Its Spring! Keeping watch over my phlox

It's spring! It's so nice to see the green grass and everything blossoming. It's a tribute to effort to see broken branches of redbud thrusting forth blooms beside the roads.Phlox is one of my favorite flowers. I love the way it blankets the ground.

Here is the flowering quince in my front fountain area.

Hyacinth bursting forth in all its aromatic beauty.

I haven't a clue what this flower is, but it's an early spring one, and gives forth so generously! It was poking up through the snow. and you see all the little grape Hyacinth in the top left corner.

And finally the finished chicken tractor in all it's colored splendor. I guess it's another sign of spring.

We have survived another exciting week in the beautiful Ozarks and wish to share that excitement with all of you… Okay, now that that is taken care of, here is the weekly dribble from the Arkansas Foxes.

We completed the lab work for the annual physicals we took last week; Sandy got her results back and they seem to be normal; still awaiting my results. My dental is tomorrow and that should complete my part of the medical for our mission. We will hold off sending off the paperwork for at least another month because we can’t send it in more than 6 months ahead of time.

Tuesday was the Relief Society Birthday Party. Sandy was on the committee, so she went in the morning to set up, then enjoyed the Mexican dinner and the classes and helped some with the clean up. We didn’t have to take down the tables because Kent Darracq’s wedding reception was on Friday night.

Wednesday, we had the electrical cooperative energy efficiency guru do an energy audit of our house to see if there were improvements we could make to reduce our electrical needs. He was able to print off a daily KW usage chart for us so we can see just how much electricity we use. No major changes were recommended, but we did learn a few ways to help reduce our bill.

Friday morning, about 10 of us guys from church showed up to help cut up some firewood for one of the member’s neighbors who is not capable of physical labor. It took us less than two hours to cut up about 10 cords of wood. We had three chain saws cutting, and three more people loading the tractor bucket (the owner was creating a huge pile of wood in the back yard). And they fed us hamburgers when we were finished. Now that is the way to get some work done! Saturday morning I helped Chuck haul off some limbs from trees he had cut at a widow’s house; we each made three trailer runs to the dump site.

Of course we have been continuing our limb cleanup in our spare moments. I go out and spend a couple of hours cutting limbs into the proper length, then pull the trailer up as close as I can and load the limbs. Last, I drive the lawn tractor with the small trailer and pick up the firewood and stack it along the fence line. Thursday I was backing the trailer loaded with limbs in the pasture to make a tight turn and didn’t see the tree behind me in time. I hit it hard enough to break off the tail light mount and smash the plastic light. Friday morning I took the trailer to the welding shop and had the mount reattached; I also installed a new tail light. Later that afternoon I found another tree to run into in the same pasture and broke the same tail light! I no longer back up the trailer when there are trees in the area. We are making some headway with the limb removal in spite of the fact that it is competing with two other tasks.

The big news of the week (which hit our blog already) is the purchase of ‘We Five’, five baby chicks and the construction of the mobile chicken coop. Unfortunately, one of the chicks died and so they are the ‘Just Four’. Sandy will paint the coop on Monday and then we can install a metal roof. In addition to buying some of the lumber, we used salvaged plywood from the downstairs kitchen cabinets, brackets and hinges found in the work bench from projects long past, paint from multiple house paintings, and metal for the roof left over from the mobile home park (some of which is also on the tree house). We are into recycling.

I was also able to get the cinder block walls in the downstairs kitchen painted so that we can install firing strips and then drywall the walls. This is the project we started just prior to the ice storm and which has taken back seat to limb removal – and chicken coops. The cabinets should arrive in a couple of weeks and it would be nice if the kitchen was ready for them to be installed.

This week Sandy is off to Tulsa on Thursday to attend a three day workshop put on by the Center for Aromatherapy Research and Education. She has 25 hours to learn raindrop technique (oils on the spine), vitaflex (oils on the feet reflexology points), the chemistry of oils, emotional healing with oils, and oils of the Bible. She will be staying with Dan and Miranda while there. Perhaps I can get caught up on some of my work while she is gone!

