Keeping track

Sunday, Oct 6
Was included in last week’s blog because it wasn’t published until this day.

Monday, Oct 7
On John’s “run” with the dogs this morning, he cut it short, when he saw a coyote at the lower end of our pasture. Without the dogs, he returned with the truck to make lots of noise and exhaust smell, and to go into the area where a spring flows. A tree had fallen over it and the path. Because the horses occasionally take that route through the woods, he cleaned up. Haven’t seen ol’Wile E. since. Mere coincidence?
John is outside, cutting down some trees, after spending recent time cutting up fallen ones. Earlier we searched for the cause of the air in the house water. He wanted to have more information to discuss with our plumber. His main work today involved checking various faucets, connections, and checking out the noises. He’s decided the entire house system has air in the lines, but why the frost-free line to the horse trough also has air, makes noises in the house (garage) in the water storage/pressure tank, makes no sense. If the pressure switch failed with the line open perhaps the outside line could draw water out of the tank. More later.
Right before John fixed dinner, I managed to order my Sierra Trading order again, I thought I had completed it on my birthday, with a $30 gift certificate. The goods never came, so I called to check. There was nothing in their system. I requested a new certificate from Subaru to replaced the one that expired 9/30. I couldn’t find the same socks and flannel booties I originally ordered, but I found 3 pairs of nice wool socks of varying sizes on the length of the cuff–one above the calf, one midway, and one closer down around the ankle. I hope this order arrives in a reasonable time. I have been tracking it, (UPS), and it made it to Spokane yesterday, but no activity since. I guess UPS doesn’t deliver on Saturdays. The Subaru folks extended my certificate to the end of this month, and this was also a good sale on stuff at the end of the year I guess. I don’t know why wool socks would be considered seasonal especially when one of the best buys has snowflakes, but I suppose the other two were used for non-winter hiking boots.

Tuesday, Oct 8
When we awoke this morning, all the water faucets spewed blasts of air. Bad pump? Low water level in the well? John filled the dog’s water bucket from a barrel of rain water (crystal clear) and then we went for the monthly Emeritus Geography Profs’ meeting at the Copper Kettle for coffee, tea, hot chocolate, or iced water. Seven of us visited from 9:30 to 11:00 a.m. After the meeting, John and I first went to the hardware store for filters for the in-line to the water heater. Then off to a jeweler to have him cut John’s wedding ring off. His ring finger knuckle is arthritic (or deformed and enlarged from years of hard hand work or just age). After the ring was sawed through, it still took awhile to get it off. It will have to be rejoined with gold, and the price of gold has changed since 1969 ($35 per oz. versus ~$1275) making the fix about 3 times the cost of the ring. It will take them about a week to complete the task. Making it fit over the left knuckle makes it too large for a ring on that hand, so they will fix it sized to his right hand. I looked up on the web what wearing a wedding ring on the right hand meant. Supposedly, that is currently the fashionable thing to do in European countries. Then we went by the Mid-State Coop, and got the name of their water pump technician. He was out on a job, and was going to call us later, when he was free. He lives only 1.5 miles NW of us, so it was right on his way home. He spent an hour determining the problem. The decision was that the holding tank bladder had ruptured so the tank needs replacing. The pressure switch had failed also — completely filled with crud (probably mineral deposits). We are having to pay him by the hour for his labor ($75). We definitely went into the wrong profession. He also recognized that the tank we had (38 gallon), is insufficient for our system needs, and will be bringing and installing an 82 gallon one. He expects to be here around 9:00 a.m. John has to get up early to move stacks of boxes from the left side of the softener’s salt tank to make room for a much wider diameter water tank. We hope that fixing that one thing will solve the problem and not require replacing the pump (which has been in since 2000). We don’t know the life of a well pump. I had to leave for town, just as he was leaving our house. I was expected in town at 6:30 to play church anthems and sing with The Connections, at an assisted living home, Hearthstone Cottages. The people there are in better shape than many of the other nursing homes we attend. John had a lot of chores to do while I was gone, but when I got back at 8:00, I had to wait only a few minutes for dinner he’d cooked after feeding the horses, cats, and talking to his sister (in Ohio). For dinner it was a fresh tomato, pot stickers, and Korean seasoned chicken thigh strips, fried onion and yellow squash. The stickers and chicken were on sale at Costco recently, so we got them for situations when actually cooking something is time-dependent. For lunch, we had tomatoes, and egg rolls (same idea from Costco).

Wednesday, Oct 9
Our water problem was traced last night (maybe) to a bad pressure holding tank. The technician is bringing a new one this morning. He’s due any minute. John has been moving junk and boxes from the garage to create space. I am only here for awhile before heading to town. I hope I come home to water in the system. I know it will need a lot of filtering to remove all the crud from all the pipes, that has been blown off during the air spurts of the past week.
I went for my Food Bank Soup Kitchen music-providing event, and afterwards, we had pork chops, applesauce, rice with corn & cheese, and coleslaw. From there to the AAC for exercise. All went well, and I came home to have water in all faucets at a turn — not clean or clear, but running water… yippee! I waited a couple more hours for the hot water heater to heat up before washing dishes. John had drained the tank and put in a new filter. We will wait several days for the sediments and color to clear up before washing clothes; otherwise, all the whites won’t be. John moved dozens of boxes and stuff to the concrete slab in front of the garage and covered the pile with a tarp. Some haven’t been seen in a decade but now we have to sort it all out and throw most away. We were hoping to leave this task to the next house owner. But, while the task only just been started, one good find is a box of Urban Growth books I knew were there, but had been missing for a several years. I had promised them to a “new” prof who was essentially my replacement, and teaches GIS, Urban Geography, and other courses I taught. I gave him most all my materials for the Urban class, but it was offered for real the first time this fall, since he arrived. I had promised him two dozen of the USGS Special Circular 1252 hard copy reports, “Urban Growth in American Cities,” that uses Aerial Photography infrared color images of 16 large towns in the U.S., (e.g., Atlanta, Las Vegas, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Seattle/Tacoma), seeing the tremendous growth outlined by the imagery, for decades since the 1970 Census. I had access to the circular on line when I was teaching the course, but when I went looking for it, I found there is a NEW version available from Amazon for $12.50, and if it still exists on line- it’s not available now with the gov’t shutdown. I’m glad I’m no longer teaching and depending on gov’t sites for my data for map-making in my classes!

Thursday, Oct 10
We went for my fasting blood draw early this morning, in time for breakfast at Carl’s JR. We had the special large Biscuit with egg, cheese, Canadian bacon, and sausage. Normally that’s two kinds of bacon, regular pork strips, but I asked for a (free) substitute of a sausage patty, which is our preference. We stopped off at Les Schwab (tire place) for a change of season check of air in John’s car’s tires. From there we went to the grocery to get some sandwich meat for John’s WTA trip lunches on Friday and Saturday. Then when we returned, he took time to take the dogs for their morning exercise, while I ran off copies of the changed music for the group. When he returned, we had to weigh onions: 10 pounds each for two persons and 5# for another, and bag them for me to take to the Rehab, where we played today. John stayed home to work on cutting fallen trees into firewood size pieces for our neighbors. This weekend, while he is in the hills, the clan is gathering to celebrate the arrival of a new great grandbaby. The able bodied ones are to come take a couple of pickup loads for the wood shed – John has usually done this but would rather be making trail.

Friday, Oct 11
John got up at 5:00 a.m. and was out of here at 6:00 a.m. for Hobart (near Issaquah) to do WTA trail work. I stayed to work on clean-up projects from the activities associated with no water for a week, and moving boxes out of the garage to the front yard and put under a tarp. I intended this morning to add something to this blog, but after doing emails and phone calls, I turned off my computer to get to work on other pressing projects. My computer was off for hours (very strange for me when not traveling away from home). I fought with the water and air in every pipe. Worst was the hot water, because I wanted to wash dishes, and couldn’t. I called and talked to both the pump technician and our plumber. The first tech who just put in the tank didn’t really have a clue, but the plumber made a few suggestions. Finally, after running every faucet in the house and outside, it may be getting a little better.

