Category Archives: Days in My Life

I don’t just sit around and watch TV.

A Footnote about My Cold on Day 5

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A theory on how I got it.

I blogged about the cold I’ve been dealing with since Friday afternoon here. It’s now Wednesday morning and I’ve still got symptoms.

Yesterday, I got a call from one of the pilots who’s been working with me on cherry drying for the past bunch of years, Gary. Gary had arrived on Tuesday with his RV and, on Wednesday, after two of his pilots arrived with the helicopter, we all went out to lunch at a local restaurant called McGlinn’s Public House. McGlinn’s has indoor and outdoor seating, but since the outdoor seating was all taken and we were all vaccinated, we settled on indoor seating in the sparsely furnished bar area.

Temperature
Who knew? Each time I took my temperature with my Kinsa thermometer, it was sending the reading to my iPhone where it synced with Apple’s Health app. Since my “normal” temperature is in the 97s, you may be able to imagine how I felt at 100.2° on Monday. I’m in the low 98s today.

Mask use has always been a little iffy on this red side of a blue state and I can’t say I saw any masks in the restaurant. Of course, it is a restaurant where people eat and it’s impossible to eat with a mask on so I wasn’t really surprised.

Gary, his crew, and I were together briefly again on Thursday when I showed them a parking spot for Gary’s RV. And I was with Gary again briefly on Friday when we ran into town in his truck to pick up a few things at the store. I didn’t wear a mask at all during this time.

Fast forward to the call from Gary yesterday (Tuesday). He began by apologizing for “disappearing.” “I’ve been sick as a dog all weekend,” he told me.

“Me, too!” I exclaimed. We then went on to compare symptoms. He seemed to have more pain than I did and I seemed to have more coughing than he did but otherwise we had pretty much the same thing. Together, we stepped backward to the places we’d been and the timing was just right for mutual exposure at McGlinn’s.

Later, he spoke to the two pilots who had been with us. Both of them were at least 20 years younger than us — hearty young guys who might be able to fight a bug better than we could. Neither were sick. But still. It was too much to be a coincidence.

I then began wondering how I could be hit so hard by something that wasn’t COVID when I really didn’t get sick that often at all. And then I realized that it might have something to do with my isolation over the past year or so. I live a pretty solitary existence, but I would normally go out and about, maskless, at least a few times a week. Over the past year, however, I’d been out a lot less frequently and had been wearing a mask among strangers almost all the time. Could that have weakened my immune system? Could not exposing myself to miscellaneous germs in the natural course of my day have put my immune system on vacation?

Sure seems that way. Numerous news stories, including this one on PBS Newshour, report exactly that:

A curious thing happened during the COVID-19 pandemic: With masks, social distancing, and Purell galore, we kept most other germs at bay.

Flu vanished. Cases of respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, which in a normal winter puts nearly 60,000 children under age 5 in the hospital, were nonexistent. Most of us appeared to sidestep the soup of bugs that cause colds.

But as masks come off, schools reopen, and some travel resumes, we should expect a resurgence of these viruses — perhaps a big one. Some experts fear we’re in for a nasty cold-and-flu season or two, pointing to a combination of factors that could make for a rough re-entry to the mixed microbes world.

There’s more, of course. I encourage you to read the whole piece.

I seem to be living proof of this. After more than a year of protecting myself, I dropped my guard and, less than a week later, I’m sick with a bad cold I can’t seem to shake.

Would I have gotten this sick if I hadn’t been wearing a mask the whole time? I don’t know. I do know that I could have been sicker — possibly with COVID — so don’t for a minute regret my caution.

What I do regret, however, is dropping my guard as if the health risk is over. Clearly, it’s not.

Getting Past a Cold

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Is it my age or a weakened immune system?

I’m just starting to recover from a cold that pretty much knocked me completely out of commission for the past three full days. Even today, I’m feeling it, but at least I’m starting to feel somewhat better — or at least good enough to take a shower, do some light household chores, and take care of sending orders out to Etsy customers.

I started feeling it on Friday afternoon, after yet another full day doing things around the house and yard and helping one of my contract pilots settle in for his five week stay nearby. Really feeling tired and run down. I was supposed to visit with a friend at the local winery but cancelled. I needed to rest.

