Tuesday:

Logging Truck Delivery

If you go there and it is incomplete, please return later. Meanwhile, these are out on You Tube to give you the overall setting.

Logging Truck’s Loss, 2-16-15, President’s Day

View from Rock Crib Address Corner Driveway, Naneum

Dang.. my Internet was down again for several hours. I had to reset the network adapter, once I got up and checked John’s computer and found it was working. Why mine wasn’t and that disconnecting the power allowed mine to come back up is beyond me. I was on the phone with a computer support technician for Fairpoint (phone line & DSL provider). In the house the old XP and wired router is in a back room. We do most computer stuff in a front room via wireless connections for mine and John’s newer computer. Glitches are unexplained but easily fixed, but they do take time from other things.

Received call from Jerry Anderson – neighbor we’ve mentioned before. He had an Aortic valve replaced in Arizona (well, in his heart), but through the groin. That’s a very new procedure not done very many places in the U.S. It was 4 weeks ago and he is doing fine. This is not yet done in Yakima and they basically told him it needed done but could wait but to see about it in Arizona where he goes for winter. There they said it can’t wait – go to the hospital. He sounded good.
I completed a memorandum to the Provost at CWU about a Task Force for Running Start (RS) students, based on my experiences in the early 2000s with two home-schooled students in the RS program who were in my Geog 203 Maps class, and very successful graduates of our program a few years later.

Tuesday, Feb 17

CPAP report. Reported figures. 8 hrs 42 min with AHI = 0.23
Events: 2 H No major mask leaks (max=8 L/min)
after the SpO2 added, it was 9hrs 54 min AHI= 0.20

Off at 9:15 for Yakima for a foot doctor meeting. I was there on time, but was not seen for 35 minutes, for a procedure that only took 12 minutes. Then off to Costco where gasoline was $1.99/gal. Cost in Ellensburg is $2.05 at the lowest but $2.11 or higher most places. Price changes daily so you can only guess until you see the big signs.

Took a few more photos today after the clean-up of the logs, and of the beginning of the re-loading process that we missed by having to leave town. I toddled off into the woods to take a picture of bird nests. We think they are from a Bullocks Oriole – now wintering in Mexico. From my walk I took the photo below. Guide books claim the birds will use horsehair, if available, and we think there is some in those nests. We use an orange plastic woven tarp for dams in the irrigation ditch and think there is some of that in the nests. There is a closeness in the colors of the horses and the orange tarp, so we’ll try for a closeup using an extension ladder.
We don’t think there is a rush to do that as the birds don’t come back for at least 2 months.

Night-time, I went back to Royal Vista for playing music with The Connections. I have 3 friends in the place for assisted care and physical therapy. I saw that all three of them got down and seated in their wheelchairs on the front row. My friends are Lorene, Collette, and Jeanne.

Two days in a row, we have had router problems and lost our internet. The message is: Wireless Network Connection doesn’t have a valid IP configuration. We have to pull the power cord on the router to get our Internet access back. Monday, I was off for 3 hours before I tried calling the service provider for DSL. I think our router’s parts are wearing out. Hopefully, it will stay working long enough to post this blog and follow-up web page about the log delivery incident.

Wednesday, Feb 18

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 28 min with AHI = 0.13
Events, 1H. No major mask leaks (max=9 L/min)

I did not have a good night’s sleep last night, awaking every hour except 4:00 am. I do not think it was related to the earthquake 20 miles to the north of us, near Liberty, a 4.4 one down 5 miles, at 1:04 a.m. I did not feel it, nor did John, and the dogs didn’t awake us. The layers under us are not the same as up that way.

On my way to FOOD BANK, I stopped at Kristen’s place near me, picking up a bag of clothes, some returned that I gave her that did not work, and she put in more for me to try or to pass along to others. Went on into Ellensburg and picked up some wool gloves, from Heather.
Food bank was fun today, and we had 4 of us entertaining. Also ate with a former student, who has offered his volunteer services, and met some more new people in town. Their daughter was with them, and plays the violin. The people at the table tried to talk her into joining us next week because she can read music. Problem may be that she has never heard all these old songs.

From there off to SAIL exercise, and back home by way of Royal Vista to play and sing with Karen (she on the accordion). That’s every 3rd Wednesday of the month.

I still have photos and videos to get from my camera, data from both my machines (CPAP and Oximeter), dishes to clean up, and blog stories to write.

Additional crap this morning was an OUT OF AREA phone call saying they had been calling me several times, and I needed to return a call to a 202 area code number, because the IRS had a lawsuit against me. We checked the web later and found, as suspected, it was a scam. I know the IRS only contacts people by postal mail, not emails or phone. The call was from IMAX communications in Wash., D.C., and has been going on since 2012. Any call coming through on my caller ID with OUT OF AREA, I pick up and do not say anything to activate the robot with a voice. Usually there’s a hang-up, or occasionally, a message, as today. If any of you ever call me and have that happen, say, Hello, this is “xxxxx” , because I have gotten card-minutes calls occasionally from people (John’s sister, for one), that also come through that way. Please identify yourself. We get Internet scam about every other day and I tag those so they don’t get through again from the same address.

Thursday, Feb 19 Happy Chinese New Year – the year of the Ram

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 40 min with AHI = 0.13
Events: 1 H No major mask leaks (max=13 L/min) — no SpO2 data available

Craziness continues. At least I had a decent night’s sleep, but my computer is not responding on many fronts. I did manage to create and produce a legible copy of lyrics and chords (only) for the guitarists on Green, Green Grass of Home. I also ran off I’ll Fly Away in G with all the lyrics I did not have on last week’s copy.

My Oximeter battery lost its charge, so I received no SpO2 (blood Oxygen saturation % level) data last night to coordinate with my CPAP data.

Another morning scam on our computer, this time on the email account we have shared since 1995. The subject title was Bureau of Federal Investigation. The email of the send was from Canada (.ca at the end of the address), and the message was full of misspellings, so we know it’s a scam, just like all the Nigeria et al. ones about people dying and leaving money to us.

Here’s a wish for you from a friend of mine, for this special day:

Friday, Feb 20

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 12 min with AHI = 0.28
Events: 2 h No major mask leaks (max=7 L/min)
After the SpO2 added, AHI = 0.21 for 9 hrs 36 min.

Walked to the “front” of our property to view more of the logs-gone situation, and to checkout some other stuff John’s doing on removing brush near our east property line to try to make visible for a surveyor to mark our boundaries, which appear to be confused over time. We will rebuild a nice fence out front and want to be sure it is where it is supposed to be. The old fences were internal to a larger holding – some lines are not very straight. There is also a hard-to-trace set of barbed wires that seem not to relate to anything else. They have been there many years.

I went to town for my exercise SAIL class, which has been cut to only two days a week because of too many people in the class to be safe for all. I can only attend on Wednesday & Friday.
Home by way of Grocery Outlet for a few cans of cat food and a large bucket of Vanilla ice cream. On my way out, I saw a marked down ($5) pair of jeans in John’s size. He has to try them on to be sure they fit, and then if not, I have a month to return them for a refund. Seems an odd item in a discount grocery, but last month I bought some work socks. Earlier they were also selling snow boots.

Saturday, Feb 21

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 42 min with AHI = 0.39
Events: 3H, 1CSR,1.5m No major mask leaks (max=5 L/min)

I have been working on the blog and on the supplemental web page to describe the logging accident. We are going to make the fence replacement an opportunity to reconfigure the entire front approach to our property. Sort of a “first impression” upgrade. About 2:30 our couple-miles-away neighbor (with earth moving equipment) is coming over to review the ideas John has for moving dirt around out front to replace the fence and the gate to our property. It will require bulldozing to contour the land and move the piles of rock and uneven terrain. We’ll split the driveway about 100 feet from Naneum Road and take a nearly straight shot to the new hay barn and old shed. Photos later.

