2016 Haberstock Herald

2016 Haberstock Herald

I sit at my desk looking out on a snowy winter wonderland and can hardly believe this is our third winter in Greer running the White Mountain Lodge Bed and Breakfast!  We love being in the mountains and living in this charming valley. I am truly enjoying the beauty each season has to offer, having lived the majority of my years in the desert.  Jim and our black lab, Zella, get out nearly every day to hike trails.  In the winter, Jim cross country skis or snowshoes with Zella bounding through the snow.  It's her favorite time of year!  
     Winter Wonderland is in full swing and Jim and I are playing reindeer games with kids on the back lawn.  We had a fabulous year hosting guests at the lodge. Jim and I have become a great team in the kitchen preparing breakfast. Our guest reviews on Trip Advisor, earned the lodge an award for a top B&B!  We hope 2017 brings more guests and makes the lodge self-sustaining.  It's really fun to meet people from all walks of life and from all over the world.  Sometimes we discover some amazing connections which always adds to the fun.
     We continue making progress with the sanding and re-staining of all the outside wood, landscape improvements, updating bathrooms, lodge decor, etc.  Since Jim still works full time for Honeywell from the office, progress is slow, but it creeps along!  Lyn handles all the book keeping, reservations, marketing, cleaning, laundering and is becoming pretty handy with power tools.  She just fell off a ladder once this year and her thumb has been healing for awhile since it got in the way of a power sander, but no trips to the ER required (Lyn's nursing background makes her knowledgeable and stubborn).  
     Our daughter, Kara, and husband, Nate, are in Tucson.  Nate is in his clinical rotations in medical school and Kara is busy working on her master's degree and as a full-time data specialist in a research lab at U of A.  Our daughter, Lauren, graduated from Pepperdine University and is currently in Frankenberg, Germany on a Fulbright Scholarship as an assistant English teacher in a high school.  She is auditing a couple of courses at a nearby university and enjoying traveling, making new friends and visiting old ones she made during her year studying abroad.  We visit over the internet nearly every week.
   Jim and I are attending a Calvary Chapel in Springerville and enjoying the fellowship.  Lyn sings on the worship team and we are the mission coordinators.  We also host a bible study in Greer, getting together for dinner, study and prayer for one another.  Life has troubles, challenges and struggles as well as delights and rejoicing and we are thankful to share it all with others, looking to our Lord and Savior, Jesus, who is our assurance, strength and everlasting hope.
   We wish you a blessed Christmas season and a new year full of hope!
             Jim and Lyn Haberstock 

Marketing Strategy??????

Clever marketing can really help your business, but sometimes it's hard to tell what the message is supposed to accomplish.  There's a funeral home we pass by that has a marquis.  Now, that could be helpful to announce someone's service, but anything else could be misunderstood.  For example, for about 6 months the sign said," Enjoy the season."  What season?  Winter, summer, death and mourning?  I noticed recently the message had been updated to, " Look Alive!  Smile!"  Are they trying to reassure you about the body preparation for an open casket service?  Will your loved one be smiling and look alive?  I have to admit, every time I pass that way, I will be looking to see what's up next.  I could offer some suggestions.  How about, "end of year casket blow out","scratch and dent sale", "buy one, get one free".  Just for morbid fun, I found a few that caught my eye:

Not Just a Boy Scout Motto

We had a young couple staying at the lodge who had an experience that could have ended badly. They headed out after breakfast for their day's adventure and it turned out to be more than they expected. They began hiking the West Baldy trail in the afternoon, got to the top and decided to keep going and descend the East Baldy Trail.  Unfortunately, having started rather late in the day to hike this route and not knowing that the East Baldy Trail has rock formations to cross before picking up the trail again, they wandered off trail as the sun was setting.  They had no cell phone coverage, so attempts to call us or 911 failed.  They ended up spending the night on the mountain huddled together to keep warm.  Thankfully, it only got down to 33 degrees, and at daylight they began searching for the trail and managed to get back to the lodge.
For anyone who is going to hike anywhere you must be prepared for the best outcome:

• Know your route and how long it will take you to complete it
• If you haven't hiked it before, talk to someone who has
• Weather: know the forecast and time of sunset 
• Tell someone where you are going and when you will be back
• Take a day pack with snacks, water, compass/GPS, jacket or sweatshirt, flashlight
• Change your thinking from "we don't want to carry supplies we won't need" to "anything can happen out here and we're going to be prepared"

A dear friend had a great saying he used often in mentoring younger people:
Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance
It's worth keeping in mind for pretty much everything.

