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Drying Time

Once August arrives, its time for drying. Most people who have fruits trees spend their summer canning or making jams with the fruit- but not us-  We dry everything we don't eat.  My boys tend not to like canned fruits, so why waste my time canning. Drying is a whole lot easier, plus Dan enjoys doing it, so he does most of the work.   You start by using very ripe fruit, usually just cut it in half.  Then they are placed on a wooded tray ready to go in an enclosed area. Ours is home made with just a painters canvas over the top. Once the trays of fruit are placed in the enclosure we place a small
can of sulfur on the dirt inside and light it on fire.  Then close up the enclosure.
The sulfur acts as a preserveative plus keeps the fruit from turning brown.   Once the sulfur has burned up the fruit comes out and is placed on tables for a couple of day until they are just right.                         

There is something about a table lined with trays of fruit that just makes me smile!

One Brick, Two Brick, Three Brick, Sore!

Today was so hot! But despite that Danny, Mason and Craig Hill, put in a new walk way on our side yard!                                                      

Here Craig is putting the last stone in place! The only way to survive the day was to take a break every few minutes and jump in the pool. They started around 9am and finished around 2:30pm.  By the time the work was done, the boys looked like they had been run over by a truck!
Hard, Hot, Work!!!

The boys lining the path with rocks from our rock pile.

" Hot, Bright, Heat" it's everywhere!!                   
At Least the flowers seem to like it.

 
 

Frogs, Lizards and Shoes Oh My!

Okay, so everyone knows we live in the wild kingdom.  There is always something creeping around our home. {Bob cats, coyotes, etc.}  Most nights we hear our dog Pepsi barking at something-  But usually no one is brave enough to go out in the dark and check it out!  Well, the other night Pepsi had been barking for hours and I couldn't take it anymore, so being the brave woman that I am, I got out of bed to go out in the dark to see what had Pepsi so upset, well of course I couldn't see anything!  So I when back in the house to bed, where Dad says, "Why did you go outside, something could of carried you Off" {but he didn't seem worried enough to stop me before I left!}
     The big things are usually more afraid of us and just run off if they see us.  On the other hand all the little things  seen to find their way into the house from time to time.
     Just a couple of weeks ago we had a frog stow away on a drive to the mall.  Where for several hours had a nice time hiding away.  It wasn't until we were in Gottchalks by the makeup, that I see Shannon coming towards me pushing Anna in her stroller, with a most interesting look on her face, actually a "Priceless" look.  There, right above Anna's head on the stroller is this nice little brown frog.  Well being the wonderful "Grammer" that I'm just flicked it off, and off we headed out of the store.  {I'm sure little frog is enjoying the makeup section at this very moment.}
   Okay, now to tell you what all this is building up to-
In order to do that I will share a little phone conversion I had with Kent today.
    Kent- Hi Mom, thanks for the package
    Mom- Great you got it, was everything there you needed?
    Kent-  Oh yea, thanks for the extra little green stuff.
    Mom- What?  {thinking Dad must of put some extra cash in the package for Kent}
    Oh Dad mailed it, I'm not sure what all he sent.
     Kent- So you're saying you know nothing?
     Mom-  Kent,  Dad must of put some extra cash in there for you.
    Kent-  No, just a  very Big Green Lizard in my shoes!!!
    Mom-  {Laughing so hard tears are flowing} that's so crazy!

So there you have it Kent got the shock of his life to see a friendly little lizard in one of his shoes, by the way he is at school in Idaho.

So be warned, you never know what we will send home with you after a visit to our home!!

Agapanthus Explosions

It seems fitting that all my agapanthus seem to burst into color around the 4th of July. To me they seem like Mother Natures fire works. They remind me of a sparkler!
  Most days of Summer I have fun making a bouquet of flowers with agapanthus and Lavender.

Kents Home

Yes, Kent was home for about 10 days, but now he is off to school in Idaho.  Just wanted to post a couple of pictures to prove that he was here.

This was a fun picture Denver did for Dan's 50th, as you can see Kent is in it.
For more details about the week go to shannon's blogMission #3

That's Kent in the red helmet.

