Sue's Western Adventure

A Couple of Lefts

2009-06-18T23:40:00.000-06:00

A few weeks ago the local Audubon group advertised a Saturday trip to a place called Steele Canyon, which is north of Clarkston, Utah. I thought I'd go. But they always leave at 7:30 in the morning from a place 15 miles south of where I live. Clarkston is 5 miles north. So I slept late and I thought I'd try to catch up with the group in Clarkston, which is a little town of less than 700 people. There's only one road into it. And there aren't any paved roads going north out of town. So I figured Steele Canyon would be easy to find. I was wrong.

I headed into Clarkston at about 9 AM. There wasn't much activity there on a Saturday morning. I had to drive a couple of side streets to before I found a man tilling his garden. I stopped and asked if he knew where Steele Canyon was. "Yeah. Sure. Out the dirt road, a couple of lefts. You'll see some cedar trees." So I headed out the dirt road north of town.

It was some of the emptiest land I've ever seen. No farms or ranches or houses. Few signs of life. I saw one trailer parked in a thick grove of trees, a planted field here and there, some "No Trespassing - Private Land" signs. But I kept driving, raising a cloud of dust as I went.

I saw some beautiful land and flowers (sunflowers and flax - I think - growing wild below) and stacked clouds, a redtail hawk, lots of meadowlarks.

(click on pictures to enlarge them)

I tried taking a couple of lefts, like the man in town suggested. But I seemed to be getting further from the mountains. I didn't think I'd be likely to find a canyon in the middle of a prairie. So I turned around and headed in another direction. It did cross my mind that if my car broke down I'd really be out of luck. I checked to see if I still had cell phone service. I was glad I had a good supply of water in the car.

I'm sure I drove 10 or 15 miles on those dirt roads. I never passed anyone driving in the opposite direction, although a man and his wife, both with binoculars hanging around their necks, pulled up behind me and asked if I knew where Steele Canyon was. I guess I wasn't the only one who wanted to sleep a little longer that morning.

I eventually saw a marker up ahead by the side of the dirt road. It was an old piece of metal cut in the shape of the state of Idaho. It was painted red, white, and blue, and had a couple of bullet holes in it and a big spot of flaky rust. I hadn't planned on driving to Idaho that day!

On closer inspection, I saw that someone had scratched "Check Your Gas" into the bottom of the sign. No simple "Welcome to Idaho" messsage. Well, that's all it took. The time was right to give up on Steele Canyon and turn back toward home.

On the way back I saw a man and stopped to talk to him. He had a silver star for a belt buckle, and said his name was Lynn. I asked if he knew where Steele Canyon was. He looked confused for a minute and then said "Well, if you've been all the way up to Idaho and back, you've been through Steele Canyon. Yep." And he nodded a couple of times.

He said he was spraying for "noxious weeds" and showed me his recently planted safflower and wheat fields. He wasn't sure what people used safflower for -- bird food maybe. But he was sure we'd have a good crop of choke cherries for pancake syrup this year. I believed that, judging by the bush he was standing next to, which was at least 25 feet wide, and was heavy blossoms and humming with bees.

Speaking of wrong turns, stopping short, (and maybe choking on cherries too)... NCR, the company I used to work for, recently announced that they are moving their headquarters from Dayton Ohio to Georgia. My first reaction to this news was relief (maybe tinged with a little elation) that I won't have to experience the trauma, the sense of powerlessness, and the group loss of that transition. My second thought was concern for the people I've know over 14 years of working there. My next thought was fear for the future of Dayton. NCR put Dayton on the map 125 years ago by building a cash register company. It evolved. It shed its reputation as a caring company a long time ago. But the men who invested in Dayton, rescued people in the 1913 flood, built bell towers and parks and mansions, also built NCR. The company history and Dayton's history are intertwined. My last thought was indignation at NCR's callousness toward its workers and the city.

Dayton recently lost Mead Corporation, a large paper company and a good corporate citizen, historically. The big General Motors truck plant shut down at the end of last year. My memory is drifting to the Carillon bell tower by the river in Dayton that still plays a concert once a month without any kind of audience. I suppose Colonel Deeds, the old NCR executive who built the bell tower, left a bequeath for the Sunday afternoon bell concerts in the park. Because summertime park-going listeners disappeared with the invention of air conditioning, I suppose. The NCR world headquarters building across the street from the bell tower, the one that has 8 or 10 international flags flying out front now, will stand empty in a year.

Will Dayton turn into a ghost town? I hope not. Cuz there's a really cool mandolin orchestra there and an old canoe club on the river that's still operating after 100 years or so, some great bike trails, a cute little 12-block area called St. Anne's Hill that's full of REAL neighbors, a famous banjo guy from the 1970's who can REALLY play, and lots of other caring people who have grown up there, raised children, built schools and stadiums and businesses and families, and call it "home."

I'm sure NCR's move is calculated to cut costs and employees. So now General Motors and Chrysler Corp have both filed for bankruptcy. And we're all wondering if they can be saved, if they're even worth saving. I see a road jammed with cars in this little valley (definitely not Los Angeles), and I wonder how it happened. Time marches on. We have to pay attention and continue to change as the world changes. There were lots ans lots of Blacksmiths in America back in the 1860's. How many are there today?

Have the "rust belt" towns been driving down the same outdated industrial revolution road, knowing that it probably leads nowhere, but hoping that they might have some good luck and stumble onto something? I suppose it's too late. But maybe the sign I saw can offer them a word of advice, too:

Strange Birds

2009-04-23T22:02:00.059-06:00

In early March I went bird-watching in the valley here with some Audubon Society folks. Birdwatchers are gentle people, people who take time chase after small creatures. So it was a nice day.

We saw sandhill cranes, lots of gulls, some swans, geese, and other birds that I've forgotten already. Most of these birds were just passing through on their way to Canada or Alaska or the Arctic for the summer.

Here's a picture of some of my Audubon friends looking out into a field at a falcon perched on an irrigation pipe. I was driving one of the "getaway" cars. We had a route mapped out and we followed it very slowly, until someone spotted something of interest. Then we'd pull over and all pile out with our binoculars and scopes. It's a good thing there wasn't any other traffic on the roads.

These are swans we saw walking around in a farmer's field. I think it's the first time I've seen swans out of the water. It's not their prettiest pose, I suppose.

Birdwatching involves standing still for long periods of time. You're an observer in foreign territory, which is a cool thing to be, especially for people like me who always have to be doing something. There's no reward in birdwatching other than the outdoors and the fun of looking for and finding beauty, diversity, and whimsy in the wild bird population. It's not physically challenging which is probably why old people do it (so I guess I must be an old person now?).

One thing is sure -- if I'm going to take pictures of birds I'll need some better equipment. They're small and usually far away too. So you may need to click on the picture and enlarge it to really get a good look at them.

I have managed to attract plenty of birds to my yard through the Winter. The starlings are in and out of the garage, which doesn't have an enclosed soffit in the back. I can hear a nest of babies chirping somewhere in there too. The starlings are also nesting under (or in) the eaves of my house. I can hear them rustling around overhead when I wake up in the morning.

I went to an Audubon Society dinner last week. Lots of university professors and their wives were there, 150 people altogether. They were celebrating the signing of an agreement between the society, The Nature Conservancy, and Rocky Mountain Power Company. The Audubon Society received a conservation easement from Rocky Moutnain Power for 500 acres of bottom land next to the Bear River -- they will manage it as a wildlife habitat and as a natural plantlife biofilter to protect the river from pollution from farm chemical runoff. Here's a photo of the area. All the subtle colors and differences in texture are interesting, aren't they?

These "riparian" (riverside) zones are among the most diverse biological systems on earth. They perform services that human effort and technology can't do as well. So this is an important project, and it's an example of how the people here just go ahead and do whatever needs to be done. That goes for snow removal and wildlife refuges.

The keynote speaker at the Audubon banquet was a woman from Hawkwatch International. That organization pays people to camp out on mountain tops and watch for (and count) birds. I want that to be my next job!

The day I went birdwatching with the Auduboners, we saw some sandhill cranes. They are made for the job of foraging in the unplowed fields -- notice how they blend right in. If you weren't looking for them, you'd drive by the field every day and never notice them.

