food storage, mountains, and a tragedy

Just recently I have felt an urgency to start our food storage, despite the fact that we have nowhere to store it. We were able to get some wheat from a local farmer and are happy to have the first 100 pounds of wheat. We have a long way to go, but it feels good to have a little something to start with.



For the 4th of July, Evan got to go on his first boat-ride this weekend on Lyman Lake. He had such a blast. I'm sure his face is sore from all the smiling. He's going to be a daredevil like his daddy. Unfortunately, we didn't have the camera with us for that one.
We then spent Saturday the 5th near Green's Peak for my Mom's 55th birthday. It was so cold and we got a pretty good hailstorm too. It's hard to believe that it can be so hot in some places in Arizona, and extremely cold in others. We could see our breath it was so cold! Evan had a blast being a boy though.


That evening we were sitting around talking while dinner cooked when we heard someone yelling "help!" It made me shiver to hear the pleading yell. We found two ladies running toward our camp. We were told that they found a wrecked 4-wheeler on the side of the road and that they were sure the little boy was dead. We ran half of the mile to the site before they gave us a ride the rest of the way. We found out later that there had been a lot of complaints about a family drinking heavily and making a lot of noise. That evening a sherrif had been called to find someone who was driving really fast on a yellow ATV. They must have lost control coming around a bend and they drove off the side of a small cliff and into some rocks. The little boy was found head down and crumpled up on top of some rocks. He didn't have a lot of signs of injury. From what I could tell, he broke his neck, which means he didn't ever have to suffer. He was only 10 years old. The driver was his sister's boyfriend, and he smelled very stronly of alcohol. I have never seen a person's face that messed up. It was like a nightmare. I always hoped with my medical training that I would one day be able to help someone, but I was absolutely useless. We just had to watch him struggle breath after breath as he was dying in front of us. My uncle, Todd, and the man who found the scene all gave him a blessing, but it wasn't to live. It seemed like forever for the sherrif to finally get there so we could tell him to call for a helicopter. He and the ambulance crew that came were all in such shock that they were fumbling around with their equipment and stumbling down the cliff trying to get to the guy. The worste part was watching the Dad's grief when he arrived at the scene. He didn't get there until the ambulance crew got there, which was about 15 minutes after we had gotten there. I don't even want to know the pain that would come from losing a child. I won't go into anymore detail. It was the worste thing I have ever seen in my life. Todd and I are both struggling to get the site and sounds of that scene out of our heads. We have been praying for comfort for that family.