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Show "castle Valley Comments . . . Ir t w By NancyHotz i Here it is the end of another season of hot weather. A beautiful time of the year when thoughts turn to getting ready, for winter. Yards need to be cleaned of weeds and the outdoor plants have to be fertilized and readied for the cold season. Here in the Valley fires can be seen almost daily from people cleaning brush from their property. Here we not only are getting ready for winter but are clearing for houses and spots for yards and gardens. In a real pioneer spirit people have come here and started with nothing but the land itself. Many started with nothing but a tent or tee-pee or maybe a chicken house or goat shed to live in and are gradually developing their property to include better living quarters. There are over 20 houses now established on the Castle Valley River Ran-chos. Ran-chos. That is not including the 10 or so trailer houses and double wides and the various tents, campers, and goat sheds, chichen coops and cellars. Many have had gardens this year and have found that this soil will grow almost anything with a little work and water, two of the main resources. It has proven to be a true agrarian society. Neighbors trade with each other to obtain what they need. As a result we can accomplish a lot without depending on outside help. Everyone is a little short of the green paper needed to buy things, so this system has worked tremendously. It also helps neighbors to get to know eachother and depend de-pend on eachother, thus developing a very close community relationship. Hopefully, this atmosphere atmos-phere will continue here. It is almost sad to see summer go. Those big melons of Jack Cluff's will really be missed. They were the biggest melons I think I've ever eaten. I hope he grows some more next year. Poor Chris Rickets though did not get to see her garden grow. With peacocks and horses running loose next door she just didn't have a chance. But thanks to the hard work of Nettie Hotz who produced a beautiful garden in spite of all the bugs, Chris was able to can enough food for her family for the winter. Besides canning for herself, her-self, Chris also helped her friend Johann Ehler get a few things put away. Johann has been going a little slower this summer sum-mer because she is expecting ex-pecting another addition to her family maybe it will be a boy this time! I think she hopes so too. One of the busiest families in the valley is the Officers who live up on the corner. Darlene is always busy with clubs and family reunions and keeping up with all her growing and going family. Her daughters daugh-ters have both recently been winners in the tennis tournaments in school. Her eldest daughter just moved here from Colorado Springs this last summer with her family. One of her daughters helped with Cricket White's wedding this summer and I guess it rubbed off on her brother Guy because he is getting married next week. He and Robin Stucki, whose family also lives here in the Valley, are having their reception here in the Valley this weekend and are getting married in Manti on Tuesday. They are planning their house, which has only a floor at this time, up a few lanes from his parents place right next to Zimmerman's Zimmer-man's grape vineyard and across from Ken Drogan's potato patch. They are starting out small but then so did the Al Duncans who were married last year and look where they are today in a cozy little 14 x ( 14 with one goat shed and even two storage sheds, not to mention little Jasmine their daughter and the other one they are expecting in the spring. So far there have been six babies born (that I know of) to people who live here. Mary Cluff had cute little girl, Cleave Em-men's Em-men's wife had a little boy, Johann Ehlers, a girl, Marie Duncan a girl, Mary Reese a little boy and Annie a little boy. So you can see we. have been very busy here in Castle Valley this year. We are surely a very young community but a good one so far. Some of the best things grow better with age. It reminds re-minds me of a little song my Dad knows, "Good, better, best, never let it rest until the good gets better and the better gets best." Our gardens were good this summer and the corn and melons will be missed but some of the other good things are just starting to come on and do well. The broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower cauli-flower and turnips and carrots will continue to give us more good eating up until the snow and some of them later if we cover them with straw. It is nice to have our own little market right down in the cellar or garden and be able to snack on popcorn and zuchinni chips this winter by the fire while reading, writing or crocheting. We all do a lot of reading, writing and hand projects because we have no TV. A lot of magazine swapping goes on and book exchanging. Probubly this winter we will do a lot of crochet puttern exchanging too. Well so much for this time. Next, I may have some information concerning con-cerning the land owners association. So be sure and read next week's column to find out what's happening in the Castle g Vulli-y Community. " |
