August 2, 2015

     Can’t believe it is August already!  The kids here are getting ready to start school in a couple of weeks despite the warm temperatures.  Most days this past week have been around 100+ with the heat index.  They say  through the middle of September it is pretty hot and humid and then it starts cooling down.

       Kevin has been busy this week with his lawn mowing.  They mow over 200 hundred acres of grass usually twice a week because it has been growing so fast.  He sprayed 150 gallons of Round Up one day until his spraying rig broke down.  One day was spent weed whacking around the fence 

"Muddy Buddy"

posts and another day painting fence posts (over 3500 they have to paint this summer).  There is always plenty to do.  He is hoping they are able to put the greenhouse together before the other six missionary couples leave in Sept. but so far that has not been a top priority.

       Monday after work we took Kevin’s suit to be Dry Cleaned in Chillicothe, which is a good 45 minutes away (the closest one).  It is a beautiful ride with roller coaster  roads. 

The city is known for its “sliced bread”.  One  of the buildings has a mural on the wall that looks like an old fashioned street you could turn down.  The history is rather interesting…

Bread Before Slicing
Before the invention of pre-sliced bread, people either baked their bread at home or bought full loaves of bread. For both home-baked and store-bought loaves of bread, the consumer had to personally cut off a slice of bread every time he wanted one, which meant rugged, irregular cuts.
This all changed when Otto Frederick Rohwedder, from Davenport, Iowa, invented the Rohwedder Bread Slicer. Rohwedder began working on inventing a bread slicer in 1912. Unfortunately, bakers scoffed at Rohwedder's early slicers; the bakers were sure that the bread would quickly go stale if pre-sliced. Determined in his belief that pre-sliced bread would be a major convenience for consumers, Rohwedder continued to work on his invention.
In one attempt to solve the staleness worry, Rohwedder used hat pins to keep the pieces of bread together in the hopes of keeping the loaf fresh. However, since the hat pins continually fell out, this did not work.


Rohwedder's Solution

In 1928, Rohwedder came up with a way to not only slice bread but to keep it fresh. Once the approximately five-foot long and three-foot high Rohwedder Bread Slicer sliced the bread, it would also wrap it in a wax paper to keep it from going stale. Even with the sliced bread wrapped, many bakers remained dubious. In 1928, Rohwedder traveled to Chillicothe, Missouri where baker Frank Bench took a chance and used Rohwedder's invention. The very first loaf of pre-sliced bread went on shelves on July 7, 1928 as "Sliced Kleen Maid Bread." Bench's sales quickly skyrocketed and they knew the invention was a success. In 1930, Wonder Bread began to commercially produce pre-sliced loaves of bread, popularizing sliced bread and making it a household staple.

       We had three groups of visitors this week.  We were just leaving to get gas and saw an 8B license so Kevin stopped (thinking it was a Dr. Tall from our home stake.  It looked just like him, but his wife didn’t match.  They were  the Wheeler’s from Blackfoot seeing the sites and knew

many people we did including Melanie’s dad that he gone to school with.

       Friday afternoon Sara (nephew, Jake’s wife) and their two darling daughters, Rose and Ruby stopped to see us with Marsha,  a friend from Rexburg. 

Rose, Sara, and Ruby

It was so fun to see and visit them. We took them on the tour and the girls enjoyed standing on “Preacher’s Rock” and talking to their mom way out in the Pecan grove.  The acoustics are wonderful and you can hear from a long ways away.  They thought that was fun.

Pecan Orchard, Sara on left side

Marsha, Rose, & Ruby

   Friday evening we went to dinner with the Steiner’s from Rexburg, they had served here about 8 years ago and were visiting their son that was moving to Branson. They also took the three farmers and their wives that farm Corn and Soy Beans here on the property.  We had a great evening.  The farmers are not members of the church but are the nicest people you would ever meet.  They abide by their contract not to drink, smoke or work on Sunday.  They work long hours but when it gets about 11:50 p.m. on a Saturday night they turn off their equipment.

Yesterday Kevin harvested our corn stalks.  Although we had a high fence we donated the crop this years to the Squirrels and the Raccoons and didn't get a single ear. 

The farmers let us give the stocks to the cows (and said they wouldn’t even charge us).  The cows were soooo happy and couldn’t eat them fast enough!

Today Kevin had to teach the Gospel Doctrine lesson as our teacher’s daughter is expecting her first baby and didn’t know for sure when it would be born.  She was there today but wants him to take it for the next few weeks.   He wouldn’t admit it, but he enjoys teaching and did a great job!

This next week we are getting new computers in the work center so I will be doing indexing from our apartment for the first part of the week.  The church is having a campaign trying to get over 100,000 indexers to index this coming week.

Hope you are all doing well.  We love to hear from you and of the various activities you are involved in!  Have a great week!  We love you and appreciate all that you do!  Sending hugs your way!