Relief Society Birthday Party

Table decorations

This past week end we celebrated the Birthday of the Relief Society.  We had 19 sisters in attendance,  It was fun for the sisters to get together.  This is not something that they do very often.  Even this little activity caused controversy.  The Relief Society President lives on the East side of the Highway collapse.  She did not want to come down so she called some of the sisters in the branch and told them we needed to postpone or cancel the event.  We had already ordered the cake and had to drive for an hour to Tuba City to pick it up.  We had already made a deposit on the cake.  We called one of the counselors and told them that the call had been made and what did she want to do?  Sister Dalgai said no way we were going to cancel. We put together an alternate menu.  We were supposed to have chicken salad. The Relief Society Pres bought chicken (frozen) mayonnaise some fruit and a big bag of tossed salad.  She then said that the dinner would be postponed until Sunday.

Gavern Begay, Marry Smith and Delores
Secody

The counselors said no!  So sister Gardner and I traveled to Page and purchased three Lasagna, Family size and drove back to Bitter Springs.  Four hour trip plus an hour in Page.  The sisters loved it.  We asked some sisters to decorate one of the rooms with their items that represented their culture.  (see below)  We invited other sisters to come and cut up the fruit and they had a ball. We had some of the sisters that hardly knew each other laughing and having a great time. They are so isolated that the members hardly get together for things such as this.  It is frustrating how a few can make it tough on the group.Many of the sisters that came were there because we had Susie Gardner make some cute invitations and we delivered them to each of the sisters in the Branch.  They have not had these types of activities.  The all really enjoyed the time together.  Oh, the Relief Society President did come and was very mad that she was not told the "time" and about the activities for preparing the food.

All of these items are handmade by Agnus Yazzi.



Hand made Items by Agnes Yazzi.  Note the Tree of life
Rug.  The wool was carded and spun to make the rug.

Zola Yazzi.  The bear is made from a Blue Bird flower sack
and the stuffing is from old stuffed animals that she has cut
apart and used.  The Hagan look familiar?



 (Below)The large blanket in the middle under the basket is a horse blanket. The boots in the upper right are made from deer skins. There is a Tree of Life rug on the upper left there is a corn grinding stone. The rug on the left middle is the Storm Pattern.

Evelyn Tsosie. 



Evelyn Tsosie



Birthday Cake



Upper Right is a small Papoose Board

Lambing Season

Jane Tisi feeding the lambs

 It is lambing season.  When a new lamb is born if the mother feels she has enough milk she will let the lamb feed.  If there may not be enough milk then she rejects the lamb.  The green mark on their head is a way to tell which ones are not accepted.  A corresponding mark is placed on the mothers head.  This particular mother had triplets.    This is grandma Tisi.  The lambs are fed three times a day.  Morning, noon and night.  The bag on the counter is powedered lamb milk.
The lambs have a pen in the back bedroom where they stay until they are old enough to be on their own.


Gma Tisi feeding the lambs. Elder G

They stay in a little pen in the back bedroom.  They are being fed in the kitchen.  Dinner is cooking on the stove.  When we came she had them sitting on the table.  The bottle they are using they found in the gutter while they were herding the sheep.  When we walked in the door the little granddautghter grabbed one of the lambs and handed it to me.


Jane feeding



Note the black, brown and white lambs

The lambs that are accepted by the mother is left in the pen.  There are goats in the pen and they are next to have their babies.  The next activity is to shear the sheep.  That will come in May.  Gma Tisi will then wash, card and then spin yarn from the sheep that they shear.  The larger smaller lamb below was the first to be born in the flock.  They had one lamb that did not live.

These lambs were accepted by the mother

The brown wool along with the black is used in the weaving of rugs.

Sister G getting her ears nibbled

 This is a picture of the road that comes down to Bitter Springs from Page.  At the top of the picture is thew area where most of the Navajo sell their beads. 
This highway is owned by the Navajo Tribe.  The argue who can give tickets on the road and now who is going to fix the road.  It is a mess. 
In the bottom picture our house is to the left and down the mountain.  We can see the bottom of the slide from our kitchen window. The estimate for getting this mess cleaned up is 3 to 9 months if they  can ever quit fighting over who is going to fix the mess.
It was not an earthquake.  It was a "geologic event"  which is a nice way of saying Navajo engineering.e
Th kids have to travel an extra four hours a day to get to school.  They are looking for places to hold school in the valley.  The car traffic in our area has been reduced from 100 cars and trucks a day to 10.

Bead Work And Rugs

30 X 25 size

Larger ryg

This is a rug that has been woven by Lucille Begay.  She sells these to make money.



There small colored beads that make up the body.  The
process is like weaving only it is done by using small beads

These are done by Lorenzo Brown. They would not let us in the first time we came. Through using Ammon techniques they have become great friends. We are going to do a garden for them. You can see the size of the beads in the tray at the left.

This is a good way to sweep your floor.  With a rake.  This is the Hogan of Zola Yazzi.  She has carpet remnants around the edge.  The stove is in the lower right hand corner.  We have been teaching this lady and her daughter. Kylie and Zola are below. T\his is the lady that makes the little Hogans for us.  Kylie like most teens has a lot of pressure about going to church from her friends and some family.

Kylie and Zola Yazzie

 This is the little miniature Hogan that she made for us.  We have helped her sell several of these.  They are made of very simple materials.

 We had a chance to visit the Honeymoon trail that ran past the chapel.  They would cross the Colorado at Lees Ferry and then go to the boundary of the Kaibab forest and then up toward Kanab and then onto to the St. George Temple.  There is a spring located at the bend where they turn North.  The camped here and up by the spring they carves their initials in the face of the rock.  They have identified 128 different names that have been carved.  The black names have been put there with axle grease.

 

Spring in the rock

Windsor Castle.  Named after Original settler

Winslow Castle is located on the Paiute Reservation outside of Fredonia.  This property was used to range the cattle that were donated for tithing in the early days of the church.  It is 7 miles west of Fredonia.  At the height of activity the church had over 1,000 head of cattle here.  They also made cheese at this location.  The ranch was sold when changes in the season made less food available for the cattle.

Original work area

Residence house

 We were fortunate to have Devin and Ashley. our grandkids come before Christmas.  Devjn did a service project and brought toys, clothes and gifts to our people.  We were very hapy to have them stay with us for our Christmas Party,  We distributed gifts to all of our Branch Members and they helped up put together the packages and the quilts and blankets and deliver them to the Branch Members.

Playing games

Jarius and Janelle fell in love with Ashley and Devin.  They are not used to having someone to play with.  That is not done in the families on the Res.

Judy Yazzie- They are a great family that are
members of our Branch

Grandma Sellers.  She is 83 years old.  Note the progression
of the Arthritis in her hands.  Devin also helped her put
on a pair of new keds.  She was really happy for the support.
She has lost most of her toes.

Devin made Mr Sellers Bed with new sheets



Home of the pups

 While the Devin and Ashley were here we found some puppies at a house of one of the members that were away from home.  W went up each day and fed the pups.  They barely had their eyes open when we found them.

The side of the house where the pups were
found

 Animals like the dogs are treated as things.  They would not think of allowing the dogs in the house and each of them have 6 or 7.  For the most part the dogs are left to feed themselves.



Sorting the gifts that were brought

Devin, Grandma and Ashley in front of the
Vermilion cliffs



Gayle Tisi, Janiel and Jarius



Shania Dante and Santa



NEW SHOES FOR GRANDMA SELLERS

Begay,s at the Christmas Party.  This
is our Medicine Man that joined the
Church



St George Group

 We had a group from St George that brought food, Gifts, clothes, tissue and they served us our dinner at the Christmas Party.  This is some of the items that they brought to us.
It took us three days to sort through these clothes and deliver them to those that we knew needed warm coats, clothes and sweatshirts.  Toilet tissue is another very popular item that we now carry in our car.

We fed 175 people at the Christmas dinner including our guests from St. George.  We had 40 non-members that came. 
At Thanksgiving we served 107 people at that dinner.  We have made a little progress with the people in the area.  The remember that we care about them and it is fun to realize that this has not been done by any other Anglo's.  They still remember Devin and Ashley when we go back to visit them.


Gerald and Geraldine Yellowhair.  Geraldine is
not a member of the church.

We received the beautiful plate above.  we do not know who gave it to us.  please let us know who to thank!!