The Pond

On the north side of the bridge is a small waterfall. We thought it would be nice to have it flow into a pond. So, we intentionally placed the culverts higher than the original creek so that it would back up and create the pond that we wanted. Since there is no shortage of rocks on the property, lots of rocks, I lined the bank with them. As soon as I get more pictures, I'll post the rock-lined creek. Let me tell you, I have lifted more rocks this summer than ever before. Who says you need to work out at a gym!!

The rock-lined pond taken from the bridge.

The moss-covered, tree root water fall.

It's really pretty cool when the water is flowing.

Big Toys!

We rented a cat, crawler, or bulldozer, if you prefer, to do some heavy duty work on the property. We cleared a lot of brush and hawthorn trees from the property. Monty was able to create several roads for the quads around the perimeter and throughout the property. Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of him on the beast, and he did all the scary work! I stayed on level ground, too afraid to do anything else. Moroni spent hours on the thing and did work on flat and sloped areas. Monty did the most daring things, making roads where there were none, removing stumps, clearing rocks, etc. We were able to discover some really neat areas of the property that we had never been able to access before. I'll try to post pictures of those at a different time.

It's a good thing that dozers have hand controls so that six year-olds can operate them!

Building a Bridge

We have a seasonal creek, actually a few seasonal creeks, on the property. Several of them have simple concrete culverts over them, but this is the main one you cross over so we wanted to make it special. With no shortage of rocks on the property, and I mean lots of rocks, we decided to build a rock bridge. Five days, 4000 pounds of mortar mix ( that's two tons people!), lots of water to drink (since the weather was in the mid to high 90's all week), and some help from each of the family members and Bro. Hatch, who is an experienced stone mason and just so happened to need the work, and we end up with a fun bridge that will hopefully give us years of enjoyment. Eventually, we will plant some trees and shrubs around it, but that's for another time!

This is where we started once Monty and McKay put in the culverts and the gravel trucks brought in the gravel.

Monty and Bro. Hatch worked the first day scraping away the extra gravel with the excavator, setting up a plumb line, and placing the first stones.

This is how far we got at the end of the second day.

Day three was spent on the other side.

We decided to put some sort of cap on top of the rocks to make them look more finished. We spent day four finishing the caps on the first side, then going to work on the second side with more stones.

On day five, everyone one had the "blessing" of working, including Hyrum!

Monty mixing up one of the many batches of mortar mix. We used over 50 sacks of mortar mix...80 lbs. each. Thanks Grandpa Mel for the use of the cement mixer and generator!

Placing the capstones on the second wall. That was a LONG day!

Of course, with the hot weather, one of the coolest places was inside the culvert.

Hyrum had fun in there, too!

If you had to be in the sun, a hat was essential. Hyrum is sporting his 50¢ garage sale hat. So cool!

At the end of day five...mission accomplished!

Go Bananas!!

So while Monty and I have been working hard at building a rock bridge on the property (an upcoming post) this is what the boys are doing with their spare time. Who cares about chores when you can make really cool banana suits out of old foam pads. They have been wearing them to various places, including the grocery store where they stood by the real bananas and held a sign, "Please don't eat my babies!" Moroni made a sign that said, "Need $$ my wife split." It's nice to see they are making good use of their summer vacation!

To boldly go where no man has gone before....

Okay, so I'm pretty sure that some man, or someone, has gone here before, but not for a LONG time. We figured it would be a good spot for a road up to the barn/guest house that we want to build.

So one full day with Monty on the excavator, and me on the tractor and this is what you get!

A wonderful new road. It's amazing what you can do with heavy equipment in one day! Eventually there will be gravel on the road and some natural landscaping that will compliment the seasonal creek that is to the left.

Work, work, work!

We spent all of last week working hard on the road. Our ward had a priesthood camp out at the property this past weekend and we needed to get the road in for them to access the camping area. We also spent time knocking down what I refer to as "devil trees." Actually, I think they are hawthorns, but they are horribly thorny and everywhere! I knock them down with the tractor and haul them to a burn pile. Long, hard days! Sometimes we ask ourselves, "What we're we thinking?!!" I'm sure one day we will look back on all of this and be grateful for the property, but WOW it's a lot of work. I don't know how the pioneers did it without the big heavy equipment that we get to use.

WOW! No driver's permit, but boy can he drive a steam roller!

Dad had fun on it also!

Too much sun so Dad decided to wear a straw hat.

McKay thinks he looks like Twinkie the Kid.

What do you think?

Knocking down trees...

...scooping them up...

...and dumping them in the burn pile! Gotta love the tractor!

Mission Life, Part 2

Apparently, Ammon sent some pictures to us, and some pictures to Becca. (Not enough internet time to send all to both.) So, we have exchanged pictures and now we have him doing his laundry. Looks like fun!

Wash cycle.

Rinse cycle.

Prep for the dry cycle. Just a note: He lives in a second story apartment.

Where are the guardrails?!!

Dry cycle...as long as it doesn't rain.

Alternate dry cycle...when it does rain!

Successfully clean!