Trek

We just got back from an awesome experience- This year our Stake Young Women and Young Men, Planned  a  Pioneer reenactment  trip; for 3 days and 2 nights we followed the Mormon Immigrant trail,{ by Tahoe}. We started the trip June 29th at the Merced stake center. Then drove about 3 hours to our  starting point.   There the Youth were assigned a cart and given a Trek family, which included a Ma and Pa and ten siblings.

These are the carts they used, weighted around 500lb some more depending on the family and the bags they had. Some were really loaded down.

This is the family that Mason was assigned to.

Mason's Trek sisters.

Mason and a Trek Brother.

After they were assigned a family and cart; they headed off.   The first mile was all up hill, it was a very hard pull.

Mason is the one at the far left with no hat.
One of the things we did on the trek was to stop every once in awhile for  a staged reenactment of true stories of pioneers. The kids seemed to really enjoy this, and at times they were very emotional.

The youth had to wear pioneer attire the whole time, plus they came with tin cups and plates,also had to wash them after each use. {No showers the whole time there}

This was a lucky shot, if you look close you will be able to see me, Mason and Dan. {Clue I'm standing by the flag}

Some things they did in the evening were:
HoeDown fun dancing
Family Home Evening
Pioneer games- Tug a war etc. The tug a war was a big hit, it was always one family against another, one of the rules they had there was once assigned to a family they had to do everything with that family. None of the kids seemed to mind this, in fact I think they rather liked it that way. There were one or two hours a day that they were able to roam around without their family.

Yes, I died on the trail, the second day, death took me.  During the whole trek this couple followed close to the trek always in view in the distance or at the side, once in awhile they would pull someone from the trail, representing that they had died. It was always a very emotional site.  Death didn't take any youth until the very last hour of the last day.  Because once you were taken you couldn't talk with people on the trek, you could walk along with them.   
They wanted to teach the youth, that death was always on the pioneers minds, and they had to deal with it on a daily basis.

Mason and his
Trek family.

It was just amazingly beautiful up there, this is at the second nights camp site.  They had a sunrise testimony at this site, what a touching site, seeing the sun come up and the youth standing in front bearing their testimonies.

Thursday and Friday, Kent helped with the photography. Saturday morning he left for school.  Everyone loved our matching pioneer clothes, they said I looked like an Australian pioneer.

On Friday {second day} they reenacted when all the men were called away from the trek to join the Mormon battalion {The President of the United States asked Brigham Youth for help} At this point they had men come in dressed in military outfits, who asked for all the men to say good bye to their families and follow them.  At this point all the men {only girls and women left} lined up in two row and marched away.  {The youth had no idea that the girls were going to have to pull the carts by themselves}   They boys then went out of site where Dan spent some time talking to them about becoming men and how to treat women, they were told that the girls would be pulling the carts up the hill by themselves and they were not allowed to help in any way but to have a prayer in their hearts for the girls.  Dan talked to them about lots of different things, mainly how to respect women and their role as daugters of a Heavenly Father.
The girls at the same time {different area} were given a similar talk about men.  After the talks the girls gathered up and began the pull up the hill {it was the hardest of the trek so far} and many carts only had 3 or 4 girls.  The boys were lined up at the top of the hill watching over the girls below. What an amazing site.  The boys standing at the top, hats off, looking down at the girls pushing with all their strength; knowing that they could do nothing to help.   It was wonderful to see  the girls  at the back of the line leave their carts and run forward to help the girls in front, and so forth.  With great team work all the carts made it to the top, where they passed through the line of boys, all with tears streaming down their faces. When they came to the stopping point all the boys ran as fast as they could to their trek families to help.  What a site!!

Mason's trek sisters first up the hill.

Mason and his Trek family. Mason is in the back corner pushing.

All the youth who attended the trek.

This was such a wonderful event, a once in a life time happening. I'm so glad that Kent, Mason, Dan and I were able to be a part of this.  Some much happened there is just not enough time or space to tell all here!  I can say that Mason said it was awesome!