Blessings....Counting my many blessings.

As the sun set on a tense day ... I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for my many blessing.
We were able to safely travel about 200 miles round trip to pick Spencer up at the evacuation site.
He was safe and sound, as were all the kids, staff, and bus drivers.
Everyone had to leave their stuff at camp, and district sent up a team to pick up everyones belongings; but as of now, they are not being allowed to go back into the area.
Spencer locked up the 'Tin Can Cottage', packed up most of his clothes and left everything else.

I recieved a phone call from one of our dear family friends, and she let me know that Spencer was with her husband.
 Her husband is a principle in the district and was up to Clear Creek for the week.
What a blessing!!
Spencer used Carl's phone the minute that they could get reception, and he let me know where they were being evacuated to.
I called Jenny back and let her know that they were safely out of the canyon, and where they would be going.
Then, I took off.
Brooke and I hit the freeway to go pick Spencer up.
When we got back home, we saw that the "Seely" fire was burning further and faster towards his camp, and towards town.
In the top right picture above, you can see the smoke plume rising on the mountain ridge just above town.

My heart felt thanks goes out to everyone that has offered prayers on our behalf.
No words could adequately describe the level of gratitude I feel for each and every one of you.
Thanks for your prayers, your emails, your comments, your phone calls.
I have felt the comfort of those prayers, and have felt bolstered up by your concern and compassion.
Thank you ....... thank you a million times over.

We are continuing our prayers and concern for everyone that is dealing with these devistating wildfires.
States across the West are suffering tradgedy from wildfires.
We are praying for the firefighters, and for their families in light of the sacrifices they have made, and continue to make to help the victims of wildfires.
Our hearts go out to the citizens in Colorado . Those folks are dealing with incredible loss and tragedy.


On a less tragic note... we are going to continue to work on the barn.
As you can see in the far left picture above.. we have made great progress on the roof.
The roof is about 90% finished.
We still need to repair some of the wood siding , that long ago was neglected and that someone once upon a time let their horses snack on.
Then, we will paint it, get the chicken wire back in the windows... etc.. etc..
Also, quite a few of my little seeds have germinated and are ready to be transplanted into the garden.
I also bought a huge lavender plant.
 I'm looking forward to getting it planted and established in the courtyard.


Attitude of gratitude:
~ On this day,I am most grateful for the blessings of safety.
~I am grateful for the prayers of safety and comfort that have been offered on our behalf.
~I'm grateful for the phone calls from friends, and emails, and offers of help.
~I'm so grateful to know that when everything gets down to the basics.. we really are all just sisters and brothers of a loving Heavenly Father.
Compassionate, and charitable... willing and able to help one another.

Evacuations~ Spencer's camp just ordered to evacuate. The kids camp evacuated.

 Near Mt. Pleasant
Burning just above town.

Not much time to update.
I'm just waiting for a phone call to tell me where I will be able to pick
Spencer up.
He just called and told my that they have been ordered to evacuate the kids camp.
Yes.. Clear Creek Camp is under an evacuation order.
Another fire started yesterday evening on the other side of the mountain from Spencer.
Essentially  trapping the camp..

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all of your prayers!!
Thank you !! Thank you !! Thank  you!!

Summer Tragedy... Wood Hollow Fire. ** Update... a man has died..

 Tragedy has struck our little county.
Wild fires.
The picture above was taken about 5:30 pm on Saturday night.
My husband and his friend saw the smoke over by Moroni as they were coming home from work.
I snapped this picture and a few more.

 We contacted our local news station and reported the fire burning.... 911 had already been called some 40 minutes earlier.
They ran the story at 10:00 pm, with our pictures, as no one else had sent them pictures yet.
Our state was still reeling from another devastating fire that was burning in Utah County.

 To date.. the fire has burned about 40,000 acres, dozens of homes and structures, and some livestock has been lost.
Tragic way to start the summer.
And to think...just about 3 weeks ago, our county had frost in the mornings!

 Smoke rising above the fire.

 Smoke, blocking out the sun.

Our beautiful mountains are on fire.
This has been a very dry year in Utah, and there have been so many fires in Utah already.
Approximately 400 fires already.
This Wood Hollow Fire is believed to have been started by a faulty electrical transformer.

All over the Western united states.. fires are raging and consuming our lands.
It's so scary, and so very sad.
Devastating.

