Category: Pandemic

Monday, February 14, 2022

About a week ago, M noticed that brightly colored heart-shaped boxes were starting to appear around the house. Being a quick study, he deduced that Valentine’s Day must be approaching.

Today, E, who is pretty quick herself, soon discovered a brand new box.

And of course, no one can live exclusively on bonbons, so the day also involved some gateaux. 

Tuesday, February 15, 2022

Okay. Back to more or less normal, if there is such a thing. M has gone on an online buying spree. Some of the items, we fear, are somewhat frivolous. On the practical side, he wants some new kitchen cabinet hinges, and also a new pillow.

E went to a meeting of The Knitting Group via Zoom and enjoyed talking to old friends and colleagues. After supper, both of us had a you-know-what from the new heart-shaped box. Just one though, because we want to stretch out this box, at least for a while… 

Then we watched some of Yanık Koza. We’re tempted to say that it is a really terrible show. We’ve only watched 50 episodes, though, so we will withhold any final judgment. M also watched the wild west episode of Around the World in 80 Days. He’s liking that well enough.

In very recent days, the number of new COVID cases in Oregon is down, not only because fewer tests have been recorded but also because the percentage of positive tests is trending down. We will call this encouraging.

Wednesday, February 16, 2022

We went back to Lebanon, Oregon today, this time to walk along the Santiam River on the Old Mill Trail. Despite its name, the Old Mill Trail is brand new. It runs parallel to an older trail called the Eagle Scout Trail. The latter is a “soft surface” (i.e., unpaved) trail down in the river bottom area. The new trail runs along the top of a dike that was built in the 1940s, following a catastrophic flood. In the 1960s dams upstream made the dike obsolete for flood control. After languishing for fifty-odd years, the dike has recently begun serving as a long, level base for a concrete path. Though wide enough for a sixties Pontiac, the path is reserved for cyclists, pedestrians, and dogs. It sits high above the more humble Eagle Scout Trail. We took these pictures from the latter. There are lots of native cottonwood trees along the river, many encased in non-native ivy.

Friday, February 18, 2022

A dry warm afternoon. M mowed the shaggy part of the back lawn.

Saturday, February 19, 2022

E went for a dog walk with our friend A. E says that Pumpkin seemed to really enjoy the walk, which added to E’s enjoyment. M again went foraging in the forest, looking for suitable debris.

Sunday, February 20, 2022

Pleasant weather these days. Nighttime temps around 30, high temps in the 50’s. Early blooming plants are liking it fine: snowdrops and crocuses, a few daffodils, lots of buds on our maple trees.

We’ve started packing for our trip that starts on Tuesday. We made some lists and E put some stuff in the food box. According to our weather apps, our two days of camping at the coast will correspond with the two coldest days of the week. The yurt will be heated, but we’re not sure if they’re made for nights in the low 20’s. On the other hand, the days are supposed to be sunny. 

We had a delicious international dinner today: leftover Mexican chicken enogada, leftover Indian aloo gobi, and leftover Eve’s red cabbage. Then bonbons.

Monday, February 21, 2022

Shopping and packing day. In the morning E got together with her pals J and C at the place where C is house-sitting. It’s a rather grand house and C gave E and J a tour. The house is in a beautiful setting and is filled with lovely artwork and décor. Also big closets. Really big closets.

Juce and Brane have decided they’d like to join us at the coast and have reserved a nearby yurt. The forecast is for 18 degrees Wednesday night. Oh boy. 

Tuesday, February 22, 2022

Left Corvallis at 8:30 and got to Reedsport around noon. We parked at the Umqua lighthouse and had our lunch in the truck, looking out over the dunes to the ocean. We then proceeded ten miles further south and hiked the Dellenback loop trail, which is named for a politician who was a instrumental in efforts to protect the Oregon dunes from development. Then it was back up to Umqua Lighthouse State Park, where there are six ‘deluxe’ yurts, one of which was reserved for us, and another for J and B. Since it was not yet check-in time, we did another short hike, this time around Lake Marie, just next to the campground.

Once we got moved in, we had a chance to relax before getting together with J and B for dinner. Dinner was Mexican food that M fetched from Reedsport, which was only about seven miles away. The food was’t real hot by the time it arrived back at the J&B yurt–it didn’t help that M missed a turn on the way home–but the microwave made it better. 

Wednesday, February 23, 2022

This was the day of the main event, hiking at Silver and Golden Falls. After breakfast, E made us some PBJ sandwiches and M made a thermos of half-caff with a spoonful of of chocolate powder. We packed up and headed out at around 9:30. Thirty-three degrees and sunny. At 11:00, we got to the trailhead, located about twenty-five miles east of Coos Bay. It was thirty-three and sunny there too. 

There are three trails from the parking area: one to a Silver Falls viewpoint, one to the base of Golden Falls, and a longer one that goes past the base of Silver and continues to the top of Golden. This last was the one we had planned to take, but where that trail starts we came to a small sign informing us that trees had fallen onto trail and saying something about “no through hiking.” We decided to try anyway. Maybe we could find out what ‘no through hiking’ actually meant. Here’s what we found:

Two large firs had indeed fallen across the trail as it traversed a steep slope. Someone had been kind enough (and industrious enough) to cut some steps that made a crossing possible. We’re not saying we just pranced right up this stairway, but we did manage it. And as the trail continued, we were glad that we had.

The cliff faces south and the sun was shining directly onto it. Even though it was still cold down in the trees, we had to take off our heavy outer layers to be comfortable up on the ledge. We had our traditional lunch of sandwiches, carrots and celery, chips, juice and chocolate, along with a wee dram from the flask. Here’s a video from up there at the top of Golden Falls

Later on, we went back to the trailhead and hiked to the base of Golden Falls. J and B, meanwhile, along with the indomitable Bento, hiked both the Golden Falls base trail and the Silver Falls view trail. Here’s Bento on the latter.

Once more back at the trailhead we took our thermos of artisanal instant half-caff mocha and sat at a picnic table in the sun. We didn’t linger, though; it was still just thirty-four degrees.  

Thursday, February 24, 2022

In the morning M took the Coleman stove out on to the porch and cooked up a camp breakfast of potatoes, red bell pepper, eggs and cheddar. Not too bad. Then it was time to start packing up. Here are a few photos of yurt life. The first picture is from the web site of Pacific Yurts, Inc., but the scene in the photo seems very familiar and we’re pretty sure that the yurt on the left is the actual one we stayed in. 

Unfortunately, we did not get either the kayak or the help of the kayak paddler. But it was too cold to be outside anyway. Here are some inside photos.

Friday, February 25, 2022

Now here’s another of our blue charts, the ones that track reported Oregon COVID death rates for each month of the pandemic. The chart shows that the November, December and January rates were all quite similar. By our reckoning, the first ten days of February were also roughly at that level. Beginning around February 11th, early figures show something of a decline. All numbers are provisional, as they say.

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

At 9:00, E had her Zoom exercise class, the first one of the new term. It was hard work, she says. At 10:00 we talked with Claudio about our planned paver driveway. We put down a large deposit. Gulp. We had planned to do concrete. But as it turns out, concrete projects are crazy expensive these days. So pavers it is. They seem more earth-friendly anyway.

In other news, we’ve made a reservation to stay at the coast next month in a state park near the mouth of the Umqua River. We’re going to stay two nights in a yurt. But not a regular yurt–a deluxe yurt. We’re not quite sure what those are, but apparently they have microwaves and bathrooms. We’ll see.

Wednesday, January 19, 2022

M worked on R’s book project for an hour or two and then watched the final episode of Frontera Verde, a Colombian series on Netflix. (Eight episodes, in Spanish and indigenous languages, with English subtitles) It’s an atmospheric crime drama set in the Amazon River section of Colombia. Good quality production with some wonderful cinematography. The basis of the story is only semi-comprehensible, but it doesn’t matter. It’s a way of opening a window onto a fascinating part of the world, a place with a dark past and a problematic present. When they talk about rubber plantation slavery in the relatively recent past and criminal logging in the present, they’re not just making things up.

