Santa Clara River, Utah

It is snowing today, but yesterday was supposed to be warm and sunny. I'd never been down through the southwestern corner of Utah from Pine Valley to Beaver Dam Wash on old Highway 91. It looked like a good day to try it. I left pretty early and drove to Pinto, but the road from there to Pine Valley was washed out. I had to turn around. The road from Pinto to Mountain Meadow was washed out, too, but the Chev was up to the task. When I got to Central, I drove to Pine Valley on the pavement. On the way back, I tried to turn off the highway at Veyo to follow the Santa Clara River to Gunlock and beyond. Unfortunately, the road was closed. OK. So, I took the highway all the way to Ivins and tried to go up through the reservation at Shivwits. The road was closed there, too. At this point, I began to learn a couple of things:

First, I stopped along the Santa Clara River in the vicinity of Ivins and realized that it had recently experienced a 15 foot flood. I mean, like in the past few days. There were full-sized cottonwood trees uprooted and resting on new sandbars about 10 feet above the current water level. With all the roads from Pinto washed out . . . and now this . . . I began to put two and two together. We'd had some rain while we were in Bluff, but it seems as though this corner of the state had experienced a steady pounding. Every wash from Newcastle to Mesquite had flooded and removed any road in its path. The road in the Santa Clara canyon wasn't just "closed," it was washed out.

Second, as I wandered through the area I discovered that I was that I was no longer in rural southern Utah, but was instead on the fringes of the St. George urban sprawl. It was awful. From Central to Veyo to Ivins to Santa Clara; from La Verkin to Hurricane to Washington; from Leeds to the Arizona border. What a mess. Pink stucco mcmansions, fast food, and furniture. And the driving. Is that what suburbanites do all day? They drive like maniacs from the light in front of Carl's Junior, to the light in front of the Maverick? Two speeds, "on" and "off," get there as fast as you can so you can slam on your brakes? OK. I'm sure it is like that everywhere, but I'm just sheltered.

At one point in all that silliness, a white sporty thing zoomed up beside me and honked. I looked over and expected someone to curse at me because I was exceeding the speed limit by only 15 mph rather than 45. Instead, a beautiful woman was waving at me. I thought maybe I'd left my turn signal on or something so I checked all my lights. I looked back. She was still there, but now she was smiling and trying to say something. Oh. Well. Maybe she wants to pick me up. She looks a bit chic, but sometimes these wealthy ladies like someone with three days growth and a mud spattered Chevy. I rolled down the window and said, "Hey, what's going on?" The woman's face fell and the smile disappeared. "Oh," she said, "I thought you were someone else." She floored her Acura and vanished around the next couple of curves. Nice to know that I've still got the ability to charm a beautiful stranger.

Montezuma Canyon, Utah

Before we left Parowan, the National Weather Service had predicted sun for Thursday. It was our one chance. Unfortunately, the prediction was a day late; or a day early, depending on your point of view. For us, the view on Thursday was of clouds, and wind, and rain, and . . . did I mention mud? I had hoped to go back to Comb Wash and Road Canyon since San Juan County does a pretty good job with those roads. Actually, only a rookie would leave the pavement after a week of rain, but, as I said, it was our one chance. About four miles up, we hit a very snotty patch, lost traction even with FWD, and slid sideways with the driver's rear tire dropping into a wash. Fortunately it was a shallow wash; plenty of side washes are large enough to swallow a pick-up, but this wasn't one of them. It may have been a rookie move, but I wasn't going to do it twice: We turned around and went back to the highway.

So, then, we tried Montezuma Canyon. The gas companies were working over there, surely the roads would be better? Well, they were better, and they were worse. They were better because they were built wide for the drilling rigs and putting it right down the middle meant that you weren't going to slide off unless you slid for 100 feet. They were worse, because all of that road surface had sucked up enough rain to float Noah, and the mud was deep. Deep. There were some places . . . flat places . . . where FWD and an open throttle were required simply to inch forward . . . with wheels churning and mud flying. Needless to say, we didn't go far. I think we got to Max Dalton's well, but I could be wrong about that. In any case, we spent an hour or two walking around the side canyons looking at glyphs and a few small ruins, including the one above. By then it was late and we spent the rest of the day dredging our way back to asphalt.

