I like heading in to the mountains in autumn. The crowds are gone (I’m not counting the hunters), the mosquitoes are gone, the water is low if you have to cross it, the mist has moved in, the colors are glorious, the days are warm, and the nights aren’t too cold. I recently took Emma, …

Well before I learned that the state would not allow me to teach my own child to drive, I was teaching her to drive. To calm your nerves, for a few mornings she drove from home to seminary, which is held in the church in town. The roads are mostly deserted, and the speed is …

We went out in the front yard yesterday and took family pictures, just like we did last October. We took pictures of everybody individually too, and will get them printed out nicely at Wal-Mart for $2.84 each. That saves us about $15 a pop over school pictures (saving us $60 for our school age kids …

These are out of the raspberry patch down by the garden. You see a couple of varieties here, golden and red, as well as some of the honest debris that accompanies home-grown foods before they’re washed. We got enough to make 15 pints of freezer jam (more on that later) and to eat some early-morning …

I feel like I’m always bragging about our lives up here. I hope you don’t feel that way. I don’t think it’s bragging to be happy with your life and you like sharing that with others. It’s a nice thing look at your life and think, hey, I wouldn’t change a thing. (Except my job, …

One of the first chores our children have learned is to put things “IN.” If we tell a child, “Jacob, can you put it IN?” where “it” is his toy car and “IN” is the garbage, I mean the toy car basket, he’ll jump to it. The kids love putting things IN. This is especially …

When the kids were younger and I mentioned home schooling to Jess, she didn’t like the idea. She was glad to have the kids out of the house during the school year, and she didn’t want them hanging around. This is understandable since when Emma was in, say, 5th grade, we had Becca in 4th, …

Long, long ago when I was considering trading in my old Camry for a four-wheel-drive something or other, I wondered if I should buy an old pickup truck. For various reasons, I opted not to; and though I’m glad we have the Jeep, we’ve had to make do occasionally. For example, when we built our …

I pulled the old toboggans out of the wood shed because I had to replace them with wood, and also because I thought it would be easier to use a toboggan than a wheelbarrow to pull firewood off the steep, overgrown hill behind our house. (I was right, but unfortunately I had already brought most …

Well, since school’s started again Katie (age 11) has taken up practicing her trumpet. I came home from work the other night to the happy announcement that Jacob was helping her learn. He’s not even 2 yet, but hey, our children are geniuses. He’s even holding his mouth right. Not sure how it sounded, but …