Here you can see the cranes a little better against a contrasting background. But their color seems to mimic this environment too. Some are doing their crazy dances.

I saw a strange blackbird crossing the street on my way to work the last week. It was a yellow-headed blackbird (something unique to the West). Its head and breast is really orange, though. They hang out in the tall cattails, as you can see. But when they're waking across the street, they look like they have safety vests and superhero capes on all at once.

Here are some nice Pelicans that have been drifting around the sloughs nearby.

My favorite bird photo so far is this one of Cattle Egrets (I think) foraging on a big manure pile down the road. The farmer cleaned out the barns just in time for the birds' arrival. I wonder if he planned it that way.

It's kind of awful - these white birds with long silky feathers standing on a dung heap all day. I had to hold my breath to get the picture.

When people forage, there usually seems to be some sense of shame. But these birds act like they are kings of this mountain. In Dayton, I remember the way the alley pickers used to keep their heads down and eyes averted when they went through our garbage. After you watch migrating birds for a while, it seems like foraging is a natural way of meeting needs, like people shopping at the second hand store. Rich people may not want their old shoes. But poor people sure can use them. The little birds can eat what the pigs and cows are too big to notice. Of course, foragers are at the bottom of the food chain, or the social hierarchy, in the case of humans.

I felt a kinship with the white birds on the dung heap. I know I have to pick through a big pile of poop to find something of value, something to sustain me -- on television and the internet, in churches, schools, jobs, movies, and even in the fancy grocery store...

One thing I know for sure is that I'd much rather watch the strange delicate dancing flying swimming birds than the stock market, the demise of my 401K, or even this computer screen. They fly and swim and dance and do their best to avoid us humans. Birdwatching, like whale watching or the job of a night watchman, is healthy exercise. It requires alertness, patience, vision, a good book, fresh air, diligence, and a little bit of plain old luck.

Signs of Spring

2009-04-18T17:34:00.020-06:00

I went out to check on the asparagus I planted last weekend. Nothing so far. But one of the raspberry bushes I put in along the fence has one leaf bud. And it looks like my new strawberries survived last week's snow just fine.

I thought I'd have a productive Saturday. But it was 65 degrees. There were bicyclers coming through town from every direction. There's still snow on the mountains, but the valley is bright green with new hay. So I went on a walk with a neighbor to enjoy the sun and breeze.

After that, I had a book (a really nice biography of John Muir) to deliver to a nice man who chopped up a tree that was down in my yard. His wife showed me their old rock house, their hen house, plans for the garden and landscaping projects.

Then I picked up my order of artisan bread from the town baker who has a big pizza oven in his garage, admired his kids' newly-acquired garter snake, rescued from a snake-fearing neighbor.

On my way home from Jim the baker’s house, I saw more signs of Spring. Here's a 3-week old colt trying its legs.

Here she is with her mom.

This little town has family farms interspersed with the houses. I think just about everyone has animals of one kind or another. I, myself, resisted the urge to buy some baby chicks last weekend at the farm store. Aren't they cute?

It was Easter weekend too! Three or four laying hens wouldn't hurt anything, would they? My neighbor said there would be plenty of people willing to help me build a henhouse. But around here, they buy the chicks in the Spring and kill them for the pot in the fall. I don't think I could kill a chicken. I'd have to find a way to heat the henhouse for the Winter.

Here are some mother and baby goats that live around the corner. One of them came up to the fence and tried to eat my pants.

Liz is expecting a baby and I promised her some pictures of mom and baby animals. So here they are, Liz.

I took a drive up the hill to the dairy farm, looking for baby calves with their mothers. They had plenty of babies there, about 25, I'd say. But they separate the calves from their mothers, since the mothers are milk cows. This one is a Swiss Brown, which farmer Jeff said will be ornery, given half a chance.

Here's the youngest calf they had -- just 3 days old.

They gave me a tour of the farm, which has 93 milk cows. The cows were huge -- the largest one weighs 1400 pounds and produces 57 pounds of milk every day. There have been lots of articles in the papers around here about the plight of the dairy farmers, with milk prices low and hay prices high. But I didn't hear any complaints. I think these farmers like what they're doing. They knew the quirks and "freckles" of their cows.

In the milking barn there was a constant parade of cows. Fourteen of them were attached to milking machines at once, and moved out after 20 minutes or so. I definitely have been getting an education about farm life. It's funny -- I spent a lifetime learning things about literature, computers, music, art, eastern plants and birds, and children. Now I discover that I could spend another lifetime learning about a totally different part of life -- Utah plants and bugs and geology, the cross-fertilization needs of fruits trees, breeds of cows, milking equipment, ways of building fences, what to do with manure, how to mix feed for animals. I only get one life, though.

Whenever I walked toward one of the cows, I noticed that she was expecting food. I guess that's what we humans are good for. Who really needs a pat on the head, anyway?

They say we'll have more snow before the warm weather is here to stay. But my neighbor came over this afternoon and we sat and chatted and fed the fish in my pond until the sun was low in the sky. Another neighbor helped me plant a couple of fruit trees last Saturday ... it got dark and we had a rambling conversation about our younger days, whether pine or spruce trees are easier to grow, Easter egg hunts, the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho, the value of spare time ... and we looked off into the cool field of a million stars hanging over my house.

Happy Spring, everyone!

It's a Big State

2009-04-08T20:47:00.015-06:00

I thought I had thoroughly covered the topic of the Moab area of Southern Utah in my last post. But, looking at it later, there's a lot more I could show you. So I thought I'd share a few more pictures.

Check it out.

Here's a picture looking across Canyonlands National Park. I think those are the La Sal mountains through the clouds. You might need to enlarge this picture (click it if you're on he blog) to really see it. The picture is so small, and it covers such a vast landscape. I think the upright rock formations are at least 5 miles away and the mountains are probably 25 miles away. Isn't it amazing that you're in the sky (on level with the the clouds), and there is snow on the distant mountains, but you're standing in the desert?

Here's a pictures taken at Natural Bridges National Monument. It's a fun park to visit because there's a 8 mile loop road that includes several different bridges and the hikes to them from the road are pretty manageable for us old folks. And the rocks are sort of porous and light and delicate, somehow.

Here's a picture taken at a place called Muley Point. It's down a long dirt road in San Juan County, near Blanding and Bluff and a place Moki(another word for Hopi) Dugway (one of those Utah words that means a road or way sunken below ground level) and Valley of the Gods. This overlooks part of Glenn Canyon. There was no one there but us. A year ago, I couldn't have imagined looking out over vistas where I could see 40 miles ahead without seeing a single person out there. By the way, Liz was holding onto my belt loops as I leaned out to take this picture.

Here's a shot of a place in Arches National Park that shows a little more of the vegetation and just sort of captures the feeling of a lot of the trails there, it seems to me:

Liz, my daughter and travelling companion, took the best picture of the trip. Here it is:

Hope you enjoyed the show --

Another Planet

2009-04-02T21:25:00.047-06:00

When I first came to Utah, people often said, "It must be culture shock for you here." I'd usually respond with something like, "Well the people are nicer and the land is more beautiful here. But everything else is about the same." Back then, I was just a tourist. Now I'm experiencing culture shock. It is quite different than St. Anne's Hill in downtown Dayton, and it is the other side of the universe from Oakwood, where I lived just 4 years ago.

I haven't seen a single BMW in Utah. The best vehicles are pickup trucks. My neighbors have mud-encrusted llamas and lambs instead of well-groomed yellow dogs. I observe herds of cows on my way to work instead of the homeless making their way from the night shelter to the day shelter. There is no zoning, and not a thought about doing anything as silly as passing an ordinance about paint colors or the types of fences allowed. There's no real need to hang curtains in my windows. There are more chickens and pheasants than people in this little town. The sky is full of stars and the churches are full of people.

My daughter Liz visited me the week before last. While she was here, we took a trip to southeastern Utah, where all the red rock is, along with vast amounts of empty public land, cattle grazing on the open range, mountain bikers, four-wheelers, and other Utah enthusiasts. It was nice and warm down there, and I was glad to get a break from the cold and snow.