Once it got to 60° outside I bundled up, got a chair, lifted part of the tarp, and started going through a few more boxes from school that I had not tackled in years. Most of the stuff was from the early 2000s or even some the 1990s. Disgraceful. Much could be tossed totally because of outdated technology–example everything to do with overhead projection systems, transparencies, and special holders to protect transparencies! I found a brand new box of a dozen WHITE lead pencils, and am curious what they are used for. I looked on line, and found I could buy a box on Ebay for $20. I also tried to find out their use, and only could find that sometimes woodworkers use them. Books of stuff back to 1970, which are of no use to most people, but I pulled a few that might be of interest to some friends and will offer before recycling. Lots of old term or project papers that can just be recycled immediately. I pulled off any usable covers and will take them to school to share with the students. I actually always preferred a plain staple.
Found some stuff to add to the box I’m making for the person now teaching Urban Geography, mentioned earlier in Wednesday’s blog report. Covered the remainder with the tarp. I uncovered a nice flower pot with a saucer, hung in a macramé hanger. I cannot remember its source. I hope John can. I need to find someone special to give it to. I think it’s associated with my mom in some way, but I don’t think she had anything to do with making any part of it. Maybe I just got it for her, or from her, and it’s been in our things. This one is red, and I recall having a dark green one. Maybe it will turn up in another box. Then after getting cold and tired of sorting for 2 hrs. outside, I returned to work on the dish loading into the dishwasher. I finally held my breath and started it, hoping the air spurting in the hot water faucets would not affect it. It’s doing all right, right now 1/2 way through the cycle. It made a few noises, but managed to clean the dishes, and I turned it off before the dry cycle to dump off the red water caught in places such as the tops of mugs.
I got a call from Kim Khan that John’s wedding ring is ready to pick up, but I told him it would be next week before we’d be in. John made it home about 5:45 p.m. and had the feeding and exercising chores to do. Then he fixed a nice dinner.
We had a phone call to respond to tonight from a friend about her horse’s problem, possibly Pigeon Fever, and she remembered we had the problem once with one of our horses. Now we are getting ready to finish up things and hit the hay. Tomorrow morning John leaves early for the same park he visited and worked in today. It is a new trail, in a county park, with a lot of new digging required. The names of the trails there are Elk Ridge and Carey Creek, on
Taylor Mountain near Hobart, south of Issaquah.
Seventeen worked today, with the Crew leader and two Assistant Crew Leaders (ACLs) as John is. King county rep (Jack), with a chain saw, was there too. Tomorrow, 30 total are signed up, with a couple more ACLs. John’s not going but there will be a like-sized crew there on Sunday.

Saturday, Oct 12
John left at 6. I stayed to fix stuff and wrap presents for the neighbors’ great grandson’s party, and lunch. The stuff I fixed was cleaning and de-stemming a bowl of sun gold cherry tomatoes (our last for the year), and washing but not de-stemming 2 large and 2 medium red tomatoes, in case needed. I opened a new jar of Blue Cheese dressing and carried it. After a nice filling lunch (lasagna, ham, beef/corn casserole, several salads, a nice Chinook salmon spread from fish caught by a son in the Juan de Fuca straits, one with quinoa & garbanzo beans I skipped, a cheese plate with Blue Cheese (my favorite), two cheddars, and goat milk cheese with a cranberry & sugar coating, a mixed green salad with beet greens, spinach, & endive, and some cooked/spiced beets. There was a platter of yellow and red peppers, and other veggies, including someone else’s red cherry tomatoes and some of our Sun gold ones added. We visited and then opened gifts and watched pictures of the recent wedding of the baby’s parents. We had a dessert choice, or a little of both, of white frosted chocolate cake and an apple/pear crisp. I then honchoed a work crew of our neighbor’s family (one gal, and 4 guys to pack wood from our property across the street to their parents (or grandparent’s) woodshed, to use to heat for the winter, supplemental to inside electric furnace house heat. Over the years, John has cut up fallen trees from their place and ours. We call it trash-wood. It is mostly cottonwood and quaken aspen, with minor amounts of WA Hawthorne, a few pine limbs, and some willow from the wet areas. Eventually, John made it back about 5:40 and went out with the dogs, to feed the horses, and then back to visit with the folks still loading wood. At dark he came back in to get food to feed the ferals. All four were there tonight. I took care of our inside-outside cat while he was out visiting, and I closed the window on the doggie door to keep him from messing with the ferals’ food.
Now John’s back working on a post to say this won’t be out before tomorrow, and I have to take photos off my camera I took at the party, and off my old camera that he took a few pictures of the trail work today. Before he got back home, a gal on the trail took a picture of him working, and sent it to my email (from her I-phone). I have put that on line with a couple of the photos he took on my camera today. They were taken in low light, and so the focus is not as crisp as normal. While I was finishing working on the page (below), in came a report from Evonne, the crew leader, with a link to a bunch of pictures a fellow, nicknamed Big Rock Jonnie, takes on his camera, and gives the flash card to the crew leader, who puts them all on Picasa for everyone to share. At the moment I only pulled two special ones from there; maybe more to come. Meanwhile, here is the link to check.

Sunday, Oct. 13
Water problem is not fixed.

Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Nancy was busy at the neighbors today.  Granddaughter brought her new baby over from Seattle and various family members came to lunch and visit.

John was doing trail work and got home at 5:30.   Chores and supper are now done but the blog isn’t.

We expect to get it on-line by Noon – our time – on Sunday.

Anyway, an exciting week it was not!

John

Saturday, Sept 28
The National Weather Service folks in Seattle had reason to believe western Washington and the Cascade Mountains were in for a major weather event for this weekend. WTA, with John too, had committed to hold a work day at the Talapus Lake trail head which, using Google Earth, can be seen at
47.401082, -121.518184
They did get some rain all day but not as much as some other places west and north of them. Washington did not get winds as strong as expected but did get lots of precipitation. [That moist air continued eastward and showed up as snow in the upper mid-west later in the week.]
I had worked on the blog, with a bunch of pictures. It takes several minutes for John to process and store each photo for inclusion to the blog so he only put a couple in for the week. I have put the others, with text, in a page you can find here.

Sunday, Sept 29
A new season is here and we forgot to put in a photo of fall colors we took last week on the September Equinox. The Ash tree pomes (like an apple but often called berries) are orange on their way to red. They are exactly the same color of the squash we recently harvested. John held one up against the tree so here you see Mountain Ash and Golden Health squash against the green of the tree leaves.

We were pretty wiped out from yesterday, and spent all day trying to catch up. John cut a lot of weeds. We told you about cheese weed last week and he filled a garbage can twice today with the stuff. Weeds are the bane of a gardener, especially one using irrigation water with all its included weed seeds. These are from the dog yard that also has a constantly disturbed surface and the small seeds are easily moved about.

Monday, Sept 30
I stayed home today to work on music projects, receipts, records for our volunteer service, and other chores. John made a magnificent dinner after going to town today for cat food, and some other stuff, bought some nice chicken breasts (huge) which he cooked to very tender with our own onions, some of the mushrooms we bought for the Friday luncheon, and added some of the baked apples from the Friday dinner potluck, plus a baked potato we grew. What a “lovely” dinner.

