A Day At Grandma's

 

A day with the grand kids

Paul had a scout camp out and Weed and Derek were moving, so the usual week end past time of hiking was not an option. Instead I had a grand kid day with the little Smiths. We had a lot of fun doing assorted things. We started our morning out with a little hike up the Red Hill and over and down to the pond to feed the quackers some breakfast...they were very hungry. The would take whole pieces of bread right out of your hand if you didn't watch them. In route we stopped at the little amphitheater where the girls performed a short number from Lion King and Tasia performed the ABC song for Grandma and Zade. After hiking back (knock knock jokes were performed at the amphitheater on the return trip) to the house we made owl cards and pasted bird feathers that we had collected at the pond on them to make them more realistic. Genghis thought they were pretty realistic and kept sniffing the feathers up. After that we got out some old jewelry that Grandma Poulsen gave me and dolled ourselves up...then we looked liked so much like princesses that we made a tent castle, with neighboring jewelry store, cafe, dog kennel and nursery and sold goods and ate pretend food. Pretty soon it was time to head outdoors again to our tree house palace with Genghis guarding the entrance along with Zadegator in the mote below (he was swinging). We got hungry soon and needed peanut butter and royal jelly sandwiches in the tree house palace. Zade fell asleep at his post while eating and went in for some Zzzz. The rest of us had a story break and then we got the mail and enjoyed looking through all the catalogs and eating princess sized apples. As we perused the catalogs we turned down page corners on all the pages that had something we needed or that someone we know needed. Almost every page had something. With that job finished we then visited Grandma's beauty parlor for pedicures and manicures. We looked so good afterwards that jubilation was in order and Zade couldn't sleep through it and woke up. We decided it was time to head for the Town Square water park to cool off in the Lazy River. Almost no one was there and we got wet all over and had a great time. Then mom called and we headed home to meet up with her. A snack of Marshmallow Mateys was consumed in the tree house palace while waiting for her to get back. It was a fun busy day. The only thing on our list that we didn't get done was to visit the pet store. We'll just have to get to that another day. (Paul had the camera on the camp out, so I just had to use the cell phone camera...sorry for the poor quality.)

Autumn leaves?

No, these are some forest fire baked aspen leaves.

Autumn's Aspens

While out hiking, that little Primary song, Falling Snow, just kept playing in my head and I kept trying to think of how to change it for this season. Here's my attempt at a re-write for autumn. (Don't laugh!)

Floating down, gently down,
See the swirling aspen leaves.

Shimmering, fluttering,
A glowing carpet 'neath the trees.

See each leaf brightly quaking,
On swaying boughs of white-barked trees.

Coral leaves, golden leaves,
Drifting softly on the breeze.

(The original song, Falling Snow, by Lois Lunt, has been shortened by quite a bit in the new Primary Children's Song Book. I like the older version in the older editions better.)

Hiking through the remnants of the forest fire.

 

Mill Flat trail...redone by forest fire...contrasts.

Paul and I hiked up to Anderson Valley on Saturday to see if we could get an old rusted crosscut saw blade he had seen up there to make a sign for the scout troop. We didn't know if it would still be there or if the whole area had been burned in the recent fires. We found out. Anderson Valley is still intact, cabin and all. You can see some fairly distant burns from there, but nothing close on the trail over to it from Mill Flat. The Mill flat trail is another story. It was a great day for hiking. Starting out from the trail head it had rained quite hard the night before and it was really nice and cool and not dusty like it usually is in that section. As we moved up, things looked really good with a few oak and aspen leaves starting to turn. There was actually still some water after you got up a ways. We noticed that the mud in the stream areas was very black from ash washed down from further up. About a quarter of a mile from the old mill site is where we began to see the burns. As we were crossing a little meadow we could see lots of mud washed across it and when we looked up the hill there was a big burn. The erosion problems are starting already. As we hiked further along the trail the burn areas increased with them coming down one side and going up the other in random places. Kind of strange how random it is. There were still lots of green spots. Lots of logs would have the centers burned out and just have a shell left. We even found one big aspen still burning. There were trees with sap just weeping all down them from getting so hot and kind of boiling over. In some ways, the fire seemed to have done what they want as in clearing out lots of underbrush and dead wood. The very worst place is just before you get to Mill Flat. It's totally burned up with even the foliage and weeds in the stream bed just gone. It's like a forest cemetery, totally black. We thought we might find the whole meadow and the big campsite at the top gone. It was so great to come out on the meadow and find it still there. Some of the grass had been burned off and a tree here and there, but thankfully nothing more. The electric fences are gone and some cattle were there eating things up. They will have to get that taken care of or they will over graze it. Hiking over to Anderson Valley was a green paradise after the other. We lunched on a summit and could see some of the burns over the New Harmony way. Coming back down was good with lots of clouds rolling in on the breeze and keeping it cool and thunder claps in the distance. We thought we might get rained on, but didn't. We were glad we hiked back down to the green and not the other way around. It was good leaving the blackness behind and coming back down to the green. We speculate that the trail up there will have some real erosion problems next year with the coming of the snow melt and rain washing off the denuded hillsides. Just glad that so much of it survived.