And what was E doing while M was wandering around South America? In the morning she was doing yard work: transplanting, pruning and weeding. It seems odd to be pulling weeds at this time of year, but there they are staring at us and they do come out easily when the soil is wet. Later on, she went to visit her seamstress, whose workshop happens to be just across the street from one of her favorite clothing stores…

Thursday, January 20, 2022

Damp weather for the last couple of days. Warm at times, with highs in the 50’s and lows in the 40’s. We had coffee with J and R today and it was quite pleasant out in the tent at Coffee Culture. 

We’re not sitting indoors in restaurants much these days, but we did make a quick visit to Sada to pick up an online order. We shared a bento box. The bentos at Sada are big; ours had miso soup, green salad, seaweed salad, gyoza, salmon, tempura, rice, cheesecake and fruit. One was quite sufficient. Pro tip: wash it down with gin.

Friday, January 21, 2022

We got up at seven this morning, just in time for some striking sunrise colors to the east. By eight, though, we were fogged in and could barely make out the far end of the street. After breakfast, E went out and did bird feeder chores. At 10:00 we set out for the Finley Refuge, planning to walk the Mill Hill Loop. It was still foggy when we found the turn-off to the refuge but five minutes later the sun broke through. We were just in time to see a few traces of mist drifting over the ponds. 

The first part of the trail leads through one of the biggest oak forests around. Oaks and firs are competitors at these elevations, and they say that if you leave things alone, the firs will outgrow and displace the oaks. That’s what has been happening here for the past 175 years. But now, at least in conservation areas like this, people are starting to intervene on the side of the  oaks. We passed more than one fir stump today.

After the hike, we went to E’s favorite coffee shop for take-out lunch. You can get a nice healthy sandwich there–if you don’t get distracted and have one of their pastries instead. Not that we personally would ever do that, at least not very often. 

Saturday, January 22, 2022

E went to the Co-op for groceries and tended to her correspondence. M went off to Albany to get bricks.

For dinner M made enchiladas and E baked an acorn squash. Nice. Pro tip: wash it down with gin. 

At this point we have both read The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane. The story begins in the early 1990’s in a very remote tea-growing area of China. The inhabitants are members of an ethnic minority who are quite different from the dominant Han Chinese in appearance, language, and culture. The story strains credulity in many ways, but who cares, learning about the culture is still fascinating and you still want to see what happens.

Sunday, January 23, 2022

M’s latest project is an expansion of Hummock #1. Seems he can’t leave well enough alone.

Monday, January 24, 2022

B and B are coming for dinner. We’re preparing a meze with tabouleh salad, white beans, pickles, humus, pita, olives, dolmas, lentil soup, grilled haloumi, and kebabs. No gin.

Tuesday, January 25, 2022

We travelled east this morning, going deep into Linn County to the town of Lebanon. We went there because we have learned that there are 42 places named Lebanon in the U.S. and we’ve decided that we’re going to visit ev– No, wait, that wasn’t it.

We went there to walk the trails around Cheadle Lake and see what we could see. Originally a swampy area with a few seasonal ponds, the site was heavily excavated and reformed in the 1930’s to make a large and complicated log pond for a lumber mill. The mill buildings and equipment are long gone , but the pond remains. The pond/lake covers 11 acres and has a maximum depth of 40 feet. At this point the lake and the area around it form a de facto nature reserve. There are a couple of miles of easy trails and lots of birds. We saw redwing blackbirds, Canada geese, two kinds of ducks, a pair of mergansers, an egret, and a mysterious something that looked like a cormorant.

Wednesday, January 26, 2022

Progress continues on Hummock #1.5. Also pruning. E met with her HEPAJ group.

Thursday, January 27, 2022

Tertulia with J and R as usual. A little cold out under the canopy, about 30 degrees. Had to zip home quick for E’s jumping around class, as she calls it. Later on, we fetched the little car from storage and squeezed it back into the garage. M took a little drive just to make sure the car still worked. 

Friday, January 28, 2022

M went to the dentist. E went to the DMV. Sounds bad, but in fact both were painless. E went to apply for her new Real ID license and was in and out in 15 minutes!  

Saturday, January 29, 2022

Cold nights these days, down into the teens. Sunny and mid forties in the afternoons. A nice time to work outside, once the ground thaws. Good thing too, because there’s work to be done prepping for the driveway project. Several nice plants need to be moved out of harm’s way. 

Sunday, January 30, 2022

Pie!

Tuesday, January 4, 2022

Warmer weather coming. Intermittent rain today, fairly light but still enough to keep everything pretty soggy. You do not want to walk through our backyard without waterproof shoes.

We stayed indoors and finished the jigsaw that we started on New Year’s Eve. Almost immediately a Lego shark turned up in San Fransisco Bay. Yikes.

Luckily, a Lego response unit was on the way.

Wednesday, January 5, 2022

Much warmer today, high 50’s most of the day, touching 60 at one point. Something of a shock.

The COVID news in Oregon is pretty much the same as a lot of other places: a very high number of confirmed cases, but also a general sense that things are not as bad as they might be. The number of hospitalizations is high but not quite crisis level high. We continue to have daily COVID deaths, but the numbers are lower than November and have not yet risen in response to Omicron–as far as we know. Here is the latest update to the Pandemic Diary curve chart:

During the last few months, the OHA has been reviewing records for the entire period of the pandemic. So far, this review has resulted in the addition of hundreds of deaths to the official COVID death toll. More than 150 of these newly added deaths occurred in November. These have been added of the Pandemic Diary database also, thus changing the height of the November bar on the chart. However, we are not going back and redoing anything before November in any precise detail. So you might be wondering: Is this home-made chart accurate? Well, accurate or not, you can’t get these numbers anywhere else! Committed to accuracy as we are, we have even taken on a new staff member in the statistics department. See that vertical bar on the far right–the one for  December? E played a key role in generating that one.

Thursday, January 6, 2022

Quite warm again today. M had an allergy attack in the evening. And yes, these two things are related. It happens to a lot of people around here at this time of year. 

Friday, January 7, 2022

The media narrative these days is that we are seeing a tremendous spike of COVID case numbers, which can be attributed to the Omicron variant. As always, the supposed “case numbers” are actually just counts of positive test results. But the number of people who get tested in any given period is just a fraction of the total population. How many more cases would be find if we could test everybody? We have no idea, which is scary. If the people tested on one day constituted a random sample, we could use that sample to make an estimate of the total. Let’s say we tested 10,000 people on a particular day in Oregon and we got 1,000 positive results. That would be ten percent. Oregon has a total of 4,200,000 residents. Our estimate would be that the real number of COVID cases in Oregon on that day was 420,000. 

Unfortunately, the number of people tested in Oregon on a particular day is never a random sample. Some people are required to be tested, some people are tested because they are showing symptoms, some people are feeling fine but know that they have been exposed. In general, you might assume that the group of people being tested are in fact at higher risk than the general population. According to that assumption, if the group rate was 10% positive, the rate of the general population would be much lower, maybe 9%, 8%, 5% or 2%. Who knows? Or maybe you might assume that the group that gets tested are actually at a lower risk because they are generally taking better care of themselves and that’s the real reason they’re getting tested, in which case the rate in the general population would be higher than theirs, maybe 12%, 15%, 25%, or 50%. Hard to say. 

But, not only do we know that the ‘new cases’ number doesn’t tell us much, we also know that the more people we test, the more new cases we find. Below are four days of recent COVID test results in Oregon. Of the four, the report for Jan. 6 is the one that made headlines. How could the number of new cases go from 4,540 on Jan. 3 to 10,451 in just four days? Well, note that there were almost twice as many tests given on the 6th as on the 3rd. That factor alone would account for roughly 85% of the difference. 

So we have this number, (10,451 in this case) which tells us the result of some non-random testing, which therefore tells us very little about the total spread of the disease in the population as a whole, and which is nine times more dependent on number of tests given than it is on the extent of the infection. But it’s a number, so we jump right on it. You bet.

P.S. And by the way, what caused the number of tests to go up so much from the 3rd to the 6th? Could it be that at about that time the media really played up the dangers of the Omicron variant, causing a lot of people to get so nervous about COVID that they just had to go out and get tested? That would suggest that these semi-meaningless numbers have developed the ability to increase themselves over time, sort of like a virus….

P.P.S.  This is not to suggest that Omicron isn’t real. The percent positive numbers–a somewhat more useful statistic–are very high for all four of the dates above. The number of reported deaths is not very high lately, but deaths are a lagging indicator; so we’ll have to wait and see. 