The Chicken tractor

Don't know what a Chicken Tractor is? Well you get these little harnesses... Ah, no. It's actually a movable chicken coop. It has no floor so the chicks can scratch, forage, eat bugs, and give you eggs with higher vitamins and minerals. They fertilize the soil at the same time. Apparently you move it from place to place in your yard or garden and get the benefits of chick bug control and fertilizer, without allowing them to scratch up your plants and flowers.
Friday we set out to build the chicks a home. Here is the basic 45x8 frame.

Tom did a fantastic job of putting up the rafters and getting them cut just right. Then we started on the "coop" part of the chicken tractor. Note the chicken door with little steps that's folded out. It's supported on blocks so the glued "steps" dry in the right place.

We got the screen around the coop. And called it a day.

Saturday, after Tom spent the morning cutting storm damaged trees at Lanetta's, we built the nesting boxes. I'm gluing in the side now.
The nesting box top is lifted up in this photo. We then screened in the bottom of the coop and put on the walls and a door.

It awaits paint. Then we will put on a metal roof. The theory is you can lift and carry the tractor, or you can put wheels on the back so you lift one end and carry it. It was a lot lighter, before all the plywood on the coop. We'll need to find some wheels. This baby's heavy now!

The Chickens Come Home to Roost

We decided to learn how to do chickens. I thought they might be fun for the grandchildren and it would be a good survival skill to learn. So Thursday I went to Orschlins and got me 5 one week old chicks. Two were Production Red, two New Hampshire Red, and one was a Barred Black. All are pullets (females) and all will lay brown eggs.

Here is our sophisticated chick house. It's a large cardboard box with wood shavings and straw. Barnyard Chicken website said to put in some rocks and sticks so they'd have something to peck at. Also the light is supposed to keep them at 80 degrees for a week, then 75 degrees for a week, then 70, and then they can go without a light if it's warm enough.This is one of my little NH reds. Alas, this little gal, began to do poorly last night and late this morning I found her rigid in the box. I had bought an extra since I know they are fragile. I just felt sad to loose one so quickly. I hope the rest continue to thrive.

Chop, Saw, Split. Blog

Our several year's supply of firewood. This wood is double stacked, only the finest of hardwood: Red oak, white oak, hickory... and a few pieces of sycamore. The inferior sassafrass. cedar and pine got hauled to the chipper.

It seems that spring may finally be here. The daffodils are blooming along with hyacinth and some lovely unidentified flowers. The freezing temperatures forecasted, didn’t do them in and now roses are leafing out, the clematis is sending out tendrils and the garden is planted with spring crops—broccoli, onions, lettuce, spinach. Sugar snap peas, carrots and beets. Potatoes will go in this week.

We’ve had a dry spring and so are in a fire ban… more about that later. All week Tom has continued his Herculean limb removal operation. The west pasture has seen an amazing improvement. To date, we have hauled over 35 loads of limbs to the dump site from our home. Miranda and Dan came to visit… er work their tail ends off this weekend.

On Saturday we tackled the pond side. We made a real dent in the downed limbs and built a nice fire to burn the branches. Then our neighbor, Barb, came over to let us know there was a burn ban on. Hmmm. We decided to let the fire burn down and take loads to the county chipper instead. Only got 2 loads taken, but we also increased our firewood by about 40%.

We also got Dan to climb from the tractor to a front tree and chain saw some of the larger limbs down. Then they got cut up and split for firewood as well. We worked for about 7 hours and at the end, we were tired puppies. Dan and Miranda went to see Vela about taxes. We had a late dinner and got slaughtered in 5 Crowns again. Tom actually won Friday’s game! [Photos: Dan climbs tree. Tom climbs tractor to hand Dan chain saw. But Dan wants water first. He said he wanted a full bladder if he died. Victorious Dan met by sweet damsel in bucket. Note large, splintered limb in background that Dan sawed off and still needs to be pulled to ground.]

Tom has been mentioning the problem of no blinds in the front windows. I had resisted because I really liked to look out at the trees. Alas, the trees are not as full now, and so it’s easier for people to see in as they drive down the road. So I went off to look at more fabrics. I checked an upholstery store that had some nice fabrics in stock and took some swatches home. Alas, my favorite one they actually didn’t have enough fabric to do and the others just didn’t grab me. I’d been thinking of a stripe. When I went back to return the swatches, she did have a stripe…. Nope. Not right. However, in the $1.99 bin was some off white fabric with pale scattered flowers. Not my first choice, but it could work. They measured it first and there would barely be enough. I took it home and it looked okay. I figured I’d be much more comfortable cutting $2 a yard fabric then they typical $25-40 fabric that most home decorator stores sell. So that is my project for the next week or so. I want to make roman blinds.