The Lead Up

Let me take a few steps back. The previous weekend had been super stressful for me. I’d signed up to sell my jewelry at a festival in Wenatchee that was originally supposed to be held in early May, long before cherry season. It had been postponed to June. There was rain in the forecast and two of my clients had pushed their start dates up a week earlier. I was short a pilot because a guy had cancelled two weeks before his start date and I hadn’t been able to find someone to replace him. One of my pilots was brand new and had never dried before.

I flew on Saturday morning at 4:30 AM, then spent the day sitting in my jewelry booth, trying not to worry about the weather. The weather for Sunday looked so bad that I packed up my booth a day early, risking the ire of festival management for the sake of my sanity. Another night with four hours of sleep led to a beautiful day — until around 7 PM when the thunderstorms rolled in and frantic clients started calling. I still can’t believe we tried to dry cherry trees in that wind with t-storms in the area. We wound up landing to wait it out — one of us in an orchard and two of us on a building site adjacent to one of the orchards. When the storms passed, we each dried an orchard block before landing. It was nearly dark.

Up at 3 AM the next morning. Rain and sun on and off all day. The drying conditions were much better, but we flew a lot. One of the pilots and I even launched at 8:40 PM to cover an orchard in Quincy. Although we didn’t finish, we gave it our best effort. It was dark when we got back.

The LZ
Here are our helicopters in the LZ on Monday evening. We were waiting for more rain and actually did get called out one more time after this.

Up at 3 AM again the next morning. Called out to dry that Quincy orchard again. Then a meeting with the FAA to inspect my helicopter. (Don’t ask; even I don’t understand why they sent two guys in two separate cars all the way from Spokane.) Then helping settle a pilot in and trying to catch up with the work I’d been neglecting all weekend.

I tried to sleep in every morning for the rest of the week. I really did. But my body clock wanted me out of bed before 4 AM. And I had things to do, so I didn’t argue. Occasionally, I found time for a nap in the afternoon.

And that brings me to the end of the week, when I was physically exhausted and starting to feel a cold coming on.

The Symptoms Multiply

The next morning, Saturday, I was a mess. Sore throat, dry cough. Aches all over. Flu-like symptoms.

I immediately thought the worst: COVID. Sure, I’m vaccinated, but the Johnson & Johnson vaccine isn’t at the top of anyone’s list of vaccine choices. I got it because that’s what was available. None of the vaccines are 100% effective, after all, and I’d spent way too much time in public, eating in restaurants with my pilots and shopping without a mask in a mostly maskless environment. There are just enough wackos out here who think the virus is a hoax — did I mention that I live on the red side of this blue state? — or don’t believe in vaccines. Or — heaven help us — that Bill Gates is putting microchips in the vaccine to track us. Do you think those people will be wearing masks when no one is checking to see if they’ve been vaccinated?

I tried to get sign up info for COVID testing at the local health care place, Confluence Health. Although their drive-up facility was still set up, you needed a doctor’s order to get the test. And it looked as if they might be charging a fee for it — $200+? — which doesn’t surprise me, given that they recently charged me $240 to talk to a doctor for 7 minutes about my arthritis, which she couldn’t do anything to help.

Walgreens had free drive up testing. I’d used one of their locations in Arizona with a friend back on Super Bowl Sunday so I was familiar with how it worked. Of course, the test wasn’t available that day. I’d have to come back on Sunday. I made my appointment.

I spent the day eating and sleeping and reading. Eating because warm or cold food going down my throat really felt good. Sleeping because I had no energy. Reading because I had to do something while I was awake.

My dogs were surprisingly understanding about all this. They slept near me on my bed or the sofa or the reading chair in my living room. They didn’t seem to need to go out very much, which was fine with me.

Sleeping Pups
My pups slept even more than I did, which is difficult to believe, considering how much I slept.

On Guard
I’m not a believer in “essential oils” as remedy, although I do have other versions of dōTERRA products because I like the way they smell. I don’t ingest any of them, though.

My neighbor brought me chicken soup, zinc tablets, and some sort of “essential oil supplement” that she used when she had a cold. “Put a drop on your tongue.” She demonstrated by putting a drop on her finger and then putting it on her tongue. “It doesn’t even taste that bad,” she told me. It reeked of cloves, which isn’t a horrible smell, but not something I wanted in my mouth. I read the label. “For aromatic or topical use,” it says. Needless to say, I did not put any on my tongue.

I did have a few zinc tablets, though. Why not? And the soup was good.

