Elena's Rose Cottage

Today was a blue sky, big fluffy white cloud, sunshine day, albeit a cool one. I sorted out Tara's seed catalogs and cataloged her packages of seeds in preparation to ordering seeds for this year. For our outing we drove over to her art friend Susie's for a load of manure with the help of two young men and a very large trailer. Susie lives out in the country and raises horses and chickens and has a very large dog. Since the property for their horses included a house that they did not love, they have been adding to and improving upon it the 11 years that I have known her and before that. The latest project is a patio that will include an outdoor kitchen, a hot tub, and a dry stream bed meandering through it all. Susie gave me starts of plants that I still have including my Cecil Brunner rose, tons of love-in-a-mist flowers, and the hops vine growing on the shed. She teaches specialty art classes to children, rides, and gardens among many other things--high energy. I took some pictures of some of the-way-ahead-of-Utah growing things in her yard.







This is the back of the house where the lines have really changed.

I slept way in this morning, knowing that Tara would be doing that as well. She got up in time to do her four hour shift at the temple. I stayed home and worked in the garden a little. I cleaned out three areas of strawberries that she wanted pulled out, ready to manure the patches tomorrow, (I planted two of the patches last May when I was here) and plans to replant them with new strawberries. Has 50 plants on order. Also found some moss to take home and redo the teriarium ( can't spell that word properly) that Tabers gave me and isn't doing so well. I let the chickens out and they kept me company. I plan to prepare mega vegetables for juicing, this afternoon. Will be interesting to do it in the bathroom.

Two before pictures. Will post the after pictures if we get them planted:




One of the chickens, aptly named Pearl:


Moss to take home:

Arrived in Seattle in a snowstorm swirling around the airport. It was sunny when Tara and Ed left to pick me up--snowing at the airport and sunny again at home. I guess it just snowed at the airport. Anything to make air travel interesting. I had a trip with no adventures other than flying to Denver, changing planes and then flying to Seattle. Longer trip that way. That evening, I watched three episodes of "The House of Elliot" on my computer--a first for me but it works. This was the first time that I realized that the series originated with Eileen Atkins and Jean Marsh. (Upstairs, Downstairs). Those gals are good. I wonder what else they have thought up. Will have to do some research on that. It is a challenge to live without a working kitchen. Glad that it will soon be over for them.

I have a lot of pictures that have never been put into an album or scrapbook. Several years ago I sorted a bunch of them. Last summer I put them into plastic sleeves with the magazine pictures I use for scrapbooking. This winter (my scrapbooking partner finally returned home from Canada) I am organizing the pages and assembling them when I scrapbook with Callie on Thursdays. They have evolved some since I first started scrapbooking so I am going to post some of the latest ones.

Last night we celebrated my father's (Ross Allen Bodily) one hundredth birthday with a party at our house. We invited all of his descendants who live in the area and then the whole family, not expecting them to actually come. Merlyn tried but couldn't get the right flights at the last minute. We missed him. Those who did come included Elena and Wayne; Kirk, Kathy, Julia and Jon; Rob, Tina, Kayla, Ari, Abby and Garret; Erin; and Mandy. After a chili supper we all sat down to listen for a little while, words about him and by him. Earlier in the day, Pam Mayes was here for a chess tutorial from Wayne and asked what was music I was playing (a CD of Rob and Ross and then of Rob, Tina, Kimberly and Stephen, and even of Dad himself---singing his songs). She knew about the party and said that with music Dad would probably come. I hadn't thought about him coming, and then, alas, even forgot to play the music, but his spirit was definitely there. Kirk read a college english paper that Tory had written in 1998 entitled "My Grandpa," and, as Kirk said, makes one teary to read it. (I put it on the Bodily blog--bodily.blogcadia.com--ask me or LouAnn for the password) Erin read a poem about Grandpa written by Alayna, and Rob read one of Dad's stories, "Ned Baden's Dare"--the one that won for him a yearbook. We chatted about him and then sang "Happy Birthday" and ate cake. Then played the name game because all birthday parties should have games. It was a nice evening, good company, and good recollections about a man whose genes all us carry within us. Those genes show up generations later even when the bearer of them does not know it. One thing that come out of the evening was this advise: Ask questions about your ancestors while the people who would know the answers are still around and able to answer them. Last night the hearts of the children were turned to their fathers.

Finally am posting a picture of the victorian swim suits that we made for Zoe and Liz. Zoe's turned out to be a little large for her. Either she has to grow or we have to shrink the swim suit.



Here are some cute pics of Charlotte at Christmas time.

I am so pleased with the Cutco Cutlery. I am using it and it is wonderful!!

Time to do a little catching up.

Garret Robert Mihu was blessed at his home a week ago. I took a bunch of pictures after Tina said I could post them and they all turned out blurry. Continued to be blurry until Randy or Aaron fixed the camera when they were over. So, here is a headless one but at least sort of clear, and you can see the outfit we stayed up late the night before making---Tina, Laurene and I.



We were pleased when Donna, Randy and children stopped by for a brief visit along with Aaron Carmack, who took this photo.



We opened our gifts to each other last night. Several have asked what I received so here goes. Wayne had fun looking through a Tuscanos Catalog and ordered a small statue of a cherub sleeping. It goes on a shelf with an arm and a wing hanging over. He also ordered a vintage looking necklace and earrings--very pretty. I may have to buy something blue to wear with them. Also, a lovely manicure set--four-sided file, cuticle oil, cutter, and lotion. Three CDs of his making, AND a cordless mouse with no attachment to stick out of my computer! I think that the mouse is my favorite.

I found this recipe in the newspaper and decided to try it. It turned out surprisingly good--something about the salt and crunchiness and the chocolate. It took about ten minutes to make. Then it has to chill to set the chocolate.

Soda Cracker Candy
Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil and oil it with salad oil. Cover it with soda crackers. Boil one cup of butter and one cup of brown sugar for two minutes. Pour over the crackers--spread with a spatula if necessary. Cover them all. Bake in preheated 350 oven for five minutes. Take out and sprinkle semi sweet chocolate chips over it. Put back into the oven to melt the chips. Take out and spread with a spatula. Add finely chopped nuts (if desired) while still hot. Chill in refrigerator. Break into cracker squares. Enjoy

Our actor friends, the Bairds, asked Wayne to come be Santa in their ward so no one would recognize him. He did a good job and had a great time. Got some pictures for next years Christmas cards. (Maybe this year?)

We watched the game at Kirks along with a lot of Albrechts. There was only one rooter for Utah--rather outnumbered. A few days later I saw a woman with red fingernails with white "U's" painted on each nail.



Chris and her dogs:



Kathy and her dog:

We spent thanksgiving with he Larsens and a very nice celebration it was. Great food, company, games and movies.

Here is the dinner:

I put it on facebook but facebook bumped it over to my photos which even I had never looked at. Any way, I finally got my garden video. The scenes of my garden were very fleeting and if one did not already know that it was my garden, they wouldn't know it from watching the video (which was very well done, by the way) Oh, well.

I read this article in a magazine and decided to set my alarm to get up and watch for a while. Which I did at midnight. I bundled up, took out a blanket and laid on the chaise lounge on the deck. The constellations were bright, and the other stars faint. The house hid the western part of the sky but , one could see very few stars in that part of the sky anyway due to the city lights. I was looking for streaks and was disappointed in that I saw none. Probably too much city light. What I did see was the sky turning blue and the mountains looking like the gold time of the day. Just for a second and then it was dark again. The blue was the biggest surprise to me--seeing that at midnight. It was a different blue than one sees in the daytime--a light blue-- with a glow? I thought that was strange and looked for streaks until I got too chilled. Didn't find out until the next day (thanks to Maren) was it was. A huge meteor entering the atmosphere 100 miles up--the impact causing the brilliant flash brighter than daylight, was was what I observed. That was a fun experience.

This is a picture that I took a few weeks ago at the gold time of the day. It was what the meteor flash looked like only perhaps brighter (the meteor).