We stayed in a rustic cabin on a little ranch in Blanding, explored Cedar Mesa, where the Indians known as the Anasazi, which means "ancient", lived. We saw lots of natural bridges, went to Moab and hiked in Arches National Park and Canyonlands, and even glimpsed a little corner of Glenn Canyon. The rock and land formations were fabulous -- a geologist's dream. There were giant rock goblins everywhere, mexican hats, temple-like formations, bridges and rock rainbows. More than once, we said, "Wow. It looks like another planet!"

Here's a picture of the little ranch where we stayed, called Abajo Haven in Blanding. It is out of the way (6 miles outside of a tiny town), has fire rings outside the cabins and places to corral your horses if you want to bring them with you.

The rancher cooked some terrific ribs for us and took us on an interpretive hike that covered several epochs of Native American history and a Utah nature lesson too. Did you know that pine nuts come from Pinon trees, which don't produce pine cones and nuts every year? Back when the cliff-dwelling Indians were basket weavers (around 500 AD) and then clay pot makers (by 1000 AD) and living in large colonies in southern Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, a year with pine nuts was a cause for celebration. Pine nuts are very high in protein.

The trip was just one amazing sight after another. Here is a picture of Liz standing at the base of a rock formation in Arches National Park. She looks like one of those little action figures, doesn't she?

Here are some ancient Indian pictographs on rocks. The Anasazi Indians didn't have a written language, even though it is estimated that there were 2,500 native inhabitants of the San Juan valley. The lack of a written language might explain why the pictures look like children's drawings.

This made me start wondering about the development of written languages. Why did civilizations develop them? Why did some cultures get along without any written language? Historians see that the development of written language corresponds to the development of cities. Did people need to write laws as the population density increased? Was it for accounting purposes? Did it reflect a need to record history? Today, it seems as if the main reason we need written language is to communicate with people who are far away. Since I am a writer by trade, I've noticed that our culture used to be more oriented toward the written word, before the invention of film, TV, and now digital cameras. Written communication started out as pictures, evolved to use shorthand symbols (alphabets), and is now evolving back to pictures.

Here is a photo of the famous Delicate Arch in Moab. It really is a beautiful spot. To give you a sense of the scale, those little black dots in the patch of blue sky to the left of the arch are people walking around.

The most amazing place we saw was Dead Horse Point, a state park that overlooks Canyonlands National Park. Here's the view from there:

There was a huge dust storm when we first arrived at Dead Horse Point, and we saw a little rainbow reflecting in the dust in the air over the canyon. The place is called Dead Horse Point because, according to legend, cowboys corralled wild mustangs there on the "neck" of the mesa, which is 2000 feet above the Colorado River. They closed off the only exit route with brush, and left the horses there too long without water.

My friend Rose called from Ohio the other day and told me that the Magnolia tree in my back yard in Dayton is in full bloom. Back here in northern Utah, it has been snowing off and on all week. Spring is still somewhere down the road and around the bend. Liz has gone back to Ohio, which might explain why the sun has disappeared and the sky is still falling (as flakes of snow).

When Spring finally comes to northern Utah, I wonder if there will be something as wonderful as the old magnolia trees of southern Ohio. As I go through the transition from a tourist to an inhabitant of Utah, if this is another planet, I wonder if the native people speak my language. I suppose I'll need to learn theirs. But I think I'll try drawing some simple pictures, first.

Annie's Western Adventure

2009-02-24T21:55:00.027-07:00

Annie's Western Adventure

There is so much going on in the news -- the economic crisis, bailouts, a new president, a stylish first lady, and even the academy awards. It all makes me feel as if I should address something important, something newsworthy here. But then there's the escapist in me. One morning, just a week or two ago, I actually said, "Shut up" out loud to the radio as I was getting dressed and heard another dismal report of cutbacks, layoffs, greed, falling stock prices, and economic drear delivered on NPR news. So something small, personal, and close to home might make me (and you!) feel more secure for a minute. The topic this time will be my cat, Annie. Maybe we'll get back to the wider world, and our serious problems next time.

Annie is my independent, in-charge alpha cat. She's a calico I adopted 5 or 6 years ago. Annie is the kind of cat who loves people to pet her, but hates to be held. She's curious, bold, acts like she's the biggest, baddest cat in the land, and harasses Sugar, my Himalayan (who has never fully recovered from Annie's arrival in our household). But when it comes right down to it, Annie is a little cat and a big chicken. I'll never forget the way she screamed and cried, "Help. Murder. My world's falling apart!" when we moved to the house in St. Anne's Hill in Dayton. I had to wrap her in a blanket and carry her to the house, screaming all the way. All the stray cats in the neighborhood came out of the bushes to see what the trouble was. I'm sure they, and all my new neighbors there thought a cat was being skinned alive, from the sound of it.

But let's get back to Utah, and the present. In this little friendly town, a neighbor made a sweet snack after dinner one night, and brought me a sample. While I was accepting this gift, and chit-chatting at the door, Annie must have slipped out the door at my feet.

Annie has always yearned to be an outdoor cat. I never let her out when we lived in the city. But last Fall, she found a way out of the house several times, and started training me to be the owner of a cat that is both an outdoor and an indoor cat. But since the the snow started falling here, she had not ventured out.

Annie often wanders the house. So I didn't notice she was gone until the next night. I was thinking about going to bed and the cats usually gather 'round at that time. I noticed that I hadn't seen Annie for quite a while. When I started calling all over the house, Sugar, the Himalayan, hunkered down and looked slightly guilty. Then I went to the front door and called out to the dark valley and the bright stars. No luck. I spent a restless night, imagining Annie's frozen little body somewhere out there in the wilds of northern Utah. I got up several times that night and called for her.

In the morning, I went out searching again. The neighbor's lambs were startled at my shameless calling, and stood absolutely still, on edge, the way lambs do. The neighbor's sheep-herding Border Collie came over and looked at me nervously. By this time, Annie had been out in the cold for 36 hours.

When I got to work that morning, I called my wonderful neighbor, May. The first time May came over to visit, she was surprised that I brought cats with me all the way from Ohio (cats are barn animals here, and they're all at least half stray). But May was concerned. She could hear panic in my voice. I'm sure her sympathy was based in an undersanding that I had misplaced one of my 2 only companions. She said she'd send her husband, Myron, out to the barn to see if Annie had joined their cat pile. She also said she would call the other neighbors, put out an APB for a wandering Eastern calico house cat.

I didn't hear back from May that day. So I knew Annie was still at large. I "sang the blues" to the receptionist at work, who is something of a bartender behind that counter. I talked about how sad it is when a small pet dies. I thought about all the cats I've buried in the back yard, usually in the pouring rain or the bitter cold.

When I got home that night, I went out cat-hunting again. Just after dark, I passed a small open field not far from the house, still calling "Annie," and I heard a distant "meow."
"Annie is that you?"
"meow."

I could make out the shape of a car sitting in the field, and I thought I could see something moving on its hood. So I ventured into the snowy field. I didn't have boots on. But the snow was crusty enough that I mostly walked on top of it.

As I got close to the car, I saw that it was, in fact, long-lost Annie. She wouldn't leave the car to come to me, but paced back and forth, and jumped into my arms as I walked up close to the car. I noticed that the windshield was caved in, and there was still a little trailer hitched to it. Hmm. Had Annie been on a camping trip?

The getaway car (with footprints):

Annie was warmer than I was at that point. She seemed more cuddly than usual as I walked home with her. I guess she had been hiding in that old car for a couple of days. But the car wasn't really that far from the house. Was she just reluctant to put her feet back in the cold snow, since she had found the oasis? Was she lost, disoriented? Didn't she know her way home? Was she having a mid-winter cat party there? Was this her trusty steed, and was she playing Annie Oakley? I don't know. But as we approached the front door of my house, and I opened it, she got excited and bolted out of my arms. I corralled her into the house.

Annie immediately started rolling on the carpet. Sugar, the Himalayan, hissed and growled when Annie rolled near her, as if to say "You're back, darnit. I thought I was going to have this place all to myself. Keep your distance, and next time take a longer trip." And I thought that she had been upset about Annie's absence!

That was 3 weeks ago. Annie, now known as "Oakley," hasn't been outside since then. But the ice is starting to melt on the fish pond. Melting snow and icicles are dripping from the garage roof. I see lots of migrating ducks and geese in the morning as I pass the reservoir on my way to work. And I guarantee that Annie is plotting her next adventure.

