The world is white, again!

Sunday, Dec 9  On a day when it’s forecast for 20% of slight snow, the white stuff has been coming down since early.  John’s taken the dogs for their morning exercise, but started early just after out of bed by dressing to go make the dogs come in the doggie door without its being propped open.  We’re rather sure the cat figured it out, came, and went last night.  Then John took care of moving the charger around and bringing to the garage a battery from the travel trailer he’d charged after the truck a couple days ago.  Now he has the tractor battery set up charging in the old barn.

I managed to cut his hair this afternoon, and just in time.  My clippers stopped working at the end.  I thought they’d overheated, but they are dead.  It’s okay.  I have at least 2 others I can use.  These that stopped came from a yard sale for $1.00.  John’s dad showed me how to cut John’s hair with hand manual clippers. That was before we were married, when we were in Clarion, PA for a visit from Cincinnati grad school, so this has been going on for over 46 years, at least.  I think the cost of haircuts back then were a lot less than now :- ).  John claims they were told in school that one’s hair ought to be trimmed every two weeks.  Had we done that, and banked the going price of a haircut all these years, we would have a nice piece of change.  The cat and dogs are using the new doors.  John made brownies for dessert, with walnuts and chocolate chips in the batter.  For the last batch, we used our last store bought plastic tub of icing several months past its ‘best-before’ date.  A sale price of about 89¢ enticed us to buy several, all now gone.  Current price in the local grocery is close to $2 each.  So, with the chips in the batter and a short trip through the microwave oven, the finished brownies are fantastic.  The chips come in a large bag from Costco.  The walnuts come from trees along the east side of our house.

Monday, Dec 10  Wow, last night was surely a weather event.  We were subjected to Chinook winds that raised the temperatures to the high forties and remained all night after I last saw 29 degrees before retiring.  The winds were shaking the house and noisily blowing against the windows, for several hours at 33 mph sustained with gusts to 47 mph.  (That was 5 miles south of us at the airport).  A friend to the north a half mile said it was truly blowing there.  She is not protected by trees as much as we are.  Then on Facebook, I saw this morning that another friend in the Teanaway said the Chinooks melted all the snow there.  Washington has a town called Chinook but it is on the Pacific coast.

http://funbeach.com/villages/chinook/

This fits with the idea of a moist warm wind blowing from the sea but is at odds with the more common notion of the downslope wind:

http://www.answers.com/topic/chinook

John went with me to town today and dropped me off at SAIL exercise, and went on to two stores for things needed.  We seldom go to Safeway, but he did today to pick up a whole ham at 99 ¢/lb. for us to cook for the music group potluck this week.  While there he found 2-liter colas for a good price (68¢), so he loaded up on a few.  He returned to pick me up and we went on to Super 1 for my meds refills, and we took advantage of several great sale items.  The funniest was a Marie Callender Pecan Pie.  We had just talked with John’s sister recently about her getting a Peach one and not liking it.  They were on sale today for $3.40 off, making the price $4.98.  John will be making his mom’s famous pecan pies for a scholarship luncheon this Friday, but I wanted to compare Marie’s to his.  I know it won’t be nearly as good, but it will satisfy my curiosity.

Tuesday, Dec 11  Day full of computer problems and washing dishes.  Never made it to the clothes, or sorting.  Did print some music and copy a CD my friend loaned me with instrumental Christmas music.  It is very nice.  I don’t know the group, but there is a piano, harp, and something else, some sort of percussion.  We went to The Connections religious music group tonight, and what usually takes 45 minutes, went for over an hour.  Sadly, John had decided to go to town with me and was done shopping and back but had to wait over a half hour for me to finish.  Oh, well, we had a nice time singing Christmas songs with the residents of Hearthstone Cottages (assisted living).  John bought us some Razzleberry pies from the Marie Callender sale – there were none there yesterday.  They are a combo of raspberries and loganberries.  We have not tried any yet.

http://www.gardenology.org/wiki/Loganberry

And note the date at the upper right on this one:

http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/16406/ExtensionBulletin165.pdf?sequence=1

The first paragraph explains why this berry is more important in Oregon than in other parts of the USA.

Wednesday, Dec 12  Our day started out way too early, with two phone calls before 9:00 a.m. (my mom’s rule for telephone calls was never before 9:00 a.m. or after 9:00 p.m.).  The first was at 7:45 that our truck was ready.  John decided to go to town with me to let him off to pick up the truck.  It cost us $213 to get the drain on the battery fixed, and because it is driven so rarely, we had a battery tender added.  We will have to plug in a unit to the truck when it’s not in use.  The battery draw was diagnosed as 24.2 ma, charging at 14.2 amps.  The second call came about 8:20 and was our neighbor about the work on the ditch above us, to keep it from flooding.  John had to go up and explain what he was doing and why and how it should not be changed at the diversion Y.

Today is the birthday of four of my friends.  I told them this is a special day in the history of the world.  On this day, at 12:12 it will be 12:12 on 12-12-12 !  I was playing and singing Christmas songs while people ate at the Food Bank, and at 12:12, I got up after we had done Frosty the Snow Man, and I told them about the special date and time.  Today’s meal was relatively good.  The pasta was little green round things called Insalatonde.  (I tried to find on the web what makes them green and cannot — was a little worried that broccoli or spinach had been added, but it seems that usually it is green coloring).  The original idea is to use a green leafy vegetable, such as spinach, but folks will throw in just about anything green from the home garden.  John thinks that for commercial production a dye is used:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Green_FCF

He plans on checking a package in a store if there is green pasta sold there.  Anyway, it was baked with a nice spicy sauce and large slices of chicken breast meat.  With it was a vegetable mixture I could not eat any of (the dark green veggies with high Vit K).  They had some good garlic bread and I got two nice Christmas sugar cookies.  On from there to the Adult Activity Center.  I put on the CD of the music I burned yesterday and returned the original to the owner.  Then I walked around getting 16 signatures on a card for a lady in our SAIL exercise class who will be 87 tomorrow, and is in very good shape (except for having macular degeneration).  We completed the exercises and I drove home.  I will have to start carrying my camera.  On my way in the driveway, I saw a bunch of deer; counted 10.  The next to the last two were bucks, and one buck had two small spikes.  The other we have not seen around here this year.  He had 4 points on each side – called a 4×4 here in the West.

http://www.myhuntingbuddies.com/east-vs-west-method-of-antler-point-counting-54572.html

In the eastern US this would likely be called an 8-point.  Either way, he was well appointed.  He stood and looked at me, and I wanted so much to have my camera.  I didn’t get my camera and go back up because I doubted I could walk there without spooking him.  Perhaps I should have gotten in the car and gone back with a camera. They are used to our driving by them and do not spook.  To retrieve the truck, John had to ride in with me and, with supper in mind, right before we left for town he put a chunk of boneless beef in the crock-pot with onions, later adding winter squash.  Then tonight he made biscuits to go with it.  It was very good.  Just before 10:30 we ate a piece of chocolate Bundt cake I’d brought home from the Adult Activity Center.

Thursday, Dec 13  Well, it was a very, very long day.  I don’t know how much time I have to remember the day before falling asleep.  Phone visited with a down-ditch neighbor early in the am.  I tried to clean the kitchen to make way for John to bring in the huge ham and meat saw to cut it.  That got done and it took him awhile to clean it up and get it ready for the oven, where it baked most of the day.  While he was outside again, I ran off more copies of Frosty the Snow Man in G for the rest of the group.  After a bite of lunch, I left for playing music at the Rehab center where I stayed for 7 weeks in 2010.  I always have interesting memories, and see great people I knew while there.  Then the fog started moving in.  After playing, I went by the grocery for some pineapple and mustard to add to the ham for the last 2 hours.  Came on in, and we fixed the rest of the “topping” for the ham.  Finally, we left in the fog (heavy and thick) in the dark, to drive the 7 miles down the road to our friends’ home for the potluck.  The fog was so bad I turned one driveway too soon and had to back out.  One of our members did not find it in the fog and didn’t know the address.  I didn’t have my cell phone with me in the house, but she also did not call until after she went home (lives 30 miles away in S. Cle Elum).  I could have told her the number of the house.  She and her salad didn’t make it, and another member and her husband didn’t make it because she is recovering from a hip surgery and had overdone herself earlier in the day.  Still, we had 10 people show for dinner.  Food to go with our ham included scalloped potatoes, yams, calico beans, and warm cinnamon rolls for dessert.  We all had double helpings of everything.  Then we played music until after 9:15.  Came home to ice over everything especially the walkway out front from the car to the house.  Sometimes with the snow broomed off the concrete will dry off – not so today, so as the temperature dropped the wet surface turned to ice.

Friday, Dec 14  Started the day early with John getting up and starting on fixing two pecan pies from his mom’s recipe.  It was for us to take to a scholarship luncheon at CWU.  I have been a member of this group since 1988, and John made two pies that first year (he was still in Idaho, and I was over here teaching, going home each weekend).  It has been a tradition that he always bakes two Pecan Pies for the group.  They claim to look forward to it all year.  He always joins our group for the Christmas Potluck.  Today we had Hawaiian pizza, fried chicken, enchiladas, egg rolls, chicken-celery-cranberry-peanut salad, pasta salad, a bean salad with peppers & onions, hot apple cider, soft drinks, and our pie.  We actually brought some leftovers home with us, including some pecan pie.  There were a smaller number of our group there today, only 10 (counting John).

Five of our members missed the good time had by all.  No students are on campus, so finding a parking space at the Student Union Recreation Center (SURC) was not a problem.  On the way back, with John driving, I called my good friend (colleague, who had to retire because of health reasons).  Today was his birthday.  I managed to reach his cell phone and got him in person, not on a message recorder.  He was in Flagstaff, AZ ready to go in a day or so on a Colorado River raft trip with about 12 river guides who invited him along to describe and explain the landscape.  He sounded SO good to me; it was the best birthday present for me on this, his birthday.  Actually, it’s perhaps the best Christmas present I will get.  They had had almost a foot of snow, and the roads were not yet plowed, so he had walked to the grocery store to pick up lunch items for the guides he is with.  I was tickled he answered the phone – not knowing whether or not he was in WA or AZ.  On the way home we detoured by some places to see what was happening with new construction projects (seems strange to start construction this time of the year).  In addition, we drove in and out our neighbors’ driveway to make it look as if someone is home.  We’ve been rather lazy this afternoon because of not much sleep last night, and awakening to 2 inches of snow with ice beneath.  I have a feeling we will sleep well tonight.

We heated a brownie John made–the last of that–and had with ice cream atop for dessert.  We had a nice supper of leftovers:  chicken, ham, biscuits, with sliced apples and pears.  That is the last of the pears.  We have many apples left, however.

I took the pictures off my camera before hitting the hay, of us holding our pies yesterday.  John made it more colorful by adding a frame.  It will be appropriate to add to our Christmas greetings letter, if we ever get it started.  We’d better hurry, or people won’t receive it until Valentine’s Day.

Saturday, Dec 15  This day I go to Briarwood at 2:00 with more to eat after we sing Christmas songs with the residents.  Now I’m stopping to give this to John to fix up and post.  We just got 2 inches of snow so I’ll have to leave earlier than usual.

Hope your week was a good one.

Nancy and John

Still on the Naneum Fan

The bombing of Pearl Harbor . . .

. . . and our first date occurred years apart during this week!  (How nice of John to remember : -)    He always embellishes my start, and he added this line and the title, plus the links below.

Sunday, Dec 2  Nothing away planned.  What a day this was.  We both started early and John did a lot of outside work.  I spent most of the day working on editing a thesis for a friend (in the TESOL program)–Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.  Also, I reviewed a letter and resume final copy for a job application for another friend.  We had some breaks for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but worked most of the rest of the time.  There were no cougar sightings today, or in fact, this week.

Monday, Dec 3  We both got a well-deserved good night’s sleep, awaking to a beautiful sunny day.  John’s been out working in the yard and I have finished making a printed packet of all my comments (on the 116-page thesis) and am ready to go to her defense at 1:00 p.m. on campus near the Library.  Because she’s a member of our musical group, to her envelope with my pages of comments, I added Frosty The Snow Man in 3 keys so she can choose the version best for her voice, and included a Bon Voyage and Thank You card from our Kittitas Valley Fiddlers and Friends group (and the Bluegrass Jam session folks).  She’s on her way next week to teach ESL in Saudi Arabia to women.

On my way from that session, I stopped to get my new Emeritus Parking Pass which now expires every 2 years, because people were misusing the red ones they have dispensed for several decades.  My new one is Orange.  In two years, the color will change.  At least it is free, once retired.  Nice because I think it was costing $120 or more when I retired.

John “fixed” an old Craftsman Sabre Saw last night, and got in about 11 inches cutting before it stopped again.  There is a worn part (surprise; it’s about 35 years old). I’m going to buy one from our local Wood’s-Ace Hardware when I go to pick up the drill bits today.  The best fit for what he will do with it was this link below:  (and you can check the web page link below with additions about the doggie-cat door construction to see it in John’s hands, Nancy)

http://www.blackanddecker.com/power-tools/JS660.aspx#

The first reviewer on this page must be on another planet – the beveling foot plate has a small plastic slider that unlocks it.  No problem.

When I got home, I spent more time on the phone with the gal regarding her resume and letter of application for a job in EBRG.  It started over the weekend with an hour on the phone between the two of us.

Tuesday, Dec 4  The day started rainy but cleared up.  Then rained again on our way back from town.  John had tried starting the ’89 truck yesterday and the battery was dead so it spent the night hooked to life-support – a 2 amp charger.  We’ve been busy and this horse-trailer-pulling truck hadn’t been started in a couple of weeks.  It has a parasitic drain on the battery and needs a brief drive every week or 10 days.  So, time to get it fixed with, maybe, a solar trickle assist.  On my way to foot care we dropped the truck off for an evaluation.  Then on to Burger King for a late lunch.  Then late tonight we had a late dinner of leftover BBQ beef, biscuits, and pears.  Is it time we can go to bed yet?  Last night was too late and the night was too short.  I need more sleep.  Did spend time tonight tallying my volunteer hours this month.  Results:  (All Nancy’s because John didn’t do any trail work in November= 42.5 hrs, driving 357.2 miles.)  Turns out we can use his volunteer hours cutting firewood and doing chores for neighbors.

Wednesday, Dec 5  Change in normal doings today.  I awoke to an early morning call from my partner (banjo) for the food bank that she was ill and not coming.  I was sorry to hear she was sick, but I was relieved I didn’t have to go in today.  My neck was hurting from sleeping wrong on it (I guess).  The last few hours before I awoke I was having crazy dreams, so I had laid down in my recliner to position myself to cure the problem.  While still recovering and getting ready to get a cup of coffee, John’s sister called to use up her cell phone minutes that reset tomorrow.  I’m going to need to do the same thing, with both phones soon (before the 18th).  Went out to take a photo of the doggie door process, which will be added to the continuing landscape change saga.  Take a peek at:

http://www.ellensburg.com/nancyh/LandscapeChangeNaneumFan.html

but if you get there before the update has changed to December 8, then come back in a few hours.  It’s almost complete now, but Nancy has to do her magic to get it updated on the web.

It is a beautiful sunny, windy, day that will likely be our last for awhile, so John wanted to work on finishing the project.  This was the trial run on cutting the oval holes in the wall (crafted from our old barn door). The ovals are about 21 inches high and 13 inches wide.  21 / 13 = 1.61 – using a sabre saw and a 30 year old piece of used plywood, this is real close to the letter, Phi :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phi

From under a pile of “stored” items, he also retrieved a plywood sign (dating from Troy, ID in 1982), which he is going to use for the swinging covers of the holes.  I took some photos of the process and the old sign (Computer Junction) before it is gone for good.  We had a small arcade — Ah, memories.

http://www.algodoo.com/algobox/upload/image/48950_48950_Asteroids_Arcade_Game_v1_1(1).png

Decided to stay home and work on cleaning up the clutter.  So, off to more of that!  I’m doing all right but accomplished much less than I should have with staying home (that saves a minimum of 2 hours, usually 3, and over 4 on Weds.).  Oh well, I’m retired.  John finished the doggie door and I took some final photos.  I should have taken one from inside the house (I did 12/8 and it will be added to the landscape change description).  The dogs have been through both ways, but I expect it will take them awhile to be comfortable with it.  I don’t know if the doors are too heavy for Rascal.  John has propped one open with a piece of wood until they all get with the program.  We’ll have to evaluate.

we got our annual invite to a Solstice party.  It’s always fun, with good food people bring, drinks, and fried latke (potato pancakes) made by the hostess.  People also bring musical instruments and sit around and everyone sings Sun songs and a few Christmas ones.

