Author: admin

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

Sunday, Sept 30   I took some more lovely pictures from our pasture tonight of the smoke and colored sunset and two contrails of jets headed somewhere.  One was to Seattle.  Don’t know the other’s destination, but it was in the opposite direction.  The smoke was so bad today that I had to wear my mask while going to town, and once there to get into the building from down the block.  I am still going through my hay project work.  I went in today and met for 2.5 hrs with my co-author in his office.  We worked through the text and PowerPoint together, eliminating many words, to make the presentation about 18 minutes.  He is working on the paper part and I’m working on the visuals.  It’s going to be fine.  We leave Wednesday afternoon about 3:30, for Olympia, WA.  We have to get through the pass before they close down I-90 for an hour or more, for blasting near Keechelus Lake.  There is also the opening plenary session on Sustainability of the South Sound at 7:00 we hope to make.

Monday, Oct 1  John and I left at 9:30 and went by way of one of the hay processor’s barns and took a photo of the large Japanese writing on the I-90 side of one of the storage facilities (we needed it to add to our PowerPoint presentation).  It was not easily obtainable except from I-90, just east of the Kittitas ramps.  The next exit is Vantage, 30 miles away.  John and I were on our way to Moses Lake, WA about 1.5 hours away, to meet for lunch and a visit with our friends, the Joyals, from graduate school days (early 1970s). [Back in 1974, they helped us relocate using a large moving van pulling a car, and our loaded station wagon with dog (and their Black Lab) and cats, from Iowa to our new home in Troy, ID.]   They now live in Marquette – upstate Michigan, but come back every year to visit relatives in Spokane, WA and Moscow, ID.  We always meet half way at Michael’s on the Lake, a neat place with good food and views.  Today, the Joyals had a pulled pork sandwich, John had a Texan burger with pulled pork, and all three of them had a pear/walnut/cranberry/cherry tomato and greens salad.  I had a Cobb Salad with Romaine lettuce, which it turns out has more Vit K than I should have.  Still, I enjoyed it and the in-kitchen-made rolls that went along with it.  The four of us shared one piece of cheese cake with whipped cream and strawberries.  The meal was filling and delicious, and cost us $22.25/ person.  Still the 2+ hours together was super.  We only get to see them once a year.  I treated us with my award from the raffle associated with my donation to the American Brittany Club 2013 Specialty Show.  The debit gift card I won is worth $250.

~~~~ On our way home, we drove through the alfalfa fields (pivot irrigation) in the Columbia Basin irrigated region.  Tree crops are being expanded to the west of our path.

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

Airplane view here:

http://www.prlog.org/10646509-aerial-view-of-quincy-wa-data-centers-including-the-planned-sabey-data-center.jpg

This is from the NE looking SW over the town of Quincy.  The town and irrigated areas show in the upper-left part.  The big labeled buildings in the foreground are data centers – here because of cheap Columbia River electricity and favorable local tax incentives. Sabey is a developer and operator of multi-tenant data centers.

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2011/05/04/sabey-breaks-ground-on-huge-quincy-project/

~~~~~ The winds picked up in the Kittitas valley, right before we arrived home.  As we topped the ridge and looked westward, we saw large smoke plumes north of our house over the Table Mountain area.  As we drove toward home, I had John stop for me to take a picture of a huge updraft cloud that appeared as we watched.  He stopped for me to take 3 pictures outside the car, under the wires, but not being able to see my screen well for composure, only one came out, yet quite well.  I will eventually put it on my slowly evolving web page.  Meanwhile, here is a link from early on:

http://www.kimatv.com/news/local/169912656.html

Tuesday, Oct 2  now this morning, after the wind blew all night, around us the air is much cleaner.  Still a little hanging in the low spots.  The fire activity is “way down” to nothing new in the past 12 hours, and everything most recent back to from 12 to 24 hrs. It must be burning itself out in the enclosed perimeter they have been trying so hard to create and contain.  Now today I have my work cut out to get ready for the trip’s leaving tomorrow. I did fill my car with gas ( only took 10 gallons).  But, it cost me $4.07/gallon for middle grade.  And I took it by Les Schwab for them to check the tires pressures.  I realized how dirty the windows inside and outside were so, unfortunately I hadn’t driven it through a car wash, so, at home, with a spray bottle, paper towels, and my energy – I cleaned.  Also needed to discard a build-up of stuff in the back seat and trunk.  Good thing because I found a couple of missing items I needed to deal with!  Went by the bank for some cash, and to get my meds refill and sodas for John.  I still need to read through the paper and presentation comparison once again.  John is out moving gravel and I have two photos for him to change the contrast on and make smaller.  These are from John B whose camera needs adjustment on color balance, as does one of mine.

Wednesday, Oct 3  We did get a delivery of hay this morning for the year, plus extra – too much is way better than too little.  John moved out the “loose” unstable bales from the new metal building so all the new hay could be stacked there.  It is on one side alongside our travel trailer.

