Legacy

I was working on our emergency preparedness binder earlier this week when a friend asked what it was. I explained to him that it was a binder that I could grab if something were to happen (flood, fire, tornado, evacuation) and all of our important information, papers and copies of photos are contained in that binder. He said 'photos? That sounds like a waste of time and energy. I lived through it and don't need a photo to remind me. What could you possible want to remember so badly?'

I tried to explain that not only did this binder contain our important papers but it would one day, when complete, hold our legacy and the legacy of our families. As for photos, we want to remember. We want to remember family members that came before, C's niece & father, our grandparents, our childhoods. We want to remember, together. Someday we will add another chapter to our binder for our Birth mom and her family. When our binder is complete, we will know our legacy as will our child. Our child and all of our posterity to come will know of their heritage, their history and their legacy. Needless to say, my friend just didn't get it, even after my explanation.

Every life is a story like a thread the interweaves with myriads of others to form the tapestry of humanity.

Anyhow, I am almost done with the paperwork portion and have the past 5 years of photos on CD. Since I am going to be off for a bit longer, I am going to start organizing photos and moving them to CD.

I also need some help. I am trying to figure out how to copy our wedding video onto DVD. We have a VHS player and my computer can burn DVDs. Anyone have any ideas? It is an old video and there is only one copy so I am pretty nervous about taking it in to someone.

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P.S. Rachel - Thanks for the tip on tying Nephi! Works like a charm and he stands like a gentleman. I am so glad breeding season is almost over and he will start acting like a goat again.

Carriage Horses from 1918

R & I have a good friend, Bob, who has been into carriage horses for about 35 years - I say friend, which he is but he is also my boss! Bob owns a carriage making business near where we live. Keep in mind that we don't live in town, so I use the word 'near' loosely! Bob makes and refurbishes carriages and has trained many horses and people to drive. He used to do weddings, funerals, prom, etc. Bob is a Morgan horse lover, of which I am not, but he is one heck of a carriage man!

Anyhow, he has offered to help me start Gunner using some basic driving techniques. Did you know that horses that learn to drive first often make better saddle horses? I didn't either but its true. I have done a lot of training in my days and ridden a lot of types of riding. I have not ever driven a carriage let alone trained a carriage horse. So in spring, when my neck is healed and Bob's back is healed (he just had surgery also), we will get together to start working with Gunner.

Bob sent me the following article from The Washington Post, December 22, 1918:
Arrangements have been completed for the Christmas dinner for horses to be given by the Washington Animal Rescue League at Twelfth and Little B streets northwest on Tuesday, the day before Christmas. The Haymarket space has been devoted to the equine holiday, and there will be a tree loaded with such delicacies as hay, corn, carrots, and apples. Each horse will get a substantial feed of oats. The drivers will be served with free hot coffee, and there will be music.
The Christmas dinner for horses originated in Washington four years ago, and is now a feature of the holiday in several American cities. The Animal Rescue League works solely for the welfare of animals and has been very successful in enlisting the sympathy of horse owners and drivers in the work of relieving unnecessary suffering.
Tuesday has been fixed for the horses dinner because of the fact that on Christmas day they have done their work and are resting in the stable. The league, therefore, has chosen a busy day to reward the horses that have been active in delivering holiday packages. Every driver is invited to get a cup of coffee while his horse is feasting.

This article is also from The Washington Post, three days later, on December 25, 1918:
The Haymarket, at Twelfth and B streets northwest, was an animated scene yesterday, when market horses were made the guests of a bountiful Christmas dinner. Motion picture photographers were there, and they secured views of the horses helping themselves from a Christmas tree on which were strung corn, carrots, apples, lumps of sugar, and other delicacies. Horses have been hard at work delivering Christmas packages and were given a chance to pose while partaking of a hearty dinner of oats. Every driver got a cup of hot coffee, but the horses were the real guests of honor.

Several ladies of the Washington Animal Rescue League were in charge of the dinner. They were ably assisted by Boy Scout Christen Davis, of Troop 59, and by Scouts Newman and Atkinson. The two latter furnished music. Portable troughs were carried to the horses in some cases, and they enjoyed their oats in spite of the rain and the busy hauling of trees and turkeys. One or two automobiles were also used in carrying oats to horses at the other markets. In all, it is estimated that several hundred horses received a reward for faithful work they had done to make Christmas happy for humans.

