Shake It Up

I'm still trying to figure out what day is the best for a weekly blog update.  I'll try Sundays for awhile and see how that goes.  At this point, with the Covid-19 pandemic and an order by our Governor to stay home except for essential things, I could blog any day, they are all the same to me.

It's been so crazy to come home from our mission and not be able to do the normal things we do.  Go out to eat, visit our grandkids, hug friends and family, attend church, go to the temple, shop whenever and wherever it pleases me, take Ollie the River Dog to the groomers, and so on. I know that I'll not take those things for granted again!

Mike modeling some of our son Scottt's new
merchandise...looking good! 

Walking back to the little river house after the earthquake

We have been doing yard work, filling bird feeders, and working on other projects.  We've been able to stop and get take out food a couple of times, been to the grocery store a couple of time, and I even went to my cousin's to get my hair cut.  I've made face masks from left over fabric and we use word and phrases  like: social distancing, quarantine, stay home..stay safe.  

Doing a lot of weeding 

Through it all, I feel calm and safe and that's because of my faith.  This weekend was the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints biannual general conference.  It was so comforting to see and hear from a modern day prophet, President Nelson and other as they helped us focus on faith over fear by "hearing" our Savior.

Sewing facemarks whilst watching a session of conference

How do you Hear Him?

Our kids and grandkids were over today and we had to all stay six feet apart.  We were practicing physical distancing but definitely not SOCIAL distancing!  It's so good to see them even if we can't give them big hugs.

That's it for now..  Stay Home..Stay Safe and soon this will be over and we can move on with life...maybe as better people than we were before Covid-19.  We will be appreciative of our medical heroes, our families, time spent with others, and we may even be happy to hug strangers on the street!

After the storm, the. sun will shine again!

Happy Trails!

Back on the River!

Welcome to The Little River House blog!  It's been three years since I've done any blogging on this site, which is crazy.  For the last year and a half, my hubs and I have been in England serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and I kept a blog: palmersenglandmission.blogspot.com during that time that was specific to our mission. If you're curious, please go check it out!

Good bye England...

I'd like to continue to blog, so decided to start up this blog once again, so here we go...

We arrived home after being whisked out of England due to the Coronovirus, or Covid-19 as it's now being called.  They sent all senior missionaries and the young missionaries with health issues home very quickly around the middle of March.  Once home, we were all required to self isolate for two weeks!  I couldn't think of anywhere I'd rather self isolate than right here at The Little River House.  It brings me so much joy and peace to be here.  It's my heaven on earth, for sure!

Home, sweet home!

The welcome home sign our son, Scott brought to the airport!  Made us laugh!

Our son and his family (and dog and cat) have been living here and taking care of our dog, Ollie and the homestead. They did a fantastic job!  We will be forever grateful to them for all they did to keep things running and for loving our little sidekick as much as we do.  We're sorry they had to move to their new house on such short notice, as we had to come home eight weeks earlier than planned.  

Getting ready to move their chickens..

Chicken coop getting loaded up

And now the "girls"...

We arrived in the dark of night, but it still felt wonderful to drive down our dirt lane, pass Pat and Donna's place, pull up to the house and walk in to our home once again!   Life is grand!

Look at this little surprise the kids left us on our bed.
Such jokers!

He's trying to decide if he still loves me or not.

We've spent the last ten days sorting things out here.  We've been unpacking our luggage, bringing things down from the barn that we stored while we were gone, setting up internet, cell phones and catching up with friends and family as much as possible.  

This is how our box we sent home from England
looked when it arrived.  Needless to say the post office "dropped and ran"!
Luckily only one little item was broken.

The weather has been mostly sunny and just a little chilly.  The river is running about normal.  In years past, the river has been very high this time of year.  They didn't have as much snow this year, so the run off is either behind schedule or not going to be as significant. 

I look forward to Spring and all the life that it brings..new leaves on the trees, new babies for the ducks, geese, pheasants, quail and new projects here at the house.  

Some of our upcoming projects include re-decorating the library, an update to the bonus room, new veggie plot, and a lot of new landscaping.  It's going to be a busy spring and summer!  

Getting the four and wheat out from our food storage in the crawl space.
We might need it!

We had to resort to buying a roll of industrial style toilet paper!
It's all we could find...anywhere...at all.  Just "Say No" to hoarding!

An important note: The world is in the middle of a pandemic. The Covid-19 flu. Today the governor of Idaho issued a stat at home order for the next three weeks. Idaho is one of the last states to be infected but it's numbers are growing quickly.  So many businesses are going under, our son was laid off his job in Alaska, the economy is tanking.  And who knew that everyone would want to hoard toilet rolls?   Stay safe, keep 6 feet apart and hopefully we can all ride this out!

Happy Trails!