Sunday, January 9, 2022

Walked in the OSU forest today, through the intensive management area and looping around Calloway Creek. Along the way we came across this disaster scene. Since there have been no high winds, and the ground is very wet, we are assuming the soggy soil is to blame for the demise of this venerable tree.

Monday, January 10, 2022

We spent a lot of time prepping for skiing, shopping for groceries, preparing food to take with us, and digging out all our various winter accoutrements. 

Tuesday, January 11, 2022

Left town at around 9:00 today and made our way to Willamette Pass to do some cross country skiing. Willamette Pass is in the Cascades about a hundred miles southeast of Corvallis. We parked at the Gold Lake Snow Park, put on our boots and skis, and started out on the road to the lake. Alas we never made it there. The trail was easy, somewhat beaten down and well trodden but with plenty of snow. The scene was beautiful and the weather was fine. We had some fun on the way, zipping down a few of the steeper parts and not once falling down, so we’ll call it a success. But after a mile or two we started to get nervous about the fact that the trail was leading us so far downhill, thus promising us a long uphill route on the way back. After descending for an hour and a half, we decided to play it safe and stop for lunch somewhere short of the actual lake, after which we headed back.

We spent the night in a ‘chalet’ unit at Willamette Inn in Crescent, Oregon. We made dinner out of our food brought from home and settled down to rest. M read a Robert Parker novel he found in the bedroom while E amused herself on the internet before starting to read The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane. We may have been the only guests at the inn. It was pretty quiet and pretty cold. Also pretty nice.

Wednesday, January 12, 2022

The ski expedition returned to Corvallis in the early afternoon. All was well. But we were tired.

We Zoom watched a lecture/presentation on Bob Santelli’s Album Club. He was doing the album Blue by Joni Mitchell. What an album. He also played ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ from Ladies of the Canyon. An endless loop of that refrain is now trapped inside M’s head.

Thursday, January 13, 2022

Tertulia with J and R this morning out in the tent at Coffee Culture. The temperature must have been in the upper 40’s. Quite pleasant. J and R are having difficulties with the Hungarian exchange student who has been living with them. It turns out that both the student and her mother are distrustful of the COVID vaccines and although the girl did get two doses before she came here–as was required by the exchange organizer–that’s as far as she wants to go. This does not go down well with J, who has suggested that now would be a good time for her to get a booster, especially since one of her hosts has ongoing cardiac issues. It appears they are at an impasse. A new host family may have to be found. 

Thursday is dinner out day, but rather than risk the exposure of restaurant dining, we chose take-out dinner from Castor. Very tasty. E was particularly enraptured by the extra sweet butternut squash tartine.

Friday, January 14, 2022

We walked today with R on the boardwalk through the Jackson-Frazier Wetland. It’s wet all right, but we have seen it wetter. We saw eight or ten ducks gathered at a new pond in the open space to the west.

Later on we had errands downtown. E took her old down jacket to the resale place and left it for them to examine to see if it was of interest. M went to the tea and coffee place to pick up a pound of Yemeni coffee. The variety they have there is called Yemen Mocca Kulani. Although the word ‘mocha’ in U.S. coffee shops refers to coffee mixed with chocolate, in other parts of the world it was for a long time just another word for coffee. Coffee almost certainly originated in Ethiopia but remained a local phenomenon for a time, perhaps several centuries. It only became known to the wider world when in the 1400’s when some enterprising traders brought coffee beans across the Red Sea to the Yemeni port town of Mocha (also spelled Mokha or Mocca). The earliest consumers and growers of coffee in Yemen were Sufi monks in their mountain monasteries. But soon, more and more coffee was being grown in Yemen, much of it being exported to other areas of the Middle East and from there north into Europe. For a time–perhaps as long as 150 years–the Mocha area growers were able to maintain a sort of world monopoly on coffee production by exporting only sterile beans.

So for a long time coffee was called mocha because that’s where it came from. Only later did Arabic speakers begin calling it ‘qahweh’ an Arabic word that originally referred to a kind of wine. Qahweh is the etymological ancestor of our word coffee. 

Saturday, January 15, 2022

E returned to town only to find that her jacket had been deemed unworthy by the shop manager. She decided to go across the street and donate it to the OSU Folk Club thrift shop. This latter institution is famous in Corvallis for a number of reasons. It has been there seemingly forever in the same location; it has beautiful and interesting old things in the windows; and, finally, it is almost never actually open. They fact that the shop was open just when E needed it is a kind of miracle. M only found out about this later, as he had stayed at home to do a bit of compost stirring and moss raking. 

Sunday, January 16, 2022

We managed to choke down a breakfast of waffles with butter, maple syrup, and maple cream. We weren’t really planning to add the maple cream, but E looked at the label and it said right there on the jar “Use on waffles.” So we did.

After a modest period of recovery, E went for a walk in the OSU forest while M walked over to visit R to consult about a book project that R is undertaking. 

Monday, January 17, 2022

Grocery shopping in the morning; then a little bit of work on E’s transcription project. This involves four years’ worth of letters written by E’s uncle Charley while he was in the army during World War Two. During that time, he went to basic training, then to OCS, and later to the Europe in the last years of the war. The letters have become something of a family project. E’s grand nephew Ted scanned the letters, making an individual image of each one. He shared them on Google Drive. Now, E, A, and Ted’s father have begun transcribing them one by one so as to create digital text versions. M is helping a little with proofing and such.

Tuesday, December 21, 2021

Christmas soon, but four whole days to prepare. And we already did the grocery shopping–mostly. Must solve the problem of M’s prescription.

Wednesday, December 22, 2021

Making sure to take a walk every day.

Thursday, December 23, 2021

How can it take so long just to wrap a few packages? New prescription still not approved. Renewed the old one.  

Friday, December 24, 2021

The Andees came bearing gifts this Christmas Eve, accompanied by the valiant Frankie. For dinner, one of the A’s contributed mushrooms Logroño, the other A brought frosted sugar cookies plus several bottles from her wine-a-day advent calendar, E made besugo al horno, and M made millionaire cake.   

Saturday, December 25, 2021

It was rainy on Christmas morning, but somewhere in the midst of stockings and presents and breakfast, we noticed that the rain turned briefly to snow. It wasn’t for long and it didn’t stick, but it was nice. It also gave us a preview of what was to come. The snow started for real at about 10:00 in the evening. 

Sunday, December 26, 2021

Five inches of snow this morning, which is a very unusual occurrence in these parts.

For the first half of the day, we just sat back and enjoyed it. Then, around 1:00, we noticed a neighbor out clearing his driveway. Oh yeah, that. He was using a tool called a snow shovel. You don’t see those much around here. Do we even have a snow shovel? We think maybe we do. But where is it? (Ten minutes later) Ah yes, there it is, down there under that pile of stuff.

Monday, December 27, 2021

Three more inches this morning. Wow! No time to shovel though. because we’d arranged to meet our friend El over at the coast at 10:30 and we needed to allow extra time to get there. We didn’t know what to expect on the roads. There have been times when relatively small amounts of snow have paralyzed traffic on that road. But today wasn’t bad: a packed snow surface, mostly sanded and only rarely icy. We took it slow and did fine. We met El at South Beach State Park. It was a joyous reunion because we hadn’t seen each other in 10 years! We did a loop up the beach to the south jetty and back down on the inland trail through the trees. We met a friendly local guy with a very energetic border collie and talked to him for a while. Then it was off to lunch at Local Ocean. El wanted to try a number of things, so boy did we have fun. They weren’t too busy, so we got lots of attention. We feasted on scallops, crab, rock fish and black cod–all locally caught. Yum. 

Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Spent the night in a loft room at the Embarcadero, an old condo development that overlooks part of Yaquina Bay. Considering that the place is 40 years old, everything is in pretty good shape. Our unit had new floors, fixtures and furniture. Only the carpet sample coasters were vintage:

The Port of Newport has a considerable fleet of fishing and crabbing boats. The latter are having their busy season now. Newport is also the home port of several ocean research vessels, one operated by Oregon State University and several owned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The calm waters of the bay give no hint of the dangers of crossing  the Yaquina Bar, which has claimed many lives over the years. 

Before heading home, we stopped to see the seals. 