I took my temperature and was shocked to see it at 99.1°F. “Normal” for me is in the 97s, so this was a legitimate fever for me. I never get fevers. I was already taking ibuprofen for the pain; I added aspirin for the fever.

Before bed, I took a nighttime cold remedy, hoping it would knock me out. I slept restlessly most of the night, prompting one of my dogs to sleep on the sofa.

Sunday was more of the same, although my nose was starting to get into the act.

I went to Walgreens at the pre-determined time and got the kit at the drive up. But I made the mistake of giving my nose a good blow before using the swab. As a result, there was a drop of blood on the swap and the girl on the other side of the plexiglass said she couldn’t use it. Same result on the second swab. “You get one more try,” she told me, sending over a third swab. I swabbed gingerly in one nostril, as instructed, and got a blood-free result. But did it have enough snot on it to conduct the test?

I got the result by email 30 minutes later. Negative.

But did the swab have enough snot on it to conduct the test?

I may never know.

I went home and slept the afternoon away. I took my temperature a few times. I reached a high of 101°F. I felt like total crap. Even ice cream didn’t help. I had to sleep sitting up to prevent the drip at the back of my nose from aggravating my throat.

By Monday (yesterday) morning, my nose was all in. I’ve had worse runny noses — usually allergy related — but this was bad enough to keep a tissue box close at hand. At the same time, my cough had gotten worse and was now producing a thick, yellow mucus. Every time I coughed some up, I figured I was done — there couldn’t possibly be any more in there. But there was.

I napped in the morning and spent the afternoon watching a variety of weird content on YouTube. I learned how women in 18th century Europe dressed. I learned how a volcanic eruption in Indonesia in 1815 killed likely over a million people worldwide by changing global weather for a year. I watched the entire final season of The Clone Wars animated TV show on Disney+.

Hydration Multiplier
Here’s what my neighbor brought over. I actually have used EmergenC in the past and had a dose of it this morning, too.

Another neighbor came by with “hydration multiplier” packets. This is apparently a substance you can use to turn water into something like Gatorade. I had been drinking a ton of water, tea, and orange juice. I didn’t really see the need to put chemicals — including salt — into what I was drinking. But I really do have to thank my neighbors for being so caring and trying to help.

The End is Near

I slept sitting up again last night with a nighttime cold remedy to help me sleep better. It seemed to work. I slept well — right until Rosie decided I needed to wake up and came over to stand on me. It was after 5 AM — the latest I’d slept in over two weeks.

I felt a little better, too. I had my coffee in bed, then made some cream of wheat with honey and applesauce for breakfast. It sure did feel good going down my (still) sore throat. I coughed up some more yellow mucus. I took a shower and put on clean clothes. I started this blog post.

I have a few non-strenuous things to do today in my jewelry shop before making a trip to the post office and a neighbor’s house to drop off eggs. Then I’ll keep resting up. I’ve learned (the hard way) that you can’t rush a cold’s recovery.

At this point, I just hope I’m back to at least 90% by Friday. And, for once, I’m glad there’s no rain in the forecast.

Is This the Vaccine at Work?

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I go through an afternoon of flu-like symptoms and wonder whether it’s the vaccine actually working to fight COVID-19.

I’m curious.

I got my COVID-19 vaccine about a month ago. It was the Johnson & Johnson one-and-done vaccine that isn’t on the top of most people’s list of choices for getting vaccinated. Its efficacy is supposedly lower than the other two vaccines approved in the US — the two-dose Pfizer and Modera vaccines — and it recently was put on “pause” (and then resumed) when it was tied to blood clots in younger women.

I had a reaction to the vaccine that started about 12 hours after I got it. First, every single muscle in my body — including ones I didn’t even know I had — ached. Some ibuprofen got me through that. Then, for the next 36 hours, I was completely exhausted by mid afternoon. After a total of 48 hours, I was back to normal.

I haven’t had any reactions since.

I still wear my mask when I’m shopping and doing other things around strangers, but I don’t wear one around friends. But this weekend, I was in close quarters, maskless, with friends I know were vaccinated and some of their friends who may not have been. (After writing this, I discovered that they were.) I didn’t think twice about it, but now I’m wondering.

For the past two days, I’ve been completely zonked out again in the afternoon. While it wasn’t bad on Tuesday, it was terrible yesterday. I wasn’t even that active during the day — I went asparagus picking and then shopped for garden plants. When I got home at 3 PM, I was wiped out.

