Pet Birds

Well we never actually had pet birds, but there was one time that almost....
Brandon and I were playing outside in the spring and saw that there were two little chickadees or sparrows flying all around the yard. They weren't going far and never left the yard. The must have been twitterpated or nesting or something. Well, we decided to catch them. I'm sure that catching birds really isn't that easy, but these little birdees weren't leaving for some reason. We found some good ol' leather gloves- just in case and chased the little birds around. I don't remember it taking too long before we had caught one of them. We had a large bucket with a lid prepared for them with some sticks and hay in it. Then before long we had caught both of them. I'm really amazed still that we were able to catch birds. I know that the boys used to do that over at the Tarzan, but they were usually baby birds out of a nest right? So because we thought that Wes would think we were cool we took the birds in the bucket in his room to show him. Apparently it was very wrong of us to have caught these little birds and we were told we needed to release them right away. darn! so we took them back outside and sat them in the lilac bushes. They were too scared to fly away right away, but then they were able to enjoy their freedom, and probably moved their nest.

Miracles never cease

One time I was cutting hay over at Wilkinsons by Ernies pond. The drive chain on the swather kept coming off. It had done it probably a dozen times. When it would happen I would have to take a bunch of stuff off of it and put it back together. I even had Steve Winn come over and weld some things back together and make them tighter. It still didn't work. I was so frustrated. I was Bishop at the time and it was Saturday afternoon. I had to get done because we were in a dry time and it was supposed to rain the next weekend. I never farmed on Sunday except to milk the cows. So if I had to wait until Monday the hay wouldn't get dry. Finally it fell off again. After putting it back on I knelt down next to the swather and plead with Heavenly Father. I told him that I had done all that I could to fix the machine and that I needed his help to get this job done, that Sunday was coming and that I had many things that I had to do for him. I got back onto the machine and started cutting the hay. I finished the job and to this day that chain has not fallen off again. Heavenly Father is there and he loves us for the things that we do for him. Thanks again Cindi for teaching me to pray. Dad

Get back on

I remember another good farm story. It was right when I was starting to break Ginger. She was doing really well and I thought that she could be ridden by the kids. Nathan was out in the pasture with me and I was working with her. He said that he wanted to ride by himself. (He was only five). I told him that he could if he wouldn't let her run. He said okay and away they went to the bottom of the field. On the way back they trotted and he was having a really good time. He wanted to do it again. I said okay but don't let her get going too fast. This happened a couple of times. Finally, of course on the last trip, He let her go too fast and she started to run. He was hanging on pretty tight, soon he was off the seat and was hanging on to the saddle horn off the side of the horse. He hung on well until Ginger jumped the ditch and off he came. It sort of looked like a basketball rolling in the field. He didn't get hurt too bad. He didn't want to get back on the horse again for quite a while. Quite some time later a finally talked him into getting back on Ginger. I told him that if he didn't let her run he would be just fine. That was a dumb thing to say. Away they went across the yard and into the garden. There isn't anywhere else to go once you get into the garden so she had to stop. It was just a little too quickly and off he went into the tomatoe patch. He didn't get hurt, didn't ever want to ride again for a long time. Poor Nathan he didn't have too much luck. One time we went into the mountains on a scout camp to flash mirrors from one peak on the mountain to another. We used Cookie to carry the mirrors. She was really young and hadn't been ridden very much. On the way back to camp after the mirror activity Nathan wanted to ride Cookie so that he wouldn't have to walk so far. He got up onto the pack saddle and put his feet into the paniers with the mirrors. As we started away the mirrors started to raddle and make a lot of noise. The more noise they made the faster Cookier went. The mountain was really rocky. Pretty soon she started to buck. I prayed in my heart that he could hang on long enough to get to a soft spot. He did and then off he went, head first right into the dirt. No rocks thank heavens. When I got to him there was dirt stuck in his braces in his teeth. It looked sort of funny. He complained that his arm was hurting. We still had another day of the camp and it was too late to go home that night. He toughed it out during the night and the next day we went home. We took him to the emergency when we got home and sure enough his arm was broken. Scout camps never were very good on Nathans arms. I will alway enjoy the memories of that trip and the special time that I had with Nathan fishing and riding and just being together. Thank you Nathan for your special spirit I love you. Dad

The cat came back!

Another time that is very special to me. Cindi had a little cat that she loved very much. One day I walked up through the game farm to get the water from the canal. Cindi's cat followed me up there. On the way back Olsen's dog came running out and grabbed the cat and took off with it. I was in a hurray to get ready for the water that was on it's way so I didn't chase after the dog. That night I mentioned that Olsen's dog had gotten Cindi's cat. During prayers that night she prayed to Heavenly Father that he would bring her cat back. This was not going to be good I've never seen a reserected cat before. The next morning Cindi went out side and then came running right back in and excitedly exclaimed Heavenly Father brought my cat back and he even got the blood off of it! After that I knew that Cindi had more faith than I could ever have. Thanks again Cindi. I will always love your simple faith. Dad

Faith = Blessings

One of my favorite stories about the farm was one time our milk cow got really sick with milk fever. She was our very best cow and we depended on her for the milk, cheese and butter for our family. She was really easy to milk so mom would milk her while I did the other one which was really a jerk sometimes. Anyway she was really sick. We called the vet and he came quickly. He is a very good friend to our family. He checked her out and gave her some medicine. As he was leaving he told me that there was very little chance that she would survive the night. She couldn't even stand up. I walked into the house a few minutes later and was not just a little upset that we were loosing our very best cow. I mentioned to the family that she was really sick and that we were probably going to not have the cow in the morning. That night it was Cindi's turn to say prayer at family prayer. She was probably only three or four years old. During the prayer she asked Heavenly Father if he would make the cow better for us so that we could still get the milk from her. After she finished the prayer she said come on dad lets go see the cow. I was so afraid that when we got out there she would be dead that I didn't really want her to go with me. She insisted so out to the barn we went. To my great surprise and much greatfulness the cow was standing up feeding her calf. I learned that heavenly father listens and answere our prayers directly in proportion to our faith that he will. I am so greatful for the simple faith of a little girls prayer. Thank you Cindi. Dad

k now it's time some of you add to this blog that you said you would. i don't have any pics of back then on my computer so mom you could add some if you want. you can type your posts however you want. serious, funny, first person, third person, in great detail, or in one line like "remember when...". however. just do, it will be fun!

