Our Garden Plot

Sylvia(at the time we had only seen her and didn't know her name)

at church one Sunday walked up to us and said

How would you and your family like to garden my plot

while I am in Maine for the summer?

Okay..........Sure.

It's about a quarter of an acre.

Okay.........Sure! (with a little more excitement this time)

This is a dream come true.

And the girls and I had just been trying to figure a

way the night before how we could grow a garden

in a rental that had wall to wall grass somehow. 

We resorted to thinking that we would only

be able to use a couple pots and call it a day.

Sylvia had other plans! Boy did she.

 We worked a deal that we could put a garden in and we would irrigate her trees and pasture while she was away, as well as house sit until her summer renters arrive from Texas.

She is a really neat lady. Real easy to get to know.

Word has gotton around church quickly because people have been coming up to us saying

I hear you're putting in a garden.......

 It took us two hours to lay all the irrigation pipe and learn how to route the

 water in the canal to her house.

I had to laugh because she just talked to us like we had done it before.

 The boys carried all the pipes and layed them out for us to connect them.

 The last time we were at her house, there were about 20 mule deer laying in the pasture next to her fence just hanging out like they owned the place.

 Victoria was our official gooper. 

She said the goop looked like peanut butter so we were calling her

peanut butter girl, time to goop.

She did a really good job.  After the first time we didn't have to watch her.

She coated the rubber seals really well.

 I love to see my boys work hard. 

It was a beautiful day, with crisp Spring air.

Nice, clean and fresh.

Victoria was looking like a little Farm Girl.

She never complained and jumped in every chance she got.

She squeezed in front of Jared to grab this wheel barrel

before he could even get his hands on it.

 After we layed all the irrigation pipes and learned where to channel the water off the canal which was up the street, Sylvia showed us how to use her tiller to plow grooves in the soil.

Now, we have only done a square foot garden that struggled in the heat of Phoenix.

And now we are going to garden this??

This is almost cheating :)

But totally cool!  The kids loved it.

Well, maybe not Daphne. She doesn't like anything with a motor.

The highlight of the day.
Jared got to drive the lawn mower.

It is amazing how a 16 year old can find great satisfaction out of driving a lawn mower.

Sylvia had Jared get on, gave him instructions and then said....

Go for it.....

Jared is going to share the job with another teen that we know from church.

He mowed with confidence.

He wanted me to call my Mom when we went to leave to tell her that he drove a lawnmower.

Come to find out it is on my Dad's bucket list...to drive a lawnmower.

Well, Poppa's just going to have to come up for a visit!

 Sylvia's trees that we will be watering?

Kaleb's favorite!

Apples!

We went home tired, sore, dirty, very satisfied,

and lots of thoughts on planning out our garden for the summer!

God is so good to us!

Woo Hoo

Woo Hoo!

It's Spring!

4 H Cloverbuds

 The little 4H group that Victoria belongs to met at

Stewart Nature Park for a Nature Scavanger Hunt.

The Logan river seemed really high and swift as we walked over the bridge.

The kids had to find certain things that were on their list, like

something twisty, something brittle,

They found a worm stuck to the pavement for

something dead.

The little brothers were finding roly polies.

I think one of the cute little boys was putting them into his pocket!

They were so excited to find them.

 Victoria, of course, found a stick. 

She said she has to replace all the ones that I threw out when we moved.

Darn, I was hoping that she would have forgotton that.

Some of the girls even saw a garden snake.

 This is a great group of little girls....and little brothers.

A storm was blowing in that day. 

We went to leave the house and ran back in to grab our jackets.

It was a good thing too, because it started snowing while we were out.

It is amazing what is literally in our back yards.

Spring is definately here.

We love it here and all that it has to offer.

God is so good!

Happy Earth Day!

 We celebrated Earth Day!

Usually Earth Day comes and goes but this year....I have Pinterest!

I got all my awesome ideas here.

We did a couple more things but I guess I forgot to take a picture.

Ooops.

This was a cute idea.  It starts out with our house. Then the next one says our street, our city, our state, our country, our nation and the last one is our world.

Of course we had been saving food boxes to make bookmarks. 

Everyone got in on this one.  We all had our favorites and were happy to recycle them. 

