"This is the Place!"

Yes, this is the place....I think Brother Brigham didn't come quite far enough. After a long drive to this special place, I think I discovered Huckleberry Heaven. Yup! I need to go back soon. Candice and I left at 4:00 (I snuck out of work two hours early) and followed a co-worker up the hills. At first I was thinking "this isn't so fabulous" then I started wandering.....all I can say is WOW.





I wish you could see up close how many berries there were and how big they were. As I finish typing this I'm finishing up a warm huckleberry muffin...crumbs all over the keyboard, it's disgusting really, the smacking, licking sounds.......DELICIOUS!

Guess what I've been doing????

While I'm doing it I hate it, it's tiring work, exhausting work, messy work. BUT, when it's done, it's a beautiful thing.

I woke up this morning needing to can the beans that I picked yesterday. So I started boiling jars. Then after I got the beans in the pressure cooker, I decided to can the Christmas Pickles that have been sitting in brine for the past week and a half. Then I wondered how the cucumbers were doing out in the garden. Shouldn't have wondered. They are prolific! So I picked a sink full of cukes and then about 16 huge onions and brought them into the house and started washing and slicing. All the while I'm running up and down the stairs to the "canning" kitchen to keep stuff processing.

When it was all said and done, I have 13 1/2 pints of Christmas Pickles, 11 more pints of green beans, and 20 pints of bread and butter pickles. Ah, the sweet sound of the "ping" of a jar sealing.





Ya, I LOVE canning season!

Annual Block Party

The tradition lives on! Neighbor Norma informed people that this was the 20th year that we have been having a Block Party. It's been held the first Monday night after school starts. There were about 70 people in attendance.



We ate chicken, various salads, corn on the cob, real homemade rootbeer, and watermelon. We had a watermelon eating contest that lots of the kids got into. Made for some pretty dirty faces.



Candice eating watermelon is truly a nauseating site....and the sounds of the slurping.......makes ya wanna lose yer appetite. I'm so proud!

It was a great day to be able to slow down and visit with neighbors and enjoy each others company. Kind of sad to see the summer come to an end. Next thing you know, we'll be firing up the snow blowers. Ugh.

I'm ready to make salsa!

I spent last week canning green beans and making Christmas pickles. I got to enjoy a lot of time in my garden. I'm so amazed at how crazy it went! I'm now ready and anxious to make salsa.



My chili peppers are ready for salsa.....



My anneheim peppers are ready for salsa.....



My onions are ready for salsa....BUT




My tomatoes ate NOT ready for salsa!!! They are a long way from being ready for salsa. I don't know how long my poor little pepper plants can handle the load they are carrying. Hurry up tomatoes!

Uhmm....dood...

Sara is out of town and Krew and Nate came over for a visit. We were having corn on the cob and I tried to get Krew into the art of eating corn on the cob. He wasn't having any of that, but if I cut it off the cob he would eat it. I'll have to continue working with him on that one.



"uhmm....dood"

They only stayed for a little while, but it was fun. Krew is always ready to say cheese for the camera.



Eat your heart out Sara, I got a kiss!

I "knead" you

So I have two stupid cats. Seriously. The black one, I think it is named Baby...loves to get on my bed and knead and knead and purr. Obnoxious really. Especially when I'm trying to sleep. Irritating when those claws make contact with my flesh. Baby is really a stupid cat. I see no point in this activity. Kneading and kneading.....



Then I have Bean (yup, that's it's name) He's the watch kat. His favorite thing is to jump into the tree from the front steps and sharpen his claws. Scratching and sharpening, sharpening and scratching. I'm sure he thinks he's in the middle of a forest and he is a scary panther or something....scratching and clawing.



You can almost see the behavior of their ancestors in them. Survival skills, hunting the prey.



Kinda scary looking isn't he?



Wonder what they are thinking???? Probably something like...."I have such a stupid human"

WE GOT THE CALL!!!!!

Cameron finally got his call today! The mailman walked slowly on his route....like he has all day or something. We let Cameron go get the mail. He came back up the stairs with a big smile.