Well, today I had planned to see which key of Frosty was best for our usual singers, but we didn’t meet.  I just used a Virtual Piano on line to play the notes and to sing an octave lower.  I should have used our keyboard.  I decided on D, so will take a few of those along for those there tomorrow, and we’ll try that key.  (It didn’t work, as you’ll see below).  Also, I need to get all my Christmas music in order for the rest of December.

Thursday, Dec 6  Today was a wild day.  Started by sleeping in later than I ever have (10:00).  Guess I needed the rest.  The first item of business took forever and was not expected.  Someone stole my identity on Facebook and sent a message about the UN (or something) to all my friends.  Also, it asked my friends to add me as a friend (to the false profile), but I already was their friend.  Three friends caught it and notified me, and two of them notified FB.  That stopped it but not before some of my friends unfriended me when they realized what had happened.  It’s unlikely at that point they hadn’t already been grabbed by the perpetrator.  I’ll never know.  I did change my password and added a banner (cover) picture on my news page of our horses with a landscape of ice frost on the trees behind them.  If you saw our 2011 greetings, you have seen the picture.  I did not change my picture that goes along with my messages (which was also stolen by the perpetrator to send to all my friends).  Instead, I checked all the securities on my account and changed the password.  Turns out none was open to “public”, but I had been on a status of staying logged in.  I now log out after each use.  No one knows if that might have affected it or not.

Then I could return to printing the music copies I needed for today’s nursing home gig.  John was out doing chores and came in to warm a piece of pizza for us.  Nothing much new the rest of the day.  Just a lot of email correspondence to take care of.  Hope we can hit the hay early tonight so I can get a good night’s sleep a little earlier in the day than today.  It did snow a little this afternoon and evening, but not as much as in the mountains on the I-90 pass.  All the high Cascades are covered and the ski slopes open.  From the following page you can view small pictures taken in good weather and then click on the webcam for a current view.

http://www.nps.gov/mora/photosmultimedia/webcams.htm#CP_JUMP_551370

Friday, Dec 7  Snowed big flakes this morning but now has changed to rain.  John went up to try to adjust the water flow through the irrigation ditch.  It is still sending too much water down.  He found that someone had undone what he did earlier this week.  (?? do not know who or why but guess another person found it easier to reroute to us rather than just stopping the flow to himself.  These water issues are endless.)  We did chores around the place prior to going to dinner tonight on the west side of Ellensburg at a former student’s house.  We will be having Bagna càuda.

http://www.lifeinitaly.com/food/bagnacauda

It’s a dish from the Piedmont region of Italy.  We have never experienced it before.  It had steak, chicken, shrimp, broccoli, cabbage, red and yellow peppers, mushrooms, all simmered in an olive oil sauce with much minced garlic and anchovies.  (the anchovies were undetectable, serving more as a salty spice).  It was served on sliced bread.  Interesting and good.  Served with red wine.  We took a bottle of Malbec 2005 from White Heron, which John helped bottle, and another bottle of 2000 Cabernet Sauvignon from Bonair’s Morrison Vineyard in Zillah, WA.  We didn’t open the latter one, sadly, because I would have liked to have tasted it.  I still cannot have much wine with being on Coumadin medication. (4 ounces/week with food, but I haven’t had any wine for many months).  It started snowing hard and the wind gusting very high (33 mph) during the hour before we drove to town (in the dark).  It was rough going in, but it stopped while we were there, and was clear (and cold) for the trip home.

Saturday, Dec 8  This morning has been uneventful.  There were many deer around the place (at least 13) including a little buck.  So John “pushed” them to one corner before exercising the dogs.  They (the deer) have stayed around all day, seen last out the front windows eating Oregon Grape plants and tops of weeds.  (Nancy has added photos of that at the bottom of the landscape change story for this week.)  It snowed big flakes for an hour, but stopped and the snow on the outside car and truck have melted their cover.  John finished it just to be sure.  Even though the temperature at noon was up to 39, the wind chill is registering 33 at the airport (5 miles south of us at a lower elevation).

Hope your week was a good one.

Nancy and John

Still on the Naneum Fan

Can you say Cougar?

This-one: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Cougar_closeup.jpg

Not these:

http://www.empireonline.com/images/features/movie-stars-who-should-try-tv/Demi-Moore.jpg

Sunday, Nov 25  Lots of sunshine and no trips away from home required today.  We did not sleep in, but started work rather early.  John has been working on the doggie/cat door structure, and I spent time documenting the progress, among other things.  He also went “up the creek” (without a paddle) to adjust the flow in the water diversion for the irrigation ditch we use.  He wants to lower the flow before freeze-ups – little ice dams that send water out over the field where it makes a sheet of ice.  These overlap and make unwanted uneven surfaces that are a danger for us or for the horses, dogs, and deer to navigate.

http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/robertfrost/12117

The surface of the water in the ditch freezes while the water continues to flow underneath.  Then it pops up and starts to flow on top.  Then it turns solid.  A similar thing happens with lava flowing downhill . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xExdEXOaA9A

. . . where the exposed surface cools and turns black.  In our case the dark water turns white.  Ain’t Nature grand?

I’ve added to the pictures of the continuing projects, which you can follow here:

http://www.ellensburg.com/nancyh/LandscapeChangeNaneumFan.html

Today, I made some leftovers into a good lunch.  John will likely use some again tonight, but he used a previously baked potato and made fried ones to go along with meatloaf, Jarlsberg cheese slices, & biscuits.  Our appetizer consisted of cut apples and D’Anjou pears.  Tonight I took John’s suggestion and linked to a web page by a great photographer, Ken Rockwell, and I expect it will help me fix my problems with the color balance and contrast on my Canon compact camera that has been making pictures with a blue overtone.  Thus far, I have not been able to follow his explicit directions with my camera.  John says it ought to be simple so perhaps he can help.

Sad note tonight that another friend in town died.  I have known and worked with him since 1988.  Marty Kaatz was a geographer here since the 1950s.  He and I worked on projects together and he and John hiked in the Cascades and went on field trips.  He took one of my GIS classes late in life and assisted several of my students with their local thesis or project work.  He will be missed.

Monday, Nov 26  We decided that we would stay home today and go after dark to Costco in Yakima.  We are almost out of cat food and the only days this week available were today and tomorrow.  I skipped my exercise class today, worked on stacks of things, paying bills, and all such fun stuff.  John likes to be home during the daylight hours and those are getting short.  By Dec. 5th we will have reached our earliest sunset, about 4:13 P.M. but the latest sunrise (7:48) isn’t until 2 days after Christmas.  The bottom line is that for the next 2 months we will only have a little more than 8 hours of daylight (much of it cloudy and cold).  You can get your location’s Sun and Moon table here:

http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneYear.php

For the trip to Yakima, we were late leaving because his trip up the creek to downsize the irrigation took much longer than he planned.  We were so busy today we skipped lunch, not even having any snacks.  When the horses and outside cats had been fed, we took off for town, stopping by the hospital lab for my INR finger poke.  I had the pin prick one that gives instant results.  It was a 2.3, within the range desired.  Only problem was it took much longer than usual.  When I arrived, there was one person ahead of me and it was going to be 10 minutes max.  However, there was an emergency call from ER needing a blood draw.  The phlebotomist . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlebotomist

. . . (night time; only one in the lab) had to respond but the patient was not ready so finally she told them she had people waiting and she would come back (they’d taken the patient for a Cat Scan, after requesting her immediately by a personal walkie-talkie connection).  That set us off a bit more, but the trip down was nice, clear, with no rain or snow, and a bright full moon, which made it a great trip.  There was little traffic and only a few people in the store.  It was set to close at 8:30, so we had time, getting there about 7:00PM.  After we shopped, we ate.  We shared a large piece of pizza (combo with 5 things on it), a Polish sausage, refillable Pepsi, and a large “very berry sundae,” made from frozen yogurt (w/tons of strawberries).  All for $5.57.  Not bad for two people’s dinner with dessert (and no expected tip).  Then off to the gasoline part of the lot.  The price was only $3.21/gallon; the cheapest in Ellensburg is $3.53.  Go figure!  Why?  Local paper had a letter to the editor about this issue a few days ago.  On home, by way of our neighbor to drop off purchases we made for her.  Now we’ve both been spending time on the computer, and it is within minutes of when we can go to bed.

Tuesday, Nov 27  Nothing on tap for today, away from home, but we have been very occupied.  Between other jobs, John’s been working on the doggie door, also known as a SAAEIHO – the self-accuated animal egress/ingress household opening.  So far all materials used have been recovered from other projects (except a few nails).  Prices of purchased SAAEIHOs are about $80 and up, way up.  For example:

http://www.petdoors.com/pet-doors/manual-pet-doors/for-sliding-glass-door.html

I spent at least two hours on the phone with various projects.  I had to determine which way to proceed on dental insurance before Friday, but it turns out I have to wait till May to finalize the end of a private dental insurance policy and the start of a group policy through CWU (outside of open enrollment which ends Nov 30).  I spent some time working on emails regarding a number of different things, including the death of my friend, and also some plans for our music group.  In addition, I spent time on the phone with Duluth Trading Company to buy John some “fire-hose” heavy-duty work pants, and for both of us a fleece thing to put on a baseball cap to keep our ears covered.  John fixed a great pizza tonight.  It was a Costco multi-meat one (5), and he added cheese and tomatoes.  We could have added onions too, but it was great without.  Forgot to say, we had it with pieces of D’Anjou pears.  Really a nice treat.  John came back to the kitchen at 8:30 and made a chocolate cake.  We still had frosting left over from the brownies he made last week.  Before lights-out, we had a nice piece of cake with some cherry/nut ice cream.

Wednesday, Nov 28  Back to the normal Food Bank scheduled music, with SAIL exercise after ½ mile away.  We are expected to have 10 days of rain (better than snow, I guess), but difficult to do outside chores.  Well, so much for that forecast.  I went to town for my two appointments, Food Bank music and SAIL and got snowed on leaving the FB.  I figured it was really snowing at home, and I was right.  We didn’t play the entire time at the FB because it was so cold we couldn’t finger our instruments properly.  So we played about 8 songs quit, and ate.  They had a sausage pasta, artichoke/onion thing, which I gave away thinking vitamin K in artichokes was high and I couldn’t have them.  I just looked it up, and found that it is low.  Last week they had Brussel Sprouts, which are high in Vit. K, but I don’t like them anyway; never have.  I got home this afternoon and started working on Frosty the Snow Man.  It was nowhere near as straightforward to put into music as I thought.  I’m still working on it.  The copy I had only had a couple of verses and not the part where Frosty has to hurry on his way, saying, “Don’t you cry, I’ll be back again some day.”  Also there were other phrases that needed to be added and the music rewritten.  John fixed a late dinner of baked chicken and potato.  We had just finished when a former student called and needed counseling.  We talked for an hour.  Just put in another hour on the music with a break for dessert.  Now it’s time to reset the furnace (the programmable thermostat needs reprogrammed) and get some sleep.  One day this week, maybe it was this morning, our neighbor called with the news of a Cougar sighting on the end of our property where our horses can go and where John exercises the dogs.

Thursday, Nov 29  Back to the normal Fiddlers & Friends music, this week at Mt. View Meadows.  I’m happy John’s going along to go to get his driver’s license renewed and to pick something up at the hardware store, and check other stores.  I worked all morning on Frosty the Snow Man (my new arrangement to add the missing music and words I remember at the end of the song.  They are not in the version I have copies of from the past.  And, there is another verse missing (Frosty the SM is a fairy tale they say.  He was made of snow, but the children know how he came to life one day).  I must enter it because it is in the wrong key for our singers to sing.  Once I have it in the music software, I can transpose for our clarinet player or change to any key for the group.

The trip to town was almost successful.  John didn’t have to wait to get his driver’s license renewed.  Did not take long to take the eye test and answer associated questions, and have his picture taken.  They cost $45 now, but last for 5 years.  His trip to the $ store wasn’t totally successful as the waxed paper was a brand X of unknown quality, but he picked up some potato chips that we have now tasted and they are fine (yet interesting).  They are advertised as cheddar and sour cream, which from another manufacturer’s (Lay’s), have the same colored chip throughout the bag.  However, these are different colors for the cheddar (orange) and sour cream (yellow).  John doesn’t agree with my theory, thinking it is just quality control, but we’ll likely never know.  His trip to Ace Hardware was less useful.  The two things on sale, advertised in their flyer, were out of stock (Dewalt circular saw blades and drill bits).  I will go back tomorrow and get them (supposed to be in tomorrow’s shipment).

Our play date today had a good turnout.  We had 2 guitars, 2 banjos, clarinet, mandolin, 3 violins, singer w/o instrument, and singer with tambourine.  For one of the banjo players, this was her last day with us.  She is going to leave next week for Saudi Arabia for a job teaching English as a second language to women.  I plan to attend her masters defense Monday.  She’s getting her masters degree in the Language Department.

We sort of skipped lunch today, just snacked on chips, but tonight had leftover chicken thighs (cold), heated a previously baked potato, and had some slices of Jarlsberg cheese.  I had a slice of banana nut bread, with a bite off one side (John’s), and I buttered it and made a sandwich.  It passed for date nut bread with cream cheese.  It might have been date nut bread instead of banana.  It was quite good.  I brought it from the Sr. Center yesterday afternoon.  They put out nice goodies to have with coffee they have on all day.  I don’t have coffee while there, just water or my lemonade (Crystal Light).

Friday, Nov 30  We were awakened at 4:30 a.m. this morning from a call from Lifeline Support that our neighbor had fallen and not responded to the unit.  We were called because we are the first on the list, and I guess they couldn’t reach the home phone (although they really didn’t say that).  They had sent a policeman out, and we were supposed to go meet them and let them in the house.  I told them the door would not be locked, but they said I had to push a button on the unit to inform them he was being taken care of.  Then they didn’t leave a number.  I called his wife right away, but the line was busy.  John got dressed and I was getting ready to go along with him, because I was the one talking to them.  I kept calling thinking she was on the phone talking with someone.  It finally went through, but no answer.  So we were on our way out the door, and she called.  She’d gotten the call but nothing was wrong with her husband.  She said the phone said a phone was off the hook, and it said it again while we were talking.  How the heck my subsequent phone call went through is beyond me.

She was alarmed to hear the police may be arriving soon, but I was happy to give her a warning.  That might have frightened her worse than my wake-up call.  Turns out the cat knocked the unit onto the floor from the side table, where he had put it beside his bed.  I told her about hitting the button on the unit and that I would return the call to Lifeline Support.

The only reason I could is that I JUST took on a new telephone plan for 2 years that decreased our DSL cost and comes with caller ID and call waiting.  That’s how I knew the number to call back, but it took me awhile to figure out how to retrieve it.  I then couldn’t get back to sleep for 1.5 hrs.  She had taken one of the phones to bed and it was “off the hook.  Later that morning, she said indeed a huge vehicle (probably an EMT one with a portable bed) showed up at the door, and she apologized to the medics.  They said it was all right, that they needed to come check on every call.  I was happy I was able to warn her.  I guess once Lifeline gets an alert they call the EMT unit first and the neighbors later.  So there wasn’t anyway to stop the EMT folks.  We are 10 miles and about 20 minutes from the Fire Station.  Traveling on our roads means lots of slow turns as they have right-angles from the old land survey system. . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Land_Survey_System

and from going around streams and such things.  Go to this Google Earth location —  47.036928, -120.467633  — and zoom in to see how Brick Mill and Naneum intersect.  Early in November someone speeding south on Naneum went through the fence, across the canal and stopped near the white plastic pipe.  The police painted the tire skid marks with dashed orange lines and I happened by the next day when the landowner was repairing his fence.

