on
the Naneum Fan @ Rock N' Pondersosa (John's name
for our place)
FOR
BEST VIEWING, LINE UP YOUR MARGINS TO
ALLOW THE LAST ROW OF 4 PHOTOS TO BE
ALL SEEN.
WARNING - this is long. You
may decide not to follow all the
links :-)
Nancy and
John Dec 14, 2012 at a scholarship potluck luncheon
with Pecan Pies John made using his mom's recipe
Thoughts on a winter’s day
— as usual started by John
before Dec 21 (on 12/15/12) — now we know
the world is the same as we know it -- now 12/21 - made it
through
Winter 2012---Something to think
about
Today is Saturday the 15th
of December and some folks believe the world is going to end
next Friday.Will
it?Good
question!Just in
case, we’ll (try to) rush this greeting so the writing effort
is not wasted. From Nancy -- I didn't get it
finished, but we are still here on the Solstice. This
treatise John wrote is too much fun and educational to
eliminate, so keep reading.
From Shakespeare's Hamlet, 1602:
HAMLET: To be, or not to be: that is
the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
Will we be, or not be, after next
Friday?Reference
is to the Mayan calendar roll-over of Baktun.Last year the end of
world date, or The Rapture, – May 21 – failed and so was
rescheduled for Oct. 21 when it again failed.There have been many
such expectations and so far all have failed.Don’t give all your
stuff away and stand on a mountain top -- waiting.One could become a
skeptic if this sort of thing keeps happening.
It is the Christmas Season for many and other seasons for
others.A few
real cards have arrived with a common theme that gatherings of
family and friends or even long distance contact is a favorite
seasonal thing.We
recently shared a meal with friends, he of Italian descent,
and partial to Bagna
Cauda.Conversation
included references to food parties of the past, one being
fondue (cheese, chocolate, oil) and all the things dunked into
the pot.We
mentioned Genghis Khan,
a 1970s thing of heating stuff over a domed iron plate over
charcoal. Hosts
and guests had not heard of this (we’re older) and so wanted
to know more.I
said I’d look it up.
That led to this observation: we keep having to
unlearn things.George
Washington was presented as a man that would not tell a lie.Then we hear he did
not chop down a cherry tree.So why did he admit to doing so?Years ago we
switched to margarine because it was better for one’s health.Apparently not.Still, it was fun
breaking the little yellow bit of coloring and working it into
the packet of semi-soft sort of white stuff and making yellow
stuff.Johnny
Cash “borrowed” the essence of his famous hit, Folsom Prison
Blues.There are
many of these but the Genghis
Khan cooker is the latest. The domed iron item
occupying the space between hot coals and the food was said to
be fashioned after the helmets worn by the troops of Genghis
Khan.Just a week
ago an item on the internet claimed this was a Japanese
marketing ploy used by Hokkaidō sheep growers to increase the
use of mutton in people’s diets.They promoted the story that Mongolian soldiers used
their helmets for cooking. It
was, and is, marketed with the name Jingisukan. It was mental anguish
to find out about this deception.
Some of these things are simple disappointments.Still, questioning
every thing you hear and read is time consuming if you want to
know what is true.It
is much easier just to disbelieve everything and move on.But what if you
don’t move on.
Consider the end of the world next Friday.The impetus for this
world shattering (or not) event is the Mayan Long Count
Calendar.All
that will happen, so it seems, much like the odometer on an
auto when it reads all 9s, is that the numbers all switch to
zero and it starts over.So, not a problem.Move on.Then
in an idle moment or at night when you wake – there it is
again.What’s
that calendar all about.So, you work your way back.It is not called the
Long Count Calendar for nothing.This will be the 13th time for the passage
of 144,000 days which takes us to 1,872,000 days ago for the
calendar start date.That
would be 3,114 BC – using today’s Julian calendar.But the Maya
civilization established the calendar in about 500 BC, roughly
2,600 years after -- -- --.After what?No
one knows.If the
world ends next Friday we will die, never knowing.Perchance to dream.
Ay, there’s the
rub.
Something to think about
when you lie down to sleep on the Solstice.
but not before thinking of this weather forecast sent by a
friend:
Here we go, Nancy here, who tried
diligently to get this out on the web before Dec 21. I'm
only 3 months off. Happy St. Patrick's Day for 2013 !
