St Kitts

Margo and I spent the first week in May on St. Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean visiting Steven, who was on spring break from vet school at Ross University.  


A ferry ride took us to the island of Nevis, the other half of this small nation.  It happens to be the birthplace of Alexander Hamilton.  We hired Clayton Daniel, a taxi driver, who gave us a great tour of the island, including a church built in the early 1600s and lunched at the Golden Rock, a refurbished sugar plantation.


We spent much of one day sailing and snorkeling on a catamaran.  We met some great folks on the trip, from as far away as the Netherlands. We even had three doctors aboard. Despite raining for most of the day, we burned our backs, as we spent quite a bit time on our bellies peering at a great variety of  brightly colored fish.

A tour of St. Kitts took us to a variety of sights including a batik shop, where we watched a portion of the tedious process of waxing and dying to make wonderful designs in cloth.  Visiting the Brimstone Hill Fortress gave us more insight into the history of the region and an opportunity for commanding views of the island and surrounding waters. 

At our visit to Black Rock, we saw towering crags of volcanic rock, as well as treated ourselves to coconut, freshly harvested that morning by an industrious young man who runs a stand there.  

St. Kitts

Steven has been on

Steven has been on spring break from Ross University on St Kitts in the Caribbean.  We decided to take the opportunity to bring him some things he can't find there ... and do some sightseeing as well.
We gathered together a variety of food, snacks, and other news items and packed up a couple of suitcases of things for him.

Growing Rocks

The other day I decided to get started installing an electric fence--to keep the goats from smashing down or squeezing under the fence. Mounting the control box was easy, as I just had to put two screws into the same board in the toolshed that holds the electrical box. Next was to drive the three six-foot grounding rods into the ground. They have to be in a damp location about ten feet apart, so I decided to string them out between the toolshed and the conex box. Using the post driver, I drove the first one about six inches into the ground then it bent to the side and back as it passed a rock, then went back the other way as it slide by another rock, but then stopped cold after it was in the ground only about four feet. I tried the same with the other two, but the result was the same. So now I have three grounding rods neatly spaced ten feet apart, lined up behind the tool shed. Each is sticking out of the ground over two feet and are angled each in their own direction. I would like to try again, but I am not sure if I will ever be able to pull them back out of the ground. Maybe I will just cut them off where there are, and if necessary add another rod, or two. This afternoon, I started putting clips on the fence posts and hope to run some electric tape by the weekend. I am looking forward to not ever again having to straighten fencing that goats have mashed down. .

New Lambs

This week we have had five new lambs born...so far. We weren't even aware that we were 'expecting' until we sheared the sheep last week and found that most of the ewes were pregnant. Of course, we suspected Gunther of sneaking into the girls' pasture until we sheared one of the yearlings who was supposed to have been castrated, who still has a very nice pair of family jewels. The band must have fallen off or broken and we never suspected.
Anyway... we have some pretty cute little lambs running and jumping around. We really worry about them though, they seem so vulnerable. So, we put our guard llama, Bacu, in with the moms and babies to keep them safe from the eagles and whatever else comes around.

Old Seminary pictures

Bishop Lay found a collage picture of seminary students from about 2000 in his office. See who you can recognize!

Old Seminary pictures from Oak Harbor 2nd Ward

The bishop found a collage picture behind the cabinet in his office that shows seminary students from about 2000. See if you can recognize them!