Scholarship luncheon was at CWU at noon.  On my way there I stopped at the Campus Police and Parking to get a form to fill out for my Emeritus parking sticker.  They have given out Red ones for 20+ years, and they feel they may being misused, so are requiring the retiree to come in with ID and car registration to get a new one issued for only two years.  All red ones will expire Jan 1, 2013.  I lucked out and found a parking space (with my red marker) just across the street from the place our luncheon was being held.  They served us baked potatoes with all sorts of different toppings.  Very good.  While on my way to SAIL exercise, I stopped by Ace Hardware for John’s saw blades and drill bits.  They did not have the bits, so I asked for a special rain check and they put in the order from the warehouse.  I will pick them up for the sale price Monday afternoon.  Our neighbor saw the Cougar coming across our property again, and called, but I was in town, and John was outside.

Tonight we went to the annual Christmas party put on for anyone on campus (this is the event of the season) by the Anthropology and Geography departments on the 3rd floor of Dean (for those of you who were at my retirement party).  There was food of all types, many appetizers, but much more.  We were able to make our dinner from attending.  The only problem was that the plates were too small, but twice through was allowed (even more).  We had tasty meatballs, a full ham, Chinese noodle dish, little sausages in a great sauce, various salads I cannot eat, several plates of deviled eggs (I dearly love), fried pot stickers, cabbage rolls, Vegan stuff on one end of the table I ignored, crackers with all sorts of goodies, and other specialties.  A large dessert table had pumpkin pie, several kinds of cookies, a special layered thing of which I had two pieces (they were made with gram cracker crust, creme filling, chocolate chips, a butterscotch layer, with a nut crumble on top.  I don’t think it had coconut, but perhaps.  It was sweeter than many people like, but I have no problem with sugar.  There was a nice sherbet non-alcoholic punch I drank.

We had nice visits with former students, current faculty members and spouses, and Emeriti faculty members.  It was worth the trip to town, and particularly nice that it was clear, no rain or snow, and with a bright moon for coming home.

Saturday, Dec 1 — Wow, a new month has arrived and we have so much to do before the end of the year rolls around.  Today, John moved hay from the storage shed into an old horse trailer and parked it way down in the pasture.  Moving the feeding places around keeps the horses from doing excessive damage to any one place and, also, they have to move quite a ways to the heated water trough.  That helps to keep them exercised in the winter.  He took the truck and chainsaw (and camera) to where the Cougar was sighted (2x) and cut a few smallish trees (nice firewood size without required splitting).  No cougar.  It was sunny much of the day and cloudy later in the afternoon, but never rained or snowed until about 10 P.M.  I worked on several editing projects and still have more to do.  I played with this blog throughout the day, and am almost ready to send it to John to go over with his magic touch, and post.  I have added a few pictures to the end of the story listed at the top on Landscape Change.  I forgot to take pictures today of the current state of the doggie/cat door.  It has a newly added (last night before dark) temporary (but usable) ramp.  John has yet to add the In and Out swinging doors, letting the animals get used to the new structure before they have to push on the swinging doors.  Those will be added in a day or so and heat loss to the great outdoors will be much decreased.  It is good that our temps have been very moderate because of the winds from the direction of Hawaii.  Still coming with the rain.  Ski areas are getting snow.  Mount Baker claims to have a 6 ft.+ base.  Cold will come, as it already has to much of the northern latitudes.  It is 30 below in Fairbanks, Alaska tonight.  Ouch.

Hope you are warm and that your week was a good one.

Nancy and John

Still on the Alluvial Fan

Thanksgiving week with several celebration dinners!

Sunday, Nov 18  This morning John did several normal chores, in addition to moving a small volunteer Mt. Ash tree from near our front step, up to a place by the road.  He put a fence around it to keep out the deer, and I hope that works.  They love those berries.

I worked on two projects, first trying to update the web page of our landscape change, still needing a lot more work.  Here is the link for the Nov 24th edition week, much improved over the last you saw on Nov 12.  It is not yet completed, but progress is being made.

http://www.ellensburg.com/nancyh/LandscapeChangeNaneumFan.html

I stopped to get my music ready to take with me.  John went along to the Bluegrass Jam session at the Swauk-Teanaway Grange.  We took a platter of his homemade frosted brownies filled with our homegrown Carpathian walnuts.  I put my music together to hand out, making 20 copies so each of the musicians could have the notes, chords, and lyrics.  In addition, we had enough for the audience to participate, and they did!  The songs I took along were, Oh, Mary Don’t You Weep; I’ll Fly Away, and Blowin’ in the Wind.  I started the circle playing today.  In addition, when it came back to me two more times (because of a short circle), I picked, When It’s Springtime in the Rockies and Jambalaya.  I guess I should have taken along 5 songs as John suggested.  He figured that if someone else took one of my songs (which they didn’t today), then I would have backups.  There were enough people there last month that we only got 3 picks each– maybe only 2; I don’t remember.  Unfortunately, it was late when we left and dark by the time we got home, so John had to feed the horses and the outside cats in the dark.  I guess that’s the breaks with the shortened days. He has two lights to carry.  The first moves around to the direction he looks and both horses and cats adjusted well.

http://ts4.mm.bing.net/th?id=Cmj4vLlvzueVnIQ&pid=Commerce

The other type he carries and places as needed.

http://toolspot-static.co.uk/i/3286z.jpg

The 3-to-a-package ones have a sticky back for a permanent home but he just carries one in a pocket without peeling off the protective cover.

We’ll have leftovers tonight, and I hope to put in some more time on the first project I started today.  It is raining AGAIN.  Rain is called for every day this week.  I guess that’s better than snow.  I arrived home to a phone call from our clarinet player who thinks she needs me to transpose ‘Here Comes Santa Claus’ for her.

Monday, Nov 19  Nothing scheduled for today but the SAIL exercise class, but I always resist from going to town for only one reason.  We shall see what comes up.  Nothing did.  John worked outside and I worked inside.

Tuesday, Nov 20  Another day without anything planned until 6:30PM, when it already will be dark.  Turns out that changed too, not getting dark, but going to the nursing home to play music.  They have a GI outbreak there and are keeping people out.  The sun came out and John used the time outside.  Then a big cloud rolled in and the temperatures dropped.  That was a couple of hours ago, and the sun just came back on the scene.  He is building a larger & tighter doggie/cat door for the side of the living room window for the animals to access the backyard without using the patio sliding glass door.  Since my hospitalization (3 years ago this week), we have operated with a piece of flipping [I think she meant to say flapping!] cardboard, but that leaks much cold air when winter winds blow and or Shay stands with her tail end holding it open.  This new one will be nicely framed in wood as a tiny addition to the house with metal roof and a double glazed window . . .

http://www.austview.com.au/images/linedrawing-ddhg-lg.jpg

. . . facing an outside light already under a corner eave.  Okay…will have to describe later with photos, and after I see the final product.  I’m starting a story link, but the work probably will not be completed in time for this blog to be posted (however, look at the bottom of the link above to see progress thus far).  Raining again.  John stored tools in the cat house and went to take care of feeding chores before dark.  Meanwhile, I spent nearly 2 hours working up 4 copies of the Christmas music for our group to play through the end of the year, starting next week.  Four folks are new to the group since last year and didn’t have the music.  John is cooking Stouffer’s frozen enchiladas for dinner and has added a layer of cut-up red peppers with a layer of grated cheddar cheese.  It smells very good.  It was, and especially good with cut up pears (Bosc and D’Anjou).

Wednesday, Nov 21  This morning started with watching a nice little Buck move around the back “yard” on the other side of the fence.  Today was a busy day that started at the Food Bank soup kitchen for music and a meal (but I ate light); stopped off at Bi-Mart for some stuff still on sale through today, followed by playing music at Hearthstone Cottages, another favorite place to perform, because they participate with the singing and they appreciate us so much.  We are not beginning any Christmas songs until the end of next week and with only a few winter ones; no Christmas carols yet till December.  I joined a bunch of other friends from all over town at the Community Turkey Feed.  It was yummy and they gave me a take-home plate to bring to John.  Turkey & gravy, dressing, potatoes, sweet potatoes, veggies, roll, and a piece of pumpkin pie.  I did not bring the dessert to John but just a plate wrapped with foil.  I have been working on thanksgiving cards (animated) to send to a few friends.  It’s a very clever creation of artistic work put together with a fiddler playing Turkey in the Straw in the background.  If I neglected to send you one, tell me and I will send you the link.  Also, John stayed home and worked some on the new animal door construction.

Thursday, Nov 22  Happy Thanksgiving Day!  We had not planned anything until Saturday with our neighbors but were invited yesterday afternoon to join a friend and her 3 kids for turkey dinner tonight after dark.  That is good for John to be able do his work in the daylight.  This Saturday almost all the neighbors’ family (children and grandchildren) can make it over from the west side, the east side, and down from northern WA.  John is still working on the new entrance — I took some before pictures to add to the continuing saga.  We were taking a late lunch break (just pear and chips) before calling John’s sister Peggy, and she called us.  Had a nice long conversation.  We got ready and left for dinner to arrive right after 5:00 PM.  The turkey took an extra 1.5 hrs to cook, but it was good.  We didn’t eat until late, but had a nice visit before and after eating.  It was a full slate of turkey and fixings.  We didn’t get home until almost 10:00 PM.  Now we are ready to hit the hay.

Friday, Nov 23  I didn’t sleep well, probably too much rich food late last night.  John was up early (I slept in, after finally getting to sleep), and he started working on the doggie/cat structure and worked until just after 11, when we had to motor to an I-90 exit to meet a pass-thru from Federal Way.  We had planned a couple of weeks ago to meet the couple whose wife volunteers for WTA.  John has been on a weeklong WTA trip with her several years ago, before I got sick, and also on a couple day trips this year.  Crew leaders are allowed to buy certain sporting goods at a significant discount (only for their own use, not family and friends).  John is buying 10 pairs of Atlas Fit gloves (including both Therma and #300 light weight)

http://www.atlasfitgloves.com/atlasfit300.html

Click thru to ‘Therma’ to see the heavy duty gray ones.  And, shush!, because – well, just because.  Anyway, these are the best thing since sliced bread.  So, the WTA friend will drop them off for us on her way through town to Spokane.  We never go to the west side during winter months, because of bad experiences with the Cascades, Snoqualmie Pass, when it snows (or even when it rains very hard).  We didn’t go to the WTA Appreciation dinner this year, and John won’t start going to work parties until next spring.  He can use these gloves around here in the mean time, so we are grateful for the delivery.  While in town, we went to the grocery store and then to pick up new cookie sheets our friend picked up for us on the last day of the sale at Bi-Mart.  I was in the store that day, but forgot to get them.  It was a terrific deal for a high quality Bakers Secret non-stick, at over 1/2 off.  Our cookie sheets are all in terrible shape.  The rest of the day was filled with telephone calls and emails.  Finally, the dinner John started was done and we could eat.  He made a wonderful meat loaf and baked a colorful small squash filled with Rome apple pieces and walnuts.

At the following link, scroll down to ‘Sweet Dumpling’ for photo and description (small means no leftovers):

http://whatscookingamerica.net/squash.htm

Saturday, Nov 24  Today will bring another Thanksgiving dinner in the middle of the afternoon (3:00 PM) across the street.  There will be roast turkey (grown locally), ham, and all the fixings.  We will take John’s applesauce.  The timing has messed up our eating schedule.  I skipped breakfast and we lunched on pear and a shared sloppy joe type sandwich born of yesterday’s meatloaf.  It is warming up (to 49 right before noon).  There were 23 people there, and we did not bring any applesauce home.  Nor turkey either.  There was plenty, but 4 people kept some of the leftovers and we came home with an empty dish.  The menu also included mashed potatoes, candied yams, green salad, lime cool whip salad, green beans, roll, corn, and stuffing with gravy.  Many desserts, but mostly made with cranberries** which I cannot eat.  There was a blueberry/apple and a pumpkin pie I could have a little bit of.  I missed the cranberry apple pies, cranberry muffins, cranberry sauce, and cranberry salsa, and cream cheese mixed with cranberries.

**Although the ‘Cranberry Institute’ thinks otherwise:

http://www.cranberryinstitute.org/news/PR/PR122303.htm

Usually the issue with food is one of high Vitamin K but this seems to not be the issue with cranberries.  We’ll have to investigate this some more but it seems wise to refrain until more can be determined.

Seems real winter weather is headed for NW Europe this next week.  Not here yet – rainy and cool for us still while the higher areas have snow.  Washington’s North Cascades Highway was closed for the winter because of snow and snow slides.

http://www.maplevalleyreporter.com/news/180716131.html

Hope your week was a good one.

Nancy and John

Still on the Alluvial Fan

Week of Cs: Change, Culverts, Chores, Cheese, Cathouse, & Coupons

Sunday, Nov 11  Happy Veteran’s Day to all our friends who fought for our freedom around the world, in different wars.  We have friends still living who fought in WW II, Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

This morning we awoke to a chilly morning, but the temperatures were only in the high 20s and not the high teens predicted.  That gives John another day to fix up the cathouse with heat and light.  The cats will have to start coming into the little building for water and food, and sleeping in a warmer environment.  In case you missed last year’s building (cathouse) construction, check:  www.ellensburg.com/nancyh/2011cathouse.html

As my computer was starting up this morning (slowly), keeping me from visiting the web, I opened my SongWriter software and continued putting in notes for A Jolly Holly Christmas.  I still need to enter chords, words, and critical markings.  This is the only one I have to do because we have a bunch from last year that are all ready to go, with lyrics for the audiences.

This one was never transposed and I need to fix it for our Clarinet player.  I think last year she just did it by ear, when we told her the key and the beginning note.

I knew John planned to walk me around the projects, for a photographic record and update on what happened to change the landscape, so I dressed up for the cold.  I had my head covered well and my body, but I should have put on wool socks.  I wore gloves, but cannot take photos with them, so my right hand got cold.  John showed me first the size of the tractor used, by standing in front of the front-end loader.  It is amazingly larger than ours or even than the one our pole builder used.  We walked around the other side and took a photo of the first project at the end of the driveway to the pole building, where they are going to put in culverts covered by rocky “soil” to a new level height, getting rid of the sharp dip.  The rear of the travel trailer scrapes now – actually 2 v-shaped metal pieces installed for protection of the trailer itself – They gouge the soil and lift the trailer.  A new level drive will prevent this.  From there we walked over to the round pen area, where the land is being dug and moved to allow the round pen panels to be properly seated.  New panels have thick wood along the base, like this (almost) . . .

http://www.wwmanufacturing.com/images/steelsiderp.jpg

. . . with a slope in, starting halfway down.  That means there is a kink or “dog-leg-bend” in them.  The pen has to be on level ground for the connectors to lock in place.  This style is much safer than this one:

http://images1.americanlisted.com/nlarge/corral_round_pen_panels_gates_67_available_free_delivery_29809199.jpg

Note the openings at the bottom that an excited/running/kicking horse can put a hoof through.  One of our old ones is bent badly from a hoof hitting the intersection of the J-shaped piece where it is welded to the bottom rung.  I chose this photo of the green panel because it seems to be standing up without support.  Ours won’t do that!

