Cabin Update

The snow is almost gone and it's time for the cabin to wake up for the summer.  We took off the boards over the windows (you have to put them up if you're not going to shovel snow all winter because the snow gets so deep it will break the windows), and turned the power back on and other "wake up" activities.

The voles had a hey day with all the sod we planted around the fire pit.  Voles!  They're everywhere!

But the cabin looks as lovely as ever.  It's dangerous to go up there because you leave all troubles behind and have such a perfect time.  It's listed with a new real estate agent this year and so we'll see if he does any better than the last one.  Meanwhile, we'll keep enjoying it.

The Boy Pilot

Granny Smith is officially smitten with "the flying bug".  For his birthday this year he got to go for a little spin and that was all it took.  Since then he's been studying airplanes with his Grandpa and talking all sorts of code.

Typical conversation:

G. S.  "MOM!  Did you know an SR-71 can go mach 3??"

Mom "No."

G. S.  "MOM!  Did you know that pilots say that an SR-71 is just a big fuel tank with wings??"

Mom  "no."

G. S.  "MOM!  Did you know that the F-15 is my favorite?"

Mom "YES!  I did at least know that!"

G.S. "Mom!  Come watch the airplane movie with me!"

It's great to have a 7 year old pilot.

No Farmer's Market Today

That's right.  We will not be attending the Farmer's Market today.  Last week was our first, and perhaps last day at the market.  I've learned several lessons for those of you contemplating selling at the market.  

First, this is how I imagined it:  (Please don't laugh yet!) We would arrive with our beautiful produce, herb seedlings, fresh warm bread, apple muffins, and it would be lovely.  People would be thrilled to have REAL FOOD and VEGGIES at a farmer's market, instead of snow cones and kettle corn.  We would bask in the appreciation of these grateful folks and then come home, tired but satisfied.

Now, this is what happened.  I woke up early saturday (after baking late friday night)  and made bread and muffins and chocolate dipped pretzels.  At about 8:30 things became chaotic since I was supposed to be there at 9 and the bread would just be coming out of the oven at 9.  I called Annette's family, who was sharing the booth with us, and they were in the same frantic state.  The Spy twins loaded folding tables, seedlings, warm bread, markers, white boards, cash box, etc. into the truck and I took off and the rest of the family went to the ward activity.

Annette and I both got there in the nick of time and the booth did look fantastic.  Annette had four huge glass jars full of mint brownies, cinnamon almonds plus all our other stuff.  Oh yes, and I'd brought granola.

The market went from 10 to 2.  The kids did rejoin us and helped sell lots of stuff and had funny experiences while they were at it.  By 2:00 we were exhausted and ready to come home.  After paying all our fees and expenses, we both made about $80.00.  

That sounds great except for that when you consider how many hours I spent planting seedlings and baking I made about 50 cents an hour.  And since I paid the kids, I donated lots of time to this cause!  The worst part was that it didn't seem like anyone appreciated the real food.  So, I know now why there are not farmers at farmer's markets.  The name sounds great, but the farmer's can't make any money selling anything.

I will relate the horrors of trying to sell our eggs there on a different post.  Talk about over reaching government bureaucracies.  Uggh.

In the Field

I've finally realized why this blog has been so empty lately.  It's because Golden Delicious went and created her own blog!  She now writes about all the interesting stuff and I miss her!!

But I cannot use that as an excuse and must press on solo....

So here is Mr. Bechtel  trying to set the syphon tubes to irrigate.  I just hate syphon tubes.  HATE THEM!  They don't work at all for me and I get thistles in my hand and half fall in the ditch and my hair flies in my face and I wipe it away and get mud all in my mouth and I want to scream because I go to all that work and then the stupid tubes refuse to pull water.  Mr. Bechtel doesn't have that problem, especially with his hair.  

The water makes a great sounds when it starts gushing out the pipe.  I love it.  I start thinking about scriptural references to the desert blossoming as a rose.

Lots of Stuff

How could a month go by without updating ??

Here's what's been happening:

• Braeburn won $300 for his claymation film at the Kiwanis teen festival.
  
• We have 8 baby goats in the barn.  
  
• I have tons of plant starts in every available window sill waiting to transplant when the weather improves.
  
