There is beauty all around....

We started the month of June with a trip to Utah for our granddaughter Makaila's wedding. They were married in the Payson, Utah temple and it was so beautiful. It was wonderful being together with all of our kids and grandkids at the same time. That has not happened in many years and it will happen twice this year as our son Travis is getting married in September. The hard part of seeing them is leaving but we know we will see them again soon.

We had more visitors this month which is always fun. Mike's sister Peggy and Dave stopped by on their way back to Washington from Arizona. We went to lunch and it was nice to visit with them. That day it was in the 90's so it had cooled down considerably. They said it felt nice as it gets up to 120 where they live. I felt kind of wimpy after hearing that but I think our 108 degree weather is enough to make most people wilt (although one day last week when we got in the truck it said 120). Thank goodness for air conditioning! This week we will be getting air conditioning in the house at Durham that we have been remodeling and we are looking forward to that.

We are in charge of checking handcarts in and out as the different Stakes go on trek. It takes a fair amount of time to make sure everything is in working order. We have 40 handcarts, three trailers and one water tank. It is a busy time for these leaders as they give this choice experience to their youth. For the month of June we have checked them out and in three times but as the summer progresses it will get busier.

We have started working on a new project. We are fixing up a small scale house. So far we have put in two new windows and an air conditioner. Next we will finish off the inside. This is a before picture.

Our neighbors cat had 6 kittens in our flower bed and it has been fun seeing them progress and start to toddle about. They are three weeks old now and will soon start to eat solid food.  They all have homes waiting on them.

Elder Dever on the lookout

To celebrate the 4th of July weekend we went to Lassen Volcanic National Park with Elder and Sister Krum. We always enjoy getting together with them and we had a nice day seeing the beautiful sites and having lunch. We are happy to have another couple here that we can share fun and work experiences with. You cannot get together with the Krum's and not have a good time.















This month we got two houses ready for new families.The rest of the month we worked on the Durham house, continuing to replace dry rot and chase all sorts of bugs out of their comfy homes. We are coming to an end of that part of the project and will start putting up siding, then on to finishing the inside. 

We had a wonderful employee appreciation day with the theme Super Heroes. There was Super Hero training for the kids, a bounce house, rock climbing wall, trampoline, cotton candy and snow cones, a wonderful luncheon and a 5 K race, all free with lots of prizes. Everyone had a good time. It is fun getting together with everyone and their families and enjoy the camaraderie. We met the family who will be living in the house we are fixing up and it makes us want to work even faster.

We love living and working in Chico. We had friends from Chico visit our Bainbridge Island Ward and they told us how beautiful it is there. We have not forgotten and do miss our friends at home. Love to you all! We also just had the Bishop and his wife visit Chico from the Pearl Harbor Ward and they told us how much they love having the Bentley's in their ward and what a great job they are doing on their mission. Small world!

Our month of May

We have loved this month in Chico. We are both a year older now as of the beginning of May but that hasn't slowed down our work. This month we were busy working to finish a house near Gridley for an intern to move in. We had one month to transform this little one bedroom house. We made the deadline with no help from our robbers. We spent about 3 hours beginning the install of a laminate floor one Friday and then left for the weekend. Someone decided that is just what they needed so they took up the flooring we had installed but left it. They took all the packages of unopened flooring, Of course they would need to have the underlayment for their new floor so they took that and they would need a broom to clean it so they took that also. They took all of our cleaning and painting supplies. They also took the new blind we had sitting ready to be put up. Luckily we carried all of our tools back and forth with us so they didn't get any of those. They climbed in through the bathroom window and I think all that exertion got them sweaty because they also took a shower in the new shower stall we had just finished putting in. Be sure to lock your windows and doors on your projects and carry your tools!

This is how the house looked one month ago.

This is how it looks now  

 We had some fun visitors come to Chico, Denny and Lorene Berrett from Utah! We were missionary couples together during our first mission in Africa. It was great to see them and reminisce about our experiences together. They were passing through on their way to Yosemite. It was fun to show them the farm and talk about our mission here.