We left at 4:00 p.m. for the Grange scholarship fundraiser spaghetti dinner, going by way of Circle K in town for $2.059/gal gasoline for John’s car, as he leaves early tomorrow for WTA trail work at Poo Poo Point, on Tiger Mountain, close to where he worked last Sunday, but likely they’ll be higher up and may have a view into the Puget Sound.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Sunday, Feb 8

CPAP report. Reported figures. 8 hrs 45 min with AHI = 0.11
Events: 1 CSR, 1m; same time as 1 H No major mask leaks (max=20 L/min)

Finally, we got the blog out at 1:00 a.m. today, for the first week of February. I got up at 8:00 a.m., took some Acetaminophen, and went back to bed until 10:00 a.m. I am sure I needed the rest.
Been trying to catch up on emails, washing clothes, paying bills (get a license tab renewal for the 2003 truck –at least I can do that over the computer and it is mailed to us). Wow, the cost is up to $73. Alternately, I worked on my jobs list. Now have 675 people on the list, a Google Group, named Northwest Geography Jobs, but it is full of much more information for other disciplines.

Rain was called for all week, but this morning’s forecast throws in a couple of sunny days. Today we have overcast, and it rained in the middle of the night about 3:00. John has done all the morning feeding and exercising dogs, and in addition, fed Woody, the young female feral kitty. John put a wood pallet on top of the Marigold planter box. When John and the dogs go out in the morning she will show up. We’ve fed her there a few times and she is getting used to the dogs and John going buy. In the mornings she is the only cat around, but towards dusk her mother, Sue, usually shows up, and some days Lemon, too. Evening feeding is on the other side of the house and afterward the 2 older cats leave. Woody stays and will follow John around as he works in the yard and feeds hay from the barn. She does disappear at times but can usually be called to her new pallet perch out front.
John came in from his raspberry pruning to fix a great lunch. He chopped up some of the pot-roasted beef, shredded cheddar cheese, fried mushrooms, and put them in a heated whole-wheat croissant roll. What a nice sandwich. With it, we had pears and pecans. Too bad you cannot taste it so here’s a photo for you.

A bunch of time spent on the computer and also gathering dishes and clothes, washing clothes, then putting both away.

Took me all day to finally get to taking my data from the CPAP & Oximeter, and I’m half done with time to eat a late dinner. I am not sure what we’re having tonight, probably leftover beef stew.

Monday, Feb 9

CPAP report. Reported figures. 6 hrs 43 min with AHI = 0.00
Events: none No major mask leaks (max =13 L/min)

Today I went for my INR and by Lorene’s hospital room, to find she was on her way to Royal Vista. On to SAIL, where I took my antibiotic an hour ahead of my teeth cleaning. From there to Super 1 to buy a Powerball ticket (it’s up to $450 million). I’m sure we could figure a few things to do with that much money. Went to have teeth cleaned and it was fine, except for a hole needing replaced in a gold crown in the far back top of my mouth, left side (now scheduled for 2/24). Dropped off our school bond voting ballots at the Courthouse and on the way home I went by Royal Vista to see Collette M, and deliver knitted finger-less gloves for her. These were tailor-made especially for her by Carol H, with measurements I took for her right arm, larger than normal, because of suffering from Lymphedema. They fit, and I forgot to carry my camera, so will have to return and document it for the knitter to see. (Look below at the end of Thursday’s report.) Also visited my neighbor, Lorene, and 3 others there: Donna, Stan, and Jeanne.

Home to play catch-up on being away all day. John fixed a late dinner of baked chicken, fried mushrooms, butternut squash, and peaches.

Tuesday, Feb 10

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 39 min with AHI = 0.13
Events: 1H waking up No major mask leaks (max=16 L/min)

I guess I was wiped out again. Slept in until 9:30 after awaking at 7:00 a.m. Darn, my Internet was down this morning, but John was outside and had not opened his computer yet. He was working until coming back in to fix some brunch, and I told him it had been down for a couple hours. He checked and his was up and going. Mine was not, could not be ‘troubleshot”, and other things were going whacko on my computer. I messed with it for hours, before I finally (at John’s suggestion) took it to the backroom of the house to be just a few feet from the router. I really no longer know which of the many things I did actually allowed me back on.

Speaking of brunch, what got me through the rest of the day was John’s specially-made frittata (I think that’s the best description), large biscuit, and bacon.

INR from yesterday was 2.3 and I don’t have to go back for a month. Talked to nurse Cathie this morning. Karen was the one who left the message yesterday with John, and did not tell him the value, but that I had to go back in 2 weeks, because it was protocol even though it was all right. I realized that was the reason for going back again for the redraw, and this should have been fine for a monthly schedule again. I was correct. Considering the content of our menus, it’s nice the INR is only affecting adversely by alcohol and dark green vegetables (with much Vitamin K).

Wow, is this cool, link sent to me by my native American neighbor, Allen.

An Owl swims — why?

I packed up some more clothes that no longer fit me, to give away (some small and some very large). I thought I had given most of the very large away, but not. I’m sure I have more in garbage bags or boxes yet around to uncover and re-home. This cleaning of past things is a pain and so very time-consuming. Back to tax receipt work until I leave in a couple hours for a music event.

I dropped off some clothes to a neighbor a mile away and went to Super 1 for donuts ($3.00 off dozen mixed), on my way to Hearthstone to play religious music, with the group, The Connections. I was the only stringed instrument to go with the piano (also a stringed instrument), with 3 other singers. We had a large and appreciative audience who were singing every song. They get to choose 3 songs during the program, and it was delightful as usual what they pick. I knew all of them from my childhood. Occasionally, the audience comes up with a song pick some of the group members do not know. Usually the pianist knows the song from his background.

I have talked previously about the Buy Nothing Ellensburg site, and that I donated a basket to the group. Today, a thank you came out for the fundraising efforts and the basket’s use for the Ellensburg Homeschool Community Co-Op. This is our basket and its contents.

Wednesday, Feb 11

CPAP report. Reported figures. 9 hrs 9 min with AHI = 0.00
Events, none. No major mask leaks (max=16 L/min)

Interesting day. Slept in until 9:00!! Had a donut for breakfast. Worked on a few things but took off for town at 11:00 a.m., and got there to speak to one of the Food Bank clients. I met one of my former students there, who wants to volunteer. He was my student in in 1992 for an early GIS class (with G.R.A.S.S.) [That stands for Geographic Resources Analysis Support System. It is still open-source, meaning it is free, and can be used on Macs, Windows, and Linux operating systems. It just celebrated its 30th birthday.].
Back to Alex M. We have stayed friends and kept in touch all these years. He brought a CWU student from Saudi Arabia (he’s here taking English). Once his English is good enough (it’s quite good now), he will move to Florida or Kentucky to go into Hospital Management. We played for 1/2 hour, and had two singers today (F.I.S.H. staff members), in addition. One of them ran copies of Have I Told you Lately that I Love You, for the audience to use. They enjoyed singing along and on many others they knew the words to (This Land is Your Land, I’ve Been Working on the Railroad, and I’ll Fly Away).
Ate lunch at a table with Alex M and a couple of others. I learned that he had the same surgeon as I did (Dr. Sharma) January last year for a 6-way bypass!! He thinks of the surgeon the same way I do. From there I went by the bread room and got a couple of loaves of bread (French), and some nice hamburger buns, called Telera. On to SAIL class, almost arriving late. Our class had 20 today. I stayed and participated in the Yoga class for the first time, from 2:45 to 3:30. It was relaxing, but there were several over-the-head arm movements I could not do. I did all right on most of the others. Home without making any other stops, except required by law behind school buses. I turned east on a side road to escape one headed north but then ran into another (luckily at the end of that road), where I turned on to my Naneum road; the bus went straight. Home to take care of dirty dishes, lots of emails, and needing to fix food for 4 cats, 3 outside ones tonight.

Tonight was a good dinner. Baked Cod, fried onion rings by John, and Honeycrisp apples.

Thursday, Feb 12

CPAP report. Reported figures. 5 hrs 3 min with AHI = 0.00
Events: none No major mask leaks (max=8 L/min)

I was awakened at 8:30 a.m. by a gentleman calling from Port Townsend, about his wife’s interest in playing guitar while she is in Cle Elum taking care of her sick daughter. The president of the WA Old Time Fiddlers Association, Rita, gave him my number as a contact. I managed to contact her (Renee) and a fellow (Maury) in our group who is in the Cle Elum area, for him to pick her up to join us today.

