Cabin, Concert, and Pears and more pears

We headed up to the cabin last weekend for a whirlwind trip. We left when I got off work on Friday and arrived at the cabin a little after 9:00 p.m. We always stop to check on the horses when we arrive. It is dark, but when the horses hear the truck coming down the access, they run up to the fence, so by the time we actually arrive at the inside gate, they are there. They always act really glad to see us—the fact that we always give them sweet mix or grain doesn't have anything to do with it, I’m sure. We knew from the beginning that this was to be a very short trip. We intended to spend the night and then leave sometime the next morning. It is still really nice to go to Island Park, even for a short trip. It was so pleasant there. The fall colors are in evidence everywhere now, but it has been such a wet summer that there isn't a dried out feeling, it is still quite lush and full looking and feeling. The cabin was in great shape, it is so nice to have it as a place to come to. Ralph and Connie were not there—apparently moved into their new place now. But we weren't there very long anyway. In the morning we got up and headed out to the pasture again. One of the wonderful things about cabin visits now is that I can strip the bed and wash the sheets and then make the bed with clean sheets and not have to change the bed twice every time I visit. First thing I stripped the bed and popped the sheets in the washer, and by the time we finished breakfast they were washed and ready to go in the dryer. Then when we got back—all I had to do was put the clean sheets on the bed. It was quite wonderful. (Ahhh, the simple pleasures of life. –I really do love having a washer and dryer there, even more than I expected.) Anyway, we headed off to the pasture where we checked on the horses, we haltered them and had them run on a lead for a few laps and Paul checked their feet. They are going great. It has also been a blessing that they have done self-care so well this summer and fall, while Paul has been convalescing. The two of us walked the fence and it just needed a few staples in places, but is also holding up pretty well. After about an hour and a half at the pasture, we went back to the cabin, cleaned up, packed our stuff, shut everything down and we were off. We left at about 10:30 a.m. because we wanted to stop at the lumber yard in St. Anthony. Paul used some of their raw lumber for our carriage house, and he wanted to price out what was available for our barn in Petersboro. We still don’t plan to start until next spring/summer, but we are getting some estimates and working out a spreadsheet, so we will know what we can do. It is fun to start working on this project. We also stopped in Petersboro on the way home. We were there last weekend, but we wanted to make sure that we liked the position that we picked out. And we did. Our grass is still doing well, and starting to choke out the weeds and our fence looks good. It has also been quite rainy there, and so everything looks healthy and lush still. We were in a hurry to get back to Salt Lake on Saturday evening because we were going to attend a concert in the Assembly Hall. It was part of the Temple Square Performances Series. It was “Music of Crawford Gates”. This concert featured choral and instrumental music and included a variety of performers including vocalists, pianists, and instrumentalists (violin, flute, viola). The concert was offered to pay tribute to my dad for his contribution to “uplifting and inspiring music throughout his lifetime.” We don’t know how many more of these kinds of events are in my dad’s future and so I felt like we needed to come back to attend this concert even though we had planned to go to the cabin the same weekend. It made the trip to the cabin seem almost like it didn't happen since we were back so soon after we left. The concert was very nice and we were glad that we were able to attend and that we were able to participate in the evening with my parents and some of our children. Peter and Erika and Jono also attended and after the concert our little group went out for ice cream so the evening ended up having a “party” feeling to it. Our sacrament meeting on Sunday was a broadcast of the Ogden Temple dedication. It was in our chapel and we had to show our recommends in order to go into the chapel. It was a very nice experience and there were outstanding talks and the music was very well performed. Paul and I had a very enjoyable worship service. Now I need to go and do a session there, to continue my quest to visit all the Utah Temples. I have four more, Ogden, Vernal, Monticello and Brigham City. (Paul and I visited the Brigham City Temple several months ago, but the endowment session was full and we did sealings. I still want to do a session there.) Erika and I are going to the Vernal Temple in October when there is UEA convention and we will be off school and Paul and I will go to Monticello in November as a birthday present for me. I just need to make an appointment to go to the Ogden Temple in the next couple of months. I hope to have all the Utah temples visited by the end of the year. Then I will have to design a new quest—maybe Idaho Temples. I have already done endowment sessions in the Rexburg and Idaho Falls Temples and a sealing session in the Boise Temple, so it would only mean a couple more….we’ll just have to see. Monday, I had my semiannual dental visit and am happy to report another visit with no cavities. I thought I might have one because one of my teeth has become a bit sensitive to cold—but so far no evidence of decay so I will carry on. I went to the dentist after work and while I was not at home, Paul got all busy and picked apples and pears. Our fruit trees are in full harvest mode now. We didn't get as many apples this year as last year, but we did get a bountiful harvest of pears. Yesterday afternoon and evening I made pear jam. And it is work, cutting and peeling pears and pears and pears. And after peeling many, many, many I ended up getting eight pints of jam—working from about 5:00 p.m. until about 9:30. It seems like a lot of work for eight pints, but we will be happy to have it. I actually quite like pear jam, it is a more subtle flavor than many jams, but quite pretty, almost clear and golden colored. And so that brings us to the end of our current adventures.

Cabin Trips, Petersboro, Healthy Sandy, Gone with the Wind and Family News

Paul continues to improve. He is now sleeping a little bit better, and spending most of the night in bed rather than awake and sitting up. He is back at work almost full time; there is still a significant level of discomfort and pain, but he is doing physical therapy and he does see some light at the end of the tunnel, though still quite distant. It has been a long haul for him and he is looking forward to having this all behind him. In a few more months it will be a dull and unhappy memory. I have been involved and busy these last couple of weeks with many small and big projects. Paul and I have been going to the cabin every other weekend for the last month and a half to check on the horses. We went the first weekend in September and we are leaving today to go there again. The weekend of the 5th-7th we had a really lovely time. The weather was really nice and because we had done some really serious repair work the previous time in August when we were there, the fences were in good shape. We saw Connie and Ralph and visited with them briefly and really enjoyed the get-away. We still love going to the cabin and we have gotten really good at packing in and out when we go to the cabin for these short weekends. We stopped in Petersboro on the way home and walked around our property. We are getting serious about our barn and are making important decisions about where we want to put it on the property. This weekend we are just racing up and back. Normally we stay and go to church at Mack’s Inn, but this Saturday evening there is a concert at the Assembly Hall featuring the Music of Crawford Gates which I want to attend, so Paul agreed to come back on Saturday afternoon in time to make the concert. Our intent and reason to go to Island Park is to check on the horses and the fences and we can do that on Saturday morning and then come on home. It is hard to know how many more opportunities to share an evening like this with my dad and mom are in the future—so we will take advantage of the ones that come and be happy for them, even if it means a very quick trip to the cabin this week. Sandy City has continued their summertime health initiative into the fall this year and I signed up again for Healthy Sandy which involves a number of small healthy lifestyle challenges—centered around walking, which I do anyway. The new session started on the 8th, and I have been meeting their challenges. Every Monday evening there is “a walk”. It is organized at one of the many Sandy Parks which have walking trails and you are expected to come and walk the trail a specified number of loops. You walk at your own pace and can start and stop when you want. Each week there is also a talk on some aspect of health and lifestyle which starts at 6:00 p.m.—you can walk before or after the talk. You get points for listening to the lecture as well. The park location changes every week and there is also a challenge walk every week as well—to be completed sometime during the week (an easy option 1-2 laps—or a more challenging option 4-5 laps) also at a different park each week. I have now completed two weeks in the eight week challenge. Erika and I did the summer series two different years, but now that she doesn’t live in the same house with me, it is more challenging to do it together, this fall session I am doing without her, although another friend joins me sometimes for the Monday walks. Paul recently ordered a set of plans for the barn from an architectural company that provides plans for a number of barns, sheds, out buildings, stables and the like. We had been poking around the internet for some time looking for plans that met all our criteria and desires. This plan isn’t perfect, but as close to what we both want than anything else we have seen. Paul would like to change the slope of the roof and extend the eaves more, but it has the right size and shape and elements that were important to me—like a loft that we can use as living space if we want. It is exciting to see this plan take shape—to realize that we will be able to actually build a barn on our property. On Saturday the 13th Paul and I spent the day in Cache County. We drove up with tools for measuring and marking the possible location of our building. We have to figure out where we think we want the house and then figure out where we want the barn relative to that and how it works with the undulating nature of our land. We think that we have picked out a place that will work for an attached paddock and a good location not to obstruct a view of the valley from our house when it is built. It was a fun process—measuring, reviewing, looking at the site, etc. When we finished at the property we went into Logan, picked up some items at CAL Ranch and then decided to go to a movie. Without really knowing what we wanted to see we just headed for a theater. The Giver was showing within about twenty minutes of our arrival so we decided to go see that. I