On the Farrer Side: Family Fun

Showing posts with label Family Fun. Show all posts

Sep 7, 2010

How I spent my Labor Day weekend

All our kids, three spouses, and three grandkids under one roof—fun times!

I took Friday afternoon off to do some fishing with Clarke and Derek. (Dan stayed home to study and Shawn had to work.) We fished on Henry’s Fork just north of Ashton. It was a beautiful day and we could see the Teton Range in the distance. We all caught trout but none large enough to keep. [They have to be over 16 inches.] Clarke waded in too deep and filled his hip waders. I waded out to rescue him and filled my boots as well. There were several times when we thought we’d both be swimming. The stupid thing is I had two pairs of chest waders in the truck but didn’t think the water was deep enough to warrant them.

On Saturday we all had a nice day in Yellowstone NP. I borrowed the Council’s 15-passenger van so we could all ride together. We left about two hours later than I wanted to and that put us behind schedule. The kids were amazingly good and we saw waterfowl, elk, and buffalo, but no bears. We cabin camped at Island Park Scout Camp. Nancy brought frozen lasagna for dinner. Frozen lasagna? Oh well. The boys built a campfire and we did the Smores thing until bedtime.

There was a big windstorm over the weekend (nothing unusual for eastern Idaho) and the wind split another large branch off the big elm tree in our backyard. This time the branch fell onto the house. Fortunately it landed on the chimney and not the roof. I spent Labor Day afternoon cutting the tree limbs off the house. They were large enough to do serious damage so I strung up a belay system with climbing ropes and pulleys and had Clarke and Dan belay the limbs safely down. When I finally cut the main limb off the tree the weight of the falling limb took them both for a ride.

Labor Day in Idaho means State Fair time and that means Tiger Ears. I ran the Tiger Ear booth on Sunday from 5:PM, and Nancy, Clarke, Dan, Amanda, and Derek worked in the booth from 7:PM to 10:30 when we closed. On Labor Day Nancy and Sarah worked in the Tiger Ear booth from 2:PM to 5:PM and I ran the booth from 5:PM to close. I got home about midnight both nights. Making and selling Tiger Ears is a crazy way to make money for the Council but it is worth all the time and effort. It’s fun too!

Nov 2, 2009

Halloween at the Farrer House

Dad's

Amanda's

Dan's

Darn Kids!

Nov 1, 2009

Farewell to Summer

The kids wanted to take another trip down a river. That sounded good to me. I gave them a few options and we decided to float the South Fork of the Snake River in a raft. That would allow Wyatt to come along and we wouldn’t have to leave anyone behind to babysit. So we borrowed one of the Council’s rafts, paddles, and PFD’s and drove to Swan Valley. We dropped a car at the takeout and put in the river just below the Palisades Reservoir, near Little Lemhi Scout Camp.

It was a beautiful day—perfect for floating the river. Wyatt did NOT like wearing a life jacket but he loves water so much we were afraid he might just jump overboard. He was pretty fussy because he didn’t like being so restrained. (At least that’s what I think—he really didn’t say.)

Derek and I fished off opposite sides of the raft while the others paddled. Periodically I had to interrupt my fishing to steer—a minor inconvenience.
The best part of the float was shortly after we launched when we reached the haystacks—a series of waves that gave us a good rollercoaster ride for about one-hundred feet. The rest of the float was pretty calm. We passed Falls Creek Falls which is always very scenic. Just past the falls the river gave us a full 360-degree spin before we knew what hit us. That was fun too.

Someone once said, a little boating can greatly enhance a fishing trip, but too much boating can ruin a good fishing trip. That was the case for Derek and me. We passed lots of drift boaters fishing and they would all stop to fish in the good holes. We didn’t really have any way of stopping—short of jumping out of the raft—and our crew wasn’t too interested in our attempts at fishing. Every few casts the only person in the raft who thought she could boss me around would ask, “are you going to fish or steer?” Just because we were drifting towards a rock or a tree wasn’t a very good reason to disturb a good cast or drift. I’m sure that’s why I didn’t catch anything. It couldn’t be my lack of skill.

We decided to make it a short trip and took out just above the Swan Valley Bridge. That’s about a ten-mile float. Derek and I fished from shore while the girls drove back up the river road to get the other vehicle. It was a beautiful day, a nice float, a grumpy baby, and great company. The fish can wait for another day.

Aug 18, 2009

Powder Horn

Nancy and I have been off “playing” again. (Nancy was playing, I was working.) We attended a BSA training course called Powder Horn offered by the Grand Teton Council at our Island Park Scout Camp. I served on staff and Nancy was a participant, but there wasn’t much difference in what we did.

The purpose of Powder Horn is to train Scout leaders how to organize and plan high adventure activities for older Scouts and Venturers, and to expose the participants to a variety of high adventure programs presented by experts in the field. We learned about primitive living skills, mountaineering, low impact camping, backpacking, fly tying and fly fishing, ecology and plant identification, dutch oven cooking, whitewater river running, scuba diving, sailing, caving, mountain biking, GPS navigation, expedition planning, climbing and rappelling, rifle, pistol, and shotgun shooting, archery, and working with youth.

Here are photos of some of the things we did: