Sunday February 10 2008

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BETTY

Frosty brought in the big tractor with a huge V-plow this morning and in one swoop through cleared out and widened the lane. And I don't know exactly how he did it but he also had the big truck with the smaller plow and smoothed out all the bumps the big plow left. His son must have driven the truck. I got some photos, but have to go back and use the laptop to try to download them. I need to call a guy recommended by a friend of mine and ask if he will come out and reinstall software and make sure this big computer is going to work. Otherwise it's a pretty expensive way to look at email.

The dogs and I walked down the road this afternoon . It was about 30 degrees. I bundled up to go out. I went about a mile and it felt fine. I finally have come down with Joe's cold. It's in my chest with a very sore throat, and so far hasn't got me stuffed up in the head thankfully. Am doing laundry and changing sheets and got BBQ ribs with baked potatoes in the oven for dinner. Have gotten the bills paid online.

My 6 year younger sister Gloria just had two more great grandchildren. They have 22 grandchildren (we have 4) and 4 great grandchildren.

Tomorrow is the appointment for chemo again. Deanne has an appointment too so will drive us and another friend who also has chemo. There is discussion about having some kind of shuttle between Pinedale and Jackson for people going to the hospital. It would sure be a good idea. They should be able to prescribe whatever medicine I might need for this cold. I'll ask for the report of my last stay in the hospital for the collapsed lung for my records. And check with the billing department. A bill has arrived for the first week's chemo treatment and it's far beyond anything I expected, so I need to check that out, and should have done that a lot sooner - as to inquire whether Medicare and the Insurance are going to take care of it or not.

The weather report isn't as good for Monday, including 90% chance of snow (however not more than an inch predicted) and wind up to 30 mph. We'll just see what it looks like in the morning I guess. Today there are a lot of clouds but the sun is shining and its WARM.

Today there are some interesting articles and photos; mountain lions and deer on http://www.pinedaleonline.com/ and auroras on http://spaceweather.com./ . Check especially the Russian aurora photos. One of my friends Jody on The Rim also found a lion in their garage about a month ago.

King of the Hill

Saturday February 9 2008

Joe got the battery in my car yesterday, and I got all the headlight and interior lights set where they are supposed to be. He also shoveled the drift out from in front of the little kitty entrance to the shed. He did go out to the mailbox on Friday through the drifts and just trucked along, so our road isn't as bad as it could be. We are doing just fine. I've gotten more purging of papers and files done. Hopefully I can get the clutter in the studio managed and looking neat again.

Today our writer's group, the Sublette Co. Artists Guild had a meeting scheduled over in Big Piney and they cancelled it. So that gets me out of feeling bad about not making it. I had about decided that for me it would have been more effort than it was worth to try and go, Although I should soon begin to get out and do more social things and get together with the friends. I don't remember ever having a meeting cancelled, but having meetings in winter is new this year. It's too bad all their planning is for nothing. It sounds like the roads and driving conditions are awful for people having to get around.

Yesterday wind started moving the snow around noon and half of the night. The stars came out for a while. It seems the wind isn't blowing here as bad as it is in many other places. I do believe that this constant overcast is keeping the snow depth at more of a maximum. Where other years the south slopes on all the hills around us have cleared off due to facing the sun, this winter every where is continually staying white. The paper says it snowed every day in January, and I wouldn't doubt every day so far in February....somewhere at least. I remember in years back how we so many winter days were pure sunshine.

Today overcast again but quite a bit warmer. It was 18 above in the middle of the night and that makes a huge difference in how it feels. By afternoon it was 36 degrees. Water is dripping off the eaves, and the snow is really settling down and can see more rock, less snow on the hills. I was happy to see my little Smokey kitty out in the sun today and then later saw Traveler.

Friday February 8 2008

Frosty Trees at East Fork

Winter Stories I've Received:

Snowing hard here. Snowed all day. I had a dicey trip to town in a whiteout and could barely make out a track. Ran errands. Bought groceries. Went to the dentist, which entailed more than I thought. Called Jim (he was here at home) and he said he'd better meet me at the parking area and make a track for the cargo sled. The overcast had actually started to lift at that time. By the time I got to the parking lot and loaded the sled, the weather closed in again and it was a total whiteout. Waited for Jim for 30 min. Finally unhooked the sled and started down the road to look for him. Met him after about a quarter of a mile. He had had a hellish ride down. Couldn't see. Got stuck. Hit a rock and jambed his arm to the point he can hardly use it or grip with his left hand. We decided to come on home up the road. Then he learned I had loaded the sled and that the groceries were not in the Tahoe (I had told him earlier, but I guess he didn't hear me). So the cargo sled and groceries are setting in the middle of the parking lot. Another rough trip home. I got stuck twice, once tipping over. Tomorrow (or later), must go try to rescue the grub. I wish I had just stayed at the car. Then we could have maybe made a better plan.

