Was it Love?

I was walking the greenbelt with my husband yesterday when I saw this flower.  I know summer is just around corner when the acacia flower blooms.  

It also brings a fond memory of a boy who I thought I was in love with.  I was in 5th grade when I met him.  Actually I was assigned to sit next to him as punishment for disrupting the class.  It wasn't me who was causing the problem, it was my desk.  My desk had a few loose screws and sometimes it would collapse with the slightest bump. It was out of my control, but my teacher didn't care about that and to teach me a lesson he made me sit next to a boy. I didn't see the connection between my crime and the punishment.  We were 10 years old and very aware of the possibility of catching cooties. Nobody wanted to sit with the opposite sex. I was humiliated by this arrangement. 

But I was pleasantly surprised.  He was different than all the boys that I met before.  He was kind, generous, and well liked by others.  I never saw him being mean to other kids. He was easy going and fun to talk to.  He was the captain of our soccer team and our class president. 

He was everything that I wasn't.  We'd just moved to the city a year ago after my dad went to the hospital with black lung disease.  My mom had six kids and had no money.  It has been a hard year for me.  I got bullied by other kids because I was new and we were poor.  When I did get good marks on my test they accused me of cheating.  I don't remember anyone ever saying anything nice to me in that year.  Very soon I came up with excuses to skip school.  I found out that faking a stomach ache worked pretty well.  

This boy and I became good friends.  We talked all the time and started causing real disruptions in our classroom.  My teacher had to reassign our seats again because we were too talkative.  I thought about him a lot during that time and came to the conclusion that I was  in love with him.  I even wrote a note confessing my love which I never gave to him.

One spring day he handed me acacia flowers.  He told me that he climbed a tree to pick them for me.  He was the first person ever to give me flowers.  I remember standing there looking at the flowers with the warm feeling that knowing someone cares enough to climb a tree to pick flowers for me.

After that school year we moved to a different city again and I never heard anything about him.  Was it love?  I think that thought never even entered his mind.  He was just being a decent person. But to me it was love.  It was love that sustained me when I was lost.  Even after 40 years I still think of him when I see acacia flowers.

How to bring the cow home : thoughts on obedience

The spring is here and our chickens are behind the fence to protect the garden area.  Our Don Diego keeps flying over the fence to enjoy the rest of the yard.  My daughter, Jennifer, went out to catch her and toss her back to the chicken run.  Jennifer is sure that Don Diego knows that she is not supposed to fly over the fence because whenever she gets caught she has that guilty look on her.  Jennifer thinks our chicken is willfully rebellious.  Well, the chicken experts say that you can not discipline chickens.  Maybe Jennifer is putting too much meaning into the simple action of a chicken.  

When I was about 8 years old we lived in a mountain village in Korea.  We had a cow, chickens, a dog, and a pig for one night.  The pig kept us awake all night. The next morning my dad, sleep deprived and unhappy, called other men to take care of the problem. Every one in our village had pork for dinner that evening.

Our cow had better luck than the pig.  she was our most prized possession next to our home, especially after she had a calf. My dad took great care of her.  He would take her and her calf out to a grassy field in the morning and tie her up so she could enjoy the sunshine and get plenty to eat.  In the evening he would go out and bring her home for the night.

One spring afternoon it stared to rain and my dad was tied up in some work and couldn't go get the cows, so he asked me to go get her.  I never did such work before, but my dad told me all I had to do was untie the rope and they will find their way home.  He told me to untie the cow first then the calf because when you untie the cow first she will wait for the calf, but if you untie the calf first she will run off and the cow will go after it.