We participated in a Stake Father/Son camp out where their activity was to oil the 30 handcarts that the Stake rents out for Trek. It was fun to see the dads teaching and working with their sons to get the oil on the carts. They did a great job and after a couple hours all the handcarts were oiled and ready to hit the trail.

We worked on an interesting Eagle Scout project with the Strong family for their son, Jared. The Chico Stake requested 10 more handcarts so Jared Strong took that on as his project. Jared and Elder Dever made jigs so the workers could know exactly how to put them together and they would all be the same. We met with a group of scouts and their dad's on Memorial Day and at the end of the day had all the carts made and just needed to put on the wheels and oil them. The boys and dads worked hard and it was fun to see a project go so smoothly. Since then the wheels have been put on and they are oiling them tonight.

The weather is warming up, hitting 100 degrees a couple of times already. We planted a garden and are excited to watch things grow. We planted some cat nip in our window box and this is what we got! I think we will plant some more and see if we get a different color. It is incredible to see the Oleander plants blooming along the highways. What a beautiful time of year here in Chico. 

APRIL LOVES TOOLS

Currently, our main project is turning this sow's ear into a silk purse.  Not an easy task under the best of circumstances but fortunately, April has discovered that she loves the tools of the trade.

Sanding her drywall work.

Mama belongs in the kitchen?  She decided to destroy this one with her favorite tool, a bright yellow wrecking bar.

She took my framing hammer away from me for this task.  If I ever want to use it again, we will need to buy one for her.

A nail gun is much easier than swinging a hammer and you never hit your fingers with it.

She is an expert with our new 12" sliding compound miter saw. 

Convention of wild turkeys

Convention of wild turkey buzzards

Convention of not-so-wild, old buzzards

Flooding

CNN report: On February 12th, 2017 at least 188,000 people were evacuated from several Northern California counties after damage to a spillway at the Oroville Dam. The dam, which is the nation's tallest, remains intact. The emergency spillway, which guards against the overflow of the dam when water levels are high, was eroding. The damage prompted a mandatory evacuation for cities and counties near Lake Oroville. In the worst case scenario an uncontrolled release from the dam could send a 30-foot wall of water downstream. Here is a link to read more about this.   http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/12/us/california-oroville-dam-failure/

When we were on our way home from church that day the emergency broadcast system that we always hear beeping on the radio for testing was activated and they kept repeating " This is not a test, this is a real emergency. A mandatory evacuation for the following cities is in effect..."

This is a picture taken of our television screen during this process.

Here on the farm we housed many of the evacuees in some of the vacant homes and our LDS Stake also housed many within the homes of the members.

We have had so much rain this month with much flooding. This is as far as we could go on the road out of our home on the way to work. We had to go around to another route.

This is a picture of a lake that formed over an orchard of small trees so they were completely covered by water. It is just now receding. A large flock of tundra swans took advantage of the new lake. 

 
There are whole orchards of trees standing in lakes of water.

Buzzards & Cats

One day, we heard from one of the farm's foremen about a deer carcass in the forest not far from our home.  Early the next morning we visited the site, hoping to get photos of some turkey vultures enjoying a venison breakfast.  When we arrived, the vultures were all perched in the treetops instead of on the carcass.  Evidently, they breakfast early.

Preparing for flight

That morning, we couldn't get any pictures of the vultures eating so we decided to return in the evening after work.

As we approached the site, we didn't see vultures in the trees or on the carcass but we saw something moving away from the deer.  It  moved like a cat but was much larger than a house cat.  We quickly started snapping pictures but it was nearly dark and this is the only one that turned out fairly decent.  That is correct.  It was a bobcat.  If you look carefully at the photo, you can see what appears to be another face to the right of the cat's face.  One of us thinks it is just markings on the cat's fur while the other one thinks it is a kitten.  We will probably never know which of us is correct and that might be better.