Cat Lovers Beware

We had a pack of coyotes ravaging the village.  They went after a small dog and 2 cats are missing. We came home one night to hear them howling within 100 yards of our back door.  Our dog was out on her run and we quickly got her and ourselves in the house.  Haven't heard them for about a week, so they must have moved on.

What is that noise???

It's been a busy bugling season so far.  I asked Jim to describe the bull elk's call to gather a harem and announce his territory so I could make sure I knew if I was hearing the right noise.  He described it as someone playing the recorder, badly.  Yes!!! That's what I had been  hearing, wondering what the terrible noise was.  We hiked in a canyon to catch the aspens in full fall color and we could hear bugling on both sides of the canyon around us.  We finally caught a glimpse of a group of females through the trees, but never caught sight of the bull that day.
During the rut, or mating season, bulls are so overloaded with hormones that they become quite aggressive toward anything they see.  We have a friend whose horse was minding it's own business in a pasture near us and was gored by an elk who came out of some willows and apparently thought the horse was competition he needed to get rid of.  The horse is recovering well, but I think that elk needs to get some glasses.
Animal sounds are interesting.  When I look at a huge elk bull and then hear this high, off pitch squeal I wonder if something went wrong in the genetic code along the way.  Or perhaps God just decided to have some fun with this big bully!  The females like it and we'll look forward to new calves next May.

Dumpster Divers....Raccoon Rescue

These little rascals got left behind after the family raided the garbage dumpster during the night last week.  They couldn't get out.  Jim propped a board in the dumpster so they could climb out.  Two of this trio were back this morning to the delight of our guests.  Everyone was heading out to the dumpster to take a peek.  Later, when it was quiet, I opened one of the flaps and propped a board.  I stepped away and waited.  I could here them chattering away in there and then the first little head popped up, followed by the second.  They weren't sure how to get down from the dumpster and then one of them grabbed hold of a gate pole, expecting to climb up and out of the enclosure, but to it's surprise, started sliding down.  The sibling followed suit and slid into the other causing them to land in a heap on the ground.  They were just about to head out the open gate when they saw me, so they turned and scurried under the fence.  Jim said they should be big enough to get out by themselves in a couple of weeks.

Septic Sorrows

Between 20-25% of Americans, mostly in rural areas, have no connection to centralized sewage systems and utilize septic systems on their property to manage waste.  This summer I learned a lot about how they operate, or DON"T, during the week that Jim and Lauren were having a father-daughter hiking trip.
After a busy weekend of guests I got rooms cleaned and turned over.  Wednesday afternoon I headed down to the basement to tackle the mountains of laundry.  There was brown water standing in one of my washing machines.  Hmm.  So, I started a cleaning cycle on that machine and used the other to take the peak off the mountain of laundry.  I was folding load 4 when I realized water was running all over the floor.  The drain pipe to the sewer was spewing soapy rinse water.  Hmm....don't think any more laundry is getting done tonight.  I got hold of our plumber early the next morning and he bumped other appointments to get out to the lodge.  In the mean time I was trying to find a property map to locate the septic tank.  I came up with two maps that placed it in different locations...hmm.
The plumber and his helper started digging.  They tried different spots all day within a reasonable distance of where the maps indicated...no septic tank.  They did find the major pipe that connected two drains and it had an outlet valve that could be snaked.  The pipe was compacted with all the things people are not supposed to put down a toilet on a septic system.  They were able to clear the line, but the septic tank was going to have to be found and pumped out.
Jim's welcome home was to get to work digging.  After he was able to contact the previous owner and verify that both our maps were wrong, he started digging in the right area.  Once he hit it, we had a wonderful friend with a backhoe come dig 4 feet down and expose the whole tank.  The "honey dipper" came the next day and vacuumed out our tank.  Next we will have cement towers built up and a cover that can be driven over so we don't have to go digging again.
I ordered signs and installed them above every toilet that has a list of just about everything people do but should never flush down a toilet, especially if you have a septic tank.  You just keep learning new things all the time, but I'm ready for this summer session to be over!