The Moki Dugway, Utah

We'd spent the whole day looking for light. We'd gone from the Goosenecks, to Johns Canyon, to Muley Point, but the entire day had been spent, as Valerie put it, "with the lights out." On our way down the Moki Dugway, one shaft of light slipped under the clouds and, very briefly, directed a spotlight into the Valley of the Gods. We pulled quickly off the road and stepped out to try to make something of it with two or three cameras . . . none of which had the lens to shoot such a scene. Suddenly, out of nowhere, zoomed a rented sport-ute, pulling up directly beside Valerie. Out jumped a Japanese guy. He walked up to her, handed her a camera that she said was worth more than our truck (it also had the lens we needed), and asked her in broken English to take a picture of him against the lighted VOG. She complied, and then handed the camera back to him. He said, "Goodbye," returned to the sport-ute, and zoomed away. A drive-by shooting if ever there was one.

San Juan Hill, Utah

At Rural Ways, luxurious living is not a way of life, and we feel prepared to work for food, shelter, and a fire in the wood stove. That being said, our lifestyle is one of effortless ease when compared to the Mormon pioneers. On Monday, we went down to the confluence of Comb Ridge and the San Juan River, near Bluff. It was there, about 120 or 130 years ago that the Hole-in-the-Rock pioneers, on their way from Escalante to the area around Bluff, created a wagon road from the river to the top of Comb Ridge. This was AFTER they had spent the entire winter building a road from Escalante that crossed the Colorado at the Hole in the Rock. The dugway to the top of Comb Ridge, what they called San Juan Hill, was so steep that some of the livestock died in harness while trying to climb it. As the three of us hiked up the nearly sheer wagon road, I said to Valerie that what the Hole-in-the-Rockers did would never be done today. It was so arduous that no one would consent to it anymore. I mean, the federal government just extended unemployment benefits for another couple of years. Why not take it easy today on the sofa and, in time, when the economy picks up, we can look for a job answering phones?

Monument Valley, Arizona

Sunday was overcast in Bluff, so we worked our way along the river to Mexican Hat. It was no better there, but there were some ragged clouds to the south, so we went down to Monument Valley. The wind was powerful and the light was intermittent, but our glimpses of the landscape confirmed its beauty. It is a truly spectacular area. Unfortunately, it is also persistently popular with the yuppies and the euros. Like Arches or Zion, the only time to risk a visit is during December. And, even then, it is bad enough. Rural Ways probably doesn't need to go back.

Rural Ways Exclusive

Tomorrow, Rural Ways leaves for Bluff, Utah. We will be bunking next to the San Juan and exploring some of its canyons for several days. It seems likely that the environment will provide inspiration for a few new paintings. On the topic of new paintings, however, Rural Ways is your first choice for exclusive not-available-to-the-public sneak previews. The unfinished work above depicts the Green River in Lodore Canyon. With its vibrant under-painting, warm foreground, and luminous shadows, this little gem glows as it sits on the easel. When complete, it will be ready for a 2011 debute, perhaps in St. George, Utah. Stand by for further updates.

Black Hills National Forest, South Dakota

Rural Ways spent four or five weeks working in South Dakota during 2010. Here is an excerpt from one of those days:

I've been looking at forest stands in the Black Hills for nine straight days. I'm going to take tomorrow off. Right now it is 50F and sunny. Nice weather for walking in the woods. The woods consist of ponderosa pine, white spruce, quaking aspen, and paper birch. I call them pipo, pigl, potr, and bepa. Commonly, the most common understory shrub is the common juniper. There is a pretty good road system, but the drainage is poor and the native surface holds water. After some rain last weekend, things have been a bit snotty.

Jack Rabbit Mountain, Utah

I was wandering around in the northwestern corner of the Parowan Valley yesterday when I found this little arch. It is far from magnificent, and I'm not the first person to discover it, but I was the only visitor the area has had since at least the middle of November. This is one of the things I like about Utah: There is always something interesting out there, and, if you stay away from the National Parks, you can spend a quiet afternoon by yourself looking for it.

