We arrived in Des Moines at 12:15 a.m.   and had to take Lyft to the hotel.    There we were---Lance and I—at the 2021 National Ag in the Classroom Conference, “Field of Dreams”, Des Moines, Iowa.  Coolio!

The food was great—agriculture-related conferences always are--as were the people and the conference sessions.    I learned about things ranging from chickens on Mars to vermiculture to desktop greenhouses.    I toured a soybean/seed corn farm, a cattle feed lot, and (virtually) a hog raising operation.   I learned that having plants in the classroom increases student attention by 70% (not sure I believe that one….), 35% of the food Americans buy is wasted, and Utah ranks 15th in the US in hog production.   I met a man who successfully farms 3,000 acres with just one employee and a woman who has a small hog operation, only 3200 pigs.   

One of the workshops was especially (and unexpectedly) gratifying.  We attended an elementary teacher workshop on chickens, hoping to get ideas for a raising chickens on Mars project.   One of our tasks was to make an art project showing a new breed of chicken.   To incentivize us, the session presenter promised a prize to the art creation she deemed to be the best.    Art supplies included sequins, beads, faux feathers in outrageous colors, and glitter.   Lot of glitter.   The elementary teachers went all out with the bling; their chickens were decked out, glitter galore, shiny sequins everywhere, beads and buttons abounding. 
 
Lance and I chose a different approach.   Lance drew a roasted chicken carcass and a KFC bucket.  It was awesome.  The presenter laughed out loud when she saw it.   I used torn, cut, and crumpled construction paper to create a 3D chicken sitting in a nest.  No bling.  No glitter.  No beads.  Nothing but construction paper.    The presenter, when she saw my entry, gasped and immediately held it up.  “This is the winner,” she said.   And she presented me with set of 21 plastic eggs, each of which opens to show a different stage of the 21-day development of a chick embryo.   I won an art contest.   Crazy!

Though we were in conference session or on a bus for most of the time, I managed to get over 10,000 steps daily by choosing stairs over escalators and walking in circles during coffee breaks.   Wednesday evening, before the banquet, a younger man (probably in his 20’s) stopped me and said, “I just wanted to tell you how impressed I am that you always take the stairs.”    I guess gray-haired ladies usually use the escalator.

Wednesday evening, after the banquet, I was chatting with Lance and absent-mindedly stepped onto the escalator with him.    About three steps down I discovered my error, squealed, turned around and started running up the down-going escalator.   Fortuitously, I made it back to the top unscathed.   Very fortuitously, I did not run over the gray-haired lady that stepped onto the escalator behind me.

Lance and I were able to attend the 2021 National Ag on the Classroom Conference because I was named the Utah Ag in the Classroom Teacher of the Year (https://utah.agclassroom.org/teacher/award/​ and, as such, was given an all-expense paid trip to the national conference.   As the UT award winner, I was also nominated for the National Ag in the Classroom Excellence in Teaching Award.    I spent hours filling out the application for the national award, finding photos, writing essays, etc….    When I submitted my application to Denise, the UT Ag in the Classroom coordinator, she said, “Editing your application was easy; you are a good writer.”   Her response was very positive, and it seemed that she thought I had a good chance at winning a national award.  My hopes soared.  It would be so cool, SO COOL, to be named as a National Award winner.  I imagined many awesome scenarios and conversations, centered around me.   I thought that receiving a national award would give me clout, respect, and authority; my opinion would matter, if I were a national award recipient.

Nope.   It was not to be.   I did not receive the national award though I did receive feedback about my application.  Negative feedback.  The reviewer said that my writing was disjointed and my thoughts jumbled.  “You should have someone proofread your work before you submit it,” I was told.   Ouch.   Ouch.