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

We have been out and about a lot lately, and we were exposed to at least one person who was exposed to a known case. It doesn’t seem very likely that either of us is infected, but we decided to get tested anyway. We went to a drive-up place called WVT, which is located in a small building that once housed a Baskin-Robbins. Talk about sad transitions. When we arrived, instead of going inside to look at all the flavors in the freezer cases, we just stayed in our car. WVT has you register with LabDash before you go, which takes care of a lot of formalities.  A staffer came out and scanned our LabDash QR codes and then gave us long swabs to stick up our noses and a couple of tubes to put the swab tips into once we were finished. After swabbing, you have to put the tip of the swab into the tube and break off the handle part, leaving only the cotton tip inside the tube. That last, of course, was the hard part. In order to see the one place where the handle breaks off easily, you kinda need to have your glasses on…  

We were told that the results would be on LabDash within 24 hours. 

Thursday, December 30, 2021

Friday, December 31, 2021

A rare sunny day. We went for a walk in the OSU forest, which was lovely. But the trail surface was icy in places and we had to take care. We saw that last weekend’s heavy, wet snow had broken off thousands–or millions–of small branches and also brought down a few large trees. Here’s a downed fir just beside the path.

As is our tradition, we spent New Year’s Eve with jigsaw puzzle and a bottle of champagne. It was fun to get several new year greetings by text from friends in other time zones. First came a message from Germany at 9:30 a.m., then one from Spain at about 3:15 p.m. on Dec 31. 2021. Then it was a message from El at 12:30 am on January 1, 2022.  Did we manage to stay up till midnight our time? Yes, we did.

Saturday, January 1, 2022

Except for a few bedraggled remnants, that old 2021 snow is mostly gone. 

Sunday, January 2, 2022

Tree down, lights and decorations packed away. As our Turkish friend Umut told us: Bir yıl daha geçti yine göz açıp kapayıncaya kadar. (Another year has passed in the blinking of an eye. )

He also wishes us a year of sevgi (love), hoşgörü (tolerance), neşe (joy), mutluluk (happiness), huzur (peace), sağlik (health), and sevdiklerimizle doyasıya  güzel zamanlar (good times with our loved ones). We wish the same to all of you.

Wednesday, December 8, 2021

M went for a “wellness visit” to his “provider.” It was about time, says E.

Thursday, December 9, 2021

We watched a video lecture last night about an environmental restoration project being undertaken by the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde. The CTGR have purchased conservation easements on two 400+ acre tracts along the north bank of the North Santiam River near where it flows into the Willamette. (This is roughly 50 miles from Corvallis.) Historically, the whole area was of great value to the indigenous tribes and by the terms of two treaties that were negotiated in the early 1850’s, the area was to be reserved for tribal use. Neither of those treaties was ratified, however, and the lands were not included in the 1855 treaty that established the CTGR reservation. But the area still figures prominently in tribal histories and traditional stories. The presentation included two of these stories: Coyote and the Frog and The Skookum and the Wonderful Boy.

The area is in the flat part of the Willamette Valley and in its natural state was subject to extensive seasonal flooding. The river had many side channels and pools and the main channel would shift every few years. In 1936 two dams were built upstream to provide hydropower and control floods. With seasonal flooding much reduced, hundreds of acres of land near the river became more suitable for agriculture. Native trees and plants were removed, fields were planted, and houses and barns were built. In the 21st century, however, it seems that the fields were not so profitable. Many fields were abandoned and soon became wide swathes of invasive plants, chiefly Scotch broom and blackberry. Over the past few years, things are changing once again, at least in these two parcels. The CTGR project has removed about a dozen structures along with hundreds of tons of discarded equipment and household garbage. Many acres of invasive plants have been removed and replaced by native species. 

In the lecture Q&A someone asked the project manager which native plants were being used in the restoration. The answer was ninebark, snowberry, and Oregon grape. Those names sounded familiar…

Friday, December 10, 2021

We had old friend and colleague R over for dinner. These are hard times for R, who has recently suffered the loss of his spouse, who was also our friend. 

Rain off and on all day. Proper weather for Oregon in December.

Saturday, December 11, 2021

More rain today, hardest in the morning, but steady all day. It’s becoming a soggy world out there. In the late afternoon we got out the rain gear and went walking in the OSU forest. We passed by the lake at about 4:30. As the daylight was just beginning to fade, we saw a flock of seven or eight small ducks. They seemed to be actively feeding, not much perturbed by the weather.

Sunday, December 12, 2021

Another damp day. M did a little yard work between showers.  

Monday, December 13, 2021

Cold and rainy as we set off for an overnight at the coast. For us the roads were clear, but there may have been patches of ice earlier in the day. We were delayed for 20 minutes or so at the scene of a bad accident–bad as in a semi off in the ditch and a very badly mangled small car being hauled away.

We stayed at the Adobe in Yachats. By late afternoon the rain had eased off. We thought of taking a walk, but in the end it was fine to sit at the window and just watch the weather. 

Tuesday, December 14, 2021

We left just after breakfast and headed back inland, planning to do a hike in the Coast Range. First we stopped at Ray’s Market in Waldport to collect some lunch supplies. When we left there, E took the wheel so that M could eat his donut. By the time we got to the trailhead the sun was shining and the skies were clear. It had snowed the day before and the trees had all got a coating of snow. That snow was now melting in the sunshine and as we entered the forest we found a whole lot of dripping going on. It was like walking through a rainstorm. 

Wednesday, December 15, 2021

E had a HEPAJ meeting today. A was absent but H’s daughter–Dr. T–was brought in to sub for her. 

Thursday, December 16, 2021

As loyal readers may know, the Pandemic Diary has been indefatigable in its pursuit of information, even to the extent of reading Oregon Health Authority press releases in their entirety, right down to the very end. Although these texts are generally well written and informative, there is an occasional blip. This snippet–published today, December 16th–is one.  

Oregon’s 5,513th COVID-19 related death is a 73-year-old woman from Josephine County who tested positive Dec. 1 and died Dec. 18 at Asante Three Rivers Medical Center. She had underlying conditions.

Saturday, December 18, 2021

We travelled up to Portland today to see A and celebrate her birthday.  On the way, we made a stop in Salem to pick up a cake at The Konditorei. We met A and her long-time friend C for brunch at Hudson’s Grill, one of our old favorite places. Afterwards we went to A’s house to have cake, presents, and drink flower tea. Very nice.

But then, alas, we had to drive home, two hours through the darkness with heavy traffic in a constant hard rain. Not so nice. Once we were home, having lived to tell the tale, we rewarded ourselves with ice cream.

Sunday, December 19, 2021

The rain continues today. It feels gentler because there’s no wind pushing the drops around. But it does go on and on. The clay soils that were dry and cracked just months ago are now saturated. Puddles are forming in all the usual places around the yard. Squishiness is everywhere.

E talked by Zoom today with S and Mrs. H. S is helping Mrs. H with her annual cookie packaging. Mrs. H has made hundreds of cookies, twelve different kinds, and S helped her to assemble them unto gift plates. Every year Mrs H gives away lots of cookies, many of them to the volunteers who help her run the food pantry.  

E also spoke via FaceTime with her friend L, who grew up in Ballston Spa but has lived for many years now in Vanuatu. L asked if E remembered the name of the styrofoam factory that opened in Ballston Spa when they were children. They remembered going along the railroad tracks near the factory and finding small pieces of some strange substance on the ground. When they picked it up, it seemed quite amazing. E did indeed remember the name of the company: Tufflite Plastics. The reason L was thinking of the factory is that she finds that the once pristine beaches of Vanuatu are now strewn with styrofoam. She wonders if that styrofoam had its origin in Ballston Spa.

The Pandemic Diary has followed up on this a little. We know that Tufflite Plastics was founded in 1950 and survived into the 1990’s. The company produced a number of different products over the years. But what was their first product, the one that helped the business really take off? Was it (A) blue styrofoam insulation materials,  (B) white styrofoam packing materials, or (C) green and white styrofoam materials for florists and crafters?

Monday, December 20, 2021

Did someone say puddles?

