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.

First week of school and trip to the cabin

The first week of school has passed and we are now moving forward to the second week. Erika and I work in entirely different parts of the school, I’m in the Counseling Center and in the main building, Erika is in one of the twelve portables that we have mounted in the parking lots outside of the building-six on the north side of the building and six on the south side of the building. We will have to work hard to ever see one another. We won’t be bumping into one another by accident, that is pretty certain. I talked to Erika today and she has had a good start. She likes her students and feels good about her situation. She is adjusting to the things that are really differ between South Jordan Middle School and Corner Canyon High School. We operate on an A day B day schedule with 90 minute class periods. She used to have eight class periods a day, now she has four class periods per day, so she sees her students only every other day. Interesting and different. In the Counseling Center we have just finished our last and second day of schedule changes. We think it will be our last day, but if my experience holds true we will be changing schedules for another four days, until Friday. But we are starting to get back to a regular stream of activity I hope. Paul is continuing to improve, albeit slowly. He had his first doctor’s visit since the surgery. The doctor showed him the photography taken during the surgery. (I had seen these same pictures on the day of the surgery, but Paul was too groggy to appreciate them on that day and so he has seen everything that I had previously seen. He is making good progress, but he still has to stay in the sling, and still can take prescription strength pain killers for another two weeks. He has some controlled physical therapy, but he can’t use or move his shoulder for another month. He went to work for a couple of hours today, but he still isn't up to full days of work yet. We drove up to the cabin this past weekend. Our primary reason for the visit was to see that the horses were doing okay. I am happy to report that they are doing just fine. We got there at about 10:00 p.m. on Friday night and it was very dark when we got to the pasture. But the horses were really excited to see us, galloping around in the dark in happy dashes. They did calm down to eat the grain that Paul gave them. We had talked a lot about this trip. I suggested that we take the Jetta and I do the driving. But if we arrived to find the horses in need of transport for any reason, we couldn't pull the trailer with the car, we would need the truck. I don’t drive the truck, but Paul felt by Friday that he was well enough to take on driving the five hours it takes to get there and he successfully achieved that, though he was quite uncomfortable by the time that we arrived. He wasn't able to take his normal pain killers, because you aren't supposed to use heavy equipment or drive while under their influence, though from my point of view he seems entirely in control of himself even when he is under their influence. Nevertheless, he didn’t take any of his prescription and so he was ready for some when we got to the cabin. Everything at the cabin was in good order as well. On Saturday morning the two of us headed to the pasture to see the horses in the daylight and to check on the fences. I’m afraid I turned out to be a rather poor fence repairer in terms of hammering skill. Paul is unable to hammer at this time, so we walked the fence together and Paul pointed out the problems and showed me what to do and I was supposed to nail in the missing staples as my primary function. We did have to replace a couple of posts and I probably hammered in about 25 or 30 staples, fortunately the fence was in pretty good shape. It has been very rainy in Island Park this summer and August has been rainy, too. Everything is still really green. It rained hard on Friday night during the night and was raining when we got up in the morning. But lucky for us the rain broke after we had eaten breakfast and we were able to walk and repair the fence before it started up again. The horses were happy to see us again in the morning and followed us for a while when we were repairing the fence, but lost interest in following us when we got to the third side. The pond is full to capacity and there is plenty for the horses to eat. He are lucky that they are such good self-care animals, because this time would have been stressful and difficult if we had had to feed them twice a day in Midvale. We plan on visiting them again in two weeks and taking them home in a month, so we will go up there twice more in the next month. It was cool at night and we hope that we can go until the end of September without snow or at least not too much snow. We were able to have a visit with Connie, but we didn't see Ralph. He was in Rexburg moving his furniture and stuff out of their old house. Connie told us the new house isn’t ready yet, so she may be staying in Island Park for a few weeks. We didn't see or talk to Ralph, but had a nice visit with Connie. Emily and her children we also at the cabin this weekend and we had a nice chat with her as well. The swing set has been set up in the yard, and already shows signs of use. It is behind the west side of Ralph’s cabin so Connie can watch the children swinging from her bedroom window. She said it is fun to watch them. You saw that the fire pit has been moved from the south side of Sara and Jay’s