Dec 8, 2011

Doug Hansen's birthday party

When Hansen’s first moved to Duchesne to be school teachers and administrators they lived just over the bridge at the east end of town. They had three sons and one just a little older and one just a little younger. The older of the two was named Doug. I think in an effort to have friends for their sons the Hansen’s threw a birthday party for Doug not long after they had moved into town. Well to get to their place I walked from our home a half mile to Spencer’s (Then owned by someone else but I can’t remember who) and then a quarter mile down the road between them and Rasmussen’s. From that point I turned west on the road to town until I got ner the edge of the hill upon which we lived that was above town on the east side of the river valley where Duchesne had been built. At the edge of the hill I turned south and walked along a trail that led to where it would go down the hill at an angle and almost right into Hansen’s backyard. I was very familiar with that trail because of the number of time during the summer when I had walked to primary and home again using that trail. At the bottom of the hill to get to primary I would then cross the bridge and walk to the church which was about five more blocks from there. At the south east end of town.  Once I got to the party we had a great time playing games inside and outside of the house. The Hansen’s became very close friends as they continued to live there the rest of the time that we were growing up. Donna became a cub scout and blazer leader for me and Ray became my scoutmaster. Ray was a hero of mine and had such an influence for good over my life that I later gave his name to Loren as his middle name. I don’t remember a lot about that party other than the hike to the edge of the hill and how far it seemed to a small child, I was probably 6 or 7 at the time, and how long it was of a walk back home. It was always a long walk but now to my grown up legs it seems so much shorter. I don’t remember a lot about the party but I do remember gaining a couple of friends who are still friends to this day. Don still lives in Duchesne and I have lost track of Doug but I will always be thankful for their friendship that started mostly that day. 

Dec 7, 2011

Digging the Trampoline/ playground holes

Typical excavation in these days is accomplished by using heavy equipment like tractors and backhoes. I suppose it was also that way when I was young and I remember cleaning ditches with a blade attached to the back of a tractor and having to be very careful since it had a tendency to pull the tractor on it’s side if the blade wasn’t at the correct angle and you were going slow enough that when it caught tree roots it wouldn’t tip the tractor over. However when I was married and wanting to put the trampoline into a hole so that it would be less dangerous at ground level and when we bought play ground equipment and I wanted to have sand all underneath it, I found that I didn’t own a tractor that I could dig the holes with and also was shy the heavy equipment that could dig the holes. I did have however a strong back, several shovels and some boys who needed to learn how to work and dig holes. It is a natural tendency for boys to want to dig holes anyway just not quite the size I was asking for at those two instances. I did start the holes and did dig them and did have help from the family and not with a lot of enthusiasm. I am thankful that I did it that way because I have heard them comment, again not with a lot of fondness for the experience, to their children that they had to dig the holes for those areas. I know it didn’t hurt them and I know it was a lot  of work but it created some special memories for us as a family. We started with a small hole and then moved the dirt from the hole to create a raised border around each. It has made it easier to keep them from filling with water when the irrigation comes but a little harder to mow the lawn and to water those areas with the irrigation water. I am still grateful for those mounds of dirt though because I have our sons and two daughters that are now not afraid to work. 

Dec 6, 2011

I dream a dream.

Early in my youth I started having a dream about a cave. I have figured out over the years that it seems to come back around every few years. A lot more in my youth than now but I have had it in the past few years. It is a dream where I go into a cave for protection from a flood or some other disaster. I think that is part of the dram where it kind of changes but the basic parts of the dream seem to be somewhat consistent. Now I don’t remember my dreams usually when I awake in the morning but this one has occurred so many times that I recognize it when I have it and often awaken remembering it. The cave is dark and I am usually quite scared and yet I always wake up before anything happens such as the mountain caving in on me or water from a flood getting so high it fills the cave. I did dream one version of it once where the mountain opened up and a huge flood came out of it and we retreated into the cave to get above the flood it had created. Now don’t ask me how we got past the flood to the mouth of the cave after the flood ahd come out and we were still in our homes because well the answer is simple “That’s the magic of dreams.”

I must while on the subject tell about a dream I had this past week. I have always been a fan of Daddy Long Leg spiders. I have never on purpose pulled off their legs like my friends in elementary did because I liked them. Well I had a dream the other night and I saw a daddy long leg coming down toward me from above. I know however though that they don’t spin webs or use them to lower down on but due to the magic of a dream it was floating down with it’s legs spread out as though it was a parachute. When it landed I picked it up and went to show Marie but dropped it before getting there. It was in a crumpled heap and I quickly kept picking it up by the legs to untwist it and finally it got up and ran away carrying the parachute opened and attached to the end of each leg. It was pretty cool. Yes the magic of dreams, so cool.

Dec 5, 2011

FHE in Snow Cave for Christmas Eve

One year in the 1990’s and I think it was 1993, we had a particularly hard winter early in the winter season. So I was having to shovel snow off of the roof of the house since it was over 20 inches deep and I was starting to worry about the strength of the roof. So I shoveled it off once and then another huge storm came in and I had to shovel it again. Well the mounds of snow were getting pretty deep in the front and back of the house even to the point that I no longer used a ladder to get off of the roof since it was a very short jump down to the snow. It was nearly Christmas and in fact I had shoveled once on Christmas eve day. I suddenly had an idea to make a snow cave. It was not my first snow cave but it was the first one that I had ever built on my own property. So with Ben and Jeff’s help we made a snow cave and then for our Christmas Eve home evening we held it in the snow cave.  It was not quite like the stall where Christ was born but it felt a lot more like it than our family room. It is hopefully a memory that will stand out in my children’s memory for their entire lives. The day after Christmas we left Mapleton and went to Arizona. I had closed the hole to the cave so no one would know it was there before we left. We enjoyed the warm weather in Arizona for a week and then went home. The weather had been a little more  warm in Mapleton during that week as well so when we returned the cave had caved in to where we couldn’t get into it again. I was glad that we had spent that one evening in it at least for all the work that it took to make it.