Tuesday, Oct 1
My, my, we usually start our day at the computer with the local weather report and weather station figures recorded at the airport 5 miles south of us. Right before midnight last night, the temperature gauge there lost its brains, and was reporting 1 degree F. It is still broken many hours later. The National Weather Service site says “. . . because the information this site provides is necessary to protect life and property, it will be updated and maintained during the Federal Government shutdown.” Pendleton, OR is our local NWS location and about 3 hours drive away. So, we figure they will have to bring parts from there. [The next day they did.]

We left for town a little after 11:00 to meet our friends since 1971 from grad school days in Iowa. We arrived at the Mexican restaurant planned for the meeting place to find it closed. Drove on to my favorite Chinese place, the Golden Dragon, and had an excellent buffet of at least 15 different selections, including: Egg flower soup, chicken & pork in various modes, noodle dishes w/ veggies, rice, Lo Mein, Chow Mein, etc. Wonderful visit and catching up for the whole year. Ann & Fred live in Marquette, MI and once a year come to visit relatives in WA. They always detour toward us and we meet for a lunch and a much too infrequent visit.

Our waitress, Lisa, who knows me by name when I come into the restaurant, took the photo above. Over the past many years, I took my REM 515 GIS in Resource Management graduate seminar down for dinner following an evening class if a guest speaker, for the students to “network” and to thank the visitor. Since then for a few special occasions after I was sick, we returned for visits, with visitors through town. This lunch buffet is much better than the platter I used to always order for dinner. For future meetings, this will be my choice. All of us had the buffet. It is available several days (but not every).

Wednesday, Oct 2
Food bank music (4 people there!) with baked beef ribs, and when they ran out, they gave the last people steak. I got a choice, and my request was for the most tender– the cook decided ribs for me, and they were good. I didn’t particularly like the other side dishes today, but had a large helping of the green salad, and some cake for dessert with real whipped cream. Took my violin into exercise class because the temperatures outside were 54 and too cold for a wooden stringed instrument to sit alone in the rig. During the summer I had been carrying it in because of the heat in the parked car, which the violin does not like either. Fussy things.

While I was gone, John finished with the farrier and trimming 3 horses, and then got his mower started to do the grass (weeds) up by the road (300′ from the house). These are on the dog walking route and when wet or snow covered John minds even if the dogs don’t. Late afternoon, in the COLD, we picked for an hour, the last of the squash, tomatoes (many picked orange), and found the spider while cutting away plant parts to get to the fruit. Got her picture from above and the side.

On the way back to the house, I picked up some Carpathian walnuts from the ground that had popped from their green husks, and found 4 neatly eaten ones lined up on the ground by the Douglas squirrel. John has to fight him for our share. I did not position those nuts on the ground. They were just like that. I left one still in the green cover on the ground above.

Thursday, Oct 3
Early, John took off at 8:00 a.m. by himself for Yakima to have the lube/oil done on our 2009 Subaru, then to Costco for gasoline and check out the sale items. We didn’t need anything but he did get some sale priced prepared egg rolls and pot-stickers for when a meal seems to need something else. I stayed home to work on chores and finish a letter of recommendation for a former student for a job reference, and left right after 1:00 to go play music at a nursing home. Actually, John took me, dropped me off, and went on to the grocery store to get meds, my Almond Breeze, and take advantage of their sale on canned cat food, this week only signiicantly below the Costco price, and Brownie Mix for a great price. Tonight, we are going to a lecture at the university, and picking up our 100 pounds of onions. The lecture is, “A World of Ice: Alfred Wegener, Glaciers, and Continental Drift,” by Mott Greene, U of Puget Sound, Emeritus Professor of Science and Values.
Also, we had a phone call mid-day from the WA Trails Association (WTA) that John has been selected as an awardee of the 2013 WTA Carhartt Awards! The WTA says, “This honor is bestowed upon the most dedicated and generous trail work volunteers from the entire season.” They were calling to obtain his sizes for the Carhartt pants and jacket he will be presented, Nov 1, at the WTA Appreciation Dinner at the Seattle Center. We do not look forward to the trip across the pass and hope for no winter storm. Film at a later date.

Friday, Oct 4
Skipped the potato bake potluck today at the SR center. John was going to go work on the PCT at Stevens Pass, but the trip was cancelled because the trail goes on US Forest Service land there. The government shutdown includes closing the gates and turning off the radios WTA uses in case of any fires or other evacuation needs. The WTA is not a government entity so they switched the volunteers over to a King County park southeast of Seattle.
Today we awoke to a water problem. If you missed the short blog yesterday scroll down on this page and look for the heading “Joys of rural home ownership”. We hoped it wasn’t’ the well pump gone bad. We checked all the faucets in the house and they were spittin’ dark water, as if air was in the pipes, but then in the kitchen and one bathroom, the water flow diminished to almost nothing. John went out to the barn faucet to run water (it comes from the well, but bypasses the filter and house water conditioner. Also, it hasn’t been used in about 3 months. He experienced muddy water but it also had some spurts of air in the flow. He thought, however, it was in much better shape than the house. For no good reason he decided to replace the 10 inch all-house filter, Big Blue (which he had just done in June). He replaced the filter (a 20-minute task that requires depressurizing the unit, getting wet, and a messy job). Meanwhile, he had a low flow in his cold-water bathroom faucet, so he cleaned out the filter there and found some pieces of oxidized stuff, just the size of a large pinhead. After he finished, all the lines are still full of iron-colored water, but at least the water is not spouting from the faucet like an interrupted geyser.
Then he went mowing in the back yard, the orchard, and above the ditch by the road.
Rascal cat just arrived; must go feed him. All four cats were there tonight for their vittles. I saw Lemon up close and personal (through binoculars), and determined he is an unneutered male. There must not be any other intact males in the vicinity, or he would be getting hurt fighting. Our other 3 males and 2 females are fixed.
John fixed a great dinner: seasoned pork ribs with our purple onions, our fried yellow straight-neck squash, and a toasted piece of buttered bread with parmesan cheese.

Saturday, Oct 5
We had planned to finish the blog early today because we are invited to the Food Bank Saturday at 5:00 p.m. for a Dutch Oven cooked dinner. However, just messing with our water, talking to our favorite plumber, and taking care of horses, dogs, and cats has limited our computer time. Thus the blog is delayed. I did take a few pictures of the Dutch Oven experience and the report is here.
Sunday, Oct. 6
The water issue is still waiting for attention. We have usable water so it seems not prudent to mess with the thing on a weekend and, maybe, going 100% without.
They say problems come in 3s. So, I sent an e-mail with a download of this blog to an account for John to download. He did and about 3 lines into working on it the Word Document crashed. What has happened a few times in recent weeks is he will strike a key, say an ‘e’, and that will start repeating. It will fill lines and pages and there is no way to stop it. He can switch the power off, losing all open tasks, and then reboot the machine and start over. Apparently there is something going on with the document created on my lap top (newer) and his MS Word 2003 running on Windows XP. Last week when this glitch happen he reopened the document and continued, eventually getting the blog done. Today, when he rebooted and tried to open the same file he got a warning message that he probably didn’t really want to do that. So I created a new document, sent it to him, and he opened it and immediately copied and pasted the text to a file already open on his machine. That seems to have worked. But that was only problem #2. For #3 – his keyboard quit. He was just typing a word and then nothing happened. This might have stopped us for the day except he has an old style PS/2 keyboard connected directly to the motherboard that isn’t dependent on software running for it to work. This old Logitech keyboard usually just leans against the tower and any key on it acts as an instant-on switch. Because it was already attached he just moved the malfunctioning one aside, brought the other out of its vertical position, and kept on typing. Problem #3 had a ready solution. Now he has gone to exercise the dogs and I will have another go at this.

Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Water issues

We are experiencing a house-water situation. There is air in the system from a currently unidentified malfunctioning part. The symptoms include pressurized air blasting and sputtering from the faucets and sounds of an unknown drummer when toilet tanks are flushed. All the rocking and roiling in the lines and tanks is breaking loose many years of accumulated mineral content of a rusty orange color. For reference, see this document.

