May 30, 2014

We fixed a lunch for the Cowboys on Tuesday, this is Jeff helping

get the food together.  We fed about 25 of the Ranch employees.

This is one of our projects this week.  We painted 98 fence post.

We use them to mark the trails.

We had them lined up everywhere while they were drying.

The little white truck is one of two trucks like this.

We call them "Chip" and "Dale".  They are funny trucks. 

The drivers sits on the right side to drive.

We went out this afternoon with our new posts and marked a

new trail they have been developing.  It is trail #28.

We had to put in culverts to make places to pass over.

This would be Jeff supervising.

First trip over the new path.

What beautiful country this is.  Just picture 25 handcarts working their

way up this trail.  I can't wait to see it for myself.

Wildlife on the Ranch

We went out for a walk tonight and came upon a skunk.

We were on the opposite sides of the water, we were

trying out our new walkie talkies and I spotted the skunk in front of us.

I told Jeff where it was and of course Jeff heads right for it.

The closer Jeff got the more I stayed put.

 Eventually the

skunk ignored Jeff and then Jeff ignored the skunk.

Then I decided I could walk by it also, when the skunk spotted

me it turned and ran away from me.  I guess I look scarier

than Jeff to a skunk.

As we continued on our walk we came to the "wild" sheep.

It is a ram that was left behind by a sheep herd last year.  It

was at the ranch when they left last fall.  It has it's tail so they

know it is the same one.  He lived here all winter and is still here.

He loves to chase people off.  We have a Sister here who

won't walk up in this area because she is afraid of him.

He looks fat and healthy, if fact, he is really large.  We tried

to chase him off our path and he wasn't sure he was

going to let us by. He had the deepest baaa ever.

Jeff had his pellet gun with him but the ram was not fooled.

He knew it was a fake gun.  Eventually Jeff won and he ran

off up the hill.  We did watch our backs, I remember the

ram who loved to sneek up behind me and butt me.

So, as you can see, we are truly living a wild, exciting life in the

plains of Wyoming/Utah.

May 23, 2014

Here I am trying to get granola from under the seat.  Trying to get 

clear in there is hard, I think I am still stuck in there.  It is hard

type in the dark.  

Here is a post that we were marking for the trails.  When all

the meadows look the same those posts make me feel secure.

This spot is called 4 way gate.  There are four gates that meet 

together at one point.  We were pounding in  a post and when

we got done Jeff said, "Where are my tools?"  We look over

and he had left them on the post on the OTHER SIDE OF

THE GATES!  Undoing the gates is a major ordeal so we

decided it would be quicker if I just crawled under the gate.

So I did!  Funny thing, I was getting ready to roll under the next 

gate when Jeff said, "Why don't you just walk over to the post

and reach the tools.  I was going to go under two gates, I am

so glad Jeff didn't decide to teach me a lesson just then and

spared me the task of rolling again and extra two times.  I 

guess he does love me, right?

This is the post hole pounder and Yes, I am pounding the post.  Lucky for

me the ground is soft from all the snow and rain.

These are the walkie talkies we purchased with our garbage pick

up money.  We only had to add ten dollars to the tab.  Jeff thinks

we should go out again to see how much more we can find.

Needless to say, we have quite a reputation in the garbage

collection world.

This is a hand washing unit Jeff put together.  We were

given the idea from a trek group that is coming this summer.

Bryan Booth sent us a picture of the unit and we

got the parts in Ogden yesterday.  

It has a boat pump that pulls the water from one bucket and

comes out the spout on the bucket.  We figure it is a 

fun way to wash your hands in the field.  We are excited

to let the Greene's try it out.  One good thing if you aren't

pumping it isn't running water.

May 20, 2014

We had a good time on Monday this week, that would be our Pday.  We

went in to Evanston and the weather was fair, not snowing and raining, but 

the wind was still out playing.  Jeff and his favorite companion went

golfing at the Purple Sage Golf Course.  It was really nice and to

use it to our best advantage we walked the whole 18 holes.

One the first 9 Jeff was his own caddy.  There were several hills that we

called Women's Pulls.  They were pretty steep.

On the back 9 he was tired so I became the caddy.  Walking the course

without the clubs was a lot nicer and easier.  But, you have to admit

I look great pulling up the hill with my "Cart" behind me.

We had fun and Jeff was happy with his score.  He hasn't played for over

a month so his goal was to shoot under 90!  He shot WAY UNDER that so

he felt good.  It was nice to get away.  But, don't look, you

see I wasn't in my dress.  There was no way I was going to walk

the golf course in my dress.  Don't tell the Pratt's!  Actually, they

wouldn't care either.  

We went riding a trail today and Jeff got looking around for stuff on

the ground and wasn't looking where he was going and met head on

with a service berry bush. 

As you can see the bush won!  Everyone had a good time

teasing him about his injury and the need to find 

animal skin to make thread to stitch him up!  Lots of great advice!

We are working with a bunch of crazy people, yep,

people just like us.  Crazy enough to spend the summer

with a bunch of people hiking in dirt, covered in ticks

and loving every minute.

All those rainy cold days spent inside were not wasted.  We have made

19 quilts to give away.  We are giving 16 of them to the Women's

crisis center in Evanston.  Three of them are going to some special

people who have helped the work and the D.L.& L.

We took pictures today of the quilts because we were delivering them.

Most of them are small baby size quilts.  Some are larger.

We had a ton a fabric donated by a former trekker who came to

do a fireside for us.  Some of them had been started last

year but never finished.  We had fun doing them on those

cold, Yucky days.  

 I have to admit, I am glad to be done with them and outside riding the

trails.  I actually feel like I could find my own way without being lost,

well mostly.  There is one place I can't seem to remember, it is a camp

called PM camp and for the life of me I never recognize it when we

get there.  I told Jeff today, we need to make sure I'm not

out in front when we go into that camp or we will never get there!

This is Sister Pratt's Old sewing machine  I'm not sure if I posted

a picture of this before, but it is so cute I added it again.  It

was made during World War 2.  She did most of the sewing

on it.  What a fun thing to watch.

May 19 ,2014

Jeff found these last night when he went riding with Elder Kennedy

But this is the true find.  These are old shearing shears he found over

in an area called the Dairy Bowl.  These have to be over

50 years old because they have been using electric shears for a long time.

Now that is a keepsake item for sure.

May 18, 2014

Well, we have been here four weeks today.  We came on a Monday this is Sunday,

so by Seinfeld time we are halfway done.  Riding out on the

trails is great.  I love that part.  Last Friday and Saturday we had

three route reviews to do.  We were pretty nervous about them.  Kinda

scary for the Stakes also, just imagine coming with all kinds of questions

and your missionary couple don't know any of the answers.  We did

try to reassure them that by the time they came we would be

experienced or fired, either way it was good for them.

This is Us just after we finished our first review on Friday.  Sis Shields

took the  picture.  She and her husband were with us for support

on that first one.  It was the Holiday North Stake, the group

that Eric and Maylene White are part of.  They were so fun to be with, 

no, Eric and Maylene were not with them.  We look forward 

to being on their trek.  How prepared were they?  They even have

an equipment coordinator.

On our route review Jeff found a old "Barlow" brand pocketknife

buried in the dirt.  He was pretty excited about that.  Later that night

he found a old shot gun shell also.  He found it on this hill.

He is up above a part of the trail, a woman's pull part.  The

woman's pull is called Kristy's Kid Killer!   How funny,

Kristy Huff is the one who started the treks here years ago and the

pull is named for her.  Our group wanted to walk it so I did it

with them.  Jeff took their truck on up to the top and waited for

us on the hill over looking the trail.  He looked like a sentinel

up on the hill.

On Saturday afternoon after we were finished Jeff and I headed off

to the Wahsatch Exit to clean up the trash.  WOW, what a mess it was.  No

one else would go with us, it was because of the large numbers of

urine bottles that were piled up!!!!  Gross.

We had six large orange bags we had begged off of the Evanston 6th ward

earlier this week.  We didn't have enough.  We will have to go

back to do 3 sections of the 8 sections there.  Does that make sense?

This would be the $55.00 dollars we, or I should say, I found while cleaning

up the gross garbage.  Wow, it pays to pick up, I've been telling all of you that

for many years.  Well, today it paid off.  I did have to soak it in soap and water

and then after it dried we put it in a ziplock bag.  When we spend

it we'll have to warn them where it came from, or not.  We figure we 

are going to buy some better walkie talkies with the money.   Maybe

next time we'll find more, or just dirty bottles instead.