Around 4 PM, I stretched out on my bed to rest and read and wound up falling asleep. I slept on and off while my pups used my bed as a playground. I was so out of it that even them running over my body and making growling noises at each other didn’t snap me out of it.

A phone call at 6 woke me up. I fed my pups, let them out, and lay down again. I slept for another hour and then let my pups back in.

Then I got my pajamas on and stretched out to read again. By 7:30, I was dead asleep. And I slept until nearly 4 AM.

That’s a total of nearly 12 hours of sleep.

In all fairness, I did take an allergy pill yesterday morning at about 7 AM. My nose had been running like a faucet for the past two days, with sneezing and some small amounts of phlegm. The pills are generics and their “best by” date was back in 2017. The bottle says take one per day. I’d expect that if a side effect was sleepiness, it wouldn’t take 9 hours for that side effect to kick in.

This morning, I feel awake but still tired. I’m having a little trouble keeping warm with the heat in the house set to 71°F. I’m achey, but not terribly so — it could just be the aches that are common from non-movement for long periods of time. (If you’re near my age or older, you know what I mean.) My allergies are not bothering me (yet).

I don’t feel sick, if you know what I mean. Just run down and achey. Kind of how I felt after I got my vaccine.

So my question is this: Is it possible that I was exposed to COVID-19 over the weekend and my vaccinated body is fighting it off? How would I be able to find out?

Again, I’m curious.

Letting Go

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There’s no use denying that it’s time.

Yesterday, I listed my motorcycle for sale on Craig’s list.

Yamaha Seca II
Here’s my bike, with the bags removed, parked in front of Bob’s house.

It’s a 1993 Yamaha Seca II that I bought brand new in 1992. I vividly recall the day I bought it in Paramus, NJ. I was still riding my first bike, a 1981 (I think) Honda CB 400 Hawk. I’d gone to Americade in Lake George, NY, with my future wasband and the sport touring motorcycle club we rode with and had test ridden the Seca II. It had more power and was sportier than the Hawk. I decided to upgrade and went to the Yamaha dealer in Paramus. I did the paperwork for the bike and then went next door to the BMW car dealer with my future wasband, who was a big BMW fan. They had a new 1991 (I think) K65 (I think) parked in the lobby area. He bought it. We showed up a week or two later at a club event, each riding brand new bikes.

Thanks for the Memories

Other Motorcycling Posts
I started this blog in 2003, which is after my primary motorcycling days. But I do have a few posts (with photos) here about motorcycling, if you’d like to read more:

I have a lot of really good memories tied up in that bike. I bought and rode it at a time in my life when I was in a good relationship with a man who still knew how to laugh and have fun. A man who knew how to say yes instead of making excuses to say no.

We took our bikes on a motorcycle camping trip down Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway, all the way down to Georgia, then rode up the Outer Banks, right after a hurricane. It was an incredible trip — one of the best in my life.

We also took our bikes up to Lake George for Americade trips with the club and other long rides in New Jersey and New York. It was on a trip up to the Finger Lakes that I found the top end of the bike — 110 mph, if you’re curious — on a country road and began thinking about more power. I bought my 1996 Ducati 900 SSCR not long afterward.

But I kept this bike. It had the hard luggage and the comfortable seat. It would be my “touring” bike. Or so I thought.

We moved to Arizona and did a lot less riding. I bought horses and rode out in the desert. I bought a Jeep (which I still have) and drove that out in the desert. I learned to fly and bought a helicopter. There just didn’t seem to be time — or a point, I guess — to ride to the same old places, over and over. The magic was gone.

When I packed up my Arizona life to move to Washington, the Ducati was the first thing to go. I rarely rode — I certainly didn’t need two bikes. Besides, the Yamaha was already up in Washington, where I’d had it shipped a year or two before. I was tired of driving a truck all summer during cherry season so I’d had the bike shipped someplace where I would want to ride it. And I did — I rode more in Washington than I did in Arizona.

Time went on. I did a trip to Friday Harbor with my friend Bob — me on that Yamaha and him on his big old Moto Guzzi. He rode like a Harley guy, slow and ponderously — not at all like the sport touring club members who had helped me find my bike’s top end all those years ago. I think I frightened him. Occasionally, I’d take it out on a ride to Leavenworth or Lake Wenatchee or Silver Falls up the Entiat River. But then I just stopped riding it.

