Carlton & Ruth Smith, Christmas 2012 News

Three of our great-nephews

We enjoyed seeing quite a few of Carlton's family for Christmas.

It's the 12th day of Christmas, and this letter hasn't been written yet.  You are going to hear about our year in reverse, because that is the way the pictures loaded.    And I hope you can overlook the clumsy format.  I never have figured out how to make blogger put things where I want them.

Our neighbor had his poplars cut down.
We were given the trees for firewood.  That meant a really busy week getting the wood into small enough pieces to move, and getting it out of the neightbor's yard.   But we are grateful.

Ruth likes to do this event out at Hagg Lake called the Epic Grind.  A 3 mile "race" with about

10 obstacles inserted along the way.  This raft made of intertubes is really quite challenging to

get across.  The tubes get wet and quite slippery.

Ruth has been hosting "nature walks" on Sunday afternoons.  On this day, the boy in our group got a couple of girls that came along on their bicycles interested in a slug.

In August, a  group from our church went to

Sun Valley Indian School in Arizona and spent

a week serving in a variety of ways.  These

fellows are working on an addition to a dining hall.

My friend Melissa was training for a marathon this

summer, and wanted company for her long runs.

So I took my bicycle a few times and joined her

on the Banks to Vernonia trail.  It is a truly

beautiful place to get some exercise.  Here she

is crossing the trestle at mile 12 on her 15 mile

day.  She did great.

Elijah (our exchange student "grandson") and his

father Cliff were here mid-summer for a while.

It was great fun to see them again after they have

been in Hawaii for a year.  We went to

Independence for the fireworks show, and

Elijah (true to his nature) wasted no time getting

to the water.  He collected a whole bag of

shells of some sort.

Hummingbird  

Ruth has been trying to take pictures of birds

this year.  A few of them turn out ok.

I rode along with the some of the young people that went to Baker City this spring to Run to the Ruts.  The Ruts are the Oregon Trail Ruts of course, and we got to enjoy the Oregon Trail Interpretative Center as well.

We had a fun family day on Easter, the weather was great and we enjoyed a rather creative

game of croquet.  I got my ball stuck in the mulch trap.

It snowed a couple times this winter, The March snow came by day, but the January snow came at midnight.  It was worth a picture.

And now we wish you a very Blessed New Year - may you ever walk with God, and stay in tune with His great purposes, and be a blessing to everyone in your circle.

Carlton and Ruth Smith 2011 Christmas Newsletter

Here it is, Christmas Eve, and time to blog about the past year. It has been good overall, if a bit lean.

The young folks let me (Ruth) go snowshoeing in the White River canyon with them. Always so beautiful there. While Crystal and I were eating our lunch, a couple gray jays came to visit us. Such beggars they were, and very tame. They took a chip that Crystal held up. Then I tried to coax them to sit on my hand. With the palm up, they would not do it-but palm down was fine. Those smart birds must have realized I could not grab them that way. After I got back home I
found out that these birds are able to spend the
the winters in snowy places like this because
they take the treats they get and stick them into

the trees with their saliva. It would have been nice to have known that earlier and watch to see if they did so.

In February, I did the Great Backyard Bird count. This mostly involves wandering around my neighborhood looking for birds and counting how many of each kind I see. There were so many cackling geese in the schoolyard that I took a picture so I could count them more easily and accurately.

Carlton fixes computers for many people in the course of a year. He ends up with a lot of old computers and parts.

Ruth went to Idaho for the regional teen Bible Quiz tournament. It is quite a treat to spend a few days with such amazing young people. On my journey to and back again, I stopped several times to explore. Along the Columbia Gorge, the Columbia desert parsley was in bloom. Tho' most parsleys have yellow flowers, this one is pink, and is found only along the Columbia River. And this goose was sitting on her clutch of eggs right by the Snake river. Neither the goose nor I would have liked to be this close to each other - except there was a nice big fence between us.

Our friends, the Jenkins family, moved to Hawaii in the spring - and the job of recycling pallets came back to me. I recycle a few pickup loads of broken and odd size pallets -also scrap lumber and broken wooden furniture- each week - and the business complex that I serve pays to have it done.