Am plumb tuckered. Sweated bullets riding down this morning and even more coming home. This is the first time we've had any real problems traveling. I had hoped we could make a track home and then return for the groceries, but weather dictated otherwise. I'm grateful to be home safely, but just sick about all the grub I needed to haul. I'm sure there will be some loss due to freezing. I think that Jim plans to go down tomorrow (only IF he can see...the wind, I'm sure, has obliderated all tracks by now)...and maybe bring up a more powerful snowmobile, such as his 800, and carve a more definitive track. Anyway, who knows. All I know is...I basically goofed. The weather service has cried "wolf" so many times and there were really no big warnings about this particular storm, unlike the last so-called event that didn't materialize. Consequently, I wasn't all that concerned. Love, CHARM - 10 MILES SNOWMACHINE TRIP IN TO HER HOME AT BOULDER LAKE.

Yesterday was something else. Our driveway was all drifted, so I stayed home & missed Art Class so I could help hubby shovel. I would push 15-20 loads off the the side and then have to come inside and rest for 20-30 minutes. I did it about 5 times. I finally got the big drift out from in front of the garage door. He was doing the rest of the driveway. We basically worked from 8am to noon. By 1:00 it was entirely drifted in again! Anyway, about 2:00 someone called and said they would take Pudge Cat as they need a mouser on their ranch out by Merna. I was to meet them at 5:00 in town. Hubby went out and busted a trail for me and I took the cat and went to town, ran errands. Got home & driveway had a huge drift. I was sitting out on the main road deciding if I could buck it, when Hubby came out and did it for me. It is a fullblown blizzard out there! 90mph wind gusts east of us. (next day) This weather is nasty bad! My side is better each day and the shoveling did not hurt it. but I was very careful to rest. We do have a snow blower. But it is so tiny compared to the drifts we have and it throws the snow about 3 feet...so basically hubby moves it 3 feet and then goes back and moves it another 3 feet until it is off the driveway. He said I could never push it through the heavy snow. We are going south Feb 19. Maybe sooner if he gets more disgusted with this wind. Today is simply horrid! Hubby busted a trail so I could get out for Bible Study. He was going to come in later for lunch, but at 10:30 he called and said he was stuck in a ditch 2 blocks from our house! And he was driving the pickup in 4 wheel drive! It was a white out and he got over too far. I went home to help him. HA! We sort of sat there looking stupid. Well,,,,,,, I did,,,,, He was shoveling. Even our Jeep couldn't pull the pick up out. A very nice man came along and, from what I could see, he was having FUN pulling Hubby out! 2 other men also came along & stopped to help. Then we just went home. I haven't had lunch at Rendezvous Pointe since I went to Casper. JUDI - OUTSIDE PINEDALE (Lynn's note: "driveways" here are quite a bit longer than ones in town.)

We got a foot of snow last tuesday night, you probably laugh at only a foot but it about shuts Iowa down! gene had came home and got out diesel that sits high in the air and we did make it home but was all it wanted to push as someplaces it was a solid 24inches or more and he was worried how I was going to get walked in because of my knee if we got stuck. I assured him that I could ride him piggy back if that happened. That certainly made him not want to get stuck. MARILYN - FROM HER FARM IN IOWA

Thursday February 7 2008

More Deer from the File

The deer I saw coming home on Tuesday were up to or past their bellies in deep snow. I am feeling real bad for all the wildlife. They must be struggling with starvation. Even the magpies seem hungry. They have been out on the wild rose bush picking off the dried rose hips, something I've never seen them do.

Not much to write about again regarding anything interesting or newsy with us. Joe has a sore back, he says he did it hauling in firewood. So he's had the heating pad on it this afternoon. I kept sort of busy just with regular chores. Had a break in the weather and the sun came out for a little while so I got all the recycling sorted and out to the garage. It's been sitting around the utility room and so now that is taken care of. It was so nice -at the moment - that I walked a ways down the road, certainly not a marathon, but it felt good to be out. The sun even was warm on my face and haven't felt that for a long time. The dogs really loved the walk, especially Raven runs hard and bounds and leaps through the deep snow and drifts. She scared a rabbit out from under the hayrack sled - like a cave under there surrounded by drifts, but there sure aren't any animal tracks out there. Just blank snow. Sparky doesn't go off the road into the deep part, he would be bogged down for sure. He'll stand on his hind legs to peek over the berm in the road to watch what Raven is doing.

