Life settled in to a daily routine which always included some kind of a remodeling project. It was fun to see our ideas becoming a reality. I suppose I should have known that having a dog was inevitable. After all, who has 7 children and 32 acres and doesn't have a dog? But I resisted for a long time and was comfortable in thinking I was in charge even though the subject had come up several times. Wynn thought the children needed a pet and he had noticed that they weren't always comfortable around large dogs, so the answer was definitely to own one. Mrs. Hoffman, one of his school teachers, told him that there were two beautiful collies at the pound. She wanted to rescue them but didn't want both of  them and suggested that he take the other. He asked me how I felt about getting a collie and I said for atleast the fifth time, "I don't want a dog. They take as much work as another child." The subject was dropped again, anyway I thought it was. Then one night we took the children and went to the high school auditorium to a play. We were just starting the intermission when Wynn piped up and said that Landon needed to go to the bathroom. I started to get up. "No, I'll take him," said Wynn. "We'll be right back."  The intermission ended and still no Wynn. The play continued, but Wynn and Landon did not come back. Finally, right near the end the two slipped quietly back into their seats. "Where have you been?' I whispered. "Just ran into somebody," said Wynn. We watched the play again. "Well, you were sure gone a long time," I muttered. Landon was fidgeting next to his dad, barely able to sit still. Then he leaned over and said, "When are you going to tell her about the dog?"  "What dog?" I asked loud enough for the whole audience to hear. "The dog that's out in the car," said Landon.
The rest of the play was totally ignored. The whole family bustled out to the car to see the new dog. The door of the VW bus slid open to reveal and large majestic black, gold and white collie sitting in the doorway. Her long hair shining luxuriously in the moonlight. We named her Brit and that was the last time her hair ever looked like that. From then on she became a farm dog with burrs stuck in her hair and mud on her feet and even occasionally porcupine quills in her nose. But she was a great dog! She had been well-trained and was loyal and loving with the children. She could be a scary watch dog, circling any car that drove down the driveway and snarling at the occupants who certainly thought twice about getting out. I walked out one day to rescue some scoundrels that she had plastered up against their car. They wanted to borrow and jack but were too afraid to move. Brit lived with us for about thirteen years.

Our casual existence in the open air and glorious sunshine made me aware one day that I might be enjoying my socially lazy life a little too much. The children, I thought, needed an outing to the city to see some kind of cultural, educational things. So, I loaded them all into the pink Studebaker, which was the "running" vehicle at the time, and we drove to Salt Lake City. An outing to Temple Square and then a tour of the Lion House seemed like an excellent idea.
I've always been rather lax when it comes to attire and coiffure, but it wasn't until I paraded them through the front door of the Lion House and into those elegant surroundings that I realized how far down the lazy ladder I'd slid. We looked like a field trip from the homeless shelter. I quickly ran my fingers through a few locks and spit on my shirt tail and wiped breakfast off a little face before we took another step into the room. Then I shepherded them all into the back of the tour and hoped for anonymity.
We marched through the rooms listening to the tour guide talk about life on the frontier. I reached out gingerly and ran my finger across the dark rich smooth carved wood of a beautiful chair and thought that the pioneers in this house certainly had it a lot easier than I did. The kids seemed slightly bored as the woman led us out of the toy room and talked about the children in those days not having TV and how they had to make up their own games and use their imaginations. I heard one of mine little dears admit, "We don't have TV." "Well, good for you," said the woman, and she led us to the bathroom where she said, "But can you imagine not having an indoor toilet or running hot water?" I saw four little mouths drop open to respond, and like an experienced rustler, I rounded them up and bustled them right out the door before they could utter another word, then I herded them into the Studebaker and made a clean get away before child services could arrest me for neglect.
Each mile that I drove north, I breathed a little easier and when we pulled down the driveway, I blessed Mink Creek once again for sheltering me from city life, but I also cautioned myself to not let my children grow up uneducated and unaware of the way others live. I knew I wanted to find balance for myself and my children. I wanted them to be comfortable in both worlds, and I think we achieved that.

   Things didn't always go exactly how we had them planned. Wynn did not get hired as a school teacher in Preston, not that first year anyway. His masters degree proved to be a deterrent instead of an asset. Why would the struggling school district hire a master teacher at a higher wage when there were plenty of teachers available with less credentials? So, Wynn had to commute back to Richmond Utah where he got a job teaching at North Cache. He became good friends with another teacher, Craig Thomas, who drove from Preston and they carpooled together. It was at North Cache that he also met Rex Woodward who lived in Franklin.
    One evening, Rex and his wife, Betty, invited us down for dinner. I told the children that we were going to dinner that night with someone Dad knew from work, but I didn't know that Rex's children went to school with our children, so I didn't tell them who it was.  Therefore, they were quite surprised at school when these strange kids came up to each of them and said things like, "See you tonight,"  or "I hope you like chicken and red Jello." And, I was accused of some underhanded scheme to make them make new friends. Life can be so challenging. Even in Mink Creek.