 

Our ground has layers of rock right next to fine dirt/soil.  The ancient stream coming out of the canyon to our north left many rock-filled channels and areas in between with sand and other finer deposited material.  The rocky parts are the high spots and ribbons that run across our property. There is an outcrop of small rocks right where the round pen needs to go.  The landscaper is using the big machine, now the backhoe part, to dig out the area, and separate the mostly-rocks into one pile and the mostly-dirt into another.  I took pictures of the soil horizon and the activity in progress.  He will use his front-end loader to move the rocks to the driveway leveling project and cover the culverts.  The plans are for him to move the dirt down into a depression where John will make a large additional garden for sun-loving plants.  John has had to move some fence posts (old telephone poles), three baby trees, and disentangle an old barbed wire fence, to prepare for this.  He got some help with removal of the two posts yesterday.  The link below transfers you to the start of our landscape change story.  It will be a continuing saga, so stay tuned:

www.ellensburg.com/nancyh/LandscapeChangeNaneumFan.html

On back to clean-up, sort-out chores.  Stopping for pizza, after a break to finish A Holly Jolly Christmas.  Now it’s finished, transposed, and mailed to the computer (the one with a printer) in the back room.  We finished a nice pizza John doctored up with adding our tomatoes, some red peppers, cheddar cheese, & BBQ sauce.  It supposedly started with some cheese, sauce, and 4 meats.  It was actually very good.  Afterwards, I went back outside to see what John had been working on the past several hours.  He put together some metal roofing (an angular piece from the top of our old barn reroofed in 2010), like this:

http://ts1.mm.bing.net/th?id=I.4899162578224008&pid=1.7

and tied it (with baling twine) on top of the somewhat banged up concrete culverts (we got from our roofer this year as they were in his way and no longer needed).  The reason for that is the culverts have some end damage and don’t fit together as designed.  These breaks would allow dirt and small rocks to get inside.  The metal sheeting (overlapping) is now tied in-place to be covered on the entrance driveway described above.  John also put some little homemade Skunk and other critter deflectors on the ends of the pipes.  He made those from plastic containers we used to use as “spit buckets” in our wine tasting for our class:  Wine, A Geographical Appreciation, we taught every summer from 1998 to 2008.  He made flower pots of these last year by drilling holes in the bottom.  Now, with additional holes, they are culvert skunk repellers.  They are white but otherwise look like this and are just the right size for the bottom (small) end to fit into the pipe and the top, being flared, stops it from going fully in.

http://www.plastic-flower-pots.com/productpic/pb_o8m31288765788.jpg

John worked until dark on some tree stuff and now is feeding the outside cats.  I just took a break from loading dishes and took the pictures off my camera from yesterday and today.  I have some cool ones, from the day before that, of Rascal climbing up the Nanking Cherry trees to get to the roof.  I have seen him do that a couple of times, but I’ve never seen him come down (still haven’t).  We assume he sees birds on the roof.  Also got a couple of pictures of Annie with one of her apples.  We have to get them out of reach or she steals them from a box in the kitchen or pantry.  She is used to picking them up in our orchard and toting them around and sometimes back into the house, where she eats them–down to the core and leaves it on the floor.  John just brought me a dish of cut up pieces of Bosc pears and Honeycrisp apples, along with some Cheetos for a treat; he said this is our hors d’oeuvres for tonight’s meal of leftovers, coming later.  Dinner will be orange sauce on chicken, John’s fine fried cauliflower (beer & Bisquick), and cornbread.  It is snowing again, just in time for Mr. Bulldozer man to arrive in the morning.  Jeez, why?  I know, Murphy’s Law at work.  I just finished cropping the pictures I took today and need to go back to the Nov 4 before shots to crop them and then combine a few into a story.  Now, however, I’m ready for tomorrow’s photographing session and hoping for no snow.

Monday, Nov 12  the official holiday, so I thought I didn’t have to go to exercise class today, but found out they are not taking a holiday and will take off the day after Thanksgiving instead.  I guess that’s better for the people who depend on their $3.00 lunch from the AAC, because they already have it on Mondays, but have to go elsewhere on Fridays.  This morning our landscaper, the Bulldozer man, returns to finish the job.  That means I will be around to record the details of change.

Awoke from overnight snow to 5 inches.  Haven’t seen Mr. Bulldozer Man.  John has been taking snow off  the ladders to cat haymow, from cars, trucks, front concrete in front of garage, used for storage (not cars), and the back patio.  John came in and warmed 3 pieces of pizza for us for lunch, and he has returned out to cut down a poplar tree to be used for next year’s firewood, and to get it out of the way of where dirt and rocks will be stockpiled.  The man came at 1:30 and is moving stuff around.  I saw him talking to John, but I cannot tell what is going on.  This is frustrating; I finally put my coat and hat on and went out to see at 3:40.  Took my camera and a couple of pictures but the visibility is awful.  It is quite foggy.  He has managed to build up the entrance into the pole building, but it is all a muddy rocky base.  Sometime later, after some touch up work, we will have to have a load of gravel spread on it.  Probably after winter is over.  He is currently leveling the round pen and pushing off dirt into the depression.  He only has a half hour of time left, so I expect this job won’t be finished now.  At first, he told John a couple days ago, that he made another appointment elsewhere, for tomorrow morning.  However, late tonight he said he would be back in the morning.  Who knows what time?  This afternoon, John has been out covering asparagus, blackberries, strawberries, blueberries, and raspberry bushes with straw. Some folks use leaves . . .

http://www.gardengrapevine.com/WinterShrubInsulationRxBC-K3559.jpg

. . . but our trees shed on rough and brushy ground and collecting them is not possible.  Our neighbor gave us a dozen straw bales from an uncle’s farm – John gives his parents firewood.  Not actually barter – ‘cause the exchange is so uneven in a value sense.

I wasn’t out for long and I’m very cold.  Guess I didn’t need to stay home today after all, but I accomplished a fair amount.  Sadly, so much more to do.

Tuesday, Nov 13  Our farrier comes today to work on 3 of the horses, and the Mr. Bulldozer Man is expected back, with his bulldozer this time.  Well, the best-laid plans…our farrier came an hour early and John was not ready with the horses where he wanted them corralled near the workspace.  Now that’s done and John was back in for a late lunch, when at 2:15 Mr. Bulldozer Man and son came down the driveway with the machine, but stopped short of getting in.  Seemed to be having a problem with something.  Now they’ve got it moved into the yard and John is out so can’t bring back news.  I know nothing at this point.  I do know John just fast came into the house, closed off the doggie/cat door to the backyard, and opened the back gate for the bulldozer to create a new driveway into our back yard, building it up, so it will be raised and flattened, no longer leaning downhill.  I will have to go out in the sun tomorrow to take a picture from that vantage where I have the before shot.

The guys stayed bulldozing and back hoeing until after dark and they could see no more–only going by feel.  That’s not my idea of good procedure with a bulldozer.  John went forth and back between the two machines confabbing with the operators so they got things right.  They will be back in the morning.  There was a tremendous amount of dirt and rocks moved today, and I’m anxious to see it in the morning.  Even if I had gone out to look this afternoon, I wouldn’t have seen much because of the heavy fog.

John came in late and went with me to town to shop while I played music.  It was nice to have him along.  On the way home, we stopped by Jack in the Box, and bought two Sour Dough Cheese-steak Melts, for the price of one.  They were quite good–added to the finely sliced steak, red & green peppers and onions, with cheese, but probably not for $4.49 each (regular price).  We shared one of them (leaving one for another day), and added a half a pear each and a half an apple each.  It was fine.  We enjoy using coupons to check out stuff.  They don’t make much money on such sales and it is only such times we buy.  I suppose the plan is for the coupon holder to buy fries and a drink (way over priced), but we don’t.

Wednesday, Nov 14  An interesting day.  Started with John exercising the dogs in the fog, and about 9:30 the earth moving duo arrived.  [The son ran the dozer and his dad the backhoe – both very accomplished with these big machines.]  They finished just before 11:00 and loaded the dozer on its trailer for the trip home.  The father drove the other unit as it is a wheeled vehicle.  They had to return for a truck and to present the bill.  I was not yet dressed nor was John ready to go, and John wanted me to watch for him to return and get my checkbook ready.  I waited with my coat on, at the front door until 11:15, and decided I must get ready because we had to pull out at 11:30.  Finally, the man came with 4 minutes to spare.  I wrote him a check for almost $2000 including tax and just under our agreed on deal.  Then we left and John let me off at the Food Bank, and went on himself for foot care at the AAC, and I set up to play.  I decided to move the front table back to allow for our music stands to fit.  We had two singers and two instruments (with singers) today.  I moved a table (with 3 chairs on each side), laid my violin on the table, and after it was moved, I picked up my violin, stepped back, but the chair to my left fell backwards onto my violin, breaking an E string and a bow hair, and dropping my shoulder rest to the floor, knocking off one of the “feet”, or bending it somehow that it no longer fits.  I reeled backwards, not onto the floor, but was left sitting on the table behind.  Luckily, the patrons were not yet seated.  It was frightening and I still do not know what happened.  The chair (metal folding) fell to the floor with a loud bang.  I was a little shaky after that, but went ahead and played low notes using only 3 strings.  I came home and was able to put a replacement string on.  We still have to fix the shoulder rest.

http://i3.squidoocdn.com/resize/squidoo_images/-1/lens19576678_1340478172a–.JPG

John returned to have lunch with us.  It was Parmesan Chicken with noodles, mixed veggies, garlic bread, and a quite spicy salad of beans, onions, peppers.  Dessert was homemade apple cobbler.  Then we left to go to the AAC again, this time for me to go to the SAIL exercise class.  He found a comfy chair and a Zane Grey book to read.  We came home from sunshine requiring sunglasses in town, to patchy fog at our place and a gray overcast environment.  So, another day went by without my taking any “after” pictures.  Maybe in the morning.  Once home, John worked outside until dark, because he was using the truck to move the heavy feeders back up closer to the barn.  Now the horses can again have the run of the pasture and get into the old barn for cover if they want.  It’s so nice to have the pole building for storing our hay, and not have to fit it into the little old barn, which was not truly built for that purpose.

Thursday, Nov 15  Early morning phone call from one of the people in our music group that he had to take his wife in at 11 PM last night and didn’t get home from ER till 5:00 AM.  They suspect gall stones.  He was calling to say the two of them would miss today.  She is doing better.

Then, John took me for a walk around all the bulldozing and backhoe accomplishments.  Wow, there was even more than I realized had been completed.  Almost 98% of what John hoped for was done.  There are a few finishing touches that he will do using our tractor, the old pickup, and trusty hand tools.  I took a ton of pictures, and now have to work them into my continuing photo essay of before and after landscape change.

John stayed home today to finish up several yard projects while it wasn’t raining or snowing.  From the newly landscaped places he sifted and moved a lot of dirt adjacent to our baby yellow raspberry plants.  He mixed dirt that hadn’t seen the sun for thousands of years with the compost to create a soil next to the 3 new plants.  Now it is their job to grow roots – increase and multiply — into this space.  As well, he trimmed a bunch of trees (wildlife viewing improvement) behind our house and this also gives us a better view of the “hole in the ground” (Jay’s Folly) back there, and he trimmed a bunch of trees out on the front main driveway too.

I went in alone and played in the afternoon at Dry Creek.  That’s always a fun place because the people will participate very well singing, and at least one will get up and dance.  (She was a Geography Dept. secretary for 27 years.)  Wow, it went well today, with 10 people there  (2 banjos, 3 guitars, a mandolin, 2 violins, a clarinet, and a vocalist.  We were late starting because somehow we were left off the schedule.  No clue why, as we have been going there for years, at the same time, but we had a great audience turnout anyway.  We had to wait for an exercise class to finish so we could use the armless chairs and not interrupt the class.  Then I had to run back to my car because I brought in the wrong set of music lyrics.  I was worn out by the time we ended, and I also had a card for us all to sign for the lady who had the ER experience.  I had taken pears, apples, and onions to share with the musicians, but they didn’t take all of the apples and pears.  I took the box of apples back inside and gave some to many of the residents.  One of my favorite admirers, in a wheel chair and on oxygen, commented, “Not only do you come fiddle around with us for an hour, but you also bring us apples!”  (Nice to be appreciated).  From there off to the P.O. to mail the card, and on to the University to deliver some library books to my co-author of the hay project, give another to our political geographer (on international boundary disputes), and to take the rest of the apples and pears to our secretary.  On to the vet for Shay’s thyroid pills, but not before visiting with a couple of colleagues.  Their quarter ends a week earlier than when I was teaching (Finals week is the first week in December).  Boy, am I happy to be retired.  I guess it was another busy day.

Friday, Nov 9  I thought I had a scholarship luncheon today, but I had written it wrongly on the calendar.  I have no reason to go to town, just for one thing.  So, I have been working on various projects.  Late last night I finally uploaded photos from Jim Huckabay’s Retirement Party that I took with the intention of putting on a CD as a gift to him and his wife.  However, while the 90 pictures would fit on one CD, the videos I took would not all fit on one CD, perhaps on a DVD, but not everyone’s computer has a CD/DVD reader.  I initiated a SkyDrive account (using my hotmail account), because one needs a live.com access to use it.  I uploaded my pictures, and am slowly uploading the videos.  I’m able to share everything with edit capabilities, so that the Huckabays (or any viewer for that matter) can add to the captions people’s names I do not know, and they can also share with anyone they wish (who has a computer Internet access).  I need to work on some songwriting software to make ready to go to the Bluegrass Jam Sunday afternoon at the Grange, and take along some copies of music for people to join in singing.  It’s John’s pet peeve that more people don’t do that, and involve everyone more.  No one in the group and audience can hear most of the words anyway, because microphones are not used.  I think the first one I’ll finish is one I started 2 weeks ago, Blowin’ in the Wind.  I will add Beautiful, Beautiful Brown Eyes, and possibly some others.  I’ll Fly Away is always a popular one, and perhaps I will take another spiritual.  We had an early dinner (for us), and John is making Brownies with our walnuts.  (I frosted them after they cooled).

We had a wonderful conversation this afternoon with Joel Andress, who was a cartographer here at CWU when I arrived.  He was around for another year, before retirement.  When he retired, he and his wife moved back to the area where he grew up in upstate Vermont.  This summer he was diagnosed with a brain tumor like the one that killed Senator Kennedy.  Thankfully, we just heard today that the summer and early fall of radiation has miraculously set back (cured) the tumor.  That is the best news I have heard in a couple of years.

Saturday, Nov 17  I went to bed early last night but awoke at 3:30 AM and couldn’t get back to sleep, but finally did, and then slept in late (so that rested me !!).  John fed the horses and exercised the dogs (and moved a few rocks around) while a light rain fell.  The rain seemed to increase and so we decided to go visit our friend in the hospital and go get some compact oil heaters from Bi-Mart (on sale for 2/3-rds price).  We ate a hot sandwich of cut up bratwurst, cheese, and egg, and drove to Yakima.  We spent a ton of money ($345) there and filled our car with gas as well, at the best price we have seen in years, $3.239/gal.  Part of the grocery bill actually was $39 of stuff for our neighbor who has MS.  I got my exercise walking around Costco because they didn’t have any electric (riding) carts available.  I did fine.  We bought so much stuff so we do not have to go back again until after Christmas.  The place was a zoo today, but it will be much worse in the next 5.5 weeks.  Came on back in the rain (and low hanging clouds), and went by the hospital to visit our friend with the gall stone(s).  We thought she would be there until Monday, when they would decide whether or not to operate, but as we went in the room, she was sitting in the chair and they were working through the paperwork to send her home.  We visited her and her husband for a while, and then they were ready to dress her and release her.  I think if we’d been a half hour later, we’d have missed the whole thing and been quite surprised.

We got home just before dark, after a stop at the neighbors and a short visit with mutual friends visiting her, picked up our mail, and loaded a lot of food into the house from the car.  John went to feed the horses and then returned to take the dogs for their afternoon exercise.  All of that we managed to do before it started raining.  Now it’s coming down pretty good.  We had a wonderful dinner.  Last night John slow-cooked petite sirloin steaks with onions, tomato sauce, and barbeque sauce.  It cooked for 12 hours, so it was nice and tender.  Just the way I like it.  We no longer eat steak because I cannot easily chew it.  Tonight, he cut up one large carrot – like the largest one in this image

http://ts1.mm.bing.net/th?id=I.4627630465286548&pid=1.7

and baked it, along with some potatoes, and then heated the beef mixture, which we poured over the potato.  Boy, was that a dinner fit for royalty!