cabin to between their cabin and Ralph’s cabin. Jay did a really great job of sinking and finishing it. They also set a lovely walking path between Sara and Jay’s cabin and Ralph and Connie’s cabin. It has some rocks, but it is mostly disks of wood counter sunk flush into the ground. And it looks terrific. Emily told us that Sara had worked really hard on it, with wood in the earth the discs may rot out in time, but for the moment it certainly looks nice. We are looking ahead to beginning our barn next summer and so we are now looking at barns that we run across to see what architectural features we might want to incorporate in our future building. As we were driving home from Island Park we admired a number of barns from the road, but also stopped and looked at a couple as well. We had one kind of silly experience. We stopped at one barn, turned off the truck and got out to walk around the barn and Paul commented on a buzzing/humming noise. I didn't know what he was talking about. Paul thought it might be a pump of some kind there at the site—we got in the truck and drove to Petersboro where we walked around the property. We are making some tentative decisions about where we want to put the house and the barn. Even though it is a long time until we build a house, where we build the barn will affect where we will be able to build the house later, so we are trying to think it all through now. It is still a process. Anyway, we arrived turned off the truck and I got out and went to the bed of the truck to get my boots and I could hear the buzzing/humming noise that Paul had talked about. I said to Paul, “Listen to this noise, do you hear it?” He could and it was the same sound he had heard when we were stopped before. Was it a pump in the truck that was operating even when the truck was stopped? Would could it be? Paul walked around the truck trying to determine the exact location. It didn’t seem to be coming from the underside of the truck anywhere but in the bed---Paul lifted out his own bag, which was a soft, gym style bag and it was obvious that the sound was coming from his bag. He opened it and discovered that it was his electric toothbrush that apparently was bumped on in the back and was humming away in his bag. We were very glad that it was nothing serious and there is nothing wrong with the truck.

School starting this week, WICKED and Heber Creeper

School starts this week at Corner Canyon. It doesn't change my schedule since I have been back at work for almost a month now, but the level of craziness goes way up the last couple of days before school. Everyone wants an appointment, but I am not authorized to make appointments during the first week of school. I forward questions to the counselors by phone and if they want to see a student they set it up themselves. My phone is ringing off the hook. We've been registering new students every day and generally speaking this place is a madhouse and will continue like this for about the first week and a half and then will slow down a little bit. In addition to all the work stuff we have had a few other consuming activities going on this last week. I took Tuesday off work for Paul’s rotator cuff surgery. The surgery was long, but successful and we anticipate a full recovery. In the meantime however he is in the process of recovery. In the last six days he has made progress and during the day he feels like recovery is possible. Nights are still more difficult than days. He isn't lying down yet, sort of sleeping sitting up and leaning over, but not exactly prone. He was originally on a four hour space for his pain medication, but he is adding hours to each time and slowly weaning himself off of them too. He is being very good about keeping his shoulder immobilized, though. The dressings are off and he is healing. He has been reading a lot and has raced through a 1000 pages, but he is finding that he is rather bored, not being able to do anything and just sitting around and especially when I’m not home to entertain him or at least converse with him. We are very optimistic, though. This will be a process, but Paul will fully recover and we are happy about that. There were a number of activities this week that had been planned long before Paul was injured which I got to take part in but which Paul was forced to miss. We had planned a fun activity for Erika’s birthday which included taking Erika and Jono out to dinner and then going to the Capitol theatre to see WICKED. In a long and involved explanation: Erika had given me a gift certificate last November for my birthday for the two of us to go to WICKED when it came to Salt Lake this summer. Tickets weren't even available at that time, and we were going to get the tickets when they became available which was in early May. When it came time to get them we decided that it would be fun to go on Erika’s exact birthday so I suggested that I buy tickets for Paul and Jono and Erika buy tickets for her and me, then Paul and I would take us all to dinner that evening before the performance and it would be a happy birthday celebration for all of us. We bought the four tickets and looked forward to the event with great anticipation. Then Paul was scheduled for surgery on the 12th. We all felt really bad about that, but we had the tickets already by this time---Erika invited a friend of hers to go instead of Paul and we went to dinner and to the theatre and left Paul at home. That part was sad, but the dinner was really nice—we ate at The Olive Garden which is just across the street from the