Tom carved out some time to work on the downstairs kitchen area. He pulled off the old furring strips—not an easy task when they had cement nails gripping the wall. He also painted the area with cement block sealer. That got sucked up quickly so we had to go and buy more.

I don’t know if we mentioned to people that we have been planning on going on another mission. This week we both had our physicals and I got my dental exam. Tom’s dental exam is next week. Once those are done, I think we are about ready to send in our papers. We are planning on a late Oct, early Nov. date. Before we go, we want to see grandchildren and children. Deborah, Sarah and Steven recently came to visit. We’ll see lots of Sue’s family at Cyrus’ wedding. Adam and Savannah and new baby will come in July and we hope other family will join us then. We recently purchased train tickets for after the Sept. Young Living Convention in MN. We will drive to Chicago Sept. 20th, then take the train to Rebecca’s for Joshua’s baptism and to see the bun just out of the oven (see Rebecca’s latest blog). Then we will go to Jonathan’s for a week and then take the train back to Chicago arriving back in Mountain Home about the 7th of October. We are excited to take the train again. It was cheaper than flying and I expect it to be more relaxing than 5 days of driving.

Thursday I did my first Young Living SuperSaver call. It’s a business call about how you can save money using Young Living products and how you can save more when you work it as a part time business. I have been figuring taxes and realized I averaged about $400 increase monthly and had tax breaks of over $10,000. Rebecca helped me on the call and it went pretty good for a first time.

Tonight we had the Single Young adults over for a fireside. We had 4 women and a lot of fun. We ate fantastic food they brought and played “Catch Phrase” and “Curses”. The best part was Mr. T soothing a baby to sleep. “I pity d’fool!”

Woe unto ye hypocrites!

In Institute we've been studying the New Testament and have gotten to the last week of Christ's life where he really blasts the Pharisees and Sadducee's. I got an Ahah! moment. I'd always thought and mostly taught in seminary that the "standard Mormon answers" would get you through. That believing wasn't enough, but Prayer, Tithing, Attending Church, Scripture Reading-- these would bring you closer to God and salvation.

Not necessarily so. The Pharisees were doing all that. They were obedient to the law of the gospel. They prayed. They tithed. They read scriptures. They went to the synagogue regularly. What did they lack then? You could argue they didn't read the scriptures sufficiently to recognize Christ when he came. Also that they didn't have the desire to recognize the messiah.

I think the key is "becoming." In order to not be as the Pharisees and be hypocrites, we need not only the outward actions, but the inward changes. We need the desire and effort to become as Christ is-- to change our hearts, our thoughts, our wills to become Christ-like. Then our hearts and minds will be aligned with God's will.

More Embers

Sunday night about 10pm as we were about to crawl into bed, the neighbor called. "I see some things glowing red in your pasture. You might want to check them out. " Hmm. We look out the window and also see embers glowing in the dark. We dress and head to the burned place. On the neighbor's side, a dead tree glowed and sparked. Alas, the sparks were falling into leaves. This was one place the fire had not yet burned... and those leaves connected the tree to our property.

We saw a few more glowing places, but they were on already-burned places. We called the fire department again. The tree was deep in the woods, across the fence line. How to get water to it? While we waited for the fire trucks (well, truck) we scouted out the best route for the truck, pulled out the chain saw, and sawed and removed the downed branches so they could back in closer to the fence.

They watered the tree, then cut it down (it was hollow) and cut it open to be able to get all of the fire out. Then they noticed a tree on our side, so went and did the same with that one. An hour or so later, we were once again headed for bed.

Funny story: Tom has a great love for apple salad and carrot and raisin salad and he'd made some mighty tasty carrot and raisin salad Saturday night for dinner. There were some leftovers. I hadn't realized his disdain for lettuce salad until Sunday lunch. I was making myself a green salad and asked if Tom would like some salad. "Sure," he said.

