Ward Dairy Assignment

Our ward is assigned to work at the church dairy a couple of times a year. In the past, it has been for the Elders and High Priests to fulfill the assignment, but the Bishop has stressed the last couple of times that it is a whole ward assignment. So, bright and early Saturday morning we got up and went to the church to help set up chairs for Stake Conference, had a breakfast of pancakes, doughnuts, juice, chocolate milk, and bananas and then proceeded out to the church dairy. This dairy produces milk for the church welfare system that goes up to the humanitarian center to be bottled and made into cheese and also supplies the BYU Creamery I believe. My boys warned me all the way out there of all the gross things we might have to do as they have been to the dairy numerous times. Everything from cleaning out troughs and finding teeth to shoveling manure. So, needless to say we were in our grubby clothes and shoes from last year that were too small for everyone.

When we got to the dairy, (about 48 of us showed up) we were given our assignment of pulling weeds. First of all, we pulled weeds around the rock beds that were landscaping the entrance to the dairy and then up around the main building. That wasn't too bad as there was weed barrier and rocks, so they were easy to pull and there weren't very many of them. Then we were told that there was a little calf that was running around that needed to be put up with the weaning calves. So, since our Bishop is a great roper, and since we needed pictures to prove we were really at the dairy, we all headed over there to help herd and rope the calf so it could go back to where it belonged.

Then we all headed over to pull weeds at the lagoon. What a project!! If you look at these big pictures, you can see the crew and then the 2nd picture is what the lagoon's looked like before we weeded them. There was a lot of weeds and they were on a slope so we had to pull them and then get them up to the top of the hill and then put them into big piles so that some of the others could pitchfork them into the loader so they could be dumped over the fence. The third big picture is of the lagoon after we had weeded it.

We weeded four lagoons that were huge (like the size of a football field). We were rewarded with cheese and chocolate milk and I'm sure we earned some extra blessings. We had been there from 8:00 to noon and we were tired from all the hard work. This gave us just enough time to get home, eat lunch and shower before the BYU game started, which they won by the way and it was a great game 28-27. We blocked their field goal at the end or they would have tied and sent the game into overtime. We are all so excited that football has started and that we actually get the Mountain channel this year so we can see all of the games. GO COUGARS!

Update on Tyrel, his lip is back to normal size. It only took 3 days. Trevin and Tyrel have both started soccer also. I'll have to take pictures at their next games to show you. Trevin's team has lost both of their games, but they are having fun. Tyrel's team beat the Santaquin team (which is usually a tough game). They won 5-0 with Tyrel scoring two of the five goals. He and his friend Jansen and Jansen's brother Golden were the forwards and they worked amazingly well together. It was so fun to watch. Jansen scored a goal, Golden scored a goal and then Kelsie, a girl on their team scored the 5th goal. I'm excited for their next game.