This includes highlights for our year, perhaps more than you
care to receive, so just skip down and look at the photos, or
the titles of events. Many will be links to web pages
describing things we participated in or were affected by the
year of 2012. A few of our weekly blog readers have had
a preview of some of this, but I have tried to break them up
into the events only and have added some photos, perhaps many
you have not previously seen.
We haven't had any beautiful "silver frost" (officially
hoar frost) this year yet, and last year we received it Dec.
22; photos here from last year. (We had some,
Jan 2013, but will save for next year). We still have
all 6 horses, as seen below.
We still
have many resident deer (14 was the highest count at
one time on our property; saw up to 20 on the
neighbors'). Toward the end of December, we
missed getting pictures of a buck with 4 points on
each side of his head, a nice rack of antlers, but we
do have a few pictures to share of others taken this
year. If you look back at 2010
greetings, you'll see a picture of a bigger buck near
the bottom of the page in an oval shape:
We had 3 does each with fawn twins
this year. Doe with horse behind. Our
horses and deer co-exist well. Here is the
smaller buck of our herd. Later, he lost his
antlers, and one of our Brittanys (Annie) found it on
their exercise run, retrieving it to John, and a
couple weeks later, John found the other.
Our Mt. Ash Tree with Silver Frost
(2011); Doe eating berries; Rascal stalking Starling (upper
rt) & earlier climbing in Nanking Cherry
tree.
Merriam Wild Turkeys Fly -- keeping them safe
from cougars and coyotes, both of which we have. One
neighbor saw a bear this year too. The middle
picture was taken Christmas about noon, from our back
computer window, of 4 of the 5 walking into our pasture.
The fifth was there but I couldn't get it in pix. The
picture on the right was taken earlier in the year to show a
Quail sentry on the bird feeder. It is the lost feeder we
are looking for to use for winter feeding.
Neat views around our home, on the
Naneum Alluvial Fan. Mammatus clouds in August; Cirrus
clouds in December; Tamaracks (Larch) in fall.
VISITORS CAME THIS YEAR FROM OUT OF
STATE
Casey and Sonja Willitts from South Lake Tahoe, NV
Fred and Ann Joyal from
Marquette,
MI
Jim and Jean Hinthorne from Silver City, NM
We
met Sonja in Moscow, ID in 1977 when she bought a Brittany
puppy from our first litter. She and Nancy traveled
all over the PNW going to dog shows and field trials, and
carrying our horses along to the trials. When we met
Sonja, she was 18 and now Casey, her daughter, is
18.
October 1, we enjoyed our nice (annual) visit from Fred
& Ann Joyal, who come to visit his relatives in
Spokane, WA and northern ID. We usually meet
part-way in Moses Lake, WA for lunch. They live in
upstate Michigan and have been friends from Iowa, since
1970. We had a Brittany, they had a Black Lab, and
we went on many upland game bird/duck hunting/training
trips together or just hiking around the Coralville
Reservoir. John and Fred once went on a Colorado elk
trip, from Iowa; and then they and their dog helped us
move a huge U-Haul van to Idaho in 1974. We were
pulling my old '35 Ford, filled, and we pulled their car
with the U-Haul. Ann and I had their dog and our
Brittany in our stationwagon, along with our two
cats.
July 4th, we spent in George, WA (yep, really, & with
a restaurant there, Martha's Inn Cafe-now closed), with
friends, the Hinthornes, we have known since 1988, when I
began teaching in the GIS class and workshop offerings
with Jim (a Geologist) at CWU, using the old Unix based,
G.R.A.S.S. software. They travel up most years
because their daughter and family live in
Ellensburg. This year they stayed in their RV at
Crescent Bar, mentioned below in the discussion of White
Heron winery and vineyard. At George, WA east of us,
each year there is a fabulous all day concert in the
park. They provide a large free cherry pie and there
is no cost to attend. They bake it in a 15 x 15 ft.
flat metal pan with cherry filling that has pre-baked and
shaped biscuit pieces on top. They charge 50 cents
for ice cream on top.
JOHN'S
TRIPS TO WHITE HERON WINERY TO
PRUNE WINE GRAPES
Spring 2012 found
John driving an hour each way daily to White Heron
Cellars (winery) and the Mariposa vineyard to help for 3
hours with wine grapevine pruning. On his way
back, he'd stop and buy some large Honeycrisp apples
from Double Diamond in Quincy, a distributor with
controlled atmosphere buildings.
