Here is how the house looked just after sunset on Oct 13, 2004.
We no longer had city water, sewer, or natural gas. We have to keep an eye on our propane level or we will freeze...
We immediately bought a new Chevy pickup truck.
Our two younger boys were both born in Utah in the early 1990s and they immediately took to the place.
We are at the base of the Wasatch front of mountains.
We had lots of dirt surrounding our house.
Our new 2005 Chevy Silverado 4x4 extended cab pickup.
We took the kids for rides and they sat in the back.
Meadow voles would fall into our window wells, and we would catch and release them.
After we got a truck, we needed to get an ATV or quad.
At first it was just for fun for the kids...
The quad however grew to become a major means of transportation.
This shot was taken from I-15.
Two life-long friends.
First we had to build fences before winter came.
Well, our neighbor did most of it, but we helped.
Next we had to till up our ground. Well, a different neighbor did it for us, and we paid him.
Winter soon came, here is mid-November of 2004.
Here is a nice home near us. Andrew nicknamed it "Two Satellites QBert".
Here we are, ready for winter.
No landscaping yet.
Joshua happy on the quad.
Joshua helping to build the fence.
Here is December 2nd, 2004. Winter came!
And left. (Dec 14, 2004)
And came again. (Jan 7, 2005)
Mount Timpanogos is directly north of us. 11,750 feet tall.
This is our road. It gets plowed because school buses come by our house.
A typical winter day in Utah: sunny, clear, and cold.
The beautiful snow.
Rachel waiting to get a horse. We got some hay instead.
The farm hands.
West Mountain has the towers that make our internet connection possible. (We have a wireless link from our roof to one of those towers.)
Andrew's 1981 Honda.
Our neighbor Jack B. Clark began planting oats and alfalfa. (Mar 14, 2005)
The seagulls like it when earth is freshly tilled. We are 7 miles from Utah Lake.
Soon you could see the crop coming up. (Apr 8, 2005)
Our other neighbor Radell Hudson continued to help us with fence building.
We got a corral and a horse named Rocky.
We also got a new driveway.
We had had enough mud.
Rachel loves being with her horse. Our whole yard was his food supply.
Staker Parsons did a great job on the driveway.
We next began learning about canal companies, ditch companies, and about irrigation.
Without any watering our crop had done quite well.
Our completed driveway.
We moved the corral around so Rocky could eat down the alfalfa in different places.
Before you knew it, summer had come. (Jun 4, 2005)
We got a new kitten. We named him Yoda for his big ears.
We had set up our hammock and moved the corral to the back of the house. (Jun 22, 2005)
It was time to harvest our first cutting of hay.
Again Jack B. Clark did all of the work.
Food for Rocky.
Our field in bales. (Jul 10, 2005)
We woke up early for several mornings and hauled the hay bales off of the field using our pickup truck. (July 13, 2005)
We needed irrigation, so we built a trench to the center of the field. (Jul 14, 2005)
We had a bunch of hay left over so we got it manually, with the help of family and friends.
Everyone is probably thinking about how hot it is and how good lunch will taste inside in air-conditioned comfort.
Over 500 bales of hay. (Jul 21, 2005)
Our watering line is moved around the field with the help of the ATV. (Jul 21, 2005)
This is the main valve.
This is the main vehicle.
This is the main 120 gallon water trough.
This is the main source of comfort in the summer: Brigham and the A/C. (Aug 2, 2005)
We really should cover this hay...
These boys are about to grow a lot.
Joshua and Rachel are the ones that like to ride Rocky the most.
The Suzuki Eiger 4x4 ATV. A great machine. It gets about 20 mpg.
John Edvalson and Brigham clown around on the top of the hay pile. (Aug 21, 2005)
Our neighbor has ginea fowl. Or rather had. Eventually they all vanished.
They liked our hay pile.
The end of summer. (Aug 29, 2005)
The boys.
Okay, now we've got the hay covered. (Oct 3, 2005)
It should be fine for winter.
Here we are for our family Christmas card photo. (Dec 10, 2005) We now have a 2nd horse named Carmel.
Our horses in the back. (Dec 10, 2005)
The wind has not helped our tarp. (Dec 10, 2005)
Rachel grooming Carmel. (Dec 23, 2005)
The kids get picked up by the school bus right in front of our house. (Mar 29, 2006)
The hay, however, did not make it through the winter. Tarps do not work with winds. (Apr 13, 2006)
Carmel really was spoiled and was hard to ride. This is a rare photo. (Apr 29, 2006)
The corral got moved everywhere. (May 29, 2006)
Next up was a trailer. (Jun 6, 2006)
The horses escaped one day. (Jun 10, 2006)
Storms often looked ominous, but rarely did we get any rain. (Oct 2, 2006)
The sunsets are always spectacular. (Oct 2, 2006)
Oct 7, 2006.
More snow came this year. (Jan 12, 2007)
It got much colder too. (Jan 23, 2007)
We had one week where it got to -18°F.
The highs were below zero.
And the horses's water was frozen solid. (Feb 5, 2007)
A small collection of cars from Andrew and Joshua began to appear. (Feb 5, 2007)
It warmed up some. (Feb 15, 2007)
And then snowed again. (Mar 2, 2007)
The Queen of the Nile riding on her float. (Mar 7, 2007)
A hailstorm. (Mar 27, 2007)
Rachel and Kamy, doing what they love to do. (Apr 12, 2007)
Time for some landscaping out front, so we called Jared. (Jun 2, 2007)
We cleared out all of our weeds. (Jun 3, 2007)
Andrew stored his non-running Honda in our neighbor's barn. That ATV is used for all sorts of things! (Jun 19, 2007)
A very unusual summer storm. (Jul 11, 2007)
We got one good burst of rain for the entire summer. (Aug 1, 2007)
The pond finally took shape. (Sep 12, 2007)
The dry creek bed and bridges took shape. (Sep 14, 2007)
Tons of rock help protect us from fire. (Sep 26, 2007)
Our one good burst of rain for Fall. (Sep 29, 2007)
The remnants of the hay pile being hauled away. (Sep 29, 2007)
The rain briefly turned to snow. (Sep 29, 2007)
He worked through it all and our hay pile mess was gone. (Sep 29, 2007)
Our road with beautiful Fall colors... (Oct 8, 2007)
and new aspens planted. Three years of life in Spring Lake!
Q: You got a ton of hay from your field. Have you planted the field again or was that a one time thing?
A: We have cut down our hay several times over several years. One planting of alfalfa can last many years. We have planted twice.
This year our crop was bad due to a weed that choked the alfalfa. We have bought hay from a neighbor as a result. (Hay can mean hay, or alfalfa, or both.)
Q: Moving the corral around looks like a tremendous amount of work. How do you do it?
A: It WAS quite a bit of work. We would move it as a family. It was fun (for me), but the kids hated it.
We would have two people carry a section; in later moves the kids had us haul the pieces in the trailer behind the quad.
Q: How many horses do you have now?
A: Just one. We had two but we sold one.
Created: 01 Dec 2007 Modified: 24 Dec 2007