A day in the mountains

At 10:00 am Saturday morning Heber City was having a torrential downpour and for some reason, we still loaded up to go get firewood. I guess I figured it couldn't keep raining like that all day and maybe the mountains would be clearer. I was right, a little. We headed up above town and Matt took us a LONG way to find a few dead trees to cut down! He said he wanted me to see how pretty a certain spot was. It was pretty but I was worried we were going to get really wet!

Jen and her boys came up to help and we had great time. The kids loved watching Matt cut down the trees but they were disgusted that he had forgotten to say "TIMBER" before they hit the ground!

Derek came along too and it was a good thing. 15 year old boys have a lot of energy! We did get sprinkled on, but nothing too horrible. The kids were a great help packing the wood to the truck and they had a good time being in the great outdoors.

Matt said it felt good to run a chainsaw again. He was reminded of the 4 summers he spent working for the Forest Service on Boulder Mountain. Those were good times!

After the wood was all loaded, we headed just d0wn the road to Strawberry Reservoir where the Kokanee Salmon were running. We all liked seeing the brilliant red fish swimming up the river.

We all walked up to the holding tanks and got a great explanation of the Kokanee Salmon and their life cycle. The cute girl in the tank was so great with our kids. She was telling us all about the male fish and the female fish and how they separate them as they come up the river and then collect the eggs from the females. The kids wanted to know what they did with the eggs after they collected them, so the cute girls said "We put the eggs in a 5 gallon bucket and add the sperm to the eggs so baby fish can be made." Jen and I looked at each other and hoped the kids didn't ask what sperm was!

Jacob and Kendal loved squeezing the pretty orange eggs out of this dead fish. Jacob kept picking the eggs up very carefully and putting them back in the water.

On our walk back to the parking lot we ran into a lady with a bunch of birds of prey. This one is a barn owl and it was fun to hear its' story. They also got to see a falcon and a bunch of other animals in the visitors center that I missed. Jen said something about a porcipine and a boa constrictor and I am glad I missed that one!

We ran into SMOKEY on our way out also. He wanted the kids to give him a '5' and Kendal finally did. She still wasn't too sure about him though. Jen loved SMOKEY too. She has a great story of why she is loving SMOKEY, but I will let her tell it on the comments!


What a fun Saturday we had. We got back around 3:30 or 4 and started our wood pile. Now comes the splitting of the wood! YEAH! I have quite a few memories of going to get wood in the fall with my family. I hope our kids will have fond memories of the smell of a chain saw, cheese and crackers, vienna sausages, crisp air, and being together in the mountains. This is the first trip of many!