We've had so many people call and email to see if we are OK...and we are.
The fire started just about 5 miles away, but the winds have continued to push the fire to the North.
Burning towards Utah county.
Pins and needles.... that's how we feel. Worried. Concerned for our fellow county citizens.

The last three pictures are from KSL.COM... link here to read more:

http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=960&sid=20974037&title=wood-hollow-fire-burns-39000-acres-25-30-structures-destroyed&s_cid=queue-21&s_cid=article-related-2&s_cid=article-related-2
Our hearts and prayers go out to all that have been affected by the Western wildfires.
Our gratitude and thanks go out to all those fire-fighters, volunteers, and citizens that are trying to put out the fires and providing for the needs of those displaced and livestock losses.
Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

**** Updated News....Updated at 3:52 pm 6-26-12
Sadly, a man has died in the fire.
The fire is now out of control again.... and has reached the Utah County line.
The fire is also burning back to the south... towards us.
Attitude of gratitude:
~We are so grateful that no human lives here in Utah have been lost due to the fires.
~We are grateful to the local volunteer fire departments, jeep posse, and sheriffs departments, as well as all the brave and charitable community members.

We will be OK.

Happy Minutes

 Days are filled with happy minutes.
Here and there, a few at a time, or many happy minutes all lumped together.
Happy am I .
My Lemon Balm re-seeded its-self in the old horse trough.
I'm hoping to get a lot of these little seedlings transplanted around the homestead.

 Happy- happy minutes!
A real live tomato.
Growing on one of the poor little tomato plants that have endured such a freakish Spring.
Please ripen.

 And.. there is hope for the squash plants as well.
Two small, little yellow squash.
Please ripen too.

 That teeny-tiny little start of Catmint from our old house.
Blooming away.
Keep blooming, and re-seed.
It will make me so happy to have many Catmint plants to transplant around the homestead.

 Turkey pastrami.... it makes delicious turkey jerky.
I'm happy that I have a batch of turkey jerky in ol' Harvey.
Tomorrow, everyone should be able to have some turkey jerky.
We have a Norbest outlet store not too far from our little town.

 Happy minutes ... not one,

 but.. two boxes of goodies from Bath and Body Works.
They are having their semi-annual sale right now.
The closest store to us is about 70 miles away.
It would cost me more in gas than it cost me to ship everything right to my front door.
Brooke made a comment...and I quote .." No one in this family should ever stink again".
Amen.

 Happy over the moon.
The concrete contractor came and set a date to pour the new front walk.
He laid out a hose so that I could envision how the new walk will look.
He doesn't really "get" my idea of having a gentle bend in the walk, but he's happy to do it for me, never the less.
Cottage ----
That's what I am going for here... so get on board!
We will (by we, I mean my sweet hubby and Spencer) do most of the work, and he will help finalize the layout and forms and do the finish work.
We worked it all out in trade.
I love bartering!

 Happy minutes ..... every day when I look up at our Horseshoe Mountain.

 My sweet hubby  and I often get in the Tahoe, and take Rowdy with us for and evening ride.
We saw this cute little guy on our ride last night.

Happy minutes this morning as we drove by one of my favorite barns on the way to take Brooke to the hospital for her blood draw.

Hope that this weekend is full of many, many happy minutes for you all.


Attitude of gratitude:
~I am so grateful for R'dean. For all these years, during Brooke's illness, and after her kidney transplant, he has been so compassionate and caring in taking her blood.
She has been poked and prodded so much that her poor little veins collapse, and roll. It is so hard for any one to get blood from her; but R'dean can.
~I am so grateful that Brooke was able to get music put back on my blog.
I really missed it. And, I know that I give her headaches when I ask her to help me with technical stuff... but she loves me, so she helps me .
~I'm grateful that Spencer is home for the weekend, and is planning on going to yard sales with me in the morning.
He's my yard sale buddy, and he can talk a fat tick off  of a sleeping dog.
He always finds me the best deals.

Harvey, The Girls, & Mr. Satterwhite

 Harvey.
To be exact, he's actually Harvey 2.
And, he's old.
Older than dirt.
Almost.

 However... he still dehydrates food like a champ.
I had my sweet husband, dig through storage, and find Harvey.
We scrubbed him up, and plugged him in.
Even after all these years, he still is a workhorse of a dehydrator.

 My dad gave me this dehydrator, about 20 years ago; and that was after he and mom had used it for about 20 years also.
I tried to look this brand and model up on the Internet, and couldn't find out much.
I would really like to buy another one.... either as a back up, or to have an extra one running during the Fall.
No such luck. They are not made anymore, and haven't been made since the late 60' s  or early 70's.
Shoot and bagooties!
Honestly the best food dehydrator ... ever.
With a fan, and temperature controls, it makes dehydrating fruit, veggies, and making jerky a snap.

 A week ago Monday, 'The Girls' were delivered.
We shared an order with a friend of my husbands.
Fifty chicks. 
We only bought 12 hens.... but  all the chicks were delivered to us.
We picked out our 12 chicks, and took the rest to the friend.
25 of his are roosters.
Yikes.
He has a big ol' farm and will add the 25 roosters to the 50 or so chickens that he currently has.

 We also went to Satterwhite's lumber mill.
It's a great place to get lumber locally, and the prices are terrific.

 Of course, I noticed the cute flower hanger.
I'll have to add this to the 'would like to make' list.

 Satterwhite's has a scrap pile.
A lot of people buy wood out of the scrap pile for projects, and as winter gets closer, they stock up on the scrap wood for firewood.

 We needed some lumber for a partition fence, and we also found the most perfect log for my bottle tree.
By the time we finished loading the truck to the top of the truck bed with lumber and paying for it, all in all we only spent about $20.00.
A fraction of the cost that this much lumber would have cost us at the hardware store.
And, we never would have found the log with which we are making the bottle tree out of.
It is about 8 feet long, and 18 inches in diameter.
Should make a dandy bottle tree.

The little barn is getting a new roof now.
It's incredible to me, that after all these years, there is only one layer of shake shingles on that barn!
My sweet hubby has worked 72 hours in the last 6 days, and so progress on the barn roof has been a bit slow.
He's hoping to get a lot of work completed on it in the next few days.
New sheeting will have to be put down on the old one-bys and then the metal roof can be put on.
If I'm M.I.A. for a bit, you'll know why.


Attitude of gratitude:
~I'm grateful for getting our first squash blossom.
I'm going to baby, and appreciate that first squash like no other. Considering all the freezes that we've endured, it's nothing short of a miracle that we even have squash plants left in the garden.
~I'm grateful for all the over-time that my sweet hubby has been able to work.
Sure, it's hard to have him gone from home so much, but the over-time pay will come in so handy to really get some homestead projects done this summer.

Skyline Drive

Where the mountain meets the sky.
 Skyline Drive.
Approximately 10,000 plus feet in elevation.  Click on the link below to read amazing facts about this area of the Manti- LaSal National Forest.
Skyline Drive is one of the highest roads in the United States.
  http://www.gorp.com/parks-guide/travel-ta-scenic-drives-manti-lasal-national-forest-salina-provo-sidwcmdev_052663.html

 It is where we drive each week to take Spencer back to work.

It's where we found this new bottle tree.
Someone had to have used a ladder, or shimmied up this Aspen tree
 to place the bottles on it.

Finally.... someone found a way to use those plentiful brown beer bottles.

I wonder how long it will last.

Will the wind blow them off?

Will a bear tear them off?

Will other people add to the bottle tree?

Guess we'll wait to see.


Attitude of gratitude:
~I'm grateful that we are heading out this morning to Satterwhites to pick up some lumber for building some of our fences.
~I'm grateful that my sweet hubby has a day off today and that we can spend the day together.
Sure.. we'll be 'working', getting projects done.... but we'll be spending time together and that's what matters.
~I'm grateful the 'girls' are doing well and are healthy. Didn't really want new baby chicks right now... but they sure are cute! Now, lets just hope we get the barn done in the next few weeks so that by the time they feather out.. we'll have someplace to house them.

Weekend at The Cottage

I started my weekend on Friday, in the kitchen.
Many weekends here at The Cottage begin and end in the kitchen.
The heart of our home.

I made a batch of granola.
The same recipe that I've been using for more than 20 years.
I added dried cherries, raisins, pumpkin seeds, almonds, and sunflower seeds.

For dinner on Friday night, we made kabobs.
Brown sugar and pineapple, chicken kabobs.
We make a lot of kabobs and hobo dinners in the summer.

Saturday began with Bountiful Baskets.
If you have BB in your area and you haven't checked it out yet, I encourage you to do so.
For the cost, and the freshness of fruits and veggies, BB can't be beat.

I have a couple of bowls of fresh plums and apricots that I'm going to put in the food dehydrator today.

Our box gardens were doing fantastic.
We even got our first little pepper.

Sunday morning, we woke to this.
Frozen plants.

Saturday, our squash plants looked like this.

Sunday morning they looked like this.

All because of this: freezing temperatures.
The last time we checked the forecast, at 9:00 pm Sat. night, the temperatures were only supposed to get down in the low 40's.
Wrong.
Sunday morning the thermometer read 29 degrees fahrenheit.
Today, after I pinch back the damage on the plants, I'm going to see what plants can be saved, if any.
We have had the craziest weather this year.
If we have to re-plant the garden again, it will be for the fourth time.
We have started a lot of seeds, but who knows if our growing season is going to be long enough for the seeds to germinate and grow enough to get any harvest off of them?

Also, this past weekend, we picked up the metal roofing for the little barn and the garage.
We have had to re-build the North wall of the little barn, and add four support beams that the previous owners had cut out of the barn.
Now, we need to get it roofed, rebuild the south wall, and get it painted.
We are also going to level out the floor and add pea gravel.
The little barn will become half chicken coop, and half gardening shed.
Work, work, work.

Attitude of gratitude :
~I'm grateful for homemade maple syrup. Nothing like the smell of fresh maple syrup early in the morning. I'm off to make pancakes for Spencer before he has to go back up on the mountain for work this week.
~I'm so grateful that Craig gave us such a great deal on the metal for the roofs.
It's nice to have family that owns a metal building and roofing company.
Thanks Craig!
Also, a super big thanks for getting us the galvanized.
 It will be the perfect look for our homestead.
~I'm grateful for that old dehydrator that is still humming along after all these years.
Fired right up, after being in storage for almost 2 years, and for practically being an antique, it works like a charm.

Summer time at The Cottage

 Summer has begun.
Time for us to work on that "Summer Time Bucket List ".
  Filling the warm, sunny days with fun, laughter and making memories.

We've been able to cross off a few things on the 'Summer Bucket List'.
~Going to the zoo.. check.

 How cute is he?
I think if I gave him a name, it would be 'Pepper'.. because of the black flecks on his nose.

 The white Rhino.  What an impressive creature.
His name?
I think it would have to be 'Blade'.

 Serious cuteness here.
His name would have to be 'Merlin'.

One of the cutest things that we saw at the zoo, was this vintage bike.
Love it.
It has been about 10 or 12 years since we last visited the zoo.
When our kids were a lot younger.
 It was much easier and more fun to go this time.
No one's legs got too tired, and there weren't 1000 potty breaks.
We packed a lunch, and after we had visited the zoo, we went to Liberty Park to have a picnic and people watch.
Yet, another zoo.......hee, hee.

We've also checked off ~'Car Show' from the list.
The 'Rat Fink Reunion' car show is in Manti each year, and they always have an awesome car show.
http://www.ratfink.com/rat-fink-reunion.php  Click on the link to find out more about the 'Rat Fink Reunion'.

Sure would be fun to have one of these old cars or trucks .
I would have to have a truck.
 Love those old trucks.
I remember my parents had a 1957 Chevy pickup.
It was blue.
My mom used to curse the fact that it didn't have power steering.
Wish we still had it..

One thing that is not on our 'Summer Bucket List' , but needed to be done was to replant the garden.
Again.
It's froze three times now.
Hopefully the crazy weather that we've had is over.
We can get the garden growing now.

We even had to re-plant a few of the herbs.
The freeze didn't get them because we covered them, but the winds blew them all over and
and about half of them didn't survive.

So, now that Summer is here, we plan on getting a lot of projects done on our "Overwhelmingly long List", and of course we will work on our 'Summer Bucket List'.
Enjoying the warm weather and sunshine.
Hope you are having fun working on your "Summer Bucket List'  also.

Attitude of gratitude:
~I'm grateful that Brooke and my sweet husband were able to get the new door put in the west side of the granary. I'm looking forward to getting the new door installed on the east side now, and restoring the original front.
~I'm grateful that my sweet husband and I were able to go on a long ATV ride with some friends.
~I'm grateful that we were able to rescue a lost hunting dog that had been stuck in the mountains for weeks, and weeks.  The dog had given up, laid down and ants were crawling all over him and biting him.  We brought him down off the mountain on our ATV and took him to the animal control officer.
He was able to get the poor little dog to eat and drink and regain his health so that he could walk again. His owner was so glad to get him back, and we found out that the dog is a very valuable dog, and is used for hunting bear.
I'm just so grateful that we found him, and that he's OK.