Capitol Theater and WICKED was a great experience. I was already familiar with the music but really enjoyed the show, wonderful production values, costumes, scenery, lights, terrific performances, lovely evening. We had a fantastic evening, in spite of the fact that Paul was not with us. He would have enjoyed the evening with us, too. Paul missed another activity as well. On Saturday, we had reservations to take an old fashioned narrow gauge railroad ride on the Heber Creeper. This was also a gift; I had arranged to take my parents on the 3 hour round trip Provo Canyon Limited Ride. It was the Mother’s Day gift but a busy summer had made it difficult to get a reservation before this weekend—what with trips to Boston, time at the cabin, grandchildren visiting and other activities. I picked them up on Saturday afternoon, we stopped and got a to-go dinner from Jimmy Johns and then went to the train station in Heber. The train travels through the outskirts of Heber and then a lovely tour around Deer Creek Reservoir and then down part of the Provo Canyon to Vivian Park. We had a layover there where they reversed the engine and put it on the end of the train and then we went back the same way we came. It began at 6:00p.m. and we arrived at the station at the end at about 9:00 p.m. so we got to see the sunset over the reservoir. There was a very amusing moment when we crossed the Soldier Hollow station. There was a platform there and as we slowed there a costumed actor dressed in a duster and slouch hat and carrying a rifle shot off a few blanks and then boarded the train, coming up and down the aisles yelling and demanding the cash box (he also gave all the children foil wrapped chocolate pieces) as he was walking back down the aisle in our car he stopped in front of our seats and looked my mother right in the face and said, “Why Janie Sue, I haven’t seen you in ages. You still look just as sweet as I remember—dancing on that table in that saloon in Texas. So good to see you again!” Then he looked over at Dad and said to Mom, “oh, dearie, you could have done much better.” We all had a good laugh.

Mother's Day, New Furnace, Concert and Gardening

It seems a long time since last Monday and a lot of things have happened since then. But last Monday was when we celebrated Mother’s Day as a family—at least a local family, with those who were here in Utah which meant: Peter, Kortney and Eleanor and Erika and Jono. I made dinner for everyone and it was a very nice time. Peter and Kortney are participating in a fitness program that is overseen by Ryan and Ashleigh Di Lello (Cindy and Rob’s daughter and son-in-law) and they have a lot of dietary restrictions at the moment, so I made a spaghetti dinner using spaghetti squash instead of pasta and diced chicken breast as the meat. It was actually very good and everyone enjoyed it. I skipped the garlic bread, but made a nice green salad with lots of vegetable bits in it and then for dessert there were heaping plates of watermelon, cantaloupe and mangos. It was a hearty and healthy meal that we all enjoyed and which Peter and Kortney could eat guilt free and without breaking faith with their program. It is always nice to gather the family and I enjoy having our children surrounding our table and filling our family room. I enjoyed this Mother’s Day celebration very much. They also brought some fun and interesting gifts that I will enjoy. Peter brought among other things a couple of sets of reusable ice cubes which will be fun for summer meals and which before being frozen were engaging toys for Eleanor to play with. Eleanor is such a delightful little person, very verbal and interesting to interact with. Good evening for me. Tuesday was a banner day for our household. After more than six weeks, we had our new furnace and air conditioning installed with a humidifier and high efficiency filter set-up. When we made arrangements with this company, (and I liked this company very much,) I asked about them coming on a Saturday to install the furnace. They declined to come during the weekend, because all the suppliers that they work with are closed on Saturday and if they find during the installation that they are missing some important connector or other essential part then they are able to quickly get it, however on a Saturday that is not possible. But they said that if I was agreeable—and their employees are all licensed and bonded—then I could be home to let them in and get them started and then I could go to work and return home at the end of the day to find that the new furnace and air condition would be mostly installed. This is what I did—they told me that they would arrive sometime between 8:00 and 9:00 and I stayed home and waited for them. After they arrived I left and they went to work. It is interesting that the furnace which they installed is much smaller in size than the behemoth that it replaced and is 96% efficient, while the air conditioning unit, which is outside is twice the size of the one they replaced. They were still busy with the installation when I got home and continued to work from about 3:40 p.m. until after 7:00 when they finally finished and gave me a tour of the new equipment and helped me set up the thermostat and showed me how the various components work. By this time Paul was home, too and he got to listen to the presentation as well. Interestingly, it was a rather chilly evening and when they left the interior of the house was 62°, so we got to hear, see and feel the furnace kick on for the first time and really within minutes