All of this is particularly galling insofar as we are having a perfectly gorgeous fall day – going for a high of 63, sunny, and only a slight wind (for our Valley “slight” is equivalent to none). But instead of being out and doing things we will be in. We can maybe (not likely) solve the problem. We can maybe (more likely) eliminate a few possible problems. We can (most likely) provide our plumber with a better idea of how much time he will have to allocate to this job.

We’ll likely post a blog late tonight – Saturday, but (more likely) Sunday. This is Nancy adding a note after John’s comment on posting Saturday. We are attending a Dutch oven cooked dinner tonight, and more on that later in the future completed blog.

Saturday, Sept 21
You caught some of the start of today earlier. We stayed home today to work on the blog. Called Peggy at the end of the day after the blog was posted; then off to the garden to pick blackberries, tomatoes, and squash.

Ended up seeing our orange garden spider in her web, and I went back to grab both cameras to record the event with hopes of identifying her. We both spent a lot of time after I took the pictures from my cameras. As of now, we don’t know, but have sent to a few folks. (Latest update 9/26: it must have gotten too cold for her and she disappeared). We expect she was an orbweaver, perhaps an Araneus diadematus.

I didn’t get to bed until 12:30 a.m. and so I slept in until almost 10:00 after getting up at 7:00 and seeing beautiful skies and colorful clouds on a deep teal back drop to the east. Sheez… it was completely different a couple hours later, sprinkled some, and clouded over. Now the sun is out and beautiful again. I almost put on my shoes to go take a picture of the pink and blue clouds and bluer sky just above the ridge to our east but didn’t. Probably missed my chance for this year.
We just finished a LUPPER (lunch + supper): started eating at 3:40. I know “brunch” is the meal combining breakfast and lunch, but what is the name of the one between lunch and dinner (or supper). I like Lupper better than Linner. Ha ha. Omelet had broccoli, tomato, onions, sausage, cheese, and eggs, of course. We only had a 1/4 of it because it was so big & thick. Then, 1 1/2 pancakes w/ maple syrup, and bacon. We’ll have our pears and plums later.
Rascal, whom we didn’t see for 36 hours stretched across the couch to the dismay of the dogs. He stayed there until the middle of the night, left, but showed up this morning about noon, ate, and went back to bed in a box next to the Jade Plant in the back guestroom. He just awoke, meowed, and probably went outside. He didn’t come into the den, where earlier I had taken his picture.
More trying to complete things needing completed. Been trying to identify the spider today and yesterday who has weaved a 10 inch across well-designed web. We’ve determined she is an orbweaver, but as of yet, we haven’t determined the species. She is bright orange, and nestled in one of our largest Early Girl tomato plants. So, many of the pictures we take of her have green or red tomatoes for scale, along with plant leaves.

Monday, Sept 23
Nothing much going on, but a lot accomplished, nonetheless. Rain and Sun have prompted many thousands of seeds to sprout so John sprayed in an anticipated long break without rain. One of our many weeds is commonly called Cheeseweed because its seedpod looks like a miniature wheel of cheese. See the photo here (about the size of an eraser on a #2 pencil).
They like the disrupted soil of a new strawberry bed or freshly leveled ground for a new round pen. A local company is scheduled to bring “10 yards” (That’s 10 cubic yards and about 32,000 pounds) each of re-processed concrete and sand. The former is to top off and smooth the road to the barn and the latter is to go into the round pen area. There John was ‘popping’ rocks out of the surface, using the small ones in a walkway, and stockpiling the larger ones. He set the delivery up for dawn on Tuesday – just when we are supposed to be heading for Yakima. I called the dispatcher and rescheduled for Thursday, one of many little projects for me today. I took care of soaking my feet and cutting my toenails that I could, to get ready to go to the podiatrist for my laser surgery (on all 5 toes). My big toe on the right foot, with the fungus, seems to be growing out, and coming in fresh. Go figure. Maybe the laser will remove what’s left and I will be cured. What a great concept. Hope springs . . . and all that.

Tuesday, Sept 24
We left after 8:15 to drive to the podiatrist for an appointment at 9:30 a.m.!! (in Yakima), and afterwards to take my new car by for its 3,000 mile check-up. I carried along my computer in case of wait times. Only 15 minutes wait at the first stop, but then the work wasn’t finished until an hour later. On to the Subaru dealer for my Forester’s check up. It only took them 45 min. and all was well. Using synthetic oil the next date is 7,000 off. My father would roll over in his grave to hear that, because he always changed oil every 1,000 miles. Wonder if the fact he was a salesman for Quaker State Oil Company for many years had an influence on him. From there, to Jack In The Box for a special coupon for two spicy chicken sandwiches and two free tacos. We carried our own drinks and ate in the car under the shade of a nice tree. The temperature there was 59 but the sun warmed the interior. Our dessert came later — a Very Berry Sundae (the berries are strawberries), at Costco, as we left.
The toe thing is a fungus on 5 toes on my right foot. Not a clue where I obtained it. Earlier in the blog, I described my frustration with finding the solution. I go back to Yakima in a month for a redo of the same thing as todays. Then, I wait 6 months before going back. Expectations are that the laser pulses kill the fungus (not any other part of my foot or nail), and new nail will grow in to replace the weird looking toenails (rather like the material of an animal’s horn–hard, rough, misshapen, and thick).
The procedure and the prep took the better part of an hour. First, the main doctor clipped and Drexeled my nails to make them ready for the laser treatment. Then another Dr. did the laser pulsing part. It heats up and he only does a pattern on the nail of about 20 pulses, before moving to the next toenail.
It went all right and then today is a little sore from the trimming of the toenails, but the actual pulsing wasn’t that bad. Try this link — it gives a good description of the process.
Wednesday, Sept 25
I slept in this morning and went to the food bank, and then to my SAIL exercise class (not feeling like doing all of it, and then went for a haircut. When I got home, I went out to the round pen to see all the work John’s been doing getting rid of rocks and scraping it. I took a couple of photos of the activity. It is threatening rain, and the temps went down.

Thursday, Sept 26
This morning at 7:45 we got a load of gravel for the drive delivered, and he then returned to EBRG and brought a load of “off grade” (cheap) sand for the round pen base.  The one originally ordered was a coarser grained sand used for construction / road projects, and they figured this other was preferable.  John, in consultation with the lady at the counter, chose the larger grit size thinking it would stay better in our winds.  We’ll see.  What was delivered is a dollar a yard less.  I played music at Hearthstone Assisted Living and John went to the grocery to get a few things. At home, the mail had arrived and, finally over a week later, I got the results of my mammogram. Thankfully, there is no cancer.

Friday, Sept 27
Scholarship luncheon at noon.  We are providing the main dish for the first meeting of this school year.  Nice, because I won’t have to fix any more dishes for the rest of the year, except we will make our normal two expected pecan pies for the Christmas potluck.  All the $5/plate goes to Ruth Harrington’s Scholarship fund for needy students, so we each put in $50 for the year.  My group usually meets on the 4th Friday of the month.  We expected 13 (including John) but there were 2 no-shows.  He’s going to help me carry everything in.  We’re fixing a special chicken alfredo, starting with one from Costco, and adding cashews, peelings from a bright yellow squash, slices of our purple skinned onion, cut up fresh mushrooms, some of our sun gold cherry tomatoes, and on top: thin strands of Havarti cheese and fine tiny flowers of broccoli. The top ended up speckled green and golden and got great reviews.  It tasted good too.  We hurried home to prepare for a potluck for my music group that starts in town at 5:00 pm.  For that, we baked Honeycrisp apples (in halves) with brown sugar, cinnamon, and a little nutmeg.  Ham and turkey were served and much else, including country potato salad, veggie plates, salad, beans, homemade rolls, apple/raisin Dutch apple pie and homemade chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookies (homemade from Otis Spunkmeyer frozen gourmet cookie dough.  The company began in 1977 as a California chain of retail cookie stores.  Drinks included lemonade, Crystal Light (we took), coffee, and hot cider.  We drove separate cars so John could eat and get home to feed horses and ferals before complete darkness.
We took 13 half-apples and brought 3 halves home.  Later I brought some cookies and part of a pie – all left by others.  John fixed some of the things he will need for trail work and then worked on the parts of the blog that I had started.

