Carey Family

Scott and Sue Family

Seedling bragging

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I’ve had some questions about my process for growing seedlings, so here’s the scoop.  I germinate them in Jiffy pellets which I put in trays with clear plastic domes.  I place these under basic shop lights and fluorescent lights bought at the big box home improvement stores, on heavy duty wire shelves purchased from similar places.  I have a hanging wire shelf above these, and on the right I have narrow plastic shelves given to me by a neighbor who got a real greenhouse.  (covet, covet)  These shelves are in my downstairs furnace room.

Once the seeds come up and have a leaf or two, I remove the domes and when they have two true leaves (or soon after), I take the pellets and place them in 4″ pots filled with Miracle Gro potting soil and put them back under the lights.  These photos were taken April 7 and they had been going for about 3 weeks.

Once the seedlings get all big and healthy-looking, I start moving them out to what I affectionately call my “theater greenhouse”.  This is the other half of the wire shelving, located in my garage with shop lights and bulbs.  A few years ago I wanted to encase it and couldn’t figure out what to use and Scott cleverly came up with this solution.

When Brian was performing in plays at Lone Peak HS, we were in charge of hanging vinyl signs on the fence across from our house.  We took them down when the show was over and the teacher didn’t want them back, so we accumulated a collection, thinking they may come in handy someday.  I put a long one crossways, and a shorter one over the face.  I close the edges with clothespins and it makes a lovely greenhouse that’s cooler than downstairs but warm at night when it gets really cold.  I can lift the side to water and it’s just really awesome.  This is the half-way house for seedlings on their way outside to face the cruel world.  Once it gets warmer, say the middle of April, I start the tedious process of moving trays out during the day and in during the night.  I usually drag the shelves out and uncover them, but I had so many this year that Scott built me a wooden trolley with rope handles for pulling trays in and out. Where I live it’s still too cold at night in April and early May so the plants get used to the warm sun and cooler days, but I protect them from the frosty nights.  By the end of April I check weather daily and if the nights are in the upper 40’s I start letting some of the annuals stay out.  Perennials don’t mind the cold and have been hardened off and in the ground by this time.

The accepted wisdom in Alpine is that you don’t dare plant before Mother’s Day.  I live by this wisdom and there have been cool springs when I’ve waited longer than that.  These photos were taken May 17, after I’d bravely begun to plant some annuals, hoping for no more frost.  Alpine has been known to regularly get June frosts.  Grrr.

The seedlings this year are my best crop ever.  Best germination rate, best harden-off without killing rate, and largest plants at planting time.  I learned everything I know about seedlings from my mother-in-law, the Master Gardener, and even she was impressed with my output this year.  Brag, brag!

Wherein we meet Karl Malone

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In general car shopping is not our favorite thing.   Root canals aren’t far behind.   Sue and I set out and our car shopping day didn’t start out so well.  Our travels took us to Karl Malone Toyota where we were helped by a nice salesman who was obviously uninformed.  Everything he told us about the car warranties seemed odd.  When we questioned him, he just dug a bigger hole for himself.  I don’t think he was intentionally misleading us, just didn’t really understand what was going on.

Eventually we decided to have him work up some numbers on one of the Toyota Corollas that we drove.  He had been telling us all along that Karl Malone was at the dealership that day and we could go in and have our picture taken with him.  Sue wasn’t interested in a picture, but I jokingly asked if he really wanted us to do that, because we’d need to tell him about the warranty confusion.  He said that was fine.  So we went inside and were introduced to Karl.

First off, I should say that he’s tall.  But you were expecting that.  He’s also still in good shape.  We didn’t really intend to lay our concerns on the table, but then Karl asked us if we had a good experience shopping for cars that day.  Wrong thing to ask!  Sue has no qualms about telling lots of important people what she thinks, usually in a kind manner, so she told Karl that she was frustrated about the information we were getting about the warranty.  Karl tried to help us, but it was quickly clear that he was in over his head and asked our salesman to get the manager.

When we started questioning the manager it became painfully obvious that our salesman was completely wrong about all the warranty details he was telling us (no, Toyotas don’t come with a 5 year, 60,000 mile bumper to bumper warranty; that warranty is 3 year, 36,000 miles).  I finally asked to speak with the manager privately and went off to express my frustration at the incorrect information we had been given.   The manager corrected everything and about that time Karl wandered over to see what was going on.

I told him he could get the details from the manager, but Karl insisted on hearing the issue in person.  After hearing everything, Karl apologized and said that he wanted people to have a good experience buying cars at his place.  If we weren’t having a good experience, he suggested that we not buy a car from him.  He didn’t want us walking away from the experience frustrated; that wasn’t what they were all about.  I thanked him, said we would finish getting numbers on the car and our trade-in, and then we would leave and look at some other cars, and if we decided we liked the Toyota, we would come back.

That was surprising to us.  So often we are pressured to buy at car dealers and to have the owner of the dealership tell us his first concern was a positive car buying experience was a fresh view of things.  To then have him back it up by telling us to walk away was completely unexpected.   He could easily have blown everything off or just let his manager handle it.  But he was personally involved to ensure we were happy and we really appreciated that.  He’s “The Mailman” and he wanted to deliver.