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

It’s been a frustrating month for M, who has faithfully tracked the ups and downs of the pandemic in Oregon for almost two years now. To do so, he has depended on daily and weekly reports from the Oregon Health Authority. OHA reports on such things as number of tests given, number of new cases, number vaccinations given, number of hospitalizations, and of course number of deaths. These OHA reports are published on the web for all to see. Nice and clear. Except  that for the past several weeks things aren’t so nice and clarity is out the window. Let’s look at some recent examples: 

Here are the opening sentences of three consecutive OHA daily press releases:

1. Issued on Nov 22 showing data for the period Nov. 19-21:

There are 103 new COVID-19 related deaths in Oregon, raising the state’s death toll to 5,016, Oregon Health Authority (OHA) reported at 12:01 a.m. today. 

2. Issued on Nov 23 showing data for Nov 22:

There are 51 new COVID-19 related deaths in Oregon, raising the state’s death toll to 5,067, Oregon Health Authority (OHA) reported at 12:01 a.m. today. 

3. Issued on Nov 24 showing data for Nov 23:   

There are 50 new COVID-19 related deaths in Oregon, raising the state’s death toll to 5,116, Oregon Health Authority (OHA) reported at 12:01 a.m. today.

That seems pretty clear, does it not? Doesn’t it seem that the OHA is reporting that 204 (103+50+51) Oregonians have died in the last five days? Well, you might think that, but you’d be wrong. Because the real number of Oregon COVID deaths in those five days was 27. 

How, you might ask, does the Pandemic Diary know that these reports are not what they seem? Do we have a confidential source inside OHA, a honest and courageous individual whose identity we would never reveal even under threat of prosecution or torture? No, thank goodness, that’s not it.

All we did was read the finer details of OHA’s own data, which can be found way down at the end of the same press releases. That’s where we find that 177 of the reported 204 COVID-related deaths actually occurred in previous months, mostly September and October but also as far back as December of 2020. These deaths are only now being reported as COVID deaths and thus only now being added to the Oregon COVID registry. Or, as a different OHA weekly report puts it:

These recently recorded deaths reflect, in part, ongoing efforts to address a backlog of suspected COVID-19-associated deaths identified by matching death certificate records to previously reported cases of COVID-19. 

Okay, but why not report these adjustments separately from current deaths? Why do they instead suggest that all of the 204 deaths are new? Tsk-tsk. More on this another time.

Thursday, November 25, 2021

We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with our friends K and J in Salem. The Andees were there too, having come down from Vancouver. Good food, fine décor, and good group of people. K has started a run for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is now focused on figuring out who his rivals will be in the Democratic primary and also, of course, on how to raise money. A and E have known K for many years now, ever since he was a friend of Becca’s back in their college days. We’re rooting for him. 

Friday, November 26, 2021

Good as it was, the K&J Thanksgiving dinner lacked pecan pie. So we’re on our own for that vital nutritional component. We have all the ingredients–except pecans. Well actually we even have pecans, but we have pecan pieces, not whole pecans and that’s not satisfactory. E strongly prefers whole pecans because whole pecans are much easier to pick out and discard. Yes, E loves pecan pie, but she goes mostly for the filling. As for the pecans–yuck!

Saturday, November 27, 2021

So we got ourselves a Christmas tree and went home and strung some lights on it. Turns out we don’t have quite enough lights. We remember this problem from last year. Now we must find time to buy another string or two. Can’t do that right now though, as we have other priorities, such as finding some whole pecans.

Sunday, November 28, 2021

M got up and made a pie crust. E filled it with the necessary ingredients for pecan pie. Later M went outside and put up Christmas lights. It was a beautiful day to be out, 63º and mostly sunny. Also, we bought some more indoor tree lights. Haven’t got them on the tree yet though. Ho-ho-ho.

Boy, that was good pie.

Monday, November 29, 2021

The opening sentence of today’s OHA press release reported 27 “new” deaths. Near the bottom of the same document, the details of each death show that just 19 of these occurred in November.

We here at the PD have no problem with people who make mistakes or omissions and who then correct them. In fact, we like those people. Making mistakes is how people become competent and we surely have a need for as many competent people as possible. So the fact that OHA is making adjustments is not the issue. And all in all, their messaging shows that they want to be transparent about correcting the omissions; unfortunately, they just can’t quite get to the point of being completely transparent, which is of course another mistake. But there’s more to it than this. We’re not talking about one person here, we’re talking about a complex system of many, many people. The reporting of a death begins with the doctor who signs the death certificate, which includes the date and cause(s) of someone’s demise. The data then goes to county health officials who collect the local data and forward it to the Oregon Health Authority. At OHA the data is further inspected and then becomes part of the official registry. So the process involves a lot of people. Now we’re just speculating here, but it’s just possible that not all of those people see things in quite the same light. Specifically, they may not all agree on just what constitutes a COVID death. In fact, it is virtually certain that some disagreement will occur. (See M’s essay on the nature of reality.) Quite possibly, we are not really talking about mistakes or unintentional omissions related to the death count. Instead, if we ever get to the root of why these adjustments are being made, we may find a host of long simmering conflicts about just how COVID deaths should be counted. 

In the evening we tried putting the new tree lights onto the tree. Failed. We bought the wrong kind of lights…the stupid kind.

Tuesday, November 30, 2021

Breakfast today at Bodhi’s. They make a pretty good decaf americano. They have great croissants too–if you like them burnt on top. (Surely that’s a little peculiar!) But breakfast gave us the strength to go on. First, we went to the chocolate shop and got a few little items. Then we got another set of tree lights at Fred Meyer and then a couple of takeout sandwiches from the Vietnamese Baguette. Then we took a walk; then we prepared presents to send to the faraways; then E met a friend for coffee while M worked in the yard, then we put the new new lights onto the tree; and finally we had spaghetti and salad for dinner. Whew! We’re tired now.

Wednesday, December 1, 2021

Another sunny day. M got the Boxster out again and went zipping around the countryside on those new sticky tires. He stopped to eat his sack lunch at the Thompson Mills State Heritage Site. 

Back in Corvallis, it was time to update our long-term tracking of the severity of the pandemic in Oregon.  As mentioned, the Oregon Health Authority has reported many “new” deaths that aren’t really new. Once these are filtered out, the November numbers show a very significant decline compared to September and October.

Of course all the numbers reflected in the chart are provisional. It’s funny how hard counting can be.

Thursday, December 2, 2021

Tertulia today with J and R at Coffee Culture. We sat outside in the cold, but one of the staff came outside to the big tent and lit up the propane heaters, which made it pretty comfortable. J and R have a new houseguest, a high school age exchange student from Hungary. 

Friday, December 3, 2021

E had her first ever Zoom embroidery session with friend S in New York. Although not many stitches were made, the meeting was a resounding success. In the afternoon we had tea time with P.

Saturday, December 4, 2021

E made trucha a la Navarra for dinner. Our friend C was here to share it. We met C when we were all teaching at the monastery in Thailand. C is an inveterate traveler and he’s at it again, this time going up and down the Pacific coast by train. He’ll stay with us a couple of nights and then be off to his next stop. 

Sunday, December 5, 2021

We took C down to the Finley Reserve to see the waterfowl–hundreds of trumpeter swans, Canada geese and ducks fo various sorts. We had a sunny day for it and the view from Bruce Road, with sun low in the sky behind us, was very fine. From there we went up into the Coast Range to see Alsea Falls.

Next, we dropped down into the Alsea Valley to see if we could find any Coho salmon in the river. We’d been told they come up to spawn at about this time of year. But the only thing we found was this sad reminder that once they spawn, the salmon die.

Monday, December 6, 2021

We took C back to the train station today. We had been thinking of a nature walk in the morning, but the rain was pelting down, so instead we headed for Albany early and stopped on the way at Margins coffeehouse. Good stuff there. C is on his way to Eugene where he’ll stay with another friend. C has friends everywhere and it’s not hard to see why. 

Tuesday, December 7, 2021

We are still working on decorating the our Christmas tree. Progress has been slow, but we think we’re about done.

Tuesday, November 9, 2021

Had a bit of adventure at lunch today, in the somewhat peculiar town of Philomath. This little town (whose name is pronounced with a stressed long ‘o’ and a schwa ‘a’) is partly a bedroom community for Corvallis and partly a rural lumber town with a very different flavor from Corvallis. We went to a restaurant called the Tap House, which opened recently in the space that used to be the town hardware store. (The hardware store has moved into larger quarters where the food market used to be.)