White Pine Ridge, Montana

Rural Ways spent four or five weeks working in Montana during 2010. Here is an excerpt from one of those days:

After a week working in the Big Hole Valley, September 2nd finds me in the Lima-Tendoys. It is not the Big Hole, but it is spectacular nonetheless. The country feels more like the Salmon-Challis, more like central Idaho, with the wrinkled hills of yellow grass and the Douglas fir covered ridges. Nice country, though. It is not far from Dillon or Idaho Falls, but it feels disserted this morning. I've got back lighted views of 11,000 foot Garfield Mountain, along with the cloud-shrouded Lima Peaks. Just another day at the office.

Christmas Tree Cutting

Last year at this time we went Christmas tree hunting and came home with a fir. On my subsequent blog post, I stated that I preferred the beautiful fir over the lowly pinyon. I did, however, have some difficulty settling on the species, and was almost universally lambasted for my ignorance. (Read this to relive my shame.) To avoid a repeat display of taxonomic anguish this season, we went back to, yep, the lowly pinyon. It has two needles, and can be nothing other than a Pinus edulis. See the attached picture to view it in its native environment just before cutting.

Tree identification resolved, then, one might expect that our day proceeded without incident. Well, one would be wrong. (Warning to Forest Service Line Officers: Do Not Read the Rest of This Post.) You see, we bought a Christmas Tree permit from the Dixie National Forest only to find, after it was somewhat too late, that the permit was only good where you bought it. If you bought it in Escalante, which we did, you could use it on the Escalante Ranger District, but not on the Cedar City Ranger District, which is where we live. Now, here at Rural Ways, we are law abiding folk, but let's just say that we abide more by the spirit of the law than the letter. And, let us say further, that I suspect that we were not precisely on the Escalante Ranger District when we absconded with this pinyon tree. Finally, let me also say that a quick, quiet getaway is somewhat difficult when one is thrashing through the oak brush in possession of an eight foot pine tree. Fortunately, we got the thing home and disguised it with a bunch of lights and red balls and stuff. If we can keep the feds off our trail for about the next two weeks, we should be ready to destroy the evidence.

Third Time's the Charm

For each of the last three Fridays, I have gone up on the Markagunt to cut firewood. Today was the first trip where I did not have to spend my time digging someone else's vehicle out of the snow. We had several deep snowfalls in southern Utah around Thanksgiving and the forest roads are, of course, unplowed. On the first trip, my friend Martin and I spent probably ninety minutes helping a guy keep his Dodge from slipping off the road and down through the woods. On my second trip, I dug out a guy from Tuscon driving a Volvo. He was talkative and told me, "Dude, I'd have been OK. I've got my survival gear." I thought to myself, "Dude, if you carried a shovel, you wouldn't need survival gear." (My brother-in-law subsequently commented that our conversation reminded him of that famous line from THE GOOD, THE BAD, and THE UGLY: You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend . . . those with shovels, and those who deploy survival gear.) In any case, the only person I had to help today was myself. Just the way I like it.

Varmint Update

Well, it was skunks. We had sort of settled on raccoons, but my good friend Vern told me it was skunks. (And, Vern ought to know, being that he is Parowan's City Forester and resident Utah Master Gardener.) Vern's neighbor has chickens, and the chickens attract skunks, and his neighbor has killed six of them this summer . . . skunks, not chickens.

Vern said that the skunks on his side of town ate all his sweet corn. I asked him how he stopped it. He told me that he quit planting sweet corn.

Vern also told me that his neighbor catches the skunks in a live trap, throws a blanket over the trap, and runs a hose under the blanket: the other end of the hose attaches to the tail-pipe of the neighbor's idling pick-up truck. In Vern's opinion, that activity is somewhat inhumane, but Rural Ways is currently in the grip of shredded-sweet-corn-rage, so it doesn't sound like such a bad idea.

Cooling Costs Versus Heating Costs

When the weather is hot, we often start to see news stories about how the demand for air conditioning is straining the electrical grid—during the hottest part of the day rolling brown-outs are threatened in some areas because demand for electricity exceeds capacity. These stories don’t occur during the winter, so the demand for heat must not be quite as taxing on regional and national power supplies. Indeed, my brother-in-law told me the other day that his July electric bill was the highest one he had ever paid due to his round the clock need for AC. That scared Rural Ways because our July electric bill had not yet arrived, and the thought that it could be worse than what we paid for heat was alarming. We quickly attached the Kill-A-Watt to one of our two window AC units to see how bad it was going to be.

