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The “shrub-steppe” is the type of natural environment found here and today local experts (KEEN) are out doing an “up close and personal” thingy for children, new comers, and others. It’s the 12^th annual “Get Intimate with the Shrub Steppe” :

http://kittitasee.net/

I am starting this on Sunday, May 1^st,  this week, because you already know what happened yesterday.  You don’t know, however, that we had eaten so much for lunch, that we passed on dinner.  (Well, a piece of toast and a cookie was all we had).

Sunday was the nicest day we have had this whole year.  No wind and sunny, with temps to 65.  John stayed out working most of the day starting with removal of the chain link panels from the truck.  I only had a light lunch because I was expecting a meal tonight at the Taize’ service.  One of the ladies of the church made it and it was scrumptious:  a casserole that is most like Enchiladas but without the tortillas that I don’t like.  She fixed it with chicken, sour cream, green chilies, pepper jack cheese and cheddar cheese, some spices (no salt), chili powder, and I don’t know what else, but it was fantastic.  We had a nice mixed salad with cucumbers (I don’t like, but could pick out), radishes, carrots and several kinds of greens. For dessert, she fixed a cobbler with blueberries, Marion berries (I do not like the seeds), and raspberries, served with whipped cream on top.  Good thing I had a small lunch.

Monday.  Rain today, after the beautiful day yesterday.  That will hamper John’s outside work, which was making pretty good progress.  I will take off for exercise class, maybe a nursing home visit, and then get home to all the chores waiting.  I haven’t done anything but email and eat some snacks.  John has spent the last hour or more planting squash seeds and tomatoes in little pots.  There were only 14 seeds for squash (yellow) in the packet that cost $2.50.  Boy, that’s different from what it used to be.  He thinks there might have been a slight reduction in price, maybe 20%.  The tomato seeds are a special Burpee Big Boy.  There are 30 seeds in there, and it cost $1.79.

Tuesday.  My dental teeth cleaning for the day was cancelled because my hygienist broke her foot in a fall from her horse.  The rest of my day was doing household chores, paying bills, cleaning, and emailing.  Also helped proof an academic report tonight for a geographer friend still employed in another state.  Boy, how nice it is to be retired and not have to be writing yearly performance reports for teaching, research and service.

Wednesday.  Morning spent on chores and haircut for Nancy.  Amazing how much it has grown out in a month (after waiting all those months not to be bald and losing hair in handfuls).  Then John took a break from his outside tasks to go with me and let me off at the exercise class.  He went and bought “stuff” at the hardware store.  He is replacing a small wooded bridge in the pasture – so here’s a bit about that:

Types of structures here:

http://www.fs.fed.us/t-d/pubs/htmlpubs/htm07232804/page07.htm

John’s is a Type 3 “puncheon” – the drawing above for Type 2 shows split logs and this sort of surface is the meaning of puncheon.

In this link, near the end, is a drawing (in an oval) of a “standard puncheon” with a curb or “bull rail.”

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/fspubs/07232806/page10.htm

That’s very close to what we now have.  “Bull rail” is a tern from sailing although the name seems to have been used so long no one knows why.

http://www.insidepassagenews.com/bull_rails.html

Trail crews spend lots of time building and repairing small bridges and puncheon type structures.  Another common trail improvement, called a turnpike, is described here:

http://www.justinwp.com/blog/search/trail_work/

. . . go down to “Summer Trail Work Update.  Now you know more than you really wanted too!

Our prior little bridge was a reinforced wooden pallet used primarily to get the wheel barrow across the irrigation ditch.  An initial pallet – not reinforced – was used by the horses but was not up to the hoof pressure.  A pallet is only 4 feet across so the horses were as apt to jump it and the ditch.  The real purpose of the new structure is to provide a structure sufficiently long that jumping is not possible and, thus, the horses will have to walk across it.  The trick is to put it in a place – and them in a situation – where they have to use it, for example, drinking water on one side, food on the other.  They will train themselves to cross without hesitation.  This is expected of horses on trail rides.  The alternatives are not pleasant.

Now, back to the daily story line —

We had skipped lunch, so after getting my Protime (aka INR) blood draw at the hospital, we went for a treat from Burger King.  We had coupons for all except for buying a small drink and small fries.  That made a nice meal.  We halved an original chicken sandwich, and had 4 chicken tenders (free) with honey mustard and BBQ sauce.

Thursday, pretty routine.  Worked on stuff around the house and John worked in the yard.  I went to play at an assisted living home, and came by to visit my friend in the nursing/rehab center.

Friday, I stopped at a sale on the way home and bought us a homemade loaf of cinnamon/raisin/nut bread.  I arrived home just as John was bolting together the bull rails, decking, and stringers for the new bridge.  I got to help by putting washers and nuts on two bolts.  His work platform was across the bed of the pickup and when finished he just drove to the pasture and unloaded it.  He fed the horses and then it started to sprinkle.  Poor timing for it because we got a call from our neighbor’s daughter who was visiting across the street and had a flat tire on her Honda.  John went over and changed to the spare in the rain so she could take it into Les Schwab (a regional tire store) for repair or replacement in the morning before driving to Seattle.

Saturday morning.  John finished up his KVTR newsletter and got it to the mailbox, so we will not go to town today.  It is nice and sunny and not windy for a change.  I have a lot of stuff to do in the house, even though it would be nice to be outside.  He also got the bridge positioned (in the training mode situation) in the pasture and the horses are using it.  In a few days he will move it over to the irrigation ditch and come up with a new “obstacle-project” for the horses.

RAIN ! Wow. We don’t get much rain here – maybe 8 inches per year. A sprinkle started while we ate lunch, just after John said he would be going outside.  The sprinkle turn into a real rain, then into a deluge – about 20 minutes of can’t see through falling water.  Ya’woda thunk we were back east.  Then it stopped.  Then we got a little more and now Mr. Sun has emerged.  Pasture-grass, flowers, and gardens throughout the neighborhood are happy with this. The folks out getting intimate with the shrub-steppe – probably not so much.

We are joining our neighbors for lunch tomorrow and have to bake a cake to take.  Better get to that.

Happy Mother’s Day !

Love from Nancy and John

This starts with where I left off last week, Saturday night.  I played the violin and sang at an Easter Vigil at the Episcopal Church.  There were 4 different clergy people from several churches (Lutheran, Methodist, 2 Episcopal) and 4 musicians (Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran and Methodist).  Quite an ecumenical crowd.  They even had Communion/ Eucharist with either wine or grape juice.   Pretty cool, neat service.

Easter Sunday found us at our neighbor’s house with other neighbors, family and friends.  We had a great meal—ham, with scalloped potatoes covered in cheese, broccoli salad, a large bowl of Fruit (strawberries, 2 types of grapes, cantaloupe, blueberries, and bananas), creamed corn pudding, rolls, and for dessert, an apple-blueberry cobbler John made, and a Boston Crème Cake that one person brought.  We had a little ice cream on the cobbler.  We all were very full and had a nice visit.

We learned from one of the people there about a camcorder focused on an Eagle’s Nest in Decorah, IA, with 3 babies.  How cool.  I have watched it off and on for a couple of days.  Check it out:  http://www.ustream.tv/decoraheagles

Monday. Rainy morning all morning till I had to leave for SAIL exercise at 1:00.  John was unable to work in the yard and had to feed the horses and run the dogs in the rain.  It wasn’t till 2:30 it stopped and he could return outside.  I made several stops in town, grocery store for dinner needs (yummy bread and spaghetti sauce fixings), a stop at one of the nursing homes we visit occasionally as they have not been answering their phone (turns out it is broken except in one room of the office and if no one is there, it doesn’t get answered).  While setting up for next week’s non-normal performance she told me they were having a special party for our normal fifth Thursday (June 30^th) play date there.  It is a neighborhood party to welcome new residents, with refreshments, entertainment (our Fiddlers and Friends group), and door prizes.  She handed me a flyer announcing the event.  Then on to another friend’s house to drop off a sweater vest that doesn’t fit me, and on to another nursing home to visit a member of our group (the accordionist) who had hip replacement surgery.  Finally I got home at 4:30.  Supper is completed and all is well.  The wind picked up to 24mph gusts, but seems to be slowing again.

Tuesday, light day, just household chores, email, and trying to fix up the medical bill charges with payments by Medicare and Group Health.  Rather amazing how much they can wiggle out of paying and how much I’m charged differently for the same item.  Getting that fixed is a royal PITA.  I will spend an hour of my time and theirs over a $17.43 item.  It’s the principle of the thing.  Then how do you explain a Feb. statement where I supposedly owe 20.xx and then two months later it has increased to 159.60.  Did get a phone call from a former student on her way to Florida, who stopped in Atlanta to call me and say she was in my home town.  That was cool.  She is on her way to see the last launch of the Endeavour.  She won it in a contest on NASA’s Twitter site.

Wednesday.  Kind of a slow day.  Worried with medical bill adjustments.  Then, went to exercise class and afterward by the nursing home to visit, but got there when they were doing physical therapy exercises.  That surely brought back uncomfortable memories.  I was glad to visit for a short while and give encouragement and walk out on my own two feet.

Thursday.  My questioning medical charges has paid off.  Got a call this morning from the accountant at my family physician’s office that we are being refunded $80 on the bill.  Guess that was worth my time and effort.  What makes us wonder is how many people just pay the bills without questioning, and how much money is involved.    Today we are going to play music at Hearthstone and John will go shopping and get gas in his car while I’m there, and then we have an appointment at school at 4:00 to discuss the endowment for the Distinguished Service Award in our name for students.  Turns out we don’t have enough for an endowment  (need $10,000).  We have a fund with $2700 in it, and that will have to be moved into a Geography endowment as seed money.  We have decided to sponsor a scholarship each year as long as we have the money, and put 100 toward the principal.  Nothing else today.  Well, yes there was.  I just got on line to an old Blackboard presence of an Economic Geography class I taught in 2005 and pulled off some good pictures of hog raising in the U.S. to share with a gal teaching Natural Resource Conservation in Geography this spring quarter.

