Sealed on 26 June, 2004.
Congratulations, Smith family. Keep the clan strong.
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
There was a Lifeways Gala Event last night up at the Stokes cabin.
Holly, my sister-in-law, is running her summer primitive-skills program again. Every so often, she has an open house for her students and select members of the community (read: her family and friends.) Last night was one of those.
She has four interns right now. Two from the Northwest of the country, one from Syracuse, NY, and one from Switzerland. Very interesting individuals all, we enjoyed a skills presentation, pot-luck dinner with s'mores for dessert, and a bit of therapeutic drumming. A fine evening as a whole.
The main event, however, is usually the whole non-Utah crew's reaction and interaction with our crew of six. I know ours isn't by any means huge by the standards of thirty plus years ago in rural Utah or even rural America for that matter, but nowadays, people are simply amazed by our family. Especially if those being amazed are single twenty or thirty somethings out improving themselves and finding bliss or whatever they happen to questing after today.
The kids fell right in, asking questions and enrolling people to play hide and seek or "donkey doughnuts" (a story for another time, believe me), and having a great time with new and exciting people. They love to interact with people unworn by time and the wheel of active children, and it was fun to watch them play together. One can learn from children, both young and older, many things.
Holly, my sister-in-law, is running her summer primitive-skills program again. Every so often, she has an open house for her students and select members of the community (read: her family and friends.) Last night was one of those.
She has four interns right now. Two from the Northwest of the country, one from Syracuse, NY, and one from Switzerland. Very interesting individuals all, we enjoyed a skills presentation, pot-luck dinner with s'mores for dessert, and a bit of therapeutic drumming. A fine evening as a whole.
The main event, however, is usually the whole non-Utah crew's reaction and interaction with our crew of six. I know ours isn't by any means huge by the standards of thirty plus years ago in rural Utah or even rural America for that matter, but nowadays, people are simply amazed by our family. Especially if those being amazed are single twenty or thirty somethings out improving themselves and finding bliss or whatever they happen to questing after today.
The kids fell right in, asking questions and enrolling people to play hide and seek or "donkey doughnuts" (a story for another time, believe me), and having a great time with new and exciting people. They love to interact with people unworn by time and the wheel of active children, and it was fun to watch them play together. One can learn from children, both young and older, many things.
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
Over the weekend, we trapped an unintended guest.
I have a live trap set up out in our field to catch stray cats so I can set them loose farther out in the country after getting them spayed or neutered. We have a bunch of aggressive toms beating up on our little male cat.
The kids came running up to the truck as I pulled in after getting the mail on Saturday, "Daddy, Daddy! Go check the trap!" They were far too excited for something so mundane as an old cat, so I was prepared for anything from a raccoon to a small child. Unfortunately, I was wrong on both counts.
Sneaking up on the wire cage, I saw the telltale black and white scheme. How was I going to release this pungent, angry, and generally nerved up skunk? Thinking and furrowing my own nervous brow, I angled toward the woodpile.
Two viable, though not ideal choices were all I found. A couple of sheets of plywood, one only a foot and a half wide by four feet and the other almost whole were what I could choose from as a shield and protection from certain sprayage. Choosing economy and totability over complete safety, I picked up the smaller of the two and walked to within ten feet of the little beady-eyed LePeuian.
The next ten feet were traversed with great care over the space of the next four or five minutes so as not to surprise the skunk. Finally, after getting the board just a few inches away from the release mechanism, I carefully and very slowly twisted and pulled the pin out from the door. To my horror, the door began to fall free, and knowing that the board wasn't far enough away to let it fall into the grass, I braced for the inevitable clunk of metal against wood. Unfortunately, the skunk wasn't prepared for that 'clunk.'
luckily for me, his first salvo was a warning spurt directed in the direction of the noise, at the bottom of my little shield. Only my hand was affected, though quite affected it was.
I backed away with even more care than I approached with, tossing my envenomed shield to the ground when I was far enough away to do so safely.
The little guy was not going anywhere while my brood and I were about, so he just sat and bided his time where he felt most comfortable.
The inevitable happened only an hour or so later, with Hyrum and Tor unable to resist the temptation of throwing Legos and sticks at the little creature to "get him to get out." Hy took a direct hit to the neck and side of the head. He wasn't happy, and neither was Mom or Dad. The rest of the family was delighted with the adventure and scientific spirit of it all, the skunk had sprayed again, this time with a much more exciting result!
We bathed Hyrum in a storage bin with Lemon Fresh Joy, (with very little effect, I hasten to report) followed by a few rinses of tomato sauce and water to cut the stench, through a sort of folksy chemical reaction. The sauce worked, he only smelled awful if one came within a foot or so. That was more or less acceptable to Hy and the family.
Mr. Skunk hung around for most of the day, although the kids left him well enough alone after Hyrum's troubling experiment. He enjoyed the free lodging until sometime around nightfall, when unobserved, he must have waddled off to his home, probably down by the creek on the next block.
I have a live trap set up out in our field to catch stray cats so I can set them loose farther out in the country after getting them spayed or neutered. We have a bunch of aggressive toms beating up on our little male cat.
The kids came running up to the truck as I pulled in after getting the mail on Saturday, "Daddy, Daddy! Go check the trap!" They were far too excited for something so mundane as an old cat, so I was prepared for anything from a raccoon to a small child. Unfortunately, I was wrong on both counts.