 

 

As "city kids" we were always getting our eyes opened and even our ears. The local dialect of our new neighbors could rival anything Eliza Doolittle could dish out with her Cockney English. The old, local farmers could weave a story laced with improper verb tenses and colored with profanity that somehow didn't seem profane at all. Instead of being offensive, we found the dialogue charming and full of "salt of the earth" wisdom and entertaining as hell. Did I just say that? I think their influence has rubbed off on me. Well, some of it. After living here for 30 years, I still say Mink Creek instead of Mink Crick.  I actually learned to say "crick" when I was a child in Boise, but when we moved to Salt Lake, the other children made so much fun of my speech that I had to quickly learn how to speak "properly," and there was no way I was returning to the local vernacular. We loved seeing Burnell Baird's truck pull down the driveway, or hearing Vilar Ransom's horn honk out in the driveway at 6:00 in the morning. To stop working and share stories with the neighbors is one of the supreme pleasures of a Mink Creek kind of day.

   The children were in heaven that first summer in Mink Creek. We all were. We had no idea what a pleasure it was to live outside. The house was cold and dank and smelled like heating oil, so we passed it by for the clear air and sunshine. The logs for Lynn Nelson's house were spread out beckoning me to peel them, and the ground squirrels were playing hide and seek in them, popping up and down and running around chasing each other. The cats, Spider Monkey and Jemima, looked sideways with bored disdain at the frolicking squirrels. Wynn was absolutely sure that if the cats could just catch one for dinner they would develop an insatiable taste for the little critters. I was amused at his need to intervene in what seemed a natural process which the cats had absolutely no interest in.
   From my log peeling station, I noticed Wynn pick up a rock and take aim at a furry fellow and hoped he wouldn't accidentally hit one of the children. His wound his arm up like a professional baseball player, I actually didn't know he had such a skill, and let the rock fly and by golly he hit that ground squirrel square in the head. I was too amazed to be horrified. He jumped up with glee and ran to get his kill which he then presented to Spider Monkey as if he were bringing the queen a culinary gift on a silver platter. Spider Monkey, looked first at Wynn and then at the dead ground squirrel and then flicked her tail in disgust and walked off.
   Cats were apparently no threat to the ground squirrel population but snakes were, and that first year we also had an abundance of very large blow snakes. Watching a snake eat a ground squirrel is, well, maybe educational is the best word for it. The snake's jaws unhinge and the squirrel gets sucked in by powerful undulating muscle contractions, getting squeezed into that deadly tube until he is no more.
An education in nature is certainly something we've received living a Mink Creek kind of day.

In preparation for that winter, one summer day a good neighbor, David Wilde, pulled down the driveway in a big dumptruck with a load of firewood. We all ran from different corners of the yard and various activities to watch the big truck.Five year-old Landon and 2 year-old McKay stood with mouths wide open and eyes as big as saucers as the old truck began to groan and tip its noisey load. I watched with total gratitude and turned back to my work. Within minutes the work that would have taken us hours was in a neat pile in the driveway and the truck pulled out of the driveway. The kids knew we would be moving it to the stack around the house soon, but for now I let them play. I don't know how long it was before I called them all back together. Hannah, Kate, Josie, Landon, McK..., I looked at them again Hannah, Kate, Josie, Landon, Mc...;I looked around the yard. "Where is McKay?" I asked. No one knew. "What do you mean, you haven't seen him?" It was the worried accusation of a mother who shouldn't have left the general care of a two year-old up to other children who were busy with their own games. We all ran around the yard. We searched the creek, up and down stream. We yelled, calling his name over and over again. I considered the highway and the passing cars. Had I heard any cars stop?  I felt sick. I stopped by the side of that big stack of wood. That was the last time I remembered seeing him, when the truck had pulled in.  "No, it wasn't possible..." I was about to frantically start tossing every piece of wood in the pile when I got a grip on myself and made myself calm down and think. He was a little boy. He was never very interested in the creek unless Landon was with him and he never went up by the road. It was late afternoon. He was probably tired. Our search turned to other directions and that's when we found him. There was a stack of old furniture by the shed that we still hadn't moved into the house. Most of it needed to be repaired in some way and McKay had snuggled into a nest of clothing inside a dresser drawer and fallen asleep. His peaceful face showed nothing of my own anxiety. He was naturally asleep. I was naturally overcome with worry and angry with myself. We were all naturally relieved. Mink Creek has shown me the nature of so many things.