Now I must stop and get this to John to post, and I will try to make more progress on the before and after landscaping story for which I gave you the link above.  Please check back, because there’s no way I can finish it in one day.

Hope your week was a good one.

Nancy and John

Still on the Naneum Fan

Nancy gets a gold star

Saturday, Nov 3  Different day.  Put out the blog earlier than usual, but didn’t finish all of today’s doings.  Finally, Mr. Bulldozer Man arrived to check again on the amount of earth and rocks to be moved.  That took awhile, but I stayed inside all day waiting for the phone call.  First was at 9:10, but he didn’t return the call until after 3:00, and then came up for the estimate.  He spent quite a bit of time.  When the weather is better tomorrow, John will take me around with my camera and show me the plans, and the work he has been doing on fencing over the past week+.  Several other phone calls today:  one from Peggy, John’s sister about going without a phone and Internet for a couple of days after the storm, Sandy.  Luckily, she had her cell phone, and then luckier, when she thought she was running out of minutes, she went to the phone to Check Usage, and found out they had added 50 minutes to our plan (we have the same one; 300 mins for $20, now it’s 350 minutes.).  I told our other friends with the same company, Consumer Cellular, and they were very happy to hear.  They are the ones who originally put us onto the company.  It’s less pricey than AT&T where we had ours from 2005.

Then yesterday I got a better deal from our Internet DSL provider and telephone land line provider for the next two years.  We are too rural for the cable company to reach us.  Just before John went out to meet the bulldozer man, he put in a pork roast with apples, onions, and water to cook slowly.  Boy was it good, and the baked apples were especially good, better than either of us expected.  Setting the time back and going to bed.  Part of our new “free for 2 years'” service is Caller ID.  I surely wish I had had that during the pre-election political phone calls.  There is also call waiting, which I used late Friday afternoon this week to switch back and forth between a call to the WA Healthcare benefits system and my family physician’s nurse regarding my blood draw results.

Sunday, Nov 4  John walked me around a sunny pasture to view all the projects he’s been working on and planning.  I took many pictures of the before, plus the background has some pretty fall colors, backed by a lovely blue sky.  It will be neat to see the after (next week, not this), as the guy is coming with a truck, bulldozer, and backhoe/front-end loader (bigger than ours), to move a bunch of rocks (from our alluvial fan), dirt, and rebuild and re-contour some things around the property.  It’s not your normal landscaping job but it will serve our needs quite well.  This will also make a 2/3 loop around the house and shed that, when covered with gravel, will provide a nice firebreak.  We may finish the loop next fall.  While out, I took pictures of our Tamarack (Larch) trees golden with blue sky behind.

They have cute little cones

http://www.edwardbach.org/images/plantpages/Larch.jpg

but are poor seed producers.  They are also a needle leaf deciduous tree and in the fall have a nice golden color (locally found on the north facing slopes of the eastern Cascades).  Like this:

http://treespictures.net/Larch.jpg

The next link shows a tree above the heading “Big Tree Bob” … on the road to Haney Meadows – 15 miles north of us.

http://www.conifers.org/pi/Larix_occidentalis.php

One of my pictures looks north to the orchard with a pretty red-leafed cherry tree in amongst the yellow others (apple, cherry, plum) with cottonwoods to the rear.  Also, cottonwoods and aspens are in other places in the pictures.  Our largest 100 yr old cottonwood has already lost almost all its leaves.

John  took a bag of dry cat food over for our neighbor and while he was there he unloaded his truck full of split firewood for them into their wood shed.  He’s been doing all sorts of other chores about our place today, and it was nice because the temps were around 60 with no rain.  A weather change is on the way, however.

We fixed BLTs for supper.  I went to the unheated garage and found a proper tomato ripe enough, and John trimmed the worst of the fat from the bacon and started it cooking.  I washed some lettuce that is drying and sliced the tomato.  Now after the bacon cooks, we can assemble the rest of the award-winning sandwich.  Meanwhile, we are eating a fresh pear, a Bosc.

http://cynthiadavid.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/immature-bosc-pears1.jpg

Supposedly it only grows in CA, WA and OR (as well as in Australia and Europe); how ’bout that!  It is crunchy and tasty and better than a Bartlett.  Its flesh is denser, crisper and smoother than that of the D’Anjou pear (a web observation).  We also have some D’Anjous.  However the D’Anjou pear skin is a pretty purple color.  I’m not sure I ever had one while living in the south.  We had a huge tree in our backyard where I grew up.  It had yellow pears (I assume they were Bartlett).

Monday, Nov 5  Awoke to a bunch of deer in the front yard (3 resting in the orchard, doe & 2 fawns) and a doe and 2 fawns up by the house eating mountain ash berries.  Then John went to reheat his coffee, saw the horses up where they shouldn’t have been, but still in the pasture.  He went out and found he had left a between-pastures gate open when he fed last night.  They all followed him back when he loaded the wheelbarrow and put hay in their feeders.  We then filled out our voting ballots after a discussion of the issues presented in the WA Voter Pamphlet.  We are so happy this election is almost over and the political calls and mail will cease.  At least we are not in Ohio or Florida or one of the states where so much effort is being made.  And, we don’t watch TV so we are not inundated there.  The entire State votes by mail – our County switched in 2008 – one of the last to do so.  The weather is sunny again today, and John is helping a  chainsaw and splitting maul turn our trash wood into firewood for the neighbors.  Then we went to town to deposit the voting paperwork in a big special mailbox like thing at the Courthouse.  On to eat a fast food lunch, and back to the grocery store where we loaded up on ice cream at a $3.19/each carton savings.  Got 3 different flavors:  cherry with nuts & cherries, Ozark Black Walnut, and Butter Pecan, more canned cat food for Rascal and another bunch of cheaper food for the ferals; filled John’s Subaru with gas, and came on home.  John exercised the dogs after pushing the deer out of the route and went to cut and split more firewood.  Tomorrow it will get delivered (a second load) to the neighbors.

Tuesday, Nov 6  Nothing new here.  Nice and sunny, and we’re staying home today on election day.  Heard last night there was a storm coming up the east coast and will affect S Georgia.  I just read that the storm caused some deaths south of Atlanta, and actually in Tennessee, and many in Atlanta are without power.  “Early Tuesday, 132,000 Georgia Power Co. customers were without power, including 48,000 in metro Atlanta.”

Things are shaping up around our place, but they will change a lot next week.  A recent photo-making trip around the landscape will act as the “before” pictures, and we’ll have a contrast with pictures taken after all the earth & rock moving occurs next week.  What’s worrying me is that by the time the bulldozer man gets here to scrape off and move stuff, it will have snowed again.  Today and the past couple of days would have been ideal for the work.  Now we may not get photos of finished product until spring.

John’s taken off for the neighbors with another truck load of wood for their woodshed.  He’s got room for one more load there.

Okay.. off here, with the hopes of setting up my computer to back up itself on an external hard drive, while I clean up clutter, file, recycle, and otherwise keep busy.  Later, reporting:  I managed to get my Documents all backed up.  That makes me feel a little more secure.  This is from my computer that was new in January.  Also, while cleaning up stacks, I found some papers to recycle, but first got some stories from them to send to geographer friends still teaching.  After John returned from delivering the wood, he moved an old telephone pole used as a barrier and the metal roofing taken from the small barn a couple of years ago.  Both things were in the way of some scraping and leveling planned for ‘soon’.  For dinner, John threw together a bunch of leftovers.  I’ve been watching the map of electoral college votes, throughout the night.  But also, I have been taking care of other chores, mostly on email, plus I washed a load of dishes.  I think we will have some dessert and fall asleep sooner than normal, even though we were in bed early last night and then awoke earlier than usual.  The wind is blowing hard tonight.

Wednesday, Nov 7  John spent his day filling the neighbors woodshed–no room for any more–and then, back home, removing old fences and setting up some new temporary ones.  This day I had the usual, playing at the Soup Kitchen of the Food Bank and going to exercise at the Adult Activity Center.  Well, it was the usual but with added flavors.  I left the house at 11:30 and returned at 4:30 with a virtual lapel decoration of at least 5 gold stars for my good deeds of the day.  The Soup Kitchen was fine, and we played and sang for over 1/2 hour until the servers started leaving their positions to eat.  Today had the normal pasta donated by the Ellensburg Pasta Co. (tomato/ground beef with penne pasta and sauce), green salad, and a wonderful fruit salad, the only thing I had to remove was the grapefruit (not allowed by one of my meds).  Sad because I love grapefruit.  It was full of cut grapes, apples, pears, mandarins, carrots, garbanzo beans, and probably more.  After a nice visit with folks at our table, I went on to the Adult Activity Center.  I walked in with my fiddle (to keep it out of the cold car), and across the room was the lady in charge, calling my name.  I took off my coat, grabbed a chair, and went to see what she wanted.  She said our teacher called in sick that she was dizzy, so would I please teach the class.  I did, and we had 15 there.  Afterwards, I was walking out with a woman who is the mom of one of my former students (back in the 1990s).  She lives by herself at Briarwood, and walks everywhere.  She doesn’t have a car.  She had her grocery cart (pull type with big wheels) with her, and I asked where she was going.  She said, “to Super One”–well I know that’s a block away from where we were in SAIL class, and then her home is several quite long blocks down the street from there.  Did I say, she also walks with a cane with 4 footers with tennis balls on them?

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Ne5Lb2SiFHg/SYiiVPqU2jI/AAAAAAAAbKM/_GoVwZgI6Do/s400/up+old+guy.jpg

I told her I would take her and then give her a ride home.  At first, I sat outside the store, charging my phone while talking with a bunch of friends I needed to call.  Then I realized it had been awhile longer than I had expected, and I started worrying about her.  I went inside the store, found her, and I accused her of buying out the store (:-))).  She shopped for an hour, buying heavy things such as a gallon of vinegar, pounds of sugar, and other stuff.  She was buying ingredients to make baked goodies for the “Christmas Bazaar” coming up at their community center.  When we finished putting stuff on the counter and tallying up everything, it totaled $94.29.  The no-salt butter, chocolate chips, nuts, and all the other ingredients are pricey.  I hope she gets a return on her investment.  All the stuff was rung up and the cashier awaited her payment.  She was fumbling around, and I realized she did not have any checks in her checkbook.  I had left mine in the car, so I went back out and got it and wrote a check.  She was embarrassed, and wanted me to take her back home to get the check register of new ones.  I said, “No, it’s all rung up, I will pay for it, and you can pay me back.”  Finally, we got all the stuff out the door, and I went back in the store for brown paper bags to load the flimsy plastic bags into, not wanting those to fall apart on me.  I thought I got at least 3, but only had 2.  I could have used 4.  We got to her apartment that is on the second floor up two flights of steep stairs.  I took the first brown bags full to the top where she was with her checkbook ready to write the check.  We went back down and I loaded up more of the plastic bags, just carrying them, and carried the heavy vinegar container separately.  She wrote the check and told me to leave her stuff there.  Oh, I also retrieved her carrier from the back trunk to leave beneath the stairs.  I carried the rest of the groceries up one flight of stairs.  She insisted she could get it the rest of the way, so I hugged her and left.  I was feeling the pull in my legs, but I took it slowly and didn’t push myself.  I told her I could not live where she does and manage those stairs every day.  Then I drove home, not arriving until 4:30.  Phew.  I truly believe I earned 5 gold stars today for my efforts.  I’m grateful to have my health back to be able to help others.

Thursday, Nov 8  Awoke to big fluffy snowflakes, which only lasted 10-15 minutes.  It was bright sunshine before noon.  When the snow stopped the ground was white.  John went out and I left.  I was gone for over an hour.  Delivered a few pears to the folks who played today.  We had a good turnout.  Four guitars, two banjos, tambourine, two violins, clarinet, and a vocalist.  When we arrived the nursing home/rehabilitation center was on a lock down, but they let us in to perform music for the residents, asking us not to tell them why the blinds were pulled.  It was a happy day, and the residents enjoyed it as much as we did.  The reason for the lock-down was a shooting of a teenager in Kittitas, a little town 6 miles east of Ellensburg.  Turns out the kid shot himself in the shoulder; he first blamed it on someone else, with a unique description, so at first the police officers and sheriff’s deputies were looking for a person who was not a threat to the community and was not on the loose.  The shooting took place outside of school grounds.  The kid went back to the school to the room of his coach.  He had gone to his grandfather’s house, took the gun, shot himself, returned the gun to the cabinet and went back to school (still many unknowns).  My friend’s young teenager was in the room across the hall to where the guy returned.  The guy collapsed (probably loss of blood), and they carted him off to the hospital on the west side (Harborview).  It was not a life-threatening wound.  My guess is when he came to later, he told the real story.  (Actually, the detectives figured it out from his conflicting facts.)

After a fast dinner, John left for a trail riders club meeting.  I stayed home.  Oh, I forgot.  One of the emails I came home to was from a cousin announcing the death of my 91-year-old aunt in south GA.  It made me realize how old my own mother would have been if still alive (98).  Wow.  Time moves on too fast.  I missed seeing my aunt when at the reunion this year because she was too ill.  Dessert tonight:  John’s homegrown blackberries, with blueberry muffin and cherry/nut ice cream.

Friday, Nov 9  Today it is sunny, but cool.  Supposed to go to 22 tonight, so I must get back and print out the instructions for the Travel Trailer.  We need to drain the hot water tank.  Turns out John already did, and just told me tonight.  Today was a full day.  Started chilly and got chillier as the day progressed.  I grabbed a small lunch and left to get my Subaru filled with gas.  I stopped where I heard the gas was cheapest, but I realized the cheaper price was only for cash and I already had put my card in and pumped $1.20 worth.  I was running late, so I left and went down the street to another station with the same price but no extra charge for using a card.  Too many cars in lines to stop then.  The first place was elevating the price 10 cents per gallon.  How outrageous!  I went on to my exercise class, and realized my teacher was ill and I would have to teach class again.  Gave a bag of pears to my friend with macular degeneration.  Class began and went well.  I left for the grocery to get John some things he needed and then went by the hospital lab for a blood draw to check my INR.  While there, I took a little bag of pears in for my favorite phlebotomists.  From there off to deliver another bag to a member of the music group who missed yesterday.  On to the gas station to fill up and there were no lines!  There went $50+.  On to the bank to deposit the check for the groceries I’d paid for.  While there, I took another bag of pears to our favorite banker.  He was thrilled.  Drove home and noticed some real ferocious clouds on the hills and in front of them between where I was, near the airport, and our home.  It looked like a snowstorm.  Well, it was!  I left Ellensburg in bright sunshine, but came into a blizzard (at least where there had been one)–John said between 1 and 2:00 p.m.  As I got to within 1.5 miles of home, I saw fields of white and much slush on the road.  As I came by our mailbox, the door and handle was covered with snow.  It stopped snowing giving John time to exercise the dogs, feed the horses and the outside cats.  He wasn’t in the house very long until it started snowing again.  I imagine we got at least 2 inches this evening.  He was very happy that he made so much progress around the yard the past few days, and had taken care of the firewood.  When we get a nice day, he will thin a few of the standing trees and let them dry for next year.  Dinner included a large skillet of corn (ours) filled cornbread, made by John.  Oh, yum.  It was a perfect complement to the apples and orange chicken.  Then dessert wasn’t bad either, our strawberries on cherry/nut ice cream with a hot chocolate sauce John made from chocolate chips.  Off to bed, now, rather late.

