Warrior Dash

This was a week filled with new experiences.  Monday we did in the chickens.  Tuesday we recuperated.  We also planted beans and we worked on covering all the chicken run.  Got about 95% covered.

I’ve been doing an online options trading program.  I’m learning.  Not sure if, when, or how I’ll do with options on my own.  I’d rather find a good expert and follow him or her.

I’ve finished most of my writing work and so things have slowed down there.  I need to market more, but I also thought I’d take this breather to work on my website and get that more professional looking. I want to make some free reports I can send out.  And I have some courses I’ve signed up for that I need to complete.

I completed all the paperwork for Dan Kennedy’s info-marketing course and sent that off.  Done!

I taught seminary on Monday and Tuesday.  It went well and I enjoyed it.  I had good students and I think… I hope… we all learned something.  I know I learned.  Wednesday night the teacher came back, but I still went to church to help a youngish mom work on her parenting skills. I find sometimes I get frustrated when I hear all the reasons things don’t work and no expectation that any kind of change is possible or will be effective.

Thursday Tom and I left for Miranda’s.  On the way out of town we stopped for a “short” visit at the bank to drop some stuff off. We are refinancing one of our properties.  We had a lovely visit, but it was 1.5 hours later that we finally left town.  Throw in a short visit to ½ of ½ (Clothing store) and we arrived at Miranda’s in time for a late dinner.

We drove the truck out so we could bring a bed back for our summer migration of children and grandchildren. But the real reason for the visit was so Tom could run with Dan and Rebecca in the Warrior Dash—a three mile run with obstacles.  Tom had been preparing for it for a while—he’s been diligent with his running.  Good thing.  It was a grueling race.

The heats started every 15 minutes from 8am til 4? For two days!  Tons of people. TONS!!!  Just an amazing money maker, I’d think. Cars and more cars ($10/car) snaked to the race and parked in slightly muddy grass fields.

People dressed up in crazy outfits. Kilts, ninja turtles, a suit and tie (with cut off sleeves and trousers), superman, cave men, lingerie, tattoos, mohawks, skinheads.  Everyone was out to have fun. 

Oh sure. It starts out fun and games! 

 Then the race begins.

We can’t see them at all.  We just count the time until they come around to the last few obstacles.  We watched people jump the fire and swim through the mud for about 40 minutes until our fearless four came round the bend.  Their time was about 44 minutes I think.

 Here they are jumping the fire.

 Now into the mud hole.

 Dan and Randy (a friend) seemed to have energy at the end, but Rebecca and Dad looked bushed!

They finished in all their muddy glory. Notice the color of the "white" shirts.

 Dan brought the children to enjoy the finish and the cleanup.

  

Then they went to a nearby lake and cleaned off.  Rebecca said she felt clean, until she saw the cow pies in the water.  They looked a little more refreshed after the rinse in the lake.... and eager to go again here.

I think the race took a toll on the mental acuity as well.  Tom wandered around looking for his socks after he rinsed off in the lake.  Can YOU guess where they are?

 We went back to Miranda and Dan’s house so the runners could shower and change.  Dad loaded the bed and we took off just after Rebecca dropped Dan off at the airport.  For two tired puppies, they managed the drive to Mountain Home pretty well.  We arrived home about 8pm., unpacked, and went to bed.

Sunday went well.  Tom had Bishops Youth Discussion after church and then went home teaching.  Poor man. It’s 5 pm and he hasn’t had lunch yet.

Squeamish? Skip this blog

Monday was the day to turn our six Cornish crosses into meat. It had to be done.  The breed is meant for meet and has to be butchered at 6-8 weeks.  Their skeletal system can't take the weight.

I wanted to learn how to do this.  I figured if I was going to raise chickens for eggs, sometime, they'd have to go into the stew pot.  In the past, I'd been "fortunate."  All my hens had met their demise via dogs or varmints.  But I was hoping my luck would change and they would live to become old hens with plenty of egg laying behind them.

So I took the plunge and bought the chicks.  Like with children-- once your pregnant, there's no going back. Once purchased.... butchering was required.

So we gathered the supplies and reviewed the videos on http://butcherachicken.blogspot.com/  tables for cleaning and gutting, ice chest to hold the finished birds. Bucket for waste.  Heat for scalding.

I thanked them for their lives as I carried each chicken over to be hung by its feet and its throat slit.  Tom... he kept trying to be gentle... and therefore ineffective.  I figured the most merciful thing to do was to do it quickly.

We had hot water we scalded the chickens in.

Plucking took time, but it wasn't that bad. Next to the killing, I thought the plucking would be hardest.