I presented him with the tossed green salad. He looked at it a moment and said, "This is how Jacob must have felt when he woke up and found Leah next to him!"

Not Ox out of the Mire-- but Fox out of the Fire

While we were busy the past couple of days clearing limbs, we mentioned to one of our neighbors that he was welcome to ‘adopt’ a tree for firewood; he indicated that he had been thinking about asking us if that would be okay. Since we have at least 8 large oak trees down, I (Tom) didn't think it will be a problem for him to cut up one. Then today as we came home from church, I noticed a car in the west pasture; thinking it might be him, I changed clothes and wandered out there. It wasn’t the neighbor; it was one of the local volunteer fire women, who along with a couple of others were working on a brush fire that was in an adjoining forested area. Since it was a good 20-30 feet the other side of our fence line and they seemed to have it under control, I came in for lunch. The winds did not cooperate and when I came back out 30 minutes later, it had worked its way into our pasture/tree line. I called for Sandy and we both joined those on the line to extinguish the flames. One neighbor had multiple hoses connected, the fire people had a truck with 250 gallons of water and the rest of us were using shovels and rakes on the fire edge to put it out. It was a fast moving fire and there were no structures in the way, but the downed trees made it difficult to snuff out the fire. After the grass and leaves were out, it took about two hours more to put out all the hot spots (smoldering branches and dead wood) before the trucks left. There were several different properties involved, most of it in woods so it was almost impossible to get water trucks to the fire. According to one neighbor, the fire started probably over a quarter of mile to the west of us from embers from a burn site that was used yesterday, and somehow came to life in today’s high winds. In fact the family was in the house and had no idea there was even a fire until their neighbor called them! We had a triangular piece of pasture/woods burned, probably about 100 yards per size; hopefully the grass while grow back quickly. Thank you volunteer fire department!

ANOTHER week of clean-up

Happy 27th Birthday to Adam tomorrow!
It has been another interesting week in Arkansas. We started Monday morning by visiting one of our home teaching families and removing a trailer load of limbs from their place. The husband has Parkinson’s disease and the wife has rheumatoid arthritis which makes it difficult for them to do this kind of task. That evening we hosted the ‘Empty Nester’s’ Family Home Evening. We had about 16 in attendance; we had asked each person to share what emergency preparations they had made which they had found most useful during the recent ice storm and resultant power outages. Conversely, we also asked what weren’t they prepared with. It was a fun evening and I think we all learned a little. Interesting, all said that when they followed the prophet’s counsel to be self reliant that they were okay; it was those areas they had neglected that got them in trouble.
I did my normal thing on Tuesday and Thursday: tutor in the morning and teach GED at the local rehab center in the afternoon. There are three more clients almost ready to take their GED which is exciting. We had an institute in-service training meeting in Branson Thursday evening, so I came home from work, changed clothes and we drove to Branson. We were served a delicious dinner and then started our training. The institute director taught a great lesson on how to ask search, analyze and apply questions to get our students into the scriptures and then applying the principle in our lives. While we have had similar lessons in the past, I finally got it this time!
Wednesday, I took a trailer load of brush from a neighbor’s to the dump site. The county has contracted to have the limbs chewed up by a huge machine and turned into mulch which can then be used as mulch or fuel to heat some local industries; better than just burning it. I also took two trailer loads from our last rental in town; on Friday I took one last load from there. Now time to concentrate on our home!
Wednesday afternoon I started cleaning part of the south fence line in the west pasture and was able to finish it on Friday (Sandy was able to help some). All of Saturday was spent clearing the west fence line in the west pasture. Those are not shadows on the ground in the photo-- those are all tree branches! It took seven trailer loads (but who’s counting!) from 7:30 to 4:30 – but we got it done. Note clean ground below the trees in the next photo. I counted at least 80 (yes that is eighty) trees on that fence line. Okay, so now they only look like tooth picks stuck in the ground. When the limbs fell off these trees, most of them fell parallel to each other, almost like someone had placed them there in order. We are getting plenty of exercise and have no trouble sleeping at night! Here is one of the valient heros and her trusty trailer.
The monthly newsletter from our local electrical cooperative just arrived and had some interesting things to say about the ice storm that affected this area the end of January. 210,000 co-op members were without power, 32,000 poles were broken; a system that took 70 years to build was mostly rebuilt in a few weeks. I still wonder why we don’t bury the lines. Anyway we have a greater appreciation for those light switches that turn lights off and on and keep my milk cold!