I left this afternoon to pick up John Bowen (my co-author) for our trip to Olympia.  We made the trip in just under 3 hours, in time to get him checked into his motel and for us to proceed to the convention motel where the opening session was and where I was staying.  Sadly the parking lot was full, so we found a place on the street (parking metered).  We went to the opening reception expecting there to be food (as there normally is), but it went long — with no food.  John and I were starved, so he walked out around the block and found some cranberry/orange muffins ($$) and chips which he shared with me.  I was grateful.

However, I do want to review positively the several speakers and give this link to one of them, who is a columnist for The Olympian news.  Here is is wonderfully geographic description of his talk and his connections to Geography.  I sent a nice comment to the online version to commend him on his advertisement of our discipline.  He is a great spokesman.  Here is the link for your pleasure:

http://www.theolympian.com/2012/10/05/2275759/soundings-look-near-home-or-in.html#storylink=cpy

Thursday, Oct 4   On our drive over the afternoon before, John B. had read the text and we altered and eliminated a few words and one slide, to shorten the time of the presentation.  We were trying not to exceed 18 minutes with 2 minutes for questions.  As it turned out we were right on, and John did a fine job of presenting it in 18:45 minutes.  We had time for 2 questions, and had nice feedback from the audience throughout the conference, but I’m ahead of the story for the Friday presentation.

Actually, last night my first roommate came in after I was in bed, and our other roommate was not to arrive until the next evening.  She is a UC Davis student, non-traditional student, working on her Ph.D.  She has a large family (6 children).  She was arriving to receive a travel grant from the APCG at a luncheon on Saturday where she was to give a 3-minute description of her research (on suburban neighborhoods).  We visited last evening and then went to breakfast (huge continental one provided free by the motel (Phoenix Inn Suites).  They had cereal, fruit, cottage cheese, eggs, sausage, potatoes, waffles, and oatmeal from which to choose.  Drinks were available (4 juices, including orange), coffee or hot chocolate.  That was a real treat to start a long day, especially without a decent dinner the night before.  From the motel entrance, we got into a van with 8 people, plus our driver, the conference chair, Martha Henderson.  I sat in the front seat with her, so I had an ideal spot to hear the commentary, see, and take pictures.  John B. was along on the trip, but got a back seat, too much road noise, and a woman sitting next to him talking on her cell phone.  We went through some small towns depressed from the changed economy from timber and railroads.  Some of the old factory housing was still evident, along with old boarding houses.  We took back roads through the towns of Elma, Satsop, rural & agricultural areas (including flower bulb growing) around the Wynooche valley bottoms, through the towns of Montesano, Aberdeen, on our way through Hoquiam to Grays Harbor, to the Port there.

http://www.portofgraysharbor.com/

Opening page includes a slide show.

We got a fantastic tour of the port.  We started in the commissioner’s boardroom, with an excellent PowerPoint introduction to the facility by the public relations person, Kayla Dunlap, and by Leonard Barnes, Deputy Executive Director of the Port.  He was quite knowledgeable on the history of the port’s recent development for international trade, and willing to share many inside stories of the recent changes and growth.  The port specifically decided against being a container shipment port (with Tacoma and Seattle so close by), plus the large investment required in overhead cranes for moving containers around.  They were a timber port from the past, and now still export logs and bulk chips

http://www.portofgraysharbor.com/about/history/index.php

. . . but have added 6 rail lines into the port that bring automobiles from the East and soybeans from the Midwest, barley is delivered to the port as well as a few other grains.  These come into the port on unit trains (up to 110 cars).

http://www.trainweb.org/ttos-pnw/pictures/grain2.jpg

There are fewer units on the car delivery trains.  Huge grain elevators are present for the storage of grains.  Also at the port are large tanks for liquid bulk.  It is a thriving port in recent years.  We were taken on a tour in our van, with Kayla sitting behind me in the front of the van.  We were allowed to take photos throughout the port.  Another of their exports is large fancy cars such as Jeeps that look like hummers, and they are a major Chrysler exporter.  In addition, they export large mechanical equipment (called OHOW=Over High Over Wide) including things such as construction earthmovers, Caterpillars, Hyster trucks, and so on.  They have rail loops to and through their terminals and storage facilities.  They are in charge of the Bowerman Airport, (a service), not a moneymaking entity, but a 5000′ runway to accommodate jets, as well as having a number of other properties.