We encouraged him to wait until we could contact the family by phone....cell phones are a beautiful thing. So all of our cell phones had someone on the other end on speaker phone. Lynsey in Texas, Matt in Utah, Nate had Sara in Menan, Grandma and Grandpa in Blackfoot......................drumroll here.....



What excitement! A letter from the First Presidency! He slowly rips open the top and then..................



We now have a missionary! There were cheers and tears. We are so excited for all of us.

Anyway, thanks for guessing and supporting and being interested!

Oh, ya, I guess I should put where and when he's going.....

Little Rock Arkansas Mission and he'll leave November 19th! Elder Egan is on his way!
(I wonder if he'll have to learn a foreign language?)

The call that didn't come...yet

We thought Cameron would get his call today. We knew that it had been sent because the bishop told us that it had. So, we waited. I worked today but came home to wait for the mailman. Cam was trying to act all casual.


Ya know, acting like he's watching TV.


Even the cat was watching for the mailman.


But it was a false alarm.



Maybe tomorrow!

Interestingly enough, it was four years ago today that Nate returned from his mission in Tokyo.

Guess Where????

So Cameron should be getting his mission call soon, maybe even this week. I say we all take a guess where and when he'll go. Everybody in?

Add a comment to this post and put in your guesses. The winner gets a huge candy bar. Winner being if you don't guess the right mission, at least the closest continent and the closest month. How's that?

This includes Josh, Jaren, Justin, Jessica, Krew and Lexie!

I'm going to guess first so you can see what I mean.

I think Cam will go to Washington DC and will leave in the middle of November.

OK, now it's your turn.

A meal fit for a king....

OK, maybe not a king, but good enough for this homegirl! Today is the first "normal" day I've had in a week or so. No work and the house and laundry are caught up. I went out to the Garden of Egan to check out the crops. Well, there's stuff ready for pickin'! I picked enough green beans to can 9 pints with a little left over for me to nibble on today. Then I checked out the "field" of tomatoes (yes, 21 tomato plants could be defined as a field) and found 3 little ripe babies, so they were picked. Then I went over to the cucumbers and wow, there were lots of them as well. I picked about 16 cukes and started doing Christmas Pickles. This is a recipe that you have to pour boiling water on sliced cukes for 4 days, then you boil up a brine and pour over them for an additional 14 days. It's really quite a pain, but well worth it when you get to taste them. I call them Christmas pickles because they are colored with green food coloring and are so pretty, but also because it's about Christmas time that I finally allow anyone to start eating my home canned food. Until that time I just like looking at those jars gleaming on the shelves.

Anyway, I made myself up a plate of garden food today and feel the antioxidants raging through my soul. I planted, weeded and grew this stuff from a little seed, it's pretty awesome stuff.

So, maybe this picture or menu would never make it on the food channel, but I'm OK with that!

Nurse Batty

Yup, they are calling me nurse batty and those that I work with have taken to carrying wooden stakes and garlic around their necks. It isn't because I've been reading the last book in the Twighlight Series....even though I have been doing that....my neck still belongs to Howie, not Edward. Oh, sorry, I'm rambling. Back to the name calling.

Last week a patient came into the ER with a bat....the flying kind. He had been bitten the night before as he was trying to catch it (once again, my favorite saying comes to mind...."stupid hurts") So while I'm looking at this small little creature that this guy has brought into the ER I'm thinking..."a bat in the ER....my job is so strange"....sooooo, I call the animal control officer and he comes and gets the bat. We give the kid a tetanus shot and draw some blood for labs and say bye bye, we'll be in touch.

The animal control officer sends the bat to Boise to the state lab for testing. Six days later we get a phone call in the ER from the state epidemiologist. He informs us that the bat is rabid. Yup, that's right....RABID with a capital R. We are now to call the kid and get him back into the ER and start him on the rabies shots. Now most people I know don't like shots. It goes against the grain. Some people have an unrealistic fear of shots. Some people start to cry before the needle even pierces their flesh, just the sight reduces grown men to babbling babies. WAAAAAA. Not much sympathy from this girl.