Did morning corrections on Blue Skirt Waltz notes I found yesterday while playing at the Food Bank while actually reading the notes. I printed the music for Renee (mentioned above), who joined us, today.

Pretty good turnout of players–Dr. Dave made it from the West side with his Bass Fiddle. We haven’t seen him since last year. We had several guitarists (5), banjo, fiddle, tambourine, and a singer.

My Rehab experience was fun today. We had our faithful few there we know by name. Helen always gets up and dances waltzes using her walker, and stopping to flirt with the guys. Another fellow (Ted) we call thumbs up because he loves fast or hoedown music, and he gives us the thumbs up, often at the end of songs he likes. As I was walking out there was a nurse standing next to Ted. I thanked him and told her he was our thumbs-up man. The nurse and I looked at each other and realized we knew faces, but didn’t know from where, but she knew it wasn’t the fiddling. Turns out she was an aide there when I was in for 7 weeks in 2010. I remembered that she was a super helper, and I said, I was right in this room here (we were standing in front of it). She asked the year, and I asked if she was a nurse now. Yes, she became one in 2013. So, I thanked her again for the wonderful care she gave me while there. Her name is Melanie. Only a few of the staff are still there, who were there when I was.

After Rehab I planned to meet a fellow from the Buy Nothing Ellensburg group at 4:00 at Safeway for a plunger he was freely giving. I saw it on-line and put in a request, figuring it would be perfect for our sink that got clogged last week. I was the only one interested, so I received it. No drawing necessary. We agreed to meet at the door of Safeway, closest to the wind gauge. I decided to show you that gauge and a picture of the plunger he shared (I grabbed it from the site, and made the combo below.)

Finally, one more stop on my way home, at another nursing home to visit two people. The first is Collette Matheson, who is the one who had emergency surgery a couple of weeks ago to remove cancer in her spine. They believe they got it all. I went by Monday to deliver her knitted finger-less gloves that I described on Monday’s blog entry this week. I carried my camera and got her photo (below), which I made into a Valentine/Get Well Soon wish for all at the Briarwood potluck/music session to sign this Saturday.

I will copy it and take it to her. Normally, she would be there, enjoying, singing, and helping serve us the meal after we entertain for an hour.

While there, I also checked in on my neighbor, Lorene, but she was sleeping, so I didn’t wake her. I will see Lorene again next Tuesday night when our other music group goes there in the evening.

Friday, Feb 13

CPAP report. Reported figures. 9 hrs 3 min with AHI = 0.22
Events: 1 Cheyne Stokes Resp (2 min), 2 h No major mask leaks (max=9 L/min)

I spent a ton of time this week on the Home-school Running Start issue at CWU. I’m writing a note to my former Dean, Department Head, and the Provost about a message she sent to the entire faculty about a new Task Force to deal with the high school on Running Start programs. Two of my students in the early 2000s first were in my Maps class as Running Start students and were homeschooled. I am recommending CWU get a representative from the Ellensburg Homeschool Community Co-Op, because right now they only plan on involving the public high schools. Although I wanted to finish it this afternoon and get it mailed, I did not succeed. Now, with President’s Day Monday, it won’t be seen until Tuesday, and I’ll be gone to Yakima to another doctor’s appointment.

Temperature was up to 59 at 2:53 (high of the day), and John went to the transfer station (dump) with a truckload of regular house garbage and food remnants we’ve frozen (chicken bones and such things), and some things from outside – used baling twine, for one. The worst thing he had to deal with was a large wooden spool acquired from the electric utility. After 20 years of being on the ground, parts had rotted. There are many nails, bent-over ones, and other fasteners. The view below (from the web) is what they look like new.

He paid a fee of $22, but that’s cheaper than paying for weekly pickup. We often have more “stuff” than would fit in a regular garbage can. On the way home, he stopped at Safeway for the special-priced items on sale just today. Loaded up on Pepsi products at a very reduced rate. He (as I was yesterday) was amazed at the offering of Valentine flower bouquets at a high price ($25 and up), for Valentine’s Day. We wonder if they sold all of them?

Tonight was spaghetti on little shells pasta. We skipped lunch.

Saturday, Feb 14

CPAP report. Reported figures. 6 hrs 23 min with AHI = 0.31
Events: 2 H No major mask leaks (max=14 L/min)

I received an exciting phone call from my friend in CA (Jeri Conklin) with whom I’m the co-owner of the little female Brittany you have been hearing about for the past year, plus: Cedaridge Kip’s Camelot Shay Tre’, JH. She was calling to tell me about an announcement from the American Brittany’s website of the standings for ABC Juvenile Dog of the Year. I am not sure when this is cut off and finalized. She will now be competing in Adult Gun-Dog events. Juvenile stakes are Open Puppy & Open Derby, and I assume Amateur Derby. I have not heard of their being an Amateur Puppy. This is based on the number of dogs defeated for the placements obtained. It went further, but I have only copied the first five.
https://www.facebook.com/americanbrittanyclub?fref=photo

Current standings as of January 28, 2015 for

ABC Juvenile Dog of the Year

1 Wind Mtn Shadywoods To The Point S Palmer 
2 Gunn Slingin’ Annie D Floyd
3 Jazz Kerr’s Jazzy Lady R Kerr
4 Sniksoh Therapist J Hoskins 
5 Cedaridge Kip’s Camelot Shay Tre’ JH J Conklin/N Hultquist 
5 Tack’s Joker P Dangerfield 

On another topic: John Ebenal called and will meet John and me at Briarwood today to exchange a fence post driver we originally bought from him at his yard sale several years ago. He needs it for fence making in Sequim. He and John visited mostly about WA trails, while I played music for the residents. He didn’t stay for food, and John only ate a lemon (frosted) cookie, so he will have some leftovers for dinner tonight. I do not need anything except perhaps dessert later. I had some of the Italian Sausage, tomato, tortellini soup, a chicken salad sandwich, couple of chunks of cheese, deviled eggs, and a serving of Trifle. Boy, was it excellent (everything was); punch was raspberry sherbet. I should have taken a picture, but too much was going on. Here is a photo of a Trifle from the web, that looks the same except ours had fresh strawberries on top and throughout, with bananas, peaches, pudding more fruit, and cake.

Finally, my last photo for the day, came from a Captcha request when I was adding a new person to the Jobs list on Google Groups, and normally to prove you are not a robot, you need to look at a visual of 3 to 4 black numbers on a gray background, and type them into the phrase box. Imagine the smile on my face, when this came up instead:

We should mention it is very cold in the Eastern USA and we have many friends and relatives there. Stay warm and safe, y’all! {Click image below to see detail.}

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Sunday, Feb 1

Finally, we got the blog out at 1:00 a.m. today, for the 5th and last week of January.

I got up at 6:00 a.m., took some meds, one a diuretic, and went back to bed until 9:30. Guess I was wiped out from the past couple day’s activities.
No CPAP report today; only oximetry, as yesterday.
Oximetry showed I am benefiting from the SpO2 control, with dips into the 80s, more often than with the machine (but it still happens occasionally with it on). This may just be sensor thing as I move, as it doesn’t last.

Weather today started with spitting snow that has changed to drizzle. John managed all the feeding and exercising dogs.

Lunch today is leftovers for each of us. John is having meatloaf, and I’m having the rest of my chicken salad I fixed yesterday. I had a late breakfast of an apple fritter covered with plum preserves (made by my friend, Gloria, from our plums we shared), so my lunch will be later than usual.

I’ve been working on the last (I think) edits of the report for my friend, and now am trying to organize receipts for taxes, and medical records to prepare for my Tuesday appointment. I have to report on my medical data from CPAP and Oximetry for my cardiologist. I completed our volunteer hours for the month of January. I found the missing TurboTax receipt for my refund at Costco.
Tomorrow, I will stay home again to complete projects.
Listened to some of the Super Bowl. Not a nice ending for Seahawk fans. John read there was less than 13 minutes of play and just over one hour of commercials. The rest of the remaining 33 hours was just stuff. Friday night high school football should be more entertaining, especially considering the cost.