But actually, removing the innards was the least delightful part.  Still, by that time, you're dealing with something that looks like meat.

By chicken #4 we were tired.  Perhaps emotionally, but also physically.  Um, too bad for us.  We had two more chickens to do.  The Cornish Crosses were too fat to move quickly.  But the other chickens were very alarmed as one-by-one chickens left and didn't come back.

They continue to be more skiddish than in the past.

What have we learned? We can do it. We can turn chickens into meat. By doing six of them, I think we learned it such that we'll remember how.  We also learned it's a lot of work!  It's cost effectiveness is questionable.  So these guys better taste REALLY good.

We stored them in the frig and the next day cut them up and froze them.

Mother's Day

I had a lovely combination Mother's Day birthday today.  Church was nice and Tom fixed breakfast and dinner.    I had asked him to write the blog.  And he wrote about our gorgeous flowers- See below.  But I thought there was more to the week than that.

Actually, there wasn't much more-- lawn mowing, writing, feeding chickens, gardening.  Mostly just the same things over and over.  Although Tom did fix the neighbor's toilet.  And we went to church on Saturday and deep-cleaned the church with about 35 other people.

So here is Tom's entry:

Spring is still alive and well in Mountain Home.  These Japanese Iris are still beautifying our front flower bed and make for a cheerful entry to the house. 

With the Japanese Iris in the background, the peony in front has over 40 potential blooms! 

A happy rose bush is a flowering rose bush!

The rose bush is a suitable background for these happy yellow Japanese Iris.

Can you guess which of these chickens are celebrating their last night in mortality? It has been six weeks, and these three white chicks will be in the freezer tomorrow.  You can tell they are much larger than the others.  They were bred to be fryers; sometimes they just plop down in front of the feeder and eat.  They don’t like to move much either.  Tomorrow is the big day; we plan to butcher the 6 fryers.  No, we have never done this before.  And you can be sure we will give you a detailed report next week, hopefully without all the graphic details!

Painting Week

This past week was enjoyable. Monday I worked on trying to finish up some writing assignments.  I finished the e-book I was writing for the executive coach.  It was to be about 7000 words but weighed in a little more than 9000.  One of my friends said I should be working ON my business as much as I was working IN my business.  I thought that was important.  So I started trying to get my website set up and I’m working more on marketing.

Tuesday Tom had his normal Wednesday meeting and then we drove to Miranda’s. Our goal was to help her paint the trim on her house. Yikes!  That house has a lot of trim.  The good news is that painting the trim really made the house look better.  Here is the original color:

Tuesday we looked at paint colors and even borrowed some paint from the neighbors to see if it would look good as a trim color.  We chose a dark brown—Chocolate swirl- and decided we liked it best of all.  It matched the roof, the stone and contrasted well with the tan/cream base color of the house.

Wednesday was a great painting day.  The sun was out.  It was warm, and we got a lot done.  All of us—Miranda, Tom and I—came in with muscles that told us they’d been working.  Dan had to work and travel that day.  It was so cute.  Camden really wanted to help paint. Miranda is rolling where Camden helped roll.

I was like, EEK! You’re kidding!  But Miranda gave him a little roller and he did an excellent job painting the flat cement surface between the trim and the stonework. He was so pleased with himself. And we were all impressed with his careful work.

That night the temperature dropped.  By morning it was in the 30’s with rain forecasted.  We went out and painted as much as we could.  We’d tried to paint areas that were unprotected.  By the time it started spattering rain, most of the places left to paint were under the porch and patio roofs. Dan and Tom addressed those and worked on painting the replacement for the side garage door.

I had worked hard, and so went off to shopping therapy at Half of Half. I’m pleased to say I kept up with tradition and looked at every purse there. I choose a green fabric one I think I’ll like.  I got a few pants and a top… and a bathroom rug.

That evening we enjoyed a rousing game of Five Crowns… at which I lost miserably.

Friday continued to be chilly. Tom got up early and took Dan to the airport to go visit Melinda. Tom spent the morning working on installing the garage side door. Then he went around and finished painting all places we’d missed and all the trim he could reach.  Where the roof peaks… that was just too high without a long extension ladder or scaffolding. 

Here is the finished trim (except for the peaks on the sides.)

While Tom painted, I worked on two articles that needed to be finished and gotten out.  Miranda and I labeled clothes and items for her “Just Between Friends” sale.  I also got sucked into watching “Monsters Inc.” which I had never watched all the way through before.  Movie watching made writing the articles a bit slower.

