{"id":1050,"date":"2012-09-08T19:43:48","date_gmt":"2012-09-09T02:43:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/hultquist\/?p=1050"},"modified":"2017-12-17T15:34:06","modified_gmt":"2017-12-17T22:34:06","slug":"harvest-festivities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/?p=1050","title":{"rendered":"Harvest festivities!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday night, Sept 1, something that did not make it to the blog.\u00a0 Later that evening I received a cool birthday present.\u00a0 It was an email with subject:\u00a0 [BRITTANY-L] gas-card raffle, stating the following: \u00a0The drawing was held yesterday at the WBC\/GSP of WA Double\/Double Hunt Tests and the winners are C. R. of Kent, WA and Nancy Hultquist from Ellensburg.\u00a0 Congratulations to both and a huge thank you to everyone who bought tickets and supported the 2013 ABC Summer Specialty<\/em>.\u00a0 Cool, eh?\u00a0\u00a0 Turns out when the card arrived in the mail later in the week, it is a VISA that is not specific, so it can be used for anything anywhere.\u00a0 I think I will use it for other treats, even though gasoline only would have certainly been quite nice.\u00a0 I have donated to this club through the years and in recent raffles over the past year, I have won two gifts.\u00a0 Guess my pay out for donations is being rewarded!\u00a0 The other win I had was a happy doggy paw print meant to be used as a dust rag, but I use it to cover and protect my camera when on a tripod and waiting to make movies.\u00a0 (I wish I’d had my tripod along for my trip reported last week on the view around the burned valley from a high spot on a highway crossed by the wildfire.)\u00a0 I will put a link to that in the page I have been sharing.<\/p>\n

Sunday, Sept 2\u00a0 Began early today, delivering squash and yellow beans to 5 families on our way to visit another, who had advertised a Yanmar 1610D tractor 3 cylinder diesel (4WD) with 4 attachments (3-point backhoe with thumb, front-end loader, blade, and box scraper or blade box, depending on to whom you\u2019re talking).\u00a0 Turns out the person is someone I knew from the University.\u00a0 We ended up saying we would buy it.\u00a0 He bought the rig in 2008 (so called \u201cgray market\u201d), but does not really need it on his 1-acre place.\u00a0 He has put about 60 hours on it, since he bought it.\u00a0 He and his friend (another person I know from CWU), will deliver it to us with the friend’s trailer (formerly one of my students!), sometime in the next week.\u00a0 For years, John has been doing things by hand or shovel and using our old 4WD truck. Also with a chain and truck pulling trees, plus digging holes for fence posts, and hauling rocks and gravel around our place, not to mention taking hay from one place to another.\u00a0 Our pole building contractor accomplished much for us between building down-time and after seeing all that, John is happily contemplating more.\u00a0 We hired the backhoe and front-end loader work since 1989.\u00a0 We started searching a month ago, by contacting our friends who are in the businesses which require traveling to construction sites, and we even went to the Kubota dealer in Cle Elum to check out their new ones on our way back from our doctor’s office visits.\u00a0 They don’t ever carry used ones.\u00a0 Checked with another place in Ellensburg, that mostly repairs tractors.\u00a0 Occasionally they sell one for a customer, but don’t have any right now.<\/p>\n

Monday, Sept 3\u00a0 Happy Labor Day. \u00a0Staying home to work on chores in house, and on computer, preparing for the interviews this week for our presentation in Olympia (with my colleague from Geography).\u00a0 John did an amazing amount of work while the temperatures were in the 60s, but still came in for lunch, all sweaty from moving 11 bales of hay from the runway of the barn down to the lower pasture, where he is feeding now, and also he moved two large metal feeders down as well, because this hay is very fine and, if thrown on the ground, would blow to Grant County.\u00a0 It would have been easier with the yet-to-arrive tractor with its front end loader.\u00a0 I’m sitting here munching on Cheetos, after eating lunch, for which John fixed a hamburger, an ear of our corn, and red grapes we bought yesterday at Costco, oh, and I added a yellow tomato one of my friends traded me for the yellow squash we delivered yesterday.<\/p>\n

Tuesday, Sept 4\u00a0 John took off early for a the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) \u2013starting south of Snoqualmie Summit at Windy Pass and working north.\u00a0 John has worked there ~9 years ago.\u00a0 This week he mostly dug a large hole in an abandoned logging road to provide dirt and rocks for rebuilding a trail that had turned into a trench.\u00a0 Others were in the trail digging and setting rock \u201ccheck\u201d dams.\u00a0 Plastic buckets with about 20 pounds of soil had to be hand carried from John\u2019s source into and up the trail.\u00a0 I will add some pictures to our continuing web page for August\/September, that he took on his last work day this week for Washington Trails Association.<\/p>\n