Monday, Feb 2

CPAP report. Reported figures. 8 hrs 46 min with AHI = 0.11
EVENTS: 1 H, No major mask leaks (max=19 L/min)

I managed to take off the pictures from last Friday’s celebration at the senior center and send to the folks who put it on.
I worked a lot on my report and questions to give to my cardiologist.
Our dinner was 5-ounce filet of Copper River Salmon (source of Vit D), nicely seasoned, butternut squash with pecans & brown sugar, and a 1/2 of an orange. Photo below was taken after some of the food was consumed.

Tuesday, Feb 3

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 54 min with AHI = 0.13
EVENTS: 1 H No major mask leaks (max=13 L/min)

I never got around to describing my Tuesday visits to the Yakima Heart Center (YHC). I will try to do it now, four days later.

Our very long day started, leaving the house at 9:25 a.m., and going to the first visit at the Imaging section of the YHC. The purpose was to get my implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) checked. I have been on a program of regular checking (a company study) every 3 months, since it was installed June 1, 2010. I’m at the end of that research, so the only need for reading now is to look for irregularities and test its battery life. Every night, the vitals of the device are checked over my landline. It actually can be read by the YHC via their website for the imaging, monthly, and I don’t have to make a trip down except every 4 months. My battery has 15% usable life (about 10 months) before I have to be set up for a replacement surgery to implant a new one. It will be a surgery lasting from start to finish, about 3 hours. Mine may require a little more prep time because of my severe allergy to Heparin (usual blood thinner used in operations and also used to clean IVs). As well, some of my heart medications will have to be stopped or changed before the surgery. The only one I know for sure is Coumadin, but I will have to go in for a complete physical and “work up” once my battery gets low enough to send the alert for replacement. The nice thing is that I can continue to be monitored every night and the technician can check my device through the web, monthly, to alert them to start the planning phase for the operation.
It will occur in Yakima Memorial Hospital, and I know my surgeon, Dr. Pham, whom I have seen previously for other decisions about my ICD. The nice thing is that the technology has improved in the 5 years since, the size is smaller, and the weight lighter than mine now.
{click image to see detail}

Above is a schematic of a single-wired ICD, as I now have.

One of the things that will be considered is making the single wire (lead into the heart), now in the right ventricle, considered a single chamber ICD, into a dual chamber ICD, with two leads, (one as before, and additionally one into the right atrium). The weakness of my heart and my low ejection fraction has prompted my primary cardiologist (Dr. Kim), to request consideration of the second wire. Last year Dr. Pham determined I was not a candidate for the surgery. However, my guess is that I will be now, because the unit is going to be replaced this year and Dr. Kim believes the dual lead will be good for my heart. The second wire will be pushed through a vein to the other part of my heart. My appointment with him is March 10, to make this determination. He is a nuclear cardiologist and performs all the ICD and pacemaker operations. My surgeon, for the current ICD, retired.
From that first appointment, we went to the waiting room for my appointment with Dr. Kim, at 11:15. I was called in fairly rapidly, but his assistant took care of many initial things while we awaited my doctor (with another patient). He is so generous with his time and attention that I never complain about waiting. First, she took care of my meds reporting, took my blood pressure and pulse, and then performed an ECG for the doctor to view when he arrived. That’s always his procedure, even if there is a previous ECG just 2 weeks old. I also had had a fasting blood draw a week previously, and that was to be reviewed this visit. I requested a copy from the assistant, and it was provided as I checked out.
Dr. Kim arrived about 12:30 p.m. and reviewed his notes, the lab results from last week, the ECG earlier today, and fielded my questions, from the last visit. Concerns for this visit were with my changes in medications, and the results, since the changes occurred at my last visit, Nov 14, 2014. Here are a few highlights.
My BNP (one of the most sensitive ways to assess how well a damaged heart is doing on treatment) was 178 last week, better than previously at 188. Read about BNP here.
That’s a change in the right direction but still not great. We’ll check back in a month to see my progress overall. My potassium was high, so while I had started it with the diuretic, he stopped me on it for now. My Creatinine (measuring kidney function) was a little high up to 1.62 from 1.29, but he said it could have been a slight dehydration from the fasting blood draw, and we’d look in a month. He reviewed my progress on Telmisartan (Micardis, generic), and upped my dosage to 20mg from 10mg. We also discussed my change in Magnesium dosage. In the lab test previously, the reading was 1.8, and now is 2.0 (Range desired is 2.2-2.5). No change, okay to stay on 750mg.
I don’t think the Vitamin D test was in this lab, because I’m continuing until April on the large dose of D2, once a week. I asked the difference between D2 and D3, which I had been on and will go back to at the end of the 25 weeks of the high dosage. I found on the web that D2 was obtained from plants, and D3 was from the body’s interaction with the sun. However, his explanation was that it was pharmaceutical; they could “squeeze” more of D2 into the capsule, so you have fewer to take. Web articles suggest this used to be the case but now D3 is available in greater strengths. It won’t matter much because by the time I get it figured out I will be off of the high weekly dose. At the moment this remains one of medicine’s little mysteries.

We went over my twice-daily readings of my blood pressure the week preceding the appointment. I wore my oximeter and added those SpO2 percentages to the chart. He was pleased with the systolic being higher than in November, but not very clear if the new medicine was possibly responsible. Guess we will review in a month, when he wants me to return. He would like a higher blood pressure and faster beat to provide “reserve” in case something bad should start to happen. There are no symptoms at the level I am not at now. He then examined me on the table, and continued dictating his findings and conclusions into the tape recorder about our visit. He also took time to answer more of our questions about the requirements of the reports on medical condition to the government and for insurance purposes (Medicare & Group Health Insurance). Forms appear on his computer screen as he works and he has to type in his assessment from a list. This is why, sometimes, the report I finally get seems a bit odd, and perhaps even contradictory.

From there we went (at 2:05) to my Medical Supply place for the CPAP equipment to check out my recently acquired face mask, which I thought was not fitting me properly, and causing nose chafing from the tight fit of the nasal pillow. I had my mask with me to show them. We fiddled with it some, and realized there were no adjustments able to be made to the headgear that I hadn’t tried, and there was only one size fits all so I couldn’t replace with a different-sized headgear. They did offer and I tried a medium nasal piece, but it was too big. Then they suggested looking at another mask. I did, and the other one had more chances for resizing, and also it had larger more comfortable nasal pieces. However, once we actually got it all assembled, I decided it was too confining for my likes. Phillips Respironics, the maker of my CPAP machine, made that last tried mask, but I decided to stay with the AirFit 10 by ResMed (for her), I had, and just work with getting it correctly fitted. Don’t I look wonderful? This one seems to put pressure on my nose and pushes it up more than I’d prefer.

On to Costco. It was getting late, 2:40 I think and we had not had breakfast or lunch. I stood in line to return my Turbo Tax software, while John went to get our food. I requested a Chicken Salad (Grilled chicken slices, grape tomatoes, grated parmesan, lettuce, croutons, and a ranch/Caesar type dressing). John had a full polish sausage with the limited fixings he likes – onions and relish and mustard. We shared a frozen yogurt very berry sundae (strawberries).

We stopped by a friend’s in Ellensburg to deliver some low dose aspirin we purchased for them, and she returned 2 dozen eggs. Nice. We were very late getting home. It was going on 6:00 p.m., long day. John had all the evening chores with horses, dogs, and cats, and I fixed the food for the inside (and outside) cats.
I brought home a good half of the chicken chef salad and added some good stuff to it to cover both our dinners. Because we had eaten such a late lunch, it worked fine, and then we added a dessert.

