Aug 8, 2010

Share an experience about poison ivy or poison weed, a bee sting or bug bite?

I was stung by wasps mostly while growing up and bitten plenty by horse flies. I was stung by Stinging nettle but lucky enough to never encounter poison oaks of ivys. Once when I had gone out to feed the horses I was carrying a pitch fork load of hay to their pen and stumbled on an old tire that I knew was there but had just cut the corner a little too much due to the weight of the hay on the fork. As I got to my feet and regained control of the fork load of hay I was suddenly surrounded by a bunch of yellow jacket wasps. Only one of them stung me but that was enough. I delivered the hay ad then climbed up to the canal where I got some mud from the side of the canal and plastered it onto the sting. It took the pain away rather quickly and I was soo glad about that because I had endured it long enough. I never made that mistake again.

Aug 7, 2010

Did your mom or dad have a favorite remedy for when you were sick or hurt?

Mom had a number of remedies that were from the pioneer days. For a cold we had honey and lemon mixed together and heated to drink to relieve the sore throat and get out the cold symptoms. Then for the chest when it was a real deep cold that had gone into the lungs mom would mix vinegar and mustard powder with water to make a paste that she would then put on a cloth and set the cloth on our chests with the mustard away from the skin. (If it was on the skin we would get a sunburn type burn from it and that hurt pretty bad. We would keep it on for as long as we could stand it and the heat from the remedy would sink deep into our chest and relieve a lot of the congestion. I was lucky to be raised after the cod liver oil days and was plenty glad about it when I learned what it was really like.

Aug 6, 2010

Tell about board games and card games that you played as a youth.

There were basically three games that I remember playing. First off however I will tell you that the only card games we played were “Old Maid” and I don’t think there were any others especially since face cards were strictly forbidden in our home. Grandma and Grandpa Hansen had taught their children well concerning the evils of gambling and tat included even having those cards present that were used in such activities. (It was indeed a huge shock to me when Marie would use them all the time and played games that I never even knew existed and it was never for gambling either.) Anyway the board games we had were “Clue”, “Monopoly”, “Chinese Checkers”, “Checkers”, and “Seek” an LDS scripture game. I mostly played checkers and Seek. I enjoyed Monopoly but was always somewhat frustrated by the amount of time required to play it so I stayed away from it as much as possible. We always played Seek on Sunday evenings when we played it and it was fun to learn the scripture stories by having to answer those questions. However with that all said we really didn’t play a whole lot of games since we always had so many chores to do and by the time they were done we were all pretty tired.

Aug 5, 2010

Tell a memory about having company at your house, or of a family party.

My family had gone to church one Sunday evening in late August. Our Sacrament meetings were always held at 7 pm back then and so we would not get home until after 9 pm usually. Well on this particular Sunday when we arrived home it was dark and there was a car from Arizona in the driveway. We suddenly realized that Pauline’s family had brought her up for the school year and they were most likely waiting inside. When we went in we turned on the proch light and I went over to the front room where they had all fallen asleep on the couches and chairs while waiting for us. I woke up whom I thought was Pauline and gave her a hug only to then realize it was not Pauline but rather her sister. She looked so much like Pauline and apparently they were twins and I hadn’t known. It was a bit embarrassing for a short moment but then quickly saw Pauline and hugged her too.

Aug 4, 2010

Tell of an experience climbing a mountain or a big hill.

When I was very young, and young enough to not remember how young, dad took us to a hill near Starvation Reservoir to find some marble rocks. I have never forgotten though how each time we came to the top of a hill that I thought would be the last hill there appeared another one we still had to climb. It took us forever to get to the top of the hill where we found and picked up a small bucket full of round marble shaped volcanic rocks. I remember seeing them many times during my growing years and never really knowing where that hill is at. I think I know the general vicinity but would be very hard pressed to find it again. I played with those rocks a lot of times and still might even have one in my collection of things from my youth. It was a fun outing after we had finally reached that top knoll.