At the end of May I journeyed to Kellogg Springs Camp to help get the camp ready for summer. There is generally quite a crew - we mow the place, pick up all the limbs that the wind blew down during the winter, clean out all the cabins and meeting places, clean the roofs - and oh, so much more. This year I replaced a downspout drain line under the kitchen, dealt with the mice, spiders, and yellow-jacket issues, sprayed bunches of weeds, fixed lights, doorknobs and locks, put a gutter back together, and I forget what else.

The snails and slugs got my interest this year. This is the Pacific side-banded slug.

Throughout the year, we have been been in a Saturday night group - reading stories by Christian authors and discovering principles of Christianity reflected in their writings. This year we did several of the Chronicles of Narnia, and capped the year off with "The Christmas Carol" by Dickens - a truly excellent story. Carlton has been supplying leadership to the group and preparing the story material for us to work with more conveniently.

Later in the summer I had the privilege to taking two girls to camp and them returning to pick them up again. When I arrived to pick them up, the whole camp was engaged in a massive game of tug-of-war, counselors and staff vs campers. I don't know who won, but it was quite a contest.





In August Crystal and some of her friends were part of a dozen runners that ran 216 miles in a relay race in central Oregon, the Cascade Lakes Relay. I believe this is the longest relay of its type in the US. Each runner runs 3 sections (legs, they call them), so the "baton" (which was really a slap-strap) was passed 35 times. I volunteered to monitor a parking lot at one of the exchange points - and ended up in the desert in the afternoon (but it was not as hot as last year). This is Crystal running the costume leg the next day. She is dressed up as a turtle. The race took about 36 hours from start to finish. It is really an amazing happening.



The next week (I must have been crazy) I went backpacking with the teens from church. This was the year of heavy spring snow, and Jefferson park had too much snow to hike in, so we set off for parts unknown in the southeastern quadrant of the Mt. Jefferson wilderness. A five mile hike in, and we camped at a really beautiful lake, Carl Lake. The next day we hiked over to Elk Lake - five miles north - through forests, by ponds, over lava beds, across streams, and patches of snow. At the edge of one of these snow patches, I made the find of a lifetime - the pasque flower in bloom. Pasque means Easter - and this flower is known for blooming so early in the high Cascades that I never expected to see it. That day, I saw several of them. Then, of course, 5 miles back to camp, and the next day, 5 miles packing out.

Also, during the summer, I did some volunteer work for the local park district, surveying the shrubs and trees in a couple of the local parks. In this park, there is an industrious beaver.

One of my friends took a fall this summer too, and landed in the hospital for a lot longer than she liked. I am glad to report that she finally has mended up pretty well and got her life back. In the meantime, she kept me some busy.

I signed up for a challenge in the fall to motivate myself to improve my level of fitness. It was a good motivator, but I was still pretty pokey. This was a 3 mile footrace with assorted obstacles. Getting across this flotilla of inner tubes was one of the harder ones. Fortunately, it was ok to get wet.

Also, having been blessed by a neighbor who took delight in dumping zucchinis and summer squash on me, I searched for uses for these great blessings, and a friend suggested I make ratatouille. Never heard of it - so I went online, and found out. The traditional versions look like a tomato zucchini stew - but I found one made by slicing and roasting the vegies - and prepared this dish for one of our Friday night pizza gatherings.

Carlton has made himself busy this year acquiring a collection of literature that is now in the public domain. This includes a lot of wonderful classics. This collection is all computerized, and he has already given it away to several people - a library of about 8000 books.

I just can't get blogspot to put the pictures in the order I want them, so here are two from the backpacking trip - featuring Carl Lake and Mt. Jefferson .

And last of all - while out exterminating - I found this delightful plaque in a coastal resort. The owner kindly permitted me to take a picture of it and told me it would be ok to put it on my Christmas greetings.

Whew, it is still Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

God bless us every one!

