Christmas Week

 

It is hard to remember last week, except Keith did go out and work in the afternoon on Christmas day, of course.  We love our presents, which included an Ipad.  Lucky us.  We usually get a book for Keith to read to the kids and this is the 2014 one.  Can’t wait to use it on some kids.  Mijken always sends clothes for me, which I wore today. 

We did take several trips to town, including going to Lubbock for the temple on Saturday and to Childress for parts. We noticed that gas is $1.88 in Lubbock.  Of course, diesel was still high, $2.99.  Today we had Sacrament Meeting, but no other meetings because the rest rooms were not working.  Last week everything went really well at our new building.  We are missing a piano for the Primary, and it will help a lot when we get one.  This is the Presbyterian Church.  The white door on ground level is an elevator.

These pictures are of the shed the guys moved.  They are supposed to install a washer, dryer, and a water softener for the trailer park here at the ranch.  There are two trailers, a missionary’s and a hunter’s in the park.  It is not large.

 

One of the highlights of the week was the miracle of our good friend, Sister Flora Nail.  She is one of the branch members in Paducah.  She has been so ill, deathly ill.  She has passed out at church and at the Christmas Eve dinner at Richardson's, she was so sick and had to be taken home.  But she was at church today and a different girl.  We couldn’t believe the improvement.

My week before Christmas

It was a busy week for me, all by myself.  Makes me sad that my partner in mischief has gone.  She had sewn many bibs and wheel chair bags and lap quilts too, which I delivered on Wednesday.  The right people were available this time, and many thanks and friendliness was there.  She did ask for more bibs and sent a sample home of the style they like.  She loved the colorful fabrics we had used and the pockets.  I should have had  pictures, but didn’t.  Last day of school for a while too.  Poor Nat was grieving because he couldn’t go to the AR party.  He is probably my biggest challenge here.
I do have pictures of my work this week.  The branch moved over to the Presbyterian Church yesterday, for at least a year, while the addition to our building is completed.  Downstairs where the Primary will be is also the local food bank/pantry.  The Branch Presidency thought it best for us to protect those food items from small hands, so requested curtains be made and hung.  I worked in the office/bunkhouse kitchen.  Our apartment is just too small for making curtains.  We even found an ironing board in the intern house!

            

We put up the rods and hung curtains yesterday, but going early today to add more curtains.  We needed more yards in each curtain so sewed some more last night to add to these.  The Primary President is out of town, so I am nervous about how Primary will function today.  One counselor is new and the other one lives far away and doesn’t come a lot.

The week before Christmas

 

We are still here.  Keith has finally finished with the grading and the Cat people picked up the graders on Friday.  Keith was better at loading the machines than the driver they sent out to pick them up.  It was taking the driver hours to get the graders on the trailer, with no wheels hanging off, so he needed Keith’s help bad.  I’m sure having no steering wheel can be a challenge.

Keith wrote this up for Kurtis, so I will share it too. 

“I have many hours to think and commune with Heavenly Father in my grader.  Sometimes I think He has a great sense of humor.  As I pass some way deep washouts, the thought comes to me that this rain in Texas is “holy water”. It washes great big “holes” all over.

These are some of my musings.  I thought I would total up my experiences and expenses for the work I have done in three months time”:

160,000 acres covered with 900 plus miles of road

Costs I incurred:

$4,000 worth of ruined tires

$450 flat tire service calls

$3,500 fuel

$300 new blade

$350 hydraulic oil

$.50 two gaskets for hydraulic hose

$3,000 new steering joy stick

1000 hours of wear and tear on grader

$950 2 mirrors, 2 headlights knocked off by the brush

Total: $12,550.50

Maybe I saved the ranch $.50?