We left Miranda’s a little before 5 pm Friday night.  The Brett Family was having a free show on Saturday morning at 10 am. and I really wanted to go to that.  So we drove to Branson via Joplin and Springfield.  It started raining an hour into the drive and between Joplin and Springfield it turned into snow.  SNOW!  In May!  It covered the fields, but didn’t really stay on the roads.  By the time we dropped south to Branson it was back to rain.   

Here's a photo of the snow.  Sorry it's so blurry.

I really enjoyed the Brett show.  Good singing and dancing.  They had a tribute to our veterans and I realized how much patriotism we have lost. And how seldom we as a nation honor families and the roles of mother and father.  The people in our nation are moving in a selfish, hedonistic direction.

I came home to happy chickens, a Dan Kennedy training call, sending out the article, unpacking, and finding something is cutting off my onions right at the dirt line. Cutworms?  Solutions anyone?

Dan had generously offered first pick of his extra DVD’s so we came home with a stash and watched a movie Saturday night.

Today we had a good sacrament meeting and a great relief society lesson on the “tough doctrines” and how the trials may be difficult, but the Lord promises to always be with us and help us get through them with his power, love, and mercy.  The sister teaching it has a daughter that is fighting cancer so clearly she is speaking from experience.

Life moves on

Sometimes it seems like things aren’t much different week to week.  I spend hours in front of the computer working on writing or learning things or taking care of business.

But I’ll see if I can pull out the highlights.  Monday I learned that Lloyds of London can take up to 60 days to pay my insurance claim. Bummer.  I also had a problem that my hyperlinks in Word suddenly no longer worked.  I spent a good hour or more Googling and trying to fix it.  Finally I called the help desk. Fortunately I had purchased my word program less than 90 days ago and they fixed it for me.  But it took them a good 20 minutes to figure it out.  Resetting to default solved it.

Tuesday I met Marian at the library and collected my pottery treasures.  I was pleased with how they turned out.  The glazes were fired to cone 5—usually she fires to cone 6 a difference of like 84 degrees cooler. We did this because the pattern blue comes out more blue than turquoise. 

 The pattern blue is on the left.  The red-gold... like totally gold is on the right.  I had fun making these with the Young Women's theme for the year.  The one on the left is Katelynn's birthday gift.

 These bowl are pretty small-- like cereal bowl sized for the largest one.

I put Mom's picture there for perspective... and the colors matched.  These are my first thrown pottery.  I was pleased with how they came out.  The back one is red-gold.  The front two both have pattern blue on them, but the right one has cinnamon ripple over the top of the blue.  Even though I only put it half way down the bowl, it ran the rest of the way but still has blue undertones.

However, it turns out the red-gold is more gold than red at that temperature.  It’s so interesting the differences small things make.

Wednesday afternoon I drove to Ava and then joined with Sister Lewis, the Stake RS president to drive to Springfield for our Stake Council meeting.  It is such a gorgeous time of year.  I love the spring and the blooms and young fresh green on grass and trees. It is always a spiritual feast to go to Stake Council… and always a late night. We had a missionary report back from Paraguay.  I got home about 1 am.

As we discussed seminary and teaching—and the new Come Follow Me teaching program I pondered on something I learned at our Seminary training: How much did the Savior know that he didn’t tell as he taught people? So often we know so much.  But people learn better if they can figure it out for themselves—with just some nudges and clarifications here and there.

Thursday we went to our local health fair.  They really put on a nice spread.  The hospital does blood work.  You can have hearing checked, and vision.  Your spine evaluated.  They had lots of booths for the different support systems around town. My blood work was good.  Tom had a little elevated cholesterol. The student nurse who took my blood pressure gave me higher BP than I’d ever had in my life, so I’ll stick with the BP taken the week before for an insurance policy.

Friday we had rain, rain, and more rain punctuated by rumbling thunderstorms. I have a touch lamp at my bedside.  Whenever it thunders just right, the lamp turns on. Grr.  Middle of the night.  Not fun. After the second time, we unplugged it. It was lovely to have rain all day.

That evening we had the Drakes and Arndts over for dinner.  I made the same chicken parmesan and baguettes as we’d had for the Food Nanny meal.  They were tasty.  My baguettes were a bit fatter than typical, but still well received. We also had homemade applesauce and peach jam and home grown asparagus.  I taught Tom that fresh-from-the-garden raw asparagus is mighty tasty.  After dinner we had a fun game of Curses.

 It rained again Friday night and into most of Saturday.

