Do as the Heberites Do

November 14, 2014

Allow me to describe the town where I live with my ambitious husband, darling daughter, three eager pups, two miniature jersey cows, four clucking hens, one greedy rooster (and until the other day, the black widow spider that I smashed to bits with an empty windshield washer fluid bottle). Heber City, with a population of 12,911 as of 2013, is situated midway between Sundance and Park City. The town itself covers 3.5 square miles though technically our home sits just beyond the city limits in Wasatch County. We are surrounded by rugged mountains, and just a 15 minute drive in any direction will take us into those mountains for activities ranging from skiing and snowshoeing, to hiking, biking, and horseback riding; not to mention the three reservoirs within 30 minutes of each other, good for water-skiing, ice fishing, and kite sailing. Heber Valley is a tourist destination of sorts, and Joey and I are lucky to call this place home (in the summer, anyway).

Rugged mountain view.

Other rugged mountain view. From our bedroom window.

When we first moved into the area, with its horse properties and hayfields, tractors and barns, several neighbors informed us that in our lifetime we will never be considered true Heber residents. Neither will our children. But our children's children might if they stick around long enough. Even the neighbors who have lived here for over 20 years are still considered outsiders, though I think this sentiment is slowly changing.

Heber also boasts exotic cow floats.

I realized I had entered foreign territory within weeks of moving to our home during a conversation with the 12-year-old neighbor girl. Me: "Did you do anything exciting this week?" 12-year-old neighbor girl: "Yeah, I passed my hunter safety test and got my hunting license." That's when I first suspected Joey had tricked me into living here. I'm pretty sure he knew all along what kind of place this Heber City is. And he has wasted no time assuming the Heber lifestyle. He even sounds like a Heberite when he gets talkin' to the neighbors 'bout feedin' the jerseys, puttin' up fencing around the alfalfa pasture, and huntin' pheasants versus big game. I, on the other hand, am draggin' my heels. (I recently took a "What percent Californian are you?" test, which I wouldn't normally spend my time taking except that I was going to use it as evidence that we need to move back to California, and the results indicated I'm only 70 % Californian. Seventy percent! Hurts my pride). In my defense, I did take a hunter safety course with Joey and I only missed 2 out of 50 on the exam. But that was more for the sake of spending time with my sportsman of a husband and I have no intentions of actually hunting, thrilling as it sounds.

Joey's first huntin' trip. That's a pheasant in his hand. Gross.

I tease Joey because it seems he needs to be raising, growing, doing, and wearing everything the neighbors are raising, growing, doing, and wearing. Well the MacFarlanes raise their own beef cows (or steer, if you will) so we should get some cows. The Millers grow pumpkins so surely we can grow pumpkins. 90 percent of the neighborhood participates in the hunt so we ought to get our hunting licenses. Maybe if I wear my cowboy hat to Walmart the tourists will think I live on a ranch. And the list goes on- chopping our own firewood, raising chickens for eggs, milking our own cows, owning a minimum of two dogs, leaving a broken-down Camry on display in our yard behind the barn. In a million years I would never have imagined myself living this way of life- shooing cows out of the chicken coop, making sure they keep licking the bloat block so as not to explode from excessive amounts of protein in the alfalfa, wrapping hundreds of green tomatoes in newspaper and leaving them in plastic tubs around the house to ripen because of an early frost, luring the neighbors' escaped cows back into their pasture with handfuls of long grass while the neighbors are on vacation, chasing the dogs while they chase the kids riding horses down the street.