Last of the Warm Weather

This is one week ago on our friday outing..... What a difference a week makes.....

Tonight will be 18 degrees and we're building a fire and wearing coats to keep warm.

Reality Check

I just had a major wake up to life. 

 As most of you know I spent my freshman and sophomore years in Issaquah Washington.  My girlfriends and I were in LOVE with a boy named Travis Bass.  We thought he was the most fantastic thing ever.  We wrote our English assignments about him, drove by his house and talked about how THIS was where Travis Bass lived.  We watched him play basketball at practice and giggled like girls do, and basically drove the poor kid crazy.  He mostly tried to just ignore us.

I had forgotten all about him until I joined facebook and my Washington friends invited me to join the group, Friends of Travis Bass.  My first thought was that they were just being goofy remembering old times.  When I went to the page I learned that Travis is very sick with Lou Gherig's disease. (Sorry, I know that is spelled wrong.)  

 He has a beautiful wife who homeschools (a woman after my own heart) and three lovely children.  I went to their family blog and read about this faithful mom who is taking care of her husband and who has sent her children to school so she can physically be with Travis and care for him.  And through all the disappointments and heartache, she is true to her testimony of Christ.

I hope that the Lord will bless this sweet family and sustain them.  And I hope I can be a little better at caring for others like President Monson suggested in conference yesterday.  And I hope I can stop complaining when Mr. Bechtel is gone traveling!  What a wake up call.

   

Getting Honey

Our friend came over and took off our honey super.  I guess summer is over.  He's going to take the honey, spin it out of it's comb and bring it back to us.  Pretty easy for us.

Look at those good little worker bees.

Miss Golden Delicious and I had a little taste of the honey and it was GOOD.  REALLY GOOD.  I'm thrilled with our first year of bee keeping.  Definitely easier than 4-H!

And More and More!

The neighbors gave us squash too.  Wow.  Please let me know if you need squash, gourds, or pumpkins!

Before the Big Frost

Fridays on the Farm

Some of you may know that the Spy Twins and Granny Smith are doing school at home this year.  The deal is that if they work very hard with NO COMPLAINING monday through thursday, we go on a field trip on friday.  

Last Friday we went over to visit our friends on their ranch in Star Valley.  This is our favorite place - a little bit of heaven on earth - and a boys paradise!  We have gone over there before and learned all sorts of things about fishing, building log cabins, constructing stone fireplaces, carving tree trunks into fantastic shapes - you name it.  This time we spent most of the time swimming in the pond with a break for lunch around the campfire.  

This is what we call real life education. 

The Boys at Crabapple Farm

The manure spreader is such a fantastic backdrop for pictures.  I love it.  Too bad I can't ever get my exposure right.  Alaska Wild Berry, Help!