County Competence?

Often I'm amazed at how much trouble the county goes to, to be helpful. Dad called the utilities to tell them we needed to have our electric and water lines marked before we sight a new shed and set up the rest of the irrigation system. They informed us that we must call the 800 number.

We hear the advertisements that say call before you dig. We did.

We have good records of where we put the stuff into the house when we built it. What we need to know is where those two lines go out to where the mobile home used to sit.

Dad explained several times to the nice woman that we only needed the water and electric and that we needed it behind the house. All utilities are included in the service she said and they are automatically notified. We were told to leave the gate open for them--so we did.

We drove into the yard just in time to see the phone guy marking the line up to our house phone. The water, electric and cable lines had been marked at the street, and boxes in front of the house and up to the house. Nothing beyond.

top - water meter in front now painted so you can see it better.
left- inside fence along driveway
right- phone and electric (also cable we don't use).

Gardening anyone ?

Gardening is beginning to consume our lives as always in the Spring. We are giving time and energy to something that usually ends up kind of hopeless in our climate and altitude. (see Hail and more Hail) We always have grand ideas about how it will work better this year, but it almost never does. Now you get to hear how we are going to make our gardening wonderful yet again!

First, we are moving most of the garden closer to the house. Now we can see it and watch for problems earlier in the process.

Old garden

New Garden (see frame for greenhouse)

Second , we will again be using grow boxes, but they will have a hardware cloth bottom down about 2 feet to keep out the gophers. (Who managed to eat EVERY SINGLE BEAN LAST YEAR)

Third, we drove to Albuquerque to buy truck loads of soil for our boxes. They say it meets soil tests and maybe that will give some of our things a chance at being healthy enough to resist some of the many bugs and diseases we have had.

Fourth, we have a makeshift greenhouse affair to protect those things like tomatoes that like to be warm and out of the worst of the wind.

These are the babies to go into the greenhouse

Fifth, I have bought yards and yards of bridal illusion to keep insects out from the other beds.

Sixth, Terry is working on a drip system, to deal with our dry, dry air and dry, dry, wind, so that maybe we can get enough water to everything even when we can’t be there.

Seventh, I will make an much better effort to really use our compost maker. I have a pile, but I haven't kept it wet or turned it.

There are a few bright spots. A few flower beds are starting to look happy with the warmer weather. We had a lot of winter kill, with the exceptional cold and dry, dry year. However, most things are recovering even if slowly.

This is my old rose that Br. Builta trimmed for me to get it under control. It is starting to look really good.



Here is a quick PS that I forgot to post about Dad's birthday. We did sing and light candles even if we didn't wrap the presents.

Birthdays etc.

April and May tend to be party time at our house and this was no exception.


I'm more than a little slow on the posting, but we did do birthdays. We actually had a little party for Grandma. Her birthday was April 8th, but we celebrated Sunday. The McLeans, the Carols, and the Packs came to dinner and we had Salmon, (a favorite of Grandma's) potato casserole, rolls, salads including jello, and birthday Apple Pie.

It was fun.

I couldn't find my camera in a hurry (and I never think ahead) so here is a quick phone picture.

Birthdays at 92 are pretty special!

The Carols arranged a Passover celebration at our house. We did it a few days early. It was wonderful. We even had a Jewish couple to see if we did it right. It was impressive, thought provoking, and faith building. I hope all of you get a chance to participate in a passover feast.

The next weekend Angela and I drove up to BYUI for school. We got to stay with Emily, and Melanie was there too! Alec and friend and Cora Pack joined us for dinner and frozen yogurt. It was great to see everyone, and Emily shared lots of seeds.

In Idaho Falls we picked up Bethanie and Natalie, delivered Angela to her apartment and started the unpacking and setting up. I got to stay with the Dietrichs Sat. night and Sunday. As usual I forgot my camera so here are phone pictures to prove that I saw them.


The kids were so fun. And, I even have artwork to hang on my fridge.



Bethanie and Andrew took me to catch the shuttle and then off to SLC and a flight home.

Terry's birthday was on his day off, so we did shopping for irrigation parts in Santa Fe. That evening we had a birthday dinner and pumpkin pie for dessert. We didn't even wrap his presents, but he seemed to have a good time. The only present he didn't know about didn't come until a week later.

My birthday always seems strange now without Melanie to celebrate together. Dad took the day off and we again went to Santa Fe for shopping eating out etc. That made it really nice for me.

Mothers day was good too. Dad even fixed the dinner all by himself. (Aaron didn't come to help him, so I was worried about that.) We had hamburger sliders that he grilled, with all the trimmings, and the traditional strawberries, angel food cake and whipped cream. He did a good job, and it was delicious.

We are still hoping that Aaron will come for his birthday so we can party again!

MOM