Bunk House, Drought, and Service

 Smut

One of the best parts of a mission is getting to know the others who are also serving.  In the evenings we play card games and on one night they taught us how to play smut.  When I get back, I'll teach you!!

The bathroom project

The shower project is coming right along and should be wrapped up this week.  The family he is doing it for are super excited to have a basement bathroom. Below is a picture of Travis and his boys.

Notice the tank behind the toilet.  Because there isn't any plumbing in the basement, an ejector system is required (It grinds everything up and ejects it upward).  The shower and sink also feed into it.  The flooring is the material used in the rest of the basement.  Below are the faces behind what we do.  They couldn't be more thrilled with the work we are accomplishing.

Wind and Weather

These are some of the screens here.  With the cold winters and winds, it really takes it's toll on the houses. Almost all of them need paint and screens.  It gets hot during the day, but cools down amazingly at night.  The air is so cool and clean.

Drought

On Memorial Day the ranch held their last (spring) branding. This time was a little different and they put colored, numbered tags in the ears of the calves.  Because of the drought they are having, the grass is only 1/3 as tall as normal and instead of moving the cows every 10 days, they must move them every four.  Not only that, there isn't enough grass for all the cows and Tuesday several semi's showed up to move some of the cows to the Kansas feed lots.  

The men (and women) work non-stop and their job's aren't from 8-5, but rather 5am-8pm. There are also three brothers who come up from Mexico on permits and work six months of the year. They live in their own homes here on the ranch.  They speak little English, but Elder Himle knows a little Spanish and was able to visit with them at the wedding.

Wednesday - I repaired (sewed) a bed skirt on one of the beds in the bunk house where we are living. In the Fall they receive hunters who stay here. They fly in from everywhere and get their licenses and hunt on the land. I was also asked to help cleanup these vinyl numbers that they glue to the calves for an up coming calf roping competition. Running to the supplier isn't an option as most stores are 100 miles away.  So I pulled off the hair (from last year) off of one side, and scrubbed the cow poop off the other side (so you could read it) Bet none of you have ever participated in a service activity like this! I just kept telling myself "It's just grass... It's just grass!"  I was happy to save the sister some time!

judges sit above judging the competition.

And here are the calves modeling my shiny scrubbed stickers at the roping event on Saturday!!  

One of the ranch horses stepped off onto the edge of a metal culvert and cut her leg. When the ranch managers wife brought her into the barn to give her antibiotics and pain killers, the horse began to sweat profusely, which made everyone very sad. They were finally able to get an appointment with the vet for this morning. The horses are beautiful animals and vital to what they do out here.  

Visitors

As senior missionaries we are allowed to have family visit (if we have space).  My sister and her friend Teresa are heading north and stopped by. We took them to the Amish store and for a ride around the area.  

Sunsets

Look at the colors in this sunset next to where we are staying!  It's a rainbow in itself.

Thunderstorms:

After we played games late into the night, we started getting ready for bed when an enormous thunderstorm began rolling in. Lightening flashed continually (sheet-lighting), lighting up the entire area... eventually the lightening starting hitting the ground and we heard thunder and then...RAIN POURED.  We pressed our faces to the windows squealing in delight.  It was so awesome!!