The preliminary results are in, and they are not as bad as we feared. The Kill-A-Watt says that the air conditioning unit in the office is costing approximately $15 per month. It is, of course, not being run round the clock since the nights in Parowan are almost always cool enough to leave it off. In any case, it must mean that the unit in the upstairs bedroom—which has not yet been tested—is working for about $5 per month. How do we know? Because we got our July electric bill and it was only $20 higher than the one we paid in June, when we were not using any AC. The best part of it is that neither bill was anywhere close to our winter high. For Rural Ways, the cost of electricity for heat in the winter far out strips what we pay for cooling in the summer. In fact, the average cost of electricity for our six most summery months over the past year was only a little more than half (56%) of the average cost of electricity for our six most wintery months.

More Garden Pests

Rural Ways is thankful for all the cheap food provided by Big Agriculture. If we had to feed ourselves, there would be some lean years. This season, in fact, has not been a good one in the garden, and the orchard is almost completely bare. One bright spot, however, was the sweet corn. It was looking like we were going to a have a decent harvest. Decent, that is, until the raccoons or skunks found the corn. For the last two nights, the little marauders have been shredding a dozen ears per night. They destroy the plants, shuck the ears, and take a few bites before moving on to the next one.

What are we going to do? Shooting, trapping, poisoning, fencing, and dynamiting have each been discussed. Raccoons are vicious, rabies-infested pests in the best of cases, and eliminating them would be desirable, but they are also probably smarter than anyone at Rural Ways and more than likely to win that war. Skunks aren't quite as criminal, but who wants to risk causing them any undue alarm? "Shoo, nice skunk, shoo."

It is probably a lost cause, but I did read one internet post that suggested wrapping the developing ears in strapping tape. I'm not convinced that tape will thwart the little buggers, but it is probably the only thing we can try right now. As for next year, traps, electrified fences, guard towers, and moats are in the engineering phase.

The Science Behind Deer Jumping

Building fencing to discourage deer from feeding in the garden has been a frequent topic at Rural Ways. (See this post, for example.) We have often maintained that our efforts serve merely as a mild deterrance since we lack the resources to build a sufficiently tall barrier. This inability to foil the jumping capacity of the average deer has recently gained scientific credibility. Deer jumping has, in short, been peer reviewed.

In the latest issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management, Kurt Vercauteren and several co-authors have published a piece on white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) jumping in Wisconsin. While the deer problem at Rural Ways involves mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), we are willing to extrapolate from the data. What Vercauteren found was that ALL deer will jump a five foot fence; that 86% of deer will jump a six foot fence; that 15% of deer will jump a seven foot fence; and that NO deer will jump an eight foot fence.

At Rural Ways, our fence currently stands at five and a half feet, including 18 inches of baling wire at the top. According to the data, we are probably impeding somewhere between zero and ten percent of the local deer. (My, admittedly unscientific, observations tend to place the actual impedance rate closer to the former number than the latter.) While deer proofing is not really the goal at Rural Ways, it looks like we are going to have to shoot for at least seven feet of fencing in order to have even a chance of success against deer jumping.

Four Pines

Rural Ways was atop Noah's Ark this week, where it found a curious collection of pines. In a single location there were ponderosa (Pinus ponderosa), pinyon (P. edulis), bristlecone (P. aristata), and limber (P. flexilis) pines. It is not rare to see ponderosa and pinyon intermingled on lower and mid elevation slopes. (It is, in fact, not rare to see ponderosa or pinyon anywhere in Utah.) It is a little rarer to find both limber and bristlecone together along a windy ridgeline, but to find all four in one spot has got to be worth noting. At least to us. Though even we realize that most well adjusted people living normal lives have more interesting things to think about.

Living Off the Land

Rural Ways was hiking in First Left Hand Canyon the other day. Many of the south and west facing slopes were covered with Oregon grape (Mahonia repens). Some of the patches were producing good fruit this year and Valerie mentioned that it would be nice to pick some for jam. Unfortunately, the berries are very small and it would take hours (days?) to find enough ripe fruits for even one batch of jam.

This is the problem with living off the land today. Thanks to the hyper-specialization of the global labor market, as well as the super-efficiency of big agriculture, it is best to work in the office and let someone else produce jam. In one hour of specialized office work, Rural Ways can earn enough to fund a week's worth of calories; in one week of picking berries, Rural Ways can probably produce one hour's worth of calories.