Friday.  I had a couple of things to do midday–play music at the Food Bank Soup Kitchen, and go to my exercise class.  I did stop at a yard sale (advertised as an estate sale), and I should have realized the prices when done by a commercial team, are quite high.  I think the yard sale crowd from Ellensburg will not buy much. Perhaps they will get someone from the west side to come over.  John put the License plates on our old ’89 Ford truck, and moved the canopy off so we can retrieve some chain link panels we loaned to friends down west of Yakima. They invited us for a nice Salmon luncheon when we come down to pick them up.  They are through using them because their puppy is now a 70 pound golden, and John wants to get them before refitting the canopy with new (easily removable) C-clamp style hardware.  Also, one of the panels has a built in gate he wants to use as access to his new berry patch. Too windy to work outside today so John spent his time while I was away, cleaning up the kitchen.  Nice guy.  Nothing like the tornadoes in Alabama and Georgia, but we had 47 mph gusts and sustained winds averaging 37 mph all afternoon.  John’s heading out with the 4 dogs to feed the horses and retrieve the mail, and paper, which I did not do on my way in.  I hope he doesn’t get blown away, nor the hay blown away.  It is very “light” and takes flight in the wind, but is all we have left from a neighborhood purchase last summer.

Saturday. The 1980 truck has a new battery but a myriad of problems.  The 1989 truck has seals around the doors, an air conditioner, power enough to pull a 3-horse trail up a mountain, other nice things, and an old and failing battery.  After a Thursday trickle-charge the truck started.  Friday it would not.  After an all-night charge, Saturday morning it was still dead. http://media.photobucket.com/image/recent/Cloud9Above/mccoy.jpg

John went to town for a replacement and then we headed south – first to Costco for some sale items and $96 of gas, then for the chain link panels and lunch.

We had grilled salmon, grilled veggies (carrots, potatoes, onions), pea pods, and bread.  We took a red velvet cake for dessert.  Also had iced tea.  Filled up amazingly and ate over a 2-hr period, I think.  Visited and listened to music.  Pretty cool.  Home by 6 to a windy and cold evening on the Naneum Fan.

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

Use Google Earth and look here:  47.075719, -120.471724

Zoom out to see the green wedge, then the canyon and mountains (5,000 to 6,000 feet) to the north of us. There is still much snow up there and cold air drains our way.  It still seems like late February.  So, John took hay to a sheltered area at the far end of the pasture.  Horses are skittish in wind (John’s theory) because trees and such move about and their sight and hearing keeps warning them of a stalking cougar or whatever.  Or see:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081217082129AAPXTDg

Our usual best regards to all.

Nancy and John

I managed to get the last full week’s long blog out late Saturday afternoon, so that day was covered.  Now it’s Sunday, and I slept in, catching up on much needed rest from my busy days and nights in Seattle.  John already has started his work, in a chilly, but beautifully sunny environment.  He’s still working on multiple yard tasks, including protection (deer & rabbits) for blackberries, strawberries, and asparagus.  He’s also whacked the old apple trees (severe pruning).  I’m still inside resting.  I did start cleaning up dishes to put in the dishwasher, and will continue that as I can.  Also need to unpack my suitcase.  Nothing on the schedule but Taize’ tonight for me.  I’ve been following up on leads I picked up for colleagues at the conference this week, and need to finish those.  Monday all day was another rest day.  I didn’t even go to town for my exercise class.  I was just too beat.

Tuesday was another very busy day when we left the house about 9:25 and didn’t return till 4:00, and then I went back in for a 6:00 engagement.  Here’s the scoop.  This morning at 10:40 I was due for my 3 month check up on the device monitoring my heart.  They need to check to be sure it is sending signals all right and the battery is still functional.  That was quickly completed, and all is well.  Then we were off for a leisurely drive through the older part of Yakima’s residential area, to enjoy the flowers and flowering trees.  The area is somewhat hilly (mostly a wee bit over 1,000 feet) and “spring” just arrived there.  (Home is 2,200 feet and it will be “spring” soon – we hope.

After the device test and the flowering plant search, we drove down the hill to Yakima Regional Hospital where I spent all the time in 2009-10, in ICU, and visited the mother of a good friend who had a stroke.  She is doing really well getting physical therapy before she returns home to Ellensburg.  After a nice visit with her and her daughter who slipped in on her lunch hour, we went to the ICU nurses’ station to see if there were people there who were my caregivers.  There were two people there who remembered me and others had just left for the cafeteria.  We visited awhile and then went to the cafeteria where we found 3 more.  My favorite male nurse was there, and very happy to see me doing so well.  He was one of the prime drivers telling me I would recover and play music again.  Then off for lunch and on to Costco for dog food and a few other things.  Home by way of KVCH for a blood draw for me (to check my INR for the Coumadin I take).  Home for a short while, and then I took off for a nursing home to visit our accordionist who had hip replacement surgery recently, and then to play at the same nursing home with “The Connections.”  It’s a religious music group.  Now it is only 9:00 p.m. and John and I are both ready to go to bed.

Wednesday:  Great lunch and visit today with a former student from Ghana (now in California), he was a consistent blog-reader through all my illness.  He would call me regularly on my cell phone, once I was allowed to have one.  Check out this link to hear about his master’s thesis work with us, and see the results for villages in his country, suffering relocation by the construction of a large hydro dam and reservoir.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/31753290/In-Their-Own-Words-Voices-of-Affected-People

Yesterday I was walking out of the Yakima Heart Center, and just turned my cell phone back on.  They do not allow them at all in the doctor’s office.  I received a call from him that he was in town for a week, and wanted to get together.  I arranged to meet him today for lunch.  It was really cool, and we had a nice visit, over a piece of pizza and a Pepsi.  He brought me a gift that is a couple of yards of wonderful, colorful cloth he had his mom send over from Ghana.  He cannot afford a trip over right now, as it is $2,000.  He is working part time and going to school taking Biology and Chemistry courses.

I always admired his shirts, and he said he wanted to make one for me but he cannot sew and couldn’t borrow his sister’s machine.  I told him I would either have someone make one for me, or I would frame it and hang in our house.  It is really a lovely pattern of greens and other colors, such as yellow, red, and white.

John moved our old camper today (hadn’t been on the road since 1994) and is all destroyed but is full of cans (aluminum) and dog kennels, and who knows what else).  We need to clean it out and then take it to the dump.  It is beyond help.  One of the jacks is broken.

The camper was out in our orchard in the way of where John wanted to extend his “garden plot”.  So, he moved it back out of the way.  He’s really been doing a lot of yard work since he quit pruning grapes.  I think as soon as all the strawberries and asparagus are planted he might get back to training horses.

He just came in and cut off a piece of the pork loin we bought at Costco yesterday, so we will have a decent dinner later.  It’s baking now and smells scrumptious.  Tomorrow is another lighter day for me.  I will go play music at a retirement facility (Dry Creek), where everyone is in semi-decent shape and sometimes a few get up and dance.  I have finally gotten my stamina back and today after lunch I went to my exercise class.  There were 12 of us there, and we have lost our teacher (she graduated from CWU and has to find a job), so she left town.  We led it ourselves today, and will continue.

The dogs got to be outside in the orchard today working with John.  They loved it.  An older female won’t stay with him if he is cutting brush or trees.  About 8 years ago she wandered under the tip-top of a tree as it came down and didn’t appreciate the experience.  Just her feelings were hurt!  When John isn’t actively urging them forward, they have time to find things.  So, while John worked, one of them dug out a shrew and killed it.  I saw it when I got home, and John picked it up and buried it.  It looks like this:

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/resources/mzm2/43.mr2.jpg/medium.jpg

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

Thursday; not much today but a trip to town for both of us, John to shop while I play music at Dry Creek.  We had a full slate today, with several violins, viola, bass fiddle, guitars and a banjo, plus a singer (who will be getting on her viola to join us some day.  We were missing our accordionist who had hip surgery.  The wind was wicked today, reaching 45 mph gusts a couple of hours in the afternoon.  John managed to feed the horses and take the dogs for a spin, plus work on cutting up apple branches from a tree he pruned severely yesterday.  Last night in the middle of the night, our kitty, Sunshine, caught a mouse in the hallway outside the bedroom and bath.  John retrieved it (with a glove) and launched it into orbit. Well, it was dark, so maybe not.

Friday.   I slept in this morning and then had a small breakfast and took off for a shoulder massage at 11:00.  After that I came out of the door in the Sr. Center and saw a person who sometimes plays harmonica with us.  He told me he had a heart attack last week, and had to have 4 stints put in.  Wow.  Then on to a scholarship luncheon at the SURC (Student University Recreation Center) at CWU.  On my way there I passed a garage sale, so I stopped and got a roll of Burlap for John for $2.  It was a gorgeous day — for Earth Day, too, and John was doing his part.  He planted pines and Rocky Mountain Maples –

http://classes.hortla.wsu.edu/hort231/List04/AcerGla.html

The pair of winged seeds (paired samaras) have a swept-back shape (V-like on a jet plane) while Washington State’s other native maple, the Vine Maple, has seeds like the wings of a Piper Cub.

http://classes.hortla.wsu.edu/hort231/List04/AcerCir.html

On the word “samara” and related maple word lore:

http://www.billcasselman.com/canadian_garden_words/cgw_three.htm

On the way into the SURC, I heard a guitarist sitting on an outer wall, singing and playing.  I slowed down and listened and heard some of the words of the song, with Okanogan in it.  I walked over to him and told him he had a beautiful voice.  We visited a bit and he said he was going to be playing inside for Earth Day at 1:00 to 2:00.  I went down to hear him after lunch. Our lunch was good, with different kinds of Foccia bread (with toppings), salad, and big yummy strawberries.  Lemonade to drink.

