Raising the Roof

Just a couple of weeks ago, the new home being built behind us was not very weather-tight and now just see the changes. It was good entertainment (yes...we are hard up for entertainment) to watch them use a crane to lift the roof pieces and parts up to be fastened in place. Between rainstorms and a couple of copious snowstorms which immediately melted, it can't have been that much fun working out there. The builder says it is his 'cold weather' house, since he is building it in winter.



I felt sorry for them slipping and sliding around out there in the snow.



Today they put the windows in. It looks like roof materials up there ready to go on soon. Just a few hours after this picture was taken, the blizzard hit. So far it has not stopped. I bet the workers will be happy to have a relatively dry place to work inside there now.

Merry Christmas!

To all our friends and family, we wish a merry Christmas and best wishes for the coming year. We have had a good year I think. The family woodworker has kept busy with plans and remodeling of the 1880s woodwright shop, in order for it to be ready for visitors starting in early April. We have also been doing indexing of various vital records which have been digitized to put online to assist people who are researching their family history. Interspersed in that were a trip to Colorado to welcome grandchild number 12 and a couple of trips to Washington for family events. We also got a taste of what the 2002 Olympics must have been like by visiting in Park City in the middle of a blizzard.

If you want to know more about what we have been up to, you’ll just have to take the time to browse further in this blog!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Tyson

This little fellow is one of the people who turned me into a great-aunt. There are a number of such people running around now. As it happens, I think this little guy reminds me a lot of his grandfather who I first met almost 48 years ago. Naturally, I didn't think to take his picture until AFTER he finished smiling.

Cache Valley Winter

It was perfect weather here yesterday...well...perfectly beautiful. The snow-covered Wellsville Mountains shined against the clear blue sky, with remnants of the earlier ice fog leaving mist at the base of the mountains and covering every wire, twig and leaf with a thick layer of hoar frost.





These are the same mountains from a greater distance...our back porch actually. I like the way the early morning light shows every gulley.

It was interesting to watch the thermometer in the car as I drove along. At our house, it was 1F. On the valley floor it was -1F. A mile or so up the canyon it was 7F. Mid-Canyon, at Dry Lake, it was -1 again and a few miles later it was 12F. At the other side of the canyon it was 18F.

Hands-on Living History Museum Woodwright Shop

After assuming some responsibility for the woodwright shop in the middle of the summer season, the new woodwright started thinking of ways to improve the shop. There was a barrier running down the middle of the room to separate the work area from the visitor's area. With the shop open nearly every day, it was impossible to implement some of the new ideas, but now the shop is closed for the winter. During that time, the entire barrier was removed.

Old timbers from the 1860s were salvaged from parts of an old flour mill and milled down to be reused. The goal for the new 'barrier" was to bring the shop to the visitors. The old timbers were made into a workbench top which replaced the old barrier. Now visitors and woodwrights can come face to face to discuss old hand tools while the visitors are given some hands-on experience with some of those tools. Excuse the out of period items in the background as this is still a work in progress. As you see, the new counter/work bench still displays the old original bolts that held it together. On the left side there are indentations in the counter which will be filled with period items under glass. On the right side, not visible in the picture, is a lower bench/counter which is meant for young children to learn about tools. The dark brown areas on the wall under the counter are signs remaining from the original flour mill.




Here you see the length of the main counter after it was polished up with tung oil. There are holes bored in the counter to accommodate bench dogs and hold fasts.



New shelves were built to display old molding planes and show the types of molding they made.



If you come to visit in the summer, you can learn to use an old hand plane and work on the new workbench!

A Plethora of Peahens

Without all the summer visitors to chase them, the peafowl have the run of the living history museum. Who can blame them for running to look at the great view of the Wellsville Mountains?



It's pretty cool to be the ruler of the roost!

No More Swimming Pool

The old swimming hole is not to be. Instead, we now have this framed in house...roofless still, but started at least. As you see, the snow on the ground is almost gone. After 15 or so inches of snow, and the warmer temperatures, I suspect the basement of that roofless house may have a secret swimming pool down there somewhere.

Sometimes I just feel old.

Back when we lived in Alaska, I went to the doctor one day. She asked if it would be okay for a medical student to observe our visit....and then mentioned his name. I was shocked! He was a kid!...a friend of Blaine's whom we had driven home several times. (It was NOT okay!)