Saturday, Sept 28
John left at 7:00 a.m. this morning to just west of Snoqualmie Pass for trail work.  A major storm is headed WA’s way but may impact more to the north and west of where he will be.  If not they may be washed out and have a short day.  We’ll know before this is posted, and is added below.  [From John: we were wet but the wind missed us.  14 miles west had rain and wind sufficient to blow over trees.  The plus of the rain is that we can see what the water is doing on the trail and know that our drains and structures are working – or not!]  While he was getting wet and dirty, I went to play music at Briarwood (warm and dry) and they feed us neat things afterwards.  “Us” is going to be very few as there is much running hither and yon for the members.  I believe we will have one guitar, a timbrel, a fiddle, a viola, and an extra singer.  It will be fine.  (And, it was).  We had a good responsive and appreciative crowd.  For food, they had split pea soup with ham and carrots, rolls, crackers with salami, mango pieces, two kinds of cookies, a pasta salad, and a Jello/fruit salad.
I had a long afternoon, but it was all right, and John had a much longer day.  He made it back safely from the trail work.  It was accomplished with a bunch of boy scouts.  It rained on them most of the time, but the wind didn’t start blowing and not very hard until near the end.  They stopped early, at 12:30, skipping lunch on the trail.  They still had the usual end of the day drinks and treats (todays were Pepperidge Farm cookies) provided by the leaders of the WTA trail work crew for the day.  John ate his lunch in the car on the way home, getting here at 2:30.  I didn’t leave where I was until almost 4:00.  Then went by the Palace Café to pick up my birthday dinner (can get one of two things or take $10 off anything on the menu), but it has to be used sometime during the month of your birthday.  I was running out of time.  My free choices were Chicken Alfredo or a Chicken fried steak dinner.  I decided to have the free Chicken Alfredo to mix with the small amount of leftovers from our scholarship luncheon one yesterday.  The regular price on the menu is $18.99 !!! Wow.  It comes with French bread.  We paid $15.95 for the Costco one (about 4 pounds) that doctored up yesterday by added all the stuff to– but we fed 11 or 12 people.  This was a generous serving for one, including a different pasta from the Costco one, which was Penne Rigate.  This was a more truly small diameter and long fettuccine pasta (a little more like spaghetti).

Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Sunday, Sept 8
Today, started earlier than usual for me, so I could help John put a pork roast in the Crockpot. We cut up some freezer-chilled (to lower tear production) purple onions and some tomatoes. We put the Crockpot in the garage so the extra heat will not be in the house. Then as he was setting that up, I started working on his sandwich. I got it all layered, and he packed it and 4 plastic coke bottles ½ liter drinks in his backpack (one frozen). Any carbonated drinks have to be opened and “fizzed” here at home because at 4,000 feet the air pressure is sufficiently less that such bottles make a mess when opened. Traveling in a backpack doesn’t help either. WTA has been working between 3,000 – 4,000 feet elevation and if in shade they are about 15 degrees cooler than here at the house. Without clouds the sun gets a bit intense. They need to drink lots in either case – one of the many safety precautions covered every morning before they leave a trail head. Also, for additional liquid we packed a couple of the Pluots and a Bartlett pear. (The pear came home with him so we ate it before dinner tonight.)
After he left, I laid back down and slept in late, but I rationalized it was all right after a rough night with broken sleep and odd dreams. Must have eaten too late? I spent a lot of time on a bunch of projects, but have little to show for it. Well, the roast turned out tender and tasty so the early effort paid off.

Monday, Sept 9
We went to Costco after lunch, because John decided to go work at Mirror Lake on WTA trail again, tomorrow, negating a planned Tuesday trip. The Forester was almost out of gas so with Costco gas 20 cent per gallon cheaper than EBRG gas there is some small compensation for the extra miles. We were also going to be out of cat food in a day or so, so we bought needed animal food for the most part. Not counting the very berry sundae (frozen yogurt with generous strawberries. We did buy large packages of ground beef and pull-apart pastries to go into the freezer. We keep it quite full in case the power goes off and to prevent spur of the moment trips to a grocery store. Rural living has its little “gotchas.”

Tuesday, Sept 10
John left for a WTA work party at 6:30 a.m. I was up and then back to sleep until too late to get everything done in a timely manner. I was 15 min. late to my 9:30 a.m. meeting with emeriti geographers (only 3 others today) at Copper Kettle. I took a case of Roslyn beer for the hay-load-helper son of one of the fellows who comes to our meeting. I also dropped off some garden produce at 2 friends’ houses, yellow squash, scalloped and straight neck, red tomatoes, little sun gold cherry ones, and on to Mt. View Meadows, to see Jay Gorman, wish him a happy 86th b.d., and give him a gift of lyrics to songs we sang the last time our group visited there, (only the 5th Thursdays of the month)–not a lot of those in one year. Oh, good; just checked and October is one such month. He sang along on most of the songs, but his favorites are You Are My Sunshine and Red River Valley. I made a special edition for him with his name and a big sunshine clip art, and a total of 12 songs. He was totally thrilled. He calls me Nancy with the laughing eyes. This is another rewarding experience of playing music in nursing homes and retirement centers.
While there I had my eyeglasses adjusted (meeting the new MD at Boys-Smith), who had come over for a special event for anyone in town. I told him about my cataract surgery, and that someday I would need to have the little film removed but for now it is fine. He said that is a very easy and safe operation. We visited because no other people were there for the free clinic, and I found out he is from Brewster, WA. I think he was surprised that I knew of the town and had been there – it is not a big place but is in sunny eastern Washington
( 48.099670, -119.780907 ).
I also asked his optometrist assistant, who’d adjusted my glasses, what I could recommend to John to clean his. They had a table of cloth rags (soft), and little spray bottles of some blue liquid thing to use; they gave me two of each and said when I ran out I could come back by and they would refill for free. I only wear my glasses when I need extra good vision (if in the back of the room at a lecture, or in a strange town, needing to see little road signs, or for night driving because they correct a slight astigmatism, and make on-coming lights less aggravat-ing. With them on, I have 20/15 vision. Without them and with my intraocular lens replace-ments, I have 20/20 with both eyes, and close-up vision without glasses.
I must say I never liked Dr. Boys-Smith because he incorrectly diagnosed my eye problem (when it was really cataracts), and so I told Dr. Hanson the story and said, now that he’s dead, I can talk about him (not that I didn’t already, even while he was alive). I had been pret-ty upset at the way he treated me, especially when I found out the real cause and let him know he was wrong. He had sent me to his buddy in Yakima first and I spent > $100 on the “treatment” of a special fit contact lens for one eye. The procedure didn’t work.
It was still lunch time, and I had not had anything but a small piece of toast so I took myself to lunch at the new IHOP in town, using a special 50% off coupon. Had a fancy Chicken Fajita Omelet and 3 pancakes. I brought home half of it and 2 pancakes. I have to be back at Hearthstone at 6:30 to play music.

