Conference Weekend 4/09

Ah, Warm Weather FINALLY!!!

Between General Conference sessions we went outside and enjoyed the warm blessed SUN.

Roger and Jake started expanding our garden area that we put in last year.

It was back breaking labor, they broke the sod with shovels and the younger kids and I loaded it in a wheel barrow and moved it to the bottom of the orchard where we used it to build up the dirt burm that holds the irrigation water from running into the road. After getting all of the sod out we dug another layer of HARD clay out, which we used to build up the burm around the pasture, and then filled the entire garden area with composted horse manure. It was a lot of hard work but we think it will be well worth it when we get to enjoy all of the yummy fresh VEGGIES this summer!!!

Jake and the little boys taking a break to enjoy the nice weather .

Shawna tilling in the "good stuff".
Man handling the beast!
I was thinking how amazing it is that this old tiller still works. Dad got it up and going and gave it to Roger and I when we bought our 1st house in Kingman AZ. We have had it for about 12 years and I have no idea how old it was when he gave it to us. Somehow it has made it through cutting ground for our gardens and lawns for three houses. A little Ether and it just keeps on starting and starting and starting.

Our new garden area is about 30' x 12', well over twice what it was last year. And yet we are afraid it is still not going to be big enough for all the stuff we bought to go in it!

My Mishap.

While I was tilling the bolt holding the tilling tines to the machine stripped off so the tines just spun on the shaft. I bent down to get a closer look and rested my hand on the EXHAUST PIPE!

I couldn't believe I was so STUPID!

Thankfully I was wearing gloves and was protected from being severely burned. It hurt quite badly most of the day but there was just one small spot at the bottom of my thumb that was actually burned and it was not even very bad.

What a BLESSING!

The crew unloading the clay from the truck.

(that we had manually extracted from the garden with a shovel!)

This is why I tend to loose 15 lbs. in the summer.

We'll make men out of these boys yet!

And the girl too for that matter, I guess!

(we just watched Mulan the other day and these pictures made me think of that song from the movie)