I was busy with other things.

Too Much Stuff

As anyone who has glimpsed the interior of my 2880 square foot garage can tell you, I have a lot of stuff. Too much, probably.

Owning motor vehicles comes with a cost: maintenance. Even if you don’t use them, maintenance is required. In fact, I’d venture to say that more maintenance is required per hour of use if you seldom use them than if you use them often.

My motorcycle became a perfect example of this. Because I didn’t use it, the crap they put in gasoline these days would foul the carburetors and cause all kinds of problem. Tires and hoses get dry rot and crack. Dust accumulates. Lubed chains get clogged with dirt. Batteries die.

After not riding for a few years, I took the bike to the local Yamaha dealer to get it running again. I rode it a few times and parked it for another year. One day I charged up the battery and started it up, only to have fuel spew all over the ground. I covered it back up and left it for another two years. I stopped registering and insuring it. There seemed to be no point.

I had my hands full using and maintaining my other vehicles. The Yamaha was neglected and ignored.

Downsizing Means Letting Things Go

I had a kind of epiphany this winter when I was traveling. I think I have to thank my friend Bill for that. He lives a simple, mobile life and seems very happy. While I’m happy in my home and have no desire to give it up, he helped me realize that I’m probably at the point where I have too much crap in my life. I’d be happier if I could make things simpler.

And, for me, that means getting rid of the stuff I don’t need or want.

Let’s face it: I’m not getting any younger. I’m 59 now and starting to think seriously about retirement. I’m already semi-retired, with real work (my flying business) only a few months out of the year and busy work (my jewelry business) off and on for the rest of the year. I have big plans for my retirement years and they definitely do not include a bunch of stuff I have. Why not get rid of it now?

With that in mind, I decided that the motorcycle would be the first thing to go.

My friend Bob — the Moto Guzzi guy — came by and helped me load the bike onto a trailer so I could bring it to a repair shop in town. They put about $700 of work into the carburetor (again) and a new battery. That got it running pretty good.

Yesterday, I picked it up and rode it to Bob’s house. He’d very graciously offered to sell it for me at his house, which is a lot easier to get to than mine. He has a garage to store it in and won’t take crap from potential buyers.

That 5-mile ride — my first time on a motorcycle in at least 4 years — brought back a flood of memories. Accelerating away from traffic, gliding around curves. Feeling the power of the bike beneath me, feeing it respond to the throttle twist and pressure on the brakes. I seemed to flash back to Sunday rides in Harriman State Park or out to the Delaware Water Gap. To trips where I could feel the wind against me, sense the subtle changes in temperature, smell the aromas of things I passed.

God, how I loved riding!

But I need to be honest with myself: if I keep it I will not ride it regularly. As I age, my reflexes will deteriorate. If I don’t ride regularly, my skills will decline — as I’m sure they already have. Poorer reflexes and skills are likely to get me killed on one of the rare instances I do decide to ride it. And then there’s the maintenance of keeping it when I don’t ride it: battery tending and carburetor repairs. Ugh.

So it’s best to just let it go.

Let go of the object so many good memories are tied to. Let go of a piece of my past that I really wish I could cling to forever.

It’s hard not to cry while typing this.

In Bob’s Hands

Anyway, I brought it and its hard luggage and the big plastic box labeled “Motorcycle Stuff” to Bob’s house. I discovered that I had not one but three motorcycle covers — two of which Bob will keep for his bikes — and not one but two tank bags. I also had two helmets (and will keep one of them in case Bob ever wants to take me riding). It’ll all go in a package.

I’ll admit that I priced it high. The bike only has 22,000 miles on it and is in very good condition with all those extras. But the way I see it, if I can’t get a decent amount of money for it, why sell it? I’m not desperate for money. Besides, it’s spring in Washington, and riding weather is upon us. It would make a great bike for commuting to work or taking a trip. Even the fix-it place said there’s a high demand for used bikes right now.

It’s in Bob’s hands. I know he’ll do a great job finding a buyer for it.

Meanwhile, it’s both sad and nice to have the space the motorcycle and its box of accessories occupied available in my garage.

Letting Go

I realize now that letting go of the things you cling to for emotional reasons is part of getting older and winding down. I think I’ve been in denial for a long time about my stage in life, but letting go of my motorcycle has helped me come to terms with it.

