What weird weather we're having #5

rc....how goes the wood moving? Have you had to shoot anybodyLOL.

Yeah rc - how's your trigger finger?

ahhhh thanks for being there for me! I need it most certainly lol.

Gardener... you're a bright one, we couldn't possibly get too far ahead.

Portland..I love that sign! It took me a second to figure out your last post because I do actually have the medical condition called trigger finger (a good excuse for my typos :-p ), and for the life of me I couldn't remember having mentioned that after you joined. But, only a few seconds later I thought to myself... 'I didn't mention it, she means in referrence to the sign goofball'. lol

Sally, your loppers sound great. Happy to hear that you're showing up all of them who laughed. I agree it was much cooler that I was expecting today.

However, fortunately or unfortunately, no one has shown up to confront about the wood again. Darn it! The sawing is coming along slowly since I spent part of the day at the vets and then my Doc decided that they wanted to do a blood test on me, but it's one that needed to be done in Eugene. So, I only spent about and hour and half cutting stuff. :-( Oh well, so long as the people stay away from it, I'm Good with it!!!

That's funny about your trigger finger, not funny ha ha, funny as in strange. My mom has that too, it's a pain. She found massaging it A LOT, helps. Took her to the doc yesterday, he is so pleased with her. She's put on weight, her BP is staying somewhat down and cutting back on one of her meds took the dizzyness away. Yeah!! We went to PH tonight for pizza with the neighbors, lots of talking going on, one of the ladies says her husband was a cute baby.....Mom leans towards her and says (very seriously) "What happened". She about brought the place down. This guy is one who picks on everyone and she has stopped him cold more than once. The look on his face is priceless, he loves it! He was at a loss for words and that just never happens. She's almost back to her old self.

Wow, that's so great to hear that your mom is doing so well Sally! Even better that she was able to stop both the doctor and that lady's husband at the pizza place, in their tracks. It sounds as though they both need it!

The trigger finger is just funny, not bad. I'm getting used to it. The only thing that bothers me about it is truly the typos. I do know how to spell. I used to spend quite a bit of time proofing every little thing that I typed here. I finally said 'ahhhh, what the hell, I have better thing to do with my time' and just hit send once the last letter is typed.

I use spell check^_^

Our doc is great! He's such a good guy, treats mom like a queen. She just amazes him sometimes, but he tells her so. And always, always, thanks me for taking care of her.

This message was edited Dec 4, 2008 1:37 AM

that's great. Your moms' doc sounds like a really great guy. They should all be that way. I can't get my spell check to run for this sort of stuff. For email and documents and such, I can. But, not here or any other places where I'm typing directly to an internet page. If anyone has anythought for me on how I might be able to get my computer to do that, I would love to know!

rc What is trigger finger? I had no idea there was a condition with that name! And I was an RN for many years before I returned to school to become and architect. I guess I was an RN in the "olden days"!

Sally that is so funny about your Mom - what a trooper! my Mom & Dad were here for Thanksgiving and Dad is fine at 92 but Mom has become nasty and complains about EVERYTHING. She was very difficult to be around and we all had to be so patient. Your Mom sounds like a lot more fun - wanna trade?

Doing a 'happy dance' here for your mom, Sally. That is great news! Our youngest ha s been bringing his girlfriend to play cards with mom a few times. The last time they were here, mom came out with a zinger. We all just cracked up.

Portland, don't worry.... You're not a RN from the "olden days." The term and injury has just become much more common as of late because it can be caused be people typing all the time or "excessive use of gardening tools." - no kidding, I didn't make that up! This tells you all about it. http://www.eatonhand.com/hw/hw022.htm Mines a little different that instead of the flexor tendon getting stuck in the bent position, I ruptured the extensor tendon so that I couldn't lift or straighten the finger even if I wanted to. After surgery I have more of the affects of the traditional trigger finger due to scare tissue. If you're really curious I can post some pictures taken after the surgery :-p Sorry to hear about your mom, that's never fun to deal with. But, it sounds as though your dad is handling it well.

Anyhow, probably more than anyone ever wanted to know, but now you can see why my typing is sometimes a little funky

Sally, Didn't I see that your sister has that.... I think. Anyhow, there's a thread or two going around and on trigger finger and I read through it occasionally. I thought that I saw your sister there. Or maybe she was there reading up on your mom's case?

Jan, I would love to see your "happy dance." Feel free to post it anytime! Then we can all do it together! Maybe your mom can join in since she's feeling so spry lately!



This message was edited Dec 4, 2008 10:20 AM

the ☼ is out! Yippee.

Hi all.

Shelly I was reading on one of the threads that you are from the Yakima/Wapato area??
My sister in law lives in Wapato....she and my late brother in law were school teachers....he taught at White Swan.....

Sunshine here too!!!! Sure did get cold last night.........ice on the car window this morning.

Thanks for the kind words and yes the ☼ is out (I won't tell you how long it took me to find the right numbers).