We returned the next evening  just before dark, and again we saw an animal moving away from the carcass, but this time it moved a little faster.  April did, however; get several photos of the curious kitty peering at us from the safety of the dirt pile.  Mike, the blue blur on the right, was unable to get out of the photo.  We think the bobcat was a little peeved at having his evening meal interrupted for the second consecutive night.

Turkey buzzard perched on a post.

Old buzzard perched on a porch.

Celebrations!

The months of November and December have been full of learning, partying, driving, working, working and working. We are getting pretty good at knowing our way around the farm and the area. We are getting much better at figuring out where we are, why we are there and where we are going. 

At the end of the walnut harvest we attended an end of harvest barbecue and had Carne Asada and Tres Leches cake which we had never eaten before. Oh my goodness, what a treat! It was fun to meet some of the farm workers and get a better idea of how many people work here on the farm.

Our next party was a Fall Festival that our ward had at the Bishop’s house. Elder and Sister Krum the other senior missionary couple serving in Chico) came with us and it was such a nice day. There were all kinds of games, crock pots full of yummy soups, and a soft ice cream machine that was in constant use. We were in charge of the potato launching game, something we had never seen before.

 In December, we attended a stake Christmas concert which helped bring the

spirit to the start of the season. 

We enjoyed a big Christmas party for the farm workers and their families. It was a nice dinner and it was fun to see all the workers with their families.

       

Everyone loved Santa (except those two and under) which was our own Elder Krum. He did a great job.

  Our ward had a wonderful Christmas party and dinner with good food, music

  and program. We have enjoyed all of these gatherings and appreciate the spirit of

friendship, fellowship and love that we have felt.

We went to Santa Maria, CA to spend a wonderful Thanksgiving with our daughter Melissa and her family. We traveled to Santaquin, UT to spend Christmas with Cherise and her family, joined by Jared and Travis from Seattle. We feel very blessed to be close enough to family to drive and spend time with them even while on a mission. Thank you Farmland Reserve! 

We have enjoyed the variety of work that we have done including putting new gutter guards on eight homes, replacing recessed CFL light fixtures with LED's, we have replaced faucets and siding and re-grouted all the expansion joints at the swimming pool. In another home there was a flood so we painted and replaced carpet. For the last month and a half we have been working on a house that is an hour away from us. We have repaired and replaced plumbing, replaced a dry rotted floor and dry wall, installed screen doors, painted, and will soon have new carpet installed. Because of the heavy rain one day the tenant of the house came home early and asked if there was anything he could do to help us. We told him he could paint and he said he had never painted and was afraid he would ruin it. We had just prepared a long hallway and it was ready to roll paint onto so we handed him the roller and taught him how to use it. When we left that day he was still painting. The next day when we arrived we saw that he had painted the entire hallway. We told his young grandson that his grandpa was a good painter. The grandson beamed with pride and so did the grandpa who kept thanking us for teaching him and telling us "you are never too old to learn a new skill.

We look forward to this new year full of service opportunities. Thanks to our family and friends for their love and support. It does make a difference to missionaries who are away from their homes :-)

Home Sweet Home

We are in Chico, CA on a Farmland Reserve mission. We decided to show you where we are and a little about our life on the farm. We live in an older home which is very charming.We have one family for neighbors and they have 6 boys (4 living at home), 1 black lab dog and 1 cat. We have humming birds and owls that we can see and hear. Here is our house:

                We drive a truck for work and we have our car here for personal use:

The first time we went to church we noticed something about this building that we have never seen on any other L.D.S. chapel. Can you tell what it is?

We live right next to the Sacramento river.

We are learning a lot about trees and we have come to appreciate their beauty even more.

We have seen some very beautiful scenery.

                                     Our next project is remodeling this house. Please pray for us ☺

We miss our family and friends but we love our mission here in Chico and for the next while we will call this home.