Dec. 28, 2011

Family Photographs for 2011 Taken 12/27/2011

Marie and Kent

Gabe, Ben, Sam, Cat

Lori, Jeff

Kinsey, Kasia

Hayden, Greyson, Cheyenne

Leilah, Hallie

Tia and Scott

Brooklyn, Rachelle, Kade, Loren

Brittany, Alex, Jeff

Dec. 28, 2011

Cleaning jars before canning

I wrote about the experience of cleaning out the fruit room and mentioned the cleaning of the jars toward the end of it. Well I was referring to the task of preparing the quart, pint and two quart bottles for the canning process. I would go retrieve them from the Grainery and then rinse them out with a hose on the front lawn and then take them in where we would wash them with soap and water. I hated that job mostly due to the fact that Black Widow spiders loved the bottles. I do not know why but apparently the open bottles stored in a dusty second level of the same building where we stored grain for the chickens had an appeal to the bugs upon which the spiders would live. It never mad sense to me that they could be there but maybe they just slept there and would hunt other places, not likely though since a spider just weaves a web and waits for their food as I understand it. Anyway there was always plenty of dust in the bottles along with the spiders but no bugs, nut have all been eaten which was my greatest fear also. Anyway I would go and get t he box after box of bottles from the grainery and haul them back to the yard, rinse them out and take them into the house. The ones where I would empty the contents from the fruit room were actually harder since I usually had a lot more scrubbing to get the fruit juices and other stuff out with just cold water from the hose. As I think about this I always seem to mention the Black Widow spiders and none of the other species that were also in the bottles but I am sure it is because of my dislike for them the most. 

Dec 27, 2011

BYU 6th ward RS Overnight @ Diamond Fork

For years as I served in Scouting, Bishoprics and High Councils I was always troubled by the fact that the girls were always complaining about the fact that the boys always got to do the fun things like going camping every month. I always blamed it on the fact that they did not have youth leaders that were willing to take them and to have to get out of the house and into a dirty cold old tent. There have been a few women though that I cam to admire because they loved to do it and were willing to go on fourth year hikes and take girls camping but they were few and far between. Well in the 6^th ward at BYU I learned another thing that I have come to appreciate. The Elders quorum had a camp and came back talking about how fun it was and there came from it another special experience for Marie and I here at BYU. The second time the Elders started to plan a camp the Relief Society decided that they wanted to do it as well. The Bishop after consulting with the Stake President determined “Why Not?” as long as the Bishopric and High Council could be there as Priesthood support. I asked Marie if she wanted to go and she accepted quite readily.  It was held in October and during what seemed to be a pretty cold time of the year for camping but more importantly it was the night before the deer hunt. As we were setting up camp I walked past a campfire of what was apparently deer hunters. I stopped and talked for awhile and they apologized for the noise they would be making around 4:30 AM as they would be pulling out of camp to go on the hunt. I told them that it would be no problem since that comes with the experience. I also stopped and talked to a troop of scouts that were there for an overnighter and watched as the young men were surprised that girls were actually wanting to do it. Well later that night as I sat with Marie, the Bishop Patten and his 1^st Counselor Kurt Brian I thought about the poor deer hunters in the next camp trying to sleep through a bunch of very giggly and noisy girls around a camp fire. I also thought about the scouts as I heard screams coming from their direction when someone had scared them. Then I watched as three young college men  walked towards the campfire cloaked in blankets and tried to scare the girls as they had the scouts. One young lady asked me very quietly if I thought that bush by the road was moving. I watched it and sure enough it was but ever so carefully. I meandered out and talked with the young man as two others of his buddies came in from another direction. Bishop was still in camp and noticed that one blanket had a cartoon character on it and told the girls anyone wearing a blanket like that couldn’t do any harm. As it was he was quite right and as they were talking to the girls he was blushing since that was all that he had to use. They were all laughing together about it a few minutes later versus the poor scouts who had been screaming about it. We ended up going to bed well after midnight and the girls were laughing most of that time and rather loudly at that. I guess that explained why the deer hunters didn’t mind leaving the diesel truck idling near camp at 4:30 AM for 10 or more minutes next to the tents. Too bad they didn’t hear the girls response later that morning “What truck was running? I didn’t hear any.”

The next morning was also fun after an excellent breakfast cooked by two of the presidency. We had a campfire morning side and I and the Bishopric talked about listening to the spirit and other like subjects. It was very special. Bishop and Brother Brian and I could tell though that there was an approaching storm and decided to have the girls break camp after which we left. They stayed for another hour and then the rain caught them totally unprepared. They had to take down the tents in the rain which they had not completed before we left. Luckily we had all the stuff in the tents loaded but they wanted to let the tents dry a little longer. They didn’t dry but were hung up around Campus Plaza very soaked for a couple of days. These young women had a great time and also some great spiritual as well as temporal training that weekend.

Dec. 26, 2011

Annual cleaning of the fruit room

As I have had cause to reflect back on my youth and some of the experiences I have had it has become very apparent to me that some of the things that I had to do in my youth really were not as bad as I thought while in the midst of doing them. I have in fact come to realize that I rather enjoyed them over some thing that I probably could have done. Cleaning the fruit room was one of those tasks that I thought I didn’t like but has come to be a treasured memory of sorts instead. Each year as we prepared to put up the fruit from that season we would have to remove some of the age old fruit that hadn’t been eaten and dump it out in the garden or give it to the pigs depending on if we had any that year or not. I somehow got elected to do this task most of the time when I became old enough to get the lids off the bottles. I remember the worst part of the job was dumping out the bottles where the seal had broken and the mold had grown out of control on the top of the fruit. It was disgusting and hard to empty as well. It would require taking a spoon or spatula to the bottle and digging it out at first and then finally being able to let the rest of the fruit run out. There always seemed to be several of those and I didn’t like them. I thought they were going to make me deathly ill if I breathed in the dust from the mold so I always held my breath while performing the dirty task. Well it wasn’t really all that bad but I did learn some important organizing skills since it also required putting the old fruit in front and the newest in back so the old got used first, (except when I went to get the fruit and I liked to dig it out of the back since I usually used it in fruit drinks after school.) It also helped with organizing skills that were needed when I would dig into the attics and clean them or into the barn to clean it. Yes I do think that I probably volunteered for the duty more times than I was really assigned since I did quite enjoy the task. Now washing the bottles after they were emptied, well that wasn’t quite so fun.