Look to the Light

At Christmastime and always, Jesus Christ is the Light of the World for all who seek Him.

Bad news and good news

The surgeon kindly informed C on Friday that her anterior cervical fusion (broken neck) has officially failed to fuse. Apparently 10% of people have this problem and she is one of the lucky few. That is the bad news.

The good news is that they can fix it by doing a posterior cervical fusion (PCF)! Instead of going in the front, they go through the back of her neck and instead of using bones to fuse, they will put in two more metal clamps. The recovery is a bit more extensive since they cut 6 layers of muscle, but C is happy to do whatever it takes to get healthy and pain free. 

Her cervical rhizotomy is set for December 23, then they can fix her shoulder. We are hoping to have everything done and have C in physical therapy by late February.

We are so blessed to have such great doctors that have been able to narrow down the issues and find the correct procedures to fix each issue. C is getting blessings for each procedure and has the utmost confidence that she will make a full recovery by June!

She is off work and at home. She is filling her days resting, doing simple crafts, reading and cooking. She is starting to organize all of our photos and spends an hour each day cleaning. She is also making a trip to the temple every week! My wife is a trooper and I am such a blessed man to be married to such a patient, kind and resilient woman.

Breeding success!

The goat mating dance is so funny to watch; bucks are gross and obnoxious! If you have never seen a buck acting like a buck and are not easily offended, I encourage you to visit a farm and ask to see their bucks. They make funny faces, goofy sounds and run around like fools (much like teen boys that I remember from my childhood and some grow men I know presently)  - I love it! And our Nephi is so persistent...

We purchased Nephi and Miss P from a ranch in Eastern Nebraska. A huge goat ranch, she had 86 does, 23 bucks and had already rebred most of them. We got a gigantic discount on both our goats by buying 'off season' and doing a package deal. It never hurts to negotiate - the worst they can say is no, right?!

Anyhow, both Nephi and Miss P were dam raised and when we brought them home, almost completely wild. All of our goats are dehorned and Nephi was descented as a kid, so he isn't super smelly. Both are getting better at being handled, Miss P is hard to catch and Nephi is hard to get to stand still.  Both did very well for vaccinations and hoof trimming but I can tell that we will need to start thinking about building another structure to restrain Nephi for shots and trimming as he is already almost too big for our stand. If you have any big bucks or have seen any buck restraints, please let me know - I am having a bugger of a time finding something that will hold a 200 pound buck!

Both Lacey and Lilly are bred to Nephi for 2011 kids. Lacey is due in March and Lilly in April. Miss P gets to wait until next year for her turn, I want to make sure she is big enough to handle kidding and she is still on the small side right now.

We brought in a doe (Twila) for Nephi to 'date' over Thanksgiving weekend and she was bred this week. Twila will be headed home next week and should kid in early May. We brought in another visitor (Daisy) today. She is actually currently cycling so Nephi is being diligent about being amorous. Since she was brought mid-cycle, she may not settle this cycle, so she will be staying through January 2nd to ensure that her breeding takes. That makes 2 outsider does for our first season of being official Nubian breeders offering buck services. With the savings from not having to send our does out and these two visitors, Nephi has now paid for himself and MissP!

I have several reservations for doelings our of our 2011 crop and we will retain one buck as a companion for Nephi. I have yet to decide if the retained male will remain a buck that we might rent out or will be a wether. I probably won't be able to decide until we see what he looks like and if he would make a good breeder. I hope to get a good selection of kids this year and am excited to see what they look like.

We have the buck house "love shack" finished and the horse barn almost done. As soon as we finish the new horse barn, we can move the horse out of the buck pen and start buying fencing for Nephi. Then... We can move Nephi into his love shack and will have the kidding pen ready to go! We have always had late April kids, so having kids in early March and early April will be a challenge since March is our coldest month. Yikes! However, having bred a bit early, it will help our kids to be bigger towards the end of summer and sell better since they will be breedable in Fall.

Three years ago I never imagined that we would be hip deep in the Nubian breeding business. Never thought that we would have top bloodlines in our barn and be making enough money to have a self sufficient herd! What a blessing.

I added a bunch of goat info to our website on the Homesteading page - eventually, once our web designer has time and we have money we will move it over to the goat section. It contains basic information on our practices for goat care. Everything we do is done at the direction of our vet, who specializes in goats and only goats.

If you have questions or thoughts, please leave a comment or shoot us an email! We love the questions we are getting and enjoy getting to know so many of you from all around the world.

