New zoom lens

I have always wanted a digital camera with a zoom lens, so I tried something different. I focused my 10x50 binoculars and then set my cheap Kodak cx3400 up to the eyepiece and here are the results of the Colorado River at the bottom of the Grand Canyon this week.

Commencement

Darrick W. is our Senior this year. He will be graduating May 14, 2009. Please remember him as he leaves the school not to forget the spiritual teaching he has had the last 4 years. We will miss this quiet young man.

Love is in the ...

PIZZA!

Looks yummmy and it was! Melodie was going to make some little sandwiches for our Valentine's school party, but because the store was a ways away she decided to make pizza. There was no question that it was a good idea - the students love pizza. Melodie shaped the pizzas into a heart. She made 3 pizzas and if she would have let them they would have eaten all of them.

Murphey's Law

If it's going to happen it will happen when you least want it to.
It happened too. A water leak. I'm just glad the Lord allowed it to be a slow one so we could hold off a couple days for better weather and more time. Melodie woke about 5:30 a.m. and went to the school to turn the heat on - we had no school on President's Day - and found water running out by our meter. All day the wind blew and was pretty cold and Wednesday we had an appointment. Last Dec. there had been a leak on the Utilities Co. side of the meter, so I hope it would be their mess to fix, but it turned out to be my job instead of theirs. With the help of our neighbor's backhoe were able to dig it out and have it repaired and the hole covered before our Thursday eve service. It did inconvenience the students a little but we were able to get buckets of water to flush the commodes. I'M VERY GLAD I DIDN'T HAVE TO DIG IT OUT BY HAND! I have done it before and that is a very big job! That pile of dirt is very water logged and was a magnet to the school kids.

Battle of the Bulls

This would have been interesting to see. Someone e-mailed these pictures and article to me.

RENO, Nev. (AP)
It's not all checking hunting and fishing licenses. Sometimes the issues are bigger. Like when a Nevada game warden was handed the chore of figuring out how to separate two bull elk that locked horns while sparring and couldn't untangle themselves.

The saga began Nov. 21 when a rancher in Reese River Valley spotted the two elk. By the following day, the animals were gone and the rancher assumed they had separated.

A week later, according to Nevada Division of Wildlife biologist Tom Donham, the rancher was out looking for some of his cows and saw the elk again. This time, he called the wildlife department and Donham, game warden Brian Eller and Bureau of Land Management wildlife biologist Bryson Code headed out to see what they could do. When they reached Indian Valley , south of Austin , it was Nov. 29, one week after the elk were first seen.

“When we arrived where the rancher had last seen them, we found them pretty quickly. They were both lying on the ground and one of them was in a very uncomfortable-looking position with his head directly above the others head and his nose pointing straight up to the sky,” Donham said. Eller said he wondered if they had survived their ordeal.

“Once we found out they were alive, I was hoping they couldn't move and would stay where they were. That didn't happen. When they ran off, I was hoping they could not go very far. That didn't happen either,” he said.

The elk may have been sparring at the outset, but Donham and Eller say they used teamwork to run for nearly a mile to evade the newcomers. 'It looked like they had been doing it all their lives; serious cooperation if I've ever seen it,' Donham said.

After two unsuccessful attempts, Donham was able to get a tranquilizer dart into one of the elk. With one down, the other could not run, but was also partially tranquilized in order to separate the two. Eller and Code helped hold the elk down while Donham used a hand saw to remove part of an antler from one of them.“

As soon as they were apart, the bull that hadn't gotten a full dose jumped to his feet and Bryson, Brian and I quickly gave him all the room he wanted. He went off about 30 yards and lay down for about 10 minutes before finally walking up the hill and over the ridge, none the worse for wear,” Donham said. The other elk was treated with antibiotics and eventually walked off as well, after the tranquilizer had worn off.

“If these two bulls had not been discovered, and we had never gotten the call, they more than likely would have both died. Watching the bulls walk away, and knowing that we likely saved them from a slow death was definitely one of those moments that makes this job rewarding.”

Christmas Break! When?

It seems like our Christmas break flew by swiftly. School let out on Friday the 19th. We had snow that weekend and it grew pretty cold, the Lord let it be a nice day and evening on the 23rd. We got all the students except 2 to go Christmas Caroling. Not too many have done this in our area, so we are trying to start a little tradition. Christmas day we went to jail. gulp! Yes, you read correctly. Only we go because we want to share the Good News! My Dad has gone to jail on Thanksgiving and Christmas day ever since he started having jail services and we have tried to continue. More cold weather. Sunday night after service we left our house and headed to South Dakota to see my two sisters. It is an 18 hr trip and we drove straight through. We had a family reunion planned for New Years Eve. We all made it but William (Jonathan's son) had a seizure on the way out and then ended up in the hospital in Sioux Falls, and Darla stayed with him. Jan 1st and 2nd I was able to go deer hunting. South Dakota has a special season in January because of the large deer population. We had 7 deer tags and we filled 5 before 2:oo then another that afternoon and the 7th on the Jan. 2. I was able to bring four deer home. My 2 tags and my brother-in-law gave me 2 of his. We woke up Saturday morning to gray skies and blowing snow and we neede to be home for Sunday services. The Lord helped us and we drove only about 70 miles and the winds quieted some and the sun came out. We had good roads most of the way home. Sunday morning was cloudy in Grants where my sister Dorcas lives and it tried to snow. By the time we got clear home we had 4-6 inches of snow and by Monday morning there was a good 9 inches of snow on the ground.
Wednesday afternoon the students enjoyed a time of sledding down a hill close to our house.

Happy Birthday to You!

We started the year out with TWO Birthdays in the school.

On the 1st Amanda turned 3.

On the second Marlin turned 11.

Marlin is suited up for fire duty
It hardly seems possible that it is now 2009 while yesterday - uuhh! Excuse me, 11 years ago the Yates family increased by one.

2 vanilla wafers and a york mint patty "hamburger"

By the Way there is to be another b-day on the 23rd of this month and she will be 21.