September 6, 2015
Re: Letter 40 of 3
Dear Riley:
Labor Day is tomorrow and we’re rather looking forward to the break, though I’m not quite sure what we’re going to do with a day away from school and work. I can think of any number of projects which could occupy the full day, but what fun would that be? Things have been a little crazy with work, home, school, church etc., but what a great life!
The weather has been hot during the day and pretty cool at night. We’ve had a fair amount of rain through the summer so the mountains are still quite green. In fact, I don’t recall ever seeing the mountains so green this late in the year. It’s also kind of interesting to note which plants in the garden take off and thrive when the weather turns more temperate and which ones slow down and diminish in their quality. Carrots, beets, chard, and lettuce are all of the sudden exploding. There truly is a time and a season for everything.
There seems to be intense activity around the beehive, a last furious drive to store honey and pollen for the coming winter. It took a little extra effort to get the hive stabilized but it’s finally growing well and contains a fair amount of developing brood. For the first time when I checked it recently I found drones. These are the non working male bees, most of which never fulfill the measure of their creation, who just wander around consuming precious resources. They’re a larger bee with no stinger and huge eyes and they have a quality which reminds me of a soft teddy bear. It’s sort of a sad commentary on nature that when the weather turns cold they will all be kicked out of the hive to die. I’m considering bringing a few in for the girls to enjoy. At any rate, I don’t plan on taking any of their winter stock pile of food, so they should be well positioned to produce honey for me in the spring when the honey flow is heaviest. (I’m quite looking forward to the Flow Hive.) As I was writing this, I remembered you had asked for some pictures of a few things, including the bee hive. I’ll get those to you.
Did I mention that you mother LOVES her tandem bike? Any spare moment is likely to be invested in a quick, or not so quick, tandem bike excursion. Saturday we biked 23 miles which took us down to the Utah Lake bike trail, up through Lindon and onto the Murdock Canal bike path. Elise and Aleah also want to make sure they get some bike time, so I put on at least another 8 miles with them. Something funny happened on the last ride of the day with Aleah. Earlier we had gotten into some puncture weeds and picked up a few in both the front and back tires. Luckily the front tire held, but the back tire had what seemed to be a SLOW leak.
We made it home fine and I put some more air in both tires for the trip with Aleah. (This required a trip to the store to purchase a pump with a special adapter for a high end inner tube valve stem.) I figured it wouldn’t be a problem since we would only be biking for around 20 minutes. We burned down the Orem hill into the river bottoms and proceeded North on the bike path toward the canyon. I was really working and felt that Aleah wasn’t quite pulling her share, but didn’t want to say anything which would detract from the obvious sheer enjoyment of her experience, so I slogged along much more slowly than what I deemed typical. At some point I started to feel every bump. The bell on the rear handle was ringing by itself on account of the jarring ride, which should have been a signal that something significant had changed. I assumed it must be from over inflated tires which were giving a less cushioned ride, but I would have expected the peddling to be a little easier. Finally as my legs started really burning I asked Aleah if she was really peddling. She assured me she was and that her legs were quite tired, more so than usual. She gave a noticeably more powerful effort for a short span but we quickly settled back into the slower and more tedious grind. We made our way West up the 800 N. hill from the mouth of the canyon and to the corner of 800 E. While we were waiting at the light a passerby in a car informed us that our back tire was flat. FLAT was an understatement. The ONLY cushion between the rim and the road at all was the outer rubber tire. I had to laugh and wondered if it had been entirely flat on the bike path down by the river woods. We walked the distance from 800 E. and 800 N. pushing the bike along beside us. This is at least one project I’ll be working on before the end of day tomorrow! I also purchased and installed a small bike computer with 16 different functions logging data about each bicycle trip. One function is the speedometer which we topped out at 36 mph.
Today we had a change in High Priest Group leadership. JM and his assistants RF and GD were released. JT was called as the new Group Leader with JH as 1st assistant, DR as 2nd assistant, and GD as Executive Secretary. I really enjoyed working with the last Group leadership, but also look forward to working with this new Group leadership. They’re wonderful men with much to offer. Speaking of Ward news, I just got word a few hours ago that LC passed away around 3:00 p.m. He has been failing at a slow but steady rate for some time now. I’ve known him since I moved into the Ward as an 11 year old. It’s a little sobering to see these people I grew up with, succumb to the effects of age. We’ve lost a fair number of good people over the years and many of them are people I’ve known for many years. I’m confident that the faithful have nothing to fear and that death comes as a sweet release. I’ve said before that there are only a couple ways off this earth, and I don’t know anyone personally who has been translated. The funeral will likely be on Friday. I’m sure the C family would appreciate your prayers in their behalf.
Well, time to get this off to your email. We love you so much and look forward to any news from Thailand with great anticipation. Can you believe you’re coming up on ONE YEAR? No way! Keep up the good work. No regrets.
Love,
Dad
P.S. Your companion reports that HIS companion is REALLY funny!
P.P.S. Sometimes you just nail it. We can hardly wait for you to see your latest family picture. We think it’s awesome!
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