The singer/guitarist had introduced himself to me (Dana Lyons), and said he had a web site and I could go there and download his favorite song, he wrote, called Cows have Guns.  I stayed at his concert till he played that song, and then I left, getting to my exercise class a little late.  He plays an electric guitar that sounds very much like an acoustic one, just like the performer on the electric violin I told you about a couple of months ago.

http://www.cowswithguns.com/cgi-bin/home.cgi

. . . will give you a taste of his talent.

Saturday.  John has already started his yard work by packing the “farm truck” with apple tree prunings and carrying down into the pasture to add to the quail condos.

Ours are the California types and sometimes called “valley quail” . . .

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

They frequently cross roads in front of cars but unlike most sensible birds they rarely fly away – they have an elegant running gate.  Because they travel in groups (a covey) they will reverse directions – darting back and forth in front of the car.  This suicidal behavior means you cannot drive for long in the Valley without hitting one.  And they are so cute!  In a compensatory gesture, John makes brush piles with interior spaces for them to hide and nest. The dogs will point them, and that’s fun to see.  Once in awhile a small hawk with quail-for-lunch on its mind hangs around.

It is Saturday evening: I have been doing work inside the house, mostly on my computer.  I’m off to play at a special Easter Vigil service.  I’m expecting another violinist, a clarinetist, and pianist.  It’s not till 7:00 p.m. and we won’t be doing the Taize’ service tomorrow night.

John is to put this into the “cloud” and feed the horses, dogs, cat, and himself.  I get snacks at the church.  Maybe they will have a chocolate egg or a chocolate bunny.  Funny – the things we do.

Happy Easter.

Nancy and John in Ellensburg, WA

We were late getting out the blog last week because of having too much to do.  Such social butterflies we are.  As I write today (April 10) we’re finishing up (I hope) the last of the evaluations of the research proposals from Canada.  Tonight we will share in a birthday celebration – John made apple-blueberry “crisp”. The rest of today will be planning, cleaning, packing, organizing, associated with my leaving Tuesday morning for Seattle for 3 days.

Monday, same ‘ole, nothing new, except my INR-blood test for Coumadin was too high, so I have to leave off my Coumadin for two days and come back for a blood draw test (Protime) this Friday.  Too much wine, we think. So, for me, the Seattle meeting will be an alcohol free zone.  Receptions, no to free drinks, Seattle rain – may get ‘cabin fever’ in the hotel room.

Tuesday, drove to Bellevue and met up with a former student where I left my car at his house.  He picked me up and drove me to my hotel.  I got there just after my “roommates” arrived.  Neither of us had eaten since breakfast and it was after lunch, so we went for a late one in the hotel.  It was expensive, but it was great.  Buffalo wings, Fruit, Cheese and Crackers, Mussels.  The 3 of us shared appetizers, and there was more than enough.  Then off to the convention center.  It’s only 2 block south (flat) and two blocks east (uphill).  I was lugging my computer (in a carrier) with other stuff, and my friend actually took the carrier from me on the hill and kept me from having to pull anything up the hill but my own weight.  I was grateful.  We attended their session on Distance Learning and it was a panel discussion with audience participation, so I participated too.  It was one of the best such sessions I have been to at an AAG meeting.  We were all tired, so we returned to the hotel, walking, and downhill – can you imagine a world where all walks are downhill.  That would work for me.  We intended to go back for the reception but it wasn’t till 8:00 p.m. and we decided it would put us back too late and we should just go to bed early.  Our meal late afternoon was still with us.

Wednesday, I was scheduled to go to some papers given by students or colleagues from my past.  I did not participate in any field trips this time.  The first one was given by my biogeographer friend from Wisconsin with her student.  It was great seeing her again after many years, and nice meeting him.  We got to meet the next day for coffee cake (banana nut and chocolate chip chocolate) and coffee at Tully’s (nope I didn’t go to Starbuck’s).  We had a fancy carbonated lemon drink, and I poured the remainder in my Country Time lemonade.

From their paper, I rushed to a great presentation by a guy from the US Bureau of the Census on “The Role of Geography in Census 2010 and the Census Bureau.”  I talked with him the next day and learned that a friend I was in grad school with in the ‘60s was at the conference.  Our paths never crossed, sadly.  Happily, I met for lunch with a former student who is on the job market again, and her parents gave her a registration to this AAG meeting.  Also, I visited poster sessions and supported several colleagues and some students of the past.

Wednesday afternoon I returned to the hotel for a little rest, but didn’t get much, before having to trek 2.5 blocks from the hotel to the bus tunnel to make my way to a dinner in Chinatown.  From the transit station I had to walk two long blocks uphill and slowly I made my way, finding the restaurant.  All my friends beat me there for our 6:30 time.  There were 6 of us, 5 of us from the Association of WA Geographers, and a guest from Michigan who was an advisor of one of the guys who now teaches at a community college in WA.  The guest is an authority on Chinese history and geography and culture, and he speaks several dialects of Chinese.  He conversed with the waitresses and I’m sure we were treated differently from the normal “tourist.”  We ended up seated at a very large circular table with a lazy Susan in the center, from which we shared food.  The fare included:  Deep-fried squid, very large Prawns, with the head and tail on.  It was like eating lobster.  Rice and bok choy with garlic (I cannot eat dark green veggies on Coumadin), Chicken Chow Mein with crunchy noodles; a large head on and tail Talapia, very very tasty and baked in a great “sauce;”Barbequed or baked Tofu squares.  I didn’t expect to like them but I tried and they were tasty. Tea and ice water.  I couldn’t partake of alcohol, but others did.  We had a lot to eat and a good conversation.  Thankfully, one of the fellows gave me a ride back.

Thursday, rushed to a presentation by another Michigan friend who talked on an interesting group studying the Pacific Northwest, called Sightline Institute, and then from there to another presentation by a mutual friend from Wisconsin.  My WS friend and I left for the fast visit at Tully’s (mentioned above).   I bid adieus to her, her student and friend, as they went for a tour of the Space Needle . . .

http://spaceneedle.com/

On this link, click the second card on the left (black circle; 360^o view); then click on Webcam; then on the ‘move arrows’. Having been there, done that, but not bought the t-shirt — Instead, I went to an Indigenous Peoples, Tribal Schools, etc. panel discussion involving my CWU grad student from Montana; she is of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe.

http://www.cheyennenation.com/

Thence, on to more poster sessions and stopping in the hallway to visit with friends from around the U.S..  Having been geographers for over 45 years, we know a lot of teachers and workers in the computer industry and the book industry.  I spent a lot of time in the Exhibit Hall checking out resources and meeting more friends from my past.  Thursday afternoon after I got back to the hotel, I was soaking wet.  Even with my rain jacket and umbrella the 4-block walk in the pouring rain and blowing wind did its job.

http://www.beautifulseattle.com/clisea.htm

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/picturethis/2014789308_pt_stormy_seattle.html

The last link above is supposed to have photos from Wednesday (13^th) but if they change to something else, you may have to search – or just see what’s there.

I rested and warmed up and dried out and worked on a little email before my roommates returned.  We were going to go to a reception but it was not till 8:00 p.m.  They had had a large Thai lunch, but I had not.  So two of us went down to the bar for happy hour (and treats).  I had a coke and a couple of Buffalo wings and some pita bread with a liverwurst type spread and cheese.  Good thing, because when we got to the reception there was NO food.  Just drink.  We had a free ticket for a drink, so I got another Coke.  Again visited many people and then took a taxi back to the hotel.

Friday, Long day  — My student (now GIS Analyst at the City of Mercer Island – use Google Earth to find, turn photos on, and have a look) was the one at whose house I left my car (saving $20/day parking), and he picked me up and drove me the 25 minutes to downtown letting me off at my hotel door.  This morning he came back and picked me up at 10:10, and we drove back to his house to pick up my car and transfer my luggage, and drive to Issaquah for a neat lunch of sandwich and soup.  We both had the same, a  steak and cheese Panini sandwich (made with two slices of Italian bread, stuffed with steak and (Swiss or mozzarella) cheese, red sweet onions, maybe some basil, brushed with olive oil and pressed between the hot plates of a Panini grill.  Dang it was good.  It was probably 7″ long (half sandwich, or maybe 6″), and with a bowl (not a cup) of New England clam chowder, and an apple.  He also had a large coke.  The total bill was $18.xx (something less than 19).  Cost of eating in the Seattle area is pretty high, so this seemed reasonable.  I did have a ½ sandwich at Subway 2 days before, and it cost me as much as a full one in Ellensburg.

I left there about 12:15 and drove over Snoqualmie Pass in a raging rain storm (better than last night’s snow) to Cle Elum to my doctor’s office for my blood draw on the way home (INR was back within good range, at 1.7, down from 3.7 on Monday), filled John’s car with $50.01 of gas at Thorp, and it is 10 cents less / gallon than in Ellensburg, went to a Bingo game at the AAC, won a candle (whoopee).  It cost me $5.00, and I only won one game.  The woman sitting next to me won two games, and the woman (her sister) on the other side won 5 or 6 games.  I told her she needed to go buy a lotto ticket.  There were two others in the room who won multiple games, and only two of us who won just one game.  Then a bunch who won nothing.  They did provide a great Ice Cream Sundae, choice of sherbet or Neapolitan ice cream, with 4 toppings, plus whipped cream.  Yum.  All was with coffee.  I made my coffee a latte with adding some of the sundae to it.

. . . and I finally got home at 5:15.  We are debating about what to have for dinner, and it is almost 8:00 p.m.  I guess we will have Nachos.  I don’t need much, but need something.

Late afternoon almost 6:00 p.m. Friday, we had a UPS delivery of berry plants (Jewel & Quinault Strawberries and Illini Hardy Blackberries).  We also got some Asparagus plants (a year old in pots for a good deal yesterday in Ellensburg.  So, he will now be busy this weekend planting.  It’s beautiful and sunny, but VERY windy, so John has curtailed his outdoor activities – only so much wind can one take.  He usually stays out if the wind is under 30 mph, but today the average went to 35 with a gust or two peaking at 47.  He took a break at lunch and we drove to town to meet another former student who I missed at the AAG meeting.  He was calling the ‘Nancy” pre-loaded number in his cell phone number, but unfortunately it was his Aunt Nancy back East.  So, John and I drove to town and met him and his fiancée for a piece of pizza and soft drink.  We had a nice, but short, visit because they still had a 2 hour drive to Seattle and a ferry ride before getting home.  They were on their way back from a trip to the Dry Falls area and the Grand Coulee Dam,

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

John’s grape pruning work was on a sand deposit between Moses Coulee and Lynch Coulee . . . (he learned this week that coulee is French for ravine) . . .