Inside the headquarters are fascinating historical photographs.  In 2011, they celebrated their century of existence and service.  Anyone with an interest in transportation would benefit from a tour of the port properties and facility. From Port Headquarters we drove west to the Gray’s Harbor Wildlife Refuge at the end of a long peninsula.  A long hike was required to get to the boardwalk for great views.  I gave my camera to John Bowen, and he took pictures for me.  Elaine Lycan and I were not up to the 2 mile walk and we went across the street instead to Lana’s Hangar Cafe for a milk shake (50s style).  It was a great atmosphere and there was some nice food being served.  They are known for their hamburgers and fries.  We had already had our box lunch at the Port, so we only had the dessert.  Thankfully, we chose a small one.  If you are in the area, looking for a unique place to eat, check it out.  From there we returned to the Port and visited a craft spirits distillery, that specializes in mead (honey wine) distilled to honey vodka.  They also made a whiskey.  It is called the Wishkah River Distillery and the owner provided a tour of the process, a tasting, sale of their products and associated items, such as 3 sizes of tiny aging barrels; again, it is worth a stop if you like that kind of thing.  It was quite interesting.  Another geographer from my past was on that trip, Gundars Rudzitis, from the University of Idaho.  He will be retiring this December, at 70.  He actually bought some of their products, as did another couple of folks from Oregon.

http://wishkahriver.com/ContactWishkah.html

From that trip, we returned to the Phoenix Inn a little after 5:00 p.m. and there was a dinner (no host) at the Mercato, an Italian “Ristorante” up the street 3.5 blocks.  I decided to drive my car.  I knew I would have trouble parking when I returned, but I didn’t have to worry because the hotel pays for parking on the meter adjacent to the hotel block.  Problem with the parking from last night was I had to move the car at noon, and I would have been on the road.  I was fortunate to find a spot when I left the evening session slightly early.  Sadly, however, I missed seeing a fellow whom John and I had known from the Univ. of Cincinnati graduate program in the mid-1960s).  Okay, back to Thursday night’s dinner.  It was held at http://www.mercatoristorante.com/mercato-ristorante.html across from the Farmer’s Market.  I drove myself there.  On my way into the restaurant (pictured on their web page), I passed by the cooks.  I stopped and asked one for his recommendation.  He suggested Wild Mushroom Risotto, which I actually ordered.  I found a large group of geographers in a back room, and it was extremely noisy, so much so you could only hear the person to your left and right, and if you leaned forward and shouted, you could talk to the person across the table.  I was at a high powered (geographers) table, sitting with Alex Murphy from Eugene, past President of the AAG (Association of American Geographers) to my left, to my right was Eric Sheppard, current AAG President, across from me was Doug Richardson, the Executive Director of the AAG, and Martha Henderson, President of the APCG (Association of Pacific Coast Geographers) and head of this regional conference meeting.  She also led the field trip described above.

Back to my recommended and chosen meal.  It was Risotto (rice cooked in broth to a creamy consistency), with wild mushrooms, lettuce, and a hard cheese like Gouda, only another name, five letters long, starting with G.  Possibly, it had onion grated and cooked with the mixture.  It was scrumptious.  Cost me $15, considerably less than other meals around me, some of which were ordered with salads, at an additional price.  I had water to drink and several people ordered a glass of wine, followed by Doug ordering a bottle ($42) of Cabernet Sauvignon (2008) from Sovereign Cellars (Olympia) made from grapes grown in the central part of the state (closer to us); their grapes are sourced from vineyards in the Red Mountain, Columbia Valley (AVA) and Horse Heaven Hills.  Sovereign brings the fruit over and processes it in its winery near Steamboat Island in Olympia.  I had a small taste of it.  On my way out, I was followed by an older couple, the man of which (Myron Paine) is in his late 70s and a retired but still active geographer.  They asked me if I was walking back to the hotel and wanted to walk with them.  I thanked them and said I had my car and would be happy to give them a ride.  They took me up on it, and gave me his cards.  He is working on a project, and has a web page in the Frozen Trail for Merica.  He lives in Martinez, CA and writes on Lenape Epic topics.  He gives presentations from 10 minutes to 2 hour seminars on topics including The Lenape Epic, Frozen Trail to Merica, Maalan Aarum Saga, and How Christianity Came to America.  Here is his fascinating and informative research web site:

http://www.frozentrail.org/

I visited with them again at the evening reception Friday night.  Take a peek at the website above.  It is quite educational with research and historical thoughts of migrations into North America from the Norse.  His hypothesis:  During the Little Ice Age ancestors of the Lenape-speaking people walked, en masse, on the ice from Norse Greenland to Merica.  Check it out.

When I got back to my room, I saw Susan Digby for the first time this trip, as she was one of our other roommates.  She is currently the president of the Association of Washington Geographers, of which I have been a member for many years, and was Treasurer for a dozen years at least.  I have been a member since arriving to WA in 1988.