We walked in to find that the place was crowded and that there was nary a mask in sight. Of course masklessness is normal around here for restaurant customers once they have taken their seats. We’re used to that. But this was the first time in a coon’s age that we’d seen staff without masks. We’re pretty sure that’s a violation of state rules. On the other hand, the staff were friendly and efficient; the whole atmosphere of the place seemed upbeat; and the food was not too bad. Staff masking and table spacing make a difference though. We won’t be going back there.

Wednesday, November 10, 2021

Another adventure today, a drive up to a mall near Portland. E’s favorite shoe store was having a Ziera sale. And what a sale it was! And even more amazing was the great variety of shoes in stock in E’s size. The final haul was three pairs of Zieras for a total of $116. In the reckoning of the friendly shoe salesman, that was a savings of $400. But wait, how can you save by spending?

E then celebrated having saved so much money by spending some quality time at J Jill, where she also found items of interest. M spent this interval in the Bridgeport Barnes and Noble, which is really quite nice.

Friday, November 12, 2021

E has decided that she wants to have oak trees in our front yard. She has been told that they are the single most important species that one can plant in support of other native species of all types. She has also heard that they grow best in groves. So an oak grove we will have. This raises many questions. How many oaks constitute a grove? We’re thinking three. Must we use acorns or can we plant oak seedlings or saplings? The latter. Where do we find these? One seedling is already growing near the house in an inappropriate place. We’ll move it to our grove area. That’s one. We’ll have to go to Garland Nursery to get two more. What kind of oaks exactly? Oregon white oaks, of course, Quercas garryanna. Are we sure that the volunteer in the yard is a white oak? No, but it’s an oak and it can’t stay where it is and we can’t kill it, so it has to go into the grove. Really? Yes. So are we going to the nursery now? Yes. But if we go to the nursery, won’t M be tempted to buy more bulbs even though he is running out of places to put them? Hmm.

Saturday, November 13, 2021

Morning: We marched out and finalized the location and design of the front yard oak grove. E dug holes at selected spots and discovered a couple of pieces of plastic that had broken off of the lawn mower. M went around to the back and planted bulbs. 

Afternoon: M enlarged the holes and planted one volunteer seedling, one purchased seedling, and one purchased sapling. Oh boy. We’re going to have oak trees! There will be a majestic mass of foliage that from a distance might look like just one tree but when you get closer you’ll see that it’s actually a whole grove of oak trees. Yes, we can see it already in our mind’s eye…which is good because oaks grow so slowly that there’s no way we’re going to live long enough to see them with our real eyes. (But as a good book says: The Land of Illusion and the Paradise of Truth are one and the same.)

Sunday, November 14, 2021

Partly sunny and 63 today, a good day to rake a few leaves and mow the back yard grass. Plus, we had raspberry coffee cake for breakfast. For dinner aloo gobi, raita, and naan. We’re planning an excursion to the town of Prineville. We’ll stay there tomorrow night and, weathering permitting, we’ll hike on Tuesday. 

Monday, November 15, 2021

It was raining as we left Corvallis at 1:30 and headed east. The trip took a little more than three hours and the rain was with us almost all the way, sometimes just a little, but usually quite a lot. The storm was moving from west to east just as we were, so we had time to get to be friends. The drive through the mountains was beautiful–the low gray sky, the dark green trees covering the mountainsides, the few remaining spots of fall yellow from the understory plants along the road. It’s never really fun to drive in a hard rain, but on this day the road was almost empty and the blanket of clouds made everything quiet, insulating us from the rest of the world. After two hours, as we got out of the mountains and onto the high plains, the storm broke apart and the rain lessened. By the time we entered Prineville it was hardly there at all. 

Euro-americans first entered the area in the 1800’s. They found a land of abundant grass and year round water. It struck many of them as an ideal place to raise cattle and make a home. Of course there were some non-Euros already living there. Accordingly, in 1855, the U.S. government decreed that 500,000 acres of relatively poor land would become the Warm Springs Reservation while 9,500,000 acres of the good stuff would be open for settlement. By 1877, when the city of Prineville was incorporated, there were dozens of ranches in the area–and plenty of conflict between cow people and sheep people.  

Tuesday, November 16, 2021

We woke up this morning to find the sun shining with the temperature in the high thirties and rising. We’d been a little worried about the idea of going hiking in this area in November, but it turned out to be the perfect day for it. (Masterful planning on our part….or luck. Whatever.) After a leisurely breakfast, we set off to find the trail to Chimney Rock, which we had picked out from M’s new hiking guide. Chimney Rock looked to be a short and fairly easy climb, not too far from town. Getting there is easy, just go south on Main Street, which turns into Oregon Highway 27, which follows the Crooked River up Crooked River Canyon. The canyon is lovely and the river is small and placid at this time of year. This is high desert country, so most of the rivers are small. It’s 17 miles from town to the trailhead and for most of this distance the road just meanders along beside the river. At one point, though, the canyon narrows and the road rises up above the river and runs along the top of a palisade. 

Once we were through that stretch, the road descended back to the river level and we found Chimney Rock campground on our right and the trail head on our left. It was just a little after 10:00 at that point and the hike was only three miles long, so we decided to leave our lunch in the truck and have it when we got back. (A foolishly optimistic plan, but it worked out okay.)

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

The skies over Prineville stayed mostly clear overnight, and the temperature dipped into the twenties. When we went to breakfast, it was up to 31 and we had to scrape frost from the windshield. We hadn’t done that for a while. We were headed home, but first we did a short walk around Prineville. We found that there is a nice multi-use path along a creek that runs from east to west through the length of the town. We saw two big herons along the way. One was shy and flew away from us. The other regarded us silently from the top of a pole as we passed.

Lastly we took a look at the Bowman Museum, which is located in a very nice old stone building at the corner of Third and Main. There were a series of displays on various aspects of the city’s history, including one on the rags-to-riches story of Les Schwab and his tire store empire. Schwab was born in 1917 and went to primary school in a boxcar parked at a timber camp. At fifteen he was orphaned and had to go out on his own. In 1951, at the age of 34, he scraped together enough money to buy a tire shop in Prineville. By 1971 there were 34 Les Schwab tire stores and by the time he died in 2007 there were 410. Schwab’s management policies were notable for their focus on employee loyalty and included full health benefits, a generous profit-sharing plan, and a policy of only promoting from within. Schwab’s maketing focused on fast, enthusiastic service and free flat repair. 

Schwab outlived both his children. The eldest, a son, was being groomed to take over the business when he died in a car accident at the age of 31. In the end it was Schwab’s daughter, Margaret Schwab Denton, who stepped in to run the business when her father retired from day-to-day management in the late 1980’s. This she did very successfully until she died of cancer in 2005 at the age of 53. Her father passed soon after.

There is of course a lot more to the Bowman museum. We especially noted a long glass case with a collection of at least two dozen vintage and antique mouse traps. We regret not asking the person at the desk how that particular exhibit came to be there.

Oh, and one final note, the City of Prineville once owned a small railroad, one that was so profitable that for a period of years in the middle of the last century, city residents paid no property taxes. 

In the middle of the day we stopped for a nutritious lunch of donuts from the Sisters bakery, then retraced our route over the mountains and back to the Willamette Valley. In the highest parts of the trip the rain-soaked forests that we had driven past two days ago were now dusted with a bright layer of confectioners sugar…or something.

Thursday, November 18, 2021

Tertulia this morning at Coffee Culture. It’s not as cold as Prineville, but we still got a little chilly sitting outside under the big white tent. 

These are somber days. A long-time friend has died. A family member is in difficulty. Spouses are being forced to somehow get by on their own. You wonder how you can help. You wonder about your own demise.

Sunday, November 21, 2021

Sometime way back in the early summer E picked blueberries in her friend P’s back yard. Some got eaten, some got frozen. Some got used today making blueberry pancakes. Later on, M took advantage of the weather–cloudy but dry–and took the Boxster out for some exercise. There are some nice country roads out east of I-5, where he saw lots of bright green fields covered with shoots of new winter wheat and seed crops. Green fields in November are a normal sight in these parts, but every year they still surprise us. While M was out, E worked on the family gift exchange, figuring out who gives to whom and sending out messages informing the givers of their recipient’s snail mail address–quite a task. She took a long walk in the middle to clear her mind. 

