Adventures in Irrigating

K.C. and I took off for Logan about 6:30 Sunday evening. When we got there, Phillip was there with Grandma. I had mentioned to Brenda that K.C. wanted to talk to Phil before he left. Phillip served his mission in St. Petersberg so he was full of information about what the Russian people are like, little superstitions they have, what you can and can't do there, what kind of food he will be eating, and what the church is like there. He also taught K.C. some of the things he would be saying, and wrote a simple prayer for him. It was really helpful and sweet of him. I know it meant a lot to K.C. and eased his mind about going to this foreign country.

About 11:00 p.m. found some flashlights and went up to the big ditch by Uncle Ken's house to see if anyone was using the water. Nobody was so K.C. opened up the gate and then followed the water all the way down to make sure there wasn't anything blocking the ditch. It gets all overgrown with grass and weeds till the water can hardly get through. Then when we got to where it turns over to Grandma's house, I got out my flashlight and we made our way across the little ditch through all the trees, and bushes and barb wire fences till we got to grandma's house(very creepy but kind of fun!) We had to open a few gates, then the water was running nicely in Grandmas cement ditch.
We thought we would let it run on the north lawn all night, then in the morning it would be done and we could spend the time on the other lawns. That one always takes the longest to get to the bottom and is usually burnt up in that area. K.C. got up about 4:00 to check on it but couldn't see how far it had gotten. We both got up about 7:30 and went out to look. It had only gotten about half the way down the lawn. This lawn his little hills and dips that you don't even notice unless you watch where the water flows. This really threw us off our plans! So we spent the next 2 hours moving the pipes down that lawn to get it to the bottom.

While I was waiting for the water to move, (there is a lot of waiting, standing around time...I remember daddy saying that made him more tired than anything...just standing and waiting for the water to move) I got to thinking about the water not making it down to the bottom of the lawn, even though it had all night to run, and how it just ran off to the path of least resistance. I thought of how wasteful and unproductive the use of the water had been...just going off to the low places and sitting in a puddle. I thought how sometimes our lives are like the water. We are all just flowing through life, mostly in the right direction, until we come up against a challenge or a hill to climb. When we are faced with something that is hard, it's easy to get off the path we need to be on and follow the path of least reisitance to the lower ground. We can't progress if we are not learning and growing stronger through our experiences here on earth. I've found that I'm happier when I try to take on challenges that come my way with faith that Heavenly Father knows what I need in my life to become the person I'm supposed to be. Just some thoughts...

Lots of hugs and holding hands and promises to write.

K.C. had never seen the stuff daddy brought back from Tahiti so we looked through the chests over in the old house. I love the smell of the things in those chests. Grass skirts, head dresses, shell necklaces and bracelets, beaded bags and belts. That chest always seemed magical to me. K.C. found this cool map of all the islands tucked away in the corner of the chest.

He also found a cool Poloroid camera that looked like it could have been one of the first ones made. It was about the size of a loaf of bread, and weighed about 5 pounds. Cool pop up flash!

K.C. and I tried to catch some fish to take home. They are really smart and fast! The fish pond is another thing that is missing daddy's special touch. It is full of algae which gives the fish plenty of places to hide. We tried for about an hour and ended up with 2 fish.

I have so many great memories of sleeping out in the "Dream House" daddy built. As soon as it was warm enough, all of us girls wanted to sleep out there. We would get our jammies on and then run out the east room door around the corner to the front door of the shack. This was the tricky part. You had to get in the door without letting any mosquitos in. This was after daddy put netting all around the walls ...before that, there was a mosquito net that went over the bed that made sleeping out there a real adventure. We would spend most of the night giggling or telling scary stories or playing card games or else scared to death of the noises in the night. We could usually look over and see mom and daddy sitting there at the kitchen table doing the crossword puzzle for some security. When we had friends over, they would usually get too scared and have to go in the house. We would always wake up to the rooster crowing at the crack of dawn.

This was one of my favorite places to sit and read and think.

Everything was really dry...even though we have had so much rain, the trees keep the rain from getting through to the flower beds and some of the flowers that Teina had planted had died.

This has always been one of my favorite flower beds. Always Impatients or little begonias because it's so shady. It's kind of falling apart though... nobody there to repair it when it comes apart. Daddy was always right on it whenever anything needed to be repaired. He wasn't one to go out and buy something new unless it was totally unfixable. He would just go in the garage and somewhere amongst all of the things he had collected, (he saved everything...old nails, boards,wheels, pieces of glass...you name it he had it) he could find a part or make what ever he needed to repair things.
Anyway, he always kept everything in perfect condition and it is a sad reminder as you look around the yard that he is not here.

When we were leaving, K.C. was giving Grandma a big hug and she said "He's my guy" and then she looked over at daddy's picture and said " I sure wish my guy was here." I sure wish he was too.

This is the 2 fishes new home sweet home. I hope they are happy and that the crane doesn't eat them.

This was just a pretty lily that was blooming in our yard.