Friday, Oct 5   Started off early with getting ready to leave for a parking spot at the LOTT center (part of the water treatment facility for Olympia), within a half block of the Children’s Museum, where our talk was scheduled for the first thing and session of the day, starting at 10:00.  I was there by 9:30 to be sure I could find my way in and get a good seat on the front row, to support John B’s presentation of our investigation.  When I arrived I could not find an entrance in, and there were no signs.  I saw a security guard so I yelled at him asking how to get into the building.  He said, “Oh, you can’t; it’s under construction and no one is allowed.”  I was fretting when the chair of my session and his student arrived.  I explained and we went around the construction fence toward the back of the building.  We found an entrance and suggested to the people inside that they post a sign out where we had been stymied.  Then they showed us to the elevator and to the room.  There was not a laptop there (and there was supposed to be).  John and I both had ours along but it seemed appropriate to have them locate one.  We visited while waiting for the laptop.  Turns out these folks were from Alabama (the Univ. of Northern Alabama).  I had been a student (undergrad) of an instructor of Climatology there, Frank Himmler in 1964, who had transferred to Alabama after I left Georgia State University.  I found out he died of cancer about 7 years ago.  Within minutes, the laptop arrived and we began setting up.  The session was to start at 10:00 and our paper was not until 11:00.  Three presentations were ahead of ours.  We had a good turnout of folks for our session, filling the small room, so a way in had been found.  From there we went to lunch.  I introduced Susan Digby to John Bowen, we went to my car, and I drove us to the port of Olympia, where Susan had seen an ocean-going vessel earlier in the morning unloading some sort of white-wrapped bulk product.  By the time we arrived, the longshoremen (dock workers) had broken for lunch.  We climbed a viewing tower for a better view of the port.  I told Susan and John I could make it slowly, but I managed to make it up not very far behind them, and I think it was 12 short squared circular stairs.  I counted them because I knew John H. would not believe I ascended them.  I should have taken a picture of it, and I did not.  We realized we were not going to see anything, so we walked over to the farmer’s market and had lunch at a Mexican restaurant.  I had a burrito, but found out from a friend later I should have walked farther, had fish and chips, or a clam chowder.  Oh, well what I had was good and we found a place in the shade to sit and eat.  On the way back to my car I saw the unloading of the ship but it was too far away to get a good picture.  I surely wonder what those things were.  The two geographers decided to walk back (yes, I offered to take them), but I decided to stop by the hotel and get rid of my laptop and heavy bag.  I lucked out to find two parking spaces only, in the Phoenix lot, but as I found out later, I had parked in a disastrous position to be able to access the driver’s side of my car, to return to the paper sessions that started at 1:00.  Jen Lipton, my colleague from CWU was the session chair, and she had a paper at the end of her session.  I planned so that I would get there in time to hear her presentation.  Sadly, one of her presenters did not make it and did not notify anyone of his absence.  Normally, when that occurs, a session chair normally leaves the space open, and waits to keep it on schedule.  The audience convinced her to go ahead and present her talk and not to wait.  That meant I arrived for the last 5 minutes of her presentation.  Actually, I was later than intended because of not having access to my car.  Remember the comment above about the two parking spaces?  A VERY large truck had pulled into the second (and last spot) next to me.  I was evenly within my parking spot.  His truck was only five inches from my driver’s door.  I tried opening the door to squeeze in, but there was absolutely no way.  I went around to the passenger side, but it was a chore for me to figure how to get my body in putting my left leg across the large console between the two front bucket seats.  I hit my head on the mirror and had to push it out of the way, but still there was little room to get leverage and my strength and muscles still are not 100%.  I managed, but it took awhile.  I still got there in time for Jen’s paper, had the session been on schedule.  I was very disappointed to miss her paper, but at least I got to say hi.  She had just driven over in the morning with her family and was returning after that session.  From there I went to a 3 o’clock session of papers, after having a visit outside the building with Gundars (mentioned above).  We had not had an opportunity to visit during the field trip.  This session was quite interesting because I got to see more geographers from earlier days.  The first paper in the session was by a former undergraduate from Idaho (after I left there), who now is working on her Ph.D. in a German University.  I had met her at last night’s dinner.  I was sitting next to Carl Johannesson, who is now 84 and going strong.  Jim Allen was the session chair.  After that we went to the Boardroom of the Lott building for an afternoon Presidential Plenary session with Eric Sheppard talking on a Globalization and Urbanization topic.  He had some interesting thoughts and very nice photographs.  The screen in this room was clearly the best of any of the four rooms used for APCG presentations.  Following that was a reception (WITH FOOD) and a poster session (where I was able to visit with a student, Markus Chisholm, who was my undergraduate student at CWU in several classes about 2006 or so.  He has since entered the graduate program at CWU (Resource Management) and was presenting a poster on his research in Alaska, with a very interesting situation near the permafrost adjacent to an island whose subsistence depends on fishing (whaling) and hunting Caribou.  I also had nice visits with other geographers in my past:  William Bowen and his wife Marilyn, Gina Bloodworth (now in Maryland, but here early in the 2000s at CWU) and Naomi Peterson (still at CWU), the Paine couple I met the night before after the Italian dinner, and John Menary who I had had several instances to visit with during the conference.  John was hired by John Hultquist in 1980 when we were at Idaho and John was acting chair for a year and a half.  John M. lived in our living room for his first 4 months in Idaho.  It was great seeing him again after all these years.  We have kept in touch via email and only occasionally seen each other through the years at geography conferences.  He has lived most of the time after leaving Idaho in California, teaching geography.