Victoria and I made a wallet out of a juice carton and we are still planning on one more project that we are starting this week. So you will have to wait to see what it is.

We filled out a report card for our home. 

We passed with flying colors when it comes to saving energy, recycling and reusing.



Bees

My cousin Kathy drove down to SLC to pick up her order of bees.  She has been preparing for them.  She got her hives all ready and borrowed a suit from a friend that cost $400, if you can believe that. I am glad that she could borrow it. As her and Troy were driving home to Malad about 20 bees got out of the shipping box and were buzzing along their back window of their car.  Kind of freaky. We had been planning to meet them at their house to watch her transfer her bees into her hive. Kathy thought it was just because we wanted to see her get stung!  I reassured her that it WAS NOT to watch her get stung.  But I do know where the Malad hospital is if she does get stung and has a reaction.

I think Troy was a little nervous about the whole ordeal.  He kept wanting to know what her "plan" was so he knew that she knew what she was doing.  So while she carried out all the tasks, Kirk was reading from her beekeeping book as to how to transfer the queen into the hive.

 I have never seen so many bees. It was incredible and a little scary.

Kathy sprayed some sort of sugar water on them so they couldn't fly. 

The queen was considerably larger than the others just like it says in books. Kathy had to anchor the queen into the hive and then dump the rest of the bees into the hive.

It was pretty neat to watch. I am glad that we drove over to see. 

Kathy had to plug the bees into the hive for three days so they wouldn't leave. Sometimes the queen will die or flies off and then you lose your whole hive.

So far so good. Kathy peeked and the bees seem to be doing fine.

Keeeviiiiiin!?

Hmmm, let me guess who did this!

 I guess we need to wash the windshield before we drive to Idaho today.

Spring

Spring in our new home is absolutely amazing.

Now don't get me wrong.  God can sprout new growth in any environment.

We have enjoyed many spring flowers and new growth in the desert.

After some good rain all winter the desert was beautiful.

Spring here? Is amazing.

We moved here when the leaves had already turned all shades of yellow, red and orange.

So we had no idea what Spring would bring.

 This morning was very quiet,

so I set out walking to take pictures down the street of the many trees that are flowering.

I was out and back before anyone even noticed that I was gone.

The dogs didn't even know. Ha!

 This white tree below is at the library.

 The girls and I decided that Nana would love to see these trees.

 I love this picture with the tulips facing into the morning warmth of the sun.

It is like they are all basking together in beauty.

What a surprise Spring has brought to our family.

Meet Kevin

This is Kevin.

Atleast, that is what his tag says,  he answers to it.  But then again I think he will answer to just about anything. He lives near the library.  His tag says that too.

He is the neighborhood Cat.

He seems to be everyones cat.

He has to be the most social cat since our neighborhood cat named Sunshine, in Phoenix.  I will be washing dishes and will watch him greet all the people coming and going in the library parking lot. He just mosies through the lot between the parked cars.

He never seems to be in any hurry or concerned that he will be hit by a car.

He must just knows that either he won't get hit or he must have plenty of his nine lives left at his disposable.

He was even out there in a blizzard with not a care in the world.

I FOUND MY PICTURES!!!

I refused to think that our back-up pictures on CD's were "misplaced".

And it irritated me everytime my well-meaning husband

 said they will turn up somewhere.

I took extra care in packing the things that were important to me.

I even made certain things be packed into the van that I was driving.

I was determined to not lose anything.

Well, I haven't been able to find the pictures and we had a

realization that 4 years worth of pictures were on Kirk's computer that was

stolen.  Which totally prompted our move to Logan.

 So, now I will probably freak out some of you when you read this.

But, I am going to tell you how the enemy works in the world.

I knew that I packed them into the red Huggies gift pack box that the nurses

confiscated from the hospital when our unit shut down.  We were taking out the diapers and wipes and just giving bag fulls to the mom's on their way out the door.  We all kept the boxes.  I must have had about twenty of them.  We all had agreed that they were the perfect size for CD's.