I spent the day on various projects, including the hay presentation, getting money for our recent acquisitions from stock accounts into our checking account, talking to neighbors, getting information on my grandparents’ house in Seattle to my cousin in GA whose son and wife are visiting and want to drive by to see the old house our grandparents built.\u00a0 Then it was fixing BLTs for dinner, cooking a ear of our corn, and numerous other small chores.<\/p>\n

Wednesday, Sept 5\u00a0 John’s going to Windy Pass again.\u00a0 You’d think he’d have enough wind in Ellensburg.\u00a0 I have Food Bank Soup Kitchen and SAIL exercise.\u00a0 Then we meet in EBRG, for dinner at 5:00 with friends. \u00a0Our contribution is a bottle of wine and a pan of our famous Blueberry-Cherry-Walnut Kittitas County Cobbler. \u00a0Big deal finishing a song late for us to play to fulfill a request at the nursing home from a resident.\u00a0 She requested \u00a0“Half As Much.”\u00a0 Now we have added that to our repertoire.<\/p>\n

Thursday, Sept 6\u00a0 Again, John’s off to Windy Pass.\u00a0 I have a 9:00 interview with Anderson Hay and Grain, a processor\/exporter here<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.anderson-hay.com\/<\/a><\/p>\n

. . . and then a fast drive to Kittitas for another interview at 11:00 a.m. with growers and a bite of Taco Thursday lunch at Curly’s; then I drove back to play music at Royal Vista at 2:00.\u00a0 There is another fire east of us in the Parke Creek drainage (no threat to us, but always scary to see smoke filling the valley).\u00a0 It didn’t threaten any homes, but it took firefighters, mostly from the air, 2 days to contain it.<\/p>\n

Friday, Sept 7\u00a0 a LONG day.\u00a0 I had an early morning (8:30 a.m.) appointment with a hay grower in Kittitas, for an interview.\u00a0 It was very interesting and successful, and we also got some good photos.\u00a0 Interesting they are located on Parke Creek and use it to pump irrigation onto their fields, using old water rights that go back for this farm to 1899.<\/p>\n

I made a stop to see the manager of Super One grocery — “a Rosauer’s employees store” — in our town and delivered popped wheat berry samples, four varieties in 4-ounce packets from friends from Condon, OR’s wheat country.\u00a0 We had a nice visit.\u00a0 I picked up four of my meds and some orange juice for John.\u00a0 I forgot the canned cat food we were out of for our inside\/outside cat.\u00a0 He doesn’t like the cheap tuna and tuna\/mackerel (.39\/can) we buy for the ferals.\u00a0 I stopped by the bank and a garage sale on the way home, and found John 3 “new” condition shirts for $1.00 each.\u00a0 It is hard to imagine they were ever worn.\u00a0 One of them had too short sleeves for him (all are long-sleeved because he won\u2019t wear short sleeved ones), but I can wear it.\u00a0 It might have been marked wrong, because the shirt part was also too tight across his chest and shoulders.<\/p>\n

I skipped my exercise class and the potluck with music I normally participate with, because John and I are leaving at 4:30 for an hour+ trip away to be there at 6:00 pm. for a chef extravaganza we go to each year at the White Heron Cellars (winery),<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.whiteheronwine.com\/aboutus.html<\/a><\/p>\n

where John volunteers his labor for pruning and bottling.\u00a0 They bring in 3 chefs from the area, and they gather all local produce, meat, and the cooks have grills and make all sorts of concoctions out of the local products and produce.\u00a0 It is really cool, neat, and good.\u00a0 Then there is a music group to provide entertainment.\u00a0 The view is lovely from up on a hill overlooking the Columbia River gorge as it turns a 90-degree angle and heads south at West Bar \u2013 as shown here: \u00a0(The person in the picture is Cameron Fries, the owner, winegrower and winemaker, and host for the events held throughout the summer and into the fall there.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.winomagazine.com\/blog2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/grand-poobah-2-106.jpg<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019m fairly sure the wine in the bottle he is holding is Roussanne, which he has made since his first planting began to produce after planting in 1990.\u00a0 It is our favorite white wine and he makes a nice dry one.\u00a0 We named our largely white Brittany female (now 5 years old), after it.\u00a0 Her name is Cedaridge Vintage Roussanne.\u00a0 Appropriate or what ?<\/p>\n