Once I gave Sugar a corn dog to eat. And she really did eat it.

Singing for the animals

I guess I really was a funny little kid. I used to love sitting on the fence by the corral under the lamp post and sing to the animals. I think I thought that of course they don't understand english, but maybe they will understand music. haha. I really thought they would like the singing and come stand by me and like me better...like have a better connection with me and be nice, haha. (i sorta remind myself of Amy. she likes to sing and sometimes you're not quite sure what about) I made up my songs usually. When one of the calves got hit by a car and was just standing in the driveway while we waited for some help, I sang to it to calm it down. haha. ya I'm funny. But I bet animals really do like singing. try it when you go hunting dad. :)

Prayer

I know Cindi has a cute story about prayer and faith, but I've got one too. :)

Remember that little red bike? Well by the time Brandon and I got to ride it, it wasn't in that good of shape i guess (if it was that old by the time we got to) anyway, the chain kept falling off this one day and I remember kneeling down on the grass by the driveway to pray that it would stay on for us. It kept falling off and I probably prayed a few more times. My prayer was never really answered that day. But I think I learned something from it, or at least realize that I could have learned something from it. I know Heavenly Father always hears our prayers, but he doesn't always answer them the way we want. You just need to trust in him and have faith that He does love us always, He just might have something else in mind or what we want might not be the best for us at the time.
Really it wasn't a big deal to me then that it didn't stay on and that my prayer wasn't "answered". I guess i just learned somewhere how to trust in the lord, have faith and keep moving on. It's a great thing to know.

A Mother's Day Surprise

When I was probably 10ish (I can't remember exactly how old I was) I decided I wanted to do something to suprise Mom for Mother's Day. And it was going to be so pretty. It was March and lovely weather and I knew for my plan I had to start early. So I went behind the short fence in the back yard and pulled some of the weeds (probably didn't do THAT good of a job) and then went inside to where Mom had her whole stash of seeds. She had a lot of pretty flower seeds, so I grabbed a bunch of my favorite ones and went back to my ready spot (it was also brilliant of me to plant the flowers there because it probably wouldn't get tilled up). So I planted a whole bunch of different flowers in this little spot so that hopefully by Mother's Day they would be grown and flowering already. So thoughtful hu? Well then it snowed some more and got cold again and the flowers never were. Hopefully I didn't make it a problem that I used all her flower seeds for when she was ready to plant them.

Cats

My parents didn't really like to have cats, but we often had one...or seven, to keep away the mice. Here are a few stories about cats that I remember from when I was younger.

We had one named Pipsqueak. I don't remember much about that one, but I like the name and I do remember it was yellow/orange. (my parents liked that color of cat best)

Once we had kittens at the same time we had our dog Freckles. Freckles stayed in the dog pen, but one day one of the little kittens decided to check out the pen. Freckles got to the kitty and luckily someone was nice enough to go get it away from the dog so that us little kids wouldn't be so mortified. We were playing on the swing set next to the dog pen. We saved the kitten and thought it would be safe up at the top of the slide with us. Then that same kitten only minutes later went down the slide and walked right into Freckles pen again. And that was the end.

We had a calico cat named Friskey. Brandon, Kim and I would build tree houses for it with boxes to keep it safe from Pete our dog. I think that is funny, because what cat needs a treehouse? It would probably just climb a tree to get away from the dog anyway without one. But we thought it was fun. I think this was Friskey...and if not it was Snickers, but one cat i remember had this big boil on it's back. It popped and looked soo gross.

I used to sneak our cat Snickers inside at night to sleep on my bed. It is never fun to have a cat sleep in your bed though. They purr like 10 times louder and you won't get any sleep. Well one time while Snickers was pregnant I thought I would invite/sneak her in to sleep comfortably on my bed. Well, in the middle of the night she went into labor. So I had to tell my mom that I brought her in and something was wrong with her. My mom just sent me in to sleep in Kim's room and put towells on the bed under that and let her have the babies on my bed. I was so surprised that she wasn't mad at me for having the cat inside. It was so fun to go in in the morning to see the little kittens and they even got to stay in the green house for several weeks.

One time we had kittens we tried making them little houses with boxes so that they would be safe at night. (we were so kind and thoughtful towards our little kitties :) Well I guess we left the kittens in a box too long (the mom could get in and out, but the kittens couldn't) and somehow they got maggots! sick! I had my friend Valeri over and she loved cats too, so we got the kittens out to play with and found the little holes all over the bodies. ew ew! it's so sad to think about. Well my dad must have loved us kids a lot, because instead of "getting rid" of the cats, he took them to the vet. He sent us home with the kittens and some kind of spray you put into the maggot holes and then, yep, my dad even squoze some of them out. ew gross! sometimes I will recogonize a certain smell that reminds me of that spray we had to use and makes me gag. I just remember feeling so bad that I probably caused them to get the maggots because I left them in the box. They all got better, but I don't know what happened to them after that.