Wednesday, Sept 11
Historically a bad day – 9/9/11 – 2,996 people died of terrorist attacks in the USA.
Hard to believe the coming of age generation will learn of this as history. If 5 then, and 17 now, what experience most defines your life?
Back from several events & sitting down resting. It’ s after 4:00 and I left home just after 11:00 a.m. First stop, to pay the rest of my dental bill that insurance wouldn’t cover because it was not a metal filling!! (Jeez). I had paid $102 already, and now $35.00 more. So much for dental insurance. It was a TINY repair, not a major deal. While going there, I carried along a box of corn, tomatoes, and yellow squash and invited the only two people there on staff today (secretary & hygienist) to come to my car and take what they wanted. They loaded up pretty well. While there a little old lady emerged from the back room, having just had her teeth cleaned. She looked at me and said, “You’re the singer !” I laughed and said, “Yes, we play various places around town.” She asked my name and the name of our group, and I told her. Then she thanked me again, and wanted us to come back soon. (She’s at the same place where I was visiting on Tuesday, and our performance there was 2 weeks ago). I asked her name and where she lived. She didn’t know, but the staff told me it was Mt. View Meadows, and her daughter brought her in. Well, the fact she remembered our music, was great.
On to the Food Bank to play music and deliver some of our homegrown blackberries to our banjo player. She is limited on her fruit intake because of chemicals (she’s allergic to) used in growing commercial ones. The food bank has much bread for Wednesday morning pick-up, and they like for us to load up on bread while there after the pick-up is done (nothing else though, but bread deteriorates or molds rapidly because they have no way of refrigerating it). The offerings weren’t so good last week, but today I got a loaf of 3 Cheese French bread, one of Rosemary Olive, and some Holland Dutch Coffee Cake (isn’t that redundant?). Then for lunch, we were fed a nice baked boneless chicken dish, with a casserole I didn’t think I would like so only got a small serving, but it was very good. It had egg plant, quinoa, and garbanzo beans with some nice spices. Next was a cucumber/purple onion salad in a sweet vinegary sauce; I don’t like cucumbers, so just had a few onions. Then a large green mixed salad, but the only thing I could eat in it were the tomatoes. For dessert I had a piece of dark thick chocolate cake with dark chocolate frosting. [John says, Life is good when veggies are taboo and double chocolate is a better alternative.]
From there, off to the Adult Activity Center, where I unloaded the rest of the vegetables. I pulled up in front of the door and gave the box to one of my exercise classmates. Then across the street to park under the shade of a big tree, because shade is sparse in the parking lot at the AAC. By the time I got in the building all but one piece of squash and two little corn-on-the-cob were left!! People descended on my friend as she walked in. I was setting up the CD music and saw a large sweet muffin and two pieces of cheese cake, so I wrapped them and put in my empty box to bring home for John and me. We’ll thaw some strawberries to have on it later. My left foot inside ankle has been bothering me so I didn’t do any exercises today that would stress it. From there on to the pharmacy to pick up some of my meds, and cokes for John, dog biscuits for the dogs because Costco had none yesterday. They expect a treat when they return from their exercise — it’s part of the deal, with them. Annie, the youngest, lets us know with a very interesting (funny) vocalization. So, we comply. They have us trained pretty well. Finally, home and it is 95 degrees, but John helped me unload the car. We are waiting for the temperatures to go down so that I can help John pick tomatoes. We picked Sun gold cherry tomatoes, other larger red ones from three different bushes, and some more blackberries. I’ll take some to town tomorrow and John will freeze the rest.

John decided tonight to go on Sept 14 to the Cascades Beckler Peak Trail to work for the 20th Anniversary celebration. He only got started with WTA 7 years after their first work party. Read about it all, here. He’ll go to the Beckler Peak trail.

Thursday, Sept 12
It is the PCT near Mirror Lake for John today, and hopefully will get some photos of the “after” of the work he helped with Tuesday. My day only has a play date for music at the Rehab center, but with stops at the bank and a couple of places with produce to share from our bountiful garden. I thought many people would be missing, and that was true, but also two came that I wasn’t expecting. We had 2 guitars, a banjo, timbrel, 2 fiddles, and a clarinet. It was hot outside, but we had a nice time with the folks there. I carried in some veggies to share with a couple of people. It is the 83rd birthday of one of our members, so we sung happy birthday and gave her a present and card. (When I was at the bank, I got her a nice gold-looking coin, $1, but failed to note which one) to put in her card, along with a bag of Sun Gold tomatoes. Now that I look for it on the web, I believe it was the George Washington one because I did see a silhouette of a man.
And, I found a pretty red blouse to share with her. Many of our group are out of town, and one couple will be gone until December, traveling (their comments) doing music across the continent and attending the largest Celtic celebration in the world in Cape Breton Island (“Celtic Colours”).
I started packing the produce which we had to move from the kitchen to the garage because of the high density of fruit flies that seem to appear as mysteriously as virtual particles. We reduced their number with the vacuum cleaner but new ones appear each time. Updated more pix on the web page from last Sunday (now I completed this just on Saturday). Widen your window to see three pictures on the third row, for best results.
John came home from the mountain work trail work. After a short nap and slightly lowering of the temperature he has just finished the feeding of horses and cats. He already ran the dogs, in the heat. Now the temps have gone from 96 to 88. I had a lot of work on the jobs list today, and never got back tonight to my web page on John’s trip last Sunday. Today he brought me photos of the finished rock ramp and a co-worker will (later) send a few of the stepping stones (for hikers) and and rock ‘ford’ (for horses and mules) crossing at Mirror Lake’s small out flow stream. So that’s also put off until a future blog.
Temps today were strange. Highest was 97, and then it dropped tonight from the 88 mentioned above to 77, and now has gone back up.

Friday, Sept 13
Tonight is our annual trek to the Chef Extravaganza at White Heron winery. I plan to take photos, and have one taken of me in my newest musical shirt, made by Ellen Fischer, she just brought me yesterday at our playing at the Rehab. She is our clarinet player, and a great seamstress.
Heat is up to 91 here at noon, and we leave in a few hours for the hour+ trip to White Heron vineyard. John picked tons of tomatoes, squash, and even blackberries this morning. We made a trip around the block to share produce on the way to town to get gasoline before leaving for the dinner. Stopped off at a new neighbor’s house and had a nice visit. Finally, we left for the evening – John drove and I had a long visit by phone with John’s sister, Peggy. She wished she could be going with us, and John says, considering the variety of places in the Universe, Parma, OH is not the arm pit thereof, but you can see it from there. The weather was warm and the food tasty and interesting (pictures to follow), but for now, here are ones of us. The right shot shows the location of the vineyard, but John is talking, so I cut him out of the picture. The left one shows the area where people eat and listen to music. We sit up on a grassy terrace, to enjoy the evening in our folding chairs not far from the food tables. It is in the shade just as we arrive about 6:00, the start of the meal serving.

The performer’s platform is in the background, over John’s shoulder. Nancy’s fancy colorful shirt contrasts with the green of the vineyard. Grapes are doing well as harvest nears.
We left early and got home at 10:00 – John will be up at 5 and gone by 6.
I’ll fix up a web page later of the goodies we experienced at our favorite commercial event at White Heron. Our favorite is a private party of the volunteer pruners. This year’s was held Jan. 5 and was an authentic Raclette using French cheese, complete with wines made there, but with grapes developed from regions in Italy and Switzerland. We did that story back then and expect something similar this coming winter.

Saturday, Sept 14
John left at 6:00 a.m.. I spent the day, wasting a lot of it, on computer problems. John’s not expected back until after 6:00 p.m. and it is now after that. This was John’s trip to a 20th anniversary of WTA work party mentioned earlier in this blog. He just arrived about 6:40 and brought each of us light blue commemorative tee shirts. I’m very excited. He always wears long sleeved shirts out and/or working so a shirt like this is wasted with him, but I wear such things all the time. He put it on for the group photo of 4 workers, on today’s crew. I guess I am entitled because of being a volunteer, putting up web pages of photos taken on WTA trips, for over a decade. I will put that photo below. It was just after lunch; they didn’t work in those shirts all day. The Blue-Hat crew leader took the picture because he claimed he wasn’t allowed to have one of the volunteer shirts. He also claims a picture taken of him captures part of his soul or essence and leaves him depleted. Did we mention that after safety, fun is goal #2 of all WTA trips? The real fun for this trip was that Jon N. (who is known for food surprises) brought a pan of popcorn and a small gas burner and lunch was augmented with freshly popped corn. Then later, back at the trail head, he retrieved a large Canon printer carton that contained a large red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting. Sometimes that carton hides a small cooler with dry ice and containing the hardest frozen ice cream sandwiches you have ever had the pleasure of waiting for the softening. Also, this was Husain’s 5th work trip and so he got a shiny new green hat with is name/nickname one it. He chose ‘Who-sane’ but after digging and carrying 5 gallon buckets of rock for several hours he thinks he might change it to ‘Who-insane’. 20 more trips to go and he gets a black WTA vest.

John Hultquist Kevin Crandall Jon Nishimura Husain Barbhaiwata
Photo by Alex Ray, WTA “blue hat” crew leader ~~ 9-14-13

Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

It is early Sunday. Blog is underway. Give me a couple of hours (dogs want to go for a morning run) and I will replace this with the real thing.

John

. . . responding to birthday wishes, and no nap, Nancy continues:

Also, while visiting Caitlin’s butterfly site, I found a photo of a Pacific Tree Frog that must be the kind of frog we photographed near the rusty-red of our house siding (color of the frog seems to reflect the environment) – or he did spend 2 days in the rust-colored water of the rain barrel. Schnebly Canyon (her site) is the next canyon east of us. We have seen “ours” again but we haven’t managed to get a photo.

I was right about many wishes for today. I finally turned off Facebook and responded to all email wishes, and now will turn off the computer and tackle other things to celebrate my birthday. Last night John fixed me my birthday dinner and we had half last night with the rest to come tonight. It was a stir-fry of chicken with a Mandarin sauce, pretty cut-up Golden Health winter squash (orange), cashews, and our onions. I don’t think I took a photo of any part of my birthday dinner to be able to share.

Yikes, this morning I heard from a former neighbor (same birthday as mine) that she is in Renton, ready to go in for open heart surgery. I didn’t know about this at all. Another friend’s companion dog died. Sad day. Good day too, however. Heard from a Brittany breeder in California, that a great grandson of a puppy from our breeding won the Open All Age event in the Oregon Brittany field trial. I don’t have the details. In the 1980s, we spent many Labor Day Weekends at that trial outside of Madras, OR.

John was late getting home, but I got a call from the trail head from Alan (WTA’s Field Programs Manager) wishing me a happy birthday, but then he handed the phone to John whose own phone failed to connect from the location. Once John was home, we delivered squash and tomatoes to 6 people around our 5-mile rural block, and received a birthday cake and Apricot Jam in return from our close neighbor. I had also taken her some plums (the last of this year) and some little orange Sun Gold cherry tomatoes. During the evening, I followed up on receiving a $30 credit code from forestertestdrive.com I was given after my test drive. It is “spendable” at SierraTradingPost.com. I found my birthday present and only had $1.50 left on my credit. I seriously doubt they have anything that cheap, so I’m happy with a pair of wool socks and a pair of fleece boot-type socks, nice for wearing to people’s houses in the winter to allow removing snowy boots outside the main house, in the mud room. I wish our house had a mud room. They are very nice. The first one I saw was at my Aunt Marise’s house in Guyton, GA.

Monday, Sept 2
This morning started out very slow for me, sleeping in until late, after being up for almost 18 hrs without a nap on my birthday yesterday. This morning I have responded to a few of the wishes on line and have a ton more to do. I don’t plan to have this computer on much today while going through more stuff in this house needing sorted, recycled, and tossed. I made very good progress yesterday and need to continue. Tomorrow we each have an annual physical that requires a trip to Cle Elum (30 miles up the road, or west toward Seattle).

Tuesday, Sept 3
Off early for the Dr.’s office; leaving before 9:00 a.m. My appt. was 10:00 but we both had to fill out incredible histories required once a year. So much for the digital age. That ALL should be in a database and shared between the hospital and the doctor’s office ALL of which are in the same system digitally. Now, it’s all part of Kittitas Valley Healthcare (KVH)– our doctor’s office is called the KVH Family Medicine – Cle Elum; the Hospital is now just KVH (used to be KVCH-Kittitas Valley Community Hospital). They merged all the doctors in both towns. WHY can’t they just ask if anything has changed in the system? Probably took us 15 minutes just for the paperwork. We both had good results. My weight and height was unchanged from last year. BP was only 110/62, and that’s after driving all the way there; pulse 60 (John’s is much lower–44 this time). Usually, my BP is up at the first reading in a doctor’s office (white-coat syndrome). Because it is an annual exam, they require us both to have fasting blood draws, and I had to have a Thyroid check. The dosage I’m on (none) is fine. Previoulsy, after my operation, my Thyroid required medication, but it has healed. My pill for cholesterol was ordered by my Cardiologist, and upped to 80 mg in May. I don’t need it for cholesterol (mine is okay), but somehow it is healthy for people with heart problems (maybe to prevent plaque build-up) ? My reading was less than ½ the recommended concern, so my family physician had me half my intake to 40 mg. I intend to report back to the nurse of my cardiologist, because I’m not due to see him until December.
They actually called me in at 9:55, and I was done in less than an hour, so John was able to go in early. We both received our flu shots, with no reaction. Our doctor doesn’t need to see us until next September. Then off to the Roslyn Brewery for a couple cases of beer — one to share with the son of the fellow we bought 82 bales of hay from this summer; the son has done most of the loading both times (for first cutting and for second). John has to unload it all on this end, into our barn, but he can take his time doing that working only in the cooler parts of the day. Then on to the Cottage Cafe for my birthday lunch with discount (it can be used any time of the year, but we don’t often get up there). They’d sent me two $10 coupons for my birthday, with one misspelled as Huffquist. I was honest and notified the manager on line, and took it to the waitress to return. She said, no problem, you can use them both, one for John and one for you. Well, that was a good deal and a big surprise. John chose the Black and Blue Salad; made with strip pieces of tender steak (cooked in Cajun Spice), tomatoes, black beans, roasted corn, and chunks of Bacon and Bleu Cheese crumbles on the top, all on a bed of fresh greens, tossed with a tomato-bacon dressing. I had my favorite, the Corned Beef Hash Skillet. It’s made of layers of well-browned hash browns (the best), corned beef hash, two eggs, over easy, all layered and covered with melted Cheddar cheese. With it came a large English muffin, which I split with John. The portions of everything there are so generous, that we only eat half there, and we bring the remainder home. Last night we had it for dinner. Occasionally, I will eat mine for breakfast the next morning.
Before eating and feeding the horses and cats, we picked a tomatoes, 3 ears of corn, a few squash, and a lot of blackberries (of which I don’t have a photo). John had one of the ears of corn with his leftover salad. We were both picking tomatoes, except I became the handler when he had to get on the ground to reach underneath. I could pick a few from a standing position. He picked all the squash and I took photos, and then I helped some from the top with blackberries. They are the thornless kind, but I reached down to cradle a bunch of berries, and screamed from a sharp pain on my left hand’s ring finger. It hurt really bad for the rest of the evening, but didn’t bring blood, yet turned red. John suggested I must have put my hand on a bee and got stung. Never saw it, but surely felt the pain most of the night.

Here’s the results of our harvest before getting injured in the thornless blackberries patch:

Back to another misspelled Hultquist story. John’s dad worked in the purchasing division for Owens-Illinois Glass Factory in Clarion, PA. His name was misspelled on many things arriving there and his secretary saved many such labels. One year at Christmas she gave him a small waste paper basket on which she had pasted all the odd spellings. The family’s favorite was Mr. Piecrust. Odd, but true. So Huffquist is tame – cross the T and get the L at the same time and you have ff rather than lt.

Wednesday, Sept 4
John left early for a place this side of Snoqualmie Pass for another WTA work party. It is on the Pacific Crest Trail, near Mirror Lake. In case he sees picturesque scenery I gave him my old camera that can ride in a case on his belt. This was our best choice, because my new one, while easily handheld, is too large to fit in the easy-to-carry case. And, it’s own case doesn’t have a large enough connector for his belt. His camera is big and he dislikes carrying it on work trips. Here is a view he liked.

An alpine lake has become a marsh-ringed pond on its way to becoming a meadow via the processes of natural eutrophication.

Today, I packed up veggies to take to the Food Bank and to the SR Center. Phew. It took me awhile to sort, pack, and carry out the two kinds of tomatoes and yellow squash, and I took a separate package for Drue Robinson, the daughter of my recently deceased 87-yr old friend (with macular degeneration), who went all over town with me to events over the past several years, since I met her in our exercise class. Drue met me toward the end of class at the AAC, and I was able to introduce her to all the people in the class, and she brought along her computer with photo memories back to her mom Lois’ childhood. About 12 people pulled up chairs or stood to watch the show. It was a special remembrance, and what she used at the memorial downtown. Several of us had not been able to attend the service.

Thursday, Sept 5
Played at Royal Vista today. Only a small faithful group there: 2 guitars, banjo, 2 fiddlers, timbrel, & another singer. We had an appreciative audience. They served us drinks and buttered zucchini nut bread afterwards, and in the parking lot at the end as we all were leaving, I delivered tomatoes (Sun Gold and Early Girl) and two kinds of yellow summer squash (we’re getting to the end of it). Then on downtown, to the grocery, to pick up a few items on the special Thursday 12-hr sale. Part was getting sandwich meat and cheese for John’s sandwiches for WTA work parties. Another special was $.68/bag of English Muffins (limit 2) and a dozen eggs $1.18 (limit 1). Found some good prices on Taco Sauce mix and large taco shells made from “whole” grains and also standard Corn taco shells — we’ll compare them.

We have had a lot of rain and thunder/lightning in the near distance tonight for the past hour. It is still coming down. At one point it was coming off the roof so rapidly, it was missing the 55 gallon barrels and the other 5 gallon ones, but now they are all full. The wind (32 mph gusts) was blowing rain back under our front porch onto the wheelbarrow load of veggies John picked this afternoon while I was gone to town.

We had had a half inch of rain in the past 4 hours and it is still coming down; most rain in awhile. Actually, it is slowing considerably, and we are headed for bed. John must rise early tomorrow and get on the road. We hope it is not raining on the trail workers but in the Cascades hope is not a plan. Actually rain or a recent rain gives them a good idea of where to place drainage dips and ditches or other trail structures. Anyway, this storm involved a massive low pressure system so part of the time the winds came from the east and southeast. We were intrigued by the results of the counter-clockwise circulation system because of the differences from our normal west-to-east air flow.

Friday, Sept 6
John left at 7:00 a.m. for the Pacific Crest Trail near Mirror Lake. On my way to the potluck, I stopped at a yard sale. Pretty cool find. John has been asking for small aluminum tongs and an additional grater. Didn’t find tongs yet, but found two antique graters that are metal in two different sizes. Good I didn’t have to pay an antique price :- ) Talked the lady into both for the price of one ($2) from her utensils box. Found a similar pair but not as nice on Etsy (vintage items) on line for $8.00 plus S&H. Here is a photo of what I got for us:

I went to the AAC potluck, 11:30 for BBQ pork ribs, rolls, & a bunch of side dishes including various kinds of potatoes, corn, salads, grapes, etc. I took a container of our cut-up red tomatoes (fresh this morning). Part of our entry fee to the free meal, besides a potluck item to share, is also to bring 4 cans of non-perishable good for the F.I.S.H. Food Bank. I took 4 things: Kidney Beans, low salt stewed tomatoes, corn, and some of the Taco Sauce mix I bought yesterday. Went by Super One for meds and Danish pastries from my rain check on last week’s prices. And speaking of rain — It now is raining hard here again at 2:30. I came home early and skipped the exercise because my left ankle was hurting. Started yesterday, and I have no clue what I did to it. No memory of turning it, stepping on it wrong, hitting it, or anything unusual.
John got home just before 5:00. They again lunched at Mirror Lake and visited with 2 of the PCT thru-hikers passing up-trail from Mexico to Canada.

Here is a poorly done composite photo of lunch there 2 days ago, with a different set of workers but the same Blue hat crew leader, Zach, on the left.

Once home we went over our day apart, while eating a Danish pastry (split lemon/raspberry), and decided they were too doughy for our likes; we prefer more Croissant type bases as from Costco. Tacos tonight for dinner. Pretty good. Going to bed without dessert, earlier than usual.

Saturday, Sept 7
Today, John left at 6:05 a.m. to go northwest over Stevens Pass and after trail work he will stop at one of the Wenatchee River Valley’s road-side orchard outlets. It’s been cool and overcast here all day and somewhat drizzly up and down the Cascade Mountains. He’s in big trees today and so will be somewhat protected. Two of his favorites are Cedar (it’s not really) and Noble Fir because of the big upright purple cones.
I have worked on the blog and a web page to attach about John’s Shaggy butterfly story. Go back to the previous entry (link at the top of the page) if you missed that.
Also, I managed to put together a great chef salad for my lunch. I am sure I’m the only one in the county, the state, and maybe anywhere in the USA to have had this combo. I thought to take a photo after I had eaten most of it.

It had lettuce, our red and gold tomatoes, ham, Muenster cheese, and the croutons were the crowning touch, little H. K. Anderson pretzels (nuggets) filled with peanut butter, originating in John’s home state of PA, however, coming to us via Costco and the Kirkland brand. The originating company no longer provides tours of the facility, but they are located in Lancaster County PA, in the town of Intercourse. I’m sure as a kid you heard all the sayings about the names of towns in that county, including Blue Ball, Bird in Hand, Climax, and Paradise… and probably others I have forgotten.
John’s fruit stop was not very fruitful. He was too late and had to pick out things without a guide and then pay via sliding bills through a small hole in the side of the building. Pears were 10# for $8 so he got 2 Bosc, 3 Scarlet, and 13 regular Barlette pears. Pluots were $1.50/lb. and he got 4 pounds. Unless he can get an exceptional deal on apples he doesn’t buy any because we have another source (more on that in a few weeks). So with no one there to provide info or to bargain with he spent very little time or money. Pluots are a cross and usually have red flesh but not a free-stone, that is, a pit from which the flesh is easily pulled away – so, pretty, tasty, and not so easy to eat.
I received an email request from Evonne, the crew leader for tomorrow at the Snow Lake Trail asking if John would please join them. This came in at 5:40 tonight, and John wasn’t yet home. Is there any way that you can talk John into a last minute sign-up with us tomorrow?? Big day out on the Snow Lake Trail! [By big she meant lots of volunteers sign up and they are short of assistant crew leaders.] He smiled when I told him but he’s been so busy with chores since, that we haven’t had a chance to talk or for him to respond to her, or to do the on-line sign-up. That got done. Evonne was not feeling very spiffy what with a bee sting and Benadryl so John gave her the camera and she took some photos of the work and the area. We’ll leave that for next week.

Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan