Community Greetings
We plan to highlight one or more of our communities each month and provide photos and news. We hope you enjoy this new feature.
Deary, Idaho
Contributed by Gabe French
Heritage Idaho was established in 2008 and has since grown to nearly 140 people living in 39 households (including 60 children 😊).
Brother Micah Tindell and Sister Debbie Yantis were married in February. Their reception was the first event we have held in our new music pavilion, next door to the Heritage Idaho Community Hall. Several brothers spent the week before the wedding preparing a transparent wall system and hooking up the floor heating. Despite the lack of snow, the wedding was beautiful, with guests from many other communities celebrating here with us.
More weddings: Brother Simeon Borman and Sister Hanna Moore were married in early April, and Brother Nathan Borman and Sister Lizzy Salmeri wed in May. We rejoice that the shape of our community continues to grow as these young couples start new families here.
Our annual Easter music concert delivered the best attendance and participation yet and was followed by our annual hike up Spud Hill for a simple sunrise worship service the next morning.
In April, we expanded the scope of our forestry seedling nursery to include a small garden center called “Blooms.” Sisters young and old worked together after school to plant over 300,000 conifer tree seedlings by hand, some from seeds as small as a sesame. We had extra help from volunteers from South Africa, Texas, and Argentina. We also started hundreds of hanging flower baskets, potted flowers, and vegetable seedlings. Through this new venture we have made connections with customers who flock in on Fridays and Saturdays to stock up for our short yet intense gardening season.
As we concluded our school year, our high-school students presented studies on the American Civil War. They gave speeches on topics drawn from a four-part lecture series Brother James McElroy taught earlier this spring. We are beginning to supplement our home-schooling efforts with weekly classes for our high-school students focused on group study and public speaking. This year, the students incorporated historical period dress into their program, and the audience, which included many local guests, told us how much they enjoyed that.
This week Amanda Tindell taught our first pottery class.
The Butcher Shop, founded last year by Brother Gary Moore’s family on the ground floor of the newly restored Deary Mercantile Building (just up Main Street from The Pie Safe Bakery), has recently resumed its summer hours, serving juicy burgers and crispy fish and chips for lunch and dinner on Saturday, along with the delicious summer sausage, smoked meats, fresh cut beef, and locally raised chicken that they regularly offer.
The birds have awakened from their winter hiding and now fill our evenings with their songs, alerting us that spring has sprung! We recently formed two farming groups; one at Brush Creek Ranch, and one at nearby Morning Glory Farm, to plant field crops such as corn, potatoes, pumpkins, green beans, and watermelon. (Brother Joe Tindell misses this summer staple from his Texas roots. We’re hoping melons will grow here.) Most of our families have their own gardens at home, but we enjoy working together to grow larger crops.
This year many of our members traveled to visit other communities, and we have also been privileged to host visitors and brothers and sisters from our sister communities around the world. We have learned from one another as we all seek to more perfectly express the design and definition of our outposts of the kingdom.
