Breakfast at Ophir Canyon

Paul and Denise took their camper to Ophir Canyon last night and invited us up for breakfast. The campground was about a mile up the canyon from where we used to have our family reunions.

Cataract Surgery & Reading with Mekhi

Mekhi has a rigorous reading schedule this year. (6th grade)  He needs to read 14 pages a day for the 1st quarter and it increases every term. I am the designated listener which I don't mind because I get to spend some very good 1 on 1 time with Mekhi.

Side Bar: My right eye looks a little lazy because I had cataract surgery on that eye a couple of weeks ago and it is still healing.

Side Bar 2:  The book he is reading was written by Nathan Lawrence (Melissa's ex husband) with input from their son Urban.

Finally!! Surgery #6 in the last year and a half is behind me. Today I had the left eye operated on for cataracts.  I need to wear these glasses for three days, day and night. At night so that I don't accidentally rub that eye and during the day for protection from the sun. 

Garden Fence and Canning Tomato Sauce

This morning I saw two deer actually jump the fence into Marianne's garden. After a brief consultation with her we decided to build a  six foot chicken wire fence to keep them out. We had to go shopping for material and found them at Cal Ranch. We came home and started building while Julie started canning her famous "meat sauce" made from fresh tomatoes.

While Julie was canning Marianne and I were building a fence to save her garden from the deer.

Video on the happenings of August 2016

Video

Peach Season!

Canning Peaches

The picking in Susanne's back yard

Modern method of letting them ripe

The floor of the sewer room.

Canning

Not only do you see peaches, but at the lower right of this picture is some delicious squash bread made from squash that Marianne grew in her garden.

My favorite time is when a bottle cracks in the cooker and lets all the juice run out. We use those peaches for peaches and cream.

A Day of Errands to Salt Lake

Our first  stop was at an appliance service center to drop off Julie's iron that went out a few weeks ago. She quickly went to Walmart and bought a temporary iron to get by while we got the broken one fixed. We were pleasantly surprise when the clerk said, "If you want to wait ten minutes, we will get it fixed for you."  An offer we couldn't refuse. So we waited and sure enough out they came with the repaired iron in about ten minutes.  After leaving them $40 we went happily on our way.

We  then stopped by Cathy Gillmore's (Kindex founder) house to pick up the pdf files of my letters I sent home and to Joyce when I was on my mission to Mexico.  This is the first step in transcribing them and then indexing them. The story of how I became aware of Kindex is told by Cathy below this picture. It is the story of how Joel and I came across Kindex at Roots Tech 2016.

Below is a picture and History found on the Kindex Facebook page:

Today's project: scanning the Richard Kroff letters from the 1950's and 1960's. We first met Richard at RootsTech this past February. He was there with his brother Joel, and they spent most of the day wandering expo hall seeking a solution for his personal and family papers. An avid indexer, Richard was seeking a way to create a searchable archive that he could share with his family. At the end of the day, he walked down the "Innovator Alley". When he saw the Kindex booth he was thrilled. "I've been looking all day for this," he said. "We were ready to give up and go home." He told us he woke up early that morning determined to find an answer. We chatted for a long time, and made plans to help scan his papers in preparation for his Kindex Family web page. The Kroffs have been our earliest supporters--we are so grateful that he found us, and we found him.

This is a picture of Cathy and me at her home where I picked up the letters she had taken to her house so she and her husband could scan them for me into a PDF file. 

We will now begin to index them so that they will be searchable.

In her living room was her daughter playing with a pet rabbit Rubie! I have never seen a rabbit in a front room before and both Julie and I were quiet intrigued.

Our next stop was at Susanne's house to help her pick some of the peaches that were higher up on the tree.

She gave about a bushel of peaches to take home with us. They are now down in the "sewer room" on the cold floor so that they will not continue ripening quickly before we can start bottling them.

When we came home, Bob called so we Skyped for a couple of hours working on Bob's Biography and scanning skills. We also spent time working in My Heritage.

Year and a half of surgeries

This evening, I am sitting in my Family History Corner being a little nervous about my cataract surgery tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. This will be my 4th surgery since the spring of 2015.

Surgeries 1 and 2

In the spring of 2015, I was diagnosed with a non malignant granuloma on my right vocal chord.   I had an operation to  remove it but it grew back in about 6 weeks. I had a second operation but it grew back again.

They then sent me to a voice therapist to see if it could be healed more naturally than surgery
This is a short video of what my voice sounded like at the beginning of voice therapy.

Voice therapy was able to shrink the granuloma by use of a steroid inhaler.  Now, after about a year of therapy my voice is now almost back to normal. The right vocal chord does not vibrate like it should but my voice is well enough so that it does not stop me from doing all the things my voice requires me to do. I am now back to doing all the parts in the Salt Lake Temple.

Surgery 3

In December of 2015, I was walking in the cemetery early one morning and I slipped on some black ice and broke my ankle. After slipping I lifted my head up my elbow and looked down at my foot. My body was on its side but my foot said I was on my back! It was at a right angle to my leg. I had  my cell phone with me and called Julie for help. She came and we decided we better call for an ambulance.

Surgery 4

In the spring of 2016 I was diagnosed with prostate cancer. I had the prostate removed, but all the cancer did not come with it. I am now on a hormone therapy that has caused to cancer cells to go dormant.

Surgery 5

Cataract surgery