-and a Happy New Year

Carlton and Ruth Smith

As I was thinking about writing our Christmas newsletter for this year, I happened to read the one from last year. Not much has changed. So I could write "ditto". If you really care about what that was, it is still available on Blogspot. God has kept us.

We found these mysterious eggs in a hole in the apple tree in January. They disappeared months later, and we never found out what they were.

The economy continues to affect us slightly. Ruth got about 12 days work before September - and at least 12 since September. Carlton's income dropped slightly also. The good news was that we did get a tenant for the empty side of our duplex in March, and they seem to be doing fine. I had quit advertising, as I didn't like turning out the family I had housesitting to a life of homelessness in the dead of winter. But in mid-January, they sent me an email to let me know that they were praying for a renter for us. Wow! Within a week we had someone asking to see the place, so I showed it. Then I asked them when they wanted to move in. They said March 1 - so I didn't feel so bad about that. The housesitters moved over to a mission in Madras where they were a blessing to others for a couple months.

Ruth did the backyard bird count in late winter. I was playing bird songs on my computer, and both cats came to investigate.

Since work didn't keep Ruth too busy, she enjoyed the regional Bible quiz, mission convention, doing resource monitoring for the park district, a couple ROAM (RV's on a Mission) work projects, accompanying her friend on a weeklong trip to the beach, and backpacking in the Three Sisters Wilderness

Saw this impressive coat at the Glide Wildflower Show in April.

Monitoring resources for the Park District.

Clearing out weeds in the Ampitheater at Kellogg Springs Camp.

We carved our names in the sand to memorialize our visit to Seaside.

Crystal and her friends let me come along on a hike up SilverStar Mountain in Washington. This was June, but it was cold, windy, and foggy. But I thought I had a wonderful time!

We didn't put a new roof on this year (we did that last year), but we did have our huge lombardy poplar cut down. It was over 4 feet in diameter in the lower trunk. Ruth spent a lot of time this summer splitting it and has a huge holzmeite to show for her work. It's not particularly good firewood, but it would have cost $700 to have it hauled off. When was the last time you paid negative $ for a few cords of wood?

<--This is the holzmeite, about half done.

The ROAM team and some of the locals at Canby Nazarene.

Crystal was chosen as employee of the month for Providence Hospital in July, and we got to go to the party. There was an emergency on her floor (she works in cardiac care) and the presenters could not come on time, so we ate the cake first.

Thanks to Derald for counting me in on the backpacking trip. Marie Jean and I spent a beautiful day hiking along Fall Creek up to Green Lakes and back again.

This small holzmeite was made from the remains of the old apple tree. Since apple is slow to cure, we piled it separately.

I got to exercise my "grandparent" privilege at the local swim district and sign Elijah up for swim lessons. At the end of the lesson, here he is getting into the slide.

Yoshimi was valedictorian of her class at Aveda Beauty College. We were proud of her.

This month the Jenkins family went to Japan so Elijah could be spoiled by the Sato family for awhile. Cliff has returned to work, but Yoshimi and Elijah are still there. Leaving my Christmas decorations up until they can come back and unwrap their gifts.

Carlton is well, working, and keeping a consistent routine week to week. He helps teach English as a second language, does hall monitor duty at church on rotation, helps a number of people with their computer difficulties, and throws a pizza party for his friends on Friday evenings.

Wishing you all God's best for you in 2011. We delight in having our lives and times held in His hands, and desire you to know that joy also. Carlton and Ruth Smith

Christmas Newsletter, 2009

A Merry Christmas to all!

This mosaic is actually a collection of scenes from the New Testament - the little rectangles note the scripture reference for each.

Likewise our year has been like a mosaic of the acts of God and our adventures.

Ruth has been using her spare time here and there to build a sheltered area on the side of the garage where she will be able to do dusty and stinky things - like refinishing cabinets - while out of the usually imminent threat of rain.

Early on this year, our company embarked on a few, but challenging, bedbug jobs. Bedbugs used to be considered the problem of the poor and dirty folks. Then in America, at least, the problem was practically eliminated for a generation or two by DDT. Now bedbugs are back, and likely as not, pestering the wealthy, who have the means to travel. They are now turning up in resorts and upscale hotels.

