My July Month in Numbers

Hello again!
Here today to join in with Julie and recording July 2015 by the numbers . . .
It was a long, 31-day, month and inordinately full of happenings; not all of them "numbery" but a few quite memorable ones.

July 4 - Independence Day (369 years since signing of the Declaration of Independence). I only mention this because Julie's post about the 800th (!) anniversary of the Magna Carta really brought home how young the United States is in the whole scheme of things! By the way, Julie, this information was very enlightening and totally interesting - I am a bit of an history nerd. I'm including the above photo of 2 of my 4 great grandchildren because firstly, my granddaughter sent it to me on the 4th and it made my day, and secondly, it typifies what happens in small town America on the 4th of July - watching a parade! You'll note the bags they are holding; seems that parade participants throw a lot of candy and the kids actually become more interested in filling their bags than in the parade! Whatever! :)

Just for fun, here is one of the activities Clare and I participated in on the 4th:

Toasting America's independence with Uintah Brewing's Sum'r Ale in close to 100 degree Fahrenheit weather

It was kind of funny that about an hour after we took this photo, the clouds rolled in and not only let loose a torrential rainstorm but made the temps drop by 20 degrees! The beer, though, was tasty at any temperature!

Like last month, we recorded the water levels in the Settlement Canyon Reservoir - but only twice, because it was too hot and we got caught up in other things. Anyway, here are results for the 5th and 11th of July:

5 July - 41 feet at 7:00 p.m. MDT. A bit of a breeze put ripples on the water.

11 July - 39 feet at 7:50 p.m. MDT. A family of fishermen were set up at the water's edge where the scale is; the reservoir is planted with trout each year and people do have some success at catching their dinner!

Our two cowboy grandsons were written up in the local newspaper on the 9th of the month. . . 

and then left on the 11th for the National High School Rodeo Finals in Rock Springs, Wyoming. I recorded some of the details of this rodeo in my June Month in Numbers post here. In addition to participants from the United States (including Alaska and Hawaii) and Canada, there were cowboys and cowgirls from Australia too! At any rate, our grandsons ran as follows: 

First Go for Ty was Tuesday morning, the 14th; First Go for Tee, Wednesday morning, the 15th; Second Go for Tee, Wednesday evening, the 15th; and, Second Go for Ty, Thursday evening, the 16th.

Here's how we saw the Finals:

Live streaming on Cinch TV - we had the large computer monitor on, my IPad, and granddaughter McKenna watched on her IPhone making sure that we missed nothing!

The names and times on the upper part of the screen indicate the fastest time in that round at the time of each run (kind of hard to explain!). Anyhow, Ty's first run (upper left picture) was 6.54 seconds; Tee's first run (upper right) was 10.48 seconds; Tee's second run (lower left) was 27.40 seconds; and Ty's second run (lower right) was no time. The pen of steers for the steer wrestling was big, fast, and nasty and all 142 steer wrestlers had a tough time of it. After all was said and done, our grandsons ended up in the top 30 which was out of the 20 for the Short Go (final performance) but pretty darn good considering the number of cowboys there. Team Utah had four National Champions, and the team overall had the highest accumulated points. 

On the 19th, Clare and I took a Sunday drive to Mona, Utah to see the lavender at Young Living Farms. I posted about that trip here, including lots of relevant numbers! Thank you Julie, for the plug. Like you said, lavender fields were the order of the day/month! 

On Tuesday, the 21st, I went to the monthly Tooele Quilters Meeting and for the "Roun-Tu-It" challenge (i.e., getting round to finishing unfinished quilting projects, which the majority of we quilters seem to have an abundance of), we were reminded that Christmas is close. The theme for July's meeting, incidentally, was Christmas in July.

Wah! Got the message!

At that meeting, we got the next clue for the Mystery Quilt project I blogged here, and it turns out we will be making 17 blocks out of the 72 half square triangles. Our Mystery master, however, was not about to give away any more information . . .

There were 7 birthdays I acknowledged in July:

My friend Heather's 44th birthday on the 4th; Granddaughter-in-law DaviJo's birthday on the 13th; Heather's sister Brenda's 46th birthday on the 15th; daughter-in-law Crystal's 44th birthday on the 18th; great granddaughter Aubrey Lynne's 9th birthday on the 21st; granddaughter Jessica's 22nd birthday on the 22nd; and, my sister Delta Louise's 62nd birthday on the 24th.

Another birthday was celebrated in July also; that is, Utah celebrated 168 years since the Mormon pioneers arrived in the territory on Pioneer Day, the 24th. Big deal here in Utah.

Lastly, I managed to find 6 more of the 21 photos for the 2015 Photography Scavenger Hunt plus 2 of the alternates. I posted about those two and 5 of the 21 here, here, and here. The sixth one, #2 - an ornate door knocker, is here:

Not terribly ornate but as good as we could find. We made a special trip into Salt Lake City and cruised the Avenue's where there are older homes sporting door knockers (I had looked all over Tooele and found nary a one!). Even the Governor's Mansion didn't have a door knocker and this is all we spotted, a vacant (note the paper sign taped beside the letter slot) house that, we found out from information provided by a fellow taking a smoke and beer break on the front porch, is being restored. Oh look! There's another number - 66 (which means 66 North on 13th East).
So, with that enlightening information, I leave you until next time.

30 July moonrise/sunset

Bye, bye!