Now, don't we feel better?

So Much Depends Upon...

2009-01-19T20:24:00.049-07:00

I went for a walk the other morning and came across this old half of a GMC truck in a field south of my house. It struck me as an appropriate image about where GMC (General Motors Corporation) is today. I thought my friends in Ohio might appreciate the wry humor in it, since we've suffered from General Motor's cutbacks, which have taken the ooomph out of many "rust belt" communities. The part I like best in the picture is the coiled barbed wire sticking out. That piece of steel on the ground is pretty symbolic too. Something about it says, "John Henry was here."

John Henry, a symbol of the strong worker in America's age of industry, was, in the end, a story about the futility of people fighting the advance of technology. The story says that in order to save people's jobs, John Henry took on a contest with a machine to try to prove that people could do the job of clearing land and drilling tunnels for the railroad faster than the new machine. He won the contest with a heroic, super-human effort, but dropped dead from exhaustion when it was over. So that's a sad story. But by now we all know that brains have eclipsed brawn in America. The machines have won the contest.

The red GMC truck in the picture is out there in a big field. I don't see any buyers or easy bailouts on the horizon. It looks like a pretty old GMC truck, judging by the stylized logo, the rusty steel bumper and all. In an effort to try to date this red truck, I did some research and found out that GMC "Ducks" were used in WWII, and that they were driven in the Korean war, too. Here is the original logo, from 1911, which is more like the one on the truck in the field than the current block style logo:

Here's a closer look at the logo (and the flaking paint and the rust) on the red truck in the field:

GMC made mostly big trucks until about 1944. By 1961, they were using the current block-style logo. I found a logo like the one on the red truck on trucks that were manufactured in 1944 and 1956. So I the truck in the field was made sometime between 1944 and 1956, and most certainly before 1960. That means it has been around for about as long as I have. Uh-oh. Am I obsolete, rusty, stuck in out in a field somewhere without an engine too?

I wonder what happened to the engine and the cab - this GMC truck isn't going anywhere, unless they hitch it to a horse or a tractor. That's probably what they do, because the tires still look pretty good. It even has a spare. Just to make sure you can see that it is missing its front half, here's another angle on it:

So the era of the big automobile manufacturers in America is over. I suppose a company can only prosper for a limited period of time, before it becomes top-heavy and bloated or outlives its usefulness. I looked at an 1850 census once and was amazed at the number of jobs that don't exist anymore -- blacksmith, miller, coppersmith. So we have to keep evolving. There are 11.1 million unemployed Americans who can attest to that.

The problems of automakers are as deep as they are wide. Some of these troubles are related to the credit freeze. But General Motors lost 38.7 billion in 2007 and another $21.2 billion in 2008. And most of that happened before the credit freeze.

In France, no one is buying cars either. The government has put together a bailout package there because in France 10% of the workforce works for automakers like Renault and Peugeot-Citroen. Car sales are down in Indonesia, too.

Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors are looking for low interest federal loans. Chrysler received a $4 billion loan from the US Treasury and wants $3 billion more. Ford has asked for $9 billion line of credit. GM received $4 billion on December 31st, which kept it from defaulting on payments due to its suppliers. And GM received another $5.4 billion last week.

There's been a lively debate going on across America about whether the car companies should be allowed to fail or not. On one hand, allowing them to fail will really hurt the US economy. Unemployment figures from November for some Ohio and Michigan cities that rely heavily on the auto industry prove that: Flint MI had 11.6% unemployment, Detroit had 9.5%, Toledo had 9.2%, and Dayton had 7.5%. For the sake of comparison, here in Logan, Utah the unemployment rate for November was 2.4%.

On the other hand, why should we subsidize corporations that have irresponsible or misguided business practices? In discussing the financial industry bailout, Dennis Kucinich, a liberal senator from Ohio said, "This is a massive transfer of wealth - taking dollars out of taxpayers pockets and putting it in the banks."

I don't think there's much debate over the need for the US Treasury to put stipulations on the way the automakers use any loans they receive. But the US Treasury doesn't know much about making or selling cars. So there are limits to that strategy.

Naturally, strong companies survive and weak ones die. But do we want natural principles to prevail when the failure of US automakers could drag the whole country down? The Chrysler bailout of the 1980's was successful. So it seems to me that we should give it a try, or at least do something to help the companies, workers, and communities gain a little time to adjust to failure.

I can remember the opening of the new GM truck plant in Dayton, Ohio in the early 1980's. I toured it then, and it was like a buzzing city inside those walls. There were fire engines in there, and robots getting parts off the shelves behind wire mesh partitions, and an automated assembly line where the right fender dropped down out of the ceiling at the perfect time to meet the body of the car and the welder's torch. It was a spectacle and something of an engineering miracle.

My sister just bought a Honda Fit, which is a highly recommended little car, made for today's driver and last year's gas prices. I drive a Mazda. So how can I lament the demise of the US automakers? If I was going to buy a truck today, I think I'd buy one that was made in the US. But US automakers DO know how to make trucks. Which brings up another factor in this complex issue. If we want the US automakers to survive, I guess we need to think more seriously about buying their products, just as they need to think more seriously about making products that we want to buy.

In the end, I suppose all I can do is offer my photo at the top of the page, which sort of says it all. Maybe GM could use it for an advertising campaign with emotional/nostalgic appeal! Would you buy a vehicle from a company that made a truck more than 50 years ago that has lost its engine but is still sitting out in a field somewhere in Utah holding barbed wire and some sort of farm implement? Well, I guess not. Time marches on. But here's my last word on the subject (with apologies to William Carlos Williams):

so much depends
upon

a red
truck

glazed with
rust

in the white
snow-covered field

Spacious Skies

2009-01-18T14:42:00.013-07:00

It's Sunday afternoon and I just finished watching the inaugural concert that took place in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. What a terrific moment in American history! I was watching most of it with the warm sunlight streaming in my picture window and tears streaming down my face. Hope is a wonderful thing.

We've been in need of hope. Looking back over the last 10 years or so, when I think about Washington DC, I see Clinton-Lewinsky, Newt Gingrich, 911 crashes, Abu Ghraib Prison, waterboarding debates, even a Vice-President shooting his friend in a hunting accident. One thing is sure: it has been a long time since we had a government that was responsive to its people. A new government, one with strength and an optimistic vision, is reason to celebrate and to hope.

I haven't read Obama's book, so I don't know exactly what he meant by "The Audacity of Hope." But I don't think hope is audacious. I think it's as necessary as the air we breathe. Without it, we have boredom or fear, and despair, eventually.

Until I watched the concert, I didn't realize how divided, afraid, and alone we've become as a people. The theme of he concert was "We Are One," and the performers said it frequently. Sheryl Crow, Herbie Hancock, Pete Seeger, Beyonce, Shakira, Bono, Stevie Wonder, Garth Brooks, John Mellencamp, ("the voice of ornery America"!), a subdued Tiger Woods, Queen Latifah, James Taylor, Bruce Springsteen, and Renee Fleming all appeared. There were quotes from Dwight D Eisenhower, Eleanor Roosevelt, Lincoln, JF Kennedy, pictures of working people all across the country, information about the establishment of our great national parks, a little history about racial discrimination, a tribute to service people, and young choirs were backing it all up. A lot of the singers in the backup choirs were young African Americans, which was another good reason to be moved to tears. They have a chance now. I remember racial discrimination and hatred, the fight over desegregation and school bombings, the march in Selma Alabama, KKK cross burnings. Over the last 40 years, we have overcome.

If you get this message today, and didn't see the concert live, you might want to watch one of the rebroadcasts at 7 and 11:30 tonight, on HBO. It will be available to all cable subscribers, even those who don't normally get HBO.

One of the things that impressed me about the concert was the number of truly inspired songs that have been written over the years. So I thought I'd retitle a little poem (my version of a song, I suppose) that I wrote last week, and offer it here. It's sorta simple and humble, about my little corner of the world. Maybe that's fittin. My country. O Beautiful for...