As I turned back toward the house I could see another storm about to hit. We just keep having this whiteout and fog,. Even if the sun is trying to shine, this mist is in the air, and I don't ever remember having so much of this overcast for so long a time. It's snowed all day, some wind tonight but not as bad here as other places. Am hearing from friends who are having bad experiences just trying to get home, getting stuck and having to do a lot of shoveling. The weather is awful here with wind and lots more snow falling. All the roads are closed right now. You can't drive from Pinedale to Daniel. We are just going to stay in until this is over. I'm not going to paste any of the stories in, but you can get an idea of the extent of it on http://www.pinedaleonline.com/ .

This reminds me that I didn't report that our power was off for four hours a couple of nights ago from about midnight to 4 a.m. I got out candles and battery lanterns and read by the lantern for a while. I don't know the reason for the outage, and haven't heard that anyone else's was off.

Made Joe Navaho fry bread with green chili pork stew for dinner. He loves the fry bread.

Wednesday February 6 2008

Ol' Blue Eyes

9x12 Oil Painting

by Lynn Thomas

Yesterday went really fine. All our roads out this way were more snowpacked than they have been so I drove more slowly until I got to the highway. We met at Stanley Junction, where I parked Joe's truck, about 9 a.m. and Deanne drove me up to Jackson. The roads were good and she zipped right along. We got up there before 10 a.m. I bought a new battery for my SUV. Then we went on over to the hospital and they put me right into the chair to start the treatment. It went quickly using the new port, my blood tests were good. They took blood for the monthly tumor marker which I'll find out the results next time. We ordered our lunch from the hospital grill and ate while the chemo was dripping and were done about 1 p.m.

Next week Deanne will take me again as she has an appointment too. The week after that I will get the CT scans done there in Jackson instead of having to go down to Salt Lake on the 22nd. How I was dreading that trip and thinking of skipping it until spring.... if ever. Paige called the Huntsman Clinic and they said it was fine to have the scans at Jackson. Then the week after that Dr. Ward, the Huntsman doctor will be up here and I will visit with him about the scans. I may know more answers after that.

It was a really nice weather day compared to the day before. Sunny all day long, with some wind coming up and blowing the snow across the road in the afternoon. In fact I asked Deanne if it would be a bad thing to complain about the bright glare. I took a bunch of photos out the window, since I wasn't driving. I wanted to use some today, but after many tries can't get the computer to download them. Several of my programs just aren't there after the repairs at Best Buy, could be possibly they couldn't reload them since I had the discs. I don't know but its still frustrating.

Anyway on the way home we stopped at the small market at Hoback Junction and did our shopping. They had a little bit of almost everything and have a very nice produce section and no crowds or long lines at the checkout. It was a little more expensive, but that was fine. We got $.20 off every gallon of gas with my receipt and filled up Deanne's car.

Got home about 4 p.m. Put the groceries away, and because I had some old apples in the fruit drawer that needed to be used and some ready pie crusts, I made an apple pie and got it right into the oven. That's the first time I've felt like doing something like that after going to chemo. We had some leftovers to warm up for dinner. I was tired as usual, and soon got into bed early for me. But before midnight, was back up for three or four hours before I could fall back asleep. I had the usual headache, not much nausea this time, perhaps more of a stomach ache than other times, but by 10 a.m. this morning I was up and feeling pretty good. In fact cleaned the kitchen and living room, mopped the floors and washed Raven's stinky bed and some throw rugs.

It started snowing in the night and we got another few inches, but was a little warmer. The visibility was not good again this morning. Joe went to town to get his hearing test and ordered a pair of hearing aids. They will be here in two weeks. We are both hoping for this to be successful. He stayed in town for lunch, Mexican food he said. When he came home he cleaned the still very hot ashes out of the wood stove, and I cleaned the living room again. I won't go into the whole story but he burned up a bath towel trying to keep the smoke in the ash bucket and burned a few small spots in the hardwood floor.

It turned off sunny about 10:30 this morning and was pretty nice out. Perhaps 30 minutes before Joe came home a ground blizzard came up. It didn't last long but did move some more snow. Then it clouded right back up and has been lightly snowing again. We have more snow now than for 8 or 10 years.

Debbie called and said the four of the 5 or 6 paintings she took back to Vegas for the Rotary Auction Curtis was working on sold last weekend, and a couple of them were large. I was really pleased to get that news. That was very effortless on my part, and I am thankful to them for making that possible. They are all doing fine. She is getting some new living room furniture and Justin is going to be able to use the old furniture at his place. They took a trip to Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear where the forest service showed them how different organizations are helping to do a big variety of things to improve the forests there. They were put up at the Lake Arrowhead Resort and that sounded nice. I think it is the Rotary or maybe their ATV club that is thinking of starting some of those programs in the mountains west of Vegas.