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

http://www.dogcaught.com/2011/01/28/flying-down-lynch-coulee/

. . . and like the second of these links shows  — the vine-pruners saw Boeing 737s (covered in green protective plastic) passing down Lynch Coulee many of the days.  The BNSF tracks are along the south edge of the vines. The view in the link is about 1.6 miles up-slope from the vineyard and looking west across Lynch Coulee. (John says he will explain pruning in next week’s update if I don’t ramble on too long.)

Ouch! This has been a long entry, so . . .

Here’s hoping you all have another good week and we send our best regards to all our faithful readers.

Nancy and John in Ellensburg, WA

This past weekend was light and even more so into Monday, without telephone lines and computers working.  Our home computer was fine, but not this morning, when John was out with the farrier, and I was trying to call about medical bills and get on the web to read and send emails.  Nothing was working.  Our phone lines were down until late afternoon.  So I used the time to finish my tax form and print it out.  I finally got fed up and quit and went to the other room to rest up for going to my exercise class and to pick up my “fixed” computer because they got in the power cord.  I expected at least to pay for their time in diagnosing and in ordering the part, but not.  He told me to close my checkbook, as it was all covered by Apple.  That’s still hard to believe, but he said so.. that I had an Apple Care contract on my machine, and that extended the warranty two years.  Well that is still not enough time in my book, but who’s to argue.  I thanked Jason and Chuck and told them how much their support meant to us, and for hosting our blog since Dec 4th 2009. He was surprised that it was still going and people were still reading it.  They are just a portal for us, WordPress is the actual service, but Jason did set it up (for John – on the phone).  The blog URL begins with ‘ccsoe’ — for Complete Computer Services of Ellensburg.  It’s so nice to have my computer working and back in my lap.

[An aside on WordPress (WP): Some folks try to disrupt web sites just to see if they can, or maybe they are angry about something.  Attempts to disrupt any WP blog affects them all, and as there are so many, this is a daily issue.  Mostly attempts at disruption do not work and users (us creating and posting, and you reading) never notice.  Last month the defenses failed for a short time and anyone attempting to work with WP encountered a problem.  Links below are to two posts written as the gurus at WP worked to re-establish the system:

http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2011/03/08/some-turbulence/

http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/03/wordpress-com-suffers-major-ddos-attack/

. . .[if such things are of interest – follow some of the links in those stories. jfh]

And this afternoon after exercise, John picked me up and we went to the bank and also to get my fixed computer.  Tonight we are going to go to a talk on Moons in our Solar System.   Dr. Bonnie Buratti of the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) in Pasadena, CA, will give a public lecture titled, “Moons: The Weirdest Planets in the Solar System.”  She is   a planetary geoscientist who specializes in understanding how planets and their moons form and evolve.  Dr. Buratti’s visit was sponsored by the JPL Outer Planets Colloquium program.       ( http://outerplanets.jpl.nasa.gov/ )

Here is the abstract of what we heard:  Our solar system has at least 170 moons orbiting the main planets.  Before these moons were visited by spacecraft, astronomers expected them to be boring, dead objects devoid of any geologic features.  We now know they are fantastic worlds – with features unlike anything seen on Earth:  giant sulfur-spewing volcanoes, globally cracked ice-covered surfaces, liquid lakes of hydrocarbons, and colossal watery plumes.  Yet many of these worlds are also earthlike and familiar.  Titan, the giant moon of Saturn, has often been called an Earth in deep freeze, with cloud systems, lakes, shorelines, drainage fields and even perhaps rain.  Scientists believe that the most likely places for life to evolve outside the Earth may be in the water-interiors of the moons Europa, Enceladus, and possibly Titan.

Here it is Tuesday all day, supposed to be a light day, and it was not.  We started at 7:30 am with John leaving for the vineyard.  I began my day early too, on the computer I now have access to again.  After a lot of work I ate breakfast and got ready to leave for a much-needed haircut from my neighbor.  I had also started reading — we are reviewing research proposals for the SILVERHILL INSTITUTE OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND CONSERVATION, in Ontario, Canada (Our connection is its founder, a friend from our Cincinnati days).  Then later in the afternoon, while John was gone for a lunch after pruning, I worked more on taxes and emails.  I’m pretty tired tonight and we have to get up very early tomorrow morning because I have been invited to the lunch tomorrow after the wine grape pruning.  I’m looking forward to that.

Oh, also today I was in touch with a friend’s husband –the friend had hip surgery early this morning.  She came through it well.

Wednesday, oops, awoke to snow.  So John went to the vineyard alone and I’m going over separately for lunch, driving the 66 miles one way in my own car.  We couldn’t put the dogs out in < 35 degree weather and snow.  The sun is up and the temp is rising.  By the time I left at 11:00 a.m. it was sunny and the temp was 43 (higher on the porch). I gave the 3 of them some water, and left Meghan in the house with the cat.  She made it through the several hours fine.  We both returned by way of Quincy, buying gasoline for both cars, and getting choc milk for me.  Gasoline is a bit cheaper there than in Ellensburg.  Quincy is a small town in the midst of an irrigated agricultural area and very “laid back” until recently, when Microsoft, Yahoo! and Intuit came to add “server farms” to the mix. See the several links embedded in this:

http://www-scf.usc.edu/~jmapes/quincy.htm

If you use Quincy, WA in the “Fly to” box of Google Earth you can see the town – it is about 2.5 miles wide.  Zoom out and put the town at the top – have it show roads — and have “281” and the I-90 symbol near the bottom edge.  Where “281” leaves I-90 to head north is the town of George, Washington.  Isn’t that clever?  The green areas are fields of alfalfa, corn, onions and such things, and fruit orchards and baby trees for sale. Here is one of the major suppliers:

http://columbiabasinnursery.com/index.html

From the home page, click on ‘cherries’ and ‘apples’ for photos of the fruit.  Study this site’s pages and you could become an orchardist!  For instance, scroll to the “apple rootstock” section at the bottom of the apples page. On John’s route going to and returning from pruning, he has passed a plot where a new orchard is being planted.  They had a crew of about 40 workers, thousands of baby trees, miles of wire, many hundreds of posts and a large machine to push them into the ground.  The machine looks like the one in this photo (a different application):

http://edenprairieweblogs.org/scottneal/wp-content/uploads/Installing_Helical_Anchors_2_-_Dec_2009_Medium.jpg

. . . and a few years from now the result will look like this:

http://www.kingorchards.com/september/pages/DSCF2326.htm

. . . except all the vertical posts are treated wood like the one in the foreground.  The green circles between Quincy and George (WA) are fields with circular pivot water supplies.

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

The brown section (west of the road between the two towns) is called the Ancient Lakes area and is composed of canyons and lakes resulting from “ice age floods” about 15,000 years ago.

http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes-of-the-week/ancient-lakes

The story of the floods is in the link below (with a slide show):

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/pacificnw09302007/2003905120_pacificpice30.html

Back to lunch: It was spectacular and lasted 3 hours.  There were 3 types of meat or sausage, and one was like a prime rib sliced; it was fantastic.  Also a chicken liverwurst, I really liked, and several types of cheese, including Brie (yum) and 3 different kinds of crackers, a big salad and for dessert a fruit (raisins made locally by one of the crew) dark bread.  White Heron wines and several others. That’s the most wine I have drunk in 3 years.  There were 11 people around the table… yes, big table.  I also took some pictures of the table, the room, and from the house out over the vineyards and down into the Columbia River “gorge” there at the bend of the river at West Bar, and Crescent Bar.

It snowed on us coming back across the hill into the valley (up by the wind towers; all running today).  We got home just after 4:00 p.m.

I just woke up, and it is still evening.  I guess I wore myself out today.  I did some emailing stuff, called  to see how the hip surgery went, loaded a few dishes in the dishwasher, and then laid down at 6:00 because I was tired.  I guess.  I slept for 2.5 hrs through John cooking and eating dinner.

Thursday–awoke to beautiful sunny morning, and John took off for more pruning.  I stayed home for an expected telephone call, and I will be going to play music this afternoon and visiting my friend who had the hip replacement.  Will be nice to go back to KVCH for a visit and not as a patient.  The day ran together and I forgot we had to go to a talk on the ice age floods.  It was very interesting, and covered the Scablands part of WA (from Lake Missoula, across WA).  It lasted till 8:15 or so.

I did make it by to see the lady with the new hip but she was sleeping, soundly.  Her husband and son were there so we whispered a few things.  Her husband had told me that her red blood count was low, and they were giving her a transfusion.  They realized it when this morning she couldn’t put any weight on the new leg with the hip and yesterday after the surgery, she had.  I guess she has been in pain too.  So I only stayed a few minutes and told them to tell her hello when she awoke, but I surely didn’t want to wake her.  I’m sure she had a rough night last night and didn’t have a good night’s sleep.  I remember wishing to take an afternoon nap when in the nursing home (rehab center).

Friday.. lots of things to keep me busy, from shoulder massage, to playing and singing music and eating at the Soup Kitchen, followed by exercise and a visit to my friend with the hip surgery who was moved to a nursing home.

Here it is Saturday already.  Wow, time flies.  John spent last night and this morning working on his Trail Rider Club Newsletter, and got it folded and stamped and mailed out from our mailbox at the end of the driveway, this morning.  We got back to working on the review of the research proposals.  We still have over an hour’s work to put in to writing up the evaluations.  We’d be rich if this weren’t volunteered efforts on our part.  I took off this afternoon for town and to play and eat at Briarwood, a retirement community we go to every second Saturday of the month.  Afterwards I made a stop at the grocery and filled John’s car with gasoline.