I guess that is kind of a side note but very important because I have about 4-5 of them packed with valuables.  Anyway, I knew where I had put them but every time I looked in that box, they were not there.  It was really starting to disturb me.  It was horrible.  I knew they were not gone. I just new that when I opened that box, I didn't "see"them.  In fact, I just know that each time I opened the lid, the CD's weren't in there.  I don't even remember what was in there or what I saw.  Kirk even helped me once.  And he didn't see any CD's in there as well.  That is how the enemy works. He clouds your vision so you can't see.  He attacks those things that are dear to you and your weaknessess.

Well, this morning I had had enough.  Last night I needed a picture that I had taken in South Dakota about 6 years ago and it wasn't on my laptop because I didn't have my laptop then and all of the pictures were on Kirk's work computer.  Which got ripped from our ownership out the back window. This morning I went straight to the box that I packed them into.

I saw the red box. I asked for protection from our Lord and said that there was no room for evil in our home.  I told God that I knew that those pictures were in that box, but I haven't been able to see them the other times that I have opened that box.  I asked God to please let me "see" the CD's.

I went to lift the lid and the lid literally blew out of my hands!

AND...........................there were the CD's of all our family photos.

Aren't they beautiful!??

GOD IS SO GOOD TO US!

Thank you Lord for your protection.
We just cannot live a single second without our Lord.
I am a pretty strong person, but living this life where we are always under attack?
I can't do it alone. We can't do it alone.

Dandy Lions

These are the healthiest, biggest dandelions that I have ever seen!

The flowers are bigger than a quarter, more like a half dollar!

I love Sesame Street because they have a little clip of these dandelions that look like little lions.  They say that they are "wild flowers".  And then they roar

"Dandy Lions".

Cute.



A Quick Project

 I was in the mood to sew.

And Lucky Victoria, she gets the project.

We have been searching for a particular metal tin

that holds colored pencils.

Well, we haven't found it yet.

It is somewhere packed in a box.

I have seen these nifty pencil rolls.

In fact Daphne has one, a beautiful shade of black.

I thought I could do better.

I think I did pretty good.

I love it when I have all the supplies needed to do

something on my mind.

Not only do I not have ANY money to spend,

but sometimes I lose interest in what I am doing

if I have to hunt for the perfect materials.

I always wondered what I would do with this particular fabric.

I have had it since Victoria was a wee babe.

Kaleb has put in an order now for one.  Hmmm, I think I have monster fabric somewhere.

Foals!

Jared, Victoria and I were out walking the

dogs on this beautiful spring day.

New shoots are just starting to peek out of the soil.

We were told it is barley.

To think we see this out our back windows.

No more block wall for us!

Anyway, I noticed something small

lying on the ground.
Just a tiny little lump of...fur.

The two horses on the corner finally had their babies.

They must be just a day old because you could see a tiny

remnant of their cords.

 The babies were born just like the owner said they would

She said in April, when they put them in the corner field.

Watch for them.

So we did.

We went home to get Daphne and the camera.

What an awesome lesson in life....and PE according to Victoria
because we had just walked 3 miles and then walked back up
the street to show Daphne.
The babies are adorable, with their fuzzy little manes and tails. 
Their little noses look like velvet.
It is amazing to think that their spindly little bodies were
all folded up in their mama's tummy.
Wow!

It was so cute to see the one standing try to lie down.

Her little legs are getting strong but are still just weak enough that

she has to plan out her legs just to lie down.

I hope they leave them in the corner field for a while

so we can take more pictures as they grow.

Record Highs

I had to laugh this morning when I was listening to the radio.

The DJ reported a "record high" in the temperature today in Logan.

He said......

A high's in the upper 70's and low 80's.....

I had to laugh.

Phoenix has been in the 90's

I love it here!

Happy Easter!

 A beautiful day in Logan at the

First Presbyterian Church.

I am so relieved to have a place where we can focus

on the very reason for the season of Easter.

God has been so good to our family.

I know we don't deserve anything that God hands to us.

But, boy am I glad that he still loves and forgives us.

And I am thankful that Jesus sacrificed himself for us.

I feel it more now than I have ever felt it before.

We wouldn't be surviving right now without our Father in Heaven
and all he does for us.

We have a sense of peace that exists
only because our faith has overshadowed the worry.

I saw this egg that Victoria decorated.

The rainbow just reminds us of God's awesomeness!