We do happy dances a lot around here. Mom and Dad did ballroom dancing for many years, now she has to settle for chair dancing or bepopping with her walker (which she does). Mom has the trigger finger, sis has arthritus (with a long name I can't pronounce) in her wrists.

The chipper is hard at work, I just got back from exercising in the pool, so I'll go see if I can help.

Portland..sorry about your Mom, I know how hard that is. We got Dad on 'happy pills' the last couple of years he was alive, they really helped. Of course he didn't think he needed them!

rc...my spell check is on my google tool bar, do you have that?

You have a good memory! But no, I am not from there, but all of my family on my dad's side (and there's a lot of them since he was 1 of 10 kids) have lived in that area since about the late 50's. My dad had to "get away from the clan" as he put it, and moved down here in the 70's. But, the rest of them stayed up in Toppenish and Yakima. A few cousins are in Wapato and Zilla. One of my Aunt+Uncle moved to a smaller (than those towns) town a few years ago, I'm not so sure that it wasn't White Swan. I go up there once or twice a year and sort of "make the rounds" visiting who I can.

How does your sister like it there? If it is White Swan that my aunt and uncle live in, I did like the community there. It seems to be a pretty quite and friendly community. But, I've only been to see them once since they moved.

You know, I did have the google toolbar. But, I got rid of it some time ago when I was cleaning stuff off of the computer that I didn't use. Maybe I should download it again. Thanks for the info. I had heard that people could spell check here, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out how.

Bill's sister did her student teaching in Zilla when she was in her early 20's.....I guess she must like it she retired this year and she is still in Wapato.

Yep, sure sounds as if she did like it there. :-p In general, that area is not quite as green as I'd prefer. But, it is nice in the spring and fall, when it's always a little warmer there than there. But, I still think between where you're at compared to that area, that you're in the much better spot. Hopefully your sister retired at a good time. I thought that I had heard that Wapato schools had been having issues with gang related stuff in the last few years. But, maybe she didn't teach in Wapato?

Worse than that.....she was principal in an Alternative School.....had knifes etc. pulled on her more than once! Terry was at White Swan....when he died suddenly about five years ago Cathy figured maybe 100-150 would show up for the funeral since he had been a teacher there for a lot of years.......there were over 500 people showed up. But things are getting pretty bad there, she has the house up for sale.....the kids want her to move to Wenatche....but we will see......she hasn't decided just where she wants to go right now.....mostly on cruises with my MIL.....

Sounds like an awfully hard job to me. Glad she's retired now.

rc...after my brain got in gear, (I'll blame it on a senior moment) you were right. Sis did have a bout with trigger finger this year, mom was telling her how she takes care of hers. I think hers was caused at least in part by the arthritis. And our doc suggested putting a soft splint on it at night to take the pressure off. It was too hard for mom to do by herself and she didn't want to bother me, so she just did her massage until it went away. I don't remember what sis did for hers.

Here's our little work crew. We got a bunch done today. The fencing in the picture is around my veggie beds to keep the nutria out. That's how close all this is to our property, so we're really happy to have it cleaned up. Our handyman (the chief chipper) is taking off a few days for elk hunting, so the volunteers decided to wait until he gets back to finish, I'm tickled pink, it's killing me. LOL Oh, and everyone kept taking my new loppers!!

And here's what the part we've already chipped looks. A little clean up to do yet, but a major improvement. When the ducks come to the pond (It's actually a ditch feed by street runoff and rain) this winter, they'll be able to see the water and have a place to land. You can just barely see some of the piles of chips on the far side of the ditch.

This message was edited Dec 4, 2008 10:23 PM

It was bitter cold today. Wore my hot hands, they kept me toasty all day. It's down to 34 deg right now, wouldn't surprised if we get a freeze.

Still hard to keep up with you all.
RC, can't understand why you would get rid of your Google bar, I use mine for alot of things, Oh put it back. I accidently did that and was so lost without it.
Anyway, I will let you know the name of the restaurant as soon as they tell me, still under remodel. It will be a BBQ type, and the best, as I know how Jay cooks.
We went to dinner last night at a new place, in my town called the 'TapRock' was really good. But what I didn't get was that all the dinners that had a steak on it said 'Flat Iron Steak' Not going there, What is it?? I stayed with my fravoite Prime Rib, at least I know what that is. LOL

Tilly, I'm not sure why I didn't use it. But, If I would've noticed the spell checker there, i definitely would've used it. I'll find a way to add it back. I could be wrong, but this is what I think I remember my grandmother, who owned a restaurant for 40 years - after her cross country trip, calling a flat iron steak. She didn't cook things in pans. She had a huge griddle with three ovens under it. One side was for the breakfast type stuff and the other side is where she cooked the rest of the stuff. When she cooked steaks, or other large meats, they went on the griddle with the large flat thing on the top of them that does sort of resemble an old fashioned (as in heated on the stove) type clothes iron. So, that's my guess.