For my whole life, I’ve been building up skills and knowledge and wealth and possessions. It’s part of a cycle that I suspect was ingrained in me from my childhood. But the cycle has another part that I wasn’t prepared for: the winding down. That’s what I’m facing now.

Back in 2013, my godfather, Jackie, died. He was single, in his 80s (I think), and, in his later years, had become a bit of a hoarder. My mother and her first cousin were his next of kin and were tasked with getting his affairs closed up. It was a mess and a lot of work for them.

I also recall when my wasband’s dad passed away suddenly and his family — wife and three adult offspring — were tasked with clearing out the stuff he’d stored in the basement. They used a dumpster.

The way I see it, we should all be tidying up our own affairs as we age to make things a bit easier for ourselves while we’re alive and our next of kin when we die. The older we get, the less stuff we should have.

Downsizing is, in a way, admission that we’re getting old. And while I’m not “old” yet, I’m undeniably getting there. It’s time for the downsizing to begin.

And that’s why I’m preparing to let things go.

Early August Check In

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What I’ve been up to lately.

I know I haven’t been blogging much lately — other than to share my YouTube videos — and I apologize. I know a lot of folks come here to see what I’m up to and not necessarily to see big helicopters land in clouds of dust.

But regular readers should know why I’m not blogging: I’m keeping busy doing other things. Here’s a rundown of what I’ve been up to.

Cherry Drying

One thing I’m not doing lately is drying cherries with my helicopter. We haven’t had measurable rain here since June 28 and that’s the last day I flew.

This is both good and bad.

The good thing is that my helicopter is inching ever closer to the Hobbs meter number that will force me to bring it in for over haul. As I type this, I have 88 hours left until I must stop flying it.

If you watched my livestream video about helicopter operating costs, you’ll know that this required maintenance will cost about $250,000 (not a typo). I’ve been saving, but not that much. So I’ll have to go into debt to pay for that overhaul. (I hate being in debt.)

But because I’m hardly flying it at all, I realized that I can simply put the helicopter away for the winter and save those 80+ hours for next year’s cherry season, thus putting off the overhaul for a whole year. I should be able to save a bunch more money for it, thus reducing the loan I’ll need. It will also Eliminate the stress I’d feel trying to operate a helicopter tour/charter business when virus-related issues — social networking, the economy, etc. — might make it hard to bring in the extra cash I’ll need to keep up on the loan.

That’s the good side of this issue.

The bad side is that I like flying, especially when I can send someone an invoice when I’m done. Although I’ll get a few more flights in before I put the helicopter away — after all, I do have that YouTube channel to feed — it won’t be much.

Fortunately, all of my cherry drying contracts include a daily standby fee, so even if I don’t fly, I’m bringing in money to cover my personal and business costs.

Of course, the standby fee means I have to be on standby, available to fly 7 days a week during daylight hours. So since May 29, when my season started, I’ve been pretty much hanging around at home — or at least the Wenatchee area. (I guess a lot of folks are in the same boat with the virus running rampant throughout the country.)

During the busiest part of the season, when I had the most acreage to cover, I had four pilots helping me cover it. They left one-by-one as orchards were picked and there was less and less acreage to cover. The last one left about 2 weeks ago. Today I’m covering 34 acres by myself.

4 Helicopters
Here’s the view from my deck back on June 16; you can see four helicopters (including mine) parked in a cleared cherry orchard. The fifth helicopter was based in Quincy, covering one of my contracts there.

Starting tomorrow, I’ll have just one orchard of just 17 acres to cover until August 23. Even though the standby for just 17 acres is pretty low, I’ll stick around until all the cherries there are picked.

Cherry Driving

No, that’s not a typo. I spent a week driving cherries from an orchard to the packing house.

One of my clients was looking for someone to drive a pickup truck pulling a trailer full of cherry bins from their orchard to the packing house about 15 miles away. They knew I had experience pulling heavy trailers — after all, I lived near their orchard in my old 36-foot fifth wheel for several seasons in a row — so they offered me the job. I had nothing else that I had to do, I had to stay in the area, and I didn’t mind making a few bucks and learning about another part of the business. So I said yes.

The truck was a 2004 Ford F350 4WD diesel pickup remarkably like my old green truck (RIP). The trailer was a dual axel with 4 wheels per axel flatbed with a gooseneck hitch that had been customized to hold eight stacks of plastic cherry bins.

