A family of Red-tailed hawks has re-occupied its seasonal nest atop a power pole at the company's Dos Pobres copper mine near Safford. I shot these images a couple of days ago. I don't know how old the nestlings are. I think there are three of them. Both parents (Red-tailed Hawks are monogamous) take turns watching over the nest. I think (though not sure) the mother is pictured above.

Jake and my mother and wife left us today to travel to visit new granddaughter Eva in Washington for a few days. We have survived the first day. I had a delicious bowl of Campbell's soup from a can and Jake had a home-made milkshake for dinner. We will try to improve upon that cuisine in the coming days. I had actually invited a brother whom Jake and I hometeach to dinner, but he was unable to go. That left us with the Campbell's and the shake.

I spent much of the day at our Morenci Mine shooting pictures of employees at work. These are employees who have transitioned to part-time work from their full-time jobs due to cuts in production. They are generally upbeat about their situation though not entirely without some complaints about how they are being handled by the organization.

After five years with this company, I've come to realize that we are very good at mining copper, but not very good at administration. I think that is due partly to the difficulty in recruiting good business managers/leaders to our outpost mining locations (like Morenci) and partly because our leadership folks are mostly engineers who focus their attention on mining processes, equipment, etc., and don't often have the softer, people skills needed to manage the work force in effective ways.

Take care.

Love,

Dad

It's springtime in the desert. Our Palo Verde trees are covered with blossoms attracting bees and humming birds and the cotton fields are tinting toward green as the new plants begin to poke their leaves above the brown soil. We've had our first temperatures beginning with a nine and the quail are poking around looking for a safe place to lay their next clutch of spotted eggs.

More progress on the new lawn this week with the network of pipes, elbows and risers mostly in place to channel water to the sprinklers. Jake and I are hoping to actually plant the grass seed by next Saturday. Mom should come home to a new lawn after her trip to the new grandbaby.

Two wards in our stake received new bishoprics this weekend. I do not work with either ward (directly) so I wasn't much involved in the changes. It has, however, affected the composition of our high council. And a couple of long-serving high council members were released in our stake conference last week so we're getting to know several new brethren on the council. That makes me no longer among the newest of the high council members. In fact, there are now five members newer than me. Stake high councils, unlike the Quorum of the Twelve, have no system of "seniority" so it really makes no difference. But it is good to welcome new brethren and benefit from their unique experiences and capabilities.

Mom is excited to travel to Pullman to spend time with Rachel, Rob and her three Packer grandchildren. A small part of her excitement, I believe, is to get away from having to feed and clothe the two men left behind in the household. Jake and I are looking forward -- not necessarily enthusiastically -- to frozen pizzas, cold cereal and canned soup as our main fare while the mother and wife is away. We might try an occasional visit to one of the local Mexican restaurants for a burro and/or taco.

You've probably received notice from my sister Kathy by now about the Hansen reunion to be organized here in southeastern Arizona in July. It is looking to be a "camping reunion" with two or three days on Mt. Graham--a beautiful alpine setting less than an hour's drive from our home in Thatcher. I wouldn't imagine any of my "long-distance" children will be able to make it, but it should be fun for those who do. I think we are planning for July 23-25. It's all still in the formulation stage.

We (Mom and I) will be staying pretty close to home this vacation season. Jake is going to spend a month in Utah living with Grandma Budge and working with Ed in his clinic--sort of an internship, if you will. Mom and I will drive up the end of June to attend Mom's high school reunion and then drive Jake back home. We were planning a few days camping in a more distant location but the Hansen reunion plans caused us to change that to a Mt. Graham camp. But we are looking forward to a good summer, nonetheless.

I noted in the news today the U.S. declaring a national health emergency due to the swine flu outbreak. While it doesn't yet appear to be too threatening, I guess the potential is there for it to spread rapidly and become quite serious. It causes us to reflect on our state of preparation for such unforeseen circumstances that may disrupt normal life. (Is there such a thing as "normal" life?)

I've been doing some low-level family history work -- mostly poking around the new.familysearch.org website. I even found a couple of ancestors that needed some temple work so promptly printed out the temple forms and will take them to the Mesa Temple on our next visit. I've never actually done any temple ordinances for actual family members. I am looking forward to serving as the proxy for someone who is actually part of my extended family.

Finally, please all of you be most careful as you drive yourselves and your little ones (if you have them) in your vehicles. I do a fair amount of driving in my job and I know that we too often become complacent in our driving habits. It's easy to be fatigued -- especially when driving long distances -- and allow our attention to wander. That quite significantly increases the risk of an accident. Cell phone use while driving should also be avoided, although I am guilty of that at times. It is best to pull off the road or wait a few minutes until you are no longer driving to make or receive a call. As grandparents do, we worry about our children and grandchildren and want them always and all ways to be safe and secure.

Have a fantastic week.

Love, Dad

Thank you, Erin and Whitney, for your comments. I know at least two of my children read last week's post. Here's another...

