A New Little Book

I have a new little book.  A big follower of Ryan Holdiday - this guy that actually makes his living reading and dutifully produces a monthly email listing the books he has read and a short take on the book, you can check him out at Ryan's Blog, Best of 2019 List 

Anyway, this little book of quotes which Leo Tolstoy gathered up seemed like a good by-the-desk book.  I pause, in the middle of a stressful day studded with COVID19 planning, contractor needs and employee questions, and read a page or two.

As I am on duty this weekend, I have come to the office to get a couple of things managed for the weekend.  And so, I pause and read a couple of pages.  It seems like a very good idea!  As Tolstoy gathered these quotes, he would pick a favorite of the day.  The one that really resonated with him.  Here is the one that resonates with me today.

(1) Do not postpone for tomorrow what  you can do today. (2) Do not force another person to do what you can do by yourself.  (3) Pride costs more than all that is necessary for food, drink, shelter, or dress.  (4) We suffer so much, thinking about what could have happened, but not about what has actually happened.  (5) If you lose your tempter, count up to ten before you do or say anything.  If you haven't calmed down, then count to a hundred; and if you have not calmed down after this, count up to a thousand.

Wise words to ponder today from Thomas Jefferson.

Happy!

There are few things that make me happier, that boost me up, make me proud, and inspired - than getting published!  When I write, as many of you have seen, I tend to pour my soul into my writing.  So having it published is like a giant stamp of approval for ME!!  Right???!!!  This is so cool!  They are asking for more articles and I bet I can find time to get them more!! 

It's hard to be a woman in the fire service and have a voice.  Through writing, I am discovering I can have a voice.  This is a very exciting and powerful discovery for me......!!! 

I thought this article would be too edgy for them, but......here it is!!  Enjoy!

Click Here To Read

Only in the Air

Spring is only in the air.

Warmer temperatures and the arrival of red winged blackbirds makes one feel like spring is coming, but the landscape still looks quite like winter.  Saturday night, another four inches of snow to pile atop the feets-worth on the ground.  The horizontal irrigation pipe is - per Mike - 39" off the ground.  See picture below.  Flooding could be in our future.

Meanwhile, the panic over COVID-19 builds.  I say, turn off your radio, turn off your TV, cover your mouth when you cough, stay home if you get sick and wash your hands alot.  Let us all take a deep breath and try not to panic....please.  It is always smart to be prepared, but panicking will do no one any good at all. Stay calm and carry on.

One Final Step

Just back from a week in Nashville at the 2020 Vision 20/20 Symposium Click Here to see info on the Symposium  Always great to be shoulder to shoulder with so many like-minded folks.  There were over 300 of us in attendance from all across the nation.  I learned a few things and did a bunch of networking.  Even had a chance to do a tour of the Johnny Cash museum, walk Broadway, and share a delicious meal with a friend.  It was a good trip.

This last weekend found Mike and I in Freedom - yeah!!  We finished the barn quilt.  It really looks sharp with the green border.  One final step, hanging it up on the side of the shop.  I think we will wait until May-ish to get this task completed.  Maybe by then, the tractor will be repaired.....

Here is it!  The Sunflower Block!  I have two boards ready for my next project!!

How much snow do we have this year?  Here is a cool historic picture log on snowfall.  Fun to see the difference in the years.  Big Snow Year

Digging Out

I feel like an old-timer when I say, "there sure used to be a lot more blue sky days then there are now!", but it seems so true.  The last two winters have had so few blue sky days, one almost wants to make a note of it on the calendar.  "Saw the sunshine today". 

Last Sunday was one of those days.  As we rolled into Star Valley, low overcast clouds dampened the mood, but happily they dissipated away and we were treated to one of those rare Bluebird Days!  Mike crawled up on the roof to shovel and I fretted below.  The town of Alpine reported 33 inches of snow in 30 hours.  Our place in Freedom is about 12 miles south of Alpine.

Here are some images to capture this pile of frozen water.  On our roofs and in our fields.  Spring run-off should be good this year!

A Week of Snow

Friends and neighbors Todd and Janet took a winter break, packed up, and drove south on Sunday.  The day before it was 45 degrees outside.  This is the picture out our back door Monday morning.

Monday

Then the temperatures dropped to -13 degrees on Tuesday.  This is the picture from our front door Thursday morning which was the beginning of the next winter storm. 

                                                                     Thursday

Here is this morning.  It snowed all day and night.  There are three ways to get into or out of Jackson.  Two of the three closed last night.  One has reopened this morning.  Avalanches continue to slide.  It's a big gnarly storm.
 