Saturday, Nov 10  We seem to be under a snow cloud, an isolated spot, this morning.  Nothing around us south or west (nothing in the Cascades) or east has snow.  Blewett Pass to our north does.  It’s quite weird.  We awoke to a winter wonderland with falling snow.  It is still “spitting.”  Then a surprise arrival at 7:30 of two trucks:  a small white one with Diesel gas cans in the back was parked at the entrance off our driveway into the pasture.  John saw a larger black truck backing out the driveway.  He checked and walked to the road, but didn’t see anything.  We figure that the fellow to do the bulldozing decided maybe to start today.  He lives about 4 miles south, and perhaps there was no snow there.  We haven’t heard back.  We sort of expected he might return with the bulldozer, but nothing has happened, and it is after 10:00 a.m.  John ate a little breakfast and when out to remove snow from two vehicles and to move the other truck out of the entrance to the place that accesses where the bulldozer will have to be taken.  Now he is moving a small Ponderosa pine tree, a baby, he’d planted in what is now the wrong place.  He moved 2 small firs last week and now has 3 pines in containers.  Two of these went into containers in the spring and never were planted.  He also put RV antifreeze liquid in the drains and in the shower hose, removed the battery, and got the instructions on the portable generator – and they say to run the thing until the gas is all gone.  What?  It holds 1.8 gallons.  That’s as crazy as the directions for taking care of a broken curly-tailed light bulb.  Mr. Bulldozer man didn’t come back, but called after noon saying he would come after 3:00.  I don’t believe he arrived until almost 4:00 and now they are out back hoeing in the almost dark.  I still hear the rumble of rocks being moved.  Poor John, he’s out in <35° weather, supervising.  I’m sure the operator of the backhoe is no warmer.  They just moved from the first place I saw them over to in front of the pole building on the driveway entrance, which needs to be changed and have some culverts moved into place.  Now it has too much of a slant and our travel trailer scrapes on the way in or out.  Now he is still here and it is really dark.  I doubt John had fed the horses, so will have to don his headlamp and go down.  Then come back and feed the ferals.  I have turned on the outside backyard light.  The cats will be wondering where dinner is.  Actually, they have probably been watching the whole sequence from high in their haymow.  The first part was over near them in the area of the large round pen.  I’ve been doing inside chores all day.  Filing receipts, and trying to organize and sort.  I turned off my computer for a couple of hours, but then had to check some figures and got back on to take care of some issues.   Good thing we changed our mind yesterday on going tonight to George, WA for a bluegrass concert by the group, Pickled Okra!  Great name, eh?

Hope your week was a good one.

John came in and said they were learning about the structure of the Naneum Fan – on which we still are. [Search images using ‘alluvial fan’.]

Nancy and John

Celtic Music highlight + the usual

Sunday, Oct 28  A truly needed day of rest for both of us.  I slept in until almost 9:30 and didn’t eat some toast until almost lunchtime.  Managed to get last week’s blog out late this morning to John to post.  It’s been a quiet day.  The weather was scheduled to be rainy, but it is lovely with a shiny sun.  I spent much of the morning recreating the events of the past day for our widowed friend.  There were so many messages I needed to share from yesterday and the days before, which I had forgotten to pass along, so I wrote them all down and sent to her.  John worked on the blog and then I went to the back computer room to review it.  He added many interesting links, as he usually does.  For lunch, he heated up the leftovers from the roast beef stroganoff he’d fixed for himself yesterday.  I had a little bowl and it was quite good.  We had red grapes along with it.  [John says: The stroganoff was imitation stuff.  Last year, at Costco, I bought a 3-pack of canned beef.  The reasoning was that it would keep well and be available in emergencies.  The first use was not satisfactory.  Last week, I thought I’d better use up the other 2 cans as it is a bit expensive.  So I used a box of “helper” and a few added vegetables and, eureka!, it was better than using their suggestion of thinly sliced steak.]  Back to Nancy —

In the afternoon, I delivered onions, apples, and pears to my neighbor, the one who cuts my hair and who lives around the rural block.  In return, we will get some of their deer sausage.  When I returned home, I went out to admire John’s manual earth/rock/dirt moving around the new pole building.  Dirt-splash marks 18 inches high — caused by recent rain — were on the new metal of a light beige color.  He is digging out the soil along the side and filling in the shallow trench with rocks.  We should have used a dirt-brown color.  {Although, this is Nancy commenting, the dirt was not brown, but black.}

In addition, I needed to have John move a large container of clean clothes from the top of the clothes washer, because we are almost out of underclothes!  First, I cooked bacon and fixed all the other parts of a BLT with one of the huge tomatoes from our friend where we got the apples & pears.  It was yummy.  The dishes never got finished nor the clothes washed.  Oh, well, another day.  Instead, I got John’s help with a scanned image of some music, and I punched (:-)) it into my Songwriter software.  It is Marianne, the 1955 song most everyone knows.  It is easy to sing and play, so we will add it to our repertoire, for the group on Thursday.

Monday, Oct 29  Hmmm today the only thing on the calendar is SAIL, but depending on the weather, we may combine it with going to town for some other things we need.  Nope, I stayed home and am washing (drying) the first load of clothes; I already did a load of dishes.  This morning while John was making a path to the clothes washer for me, he decided, with my help, to take a new bag of 25 pounds of white sugar and repackage it in plastic bags we put into over-sized plastic containers and an old coffee can that we normally use from the counter.  It is a nice sunshiny (but windy) day, so John needs to work outside.  It was supposed to be raining all day, but it rained all night, and that provides for some nice welcomed weather during daylight.  I made nice BLTs for lunch again today and have been working on several musical chores.  I’m finishing putting in Beautiful, Beautiful Brown Eyes with 3 verses; all on one page of music with the chorus separately, only once, at the bottom.  It’s taking me a lot longer than usual for some reason.  Perhaps it’s because I do not have a complete musical score and have to figure the chords on the missing parts.  Also, the two pieces of music I have are by different arrangers, one with a chorus only (with verse words), and the other, only the notes, no words, for the verses.  It’s weird.  One is in F and the other in G, to make matters worse.  On line I can get the lyrics and chords in yet another key.  Bummer.  After a lot of work over the next day, I succeeded, only to put the verses in the wrong order for what our normal lead singer uses.  I may just leave it, because it’s a lot more trouble to switch, and we can just tell people with the music and singing, to use the order 2, 1, 3.  Ha ha.

Well, it’s been awhile since I made dinner for us, other than something simple, but tonight John was extremely tired from his day of outside work, and I “made” spaghetti sauce, adding onions, ground meat, and tomatoes, to some store-bought sauce.  He grated the cheddar cheese for the topping and cut a pear, which we had with it.  It was very good.  Now I’m back working on music for this week.  I may have finished Ashokan Farewell in D, and then for all the music mentioned above, I will transpose it for our Bb Clarinet player (using the software).  I only have to get it in for a violin, once, and then can change it to the proper key for her with about 3 commands.

Tuesday, Oct 30  Back from town.  We took Meghan (12-year-old Brittany) to our vet for checking out what we suspected was a fatty tissue lump.  However, it seemed important to have it checked out.  Turns out there were more than one, but they all are in the right places so our vet was happy it wasn’t in concerned places near lymph nodes or mammary glands.  It was a $38 well spent, and happy we don’t have to go through an operation at her age.  She is in good condition, heart is good, and her weight is fine (31.3#).  Also, called to check on our widowed friend and then delivered some apples to her.

On to the new grocery outlet to buy cat food canned for only 39¢/can.  We went to our normal grocery for some more things which were on sale and to get our flu shots from our pharmacist (also a fiddler).  The cost of flu shots is covered by Medicare, but a couple of weeks ago John got the shot for Shingles and that one we had to pay for ($137) – Ouch!  That and a couple more chores got done.  It was misting when we left, but when we returned the rain had stopped, so John went out to do some fence building chores.  Then he took the dogs for their exercise run.  I’ve been working mostly on email and putting in another song into my music software program.  This one is Peter, Paul, and Mary’s “Blowin’ in the Wind.”  It is in a book John’s sister Peggy sent us with the Melodica.  I’m just getting around to transcribing a few of the songs.  This is my first.  I’m really quite happy to have the musical scores completed with guitar chords, so our musical group can use the stuff I put in.  The only problem is I have to rearrange it, because there are some flowery notes that the original group probably played, but I only remember the sung melody of the words, without embellishments.

I forgot to say we had a nice phone call on our way home from town with John’s sister (near Cleveland, OH).  They had some rather high winds recorded at the airport, and she said her house was creaking, plus noisy from the raindrops slamming against the windows.  She weathered the storm all right, by changing bedrooms from the Lake Erie (~8 miles away) facing window to a bedroom on the quieter side of the house.  When we got home, after John did the above-mentioned chores, we called his brother in San Jose, CA and had a nice visit with him.  He is sounding better from his ailments.  He is 11 years older than John, who is the youngest of four.

Wednesday, Oct 31  Happy Halloween.  Hmmm-long day in town.  This morning was busy getting ready to leave.  Was at the Food Bank Soup Kitchen for music.  Food today was interesting (strange), but palatable.  From there I went to the SAIL exercise class at the Adult Activity Center.  My friend and I left 10 minutes early to get to a nursing home to perform at a talent show, Halloween Party.  I played and sang with two groups a total of 4 songs.  Home to work on a bunch more music for our group tomorrow and to re-order my music.  We are going to be short a number of people tomorrow, so it will be interesting.  I carried in my trunk 50 pounds of onions plus a box with 10 more but didn’t have a person to help move the large bag.  I hope that we can get it transferred tomorrow.  The two of us gals cannot manage it.  There are no handles on the bag for leverage.  Tonight we had a nice salmon dinner with a cooked winter squash (inside had walnuts, pears & apples cut up, and brown sugar).  Table grapes made it all healthy.

Thursday, Nov 1.  Up to sunshine!  John had to go herd deer out of the yard and pasture to be able to run the dogs.  This is a morning and evening occurrence each day.  I don’t have to get to town until before 2:00 and it is the shortest distance I have to go to play music.  Turns out John took me in the truck and while I played music, he went to the Co-Op to buy fence posts.  He moved the onions to the truck and deposited them in the front of the nursing home (in a raised flowerbed), not wanting them in the way of the posts he was going for.  He came back for me and to help get the onions into her trunk.  While in town, he also dropped off some onions for another friend (who just had hip surgery).  We came home and turned around after dinner to go back to town, — we will pick up a friend to go to a free Celtic instrumental and dance group (3 sisters– the Gothard Sisters)  at CWU Thursday night.

http://gothardsisters.weebly.com/about.html

First large image cycles through many photos.  Also, you can sign up for their newsletter and receive notices of when they will be in your area, as well as receiving two free downloads of their music.

John’s going to wear his Irish sweater with shamrocks and Claddagh design:

http://www.ancient-symbols.com/images/irish-symbols/original/irish_claddagh.jpg

His sweater is much nicer, with blacks, purple, gold and green colors, and less “loud” as the graphic above.

The performers are sisters with the one playing guitar and occasionally in blue being the oldest and the one in yellow the young one.  All very accomplished.  They were great.  They also all play fiddles in some tunes, and sometimes a drummer is added.  Also, the middle one plays mandolin.  They change costumes during the performance and have all the same color (white) for later in the program.  It was really worth attending, and we will try to make another event when we can.

Friday, Nov 2  What another day this was.  We both slept in late and John worked hard all day.  I left about 11:15 for town, taking along tomatoes cut up from our garden that have been ripening slowly in the garage.  I picked red and yellow ones, and cut into a bunch of wedges to fill the casserole bowl.  It was the normal first Friday of the month potluck at the Adult Activity Center, but today, they fixed a pot roast (very tender), with potatoes, carrots, and celery.  We SHOULD have taken by some onions yesterday, but what they fixed was quite good.  They served it on a biscuit (if you wanted), or you could eat it separately.  I had mine on the large biscuit.  Then all the folks eating brought a potluck item as I had done with our tomatoes.  There was a corn casserole, sugared carrots, baked squash, green beans & bacon, and a host of salads, including slaw, and deviled eggs.  Many desserts to pick from made with apples, cherries, plus cupcakes, brownies, and ice cream.  Actually more stuff than I’ve listed.  Then there was a speaker, a new orthopedic surgeon in town, who left Ohio for the PNW.  He is over 65 and was excellent in explaining arthritis and hip and knee joint replacements, passing some examples around the room, (of metal on metal, which they have decided against using) and now use metal with a plastic inside layer in the ball joint replacement.  He talked about how things have changed and what used to have to be replaced in 15 years will go longer.  It was a fascinating talk, and he was open and willing to answer questions.  After that, I went to the car to put my leftovers there and to grab some acetaminophen to get me through the rest of the afternoon at our exercise class.  While there, I met one of my former non-traditional students, who now works with community recycling.  We had a nice hug and talk.  When I went back in, the staff had taken the leftovers from the beef stew and combined all the cooked vegetables into a soup, in containers on the counter for any of us to take home.  I took one with two cups in it, to share with John for part of our dinner.  It will be a side with bratwurst and a leftover piece of salmon from last night, which ended up getting in the stew.  It was a pretty good variation on surf and turf soup.

Saturday, Nov 3  We have nothing planned away from home today or tomorrow, so I am leaving this blog for John to tackle in the morning, to add his touch and links.

Hope your week was a good one.

Nancy and John

Still on the Naneum Fan

Autumn, a time of harvest and loss

Sunday, Oct 21  A scheduled music session for the afternoon presented the question of the day – stay home or go?  Rain or Sun?  Assuming the former, we took care of a bunch of chores this morning; John, early, fed the neighbor’s horses (one last time).  Morning was fine for working on yard chores, but it was rather cold.  Turned out the sun shone all day, and it would have been fine for working.  However, we grabbed a fast lunch and drove to the Swauk Teanaway Grange for the monthly Bluegrass Jam session.  I didn’t count but there were a fair number of folks there.  I will try to recall.  Guitars (6), one Dobro, one Mandolin (who switched with a guitar occasionally), Bass Fiddle, one Banjo, and 3 violins.  The audience had about 10 or more.  People brought yummy food.  I took zucchini/pineapple bread my friend Bill made me a loaf of yesterday, and brought 1/2 back that wasn’t eaten, also there were brownies, another zucchini/cream cheese/nut bread, and some wonderful toll house cookies.  They always make coffee, and John left a donation for a Pepsi he got from the frig. There were a couple people there, who John new from our trail riders club, and a couple who we met at a multi-day Bluegrass session in the Canyon last year over Mother’s Day.  It was close enough for us to just go down 3 days in a row, and at that point I did not have the travel trailer.  Don’t know what’s for dinner tonight.  We filled up on goodies at the Grange!  Ah ha.  We threw together leftovers and two nice potatoes, steamed in the microwave oven.  We had some of our tomatoes and a Honeycrisp apple too.  The guy didn’t make it with the bulldozer, so yet another waiting game.  We have other things to do, we invited ourselves to pick apples and pears across the valley (ditto last year). More on that below.  And we need to go to Costco soon.

Monday, Oct 22  We decided it was going to be a nasty rainy day, so we’d go to Yakima.  We made a couple/4 stops on our trip.  It snowed on Manastash Ridge while we were in Yakima, and as we went across the valley and uphill home, it snowed a lot on us.  We got home to 4 inches (at least of snow here) and it is still falling.  Normally, we do not get snow until Halloween or the day after.

We had a fruitful shopping day.  We went first to Big 5 Sporting Goods on Nob Hill Blvd. for boots (better/different selection than EBRG), and found a nice new pair for $45 (normally $70 at other retail outlets – so they claim).  And then we went by the new Penney’s store (now called JCP, kind of like KFC, ha ha), and I bought myself a pair of Skechers® with a good inner sole for my foot problems, for $45.  I have worn nothing but Brooks Addiction for 15 or more years, (recommended by foot doctors for plantar fasciitis), but the price is up to $120 (plus added 8% tax), the last time I bought them in 2010.  So, this was a good day.  We even got gasoline for $3.74/gallon.  And, we picked up 2 pepperoni pizzas on sale for $3/off (linked to the apple/pear picking plans), got some pecans for the pies John has to make for the Christmas potluck Scholarship luncheon (he is expected to each year, since he started in 1988).  Also some chocolate chips (coupon $2.25 off 4.5# bag), so we can make cookies to thank our computer guys and mechanics.  (This is also a tradition).  We got a large package of red seedless grapes, dog & cat food, and some other stuff we needed.  Even got some AA batteries for the friend we’ll see tomorrow to pick their free apples.  Our total bill was 12¢ shy of $220.00; amazing how things add up.  Oh, I forgot the bratwursts (probably not good for us, but much enjoyed), and a couple of packages of their very large muffins, filled with blueberries.  Returning to the timeline of the shopping trip and then home, John is back in from moving snow off the walks and patio and feeding all the animals.  It is still snowing, more like a misting rain now.  Sadly, got a phone call tonight that my (music group) friend died (cancer).  He’s better off, to be out of pain, but it is still tough, particularly for his wife of 57 years.  He’s been very much a large part of my musical life for two decades.  Years ago I went in to local sewing goods store and violin music was coming from the back room.  The store was his wife’s.  I likely would have met him in some other way but probably in a public venue, so this simple homey connection helped our friendship develop.  I will miss him.  He played in every group I played with, sometimes 3 times/week, and more days at Christmas time.

