Ward 'Halloween" Fall Festival

Friday evening was our ward Fall "Halloween" festival. I made some chili with our Anaheim peppers and a lot of steak chunks. Susie thought it was a bit too hot but I thought it was pretty good. I did doctor one bowl full with Dave's Insanity sauce for Douglas Kleven. He said it was hot but very tasty.

Here's a great game, Whack a Deacon

 Each of the youth classes set up a game for the kids and we enjoyed chili and corn bread for dinner.

The Priests Quorum game was lame but the costume Hinckley wore was great

Many ward members dressed up in costumes. I wore the clothes I had worn fishing and put on my hip waders and carried my fly rod as my costume.

The Teachers game involved having a light saber battle with Darth Vader. It was very popular

 The attendance was great and the kids had a great time playing the games the youth had prepared.

The Miamaids made balloon animals, they stayed busy all evening.

Susie and I had to leave at 7 pm to go to the first BYU basketball game of the season. We enjoyed our new seats and particularly liked the fact that no one had to climb over us to get out.

Fishing in Paradise

Friday, October 30th, I was entertaining customers in Paradise Utah. I flew in from Phoenix on Thursday evening and instead of driving home and having to leave very early Friday morning I drove to Brigham City and spent the evening in the new Hampton Inn. I would have stayed in Logan but couldn't get a decent hotel room.
Friday morning I was in the car at 8 to drive to the White's Ranch in Paradise. Winter is not far away, there was ice on the windshield. I took the back road from Wellsville the last 3 miles of which was dirt with steep drop offs. The Cache Valley was covered with fog as I got off highway 91 and headed east. The leaves in Logan are a few weeks ahead of the leaves in Utah Valley and everything was yellow and red. Very pretty!

morning fog in the Cache Valley, winter is not far away

This trip was set up by Braden Henrie who is the sales rep for Winfield in Utah. We invited 2 PMP companies, a dairy supply company from Burley Idaho that sells Zyrox fly bait, and Dean Hill retired manager from Univar. Braden, Dean, and the 2 PMP's went pheasant hunting for released birds (not sure how sporting that is). The rest of us went fly fishing along the Little Bear River that flows through the ranch. It was about 35 degrees when we started but by 10 am it was near 50 and quite comfortable.
We started off using dry flies but got no bites. Then we attached a wet fly to the dry fly and I caught one small trout. Then we switched to artificial blood worms and I quickly hooked 6 fish and landed three of them. We were using barbless hooks so we could easily release what we had caught,

You can see the trout in the water

Near noon we moved up the river to a spot below some falls where you could see dozens of fish in the water. I would dangle the worm in front of the fish and they would just ignore it but I finally landed a pretty good sized fish.

Then my last catch of the day was about a 4 pound, 20 inch fish that put up a real good fight. It was gratifying. I don't get to go fishing very often so it was great to go fishing as part of my job.

ElRay, Mike Miller (our guide) and the biggest catch of the day

Eagle Court of Honor

This evening we hosted another Eagle Court of Honor for two of the young men I have worked with over the past 6 years in scouting. The court was originally planned for Yhann Masbernat Concha who finished his Eagle in August.
Jacob Eliason completed the Eagle requirements in the summer of 2013 and then left on his mission the first week in October that year before his award could come back from the Boy Scout National Office. We suggested taking the award to the MTC but decided to wait until he got home to make the award. He got home the last week in September so we invited him to receive his award at the court this evening.

I was invited to give the Eagle Charge and then administer the Eagle Pledge to Yhann and Jacob.

After the pledge Alex Jensen presented the eagle award to Yhann. Then Alan Larsen and Bishop Pope made some remarks.

Post Script: After the court while we were enjoying refreshments I was informed that Bret Grow II passed his Eagle Board of Review last week. Will wonders never cease.

Pest World 2015

This past week was the annual convention of the National Pest Management Association, Pest World 2015. The extravaganza was held in Nashville Tennessee at the Gaylord Hotel and Convention center by Opryland. As usual, Syngenta had a large presence at the convention. We had a large booth on the trade show floor, we sponsored the internet café, the Crown Leadership Awards, and the Keynote speaker, Alison Levine, at the annual association meeting on Thursday.