• Our little chicks now number 64 and are not so little anymore.  I've ordered electric netting fence so we can rotate them on pasture...little cows.
• MaCavity the stray cat, who is an excellent mouser, just had kittens.  They keep increasing in number.  First I thought there were three, then five, and now we're up to seven.  They are all little black lumps and it's hard to count them all.  Kittens galore.
• Golden Delicious bought a pig for 4-H.  It looks like an appaloosa with black dots on it's hind end.
• We are getting 4 suffolk lambs for 4-H also.
• We are getting 2 boer goats for 4-H also.
• I think I need a nap.
• Braeburn has been spending a lot of time at the hospital checking on his friend, Steven, who was in a fencing accident with Braeburn last friday.  Steven is still in intensive care.  We are praying for him to get better quickly.
• The orchard has 6 new trees; a mount royal plum, mormon apricot, honeycrisp apple, tendercrisp pear, honeygold apple, and redhaven peach.
• Mr. Bechtel has built me 2 new grow boxes to put strawberries in.
• I need to beg, borrow, or steal a tractor with a tiller attachment to till the garden.  Our rototiller goes in about 3 inches and will not work for this first round.
• The Spy twins, Prairie spy and Nova spy, are making an extensive series of dirt hills for their bikes out of some dirt I had delivered.  The dirt started off as a nice long line about 30 feet long and 3 feet high of sandy potato dirt.  It is now a compacted 30 foot long snake with bike trails all over it.  Nova spy has MULTIPLE bruises on his legs from crashing.
• Granny Smith wouldn't let Mr. Bechtel cut the back of his hair this last haircut.  He says he's growing a mullet....NO WAY!
• I let Granny Smith's rabbit, Alec, out of it's cage to run with the chickens and he has disappeared.

Lots of excitement.  In fact, some of it, way too exciting for me, Steven especially.  It will be a happy day for all of us when he's well again.  

Braeburn Makes the Post Register

Here is our famous Braeburn with Mr. Bechtel before leaving for Priesthood session of conference.   (note height....)

This morning our neighbor brought over a copy of the local paper which highlights an article about the teen film makers in the area and the Kiwanis Film Festival which is tomorrow evening.  I quote:

Bonneville High School student Braeburn and Plato would agree that necessity truly is the mother of invention.

His first claymation film will be among this year's entries in the fifth annual Kiwanis Teen Film Festival on Saturday.

"I didn't have a good camera for video, and all you need is a digital camera for claymation," Braeburn, 15, said,

Thus, his masterpiece was born.

"Most of the stories are pretty silly,"  he said.

The entire process was done in his kitchen.  Tedious to anyone but Braeburn, it is a slew of photos that piece together nicely to form live action.

This is the fist year he has entered a film, but it is not his first time participating.

"I helped my friend for the last four years, but he graduated," Braeburn said.  

The festival is limited to students between ninth and 12th grades, so Braeburn has a couple of more years to explore his talents....

The article even includes a picture of one of his Claymation figures.  As I type this, I think the story gets better and better.  I especially like the part about, "tedious to anyone but Braeburn", and am going to file it away for use later when I ask him to weed the garden, or haul water to the trees, or scrub the bathroom, etc..  "Tedious to anyone BUT BRAEBURN..."  Fantastic possibilities arise!

Now the only question is, will he win anything tomorrow night?

Braeburn's Ditty

Braeburn is studying poetry terms in sophomore english class.  Words like enjambment, assonance, trochee, dactyl, and other odd literary words were all up for study.

Overcome by equal parts boredom and inspiration, he wrote the following poem in the style of Lewis Carroll, and anonymously handed it in.

Ready?

"The poem fell on it's assonance,

and slowly rolled away.

it alliterated the ground with broken

verbs that cracked and crunched, then lay.

It rolled into the door enjambment,

and sprained it's right trochee

when an anapest ran up and 

stole the cap off his other knee.

A careless speaker kicked it,

and towards the ground it sped.

But a flapping, soaring dactyl

mistook it for it's egg.

The gigantic bird chanced a look down,

and gave a throaty scream

for it saw the dangling participle

hanging from the poem's rhyme scheme.

It dropped onto a hexameter,

broke it's couplet, and turned blue.

What was at first a narrative story poem,

was now a small haiku."