April 11, 2012

There is a lot of pruning activity going on around here. Our orchards are getting shaped up. One might even say that it is pruning season.   Along the side of one of our roads there is an interesting series of pruning results: piles of nicely  stacked branches, followed by a pile of thin twiggy stuff,  another pile of cut and measured branches, then the twiggy stuff, repeated again and again in an ongoing pattern.  In other locations up and down the valley are stacks of pruned pieces, all waiting to be disposed of, by one means or another.

David and Judy Wilde  attended a session of the LDS General Conference in Salt Lake City.  Their son, Elder Aaron Wilde, currently serving  a mission in Salt Lake, was able to meet them and attend with them.   This was a treat for their family.

Mink Creek is happy to have Dixie Bybee back living in our community.  She has been in Preston for several years and we have missed her.  Dixie and her late husband, Dale, raised their family here. Her daughter, Darlene and Jason Travis and their family, and her son, Lloyd Bybee, have all moved to the Boise area

Kristin and Jay Collins and their children, Davis and Claire, spent a couple of days with her parents, Bob and Claudia Erickson.  The Collins family lives in Lakeview, OR, and spring break in their school district matched up with those of Preston.    They spent most of the week in Rexburg with their daughter, Bailey, assisting in an apartment move.

From all reports there were many Franklin County people in Salt Lake City sometime during spring break. One of the main attractions was evidently the new City Creek Mall.  Shopping was not the main objective; it was just seeing this wonderful piece of architecture that has everyone talking.

We seem to be having our share of the late-arriving flu and allergies are right on schedule.  Sneezing, coughing, headaches, and all that goes with these maladies.  Just doing what we can to keep the tissue businesses going in this economy.

It is time for burning off the dry stuff left over from last fall and winter.  Roadside slopes, full of dry grasses and weeds, in a short time become blackened and grey.  But instead of feeling that it is destructive there is the knowing that things are cleaned up and ready for the new growing to take place.   Dried brambles and thorn filled thistles disappear.  There is moisture arriving regularly to keep the areas dampened down enough for good control. 

The weather seems to be delivering snow or rain every few days, not in any great quantity.  One resident put[it this way, “winter’s not  really over, shouldn’t get too excited about spring yet.”  But it is nice to see green appearing and flowers we associate with spring getting ready to bloom.