So, at the Conference, when the state Ag in the Classroom award recipients lined up to practice walking across the stage for our recognition ceremony, I felt like a total failure.  I failed as a writer.  I failed my state as a nominee.   And, to some degree, I failed as a teacher of agriculture concepts.   And I did it on the national level.   I was a national failure.  I felt awful.
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Thankfully, between the recognition ceremony rehearsal and the actual event, I found some perspective.   Honestly, Teresa!   Quit being ridiculous.   Several ugly traps had grabbed me—pride, basing my value on external factors, and ingratitude to name a few---but blessedly, I reframed my thinking.   I was a state winner, not a national failure.   And, most importantly, I acknowledged that my status as an award recipient is irrelevant.   Awards are fun, attending the conference was great, but the important things in life are inside.  Inside I am a daughter of Heavenly Parents. I have a divine nature and eternal destiny. 

​So do you!

2 Samuel 12:3:  “But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter.” 

I awoke about 3:00 a.m. the night Esther came to live with us and stood at the top of the stairs listening for her bleating.  At the time, Esther was a day-old, orphaned lamb.    Bum lambs, as they are called, have only a 50-50 chance of living through their first night and, hearing nothing but silence from the basement, I grew anxious.   “Oh no.  OH NO!,” I thought.  “Grace will be devastated.”   Though she was new in our home, Esther was already very established in Grace’s heart.  

I quickly descended the stairs, hoping for the best and fearing the worse.   Trepidatiously, I approached the enclosure Grace built for Esther on our basement’s cement floor.  There, nestled in the straw, sleeping peacefully with baby Esther was teenage Grace.   No wonder the lamb was not bleating; she had found a mama. 

Grace and Esther slept together for the next month.  They moved from straw on the floor to sheets on the bed (which Grace washed daily).   Grace convinced her teacher to let Esther come to school and her parents to let Esther go with the family to Las Vegas for Spring Break.   Odd things are the norm in Las Vegas but seeing baby Esther strolling on a Las Vegas boulevard caused more than one person to stop and ask for a photo.

Esther, genetically a Merino sheep, identified as a human.   Grace’s human to be exact.   She entered our house at will, jumping through an open window if no one was gracious enough to open the door for her.   She was Grace’s little shadow…and echo.    When Grace left her (heaven forbid!) and then returned, all Grace had to do was “Baaaaa” and Esther would come running, "baaaa-ing"her response.

Little Esther grew and became big Esther though she was always Grace’s “baby”.  Once Grace adorned her with a red cloak and took her trick or treating as Little Red Riding Hood.    The neighbors invited Grace and Esther into their living room where Esther (that’s Queen Esther to you…!) nibbled on their indoor geraniums and head-butted their Standard Poodle.    Grace and Esther were a not-uncommon site walking the streets of Roy….and the halls of Roy High.

Actually, Esther never walked the halls of Roy High as an adult, but she did make appearances on Roy High’s stage several times.   The first time was as Grace’s Homecoming Royalty escort.   Most Homecoming Queen candidates choose boyfriends, brothers, or fathers to escort them.  Grace chose Esther.   And, as if bringing a wooly friend into the auditorium was not risky enough, Grace left Esther with a student body officer on one side of the stage, walked to the other side of the stage and told the officer to let Esther go.   A sheep loose on a stage in front of 600 high school students…..  What could possibly go wrong?    Esther performed like the queen she was.    Grace “baaaa-ed” at Esther.  Esther baaaa-ed back and the two (Grace and Esther) met happily on center stage. 

Mature Esther became Mama Esther…and what a Mama she was!   Tough and tender, she was not afraid to knock any non-sheep thing that came too near though she was “as gentle as a lamb” when she softly nuzzled her babies.   During her second pregnancy we almost lost her to pregnancy toxemia, but she rebounded the next year and had triplets: three black babies Grace named Sam, Sarah, and Sariah.

Grace moved to SLC to attend the University of Utah.   Esther may have been out of her sight, but she was not out of her heart.   Many times Grace said to me, “I came to Roy last night but I did not go in the house.  I needed an Esther fix, so I went to the pasture and hung out with her for an hour.”  I say that Esther was not in her sight but that is only partially correct.   Every room in Grace’s apartment, with the possible exception of the bathroom, sports at least one photo, painting, or stuffed animal likeness of Esther.