I'm not really complaining. I mean, the level of physical comfort (not to mention luxury) afforded by labor specialization and industrial farming is phenomenal. It has produced wealth (and obesity) for hundreds of millions of people. Rural Ways surely benefits from this. But, on the other hand, it probably hasn't produced much Oregon grape jam, and I'm not sure where to find it at the supermarket.

Can It Last the Season?

At Rural Ways we are often presented with the dilemma of "repair or replace." On the one hand, we are philosophically predisposed to maintaining our equipment over the long term. On the other hand, it can sometimes be more costly to repair something than it is to replace it. As a recent example of the latter, we had the chainsaw in the shop recently because the gas line was cracked and leaking. It cost $60 to repair the gas line. Yikes. At that rate, it would only take four or five repairs to exceed the value of a new saw. It must be some kind of Keynesian plot to stimulate consumer spending or something.

In any case, when a piece of our equipment becomes used and abused to the point that it seems unwise to continue spending on repairs, we start to plan for replacement. Part of that planning is to ask the question in the title above. That is, can we limp the broken one along for another year? Why spend our money now for something that we can live with for another week, another season, another year?

Right now, besides the saw, our lawn mower has reached the replacement point. One problem is that the air filter mounting bolt, which screws directly into the carburetor, has stripped out and no longer holds the air filter in place. I have remounted the filter using baling wire, but it isn't pretty. The motor also burns oil more quickly than it burns gas and stalls out periodically for no apparent reason. Hopefully we can make it last the season.

Three Trillion in Consumer Debt

At the end of June, The Economist ran a special section on debt. The section is entitled Repent at Leisure and is by Philip Coggan. The whole thing is worth reading. In discussing consumer debt, however, Mr. Coggan makes a point that Rural Ways finds troubling. It is asserted that, in contrast to the not too distant past, lenders today are just as much (if not more) responsible for consumer over-borrowing than the consumer himself. Mr. Coggan puts it this way: “Nowadays it is the lender as much as the borrower who is perceived to be at fault for extending credit to those who should never have been granted it.” Foolish, yes, but at fault? I’m not buying it (or borrowing it, either).

Not to launch into a speech about personal responsibility, but c’mon . . . it isn’t the banker that will have his car repossessed; it isn’t the mortgage company that will have her house foreclosed; it isn’t Mr. VISA that will have his cable TV shut-off. The consumer is the one who is a) in the best position to know what he or she can afford; b) going to suffer the consequences of his or her failure to repay; and c) a completely voluntary participant in the whole mess. We’ve been hearing it for a couple of years in the pop media: It is big business, predatory lenders, short sellers, and the rest of the bad people who are causing poor ol’ Mom and Pop to spend more than they can afford. Do Mom and Pop really want to claim that they don’t know what just happened?

Apparently so. Mr. Coggan illustrates his article by telling the story of a young gentleman who got in over his head by many tens of thousands of dollars and needed help from a credit counselor to come up with a plan “before the bailiffs arrived.” What was the man’s reason for the series of decisions that lead to his situation: “’[I]f they are going to give it to me, I must be able to afford it.’” This is nonsensical. “They” are not in a position to know and “they” are not going to suffer if “they” are wrong. I’ll admit that loan officers can be very smooth operators and they can act like your loving savior, but have we all given up our bullpoop meters? And wouldn’t it be better to say, “I got talked into something that was against my better judgment,” than to claim that I don’t have the ability (not to mention the responsibility) to just say, “no?”

(It would be like saying to the local grocer, “I don’t have the capability to select my food, please just give me whatever you think I should eat.” Pretty soon you are sick on spoiled dairy, moldy bread, and rotted vegetables. What? Are you going to say, “I figured that if Albertsons sent it over, it must be good for me?” That is right, you can’t possibly be expected to take responsibility for feeding yourself.)

The Working Poor

Rural Ways recently received a surprise payment from the federal treasury. After calling the IRS to complain, we learned that the payment was our share of the Making Work Pay tax credit from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The credit is so named because only those who are working, and earning below a certain amount, are eligible. The lady with whom I spoke at the IRS almost slipped and called me "the working poor." She caught herself and said something like, "help for people who are working [and struggling] like yourself."