My cousin Maryanne called this evening from Bakersfield and we had a nice visit. It was good to hear from her. She may come to visit in May, and I promised her to have the family photos she lent me scanned by the time she gets here and give them back to her then.

I worked more on my photo files this afternoon, as I like to do that when I just feel like sitting. I got all the photo files in this computer backed up on the external drive and was glad to get that done. Too many duplicates makes it a mess though. A few days ago I backed up the blog and hope I got it where the whole thing really is saved properly, also on the external drive. I put it in two different formats, one that connects to the internet, and one onto Word which has all the photos and text for the year. There are more difficult (for me) ways to save it but I think this will work until perhaps I can learn what they are talking about on how to do it differently. I just don't totally trust Blogspot not to crash some day and loose the whole thing and it's way too much work to loose it. I've read that other people think the same thing, and that is where I read how they suggest to back it up - the instructions I don't understand - so I did it my own way. (BTW I hope I get most of the spelling right these days since their spell check hasn't been working for a while.) On February 19 I will have been blogging for one year.

Tuesday February 5 2008

Rox

This is a friend's horse I learned to ride on

in gradeschool. I don't think I have used

this picture in the blog yet.

Just thought I'd write a note and let you know that we're going to Jackson today for the chemo appt at 11:30. Deanne called last night and offered to go with me as was the original plan, so I won't be alone. Gina also called and offered to go. Everyone is taking good care of me. Today is dawning clear in the east (saw Jupiter and Venus) and with a very light fog, and the weather report is good, so much better conditions than yesterday. Will fill in the rest later.

Monday February 5 2008

We Haven't Even Been Seeing

This Much Lately

Today was to have met Charm at Boulder at 9:15 and go to chemo. She also had an appointment in Jackson this afternoon, so last week I switched from Tuesday back to Monday to go with her so as not to have one of us making an unnecessary trip. (Deanne was going to go with me on Tuesday and I canceled that. She and I will go together next week.)

This morning got up early and got ready to go. Joe went to get my car out and the battery was dead. Something may have been going on with the headlights too and somehow they may have gotten left on, I don't know, since he puts the car away. Back at the beginning of winter Joe said it was time for a new battery for the car and I thought he got one, until I finally asked a week or so ago, and he said it was my car, that I needed to go to the auto parts store and tell them I need a battery. So that's how that went.....

He got his truck out for me to take. It's got his snowmachine in the bed. I loaded up the cooler and have been taking a small overnight bag in case we couldn't get home, some bran muffins for breakfast on the way, and started off. Could have guessed ahead of time I wouldn't make it. It was a total white out and the wind was blowing. I could not see a thing or distinguish where the edge of the plowed road was from anything around it, and was just creeping along. You need to have a little more oomph than that for going in 4WD. I was lucky not to have gone off into the ditch at the gate or into the creek, as when I got there I could feel I was too close to the left edge and sloping down, but was able to head back over and on up the hill. When I got to the cattle guard I got turned around in a place Frosty had cleared out there and came back home. I would have quit it before then, but there was no place to get turned around. I called Charm but she was gone. Jim went on his snowmachine and caught her to let her know I wouldn't be there at Boulder. I knew it wouldn't be long before it would begin to brighten up, but not in time to meet Charm. And by 10:30 the sun was shining through the fog, plenty bright enough to drive.

This all really got me down about more than any time since this all started, I don't know why. But I felt like this yesterday too. Guess its allowed once in a while.

Sandra soon called to see if I went out, and had stories about sitting at her window and watching trucks running off the county road going past her house and getting each other pulled out one after another yesterday. She said it was a good thing I hadn't tried to go today. This morning a guy walked into their place and had run his truck off into the irrigation ditch down the road and was asking for help. Dave was going to help him, but when he got there the county snow plow was pulling him out. Dave also creeped along to work at the airport.

It snowed lightly night before last, all day yesterday and , most of last night and is still snowing this morning, snowed off and on all the rest of the day. We've had this fog and white out forever it seems. There may be 7 new inches or so by this afternoon. Before noon Frosty came in with the plow - the piles of snow he is moving out of the road are growing - even though the road is good now I'm not going today - it wasn't the road or snow depth, it was the bad visibility. Will see what tomorrow is like - it should be better and then more storm predicted on Wednesday. Salt Lake says they have broken records for snowfall in January, however I don't think we have - yet.

Well that's been my morning. If anything more interesting happens I'll be back.

After procrastinating all day long at 4:55 I called the chemo dept. and said I would try again to come up in the morning depending on the weather. Charm got home o.k. about 7:30, she called and let me know. She said it was a long day.