had read the book years ago, when we first moved back from Germany. It was published in 1993 and won the Newbery Award in 1994. I disliked this book. It has been a darling of book readers, critics and many, many of my book club friends, but I never liked it. I found it quite disturbing. When the movie was announced, I thought I should perhaps read it again, and see if as I have aged I would like it better—or at least “get” what made it appealing to so many other people. And now here was an opportunity to see the movie without really make plans to do so and see if I liked it better on the screen than in print. And so we watched it. ---As a total aside to this story, normally Paul and I never buy popcorn or treats at a movie, but we had been outside tramping around the property for a couple of hours and it was well past lunchtime and we were both kind of hungry and so Paul bought a tub (more a barrel, really) which included refills and a couple of drinks and while we were waiting for the movie to start—between the two of us we finished all the popcorn and so Paul went back and got a refill—which thankful we hardly made a dent in—but we had planned on getting something to eat after the movie and we were both so full of popcorn that we skipped the dinner altogether.---So what did I think of The Giver? I thought it had some wonderful production values—the use of black and white and color was amazing. I thought the casting was very good and the sets really interesting. I was glad that I had the chance to see the movie, but I can’t really say that I really liked it. The things that disturbed me initially in the book still disturbed me. I am feeling like I have just been exposed to many teenage angst/dystopian society pieces in the last while to appreciate any of it—between The Hunger Games, Divergent and The Giver I feel like I am hearing/reading/seeing the same story in a different dress. Would I recommend this movie? I wouldn’t discourage anyone from seeing it if they read the book and liked it-it was a good rendering. And in fairness, Paul thought that the ending was positive (and it was) and so put a redeeming spin on the movie. Yesterday was my book club meeting for this month. I was the host and it was my book selection. I had selected Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. This was a pretty long book; the mass market edition which used had more than 1000 pages. But it was an interesting read and generated a lively discussion among our ladies. While we usually serve some kind of refreshments at our meetings, we don’t usually put on a whole meal (except at our Christmas party), but I decided that I would like to host a Southern Dinner and prepared a meal of southern style food in the way meals are described in the book. I eventually ended up serving fried chicken, whipped sweet potatoes, carrots, and acorn squash with cornbread and then for dessert I served an apple crisp cookie bar and peach pie. It was really enjoyable. I set the table with china that I inherited from my grandmother, it is my most old fashioned looking china and vintage cut glass candelabra that my mother gave me a few years back which matches those particular dishes. So it was a fun and festive meal. Additionally we discussed with much enthusiasm Antebellum South, the Civil War, Reconstruction, slavery and the wonderfully drawn characters of Margaret Mitchell. We talked about the Lost Cause Literary movement of which Gone with the Wind is the poster child and we also watched the Carol Burnett version of Gone with the Wind titled Went with the Wind from youtube.com and we all laughed a lot over it. Erika, who put me up to this book, having read it and loved it, told me that she had never had anyone to talk to about it and wanted to come. So she came and joined the fun and it was really delightful to have her as part of the group. The ladies invited her to continue to come, I don’t know if she will, she has a pretty full life and might not want to read all of our choices, but it was great to have her be a part of this one. I’m including an invitation to the evening because I thought it was an appropriate invitation and I had a good time putting it together. Other items of interest from the home front: Philip and Camille are entering their last month in Washington D.C. by October 29th they will be in Kiev. They are really excited to be going and are looking forward to going with much anticipation. They have received their housing assignment there, and have been using googlemaps to look at their location and figure out what is close and what they can easily walk to. The embassy is not close. Philip is trying to figure out what he wants to do about a car. It is the detail he is working on now. Peter and Kortney took another trip to Tennessee and the environs, doing a road trip and having a great time and catching two more state capitol building. We saw them on Sunday. Big news is that Eleanor is toilet trained. Everyone happy and proud over that. And so life goes on.