                                                                 Friday

This is as close as we can get to the Freedom place right now; a photo off the live camera.  The road through the Snake River Canyon keeps filling in with snow cascading down the steep mountain sides.  As of noon yesterday, our renters reported over a foot of snow had fallen.  That was noon yesterday.  What a bad time for the tractor to be broken down!!

Educated

I'll read a book on tape all day long.  Put one in my hands and night time and I will soon be fast asleep.  Thank goodness for books on tape!  An Audible subscriber, I have been able to fill my drive time hours with some very good books and a few lousy ones. 

Just about to finish the book, "Educated", I can tell you this book has been a very very good book.  Find it HERE AT AMAZON and get ready for quite the story.  Tara Westover's life story will captivate you.  Raised in a very Mormon family, she spends her adult life trying to get away from the tyranny of her father's rule and her father's religion only to be pulled back, time after time, to the country she loves so much.  It is a powerful book.

Although it's a bit late in the season, the days getting longer and longer now, Mike and I have started watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on Amazon Prime.  It's a series and we are in for many laughs, for sure!  I just love this show!  Thanks Janet and Todd for sharing this with  us and giving your high recommendation.  Mixed with fun music, fun jokes, and life's dysfunctional family tales, this one grabbed us from the get-go!  We are hooked!! See a bit of this series at  TAKE A LOOK HERE  There are a bunch of episodes and many series.  We are going to need to binge-watch to get this all wrapped up by serious summer time.......it was -13 degrees this morning.  I think we have some time!!

Very Large Sunflower

The two pieces got connected last weekend.  Mike adhered pressure treated two by four lumber around the edge of the giant 8 foot by 8 foot mural.  Metal strips were screwed across the center to lend support to the connection point.  The barn quilt is very heavy.

Which leads to the news that the tractor - which will definitely be needed to launch this giant thing in the air to secure it to the side of the shed -  is once again out of service.  A part which is key to running the hydraulics has broken.  This part, replaced seven months ago, was only warrantied by the service center for six months.  A call has been placed with a picture of the broken part.  One ponders how something can last for 17 years and the new part last for only 7 months.  The tractor will have to be loaded onto a trailer and hauled 106 miles to the service center (it is winter...ugh!).  The entire engine has to be dropped to replace this part; hence the $5K bill we paid seven months ago.  We are hoping the service agent will be empathetic, kind, fair, and considerate of this incident.

Meanwhile, a big snow storm is predicted for next week.  And we have no snow blower.

Here is the lovely sunflower barn quilt.  Not quite finished yet, I will be painting a 2x4" green edge to slap on the side of the whole thing, making a nice edge and frame for the final touch.

Here is the cloth quilt Mom made in 1998.  She swore alot while making this quilt!!  I think the mural is a pretty good rendition! 

Tracks

They come in the night.  One would never know they were here if it was not winter.  Their tracks left in the snow. 

This track probably from an owl.  Did it see the mouse?  Hear it?  Did it get the mouse?  A hard hit.  Wings brushing the snow as it launched upward.  Predator in the night.

And found yesterday, a track close to home.  These tracks near the deer watering hole.  We leave a heater on in the horse tank for the deer.  They hang out around here, nibbling on sage brush, waiting out the winter, meandering up and down the road.  Predator in the night.  This one, a mountain lion.  Cougar.  Cat.  Here kitty kitty kitty.  This discovery is a bit different than finding the print of an owl.  The predator is close by.  Hunter of deer.  Hunter of dogs.  Hunter of man.  Time to start packing the pistol.  Soon to be placed, the game camera.  I want to see this cat!! Elusive and frightening, they stalk you from behind and you won't even know they are back there!

Teaching

Big smart class learning to install car seats!  It’s been a great week!

A Happy Birthday Family Celebration

Around the table Mike made, we eat and laugh, remember and look ahead under a ceiling that has seen so many Kinzer family meals. What a night to remember!!

Gifts are Not Always Wrapped

Filling up my Starbuck coffee mug - I bought myself the coffee mug that you can fill up for free every day of January - the man behind the counter called me by name.  Now I realize this is kind of a Starbucks thing, but not at this Starbucks.  No one ever remembers names.  They rarely see the same person ever again.  We are, after all, a tourist town.  So I asked him how he knows me (no longer shy am I to admit I have no clue who is talking to me!) and I hear his story.

It is a long life-story.  The essence of which includes a wife and kids, a job with real estate that had no benefits, and two bouts with cancer, one took his kidney.  He told me you can work 20 hours at Starbucks and get full medical, dental, and vision insurance.  Wow.  When I commented that perhaps this was something I should consider, he quickly and firmly stated, "No! You love your job!"

And that was my gift from Jonathon.  A random reminder of how wonderful it is to have a position of power, an opportunity to lead staff members to find their heart-singing skills, to have wondrous flexibility, to command an emergency incident, to know how to reduce risk in this wonderful community, to prevent bad things every day that no one realizes or recognizes.  That's the thing about prevention - if you are looking for a Hero Badge, it ain't comin'!!  But still, the rewards are fulfilling!

So, there are many presents to be opened.  Daily.  They don't come wrapped often, but you might have to look harder than during the holidays.

Which brings up my number one favorite-blog-follower celebrates his birthday tomorrow!  Happy Birthday, Dear Dad!!  May your gifts be abundant!!

The Easy Part, Finished

Mike and I thought the hard part of "building" a barn quilt would be the layout and painting.  As we ponder next steps, clearly, it will be the hanging of the barn quilt which will present the biggest challenges. 

Where to hang it?  It must be visible from the road.  How to hang it?  That means it must hang on the shed.  Which side?  And how it the world does one mount a 200 pound "sign" on the side of a metal shed?  One can imagine the discussions between the quilt-builder and the quilt-hanger....."I don't want any screws going through my quilt!"  "How is it going to hang up there then?" And on an on.....

There will be a green 2"x4" frame mounted vertically on the side of the 8' x 8' barn quilt when it is completed.  Next step, prime and paint edging. 

Happy New Year 2020!

Ah, the page turns to a new year and those of us old enough to ponder, remember thinking years ago that 2020 seemed like a date out of a science fiction movie.  And here we are.  The world has not come to an end - as many of those before us feared.  Many still do, of course.  I have come to realize this may have much more to do with age than it does with party-affiliation.....

Anyway, we are now into a new decade and if you turn off the television and radio, step away from your electronics and breath a bit, you can feel some peace and calm.  Because when one drills right down to the problem of fears of world destruction, it is us!  We fret and fear and create the angst that drives us to lay awake in bed at night, surrounded by blackness and the fear we have brewed up in our minds.  It is so easy to do. 

Make a New Years Resolution to work on those changes you can change.  Can you change what is happening in Washington DC?  Most likely not.  Can you change something in your community.  You bet!  These little organic home-town changes are the ones that matter.  I would offer up that we fret and focus on national-level changes because we don't have the time or commitment to make local change.  Here are just a few ideas: quit using plastic grocery bags, recycle often, give blood, donate an organ (Mom donated her kidney at 69!), find an old single person and offer to help them, cook a meal for a family, drive less and walk more - look for change at a local level.  You can make a difference!!

This is the monthly report I created to share with our organization on what we are doing in the Prevention Bureau.  You might enjoy clicking through the pages Click Here to see Prevention Report

The barn quilt is one coat of paint away from completion.  In this picture, you will see the two 4'x8' boards, opposing each other.  They will be reversed when finished to connect together and become one, giant 8 foot by 8 foot sunflower.  The quilt block is pictured below from the quilt Mom made for me in 1998.  What a fun winter project this has been!  Should I add the stars in the bright yellow petals?  Looking for your vote!

Work

Mike and I jumped right back to work after our really really great Christmas time off.  Christmas Eve was spent in Freedom with old friends eating Jack Knife Beef and a myriad of delicious appetizers.  I tried this out in my Insta Pot Artichoke Dip and was very pleased.   There was also a blue ribbon sour cherry pie to finish off the feast!

Christmas brunch with Todd and Janet, a bottle of wine at (gasp) 1 in the afternoon and a vigorous game of Pitch.  Mike and Janet won, dang it!! 

Christmas Dinner at Spotted Horse where we all have celebrated together for 18 years now (we were absent last year, in the Adirondacks with the Trumbowers).  Mike perfectly fried an amazing turkey (best one yet!), we sliced up the delicious smoke turkey sent every year from the Beckers, a cranberry sour cream salad was enjoyed as well as a hot loaf of rosemary sourdough bread.  Plus what everyone else brought!!  Janet gave us a tray of her amazing homemade cannolis which were half gone by dinner time!! 

Back to eating salads.  Please, please!

Off to Freedom for the weekend.  Cutter Races on Saturday.  Painting the barn quilt.  Entertaining our neighbors on Saturday.

Here is the lemon tart for Saturday dinner.  Dust with powdered sugar, top with whip cream swirls. Want the recipe?  It's kind of fun to make!  Lemon Tart Recipe

Happy New Year Everyone!! 

Holiday Greeting

Our Holiday Greeting to You!

Ten Below Zero

There are very few reasons why one would walk outside naked when it is ten below zero, but Mike and I both did just that this morning.  Thank goodness our hot tub is just out the door!!  Slipping into the 104 degree water, a ring around the moon, and steam freezing to our hair, it was truly delightful!  I love our hot tubs (yes, we have one in Freedom too). 

Today's news below, hot off the press.  This is our town.  It is an amazing and very expensive place to live.  I have been working on 16 radios for our volunteers in Wilson.  Their association bought these radios with fund-raising money; ie, no county tax dollars were spent!  Total bill - $33K.  A local donor has indicated they would like to purchase a wildland fire truck for our organization as a donation.  They are willing to donate $400K for this vehicle.  Another family wants to say thanks and may put up $250K for a new handheld radio for every firefighter.  This is an amazing, generous community.  We have our fingers crossed that these donations will come to fruition.

And this week's awesome story from Prevention - we are delighted Chief Hansen jumped on board for this wonderful award!!

Goodbye Cosmo....

I remember the day at the sale.  A tall, lean cowboy was riding around a tall, lean appaloosa mule.  This mule had a head so ugly, he was handsome!  The auction time came round, and the mule was priced right.  Cosmo joined our herd.

A summer pack trip, not long after Mike added Cosmo to our herd, Ruby - young and willing - was invited to jump up on the saddle and join Mike atop Cosmo.  Now this is not something one does without potential consequences, but Cosmo stood there as Ruby jumped up to the saddle and the three of them rode on.

Miles and miles that mule took care of Mike.  Miles and miles.  One gives their trust to their steeds. 

There have been a couple of incidents.  Once, Cosmo gave up in a gully and Mike ended underneath the saddle horn and the mule.  A giant bruise and thankfully no broken bones.  They both survived the incident.

Then, last summer's swim in the Elk Fork roiling river.  Somewhere in the middle of that flooding torrent of water, Cosmo got his back left leg tangle in rock and down he and Mike went into the cold spring runoff.  The mule survived only because Mike held onto a rein. 

Hunting, this last fall, Cosmo stepped over a log and got that same leg tangled.  Down he went.  The signs of trouble were mounting up.

Today, friend and veterinarian Griggs announced a stifle issue which sent Cosmo to the hole at the Walton Ranch.  Good bye old friend, good bye.  You need suffer no more.

Until you have pulled yourself up onto the back of a mule or a horse, you will never understand the relationship that is built between animal and man.  Losing your riding mule is a tough tough thing and today was not easy for Mike.  Cosmo will be missed.

 

Three Publication Week!

Wow.  Wish I had more time to write!  All three of these articles out in one week.

The one I am happiest with -
International Association of Fire Chiefs Piece

This one came out yesterday; (Yes, I have asked to have "shoot" changed to "chute" - I should have caught that one!!)
Fire Rescue Magazine

And this just out in Wildfire Magazine:

Very Vacation-Like!

Surrounded by family and loved ones, Mike and I celebrated a very festive and wonderful Thanksgiving.  Seth and Alden made the long trip from Cody, Wyoming and stayed until Sunday.  Dani and Evan joined in for the festivities.  For Thanksgiving dinner, neighbors and renters Russell and Lisa brought their farm-raised turkey; aka, Tom, to the table at a whopping 39 pounds!  Alive, Tom registered in at a whopping 50# weight.  Good living over there at the white house!! 

Aerial views of Thanksgiving Dinner! 

We took on a DYI project making environmentally-friendly beeswax wraps. They looked awesome drying.  Our technique might need to be perfected a bit, but we all had fun with the colored fabrics and results.

The other project, our 8' x 8' barn quilt, is coming along.  Three coats of two different colors have been applied.  It's going to be SO cool, this barn quilt!!  Everyone got a hand at painting and signed their names to the back of the boards!  So great to have group participation!

(Yes, there is a mistake on this board...no worries, it will easily be fixed by the next darker yellow paint!!)

It was a really great break and topped off by an impressive winter storm with a whopping foot of snow that needed moved around in both Freedom and Hoback.  We are all plowed out now, waiting for the next winter round of white stuff.  Togowotee Pass is reported to have received 29" of snow in this storm. 

Saturday, we all watched friend Coralia win her Cutter Race.  She raced neck to neck with another woman driver and we all are pretty sure this was the first time ever two women raced side by side. 

Here she is after the race, cooling off the horses.  Always a fun thing to do on Saturday!  We ate a big burger, shared some adult beverages, and stood in the snow, watching the horses run! 

Here's the whole gang on, as Seth observed, the Ultimate Dude Launcher!  Thanks for taking the photo, Neighbor Pam!