Wednesday, Feb 4

CPAP report. Reported figures. 8 hrs 1 min with AHI = 0.00
EVENTS: none, No major mask leaks (max=6 L/min)

Another busy day. I had many email chores to do before I left at 11:00 a.m. for the Food Bank Soup Kitchen music. I started by visiting with one of the patrons I had not seen since the other building burned down. I was so happy to see her because I had been concerned she was sick.
Today, we had a full contingent of three instruments (& we all sing), plus two extra singers from the staff. Next week we will have 3 staff singing. It’s getting to be quite a presentation on Wednesdays. The servers still get in on the action keeping time to the music, or singing. Lunch served today was a pasta dish and salad, and a great peach/plum dessert. On my way out, I got some bread – whole-wheat crescent rolls (we have never had) and a loaf of French bread in a large cannister shape. Here is a link with the shape but not the French part. Bread from a can.
SAIL (exercise) class had a very high number of people today. I did not even count, but there were people in rows behind the pool table and the central circle. I met the lady who knits stuff for us, and gave her a big hug. She’s recently gotten the news that her cancer surgery was successful in getting it all out.
After loading some boxes in the back of my car from Gloria, I went by to get some ice cream to replenish the bucket we finished 3 days ago. The dogs and cat get nightly treats (tablespoon size) and they have been very demanding since we ran out Sunday.

We left early tonight for a lecture at CWU, first going by Pizza Hut for a pizza and carrying our own Pepsi. We took a container along to put in 3 pieces, 2 for John, and got our places on the front row, getting there 1/2 hr early. We enjoyed our dinner. The lecture started at 7:00, and went until 8:30 (longer than usual, but no one left early). It was presented by Wendy Bohrson (we’ve known her for the past 20 years, as a member of the Geology faculty). She was presenting at the Ice Age Floods monthly meeting, and while her topic was not on IAF material, it was very well received. It was on the Mt. Mazama eruption (that formed the Crater Lake caldera) and also she covered the Cascade Volcanoes. The presentation was very interesting, complete with a volcano demonstration from H2O2 (two different strengths, largest was 35%), yeast, food color, and water, in two differently shaped vessels. The demonstration was directly in front of us and performed by two of her students. When they were setting up, John asked if we needed safety glasses.

Thursday, Feb 5

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 12 min with AHI = 0.00
EVENTS: none, very quiet. No major mask leaks (max=6 L/min)

Today we went on separate trips to town, with John going to Super 1 to take advantage of a really good sale (case pricing) on several types of canned beans, and tomatoes. We can make chili without so much salt, as well as using them in other dishes. They all have ‘best by’ dates of 2017. It does not claim the stuff is irradiated but it seems to keep forever.

I went for our music at a nursing home, but got confused, and first went to the wrong one (where I had spent so much time in 2010). When I got there and didn’t see a familiar truck of one of our guitar players who ALWAYS arrives early, I rethought it, and realized I was supposed to be at Royal Vista this week, instead. If this were a big city I might have been 20 miles off track. In EBRG, not so much. So, I fast retraced 2.5 miles NE and made it in time to help organize. We had a nice turnout with Gerald, Charlie, Jeanne, Maury, Bob, Nancy, Ellen, Manord, and Minerva.

I rushed out to get to a meeting starting at 3:00 p.m. at CWU I was invited to, happening in the old class (Intermediate GIS), I taught from 1988 until 2009, for a presentation by two former students. It went until after 5:00, when we went upstairs for pizza and pop (a total surprise for me). After we ate, we shared stories about students’ career plans. It was very interesting, and I believe helpful for everyone participating. The department head even joined us. One of my former students did most of the classroom presentation, but the other did a nice job leading the discussion about the students’ future plans. I did not get to my car to come home until 6:43, but I had taken my violin inside with me so it did not get too cold. Stringed instruments are temperamental things in temperature changing situations.

Friday, Feb 6

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 50 min with AHI = 0.51
Events: 4 h No major mask leaks (max=8 L/min)

I had to go to my neighbor’s with my oximeter to check her pulse and O2 blood saturation level. Her son went too, and we helped for an hour taking blood pressure with two different units and the oximeter, and manually. We were concerned with her high pulse rate. Finally, we left when we found she had not taken her Digoxin (that lowers it), but later in the afternoon, he checked on her, and she was not in good shape, so he took her to ER, where they found pneumonia and dehydration. She’s doing better on Saturday.

John fixed a chef’s delight today. He made a special grilled sandwich of bacon, egg, cheese, and mushrooms. Really tasty, and different.

In mid-morning John started a beef-roast with tomatoes, red onions and several spices. Then late in the afternoon he added carrots, celery, and mushrooms. This was done in the oven. We had some of the whole-wheat crescent rolls, sprinkled with grated Parmesan, and then broiled. It was probably the best beef “stew” I have had in my life.

The west side of WA has had lots of rain with some flooding and related problems. Soil gets saturated with water, winds come up, trees and power lines go down. The flooded houses this week are on a low spot next to the Duckabush River. Here is the spot using Google Earth if you want to see where: 47.652493, -122.937434
Who couldn’t see that coming?

Saturday, Feb 7

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 21 min with AHI = 0.41
EVENTS: 3H No major mask leaks (max=7 L/min)

Today was filled with watching the weather change from sunshine to rain and back again several times. John would go out during the sunshine to prune the very long-thorned blackberry plants he’s been working on, off and on. Today he finished. Now he has a small patch of yellow raspberries to do.

I spent the day mostly on the blog, but also on some paperwork I’ve skipped over the past week. John brought me the mail today with more to do, and I haven’t even gone through mail arriving earlier this week.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

… places where we could hang out after school

Where we could hang

A little history

January 25 is supposed to be the date for the first patent. Others were doing similar things, so who knows?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sunday, Jan 18

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 21 min with AHI = 0.00
No events. No major leaks, max was 5 L/min

We awoke to ice on everything but a sunny day and as you all know I took photos to add to the blog we finally got published today (so look below if you missed last week). We both have been working on projects, tax records, other things, and now getting ready for John’s haircut to keep him from looking like Einstein. We had a nice brunch.

We telephoned friends in CA for his birthday and found they were watching the Seahawk/Green Bay game. Meanwhile, I heard about the way to watch the end of the game on-line. I learned on Facebook about its availability from a former student now on the North Cheyenne Reservation. Our TV is not accessible, so this was a treat, especially in the final moments of the game and not having to watch the horrible beginning.
I finished cutting John’s hair and helping a friend with an on-going project.
I went through all the audience songbooks, looking for the one with the missing page but all were fine. Pages near end are low-weight (cheap from the dollar store) paper and probably stuck together. Now I added a flower stamp to the front cover of all. Several of the people there at Briarwood loved the little polar bear stamps.

Now I can get back to my own stuff (non-music) that has been waiting awhile.

Monday, Jan 19

CPAP report. Reported figures. 9 hrs 11 min with AHI = 0.00
No events. No major mask leaks (max=14 L/min)

David Hazlett, our farrier, came this morning for trims on two of our horses. It’s the MLK holiday, so we’re staying home today. David was expected at 10 but went elsewhere – his screw-up. At 11 John had just turned the horses out into the pasture – the old one stayed to get pelleted feed – when we got a call that David was 10 minutes away. Ebony got tied to a post while Myst had to be retrieved from 100 yards away. Oh well.

Finished my charting of CPAP and Oximetry and shared with my friend in ID.
Washed some dishes. After lunch, John cut brush along where there once was a fence. Some posts still show but the wire is on the ground. When the things with thorns (wild roses and Hawthorns) are gone he can clear the downed trees, remove the wire and posts, and start over.

Tuesday, Jan 20

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 29 min with AHI = 0.40, but the CPAP reported after SpO2 was AHI =.33, 8 hrs 59 min, 48 sec, so I guess the added time makes a difference in the calculation of AHI. No major leaks, max 15 L/min., 3 H, one awoke me, 12:30 a.m. with maybe another at 7:00 a.m. I am getting leaks by trying to loosen my headgear to prevent nose chafing.

