Mutton-Head Sort of Day

Bwahaha!

Yes, at this point it is a lamb sort of day. It is 73*. The windows are open and the sound of beagles baying is wafting in through them. (Which contributes to the mutton-head quality of the day!)

But already I see the forecasted storm clouds moving in. But seeing as how we've had six flawless spring days in a row I won't complain!

Anita's Big Adventure

You will remember that Anita came to live with us in December 2011. Anita is a Colorado Blue Spruce (called Fat Albert- which I thought was so rude because Anita is a girl and she's just fluffy!) The original plan was that she was going to be our Christmas tree (which she performed without a flaw) and then take the place of the dying flowering pear tree on the north side of the front yard... but the rub was that said flowering pear decided to live and thrive so Anita was out of luck!

I didn't know what to do. So for the next 15 months Anita lived-

• on the deck
• in the side yard on top of the peach tree stump
• on the front porch decorated as a Christmas tree 
• on the front porch as a naked tree (look out of the way)

But Anita needed a permanent home. And today she finally got one!

The first step was to move her from the front porch to the backyard. She is a little prickly (hey, people called her Fat Albert!) So I yoinked her off the porch into my wheelie-cart (which I'd love to get a twin for!) and wheeled her to her new PERMANENT HOME.

Since this is the first tree I've named I thought she needed a little bit of journaling... after I trimmed off some bottom branches she is 36" wide... (I love how the grass shadows highlight the appropriate number- a little serendipity there!)

And 45" tall. Anita you are so big! I think it will be fun to watch her grow over the coming years.

It was an absolutely perfect lambie March day... look at that sky!

And as long as I was in the backyard...

I decided to tidy up a different peach tree stump (I trimmed fruit trees this week). Sadly this is the second fruit tree I've lost to some kind of bore-beetle.

But because I'd been using all of my Grammie-arm-muscles (aka Relief Society arms) they were sore and weak. I couldn't put enough pressure on the saw to make much progress with my little chain saw. What to do? What to do?

I know!! Use my strong legs! That little saw just went through the rest of the stump like it was butter! There is just no substitute for strength!

Yay little-Joanie! Your short stocky legs paid off again! (Even if they are painfully white!)

Tender Mercies for Jude

"The Lord is good to all:
and his tender mercies are over all his works." Psalms 145:9

Our little Jude was born with a moderate VSD (a hole in his heart). His Hero Mama has worked tirelessly for the last 10 months to help him heal and be strong. I cannot say enough good things about Jessica! She is a wonderful, spiritually guided Mama. I always know that her choices are what is right for her and her family. There is such power in that for me. She has researched and implemented so many techniques and nutritional factors in this sweet little boy's life. She is such a dedicate and loving mother. There is NONE better!(period)

Part of that healing process involved open heart surgery this last Tuesday (as in three days ago). There have been much faith and many prayers offered up on Jude's behalf. There are people all over the world praying for this sweet little man: Hong Kong, Jerusalem, Arkansas, California and Illinois to name a few!

Here are Mama and Jude pre-surgery. Can you believe how tiny this little gown is? (all photos are from photo messages from Doug and Jessica) Oh, I do love that little face!

Jude's surgery went smoothly. This is the patching material used to close the hole in his heart. The surgeon said that the hole was about 3/8". I had to make that have relevance to my mind so I did some research. The human heart is about the size of that human's fist. So even though we think that 3/8" is small, compare that to the size of a golf ball!

This ubber-loved little boy is always so happy. This is Jude at less than 48 hours post surgery.

Now for the remainder of the abundant blessings from our Lord! The original projection was that Jude would be in the hospital for 4-6 days...  

Jude is coming home from the hospital TODAY! 

(Yes, that decision was made less than 72 hours after surgery!)

Truly The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his [children]!

Swine-Deer Repellant

Our first year in Springville (this is our 9th spring here), I was delighted to see beautiful tulips in my island planter! I was thrilled! I went out and took photos of them in the evening... AND IT'S A GOOD THING TOO!@$#

The next morning all of the tulip heads were pulled off! Having just moved from So CA I thought, "Punk neighbor kids!" WRONG!! Punk SWINE-DEER! That was the beginning of the battle over the tulips. I tried several repellants, including a very expensive one called Roe-pel! Yeah, they just thought it was a tasty salad dressing.

Our snow just melted this last week so I went out today to see if I had any tulips peaking up through the cold winter ground. I count myself lucky that this is the only clump that have been munched!

But those *svine-deer* (think Col Klink) ravaged my Hens and Chicks! PUNKS!

The good news is that a couple of years ago I found a dandy natural deer repellant AND I'm going to share it with you.

