Christmas 2008

Christmas 2008, what an event to remember: getting Christmas trees, putting up the Christmas trees, having everyone home for the Christmas Eve bash, and best of all playing with my favorite granddaughter, I can say that and actually get away with it because she is the only granddaughter I have. My Christmas spirit usually takes a while to wind up due to the hassle coinciding with the blessed event, but this year it seamed I was able to have a child like anticipation for the event. That has not happened for a long time.

A few minor words about the tree. It is customary for our family to travel to the mountains after Thanksgiving and cut our tree and this year was no exception. With permit in hand, we traveled up the Wasatch Plateau looking for the perfect tree. Usually because of snow fall we are limited to where we can get a good tree. This year the snow was late and we were able to get higher in the mountains and look over trees that usually are not accessible to our saw. We found one and brought it home to decorate it.

Our new addition has never had a tree in it so we figured a taller one could be place along the wall that separates the kitchen/dining room from the office, this location is just under the apex of our ceiling. What a gorgeous tree! The tree once decorated decided it did not like our old decorations and just as Lorie was leaving to visit with her Visiting Teachers the tree fell over breaking several of her ornaments from past Christmases. We could not get the tree to stand up so we tied it to the wall with 30 lb fishing line, and there it stayed until we took it down after New Years.

The Christmas Eve Bash is a family tradition: the party starts at 4:00 or 5:00 and if you can make it you come and feast and play games and if you can't make it, no hard feelings and we will see you next year. This year was special because Brooklyn was coming over and she is 2 and 4 months, the perfect age for Christmas. She loved to play on our stairs and have grandpa or aunts chase her - man can she fly down those stairs - it was the funniest thing I ever have seen. She would run around our couch fall down on the stair landing, then rollover on her tummy and slide feet first down the stairs. It was incredible how fast she would go.

Traditional food for the Christmas Eve Bash is something exotic that we either never have eaten or that we seldom eat, so the feast is mostly a treat. This year we had homemade rum cake, homemade fruit cake - I am the only one who appreciates a good fruit cake, oh well more for me - two different salsas, a black bean salsa and some cowboy caviar which was a delicious mix of peppers and black eyed peas. From the moment we start the bash we are playing silly games. One of the most popular is the Hat Game. This game is played with everyone wearing a Santa hat. One person is it (I usually start the game since I am the chosen one) and that person removes his hat when no one is looking and the last one to take off their hat is the looser and they then start the game. This game is played continuously through the night as other games are being played.

We were truly blessed to have had such a wonderful Christmas Eve Bash. Even though we were having such a wonderful time, we do remember the reason for the season and having family together during the holidays accentuates the birth of the Saviour and reason he was born and mission he would fulfill.

Ahhh @#$%T Moment

This is not a normal event in my life, however, it does happen a lot and I often find myself in a precarious situation, especially when I am driving to a work location during or after a storm. These pics would be better if they were bigger.

I was lucky enough to spend Thanksgiving day at home and eat turkey and pie mmmm -- this never happens when the rig is drilling, but we were waiting on cement and I headed for home. It rained the evening before and continued to rain during the day, so I knew it would be a challenge to get back to the rig. The road is carved through a clay formation (Colton or Wasatch Formation) with an occasional sandstone bed here or there that doesn't make the clay any less slick when wet. I got called out and left home at 6:00 am Friday morning and didn't think about getting any chains.

I was able to negotiate three quarters of the road in four-wheel- high, as always though, four wheel drive can get you into more trouble than two wheel drive. The only other choice would have been four low, but that would be too much power and gotten me no where. I didn’t want to get out and walk to the rig. I had too much stuff to carry. On past the drill camp -- a flat place where trailers were housing drill crews, air jammer crews, and the mud man -- I drove and I didn’t see the GMC Yukon partially blocking the road until it was too late. So seeing that there was a narrow path around the Yukon, I kept going hoping to ease around this object. Slip sliding along from one side of the road to the other, fish-tailing driving diagonally up the road, I tried to stay in the middle between the Yukon and the ditch. I didn’t want to end up in the right side ditch tagging the boulder along the side of the road. Been there, done that, and I have the rights to the tee shirt. I also did not want to tag the Yukon that would make a bad situation worse.

The boulder is in front of the suburban, you can’t see it but is along the side of the road and half as large as the suburban. Maybe it is green vehicles, but the Ford pickup became bruised and paint was left on the right side of the Wild Cat road above Emery during a fall storm. You can see that there is three inches of mud on the road and it was just like driving on ice.