Dec. 25, 2011

Hands Burned while repairing car

I grew up on a farm and attribute that to the fact that I can do a lot of what might be termed as Handy Man things. Dad was always repairing things and I can never remember him ever having anyone come in and do anything for him. He could do plumbing, building, and even repair the farm equipment as needed. He could weld anything that needed welding and repair anything that needed repairing especially if Harold Spencer was there. He was our neighbor and he and dad did a lot of the farm work on both farms together.  I also learned a lot due to scouting as I had to earn the Home Repair merit badge as it was required then and also had numerous other things that we would learn to do while in scouts. SO with that preface it is no wonder that I would always try to repair our cars until I knew it was out of my range of ability and I would then take it to Max to repair. Well I was working on one of our cars in early April when there was still snow on the ground. I had taken out the carberator and cleaned all of the parts and put it back together. I was doing it in the garage since it was a little warmer in there than outside. Well it still got quite cold so I took a small open flame heater and put it on the step at the front of the garage for a little heat. I installed the part back into the engine and then added some gas to the tank at the back of the garage by where the door was completely open while I did it. AS I was pouring the gas into the tank from the 5 gallon container I suddenly saw a flame racing toward me from the front by the heater. I quickly took the can out onto the lawn spilling some of it on the bumper of the car. I raced into the house and grabbed the fire extinguishers and told Marie to call the fire department and then went out and put out the flames. I used up three small fire extinguishers and finally grabbed the hose to put out one small flame still burning under the car. I rested my hands on the bumper and found out real fast that it had burned more than I thought and was real hot and thus burned both palms of my hands. Wynn Everett and the small fire truck arrived about then and found that I had the fire out and under control and told me I had done it correctly. Later as I talked to Max about it he told me that now I knew why heaters in garages were all hung from the ceiling since gas is heavier than air and the fumes will travel along the floor to the nearest ignition source. I learned a valuable lesson that day and soon closed in the garage and made a den, storage room, and shop out of it instead. There is still black soot that remains from that fire as a reminder of my lesson that day.

 The next day as I went to church both of my hands were wrapped in large white bandages as I had burned them fairly severe. I was also the one conducting the meetings and so I would take my day planner to the podium with it resting open on my hands since I couldn’t really open it all that well otherwise since my hands just looked like to big insect cocoons. It was a lesson I will never forget.

Dec. 24, 2011

Grandma Hales and Sunday school

When I was around 8 to 10 years old and I don’t remember specifically, my Sunday school class seemed to be on their worst behavior. Back then we went to church twice on Sundays, once in the morning for Sunday School and then again in the evening for Sacrament meeting. We didn’t have the consolidated 3 hour blocks until I had been home from my mission for a few years, 2 or 3. So Sunday morning we would go to the church and the priesthood meet and then later the women and children would come for Sunday School. We would have opening exercises and then go to class. Relief Society, Primary and Mutual were held during the week. Well during the years when we ad that bad class we had been through 2 or 3 teachers when Grandma Hales was called to be our teacher. I was glad to have her there as as our teacher. Leesa and I were in the same class and we both called her Grandma even though she wasn’t actually our Grandma. Well she tried to teach us and there were the same noisy class members minus two. Leesa was always well behaved in class but since Grandma Hales was our teacher I was especially well behaved do to my love for her. I remember though the day that my heart was broken for her as she was trying to teach and the other boys would not pay any attention to her at all but was extremely noisy. She finally through the chalk and eraser at the back of the class and left crying. She didn’t return to class and the boys were all cheering except one. I don’t remember our next teacher but I also don’t remember changing teachers after that again.  

Dec 23, 2011

Governor Lake trip

As I have mentioned in other stories as a scout all of my summer camps were into the Granddaddy Basin of the Uintah National Forest. They were always fun and very memorable. I think it was the second year into the granddaddies when we went to Governor Lake that was situated just below Granddaddy lake. There were some waterfalls that went from the one down to the other but I don’t remember them being particularly spectacular or even any falls involved more of a stream running down the hill but there should have been because it was pretty darn steep going down with our backpacks on. Governor Lake was a real pretty lake. It was somewhat long and took quite a wile to get around it. There were some marshy areas around it as well where to follow the edge of the lake was not possible. We camped in the trees and one of my favorite scout photographs was taken that year. It has always made me think of the Civil War when I look at it since we were in A Frame tents and you can see that tent with smoke rising from the fire pit into the early morning sun that was just breaking through the tall pines. It was not a good year for fishing that I remember but of course there were never any good years for fishing for me since I wasn’t too good at it anyway. We did hike to a Lost lake that year and it was well named as we almost got lost looking for it. I remember it was good fishing as long as you kept walking along the edge of the lake and following the school of fish that seemed to be swimming around the edge in endless circles. It wasn’t a very large lake but all of seemed to catch quite a few fish that day. Getting back to camp again we almost got lost since there really was no trail that led in and out of that lake. I think the only reason we were able to find it is because the scoutmaster had been there several times before and so knew his way. It was a fun year and I still hold that lake as one of my most favorite in the basin.