Football

 Taylor did Jr. High football this fall.  He enjoyed the experience though he's not sure he'll choose to do it again next year. 

 

 He says he likes soccer a lot better.  Soccer and football are similar in that they are both about speed and getting the ball away but soccer doesn't include purposefully knocking people down all over the place.  Aggressiveness doesn't really run in our family.  Borderline pacifists would be a more apt description.  :-)

Happy little cowboy and other characters

 My little cowboy.

 Cute as can be.

I just want to give them ALL a hug and somehow keep them this age forever.

This is Hailey and her friend Sakota at the Saturday trunk or treat.  Though they are "mature" high school freshmen now, they still had fun spending an afternoon deciding how to dress up and making coordinating pompoms for their hair. (Hailey's white one is hiding)

Drivin' a big old truck

The last few weeks I've spent quite a bit of time in this.

  A sugar beet truck.  

I drive through the fields along side a big tractor and a beet digger that are digging and

  simultaneously putting beets in my truck.   When the farmer gives me the signal  I take off to the beet dump to dump the load. 

At the beet dump I drive onto a scale to get weighed.  The heaviest load I've done was 32,000 lbs.  I have a small truck.  After being weighed I drive over to the piler where I back up a ramp and then engage the pto so it will run the belt to unload all the beets.  The guy on the platform tells me when to start unloading and when I'm done. I was backed into the piler when I took this picture.  The beets go up the conveyor and into the beet pile.

When I first moved to Idaho I thought these big piles were potatoes.  We are in Idaho, right?

I wondered how being in the sun didn't ruin the potatoes.  Then I started wondering why they were the biggest potatoes I'd ever seen in my life?  Hmmm -- maybe they aren't potatoes!  Around here the farmers certainly grow more sugar beets than potatoes.  Do you think it's because we Americans eat more sugar than potatoes?  I don't know.

 Last week we started on a field that involves 12 miles of dirt road from the field to where we dump the beets.  Potholes, blind corners, cattle guards, and some single lane places.  But some of the loveliest scenery I've seen around here!  The whole road is following the river and there are no farms or houses, just really interesting cliffs, rock formations and great fall colors. It's a dead end road and at the end are 3 pivots and a small farm house.  I was sad that I kept forgetting my camera.  Saturday, Joel, Reagan, Leif and I all rode together the whole day doing that field.  Actually, Reagan hopped over into Chad Mills semi to ride with his kids for part of the day.  Their family has a truck with a double sleeper cab and there were 5 kids in there playing hide and seek.  I'm not sure how many hiding spots you can find in a truck sleeper but they were all having a marvelous time. 

Snow on the mountains

Was driving Taylor to school yesterday and when I turned the corner on our loop we both gasped.  Not just War Eagle and Hayden peak, but even the little foothills of the Owyhees were covered in a fresh blanket of snow.  What is it about snow on the mountains that makes my heart sing and my stomach flip?  The air was crystal clear making the magnificent view even that more mesmerizing.  I had to drive to Grand View 3 times yesterday so I enjoyed the yellow cottonwoods, still-green pastures, and snowy mountains all day long.  Even caught myself taking glances in the rear view mirror to continue enjoying their beauty.