   We had finally arrived home and survived the first winter by the skin of our teeth and only because we had the help of some very good neighbors who certainly had to be wondering if the city kids at the end of the road really had what it took to live in Mink Creek. We were wondering the same thing. We had built Lynn Nelson's log cabin in the front yard right up to the square, which meant that the next step was to start some kind of a roof which we could not do until Lynn decided where to put it. So, freed from that project, we decided to focus our attention on our own abode. We knew now that there were more things that needed serious attention before another winter hit us. Remodeling was going to be put into high gear, well remodeling on a shoestring, because we certainly didn't have any money. Wynn put his arm around me and said,"We didn't buy a farm, we bought twenty years worth of work. Where should we start?"
  Wynn gave a tug on a loose piece of wallpaper in the living room and it began to rip away from the wall, a domino type rip, like a sound wave getting louder. The paper came off in one big piece, it ripped away from one wall, turned the corner and started falling off the next wall. The oil cloth on the ceiling began to sag. You could hear the rumble of an avalanche of loose plaster falling from the lath beneath and suddenly we found ourselves standing under a tent held up by the center ceiling light bulb while a cloud of plaster dust billowed around us.
   "I guess I'll start by cleaning up this mess," I said, and that's kind of how all of the remodelling started, first we made a really big mess and then we worked our way through it.  Sometimes it was a technique we used to motivate each other. I remember one wall we debated back and forth about removing, and one day while I took ten minutes to go down the road and return a neighbor's bowl, Wynn tore into the wall with a sledge hammer and when I got back it was gone. There was just a big pile of rubble to haul out in a wheel barrow. I had a very hard time deciding about some projects. They looked totally different on paper and in my mind than they did in reality. The joke is that I moved the stairway around like most women move furniture, and it's true. The hole in the ceiling for the stairway was cut in three different places and the children climbed up a ladder to their rooms for many months. It was really something to watch two year-old McKay climbing up a ten foot ladder to get to his bedroom. But, by the end of the summer we had made good progress. We removed the lath and plaster and re-wired everything, We were given some water-damaged sheetrock and put it up. We tore off the roof of the lean-to kitchen and built a second story above it. We hauled away the discarded aluminum printing plates from the newspaper in town, cut them into shingles and re-roofed the house. This was something we learned from reading "Mother Earth News." From our hoard of used windows, we replaced the single panes that were letting the snow in and we installed a new woodstove. Then we went to the forest and cut enough firewood to last for six months. We stacked it near the house where it would not be covered by sliding snow and felt like we were prepared for another winter.  If there is one thing we've learned from being in Mink Creek, it is to be prepared for the worst.

    More should definitely be said about the condition of the house in those early years as well as some history of the community. The original house was built in the 1890's by Danish immigrants. In those days, Mink Creek was a thriving little community with a store, a post office and four schools. Schools, of course, were small and close because of transportation issues. Four or five families provided the children for each school and the teacher was housed in the home of one of the families. Just north west of our property line, up near the spring was the "Woodpecker" School. Named for the birds who did so much damage to that wooden structure. This school served the children in the Klondike, (an appropriate name given to our neck of the Mink Creek woods). In those days the road ran along the foot of the hill on the west side of our home, and the front door was the opening of the short hall that leads to our current garage. The original house was made from adobe brick and stood two stories tall. As you walked into the front door you had your choice to turn right into the living room, left into our bedroom or go straight up the stairs to the two bedrooms on the upper level.
    In the 1930's a lean to kitchen and bathroom were added on the east side and indoor plumbing was brought into the house. It was years of empty neglect that made it so we did not have these luxuries when we first moved in.
   There were four fireplaces in the home which shared two chimneys. The weight of these structures had caused the floor to sag and sink. We lit a fire in one to take the damp chill off of the room. It smoked and coughed and then a very strange glop fell to the ground followed by first one stream and then another and another of thick, viscous, liquid dripping from the chimney. Further examination proved the substance to be honey and we eventually retrieved the entire honey comb, piece by piece, which was blocking the air flow. There were bats in the house and a snake slithered across the living room. A worm plopped out of the kitchen tap right into a guest's waiting glass. It has taken years to reclaim the place for human occupancy only. Still today, the northwest corner bedroom is affectionately called the "bee and fly" room, because of the abundance of insects that preferred that room to all others. Wasps and box elder bugs have been epidemic. In the fall, they fly in like dark clouds to take up residency here in the Klondike. No doubt, they wonder what I am doing in their home. The bees crawl into bed with you and the box elders hang in clusters around every plum on the tree.  I hate them. They are the plague in my Garden of Eden, but I guess that is also part of having a Mink Creek kind of day.

   Well, I got a little behind during Christmas. The house got new carpeting throughout and I've been busy lifting heavy furniture around and trying to stay ahead of the carpet layers. We used to be able to lift things around all day long, but now although we are still capable, we sure feel it more the next day and the next and the next. It takes a little longer to recuperate from strenuous activities. I watched Wynn out riding around on his snowblower this morning and was reminded of that first winter in Mink Creek. It must have been late August in 1983 and we were standing in the driveway together looking at our home and making big plans when Wynn said, "I want to see the worst. I want to know how bad a winter can get up here." Whoa, wrong wish!
   It started snowing on his birthday, September 23 and I don't think it quit until March and it was cold. We had frozen pipes, many times. We had snow blowing in through the single pane un-caulked windows. You could sit on the couch, watch your hair blow and get snow down your neck. The wood stove was working night and day but we just couldn't get warm. We had cut what we thought was enough firewood for the season and piled it in what seemed to be a convenient location in front of the tin shed. Ooops. We didn't realize that the slick tin roof would be dumping all of its snow collection right off onto our woodpile. It only took one big snowstorm and Wynn had to start mining for wood. As the winter progressed, he  actually tunnelled in and made a cave he could crawl around in and come out with an armload of wood. We had a propane down-draft furnace sitting in the middle of the kitchen propped up on legs made from Isomil baby formula cans and we nestled around it.
  Our 250 foot long driveway had to be shovelled by hand, since we couldn't afford to own any equipment and we turned into human snowplows. However, as the snow continued it soon became almost impossible to throw it high enough. We had snow walls on either side well over head height.
  We also had a chimney fire that first winter. The attic filled with smoke, it took the fire department forty minutes to respond, and we learned that we would have to be prepared to handle major incidents on our own.
  Mink Creek has been one long lesson in self-reliance. It's been good for us. The family learned how to be a real team and work together through so many challenges. We don't sit around and expect the government to "fix it" or wait until the county can come and help, or wonder why the local utilities don't get their act together. We realize that we are the resource and we've got wonderful neighbors who are also resourceful and willing to come to our aid. They've been here for us from that first winter when they came with loads of wood and a clean up crew after the chimney fire and we've responded when they needed help. Working together is what a Mink Creek kind of day is all about.

