Saturday this week is empty for a change, giving me time to finally cut John\u2019s long locks. \u00a0When he started doing trail work he had thick hair but his hard hat kept coming off so I trimmed his graying hair very short.\u00a0 That is still the plan. \u00a0I\u2019m done now and he is set for awhile.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s 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.\u00a0 We were going to meet them for a Polish sausage and strawberry sundae at Costco, but they invited us instead to their house.\u00a0 We\u2019re taking home grown raspberries and U-pick blueberries.\u00a0 We hoped for good weather so we could leave the dogs out for the several hours we are gone.\u00a0 That\u2019s a long time to be cooped up in the house without being able to potty.\u00a0 At least the cat has a litter box she can use.\u00a0 The weather did not cooperate so we just returned from 5 hours away, leaving everyone in the house. \u00a0They managed to make it through just fine.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Yum.\u00a0 There were scrambled eggs with cheese and onions, cut oranges, bacon, waffles, and our fancy berries.\u00a0 We didn’t have any room left for fresh cinnamon rolls, so some snuck home with us.
\nOn the way back, we went by Costco, and it was a mess.\u00a0 I have never seen so many people in one store in my life.\u00a0 I’ll never do that again.\u00a0 We don’t know if it was because it was raining, or perhaps it was the first Sunday since a paycheck.\u00a0 It was nuts.\u00a0 We were rained on there, and almost all the way home, till we got to Manastash Ridge, and were in the snow again.
\nNorth 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).\u00a0 It had snow all over.\u00a0 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. \u00a0Mt. Rainier is so prominent from the Seattle region that folks just say things, such as, \u201cthe mountain is out today,\u201d which means the fog and clouds are gone and Mt. Rainier, in all its majesty, can be seen.\u00a0 From the Yakima area we can also see Mt. Adams, and there are fewer intervening ridges and being a bit closer, it seems larger.<\/p>\n
Mt. Rainier is a 14,411 ft. slumbering stratovolcano and from our back patio we can see about the top 1,000 feet.\u00a0 It is close to population centers of Puget Sound and an eruption might be very damaging. It is easily visited. \u00a0Mt. Adams, in contrast, is very isolated and most folks will only see it from a distance of 50 miles or so.\u00a0 A good site to see Washington\u2019s mountains is here:<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.photoseek.com\/index.html<\/a><\/p>\n There is a link saying \u201cMt. Rainier\u201d at the bottom left of the first screen, but he has lots more stuff on this site.<\/p>\n Taize\u2019 has been canceled for the night because this begins spring break and the students all leave and go home.\u00a0 They are the ones who actually lead the service, so we need them to be there.<\/p>\n Monday.\u00a0 John expected to go prune wine grape vines again today, but it was cancelled because of the winemaker going to Seattle.\u00a0 The weather looks good for his trip.\u00a0 I went in for SAIL exercise and played two games of pool afterward.\u00a0 We each won one game.\u00a0 On to the grocery store and home.\u00a0\u00a0 Put in some time on tax entry this morning and need to collaborate with John on the stock stuff.\u00a0 Looks as if we don\u2019t have enough deductions to \u201citemize\u201d but just to take the standard deduction instead.\u00a0 Now the rules have changed and we cannot even deduct the purchase of Turbo Tax, or if we had a person do our returns.\u00a0 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 \u201closs\u201d.\u00a0 Still looking for how to solve that.\u00a0 There is no person to call, just searching on line for forums or support FAQs, which are not helping. \u00a0So I\u2019m frustrated.\u00a0 (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.)<\/p>\n Tuesday.\u00a0 Need to apologize to the readers for the blather that seems to be more like a diary coming from us.\u00a0 It has turned out to be a good record for checking back to see what happened when, however.\u00a0 Hope you readers are not bored to tears from reading.\u00a0 We do appreciate your feedback and continued support.\u00a0 Today is a lighter day, but we will be celebrating our neighbor\u2019s 88th<\/sup> birthday with him and his family tonight at dinner.\u00a0 It\u2019s a gorgeous sunny day for a change.\u00a0 Maybe spring has finally sprung.\u00a0 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 \u201cboy,\u201d also from us.<\/p>\n Wednesday.<\/p>\n Morning has broken, like the first morning<\/p>\n Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird . . .<\/p>\n Do you remember that great song?<\/p>\n Many will remember the Cat Stevens\u2019 version but the song is older and worth a look:<\/p>\n http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Morning_Has_Broken<\/a><\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n As morning broke, John left for the vineyard. \u00a0He\u2019s now back and I didn\u2019t go to exercise class today.\u00a0 Stayed to receive a package from FedEx. The package is from a friend from Canada via grad school in Cincy.\u00a0 His company now awards scholarships to masters students to help fund their research.\u00a0 It is competitive, and we are on the review team.\u00a0 We continue to work on things.\u00a0 I got my exercise today walking to the mailbox and back with 3 of the dogs.\u00a0 Then when John got home he took them again for a short stroll.\u00a0 They were very happy because they missed their run this morning when he was in a hurry to feed horses and leave.<\/p>\n We called his cousin this morning in PA.\u00a0 She is celebrating her 93rd<\/sup> birthday today.\u00a0 Good for her and her health and mind is grand.\u00a0 Pretty much the rest of the day was spent on filing and entering tax information.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 He is also retired, but still active in the profession, and we have presented workshops together for many years, till I got sick.<\/p>\n Well, it\u2019s Thursday, and John took off at 7:15 am for the Columbia for more vine pruning.\u00a0 I slept in, and have done some clean up chores on the computer, the paperwork, and the kitchen.\u00a0 Now I\u2019m back resting and working with emails, before I leave for music.\u00a0 I will likely pass John on the road.\u00a0 Kitty has been sleeping most of the morning, with a few bats at the toy hanging in the den, in front of my recliner.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The temp is above 50 now and no longer overcast.\u00a0 I hope that means John had some good weather for pruning too.<\/p>\n Friday came and went and planned things changed.\u00a0 I went for my free shoulder massage and while there learned that my exercise class was pushed up to 11:30.\u00a0 Good that we had canceled the music play date at the Soup Kitchen.\u00a0 After class I dropped by school to turn in two keys, and to carry more no-longer-needed educational stuff to the department members.\u00a0 Then on home to have lunch with John, who had returned.\u00a0 His route takes him between two of our three valley wind energy projects.\u00a0 There are several hundred towers locally and Friday noon not one was moving.\u00a0 Pictures here:<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.pse.com\/multimedia\/documents\/wildhorsephotos.htm<\/a><\/p>\n Company project profile here:<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.pse.com\/ENERGYENVIRONMENT\/ENERGYSUPPLY\/Pages\/EnergySupply_ElectricityWind.aspx<\/a><\/p>\n Saturday we awoke very early to more snow.\u00a0 Before it stopped we had an inch but it changed to rain and took away the snow.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 John\u2019s sister\u2019s weather in Parma, OH is not so nice either, as they are suffering from very cold temperatures in the teens this whole next week.\u00a0 Weird.<\/p>\n We hope you all have another good week and send our best regards to all our faithful readers.<\/p>\n Nancy and John<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Saturday this week is empty for a change, giving me time to finally cut John\u2019s long locks. \u00a0When he started doing trail work he had thick hair but his hard hat kept coming off so I trimmed his graying hair very short.\u00a0 That is still the plan. \u00a0I\u2019m done now and he is set for … Continue reading “SATURDAY — SRS: Snow, Rain, Slush”<\/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":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random-issues"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p72iNf-c9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753","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=753"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":755,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/753\/revisions\/755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rocknponderosa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}