Saturday, Oct 6  Interesting last several nights of interrupted sleep, so awoke very tired.  However, I got packed and loaded much of my stuff into my car, ate breakfast — this time I made my own waffle with a fancy machine a young man had to show me how to use (How times have changed!), and I made it down to the session starting at 10:00 that John Bowen was a panelist for and Susan Digby had organized.  After that we went back to the Phoenix Inn for a special luncheon (with another boxed lunch, a rather full one:  large wheat bread sandwich with turkey, cheese, red onions, tomatoes, lettuce; an apple, a pasta salad, and two little pieces of a brownie and of an apple cake).  It was accompanying a meeting of several folks from the AWG (Association of WA Geographers) and served as our “smaller” fall meeting for the organization.  The spring larger one will be held at CWU in May, 2013, and John Bowen is the local chief in charge.  When I was at CWU, I hosted the meetings twice.  Members there, many of them as panelists for the afternoon session at the APCG, included Rich Tebbetts, Dave Jeschke, I, Susan Digby, and her panelists:  George Walker, Craig ZumBrunnen, Stacy Warren, John Bowen, Martha Henderson, and Patrick Buckley.  It was a fruitful meeting.  John and I headed back to Ellensburg, after picking up his luggage from his motel.  As we came back into the Kittitas Valley, we saw a bunch of smoke still rising from the Table Mountain area.  John Hultquist was off just west of the Stevens Pass area again volunteering trail work for the WTA.  I will let him explain a little about the area near the old railroad west of Stevens Pass where two trestles crossed Martin Creek, and where they have been trying to revive history with a dedicated trail through the area.  I hope he will add something here:

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sure: A new trail is being built in the once-shadow of the Great Northern Pacific’s first route across the Cascades.  The train is referred to as the Iron Goat.  First, this word will come up:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wye_(rail)

Then go here:

http://www.scn.org/sbtp/swbks-gn.html

Helps to see the view; here’s the location of Scenic

(lowest white dot on the map or diagram 2 at the above link.

47.711342, -121.161073

Martin Creek Trailhead is here:

47.729569, -121.207043

We cleared forest trees and litter near the tunnel portals on the left side of this map.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

He was gone from our house for 12 hours, and we arrived home within minutes of one another.  The animals were quite ecstatic to see us.  The smoke was bad through the night and into the day.  The visibility reached its worst just before 10:00 a.m. when it was down to 3 miles.  Finally about 2:00 it cleared up a little (to 10 miles).

Guess I should halt this treatise and have John post it late on our Sunday.  It is much later in the East U.S. where several of our regular readers are.  The temperatures have finally started to decrease, so we need to drain the water from the travel trailer and winterize it.  John bought anti-freeze type stuff while I was out of town, but was waiting for my assistance with the project.  I imagine now it won’t happen until tomorrow some time.

Hope your week was a good one.  Ours was certainly a busy one.

Nancy and John

Still on the Naneum Fan

Nancy worked Mon & Tues getting ready, Wed going, and the rest of the week in Olympia, returning about 6 P. M. Sat.  When she catches up with the rest of the world, we’ll get her view of things.

Cheers,

John

Smoke still gets in our eyes

Sunday, Sept 16  We already covered never on Sunday, in last week’s blog.  Therefore, we will move along to Monday.

Monday, Sept 17  Bad smoke-filled valley this morning producing low visibility.  Early up to get to the hospital lab for a blood draw (fasting) for both of us.  I also had my regular monthly INR.  We went afterwards for a biscuit with Canadian bacon slice, regular bacon pieces, cheese, and an egg from Carl’s Jr. and then to the grocery and pharmacy with the idea of our both getting a Shingles shot as recommended in our last annual physical by our family physician.  Today, John’s shot cost us $87.50 and insurance will pay the other half.  Rather expensive, I thought.  So, I decided to wait and talk to my Cardiologist this week before I get one.  There are all sorts of warnings on the allergies and medications and supplements a person takes, they have you read before taking the shot.  (I did ask him, and he deferred my question to my family physician.)

Do not have to show up for jury duty for this week; have to call again next Monday.  I’m relieved because I had several appointments I did not want to miss.

Tonight, besides taking a break to make large BLTs with our tomatoes primarily, I was busy going through a 90-minute class on line so we can pass the human subject review required of us by the university for protecting the privacy, confidentiality, showing no coercion, etc., of interviewees in our proposed study.  I passed all the modules, answered all the 4 questions correctly at the end of each, and got a certificate in return, saying:

Responsible Conduct of Research Training

COMPLETION CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that

Nancy Hultquist

has completed the Human Subject Review Committee tutorial, Protecting Participants in Social and Behavioral Science Research, on 09/17/2012.

This course included the following topics:

•       Historical events influencing the ethics of human research

•       Current ethical standards

•       Risks and harms

•       Benefits

•       Informed consent process

•       Privacy and confidentiality protections

•       Research with protected populations

•       The review process at Central Washington University

•       Researcher’s responsibilities

Tuesday, Sept 18   I picked up John B at Dean Hall at 12:45.  Went to Andersons for a tour of the compressing of hay, and loading for transportation by containers to world ports (most in Asia), and afterwards we headed to Wesco International to interview the owner.