   When Wynn wrapped up his teaching job at Millville Elementary in the spring of 1983, we were finally ready to move home to Mink Creek. He hadn't been able to get hired in Preston. His master's degree wasn't an asset to a struggling school district that could only afford to  hire less-qualified teachers, but he had secured a position for the coming fall at North Cache in Richmond, Utah and the commute wasn't too bad.
   We moved our belongings into the house, but it was really so cold and old that we continued to live outside for the summer. We were up at dawn and working until the sun went down. Lynn Nelson's log house had to have our main focus and it was rising log by log in the front yard, but we also had to be able to live in the old house by wintertime and there was no inside plumbing that worked.
   We had an outhouse which was falling apart and full of bees, so when the children had to go, they would always plead with me to let them go "where the cows go" which was out in the field instead of using the latrine. We had been "stockpiling" building materials in the chicken coop for years. When the Layton apartments we managed were gutted and remodelled we started collecting everything that was reuseable. We had a couple of toilets, a hundred windows, some playground equipment. and lumber. People started hearing the rumor that we were in need and willing to work for the used stuff and we just became little pack rats taking whatever was offered and storing it until we could install it.
  Wynn strung a clothesline up for me and we set Grandma Allen's old wringer washer up by the outside spigot. A long extension cord brought power from the house. I had to use "Cold Power," detergent because it was the only powder that would dissolve in the icy water of Strawberry Creek. We'd fill the washer with water from a hose, plug it in and watch it dance around the lawn merrily agitating. Eight year old Hannah ran each newly washed article through the wringer and seven year-old Kate caught them and made sure they got in the basket. Five year old Josie picked each one up and ran it over to me so I could hang it up on the line. We tried trading around jobs, but Kate and Josie were always getting their fingers caught in the wringer which brought the whole process to a grinding halt, and two year old Landon was just busy getting as wet as possible.
   When the hose wasn't in the washing machine, we would snake it through the kitchen window into the sink to do the dishes. Wynn painted an old water heater black and put it up roof height, (he got this idea from reading "Mother Earth News,") this delivered hot water right into the house. A garden spray nozzle was attached, the hose was reinserted through the old bathroom window and voile we could have a hot shower. Wynn proudly marched into the bathroom, shut the door and disrobed to give his new invention a trial. We were all eagerly awaiting a report and our own turns. There was a resounding wail of pain as he pointed that nozzle at his innocent pink flesh and squirted a stream of 220 degree water all over himself. Oooops! There was a major flaw in the design. There was no way to mix in cold water. We learned to wait for prime time, when the sun went behind the west hill and the night breeze cooled down the tank, then we all lined up for the shower.
   Wynn got a used toilet installed, so I could quit running outside in the middle of the night with the small children. We thought there was a septic tank somewhere, but it turned out to just be an old clay pipe running straight to the creek with every flush, so a septic system before winter had to be managed in the budget somehow.
   We patiently worked through one challenge after another. The plumbing was just the tip of the iceberg. There were more challenges ahead. There always are. And if you make them a fun adventure you are having a Mink Creek kind of day.

   The fall of 1982 marked a new phase in my own life. I had previously substituted as the hunting camp cook a couple of times on the Deseret Land and Livestock where Mesia was living. Her husband Gregg Simonds was the ranch manager. At the time, this 250,000 acre ranch was owned by a Chinaman named Ho Tung, and the hunting program was being started by Mesia as a new form of income for the ranch. My mother, as well as Mesia and Rochelle had been taking turns doing the cooking, but in 1982 the job became mine. It was a job I would keep for the next 25 years. During my tenure, the camp went from a cabin with 2 bedrooms and one bath and one kitchen counter to a new lodge with 12 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms and 2 dishwashers. In the early years, I spent two weeks with eight men each week and by the end we had 30 each week for 5 weeks, and the price of a hunting tag probably tripled.
   It was a great time. Those first years, the job was like a vacation for me. Wynn's mom helped with the children, and I got to take off and have a week full of conversation with some very interesting men. I also got to go grocery shopping with unlimited funds. Not having to count every penny as I put items in my carts, was a real joy.
   Some day, I will write my hunting camp stories, but for now I will just say that when the leaves began to fall and the air turned crispy cool everyone knew that hunting season had arrived and Cecelie would be headed for Deseret. It was just a part of the season and rhythm of life, the natural thing to do when you get to live a Mink Creek kind of life.