Cherry Trailer
Here’s the rig I drove, nearly loaded, parked at the orchard’s loading area. Shade and mist help keep the area cool. Each bin of cherries is hosed down and then covered with a water-soaked foam pad to help keep them cool.

Cherry bins measure roughly 4’w x 4’d x 1’h and hold about 300-340 pounds of cherries. For the first bunch of runs, they stacked the bins 5 high so I was carrying 40 bins or 13,000+ pounds of cherries. This turned out to be the challenge: controlling speed for the first 8 miles of the drive to the packing plant, all of which was downhill.

Of course, before I left I also had to strap down those bins, which required tossing coils of ratchet tie-down straps over the tops of the bins and fastening them on the other side. It would not be good if I took a curve too quickly and the bins tumbled off.

One off my clients went with me for the first run so I’d know how to do it. I almost immediately got into trouble. The roads in the orchard are narrow and twisting and there was a hairpin curve I had to negotiate. I was so focused on the curve that I didn’t register the loose gravel in the middle of it. When I braked to slow (from about 10 mph), the wheels locked up and I came very close to sliding off the road into someone else’s orchard.

Oops.

Backing up uphill with 13,000+ pounds behind me on loose gravel wasn’t easy. I threw it into 4WD and had to use a foot on the brake while I pressed the accelerator to actually start backing up. I only needed to go back about 5 feet and managed to do it. Then we made the curve and were on our way.

I did not make that mistake again.

It took 45 minutes to get to the packing plant and they were stressful minutes. The setup had the braking distance of a freight train so I had to go very slowly any time there was a chance I might have to stop.

But then I was pulling into the delivery entrance and stopping at the entrance check point. I unfastened the tie downs while they took sample cherries and did a bunch of paperwork. Then on to the offloading area, where a team of forklifts took those 40 cherry bins off in less than three minutes. (And no, that’s not an exaggeration.)

On most trips, I came straight back, but on a few trips I needed to pick up (and strap down) empty bins or bins full of the foam pads they use to help keep the cherries cool in transit. Either way, the trailer was so light that I was able to get back in 30 minutes.

I made three runs the first day and two runs each of the next six days. I started at 8 AM — three hours after the pickers started because it took that long for them to fill 40 bins of cherries — and was usually done by noon — two hours after the pickers had finished and gone home. (They can’t pick cherries when it gets hot out and that week was very hot.) Although most loads had 40 bins early in the week, by the end of the week I was taking 44 bins (4 stacks of 5 and 4 stacks of 6). That’s nearly an extra ton. I got pretty good at controlling speed and handling the load and had no mishaps.

Along the way, I learned a lot about packing cherries. I think that was the best part of the experience; learning new things.

Cherry & Blueberry Picking

Like every year I’ve been up here during the summer — including years before I actually moved here — I always manage to get out for some cherry and blueberry picking.

I pick cherries after the growers have picked, “gleaning” what the pickers missed. I actually picked a lot more this year than I usually do, starting early with rainier cherries in an orchard near my home and, more recently, at the same orchard where I did my cherry driving. The key is to get to the orchard within a few days of picking; if you wait too long, the cherries are so far past prime they’re not worth picking.

Blueberries
My first batch of blueberries.

I pick blueberries at the same orchard where I did my driving gig. The orchard owners have about 400 blueberry bushes that they don’t harvest commercially. Instead, they invite friends to come pick when they like. The season lasts well over a month — the blueberries on a bush don’t all ripen at the same time like cherries or other tree fruit do — so I can go weekly and bring home enough to freeze and still eat blueberries all week. I usually bring a friend and chat while we’re picking.

I bring my pups along on these outings. Like Penny, they enjoy running around the orchards, sniffing for mice and other rodents. It’s good to get them out someplace other than home where they don’t need to be on a leash.

Getting Out On the Water

Amazingly, I’ve only been out on the water three times so far this summer, but all three trips were real wins.

The first outing was in my own little boat with two friends. I blogged about that here, so I won’t repeat any details.