[John says: Container shipping was the idea of Malcolm Mc Lean in 1956 —

The Truck Driver Who Reinvented Shipping

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5026.html

or this —

http://www.isbu-info.org/all_about_shipping_containers.html

Photo here:

http://www.carexshipping.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/container_shipping.jpg

You see them on the highway looking like regular trucks but they come apart and go to sea.

http://jiyolive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/2.jpg    ]

I am off again after a long afternoon to play music in town, and John is going along to fill up his car so I have gas to drive myself to Yakima tomorrow to see my cardiologist.  He’s got too much to do to go along with me, and I have to rush back to play music at the Food Bank Soup Kitchen and then go to my exercise class.

I got enough exercise today more than for a whole normal week.  We walked all over Anderson’s (an exporter’s) container yard from barn to barn and looked at various hay compressing units required to produce the product for export.  Then drove 14 miles to past Kittitas to another exporter (Wesco) and had a long conversation with the manager/owner.  Both were very interesting and educational.

Tonight John and I will pick up some tomatoes from a friend to whom I delivered squash today, and then we will go get a charbroiled chicken sandwich with some fancy Mexican name, TORTA.  I don’t know what it is.  Perhaps I should look it up on the Internet.  I just looked at the coupon.  It has beans, cheese, guacamole, and charbroiled chicken, tomato, and lettuce and salsa… supposedly . [John says:  It is a linguistic advertizing trick to get you to buy their flat-bread sandwich.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torta   ]

Wednesday, Sept 19  Early start this morning, leaving at 7:45 for Yakima for two Heart Center appointments, the first with my cardiologist (last visit was May 1), and I also needed a 3-month check (digital read out) from my ICD.  On my way to the freeway, I passed a field of corn being harvested, so I took some pictures to share with my colleague, John B..  Then on down and up the hill on I-82, to the view point.  Took a couple of photos of the smoke-filled valley and the ridges behind with all the smoke from the fires.  On to Yakima, and got there 20 minutes before my scheduled appointment.  Even though it was my doctor’s first appointment of the day, he was over at the hospital and was about 20 minutes late.  But they took me in early and did an EKG and a chest X-ray, (normally done once a year).  My report was good.  He doesn’t want to see me back for 8 months.  Wow–cool.  After his care was completed, I walked around to the ICD check place and was a little early for my appointment.  That went well, and while I was there, I asked if I could have my BP checked because it was a little high when I started (138/74), which I attributed to my driving myself down and seeing and worrying about the fire.  However, I had been relatively relaxed for the rest of the hour while there, so she called in a nurse to retake it.  It was 120/70, not bad, even though it is still a little higher than when I take it at home.

Off to Ellensburg to play music and be treated to lunch at the Food Bank Soup Kitchen.  On my way down the hill, I pulled to the other viewpoint and took a movie panning around the valley, of the smoke on the far ridge, and also took a couple of still pictures.  I came via the same road I had taken pictures of earlier of the corn harvest, and the whole crew with 3 large corn harvesters had moved farther down the road to another large field.  I stopped and took a movie of the machinery working close up (cutting and stripping to just the corn cobs).  Pretty cool.  On to the Food Bank.

Once there I visited with a couple of the volunteer cookers and servers, and set up padded folding chairs for 4 people.  We had our usual banjo and fiddle, plus two singers today.  At the beginning and end, we were joined by an 82 year old man who carries his harmonica and plays with us when he can.  Today he played, You Are My Sunshine.  After we had a nice meal — chicken Alfredo with nice large slices of tender chicken, nice green salad, and homemade sweet biscuits (similar to shortcake, but cooked just like a hamburger-sized biscuit), with a fruit compote poured over it.  Boy, was that scrumptious.  From there to SAIL exercise class.  I didn’t have to lead the class today because another of our group did.  After that, I drove home, but saw big billowing smoke clouds and stopped to photo them, and then realized there were new fires in the canyon drainage west of us (Wilson Creek).  Those continued to grow and burn on the ridge.  My friend took his binoculars and looked across the valley and saw flames and also several fires and flare-ups in Wilson Creek.  I decided not to go out after dark to look for the flames, because I figured it would give me nightmares.  I did walk up the driveway twice tonight to get a better view of the smoke, and took some more pictures.  I will  post them on our continuing “web page.” http://www.ellensburg.com/nancyh/August2012Rock’NPonderosa.html

There is a report here (with photos):

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Table-Mountain-fire-in-Wash-triples-in-size-3880802.php

On from there we continued with chores.  John picked a box of pears from our tree we inspected on a first walk together up the driveway to get the paper.  So I just took several photos of the clouds of smoke.  He bought some peaches on his way back from the trail work last Saturday, and we fixed them tonight to freeze into little packages and kept some to have with ice cream and blueberry muffin for dessert.  After we put the peaches up, we drove to the end of the driveway to check on the fire.  We saw nothing alarming.  Here is a note John wrote to a friend in WTA (WA Trails Association):