I believe...

The following message was shared through a Relief Society letter and I was touched and thought I would share.

"The Christmas hymn, “Angels We Have Heard On High”, is a favorite at this time of year as reminders come to mind of that extraordinary night when heavenly visitors were both seen and heard by an assembly of simple shepherds. One can’t help but wonder what it might have been like to be among those humble men who witnessed the sights and sounds of such an incredible event. Surely, in that time of need, hearts were lifted, lives were blessed and troubles were comforted.


Christmas always brings extra angels to the earth, I believe.. each and every year. Perhaps they aren’t seen descending from heaven.. nor heard singing from on high.. but if we watch and listen carefully enough we can see and hear them. They walk among us as family and friends… and sometimes as strangers, ….whose hearts are more focused in the season of giving and peace, comfort and joy.

One recent example was shared by young woman last week. For the fourth time in seven years a private airplane crash-landed in their neighborhood. Miraculously, no lives were lost, but the homes of several families were destroyed. In minutes church phone trees sprang put into action quickly assembling local wards to gather and assist. As one of those responding that night, this young woman witnessed earthly angels working the miracles of comfort and peace among the frightened and homeless.

It is not emergencies alone that cause angels to be audible and visible. The miracle of the season is often seen in the generous and thoughtful actions of those who pause to consider more seriously the needs of others. In the most obvious ways it is manifested by those who donate gifts of clothing, food, money and time to those without homes, jobs, health and/or family. By no lesser means it is witnessed in acts of consideration, love and kindness as more and more of us reach out to make life easier and joyful for one another.

Often it is simply and sweetly experienced in the gratitude of our hearts.
Again, my example comes from a recent family event, proving that angels and their blessings come in all shapes and sizes. Having miraculously experienced a peaceful shopping trip with their two young children, a young couple had just buckled the children into their car seats and were headed home. Quietly the young wife and mother whispered a soft , “Thank you, Lord,” as their car pulled into traffic. There was a moment’s pause. Then, jubilantly from the seat behind her came an angelic voice: …”Your welcome, Mom!”
In whatever your holiday may hold…may the miracle of angels be in you and around you as Christmas approaches.. May you see them and hear them, may you speak and act with them… so others may see and hear as well.".

Sideways At the Bar

We have so many friends that are neck deep into scrapbooking and organizing photo albums that I feel like I am being left behind! After complaining to my Sister and explaining that I just plain do not have time to make photo albums, she shared a website called ‘Shutterfly’. On Shutterfly, one can upload digital photos, choose designs and captions and they do all of the hard work for you in making an album, which you receive in the mail about 5 days later. Not expensive at all and for someone with a ton of photos and no idea where to start, this is a great idea!

I wanted to test it out but since most of our photos are still from the old days before CDs and digital cameras, I needed a subject that is very recent in origins. Hence the "Sideways At The Bar (Gunner)" album. Yes, I realize he is a horse but he is also the youngest member of our family and has fewer photos that everyone else and he is all digital! So I think he deserves his own album! I even let blank pages at the end for future photos!

Click here to view this photo book larger

My Mom's got chords!

Just had to toot the family horn...
The Stake is putting on an Easter Program called Savior of the World. They had actual auditions and 180 people tried out for singing and speaking parts! Rehearsals start in January and go until Easter when they will perform 5 times.
Mom Stout felt the promptings to try out for the choir and chickened out the first week... and the second week... and the third week... by the fourth week she was in tears by the promptings of the Spirit to try out. After a little pep talk from me with consisted mainly of  "If you just go and try out, Heavenly Father will leave you alone. He can hold out longer than you, so you might as well get it over with. You will be fantastic and even having the courage to get up and audition may be the lesson he wants you to learn."
Anyhow, she went, tried out and... Guess what?! She made it!
We will keep you posted on the progress and if they will let me, I'll try to get a video or a few photos of the performance.

Eli - Adoption Placement Success

One of my childhood friends from California, we will call her  CC, was recently matched with her birth mother. She has given permission to share her story here, although some things will be generalized, some will be left out and the agency name will not be shared, everything else is her story.

From CC
"I feel almost self conscious about sharing our joy when I know it can be agonizing waiting for something to happen when you are trying to have a baby or waiting to adopt. Please know that we love you and are praying for all of you that you will be reunited with your birth mother and child soon.