Tuesday, Oct 23  John worked on outside chores much of the morning after running the dogs and feeding the horses, and it is no longer snowing, but is  ‘winter’-cold.  He had to move some hay from the barn to a horse trailer that is closer to the horses’ feeding stations and easier to feed from.  Also, he took some time to clean out some of the groceries still in the car from yesterday to add some empty boxes for the apples.  We are leaving after 3:15 for the other side of the valley where they only had a dusting of snow — John to pick apples and me to visit, and then we will eat dinner there.  We are taking from our COSTCO trip – pizzas, grapes, and crystal light.  They will add their onions, tomatoes, and peppers to the two large pepperoni pizzas.  We have 6 to feed and a year old (who loved the pizza).  Two are growing teenagers.  Conversation included many topics, such as the son’s overlapping baseball and football seasons, daughter’s painting class using this guy’s methods

http://bobross.com/index.cfm

she is doing a painting that will soon look something like this one:

http://www.deshow.net/d/file/cartoon/2008-12/bob-ross-landscape-painting-281-8.jpg

The one she is doing eluded John’s searching.  Actually, here is a link to a photo with my holding it — her mom took this when we went to pick her up from painting class.  Moss, grass, leaves, and highlights are to be added.

http://www.ellensburg.com/nancyh/2012GreetingsPix/Jessica’sPaintingStart.jpg

We played with baby Michael and discussed apples and irrigation.  The sad thing about the apples is that a hail storm destroyed (for commercial purposes) almost all of the fruit along the hillside (numerous growers, hundreds of acres).  See this:

http://www.dailyrecordnews.com/top_story/tree-fruit-sustains-significant-damage-in-hail-storm/article_69b7c288-d675-11e1-b919-001a4bcf887a.html

Only fruit low on the tree and on the opposite side from the direction of the storm is worth picking, maybe a dozen or so per tree loaded with apples. Should look like this:

http://www.treepicturesonline.com/apple-tree-4.jpg

But, instead, most look like these:

Really bad: http://www.apsnet.org/publications/imageresources/PublishingImages/2004-05/IW000040.jpg

Less bad:

http://www.fruit.cornell.edu/tfabp/Misc/2.jpg

If the apples have only dents (previous view bottom and top left) they might be usable for juice.  The center hit in the above view cracked the skin and the resulting decay – dark brown/black – prevents this apple’s use.  Harvesting a crop with any such apples is too much of a problem as, after picking, an inspection might discover a few like this and the entire shipment would be discarded – picking and transport costs just adding to the loss.  So, only the few pickers like John (with owner Urban’s help) manage to salvage a few of the apples – about 150 pounds in our case – 2 types of pears, plus Romes, Honeycrisp, and Jonagolds.  Oh, and a few of the heirloom variety Winter Banana:

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/voracious/winterbanana.jpg

Wednesday, Oct 24  Well, today everything changed from what was originally planned.  First, it started out snowing early and we hadn’t even realized we might get it.  It went on till about 10:00 am.  Then it melted the rest of the day.  The sun came out once, but mostly was cloudy all day and chilly.  John moved panels to protect the contents of the new metal pole building from the horses – also prevent damage from rubbing and pooping in it.  He has moved over 100 gallons of water (siphoned) from rain/snowmelt catch barrels from off the roof of the house, front and side. Rain water has the need pH for blueberry plants but it is a bit late in the season.  But one of the intersection gutters (valley gutter) dumps water right at the front door, like this:

http://www.locallocalhistory.co.uk/studies/roof-shapes/roof-names-ds.jpg

Folks that design houses must live in apartments.  Note the different orientation of the garage/roof in each of these:

http://gemoftheweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/front-house-w-garage.jpg

versus

http://www.englandhouseplans.com/House_plans/PlanImages/elev_lrS1025B.jpg

Imagine a foot of snow on each sliding and melting into a pile on the ground.  That one place would have a frozen mess right in front of the garage door — as does ours – while the second one would have the garage accessible but the front door would be a wet and snowy mess.  Yes, the fancy house has “rain” gutters – so called because they are not too helpful with snow and ice, and unless heated, have a tendency to be ripped off by those added weights.  Oh well – we should move to a warmer place.

I worked on notifying friends about the upcoming funeral and copied the obituary published in this afternoon’s paper.  I got it out long before it was on the newsstands, so that was neat.  Had a few responses and had to respond.  Then at the last minute I was rushing from a fast breakfast to get dressed to leave for town to play music at the Food Bank.  I walked out onto the front porch and was standing there waiting for John to push the snow off the windshield, doors, and windows, when the phone rang.  I decided to go back in and catch it, hoping it wasn’t a political call, which we have gotten 2 and 3 of some days.  It was my banjo buddy I was to meet at noon, saying she had rolled her car and totaled it coming to EBRG from S. Cle Elum and wouldn’t be able to play today.  Luckily, she was not hurt.  But, I turned around and decided not to go to town.  I had plenty of chores needing done, and tomorrow we both are going to town for several things.

Thursday, Oct 25.  I got a Noon haircut from my neighbor around the rural block.  Left at 1:25 for the afternoon in town with John.  While I was playing music, he went and bought groceries, picked up his eye ointment, bought some things on sale, saving $16.00, stuff we would buy anyway, so it truly was a saving.  John picked me up and we drove a block up the street for me to have blood taken for an INR check.  Then to the bank, and on our way to the next stop, friends from Yakima came up behind us at a stop light, honked, and pulled us over to talk.  We met his daughter and her husband who were here from Virginia till Saturday.  Hope they don’t run into problems flying back into the influence of the hurricane, Sandy.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at3.shtml?5-daynl#contents

Of all things we visited outside our cars in the Jack in the Box parking lot.  What a chance meeting.  Small world.  Then on to the library, where all the metal inside my body set off the alarms, and scared me, so I asked to be escorted out through a different exit, at the back loading dock.  Thank God it did not set my ICD off to shock me.  Then off to pick up the bags of onions.  Dinner of leftovers tonight, but I added a full tomato for myself, from our garden.  Boy, it was excellent.  (Oh, John also cut a bunch of the lower limbs from the Mt. Ash tree to keep the deer from jumping over the 4′ fence to come eat them.  We don’t want a deer getting hung up in the fence but they are welcome to the berries.  Also, he had to pull out and cut our gorgeous grape vine leaves, which froze badly overnight.  The lilac plant still has green leaves.  Go figure.

Friday, Oct 26  Finally, the man down the road and over some, who owns a bulldozer for hire, arrived in our driveway to check out our needs.  He had a tree fall on his house, so our project is put off over a week from now.  I hope it doesn’t snow to stick before it gets done.  The snow we had earlier in the week is mostly gone.

Noon today was a scholarship luncheon in Bouillon Hall, the old building where I had a nice office on the second floor with a wonderful view, and much space, for over 10 years.  We had 3 different soups, and I sampled them all.  First was an Italian Toscana soup (made with onions, bacon, sausage, potatoes, and whipping cream); second, a corn chowder with potatoes; third, a taco soup, with red kidney beans, ground beef and a chili-like base.  Whole wheat rolls and butter, and a green salad with cherry tomatoes.  If that wasn’t enough, our hostesses had two wonderful homemade pies.  The most unusual was layered with caramelized nuts, pumpkin, cream cheese cake, and a yummy crust.  Best pie I have had recently, but she also had a yummy apple pie with a Dutch apple crumbly topping.  From there, on my way out of the building I grabbed two heavy- duty boxes, flattened but very usable, in which to recycle paper.  Then off to SAIL class, carrying a box of apples to the Adult Activity Center to share with my class, and also, I took along 10 pounds of onions to share with an older couple, both members of our class plus a smaller box of apples for them.  Of all things, I then had to drop by where we played music Thursday, in order to pick up a Tambourine our oldest member (83) left behind.  I retrieved it.  Then in the afternoon, late, after 5:00 we picked up a large pizza, had it cut into 16 pieces, and took it to our friends house a block away, where John stayed while they went to the viewing of my friend who died.  I had some pizza with John and a few of the family, before they left for the funeral home, and I left for a retirement home, to play and sing gospel music from 6:00 p.m. to 7:00.  They had a birthday cake afterwards, and I stayed for a piece.  Then left about 7:20 and drove back by the funeral home, and made a stop to visit with the family.  I gave one of the sons a ride back to the house, went inside for a short visit and to pick up John to drive home.  Tomorrow will be a much longer day.

Saturday, Oct 27  More rain.  We had to leave before noon today to get to town in time for the family to get to the church and set up things before the funeral.  I stayed in their house with John for a little bit and then donned my raincoat and drove about a block to Jack in the Box to get our lunch.  John wanted a full one with a drink, cheeseburger, and fries, and I got a small hamburger and shared his fries.  We only visited for a short while and I left to go to the funeral, to meet another friend there.  It was a beautiful service with 4 immediate family members giving Eulogies, a trio of musician friends (Flute, Cello, & Harp), playing Ashokan Farewell.

http://www.jayandmolly.com/ashokanfarewell.shtml

That was a meaningful song for the deceased and his family, and they were playing from his handwritten music score for the piece.  All musicians in the valley are used to his crafted music, with notes and chords, and transposed versions for a trumpet or Bb clarinet.  We will now permanently include that song in our group playings in his honor.

The audience sang two hymns, and the bishop said a few words.  It was special for me because the bishop is also our eye doctor.  After the service, the family left for the cemetery.  It was raining the whole day, but thankfully, the rain stopped for the trip to the cemetery, the burial service, and the trip back to the church.  Then it started pouring again and it is still raining, at 9:30 tonight.  John was staying in the house to watch out for it while I participated in the funeral.  I did not go to the cemetery, but went back and visited with John for an hour, and returned to the church for a dinner.  I got there 1/2 hour before the group who went to the cemetery, but was able to sit and visit with friends.  Once everyone got there we had a ham dinner, with rolls, salad, rice and potato casseroles, and desserts.  I should have picked up two pieces of ham my first time through, but didn’t, because when I went back through the line after everyone was seated and many were done eating, there was little food remaining.  I was going to take a plate back to John.  However, the only thing left on the table was salad (which he doesn’t really like), and one rice casserole.  Nothing else.. oh.. yes, pumpkin bread (he doesn’t like), and one tiny piece of chocolate cake.  So, that’s what I brought him (plus my left over roll parts and the edge I cut off my piece of ham).  Good thing he had some stroganoff he made yesterday to come home to.  He also had to feed the horses and feral cats in the dark and in the rain.  We didn’t get home until 8:00 p.m.

I turned this over to him late to tweak and to post.  It might not make it out until Sunday.

Hope your week was a good one.

Nancy and John

Still on the Naneum Fan

Winterizing in the rain

Sunday, Oct 14  most of the day was spent doing nothing.  John did many outside chores.  I stayed inside for mine.

Monday, Oct 15  Not much done today, except on email chores and on a few household recycling chores.  I filled two boxes, and have to get John to bring me more empty ones.  I still have much to do.  The most frustrating thing is he just brought me the postal mail.  In case I haven’t mentioned it, health care is a PITA.  John and I both had annual physicals, scheduled by our doctor’s office, August 28th.  I received a report that mine is not covered; only once a year.  That will be $339.  I have complained but no one has yet responded (now it is the end of the week, as I write this).  I also had a mammogram in July, again, requested by my doctor, and they will pay all but $40 of that.  John managed to move some posts, rocks, and dirt with the backhoe today.  It is now raining, starting about 5:00 and just has been threatening all day.  Still raining, at 7:00 p.m., and dinner (chicken is cooking and smelling great).  John’s such a good cook.  I’m fortunate.  We had carrots and potatoes (from the Columbia basin), chicken and one of our tomatoes.  Yum.

Tuesday, Oct 16  We had an amazing amount of heavy winds all night and now this morning, plus hard rainfall.  The sun has shined through everything this morning, winds and rain.  I imagine somewhere in the valley was a gorgeous rainbow.  The house was shaking last night and this morning.  The winds are still very high.  Blew the last of the walnuts out of the top of the trees, and John has already harvested them before the squirrels and birds could get them.  I just checked the airport and found that sustained wind speed at 10:30 was 41 mph, with gusts to 59 mph (written in bright purple on the report).  I am sure that is the highest I have ever seen it.  I told John this morning that last night I thought we had 65 mph gusts!  Glad the fires have been snuffed out by the recent rains.

On my way to The Connections we went and paid for 3 bags of onions – this is a direct from the farmer sort of thing – 13¢ per pound.  John drove with me and went to the grocery while I was playing and singing music.  There were only 5 of us there tonight.

Wednesday, Oct 17  I said yesterday the fires were snuffed out, but my neighbor went with her hubby in their jeep up Reecer Creek canyon and saw much devastation of the forest and some places they took pictures of isolated trees still burning.  Big old trees sometimes have rotten/hollow centers and, so enclosed, can smolder for a long time.

http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/sequoia/news/releases/2009/06/tree-fire.html

Went on a sad visit today to a wonderful friend who is dying from cancer.  He is much in pain.  I only visited for 15 minutes, but I know he appreciated it.  Earlier in the day I played music at the food bank, and ate lunch there.  We had a very spicy pasta with sausage, but I only received noodles (no sausage) with cheese and the breadcrumb filling, green mixed salad, and we were to have a peach/apple/grape cobbler homemade there, but there wasn’t enough to go around, so I had zucchini bread with also homemade grape sauce meant for pouring over the cobbler.  Went on to the Sr. Center and had a donut and brought one home to John.  I feel bad that he worked outside the whole day after I left at 11:20, and he actually started over an hour before I left.  He missed lunch today.  I went by the grocery store, complaining about the charge on Crustini buns John bought (he thought) on sale last night.  They rang them up at $4.38 and he thought he was getting them for $2.50 each package.  They refunded a total of $3.60 for two packages.  I told them he would never have paid that much for a set of 8 rolls.  They need to mark their sale price shelf signs better.  Tonight we had the first two and enjoyed them covering a nice cheeseburger, with one of our tomatoes. Also, one of these:

http://i-cdn.apartmenttherapy.com/uimages/kitchen/2008_12_19-dumplingsquash2.jpg

This is called Sweet Dumpling.  Ours was stuffed with apple and plum pieces, with butter and brown sugar.

Thursday, Oct 18  Another day and a half with so much to do.  In late morning I joined John in the yard to try to figure out the winterizing of the travel trailer.  He was able to hook up the drain to the tank but the process only yielded about 3 gallons of water.  When we had the AC installed and all the rest checked out they supposedly put in 50 gallons.  I think not.  Maybe they intended to and someone thought someone else did, but? – it seems to not be there.  John got out our (2 years old; never opened) new air compressor

http://s.sears.com/is/image/Sears/spin_prod_567626001

which was still in its box, only to find the supplied oil (in a small plastic bottle) had leaked out, some onto the equipment but most into the cardboard.  He needed to go to town to buy special oil.  Requiring just 3 oz., he had to buy a quart for about $9.  Our local Sears outlet is about 15 feet wide and 30 feet long, so, naturally, they don’t carry such stuff.  EBRG’s old time hardware store (Wood’s) does.  Wood’s was only about 100 yards away on a wrong direction one-way street.  Not thinking ahead of all the one-way streets, he drove six blocks before getting to where he could have walked in less time and at no cost.  Life’s tough.  Anyway, I came back in the house to make a BLT for our lunch, and it was running late, but we got away in time for him to drop me off at the Dry Creek Assisted living home, and go on to get things he needed.  While in town he went to the Goodwill store and bought 2 timers (as in kitchen timer). Somewhat like this:

http://www.preparedpantry.com/classic-kitchen-timer.aspx

We had dropped my mom’s that we had used forever.  It broke and could not be repaired.  Search the Web and you will find many strange things – use ‘ kitchen timers ’ in Bing images and have a look at about $6 and up.

