Busy Farm Days

Life is never dull here - there is always something to do. Today Ken was working in Salt Lake, so I had the day to work on things around here. I have been watching our neighbor's horses and watering their garden, so I've been back and forth counting noses and changing water. I weeded, tried to decide where to put the new pussy willow bush, dashed inside when it was too hot to work outside anymore, washed the garage out, did inside jobs, watered and fertilized all the trees, fed and watered the horses.

Drew came over to help me get the hay out of the field. Thank goodness! I usually don't have any problem hauling hay, but these bales must have weighed as much as me. Even Drew was struggling with them. We tried to move one that had gotten wet last week and was still wet - holy smokes! No moving that bale, even with two of us. We split it up, threw it in the 4 wheeler trailer and got ready for water. We are trading water turns with our neighbor since it's going to take a bit longer to get the field all watered and his pasture got soaked pretty good last week.

Ken was able to get the weeds in the front pasture sprayed this week and the ones in the back done last week. It seems like an never-ending project, but it does get a bit better each year as we get our list of projects done each year.

Time to spray the field again, the grass hay that is with the alfalfa is really nasty - I'll be surprised if the horses have anything to do with it. Hope it doesn't rain before I get it all moved into the barn and stacked.

Ken, Drew, Brynn and Adam are all going down to Jordan Commons to work tonight. Ken has had this side job for the last 5 or 6 years, it gives the kids a chance to earn some pretty good money, and it helps to pay for some project we have going during the year.

Drew and Ken have a little project they have been working on - and it looks like it might take off here pretty quickly. We bought 2 Polaris Rangers, one had a bad engine, one had a bad transmission. They are combining the good parts and selling the chasis of the bad one to help offset the bills. We are now ready to pull the empty chasis out of the garage, put the good one back in and put everything back together again. I can't wait to take it for a turn around the town - put a car seat in and maybe Amber and I can go see the sights. (it has seat belts!)

Bad Dream

You know those nightmares you have growing up where something awful happens to you and you wonder why on earth you put yourself in the position in the first place????? Well, Sunday I was supposed to speak in Sacrament Meeting. I was originally told to plan on 20-30 minutes, but the next instruction was 10-15. I thought about my topic all week then started to put the talk all together on Sunday morning. I spent about 3 hours typing, gathering, etc. At 11:50 I went upstairs to print off the final version. I was printing off a couple of things, so I must have got distracted, and promptly deleted instead of printed. YIKES!!!! I ended up with the opportunity to totally shoot from the hip. Amazingly enough, the new RM that was speaking with me was completely able to feed off of the stories that I told and tie them all up. What a great kid! I would have liked the opportunity to redo that whole morning.

Zip Line Adventures in Juneau

This was the highlight of my trip! I jumped off the bus from the Mendenhall Glacier and raced over to my excursion to Douglas Island. We took a speed boat (good thing Ken wasn't around) over to the island, got all harnessed up, learned how to break and turn ourselves around on the zip line, and off we go! We took a Mercedes Benz Moog and climbed 300 feet in about 1/3 mile. Kind of felt like they were putting us on our heads... We continued up the hill on foot til we reached the first set of tree towers over the old gold mine. They split us into gropus of 9 since that is all that fits on the tree towers at a time, gave us a baby line to practice stopping and turning on, and OFF WE GO! There were 9 tree towers, two suspension bridges we had to be hooked to, and we had to repel out of the trees at the end. There were times when we were over 240 feet off the ground and our longest line was 840 feet long. We actually went over a mile combined on the lines - what a blast. One of these pictures shows me being hauled in at the end- I just didn't weigh enough to get me clear to the very end a couple of times and had to pull myself/be pulled in by the guide. It was hard to remember to look down at the mine sites, concentrate on keeping straight (we had a few people get turned all the way backwards as they were sliding), try not to hit any trees, try to yell (it was kinda like a battle cry we were all trying to acheive) and laugh at the same time, and last but not least, BRAKE when approaching the trees at a high rate of speed.

Meet...the Bear!

This little guy came sauntering across the highway while we were heading towards the bus stop at the glacier. He took off into the woods and Kathleen suggested we head back to the parking lot to see if he came out. He came down the boardwalk right past some elderly couples (scared them to death) and then headed into the woods, climbed a tree, wandered under the bridge, went to the stream for a drink, and making our day! Too bad he kept on the move - so all my pictures were either of his head or his bum....

Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, Alaska

This was my favorite day! We got off the ship at around 7 am and hopped a bus for Mendenhall Glacier. We got to see a bit of the town and learn more about it from a comedian bus driver. He showed us the river that will be packed with salmon in a week or two (so many fish that the inlet is literally red instead of blue water.) This was different from the Hubbard Glacier because we were able to get up much closer, we could have even walked to it if we had the time. The aqua's and purples in the ice were so coo to see. In the visitor's center, there was a super-dooper telescope that we could use to view the glacier up close and personal - WOW!!!

Hubbard Glacier Field

Day 4, Hubbard Glacier Field. This was one of the days where we never got off the boat, but had a lesson about glaciers while we were on the boat. As we neared the glacier field, big chunks of ice started floating by the boat til it got to the point where it was just a constant flow of ice, some huge and some not so much. We even got to see some seals while we were there. We weren't able to get as close to the glacier as normal due to the size of the ice field. There was a smaller boat there intact with helicopter, boats, kayaks, etc. to see if there was a clear path closer to the glacier. Well, today was not our lucky day, but it was overcast and made the colors on the ice so much more vivid. What a fun thing to go see! Notice the color of the water just outside the ice field - it looked more like the Carribean instead of Alaska. The landscape changed so quickly from green water and lush mountains to the deep ice field.

Sitka, Alaska

Sitka was our first stop on the cruise. What a great little town! This is the town where Russia and the US exchanged the land that is now Alaska. We walked out of town to the Totem Pole State Park, where I'm pretty sure I took pictures of every totem pole in the park. While I was standing by the visitors center, two bald eagles came flying right over my head - I felt like I could reach right up and touch them.

One of the pictures shows the houses on their own little islands and only boats to get them on and off. I think that would be pretty cool, except how do you go anywhere in the winter?

In Sitka, I had my first exposure to those great little Russian shops that sell the nesting dolls - I could have taken one of every kind home, they were so fabulous. I can't imagine the talent and imagination to paint all the variety there was. My favorite was the nutcracker scenes (imagine that!) on the doll's belly.

Independence Day

While we were in Alaska, I realized just how much my country means to me. It was nice to visit Canada, but I was so glad to be back home where I knew that there were so many defending my rights to live here.

I feel so lucky to have friends and family close by - Chase, Brooke, Drew, Amber and Ella were all here last night to visit after I got home from the airport. Brooke and I made a mad dash to the store in her new car (so very cute and is TOTALLY HER!) for hamburger and hot dog buns so we could whip together an instant BBQ for the group. They all stayed and visited for a while before it was time to see the fireworks at the park. This was the first year that I haven't gone up to the park to watch them, but there's something to be said for standing on the front porch in your jammies, getting eaten alive by mosquitos and watching from home.

Brynn called this morning to tell me she had started her own blog. Now everyone can find out what's happening in her life. Very cool!