One last note that may upset a few of you out there.  If you have ever lived in a rural setting in a house that was not well constructed, there is a problem of mice entering, from where we do not know.  Our cats of the past have been good mousers, even with some set traps in places near the garage where some might be coming in behind the kitchen stove.  Well, you all have been hearing about the kitty cat we rescued back in early December, at approximately 8 weeks of age.  She has continued to grow and is now about 6 months old (has had her shots and been spayed). This week she has caught two mice (both in the middle of the night), so we figure she is paying for her room and board.  We took them from her after she killed them, before she could eat them.

Okay.. I think I should stop and send to John to put on the blog.  He may not get to it until Sunday morning, because of a late dinner and still needing to work over the proposals.  I know he will embellish it with educational links referring to my statements.

Here’s hoping you all have another good week and we send our best regards to all our faithful readers and link followers.  We may succeed in introducing you to our region’s landscape and geography without your having to come in person.

Enjoy, from Nancy and John in Ellensburg, WA

This his week started off slowly and was light with activity, or lack thereof.  Saturday and Sunday we stayed home, except for Nancy going to Taize’ Sunday night, and going ahead of time to Safeway to pick up some strawberries for our neighbor.  Two friends were there, one a former student who left in 2006 and has returned to finish her Resource Management (REM) thesis and degree.  She is a Native American from Montana, and it was great to see her.  She came along to the Taize’ evening and had dinner with us.  The next day was light too, pretty much.  John took off in the middle of the day for Yakima to have his Subaru serviced.  I went to exercise class and to the grocery.

Today, Tuesday, is another light day for me.  John left to prune wine grapes and I slept in.  Continued working to make a list of REM grads and their job titles and connections  to be used to invite folks to an Earth Day fundraiser for scholarships.  I’m getting tired of spending so much time as it is taking and keeping me away from the chores around the house I should be doing.

Wednesday awoke to a sick day, with some intestinal bug.  I could have gone a long time without this.  Better now, however, than away from home.  Heard from a good friend her mom is in Virginia Mason with a suspected stroke.  We surely have her and the family in our thoughts and prayers.  John went to prune again today and it rained here and the wind blew all morning and still is howling.  I will skip my exercise class today and try to get better.  John got home and we ate a couple of cookies and he is napping.  I might do that too and then will hit the taxes again later.  Maybe I should do them while he is napping and not on the computer.  Yeah.  I did and completed an extension form to send in for 2010.  Now I have to do more data entry.

Thursday began early sending John off to prune again.  I managed to unload the dishwasher and clean up all the sinks and counters.  Never had lunch till after I got home from playing music with my “group” at Mt. View.   Worked all morning with my laptop, trying to get it to recharge the battery.  It has been acting odd for two weeks and is now mostly not charging.  I will take it to the computer doctor tomorrow.

I spent the rest of the time on filing and organizing.  It seems like an endless task.   I’m on John’s computer now, having sent some important files here, to deal with.  John just finished writing a series of “Google Earth” steps to show his sister how he configures the maps and user-placed photos to learn about places when news reports are incomplete.  Now it’s late, so I will have some ice cream and hit the hay, I think.

Friday, all day, and April Fool’s Day at that.  I didn’t get anything pulled on me, however.  It was a GOOD day and full.  Nice to hear that for a change from me, eh? I’m still very behind, and am writing this from “John’s computer,” our house one, in the back “bedroom” that has been a computer room forever.  I call it “John’s computer” because a few years ago we bought a name brand desktop one via their web site, dealt with their poor documentation, poor tech support, their cheap components, and bloated installed “crap-ware.”  A week after it arrived, we shipped it all back.  John next ordered quality parts from 4 or 5 different vendors and cobbled them together to make a computer.  Two minor components have had to be replaced during four years of considerable use, so out they came, in went new ones, and “John’s computer” whirls on.    The computer room acquired bunk beds for daughters of our friend’s visiting from New Zealand, about a year before the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics came undone – about 20 years ago.  The beds are covered with 3 feet or more of dusty stuff.  John blows the dust out of the computer tower but has refused to touch the (his words) 3 feet of dust on the stuff on the beds.  I’ll get to it some day.. ha ha, but there are many other flat surfaces to hit first.  Good I’m retired.  Perhaps I will have time to finish this in my lifetime.

So, here’s the good news.  I took my computer into the guys on my way to exercise class, and guru-Chuck called me it was the power cord that had burned itself out.  He ordered a part before 2:00 pm and figures they get one day service and will have it in on Monday, and I will get it back then.  That is SUCH good news, but not as great as what he said next.  “It was still under warranty.”  Wow, I would never have thought that and would have just ordered a new power cord (John found one on line for $79.95, plus shipping), but we decided to get a professional opinion from people we have dealt with for YEARS.  This is the computer I helped pay for in 2007 with service award funds I had access to and when I retired, it became my “gold watch.”  But it is like a watch without hands as I long ago wore the printed symbols off of about 20% of the keys.  I’m its custodian until it crashes, then they can toss it on their great slag heap of other dead tech equipment.  It was good to have the laptop in ICU and the Rehab center.  I couldn’t have it the first ICU when I was so sick, but the subsequent two times, I could.  (John says: Note she calls this good news.  Consider – when it totally fails we’ll buy a new spiffy one.  That would be good news!)

Next good news was having a great April Fool’s Day potluck.  They provided ham and scalloped potatoes, and people brought veggies and salads, bread, and desserts.  Very yummy.  Then I played and sang with Karen (accordionist)–springtime songs from the 1930s.  I must admit there were a few that I had never heard, but I just listened and picked ’em up.  Then there were some I knew well, such as Springtime in the Rockies, and I played the harmony, and yodeled at appropriate places.  Had fun.

Then it was exercise class.  Have I worn you out yet ?  Then off to school to pick up a few bottles of  our wine leftover from our (my) retirement party.  There were still almost two cases left.  Much has disappeared since we donated it, but I needed some Merlot to repay the gal who did some map work for me with images rectifying them to the ground surface and a coordinate system known to the other layer that I needed to overlay.  It’s for the NCGE meeting I’m going to in Portland, in August, and presenting a workshop on the Urban Heat Island there with my friend from NY who we’ve known since 1965.  Paul and I have presented stuff together over the past 20 years, at professional meetings.  Pretty interesting.

Then called John but he hadn’t gotten to the Conservation District to pick up his “trees” (5 Rocky Mountain Maples and 5 Blue Spruce), for which I had written a check for $15.14 this morning.  I called from exercise class and left a message with the District to leave a note on his order to pick up donuts before coming home. A lady had called me this morning from the bakery saying the Apple Fritters were especially nice today, and they could fix me a full dozen.  He didn’t get the message, but was home when I called later, and so I went down to pick them up on my way home, also getting some ground beef for us to have nachos tonight.

I went to the art gallery (we have several)–but I went to Gallery One (its name); it has been here since 1960!  There was a write up of a couple from Seattle in night before last’s paper, front page, about their cat, Cooper, an orange tabby, who is a photographer.  They were putting on his show at Gallery One, so I went and viewed it.  It is fantastic.  They bought a special small camera to put around his collar, and it takes pictures every two minutes.  They wondered what he did during the day on his outings, and now they know.  Some of them are really quite good.  I will tell you the sites to check out, but seeing the large framed pictures in person was awesome and better.  I have some favorites, but you can look at the sites below and see what yours are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GzpwrJjtHU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDGrXmA6ewY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CQwh_v1hDg

I guess if I’m tired, it’s understandable.

Okay– I must leave this computer.  Annie just came and asked to go out.  Sunshine just jumped on the stool in front of me, and will be getting up in the window soon. She just gently stepped across my knees and got on the books (flat space) on the partially pulled out filing drawer and is looking out the window at John working in the yard.  It’s Friday night.

John is back in from doing yard chores on Saturday.  I will stop this and give my chair to John to put this report on the blog.

We hope you all have another good week and we send our best regards to all our faithful readers.  We are surprised every so often to hear that people are still followers.

Nancy and John in Ellensburg, WA

Saturday this week is empty for a change, giving me time to finally cut John’s long locks.  When he started doing trail work he had thick hair but his hard hat kept coming off so I trimmed his graying hair very short.  That is still the plan.  I’m done now and he is set for awhile.

It’s Sunday and we are making a trip to Costco in Yakima and hope to combine it with an eggs and waffles lunch with friends from west of town.  We were going to meet them for a Polish sausage and strawberry sundae at Costco, but they invited us instead to their house.  We’re taking home grown raspberries and U-pick blueberries.  We hoped for good weather so we could leave the dogs out for the several hours we are gone.  That’s a long time to be cooped up in the house without being able to potty.  At least the cat has a litter box she can use.  The weather did not cooperate so we just returned from 5 hours away, leaving everyone in the house.  They managed to make it through just fine.  We had a nice visit (snowed the whole time) with the friends in West Yakima (70 miles from our home) and lots of good food.  Yum.  There were scrambled eggs with cheese and onions, cut oranges, bacon, waffles, and our fancy berries.  We didn’t have any room left for fresh cinnamon rolls, so some snuck home with us.
On the way back, we went by Costco, and it was a mess.  I have never seen so many people in one store in my life.  I’ll never do that again.  We don’t know if it was because it was raining, or perhaps it was the first Sunday since a paycheck.  It was nuts.  We were rained on there, and almost all the way home, till we got to Manastash Ridge, and were in the snow again.
North and a bit west of Yakima is a long high ridge called Cleman Mountain (5,076 feet; see on Google Earth at: 46.82, -120.848).  It had snow all over.  One of the small blue picture markers for the location just given is for Mt. Rainier about 42 miles west of Cleman and another 22 miles from Interstate 82, our route north.  Mt. Rainier is so prominent from the Seattle region that folks just say things, such as, “the mountain is out today,” which means the fog and clouds are gone and Mt. Rainier, in all its majesty, can be seen.  From the Yakima area we can also see Mt. Adams, and there are fewer intervening ridges and being a bit closer, it seems larger.