The stains on this unfinished wood wall in a resort cabin have been made by bedbugs. There are a few bedbugs in the picture also.

This year the district teen Bible quiz championship tournament was held at our church. The group on the platform is preparing for the All-Star quiz-off. The 5 winners formed a team that represented western Oregon at the regional tournament.

Ruth enjoys doing a little volunteer work for other churches and church campgrounds with ROAM - RV's on a mission. Although most ROAMer's are retired and travel around in their RV's, they let me help out, even tho I don't fit that criteria. Here I am after crawling under the Junction City church to reconnect the drain pipes after we repositioned the baptistry.

Extermination has its occupational hazards, of which exposure to pesticides is probably a small part. Here Carlton notes the poison oak he will need to get through to complete his task.

I haven't asked Carlton what he was doing here, but that is some high scaffolding!

But the hazards are offset by lots of nice perks, too, like getting to service the properties at the coast. Yes, that is the famous Haystack Rock at Cannon Beach.

This year, our crew even got together to go on a rafting trip. Ironically, the fellow who put it all together for us had a horseback riding accident that made quite a mess of his leg, and he didn't get to participate.

We have enjoyed "grandparenting" Elijah this year. He just turned 3 this fall, and he is learning so much so fast! Here he is at the church neighborhood party on a very hot summer day, having just gone down this big water slide. See Mommy's knees up there? She is coming down after him.

Our church now has a thriving Latino congregation, and they brought this band to the neighborhood party. Notice the drummer boy. He is 7, they told me. Good, too!

Sometimes we exterminators see strange things. This is an office building, concrete slab, metal studs and brick siding, lots of window glass - the point I am making is that there is little wood. If you look closely, there is a green arrow on the carpet by the seam with the stone. This marks the termite hole. Not much for termites to eat here, but they did chew up a little string on the carpet backing. And what's more, came back for more! It has the record for my smallest termite job ever.

Realizing that our 31 year-old composition roof was no doubt pushing the limit, we hired 4 young fellows that could use a bit of work and had never done roofing before to strip off our old roof and put on the new. They did just fine, and now have one more life skill. There are a few areas that look a bit off, if you examine closely, but it doesn't leak. Should last very well.

Ruth kept them going with lots of supervision and smoothies.

Elijah's highlight at the State Fair was the fish. Elijah likes fish - it's amazing how much he knows about them already.

Here are Elijah and Yoshimi all costumed for Halloween. Our house sets way back from the street, so it was nice to get some trick-or-treaters.

On the other hand, I was working at my duplex in Redmond on Halloween, and had more than 40 come by - kept climbing down off my ladder with paintbrush in hand to pass out the treats.

One of our 2 quiz teams at Quiz Camp in Prineville.

The fall season in Redmond is certainly graced with lots of beautiful sunrises and sunsets.
One morning a forked horn mule deer walked right by my window. What I saw at first were his antlers gliding along just outside the window.

In November Ruth went to Arlington to enjoy the dedication of the new building that she worked on for a week last year. Met some really great people, too.

On my last trip to Redmond, I got a gorgeous view of Mt. Hood at sundown. No renters to be had in this season, with this economic climate, so I moved in a young couple from the church with 2 baby girls that would otherwise be homeless.

We are really praying that they find work, good work, and lots of it. Hopefully they get their feet under them before people start moving around in the spring.





This Christmas season, I am pondering anew the concept of miracles. If you watch TV, read GuidePosts or various church papers, you may get a starry-eyed perspective of miracles. But there is another side to every miracle - a price was paid, likely very dear. As I was trying to explain myself to my Sunday School teacher, he got to the bottom line. Jesus' part in the miracle of our redemption was "a bloody mess". And often our Lord offers us the privilege of taking part in some miracle he is doing for one or more of his beloved children. Our part may not be much fun, it might be inconvenient, expensive, frightening, painful, or more. But that is what love is, and we love, because He first loved us.

May you have more than a Merry Christmas, may you have a Blessed a Joyous Christmas, and a Wonderful 2010. With our love, Carlton and Ruth