We knew that it would be next to impossible for me to conceive and after confirming that with the specialists we opted for adoption rather than going the route of an egg donor and surrogate. I did a lot of research online about adoption agencies, facilitators, attorneys, etc and we eventually ended up with Adoption Agency XYZ (an adoption facilitator). We chose them because they limit the number of couples they work with to 10-15 at a time and are located within a series of women’s health clinics where abortions are performed and adoption is offered as an alternative to all patients. Their fees were also the most reasonable. We just felt that it was the right “fit” for us.

They pretty much only do “open” adoptions and I’m told that most are open these days. We were told that the typical wait time to be matched through our agency is roughly 7 months if you’re not too specific on the criteria of what you are willing to accept in an infant/situation. I can also say that after we signed with them I personally learned of two other couples here in our town that also used XYZ and they had good experiences with them. XYZ doesn’t normally work with out of state couples, but they do have one out of state couple right now. The most important choice is finding the agency that is right for you. You will know when you find it and it will feel right. We knew right away that this agency was right for us and that we would be chosen and our child placed with us.

We did a lot of research on what other couple used in their photo profile books and Dear Birth mother Letters as well as looked at hundreds of websites to help design our photo profile and narrative (questionnaire responses). Most of their couples don’t use websites and only have very informal homemade photo profiles or photo books from an online photo site like Shutterfly.com, etc. The Birth mother letter is the hardest thing to try to write.

We “joined” as “members” in early July of this year and got “the call” that we had been chosen by a birth couple roughly six weeks later. We met with the birth mother on August 30th. We all decided it was a good “match” on September 3rd. We were fortunate that our match was a birth couple with the father present and cooperative. The baby was due November 20th. Our couple was a boyfriend/girlfriend that were both 19 and college students, both living at home with their respective parents, no drug use or major health issues. I know you believe in God and are very faithful, but we’re not really religious but had “put it out there to the universe” that we would really like a couple of healthy Caucasian college students. But we had also told the adoption facilitator that we would take almost any situation and would be fine with a biracial baby - which we were told kept the doors much wider open for us.

Being a type A personality there were many times that I wished things were more certain along the way but also realized that I had to just go with the flow if I wanted things to work out. Our birth father had no phone and birth mother was not very good about returning calls to the facilitator but was somewhat good about returning texts to me. I attended one Dr’s appointment after we met initially with the birth mother and then I met with the mother and father once just me and then once all of us to go over the “hospital plan” and post placement plan for future contact, etc. I also arranged for the birth parents and me to attend a private childbirth class the same day. I did have minimal phone contact with the mother every couple of weeks until near the end and then weekly contact.

We got the call at 11 pm on Friday, November 12th that her water had broken and we hurried to pack our bags and make the 3 hour drive to Grass Valley. She was in labor for 29 hrs. It was exhausting as we had no sleep for four days. After Eli was born the hospital gave us a room so we could stay with him. I didn’t let him out of my sight. The hospital was great. According to the adoption facilitator our situation was not “typical” with how little contact the birth mother maintained with the facilitator and that we spent considerable time with the birth parents and the birth mother's family including her parents, sister and aunt while we were at the hospital. They also spent hours in our room with us and the baby. We really feel that we have probably adopted an entire family, not just Eli.

I’m not sure how the process works in your state, but in California going with a facilitator is very different than using an agency. If you use an agency you do the “Home Study” before you can be put on the list to be considered for placement. If you use a facilitator and do an Independent Adoption, the baby is placed with you and then the “Home Study” process starts. Also with a facilitator and an Independent Adoption the birth mother has 30 days to change her mind and take the baby back.

We have been very fortunate from the very start and I am often afraid that something will go bad as it’s been so amazingly perfect, but I just hope that this is our miracle and everything will work out just fine. Baby Eli is perfect - He is eating well and growing fast. I’m not getting much sleep, but I know that comes with the whole package. Our 30 days wont be up until December 20th so I just keep my fingers crossed and pray it all goes well. Our “Home Study” and Court process should take 6 months to a year to complete.
I know that some couples wait years and I know we have been very lucky. I have spoken with other adoptive couples and have faith that your time will come. Some don’t ever get matched and just get the call once the baby’s been born. You may have some notice or none at all. Just be as open as you can and continue to spread the word and your miracle is surely on its way.  You two are wonderful and your child and birth mother is out there somewhere, be patient and know that in time it will all happen"

We are so happy for CC and look forward to visiting her new boy in January!