As I started going around the Yukon, I powered out and started sliding down hill to the left toward the Yukon. Luckily, I was able to stop just inches from scraping his back fender and bumper with my front bumper. I was through! I couldn’t go forward or backward with out clipping the Yukon or sliding off down the canyon. As you will see in the picture below, there is probably two feet at the most from the rear left tire to the edge of the road; because of my position on the road and with the Yukon, my direction of travel could not be controlled with the steering wheel alone. The slick and sticky conditions of the clay would pull me to the left into a mess.

I did the only thing I could think of. I reluctantly got out into the mud, got my computer and walked to the drill leaving behind everything else praying that no one would try to come up the road slide into me. I soon as I got everything up and going, I would get help and get the green machine off the road.

To make a long and funny story short, I found a kind soul to help me slide down the road to the camp. Here is one more view for the fun of it: fun, fun, fun. As I walked to the drill, which was a mile more up the road, I slipped and slid just about falling three or four times.

Muddy Week

I just thought I would show you what I have been walking through all week. It hasn't rained or snowed for a week, but clay holds the water. There is no drainage to get the water off either. It would help also if it were summer and the water were evaporated off. You can imagine what my shoes, clothes, and camper look like. Good thing the camper is not mine. This picture was taken on Sunday the 30 of November and it still looks the same today Thursday 4 December. It is just stirred up more and thicker, and not as soupy.

My Version of the Venison

This is the story of the unlucky deer. After spending a Saturday in the mountains - we hunted around middle mountain all day on opening day - Rachel and I went out to one of the local farms after school on Monday. We left about 6:00 hoping that Nikki would be able to join us, but she had something else that needed to be done so we left her at home. Hailee was not yet home from volleyball practice.

I thought we would hunt on Clyde Magnuson's property east of Castle Dale which is called the breaks by the locals. I trapped beaver one year out on his places, so I was familiar with the lay of the land. Rachel and I parked at the duck pond and walked along the road looking for any sign of deer there might be. One of Clyde's hired hands told us he had seen some antelope out there but not any deer. We saw a lot of antelopes tracks and I knew there had to be there deer because of the alfalfa fields. We only had about an hour to hunt before dark, so I wasn't to hopeful that we would be successful.

We walked for about 30 minutes along the back road and then stopped and glassed the area. We wouldn't have time to walk to the creek and hunt along the cottonwoods that were to the south of us and the fields near the creek showed no sign of deer or movement. We stood there talking for about 10 minutes and then I said to Rachel that we needed to head on back before it got dark. We turned to go and all of the sudden a deer jumped up from behind some brush and a lone cottonwood along the edge of the field. It ran away from us but Rachel noticed that it was a buck and so the shooting began. I shot first and thought I saw dust so I thought I missed it. The deer went into some willows and we thought we were through. As I turned to start walking down the road Rachel said, "look dad, there he is". She then shot and I also shot again and we saw the deer stagger and then fall. We went and found the deer and started a long night of cleaning and bringing it home. As we cleaned it, we figured out that both of us had hit the deer but Rachel put her tag on it and as far as I know, she is the one that brought it down.

BIRD RECOGNIZES WINDOW JUST A LITTLE TOO LATE

With the remodel/addition to the house, we now have a big picture window in the dining room/kitchen. The other day, I was sitting at the computer in the office which is next to the kitchen with the door open. The house was quiet, Jack was working out of town, the kids were at school, when all of a sudden I heard this, "fwump!" Something hit the window. I got up and checked if the window was broken. No cracks. Thank goodness! I went back to my computer work. Later in the afternoon, I was walking through the kitchen and there was a huge mark on the window that I had cleaned just a couple months previously. My first thought was, how did that get there and what is it? I looked closer and then remembered the fwump from earlier that day. It was the mark from the bird that hit the window. It was a big bird! If you can't see it, the big round blob is the body of the bird. The half circle above is the head and you can even make out the eyes and beak that were smashed down into the body. Then of course the two lines going up and down from the blob are the wings. Jack measured and the wing span is approximately 16 inches. Pretty big bird. I did check to see if the bird was dead and I'm happy to report that there was no evidence lying at the foot of the window. I would imagine, however, that its' mental capacity has been somewhat diminished.