A late cancellation at the dentist had them calling to see if John was available to come in at 10:00 a.m. for teeth cleaning. He was scheduled for next week and they’ll have more time to fill that slot. Us retired folk can be accommodating quite often. I spent time on tax records, bank statements (checks), and paying bills. I got both the Cedaridge Brittanys and regular checking accounts done and printed and now have to sort in the cancelled stubs for 2014. Then, it’s a major task tackling filing and tallying in my computer. Medical payments keep changing along with some other stuff and a quick estimation for tax prep seems impossible. I hope it pays off this year. Last year I spent all the time itemizing deductions only to find it better to take the standard deduction. A lot of wasted time.

I will be going to town to play music tonight, and then home to dinner that John’s fixing – baked chicken, baked battered apples, and acorn squash.

Wednesday, Jan 21

CPAP report. Reported figures. 6 hrs 7 min with AHI = 0.16. No major leaks, max 9 L/min. One H. Then, the figures after SpO2 was uploaded showed results: 9 hrs 9 min with AHI=0.11
WHY THE DIFFERENCE? I just noticed that yesterday for the first time.

We were awakened, very unhappily, at 5:45 a.m., with a call from India about a security risk on my computer. I was unhappy about the time (the middle of my night), and told him so, but he kept pushing about the urgency of the message and I hung up, royally ticked off. Do they not know about time zones? It took me awhile to get back to sleep, without my CPAP on, but continued with the oximeter.

Worked some on my data from the CPAP and the oximeter, but still have to finish it, as I did not this morning. Instead, I left about 11:00 for town because I had to stop on the north side of town to share a large heavy (handled straw) basket requested on the Buy Nothing site by a gal who wants to load it up for a gift basket for her kid’s school fundraiser. I do not even recall where I got it (we picked a few up one year for 25₵ each), probably at a garage sale, but it was easy to empty and get one more thing out of the house clutter. I need to do that every day. Then I went to the Food Bank, in time to visit and set up before people all arrived. The food delivery was running late, so we entertained the folks there before they were served. We had good participation today, singing off the cuff, I’ll Fly Away, Do Lord, I’ve Been Working on the Railroad, You Are my Sunshine, and then others once they started eating, but several still sang along and applauded. We even had one of the servers dancing in the aisles; always cool to watch. Our fan club grouped at the front table.

On my way in, I peeked in the bread room they encourage us to visit, and saw a couple of loaves of my favorite English Muffin Bread for toasting. I should have gotten it then, because by the time I returned, it was gone. I was able to get John some rosemary olive oil bread he likes, some French bread with sesame seeds on top, and some cheese rolls. For food today, they fed us lamb! The first piece I had was very tender and good, but the second piece could not be cut or chewed. With it they had nicely cooked (according to people at my table), kale, but that is totally off my diet with Coumadin medication. It is at the top of the no-no Vitamin K list for green veggies. They had a combo of fried mushrooms and zucchini, and I enjoyed the mushrooms, some green salad, of which I had only a little (mostly the carrots and tomatoes) and, for dessert, we had a piece of a decorated Seahawks (colors) sheet cake.

I left there for the hospital lab for my blood draw for the INR for Coumadin test that had been too low 2 weeks ago. Today it was fine (2.4), but they want me to go back again in two weeks before going back to once a month. I’m not happy about that, especially because it costs me $37.26. Yuk. Well, it is early in the year so I’ve maybe not reached the deduction part. I’m tempted just to wait another couple of weeks to make it a month between readings. Went on from there to the Senior Center for my exercise class, with 33 people in it! That is a huge bunch for all the walking around the room and making movements in close proximity. From there to Super One Pharmacy to pick up my Coumadin.

Came back headed north (toward home), dropped by to pay a bill at my computer place — used for our email connections and web page presence, and continued to another music date at Royal Vista from 3 to 4:00. Once a month, I join an accordion player and we sing and play songs with the residents. We had a few active and happily involved folks today. At the end, Karen (accordionist) had promised one of the residents she would play a polka for her. She ended up playing two songs, and while I was going around the room, picking up music booklets from people, I gathered energy from somewhere and was dancing polka steps around the room. We were singing beer-barrel polka as I danced and she played. People were singing and applauding and it was very neat. A sweet lady I saw down the hall when I came in and invited her to come in, said, “Thank you for coming; I enjoyed it very much.” She is 88 and confused. Every time I’m there (3 times/month), she asks where she is, and I tell her. Then she asks me if she lives there and how she got there. I tell her, yes, you live here, I don’t know for how long, but I see you every time I come, “Remember last night?” She said she did but she says she has trouble with her memory. I told her she didn’t look her age, and that her memory was fine with the words of the songs. She was happy and bubbling. I wished her well, and that I would see her in two weeks when I’ll come back there with a different group. Except for seeing people deteriorating, it is rewarding to interact with them and see them enjoying it. Music does wonders.

Thursday, Jan 22

CPAP report. Reported figures. 8 hrs 25 min with AHI = 0.00
No major leaks, max 15 L/min.

Managed a lot of stuff this morning about medical appointments and accomplished more bill paying. It is tough to write a check for $3,646, but we figure the cost is worth it for Long Term Care Insurance for the both of us. Another medical issue. With my Coumadin yesterday I had 6 pages of singled spaced small font warnings to read; so I did. I didn’t learn anything I didn’t already know, but it was a new item, so I went through it. Also, took my 1/2 hour to record the CPAP and oximeter results from last night, with various screen captures for my files. And, I re-read my cardiologist’s last report, to give me heads-up before my next appointment. Monday, I must begin my daily recording of my blood pressure for his interests in my records.
I spent some time arranging for hats to wear today to play music at Hearthstone, at their request, for National Hat Week. All but two of our players wore one.
I spent some time arranging for hats to wear today to play music at Hearthstone, at their request, for National Hat Week. All but two of our players wore one.

I wore my mink hat (it was my mom’s she bought in Canada, at Simpsons) and took my cowboy hat, but changed to it very soon, because my head got too hot wearing the fur hat. We sang 21 songs and had a good audience who joined in. Lots of players there: Dale on the washtub bass, Laura his wife on Guitar, but she plans to switch to fiddle next week to help me, Ellen on Clarinet, Keith on Trumpet, Anne on Tambourine, me on fiddle, Evelyn on Banjo, Manord, Maury, Charlie, Gerald, & Minerva on guitar, and Bob singing. Bob joins Evelyn and me the day before at the food bank where he also plays his guitar and sings along. We have enough guitars in the other group, so we just enjoy his voice.

This link below is not a very good rendition of part of I’ll Fly Away, taken by a resident’s daughter on her phone: and posted on Facebook, but everyone at her table was happily enjoying themselves, so I’m including it. It’s a few seconds under a minute.

I’ll Fly Away

Here’s another movie on my camera, taken by a volunteer server there today: (I uploaded it to You Tube). This was her first ever using my camera and taking a video, so considering that, I think she did very well. She walked around and captured the entire song. This was early in our performance and another bunch of people came in later, including a couple I have known since arriving in town in 1988. I spent my first year at their house while they were away on a sabbatical. He is also a geographer. He’s a good singer too, singing in the Ellensburg Barbershop Quartet and the Barbershop Choir in town. {Click on image to enlarge.}

Part of our group is shown with our hats; in the foreground are three ladies (residents) with their special hats. The black hat in the middle has pins all over it from her travels and stops at Hard Rock Cafes around the United States. We had fun visiting about it afterwards. Some showing in this picture include Maury and Manord, guitarists from Cle Elum, Evelyn, banjoist from S. Cle Elum, Nancy, fiddler, Anne, tambourine player, and Keith, trumpeter, from Ellensburg. Out of sight to the left are Charlie, Gerald, & Minerva on guitar, Bob singing, and out of sight to the right, are Ellen on clarinet, Laura on guitar, and Dale on washtub bass. You can see us all in the video.

Here’s a link to the video “Karn” took of us, doing “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.”

KV Fiddlers & Friends, Jan 22, 2015 Hearthstone for Nat’l Hat Week

I’ve Been Working on the Railroad

Friday, Jan 23

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 51 min with AHI = 0.00
No major leaks, max 13 L/min, oximeter on for 8 hrs 32 min.

