Sprouters

Many of the trees planted around semi-arid southern Utah over the past 150 years are drought tolerant and fast growing—not to mention downright aquisitive. They are typically prolific seeders and sprouters and can quickly colonize an area. The worst of these is probably the inaptly named Chinese Tree of Heaven (Alanthis altisima), an ugly and agressive invader with a foul smell. (I mean, if they've got these things in heaven, I'd rather go to the other place.) Others include various locusts, elms, and poplars. A native tree with similar characteristics is the Box Elder (Acer Negundo). It is a messy, shapeless little tree with poor form and a propensity for rotted heartwood and broken branches. It is also the source of my free firewood for next year (see my February 19 entry). So, I have a bunch of it cut up and laying in the yard. Look what it is doing. This is a very poor picture of a chunk of Box Elder sending up sprouts. This is not rooted; it is not buried; it is not cultivated. It is a piece of firewood that is sprouting. Valerie said that we'd better be careful or our entire wood pile will root itself and turn into a Box Elder tree.

Indoor Garden

We are trying to get the garden fenced and tilled. It would be nice to have some starts in the ground. On the other hand, if we'd jumped the gun, everything would be frozen by now. Utah is in the grip of a cold snap. Yesterday, numerous sites broke eighty year old records. It is colder here than it has been since the 1920s. I guess we'd better keep the seedlings in the window for now.

Electric Bills

I haven't figured out a way to stop buying gasoline for the vehicles, but we have cut our natural gas bill to near zero. The only other energy that we purchase each month is electricity. Unfortunately, this house is an electricity hog. Over the past three months we have averaged $103/month on electricity. That is a hard number to swallow for a nineteenth century homesteader. In Escalante we would spend about half of that on a very bad month. Of course, this house is all electric—electric hot water heater, electric range, electric dryer. Plus, I've moved my office into the house now, so we are running two computers, two monitors, and two printers each day. But, still, there has got to be a way to cut our consumption. (And I'm not trying to be righteous here; I'm just cheap.) Voila. The bath water is heating on the woodstove. It makes me feel so little-house-on-the-prairie.

Real Storms

I had to go to Salt Lake last week for a meeting. While I was there, I went over to George's to pick up some storm windows (http://www.georgessalvage.com/). Melanie was helping me and we had to go all the way to the back of the property and upstairs to find them. It was quite a bit of work to get them out to the car. But, when I tried to put them in, they wouldn't fit. I should have driven the truck. Eventually Melanie helped me feng shui them. We got them into the front seat while leaving me just enough space to drive. Now they are home and ready to be prepped for installation.