The second was paddling with my friend Cyndi and her dog. This was Lily and Rosie’s first time out on a kayak and, at first, they didn’t know what to make of it. I had life jackets on both of them and had them tethered to the kayak with expanding leashes and it’s a good thing I did! Lily took two dives into the water and Rosie took one. In both cases — their first times swimming! — their life jackets gave them plenty of floatation and I was able to reel them in with the leash as they swam back to me. We paddled around the estuary at the confluence of the Wenatchee and Columbia Rivers. The water was high so there were lots of channels to explore. We even got a chance to stop on a beach where Rosie surprised me by swimming out to my friend Cyndi who called her from the shallows.

Paddling
Here we are, paddling in the estuary. By this point, the girls knew the drill and stayed on board.

Fish
Here I am with Cyndi, holding up the six fish we caught.

The third trip was with Cyndi and her husband Matt on their fishing boat. I woke up at 2:45 AM so I could meet them at 3:30 for the hour+ drive to Pateros. We were on line at the boat ramp at 4:45 AM and joined the crowd of salmon fishers near the mouth of the Okanogan River upriver from Brewster by 5. I can’t believe how close the boats were to each other, trolling along on silent motors, pulling one sockeye salmon after another out of the river. We hit our limit of two sockeyes each by 8 AM and spent some time trying for chinook, which requires a different line setup and technique. After a half hour with no luck, we called it quits. I was happy! I took my two fish home and filleted them, freezing three large fillets and leaving a fourth for dinner. I also cooked up the bones for fish broth and made myself a nice salmon chowder with garden veggies and the trimmings from my filleting work.

Gardening

My garden is bigger and more productive than ever this year. This spring, I finally pulled out the last pallet planter I’d built, replacing it with one of the plastic cherry bins I’d bought as raised garden beds. That brings the total count to 11. (I have one more bin to install, but I need to do some deconstruction on a flower bed to fit it in; that’s an autumn project.)

Veggies from my Garden
Here’s one evening’s side dish, brought in from the garden. I washed and chopped all of these, then roasted them with herbs in the oven. Delicious!

What did I plant? Let’s see. Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, onions (2 kinds), beets, radishes, scallions, tomatoes (3 kinds), asparagus, potatoes (3 kinds), sweet potatoes (2 kinds), peppers (4 kinds), eggplant (2 kinds), horseradish, spinach, carrots, strawberries, zucchini (2 kinds), yellow squash, pattypan squash, cucumbers, delicata squash, cantaloupe, watermelon, pumpkins, corn (2 kinds), green beans. Well, I didn’t plant the green beans — they planted themselves and have been doing so for the past four years.

Potatoes
Have you ever seen a red potato this big? That’s my hand under it — and my hands aren’t small. I pulled it out of my garden last week.

I’ve been harvesting a little of almost everything and planting more beets, carrots, scallions, and radishes any time a bed empties and onions every time I pull a row. The only veggies I buy at the supermarket now is salad greens and broccoli (because it’s all done now). Everything else comes out of the garden and, frankly, I can’t keep up with production so I’m giving a ton away.

The 11 chicks I got in April are just getting ready to start laying. I just started an egg subscription service for neighbors: $10/month gets you a dozen eggs delivered to your doorstep once a week — if you give back the cartons. When I have all 16 chickens producing, I’ll be getting a dozen eggs a day and will need to do something with them. There’s only so much quiche a person can eat.

Cooking

Brisket
I finally found a brisket recipe I felt able to follow — with some modifications — and made this. Not bad for a first try.

Like most of the folks stuck at home this summer, I’ve been doing a lot of cooking. Some of it is an attempt to use up some of the produce coming from my garden or the orchards and blueberry patch where I pick fruit. Others are attempts to make something I’ve always wanted to try making.

Cake
The cake tasted even better than it looks, but what was I thinking?

When I make something that freezes well, I portion it out, vacuum seal it, and put it in my garage freezer so I always have a quick meal available on those days I don’t feel like cooking. I made a blueberry zucchini cake recently and wound up giving nearly all of it away to neighbors and friends. What was I thinking when I made a cake that big?

Other Stuff

I’ve also been making and selling jewelry, although not as much as I’d like. I think I’ll save that for another blog post.

I’ve also been doing a lot of video editing for my YouTube channel, but I’ll whine about that in another post, too.

But these are the main things I’ve been up to this summer. When the weather is nice, I’d rather do stuff outside than sit in front of a computer typing up a blog post and that explains why I haven’t blogged so much.

I will try harder to blog more in the future. I find that my blog posts are the best way I can remember the things that went on in my life years after these things happen. My blog is my journal and I really do need to stick with it.