Mt. Rainier is a 14,411 ft. slumbering stratovolcano and from our back patio we can see about the top 1,000 feet.  It is close to population centers of Puget Sound and an eruption might be very damaging. It is easily visited.  Mt. Adams, in contrast, is very isolated and most folks will only see it from a distance of 50 miles or so.  A good site to see Washington’s mountains is here:

http://www.photoseek.com/index.html

There is a link saying “Mt. Rainier” at the bottom left of the first screen, but he has lots more stuff on this site.

Taize’ has been canceled for the night because this begins spring break and the students all leave and go home.  They are the ones who actually lead the service, so we need them to be there.

Monday.  John expected to go prune wine grape vines again today, but it was cancelled because of the winemaker going to Seattle.  The weather looks good for his trip.  I went in for SAIL exercise and played two games of pool afterward.  We each won one game.  On to the grocery store and home.   Put in some time on tax entry this morning and need to collaborate with John on the stock stuff.  Looks as if we don’t have enough deductions to “itemize” but just to take the standard deduction instead.  Now the rules have changed and we cannot even deduct the purchase of Turbo Tax, or if we had a person do our returns.  I was making good progress getting stuff into Turbo Tax, only to hit a stalemate on Schedule D and not being able to enter information for capital “loss”.  Still looking for how to solve that.  There is no person to call, just searching on line for forums or support FAQs, which are not helping.  So I’m frustrated.  (Actually I figured it out, by going back to the beginning of the program, where it asks a lot of questions and I saw the box I should have checked.)

Tuesday.  Need to apologize to the readers for the blather that seems to be more like a diary coming from us.  It has turned out to be a good record for checking back to see what happened when, however.  Hope you readers are not bored to tears from reading.  We do appreciate your feedback and continued support.  Today is a lighter day, but we will be celebrating our neighbor’s 88^th birthday with him and his family tonight at dinner.  It’s a gorgeous sunny day for a change.  Maybe spring has finally sprung.  Plans are for sweet and sour pork cooked by the son, mashed potatoes by mom, and steamed rice with red peppers and onions cooked by us, and a dessert Pizza Hut pizza, requested by the birthday “boy,” also from us.

Wednesday.

Morning has broken, like the first morning

Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird . . .

Do you remember that great song?

Many will remember the Cat Stevens’ version but the song is older and worth a look:

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

Actually, in my summer Fiddle workshop a couple of years ago, we did the religious version, same tune, and a couple of us sang the words of Cat Stevens version.

As morning broke, John left for the vineyard.  He’s now back and I didn’t go to exercise class today.  Stayed to receive a package from FedEx. The package is from a friend from Canada via grad school in Cincy.  His company now awards scholarships to masters students to help fund their research.  It is competitive, and we are on the review team.  We continue to work on things.  I got my exercise today walking to the mailbox and back with 3 of the dogs.  Then when John got home he took them again for a short stroll.  They were very happy because they missed their run this morning when he was in a hurry to feed horses and leave.

We called his cousin this morning in PA.  She is celebrating her 93^rd birthday today.  Good for her and her health and mind is grand.  Pretty much the rest of the day was spent on filing and entering tax information.  Oh, did some work on the Portland Urban Heat Island, for helping at a conference in August in Portland with a geographer friend from Cincy grad school days.  He is also retired, but still active in the profession, and we have presented workshops together for many years, till I got sick.

Well, it’s Thursday, and John took off at 7:15 am for the Columbia for more vine pruning.  I slept in, and have done some clean up chores on the computer, the paperwork, and the kitchen.  Now I’m back resting and working with emails, before I leave for music.  I will likely pass John on the road.  Kitty has been sleeping most of the morning, with a few bats at the toy hanging in the den, in front of my recliner.  Dogs have been in and out a few times, but are also resting up for when John gets back to take them for their exercise.  The temp is above 50 now and no longer overcast.  I hope that means John had some good weather for pruning too.

Friday came and went and planned things changed.  I went for my free shoulder massage and while there learned that my exercise class was pushed up to 11:30.  Good that we had canceled the music play date at the Soup Kitchen.  After class I dropped by school to turn in two keys, and to carry more no-longer-needed educational stuff to the department members.  Then on home to have lunch with John, who had returned.  His route takes him between two of our three valley wind energy projects.  There are several hundred towers locally and Friday noon not one was moving.  Pictures here:

http://www.pse.com/multimedia/documents/wildhorsephotos.htm

Company project profile here:

http://www.pse.com/ENERGYENVIRONMENT/ENERGYSUPPLY/Pages/EnergySupply_ElectricityWind.aspx

Saturday we awoke very early to more snow.  Before it stopped we had an inch but it changed to rain and took away the snow.  The highways through the mountain passes are in good shape and everywhere else around us seems just fine, but we are a nasty little wintry weather spot, in spring.  John’s sister’s weather in Parma, OH is not so nice either, as they are suffering from very cold temperatures in the teens this whole next week.  Weird.

We hope you all have another good week and send our best regards to all our faithful readers.

Nancy and John

It has been a week since the earthquake in the Pacific and the tsunami that devastated communities of coastal Japan.  It is difficult to imagine the near complete destruction of so many small towns and villages.  Main-stream-media seems focused on the nuclear plants with much exaggeration and irresponsible reporting.  We have been fortunate to hear from a few former students that their families are safe on high ground.

Elsewhere, and here, we carry on.

Last week I ended my writing early Saturday morning.  Then I was off to Briarwood to a full house of senior folks where we played and sang and joked with the crowd for over an hour and then joined them to visit and share fantastic food.  That play date is the highlight of our month because of all the involvement by the audience in singing along and requesting songs, which we usually provide.  Occasionally they will request a song we don’t know or cannot pick out on the fly.

I also forgot to say that we reached the end of last week with successful passage through young-Britt Annie’s heat cycle, and she is no longer attractive.  It was a horrid last 3 weeks of worry and concern, because we did not want puppies again this year, even though last year’s litter was special and ended up in special homes where they are loved as family members.  That’s the best thing a breeder can hope for.

Sunday. Weather has turned to rainy and probably will be like this for the rest of the week.  Off to Taize’ tonight.  Back home, with a full tummy.  Only two of us musicians were there tonight.  It was a nice service, and we had a great dinner of Chicken & Rice with veggies casserole (Costco’s finest), sliced huge tasty oranges, a dark bread, and two kinds of lemonade.  Everyone had two helpings, and there was still some left for a couple to take leftovers home.

Tonight at 8:00 p.m. is the showing on the National Geographic channel of MegaQuake, expected for the Cascades in our life time.  We have a friend recording it on a VCR tape for us because our antenna is not working.  We haven’t been able to watch TV in several years.  We are able to receive news on the Internet, and have a broadband connection.  I can sit at one end of the house with my laptop and John can watch at the other end of the house on our family computer.  We have a wireless system that allows me to communicate with my laptop with his computer and modem connected to allow us both on the Internet at the same time.  And the landline phone continues to work too – modern technology is magical.

Monday.  Today is “Dead” day at school the first day of Finals week, with no finals held.  Funny, even though I’m retired, I still keep track of things.  I’ll be alone today, at least till afternoon.  After feeding the horses, John took off at 7:45 a.m. for White Heron Cellars, over on the bend in the Columbia River, to help prune grape vines.

If you use the coordinates in the next line in the Google Earth “Fly to” box

47.233909, -120.000374

. . . you can find where the vineyard and winery are.

Zoom out and you can see the Columbia River and the big gravel bar across to the south from the Winery: http://www.whiteheronwine.com/

Isn’t that cool? He will work about 3 hours and return home.  It is supposed to be a nice day.

I have exercise class (maybe) at the Adult Activities Center (AAC).   Our teacher had his last day last Wed., and we have to get a new one, or someone at the AAC has to take over.  I could probably lead it, but I won’t volunteer.  I’m making good headway with the tax receipt entering, so will probably just continue.  John got home in good shape and is going back Wednesday morning to continue pruning (Syrah vines) and see if they can do more than 3 rows, now that he knows what is wanted.  We both rested this afternoon after being awakened at 12:45 a.m. by a hang-up caller.  Not nice.

Tuesday.  No big things happening today till night when I have to play music in town, but John will take a trip earlier to fill his tank with expensive gas.  While there he will pick up my meds and some groceries.  I am spending all my time on tax entry again today.  It’s an overcast day, and John is back from feeding the horses and exercising the dogs.  They had to tiptoe around a herd of deer again today.

It rained on me tonight going and coming from town.  We had a nice play time and singing, and the other fiddler and I twin-fiddled 3 Irish songs at the end after everyone else quit.  Pretty cool.

Wednesday.   John got up, feed the horses, and left for the vineyard.  I slept in !!.  Guess I needed it. I was awake at least twice with nightmares.  I just cannot let school go and get on with my life (so John muses).  The dream was about a large GIS class the first day of the quarter and I didn’t have enough room, plus students without the prerequisites were signed in, in record numbers.  Then somehow dog kennels were being brought in by a former student to set up as carrels, but I didn’t have computers there.  The other thing in the dream was that a student who was going to drop had brought Bundt type cakes (4 of them) and was carrying them around offering them to everyone.  I had a piece of sweet sugar-covered raspberry cake.  I was also frantically calling the registrar’s office and running around to two different buildings looking for available classroom space.  I even remember thinking that I had to be careful getting so much exercise with my heart condition.  Holy mackerel, I was glad to awaken.  Still it was hard to get back to sleep.  How do you stop thinking about such stuff after you wake?

Now I have eaten.  John bought a couple of bananas and told me to eat one and then look up “banana equivalent dose” on the web.  Maybe later; I’m getting ready to start on emails, and then worry about going to the hospital for a blood draw and on to exercise class.  I hope to visit my friend in the hospital (surgery) while there, but the past two days she has not felt up to visitors.  How WELL I understand that.  Turns out I got there for my blood draw and walked around to Med-Surg to see if she could visit, and she had already been released.  So, I went to exercise after putting a few gallons of expensive gas ($3.72/gal.) in my “mid-grade or premium gas only” car.  Stayed after today for 2 games of pool.  I won both.

