Owen & Jessie & the Mayflies

Mark has been working one day a week with the oxen rides.  He prefers the horses of course but he doesn't mind the oxen one day a week.  They take folks on a short ride in a covered wagon.  The Nauvoo oxen are Don and Duke and Owen and Jessie.  Oxen are more docile than horses and are easier keepers so they were useful to the pioneers.

Mark is here with Owen and Jessie.  They are a Hereford Ayershire cross.  Don and Duke are shorthorns.  We'll photograph them another time.

Mark and Owen and Jessie



The oxen with Mark



I didn't quite get the wagon in the photo.

I got most of the wagon in the photo WITH the oxen and Mark

Another one of Mark and Owen and Jessie.  Notice the teamsters don't have to wear vests for the summer.  They can wear suspenders instead.

The next animals to report on are the Mayflies.  I don't know how often they come, but they came in June.  Mark calls them June bugs, but everyone here calls them Mayflies.  I think they hatch and live 24 hours and then die.  The birds come and eat them and that helps get rid of them.  They really swirl about you when you leave the house but they don't get into the house too much.  They sure get on our car and in our car.   They are so thick that they make the road slick to travel on.  The Sunset stage used to be by the river and the dead flies would get all over the keyboard and make the keys slick to play. 

Here's the back wall of our house with Mayflies on the outside walls.  They were all over the house--especially on the shady sides.

The side of our house with a tree branch.

A close up of the Mayflies.  We hear that they are larger here than in the west.





Some people have snow drifts.  We have bug drifts.  This is the road in front of our house.  The black piles are dead bugs.



A tree in our back yard covered with Mayflies.

The Mayflies are now gone thanks to their short life cycle and the birds.  We are glad to have them gone.

I have been working in the sewing room once a week.  I have to get a show dress since I'm here longer than six months.  So I ordered one and they said I could make it when I work there.  It has taken me a while to get the dress and show collar done, but it is finally finished.  We can wear brighter and fancier dresses for the shows.  The site dresses have no lace, no big collars, and more muted colors.

Me in my new show dress.

Relief Society

One of our assignments a while back was to clean the Women's garden statues.  They are so beautiful.  They were dedicated in 1978 as a monument to women.  There are twelve life sized statues and one heroic sized statue. 

One of the statues.  Taken a few months ago.  What a privilege it was to clean them. 

At the time the statues were made and dedicated here, all of the women of the church were given the opportunity to contribute to them.  We were told that we could also contribute in the names of our daughters.  Our daughters were very young, Olivia was just a baby.  But we contributed for me and for them.  We were told that all of the names of those who contributed would be in a book in Nauvoo.  After we got here I started wondering where that book was.  I found out and we went and looked at it and were very surprised when we got to the pages of the Elko Nevada Stake to find that the Elko Nevada stake names were in my handwriting.  I hadn't remembered that I had written the names in the book for our stake.  I was the Stake Relief Society secretary at the time.


This pages shows our daughters.




This page shows me, my mother and sister and other members of our ward and stake. It is good to remember these people.


I have spent some time working at the Sarah Granger Kimball home lately.  It is a lovely home and was built in the 1830's and was already here when Nauvoo was settled by the Latter Day Saints. 



The Sarah Granger Kimball home

 There are some beautiful things in this home.  There is a Bible that was hers that her husband gave to her.

Sarah Granger Kimball's Bible



The view of the Temple from Sarah's home.


Sarah Granger Kimball and her seamstress realized that the men working on the temple needed new shirts.  Her seamstress said she would make them shirts but couldn't afford to purchase the fabric.  Sarah said she would do that.  They got some of their friends together because they knew others would want to help.  They decided to form a society and wrote up a constitution.  They showed it to Joseph Smith.  He said it was the best he'd seen but the Lord had something better for them.  On March 17, 1842 on the second floor of the Red Brick Store, Relief Society was organized by the Prophet Joseph Smith.

That was the beginning of Relief Society, the oldest and largest women's organization in the world.  The Relief Society encourages women to have faith, charity and to serve others.  I am so thankful for my association with Relief Society and for all the things I've learned from it.  Sarah Granger Kimball's home is very special to me for that reason.  I finished my little granddaughter, Azure Dahl's baby quilt while working in Sarah's home and that was fitting I thought.





Azure on her quilt--April, 2012.  It is much nicer to wait and have her sitting on the quilt rather than a photo of me with it before I sent it.  Azure Dahl is Ammon and Melanee's daughter.  She was born February 20, 2012.

 

The Sarah Granger Kimball home is surrounded by beautiful flowers that were blooming recently.

These were my favorite peonies.



More of the flowers

 We arrived here in Nauvoo on March 17, 2012, exactly 170 years from the day Relief Society was organized.  We were able to participate in a reenactment at the very Red Brick Store where it was organized.  First we rode to the Red Brick Store on a wagon.



These are some of the horses and the carriage that Mark now drives.


When we arrived at the Red Brick Store we took a photo before the re-enactment.

This is a photo of our group on March 17, 2012.  We had just arrived a few hours before and I didn't know most of these people, but now they have become dear friends.  I am in the third row back--2nd from the right.



The upstairs of the Red Brick Store

I am so thankful for the Relief Society.  I have learned so many things.  Practical homemaking things like quilting, sewing, my pie crust recipe, various cleaning and cooking tips.  We learn of the plan that our Father in Heaven has for us.   Just today we were reminded that we need to know what our prophet is telling us to do now.   But one of my favorite things I've learned in Relief Society is to be a visiting teacher.  I love the concept of providing watchcare for all of the sisters in our ward through the visiting teaching program.  That is one of the most Christian things that we do.  Relief Society provides many other opportunities to serve also.  It is wonderful to be here in Nauvoo where Relief Society had its beginnings. 

I'll close this post with a few more photos of the geese for our grandkids.