December 9

We are at a crossroads here in Texas. Keith should finish up grading today.  It was amazing that their last pasture, which was huge, almost 10,000 acres, only took a couple of days.  It was not rough, not grassy or any of those things that slow the grading down.  The other grader has already moved on to digging trenches for water lines.  Keith will finish the grading then dig trenches too.  The rental company will pickup the graders on Monday.
We sisters will take our loot to the nursing home tomorrow.  We really (I guess it is me, not we, for my companion, Sister Layton goes home Monday) need to find other projects.  We need a Lioness Club or similar organization to work with.  No such thing in Paducah or Crowell.  We have been crocheting projects of our own and I am still working on the Vivian Cemetery family history.
This last week we had several social activities.  The intern and family left to go back to Idaho on Saturday so we partied on Thursday.  We partied on Sunday twice with the school faculty for their Christmas party at Richardson’s and also went to dinner at the home of the Whipple’s.  He is the High Priest group leader, she is a Primary teacher, like me.
Last evening we were supposed to have family home evening with our Paducah sisters, which included fun food, but our host sister canceled at the last minute, so we took the food to three other sister’s homes and visited with them.  No one is well, except our young one.  One sister, Sister Nail is very ill.  She keeps trying to come to church and almost always passes out or has seizures.  It is scary to be around her.  She is on oxygen and smokes! 
Keith helped clean the scout closet and trailer for the move to the Presbyterian Church while our building is being added upon.  He was amazed at the things stored in the closet.  Really cool old things like a handmade survey instrument, and an old battery that could have been handmade.  Also old uniforms and someone’s Silver Beaver award and uniform from way back.  Luckily the scout master’s dad happened to be in the building.  He is a city councilman or something like that and he took the memorabilia to a city building that has a scout collection or museum.  This Wednesday the scouts are going to the Presbyterian Church to prepare it for us and all the kids, etc.  Sounds like the attendance at that church is around 15.  They will still meet in the morning.  We will start at one and our attendance has averaged 120 this quarter.
Kiley and I are out of the doghouse for collecting the implement seats, etc.  Kache too.  Now Jason can sleep at night, except they will have their baby within the next month!
Keith came home with a little juniper Christmas tree last night, but we have no lights or decorations.  He cut the top out of a tree rather than get a whole tree. Maybe we will have to string popcorn and make a paper chain like in the olden days.

            

Watch for some lights and decorations!                  Some simple decorations.

More of Last Week

 

We had such a good time.  It has been pretty quiet and blue around here since our company left.  It was a long trip home for them, but they made it after two long days.  Here are more pictures of our activities.

Dallie set the table including the table decorations.   We started right after 12:00 noon, no complaining of starving here. This is the conference room in the office.

This is a rock tower on a hill that also has a radio tower, near the ranch headquarters.  We don’t know why someone built the tower, but the kids liked hiking the hill and climbing on the tower.

After we went to the cemetery, we went to what we thought was the old Vivian town site and found the following.  After we got home and found out we were on private property, some were wanting to take our collections back, but I want to find the owner and ask to buy the seats.  Kache, Kiley, and I had a great time looking and wondering.  Jason had to keep us all under control.  He always gets stuck with the crazy women.

After dinner Keith took us to the latest roads he has been working on.  I can’t tell you how steep this was.  The pictures do not come close to showing the true conditions we saw.  When we were sitting in the pickup at the top, looking down, you could not see the road below, it was so steep.  It was scary and I will be happy when Dad is done.  Hopefully they will be finished by Dec. 20, when Layton’s are supposed to leave.  Dad says that what he does in not just a physical work but a spiritual one too.  He feels the spirit all the time directing his work and keeping him safe. 

Here are pictures of an old well or cistern Keith found, and the end of a road, at least for now.

Another Story

The ranch manager suggested someone research the ranch house so Kiley and I have been looking and reading.  We haven’t found out about the house, but we have read a lot about the ranch and this is some of what we have learned.  We miraculously found the grave of J. J. McAdams who started the ranch.  Dallie found it in the Paducah Cemetery yesterday among over 4,000 graves.  We were all looking, but Dallie found it!  J. J.’s story is very interesting and sad.
 

He was born in Texas, his mother died when he was eight and his father died when he was around 14.  He was shot in the leg by an older brother because he wouldn’t turn back and not follow the brother and friends who were “going west”. He was sick with gangrene for several months and walked with a limp afterwards.  He did eventually go west with his friend and they established themselves in dugouts and made claim in the 1880’s.  The story goes on, and not happily.  He shot his brother over a cattle dispute.  He was going to be tried in one county, where he feared the unfriendly atmosphere there, so his friends organized and gathered enough signatures (150) to organize a new, more friendly county.  They lacked a few signatures so used the names of horses from the Moon Ranch on their petition.  J.J.’s friend, W. Q. Richards, who had come west with him owned the Moon.  The trial was changed to the new county.  J.J.’s lawyer was Sam Houston’s seventh son, who was a brilliant trial lawyer.  The trial was the first held in Cottle County and J.J. was freed in 1892 after much controversy. 

Fun Week

 

These are pictures from our trip to the Vivian Cemetery and to the rock house and corral. Kache is trying to read an old headstone.  Some of them you can read, but most or too weathered to read.  The kids wanted to repair the house.  It was cute how concerned they were.  There are no roofing timbers left or materials for the roof.  I wonder if the house was never completed or maybe there was a fire.  The corral was pretty big but only standing on two sides.  It was 60 degrees, not windy, a really nice day.  We did get lost and wondered around some rough country.  Keith was not with us so that is why we didn’t know where we were going.  These Florida kids were pretty cautious around the prickly pear cactus and mesquite thorns.  Near the cemetery we found some deep caves in the ground.  Looked like great homes for rattlesnakes.  This is about Cam Alto who is buried in the cemetery.

