November 2020

 November started off SO beautifully!

I drove home to Salmon Tuesday, November 3, in order to vote. Josh and I have always felt like voting is an important right and responsibility in our U.S. citizenship. It was the Presidential Election this year, and the media had been crazy for months all about it, so it was nice to finally have it done with! It was also the 100 year anniversary of women being able to vote, which I'd recently read about, so I was SO happy to see that our "I Voted" stickers also shared that fun fact! Ultimately, Joe Biden won the presidential election, and overtook Donald Trump after just one term in office. 

I took Josh to Elkhorn Hot Springs in Montana for his birthday on November 7. When we returned home on the 8th, we arrived to 8 inches of snow that had fallen overnight! It went from fall to winter in one day!

I haven't made pumpkin puree for a few years, because we had plenty of it still in the freezer, but we finally ate it all this year, and I needed to make some more this fall. Over the course of 2 weekends in November, I processed the pumpkins we grew in our garden. We ended up not carving pumpkins at Halloween this year due to our schedule, and I didn't want them to go to waste, so it was the perfect opportunity to use the pumpkins and refill our freezer with puree again! I was able to make 11 quarts of it with the help of the Oliverson's food processor (mine broke the last time I made pumpkin puree a few years ago!).

 

On November 11, there was a huge herd of Elk in the field below our house. Josh texted Mark to see if he still had a tag, but his season was over. 2 hours later, Ed called and asked if Josh wanted an elk tag (Ed planned to get some depredation tags) and Josh said yes. 30 minutes before Josh was supposed to drive his afternoon bus route, Ed and Mark called to say that they were on their way out with two depredation tags. When Mark arrived, he and Josh went out in the field and shot two cow elk. Josh hurried and gutted his, then went to drive bus (still covered in blood!) and while he was driving bus, Ed and Mark hauled the elk to Ed's shop. After Josh finished driving his bus route, he skinned his elk in the dark as quick as he could, and then headed straight from there to his monthly golf course meeting (still covered in blood!). It was a whirlwind, but super productive, day!

We processed the elk together a few days later on the weekend. We got 56 lbs. of burger, 6 large roasts, 3 small roasts, and 3 gallon-size bags of jerky meat. We processed the jerky over the course of the following week. I created a marinade that the meat soaked in for 48-72 hours, then Josh laid out the meat from one bag onto pans and trays and cooked at a slow pace in the oven or the smoker. Then they laid out to cool off before being eaten! The jerky was SO delicious!

Josh works year-round at the golf course. In the off season, he trims trees and works on equipment. After the snow fell in November, he still had some fungicide rounds to apply to the greens. The fungicide helps the greens to recover in in the spring after having the cold, wet snow on them all winter. Fungicide has to be applied to grass directly, and since the snow fell so early, he had to snowplow it off the greens in order to apply the final 2 rounds. As he was working out on the course in November, he took these photos: 

the ice is closing in on the pond

the fountain gets shut off the in the winter

one of the greens he snowplowed

My dominos friends from Terreton went bowling to celebrate our friend Tanis' birthday. It was so much fun! We went to Skyline Lanes in Idaho Falls, which thankfully allows customers to bowl without having to wear a mask. They only use every other lane, due to COVID restrictions, so it wasn't super packed, but it was really busy that night! It felt like such a normal outing, and I really enjoyed it!

Josh painfully fractured his ankle on November 19 as he was walking on the driveway from our house to his bus. There was a patch of ice, and he slipped and landed wrong. He was paralyzed in pain for a few minutes before he decided that it would take longer to get a bus driver substitute to pick up the kids on his morning route, so he crawled to his bus, and painfully drove his bus route. He used his left foot for the brake, and every time he had to accelerate, he would apply pressure on his knee, rather than bend his ankle. Thankfully, he made it safely back to town and dropped off all the kids at school, and then his boss drove him to the doctor's office. He got a scan, and it was confirmed that the tip of the ankle bone had chipped off. The bad news was he had to be off his foot for 2 weeks. The good news was that it was the week before Thanksgiving, so he only had to take 2 actual days of work. He applied ice and heat for several days, wore a boot for over a week any time he had to walk anywhere, and then an ankle brace after that which really helped. It took a long time to heal, but the swelling and intense pain began to decrease after a week or so. 

Someone brought a turkey to us, but we have no idea who! Kanyon answered the door, and a kid (who he didn't recognize) handed over the turkey. Kanyon said thanks, and shut the door. Thank you to whoever thought of us! 

Ammon came home to Salmon for Thanksgiving break, which was fun! We ate, played games, watched movies, and relaxed together (which was good for Josh as he was trying to rest his foot!). We also went to Fairmont Hot Springs as a mini-getaway, which apparently was a first for the boys!

We finally got our giant wood pile burned at the end of the month. We moved it to the area behind our garage, below the field. It was a really good location for it! I think we'll keep it there! We also moved wood to the car port for dry storage for the winter months, and it's also easier to access it there since it's a straight walk from there to our front door. 

November finished just as beautifully as it started, just a lot cooler, and with some snow-cover, too!