The convention starts on Tuesday afternoon with a 4 hour trade show. Our leaders decided that we needed to meet as a team on Monday afternoon at 3 pm. In hind sight I should have just skipped the meeting but instead I flew to Nashville on Sunday evening so I could be there in time for the meeting. While walking to the meeting Monday afternoon I noticed that crews were hanging Christmas decorations on all the railings. Seems just a little early to me.

The Gaylord Hotel is a huge affair with three main sections and covered atriums between the different areas. The first few days it was easy to get lost navigating between events.

Our booth this year was the largest at the show and was very well done. It was also very comfortable with 4 different sitting areas where you could visit with customers. It made it much easier to spend the 12 hours in the booth this year.

We had interesting shirts this year. Tuesday was a light blue polo, Wednesday and grey polo, and Thursday a grey pullover. All three had linings with an entomology theme with various bug designs. The shirts were a bit feminine and as a former colleague commented, we looked very ‘metero-sexual’. Oh well, it probably made up for all the masculine shirts our female colleagues have at to endure over the years. It could have been worse, we could have been in bright pink shirts and pink booties for Breast Cancer Awareness month like the folks at the Forshaw booth.

The convention is an international affair. Next to us was a booth for a company from Taiwan. They had some interesting looking products. Not sure how they got that through customs. They also had very few visitors at their booth. I suspect they won’t be back next year.

Wednesday evening is the grand Crown Leadership Awards presented by Pest Control Technology magazine and sponsored by Syngenta. It is a coat and tie affair. Pat Willenbrock represented Syngenta and did a great job. In the past this event has been very long but this year they finished the awards in a record hour and twenty-seven minutes. I was impressed.

I had a very early flight Friday morning so Thursday I opted out of the customer dinners. Instead I ate at Stax burgers and ate my dinner with this great view of the atrium with the fountain and gardens.

I was back in Salt Lake City by 9:30 Friday morning and took the train to Provo. It was a long week.

Paying the Fiddler

This summer while battling the problem of the 'leaking' toilet at our apartment I relied a lot on the expertise of my brother Delwyn who is a journeyman plumber. It was Delwyn who came up with the idea to check whether it was really water leaking around the shower curtain that the renters were seeing each morning. He suggested putting a towel down between the toilet and the shower and seeing whether it was wet or not after the renters has showered. He was right. The problem was fixed. Actually the problem probably never existed.

Delwyn on the 14th green. The setting was very beautiful with the fall colors.

To pay him for his consulting I offered to take him golfing at Hobble Creek golf course. Friday we had a 9:30 tee time. It was about 55 degrees when we started playing and there was a slight breeze blowing so it was a bit chilly. By the third hole the sun was out and it started to warm up and was a delightful round. We played the old back 9. I have not played since January and shot a 43 which was very respectable. After the golf we stopped for lunch at the Bangkok Thai. It was the first time Delwyn had tried Thai food. I guess this settles the bill to my plumbing consultant.

Wood Shed Revisited

Almost as soon as we put all the firewood into my new 'plastic' wood shed the walls started to bow and the connectors came undone. I made some initial repairs to try and keep the shed together but this past year it has become obvious that something had to be done about the condition of the wood shed.

The first problem was that as the walls distended the roof panels in the center kept sliding down so that rain and leaves came in through the hole in the roof. This spring I used some metal bands to fasten the roof panels in place. It was while making those repairs that I realized that the back wall was about to fall off into the neighbors back yard.

Hard to see  but the back wall is detached from the corner of the shed

With my field trial season winding down I decided to take two days vacation this week and empty the wood shed and make the needed repairs. First order of business was to remove all the wood from the shed so we could work on all the walls and corners at once.

