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Show -NEWS- Spanish Fork WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2007 A3 Making a family plan Fall harvest Covering what matters most Ready or Not Dawn Van Nosdol "What is a family plan?" I had a friend ask me that last week. She is new at this preparedness "thing" and wasn't quite sure what a "family plan" should include and how to go about it. This article should be a catalyst to start you thinking of what your family needs are, all of the circumstances that each individual might be involved in — you take it from there. Over the years you will need to re-evaluate how your family has evolved and what your new needs may be. Let's go through the different elements of some of the things that a family plan should include. In a nutshell, as a family, you should sit down and discuss what you would do as individuals in different situations. For example, my friend works in Provo, her husband works in Las Vegas during the week and her son is in elementary school in Eagle Mountain. If we were to have an earthquake at noon on Thursday, (this is hypothetical — I'm not predicting an earthquake) what would be their plan of action? How would they contact each other so that they can find out'if everyone is okay? That is what needs to be discussed in a family plan. Don't count on your cell phones. Most of the time cell phones will be out of commission, anyway (they are shut down during disasters and only some emergency personnel have access to them). Does your family have an out-of-state contact that can be a clearinghouse of information for everyone? (It is easier to get a phone line to an out-of-state contact than to try to call each other in state - the on their assigned coat hanger or make phone lines will be jammed). Is there arrangements with the teacher as to someone in the neighborhood that where it can be stored. When they they trust to take responsibility and get older, and start attending jr. high look after their son until one or both of and high school, just have them throw them can make their way home? Have it at the bottom of their locker (like you asked these chosen neighbors if everything else). Make a kit for your you can count on them and include car and include good, sturdy walking them in your plans, or are you just shoes and water — you will be glad assuming that they would know what you did. you want and be able to help? During A good way to keep in touch with a crisis they might be having their family members, no matter what their own difficulties and unless you have age, is to get your HAM radio license. thoroughly discussed your concerns It costs nothing to take the class and and made plans, it might not happen only $14 to take the test. You can get a like you expect. Open up the lines of good HAM radio for only about $100. communication with people that you HAM radio capabilities do not go down would like to have help. during a crisis and it is very helpful to Another Scenario: if something have to keep in touch with your family, happens at night and you have to get anytime, anywhere. You can even use out of the house, where will your family it like a cell phone! You can get your meet? You will want to have a pre- license at any age. I think that there are determined meeting place so that you kids as young as 5-7 years old that have won't go back into a burning house, or their license (their parents are really into one that is badly damaged, looking for HAM radios and so they have a really someone that has already escaped and good understanding of things). As long is safe. Another thought: do you have as you can take the test and pass it, you a message spot? In other words, if you can get your license andyou don't have had to evacuate your house, or leave the to know Morse code anymore (whew). a?ea, where would you leave a private message giving loved ones information My license number is KE7FGM. Now I of what you are doing and instructions just need to get a radio (someday soon, of what you want them to do? Is it in I hope) the crook of a tree? How about a small An in-depth family meeting, can that is located behind the house, talking about serious subjects, such as inside the bird feeder, hanging from preparedness and how to be safe in an the Maple tree? Think about where you emergency, is the best thing that you would leave messages to make contact can do to put everyone on the same with family if you weren't there. page and come together in purpose. It Yes, make your kids school kits to will help everyone to act in unison and take with them to school and leave them to accomplish the same thing, peace of there until school lets out for summer. mind and safety, even though you may If you have children in elementary be in different places. Have, you got school, label it and have them hang it your water stored yet? Learning lessons in moving can't be ignored. Food costs are less. It just makes more sense Ramblin' Roads The second decision is where are Charla Zeeman you going to live? We chose to buy a 36-foot trailer house and take it with us. That made moving a whole lot easier. "Have you moved?" Those were the We put the breakables to bed, hooked first words I heard when a friend called the truck on the trailer, turned off the the other day. Good grief, I