I’ll be coming Friday to Issaquah to work on trail to get out of the smoke. Our first big fire was west of here and came to about 6 miles away. There isn’t much to burn between here and there, so it stopped.   Now, the forest north of us** is burning. The fire is up at 5,000 feet or so; we are at 2,200. Trees (P. Ponderosa) come down to about 3,500. Then there is low grass and intermittent brush. A downhill fire is not so fast moving and may not progress too far.  Still it is just about 6 miles from us tonight. We are in the watchful/waiting mode again. Haven’t hooked the truck to the travel trailer yet – as we did last time. **  Some nice trails up there. I cleaned out a couple of downed trees for the Cle Elum district a few years back.  I think the fire burned through there this afternoon or a bit earlier. Later this fall or next spring, I’ll go have a look.  John

Thursday, Sept 20  Began the morning early, logging on to the website,

http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us  which allows mapping active fires by downloading a .kmz file and using it within Google Earth.  An example of the first one Sept 19 evening and the next Sept 20 will be on the evolving web page (above link) on Wednesday’s entry.  Maybe more, because we have kept up the vigil.  (NOTE update Sept 23 just before posting this blog; a 10:00 a.m. view showed no red dots; meaning no new fires within the past 12 hours.)  Then we spent a lot of time doing various chores and left for me to play music at Dry Creek, while John went shopping.  Came home and at 4:30, I pulled a new image from later this morning, and we are in MUCH better shape.  The only reds are way north of us.  Note, this is the explanation of the data mapped:

CONUS MODIS 1km Fire Detections  This KML displays the MODIS fire detections at a spatial resolution of 1km for the past 6 hours, 6-12 hours, 12-24 hours and the previous 6 day period. Each 1km MODIS fire detection is depicted as a point representing the centroid of the 1km pixel where the fire is detected. The 1km footprint of the MODIS pixel for each detection is also displayed.
Data current as of 20-Sep-2012; 1715 Mountain Time (20-Sep–2315 UTC). 2012; KML file generated by the USDA Forest Service Active Fire Mapping Program.  Please see http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us for additional fire mapping products and information.

[MODIS image is here: http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2012-09-21

Note the right side where 3 resolutions are available to download.  Open one of these; the largest one if your computer can handle it.  Then your pointer should appear as a “+ sign” and clicking on the image should expand or zoom – You will have to find our area – central WA — by using the scroll bars on the side and bottom.  Wind is blowing from South-to-North and the smoke is drifting into the valleys to the north.  This was taken on Sept. 13 but for the past week the wind has brought smoke into the Kittitas Valley – we are at the upper point of the greenish triangle, also know as the Naneum Fan. ]
We had a late dinner; beef roast, squash, lentils & barley, tomato sauce, cooked in the crock pot.  I fixed some corn on the cob in the microwave, and we had some of our own yellow pear tomatoes (thumb size).  I didn’t get the work done on my hay project I had intended.  I took my camera to town, and stopped to take some pictures of a wheel line, shooting out water.  Well, my battery got low, and it only let me take ONE picture.  Will have to try later.

I got a note that the field trip I was signed up for in Olympia didn’t get but 4 people signed up, so they are cancelling it.  I’m so disappointed.  Now I will decide if I need to spend an extra night there–or if I couldn’t just drive over for Thursday and Friday nights–must decide soon.  Actually I moved to another all day field trip to the Port of Gray’s Harbor and Aberdeen, WA redevelopment.

Friday, Sept 21  John left at 6:30 for Issaquah Highlands, east of Seattle, (Google Earth location is  ‘grand ridge drive, Issaquah, WA ’, to work on trail with a Microsoft volunteer “Day of Caring” group.  Go to that image and find the word ‘King’ (in green) and the trail is in the woods between the location marker and King.  There are enough MS-folk (33) that several WTA assistant crew leaders are needed.

The air quality decreased enough last night to cause me to get up in the middle of the night and put on a face mask, and to turn on the fan to clean the air inside the house.  A check of the active fire site shows they have stopped the advancing fire across Hwy 97 at the big curve where John has to travel in the morning.  I have not checked the DOT site yet to see if the road closure has been lifted.  (It was at 7:00 p.m.) [John says:  On the quite steep east side of the road – crews cut many trees and all the low brush and moved most of it off the slope – only large downed logs and large standing trees (trimmed to ~8 feet up) are left.  I think they then started a fire at the top of the slope but that is not visible from the highway.  Lots of non-local, even Canadian, fire crews are up there working.]

Stayed home from getting out when I didn’t absolutely need to.  For much of the day the visibility at the airport (5 miles south of us) was a half mile.  Wow.. never saw it that low here.  And the winds were calm since last night, but just before 2:00 we registered a 3mph wind from the NNW.  It seems to be a little better.