Spacious Skies

A big white moon walks
the fields between the
eastern Rocky canyons
and the Wellsville mountains
to the west tonight. A January moon,
as big as we'll have all year,
turns its face to the Mormons
who count their fair,
freckled children,
turns a light on the frosted universe,
turns itself into the sea of snow fields,
calls to the lost owls
from its alien bronze halo,
and inches toward its destination:
a dip behind Chocolate Peak
to free the soft blue sky
as pink light
touches frothy clouds
crowded into
creased slopes,
and shines into
my open heart.

After I wrote this, I had to go get an ice cream sundae, which actually looked just like a miniature version of the snow-covered Chocolate Peak, with whipped cream clouds snuggled into it. All that envisioning of snow and mountains led me right to the important stuff -- ice cream. Seriously, I love this place and its snowy mountains and fields, it's spacious sky and moons and vistas, the bright stars so far and the clouds that come so close. Every night when I drive back into the land that is only partially tamed, about 3 or 4 miles from my town, I become sort of baffled by the sea of snow. It hasn't really snowed for more than a week now, although plenty of it has accumulated and there is frosty fog in the mornings. But I'm impatiently waiting for the next real snow.

Let's hope the inauguration and the Obama presidency will clear off the fog that has overtaken this country, and bring inspiration and renewal to the American people and the world. I'm confident that we will have hope again, at least for a little while. I'm even more confident (and almost flabergasted) to realize that we live in a country that really means it when it says it stands for liberty and justice for all.

The Frost is All Over

2008-12-28T16:00:00.004-07:00

This is a picture I took on my way into work last week. The tree is rather ghostly, don't you think?

Below is another frosty picture I took the other day.

Going north from my little town, out into the wide open spaces, I ran into the following landscape. You can just barley see the mountain in the distance because there is snow in the air.

So the frost is all over. And I'm humming an Irish traditional jig called "The Frost is All Over." That's a strange name for a song, don't you think?

For quite a few years, I've been intrigued by the titles of Irish tunes. Many of them refer to love, people, and places. And I think the Irish have more than their share of drinking songs. But many tune names are very unusual. Here are a few:

-Merrily Kiss the Quaker
-Bag of Spuds
-Ladies' Pantalettes
-The Rambling Pitchfork
-Come up the Stairs with Me
-Indian Ate the Woodchuck
-Jack Gilder's Beard
-Oh Dear Mother My Toes Are Sore
-The Cat That Ate The Candle
-Pull Out the Knife and Stick it in Again

I think part of the reason the titles are so strange is because there are so many different (but similar) tunes. The Session, a very good Irish music website, has 8231 tunes on it. The classic Irish music reference, O'Neill's Dance Tunes of Ireland, has 1001 tunes in it. With so many tunes to name, I guess you'd eventually run out of ordinary names.

To play Irish music in a session with other people, you need to know lots of tunes. Irish musicians don't use sheet music -- it slows people down when they play, and much of the music is made for dancing. Irish musicians call people who read music "paper trained." Doug, my Irish musician friend and teacher, says that the tune names are designed to be memorable just so that the tunes, themselves, will be easier to remember.

Irish music is rooted in the stories and lives of the people. That's reflected in the titles. After being invaded by England, the Irish were forbidden to speak their own language, so music was used to remember or relay some of the important events. Of course, it was also a way to keep their heritage intact. So that may be why music is such an important part of the Irish culture.

Some people think all Irish tunes sound alike. If you have thousands of tunes, and 8 notes in a scale, and just 8 or 10 different rhythms/structures (jigs, reels, marches, polkas, slipjigs, hornpipes, mazurkas, srathspeys, waltzes), how different can the songs be? Is there a mathematician out there who could offer a solution to that problem? One thing is for sure -- the Irish keep the music interesting by the textures they create when they combine different instruments -- harps, fiddles, flutes, whistles, accordions, pipes, guitars, banjos, bouzoukis, mandolins...

Here are a couple of samples of The Frost is All Over:
http://www.imeem.com/groups/Leem07Ir,boanns_clan//music/sUV8tspH/boanns_clan_the_frost_is_all_over/

http://www.audiosparx.com/sa/archive/Christmas/Christmas-Vocals/The-Frost-is-All-Over/270772

The tune is fast (the way frost comes and goes) and has a cold feeling to it. But other than that, I can't figure where the title came from. Is there something crystalline about its structure? Did it have words at one time that talked about the frost and snow? My guess is that it was probably just the weather report that day.

Now that Christmas is all over, I hope everyone's resting, recovering from the festivities. I made it back to Ohio, where the Frost is NOT all over. It was 70 degrees yesterday!

Part 8 - Snow

2008-12-15T20:59:00.022-07:00

It has finally started snowing here. And now it won’t stop. There are about 5 or 6 inches of it on the ground. It has snowed every day since Saturday, just a little bit each day. It’s now Tuesday. And the forecast calls for snow through the weekend.

It’s a white white white world! White sky, white fields, white mountains, and only a few fence posts and tall grasses to break it up.

On my way to work this morning, I saw a horse standing absolutely still next to a frozen tree (looking cold, miserable, almost afraid to move). That was a black and white world. After driving for 7 or 8 miles, I approached a traffic light and saw the little spot of green as the first color of the day, and something of a shock after all that white.

So I thought I’d post a few pictures, which I took at the beginning of this episode of snow, as well as a couple of random thoughts and questions about snow. I hope this will help you warmer climate folks feel Christmas-y (or, more likely, lucky to be warm).

There’s a minor avalanche on my metal roof. Avalanches are real here, not just something in the cartoons or movies that play with the imaginations of children, who are so intrigued by natural dangers. There is an avalanche hotline here. People take helicopters into the back country to ski, which is part of the reason we need the hot line. As soon as it started snowing, I saw snowmobiles on trailers behind SUVs and pickups headed for the canyons, too.

The ski resorts drop explosives into the snow where they think there’s a danger of avalanche, so that it happens before the skiers get there. The snow is beautiful AND dangerous. A woman died in an avalanche at the Snowbird ski resort on Sunday. Her sister was quoted as saying, “We are a skiing family and we’ll still be a skiing family.” They said that the woman who died was “an extremist.” But I don’t know. Is it extreme to hike 20 minutes with your skis in order to see the snow in the real wilderness? That doesn't seem extreme to me.

I’ve been singing with a little community Christmas choir. One of the songs we’re singing is Still, Still, Still (of German origin, something like a lullaby if you don't know it). It says, “You can hear the falling snow.” Have you ever heard the falling snow? I haven't. I guess you hear the snow just because of what you don’t hear. So is that hearing or not hearing?

I'm reminded of one of the first short stories that ever caught my attention – Silent Snow, Secret Snow, by Conrad Aiken. Have you read it? It was in the standard English curriculum when I was in junior high school, and I've seen it in more recently published readers. The critics say the story is about a kid’s descent into schizophrenia. He imagines that snow is getting deeper and deeper when he wakes up and hears the footsteps of the postman getting increasingly muffled each day. I don't know about the schizophrenia thing. I bet there’s not a kid alive (in northern climates, anyway) who hasn’t spent time imagining that it has snowed, as s/he wakes up. I’ve gotten up in the middle of the night as a grownup and gone to window and been fooled by a white street light or the moon shining down on pavement, making it look like it has snowed. I think the Aiken story tries to capture a kid’s interior world, and the natural isolation of being a child. But all this may not mean much to you if you haven't read the story. It's fun to think about kids waking up to new snow, though. Kids and snow go together. Snow still makes me feel like a kid.

"Snow” is a perfect word, isn't it? Soft and slippery and hushed … and it happens right NOW. Under normal circumstances, it might be gone tomorrow. But they say I won’t see the ground here until April.

I spotted snow falling at night against the backdrop of the log section of my cabin and thought it was incredibly beautiful. I’m not sure why. Was it an opening scene from a nice movie I can’t quite remember? Maybe it’s just the contrast of light, random flakes moving against large, solid, dark logs. I think snow on the wood pile is pretty too. But I might change my mind about that when I try to light a fire.

So the snow has fallen, and is falling, and we’re all getting ready for Christmas, and we'll probably hear the familiar story of something coming down from heaven, a transformed world, softness, animals, straw, and difficult journeys. It comes at just the right time.

I hope you get to see or hear something wonderful this Christmas.