There were enough breaks in the rain on Saturday for me to plant more seeds and weed the garden.  Later Tom and I strung fencing on top of about 60% of the chicken run. This way our little flying chickens won’t be able to escape.  And varmints or hawks hopefully won’t be able to snatch chick either.

Our church building is in the process of being entirely repainted on the inside.  They were still working on the chapel, so we met in the cultural hall this week.  It was different and kind of tipped over the apple cart for those that typically sat in the same place.

This evening the Aaronic priesthood and priesthood leadership have a training meeting in Branson.  So it will be a late night for Tom.

Food Nanny!

This has been a good week.

I love going out and watching the chickens.  They are just fun.  A little smelly at times… but fun.  When the weather warmed up, we opened the gate to the enclosed wire fenced area and the chicks timidly stood at the door and looked.

Would you believe it?  They were too chicken to come out!  After about 4 days, most of them will venture out.

I planted more seeds, but we are also having something that seems to act like a cutworm.  It just cuts the plant off at the base and leaves the top to die.  I put out my starts that I’d grown from seed and I think that most of them survived.

I’ve continued to write on the eBook. I send off a draft, get edits back, rewrite, and submit again.  It’s moving forward. I should have been busy marketing or training, but instead, we took off to do other things.

Wednesday I went to my clay day.  She had fired my greenware so I got to glaze that, but she had not fired the things I had glazed previously.  So I couldn’t find out if my test pieces would come out in colors that I liked.  So I tried some other glazes.

Thursday Tom and I planned to go to Branson.  We had severe storm warnings in the morning and so decided to delay our trip until they passed.  We’d also previously bought a chicken feeder in West Plains (north east of Mtn. Home). Alas, the top and bottom were from different feeders and they didn’t match.  So it had to go back.  So on our trip to Branson (northwest) we headed to West Plains first.

We had rain along the way, but not bad.  And it was so beautifully spring!  The wisteria was blooming in long purple fronds. Dogwood played peek-a-boo through the other trees. And the fresh green color was everywhere!  We took back roads to Branson and past old mills and streams and drove windy mountain roads. This time we were enjoying the journey as much as wanting to get to the destination.

We went shopping for shoes and slacks in Branson and then went to the Hughes Family show; 5 brothers, their wives and close to 30 children from infant to 19 - and they all participated in the show!.  I got up early on Friday and went to the three Branson seminary classes by 6am.  One third of the classes are doing excellent and the students are bright and attentive—most of them.  There are some irregularities that need to be addressed.

We lounged around a bit in the morning, went to lunch, and hit Silver Dollar City and their World Festival.  We listened to an Irish harpist and her drum playing husband.  We watched Polynesian fire dancers and Maori war dances.  We enjoyed Gaucho dancers from Argentina.  We saw a new show at the saloon and then listened to some Swiss yodelers and singers.  They played the alphorn and sang with it… but Sue and Steve are much better.  I think they should come and play at World Fest in Branson.  It’s only about a month long.

Tom got up about 4:10 on Saturday and at 5 am we left to drive him to meet with other bishops going to a 14 stake training in Oklahoma City.  I went back and got myself ready and went to the Stake Relief Society activity that prompted this trip in the first place.  This is the activity I’d done the recipe book for.

They had the Food Nanny from BYU TV there and she was passionate about the value of a family sitting down to eat at least 3 meals a week.  She shared statistics about the kids being smarter, going to college, getting into less trouble and all kind of other benefits from face-to-face family time at the dinner table.  She shared a system to make cooking easy.  She said that many of the younger people don’t know how to cook.  You can find recipes and her theme way of planning meals at foodnanny.com.

Our food at lunch used Food Nanny Recipes and it was TASTY!  It was a fun morning, but it ran over a bit.  I was watching the time because my Seminary and Institute in service training was supposed to begin at 1… but the first shift didn't start eating lunch until nearly 12. (And the RS function was to be over by 12:30)  It did end close to 1 pm… so not as late as I’d feared.

I had been really disappointed in the attendance I’d had at my trainings.  So I sent a letter out after last month... when I had 5 people there (out of a possible 19).  So this month I had 13 of 19.  A much better percentage!  And it was a great meeting.

We have been talking about teaching not by talking and telling, but by listening and observing.  Bro. Lawson said if you want to listen and observe, you need to create a lesson plan that allows you to do that.  Then he offered 5 ways to make simple lesson plans that involve the students in thinking, discussing, and participating in the lesson—so the lesson goes in the direction needed by the students.

I thought I’d need to go to Springfield to visit with a student who is to create a video inviting other students to an Especially for Youth activity.  I ended up talking to the dad on the phone and not going up.  But I think we have a plan. I’d sent a script in the middle of the week and he liked the idea.  Now to see if it gets executed.