our house was warm and toasty. It has been warm enough since then that it hasn't been needed, but we are assured that it works—and we will let it rest until we need air conditioning. I’m not anticipating needing the furnace again for many months. Tuesday evening turned out to be super crazy. I expected the furnace guys to be finished by six or so. Peter had some meetings in Salt Lake Tuesday evening and Kortney was working so I agreed to keep Eleanor for the evening. She arrived at about 5:00 while the workmen were still here. Also at 7:04 p.m. my parents were returning from a trip to Las Vegas and I was to pick them up at the airport. I got ahold of my mother’s cell phone and told them to sit tight, I was going to be a little late, and after the workmen left, I popped Eleanor into her car seat and headed for the airport. I called Mom and Dad when I was almost to the airport and they met me at the door, so I didn't have to go in and I drove them home and when I got home,Paul had had a dinner of cold cereal and I gave Eleanor applesauce and pudding cups. (So much for continued healthy eating.) When Peter picked Eleanor up at a little after 10:00, I felt like it had been quite a full day. But Eleanor is loads of fun and I’ll take her whenever. After two quite full and busy days I was looking forward to an evening at home to catch up on things—I got home later than usual, finishing up some details at work and then running a few errands and when I got home, Paul was eating cold cereal again and he said that he had just heard from Erika who had had a anaphylactic reaction from season allergies after a run with a friend and as a precaution had gone to the local insta-care. Her friend had driven her there but had some demands on her time in the evening and so I took the next shift. By the time that I arrived Erika was back to normal and had been waiting but still hadn't been seen, so I waited with her and went into the examination room with her (it was like old times when I used to take children to the doctor) everything was fine and it was recommended that she start using an antihistamine especially when she is running outdoors and then I drove her home. I haven’t been to her apartment since she and Jono got all their stuff moved in and so I went in and got to see their “first apartment” in all its glory. She and Jono have a really cute place and they have a lot of storage and are very comfortably installed. Their living room has a large sectional sofa that makes entertaining possible and they have a full and active life with each other and a large circle of friends. We are happy for them. Friday was the last concert for Erika’s season with Salt Lake Choral Artists. This concert was titled: Caribbean Excursion: Songs from the Islands and the Coasts of the Caribbean Sea. The music was lively and the choirs were excellent. There were familiar numbers (like The Girl from Ipenema—which isn't strictly from the Caribbean, but it has that “coastal” feeling, and Yellow Bird.) And other numbers that had the calypso feeling but were unfamiliar before that night. The concerts are now held in a Catholic Church building that has wonderful acoustics and makes the choirs sound particularly live and beautiful. The conductor has several choirs who all perform, a masterworks group, a youth honor choir and children’s choir and the big choir that Erika belongs to. All of them performed with aplomb! It was a nice evening for Paul and me and we enjoyed ourselves very much. And Erika always looks like she is having a great time being a part of it. It is quite a commitment but she seems to find it a fulfilling part of her life. Saturday I started the day with a breakfast with the nuclear Gates Family minus my sister Liza. David was in town and Stephen came up from Pleasant Grove and my parent joined us for breakfast at the Little America. They have extensively remodeled the interior and it was quite fabulous. David was the one who gathered us all together. My dad commented how wonderful it was to have three of his four children around the same table. We had some good laughs and shared funny stories and experiences and generally enjoyed being together. But the real activity of Saturday was yard work. While I was at breakfast Paul fertilized the lawn front and back and worked on the sprinklers. He had the back yard all finished when I got home and all the sprinklers were up and running. We had one valve that wasn't working in the front and needed to be replaced which he did in the afternoon, up to his elbows in water and dirt, but successfully done, anyway. He had also planted our log planter and the south window box which looked just lovely when I arrived home. We went to the nursery and picked up flats of impatiens, our garden bed choice for this season and a few geraniums as well. We pepped the beds with mulch and fertilizer and Paul turned the bed and then I prepared the bed with racking and arranging the drip system and then planted the flowers. We have been buying our bedding plants from an independent distributor for the last few years, but they are never very far along. This year we bought plants that are already quite far along for bedding plants and they are already in flower—they aren't mature yet, for sure, but the bed already looks colorful rather than a few little green spots. We are hoping for load of color this year. We really worked hard all day on Saturday. I had put together a crock pot stew in the morning which was nice to have a warm meal without a lot of preparation at the end of a busy day.

