Blue Bird Flour

                                                           FLOWER OF THE WEEK
Coming back from Chinle we saw these Blanketflowers in the ditch. They are late bloomers.

The Rez would not be complete without Blue Bird flour. They are synonymous with each other. You couldn't have one without the other. This is at our local Bashes Food store. There are four different areas for Blue Bird flour and as you can see the shelves empty fast. Blue Bird flour is considered the best flour for making fry bread.

Several weeks ago we were going to Cortez to see Mesa Verde so I wanted to also go and see  the Cortez Milling Company where they make Blue Bird flour. I was a bit disappointed when all we saw was an old building with no Blue Bird Flower logo on it.
The stories here say that the owners of the mill are descendants of John Tanner who, in our Mormon history, gave Joseph Smith necessary funds to continue the work. John Tanner was promised his posterity would never go hungry. The Tanner family own many of the trading posts here also and are very successful businessmen.

The Blue Bird Brand was started in the 1930's but was bought by Halworth Tanner in 1965 and is run today by his grandsons. Most of the grinders are original dating back to the 1800's. They produce about 600,000 25 pound bags of flour each year.

Blue Bird flower bags serve many purposes. I use them to make aprons for the missionaries leaving the area as a memento of the Rez. This is Elder Wise who left last week to go home.
The flour bags are used for everything from dish towels to sacks to hold the pinyon nuts. Elder Lybbert used one for ties to tie up the irrigation hose in the garden.

One of our star gardeners. Vicky wanted a garden very much so she attended the meetings and learned all she could. She had a stroke so is handicapped. We helped her get the garden started and her husband reluctantly helped. As the summer progressed he got more and more excited about what they were growing. A few days ago he brought in this huge Navajo squash he had been hiding from Vicky in the corn patch.  She is very proud of her squash.

This afternoon a couple stopped by. She had lived here in the late fifties when her husband, a Tanner worked at the trading post. At the time she said she told her husband when she married him she would be willing to go to the end of the world with him. When they arrived in Pinon she thought she had. He past away a few years ago and she remarried  and came here to see Pinon once again. She still owns a trading post in Gallop.
We have had a good week doing what we do.
Love to all,
Elder and Sister Lybbert