First Bi-Annual Work on the Farm Day!!

We have the wonderful opportunity to live on the Bell Patch, a Grandfathered plot of land, that has the atmosphere of a farm. It was a farm once and now we the descendants of Lowell C Bailey and his wife Mayme Marie have the blessing of being stewards of this oasis in the dessert with its own well.

I have always had the dream of raising as much of our own food as we could and being as self sufficient as we could. We are a long ways away from that dream, but I am committed to making this desirable spot more productive and desirable. It takes a lot of work. We have no hired help and most of our children are raised and raising their own little ones. My dream is to maintain a "farm" that my grandchildren can come to and experience.

The First Presidencyof the Church-of-Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints has stated that, "Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness respect, love, compassion, WORK, and whosesome recreational activites."

The Grandchildren helped, enjoyed riding in the truck, and playing together. Galen took lots of great pictures.


We appreciate all those that came and helped. It was great fun for us to watch our children work together. We had a lot of fun. THERE IS ALWAYS MORE TO DO:)
Son in law Dennis Letner was a terrific foreman! He came early and stayed late and we appreciate his leadership and sacrifice of time.

A Girls Dream Come True

Friends, Scott and Diane Gamble are temporarily housing their horses in our pasture so they can graze. Mari is so crazy about horses that this was a "safe" arrangement to give her more experience and see where this "craze" will go. I don't know how "safe" it is though as she is ready to take off on her own because Tedd is not always around to go with her.
We have used the internet and googled "horse safety" and "riding helmets" (I LOVE THE INTERNET!!!). Mari says. "I don't need to read that. You're just trying to scare me!" We WILL read and study and apply! Sigh.
The paint is "Teton" and the white one is "Myia". Myia is Mari's favorite and oddly enough looks just like the horse that Galen and Liz painted on Mari's bedroom wall.
THANKS SCOTT AND DIANE for the opportunity. They appear to be well and happy and they get along just fine with the goats:)

To Honor Them

GRAMMY BLACKWELL SETTING THE TABLE WITH HER CHINA FOR CHRISTMAS

I try to call them everyday. I try to see them at least once a week. I know it is getting to be a big effort for them to come out to the Bell Patch and more often than not it is exhausting for them and chaotic with family and friends whirling around. I wish they were closer. My dream was to have them live with me, but it didn't sound like a good dream to them (I can't imagine why! he he), so they are 45 minute drive away.
For Christmas family members contributed funds and photos for a digital photo frame. We shopped and compared on line and purchased a 10" DPF and began the process of collecting and downloading photos from the family and from their own slide collections.
I was hoping to have the project completed by Dec 1 and give them and early Christmas present they could enjoy all through December, but the photo frames we purchased (from Abe's of Maine) had problems and we began the process of shipping them back and waiting for a "better" DPF to arrive. It was made in China, shipped to a company in CA, shipped to MA, shipped to AZ. This DPF has practically been around the world! I now recommend buying local:)

The new and "better" DPF arrived and it seems to work fine, but I immediately notice that the resolution was not as good and I got on the phone and began calling and was going to ship them back and realized that this Christmas gift was going to turn into an anniversary present at best and time is of the essence! So without any further ado we presented the gift on Jan 11. I'm sure it will bring hours of enjoyment and the difficulties aside I thoroughly enjoyed receiving and viewing all the family pictures. I feel closer to my family members for having communicated and worked together on this little project. I appreciate all those who helped and I must says Bonnie and Blackie Blackwell have a bodacious and wonderful family!!!

HUGS AND KISSES

FOR POPPY

My Work and My Glory . . .

As a mother you spend much of your time trying to teach and train the wonderful souls that God places in your charge. They grow and become such wonderful friends. From day one you learn from your children, but now my adult children are really my teachers. They launch me into the wonderful world of technology. ie text messaging, blogging etc.
Journal keeping has always been something that I have encouraged. At Christmas I pulled out my old journals to find somethings to share that I recorded about my children in years past. I now have discovered another project that I'm going to have to do. I must make an abrigdement of my "large plates" and store them on a thumb drive so that when I'm gone and my children are going through my things they will not discard them thinking they are just some worthless old papers. I have written and kept letters for most of my adult life and put them in notebooks, but this blogging is truly a wonderful way to keep a record and share. Yea!!! What fun. Life is beautiful.

Cookie Time