July 2019 Random

This summer, I was motivated to get as many projects done as possible. For the first time ever, I burned the giant burn pile COMPLETELY by MYSELF!!! I was so proud of myself for not burning anything else and keeping it under control! 

Josh installed new seats in the Jeep--the old ones were falling apart under the covers: they were held together with zip ties which were so uncomfortable, and all the foam in the seats was coming out. It was a frustrating afternoon, but he got the job done, and the seats are so much nicer!!! A few days later, the bench seat that he ordered came in the mail, and he installed it as well. When we purchased the jeep last year, it didn't come with a bench in the back, so this just doubled the amount of seating!!

The garden only really gets weeded completely a couple of times per summer--this was the first time it was totally done, and it looked so good that I just had to take photos of it! I did most of the weeding by myself, doing some each morning, but Kanyon sometimes joined me (because I forced him to), and I liked when each rotation was done!

Aunt Linette asked Josh and I to be shuttle drivers for her family after they got in the Middle Fork and floated to the Salmon. It was a long day--we drove from Boundary Creek to the end of the river road and then back to Salmon all in one day. But we had a lot of fun, too--and the money was a nice bonus!

This is the put-in dock at Boundary Creek--it was 

SO fascinating to see such a unique steep ramp that they

push the rafts down before getting into the river. 

These were the vehicles we drove that day:

I drove the small white truck, & Josh drove the van.

I'd never been down the Salmon River Road this far before! This is where

the Salmon River and Middle Fork converge together. 

Aunt Linette and her friend Shanda also drove with us.

We stopped on the drive back to Salmon to look at the 

pictographs in the rocks. They were so cool!

Molly sent me this sweet package in the mail for helping out their family when they came to Salmon for the 4th of July. It made my day! I loved all the bright yellow items, they were so cheery!

Ammon came home for a golf tournament in July the weekend after Independence Day, and since he missed some of our family activities on July 4th, we did a few things with him while he was in Salmon! Ammon and his friend Tim came clay pigeon shooting with us and the boys at the gravel pit, we took Ammon golfing with our family one afternoon, and we got to play board games with them, too. It was so nice to have him home!

Josh drove me up to Lover's Lookout in the Jeep one evening. It was so beautiful! I love our little adventures in the Jeep!

One of the projects I worked on this summer was stripping this coated copper wiring that was left over from the sprinkler installation at the golf course over a decade ago. It was driving me nuts seeing this massive pile always sitting in the shop, and I decided to do something about it. I worked on it several days over the summer, for about 2 hours at a time. I finally got it all done mid-July! 

I attached the wire to the strong vice grip in Josh's shop in order to have one end

held down. 

Then I use a straight edge blade to cut one side of the wiring off. 

From there, I was able to peel off the remainder of the wire

Overall, I had about 100 pounds of copper wiring to recycle!

Our ward had a one-day youth conference at the Bishop's house on July 12th. They served breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There was spiritual speakers, fun activities in the afternoon, and a fireside in the evening. I went up there a few times to chauffeur the kids between work and dentist appointments, and to deliver additional water tubes, and captured a few photos as they were doing the fun activities. There was a waterslide leading down to the pond, and a zip line over the pond as well. It looked like they were having a ton of fun! What a great opportunity for our kids!

They put a target in the pond right before Jonah's turn at the zipline.

He was the first one to make it in the target! Cool sight!

When I was in Jackson Hole with my friends, Josh went golfing and captured this double rainbow!

One of the projects I really wanted to tackle this summer was organizing the end of the garage that's deemed Josh's side (since it has all the tools and miscellaneous stuff). I bought a giant rolling shelf at ShopKo when it was going out of business, and waited until it was the right time for him to help me! When my grandpa died several years ago, we acquired many tools from him that we haven't gone through (because my grandpa was a bit of a hoarder, so it was a long project to sort through everything!). It took a couple of days, and we purged many things, and organized and labeled everything else. It feels good to have an official home for everything!

This was the only "Before" picture I could find from last summer of that

end of the garage. 

This is the "After" picture of that side of the garage now!

There's lots of room for him to still park his 2 motorbikes in that area, too.

This is the view from the front door of the garage of the same area. 

Okay...so I love our cat Torch. He's so lazy, but I love watching him sleep (I'm definitely in the minority of my family for my thinking). I thought he looked like he was dreaming he was SuperCat flying through the air here, and couldn't resist taking a photo!

