Running in the Snow!

I said it was going to be a chilly run! Great Job Seth.

This can't be right - Sept. 30 and the kids were running in the snow. It was freezing!!! I snapped a few pictures of Seth that I thought turned out pretty good. It will be nice when he moves onto an indoor sport, LOL. We drove home in a blizzard - there is a good 4 inches on the front yard and still snowing. When we got home Jim had had enough and built a fire in the woodstove - it sure feels good now!

X-country

I just stole some pictures off the SSHS cross country blog. Seth has run with the cross country team for the last few years. Seth looks like a great big kid in these pictures - he's not exactly built for running, but he has been really good to stick with it. In the first picture the high school runners are just cheering on some of the middle school runners:

I like this shot of Seth navigating the creek:

He has a meet this afternoon at Bear Lake High School - will be a chilly one.

Harvest 2009

Harvest seems to consume my life these days. I'm not sure if many of my friends really know what it is I do this time of year, so I thought I would show you some pictures of this never-ending harvest.

Grain fields already cut:

Combines & trucks on the way to town:

My view of the main elevator out the front window of my office:

One of Randy's trucks coming on the scale:

The probe I use to collect grain samples:

This is where the grain ends up after I vacuum it out of the truck with the probe:

my sample room:

Barley:

Wheat:

Trucks lined up to dump in the pit:

The line getting a little longer - oops, they backed up the leg:

this is a view of the elevator from the other side ~ you know it's a good harvest when we have to start a ground pile:

These pictures were taken on Sept. 30th ~ the snow storm was on it's way so we stayed open as long a possible. Josh hung from the roof and installed a light so that I could keep probing trucks after dark:

We stayed at the elevator until about 10:00 - Colby kept the north elevator going until midnight. The rain started just before 10:00. Several of our growers managed to get their wheat finished up that night - thanks to neighbors combines and trucks. It was neat to see them working so hard to help each other out. They are a good bunch of people & the guys I work with at the elevator have overworked themselves to try and help out. Willis, Kent, Colby & Josh ~ you need a big pat on the back ~ I have 126 hours on this payroll and they work more hours than I do!

This picture is of the elevator the next morning can you see the big snowflakes?:

Hunting season

Hunting season opened a month or so ago in our neck of the woods. There are days that driving on Highway 34 at 6:00 a.m. is just like driving down I-15 near Salt Lake. Each morning and night I see trucks and trailers parked near the highway and I know they are hunters headed out to make the kill. I personally am not a huge fan of the whole game. The boys at my house seem to think it is fun - although not obsessed like many that live around here. I find myself secretly (maybe not so secretly now) cheering on the wildlife. That is where these pictures come in. For the last 2 weeks this particular truck has been parked down the road about 3 miles from our house. I have seen it sometimes in the morning and sometimes in the evening, but the somewhat comical part about it is that every time I see this truck parked in this spot, within minutes, I always manage to see some wildlife.

This morning there were 3 moose just right up the hill on the ridge above the white truck:

Kind of hard to see, but the one on the left is a young bull - a cow in the middle & a calf on the right:

I zoomed in a little on the momma & baby:

Then down the road less than a mile - guess what? Yep, 3 deer:

I didn't get any pictures, but I have seen Elk 3 times near the white truck in the past 2 weeks. Seth, the girls & I saw a trophy elk - huge beautiful thing just a few nights ago right where the truck is parked. I don't even know who owns the truck or what he is hunting (hopefully they don't read my blog), but I just have to laugh. Oh, and secretly cheer on the wildlife!!! :)