Off to CWU Dean Hall (my old stomping grounds) for a scholarship luncheon today. While there I visited with a former colleague, Jen, and left a package on the door for another colleague in Geography, an image reader for an older computer he still has, and I no longer can use. I threw in a large shirt for him that had a neck opening John does not prefer. He wants shirts to button down all the way.

While there, in addition to eating an Italian pasta salad (made by Monica) for lunch, with pound cake and a plum sauce (made by Ruth) from our plums, I gathered some rolls of toilet paper from two restrooms (see story below).

Then off to SAIL exercise class, where I delivered some more gifts, and picked up some left for me by a lady who volunteers knitting of hats, scarves, slippers, and finger-less gloves, for free (with only a request of a donation to the coffee fund for the center). I had arranged with Carol (the knitter) to make a special pair of gloves for a lady at Briarwood who has Lymphedema in her arm. I took her arm measurements last week when we were there, and passed along to the knitter. She already had made them and left them for me at the AAC. I called and did not reach her, and so I thought she might be at the clubhouse playing cards or bingo. I drove over and walked in, with the gloves and a knitted hat, and the group was playing bingo. I apologized for interrupting and said I was looking for the gal (by name). Normally, she would be there, but wasn’t, because she had to be taken for an emergency operation on her back to Harborview Hospital in Seattle. I haven’t called to talk with her yet to see how she’s doing. One of the ladies said her cancer had returned. I know that the condition can be caused by medicines such as tamoxifen (Nolvadex) or radiation therapy. So sad; I hope they can get a handle on it and bring her back to health. What a sweet wonderful lady she is, always cheerful and positive.

Left there and went by Super One for summary statements of our medical expenses for 2014 and to buy some goodies we needed.

On the way home, I went by Wilson Creek Rd to pick up a freely given iron (Buy Nothing site) so John can use iron-on patches to repair work clothes. Need to remember to offer them some garden produce next summer. (I did and found out they have their own garden with most stuff, except they would like garlic, if we had any.) We grow lots of onions, but no garlic, as neither one of us likes it. I did learn from her they like to go to the mountains for picking elderberries, currants, and chokecherries for making jam. We have those on our property, so they plan to come share in the bounty, next year.

The next story goes with the following image:

I wrote the following to the Buy Nothing Ellensburg list on Facebook.

ASK -ing for help in finding small toilet paper rolls, as are taken from the big roll dispensers around town. Today I was on campus and found 6 still very usable rolls. I know that’s the policy to take them out and replace. I never thought until I saw the (attached) piece in a magazine, the end of December. I contacted our FISH Food Bank to ask if they would take such an item to distribute to the needy. They were very happy and said, yes. So, next Wednesday I will take my offering. I hope anyone with an opportunity might do something like this. The unused paper rolls are left on the counters in restrooms in all buildings.

I was happy to back up my full computer this afternoon on a backup external drive. The automatic process that happens on John’s every Sunday night, failed on mine several months ago, so I have to initiate it myself, and usually do it when I’m away from home and it can sit and churn on its own.

We had a late dinner tonight, chili.

Saturday, Jan 24

CPAP report. Reported figures. 5 hrs 47 min with AHI = 0.00
No major leaks, max 11 L/min

I went by a gal’s porch on Rustic Road (just west of us but 5 miles round trip by road) to drop off clothes for her (two vests & a blouse) and to pick up two pairs of nice men’s trousers. One of them still has the price tag on it. I hope they fit John, as he occasionally needs something for dressing up – out of his scruffy denims.
We only had toast for breakfast and then fixed a brunch of well-cooked bacon and pancake with chopped pecans with strawberries on top. It sprinkled early morning, was gray, and overcast much of the day, but at 3:00, the sun came out, and so John cut barbed wire from the old fence, with more left to do. A few trees have grown around wire and other places trunks of trees are laying across the wires. Many moons have come and gone since these fences (more recent) were put up. A fence along the creek is almost completely buried – it has likely been there 100 years. Now, it’s all clouded over again. One of our feral cats, Johnny, was not around at feeding time. I hope nothing happened to him.

John read today that two cougars had been shot and killed (one ate a dog), on Thomas Road (1/2 mile south of us), and another on Charlton Road, 1/2 mile north of us. In our local paper, the front page story was all about the big cats. Their numbers have increased in the last 18 years, partly as a response to not being hunted. Up to about 1997 hunting with hounds was allowed. The wildlife officials now say the State’s habitat for cougars has been filled and young animals are having a difficult time finding a territory to call their own. Maybe it is time to move.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

The post before this one was put there by John while waiting for the one below. If you like a bit of history go read “Tin Can Drive Day.”

Sunday, Jan 11

CPAP report. Reported figures. 9 hrs 22 min with AHI = 0.11
One ‘clear airway’ at 5:45 a.m.

We have been trying since last night and into the morning to fix the 2014 greetings link in the blog. It is not working as it should. Weird. John finally got it done, although it is not the preferred method, which is used elsewhere in the same document. No clue why. We had two sets of eyes, but it did not help.

I finally finished the music for, “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.” It was the last of the music for January & February dates for the Kittitas Valley Fiddlers and Friends group. Whoa – took a long time but I managed to squeeze into one page (my goal).
I have the lyrics ready to run for the books for the audience… but they need to be completed (disassembled, reassembled, enhanced, and stapled). We have until Thursday of this week to finish that chore. Thank you to John for all his hard work. Here it is a week later and someone found a missing page today Jan 17 at Briarwood, so I have to check them all to find the one to repair.

I still need to notify friends and relatives of our 2014 greetings message. Over the past 2 days and some today, I have been checking my files of email addresses that I can send all at once, a reminder to people to check when they have time. Many people have changed email addresses since I built the lists in 2012, so I must put in some time proofing. I have spent some time, but there are many more to check. Last week, we attempted to give blog readers the link, but could only come up with a copy/paste method, not a right click to the link in a new tab or new window.

Monday, Jan 12

CPAP report. Reported figures. 6 hrs 37 min with AHI = 0.00

We were busy today on yard and some house chores, email, and mostly working with music stuff. John removed staples from 27 file folders, with about 7 staples in each one, so that I can combine them and add more pages to a bigger one for this week. We will use them for the next two months, for twice a week performances, plus 2 weekend stints.

I called and cancelled our Copper Kettle group meeting for the Emeritus Geography faculty members, because of conflicts with sickness or being out of town, of all but one of the usual participants.

While we were working, and John had returned from his morning feeding session, one of our feral cats, Woody, decided to position herself on the newly placed pallet for her purview of the yard. She had been balancing on a small piece of wood until John provided this for her. She’s smaller than she looks, but has a lot of soft long hair. She uses this perch a lot. During summers it is planted with flowers.

Tuesday, Jan 13

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 01 min with AHI = 0.00

We went to Yakima today for my first appointment 10:30 arrival, and left an hour later for Costco. Price of gas was a lot cheaper than Ellensburg. We paid $1.96, but we also get almost 8 cents/gallon return cash by using our AMEX card. For 12+ gallons, we saved a bit of money, from buying it in Ellensburg, where the lowest price is $2.09.

After our trip through Costco, we went to Howard’s Medical supply for my 3-month CPAP equipment check up and replacement to be certain I have “complied” with the amount of time spent on the machine. Medicare pays for a new mask, new heated tubing, new fine white filters, and they read my SD card for compliance. I am right on for it. I’m also able to do that, keep track on my computer, plus add the information gathered simultaneously on my oximeter.
While there, I asked about the proper installation of the white filter. I need to remember the trick, to put the soft side of white fine filter to gray outside sponge filter, and therefore, the hard side goes toward the inside of the machine to block the dust being pulled in from outside air. Our house is particularly dusty with the dogs, with them bringing in mud on their feet and John bringing in mud on his boots.

