White Rocks Mud

This picture is for the boys in the family. It's one of Ken's favorite places to play.

Drilling for Water

Friday Chuck & I spent the day on the Arizona Strip being pioneers. We have 80 acres on the rim that we'd like to build a cabin on. No water and no electricity is holding us back. Chuck and his friend Devin made 2 trips to Phoenix last year to test for and acquire water drilling licenses. Now after much work in Lund, he is ready to get onto another project. He has set up a rig and started the drill down into the Shinarump to get to the Moenkopi.
Chuck and Devin drilled down 18 feet and on the 2nd day another 21 feet. Chuck and I added 4 more 5 ft rods and then added another. It took from 9am to 4pm to get 20 ft. On the 5th rod about 1/3 down (about 1/2 hr) I had hold of the winch handle and it took off spinning and the pipe dropped the last 2/3 in about 45 seconds. I thought it broke and Chuck thought we hit a hole. We added another rod and the hole swallowed it too. Chuck realized that the metal had probably worn through on the sandstone. We (mostly he) pulled the rods up and took them apart one by one. We pulled up 10 X 5 ft and found that the thick rod/stem connector had worn through.
Now he has to build a device to retrieve the 4 stem/rods at the bottom of the hole so that he can continue to drill.
I did enjoy being with him (sort of like being on the deck of a ship with a lounge chair and a book with no ocean)but it was mighty hot and we are in suspense about the chance of hitting water. Actually the suspense is part of the adventure. If this hole doesn't find water, he is going looking for a water witch
Sometime during the day I told him that maybe we ought to change our ways and start living a simple life. He says it's too late and we wouldn't like it anyway.

Hurricane Pioneer Day

Kathie & Kelby's modern day cowboys. The sign on the back of the buggy said "We are saving gas".
We had some dressed up grandkids on the 3rd and 14th ward primary floats.
I wish I had a pix of the ladies foot race. Angie and Leslie and Shella were in it. Heidi Stout won, but Leslie was right behind her. Chuck wouldn't race this year because they only had one men's age group and he wasn't going to race against the 18 yr olds. It was fun to visit friends & family and keep up the 24th tradition at the park.
I can't believe it is the 24th of July already!

Cedar Mountain

July 4th weekend we went to the cabin at Strawberry. I took this picture of the trees on the way up to show what damage the beetles have done.
Ken & Venna and Helen & Tony and Kathie & Kelby & Kids went to the cabin with us.
Kathie taught us how to play Hand & Foot card game. On Saturday we went 4 wheeling. Shella and I chickened out when the group went down a hill trail that Tony was trying to make Helen scream on. We went around the back way instead. Needless to say, we lost them for the rest of the morning until we met back up at the cabin. Ken called to let us know where they were and Chuck was trying to get phone signal. There are nice ATV trails--we need to pick up a map because the trails are marked.

Personal Plumber

This morning Chuck went down to the basement to get some peaches that he had picked for breakfast. When he came back up he said it was a good thing that he had gone down because the mechanics room floor was full of water. A water heater was leaking. He turned off the hot water and swept the water to go down the drain as much as he could. Now that Sunday is just about over, he is in the basement again changing the leaking tank for a new one. He said that he bought a new one when he noticed a slow leak. He's been through this before. If the manufacturer would not have changed the type of connection fittings on the new one, he would have been done long ago.
It wasn't too bad doing without instant hot water for a day, but it will be nice to have it again.
If I ever have a thought that I could get along without my personal handyman, I quickly come to my senses. I can hardly make it through a day without having him fix or help with something. Men are so strong and so good to have around! I think I'll go do something nice for him.

Zucchini

July 6th Emily and her kids came for a week. Nathan's family was here from Henderson too, so we had all of our kids here at one time. It was such a fun week. Tuesday we had lunch at our favorite Hurricane eatery, Dairy Queen. It was a real party!
Warrin and Gary Richins were there and Warrin gave us some of the big zucchini I have seen on their blog. This pix shows what Emily and Shella did with it.

Service Dog Training and Certification

I flew from Vegas to Cheyenne on Allegiant Airlines June 20th. Emily and Isaac and I took a nine hour van trip to Concordia, Kansas . We saw that there is a lot of corn growing in Nebraska and farms covering most of the ground between Cheyenne and Concordia. Isaac's name had been on a CARES list and he became eligible for a Service Dog.
We stayed at a Holiday Inn Express for 5 nights and spent the days becoming bonded with and
learning to give commands to and take care of a trained dog. Crosley is a 14 month old Golden Retriever. Isaac's Mom, Emily is really the one Crosley bonded with. The training of Crosley and the 19 other dogs in this group is an interesting story.
Hopefully, Crosley will help Isaac with social interaction and safety.
It was a great experience to have with Emily and Isaac and the new furry member of the family. 2o dogs were placed with kids and adults with various life needs.
I learned a lot about dog training and found that Pronsie is probably not really a dog-- and if she is, I trained her all wrong.