It was raining but a pleasant spring day and I was feeling pretty good about myself.  I was old enough for my dad to trust me with bringing the cow home.  It was a little bit of a walk from our home to where the cow was.  When I got there they were just standing there wet with rain.  I untied the calf and then the cow.  Then I realized what I did wrong.  The calf took off and the cow started going after the calf.  Somehow her rope was all tangled around my ankle. As soon as she started running the rope around my ankle was spinning and dug into the flesh.  I looked down on my ankle in horror as blood soaked my socks and blended with rain.  There was nothing to do but wait until all the rope ran through.  I do not remember how I got home or what my dad's reaction was when I got home.  What I do remember is that the wound got infected and I suffered from it for about three months.  When summer came my mom sent me to my aunt in the city.  she took one look at my not so pleasant ankle and  went to the pharmacy to get anti bacterial ointment. Behold the power of modern medicine! I couldn't believe it. It only took about a week for my wound to heal.  

I still have a scar from that experience. Whenever I look down on it I think of my father, our cow, and our home.  As I look back on this experience I wonder why didn't I listen to my dad.  I think we disobey for three reasons.  First, we do not understand the instruction.  Second, we do understand it, but simply forget because of distraction.  Third, we willfully disobey because of pride. 

As I try to be more obedient to my Heavenly Father this experience taught me a good lesson.  First, if you don't understand the instructions ask Him.  Second, eliminate the distractions of life so you can remember Him (His instruction) always.  Third, if you do forget for whatever reason you can always apply the ointment(the Atonement) to heal your wound.                 

Wedding Dress Shopping

 We are in Provo shopping for a wedding dress for Valerie.  She already knew which dress she wanted, but she tried a few others just for her mother's sake.  I had a great time picking out her veil and the belt.  She looked absolutely lovely. 

 Here are her sisters giving good support and making things fun and exciting.

We will add lining to the top to make it modest.  The dress she had on was two sizes too big.  They are ordering the the right size and it will be here in a week. 

We also shopped for shoes and some jewelry for the bridesmaids. This is what we felt like after the long hours of shopping but what fun we had.

Turning 50

This year I will be turning fifty.  It is also a year that I can say that I have been married longer than I was single.  I think turning fifty is a big deal.  It is a good time to look back on your life but also good time to plan ahead.  It is kind of a midterm of life.  I want to do fifty new things that I have never done in my life before this year's end to celebrate this milestone. I found out that I have had a pretty good life and it was not an easy task to come up with the list.  I mean there are plenty of things that I have never done before, but that is because I have no desire to do them. 

So here it is, after 5 months of careful consideration my fifty things to do this year.


1. Corn Maze (done)
2. Arches National park
3. New camp ground(done)
4. New camp ground (done)
5. City of Rocks (done)
6. Hell's Canyon (done)
7. Farmer's markets (done)
8. Drive in movie
9. Salmon, Idaho (done)
10. Silver city Ghost town (done)
11. Drive to Moscow in the fall
12. Camas Prairie Marsh (done)
13. Hockey game (done)
14. BPO concert
15. New Temple (done)
16. New Temple (done)
17. Emmett Cherry Festival(done)
18. Read the entire Ensign for the whole year (done)
19. Deep sea fishing (done)
20. Make a garden bench
21. Make homemade ice cream
22. Try Basque food
23. Get my US citizenship (done)
24. Dress up for Halloween (done)
25. Get a US passport (done)
26. Wedding reception(Done)
27. Make a bouquet for a wedding(Done)
28. Wedding dress shopping (Done)
29. Make a bird house (done)
30. Multi day backpacking trip (done)
31. Make curtains
32. Personal Progress (done)
33. Take a community education class
34. Crabbing (done)
35. Grow a new variety of vegetable(Kale)
36. Grow a new variety of vegetable(done)
37. New recipe (homemade Ravioli, done) 
38. New recipe (BBQ pulled pork sandwich)
39. New recipe (done)
40. New recipe (done)
41. New recipe (done)
42. Fly fishing
43. Homemade Tortilla (done)
44. Mount Borah
45. Weaving
46. Glass blowing
47. Paddle boarding
48. Blog (done)
49. Shakespeare festival
50. soil testing (done)

The Day that I Knew there is a God and He Answers Prayers

I lived in a small mountain village in Korea until I was about 9 years old.  our small village was located between a small town and a city but I never went to the city and I went to small town only a couple of times.  That small town had a movie theater and shops but it wasn't a part of my world. Because we had to walk everywhere it wasn't worth the effort or time to go there, and what was the point of going there since I never had any money to spent on anything.