Swine-deer repellant
1/2 c milk
1 egg
1 tsp garlic
1 tsp Cayenne pepper
1-2 T dish soap
1-2 T oil

I whisk all of this together and put it in my watering can and fill it up with water (about 1 1/2 gallons) then sprinkle it on and around the plants I want them to leave alone. It has worked so far. You need to re-apply when it rains. The plants seem to like it too.

What a Difference Three Days Make!

I posted a couple of photos back (way back) on the first... I would never have guessed this much snow would be melted just 72 hours later!

I'm just grateful to see some grass... even if it is covered with deer poo!

3/6/13 Edit...
I'm just finishing up my blog book getting it ready to print and ran across this statement from November 10

"It started snowing yesterday morning and didn't stop for the next 24 hours! Those of you who know me will remember that-

I LOVE THE SNOW!

Yes, if there is still snow on the ground in March it might start to wear a little thin but particularly with the first big storm of the season-

I'M JUST LIKE A LITTLE KID!"

And amazingly I've only had one day of *I can't stand this snow any longer!*

Lion-Day

I've always liked to keep track of the *March comes in like a lion- out like a lamb* thing. But it has only been since I started keeping a blog that I've really been able to remember 31 days later what the 1st of March was like!

This year, 2013, is an OFFICIAL LION DAY! All you have to do is look at the sky! But then we can add insult to injury-

A view of the side of my house, looking north (with Maple Mt wreathed in clouds)...

And the front of my house, looking south...

See that berm of snow to the right of my mail box?  That is the pile 15' beyond the mailbox that ate Fernando!  AND IT IS STILL HERE!  We may still have snow in June! Not really, but sometimes it feels that way...

So what of previous years?

2009- Lamb all the way; 62 degrees!
2010- Lamb day as well; high in the 50s!
2011- Lamb day again! Sunny and warm.
2012- A Lion-sort of day! 3" of new snow on top of 12" ( we got most of last winter's snow in March! and we were glad of it.)

Mare's Tail

We had one of those warm winter days today (read- 40*, but it's amazing how warm that feels!) I went on a little walkie at about 4:30 this afternoon. It was one of those lovely windless days! I could feel the sun baking through my charcoal-colored pants... Ah, lovely sun!

I hadn't gone far before the glorious clouds claimed my attention. Mare's tails- I love them.

Not 20 paces further and I NEEDED to capture this tree, I think it is a catalpa tree, hoping for warmer days... just like me!

Cream of Asparagus Soup

I LOVE soup! Even in summer I can be tempted with a luscious bowl of tasty broth. Recently the Temple cafeteria served cream of asparagus soup- always right at the top of my list! My friend, Kaye, commented that she had a wonderful recipe for cream of asparagus soup which she brought to me the next week.

Yeah, that was the week before Spencer and family arrived and I put it in a nice safe place! HA! ) and now I couldn't find it! (My Mom used to say that!

Fortunately Kaye worked this extra President's Day Temple day (the Temple was open until 2pm for the holiday) so she gave me her phone number so I could get the recipe again.

I made it tonight for Stuart and I and it did NOT disappoint! (Gordon and green soup? Ermmm, not so much!) It was wonderfully yummy and it was lots better than the soup served at the Temple... Kaye was right.

Cream of Asparagus Soup

4 T butter
1 onion, chopped
1 lb asparagus, cut into 1” pieces
2 T flour
2 c chicken broth
2 c half and half
1/2 t salt
Pepper to taste

Cook onion in butter until tender, about 8 minutes. Stir in flour. Cook 2 minutes. Gradually stir in chicken broth and asparagus. Bring to a boil then simmer until asparagus is very tender, about 25 minutes. Puree mixture in the blender. Return to pan, add half and half, salt and pepper.  Heat to serving temperature.  Makes 6 servings.

Worthy Music- Inspiring Thoughts

I remember this wonderful life changing advice from Boyd K Packer delivered at General Conference October 1973.

(Let's put that into perspective- I'd just turned 21. I had 18 month old Tony and 1 month old Rebekah. we lived in the little house we rented from Norbergs across the street and up the hill from Cheney's Sawmill. Life was pretty good at that point!)

It wasn't long before some pretty heavy-duty trials appeared on the scene and I needed something, ANYTHING!, to help me try to stay afloat! I remembered Elder Packer's advice... it was such good commonsense advise; especially for me, who'd grown up singing around the piano with my sisters!

I have a vivid recollection of propping the hymnal up on the kitchen windowsill at our house in Baker Oregon singing "I Need the Every Hour" and washing dishes.

This wonderful inspired counsel has served me well for 40 years. I have a whole repertoire of hymns that "buoy me up and strengthen me". I am a hummer. And just as President Packer says, I find myself humming a hymn and then go into a rewind-mode and realize that a discouraging thought had tried to invade my peace and I cast it out with a song in my heart.