This mess is our dinner on the floor.  I was reheating some dressing and

potatoes in the microwave.  I had it in a cheap dollar store bowl, when

I pulled it out the bowl kinda folded in the middle and the

entire contents spilled out on the floor and

all over the top of the stove.  Not so good, really messy.  We did

eat the part on the stove but we left the mess of the floor.  No eating that.

A side note, on Friday night I found my first tick, it was in my hair

on the back of my neck.  And yesterday Jeff had one on the 

back of his knee.  We search our bodies every night, and scrub in

the shower.  We heard some bad news though.  They said the ticks

survive being washed  in the washing machine and dried in the dryer.

We are all teasing, laughing and itching thinking about ticks.  So that

is why we never eat anything on the floor, it could be a TICK.

Saturday evening we went for a ride on our razor and drove by this

little fellow.  He ran from us and down the hole he went head first. 

He spun around and up came his head.  We turned off the bike 

and just sat there.  He pretty soon peeked out at us.  He looked

so cute and eventually he rested his chin on the dirt.  We saw a 

total of 5 badgers Friday and Saturday.  This night we also

saw lots of mule deer, bucks and doe's and even two elk, a 

cow and a bull.  We came upon several moose tracks, but never

found any.  That is our goal is to see some of the moose they have here.

This is Jeff standing out on a ledge of snow, yes I was saying,

"Get back off the edge, if it goes you are going to

be at the bottom of this ridge."  We had a great time.

What a beautiful place this is but again, the wind is howling at us

today and so we think we should invest in Kites!

So here would be Sister and Elder Cowan at the

Deseret Land & Livestock Ranch, living the life.

May 14, 2014

This is our view as we go into town or return, we are always 

waiting for the trains.  Sometimes they are stopped sitting on

the tracks, we wait about 15 minutes sometimes.

This is Jeff loving our mission!
Today we got to ride the new Rangers, can I tell you how smooth
the ride is!  They are four seaters so that is fun.  We got to drive.
We actually saw SUN all day.

Mother's Day May 11, 2014

Happy Mothers Day to all Mothers everywhere, actually

all women everywhere, we are all mothers.

We woke up to WIND and SNOW.  At church today

a man told us a few years ago they had 11 inches of snow

on June 17th!  Please don't let that be us.  We 

want to reenact the handcart treks but that is

to realistic for me!

We came home from Church and enjoyed a dinner

together at the Depot.  All the Elders did the cooking for the

meal.  It was really good.  Sister Pratt thinks we should

do that every Sunday or at least once a month.

The best was watching them do the dishes.  We sisters

all left the Depot and headed back to our trailers so they could

work by themselves.  Mostly, we left because it was cold

and we all knew our trailers were warmer.

The pies we ate were given to us by a trek group that is coming

for trek this summer.  They rented six carts on Thursday to use for

a training on Saturday.  When they came on Thursday they brought us

three pies!  Wow, were we impressed.  On Saturday when they

returned the carts they brought three more pies. Right now

they are the favorite Stake.

On Saturday they also brought a flat of flowers for the Sisters

for Mother's Day.  We think they win the award for

demonstrating the principle of "How to win friends and

Influence Enemies"

Remember the Steers that moved in on Friday right next to us,

well Saturday morning they all left!  I guess they didn't like the 

neighborhood.  Actually, I found out, we were just a over

night pit stop.  They were going further and just stopped to 

feed them part of the way there.  I kinda felt bad to see them

leave.  I know, that sounds weird but there aren't a lot of 

people around here and you have to find new friends

where you can.

There would be our new wooden steps.  The Elders spent Saturday

building steps for each of the couples who don't already have them.

This might not look like much, but they are so much nicer

to walk on and lots more sturdy.

This is Jeff going up them first.  I would rotate the picture but

can't find the right place to do so.  The solution is for all of you

to rotate so you can see the picture right.  

Church was kinda sad today.  I was missing my Primary class today,

actually, I miss them every week.  But, today, they had their

primary sing three songs for Mother's day.  That made me

cry and then last night we went to dinner to a place called

Taggerts, it was really good.  The thing is there were lots of

families there celebrating Mother's day and so there were

lots of little kids running around and it made me really miss

my little kids!  I miss their busy bodies and great laughs,

their cute faces and especially their hugs.  We love you all lots 

and send you our hugs and kisses!