"Grape" Weekend and Soldier Hollow Sheep Trials Classic and Thunderstruck Bookclub

Paul continues to recover. This week Monday-Friday he went into work for a couple of hours. He still isn’t sleeping very well, lots of interrupted sleep, but he is no longer taking any of the narcotic pain relievers, and is getting a long better. He still isn’t attending events with me, though. Being in large groups that could potentially bump into him or accidently brush by him roughly kept him wanting to stay close to home. After he has put in a couple of hours at work he is really ready to come home and take a nap. He is anticipating starting physical therapy next week. My book clubs are starting up again. One of them met last week and one of them will be meeting this week. The book we read for last week’s meeting was Thunderstruck by Erik Larson. This was non-fiction and quite interesting, but has been reviewed quite negatively. Most of our bookclub group found it an informative read—exposing us to stuff we were totally unfamiliar with. In Thunderstruck, Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men—Hawley Crippen a mousey salesman and con-man who is accused of killing his wife, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of wireless communication which at the time seemed almost like some kind of magic--whose lives intersect during the flight of Crippen by sea and his identification and capture resulting from the early use of wireless communication from sea to land. The book is set in the early 1900’s and spends more time with Marconi and less time with Crippen. I learned so much about the invention period and the trials of the innovator; his failures before he had success. Marconi faced incredible odds and the competition nipping at his heels and so much skepticism it is a wonder he succeeded at all. I was amazed at the level of suspense that could be generated in a story where we know from the beginning that radio ended up being a successful endeavor. The Crippen story is tragic, but also interesting in its own way. This is the second Erik Larson book I have read. His specialty is taking historical events and reviewing them in the style of a novel, and he does a good job of it. I have also read his In the Garden of Beasts—set in WWII. But his most famous book is The Devil in the White City. This weekend has been a “grape” weekend. We have been harvesting our grapes. We have an arbor in the back yard which isn’t enough to contain our vines which have branched out to our scrub oak trees and our fruit trees and so we have grapes everywhere. Friday night I picked a couple of big bowls worth, just the clumps that were easily in reach. Then the grapes have to be removed from all the stems and so it takes a while to prepare them. I usually heat them up in an eight quart stock pot that I have to release the juice, but there were so many that on Friday night I tried something that I have never tried before. I cooked all that I could fit on the stove top and then I filled my eight quart crock pot with the grapes, put it on low and let them “cook” overnight. It was a great success, actually better than the stove top method because the liquid was so much clearer and not cloudy like it is when I stove top cook the grapes. Usually when I stove top, I have to wait 24 hours while the liquid settles, but this was so clear that I was able to use it right away, bearing in mind that it took seven hours to slow cook. On Saturday Paul came out with me and held the ladder and picked bunches that were within his reach. And we gathered twice as many grapes as I had gathered the day before by myself. And so I spent Saturday day doing grapes. I picked the grapes off the stems and also made grape juice concentrate, and grape syrup. Picking the grapes off the stems took a long, long time, because there were so many bunches of grapes that we harvested. And without belaboring the time involved and the number of crockpots at seven hours each, and the dishwasher running several times a day with bottles, and all the various sticky bowls, pots, measuring cups and utensils in it, two trips to the store to buy sugar and pectin and just the work involved—I ended up Monday night with 31 pints of grape juice concentrate, grape syrup and grape jelly. All in a weekend’s work. Since we knew that we weren’t going to the cabin over Labor Day, which we usually do, I have been planning on going up to Soldier Hollow to attend the Sheep Dog Trials. I have been casually interested in this sport since watching the movie Babe back in the 1990’s. They have a huge competition in this rural area of the Heber Valley every year over Labor Day. Erika went with Jono’s family two years ago and reported that it was pretty interesting. Originally, it was going to be with Paul, too, but he still isn’t up to attending large gatherings where bumping is a possibility. So he stayed home. I got tickets for Erika, Jono and me. And it was a really fun event, we had a great time. And what happens you might ask? The world’s most highly trained border collies and their handlers walk out to the post in front of all of us spectators. (And I was wildly impressed by how many there were—thousands of people) High up on the mountainside, which we faced, a group of wild range sheep are released. And they are far away, the field where the event takes place is big, about four hundred yards by six hundred yards or so. And Solider Hollow has a reputation for the world’s wildest sheep. One handler called them “wicked.” The dog must race up the hillside and listening to the whistles of his master must carefully gather the sheep. There are a number of feats and skills that the dog must accomplish with the sheep and the sheep have to figure out that the dog can be trusted and then do what the dog directs. The dogs never barked. Two groups of eight sheep are released on the hillside in different places and the dog must bring them down the hillside and bring them through some free standing “gates”, gather the two groups together, herd them around the “post” where the handler stands, and then run them through two more sets of “gates” across the entire length of the course and then the handler and the dog have to separate out some of the sheep from the rest of the group. (Some of the sheep have red collars and some do not.) and then the separated group are put into a small pen. It all has to be done in twenty-five minutes. We did not see a perfect run all day and there were fifteen teams. They start with 170 points and then lose points every time there is some kind of mistake. The highest score of the day was 153. The dogs and the handlers were amazing, but trying to separate five sheep out of sixteen is hard work for both dog and handler. Monday was the Grand Championship round, but the trials had been going on all weekend and we were watching the fifteen best. We got there at about 10:30 and five competitor’s had already gone---we watched four handlers and dogs compete and then wandered off for a while to watch some of the other attractions going on at the same time. There were other dog related activities not connected to the trials per se. The County had a demonstration of their dogs, which are part of their K9 unit. There was a “long jump” for dogs which they did in a Splash Pool—leaping after an airborne toy, which was really fun to watch and there was an agility course with lots of obstacles for a great variety of breeds and dogs of varying sizes to compete on. Also very interesting. And there were vendors and food and demonstrations of various kinds all day long. After a while we went back and watched three more competitors of the sheep trials and then finished for the day. I got home at about 4:30 in time to do three more batches of grape products. So it was a busy day and lots of fun.