I called my doctor’s office to get a prescription for a good mask to wear in this, because of my heart condition.  I can pick it up from the hospital tomorrow when I’m in town.  Have called around to a few people in need to let them know about that.  I had to do the leg work on this, because the first comment from the Dr’s office in Cle Elum (45 minutes away) was you will have to pick up the prescription here.  I said, I’m sure you can FAX it to the hospital, and I will find the number and call you back while we’re waiting for the Dr. to write the prescription.  Jeez.  I found the number and the location is Respiratory Services at the local hospital.  I called back with the information and then an hour later, the nurse called to tell me the doctor wrote the prescription and it was being faxed.  Rest of the time I’m spending on my part of the hay project.  John made it home about 5:00 p.m.

=====  Happy Fall Equinox! 10:49 am EDT

http://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/tours-events/sky-this-week/the-sky-this-week-2012-september-18-25

See the 3^rd paragraph.  Therein the phrase “apparent disc” is used.  This alludes to the fact that our Sun is so large that a spot on Earth gets light from an edge of the Sun’s surface and then, more and more of it as the two move in relation to one another.  Such issues are explained here:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/09/110921-autumnal-equinox-northern-hemisphere-first-day-fall-2012-science/

Saturday, Sept 22  The sun is barely shining through the smoke haze. When I left for town, and while there, the visibility was only 5 and 6 miles; now it is better, at the airport, but not up here close to the hills.  The breeze has started again, however, so that might help a little as long as it doesn’t aggravate the fires.  John is still on the road, coming down from the north through the fires.  On my way to town, I stopped off at the post office and put a card in the mail for a special friend in my home town, Atlanta, GA.  And, then on to the hospital, where I picked up 4 heavy duty masks for being out in this smoke.  They know me in there from coming in for my yearly pulmonary test and occasional heart monitor checkouts.  It is the Respiratory and Cardiac Services department at our local Kittitas Valley Community Hospital.  I thanked them for being there to distribute them on the weekend, when all the public offices (health dept, and school health services) are closed.  They thanked me for coming to participate, as it is a health need particularly now in our valley.

I had my camera along and on the way to town, I took some photos of a wheel line with water.  On the return trip, it was cool that I came up Naneum, face to face with a LARGE herd of sheep with their Basque (or Peruvian) shepherds, walking them down Naneum Road from the hills to the north.  I pulled off the road into a driveway type cut off, and took pictures of them all.  I even got a snippet of a movie.  Too bad I’m no longer teaching Economic Geography, but I will share my treasures with John Bowen.  Talk about being at the right place at the right time.  After I pulled away and watched  them proceed down the road, I saw the other shepherd pulling their house trailer turn in front of me to “go around the block”.  They will camp down the road for a couple of days in different pastures on their way south, over the Yakima Training Area south of us to Moxee, a town east of Yakima.  Actually, they must have turned and gone west because John saw them on his way home over southwest of where I had seen them.  Maybe I will go tomorrow and take a picture of them in a field.  They usually stay a couple days, and move on.

We had a good time at Briarwood Commons (Retirement Community) with a very few folks playing and singing, but the audience was good, and they all contributed.  They had made us a feast to thank us for coming to play.  We had little chicken salad (mostly chicken) sandwiches, two pasta salads, wheat rolls with butter, wonderful green pea/ham/carrot soup, a fruit drink, and coffee to go with a table full of desserts.  There were oatmeal/raisin cookies, zucchini bread, red velvet chocolate cupcakes, with homemade boiled white frosting, sweet crackers with peanut butter.  I had one of each of the last two selections.

Guess that about does it.  I need to work on loading the dishwasher I never finished yesterday, and to return to inputting my words and photos into our presentation on the hay industry we have to present in 2 weeks.  It’s coming along well.  That’s the presentation in Olympia, with John Bowen, my CWU colleague.

John made it home a little after 6:00 p.m. tonight.  Today the WTA group included five Boy Scouts plus 7 or 8 others.  They were west of Skykomish about 3 miles and then a little SW up a 6 mile gravel road on a trail that circles Lake Elizabeth [See at:  47.70271, -121.518423 ].

He came home and is fixing his dinner, but I have eaten too much this afternoon to need anything to eat.

John was sitting talking to me about his day, when Rascal brought a live bird into the den.  Luckily John picked the cat up and carried him outside with the bird in his mouth.  He was still alive and when the cat let go of, the tiny thing flew away.  YEA!  Glad John got him outside and we didn’t have a bird flying around our house.  It was a little sparrow (?), maybe.

Hope your week was a good one.

Nancy and John

Still on the Naneum Fan

I hope to find some time to update the page you have been reading for the past couple of weeks, but it will probably just happen in spurts.  I have mentioned some stuff in this week’s blog, but the content is not yet there.  If you log on and see a red notice toward the top about adding something by Sept 9, then nothing has been added yet.  Please visit again soon.  Here is the link.

http://www.ellensburg.com/nancyh/August2012Rock’NPonderosa.html

My emphasis and concentration is now on the presentation upcoming in less than 2 weeks. Thanks for staying tuned.