   As fall approached in '82 we loaded up all of our summer gear and began shuttling everything back to Millville for the school year. We vowed it would be the last time we left Mink Creek. On the last run, we packed the red Datsun station wagon chuck full of children and the "last minute" items. Everything from the fridge and freezer, to bedding, to the cat. We were loaded to the hilt and it was late at night and the car had been acting up.
   By the time we reached the "Y" in the road just on the south end of Logan, we were limping along at about 20 mph.. The kids were crying, the cat was moaning and pacing, going from window to window meowing mournfully. Her voice was my voice. We all just wanted out. We discussed what we would do if the car quit, and decided that I would sit there with the kids while Wynn hitched a ride to the house and came back with the truck and a tow strap. I kept praying the car would make it the few more miles we had to go.
   All of a sudden, the dark night was fractured by blaring streaks of red and blue light flashing in the rear view mirror and blinding everyone in the car. The eyes of the children and the cat were as big as saucers. I couldn't imagine what the officer wanted. We certainly weren't speeding.
   The officer approached scanning every window with his spotlight. The cat dug her claws into my arm as I tried to prevent her escape when Wynn rolled down his window.
   "Where are you going?" asked the officer.
   "Just back to our house in Millville," Wynn answered. "We're moving back for the school year. This is the last load."
   "You're driving erratically," said the patrolman.
   "The car is having trouble," answered Wynn. "We're just hoping we can make it the rest of the way."
   "Well, you're driving too slow for this big road. I won't give you a ticket, but I'm going to have to ask you to turn around and go back to that last road and go east and get off of this main busy highway."
   I couldn't believe it. It was close to midnight. "Busy highway???" There wasn't another car in sight; the last car to pass us was ten minutes ago. A detour down some field road was going to take us even longer. The cat hissed at him. My feelings exactly. The officer sat in his car and watched us turn around and crawl back to the other road and turn right.  Halfway through the cornfield the car sputtered and quit and there we sat. No hope of another motorist stopping to help on that little road. I honestly don't remember what happened next. I think after a short frustrated rest, the Datsun must have started again and we made it the rest of the way, but let me tell you that was not a Mink Creek kind of day. In Mink Creek that officer would have hooked up his tow strap and pulled you home and then he probably would have helped you unload the car when he got you there.

   

    In the summer of 1982, we left Layton and moved into a house my sister, Mesia, owned in Millville, Utah, where Wynn had a teaching job lined up for the fall. It was one step closer to Mink Creek.
   We had a deadline in our contract with Lynn Nelson. We had five years to build the cabin in exchange for the house, so we were eager to get started. Unfortunately, Lynn did not have a piece of property to put the cabin on and the clock was ticking. We decided we would cut the trees down and build the cabin up to the "square" in the front yard of Mink Creek and then take it apart like "Lincoln logs" and put it back together on whatever property Lynn finally purchased.
   We bought a stand of trees in Wayan, Idaho, and the little silver trailer became a logging camp. Wynn turned into a flannel shirt wearing lumberjack with a couple of chainsaws, wedges, a sledge hammer, and a couple of peaveys. The four children and I visited whenever we could. We were in the forest with him for two of the most memorable experiences.
    First, one of the trees Wynn wanted to cut down was the home of a very busy hive of big black paper wasps in which they had constructed a monster paper cone. He resolved to cut it down anyway. He mapped out his escape route back to the trailer and started up his chainsaw. He tried to be sneaky by cutting from the back side of their tree, but the noise wasn't really conducive to secrecy. As the tree began to tip and fall, the bees were onto him; as the crunching of breaking branches began, Wynn dropped his saw and took off running for the trailer. So did the bees. He got stung twice before he cleared the doorway. We slammed the door shut behind him and watched the swarm attack the trailer. That was the end of work for the day. Those angry bees buzzed around the trailer all afternoon, but we were safe inside.
   There was a second incident when being inside the trailer didn't make us feel safe. It was a thunder storm. In the mountains, storms roll in quickly and with a severe ferocity. We saw the black clouds billowing our way and listened as the distant thunder grew louder and louder. The light dropped away and night came early. The tall pines were dancing, creaking, moaning, and branches along with the debris of needles and cones started falling like rain. I gathered up the children. Wynn picked up his equipment and we took shelter in the trailer. The first crack of thunder directly over us was deafening. The ground shook and then it really got loud. Lightning was illuminating the forest and the noise was so loud the trailer began to shake and bounce. We felt like sitting ducks in a shooting gallery. There were flashes of blinding white light followed by the rapid fire of thunderbolts. I'm telling you the noise was a dangerous weapon, and I was praying that our little trailer wasn't going to act like a lightning rod and get us hit.  We spent a sleepless night bouncing around in a noisy neon light show and took a nap the next morning as the pines dripped and the fragrant breeze began to dry things out. Being part of nature and understanding how we fit in, accepting how "little" we really are on this earth and what things we can and can't control are all part of having a Mink Creek kind of day.