Sneaking up on the wire cage, I saw the telltale black and white scheme. How was I going to release this pungent, angry, and generally nerved up skunk? Thinking and furrowing my own nervous brow, I angled toward the woodpile.
Two viable, though not ideal choices were all I found. A couple of sheets of plywood, one only a foot and a half wide by four feet and the other almost whole were what I could choose from as a shield and protection from certain sprayage. Choosing economy and totability over complete safety, I picked up the smaller of the two and walked to within ten feet of the little beady-eyed LePeuian.
The next ten feet were traversed with great care over the space of the next four or five minutes so as not to surprise the skunk. Finally, after getting the board just a few inches away from the release mechanism, I carefully and very slowly twisted and pulled the pin out from the door. To my horror, the door began to fall free, and knowing that the board wasn't far enough away to let it fall into the grass, I braced for the inevitable clunk of metal against wood. Unfortunately, the skunk wasn't prepared for that 'clunk.'
luckily for me, his first salvo was a warning spurt directed in the direction of the noise, at the bottom of my little shield. Only my hand was affected, though quite affected it was.
I backed away with even more care than I approached with, tossing my envenomed shield to the ground when I was far enough away to do so safely.
The little guy was not going anywhere while my brood and I were about, so he just sat and bided his time where he felt most comfortable.
The inevitable happened only an hour or so later, with Hyrum and Tor unable to resist the temptation of throwing Legos and sticks at the little creature to "get him to get out." Hy took a direct hit to the neck and side of the head. He wasn't happy, and neither was Mom or Dad. The rest of the family was delighted with the adventure and scientific spirit of it all, the skunk had sprayed again, this time with a much more exciting result!
We bathed Hyrum in a storage bin with Lemon Fresh Joy, (with very little effect, I hasten to report) followed by a few rinses of tomato sauce and water to cut the stench, through a sort of folksy chemical reaction. The sauce worked, he only smelled awful if one came within a foot or so. That was more or less acceptable to Hy and the family.
Mr. Skunk hung around for most of the day, although the kids left him well enough alone after Hyrum's troubling experiment. He enjoyed the free lodging until sometime around nightfall, when unobserved, he must have waddled off to his home, probably down by the creek on the next block.
Summer is a strange beast for schoolteachers.
There is a buildup of tension and expectation leading up to the last days of school, but for me, there is a wad of frustration just the other side of Memorial Day.
There is so much to do, so much that I need to get done; I only get a small portion of the needful things done and a smaller fraction of the things I want to do put on the 'completed' list by the end.
I've gotten a few things out of the way already, but the money factor is a huge problem. There is not enough of it to spread over the list of things that are really necessary, let alone on a trip to the ocean that I sorely wish we could take. I haven't been to a beach in eleven years. It probably wasn't a good idea to introduce me to the sea when I was a child, I spent too much formative time there years ago. Deep inside, I think there is a part of me that feels cheated by the long absence of the ocean from my soul.
So summer thrums by for me, summer school follows a week or so of vacation closely shadowed again by another teaching stint, and I get very little done besides laundry and children discipline. The Notch Peak trip will survive a long time in my memory, especially since it was the first time I was able to take one of my kids, but there is a part of me that seeks for more. More adventure, more questing, and more big water.
Gratitude for what has already been received is easy to talk about, but a bit harder to work into my schedule of things to do. But I'll keep working on it.
There is a buildup of tension and expectation leading up to the last days of school, but for me, there is a wad of frustration just the other side of Memorial Day.
There is so much to do, so much that I need to get done; I only get a small portion of the needful things done and a smaller fraction of the things I want to do put on the 'completed' list by the end.
I've gotten a few things out of the way already, but the money factor is a huge problem. There is not enough of it to spread over the list of things that are really necessary, let alone on a trip to the ocean that I sorely wish we could take. I haven't been to a beach in eleven years. It probably wasn't a good idea to introduce me to the sea when I was a child, I spent too much formative time there years ago. Deep inside, I think there is a part of me that feels cheated by the long absence of the ocean from my soul.
So summer thrums by for me, summer school follows a week or so of vacation closely shadowed again by another teaching stint, and I get very little done besides laundry and children discipline. The Notch Peak trip will survive a long time in my memory, especially since it was the first time I was able to take one of my kids, but there is a part of me that seeks for more. More adventure, more questing, and more big water.
Gratitude for what has already been received is easy to talk about, but a bit harder to work into my schedule of things to do. But I'll keep working on it.
Monday, June 28, 2004
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
We had our last day of the June session of summer school today. Our destinations were a marble quarry in the foothills below Mt. Nebo and Maple Canyon on the west side of our little valley. The kids loved breaking up rocks for a half an hour or so, and even enjoyed picking up Mormon Crickets for a local angler in a field east of the canyon. Well, some enjoyed it.
The biggest problem I had was driving the district's 2004 Suburban around all day. That is the way to go, I'm here to tell you. Much better than a tired out old '89 former service vehicle with various panels and parts from junkyards all over central Utah. Now if all six or seven of you loyal readers of this silly blog would contribute a trifling five k to my 2004 3/4 ton Suburban fund, I think we'll be able to afford one soon!
Kinda obnoxious, no?
Our old S'burb will do just fine, I'm sure.
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
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