Thanks for the Pics Sally. It looks as though you all did a really nice job and a lot of work. Yuk, nutria. Sorry that you have to deal with those little critters. I always forget that they're around to cause problems. I just got back from Eugene tonight at about 11, and there was frost on the road by my house, but not actually on my driveway yet. But, I had frost last night too, so I'm thinking it will be thicker tonight. Don't worry about those moments, we all have them! :-p If arthritis is the cause of your sister's, it won't go away completely. You can just do things to help keep it in check and the inflamation down. Message is what the therapists did for my hand after surgery to try to break up the scare tissue. Hurt like heck, but it did help. I need to stay on top of it better.

Tricia, that's aweful to hear that's what was going on in your sisters' school. I'm glad that she's out of there. I think that I would need many cruises to get that stuff out of my system. Unfortunate that your brother in law went so suddenly, but that must have been an amazing thing for your sister to see how many people respected him so well.

This message was edited Dec 5, 2008 12:57 AM

I also think that a particular cut of steak is referred to as flat iron, don't know why though.

I googled it....comes from off the shoulder (not sure what that means)

This came from Confessions of a Butcher

huh, good to know. Learn something new all the time around here.

Sally, looks like a wonderful place to live.

Are nutria kinda like muskrats? I'll have to look it up.

Exactly what is a nutria? I think I recall seeing something about people eating them. Is that true? Is it a rodent?
Flat iron steak is a specific cut. It is the most tender and flavorful, and my favorite. It can be hard to find at times. I broil it to rare and slice it and put it on top of a big salad. Add sauteed mushrooms and curls of parmesan and wow you have a wonderful meal.
Does anyone know someone with an North American Indian Dog?

Nutria is a rodent and known only to the west side of the Cascades in OR. I've never heard of anyone eating them.

I think that a nutria does look sort of similar to a muskrat. I'm don't think that a musckrat is as much of a swimmer though, but I could be wrong.

I just thought that this was a good summation of the weather for today. I took these at about 1 pm.

This message was edited Dec 5, 2008 2:43 PM

another

This one was getting sun, it's my new "desktop" image. for the moment anyhow.

rc I love the "frost" photos - beautiful.
I don't think I like nutria - they sound like big fat rats.

What beautiful pictures. Save those for next years contest. It was foggy and cold here this morn. Went out at 1:30 and worked until 4:00. Nice. I have a ford ranger truck and I filled it with leaves off the magnolia. Did the other side of the house yesterday and got the first load. Took it in to the recycle place in Shelton this morn and leaves were free today. Good news! Will probably do one more load before I'm done for the winter. Twelve more bags of compost to spread also. It's looking good.

OK I changed my mind - I like my little yard and don't want more space. I filled 3 garbage cans (the big ones w/ wheels) with leaves and I'm finished.
It was really nice here today. Sunny but cold. It was a pleasure to be outside. I went to pick up the wine I ordered for Christmas time and did other errands and I ended up walking around town just to be outside. if anyone is looking for a great white wine and likes riesling there is a great from Pacific Rim vineyards and it is not expensive. Also a great pinot from Jezebel vineyards that is so nice.
I read about trigger finger and it does not sound very pleasant! I am sorry any of you have to suffer that. It seems like every week some new body part either changes position or starts aching. Yoga seems to be the best solution for me. I do it at home with a video because the classes are full of people who twist themselves into unrecognizable shapes and look with scorn on those who can't.
I am thinking about getting an American Indian dog from a breeder in southern Oregon who is the president of the AID association. I'm excited!

Thanks Portland and Willow. I agree, Leaves will make you change your mind about anything. In spite of it all, I really appreciate a good deciduous tree though because they always provide the right thing at the right time, shade in the summer and light in the winter. I'm always rethinking my ratio of conifers to maples and alders around here for that reason. Almost always stop myself before cutting anything though because, you know..... 'I should really think about this some more because it's permanent.' I think the balance is to get deciduous trees that have small enough leaves that they blow away in the wind. I rarely find the leaves of my native cherries or dogwoods, I have know idea where they go. That's good. I bet it feels good to be making headway on all of that Willow!

Portland... which of those wines do you prefer? I'm always up for something new and not too much $$. Can you get it some place other than the vineyard itself? Thanks for the condolensces on the trigger finger. But really, at least for me, I've become pretty ok with it. There are definitely worse things. I had gallstones once, thought I was dying. I'll take the tricky fingers anyday and everyday over that!! So after you read about it, was it something that you had heard of before, but maybe under it's real name? I have never heard of an American Indian Dog, I will have to look that up. It sounds interesting though.

Muskrat swim like a fish. They live in swamps and eat many things. Kind of like beavers but smaller. Nutria look like big Guinea Pigs.
I had a trigger finger tendonitis and had it injected 2 times and it never returned. Wasn't fun getting the injections.

Does that google toolbar have a character counter? I really could've used a counter with the typing stuff that I had to do today. Fortunately the spell checker was already built into the web pages that I had to do some projects for work on.

Wow, so then the two creatures sound a whole lot alike to me. More or less.... giant rats with tails! Good to know now that I don't want to deal with muskrat either! Thanks Sofer. Sorry to hear that you have the lovely trigger finger too! With the numbers of us here that deal with it, it really must run among gardners. That's sad.