Arthritis, Mother Agnes, Books and the Manti Temple

Last Monday I went to see an orthopedic specialist for the first time. I had been experiencing some stiffness and discomfort in my knee for a long time, but recently the pain has been keeping me awake or waking me up and so Paul encouraged me to go and see a specialist. I made the appointment and had my visit. I don’t have to have a knee replacement, at least not yet, but I do have osteoarthritis in both my knees. The progression is about the same in both knees, I fortunately only have pain in one. The doctor assured me that this might change and that arthritic pain is very capricious. The pain may move from one knee to the other or settle in both. My arthritis would be considered mild at this point—I still have some cartilage between the bones, it is just getting narrower and more compressed. The fortunate thing is that when I am actually walking I don’t feel much pain. When my knee is limbered up/loosened up, I can use it without any trouble. It is more when I am static for a while and then try to use it again, like first thing in the morning and after sitting for a while or after a car ride—stuff like that. I guess the worst of the situation is admitting that I am getting old. In addition to my doctor’s appointment, Paul and I attended a really interesting event on Monday evening. One of Paul’s responsibilities in his work environment is that he is part of a really special and exclusive committee that deals with the Middle East. This committee deals with lots of different dimensions of work in the Middle East, and is directly under the jurisdiction of the Twelve. Paul has been very involved in the projects that this committee addresses. Last week we were invited to a dinner that was being held hosting Mother Agnes, a mother superior from Syria that has been heavily involved in relief efforts. She was accompanied by another nun, Sister Carmel. Mother Agnes, as it turns out is a rather controversial figure. She has been an advocate for the underdog and very involved in humanitarian work and also has been an arbitrator for peace in Syria—this year she is one of the nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize. She is touring the United States sharing her perspective of the situation in the Middle East and particularly Syria. And Paul and I were invited to dinner with them, kind of impressive. We had a very nice dinner in the Lion House and then Mother Agnes gave us a presentation, including a power point and slide presentation about what is going on in Syria and some of the negotiations and activities that she has been involved with. The information she shared with us was very sobering. Afterwards, Sister Carmel and Mother Agnes sang to us and then all the people present, about fifteen of us sang God Be With You to Sister Carmel and Mother Agnes. It was quite an evening. Tuesday night was my meeting with one of my bookclubs, Bibliobabes. The book that we read this month was The Last Runaway. This was written by Tracy Chevalier, who is most well known for her book titled The Girl with the Pearl Earring, which is fiction based on the Vermeer painting by the same name, where she creates a story which explains why a servant girl is wearing a pearl earring. The Last Runaway is another book of historical fiction. It is set in Ohio in 1850. The novel delves into the difference between a theory of belief and its practice. The story is about a young Quaker woman from England, named Honor Bright, whose fiancé breaks off the relationship to marry outside the faith. Honor goes to America with her sister, Grace. Grace is engaged to marry Adam Cox, a young man from their hometown who followed his brother to Faithwell, Ohio. Unfortunately, Grace dies en route, and Honor arrives in Ohio to find Adam sharing a house with Abigail, his sister-in-law, made a widow by the death of Adam’s brother. Honor moves into the house, but feels unwelcome. Honor ends up marrying a local man and Quaker and she is drawn into helping the Underground Railroad. She is forced to choose between living her beliefs and merely speaking them. The birth of her own child raises the stakes. Honor’s quiet determination provides a contrast to the slave issue, the abolitionist fight; the way this book is written, there are sympathies enough to go around, both sides of the story are expressed in a way that gives them credence. We had a lively discussion about this book and a nice time visiting, too. I really enjoy these women and it is nice to have this a recurring activity. Thursday night was also a kind of book club evening, only with Back Country Horseman. Paul has arranged for speakers and presenters to enrich the monthly meetings. I have attended many of these meetings because the presentations are really interesting. This month the presenter was LeAnn Bednar, an author who wrote a book entitled My Final Ride. It is the true-life story of her father, Chuck Christensen’s epic mule-back Canada-to-Mexico journey while battling stage-three bone marrow cancer/multiple myeloma. Given eighteen months to three years to live and told he’ll never ride again, he gets back on his mule and vows to trek as far