In the evening we watched the Season 1 finale of Velvet, a Spanish series on Netflix. Such drama! Such beautiful clothes! Such complete lack of politics. There are even some beautiful cars. 

Monday,  October 25, 2021

Tuesday,  October 26, 2021

We watched the final episode of S1 of The Morning Show. It was pretty good, but we’re taking a break, possibly a long break, before approaching Season 2. 

Wednesday,  October 27, 2021

Did some fall gardening today and had a nice lunch, sandwiches from the Vietnamese Baguette.

E invited our friend H to dinner and served up minestrone soup, green salad and dinner rolls. H brought some fresh ciliegine mozzarella plus a small brick of reggiano. A very nice evening, talking about times old and new. 

Thursday,  October 28, 2021

Busy day today–tertulia, BBB, leaf raking, lawn mowing, napping, Laughter Yoga, and finally COVID booster shots. There was a drive- through clinic at the Benton County Fairgrounds. When you drive into the big parking lot, the first person you see tells you about how long the wait will be. We rolled in at around 5:30 and were told it would be about two hours. With some trepidation, we decided to proceed. It was indeed two hours. Oddly enough, though, the time passed pretty quickly. It was interesting to see how the whole thing was being run. E was at the wheel because she wanted her shot to be in her left shoulder. After about an hour and a quarter, we got to the place where they were handing out paperwork for us to fill out. They were matching booster vaccines with original vaccines, so that meant slightly different paperwork for each of us, since E was a Pfizer kid and M was Moderna. Finally we got to the head of the line. M got a new shot of Moderna along with a notation on his vaccination card. Wow! We were almost done. Except that we weren’t. They had just used up one batch of Pfizer vaccines and we had to wait while they prepared another. As you might expect, that seemed by far the longest ten minutes of the day… 

Friday, October 29, 2021

Cloudy day, mostly dry. M raked leaves for compost. He claims to have enjoyed the experience. His efforts were ephemeral, to a degree, since leaves were actively falling even as he worked and the yard was by no means all clear when he was done. He says that’s what made it special.

Later on, we had a salmon dinner at K and L’s house. They got their hands on a big salmon recently. We know the fish was big because when K cooked just a fourth of it, it came out to be way more than the four of us could eat. And we did try… Great food, great conversation, plus, we got to meet their new dog, Finn, an eleven-month old poodle mix. 

Saturday, October 30, 2021

Nice sunny day. M took advantage of it by mowing the front lawn. Will this be the last mowing for a while? Hard to say. Mowing is much less pleasant than raking.

Sunday,  October 31, 2021

Lunched on salmon and risotto, some of the extra from Friday’s dinner with K and L. Quite deluxe. For dinner E cooked a pumpkin, one of the eating varieties. After dinner we readied our hedge monster to greet the trick or treaters. We had a dozen of so different groups come to our door, some accompanied by parents. A happy evening. Strangers smiling at one another. You don’t see that in the news much.

Monday, November 1, 2021

Oregon reported an average of 19 COVID deaths per day in the month of October, the second highest rate since the pandemic began. 

This chart has been updated to show an extra 550 deaths in May, June, July and August of this year. The OHA has not yet released the actual data; this chart merely distributes the 550 equally across the four months in order to show at least some adjustment for the error. It will have to do.

Tuesday, November 2, 2021

E and M love to get comments or feedback of any sort. If you’ve never replied to the blog and would like to try, the way to go is to scroll all the way down the bottom of everything and look for the Leave a Reply area. There are spaces to put in your name and email address, but you don’t actually have to do that. (At least I don’t think so.) Just add your comment and post.

If you do leave an email address, then you can also request one or both of the check box options that show up at the bottom of the Leave a Reply area. The first option asks the system to automatically inform you if anyone makes a comment on your comment. The second option asks the system to automatically inform you when there is a new posting of the Pandemic Diary, which now occurs roughly every two weeks.

Once you post a comment, it would be nice if it immediately appeared in the blog. But, alas, it does not. There is a delay while the posting is being vetted by our hjghly vigilant Comment Approval Department. Is this to prevent hate speech or incitements to insurrection? Well, we haven’t actually gotten any of those. But we do get odd things. Here’s one that came a couple of weeks ago. This is the comment, in its entirety:

#B%$XC74M&8UW086*$97*5FVGD$HJHGW#NJ

The sender’s name was  T5$3HSP94#BK5GC

The staff of the our Comment Approval Dept admired the density of this comment and made no objection to its brevity. Nor were they put off by the sender’s unusual name. They gave the comment low marks for comprehensibility and relevance though, and it was rejected.

Wednesday, November 3, 2021

We have finally given up on our $189 Home Depot freezer. Why? Because it didn’t freeze anything. It did get things cold, but it never froze them and we had to throw a bunch of stuff away. We dragged the so-called freezer back into Home Depot and listened to their offer to replace it with an identical one, which they may or may not have had in stock. But no, we had lost faith. We wanted money. We wanted to be away from this freezer…far away.

That was in the morning. In the afternoon we bought another little freezer somewhere else. We set it up and put some water in it to see if it would actually get cold. It did. Good. You don’t want to have to spend all of your life dealing with appliances. 

Thursday, November 4, 2021

Dinner out at Sybaris in Albany. It’s still good. M had house made elk sausage with grits, acorn squash and jalapeño mustard cream sauce. The sausage recipe was passed on to the current Sybaris chef by his mentor, who himself learned it from its creator, Milos Cihelka. Now long retired and long out of fashion, Cihelka was a fifties era Czech immigrant. His Michigan restaurant once had a national reputation. You know, back when Detroit was one of America’s hottest cities…

Friday, November 5, 2021

A cloudy day with just a hint of rain. Went for a walk at the Finley refuge. Saw a huge, long procession of geese. They were flying low and turning this way and that. Looked like big ghostly snake gliding along in the air. Not easily photographable.

Trees, on the other hand, are more cooperative. 

Saturday, November 6, 2021

It’s salmon spawning season here, so naturally E dragged us out to see Salmon Watch Family Day. SWFD is an opportunity to see salmon in the wild and to learn more about their life cycle and their place in the forest ecosystem. It takes place at the confluence of the Alsea River and Seeley Creek, about 20 miles west of Corvallis and roughly 50 miles from the Pacific Ocean. Several species of salmon spawn in the river. Today we saw Chinook, who spawn in the main body of the river. If we were to come back in a month, we were told, we would be able to see Coho, who spawn in the smaller side streams such as Seeley Creek. 

The fish we saw were black with a white dorsal stripe and were very thin, seeming much worn down from their trip up from the ocean. Once they reach the spawning area, a courtship begins as female salmon look for acceptable males to pair up with. Females then choose the best spot they can find to lay their eggs. For Chinook, at least, this will be a gravel bar or riffle. The females use their tails to dig a depression in the gravel, into which they deposit their eggs, which the males then fertilize.

After spawning, the salmon die and the bodies come to rest along the sides of the river. Much of the meat is eaten by animals such as black bears, raccoons, or coyotes. Other parts of the fish nourish various smaller organisms. Eventually, nutrients from the dead salmon parents make their way into the soil and then into nearby plants. Scientists know this because riparian fir trees, for example, have been found to contain certain types of micronutrients that are only created in salt water environments.

We got a couple of videos of the action.

(video 4606)

The docent said that the kerfuffle might have been a male-female conflict or a conflict between females, one of whom has claimed this spawning spot and is shooing the other away. 

The World Salmon Council is especially interested in educating children about salmon and their habitats. There’s a nice little video here.   

Lovely fall day today, if a little chilly. At the Salmon Watch event we had both rain and bright sun, plus a small rainbow. Later in the day, back in Corvallis, we had to make a run to the market for a raspberry coffee cake and it was more of the same…

Sunday, November 7, 2021

We walked in the OSU forest today and noticed how the understory really shows up these days.