Thursday.  John plans to go again to prune.  Nice thing is that he will get a bottle of wine for each work hour.  If it stays wet and cold here at home we’ll reconstitute our wine cellar (he’d like to spend some time here with the horses).  That will more than pay for the gasoline.  He’s off and it is a beautiful day.  I have only to do tax entry today and go play music this afternoon at Dry Creek.  We both got home safely, and I think he will prune again  tomorrow.

Friday.   Woke up to SNOW and it is still coming down at 10:00 a.m., but slowing.  John went to the vineyard.  The location is 1,000 feet lower than here and there is very little threat of rain there this morning.  I will go to a scholarship luncheon and to the Adult Activity Center. I enjoyed my lunch of baked potato with all sorts of stuffings to bury it in.  Then I left there for my exercise class that was mostly a “late” St. Patrick’s Day party.  We had Irish bread, mint cookies, and punch with lime sherbet.  I didn’t have much of the food because I had just eaten, but I tasted the bread and the cookie because our leader had cooked them herself.  Then we visited and played games.  I played two games of Nintendo Wii bowling – new to me.  Really pretty neat (and that comes from a previous bowler).  You can actually turn the remote controller and put a “hook” on your virtual bowling ball.  I walked toward the screen as if I was on a lane (an alley).  Prizes were awarded to the high scorer, but I did not win.  My partner did, however, and she shared her goodies.  I brought home a microwavable bucket of popcorn and some chocolate covered raisins.  John was home when I got here and had taken the dogs for a run.  He then slept while I worked.

Nothing is planned for Saturday.  John won’t go back to prune till Monday morning.  Hopefully it won’t be raining all day tomorrow and he can get out to work with the horses.  I need to walk to the barn to see about learning how to feed again.  I have not helped since before I had the heart attack in Nov. 2009.  Guess it is about time I learned the procedure now with the 6 horses.  John said they were really wild tonight running up and down the pasture, jumping the ditch, and playing tag.  He was happy he had not taken the dogs – when it has been raining they come back carrying dirt and worse from the pasture into the house.

Hope you all have another good week.   We send our best regards to all our faithful readers.

P.S., did you Google, banana equivalent dose ?  You should.  It’s interesting and relevant to the nuclear news from Japan.

Sunday had only Taize’ in the evening; Monday SAIL exercise; Tuesday, started the morning by attending the final project presentations for Intermediate GIS, a class I used to teach.  Will do the same for the rest of the week.  This is the last week of classes for Winter Quarter, with finals next week and then Spring Break.  It snowed some this morning, but was all clear by the time I got out of class, so I came home and got John and we went back to town for lunch and to Yakima to pick up a package sent from Arkansas to the Wal*Mart store there.  It is a neat inverter to provide an electrical outlet  (AC) from the cigarette lighter (DC) in the car.  It was about half the price anywhere else.  While there we put a few gallons of gas in the Subaru, and took a run through Costco.  There is always something there new and interesting.  That’s part of Costco’s business plan – they want you to go often so you don’t miss special things and they hope you will buy other stuff while there.  They may only have an item once and when sold out it is never seen again.  John found a small bag of “fingerling” potatoes from Colorado. There are several colors and they are about the size of medium dog-do.

http://www.mvproduce.com/

I have been frustratingly busy the rest of the afternoon dealing with billings from medical providers, Medicare, and the insurance company.  This is a constant struggle.  It raised my blood pressure this afternoon trying to figure why the same service is charged at different rates ( John and me) at the eye doctor and at the Heart Center (me on two occasions for an identical service).  Makes NO sense.  The deductibles are a challenge too.  One time last month I was told the Group Health deductibles started Oct 1 instead of Jan 1.  Today that was reversed by a different agent.  Medicare pays some things and Group Health picks up some, sometimes, and not others.  Go figure.    I’m still confused, frustrated, and ticked off.  I will check tomorrow with the actual doctor’s office accountant and then call back Medicare and Group Health for interpretations.  For us, the medical care providers (doctors, nurses, and technicians) have been fantastic.  The government is involved so the billing, paying, and paper work is unbelievably cumbersome.  It reminds one of the saying “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”  This was one of Ronald Reagan’s favorite sayings.

http://politicalhumor.about.com/cs/quotethis/a/reaganquotes.htm

Tonight was playing & singing music with The Connections (a religious group) at Hearthstone.  Now I’m coming home at 8:00 p.m. to eat and to head to bed sooner than normal because of another early morning at CWU.

Wednesday.  Today is our neighbor’s 85^th birthday so tonight we are going to a party. First, there is the class at school, and then SAIL exercise at 1:30, too bad I don’t have something at noon.  Actually I came home and worked on talking to the insurance company about conflicting things with my medical bills.  Most of it revolved around required deductibles needing met ($250 for each of us).  Yesterday I had actually found an error with one of the bills and will be refunded $17.39.  After my exercise class I stayed with two other gals and played 4 games of pool.  I haven’t played pool in over 40 years.  It was fun and we will be doing that again, I’m sure.  Came on home and spent the time on the phone again before going to the party about another bill for me for my care in 2010.  One thing I found and still cannot explain is an $80 charge that I owe nothing on but for which Medicare paid $142.  That sounds fishy and strange and no one could explain it.  I haven’t received an accounting from Medicare yet for that, so will wait to see.  Then I questioned a June 2010 time at the hospital for my ICD implant.  The total paid was over $10,000 for everything from the surgery to using the surgery room, the recovery room, pharmacy, and supplies.  All were paid except for two pharmacy charges.  The response was that those are drugs (self-administered) that Medicare won’t cover.  Well, nothing can be self-administered in a hospital, and so I cannot imagine what it might be.  It is over $130 that I owe, and it is not covered by my supplemental insurance either.  Gee whiz; WHY?  So I noticed that Medicare had paid the bill and Group Health had paid nothing.  I called to ask and was told to pay the bill from the hospital and then get on line and download a form to fill in and submit for their review of the meds that were not covered, and that “possibly” Group Health would reconsider and pay.  Okay– I’ll play the game, but WHY?  What’s the sense of having supplementary insurance if they don’t pick up a small part that Medicare doesn’t.  $130 is a pittance when you consider the $10,000 Medicare paid.  This whole system is crazy, but I will continue to question.  It pays off often enough to make it worthwhile.

Another thing I found out this morning was that my eye doctor billed Medicare for $142.00 for the same thing John had done for $30, on the same day with the same doctor.  Also, they charged a separate $44.00 for “refraction” which neither Medicare nor Group Health would pay.  Turns out that means a charge for providing a prescription for glasses, neither of us needed.  I don’t because I have intraocular lens giving me 20/20 vision, and John’s current glasses were fine.  The “refraction” part was tacked on without discussion – apparently it always has been, and been paid for when Group Health was the primary payer.  Now they are “secondary” and Medicare is “primary” and nobody pays.  Go figure!  So it seems to us this is a “stealth” charge in the eye exam.  John’s was accidentally left off, but mine was there.  Attention to detail?  Something is not right with this picture!  We have decided NOT to have a refraction done next time we have an eye exam if it will be charged above the exam fee (already $154), and I have also decided I’m not going in for an eye exam until I have some concern with my eyesight.

Friday.  John got up early and checked for news via the Internet and learned of the earthquake in Japan — awful news.  We don’t have a working antenna for the TV so we watched live “feeds” on the BBC on the Internet.  I left early for two hours of final presentations for Intermediate GIS.  There were 23 reports starting Tuesday this week, and I enjoyed being a part of it–more so this year than last when I was still very weak, using a walker and John had to drive me.  Both other events for the day were cancelled, so I have the afternoon free to catch up on bill paying and organizing.  Thus far half the afternoon is gone and I have been emailing the entire time.   John got a nap, so that’s good.   I never did.  He fixed us a great dinner, and I did complete some of the things on my list of to-dos.  Now I’m tired, and ready for bed, but it’s only 8:00 p.m.  Thank goodness tomorrow is not an early start day.

Saturday.  Today is only playing music at Briarwood Retirement Community, but, they will feed us something at the end at 3:00 p.m. — strange time and one that matters at home for both lunch and supper, but that’s the schedule.  We play from a little before 2:00 till 3:00.

Saturday.  We have spent about an hour so far this morning following the events in Japan from the earthquakes and tsunami. Most folks are unaware that a similar event is possible along our Washington State coast although the WA coast is less populated.  There was a 9.1 quake (the Japan one is said to be 8.9) on January 26, 1700 at about 9 p.m. that shows up here in the physical landscape and was documented by written reports of a tsunami (then of unknown origin) in Japan. A summary is here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1700_Cascadia_earthquake

Longer materials are here:

http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp1707/

This is called “the Orphan Tsunami” and the materials are very large files so don’t click on any of the downloads unless you have a broadband connection.  The link above shows the cover illustration and lists all the parts of the book.  Part 3, near the bottom of the listed items is most relevant to the evidence from WA’s coast.

The National Geographic folks have produced a television episode about this to be shown this Sunday:

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/mega-quake-5563/Overview

Maybe we can find someone to visit where we can watch.

Suppose I will stop this now and give to John to put on the blog.

Hope you all have a good week.

Best regards from Nancy & John and all the critters.

Sunday—early.  I am calming down from a rude animal awakening.  Sunny, the cat, sailed across the room and onto the table beside my recliner, knocking everything off.

John claims Sunny was playing zoom-zoom.  She had just run into the back room where he was at the computer, used him to launch herself up to the window sill,  growled, turned and again using his lap, charged back down the hall for her visit with me.