Follow this link, http://www.ellensburg.com/nancyh/HoneyCrispApple2012.html
, to learn more and to see a documented example of their
size on a scale. Meanwhile, without pictures of
any of the pruning, we'll send you to a page about the
White Heron winery and vineyard, where we used to take
our class (Geog 465: Wine, A Geographical Appreciation)
for a field trip, tour of the winery and the vineyard,
and where we would have a catered dinner with 6
small courses and a different wine with each. It
was the highlight of the entire summer class.
This link will give you a little introduction:
http://www.ellensburg.com/nancyh/WhiteHeronCellars2012.html
OTHER
SPRING EVENTS: 5 NEW BARN
KITTIES & BLOSSOMING
VEGETATION
Take a peek here,
for more information from April, 2012:
NANCY'S TRIP TO GUYTON,
GEORGIA FOR THE WILKINS FAMILY REUNION
Confluence of Sava and Sora rivers
Mary's
Mountain
Medvode is a town in
Slovenia. The Sava & Sora rivers join there, from
which the town's name is derived.
The
significance is that's where my grandmother, Alouisa Petash
Wilkins, grew up within view of Mary's Mountain. She
came to the USA when 16, in 1902. She met our
grandfather, John Benjamin Wilkins, a carpenter and builder
from south Georgia, while he was working on the construction
for new growth related to 100,000 from people moving into
Vancouver, BC. They married in 1910 and moved to Seattle
for him to work, possibly on construction associated with the
Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, which was a world's fair held
in Seattle in 1909, publicizing the development of the Pacific
Northwest. We know he worked on the Smith Tower, an
early high-rise building in Seattle that still stands
today. Their first 3 children were born in Seattle; my
mom was the 3rd. They moved back to southeastern Georgia
to the old Wilkins farm (Hickory Hill) outside Guyton, GA in
1915.
For more about
the Washington State connection and this year's reunion, go
to:
JULY - WASHINGTON
OLD TIME FIDDLERS MUSIC WORKSHOP
The last week in
July is always the time the Washington Old Time Fiddlers
Association (WOTFA) puts on a week-long workshop with
classes to take for all ages and many different
instruments. This year John took a guitar class, but
didn't do very well because of arthritic type fingers that
keep him from making the reach needed for chords. I
took an Intermediate/Advanced Fiddle class with my
favorite violin teacher, Roberta Pearce, from Nampa, ID, whose
class I have been in for 19 years! Someone jokingly
said, "You should have learned by now." The reason I go
back every year, is that she's like family, and every year she
teaches us a different repertoire of songs (~ 16). I
volunteer as her assistant and take care of certain things
with the class, and in addition, I make movies and a few
photos to share with the class. I have one
video to share with readers of this newsletter. I have
uploaded it for you to You Tube. It is a Cajun song
played in cross tuning (strings are tuned differently from the
normal violin). The 2 minute video I took of Roberta and
her daughter, Katrina Nicolayeff, a left-handed fiddler, and
grand champion. Katrina played the fiddle sticks while
Bobbie played the fiddle. This example was what they
used to teach us the song, after we learned the technique of
percussion from Katrina. We paired up and the class had
one person do each part. The class learned the song, and
we had lots of fun. We used chopsticks for the
"fiddlesticks".
Here is the
link to follow. It is not public, but you should be
able to reach it with this link:
Our Kittitas Valley Fiddlers and
Friends music group plays old time dance music and sing-along
songs in nursing, assisted living, and retirement homes.We play every Thursday somewhere,
and one Saturday/month at a retirement center, and I play one
day a week at the Food Bank Soup Kitchen with our Banjo
player, and one day a month in a Blue Grass Jam Session at the
Swauk-Teanaway Grange about 45 minutes from our home. Our group plays the 3rd Saturday of each
month, at Briarwood Commons, a retirement community of
apartments. They always love to have us and create a
potluck for us after we play, with all sorts of good
food. Occasionally we are asked to do other
gigs.It is all volunteered time.Our
group consists of the following instrumentalists:Tambourine (used to be our
accordionist), guitar, violin (fiddle), viola, banjo,
bass fiddle, mandolin, clarinet, and sometime
spoons. I'm the "lead" singer and conductor.
Only several of us sing. A few people cannot sing
and play at the same time.
This year we did the community Spirit
of The West celebration in February, the Riverside Christian
School Auction/Dinner in Yakima in March, a July 4 celebration
on July 2, and a Mormon
holiday special on their Pioneer Day July 21, held outside
(with good food) at an old schoolhouse in the valley.