I will put a video I took while there on the page below so you can see the view we experience each time we visit the winery.\u00a0 We used to take our Geog 465 class (Wine: A geographical appreciation) there for their first field trip and Cameron always gave us a tour of the vineyard and the winery, and added a 6-course catered dinner with a different wine for each.\u00a0 It only cost the students $30 for the meal, as the transportation costs were included in the field trip costs paid for by their course fees.\u00a0 Tonight\u2019s cost is $25 \/ person, but it is my birthday present every year.\u00a0 We take our lawn chairs and sit up on a bench on the hill that\u2019s carved out like an amphitheater.\u00a0 There was great music (sort of jazzy), or Cascade Mountain Funk as they called it.\u00a0 Food was extraordinary.\u00a0 From memory, I’ll mention a lot of the food, but will add some pictures to the link for your enjoyment.\u00a0 We were presented with honeydew melon cut into flat pieces with fresh peppermint on top, fresh plums, blue cheese on a piece of a mini- pizza, tortilla with local beans, corn, tomatoes, onions, and fresh salsa for on top.\u00a0 Later there was some skewered ground beef mixture with bread crumbs, spices and onions, a little hamburger (tiny) with Feta cheese, grilled tomatoes halved with cheese seasoned and sprinkled with Panko (Japanese bread crumbs).\u00a0 There was grilled trout (pen raised near Ephrata) topped with thin sliced Gala apples, and something else, maybe Kohlrabi (?) or a cheese?\u00a0 The only dessert was corn fritters deep fried as we arrived, with a sauce on top, made up of blueberries in raspberry compote.\u00a0 I will follow up this mouth-watering description with pictures.\u00a0 The 1.5 hr drive back was not nice, in the dark, but it was worth it.\u00a0 John drove over and I drove back, as the designated driver.\u00a0 I only had a taste of Rose’ and Roussanne wines, because of my limitations by the meds I’m on.\u00a0 Our outing was really fun, plus we met some friends there and had a nice visit… plus short visits with the very busy owners.\u00a0 Here is the introduction by Cameron:\u00a0 A number of years ago Farmer Consumer Awareness Days (FCAD) called and asked us if we would do something on the Friday evening prior to FCAD. \u00a0An iron chef type event was suggested and has taken place four times over the years. White Heron, on Friday September 7, 2012, starting at 6 PM, will put on the fifth annual Chef Extravaganza which is designed to complement FCAD by showcasing local food products. \u00a0Three days prior to the Friday are spent collecting produce and meat from farms within ten miles of the winery. \u00a0Three chefs come every year.\u00a0 New this year is Dave Toal from Ravenous Catering, with Richard Kitos from Ivy Wild, and Amilee Cappel-Olsen from Chelan returning from last year. \u00a0In essence, when the chefs get to the winery all the food is piled up, they sort through it, and start making small plates. \u00a0For twenty minutes or so each chef will produce one plate and then they will shift and start to produce something else.\u00a0 This continues throughout the evening until desserts appear. \u00a0The only thing prepared ahead of time is dried beans are soaked so they can be cooked immediately. \u00a0All of the meat and produce are donated by local farms and are gathered in such a way as to be as fresh as possible.<\/em><\/p>\n

Saturday, Sept 8 \u00a0We are getting the “new” used tractor with 4 implements this morning after 11:00 a.m.\u00a0 The seller is delivering it.\u00a0 I will try to add a couple of pictures to the evolving web page, mentioned in several blogs recently. \u00a0I wish I had a picture of John\u2019s first foray with the tractor — rain was threatening tonight and he decided to move it. I have a short segment of him backing it near the smaller of our round pens, and then he went across a corral area just east of the house, navigating two gates to the barn, and backing it into the concrete runway.\u00a0 It is completely protected, and facing out.\u00a0 He then propped up the backhoe on a short length of 4×4, and the front-end loader on planks.<\/p>\n

New material is now on the link, still titled August, but it has extended into September.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.ellensburg.com\/nancyh\/August2012Rock’NPonderosa.html<\/a><\/p>\n

This link will continue to have a few things added this weekend, after this blog is posted, so check back for updates.<\/p>\n

Just now (7:41 pm) there is thunder rolling about us, but no rain yet.\u00a0 Okay, a few drops hit while we fed the horses.\u00a0 So, we\u2019ll post this and think about supper.<\/p>\n

Hope your week was a good one.<\/p>\n

Nancy and John<\/p>\n

Still on the Naneum Fan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday night, Sept 1, something that did not make it to the blog.\u00a0 Later that evening I received a cool birthday present.\u00a0 It was an email with subject:\u00a0 [BRITTANY-L] gas-card raffle, stating the following: \u00a0The drawing was held yesterday at the WBC\/GSP of WA Double\/Double Hunt Tests and the winners are C. R. of Kent, … Continue reading “Harvest festivities!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p72iNf-gW","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1050"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1052,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1050\/revisions\/1052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}