A very interesting story is told of the burial of Cam Alto. Those digging the grave hit a huge rock that could not be moved, so much progress had been made and since they did not want to begin again, a very unusual decision was reached, they made the grave in a north and south position instead of the usual east and west. (interment.net)

His headstone is turned to match his grave.

Last Week #7

 

These are pictures of a cotton field near Lubbock and a cotton picker.  This cotton is dry farmed.  There were some circles, but not many.  I am not sure that cotton harvesters are called cotton pickers any more, but that is what we called them in Arizona when I was a child.  Of course, humans were cotton pickers too.  I can remember picking cotton on the church farm.  It was hot and hard and we drug along a big canvas sack behind us to put the cotton in.

On Saturday, coming home from Lubbock and the temple it was 70 degrees.  The next day it was 21 and snowing.

Today’s Adventure

 

The story:  An animal of some sort had dug out under the dam of a pond and as Keith bladed across the road on the dam, he fell in!  He was able to get himself out using the blade.  We wish we had pictures of Elder Layton stuck in a stream.  Took ingenuity to get him out with the other grader and not get two graders stuck.

Week #6

I had an epiphany during SS class Sunday and thought I must write it down.  Now, two days later, I can hardly remember. How sad.

At school, we work in the fourth grade first thing in the morning. I am usually assigned to work with Nate. Nate lives with his uncle, aunt and grandmother because his dad is dead and his mother is lost. He doesn’t want to be with her anyway, because she is mean. The list of problems that Nate has is long. Besides his home life, he can’t read and he slips off to “la la land” often when we are trying to read and do his school work. He will refuse to continue with the work whenever he feels inclined. Each week he has a new wo, for instance; he threatened to kill someone, he had two different antiperspirants in his coat pockets and was sniffing them often, his pencil made holes in the restroom ceiling and he said someone must have stolen it. He is always on school probation.

The last time I helped Nate, I felt utterly discouraged and ready to give up on him. The discussion about him on the trip back to the ranch was; “He will never make anything of his life and be in prison soon, so what’s the use”.

Well, in SS we were studying Isaiah and I can’t remember what it was exactly that jogged my feelings about Nate, but something did and also the thought came that what if the Lord feels the same about me, and says; “She will never make it and so what’s the use”. I surely don’t want Him to give up on me, so tonight, at least, I won’t give up on Nate. See you in the morning, Nate. 

 

Keith did some cold weather preparations here and with the sisters we visit in town.  He is ready to be finished on the “blade”, but the end is not insight.  It rained (inch and a half) so there was no grading or blading for a few days, so he worked on a well house refurbishing, which included cement, door, etc.  Another missionary couple came from Idaho.  They are doing maintenance.  She works out with him all day long. 

It was the Primary program Sunday.  The music was very impressive.  I don’t think that the kids knew that it would be a good idea to memorize their parts.  Only one boy had his memorized.  Maybe they were all too scared to remember, but all the adults loved it, and it brought many tears.

Week 5

Time is flying! We are never bored, but happy and busy.  Keith is doing some maintenance on the side, but still mostly grading.  He has been trying to order a big shop door to replace one that blew out and having difficulty getting anyone to come out to measure and replace it, however, he finally had two takers and only needed one door.  When it rains, it pours, which it did all night last night, so no grading today.
We have been crocheting, etc.  I am in the company of a professional creator, Sister Layton, so enjoying that.
There are three missionary couples at the ranch now.  The Leanord’s arrived from the Lewiston, Idaho area last week.  The are mostly maintenance and will work here and at the Sooner Ranch in Oklahoma.  They brought their own home with them, a fifth-wheel trailer.  Sis. Leanord works along side her husband on the maintenance projects. 
On Wednesday we went into the Trunk or Treat party at the church.  The building was full and it is easy to see why we need an addition, which will start soon.  I taught RS on Sunday.  Found out on Saturday, so didn’t have much time to worry.  It went okay and seemed like there were more ladies there than usual-three rows of them instead of two.  Of course, four of us were from the ranch.
Here are some fun pictures.  Dad came upon this old rock house while grading.  The corals were rock too.  We think the writing on the second pictures says Wallace, Dec 1910.

                          

                          

 

The road was totally washed out here and this is the rebuild.  It is steeper then it looks.  This is Elder Layton at the Peace River.  Dad came close to getting stuck down at the river, in the sand.  He seems to always have cell service, but maybe he wouldn’t have way down at the river, except he could have hiked back up to the top for service.

Keith’s Day’s Plus

I hope you can see these good enough to tell what this country is like and what Keith’s days are like.

            
After and Before
              
Road ends.  Sometimes Keith will just be grading along and the road ends, so he has to back up and go back the way he came.
We did drop off our projects at the nursing home yesterday and we also received our shipment of fabrics, etc. from SLC, thanks to Sister Hynes. 

The nursing home and the nurses who accepted our projects.