Tuesday,  October 12, 2021

M got up at six, had breakfast and read the paper, and then went back to bed. He popped up again around nine and went out to figure out what to do with his corms while E did Better Bones and Balance. At about the time M finished his time in the backyard, E came out to put her cabbages into the ground. Here’s one now…

Having got word that its new shoes had arrived, M took the Boxster downtown to the tire place. M loves getting new tires, especially for this sort of car. The new ones are soft and sticky. They hold the road like blazes, but they won’t last more than 15,000 miles. My candle burns at both ends; it will not last the night, But ah, my foes and oh, my friends–. it gives a lovely light!  

E took a walk in the OSU forest. Here’s what the Cronemiller Lake looked like.

For TV we’ve started watching The Morning Show with Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Anniston. Hmm. On the down side, there’s something off-putting about all these characters. But at least they’re interesting and the acting is good. We’ll probably watch more.

Wednesday,  October 13, 2021

We’ve become obsessed by the garage. We’ve been moving some things around and getting rid of others. E is sorting through her old work stuff. Yikes! What with one thing and another, we’ve decided to put one of our shelving units up for sale. Whoa. And as if that weren’t enough, M has decided to try and spiff up the place. He’s painting one wall that has never been painted before and is also starting to repair long cracks in the floor.

Following her work in the garage, E went out and did a nature walk down at the Starker Arts Park. She was remembering how she used to take dog Pepper there. There’s been some email discussion of having a celebration of life service for Pepper’s original owner.

Thursday,  October 14, 2021

We got a lot done today. E had two classes–BBB and Laughter Yoga–and she went to a hair appointment, plus she went out to see the coin man and sold her collection of WW2 zinc pennies. She had over a hundred of them; and since they’re worth a bit more than three cents apiece, you can just imagine how rich she has suddenly become.

M also raised cash when a couple of youngish type people dropped by and took away the utility shelf. He also put a coat of paint on the garage wall and then went after the long crack in the floor. He was heard to grumble aloud about the Nile River of cracks.

For dinner we went out south of town to Four Spirits. Four Spirits is a craft distillery founded by a former Oregon National Guard soldier who served in Iraq. There is a restaurant at one end of the big distillery building. The menu is fairly short and the food is good, simpler and healthier than most Oregon brewpub fare. The craft cocktails are also good; E was very pleased with her Harvest Mule. Also, the view to the west is lovely. We sat outside to get the full effect. The distillery sells whiskies, gin, rum and vodka in six western and mid-western states. Ten per cent of all bottle sale proceeds are used to fund veterans’ reintegration support programs in those states. For more of this rather nice story, see the link above. 

Friday, October 15, 2021

E went out early and fetched croissants for breakfast. Yee-haw! It was dim, foggy and cold at that time, but by late morning the mists had burned away and the sun was shining. M worked on his garage project, putting on a second coat of paint and washing some pretty dirty windows. In the middle of the day E went out to a meeting regarding a memorial for Susan. 

Later in the afternoon E baked brownies and then went to fetch nachos and virgin margaritas from Tacovore. All this was in honor of our friend P who came for a visit. P had recently had a birthday and after a snack of nachos and devirginized margaritas, she got a brownie with a birthday candle. In return Pat had some good information to share on some end of life issues. More on that later maybe.

Watched another episode of The Morning Show. Pretty interesting, maybe too much so. Do we need that much tension in the evening? 

Saturday, October 16, 2021

The COVID surge continues in Oregon. In the first half of October, the state averaged more than 20 deaths per day, which is about the same as the September rate. The state reports that both hospitalizations and new case numbers declined slightly. The positive test rate for the last two weeks is around 6.5%– quite a bit lower than the September rates, but still considerably higher than in June and July.

Sunday,  October 17, 2021

We made a long drive today, Corvallis to Brookings via Grants Pass, which took about seven hours in all. The weather was cloudy all they way with some intermittent rain toward the end. Our destination was Alfred A. Loeb State Park, where we had reserved a cabin for two nights. Loeb is a small campground that was created in 1948 in the middle of an old growth myrtle grove on the banks of the Chetco river. We’d visited it once before on a day trip. We’d been impressed by the three new-looking cabins at Loeb and had hoped that one day we might return in stay in one. Well, here we are, and it is indeed nice–a snug, heated shelter right on the riverbank.

Monday,  October 18, 2021

After breakfast we got back in the truck and headed east on the river road. The plan to was to follow the road for 20 miles or so to where it ended at the edge of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness Area. The first ten miles were paved and went by pretty fast. Then, as we crossed a bridge and came to a tee junction, the pavement ended. The route we wanted was to the right. Alas, a large sign announced that that route was closed due to a landslide. After a bit of exploring, we figured out that the trailhead was still accessible, requiring only a five mile detour around to the left. Hmm. Well, let’s see how it goes. As we gained altitude the road became narrower and rougher, sometimes running along the edge of slopes that plunged down hundreds of feet. We might have turned back, but the sun had come out, the recent rains had settled the dust, and the scenery was beautiful. And the roads were mostly smooth, with only the requisite minimum of potholes, washboard, and partial washouts. On we went until we found the trail to Mount Vulcan. 

We knew that we were going into an area of relatively recent fire activity. A giant fire called the Sour Biscuit Complex burned much of the Wilderness Area in 2002. Large fires also occurred in 2017 and 2018 on the west side of the Chetco Divide.

Tuesday,  October 19, 2021

Early to bed and early to rise. By nine we had had our breakfast and loaded all our gear into the truck. E gave the cabin a good sweeping and again we were on the road. We only went three quarters of a mile, though, because we wanted to take a turn through the Oregon Redwood grove. These are the northernmost redwoods on the continent. A one-mile trail loops through the grove, which is located on a southeast facing mountainside. A lovely stream bisects the loop. We’d done it before, but it was worth doing again.

After the redwood loop. we had to get moving again. We planned to spend the next night at an Airbnb just outside of Glendale, Oregon. From where we were, over near the coast, Glendale is only about 55 miles northeast as the crow flies, but getting there by car is complicated. We of course chose to go directly across the mountains, skirting the northern edge of the Kalmiopsis Wilderness and passing just south of the Rogue River Wilderness. Fifty-five miles by air turned out to be 102 miles by truck and it took more than three hours, but it was quite a ride, especially the section between Agness and Galice, known as Bear Camp Road. Bear Camp Road climbs to 4,700 feet and provides spectacular views. (Click the link to see some stories about people who tried to cross the BCR too late in the year and became stranded. Several of the stories are tragic, but one has a somewhat comedic ending.) We’re not likely to drive Bear Camp Road again, but we won’t forget it either. 

We arrived at our rural cottage at about 4:30 and decided to use its nice-looking kitchen to make ourselves a dinner: ravioli, caesar salad, pinot noir, and chocolate chip cookies. Again we went to bed early.

Wednesday,  October 20, 2021

The provided breakfast consisted of eggs, turkey bacon and croissants. There was coffee in the fridge and three options for brewing: a French press, a traditional drip maker, and an espresso maker. M decided to grind some beans and make expresso. That turned out to be a bad decision–not as bad as taking a wrong turn off Bear Camp Road just before a big snowstorm, but still not very good. We will spare you the details of this comedy of errors and move on to a video from our post-breakfast walk around the property, which was quite lovely. To best hear the birds, turn up your volume. To enlarge, click in the arrows in the upper left.

Departed Glendale around 11:00 and flew up the freeway toward home, making just one essential stop at the Rice Hill Ice Cream stand for a nutritious lunch. Arrived home about 2:30 and started unpacking. 

Thursday,  October 21, 2021

Tertulia with J and R at the usual place. They’ve just been in San Francisco, where they saw the San Francisco Opera production of Beethoven’s Fidelio. 

Friday, October 22, 2021

In local COVID news, the Oregon Health Authority has announced that a “technical glitch” resulted in large scale underreporting of Oregon COVID deaths in the months of May, June, July and August of this year. During that period, OHA previously reported 529 deaths; now they say that the actual number was 1,079. This means that they somehow missed 550 deaths, which seems like rather a lot. 

In local plumbing news, we have drain problems. Yuck. Someone is coming tomorrow. 

Saturday, October 23, 2021

Rain overnight and now a rather pleasant overcast day, bright enough for the fall colors to show their stuff. Our own young flame maple is doing just fine. Drain problems solved thanks to efficient work by energetic young plumber.

Sunday, October 24, 2021

A quiet morning followed by major winds and rain that started just after noon. The OSU Forest is closed due to possible danger from falling trees.