Shari’s Gone Country

Today is lunch at the Senior Center… Shredded Beef Enchilada, so Bev figured I’d might as well come spend the morning and stay for lunch.

Tonight, we’re going on the Senior Citizen bus to St. George… to Tuachan, the big outdoor theater. Tonight’s show is My Fair Lady, something I’ve never seen on stage.

There are 13 of us going, and the Enterprise Senior Center Recreation Fund pays our way. That’s the group I volunteer for (did the hamburgers in August). I’m sure we’ll have loads of fun.

Yesterday I got the picture gallery working at FourCountryGals.com, so you’ll have to stop by. I’m loading virtually all the early pictures Bev and Cindy took as they moved from Ohio to Utah. Only a few make it into the main part of the book, but I’ve linked the actually gallery, so you can grab a lot more pictorial detail.

UPDATE: At lunch, I was awarded the “Volunteer of the Month” Award for Washington County Council on Aging for my work on the “Corn Fest” fund raiser… cooking all the hamburgers and hotdogs in the extreme heat… and never falling behind. Believe me, I was totally surprised. They gave me a nice certificate and rose.

The horse stable is taking shape. This weekend, we used virtually all the lumber we had left. Got the rest of the north and east walls up, as well as a “sag beam”. That will allow the 12 foot span to have a resting point at about 8 1/2 foot.

It’ll be after the first of the month before we can buy the joists… 13 2×6x12 footers and a truck load of 8 foot 2×4s for the cross pieces. Then we’ll have our work cut out for us! We’re covering with both “obs” plywood and roof tin.

While we were working on the stable, I heard a car coming east on the road bordering our south property line. I quickly determined things didn’t sound quite right. My eyes confirmed what I heard as I saw an older Saturn approaching at a high rate of speed (close to 60 mph) and begin fish-tailing.

Within just a second, it had slid off the shoulder and rolled over sideways, then end over end three more times.

As it was airborne, I was hollering for Bev to head for the house and call 911. Cindy and I immediately jumped into our truck and headed for the accident scene about 1/2 mile away. Imagine our surprise to find the driver, a teenage girl scrambling out of the upside down car and very quickly running up onto the road.

We quickly checked her over. She was begging us to take her home… down the road about a mile to tell her folks what had happened. After a quick chat, we agreed, Cindy would run her home. I would stay at the scene.

About that time, Bev was trying to find out if we needed an ambulance… well that got canceled when the kid left the scene. Our neighbors all showed up within minutes, as did Cindy, the young girl and her parents.

Almost an hour later (told you we live in the middle of nowhere) the sheriffs got there to do their investigation. Mom took the young gal into the hospital, some 40 miles away, promising to let us know how she was when they got back home.

Poor kid, she totaled Mom’s car, is getting a citation at least for speeding (almost 60 in a 40 mph zone), and also slightly separated her shoulder. That was a seat belt injury. Thankfully she was wearing it. She’s also bruised and had a few small cuts and abrasions, and probably hurt like the dickens today.

Oh, we did get the horse stable finished as far as we can before getting chased into the house by the ever-present afternoon thunderstorms.

Today (Sunday) we re-located the chicken’s nest boxes to the outside of the coop. With a nice slanted lid, Mom can reach in to get the eggs. Also, the chickens have a lot more room to play in the pine chips.

No more eggs today, as we really upset their routine… In and out, banging on stuff, running the saws and drills.

Our girls have cushy digs… their nest boxes are lined with sheep wool that has been saved from skirting several fleeces. Our Merino/Suffolk cross sheep really do triple duty.

We gave them a special ramp to get from the roost to their boxes. While they’ve had lots of parades, we’ve yet to see anyone go into the nest boxes. I was able to pick up a couple of hens and place them into the boxes, so we know they’ll fit ok… they weren’t ready to stay, though.

Just launched… a new blog, which is a “reality blog book”.

I’ve been asked 1000’s of times, just how did the four of us decide to move to the SW Utah Escalante Desert Valley.

Now you can join along as I write the full story at “Four Country Gals“. I cover way more there than what I do here on this blog, or what Cindy covers on her blog at Country Musings.

This new project serves as inspiration to those of you who are searching for ways to re-invent your lives. Our message is “Never give up! When you plan, and things don’t go quite according to plan, make adjustments and keep moving forward.”

Be sure to subscribe to the feed, so you’ll get the latest updates.

I’ll be continuing this blog, and eventually some of the stories will overlap a bit. Take heart though, there’ll be far more detail in the “Four Country Gals” than there is in this blog.