Our neighbors in Wasilla used to complain loudly about any bonds to build new schools. They had no children and felt it was so unfair that they should have to pay to build new schools. I remember pointing out to them that someone had paid for THEIR education. What's more, I thought it prudent to be sure the children had a decent education, as when we are older, those same children will be our doctors, our lawyers, etc.

For years it has been a family joke that if you have a computer problem, just call the neighborhood junior high kid to fix it.

Today was a similar story. Our dryer hasn't been working well. We have to run it twice to get a load of clothes dry. We have just put up with it for quite a while, but finally decided to bite the bullet and have it looked at. This morning the doorbell rang. It was the repairman. I feel very certain that he couldn't be a day over 15. Okay, maybe 16 since he was driving a truck. I wanted to ask him if his daddy helped him learn how to fix dryers!

An idea, a job, a project

Have you ever noticed how quickly a simple idea can grow into a job, and then into a major project? When we moved into this house years ago, the storeroom was already there...including the shelves seen in the first picture. Across from those shelves was the bare concrete floor which soon turned into a repository for empty 5 gallon buckets, containers of water, canning equipment, empty jars and other items. After living here for a while, we went away for 18 months to West Virginia. While we were gone, we had house sitters living here, so we stored all the things from our kitchen pantry down here as well, so they would have room for their things. We had a PhD (Pile it Higher and Deeper) in home storage! Some things I never found again...until today. (NOTE: These are NOT before pictures. Those would be too scary.)



At the end of the room were these small shelves which were also crammed with a variety of canning equipment, empty jars, an unusable wheat grinder (due to its location) and sundry things which were mostly not accessible as folding chairs were stacked in front of them.



I looked at the table in my mother's storeroom and had an idea! If I could just get a small table at the local thrift store I could move the small shelves opposite the big shelves and put a table in that space. Then I could actually put my wheat grinder where I could use it! After thinking about it for a couple of weeks, I mentioned it to the woodworker. He got excited about it and I felt my simple idea slipping away and turning into a job, and maybe even into a project. As he talked I had visions of the contents of the storeroom strewn throughout the basement for weeks...which is NOT a happy thought when expecting company for New Years, although I'm sure the grandchildren would be happy to find new play things. I not am not complaining though, because what I got is in the picture below. Woodworker just extended the existing shelves, leaving one out where I could put the wheat grinder in a usable location! As an added bonus, there are now more shelves to store things on. Best of all, it was all done in one day so the basement is now back in order.



For now, I have to use an extension cord to get power to the grinder, but an electric outlet is forthcoming in the near future I am told. We also hope to get some hanger things so we can hang extra folding chairs up on the wall out of the way. For now, I am pleased to say that NOTHING is piled on the floor!

Poinsettia

Maybe it is the bright colors of the poinsettia that liven up a gloomy winter day. After snow and cold and spending the past week coping with the 'crud', I was feeling pretty low energy until the woodworker came home today with this! At first I thought there must be 2 different poinsettias in the pot, but the white and red 'flowers' are all on the same stem. The red leaves look like they have been spattered with cream colored paint. Why some leaves are red, some are white and some are spattered is a mystery to me, but I don't need to know that to enjoy the plant. Thanks, Woodworker!

Oh, what do you do in the wintertime?

Do you see this thermometer? Do you see the number on the lower right-hand corner? The one that says '15.5F'? That is the outside temperature tonight. It does NOT say that there is a slight breeze...but there is. It does NOT say that it is pitch black out there without even the light of the moon...but it is. So what do you do when it is so dark and cold outside?



If you live in our neighborhood, you have a hot dog roast and neighborhood potluck! It is dark in the pictures, but you can probably see the large piles of snow in the background if you look closely. I'd say we have 15-18 inches of snow on our yard.






We have tough neighbors!

38 Years

What should you do with a free hotel voucher and an anniversary? With possible winter weather, we didn't want to go far, so we decided on a destination just a few hours away from home...Park City. Of course, when we made our reservation, we couldn't know what the weather would be like. As it turned out, a huge blizzard was expected! I guess that is what comes of getting married in November instead of some more civilized month.

Unlike the unfortunate hotel in Moses Lake where the desk clerk flatly told us that there was absolutely nothing to do in that town, the hotel in Park City had plenty of suggestions:



As we walked along Main Street, we saw that some of the businesses were starting to close so their employees could get home before the storm hit.