PS - I did my first tree carving. Can you believe I have never done it before? Another PS - We found the remains of an old dam on the way down. It's rocks all stacked up double sided across the stream. You can see where the stream broke through. We'd like to find out the history behind it.

Bean and Genghis moved downstairs.

I sure wanted to get out into the hills on Saturday, but instead pop and I did a job that needed to be done...we moved Bean and Genghis in downstairs. It's a much more comfortable room as far as staying warm or cool goes so they were all for it, but not here to help. That's not all bad. Too many opinions about how to get that dang bed out the door can be irritating. This job also included moving all of Supe's boxes up to Bean's old room...a very heavy task with all of his books. Why, I ask myself every time I move them, did I work so hard to instill a love of reading into my kids. Books are soooo heavy to move. Then we got Bean's old room set up so Paul can have a place to paint and leave things out until he has time to get back to them. It's also an extra sleeping place for company. It was a hard day's work, but we got it done by noon and then Paul went over to his mom's to watch BYU cream that other team and do home repairs for her. I was happy to have a catch up day to clean the house after being out of town so much. Bean had "the best date of his life" on Saturday afternoon (he worked all morning). A girl took him clothes shopping and he insisted she shop too so it was great because they just spent all afternoon trying things on and "checking each other out". She's one of his friend's sisters and volunteered to drive him and help him pick out some new, non grease stained clothes. What an angel! So, even though we didn't get to hike or camp, we had a great Saturday! (The room looks rather bland, but we didn't get any pictures hung. Bean will have to finish the decorating himself.)

Good times at Camp Zarahemla

 

Our Visit to Camp Zarahemla & Juge's B-day

It felt good to sleep in my own bed last night! We have covered many miles of road lately. It has all been good and the beds have been good, but, as they say, there's no place like home. Our latest miles were covered going up to visit my mom, Janet & Tony at their mission abode near Naches, Washington...Camp Zarahemla. What a beautiful place. It's in the middle of the forest near the foot of Mt. Rainier. The trees are huge, and rivers, lakes and streams are abundant. The lake at the camp, Clear Lake, is beautiful. We left Thursday morning and spent the night at Juge and Lance's in Bountiful. The next day we headed up to the camp. It was about a 12 hour drive. We got there in time for some dinner and visiting. All of Janet and Tony's kids and grand kids were there except Evan, Jenny and their new baby - Ella (I think). She just arrived a few days before and they weren't ready for a trip yet. There were 28 of us in all. We had a great time yakking, playing games, shooting guns and bows, canoing on the lake, walking in the forest and doing a little sight seeing. Paul and I had the lodge as our quarters. It was good to see mom doing her mission thing. She really seems to enjoy it and like always, she is very knowledgeable about the whole thing. She amazes me forever. We left very early Monday morning and drove to Juge's and got to help celebrate her birthday, a day early, with Jay and Brynn and Supe. Lance made a delicious birthday dinner. Then we left very early on Tuesday to come home in time for me to get to work. It was a great trip! The only thing that could made it better was more time. (Check way down below to see Juge & her birthday cake!)

Tavin, we are so proud of you!

Tavin was baptized on Saturday, September 5th.