A week of snow and preparation

On Monday and Tuesday our General Authority 70 (Elder Durham) and is wife came up to the ranch to do visits with all of the missionaries.  They are so nice and down to earth people and they seem to really  enjoy coming up to the ranch.  We were welcomed back and told that we could stay. 😂 

Elder Durham

A large black bird made a nest in the top of our big shelter and made a mess on our water buffalo's.  It was kicked out of the shelter for not paying rent.

Nest is really about two feet in diameter

It has been very cold and snowy this week.  Our water supply to our trailer and several others as well, froze two nights in a row.  I finally got the heat tape and insulation placed correctly and hooray running water.

Frozen water lines are no fun.

The Sisters spent several days tuning up handcarts.  They tightened up screws and bolts and made sure that the wheels were still straight and turning properly.  The Elders were bringing them in from our storage facility on the ranch (10 miles distant) loading them on big trailers, unloading them to be checked out, then reloading them to take out to our staging areas in preparation for trekking.

Help I'm trapped.  Really I'm holding up the handcart.

A little snow won't hurt anyone.

Some real beauties with some finished handcarts.

I spent the week hauling porta john trailer's from two storage areas.  So we made 17, 20 mile round trips at about 25 mph on gravel roads for the handcarts and 16 round trips for the porta john's.

Porta John heaven.  Take your choice.

We had a pretty wild snow storm on Thursday night that was also very cold.  We have had 4 mornings this week where the low's were in the high teens and the high's were in the high 30's with wind average speeds of  about 20 mph.  It hasn't been a very good weather week.

Brrrrrr!!

Friday we pulled the side by sides into the trek center and changed oil, filters and greased them.

Oh, I just love grease. Not.

We were greeted Friday with a bunch of sheep, they are not so fun to dodge on the roads.  Can't wait for the cattle to arrive in the next couple of weeks.

Lamb's frolicking in the snow

Saturday we all loaded up for a trip to the Salt Lake Temple.  Really nice time and a nice session.

East side of the Salt Lake Temple

Sunday brought church in Evanston and our missionary potluck dinner.  Elder McDowell (we recruited him and wife to the ranch from Mesa) smoked us a couple of large prime ribs.  Super good, especially with the creamy horse radish.  Yummy.

Elder John McDowell and his smoked Prime Ribs

Back to the Ranch

We left home on Sunday (Easter), April 16th.  Farwell Mesa for 4 months.

Leaving 90 degrees for 30 degrees.

We arrived at Deseret Land and Livestock Tuesday, April 18.  We had stayed in Saint George with Richard and Sherry Jensen (Debra's sister) on Sunday night and stopped in to see Jeff and Deb Cowen in Cedar city on Monday.  They were the directors last year and it was good to visit with them for a short time.

Debra with Deb and Jeff Cowen in Cedar City

We could not believe how much standing water is on the ranch from the huge snowfall they had this last winter.  There are lakes, streams, and water falls where we had never seen them before.  There is also lots of snow.  Some of the drifts are 6-8 feet deep.  Some of the roads on the ranch are not passable yet.

The waterfall behind missionary village

This is actually on trail 7 but now is a water crossing.  Thankfully the road is still passable.

We were the second trailer in and so we got the "best spot", the only problem was we needed to move lots of gravel to fill in the boggy, soggy ground!  As you can see from the picture one of the trailers got stuck up to it's axels.  We woke up to find it tipped toward our trailer about 1 foot away.  It took three trucks with chains (train style) to pull it out!  It was quite an exciting morning.

Our trailer is on the right.  It was quite a site to wake up to!

We woke up to snow on the ground only one morning so far, and the days have been quite nice, in the upper 40's and low 50's.  The snow is melting quite fast, but it will be late June to early July before the deep drifts will be melted!

The High Uinta Mtn. view from the ranch.

Our Wednesday morning walk.

All of us, including the Elders, did a clean up on the Wasatch exit of I 80.  Usually the sisters do that job, but there was so much garbage (4 pickup loads) we recruited the Elders.  It was much better for us and it was good for them to see what we Sisters do.

Elder Barton holding his size 13 boot find on garbage day.

Sister missionaries with 4 loads of garbage

We drove the 6 new missionary couples around some of the main roads to help get them acquainted with this 300,000 acre ranch.  I remember how overwhelmed we were last year so I feel for them.  We have some great couples and I am looking forward to this year serving with them.