We enjoyed stake conference yesterday and today. The principal theme was related to the Temple -- worshipping faithfully in the Temple, being worthy to enter the Temple, being prepared to have our own Temple close by in about a year. Like I suspect all stake conference are, the messages were timely, well-prepared and worth our attention. Our stake conference schedule here in Thatcher has always been within two or three weeks of General Conference. It makes for a good period of reassessment and review of where we are individually and as a family in relationship to where we should be in the most important areas of our lives.

Jake and I worked all day Saturday digging trenches and preparing for the installation of the new lawn's sprinkler system. I've put a couple of sprinkler systems in now and I enjoy the tasks of designing the system, choosing the parts needed and putting it all together. It's a bit like putting together a puzzle that, if done correctly, results in the intended purpose -- getting water to all parts of the area in the right amount and at the right time.

We are hoping to be ready to plant next weekend or possibly the weekend thereafter. Ground temperatures must be consistently above 65 degrees and I don't think we are quite there yet.

I mentioned last week about some very windy days we have had. That has moderated the last few days which have been very pleasant indeed. Thatcher has what I would consider an ideal climate, but for the periods of wind. I don't care for high winds. Spring winds are especially bothersome because the farmers are just getting their fields ready for planting cotton so the freshly plowed fields provide lots of dust for the wind to spread around.

Mom has been playing with her new pressure canner this weekend. She canned a dozen or so bottles of chicken meat and seven or eight quarts of pinto beans. It all worked out nicely. We opened a can of the pinto beans just to be sure they tasted good and they were very good. After smashing them up a little, they were better than store bought refried beans.

We are thinking about getting half a beef from a local slaughterhouse. We would freeze some of the cuts and can some other parts. That would be good for our food storage. They only problem with that is that we don't generally eat very much beef so getting that much would almost force us to eat more which may not be a good thing from the standpoint of overall health.

I hope you are all doing well. Enjoy your young lives with your young children. These years will fly be much faster than you might imagine and before you know it you are at home all alone or with your last child wondering where all the time went and wishing, in some ways, you could go back and teach your children a little more, spend a little more time with them, read them a few more books, carry them on your shoulders a few more times, go on a few more walks with them, visit Home Depot with them tagging along a few more times, going to Daddy-Daughter parties a few more years.

Thank you all for who you are and for what your are making of your lives.

Love,

Dad

After having posted one blog entry for the entire year of MMVIII, I think I may take up the keyboard again and see if I can improve upon that performance.

From its outset, this blog is intended primarily for my own family members and, even more specifically, those of my children who are married. I guess that's all but Jacob who hears enough from me up close and personal as it is.

We enjoyed a nice, quiet Easter Sunday, although my high council duties kept me from attending our own ward with Mom and Jake. I am presently assigned to the Mt. Graham 4th Ward which is the young single adult ward in the stake. We have three college ward for the students at Eastern Arizona College and one single adult ward for young people who live at home while attending college or who are single and not attending college. It's a small ward with about 55 or so members.

Conference weekend was very nice and we enjoyed the sessions of conference very much. I'm sure each of us hears our own special messages and themes based on our own needs and how the spirit works within us. I was impressed with what I thought was a theme of strengthening our own personal faith and testimony, recommitting ourselves to the work of the Restoration and making sure our "lamps" are filled with oil in preparation for whatever the future may bring.

Along those lines, Mom and I (mostly Mom) have been spending time reassessing our physical and financial preparations -- Provident Living, if you will. Mom is great in this area and seems to have us well-prepared from a food and basic necessities perspective. Financially, we have a bit of work to do but are taking steps to better prepare for retirement, etc.

I would encourage all of you young families to spend a little time considering and learning how you might begin (if you don't already) some small steps toward long-term savings and investments. It is quite amazing how a relatively little amount of money saved regularly over a long time in the right investment instrument can grow to a very large sum over the course of 30 to 40 years. Had we done that better in our younger married years, we might not have quite so much concern now. (We don't really have a great deal of concern, but we more clearly now understand the missed opportunities of our early married years.

Our big home project currently is planting a back lawn. Jake and I have worked hard to excavate an area in the back, fill it with topsoil, till in manure and now get a sprinkler system installed for what we hope will be a very nice, fairly large patch of grass. That feature, combined with a retaining wall and other work, will help tremendously in making our back yard a useable place and an extension of our living area. We've had several days of quite heavy wind the last two or three weeks which has not been helpful in completing this project.

We spoke with Rachel "face-to-face" over the Internet this evening and saw her beautiful new baby girl, Eva. What a fantastic birthday gift for our second daughter. Mom is beside herself with anticipation of flying to Washington to actually hold the new granddaughter in her arms. Jake and I are not looking forward to our own cooking and cleaning for 10 days.

We are proud of all of our children and their accomplishments and activities. My patriarchal blessing, received when I was 17 years old, describes my future children as "loving and serving the Lord... with a testimony of the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in their hearts..." It promises that "this indeed will be [my] reward for [my] faithfulness in serving the Lord and keeping His commandments at all times." I have more work to do in that latter phrase, but seeing my children make good and right choices and staying faithful to their covenants and our covenants is truly the blessing I value most -- with the one exception of the blessing of being married to your mother.

I hope you all have a great week.

Love,

Dad