Part 7 - Pioneering

2008-12-10T22:47:00.023-07:00

Utah Adventure Part 7 - Pioneering

I went all the way to Connecticut for Thanksgiving. It was great to see family, and to be in a place where I had absolutely no work to do. I noticed dramatic differences between New England and the West. One day, I drove from Glastonbury to Cromwell (just 2 towns over), which involved 4 or 5 highways, cloverleafs, wall to wall cars, and 2 or 3 “I’m lost” phone calls before I managed to get there and back. I was surprised by all the roads and cars, since I’m accustomed now to wide open spaces and a life with just a few places to go.

Here in Northern Utah, there are really only 2 places to go – Idaho or Temple Square. People go to Idaho (Preston, where Napoleon Dynamite was filmed, is just 19 miles north of here) probably to buy lottery tickets and full-strength beer. They go to Temple Square in Salt Lake City to see the lights at Christmas time.

Here, at night, I sometimes wonder how long it might be before another motorist would come along if my car broke down on the road. On the way back from the airport at 1 am on the Monday after Thanksgiving, I think I was the only person on the road from Brigham City all the way home (30 miles or so). But, oh, the stars! You can see heart-stopping stillness there. You can see lots of activity and movement in the night sky, too, if you look at it long enough. I'm not sure which is more curious and arresting, really.

Oh. There’s one other place to go from here – Bear Lake, which is a good-sized lake (takes an hour to drive around it), in the far northwest corner of the state, near the Wyoming and Idaho borders. It is about 45 minutes from Logan, on a winding canyon road that follows and cris-crosses the Logan River the whole way. I suppose it is an alpine lake. It is a resort community out there, a mini mini Jackson Hole. There is a little ski resort there that the local people use. I drove there last weekend, talked to one hyperactive guy (too much time alone?) with a strange headband attending to a gas station/market/western store, and noticed that everything seemed shut down for the winter. I didn't see much there, besides this sweet group of big ole turkeys by the side of the road:

Here’s a picture of the lake. It’s hard to see it because of the cloud rising from its surface (due to the change in temperature as the sun dipped behind the mountains, I suppose, which also makes pink light reflect from the lake).

So I’ll include a picture I took of the lake last summer, when I first came here to interview, which seems like a lifetime ago now:

Here’s a view of the canyon just south of Bear Lake. The shadow of the mountains on the land make for nice contrast, I think. And look at how far above the clouds we are:

I saw a ragged red fox making his way down to the lake. And I felt like something of a pioneer, just me, animals, and a dramatic landscape.

They talk about the pioneers alot around here. I already know of 4 cities that have "Pioneer" parks. There’s a Daughters of the Utah Pioneers organization. And the 24th of July is an official state holiday -- it commemorates the day the pioneers arrived in Utah. So I’ve been thinking about what the pioneer spirit really is. New Englanders were pioneers when they landed and built the colonies. There’s still a rugged independence there, but I’m not sure it is the same spirit the western pioneers have.

I guess the pioneer spirit involves taking risks, going to new places, opening up, and being tough enough to survive under harsh, uncivilized conditions. It’s not really about independence and individualism, like the New England spirit. It’s about pitching in, relying on each other, each person offering what they can to the community, which is a necessity if you’re going to survive. I think a big part of the pioneer spirit here is living with Nature, not conquering it.

Here's a somewhat unrefined example of living with Nature. They don't dispose of dead skunks in the road in Utah. It’s a practical issue -- who wants that job? You’d ruin a lot of shovels that way! And if you let a dead skunk sit there in the road, it will eventually dry up and stop stinking. I have to say that someone still needs to prove that to me -- there’s one spot on the way to work that has smelled like fresh skunk, ripe skunk, and now overripe skunk, over the course of the last 5 weeks! Are you having an imaginary unpleasant olifactory experience yet?

There’s also more than a little self-sufficiency mixed into the pioneer spirit. The LDS(Mormon) Church teaches that every family should have a year’s supply of food on hand, just in case hard times come along (not Armageddon – I asked about that). So a food storage area is a big part of every household. In the grocery stores, you can buy huge cans of dried mushrooms, cereal, blueberries, etc. Of course, people do a lot of their own canning – even dried beans!

I never dreamed that I’d ever compare myself to Eva Gabor in her role in the
Green Acres show. But I’ve thought of her several times in the last month – when I spent several hours dealing with a cord of firewood that a guy in bib overalls with a long curly beard dumped in a big pile behind my garage; when I bought mousetraps and considered the possibility of having to dispose of a trapped mouse (and decided not to set them just yet); when the "honey wagon" passes my house, dripping, on its way to fertilize the fields to the west; every time I wonder if the overhead flapping I sense sometimes when I open my front door at night is a bird or a bat. Where is that Eddie Albert when you need him?

I was talking to a group of women after the community choir practice last Sunday night about how to keep warm, about the bread they all make every week, and about canning food, and they said “We’ll make a pioneer out of you yet!” So they must think I have potential. Maybe it's because I left my diamonds at home. Dunno, though. I might have to buy a fur or two before Winter’s over.

Part 6 - Wild Life

2008-11-23T20:57:00.062-07:00

Utah Adventure Part 6 - Wild Life

I was sitting in my living room one night last week, minding my own business, when I realized that there was some back-and-forth hooting going on outside. I wondered if it was the sound of dogs barking in the distance. Coyotes? I shut off my noise-maker of a TV, and then realized that it was the voices of owls overhead. There were 2 distinct calls or voices -- one lower than the other. I wasn't sure if they were on my roof or in the big cottonwood tree out front. So I turned off all the lights and went to the upstairs windows to see if I could spot them. No luck. I listened for a while (it was a lively converation), then went outside to see if I could find them, and scared them into silence.

I went straight to my computer to see if I could figure out what type of owls they were. I found out that Utah has Burrowing Owls that migrate in November, and also a variety called the Mexican Spotted Owl. And I listened to the voices of owls around the world and was amazed at the variety of sounds owls make, and the diversity of the species ... from Madagascar to Australia to Brazil to northern Utah ... screeching, hooting, squeaking, whistling, cooing. Fun! But how does a person get to see them, since they're active at night?!

I took a trip to the Bear River Migrating Bird Refuge in Brigham City (about 25 miles South of Logan) on Saturday. The interpretive center was small and specific to water birds. But a volunteer in the gift shop told me that my owls might have been "short-eared" owls (as opposed to "great horned" I suppose). It was a modern little museum building made of local stacked stone, with one park ranger who was on the phone with her babysitter, but motioned for me to sign up for their emailings.

The Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge is managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The Bear River runs through the middle of the refuge, and eventually runs into the Salt Lake just south of there. They say that the Refuge, with its fresh water ponds and canals, is one of the most important resting areas for migrating waterfowl in North America. In spring and summer, it is a nesting place for birds like western grebes, American avocet, Wilson's phalarope, black-necked stilt, snowy egret, and white-faced ibis. Most of it is closed to the public -- it really IS for protecting wildlife, not just a place for us to go see the birds.

From the museum/interpretive center, I drove about 10 miles to get to the beginning of a 12-mile loop road through the Refuge. There were only a handful of cars on that road -- I saw only 3 or 4 in 12 miles. I saw mostly water and mountains reflected in the water, and sky ... and a few duck hunters dressed in camouflage pulling their flat-bottomed boats (one was named "Fowl Play") out of the river. Some of the road was paved, some was gravel, and some was dirt. My van now looks like an off-road vehicle, covered in dust and splattered.

There weren't any bears in the river. And there weren't many birds flying or swimming close by, where I could really see them, either. I suppose most of them have migrated by this time of year.

But the volunteer at the interpretive center had said "I have 14,000 migrating swans in areas A and D. But you probably can't get to them." So I was on the lookout. I did see them from a distance of about a mile, through my binoculars (Ohio binoculars, under-powered for this place where you can see so far). The thousands of swans looked like a plump undulating ribbon of white on the shore of a pond that was far off the road. The path that went in that direction (for hikers or for maintenance, I imagine) was gated too.

If the duck hunters can put their boats in the water, I guess this Ohio "migrating bird" can bring her canoe back in the Spring and have a whole day of being amazed by the light and the reflections of the mountains and sky in the water. I'll look forward to that! Here's a glimpse:

I wonder if a bird refuge isn't something of an Indian reservation for birds. Has the White man taken the good land and given land that they can't easily use to the birds? Maybe so. But I guess that's better than just plundering through and ignoring the needs of all the other creatures.