thought. butane and loaded the power line and Why would I want to move after only hoses in the truck and took off. The a year in this house? Which one of my experience made my last move much brain cells would have had to click out easier. I moved into my trailer, had a of place? It was hard enough to move moving company take my furniture, in the first place, without having to go put the excess into a storage unit, and through it again so soon. In fact, I am when it came to leave, I followed the still not totally unpacked, nor do I have same routine I did years ago. everything out of storage since last Of course, there are times when you year. "No, I have not moved again!" have to be separated. Military service is When we were first married, we one. Some jobs require a lot of moving. moved nine times in seven years, so I At these times you work out a system of was not new to moving. But I learned survival that is beneficial to everyone. some things. When your husband has a Everyone finds a different solution. job that moves him all over the place, When my son was small, for there are things you soon learn. instance, he refused to eat until Daddy The first decision is whether you are was home. When my husband worked going with him or not. I chose to go. Our shift work, swing shifts were difficult children were young, they were babies to say the least. The children were in and preschoolers. I would still make the bed way before he came home, and they same choice for several reasons. I think left for school before he was awake in a marriage is much stronger if you are the mornings. He left for work before together. The children are much happier they came home. with both parents together, living in I remember one morning when my the same house. It seems it's cheaper son informed me that he really needed to live that way — not so many trips to talk to Dad. He went upstairs and between places, fewer telephone calls woke his dad up. He was gone several and the price of keeping up two homes minutes before I called him to come finish getting ready for school. A little later, befor^going back to sleep, my husband called me upstairs. He looked at me quizzically and asked, "What did he want? He just sat here and never said a word!" After that, we made a habit of marching the children upstairs to wake Daddy and visit with him in the middle of those shifts. If he woke up, and they hadn't come up yet, he would call down for them. Years later, my son reminded me of those days. He is a truck driver and was on the road for a week at a time. His daughter refused to eat unless he called her every night. His question was, "Is there anything else I need to do about the problem other than change jobs?" Whatever works, you do it. Well we've wandered a little bit. "Why," I asked my friend, "did you think I had moved?" Evidently, through some strange turn of events, my name ended up on the Benjamin news column. I hadn't caught that one, but I did see one in the paper where I was the author of "All That Jazz"! How that happened, I don't know, either. Once in a while, my name might appear at the end of a special article. But I still only write this column. I don't claim responsibility, nor credit for putting my name on those other columns, even though there are times when wish I could write as well as they do! Remembering recent history of this statement, it does leave food for today. thought. If you'd like to know more about Where do we find out about history? important historical events, I discovered Lu Ann Staheli All too often it seems adults trust this interesting link at Wikipedia: http:// television commentators to interpret en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_ As the world commemorates the what history means. Many people rely events. Scroll to the bottom of the page sixth anniversary of the attacks against, on their own memories or what their to select additional current events from the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, parents.told them about the events. each month dating back to 1997. " and United Flight 93, I was thinking A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a about the way Americans look at There is also a plethora of non-fiction being written about significant events Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah (Farrar, history. When I ask my students, most in history. A search of.Amazon.com Straus and Giroux, 2007) When Beah of them think history is just a boring subject at school. Many of my adult lists over 236,000 volumes about 9/11, was just 12, his country of Sierra Leone peers remember important historical Hurricane Katrina metes 3,500 books, was involved in a civil war — a war dates and events, but they don't and the U. S. Government has already that takes him on a journey far from his seem to understand why those events released on CD book about the collapse home to village after village, looking occurred or occasionally why they of the I-35W Mississippi Bridge, for safety. What he finds instead makes were significant. collapse. him a soldier, a drug addict and a killer, To truly understand history, one until he is brought into a rehabilitation , George Santayana, a Spanish poet who was raised and educated in must do more than simply memorize center sponsored by UNICEF and the United States, wrote in the first names, places and dates. Watching partnering NGOs. Eventually his volume of The Life of Reason, "Those and reading a variety of pieces, with journey brings him to the U.S. where who cannot remember the past are differing viewpoints will allow us to he now lives and writes, while working condemned to repeat it." Although form, our own opinions and recognize for the Human Rights Watch Children's there is much debate as to the accuracy why the study of history is important Division Advisory Committee. Out of the Best Books There and Back Again Shirlene R. Ottesen Things are buzzin' here in Palmyra and on all the farms in the surrounding area. Farmers are pretty much into the corn harvest and so trucks are going back and forth from the fields to the feed yards, taking the freshly chopped corn. After a few months of being stored either in a silo or plastic bags, they will turn into silage which makes good feed. It doesn't smell very good, but the cows like it. There are a few farmers that grow com and combine it later when it has matured and dried, and then sell it for grain com. But on our farm we chop it and store it in the long, plastic bags. We like the plastic bags because it cuts down on spoilage. You can buy six-month bags, 12month bags and 18-month bags, so it is a good way to store" the silage for a long period of time. Chopping com is a good sign that the harvest season is just about to come to an end. There will be some fourth crop hay and then we'll be done. It has been a good year, mainly due to the irrigation water that we have. I was talking to a fellow not too long ago who said in some areas of the state the irrigating season was over at the end of June. Boy! We wouldn't have anything if we had that type of situation here. I haven't heard the boys talk much about seeing any pheasants this year. Pheasants love to hide in the com fields. As the chopper goes along one side of thefield,the pheasants run to the other side and they keep doing that until the last two or three rounds and then there's no more com to hide in, so they take to the air and find another place to eat and hide. Many times they run to a nearby ditch and hide in the weeds along the ditch bank. When we are chopping, sometimes there will be a small whirlwind that sends dry leaves skipping across the field. Along with all the challenges in this world that we live in and all the bad news that we hear consistently, there's nothing better than being in a com field on a day in early September — a blue sky with the contrails from a jet high overhead, the powerful sound of the tractor and the chopper as the com finds its way into a truck to be taken back to the home place where it will provide feed during the long, cold winter days. This is payback time for all the days of hard work and the many nights spent irrigating. The days are getting shorter and another season will soon be upon us. How fleeting is . time and how blessed we are to live where we do! Parting thought for the week: Be careful what you think.. .your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions; your actions become your habits; your habits become your character. Your character is everything. Benjamin news recently in Benjamin for a combination blessing of their baby, Jacqueline Alivia, and a graduation. party honoring Kathleen Olsen Cori. ••• Welcome to Fall! The Bemice Woffinden has leaves on the mountain trees are changing colors and the returned home from a visit fi elds are being emptied to her daughter, Sharlene of their summer crops. It's Woffinden, of Paris, Idaho. a lovely time of year with It's good to have her home its own special activities. again. ••• A number of homes in our. Benjamin 2nd Ward community are decorated for fall — take time to enjoy all members remember temple of the colorful decorations night on Wednesday, Sept. 19. provided by Mother Nature Those planning to go should be in the temple chapel before and neighbors. 6 p.m. ••• ••• A belated congratulations The Benjamin 1st to the family of Chad and Kristi Hansen of Spanish Fork Ward's Frost Fair is set on the birth of a little boy bom for Wednesday, Oct. 3 at on July 26,2007. Mason Dean 6:30 p.m. It will be at the Hansen was bom at Mountain Benjamin Park and will View Hospital in Payson and feature pumpkin judging for was welcomed home by his pumpkins grown since last two older brothers. Mike spring. Prizes will be given and Sharry Hansen are the to the pumpkins which are the heaviest, the tallest and Benjamin grandparents. biggest. There will also be ••• Congratulations to Cori exhibits forpainted pumpkins Jack-o-lanterns Jo Caras Anderson, daughter (carved won't last until Halloween) of Jim and Jacky Caras, who has received her Masters and a fall flower or weed Degree in Education from the display. Those attending are University of Nevada in Las invited to bring their own hot Vegas. Cori teaches second dogs and buns for roasting. grade in North Las Vegas. The trimmings, chili and She and her husband, Cody, drink will be provided by the and two daughters were ward. 'Round and About Benjamin LARRY D. VEST Associate Broker/BSB/ABR List or buy your home with the "VEST" realtor in Utah County. BONUS! Free truck to move (in-State only - three days max) 212 South Main • Spanish Fork \ |