Farmer Gil Saves the Day

Yes yes, more talk about chickens. Sorry!

We needed to find a new home for Francine. (Formerly Mean Francine, occasionally Franny.) Fran was our oldest chicken, the only remainder from the 2020 flock. We just loved her too much to get rid of her. Problem was, Francine was so freaking LOUD. She was the earliest to rise, and as soon as she did, she'd commence her request to exit the coop by pretty much screaming. She also tried to sound like a rooster. Her obnoxious squawking lasted all day. And if we lived out in the middle of nowhere we'd just get used to her I guess. But we kind of live in fear of making the neighbors angry. One complaint to the city could really be trouble for us. We decided it was time to find her a new home.

Instead of driving to Orem like I have a few times now, I looked again for another place to take in hens. And I found a magical farm. There's this guy named Gil. When I got on the phone with him, he said, "Hi. This is Gil. Gil stands for God is Love." Well hello Gil! This old farmer just doesn't want animals to get killed and he takes them all in. He is the guy to call if you want a petting zoo at your birthday party or if a fair needs an animal show-and-tell. He just takes them all. He's not totally out in the country, but he's out of the way a little. When I asked him if his neighbors minded the roosters he told me that his farm is next to a cemetery and the residents don't seem to mind too much.

So once again, I loaded a chicken into a bucket in my car and drove off to some little random place to deposit a chicken. What made me happy was that when I met Gil, he took Francine into his arms and said, "Oh a sebrite!" Yes sir he knows his chickens. I felt better. Not great, but still better. 

Hopefully Franny is still living her best and really loud life with Farmer Gil.

In the meantime, I have been working really hard to get this new flock comfortable with people, and more friendly than the last bunch. I know the secret. Dried mealworms. Chickens LOVE this treat, and it turns out, if you fill a cup with them and sit on the ground and sprinkle them around, chickens shed all skittishness and basically climb onto your lap and let you pet them while they gobble them up. This is the most tame flock we have ever had. And we are discovering that there can be too much of a good thing. Those gals will flock right up to you and crowd in around your ankles every time you step outside. But I'd rather have friendly birds that like me than a clean porch and freedom to step outside, I guess.

All the Camps

This post will come somewhat out of order because these camps happened at various times over the summer. But I must document in my old-lady complainy way (coining a new term there) that I gave 100% of my PTO plus some to church camps this summer. This is the way it goes when you are the ward young women president and your husband is the stake young men president. 

Early in the summer came stake young women camp. (There are so many iterations of stake/ward/young men/young women that it gets a little comical.) Camp is always held at Aspen Lakes Camp in the beautiful hills above Heber, Utah. Yes, that's right, the very camp I helped clean and open and complain about. Luckily, I was not in charge of this camp in any way. I even have a ward camp director, so my only job is to be supportive. I did not attend all of this camp, but I helped shuttle a van-load of the girls' stuff up to camp, get the girls settled in their camp spot, and then return two days later to spend an evening and sleep over and help clean up and get the girls home in the morning. We have fantastic camp leaders who made the week really meaningful for the girls. I love how our ward is really quite tightly knit. There are only 5 girls in our ward, so it's really small, but they really seem to hold space for each other and really be a supportive little group.

The next camp I was significantly more involved in. Ward level, both young men and young women. It's called Ward Youth Conference. Most wards don't do this every single year, but ours does. We have some strong traditions in the ward that the kids really love - everyone shows up! This is a big deal. Everyone showing up is not a thing that happens very often. We almost always go to Bear Lake. Some years there is a boat, some years not, and all years someone gets badly sunburned. Last year it was Emma. Thankfully this year it was not. (I'm very sorry to Calvin whose turn it was to get sunburned, but he did not listen when I repeatedly told him to apply sunscreen.)

I have never been on the Bear Lake Youth Conference before - all three of my kids have gone multiple times and have been part of establishing the long-held traditions such as playing mafia, playing "dramatic go fish" and going to Zipps for dinner. This was my first time being witness to it all, though, and although it was quite exhausting, I was so happy to be there. Beautiful Bear Lake, happy kids, sweet devotionals, hilarious games, and yummy food. I think my favorite moment was when we were deciding how to divide up the young women into a couple of cars for the ride up and none of them wanted to be separated. We ended up unloading all the gear that had been put into my minivan and finding another spot for it all so all the girls could pile into my car together. Lots of singing happened. LOTS OF SINGING.

Here come a lot of photos which are totally out of order and I don't think I'm going to fix them.

One little alarming thing happened - Emma took a paddle board out onto the lake and I'm happy to say that she was wearing a life jacket, which she wasn't required to because she's older than 14. I was on the shore and everyone else was drifting in from an anchored floating trampoline thing that we had rented. I just kept watching Emma get farther and farther away, and the next thing I knew she was in the water next to the paddle board. Everyone else was gone but me and the bishop's wife Ellie. She and I looked at each other and just grabbed a kayak and headed out into the water to snag Emma, who was steadily floating out to sea because it was so windy. I know it wasn't a big deal - she had a life jacket on, she was calm, but I was totally freaked out thinking of her being powerless in the water. I'm grateful for Ellie who is way stronger than I am and helped me get to Emma in a hurry. Grateful she was nearby when I noticed Emma.

Anyway, it was a wonderful few days.