as he can. Learning of the Great Western Trail, which eventually is to stretch from Canada to Mexico, he excitedly sends letters, makes phone calls, collects maps, and sets out on his daring ride. Along the way he faces multiple challenges and discouragements. Much of the trip he is traveling alone, or with other adventurers who happen to be on the trail at the same time he is. He has some really great experiences with some of these other adventurers. Bednar read a couple of sections from the book, told a lot of the background leading up to the trip, some of the specific events that occurred, she was a very engaging speaker. She had books for sale and I bought one for Paul and me. Of course, we haven’t even started it yet. But it looks like it will be interesting. LeAnn lives in Alta, Wyoming and came from there to visit the meeting. The last big event for this week was a trip to Manti, which Paul and I took on Saturday. I am on a quest to visit all the temples in Utah and the ones that are not an easy distance from Salt Lake City have been a bit more challenging. Paul and I went to St. George in January for a Back Country Horseman State Meeting and I did a session with Marilyn on that trip, and the Vernal and Monticello Temple are still alluding me. But I had a special interest in Manti for a couple of reasons-other than the experience of attending an endowment session in the temple. I have heard of the Minerva Teichert Mural which I wanted to see and Peter had visited that temple last year and told me about the very special staircases in that building that he had had the opportunity of visiting and recommended. So on Saturday morning Paul and I set off for Manti to attended an endowment session in that temple. We left a little before 10:00 and got there in time to make the 12:30 session (but, just). I got to the locker room at 12:25 and by the time I had gotten changed and received a new name, the session had gone from the chapel into the creation room, and Paul arrived about a minute after me. When we were both seated, the doors were closed and the session began. The Manti temple still has patrons move from room to room and the session is performed live, which is interesting in its own right—especially if it has been some time since attending a live session. I was under the misinformation that Minerva Teichert had painted all three of the session rooms that have murals in them. This is untrue. She is only responsible for the murals in the “World Room”. The Creation Room still has the pioneer era murals on its walls, but by the 1940s the plaster in the Garden and World rooms had deteriorated so much that the valiant effort to save the murals, which had been done by Danquart Weggeland and C.C. A. Christensen failed. The rooms were replastered and high quality sail canvas applied to the walls. This was completed in 1946 in the World Room. The Garden room had been completed the year before and Robert L. Shepherd of Salt Lake City had finished the Garden Room murals by then. Back when we had first moved back to Utah, I attended a Minerva Teichert show at the Museum of Art at BYU and had learned more about her and her education and experiences, and so I had been curious about her work in the Manti Temple since then. When I saw the first two rooms, I was struck how much they didn’t look like her style and then when we got home, I looked up some information about her and found out that she was only responsible for the murals in the World Room, other artists did the other murals. And for the record, I found the World Room murals fascinating. From my research, I discovered “several constraints were placed on Teichert’s “great pageant.” It had to enhance the spiritual themes of the world room. It had to wrap under windows and around doors and fit in tight corners. It had to cover almost 4,000 square feet, but be finished quickly. It had to stay true to scripture. Above all, it had to be shaped by prayer and the inspiration gained through temple attendance.” She was assisted by a young man, Frank Stevens who painted the big spaces and helped with the moving of scaffolding. He was an amateur artist living in Green River, Wyoming, who worked with her during the painting process. They worked while the temple was still operating and had to vacate the World Room during the time that a session was in that room. The mural itself is divided into a number of disparate and related vignettes. I didn’t want to be too distracted by the paintings, but there was a great temptation to be absorbed by them and try to figure them out. And the murals in the Garden Room and in the Creation Room were also very interesting. Pictures don’t really do any of the murals justice because the murals are in the round and pictures are flat and only show a portion of the pictures, but they were all very impressive. In addition to the remarkable murals, Paul and I were impressed with the beauty of this building especially given the knowledge that it was a pioneer era building. The temple itself rises out of the countryside like a magnificent palace. The workmanship was exquisite. The woodwork, door frames, wainscoting, window sashing, decorative trim, everything