I waited in the Branson West building and did some computer work and took a nap.  Then I headed to Harrison to pick Tom up as he got a ride back from Oklahoma City.  He thought he’d be in by 9pm, but arrived by 10.  That’s okay. I had a book to read.

We got to bed after 12:30. Ugh.  Today was a good day at church.  I had no lesson to teach so I felt like I just glided through classes.  Bishop’s Youth Discussion was to be after church, so before church I made a peach cobbler to serve as refreshments.

This evening, I’ve made a few calls, wrote to grandchildren and missionaries, and now am doing the blog.

That's my week.

Flowers!

Yes!  It is spring.  In spite of a few days of chilly, near freezing weather, the trees have declared it spring.  Frothy green lace adorns the trees.  Black Jack Oaks look like bonsai trees with their angled limbs and puffs if green at the tips.  The redbud (which is really lavender) is blooming and the dogwood is uncurling from green to white.

My little phlox have created a blanket of pink while red and orange tulips poke through between them. And the flowering quince plant in the fountain garden makes me repent of my threat to pull it out if it didn’t do something.  It is covered in salmon blooms. 

 

And today it is 80 degrees.

Monday was Kera’s happy birthday.  I also got a job writing an eBook.  This goes with a pretty steady job writing two articles a week and one writing 4 emails promoting my language company.  I’m talking with a business in Canada about another B2B job.  So I’m keeping busy.

Tuesday was my clay day.  I had hoped to have some projects ready for display for our Stake RS activity on April 20^th.  They will be close… but likely not finished with the glaze firing.  Still. I had fun making them.  This time I threw pots.  Throwing is what you do on the wheel.  Building is when you don’t use the wheel, you roll and form.

I had much better success with my throwing this time.  You have to center the clay on the wheel or nothing else will turn out right.  If your bottom of your bowl is too thick or too thin, that doesn’t work either.   But I made three cute little pots. It was so much fun!

It seems like there’s wad of financial stuff on our plate.  We’re still trying to clear the title of the Minnesota property so it can be sold.  We’re looking into “infinite banking” a method of using life insurance to create your own bank where you can lend to yourself tax free and have insurance protection and create a stream of income for later in life.  This involves learning, and talking and filling out forms and figuring out how to fund it.  Mortgage rates are low so we’re working on refinancing at least one of our rental loans.  This comes with paper work, tax returns, balance sheets and so on.  This is also annual report season with its share of proxy voting.

Then, of course, once property sells, you have to look at reinvesting it.  We can buy a house or become private lenders and earn 10%/year. Or we can invest in a neem plantation in Brazil.  I’ve done some checking out, and it actually sounds like a pretty valid proposition.  Out of country gives some diversity from risks here.  Agriculture is steady and in demand.  The trees last for a hundred years and produce after the 3^rd year—oil is used in beauty products and as a natural pesticide and the cakes that remain after the oil is pressed is used for cattle feed and fertilizer. Returns grow to 42% after 6 years.  Anyone interested in joining me?  I think next time Steve goes to Brazil I’ll get him to look in person…. If he’s willing.  Or maybe I’ll fly down… and it’s a tax deduction.

Seminary is nearing graduation.  We’re working on getting teachers to trainings, finding out who is graduating, and getting the graduation set up. We need to look at teachers and see who might need to be changed out.

Friday I went visiting teaching.  Friday night we had a sweetheart dinner.  The young women put it on and they did a great job! It was a nice evening with a silent auction of deserts to raise money for girls’ camp.  We came home with lemon bars, no-bake cookies, and a strawberry cheese cake!  Oh, then we bought a leftover pan of lasagna.

Saturday Tom and I both headed to the yard.  We raked up old leaves and transplanted some groundcover and irises to the front entry beds.  We created a gate in the chicken tractor so the two ladies could have use of the chicken run. As they seemed disinclined to fly, we didn’t need to put the cover on the run just yet.  But we have the chicken wire to do so.  It was warm enough to open the little chick’s door to go outside, but the world was too scary.  Today I opened it again after church and a few brave chicks leaned out to nibble grass.

Saturday afternoon Tom went to church because the Youth were having their super Saturday activity at our ward building.  They had a carnival theme.  People brought popcorn machine, cotton candy machine, funnel cakes, and a variety of booths with games.  The kids had a good time, then cleaned it up and had a dance.

Today was a good fast and testimony meeting. Tom conducted.  Gee.  We sure have a cute bishop.  Our Relief Society lesson was #7—a great one on adversity.