“Ewe complete me” was the headline (above the fold!) of the local paper on Monday, 24 August 2020. Below the headline was a full color photo of Grace and Esther and below the photo was an article that began “This is the heartwarming story of Grace and Esther, two unlikely friends who have been virtually inseparable for the last 4 ½ years.”   Still, not matter where Esther was in the pasture and no matter how long it had been since Grace had come home, when Grace “baaaa-ed”, Esther “baaaa-ed” back and came running.

Theirs was a love affair to remember.    And, on February 23, it became just that….an affair to remember.  Their love changed from an active, hands and hugs-on relationship to a thing to remember when Esther, sweet Esther, died of complications related to childbirth. 

Grace was devastated.  “There are also no words to describe the pain I feel now,” she posted on Facebook.  “I am so grateful for what she has been for me and am completely heartbroken from her loss.”
Indeed, Grace had one little ewe lamb that she bought and nourished up.  And that little ewe lamb, the one we know as Esther, grew up with her and ate from her hands and drank from her cup and lay in her bosom, and was unto Grace as a daughter.    

Families are forever and Esther, as a daughter, is family.   She is waiting for Grace on the other side of the veil that separates this life from the one to come.    When Grace passes through that veil she will “baaaaa” and Esther will “baaaaa” and they will run to each other, meeting happily in the middle.

Hard to believe that only a week before we were trekking across a desert to hike in a narrow canyon.  Seven days later we paddled up a huge river in a giant gorge….    And it was glorious!!!

This summer, while waiting for our childrens’ turn to show their hogs, Eric Wilkinson invited Lance and I to go kayaking with him and Shannon.    Being a “never say no” kind of gal, I instantly agreed.   Lance slightly hesitantly and somewhat reluctantly agreed to accompany me.   Things with school (figuratively drowning) and at home (house a disaster, needy children, baskets and baskets of peaches needed processing) being the way they are I was very tempted to bail out but could not bring myself to make the call…..so we went...and we (BOTH of us) were so glad we did.   Glorious, glorious, glorious!

One would think that kayaking 3.5 miles upstream would be physically taxing...but one would be wrong if the “stream” one was kayaking was the stretch of the Snake River that runs past Twin Falls, ID.   The river is wide, slow, and very user friendly. The day was also very user friendly: overcast, warm but not too hot, and slightly (VERY slightly) breezy.  Perfect.

The day was perfect.  So were the people.  Eric is Mr. Congeniality in a long, tall body.   Shannon is short and sassy in every good sense of the phrase.   Karen is everyone’s favorite aunt, whether they are related to her or not.  John’s sense of adventure matches his red hair and Natalie’s graciousness matches her friendly smile.   Lance and I were the newcomers….and we hope to become frequent comers.

Speaking of comers….Kayaking rapidly came to be my newest addiction.   With minimal physical effort, we maximized our outdoor enjoyment.   The Snake River Canyon is truly amazing….500 feet deep and a quarter mile wide, it cuts through ancient basalt lava flows as it winds for 50 miles through southern Idaho.   

A huge stone outcropping interrupts the river about half way between the kayak input and Shoshone Falls.   One has to portage the kayaks about 200 m.   We found that one also has to explore the rock outcroppings.   Shannon, Eric and Karen had to jump into the pools and John had to try kayaking a couple of the rapids.   We all had to admire the scenery.

The island/outcroppings were amazing; Shoshone Falls was outright stunning.   Known as the “Niagara of the West”, it is 212 feet (65 m) high—45 feet (14 m) higher than Niagara Falls—and flows over a rim nearly 1,000 feet (300 m) wide.  It is amazing to see from above.  It is even more amazing to see from below.  We kayaked close to the falls, so close that our faces were misted by the spray and our kayaks were rocked by the cascading water’s wake.   So cool!!!!  SO COOL!!

And then we did it in reverse, this time kayaking 3.5 miles downstream.   The difference between kayaking downstream and upstream was barely noticeable.  The magic of kayaking, though, was very noticeable.   I am hooked.   Kayaks are now on my wish list.   Anyone know where I can get six?

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