Josh took me on a Jeeping adventure to Hat Creek one evening. Can I just say that I loved this summer with Josh?!! He didn't have as many mowing clients as in years past--lowering it to less than 5, so he was available many evenings and was so much less stressed. I liked spending time with him, and going on our jeep drives! We hadn't been to Hat Creek in years, and as we drove, he reminisced about all the cattle drives and time spent on the family ranch there. We soaked in the Royal Gorge Hot Springs on the way back. It was a lovely night!

The old airstrip on the family ranch.

A couple days later, we drove down river and went up Indian Creek Road--neither of us had been down that road before. We came out on Hwy 93 north, and then continued on past Gibbonsville, onto Lick Creek Road, and then crossed over the border into Montana into Wisdom. We'd never been all the way across that road, either! We stopped in Wisdom to eat dinner before coming home along the highways. It was such a fun evening! I loved exploring new places with Josh!

 I started a new summer job in mid-July. I had contemplated driving river shuttle cars last summer, but was unsure if it was a good fit for me. After I shuttled the one day earlier in the month with Josh and Aunt Linette, I knew it was something that I would be able to do, so I applied at a company called River Shuttles and started the following week! I drove two different routes: one down river and to Boundary Creek, and one to Carey Creek which is at the end of the river on the Riggins side. The days were long, but I got to drive some pretty nice vehicles!

The newest vehicle I got to drive was a 2019 Ram truck! It only had 2500 miles on it!

The worst part about being on the Carey Creek crew was spending 7 hours

in the returning shuttle van! It was a long drive with a lot of people crammed in.

I liked the Corn Creek drive because I got to see people taking river trips.

One day when we were going into Boundary Creek, a fire near Stanley had just started. RV's were clearing out of a campground that was right next to it (it was caused by people). On our way out of Boundary Creek several hours later, we were the last ones to make it past the fire before they shut the road due to how much it spread. It opened a couple days later.

The camp trailers were mass exiting the site. There had

been a big reserved group with a lot of people there. 

Approaching the site many hours later...

There was lots of fire spots visible from the road. 

 

3 days after the fire started, I drove by it again, and this is what it looked like:

I've never been to the Mountain Mamas Rendezvous in Stanley, but this

was just the day before the event was to start and there was booths set up all over!

I ended up driving a lot more on the Carey Creek route than the Corn Creek/Boundary Creek route. Although the days were long, there was a lot of interesting things to see and I enjoyed the scenery!

 

There's an area south of our home that I've been wanting to clean up and turn into usable space for years, and we finally made that happen this summer, and it's been my favorite project this year! The area used to be a fenced-in spot for our horses to graze in the summer, and then when we didn't have horses anymore, it became a storage spot for our wood piles and storage sheds and a parking spot for our utility trailers, and then when we didn't have sheds anymore, it became an area to weed-eat twice a year! We had to clear out a pile of misshaped cut wood, move a giant stack of wood, move an old, heavy bulldozer, cut tree branches, and clear out garbage, which included a strange old rusted pipe and an old roof to the addition on our previous trailer house. We've been working on this project since the beginning of July, and this is just the list of things we did in one month.

The "BEFORE" shot of the area

This is my new favorite outdoor space at my house now!

This is the view from the entrance to the spot looking north to our garage. 

 

I like the curve in the creek right next to the cleared space. 

In addition to the new seating area, I also hung up two hammocks. 

This year I decided to combine all the golden and red raspberries together in the jams, rather than separating them into their own jams. It was so much easier!!

After working on jams all day, a soak at Sharkey in the evening was heavenly!

We stopped for a minute at the golf course on the way back from the hot springs

so Josh could program the automatic sprinklers. The view was pretty!

The last weekend of July, Josh and I drove to Boise to visit Ammon at his summer internship job in Meridian. He looked so professional! We took him and Gabbie out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory that night (much to my enjoyment and Josh's dismay!). Josh and I stayed in a hotel, and the next day, Josh and Ammon golfed as a team in the Super/Pro tournament at the Club at SpurWing (where Ammon interned). They had a good team, but didn't win, although Josh did place 2nd on the hole with the competition for hitting closest to the pin! After the tournament, Ammon drove me around his course as he picked up all the signage, and I enjoyed the tour and the ride with him! Josh and I only stayed the one night--but we made the most of the trip: on the way back to Salmon, we hit up THREE hot springs (two of which were new to us)! We dipped our toes in the Hot Springs Campground hot springs along the river in the Boise National Forest, we stopped at the Boat Box Hot Springs in Stanley, and finally we soaked in our favorite Royal Gorge Hot Springs closer to home. It was a short, but lovely, trip to see Ammon! We are so proud of how successful he is!