Honey Harvest

Well, the bees were busy this summer. They made a lot of honey. James and Shawna are in Arizona, and someone should and needs to get the honey from the bees. Hmmmmm, Lorie, can you get the honey harvested while I am working in Colorado? No, she is canning peaches and apples that we were blessed with this year. I had planned on harvesting the honey anyway so finally the day arrived where I had chosen to take the honey from the bees.

Now, I had this all figured out: just smoke the bees, get them drunk on old straw smoke, and open the hive. I had been practicing this all summer and hadn't gotten stung yet. Now for the real thing. James had gotten me a hat with a net so my face would be protected from maddd, crazed bees. I looked for my long sleeve white tee shirt (the bees like white objects that do not appear to be bears or threatening).

I opened the first honey super and there was some bees and a little honey. It was not capped but I took it any way. Then came the next honey super. It was loaded with capped honey comb and bees. Well, I will just smoke them good. Then I lift the box with 10 frames of honey comb weighing about 50 pounds off and set it a side (bees and all). Now there are hundreds of bees flying around my face and head butting me trying to convince me to leave their golden nectar. Nope, I am not through yet. Now I pry the third super from the hive. This super is on top of the brood box and the bees are as numerous as the sands of the sea. I lifted it off and set it a side and NOW THERE are THOUSANDS of BEES in the AIR. One bee somehow made it into my veil protecting my face and started buzzing around my ear. I knew it was going to sting me so I swatted it and prepared for the worst by ripping my nice hat and veil off. My glasses went somewhere on the ground. I don't mind getting stung, just not in the face. Oh well, it stung me and now I was in a mell of a hess, bees all over. Bees in the air, bees crawling on the ground, and bees all over the honey. Up to this point it had gone very well.

With bees all over the ground, I didn't want to kill or anger gobs of bees by stepping on them. So, what do I do. James is in school, Kelly has done this before, better call him. He told me to go on and finish loading the supers with the honey into my pickup and bring them to him. This was the plan all along as he has a honey extractor. That is a story for another day. Shawna and James were surprised that I only got stung once. Actually, so was I, I thought I would get stung a lot as I had never done this before. These bees are quite docile and easy to work with. They do sting if they get in your face as I have found out, but all in all, not a bad work out for an afternoon. No one was there to help me or take pictures so you will have to imagine it.

Colorado Drilling

Well, the Wyoming work is done for a while. The company grew too fast and now is struggling. I am now doing some drilling in Colorado north of Grand Junction. In fact, it is about 15-20 miles due north of Mark and Dani's house. The picture of the country side, terrain, and the rig is below. The trailer is next to my pickup; it was a 36 foot trailer. It is designed to carry two four wheelers, it has a bedroom, shower, bathroom, and a of course a kitchen. The four wheeler bay has been converted to be an office with a sink for washing samples. One problem though, the sink has no water nor is it hooked up to drain. So I have to wash samples in the kitchen sink. This is where I live my life away from home.

The Derrick is a triple, meaning that it can stand three lengths of 30 foot pipe on the floor. When we trip for a bit, there will be 5,000-10,000 feet of pipe standing on end. Now on to other thing that may be more interesting.

I went to Colorado to help finish Grandma Thomas' estate. There is 80 acres of land that was hers and Grandpa Thomas'. His dad surveyed for the US government in the early 1900s and late 1800s and as part of payment, the government deeded him some land in southern Colorado in the San Juan Mountains. I, my dad, and Kelly went up to find the survey corners and place fence post at the corners so that the children of Harold and Bertha Thomas would now know where their land is and what it looks like. The picture of the cadastrel survey post was placed in 1987 before Joseph F. Thomas surveyed the property, but I did find a tree that may have been used in the original survey as a corner tree for section 1 and 2 of T32 N, 4 E. It was fun working with Kelly and Dad, although at times it was hard to determine who was the boss.

We found the SE corner to tract 5 of the property. This marker is the one shown and it is the center corner of Section 1. The eastern property line goes from this marker north for 1/2 mile to the North Center corner, which is the NE corner of tract 1.

The elevation of the property is 10,000 feet above sea level. The air was thin and walking with steel posts was difficult for one who is not in shape, boy how I miss being 20. The property had been logged and was very healthy. New growth was occurring and the remaining trees were free from beetle damage and very healthy. The days, both Thursday and Friday were warm and sunny with threats of rain by large dark thunder clouds during brief periods of the afternoon on Thursday.