It's pretty dusty out here!

So much to tell!!
Poppa Joe left on Sunday but before he left we were all able to take a nice long and adventurous 4wheeling ride up the mountains. We were able to check out most of the ponds and they were all full. Water is a scarce thing around here and to see full ponds of water is a wonderful sight to see!
A fire came through a couple of years ago and we were all a little tense about how much of my dad's property would burn. The fire, however, only burned a couple thousand acres which in comparison to some other forest fires...that is nothing. Anyway, the land now is just gorgeous because of that fire. Fire weed, an orangy colored flower, is in bloom all over the mountain sides. And then there is a bit of blue and purple sprinkled throughout as well. And boy-do we spend a lot of time picking flowers.
As we were 4wheeling through where the fire had gone before us, it was clear the devastation to the trees, all the bark was burned off. There were these areas where just barren trees were left standing. But then there were the flowers and they were everywhere and much of the scrub oak and sage was burned away so new life could come through, like a new beginning for the land.
We said our good byes with Poppa Joe and no matter how Katie tried to convince him to stay a bit longer, he had to go home.
Later on Sunday, our adventure took a little turn for the worse and we had our first little "emergency" out here. Ben was playing and just tripped and smashed his mouth into a wooden table. He banged his teeth pretty bad. Katie called out and said, "Mom, Ben fell and I picked him up and was carrying him and now I have blood all over my shoulder." We saw Katie's bloody shoulder first and YIKES....well, ya all know how mouths bleed! After the bleeding finally stopped we could see that his poor little gun was all smushed up way higher than it was suppose to be. To make a long story short, after a trip to the pediatric dentist in Prove on Monday morning, the x-rays seem to indicate that he has lost the blood flow to those teeth and they will turn gray. He'll have to have some work done on the teeth and the nerve, so we will have to head home a little earlier than expected. I guess dentists go on vacation too-the last two weeks of July, so we had to take the appointment we could get. His cheek is still a little bruised but his mouth is getting back to normal and when he smiles we can see his little dimples again. The other morning I was checking for infection and Hunter just came up and looked in Ben's mouth and said, "BEN!!!! You teeth are rotten! Yuck!" and walked away. I reassured Ben and am hoping maybe the dentist was wrong and those little baby teeth will pull through this big bang after all.
The dog is holding her own out here. She spends the day running after the squirrels and chipmunks that tease and taunt her. They will probably do no such thing any more. She caught herself a small squirrel the other day and was parading around with it. I would suspect she was disappointed when I took it from her, but Katie's eyes lite right up as did Scott's. He said, "Great, some food for the kittens." She said, "Can I have the tail?" So, out came the Leather Man knife and off went the tail. And, YES, we have it...just sitting there upright in a bowl of salt. Katie can hardly wait and she has much concern about WHO will get it seeing as there is only one...oh, but there is so much time left. What else can we get?
Bird feet...yup, Scott picked up a fresh dead bird, a Curlew, someone had hit while cutting hay. Of course, cat food, right? Both Katie and Hunter had a hay day plucking the feathers out. Then it came-the question-of course, from Katie..."Can we have the feet, Dad?" and sure enough, out came the Leather Man knife and off went the feet, one for each of them. It was so disgusting later when we were back at the cabin and Katie had her little dead bird foot dancing around and pawing and scratching Scott's arm. I just buried my face into the couch pillow and thought, "What the heck will be next?"
We sure do love it here and have already talked about how sad we will be when we go. Katie looked at me, with those big and sparkling eyes, smiled at me with that big gap in her teeth where her front tooth is coming in and said, "I love it here! There is just so much Nature, not like in Wisconsin, they just do not have those kinds of forests (and she pointed up to Log Canyon) or those kinds of mountains (and she looks over to Nebo. When I get big, I am going to live here." I told her that when we get home Wisconsin will most likely seem pretty flat in comparison, but that there are beautiful places everywhere and that she was lucky she is one of those people who truly SEES them.
We went all the way up Log Canyon this afternoon for a picnic. It was wonderful because I had been wanting to do it since we got here and was glad it worked out where we all went together. I just had to focus on what was ahead of me because there were some parts that where WAY down there and the cliff was a little too close for comfort! And if anyone was wanting confirmation about those tracks, they WERE mountain lion tracks we saw that day I took the kids up! I sped up a bit through that area!
Lately, we have been getting extra dirty, our feet, our faces, just everything, but with all that dirt has come lots of hard work digging holes, making our "Hide Out" fort, and moving rocks. I looked over at Ben this afternoon and he had taken off his shorts, filled his boots with the dusty dirt that's everywhere out here and buried the better part of his legs. Just does not get any better than that for a 2 year old! Even if his little baby teeth do turn gray!