Spring has sprung

It's the beginning of March and the last frost-free date here is April 15th. I don't think anyone has told our plants that. I hope we don't have a deep freeze that does them in because more and more daffodils are blooming and hyacynth and tulips are emerging.

Also, our peach tree is blooming in the back yard.

And Saturday the weather was warm enough, I got into the spirit of things and planted the cool weather plants in the garden-- carrots, lettuce, spinich, celery, onions. And I marked places for broccoli and peas.

hauling stuff!

Monday found us (read Tom) busy with our 509 East 13th St. Rental house. Tenants were to be out Friday. We came home from Andy’s knowing the rental would need work, but we just didn’t know what we were getting into. Monday we headed over to clean. AKKK! It was FULL of stuff! Beds, dressers, desks, all the bathroom things—deodorant, makeup, kitchen dishes, pans. Things still dirty in the sink. The garage was full of boxes, stuff, computer parts, junk. It was enough to make one swear off the rental business.

Tom and I started cleaning up the living room and bedrooms. We mostly just took trash bags in and filled them. But there was some stuff that seemed good. So we started a stack for Salvation Army of TV trays, shelves, shoes, various electrical cords and a bag full of decent clothes. I took home a couple of coats and ties and hangers. Then the tenant called to say he wanted to come and get his stuff. So we said, okay, but take it ALL—not just what you want, by 5 pm on Tues. I felt a little guilty taking some things, but not after Tom saw him toss some of the Salvation Army bags—including the one with some designer clothes, into the dumpster across the street Tuesday evening. And he left 98% of the things in the house. Double grouch!

Tuesday, when we weren’t cleaning as scheduled, we rototilled the garden and then got some mulch and put it around the flowers in front. I have daffodils blooming already. They always get overanxious in February when the weather warms up, then have to suffer through a chilly March and sometimes April. Still I’m pleased my garden is ready for planting! We’ve mapped it out. Now for the seeds and seedlings. I also went to a cooking class where we ate decadent bread pudding and then a food storage one that was pretty darn tasty, too. We learned how to make yoghurt, sour cream, and cottage cheese from powdered milk and it was all good.

Wednesday Tom hit the rental, hauled stuff to Salvation Army, bagged trash, brought stuff home for the burn pile, etc. He even managed to get started painting some of the walls. I did some Young Living work and in the evening we had institute and also Kristy's husband, Andrew, was baptized. He was so excited! It was fun to see. I also spent time looking up lodging for the Young Living Convention on Minneapolis in September. Steve S. gave me a good suggestion.

Thursday we tilled the garden one more time. Tom tutored and then taught at OMART. I worked Young Living a little, then curled up with Nicolae—the third book in the Left Behind series. We had a new convert, Mikala; her 2 year old, Lilly; Barb, our neighbor; and 2 missionaries over for dinner. We had Rebecca’s tasty sweet and sour chicken.

Friday Tom hurried to finish the duplex before the carpet cleaner came. Barb helped by washing the kitchen and bathroom, and filling trash bags, and claiming some of the stuff she could use. I spent part of the day studying stocks and recommendations and trying to decide what to do, if anything, about the stocks we own. Indecision has been good in the past, so I’m not anxious to move on something now. In the evening we had the CES broadcast: An Evening with a General Authority with Elder Quentin L. Cook.

Saturday the theory was to work around the house. Tom made a last trip to the duplex and brought home the last trash, hauled a trailer load of tree limbs to the county burn site. I spent a good part of the day trying to sort through and gather up my Young Living tax information. In the later afternoon we went to Barbara’s and cut up some of her trees that were dangling on her porch, and took them to the burn site. This day turned quite cold. We had freezing rain and snow through the morning blanketing the ground with a skiff of white. It melted in the afternoon. We made an early day of it, and watched “Return to Me”, a move that night. As evening fell, we got some more snow and had a light blanket Sunday morning. (Deborha'd favorite tree.)

Good day at Church. Did some visiting teaching/home teaching. Tonight is the CES fireside. Tom is making cookies for that.