All of this has become relevant again to me: I have family members who struggle with difficult situations, and this week I am teaching my Sunday school class  How can I use Church music to learn about the plan of salvation?  



I have such a wonderful, abiding testimony that, indeed, Worthy Music can lift the suffering, sorrowing soul and replace it with the beautiful Light of Christ.

Text from Elder Packer's talk:

I had been told a hundred times or more as I grew up that thoughts must be controlled. But no one told me how.

I want to tell you young people about one way you can learn to control your thoughts, and it has to do with music.

The mind is like a stage. Except when we are asleep the curtain is always up. There is always some act being performed on that stage. It may be a comedy, a tragedy, interesting or dull, good or bad; but always there is some act playing on the stage of the mind.

Have you noticed that without any real intent on your part, in the middle of almost any performance, a shady little thought may creep in from the wings and attract your attention? These delinquent thoughts will try to upstage everybody.

If you permit them to go on, all thoughts of any virtue will leave the stage. You will be left, because you consented to it, to the influence of unrighteous thoughts.

If you yield to them, they will enact for you on the stage of your mind anything to the limits of your toleration. They may enact a theme of bitterness, jealousy, or hatred. It may be vulgar, immoral, even depraved.

When they have the stage, if you let them, they will devise the most clever persuasions to hold your attention. They can make it interesting all right, even convince you that it is innocent—for they are but thoughts.

What do you do at a time like that, when the stage of your mind is commandeered by the imps of unclean thinking?—whether they be the gray ones that seem almost clean or the filthy ones which leave no room for doubt.

If you can control your thoughts, you can overcome habits, even degrading personal habits. If you can learn to master them you will have a happy life.

This is what I would teach you. Choose from among the sacred music of the Church a favorite hymn, one with words that are uplifting and music that is reverent, one that makes you feel something akin to inspiration. Remember President Lee’s counsel; perhaps “I Am A Child of God” would do. Go over it in your mind carefully. Memorize it. Even though you have had no musical training, you can think through a hymn.

Now, use this hymn as the place for your thoughts to go. Make it your emergency channel. Whenever you find these shady actors have slipped from the sidelines of your thinking onto the stage of your mind, put on this record, as it were.

As the music begins and as the words form in your thoughts, the unworthy ones will slip shamefully away. It will change the whole mood on the stage of your mind. Because it is uplifting and clean, the baser thoughts will disappear. For while virtue, by choice, will not associate with filth, evil cannot tolerate the presence of light.

In due time you will find yourself, on occasion, humming the music inwardly. As you retrace your thoughts, you discover some influence from the world about you encouraged an unworthy thought to move on stage in your mind, and the music almost automatically began.

“Music,” said Gladstone, “is one of the most forceful instruments for governing the mind and spirit of man.”

I am so grateful for music that is worthy and uplifting and inspiring.

Snow Overcometh Fernando...

(This is a post that should have been written last month, but alas... you get it now instead!)

Fernando, our new/old truck, lives at the curb and in the snowy nether-reaches of Utah that can be perilous! When Gordon's Contour had to live at the curb we got a parking ticket because we left it, snowed in, for a couple of weeks. I didn't want to repeat that with Fernando so every time it snows I go clean off the snow and then drive him around a little, knocking down the snow so our local law enforcement can see that he hasn't just been abandoned at the curb.

That worked fairly well until this time about a month ago. I did my normal clean-off-the-windows with the snow brush, but since Fernando's wipers were old they didn't wipe too well. My normal routine is to drive back and forth through the parking spot, from both directions, to knock the snow down. On my third or fourth pass I decided to include the mailbox as well so the mail-lady could get to the mail box.

Ahhhh! It wasn't until too late, looking through a badly wiped windshield, that I saw I was headed for a HUGE berm of snow in front of Kidd's house. Well, no matter! I will just dig a little and back out...Famous last words!

I dug and rocked and salted, all in vain! This was on Friday afternoon. When Pam got home she said to Brad, "I see you missed the truck so much you bought it back!" I called and had to admit my silliness and told them we'd get Fernando moved on Monday. It took a tow-truck to pull Fernando out of this mess.

No wonder he wouldn't budge! He was totally high centered on ice and snow!

It was so bitterly cold that day; just standing on the sidewalk, all bundled up, I got chilled to the bone. It made me reflect on those pioneers from the Martin and Willie handcart companies who were stuck in similar circumstances! I don't know how any of them survived that harsh, bone-chilling cold!

On Thursday of that week (1/17) the sun came out bright and clear. Even though the temperature was still in the low teens the sun was a welcome relief. I went out and shoveled not one but two parking spots at the curb for Fernando and an extra space for company. It felt so good to be outside working!