That was fun!

I got to be “the griller”… did burgers and dogs on the grill for about 120 folks who stopped by the Enterprise Senior Center, where we did our part to get folks fed at the annual Enterprise Corn Fest.

It was way hot… I was in the sun for about 7 hours. Thought I’d melt into a puddle. But oh, those burgers… they were perfect! We had 1/4 pounders. I put them on the grill (pretty high heat), and then seasoned them lightly with “California Blend” Garlic Salt. Turned them once when the juices started to rise. Seasoned them one more time and waited for the juices to run clean. Popped them onto a plate and into the kitchen, where they awaited an order.

The dogs were slowly simmered in a pan of hot water and then “striped” on the grill half dozen at a time. They had that great grill flavor, but never dried out on the steam line while they awaited an order.

All in all, I did 116 burgers and 24 dogs.

By the end of the day, my get up and go was out looking for anyone else’s get and go… way gone!

What about Bev, Cindy and Mom?

Bev was in charge of assembling all the orders, as well as setting up the “lettuce, tomato, onion and pickles”. Cindy was in charge of actually receiving, organizing and then taking the order to the dining area.

Mom was in her element, making sure everyone was happy, well-fed, and generally being the social butterfly.

At the end of the day, we were four very tired, but happy country gals.

It’s “Day’s of ‘47″ time in Utah. Being a newcomers and not Mormon, we’ve really not totally captured the spirit. We’re working on it though… starting this last Friday evening with the local rodeo.

I’m an “old hand” at rodeos having attended them for well over 50 years. I’m just one of those “good fans”. Cindy was a barrel racer in her high school and young adult years. I know Bev was raised around horses, primarily sulky racing horses.

Well, this rodeo is definitely “small town” and fun for the entire family. The “rough stock” consisted of calves, young heifers, bulls, donkeys (yes, donkeys), and CHICKENS! There wasn’t a bucking horse to be seen.

Ok, I could figure out the calves and the bulls… but the cows, donkeys and chickens had me going.

They started off with calf roping in a “boys” class. Some of those little fellers looked mighty tiny on top their horses. Unfortunately, it was calves 8 boys 0.

The girls did a little better with three of them actually roping their calves. This was “breakaway” so once the calf was roped… you simply released the rope and let it go.

Bull riding was pretty exciting… only one rider stayed on for 8 seconds. Now you know it’s a small town… and full of pretty tough cowboys when this happens…

You’re riding the bull… he bucks you off and you sail through the air, landing on your head. You’re out cold for a couple of minutes while the announcer calls for the EMT’s. Other cowboys get to you first, but thankfully, they don’t pull you to your feet… you really hurt all over.

You come to, and tell the EMT’s you can move your arms and legs… good thing as they roll you over to your back.

Now you don’t want to embarrass your cowboy buddies so you get on your feet and “Cowboy Up!” even climbing up and over the fence rails…

That scene was repeated three times during the course of the evening… not sure the EMT’s even had a “squad”… besides, the nearest hospital is over 30 miles away.

About those CHICKENS…

This is a family fun rodeo… so, let’s have a “Chicken Chase”.

First, the chickens… these are excess “free-range” roosters donated by local farmers.

Next, the participants… two different groups of kids. The first group about 100 aged six and younger. The second group, about 100 aged seven to 10.

The object of the game… catch a chicken and you get to take it home… even if your parents would just as soon you didn’t catch it.

Here’s a couple of the winners.

What about the donkeys? Where do they come in?

Well, picture this…

Assign two people teams to each of about 12 donkeys. Place 12 watermelons thoroughly sprayed down with “cooking spray” at the other end of the arena.

Now, the two of you have to ride the donkey to the other end, pick up the watermelon, get back on the donkey, and ride to back to the start line… yeah right!

Talk about funny! Why I saw a donkey standing still with two riders… the donkey shivered, and they both fell off!

We’d seen “breakaway” calf tying, where the object was to get your rope around the calf, and let it pull the rope from you. We’d seen the “chicken chase”, and the donkey-watermelon race, as well as the bull riding… What could possibly be left?

How about “ribbon tying”… or in this case, remove the ribbon from the heifer’s tail and run back to the starting line.

It starts off kind of weird as there’s one cowboy on a horse, and one cowboy on foot. The heifer (a nearly grown cow) is in the chute. They turn the cow loose and the chase is on.