The only entertainment beside the ones that I came up with on my own was weekly Bible story time.  There was a lady who would gather all the children from the village and read stories and tried to save our souls and make us believe in Jesus.  I enjoyed these story times very much.  My favorite story was when Jesus cast evil spirits from men's bodies and they asked Him to allow them to enter into the bodies of swine.  Then they all rush over the cliff and fell into the water(Matthew 8:28-32).  It left me with a vivid impression of all these pigs running to their death. I wish I was there to witness that.

I can not say that I believed in Jesus because of all these Bible stories.  I treated them like fairy tales or Aesop's fables, just good stories.  But time had come that I had to try out and see if this Jesus is real.

One afternoon, I lost my homework and even though I looked all over the place I couldn't find it.  Now this was a very serious problem.  If I showed up at school without my homework my teacher would punish me in whatever form he sees fit.  Often it included getting my hands hit with a stick, getting spanked, standing in a corner and facing public humiliation.  I was really worried about going to school the next day without my homework.  Then I remembered that the lady with the Bible said if you ask Jesus he will help you with everything.  I was desperate; what was there to lose?  I never said a prayer in my life before and I don't remember what words I used, but I did ask for help.  After the prayer I am not sure if it was a voice or a thought that came to me, but I heard/felt that I should look behind our mill stone that was leaning against the wall of the deck where I was sitting.  I reached back and there it was.  

I didn't run down to the house of the lady with the Bible and confess that I was a born again Christian.  Come to think about it, I don't think I ever told her about my experience.  But I knew that there was a God and that he cared about me enough to help me find my homework.  Me! a small girl up in a mountain village in Korea.  I was a nobody, I was less than a nobody, but He knew me.

It took another 10 years for me to say another prayer, but that is another story.       

Meet our chickens.

 This is Lemon. She got her name because when we first got her she was a cute yellow fur ball.  As you can see there is no trace of yellow anymore. We tried to call her Lemon pepper, but that didn't work out.

This is Jeanette. Look at her cheeks! She has chipmunk cheeks, so we named her after one of the chipettes, from Alvin and the Chipmunks. She lays green eggs.

We call her Hazel, just because of her color.  She is a very mellow chicken.

We call these two twins. One of them we named Zorro because she looked like she had a black mask on when we got her and of course we had to name the other one Don Diego (Bagel for short).  We never can tell which one is who so we just call them twins. I think the one in the bottom picture is Don Diego because she is at the bottom of pecking order and you wouldn't except that from Zorro, would you?

And here are their daily offerings.  We just love our fresh eggs from our happy chickens.

Soil testing

I love gardening; I just enjoy the time I spend outside in my garden.  When I was a little girl we had a very big garden- more like a small farm.  We grew everything we ate other than the rice. I didn't particularly enjoy working in the garden at that time, mainly because I was only about 7 or 8 years old and when you are at that age you have more important things to worry about than food.  I loved wandering around the mountain looking for things that even I wasn't sure what I was looking for.  But as I grew older I found out that I have a strong attachment to earth.    

Even though I've had my own garden every year I have never tested my soils before.  But this year, rather than fighting to figure out what is wrong with my garden during the growing season, I thought I will have a good start by checking out the soils and fixing things up before I plant my garden.

First, I drew the map of my garden and numbered them so I will know which soils came from where.

I mixed soils with water and let it sit for few hours, then I would be able to test it for nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium.

(p.s. I didn't need the entire jar of water, a small cup would have worked)

Here in the green tube I was testing for pH levels.  So far all my soils are more of the alkaline side.

The kit came with color coordinated tubes and powders so it was easy to remember which one goes to where. 

So here it is for a happy and bountiful garden this year.