So the kid comes back into the ER and is informed of the next steps he has to take. A series of rabies shots over the next several weeks. The worst of the shots to begin that day. I happened to be his nurse...again. So I spend a good hour getting the series of rabies serum from the pharmacy, drawing up all the syringes for this guy...seven to be exact and off I go. The kid is acting OK, he knows he needs to do this. One of the shots needs to be given into the wound site where he was bitten. His ring finger of his right hand. I suggest we do that one first cause it's going to hurt the worst. "Nah" he says, lets save that for last. "OK" I say, I'm just feeling bad for this poor wrench.

Shot #1 and #2 go into both his vastus lateralis (go look it up!) Shot #3 and #4 go into the each of the gluteus maximus (or would that be maximi?) Shot #5 and #6 go into another area of his gluteus maximus and #7 is for the wound site on his digit. Again, if you are confused by the latin anatomy....go look it up. He tolerates all six shots very well....better than most in fact. We both take a deep breath after that's all over, cause quite honestly it's really hard to inflict that much pain on one person. Regardless of how heartless I appear to be, this is hard for me.

Anyway, back to the last shot. I take his fourth finger of his right hand, look at him and ask if he's ready and stick the needle in. (about this place right here I'm imagining Matt has got to lay down....he's the biggest pansy when it comes to this kind of stuff....Lynsey and I have a blast with him.) The kid says he's doing OK, the needle is in and he's holding steady and I start to inject the serum. He reflexively jerks his finger away from the intense pain of the serum and in so doing hits my hand that's holding the needle and...you guessed it. Jabs it into my thumb! Yup! Now, I too have been infected with his potentially rabid blood and his "lifestyle" if ya know what I mean.

I calmly walk out of the room, pull off my glove and expose my very bloody thumb. "Hmm, that's not good".

To make a very long story ...less long. After a phone call to the state lab and them making a phone call to the CDC in Atlanta, they inform me that I too must now do the rabies series. YUP, me. To the tune of nearly $3000.00! Thank goodness for workwomans comp.

So on Thursday my dear nurse friend Paula stabbed me more times than I wanted to think about....crying baby that I am. And indeed, the worst shot was the one in my thumb.

So now you know why I'm being known as nurse batty. I've been tempted to brush my teeth at work and walk out with toothpaste slavered down to my chin. Would serve them right wouldn't it? One of the doctors made the statement that if I did get rabies, how would they know the difference???? Har Har! Don't mess with me or I may bite you!

Does life get better than this????

Huckleberries yesterday and two large ripe tomatoes today! Does life get better than this?


I don't think so.

Huckleberries at last!

The time that I wait for all year long finally is here....huckleberries! Is it because they are so tasty? Is it because they are rare? Is it because I get away into the forest? Maybe it's a combination of all of the above, but I love huckleberry season.
Tonight after a 12 hour day, we headed for the hills. Howie drives slower than me so it took 30 minutes to get there, but at last. He didn't search for any berries, he brought his laptop and got internet connection at the top of the hill we were on.....truly sacreligious....and he worked. I could have gotten more huckleberries if he would have helped pick, but sometimes you can't depend on the help.

Regardless of the lack of help from my better half, I had some quiet enjoyable moments among the bushes, let my head unravel a bit and really enjoyed the sounds of the forest, the smell of the earth, it was wonderful.

These are hands of a happy woman!

Relaxing Day

The man of the house got home late last night and all I can say about that is "it's about time". It was a long two weeks. Today was spent doing laundry, driving up in the hills a little bit a taking a few pictures. We were going to look to see how the huckleberries were doing, but got away too late and the sun was setting.

We did go out and check out the Garden of Egan. I think it must be on steroids. The green beans are totally out of control and I have cauliflower the size of a basketball. I should have taken pictures but I didn't. The tomato plants are VERY healthy and if all 21 of them (yes, I did say 21) start bearing fruit I'm going to be busy. We love salsa and spaghetti sauce, so I look forward to doing some canning.

On our little drive this evening I stopped and got a few pictures of the temple.
I'll see if I can post more later on. It was 3 years ago this month that there was a ground breaking ceremony on this site. It was not an advertised event, but over 8,000 people showed up in the hot August sun to watch and celebrate this awesome experience. It has been wonderful to watch the construction every step of the way and now to have it completed. We are blessed.