The guy on the horse has to lasso the cow, and then the guy on foot runs up and “bugs” the cow by holding her head as if to throw her down. The horse’s job is to hold the rope until the guy on the horse gets off… and runs up the rope to grab the ribbon that is tied snug at the top of the cow’s tail.

There’s only a few problems here… the cow doesn’t want to be here. The rodeo arena ground isn’t the easiest stuff to move around in on foot, and that ribbon… well, it’s in a very hard spot to reach… watch out for those hind hooves!

They grow our young teenage cowboys big, rough and tough here!

Barrel racing is a family sport here. The first class is for 8 year old and younger… girls and boys.

We saw some really slow times posted by little tiny tots on very old, gentle geldings that would trot to the barrel, and the very carefully walk around each barrel, and the kinda, sorta, lope over the finish line.

There was one little 8-year-old girl who is gonna be a star… She turned in an 18.35 second run… and that was the fastest time of the night. She was better than all the girls in the 15 and under class, and at least half the women in the “open” class.

The night was very long, and quite warm… at 10:30pm we finally said “that’s enough” and headed for home, satisfied we had been to a small town rodeo.

I know, it’s been two days since I updated this blog. We’ve been a little busy here…

About 4 hours after I posted the previous pictures… I was once again out watering the sheep. I’ve got lots of time to look around while I’m filling a 50-gal trough.

This is just 25 miles or so west of us (thought it was more like 50… but that’s the rest of the story).

Before I took this picture, I notified Bev, who began figuring out which mountain was on fire. She called the BLM Fire Supervisor, who seemed somewhat aware of the situation, as well as the Cedar City Wildfire line… they said they’d send a plane over to check it out.

After dark, we could even see the red glow of flames WITHOUT the binoculars. Heck, I could even see it without my glasses… and I’m extremely nearsighted.

Let’s see, that was Tuesday, July 17.

Here’s what the fire looked like just 22 hours later on Wednesday, July 18 at about 3 pm.

This time I got on the phone to the folks who should care…

I started with the BLM. After all… this is most likely on their property. The first lady transferred me to another one, who said she thought they knew about this fire and had maybe sent jumpers to it.

Just to be sure, she transferred me to the Cedar City Fire Dispatch. Well, they thought they knew about it, but couldn’t explain how come after nearly 24 hours it wasn’t listed on any incident sites… like Utah Fire Info.

She didn’t seemed amused or concerned… but transferred me to the “Fire Information Officer”, where I got a voice message… no, I’m not telling you what I said. But I will assure you that I hung up before I left a message!

In disgust, I finally called Dixie to see if she could get the message through that we had a serious fire brewing. She called our “local guys” who said “they were watching it”.

Oh great… where I come from, we don’t wait for it to get bigger… we go put the damn thing out!

Ok, yesterday was our twice monthly trip to St. George to stock up on groceries and supplies. Bev drives the Enterprise Senior Services Bus, and I’m a “senior citizen” so it works out very nicely.

Boy was it ever smoky in St. George! They’re surrounded by several wildfires from Arizona on the south, to Zion National Park on the east.

On our way home, coming up the long hill (just south of “The Ledges”) Bev spotted a huge plume of smoke… “Hey, bet that’s the fire on ‘our mountain’!”

An hour later, we were home safe and sound, looking at this…

Mom had even called Dixie, our neighbor to see if our valley would be safe. Dixie assured her that as long as the wind kept coming from the S-SW, we’d be fine… and that is the prevailing wind this time of year.

Finally, I was able to get the following data on this fire.

When we reported it, it was apparently a “flare-up” from a lightening strike on July 16. It was less than 10 acres when we first saw it.

Within then next 48 hours, it first grew and “they began watching it” at 100 acres. Finally yesterday, it was given a name… “The Paradise Fire”.

It went from 100 acres to over 5000 acres in a matter of hours, and consumed 3 structures as well as caused the evacuation of all of Hamlin Valley.

This evacuation isn’t easy as that’s a very remote area. All services are “off grid”… satellite phones, solar and wind power, as well as unpaved roads.

Last night we could see the flames. It was amazing how far northeast the fire had traveled. This morning the fire (and smoke) had “laid down” quite a bit. But I would expect that it will pick up again later this afternoon when the winds pick up.

We’re expecting afternoon winds in excess of 20 mph… nothing unusual here.

With the forecast of thunderstorms, I figured I’d feed the sheep a little early. Good thing I did as there was thunder/lightening all to the east of us.

While I was watering the sheep, I spotted a plume of smoke to the east… just over the mountain ridge and near Antelope Springs road… the other end from where we live. I immediately stopped watering and hurried to have Bev call it in.