hand done, everything fitting perfectly and looking lovely. This building is such a treasure. There was so much to admire. After the session, Paul and I were able to poke our heads into one of the sealing rooms which is off the celestial room. There are actually eight sealing rooms at the Manti temple and I’m told that this one is no longer being used for sealings. It doesn’t have the big mirrors on both sides like the standard sealing rooms although there are smaller mirrors and is asymmetrical with alter at one end and seating at the other end. The room is beautiful with an arched ceiling and intricate gold patterns and detailed woodwork. The door is left open, but roped off so you can see into it but not go all the way in now. It is small and maybe room for ten or so guest at a sealing. The other sealing rooms which are accessible without dressing in white are also very beautiful. I was impressed by one which had upholstered chairs which had a needlepoint floral design on the back of each chair, very impressive. After Paul and I had finished the session and had gone down toward the dressing rooms, I asked a matron if it was possible to see the staircases which Peter had described to us. She told us to change into our street clothing and then she would see that we got a chance to see them. We did and a kind brother escorted us to the area where we were able to see not only one, but both the staircases. These are two of the most unique spiral staircases in the world. In the two west corner towers there are freestanding spiral staircases without central supports. They have incredible workmanship, hundreds of hand turned balusters, and the seams between pieces of wood on the railings are also extremely difficult to find. Peter reported that there are only three free standing spiral staircases that lack central supports in the world and two of them are in Manti, Utah. So these staircases are really special. (Peter and Kortney have been to see the third one, which is in New Mexico at the Loretto Chapel in Santa Fe.) One of the staircases goes up clockwise and the other counterclockwise. They really are an impressive sight and a great asset of the temple. We were happy to see them. Paul and I had lunch in the temple cafeteria, which by the way is lined on two sides with stained glass windows and then we headed outside. We had two additional missions for the day. Across the street from the temple is the Manti Cemetery, where some of my Gates line ancestors are buried. William Fowler who is my great, great Grandfather is buried there and so is his wife, Ellen Bradshaw Fowler. William Fowler is best known for having written the lyrics to the well-used hymn, We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet. He emigrated from Sheffield, England, but his health was broken during the crossing of the plains and he died at age 35 as a school teacher in Manti. His family was impoverished and his children very young. His wife only lived a few years after him. She remarried in polygamy and died in complications of childbirth. My grandmother was 13 when she was orphaned. She and her siblings didn’t erect either tombstone, I don’t believe in their lifetimes, but now there is an impressive marker on William Fowler’s grave which gives him credit for that famous LDS hymn. The new marker was paid for with a subscription made in 1920 and was erected in a ceremony with no relatives present at the Manti Cemetery. We headed north for our return to Salt Lake City, but made one final detour along the way. Paul wanted to drive through Spring City. He had read an article about Spring City a few years back and it sounded very appealing. He thought he would like to see what the talk was all about. Apparently it has become an Artist Community, with a number of Utah based artists living there. Here is what the internet says about Spring City: Spring City is a city in Sanpete County, Utah, United States. The population was 956 at the 2000 census. Although it is still largely a farming town, Spring City is becoming increasingly known as an artist community. Many excellent examples of Mormon pioneer architecture exist throughout the town. In 2010, Forbes Magazine identified Spring City as one of the prettiest towns in America. One notable historical point, Orson Hyde, an apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is buried in the Spring City Cemetery. It is the geographical center of Utah. It is a quaint place off the main highway between Ephriam and Mt. Pleasant. As we looked at the dry land in this part of Utah, we are happy that we have chosen Cache County as a retirement area for us. The land in Northern Utah is just a bit more favored than the land in the south—at least with respect to water. This week there was an article about Spring City in the Deseret News. I thought you might enjoy it. I do have to give the pioneers much credit for the mature trees that garnish all the little communities of central Utah. Without the contribution of these valiant saints who settled these spaces, juniper would be the biggest trees in most areas. All the same, Paul and I had a nice time on our jaunt and it was a Mother’s Day treat for me.