Kevin wheeling the last of the wood from the shed

Working with Kevin we had the shed emptied and cleaned in about 3 hours which was a lot less time than I had scheduled. Then I had to decide how to repair the shed. Initially I had thought about building a frame inside the shed to hold all the wood away from the walls of the shed but there was a big problem of how to put the corners together inside the existing shed. Sort of like constructing a ship in a bottle.

Braces and back panel in place

In the end I decided to attach two studs between the east and west walls and attach a piece of plywood to the studs to reduce the pressure on the back wall. First we attached metal braces to the back wall panels and to all four corners of the shed. Then we screwed the studs in place and attached the plywood.

Note the metal braces in the corners

Then to clear out some more junk that has been collecting on my back patio we screwed the leftover pieces of luan plywood we used to repair the bathroom floor at the apartment to the bottom of the wood shed. Then it was time to put the wood back in.

Nearly finished. Just some small stuff to put in

This time, since there was only Kevin and I, it was easier to supervise how the wood went back in. By stacking it perpendicular to the walls we kept the pressure off the corners and were able to get the wood arranged in good order. It will also be easier to remove when I want to build a fire.

It took about twice as long to put the wood back in the shed as it did to remove it

In the end I took Kevin's advise and discarded some of the wood that was probably not going to get burned. We threw out most of the construction waste and the shingles that were in the original wood pile. We also got rid of much of the very small twigs and branches. We were also able to get a fair amount of the wood under the back stairs into the shed.

There is about a 20 years supply of wood in the shed now that the county has implimented burning restrictions. But it is nice to know we have the wood if something were to happen and we had to rely on the wood stove for an extended period of time. Hopefully these repairs will fix the problem.

All cleaned up and back to normal

The Half Enchilada

Saturday October 10th our young men returned to Moab to finish riding the Whole Enchilada mountain bike trail. Our goal was to bike the Kokopeli trail and the Porcupine Ridge sections.

Kokopeli trail head. This is where I saw the bear back in July

We had planned to camp on Friday evening but there were no campgrounds within 45 miles of the trail head that were not full so we decided to drive down Saturday morning, make the ride, and return home Saturday evening.

Mark Larsen, Bryson Henrickson, and Henry Andrus getting ready to ride

Originally I had 5 of my priests who said they would go but by the time we loaded up the vehicle at 5:30 on Saturday morning there was only one. In fact we had one priest, Mark Larsen, one Teacher, Bryson Henrickson, and one deacon, Henry Andrus. We also had three leaders, Sam Andrus, myself, and Bishop Jaren Pope.

Mark Larsen, Henry Andrus, Sam Andrus, Bryson Henrickson, Jaren Pope; Ready to Ride

We drove to the trail head in the foothills of the LaSal Mountains and dropped off the riders. Then I drove back to Moab, filled the car with gas, and got some lunch.

The views of the LaSal Mountains were inspiring as I drove back to town. Unfortunately with the sun right overhead I had a lot of glare in the photos and they don't do the scenery justice.

After lunch I drove back along the Colorado rive to the Porcupine Ridge trail head looking for a place to park. Originally I had hoped to park at the Negro Bill trail head but it was clear full. I finally found a nice shady spot along the river and settled in to wait for the riders.

The temperature was perfect. I ate my lunch, napped a little, and read from the book my Mom gave me for my birthday titled, "Colorful Characters in Mormon History". Around 3 pm the first riders arrived, Bishop Pope, Bryson, and Mark were riding along the river with a large pack of riders. I had to honk to get them to stop. About 20 minutes later the Andrus' showed up. Sam had suffered a flat tire and that slowed them down. We were on our way shortly after 3:30. After a short stop in Price for dinner at Wendy's we were home by 7:15 in time to watch the BYU vs. East Carolina football game.
As it turned out this was my last outing as young men's president. I was released as Young Men's president on Sunday morning after 6 and a half years in Young Men's. Sam Andrus was also released as first counselor and was called as the second counselor to Bishop Pope.

Vintage 2015

Monday evening was the annual grape harvest at Mom's house. The early hot weather in June had left the crop a bit sparse. We also probably harvested a week later than we should have.