Some of us also went to the northern part of the county for
music at the square dancing celebration the Mormon Trek (no
photos). There, I even called one square dance, "Oh,
Johnny Oh." Our music group member for many years was
a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
(LDS), and he arranged places for us to entertain for church
functions for years. Sadly, cancer took his presence
away from us. He is in several of the photos taken at
2012 play dates, seen on the next link.
John continues to use his green
thumb to plant vegetation, trees, bushes, flowers, and fruit
berry bushes, or move native vegetation around. He
planted asparagus this year. Shortly after planting 25
plants in a long row, we realized I'm unable to eat
asparagus because of the Vitamin K conflict with one of my
blood thinner required medications. We know our
friends will be happy to eat the extra John cannot, but I
can eat a little.
The work crew for Microsoft's Day of Caring for trail work near
Issaquah. John is a WTA Asst Crew Leader (orange hat) -
others were there.
John
got out again this summer for some Washington Trail
Association work; only day trips, again because I am
still not capable of taking care of the horses' feedings
and exercising the dogs twice daily for a week (or even
daily). This year he was not working in very
picturesque places, and thus we do not have many nice
photogenic scenery shots to share as in past
years. However, we have a few.
On John's several "day" trips to
work in the northern part of the Alpine Lakes
Wilderness area, he stopped and bought apples, pears,
and plums from a roadside stand. We had less
work this year in our own orchard with a very small
crop of Rainier, Bing, and Royal Anne cherries.
We had a few pears and several plums, but many
raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries.
Later this fall our seven Carpathian walnut trees
produced a fair amount of walnuts, which John played
tag over with a Douglas squirrel, harvesting them and
bringing in the house to dry.
Late fall, our friends on the south side (north facing
slope) of the valley invite us over to pick
apples. They have an orchard, which was
destroyed for commercial use this year by a
hailstorm. They invited us over and he and John
picked many boxes of apples: Winter Banana,
Delicious, Gala, Rome, Braeburn, and Honeycrisp.
We made many pounds of dried apples in our dehydrator
last year, and this year more applesauce and ate a lot
of them fresh.
We
mentioned the Honeycrisp story earlier, but if you
didn't follow then, please check:
DECEMBER Festivities. You learned at the
beginning about our Christmas scholarship luncheon, and
there is a little more about the season to share.
Below are gifts we received and one we gave away to the
Adult Activity Center.
A wreath swag from a
neighbor, and a snowy owl ornament from another friend; a real
snowy owl at a friend's barn NW of us; stuffed Rudolph that
Nancy found at a yard sale and donated to the Adult Activity
Center. The geographic ornament just arrived on a card
from a PA geographer, Percy.
We ended the year with
19 musicians at a potluck and jam session - Dec 31,
2012. A very nice ending to the old year.
Here is a cool video for the
season, below.
It's an interesting perspective from a virtual sleigh ride
over the real landscapes, on a December day on Planet Mars,
compiled by NASA from images taken by the High Resolution
Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on board Mars
Reconnaissance Orbiter:
We
lost some good friends, relatives, and animals this year.
Thanks to everyone for all you have meant to
us through the years.
We appreciate your friendship and kinship.Thank you, one and all.
Thanks
also
for
all
annual
greetings
with
letters
and
pictures
we have received in postal mail and electronically for the
2012 year.
We truly value them all and are happy hearing all your news
for the year
from friends and family, far and near.
We wish for
you all to have a nice year and good health in Twenty Thirteen.
Happy Holidays and Seasons Greetings to you:
a very belated Merry Christmas or Happy Chanukah,
with a big Happy New Year's wish to all.
Love and hugs, Nancy and John & all our
critters
Brittanys
(Shay, Meghan, Dan, Annie); Cats (Rascal, Sue, Johnny Cash-ew,
Woody);and you already saw the horses' names at the top of
this page.
HAPPY NEW YEAR
"For auld lang syne", as
it appears in the first line of the chorus, might be
loosely translated as "For (the sake of) old times".
This page was created by Nancy
Brannen Hultquist - Dec 2012-Mar 2013; the
text is from the shared writing of John and Nancy
Hultquist. Comments to nancyh@ellensburg.com(only e-mail account
which John also reads) ornancyb.hultquist@gmail.com
or cedaridge@gmail.com
Cedaridge is our "Brittany" name.