Later in the summer came...Stake Young Men Camp. (Cue the foreboding music.) Troy has been in charge of this camp for four years, and it's pretty stressful for him. In the spring when we started planning, I hadn't yet been asked to be the yw president. I thought it might be nice to take a load off of his shoulders and do the cooking for camp. He was relieved and grateful when I offered. Little did I know that I'd have plenty going on already with other camps over the summer, but I'm not at all sorry that I was there with Troy. It was really nice to be together, and the food was kind of fun. I kept it very simple, and did any of the real cooking at home before camp. I got some quiet time to myself and got to support Troy during a very busy week. 

And...I don't have a single photo from camp. That's funny. I thought I had a few but no. 

So there you go. Camps and camps and camps. And fun. And work. And missing a lot of work at the very same time. I have great memories of it all and also yay that summer is over!

Sadly/Happily

Emma began taking violin lessons when she was 7 years old, just starting 2nd grade. Nine years later she has done so well, getting most of the way through book 4 of the Suzuki Violin Method. She loves playing in her school orchestra, she loves learning her music for This is the Place, she loves figuring out tunes on her own. I actually think she has the beginnings of perfect pitch. You can play a note and in general she knows what note you're playing. It's pretty amazing. 

But.....violin lessons and practicing her required stuff for her teacher had become quite a struggle. She kind of started hating the pieces she was working on and really dreaded practicing and started digging in her heels about stuff. Violin was clearly not her highest priority any more and I was really feeling sad about it. To have the amazing blessing of taking lessons from my very best friend, and really having developed some skill. I decided I try my hand at being a stern parent and told Emma that she could quit violin when she graduated high school.

Spectacular failure. Emma was beyond furious and couldn't even look at me for a whole day. I decided to ask Becky's opinion and Becky, who is always wise, just told me that sometimes kids get as far as they want to get on the violin and then they want to be done. And she said it's ok - and it's not a good idea to force kids to do it. We want to foster happy good feelings about music. I know that a lot of people require their kids to take music lessons and I wanted to be like that too. But suddenly it just seemed like I was causing damage and it wasn't going to help Emma at all.

So guess what I did. I let Emma quit. And....I took her place. THAT'S RIGHT!! I'm now a violin student of Becky. It's so funny actually. I never really imagined myself as a violin player, but watching my kids take lessons and resisting doing exactly what the teachers says to do for years and years made me want to just do it myself, and do it completely. It's so much fun. Becky and I are perfect for each other. Not only am I really enjoying playing the violin, but it's like scratching an itch to practice every single day, fill in every box, and hear Becky say, "Good job. That task is complete." It's like pushing a giant endorphin button, which doesn't happen in the hazy world of parenting where no job ever feels done and who knows if you did it right. And I'm equally healthy for Becky! Do you know how rare it is for a student to practice every single day and do every single thing on the list exactly as many times as she says to do it? It's heaven for us both. Plus I'm learning to play the violin and I really like it. 

First Day of School!

Emma still plays with the school orchestra and played beautifully at work. I wonder if she'll ever go back to lessons. I have no idea, although she did declare that she wants to be a music major in college. Seems like violin lessons would be helpful in that situation, but hey, the ball is now in her court. In the mean time, I passed off my twinkles in the first week and am almost done with book one after 9 weeks of lessons. So there.

Check out that bow hold

Some Sidenotes

Some other fun things from June, in no particular order.

My dear friend Maren always invites me to one Red Butte Garden concert per year. This year she invited me to see The Barenaked Ladies with her. Um hello YES PLEASE. Was it on a Wednesday night, right during a young women's activity? Yes. Yes it was. But I called on my other leaders to help me out and I skived off and went with Maren. What a treat. I have loved this band for what...30 years? And they were just as delightful as ever. Also I adore Maren. 

Romney went on a camping trip to Bear Lake with her gang of friends. I don't have photo evidence of the trip. Just of the wake of destruction left by her preparations. Sometimes kids are the worst. 

I already complained about cleaning up Aspen Lakes camp. Troy and I were also requested to help open and clean up Brighton Girls Camp. Sigh. We felt a little complainey about this job too, but had fun with the Behunins and Bates as we prepped the Wild Rose cabin. Funny, I still come across things up there that I created since my mom was on the committee. She asked me to repaint all of the cabin signs in about 1990 and there they still were!

Totally random - my dear friend Emily and I went to breakfast where they had something called millionaire bacon. It was drizzled in real maple syrup and had actual gold leaf on it. Usually I'm not a food-photoer but I couldn't help it. 

I got to spend an afternoon lunching with my Cannon relatives. My aunt Alta is now I think 93 years old. I love her beyond words. My cousin Shelley tries to host us for lunch about once a year and it's so fun. I remember my mom going to "luncheons" with cousins and not really understanding how much joy is found in gathering with family as we are all getting older. It's just so wonderful. I'm grateful for my Cannon family. 

Emma attended FSY camp - For the Strength of Youth Camp. Again. Of course! This was her third year in a row and she just can't get enough of it. She went to the UofU campus again, and insisted on going without a known roommate. She just loves it that way. I had to work that day so Chase very kindly took her up to campus and got her settled in. She had such a wonderful week getting to know kids from all over the state and learning so much. I am hopeful that one day she'll be an FSY counselor herself.

Also she really rocked her job this summer - my friend Angie took her kids to This is The Place one day and caught Emma on camera doing a great job.

Also she got to do the fancy ball dress only once over the summer and man did that make her happy...

Happy Summer Stuff.