October's end

I think this picture is in an earlier post, but for comparison purposes...

...we finish adding sand and climbing holds on walls of three different heights (two on the right of the slide, the largest on the left). I caught the children putting chickens down the slide and forbade them from doing it again. So they would take the chickens to the top, and throw scratch seed at the bottom, tempting the chickens to slide or glide to the bottom of their own volition. It was like they were recreating the garden of Eden, throwing some fruit of the tree at the bottom of the slide.

We harvested the last of our grapes and bottled several quarts of fantastic juice. We worked on the grapes 6-ish weeks later than last year and got much better results.

Little Rosie with grandma Tueller.

Grandpa Tueller and Mr. Q.

We've learned that Egyptian onions establish formidable colonies - we lost a quarter of the soil in this garden box when attempting to move them. Since we had planted around 100 traveling bulbs from the tops of these plants elsewhere, we composted these to reclaim the space in the garden. 

Our purple pod beans were too stringy for eating or canning, so we let them get large and harvested the seed. White chili later this winter?

Zachary, Payge, and I went on a short hike up a draw behind our house. Zachary didn't care to join us up the north wall of the draw where attempted to get some panoramic views of the valley. My camera phone was not up to the task, so I won't post the results here.

Back at the trailhead, about a 1/2 mile from the house (which you can see in the background if you look close)

Finally got rid of that baby scented vaseline we hated but couldn't ever throw away. I made fire starters by melting it in with beeswax collected from our hives and dipped cotton balls in the mix. 

A test found that these will start with a magnesium striker, a though they are not as flammable as vaseline only starters, they burn longer (12+ minutes).  

Monsters, mascots, and Quinton's "House"

This weekend was a fun combination of football, general conference, beekeeping, and building.

Quinton, wearing the mask to Zachary's Halloween costume. This picture does not do it justice, but the curly hair over the creepy mask made him look like a scary clown.

Zachary and his Grandpa Tueller, watching the USU-BYU football game. USU had their first win at BYU since 1978. Aunt Renee helped us aquire the tickets and drove us down after convening at her house with Steve, Cory, and Bradley Tonks. 

Big Blue was hanging out with the USU fans, and we got this shot of Bradley and Zachary with him.

Rosie, sleeping. We have to wrap her up and squeeze while dancing to get her to sleep, other wise she moves too much to fall to sleep. 

We finished the last two retaining walls of our sandbox and have done the initial backfill. Zachary and Payge helped line up, level, and flush the boards, while Quinton handed me screws. Quinton claims that it is "his house" and wanted to know why I neglected to put a door on it. Payge wondered when we would add a roof. Chayce wants the handholds for the climbing wall. Zach wonders where the sand is. I can't wait for it to be a fort for snowball fights. One step at time. 

Zachary and Chayce insisted on sweeping the grass-less area in front. I finally convinced them to stop since I'll be planting grass and need a medium for the seed. 

The work crew showing off their more-finished-than-it-was-last-week project.