   I'm tucked inside my warm little den, watching lazy snow flakes floating down outside my window. It's a good day for reflection, and good time of life for contemplation. I'm in the autumn of my life, (I won't admit to winter that starts around eighty years old), and its the time of life for evaluating what you've done and what you still want to do. You ask questions about what was really worth it, what would you have done differently, and you start giving advice.  So here's mine. Work together. When Wynn and I were working together, not just physically but mentally and spiritually working together on the same page  we were awesome! When the children were added into the mix, we became an incredible team. So be amazing, and I'll get back to my history.
   It was while Wynn was finishing the house in Blanding that I rented the Hyrum place, and you know how that turned out. We ended up in the basement of Grandma Costleys. During all of this, Wynn was working a car cleaning business of his own called Tidy Car and helping my dad remodel some apartments. Our research proved that the best place to get a teaching degree was from Weber State College, so we looked around for a place to live in the Ogden area. We found the perfect arrangement as managers for a low-income, government subsidized housing complex in Layton, right next to the freeway and right under the approach to Hill Air force Base.
  They were big three and four bedroom apartments made out of cinder block. You couldn't put any furniture against the wall because the walls were always weeping and the black mould was prolific. Our largest ethnic group was Laotian and the smell of their cooking wafting about on a summer evening breeze was nauseating. I don't want to know what they were cooking, and I'm really glad I didn't have to eat it.
  There were children everywhere. I counted 32 kids in my apartment one day. We added Landon to our own family circle while we lived in Layton and Hannah started school at Lincoln Elementary. While I was surrounded with children and tenants with problems all day, Wynn was off to school. He had been accepted into the education department at WSC and was taking a full load. In the final weeks of his schooling we got a phone call from Blair Lowe, one of his advisors; he offered Wynn a position in the Teacher Corps program which would give him a living stipend, a full scholarship and a Masters degree. Weber State was only a college at the time, so the Masters degree had to be jointly sponsored by Utah State University.  It was a deal we couldn't refuse even though it would keep us in Layton an additional two years. Sigh. Some days, dreaming about  the solitude of Mink Creek was the only thing that kept me moving forward, and I learned that finding peace in the middle of chaos could make a Mink Creek kind of day even in Layton, Utah.
 

   It's Thanksgiving weekend. The family has been in and out, children and grandchildren everywhere and my "cup runneth o'er." We celebrated Josie's birthday yesterday and our numbers made a rousing chorus of "happy birthday." Our family has been blessed by music. There is a song of gratitude in our collective heart. We know we have been given much and we all acknowledge and praise the "giver."      Being with people you love, expressing diverse opinions in a lively discussion, and at the same time knowing you all share a common goal and belief, that is a Mink Creek kind of day.
  I've got to go. Breakfast needs to be fixed before some of the cousins set out to cut a Christmas tree.
Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

   Blanding, Utah is as hot as Hades and twice as dusty. It's down by Lake Powell, in the middle of nowhere and hot and dusty.
   Wynn had a security guard friend, Dennis Gutke, who worked with him on Temple Square who also wanted to build a log house. Dennis had an acre in Blanding and was willing to pay Wynn $3,000 to help him build the shell of his house. The deal was made. The logs were purchased and off went Wynn with all his tools loaded in his 1949 Dodge pickup with the canvass "Deseret Water Bag" slung over the hood ornament. The truck looked like it had been painted with a brush. It had a wooden bed and started with a screwdriver. It was a hand-me-down from Aunt Rochelle and became a memorable addition to the Costley parade of cars. He also bought a used 125 cc Kawasaki  orange motorcycle, so he could drive back and forth cheaper.
  He'd been in Blanding for about a week when I got a call. "I need your help," he said. "I need somebody to help peel all of these logs."
  Oh, sweet ignorance. I was eager to help. He came home to get me. We bought a silver tear-drop shaped trailer from Uncle Landon and off the kids and I went to Hell, of course we didn't know it, but very few people who start down that trail know what the final destination is going to be like. I now have a vivid memory but like all horrible experiences, once it is over you can kind of wear it like a badge, like you have a certificate that says you graduated from the fiery furnace.
   I stood at one end of the log pile with my draw knife in hand and my mouth just fell open. The logs were 60 feet long and about 15 inches in diameter. For those of you who have never peeled a log, I will explain the methodology. First, you lift the log up off the ground about six inches and brace it so it doesn't roll. This enables you to reach around the sides. You straddle the log at one end and take a seat. Now, lean forward, reaching out your arm's length and draw the big knife towards you. This peels a long ribbon of curly, pine gummy bark right toward your crotch. Ok, I'll tone it down. Pockets of sap open up as you draw your knife, and you get pine sap everywhere, in your mouth, on your arms and face, in your hair, everywhere. Bugs and slugs hide in the bark and you smash and cut them up as you go. Your back starts to ache and you get blisters. You reach around the log making these broad cuts until there is a smooth yellow naked log surface in front of you and then you scoot backwards another arms length and do it again, and again, and again.
   At the end of the log, you try to stand up but your twenty-five year old body feels seventy-five. Your thighs get stuck together by pine gum. Your arms are killing you but you manage to lift one up because your eye itches. Bad mistake! Now, you're blind, because you forgot you had pine sap on your fingers. You manage to use your remaining good eye to admire your handiwork and then realize you will turn that log three times before it is finished, and there are 50 more just like it waiting for your attention.
  Add to the log-peeling duties trying to take care of three little girls, in a small silver oven on an acre with no trees or water. I don't know how we did it. When you're having a Mink Creek kind of day, you look at a problem like it's a challenge and you just start at one end and work through it. Somewhere along the way you find yourself smiling at your accomplishments and the work becomes part of you and its rewarding. I wish for you to feel the joy of your hard work.