Dec 4, 2011

Deer Hunting, the Road with Harold, plus the big one with Steve

I had several years of deer hunting after my first one with dad but that was the only one when we actually went and stayed at the ranch the night before. From that hunt until I was 18 I never missed another deer hunt. We pretty much would get up early on the morning of the hunt and go before it got daylight over into the orchard which was about a quarter of a mile from the house and there get at least one deer before even starting to hunt with my cousins and uncles. After we would get that one hung up in the barn we would go to Nana’s place in Duchesne and meet up with everyone else. It would still be quite early and they would all be ready so we would load into the trucks and head for Indian canyon. There would be 5 or so of us in the back of each truck, usually there were 3 or 4 trucks. We would go up Indian canyon about a mile and then head east on a dirt road for another mile or so and then turn south again and drive along the ridge of the hills that would drop down into Indian Canyon. I could never figure out quite how everyone else knew but at some point the trucks would start dropping one or two people out at the head of each draw. If we were the first ones off we would wait for several minutes I suppose to let the others get dropped off further up the canyon and then we would start down the ridges watching and listening for the deer that would be moving back into the hills from the fields in Indian Canyon, the fields that were owned by dad and his brothers. I didn’t carry a rifle since you had to be 16 to do so at that time. I would usually go with Clair or Stan and walk with them helping them to watch both side of the ridge. I can remember some years seeing a lot of deer filing up the draw into the hills and then when the big one would come along going to try and bag it. The worst part of the day always started tough when and if one was bagged. We would have to clean it and then start dragging it down the canyon to where we could drive to it and put it in the trucks. One year I remember hearing the smashing of horns below us, I believe I was with Clair that year. We hurried down to where the sound was only to hear it stop and then found where two bucks had apparently been fighting because the ground was all messed up and some dust was still lingering in the air. We didn’t see either of them but we were sure excited and tried to find them. I don’t think that we were successful. I still can see the year when 5 big bucks were all loaded into the trucks after that morning push. Usually after we had gone there above the ranch we would then load up again and go to right hand fork of Indian canyon and go to five mile canyon where we would then park all the trucks in the same area and then walk up the canyon and filly span out and walk up to the top of the hill where we would then be far enough apart to see each other and anything that might try to go between us and then walk back around the hill to where dad or someone else would be waiting. Every now and then we would drive a deer into the area where he could get it. When dad had a chance to shoot at a deer he didn’t miss. I was never that good.

Later when I was able to carry a rifle the older brothers had all pretty much left home and so the deer hunt changed. I would go with my neighbor Harold Spencer and in the case of my last hunt with Steve Aycock my cousin.

The years that I went with Harold were particularly interesting years. One year he drove up Grass hollow and up a road that I wasn’t even sure a horse would be safe on let alone a truck. I was on the passenger side looking down off the hillside being quite sure that we would soon be rolling down it in the truck. Harold made it all the way to the top though and was even able to turn around. We got out and hunted from there. I think I even went around and down the side of the mountain until I was back into the bottom of the valley just so I wouldn’t have to ride back down that road. It was pretty scary and I don’t even remember seeing a deer for all that trouble.

One year we went to 5 mile canyon and the two of us were alone. We walked up the valley to get to the area where we could go up the hill and were being followed by a coyote. Harold was the one who first spotted it and we watched it stalk us for almost a half mile before he finally turned and shot at it. It decided I guess at that point we were not the best of meals to try to obtain. We never saw it again the entire time we were in the canyon.

The last year that I went hunting was with my cousin Steve who was several years older than I and who was teaching a Duchesne High School. It was my senior year and the last time I would most likely hunt deer in Duchesne. It was the last Saturday of the hunt and dad and mom had gone to Provo for some reason so Steve and I went by ourselves. Harold had lost two steers that year just before deer season and thus was without meat for his family. I told him that if I was lucky enough to get one that I would give it to him since our family didn’t need it that year. Steve and I went way up Strawberry ridge east of Indian canyon. We finally stopped and got out at the top of a large canyon. Steve said to me I will go to the bottom and you stay about half way up on the hill. If I see anything I will whistle and I f you see anything whistle to me. Well as I started down the hill I came on a set of very large tracks and was pretty intent on following the tracks when I came around the front of the ridge and could see Steve down below me. The next thing I knew he whistled and pointed across a small ravine ahead of me. I looked and there was a huge buck walking up the ridge. I aimed my rifle then whistled. It stopped and looked over at me and I placed the bead on the animal just behind the shoulder.  I could see his entire body in my open sights so I was sure that I would miss. I squeezed the trigger and he dropped right there. Later as we were cleaning him we found that the bullet had hit him in the neck and bounced off the bone and gone through his heart. I to this day will not claim that it was my skill that shot that deer rather the bullet was guided by someone else who knew that Harold needed to meat for his family. Since it had not been spooked and was killed instantly the meat was sweet and had no wild taste to it. It was also very large and had plenty for Harold family. It took Steve and I 5 hours to get him back up to the truck. It was nearly dark and we started for home. Just a few yards down the hill a little two point buck jumped across the road. Steve said this one is mine as he stopped, pulled his rifle from behind the seat and aimed between the trees where the buck would soon be. He shot it and a few minutes later one handed picked it up and put it in the back of the truck with the one that he and I struggled to get in just a few minutes before. We were both successful but I know why and will never be convinced otherwise.