Would you believe, the dispatcher actually asked us if we were seeing smoke from the Iron County Dump?

Pardon me, we’re under extreme fire watch… there’s lightening all around… we NEVER see smoke from the Iron County Dump… this smoke is rising to about 15K feet…

Surprise! Surprise! Look at what I saw to the south… of course we hadn’t turned on the evening news yet. This fire took down power poles, and caused a county-wide outage in Washington County, starting about 15 miles south of us. The fire was in Dammeron Valley, about 35 miles or so south of us.

Now, our main concern was this little fire burning just east of us… Even the animals were paying attention.
When I went out to coop up the chickens, we were in the middle of what could best be termed a “pre-fire storm”… the wind was howling from the east at well over 40 mph… dust blowing HARD. And then there was the thunder, lightening, and reduced visibility from the smoke.

We took ALL the bird feeders down, the wind chimes… they weren’t singing a happy song, and made sure things were stowed safe and sound. Heck, we even discussed hose placement in case we had to defend our little patch of tumbleweed.

You should have seen our dogs… at one point Mindy, the big black Lab was on the couch to my left. Sarah, my Finnish Spitz was on the couch to the right… and the other three big dogs… Koda, Coco, and Kiki were at my feet. They were SO undone!

Sure the weather was bothering them… outside trips were short and too the point.

But what they really wanted was the potato chips I had… of course, I felt sorry for them, and gave in.

That wasn’t the end… the lightening continued until sometime around midnight.

Sarah snuggled as close as she could to me in my bed.

Cindy reported being unable to move in any direction in her bed… she had the other four on either side of her most of the night… including Mindy, who finds it a real challenge to haul her fat butt onto anyone’s bed.

This morning we awoke to an acrid smell of “old smoke”, but nothing visible all around us… and tonight, we’ll get a repeat of last night.

So much for completing another project. We’ve got the raised bed boxes dug into the front yard… just barely.

Got chased out by a wind/sand storm. The forecast for today was “in the 70’s and breezy, winds 15 to 25″. Right now, it’s 81 degrees and the wind is sustained in Enterprise at 20 mph. Highest gust has been 38 mph… and that is at the southern end of the valley (somewhat protected).

We’ve got dust kicking up outside to the point where visibility is down to less that 1/10 mile.

The animals all hunker down in this stuff. The sheep turn their backs and lay down. The horse goes into his stall and stands with his back to the wind. The chicks are pretty oblivious to a south/southwest wind as their windows face east.

The dogs are all inside napping… If they even think they have to go out, they wait as long as possible.

Our cars get pretty sandblasted and when it’s all over, we’ll have a couple feet of tumbleweed by the back door in front of the garage.

There’s just no being outside in this stuff. If it’s still blowing at feeding time, we’ll delay as long as possible until just before dark. Trying to get the hay from the wagon into the feeders is a real trick as it’s sometimes hard to even stand up.

Thank God for an air-conditioned brick house.

Every once in a while, we’re treated to spectacular sunsets. This is the most beautiful sunset I’ve seen since arriving in December. If you didn’t know for sure you were looking at a sunset, you’d think there was a huge range fire.

I let Sarah come play one-to-one with “Freezer”. What a hoot! The first picture is kind of “game on”… while the second one… well, let’s just say he’s not taking any guff from her.

Another life lesson learned. Breakfast is served outside, and you’re on “all fours” from here on out.

There’s one thing I can be sure of. I have a shadow, a little black lamb whose name is “Freezer”.

Sunday morning Cindy and I figured we’d better get the worm bed installed and ready for critters, whenever the weather turns. We left Bev inside to do “house-cleaning”.

Within about 3 hours, we had the big (10 ft x 5 ft x 9 inch) box cut in half to form a 10 ft x 2.5 ft x 1.5 ft bin. We had leveled the ground using the little Mantis tiller. It took several “pulls” to get it started and it wasn’t real happy about tilling frozen ground, but did get the job done in minutes compared to the hours I’d have spent chopping away.

We loaded up a pile of partially composted horse manure and put that into the bottom of the bin.

We’re expecting several inches of snow today, so that will add some slow moisture as it thaws.

In the meantime, we’ve been cutting cardboard into 1″ strips and shredding all the old newspapers. It’s sure nice to have a little paper shredder and small town newspaper rather than a big city version.

Just before we order the worms, we’ll wet down the paper products and add them on top of the manure. That should make a comfy home for our little critters.

Oh, and I’ve still not seen the Key Lime Pies.