    I'm reaching way back in my "detail/factual" memory. It isn't ever as clear and accurate as my "feeling/picture" memory. I may have some written material that would corroborate or annul what I remember, but it is somewhere in the chaos of my journals and records and at the moment I don't think the hard facts are necessary.
   It was 1979 when we met Lynn Nelson and signed a contract to purchase our Mink Creek home. Lynn was willing to carry the contract himself, so we were able to avoid banks and the big down payment they would have required. The deal was quite simple. We would build Lynn a one-bedroom log cabin in trade for the house. The rest of the property, which was around 40 acres would be paid for in monthly payments.
   So, I'm backing up in time to 1977. We were still living in Salt Lake on Roosevelt Avenue in the one bedroom apartment. Wynn, had graduated from the University of Utah with a bachelor's degree in Psychology, and was still working as a security guard on Temple Square. I was a stay-at- home mom with three daughters. Hannah was born in 1975, Kate in 76 and Josie in November of 77.
    My sister, Mesia, had married a fellow named Greg Simonds, and Greg was helping a friend build a log home at Red Fish Lake in Idaho. Wynn and I went to see their work, and Wynn fell in love with logs and carpentry and construction. He wanted to build a log home. During the late summer, he worked with Greg building a big log porch onto the old hunting cabin at Deseret Land and Livestock and was feeling quite confident with his own abilities. That is why we had stopped to look at the cabin in Mink Creek and why he had offered to build Lynn Nelson a log home.
   I had lived in a log home when I was young, a home my father had built from a Boise Cascade kit, so I wasn't adverse to the idea, and I knew Wynn was capable of doing anything he set his mind on, and so it began. Books on log construction started coming through the mail. And like dominoes other subjects started falling into place as well. Mother Earth News had a regular place on our table as did Reader's Digest Do-It-Yourself books. They were followed by more intense reading like Fine Woodworking, Rough Hewn, and Timber Trusses of the Middle Ages. Companion subjects with titles like Wind Power Generation, Root Cellars and Roughing It Easy were accumulating on the bookshelf. Sometimes, I was sure there was some bizarre reproduction taking place on that shelf. Wynn was a voracious reader and he learned many skills from this literature.
   I didn't know what kind of journey I was headed for, but I was ready to go. My little apartment had become a tiny box, and I was climbing those city walls. The house in Mink Creek was waiting for me. It was run down and primitive, but it was mine. I wanted to tell Henry David Thoreau to move over. I was going back to the woods, and I was going to do it with three kids. I had heard my "different drummer" and was ready to march. Little did I know, that my experience was going to make Thoreau's Walden look like a walk in the park. But not yet, We still weren't ready. Wynn needed a teaching degree, Blanding, Hyrum, Layton, and Millville were interim steps we would take before we could get home. So hold on, it takes a lot of work to have a Mink Creek kind of day.