I requested replacing my old ResMed mask, Swift LT (For Her), with a new one also made by ResMed, an AirFit™ P10 For Her Nasal Pillow CPAP Mask with Headgear. Studying it on line suggests it is supposedly 50% lighter and 50% quieter than the Swift FX, and considering I was using one even older, I’m sure the difference is even more pronounced. I had the earlier model Swift LT and it is very noisy, much of the time, and blew air out from around the nose piece. It had thick hard straps, such that I had to wrap the top one in a Velcro covering to keep it from poking into my scalp. The other bottom strap was more than twice as wide as the one on this one. The two head straps are much nicer, smaller, softer, and stretchy. It’s too bad I wasn’t started 3 months ago with this mask, and I would not have had all the time since Oct 4 with poor sleep, uncomfortable mask problems, noise, air leakage, etc., and I might even have gotten my much-needed rest.
The cost for all the stuff charged to Medicare was $342.72. Most folks on medicare, including me, pay $104.90 each month (for 2015). Medicare is our primary health care payer, with Group Health secondary. There are deductibles and co-pays, eye care has special rules, and dental is another layer. Best not to get old, and certainly, don’t get sick.
On the way home we made a quick stop for a dozen eggs, fresh, from Marilyn’s free-roam chickens. We didn’t get home until about 4:15 p.m., and John managed to exercise the dogs, feed the horses, and the outside cats before it got dark. When colors are no longer recognizable, it is too dark – so he says. I went back to town for music at Hearthstone (with The Connections). I am the one fiddler, with a guitarist, a piano player, and four singers of church anthem music. Most of the audience knows the old hymns and don’t even need to look at the large print lyrics provided. It went well, and on my way home, I picked up a dinner (Chicken Alfredo Fettuccine) from The Palace restaurant (since 1892 in our town). It was free, (for John’s birthday month), but considering it is a $19.00 item, I gave the waiter/waitresses a $5.00 tip. I know they prefer a person to come in, order another dinner, drinks, and dessert, rather than just taking out the main course. It has cubes of chicken, slivered zucchini, little sautéed mushrooms, a little garlic, and we added bigger fried mushrooms, acorn squash, and turkey leftovers. It also came with a piece of Garlic French Bread. The fettuccine was very good, and we still have another meal left (we’ll add cashews and something else) for the two of us for tomorrow night.

Wednesday, Jan 14

CPAP report. Reported figures. 9 hrs 1 min with AHI = 0.57

I went to the Food Bank, presented some music, and our singer Bob has started bringing his brother’s guitar. He plays along with us and it really helps. So now we are a trio there, guitar, banjo, and fiddle, and all three of us sing too. They fed us roasted veggies (including nicely-sized pieces made from two donated Butternut squash I took in last week that John grew), veggies were mixed with a tiny bit of meat (sausage), and we had sides of green salad, potato salad, and dessert. On to SAIL class where we had a good turnout. It’s becoming popular and we are tightly squeezed in. The Activity Center even added an additional class to try to spread folks out more, but the early time is not appealing to many of us (me included).

We also had a flash from the past with a photo from 2003 posted on the KVTR (Kittitas Valley Trail Riders) Facebook site. John volunteered time with others to construct mounting blocks on either end of bridges along the John Wayne Trail just west of EBRG.

That’s John with the red shirt, 4th from the left, with Drifter to his left – a very large horse. We acquired Drifter from birddog trainer, Dan Richmond. A trainer gets on and off dozens of times in a few hours. Dan was tall but Drifter was more than he wanted – height wise. John used Drifter for trails and only had to get on a few times each ride. Logs and stumps are often available during the ride.

Thursday, Jan 15

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 29 min with AHI = 0.40

Finished music for today. John stapled audience copies and I finished individual ones for the musicians. It was a much longer process than I had planned for over a month ago. At least for the next two months, I think I am set to go except for a few new players. Fortunately, I have made .pdf files of the music, so for those who have access to a computer and printer, I can send copies for them to print out and save me the effort, ink, and paper. (If anyone reading this wants the scores, I’m happy to share. The music has notes, lyrics, and a little history, where known, or found on the Internet). I have the song list done for March/April that we used last year (including Irish songs), so that will be a lot less trouble than starting from scratch.
Today we got a flyer from the Kittitas County Conservation District about its plant sale. John got on the web to place his order for 10 Ponderosa pines and 5 Blue Spruce trees and found his picture from a previous year of his donating time to sort and serve the plants to the community. Here he is:

I drove to town for music at Dry Creek, and it started snowing big flakes while we were in there. We had a very appreciative audience and quite a nice contingent of players: two singers (one with a tambourine), trumpet, fiddle, five guitars, mandolin, and banjo. The audience was served hot buttered popcorn. It smelled so good, but we could not perform and also enjoy popcorn.

While I was gone, John prepared a vegetable/meat soup. It had turkey, ham, asparagus, tomatoes, mushrooms, red peppers, and onions, spiced with Italian Seasoning. Very tasty and without all the salt of many canned soups. He managed to prune the red raspberries along the west side of the house. Snow started as he finished. A few hours later there was 4 inches.

Friday, Jan 16

CPAP report. Reported figures. 7 hrs 36 min with AHI = 0.13

John had his chores added to, in order to remove the snow from walkways, patio, and the turnaround on the driveway. He used a wide push-broom. The removal of the snow allows the area to dry off without getting soft and muddy. The AWD Subarus don’t care. However, it was a sunny day (warming up to 48) and all the roof snow melted. The house doesn’t have gutters along the edge so that we have to dodge the drips if we go out. This is a design defect to be lived with, or a remodel project to be contemplated.

I left late afternoon to meet a gal in town at the Fred Meyer lobby to pick up two nice long-sleeve blouses – one of the ‘buy-nothing’ activities. Normally I’d get something like this without making a special trip but her free time and mine just would not jell. While there I ran into a couple of people we know and haven’t seen in awhile. Nice treat. I turned around and rushed back home, hoping to make it before dark and dropped off some food at a neighbors I had picked up from Costco.

Saturday, Jan 17

CPAP report. Reported figures. 4 hrs 27 min with AHI = 0.22
Occasionally, I sleep fewer hours on the CPAP and finish the rest of the night with only the Oximeter reviewing my pulse and blood oxygen saturation percentage (SpO2). I like to see the comparison for on and off the machine, and it gives me a break from the mask. However, I’m thrilled with the new mask. It is truly quieter and lighter and allows me to sleep well and relatively comfortably.

I spent time on a couple of different reports to help a friend in NJ and another in Idaho.

Before I left, a neighbor was kind enough to deliver us some beef (an exchange for John’s labor) for our freezer. While I was gone, John loaded the dishwasher and started that. He also had a few other things soaking. I was happy to find that task completed.
I went to Briarwood today with several others to perform music with the residents. It snowed some, but was mostly a wintry mix of icy rain. The roads were not a problem, but may well be tonight. There today was our trumpet player, I as fiddler, our singer with a tambourine, and 4 guitars. We had a great participatory audience, who also served us some great vittles. I didn’t need to eat supper, because I filled up on Corn Chowder (with ham), homemade oyster crackers seasoned and baked by a 94-year old lady, to whom I took a nice western light blue shirt with roses on it. I also took 2 pairs of pants that were too “short” for me that my neighbor gave me. The residents are always pleased to receive clothes or garden/orchard produce. In return, one of the residents to whom I give zucchini, made and brought me a frozen loaf of his zucchini bread made with pineapple. It is quite good; I’m normally not a fan of any zucchini.
Other stuff on the menu today was pot stickers, egg rolls, large rolls to go with the soup, and desserts including a pineapple/angel food Bundt cake, corn flake cookies, another frosted cake, and an apple/nut cobbler.

That covers our week, with fewer pictures than recently, which will make John very happy and make his job of posting this to Word Press a lot easier. Unfortunately, after typing that last night, this morning’s ice brought the need to add more photos of the sparking wintry stuff.

Saturday, Jan 18 (birth date of several geographer friends)

We knew we would awake to ice on trees, fences, and all exposed objects. Happy we do not have to drive today. The sun is shining and started melting the picturesque landscape early. I captured a few pictures without heading into the slick surfaces outside, from where I might have gotten even nicer photos. {These will enlarge.}

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan