Without treks coming into Bing Canyon, it’s time for us to move on. The Mitchells at Ensign Ranch have made space for us in an apartment above the office.
The Mannings, left, are becoming the managers in 2021, our two young service Elders, Becky and Rick Hawes, and Marion Kurtz.
I will miss our little home, our owl, and the piano. But we must move on.
Now that the crops are coming in quite well, there is more activity from above. And below.
While we were using the chainsaw to take down dead trees, we saw this on the ground. It took a minute to identify it as a bat.
When I was working on my Millefiori Quilt, I made a rosette that just didn’t fit in with the rest of the quilt. I decided to remake the entire rosette. What to do with a few hexies without a home?
I placed them on a neutral background fabric and stitched them into place. Now I have a little wall piece to spruce up a corner of the house.
Here is the Millefiori I completed in 2019. The piece I recreated is on the lower right side up against the border. I really limited my color choices here because I prefer a more cohesive look.
At night I can just play on my machine and make fun pieces.
The more I experiment, the more I discover what I do and do not like. And it only costs a little fabric and time.
We went for a hike at the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in Oregon while we drove around the northeast corner of the state.
Sheep Rock and the John Day River running past. We drove through Heppner, found the ward meetinghouse in John Day, and a quilt shop, too.
It’s so nice to have access to my Bernina again. I’ve been finishing up my Circle Play quilt. It is EPP, but Paper Pieces doesn’t make the templates, so I have to do it by hand.
There is a little quilt shop in Stanfield that is actually open to the public called Mama Bears Quilt Shop. So if I need any more Kaffe or Free Spirit prints, I can pop down there. She opened just before covid hit and has a longarm in the shop.
There’s quite a mix of applique and curved piecing in this project, so it’s nice to sew on 3″ squares for a first border.
I’m still trying to decide on an outer border. You can feel that because this project took so long that my fabric choices morphed over time. I think the original pattern called for 16 blocks, but my limit was 9 without access to the pre-cut papers.
Emma Mary is a class I took in Bellingham in August of 2019. The artist, Judy Newman, came from Sidney to teach this as a hand-stitching class. Since I didn’t know if I would have access to a machine in Guayaquil, it was something I was excited to learn. But with my wonderful machine, I can stitch Y-seams without any trouble.
There’s my friend Cathy who has inspired me to do more hand stitching than I’d ever do on my own. Merry also joined us for this fun class.
This is Judy’s class sample. I love the little hexies appliqued in the center.
Without a design wall, I threw up a sheet and pinned everything for a better view. My friend Sara took me to her sister’s home where I could get more cottons to make it scrappier.
The quilt is sitting in storage until I have a new home and can quilt again. I should try to get a better picture of it at that stage.
When it was on the design wall, I decided the reds were too heavy. I took them out and made a placemat with them.
We had a full house for the 4th of July at Bing Canyon. It was such a great opportunity to get everyone together at the house and celebrate CeCe’s birthday.
Every Saturday we think of another place we can visit in Eastern Washington. Since we are from the West, we haven’t toured very much on this side of the Cascades. It has been so fun to get to know these cute towns and wonderful views.
The Church announced a new temple would be built in Moses Lake so we went to see the property. It is right on I-90 for everyone to see. The saints in Moses Lake have been so faithful in driving to the Tri-Cities to attend the Columbia River Temple that they earned themselves their own temple.
It doesn’t look like much now, but there will be a temple and a meetinghouse on this property. We also visited the towns of Ephrata and Othello, and enjoyed a wonderful Reuben at a restaurant in Moses Lake.
Hells Canyon–the deepest canyon in the country–slices the landscape along the border of Idaho and Oregon. The deepest point of this canyon is in Idaho near He Devil, topping 7,993 feet in depth. The drive to see Hells Canyon is quite remote and the directions are unclear. But once we arrived at the top it was a true slice of Idaho wilderness.
We had a map with many lines, but some turned out not to be roads. I’m standing with my back against a gate. I guess this is the wrong way. We are lucky we have a panzer plate under the Jetta because we began to hit rocks.
We began down a road that quickly became just large rocks. The bushes on the sides of the “road” sliced into the Jetta for some serious road rash. After an hour, we came near the end of the path and a truck was coming up. They were so concerned because the Jetta was making terrible sounds (bent metal). We advised that they back out and turn around. I was so sick to my stomach, thinking we were going to high-center on a rock and have to ditch the car, but Paul did such an amazing job twisting the steering wheel one way and then the other. It was steep and dangerous. I almost kissed the asphalt when we arrived. The next day we considered taking a boat tour down Hells Canyon, but we were so traumatized, we didn’t ever want to go back.
Paul fixed all the damage done underneath and kept the Jetta running even after the odometer turned 600,000 miles. Love those diesels.
Back when we were young college students, we sent out applications to a few law schools and the University of Idaho sent back an acceptance letter. Since we decided to go to Texas Tech, we never did visit the campus. Until this week.
We were sad that the buildings were closed to visitors, but we still loved touring the campus in our car.
We drove to the Washington State campus as well because they are only separated by 6 miles and a state border. The Palouse is so beautiful here. Hills and hills of beautiful green grasses.
As you look down on the valley you see the Snake River forming the border between the two states of Washington and Idaho. On the left is Lewiston, ID and on the right is Clarkston, WA. Here is an overview:
This is upside down from the shot above, but you can see the map view. We are standing on Highway 95 as it goes through the mountains to the north. Because the two states have different ideas of implementing pandemic procedures, Lewiston is open and thriving and Clarkston is closed and locked down. Our hotel is in Lewiston so it was really nice to eat in restaurants and walk around without masks.
Most days we need to be dressed for hard work. This was made difficult by the pandemic because no stores would let us try on clothes. And we didn’t keep any of our work clothes when we left for our temple mission. Eventually, we bought some Merrills online and a few pair of jeans that fit.
This is what my socks look like after a day of work. It is the nature of the desert to be dusty and dirty. One of the dirtiest was chipping and shredding a year’s worth of downed limbs. Another was raking and collecting two year’s worth of leaves. It’s the service project that never ends.
Marion Kurtz (left) is such a wonderful missionary. He really has a strong work ethic and helps the young two elders fulfill their responsibilities is a caring way. If there is anything we need, he knows where we can find it.
Of course there’s always the busy work of home life. It’s quite dusty out here.
Where are the Willards? 