As we walked I noticed a peculiar odor in the air. It seemed strangely familiar. Finally I realized it was the same odor that had permeated the neighborhood where I lived in Germany back in 1970. I was told at that time that the smell was coming from a local brewery. As I told Roger about it, we rounded the corner to find....a brewery. Funny how smells can bring back a memory from 40 years ago.



We even got a picture of a couple of old fogies standing under a 'family' tree at the Family History on Main Street.




Park City was originally a silver mining town. The local museum had artifacts from the old mining days as well as a silver mine replica that was 3 stories high!








In the basement Roger reminisced about the old days growing up on a homestead when dangerous materials could be purchased at the local hardware store.






The old town jail was even down in the basement. It looked to be a grim place to spend time.





There was a display about an old general store with all sorts of interesting tins and boxes.



One room of the museum is devoted to changing exhibits. For now it seems to be an exhibit called:

Our Lives, Our Stories: America’s Greatest Generation

I was especially interested in the food related parts of the exhibit.










Of course, more recently, back in 2002, Park City became famous as the site of the Winter Olympics. We will probably go back another time to visit the Olympic Park as the blizzard was still howling when we were there. They do have 2 museums there...one for skiing and one for the Olympics. The road up to the Olympic Park was steep and curving. Halfway up, we had to stop to wait for deer to cross the road in front of us.

More Pie

Perhaps you recall that last year we got a pie? Well it is that time of year again. Today our annual pie was delivered from our realtor...the fellow who helped us buy this house just over 8 years ago. It came along with a lovely Thanksgiving card (and a refrigertor magnet with the realtor's name and picture on it.)

This year it is a chocolate cream pie. Yum! Don't you wish you had our realtor?

More Bountiful Baskets

Bountiful Baskets has a pick-up in our town every other week. When the weather was nicer, it was in a cul-de-sac, but now that winter is here, it takes place in the lunchroom of one of the local schools. Since it is a volunteer operation, it is expected that folks who participate come early once in a while to help prepare the baskets. That is what we did this morning.

When we got to the school at 7:45 AM, the delivery truck had just arrived. They off-loaded all the cases of things on to the sidewalk to be carried inside. In the meantime, other volunteers set out the baskets for the day. Today, 79 baskets had been ordered, so we set out 2 baskets for each order, one for the fruit and one for the vegetables.

The cases of produce are then placed at the end of each row, ready to distribute. The lady who is the coordinator tells the volunteers how much to put in each basket, as it varies from week to week. Today, for example, the fruit basket had 1 pineapple, 1 cantaloupe, 1 honeydew melon, 7 bananas, 6 apples, and 4 pears.



The vegetable baskets had 7-8 red potatoes, 4-6 parsnips, 4 tomatoes, 1 head of red leaf lettuce, celery, 3 green peppers and radishes. It takes nearly an hour to get all the food into the baskets. There are usually extra things left, but not enough to go into each basket, so the extras are sort of randomly placed. So today some folks got an extra pineapple or cantaloupe, some got extra apples or bananas or extra lettuce. They divide it up as evenly as possible. People are allowed to order 1-3 baskets for $15 each.

At 8:45, people start picking up their produce. They bring bags, boxes, coolers and laundry baskets to take their food home in. We usually pick ours up in a large laundry basket. Once people are signed in, they are given a fruit basket and a vegetable basket and asked to transfer the food to their own container. As they leave, they take the two smaller baskets to a table where they are cleaned and stacked for the next time.



In addition to the regular baskets, there are sometimes special offerings. During canning season, for an additional charge, they often have cases of fruit available. Once thing they always offer is bread. Today we chose to order the 9-grain bread which comes in bags of 5 loaves for $10. It keeps nicely in my freezer until I am ready to use it.



An hour and a half after arriving, we went home with all our goodies. One lady said, "It's almost like Christmas, coming to see what will be in the basket for us to take home each time!"

Bountiful baskets currently offers pick up locations in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

November Sunrise

We live on the eastern side of our valley, which means when the sun starts to peek over the mountains to the east of us, the valley is still in shadow when the sun hits the peaks on the western side of the valley. If you happen to look out at just the right moment, before the shadows on the valley start to move, you can see the mountains all lit up. It's a beautiful way to start the day.