If anyone is still wondering if I was just storytelling about the seagulls in Utah, here's proof. I spotted these 2 at Bear River:

With the Thanksgiving holiday in sight, I'd just like to say that I'm thankful for lots of things, including of you all who care enough about me to read this. Since I'm a stranger in a strange land, this year, I'm really glad to have nice neighbors:
- like the ones who used their riding mower to mulch my leaves last week
- like the owls who were calling to each other over my head
- like the people (starting with Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir, I suppose) who set aside places for birds, other animals, and plants so that we can see and love them and rest for a little while in the sacred wild places.

What nice parts of life are YOU thinking about this Thanksgiving?

Good night (from the Bear River Migrating Bird Refuge):

Part 5 - Looking for Tony

2008-11-23T19:34:00.022-07:00

Utah Adventure Part 5 - Looking for Tony

I'm sitting here on a Sunday night, eating pumpkin soup and avocado. The soup is great, if I do say so myself -- fresh pumpkin carved from my outdoor decorative pumpkin, a little bit of italian sausage, onion, garlic, curry, nutmeg. A touch of coconut milk or cream and rosemary would be good too, if I had it. I'm not sure how to explain the avocado. I've been on an avocado binge since I came out West. They're cheaper and fresher here, like the salmon. They must be California avocados.

Last weekend, the leaves were down from the trees so that I could see the snow on the mountain range as I was sitting at my table, looking out toward the east. So, rather than waiting for snow to find me in the valley, with its 50 degree temperatures last week, I thought I'd go try to find it. I took off for a place about 20 miles into Logan Canyon called Tony Grove. I had heard several people talk about it. I thought I might find snow and maybe even an Italian guy there.

I will include pictures. As always, they don't do justice to the beauty. But they'll give you an idea. Here's a view of the drive up, which was full of aspen trees and tall evergreens. To give you a sense of the scale, the twiggy trees near the bottom of the frame are full grown aspens.

The road to Tony Grove is a groomed snowmobile trail, maintained by the U.S. Forest Service, in Winter. There were lots of signs warning "Know Before You Go" and such. I suppose snowmobilers are a reckless lot, and student snowmobilers from USU even more so. That's the idea, isn't it? If you fall off, you land in poof of powdery stuff. But it looked kinda dangerous to me, with drop offs, and being out pretty far in the wilderness.

I saw 2 adult dear with a baby crossing the road on the way up. My car was scraping bottom (about a foot of snow) by the time I got to the top. There was a beautiful little glacial lake there at the end of the road, one carload of Asian tourists, and a young couple with a 3-year old on skis getting his first lesson.

I wondered why the place wasn't named Tony's Gove, rather than Tony Grove. There was a sign at the top that explained. Apparently "tony" is slang for socialites or jetsetters. A big banking family in Logan used camp there for 6 weeks at a time, back in the 1950's. They must had fun since they stayed way out there for 6 weeks. I suppose it's still something of a tony grove, with all the snowmobiling (jet-skiing rather than jet-setting).

I'll have to find someone to go Winter recereating with. Last week I went to a dinner at a Logan Indian Oven restaurant, put together by a group called the Logan Newcomers. There were lots of different types of people there, all ready for socializing, I think. There's a Winter resort fairly close called Beaver Mountain. So if I can find some "tony" cohorts, we could take a trip to that place, which is just beyond Tony Grove, and maybe a little tamer.

I didn't find the Italian guy named Tony up there. But, as usual, I got to see some beautiful country. And I traveled from Fall to Winter with a 7-mile drive that "took me higher," from the normal altitude of 4775 feet to 8100 feet in just a few minutes.

Part 4 - Paradise

2008-11-13T20:04:00.034-07:00

Utah Adventure Part 4

Everybody here in northern Utah is sort of holding their breath, waiting for the cold and snow to hit. I heard that Snowbird, which is one of the big ski resorts, is open already, and everyone's happy about that. The ski resorts are a big part of the economy here.

I'm still trying to get things squared away at home. And I'm diving a little deeper into work, which is good. Last Friday, they had a "demonstration day", which was sort of like a grown up science fair. That was interesting. I learned about people's work on lightweight antennas and camera lenses, metals that can tolerate extreme temperatures, special computer hardware for jpg 2000 compressed images, and some other stuff .

On the home front, last Saturday I cut down a medium-sized dead tree on my lot so that I could use it for firewood, with help from Casey, his chain saw, and his wife. Casey is a local guy (lives around the corner) who works construction, drinks beer, picks up odd jobs, and tells stories about getting buried alive in a construction-induced mudslide and surviving with lots of broken ribs and a big hole in his memory. Now I have to work on splitting the wood. We'll see if my hands and wrists and arms can stand up to that. If not, I'll have to call Casey and his wife back.

Since I was outside most of the day, my animal neighbors came to check me out. Here's a picture of the steer next door, lookin at me lookin at him:

I thought he might be a bull because of the horns. But Casey checked him out and assured me that he had lost his manhood and is harmless. So I went over and patted his head. I'm not sure either one of us really liked that! If you look in the background, you can see the neck of his friend the llama, who is looking away from the camera. He doesn't seem to want to have too much to do with people. I wonder what kind of treat he might like. It's a good idea to make friends with your neighbors.

Here's a closer view of the disinterested llama, who is much better looking than the steer.

Casey and his wife stopped by on Sunday, ran off fairly quickly to go watch NASCAR, and urged me to "Enjoy" while I still could (before the cold weather hits) by taking a drive down to a little town called Paradise, about 45 minutes south and east of here. They go somewhere near there to camp for a "Mountain Man" festival every year. Apparently, people dress up in old leathers and hats and act like trappers and cook on campfires and shoot guns for a couple of days. I asked if there are any single mountain men. They said, "You betcha," which is a favorite phrase around here. And so they have promised to take me with them next Spring.

I remembered that the desk clerk at the hotel where I stayed the first time I was in Logan mentioned that I should go to Paradise. So I went, even though it was a dreary day. So I found Paradise easily enough. But I didn't see anything very notable. I guess I found Paradise, but maybe not paradise.

It feels like ski country there, with lots of rounded mountains stacked together, snow-covered. And it is getting pretty close to the Powder Ridge resort. I did see some wonderful country and a few historical markers about trappers and early settlers. But I think I was the only person out there. It was Sunday in Utah, after all. So in just in case you've ever wondered what Paradise looks like, here it is:

If you're wondering what's on the other side of Paradise, I can tell you -- horses.

These great-looking young horses were looking at me in a little place called Avon on the other side of Paradise.

Speaking of paradise, the LDS (Mormon) missionaries have been visiting me. They are a couple of 20 year-old boys who always bring someone older, established, and from this town with them. They have to have 3 since I'm a single woman. And that's good because it gives me a chance to meet some neighbors.

Their view of a place called paradise is that it's a holding area where people who have died but haven't had the chance to hear/accept the gospel (like people from remote areas of the world, little children, etc) go until the spirit of a believer has the chance to get over there and tell them the story. Come to think of it, their view of paradise fits with what I experienced in Paradise, Utah -- it WAS kinda dead over there. :) Well, it's nice that the innocent aren't automatically condemned.

So I asked the missionaries what heaven is like, if it's not paradise. They believe there are several levels of glory-- true believers get to go be with God in the "celestial kingdom," people who haven't accepted the Gospel but who have lived honorable lives get to go to the "terrestial kingdom" which is a pretty good place, and unrepentent sinners go to the "telestial kingdom" (which they said is sort of like earth ... or maybe it actually IS earth).

Coming back to earth now ... I've been investigating the local ranch stores, which are full of saddles and gloves and hats, long underwear, bags of rag socks, stacks of blue jeans, "country girl" barbies, radio flyers, miniature John Deere tractors, hundreds of styles of boots, beef jerky and sunflower seeds. One of these stores had stuffed game with antlers on the wall and country music playing. Here is a sign I saw on a dressing room door there:

Is there a little man sitting in there with a stack of hats?

So the burning question is, "Why did several people tell me to go to Paradise? What was I supposed to see there?" Did I just miss the hiking trail and the Osmonds' vacation home cuz I was too busy looking up at the mountains? Or do people go there just so they can say they've been the Paradise and back?