It's 5:15 a.m. on Sunday morning. I love the early morning. I like to sit in the pre-dawn dark and watch the hills gradually appear and the blacks and greys give way to subtle color. In Mink Creek, just before dawn, the birds and the insects are as loud as everyone in the foyer at church on Sunday morning greeting each other, asking what is new, how their week went, how the kids are, just a cacophony of cheery voices sharing snatches of their lives. But it's November and the birds are gone and the insects are dying in my kitchen windows. It's a peaceful quiet time, and I want to tell you the last two things that were needed before our dream could come true. These two principles are separate and powerful in their own right but when they are added together, the miraculous can happen. First, is the acknowledgement that there is a God and he knows and cares about you. He has a plan, you are part of it, but His timing isn't always your timing. Remember, the woman who told me the "secret" said "to keep looking but be patient." There is a scriptural equivalent for that advice and it is "Be still, and know that I am God." Being "still" is one of the hardest things for people to do. We want to think we can control things, fix things, hurry things. Waiting on the Lord is divine. It takes self-control and faith, but there is a rhythm in the universe and when we are in tune with it, the melody is extraordinary. During our waiting period, we learned the final secret, the principle that turns a dream into divine reality. We had been able to put away just a little bit of money each month for a down payment. It wasn't much. I honestly can't remember the amount, but that isn't important. It was less than $2,000, a paltry sum, as far as the banking community was concerned, but for us it was everything, our "widow's mite."
   One evening the bishop came to our apartment. He was a bit hesitant, but he said, "I have been asked to visit every home in the ward and give people an opportunity to donate some money to help build the Jordan River temple." He continued, "I know you kids haven't got much and I didn't want to ask you for anything, but if you think you can spare something, no matter how little, it would be appreciated. You take your time and think about it together and get back to me."
   We thought about it. Wynn suggested we decide separately and then discuss it. A couple of days passed and then, at night when we were driving home in our red Datsun station wagon and the kids had fallen asleep in the back seat, he asked me, "Well, what do you want to donate to the temple fund?" I looked over at him, trying to read his face in the dark. "All of it," I answered. "Oh good," he said, "me too."
   We took our donation to the bishop. "Are you sure?" he asked. We nodded, and I said, "I think if we help the Lord build his house then he will help us build ours."
    And that was the moment, the act that caused the cosmic scale to tip in our favor, when divine help was procured. Faith coupled with action causes things to happen, but when faith is coupled with active sacrifice, miracles happen. My sacrifices had gone from the desperate to the divine. It is in our extremities, when we let go, (it isn't giving up) and trust the Lord to take over that we experience his power and love in our lives.
   Jim Elsmore, a realtor, met me in Logan and drove me across the Idaho border and into the small farming community of Mink Creek. He showed me a couple of places. I was interested enough to bring Wynn on an excursion. He wasn't thrilled about the places, but he liked the area and suggested we drive up the highway further. "You're going about this all wrong," he said. "You should get in an area you like and then stop and ask a farmer if he has any land to sell."
   We stopped to look at an old log house by the side of the road. It had mortise and tenon joints at the corners. It also had "no trespassing" signs all over the fence, and Wynn wanted to get closer. I was trying to restrain him when we heard the approaching sound of a motor and our farmer came up over the hill on a tractor and drove right down to meet us. His name was Lynn Nelson, he actually lived in Smithfield and was just up for the day doing a little plowing. In the course of our twenty-minute conversation across the fence, Lynn Nelson changed our lives. When Wynn expressed an interest in looking at the house because he was a "log builder," Lynn's interest was peaked and he allowed us to crawl through the fence and look. When we told him we were up looking for a piece of property, he said he owned the piece across the street. "You go look at it," he said, "and maybe we could make a trade. You build me a log house and I'll give you the old house." When Wynn asked him what kind of work there was to do in Preston, Lynn said, "You'd make a good school teacher and they are always hiring school teachers." Twenty minutes and we had more direction given to us than we had received in the past six years.
   We made a u-turn and drove slowly back down the road to the old house. As we pulled down the two-track driveway, Wynn stopped by the creek and asked, "Do you feel like you're coming home?"
I was overcome. It was the most peaceful natural flood of feelings. I knew this place. It was familiar to me. "Oh yes," I said. "Oh yes!" And for the first time in my life, I was having a Mink Creek kind of day.

   I've told the story of how we found Mink Creek so many times that it is a reverent recitation. There I was this poor, desperate housewife in a one-bedroom apartment with three children and a husband that seemed to be quite content or could have been if it hadn't been for his moaning wife. I wanted a home, but all we heard from the parents was "you can't afford to buy a home," and all I heard from the realtors was "Let us look at your finances. We will pre-qualify you for a loan and find you a home you can afford."
   A stylish female realtor drove up to the duplex in her nice car one day and cringed when I walked out with the children and a diaper bag full of crackers, drinks and diapers. She was a trooper. The 3 girls and I rode around with her for months, and  the only thing we accomplished was making sure that poor business woman never wanted children of her own.
   The paper work showed that the Costleys only qualified to purchase a shack in inner-city Salt Lake or an abandoned flat next to the railroad tracks or under a freeway overpass. The housing industry called them "starter homes," which meant they were places you could only stand to stay in until you'd built up enough equity that you could afford to go into more debt for something slightly better, and remember, you had to be lucky enough to re-sell the piece of junk. I didn't understand it. I wouldn't buy a dress I didn't like for $20 why would I buy a house I hated for $60,000? I wanted a home, a beloved place where we could raise our children.
   I was explaining my woes to a woman in our church one Sunday and she said, "I have a secret to share. Let me come over this afternoon and tell you about it." Her secret was this, "Decide and define exactly what you want. Write it down! Keep looking, but be patient, and it will find you."
  So, Wynn and I sat down that evening and wrote down our desires. He'd been working with the teenage boy scouts at church, and he was amazed that the boys had no work to do, no responsibilities except maybe to keep their bedrooms clean. They were always out roaming around the neighborhood and jumping over garbage cans for entertainment, so at the top of our wish list was to be out in the country where the children could have some chores to do and siblings would have to be their own best friends. Yes, that's what we wanted, a home in the country with some wide opens fields, a hill to climb (I'd had that in Boise) a creek to play in, (I'd had the canal in Boise). Wynn had also enjoyed these things in his boyhood. We found that what we wanted for our children was our own childhood. But, a few things had also changed socially, the future seemed a little more uncertain and we found that self-reliance was important to us, so things were added to the list like; an independent water supply, room for a big garden, no more than an hour away from a university and at the maximum no more than 3 hours away from our extended families. And last, but certainly not least, we had to be able to pay for it with something other than money, because we didn't have hardly any. We were dreaming BIG. It was written down and we were willing to wait. Two more things were needed before our dream would come true, but I'm out of time again so the rest of the story will have to wait until tomorrow. Until then here's wishing you a day of dreaming, a Mink Creek kind of day.