I was napping after an early morning potty stop and letting the dogs out.  I hadn’t even gotten on my computer yet, nor eaten breakfast.  Luckily I didn’t have a cup of coffee on the table.  So, while I was picking up the stuff, John came into the den and let Dan (male Brit) out into the backyard.  I didn’t know that and when Annie and Shay came running into the room, I opened the back door to let them out–only to realize Dan was out there.  I screamed and stepped outside with my down booties (leather bottoms) on the snow on the patio–not a good idea, but I didn’t fall.  I yelled and yelled at Annie to come in, while Dan was interested in her.  She isn’t far enough into her cycle for a breeding or we would have had one.  Scary, exciting, and I’m sure raised my blood pressure.

I have rested for a couple hours now and put on a CD of Greg Brown with Iowa Waltz and a number of other great songs, that I picked up for a quarter at a yard sale.  He has blues and western stuff on it.  Very good.  I have two other albums that I listened to during the afternoon.  This one doesn’t have a date, but the next one is 1992,  published by Red House Records in Minnesota, his own recording company he, oddly enough named after a Red House he lived in, in Iowa City, IA.  We were in Iowa City from the late 1960s till we left in 1974 for Idaho.  I looked him up on the web, and found he is still performing and doing gigs.  He was born in 1949 and writes all his own songs.  What a talented person.  He began performing when 18.   I’m now listening to a song called, “The train that carried Jimmie Rodgers home”, with yodeling in Jimmie Rodgers style.  Pretty cool.  At the same yard sale, I picked up a copy of Jimmie Rodgers singing 24 of his songs.  I already wrote about that in an earlier blog.

John cleaned off all the new 4 inches or so of snow that fell.  Now it is sun shining, with blue sky.  Only got to 25 last night and now is up to 37.  A veritable heat wave… ha ha.

Back to last night’s concert.  We went with two friends who enjoy guitar music.  It was fabulous, and we had pretty good seats near the front.  I wish I had taken my camera to get a few video shots of this guy with his incredible talent.  He really is a one—man band, and is able to record himself on different tracks with “drum” sounds on his guitar, and picking, and building on his own work right in front of your eyes.  He also did a cute “reverse” trick with the electronic tracker.  He displayed it first by saying Ellensburg, Washington correctly, and then showing what it sounded like when “reversed”.  Then he listened to the reverse sounds 4 times and repeated them into the mike, and recorded that.  Then reversed to hear the town name come out again in reverse, from the reversed sounds.  Amazing.  Then he asked if it was anyone’s birthday in the audience.  He played a birthday song that no one recognized (which turned out to be Happy Birthday, backwards).  Then he played that reverse track, and it was amazing.  This guy is GOOD and very talented.  We will go back to another concert of his when he is in the region.   We recommend him to you if you ever see him coming to a place near you.  Last week’s blog mentioned his name, Trace Bundy, and website.

Monday.   My goodness; more snow.  John says we will be having a few inches at a time off and on all week.  Started at 6:00 a.m. with nothing, let the dogs out and in and about 6:30 it was snowing hard with big flakes.  Then it slowed, and now is back at it again.  We must have had 4 inches in the past 3 hours.  Good it’s a slow day…well, I thought so, but just heard I have a lecture to attend at 4:00, and there is my SAIL exercise at 1:30.  I decided to let it snow and canceled my trip to town today.  I’m not involved in the decision of my replacement anyhow.  Our mail today brought a cool freebie from my signing John and me onto myclassichits.com , the local Classic Hits from the sixties and seventies radio station.  It is a CD of the Doobie Brothers called World Gone Crazy.  I’m playing it now and it has a great beat on all the songs.  Looked it up on the web and found a critique that says it is the best of their past several records.

Tuesday:  I was “snowed under” with snow, trips to town over unplowed roads, to the store, through email and web applications for my colleagues, cleaning and looking for materials from my old Intermediate GIS course, and cleaning again for a couple of hours.  I’m making progress, very slowly.

My early trip to town was to have my feet “done”. First time in my life I have ever had a pedicure.  Truly.  First they soaked them in very hot water, and then determined my dry skin was a fungus so recommended I get an anti-fungal cream and apply it.  Then she (a nurse) cleaned the nails, cuticles, etc., and even used a Dremel tool for sanding off my nails on my right foot.  That made the edges bleed (not good for a Coumadin patient whose blood is slow to clot), and then trimmed the toenails.  Switched to the left foot and that one didn’t require the Dremel tool.  Then she rubbed my legs and feet down with some sort of body cream.  Boy, did I get the treatment.  This is a service (for a $10 donation) of the Senior Center in town.  Guess I will do it monthly from here on out.  I still am flexible enough to reach my feet but it is nice to have it done by a professional with all the right tools and creams.

Wednesday:   just SAIL exercise today and a stop by the hospital lab for my monthly INR blood draw (turned out to be on the high side ~ 3.2; last month 2.9; and should be ~ 2.5), and on home by way of the house being lifted from the flood plain.  It was a gorgeous sunny day with blue skies and the house has now had the lower concrete base put down with the wooden frames up for the walls.  (John claims what I saw are called “footers”, and says look here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_akSziGAH4

There are additional parts, so look for them.)

Spent the rest of the afternoon working on cleaning off the counter between the kitchen and den.  It still needs more work.  This is a several year accumulation.   I did find a copy of a picture of our dog Cedaridge Vintage Cork winning a BOW (Best of Winners) in a show in April 2009.  We had lost this and just now turned it up!  It had not even been opened, and the bill was not paid till later when I was in the hospital and they sent an overdue notice.   John had paid it but we didn’t know it had actually been delivered.  John scanned the photo and brightened the colors so the digital version is much nicer.  He also brightened up my copies of the pictures I took of the house lifting.

Thursday:   Worked this morning on adding music, “Beautiful, Beautiful, Brown Eyes” for piano and transposed to a B flat clarinet.  Turned out it was all wrong, so I have to go back to the “drawing table” – times change; I’m using a keyboard and a mouse.  I don’t know what I did and haven’t had time to figure it out yet.  We realized when we started playing that it didn’t fit together correctly.

I was gone all afternoon, playing violin two places, first at a nursing home, and then we drove a little over a mile to a couple’s house to entertain a “shut in”, and then I left early to go to a lecture on “Armchair travel to the Two Berlins.”   It was very interesting and presented to the CWU Retirement Association.  There was food and wine afterward but we went grocery shopping instead and to pick up my meds.  Tried to get home for John to feed animals before dark, but failed.  We also had to get gas in his car, and the regular price is up to $3.429/gal for regular, the cheapest in town (surprise at the 76 station with a car wash where we never go).  My Subaru takes only the higher test and it is 20 cents/gallon higher.  John had driven my car to town and I was able to park on campus in front of the place, arrived slightly late (couple of minutes), but then I dropped him off at “my” car on the way home in the parking lot of the old Albertson’s store, which just closed in our town.  It was rather strange how we pulled that off.  We cannot park on campus (but with one car), and the streets around the campus all are No Parking.  For dinner, it was late,  but is a pork loin roast we got at the store on sale.  It was so good, we picked up two more on Saturday’s trip.

Friday:  Today another busy one — but TGIF.  Even not working I can still feel the relief it is the end of the week.  Tomorrow we actually don’t have anything scheduled.  I drove by the “being lifted” house on the way home and the wood was off the concrete, so the walls are standing.  Placing the forms and getting ready for concrete is a part I missed, so here’s a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlBZA80gLw8

I did not have my camera today.  Darn.   I guess they are just going to lower it down to the new wall.  This is rather fun watching it evolve and not knowing what the plans are.

The busy day started with going to the Senior Center potluck (was supposed to be ham and rolls, but was spaghetti and meat sauce instead).  There were several salads and garlic bread and cookies & chocolate pie for dessert.  An insurance agency called Sterling Health was there with free ice cream sundaes with all sorts of trimmings, but I didn’t have one.  I took their bag of goodies, however.  Clip for potato chips or cereal bags, strong magnetic clip for hanging something on the stove or refrigerator, pens, and note pads.  Why not?  I already have medical insurance and don’t need any supplements.  Then a little after Noon, my friend (on the accordion) and I (on the fiddle) started singing and playing with and for the 31 people there for lunch.  She brings Xeroxed copies of the words to the songs, and so the audience can sing. For this month it was all Irish songs.  I dressed in green for the occasion.  Sat down and visited with several who were at the lunch who also are in my exercise class, and then we had class for an hour.

After that I went grocery shopping and came back home, stopped at the end of the driveway, got out of the car to get the mail, and when I opened the mailbox and reached in, and closed it, it had a sort of squeaky sound.  Suddenly I heard another loud squeaking sound like an old metal wheel.  I looked to see what might have been on the road, but when I heard it again, I realized it was from above my head, from a bald eagle up in the top of a cottonwood tree.  I “talked” to it (don’t know if a he or she), and it quit making the noise.  My friend in Idaho said I just don’t know how to speak very good eagle.  I got back in my car and called John on my cell phone and told him to bring his camera up to the mailbox to take a picture.  Luckily, he got there and took two pictures before the bird left.  John never heard the sound.  It was quite weird and something I have never heard in my life.  That is the closest to an eagle I have ever been, too.  Pretty neat.

I haven’t found the exact sound I heard, but this comes very close:

http://pelotes.jea.com/AnimalFact/Birds/eagle.au

Saturday:  Woke to an inch of new snow – all is white, again.  Nothing planned today, but the unplanned happened.  John had to finish publishing, stamping and folding the KVTR newsletter that needed to be in today’s mail.  We didn’t make it in time for pickup at the end of the driveway, so needed to go to town to the post office.  That was okay, because we also went shopping and to take more pictures of the house lifting from the floodplain.  Nice sunny day.  I stayed in the car at the store and talked to my friend (since grammar school) who lives in West Virginia.  She’s retired now and has found some pictures of us when we were in the 3^rd or 4^th grade.  She scanned them and sent to me.  It was cool.  The most recent one she sent was of our Brownie Troop #327 Band, in which I was playing a ukulele.

Okay, I will end this now and get it to John to put on the blog.  We are at the end of the week, and Annie is very attractive to Dan, but we will not let them breed.  No puppies this year.

Hope you all have a good week.   Best regards from Nancy & John and all the critters.