Love to you all. I'm gonna go start a fire.

Part 1, East Meets West

2008-11-05T00:01:00.011-07:00

Hi Everyone,

Liz and I successfully made the trip to Utah from Ohio. My western adventure has begun...

A crazy snow storm during the drive in plastered snow to the pines on the Wyoming and Utah mountains.

Sunrises are pink on the east-facing mountain tops.

The city lights across the valley, 15 miles or so, twinkle at night with the stars.

The cats escaped out a window yesterday (it has warmed up now), scared themselves silly, and dashed back in when I opened the door.

Box elder bugs (like thin lightening bugs without the lights) and wasps are trying to get in for the winter, and succeeding.

The moving men delivered boxes, cursed the spiral staircase and the stray cat who kept getting in.

My sister Betsy came in to help me unpack the other night. So I have nice company and a kitchen again now.

Farmers seem to be spreading manure, if my nose is working.

Met my neighbors from Peru who have 3 teenagers, a bull, a llama, 2 lambs, a shi-tzu, and a cat to handle the mouse population.

A big ole forlorn-looking white moon rose over the mounded fields last night.

Love to all--
Sue

Part 2, The Mouse House

2008-11-04T23:50:00.021-07:00

I started my new job this week. It's pretty quiet in the office -- maybe it's because I have my own office with a real door (and two windows that look out on the mountains!). Also, I'm on the first floor of the building, while most of my cohorts are on the 2nd floor or in an adjacent building.

Here's a cell phone photo of my office building, with its mountainous backdrop:

Here's the view from my office window which looks in the opposite direction (notice the light low clouds):

I've been going through online training modules, and going to bed early so I can stay awake for that during the day. There are lots of students employed here (100 out of 500). But they, of course, aren't too interested in me ... except for the security guys who wanted to know if I could help them with their English papers.

The movers delivered my furniture last Thursday, and my sister Betsy visited for a long weekend to help me unpack. That was great. There's still lots to do -- I can't seem to find space for much of anything. I guess this little downsizing was bigger than I thought, due to a big difference in basement, cabinet, and closet space.

Betsy and I drove out to the salt flats/mud flats west of the Salt Lake. It's pretty desolate out there. I'm not sure how much life that terrain/climate can support. We just saw a few dried-out guys with ATVs and dirt bikes. One guy told us that people come and camp out on the flats in the summer and watch for UFOs. Well, if you could see UFOs anywhere in this country, I'm sure it would be there. On the way back home we saw 8 mule deer scrounging in the greener pastures of Newton, in the field across from my house. Pretty little things. Big ears.

Everyone here talks about how cold it is in the Winter, which is due to arrive right after Halloween. So I cooked a stew last night, thinking it would be good to have it on hand. I was standing at the stove, putting the stew into smaller containers, and a mouse ran across the back of the stove, the kitchen counter, and then down into a small space between the end of the counter and a rock wall. "Welcome to the farm!" Of course my cats weren't at all interested. They're city cats after all, and accustomed to eating, sleeping, and destroying furniture whenever possible. I think they will need some training for their new job in Utah!

The clouds sit in the hollows of this high valley in the strangest way in the mornings -- patches of fog sit in a different spot each day. At first I thought the fog was hanging over a river or little pond, like it would in Ohio. But this is Utah, and the weather patterns in the mountains are mysterious. I looked at a local map and saw that there are hot springs sprinkled throughout the part of the valley I drive through in the morning. The drive into work is easy, even if it is 10 or 15 miles.

So now I'm also connected to the Internet at home (it was a long week without it). I've cancelled my Dayton phone. So my old email address will disappear soon.

Here's a picture of me arriving at the Mouse House in Utah on Oct 11th, with snow on the roof and Liz, the fields, and mountains reflected in the window:

I guess it's not an exciting episode this time. I'll try to find some cowboys or Indians for the next installment.

Love to you all,
Sue

Part 3, Head in the Clouds

2008-11-04T23:30:00.008-07:00

It's snowing in the mountains today. I can see that it starts about 300-500 feet up. They say there will be 7 inches of snow in the mountains by nightfall. But in the valley, they are predicting just half an inch. So I thought I'd better get my Fall pictures published before they get covered over with snow impressions.

The weekend before last, I should have stayed home to unpack and fix up. But it was a beautiful weekend, so I went out exploring the Logan Canyon. I had my cell phone with me and took some pictures. The Logan Canyon is part of the Cache-Wasatch National Park, which covers a lot of ground -- maybe 1/2 of the upper and eastern part of the state - up to Wyoming and Idaho. The Wasatch mountains are the western edge of the Rockies. And the Logan canyon begins just around the corner from where I work in Logan. I'll include some pictures. Pictures don't do justice, though, because they can't capture the vastness, distance, and line of sight. I'd need a 360 degree camera for that. Or maybe you'll just have to come and visit me to see for yourself.

It was very quiet outside at home in Newton on Sunday morning with the Mormons - known as "LDS" around here - in church from 9-noon or so. It was just me and the pheasants out there. So I decided to venture out and try to get closer to the body of water that I can see from my house. It is sort of a marshland with branched-out ponds and a slow river that winds its way through the valley. A small reservoir has been made by damming the river, called Bear Creek. I can launch my canoe into it about 1/4 mile from my house. There are lots of ducks, other birds, and cattails in the marsh. And I even saw a group of seagulls. The seagull is the state bird of Utah. Go figure -- in a "dry" state (although I did find the local liquor store). Although I suppose the Salt Lake is a lot like an ocean. I'll also attach a picture or 2 of the valley. There are lots of cattle and horses in this valley, too, as you'll see.

The "official" story about the seagulls says that they're here because there was a plague of crickets that threatened the crops one year, way back when. So God sent seagulls from California. These bulimic gulls ate the crickets and then threw them up in the ditches, and then went and ate some more, which save the crops that year. And they liked this place so much that they just never left.

Last Saturday, the valley fields were full of hunters. Quail and pheasant hunting season started that day. And I heard guns going off on and off all day. And some pretty pheasants were hiding in the back corner of my yard. I guess they could tell I was gunless.

The neighbors have been stopping by with caramel corn, bread, advice about where to find the best views, questions about the big boat that's in dry dock in my back yard (it's a large, semi-famous racing yacht called Bay Bea, that belongs to the previous owner), and information about the LDS (latter day saints) church. I went to the Episcopal Church on Sunday, which was very small, and reminded me of the solid simple beauty of the churches/mosques/temples in Spain. The choir was as big as the congregation. They were shaking incense ahead of the procession-- I don't know if I've ever seen that in the Episcopal church before.

After church, I stopped in a college-oriented cafe. They had good coffee and a keyboard-guitar duo playing jazz. So that was a welcome reminder of civilization as I know it. It was raining. I didn't realize how high up we are until I noticed that I was sort of looking down on the clouds, which sit in the valleys between the mountains. the picture at the top of this post is a view of the valley from the top of chocolate mountain, which is just west of Newton.

I don't have much information to offer about my work yet ... and if I did, I couldn't tell you anyway ;). I suppose the security clearance issue around here will teach me to keep my mouth shut (do I hear applause coming from the ghosts of all of my Jr. high school teachers?). Funny, they didn't ask me about those particular skills during the interview process.

Seriously, it is relaxed, quiet, and comfortable for me at work right now. A new director started on the same day I did. He calls this organization a "national treasure." I'm sure it is. Most of our work is with sensors (cameras, lenses, mirrors, etc) which go in satellites, airplanes, and spacecraft and the storage and transmittal of images. There is a drawing of a cowboy (looks like a young John Wayne) in the conference room with some a quote under it that says: "There's a helluvalot they didn't tell me when I signed onto this outfit." There are lots of outer space pictures on the walls -- a Hubble space telescope photo of star cloud in the Eagle Nebula, a space photo of the lights on earth, a photo of "Daybreak over the Rockies" taken from space. There are also displays of interesting equipment, which is manufactured and tested here. You can't tell the managers from the phDs from the workers here. Everyone just works together in an honest way. About 100 students work here part time. So I'm uniquely "experienced." Some people might call it "elderly," which seems as strange to me as seagulls in northern Utah.

See you later (I hope) ... as soon as I get my head out of the clouds.

Sue