So did we eventually buy the car?  No.  That might have been a nice end to the story, but we weren’t in love with the Corolla, and eventually bought another car later that day.  But we appreciated Karl’s attitude and involvement.  When I told a salesman at another dealership that we had met Karl Malone, they were surprised that he was actually there.  “You mean, he actually goes to his dealership?” was one reaction.  Not only was he there, but he was interested in what was happening.  Karl’s manager told me that Karl expects things to go a certain way and for the customer’s experience to be a certain way and when it isn’t, the results are not pretty.

I know some of you are wondering why he didn’t just give us a screaming deal.  I mean, he can afford it, right?  I’ve thought about that and concluded that although maybe he personally can afford it, his dealership still needs to make money to support the employees and he can’t just go around taking thousands off for everyone who complains.  Otherwise, everybody would be in there griping.  Instead, he gave us a reason to return.

Karl, it was nice to meet you and thanks for your involvement and suggestion.  While we didn’t buy from you this time, we feel like we could return there for our next car and know what you expect.

Flashback time

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I am attending today’s Utah legislative Interim Committee meetings for the first time in almost a year.  I retired last June as a volunteer child advocate and have been watching from afar.  But today I’m back up in person and using my social media skills on twitter.  It’s been fun to see old friends and hear the discussions on a variety of a topics this morning and I’m looking forward to a fun-filled afternoon.

Getting ready this morning I had some issues that finally made me laugh out loud at the irony of the feeling of deja vu I had.  Yes, I had to quickly repair a shirt to wear, I didn’t have time to eat and had to eat on the way up, there was a massive slow-down on I-15, and it was just like the old days.  I guess some things never change!

1940 Census

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I have been resisting the urge to sign up to do records indexing at Family Search for a long time now because every time I have the urge, I think I should be spending time on my own languishing family history research.  But when the 1940 Census became available and the indexing project began to immediately digitize the census, I decided I should do both.  And my wise friend told me, “Indexing just makes you hungry to do your own research”.  So true.

I embarked on this new indexing adventure this week and did some Illinois census records because most of the personal research I do is in that state.  I have several family lines that all converge on Illinois.  It turns out that indexing is SUPER easy, as advertised, and very intuitive.  Also fun.  The records were released on April 2 and already there are states that are completely done.  You can see a map of the progress at Family Search’s 1940 Census site, along with other information about getting started.

Happy indexing!

Wherein we drive to Montana…and back

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Monday, May 1 was the big day for Brian to leave for his summer job at the Playmill Theatre in West Yellowstone, MT.  He packed up his stuff and said it felt like he was leaving for a mission again with all the packing up of suitcases.  We left at 5:30 am to hit the road north and when we got up near Yellowstone, this is what it looked like outside the windshield.  

Yes, it was snowing.  Scott and I did not bring winter coats because we were driving our sedan and space was at a premium so that Brian could get all his stuff in the car.  Hmm.  We got to town with a minimum of skidding and sliding and found it a quaint, little gateway town to Yellowstone National Park.  Most of the establishments aren’t open for the season yet, but we had a lovely lunch at the Red Lotus next door to the theater.  We found the guys’ apartment and got all his stuff carried up.  Here’s Home Sweet Home for the next 4 months.

Up the stairs and in the door is the kitchen and great room, then turn left and the long part facing the camera with the white double doors is the bunkhouse for the single guys in the cast.

The kitchen has 2 refrigerators and an awesome avocado stove.  Everything a guy needs.  We left him to get all moved in and unpacked and wished him good luck on his new experience as a paid actor.  (Love the sound of getting paid for his acting.  Yes!)

Since Scott loves an adventure, he said, “Should we just drive into the park a ways since we’re all the way up here?”  I’m ALWAYS up for adventure, so I said, “Sure!!”  When we went to Zion in February we bought an NPS year pass since we knew we’d be up in Yellowstone and maybe other places this year, so we just drove in and did not pay the $25 fee.  Awesome!

Did I mention it was cold and snowing?  Yeah.  The snowing had become intermittent by then but it was still dang cold when the wind blew, which seemed to be pretty constantly.  We walked the boardwalk in the Lower Geyser Basin and saw a hot spring and bubbling mud pots.  If you look carefully on the right of the picture below you’ll see some mud bubbling up.  I had to take lots of photos of Scott to get one that actually showed it because the cold made the steam pretty impenetrable.We continued along the boardwalk and found some warmth when we were between two fumaroles giving off steam, one on each side of the boardwalk.  It was like a lovely sauna in the freezing air.

That’s me in my sweater trying to pretend my ears and nose aren’t about to fall off from frostbite.  Then we drove and drove to Old Faithful.  Along the way we saw many elk and bison so that was fun, although seeing bison isn’t the thrill it used to be now that I can see them from my front window every day of the year.  Just sayin’.

By the time we got to Old Faithful, the sky had cleared and it was a beautiful day, but the temperature hadn’t gone up.  We sat there shivering waiting for the geyser to erupt and it was just as awesome as we remembered from when we were kids, which is the last time each of us have been to Yellowstone.  Then we headed for home.  It was a long drive back and poor Scott drove all of it except about 30 minutes because that was all I could do.  We got home late but we’re ready for our big trip back to see Brian and the park in July.