Two and a half of the four and a half buckets of grapes

I went over to Mom's around 3 pm to get a head start on the picking and and found that she had finished picking in her yard and was working over at the neighbors. By 5 when the rest of the family arrived we had picked all but a couple of areas. Those areas required a ladder so we let Tim and Chris pick those while Bryce and I went to pick up the pizza at Costco. We enjoyed pizza on Mom's back deck. It was a beautiful evening.

Processing juice on the north deck. I hardly even make a mess anymore

I took home 4 and a half buckets of grapes. About half of what I normally do. Tuesday morning I started processing. When I had finished Wednesday afternoon I had made 31 quarts of juice. Mom and her neighbor each took 6 quarts and Valerie and I split the rest.

The first eleven quarts of vintage 2015

We currently are working on finishing the last few bottles of 2013 that are in our pantry so we really didn't need a big crop this year. We'll have to work on reducing our stock of juice this coming year.

Dallas Divide and the Million Dollar Mile

This was conference weekend which means that Susie and I were on the road to look at the fall colors. This year we decided to travel southeast into Colorado. This summer at our family reunion my sister-in-law, Lisa Chipman, told me about the Dallas Divide and recommended we go see it.

Million Dollar highway from Ouray CO to Durango CO

We left Provo Friday afternoon around 5 pm. Our first stop was the Bangkok Grill in Orem for dinner. We had our favorite Tom Ka soup and then were on our way south to spend the evening in Green River Utah. We stayed at the River Terrace Inn in Green River. It is an older motel but has been upgraded and was very comfortable. 

We arrived in time to watch most of the BYU vs. Connecticut football game. It was a much better result than the game during our trip last year when we lost to Utah State and Taysom Hill was injured for the year.

The River Terrace Inn has a full, cooked to order breakfast, which most weekends is probably a good deal. When we got to the dining room there were about 20 people in line so we decided to go somewhere else for breakfast. Right next door is the Tamarisk Restaurant. Their dining room overlooks the Green River and they were not crowded. We enjoyed a quiet breakfast and were on the road by 9 am. 

The mountains north of Ouray

Our route was east to Grand Junction then south through Delta and on to Montrose. Along the way we listened to the morning session of general conference. We were going to eat lunch in Montrose but we were still full from our big breakfast so we stopped at Heavenly’s Frozen yogurt for a mid afternoon treat. From Montrose we continued south to Ouray at the base of the Rocky Mountains. Ouray is an old mining town that is now all about tourism. It is the start of the road through the mountains known as the Million Dollar Mile.

This is where the Dallas Divide begins. It was as spectacular as Lisa had said. Both the mountain scenery and the fall colors were breathtaking. We listened to conference as we drove south to Durango. At one point the road was down to one lane because the lane closest to the cliff had fallen off. That was pretty interesting.

We stopped at several locations to take photos but we had to be selective so we would not miss conference.

We arrived in Durango at about 4 pm and checked into our room at the Doubletree Hotel. I had booked the room with Hilton points. It was a very nice room with a nice view of the mountains and river. We watched the priesthood session of conference then went to get dinner.

I had found an interesting restaurant on line called the Himalayan Kitchen. They specialize in Indian, Tibetan, and Nepalese food. We were intrigued by the Yak meat items on the menu.

We drove there and ordered the sampler appetizer and the Yak Mo Mo which are dumplings made with Yak meat. I also had the cinnamon Lassi, and interesting drink made of plain yogurt, rose water, and cinnamon. The dumplings were very good and we enjoyed the sampler platter.

Yak Mo-Mo

Sunday morning we drove from Durango through Cortez and on to Monticello. We stopped in Moab for lunch then drove north to I-70. I’ld had enough of two lane roads so we took I-70 west to I-15 then north to Provo. The traffic on I-15 was very heavy. We stopped in Meadow to get a drink and the service station was packed. I’ve never seen that many people in all my years of driving that route.

We arrived home around 6 pm road weary but rested by a wonderful weekend. The fall colors were very nice this year and the scenery and meals were great. We love our Conference weekend getaways.

Scenery looking north from I-70 east of Green River