Goodwill had 2 only, of the simple variety at 99¢ each.  Do we need 2?  Who knows?  But consider:  the link above wants $9.49, so buying 1 at Goodwill saved $8.50.  By buying 2 we’ve saved $17.  Try it – you’ll feel richer!  We checked them against the timer on the microwave oven and for a one hour setting they were right-on!  (Nancy’s comment about John’s story on the timers; we were always traveling from the kitchen to the back room with a timer, so the two will be well used without traveling.)

Friday, Oct 19  I’m happy to report while it rained off and on all day, we still managed to get much stuff done.  I did not go to town, so that helped.  That trip wastes almost an hour, plus the time spent in town.  I spent time on several different chores and so did John, and then I joined him outside to work on the travel trailer, setting up the generator; he had already set up the 2 amp trickle-charger on the battery in the travel trailer, but we got stymied on the last thing with the generator.  May work on that tomorrow.  I remember we ran it from near the open door (for ventilation) of the RV building and subsequently loaded the gizmo into the PU truck bed.  We tested the AC with the generator (we think) but for a time the power cord was also in a wall outlet on the inside of the building.  Did we actually test having power to the trailer from the two different sources?  We can’t remember.  Perhaps not, ‘cause the end on the power supply to get to the inside of the trailer, does not have the correct receptacle to hook into for the generator output.  And the manual wants the thing grounded.  Does anyone do that?  Look at this page.

http://www.imsasafety.org/journal/ma03/ma5.htm

Talk about a steep learning curve.  Where is an electrical engineer when you need one?  John did get the air compressor ready to go, but we have to first pump out the rest of the water from the system before blowing the small remainder.  Meanwhile, I have been working on inside chores after drying out and warming up.  John pulled a large tree trunk (windfall) with the old truck to another part of the property where he makes little pieces out of the big pieces using chainsaw and splitting maul.

http://www.plumbersurplus.com/images/prod/6/Ames-1190100-rw-150177-252274.jpg

Saturday, Oct 20  We stayed up late so slept in until 9:00 a.m.  John went over to feed the neighbors two stallions, and then we went back tonight.  He will do it in the morning too, but the owner will be back by noon on Sunday from Oregon.  I went today at 1:00 p.m. to visit my friend with cancer and his wife and one of his 4 sons (another John).  I had met another son a couple times this week.  Then I went to play music at Briarwood, where they feed us.  For the music, we had 2 guitars, a mandolin, 2 violins, and two singers (one with an occasional tambourine).  For food treats, they provided two types of soup, good for a cold day:  Zucchini and Potato.  I put some of each in my bowl, and the combo was quite good.  They had rolls and butter, and veggies with dip, and various kinds of cookies and cakes.  I did not eat as much as usual today to ruin my dinner.  John and I had leftovers, made into Sloppy Joes (sort of) on those new fancy Crustini rolls, and some of our own little yellow pear tomatoes.  John did not go along today because he had to stay home and work on yard and pasture chores, moving fence posts, etc., to free up some panels he wants to put around the metal building to protect it and the hay from the horses.  [Nancy had deer, also, in the previous line.  But our deer are the Muley type and they don’t bother grass hay.]  Right now, the horses are fenced out of the area with the metal pole building.  We had also hoped that a fellow with a bulldozer would drop by to see what work leveling and pushing around dirt and rocks we need done, which John cannot do with his “smaller” tractor.  He didn’t make it today and if not tomorrow, he did promise ‘next week’.   It is rather inconvenient to try to plan stuff when you don’t know the “when” of it but many of the locals are quite busy with all the fire damage.  Those not directly involved in that have extra work directed their way for normal activities.  John had to jockey all day with the deer but a late run had the male Britt, at full speed, almost bounce off a doe standing in one of his favorite pathways.  She took offense and chased him out of the trees and back toward the house.  We had visual confirmation of all 3 feral cats in the hayloft for dinner tonight. Daily the food gets eaten, even if they are not seen.  Not much else happened today, so we waited for this addition before posting tonight.  The Summit at Snoqualmie claims it is snowing

http://www.summitatsnoqualmie.com/Weather

But the WA-DOT camera for the summit is off-line.  Nearest is Franklin Falls just to the west and it shows white along the road edges.  Sunday, when the view is better, may show something (click on little circles):

http://www.wsdot.com/traffic/passes/snoqualmie/default.aspx

Hope your week was a good one.

Nancy and John

Still on the Naneum Fan

Germs, walnuts, & rain

Sunday, Oct 7  Spent much of the day resting from my several days away in Olympia, and working on the blog update from Wed to Saturday because I never had time while there to enter anything.  Not much else happened.

Monday, Oct 8  Another day of rest and playing catch-up.  John is collecting and placing rocks along side of the hay barn to prevent gravel from inside leaking to the outside – at one corner the original land surface was 23 inches lower than the opposite far corner – the catercorner.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-kit1.htm

Smaller rocks go in an excavation along the garden wall that is a parking/turn-around space.  We do need to try to winterize our travel trailer today or tomorrow, and go for a fast dinner at our neighbors.  Then we need to get our materials together to go see an estate lawyer tomorrow afternoon.  Not a fast dinner.  It was quite long, but enjoyable.  In addition, I came home with 5 new blouses.  Three of them are mine that my sweet neighbor gave me earlier but kept to fix buttons on.  We took tomatoes from our garden (picked not quite ripe) over to add to dinner.  We had red ones and yellow pear ones.  Both were excellent.  For dinner, we had corn, pork roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, salad, and applesauce; had cake and ice cream for dessert.  Sad part was I started coughing.

Tuesday, Oct 9  Interesting and full day.  Morning was spent looking for legal paperwork and other stuff to take to the lawyer’s.  I called a title company and was emailed a scanned copy of two deeds from Idaho for our old timeshare weeks.  That was time-consuming on the phone, but ended up not costing me $1.00/ page to have it mailed in hard copy.  (That still would have been reasonable and surprised me a lot).  Foot care for Nancy at 2:00 (which I wore a mask for not to spread germs at the Sr. Center); visit with estate planning lawyer at 3:00.  I cancelled music at Hearthstone at 6:30, because since last night, I have been coughing regularly – seems a big nuisance but not overly serious, yet.  Menthol cough drops do not help and a spray (red stuff) is ineffective too, but it was for sore throats that I did not have.  I guess we made a little progress in the hour we were with our estate lawyer.  A solvable issue is figuring out whom to get to take care of immediate needs of feeding animals and finding them new homes if we die in a common accident.  A bigger deal is what to do with our “estate” insofar as the common plan is to leave stuff to the children.  I don’t even have a sibling while John has an older sister and a still older brother.  Then there is the dispersal problem after the cleanup around the house.  Cars are somewhat valuable.  Much of the rest is practical.  Much could be thrown away now and save someone else the chore.  Anyway, who will handle everything.  It is not an easy decision, and just by looking for legal papers this morning, we realize that we surely must spend a lot of time organizing and tossing the hundreds of pounds of papers that have built up through the years.  I found 5 drawers of filing cabinets and maybe more in two others I haven’t searched that can be immediately recycled.  Maybe after I dump that, I can use some of the drawers to fold clothes into!  We don’t have enough closet space, because I’m still sorting out old large clothes and not having a place to put the smaller ones.  I have already dispensed a lot of the larger sizes, but I know there are more to go. [John says:  We have lots of space but too much junk.]  But back to the big question:  Assume you have $XX and need to write down exactly what it should be used for following your death – what do you write?  Having no answer for the lawyer — on to the grocery store!  I needed a resupply of meds.  While there, on the last day of a weekly sale we loaded up on our favorite mixed flavor large (mostly blueberry) muffins.  Unfortunately, they put them in boxes of four with two others of a different flavor.  It was two boxes for $3.98 each (plus one box free).  Not a bad price considering we bought a box of smaller muffins (4) for $2.00 each in Olympia.  Home for a good dinner, but I’m still miserably coughing.

Wednesday, Oct 10  Today did not go according to Hoyle.  I coughed much all night and awoke with sore muscles in my body and chest.  I interacted with my family physician’s nurse throughout the morning and finally decided I was improving.  I canceled both trips to town, however, and rested the entire day.  The only thing I did was feed the cat and clean up the kitchen sink and counters.  Oh, I also looked through papers I had packed away when we were preparing to evacuate from the advancing wildfire.  Most importantly were insurance papers for all the vehicles and the registration (with a new yearly tag) for the old Chevy ’80 pickup because John needed to drive it to town for gas (a thrice yearly thing) and to go pick up some concrete culverts tonight from a friend on the other side of the valley.  He also packaged up some boxes filled with recyclable paper and took them to town.  John did a ton more around the place in addition to normal chores of feeding animals.  The funniest thing that happened today was his working around the deer in our yard.  He had been cleaning out the garden, and was going to need to mow the strawberry plants tops off, but he hadn’t done it yet, and when he left the garden last night, he left the door ajar, into the 6′ fenced area.  Overnight, the deer cut the tops of the plants off for him, saving him the effort.  Then today he picked the last of his blackberries.  He started making good headway picking the Carpathian walnuts before the Douglas squirrel squirreled away a bunch.  He still has more to pick.  Okay, another chore I must finish is recording on an Excel spreadsheet all the mileage driven and hours spent on volunteering efforts around town for me and in the Cascades on trail work for John for the month of September.  It is due  around the beginning of the following month for the local RSVP,

http://www.seniorcorps.gov/about/programs/rsvp.asp

and I’m behind, with going to Olympia the first week in October.  These numbers go to the retired volunteer group and helps in their acquiring funds.  Almost done.  Only to put in John’s mileages, and time.

Thursday, Oct 11  Awoke without coughing finally, but still very sore.  I knew I was up to making it to the two musical venues and did, even managing to sing.  First, I notified my Dr.’s nurse that I wouldn’t need to be squeezed into see him.  It was nice they cared enough to double book me.  I still cannot imagine what I had that came on so rough and tough but cured quickly with a lot of rest and a lot of liquids.  The first venue was Community Days at the F.I.S.H. Food Bank, for needy folks in the community.  They have free medical attention (shots), haircuts, clothes, food, and a meal.  I don’t know what all happened in the “back room” warehouse.  Two of my friends and I played for 45 minutes in the front room where they served a nice meal:  ham, mashed potatoes & gravy, a very nice fruit cup, some sort of pasta, some tomatoes, squash, and other stuff.  From there I went to the Rehab center where I spent 7 weeks in 2010.  We had 8 people show up for the music.  A sweet lady on a walker got up and “danced” because she said when the music began that her feet just started and had to keep time!  John went to a meeting tonight of our trail riders club, but it was 2 hours (home to return) of nearly wasted time.  There was no program or business to speak of but he did get to visit some with friends.  Neither of us have been riding since summer of 2009 so the connection is fading.

Friday, Oct 12  John spent much of the day picking walnuts and drying them in the sun, but having to put screens over them to keep the Jays from carrying them off.

http://www.nps.gov/band/naturescience/images/stellers-jay.jpg

He picked them to keep the squirrel from eating them.  Funny thing was that when he saw the Steller’s Jay going after them, he put out two of our Brittanys.  Annie simply went over and picked up a Carpathian walnut, proceeded to shell it and eat the inside meats!  Today on the evening walk, Annie brought him a live vole, and Shay brought him a dead squirrel.  He was not just killed but assume one of the cats got him.  That’s good.  He was ready to take his gun out.  I hope that is the only one.  [It’s not – at least one more.]   We’ve brought the nuts inside as the Jays were coming onto the porch.  When he was picking day before yesterday, the squirrel was up in the trees chattering at him.  I need to explain why we are against having the squirrels around.  They have done past damage to our truck engine and especially in our shed, stuffing black walnuts away for winter in the insulation until it has shredded and fallen loose.  It is a total mess that we haven’t had time to repair.  The truck incident was covering the air cleaner and motor with husks and very fine shavings from the nut shells such that we had to haul it to the mechanic to have it air cleaned and fixed.

We did not get the travel trailer winterized because John spent hours this morning fixing up a nice certificate of appreciation to give at tomorrow night’s dinner.  He was a little miffed at me for waiting so long to give him the parts (photos and text), and he had problems with his computer and the MSWindows Word to put text and photos together, but it is very nice and now framed, ready to go.

Good dinner tonight:  Salmon, shrimp, and our yellow tomato.  We grew several large tomatoes of this type and the elderly neighbor would not eat any because “that’s not a tomato.”  Except for being yellow, we can’t tell any taste difference although some other variety might be:

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-yellow-tomatoes.htm#

There was an extra orange cat in the haymow tonight eating the cat food.  John shooed him off.  I spent time this afternoon working on the notes from a panel session I participated in, in Olympia.  Oh, that reminds me; I must put together an email address list of the audience there and the panel members.  I was in charge of that.  That finally was accomplish Sat. a.m.

Saturday, Oct 13  Tonight is the special event, a Musical Appreciation Celebration for the Gordons, Jeanne and Gerald.  Jeanne’s father started the Old Time Fiddlers music in the region in the 1950s.  They are in their eighties and we are having a dinner in their honor tonight to thank them for all their musical offerings to the community for all these years.  Jeanne played the accordion and Gerald a guitar.  One of our members (now we are called the Kittitas Valley Fiddlers and Friends), has written words about them to the tune of Jeanne’s favorite song, Just Because.  I will share below.  Thanks Evelyn (our banjo player) for your resourcefulness–(because just because).

Just because you really have talent

Just because you really have heart

Just because you really have something not too many people have got

You give of your time and your effort

Year after year after year

Well, we’re telling you, Gordons, we’re telling you

You real-ly are so dear!

Evelyn printed the lyrics so we can all sing it to them.

I’m finishing this now so John can return, add to, and post this.  He is now over in our neighbor’s field loading future firewood.  Last year beavers dropped several large trees (12-15 in. diameter) into a hay field.  John cleaned up the mess but left the large pieces along the edge of the field.  They get lighter as they dry and so are easier to load.  We now have rain in the near future so it is time to get the wood out before dry/hard is replaced by wet/sloppy in the field.

He finished just as we got a little sprinkle.  Being on the lee side of the Cascades means mostly dry for us (8 – 10 inches of precipitation per year), but the north Pacific atmosphere has just changed and Washington and adjacent British Columbia is undergoing a rapid switch to a stormy pattern.  The region just off the coast has had a High Pressure cell blocking flow eastward.  That’s now gone.  Cold air is moving south from the Bering Sea

http://unboxedwriters.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/sea.jpg

and moist/warmer air is sliding across the Pacific.  Typhoon Praipiroon has charged that air with moisture.  See image and location here (in a looping .gif file:

http://earthweek.com/2012/ew121012/ew121012e.gif

And what NASA thinks here:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hurricanes/archives/2012/h2012_Prapiroon.html

A 170 knot jet stream is now aiming this atmospheric river toward the west coast mountains.  There will be major rainfall and reports thereof.  It has been very dry all summer.  Just today the WA-DOT was warning about the buildup of oil and dirt on the roads and how slick it will get when wet.

http://www.q13fox.com/news/kcpq-rain-could-making-morning-commute-dangerous-on-highways-20121011,0,6469397.story

We need the rain.  Bring it on!

All from here for now.

Hope your week was a good one.

Nancy and John

Still on the Naneum Fan