There are two things about this that we find amusing at Rural Ways. First, there seems to be this undercurrent in government and the popular media that those of us who work extra hard, take some risks, and do well out of it (i.e. "the rich") are bad. They are just plain evil, no matter how they came by their rewards. Conversely, those of us who work hard, but earn less, are, by default, more righteous somehow. To be a member of "the working poor," is almost like a badge of righteousness, no matter what our personal choices may have been.

Second, the amount that one can earn, while still qualifying as poor or "low income" seems somehow warped. If we earn less than $150,000 per annum at Rural Ways, we qualify for the tax credit. Since Rural Ways usually earns not even half that much, we are clearly poor. Moreover, we learned recently that our daughter can attend Stanford University for free if we qualify as "low income." What is Stanford's magic number? $60,000. Wow. We're close. If we play it right, we might be able to go to Stanford for free. What a country! Where else can you earn sixty grand, garner media sympathy for being poor, and attend one of the best universities in the world for free?

The bottom line in all this is that American culture has been blinded by wealth. Whether we earn sixty or one sixty, we are obviously "rich." There is no way that you can look at the way people have lived throughout history, and are still living today in many parts of the world, and conclude that Rural Ways is "poor." (Heck, there are many who might even question whether we are "working.") We have a roof over our heads, food on the table, and the freedom to go up on the forest to paddle our canoe. We recognize that these are privileges that many people go without.

Racked

Rural Ways is in Montana for most of June working on the Lolo and "B bar D" National Forests. We are, however, looking for a canoe to paddle during our days off. Valerie thinks she has found one in Rexburg, Idaho. If she buys it, she needs a way to haul it. As a result, the Chev now sports a ladder rack . . . guaranteed to carry 500 pounds. If the canoe weighs much more than one tenth of that, Rural Ways won't be able to float without assistance. On the other hand, the rack is large enough to carry a second boat, so we're set-up to shuttle several paddlers.

The Habits of Rabbits

Ellen and I were walking down the trail from Noah's Ark today when she said, "I was recently reading a book about rabbits. It had a "c" word in it that I didn't know, do you know what that was?" I guessed "coney," but that wasn't it. After a minute, she came up with it: Crepuscular.

(Now, at the end of last week, Ellen finished Kindergarten, so she has some solid learning to draw from, but "crepuscular?" What kind of Kindergarten is this? I mean, when I went to Kindergarten, I learned the difference between triangles and squares, but not much more.)

In any case, not wanting to appear ignorant of Kindergarten vocabulary, I said that I thought it meant that rabbits were the kind of animals that ate their own poop. Unfortunately, I was wrong. The word for that is "coprophagia." While rabbits do engage in coprophagia, they are also crepuscular, which means that they are active at dawn and dusk--at first light and at twilight.

Rural Ways has been having a tremendous problem with the local deer herd eating from our garden and orchard. The deer, from my observations, appear to be crepuscular, too, like rabbits. I just wish the deer ate poop instead of apple blossoms.

Electricity Hogs

Rural Ways is supposed to be in the field in southern Idaho today for a little forestry clinic. Unfortunately, we got snowed out. Since winter is not over yet, let me take this opportunity to post some electricity usage data that I collected recently. I promised my brother-in-law that I would do this so that he could win a debate with my sister.

Rural Ways purchased a "Kill-a-Watt" over the winter in an attempt to find out why our electric bills were the largest in history. The conclusion: heat. It costs more to make heat than to do anything else. It's not the office equipment; it's not the lights; it's not the fridge and freezer. I'm not saying that the electricity for these items is free; I'm just saying that each of them makes a relatively small contribution to our overall electric bill. The big culprit is heat. We have an electric hot water heater, an electric clothes dryer, and an electric oven/range. I was not able to test any of these directly (the Kill-a-Watt is for 110 plugs only), but by testing everything else, I am able to say with confidence that those three things make up the bulk of our electrical usage every month. Our average MINIMUM electric bill is $75 per month. When I add up the fridge, lights, stereo, and office equipment costs, I only reach about $15 per month. As a result, I'm guessing that we have a base cost of $50 to $60 per month simply to run the oven, the dryer, and the hot water heater.

The real story, though, is the cost of using a space heater. In the winter, our electric bill jumps from $75 to $150. Yikes. That hurts. A lot. And, this big price spike is what prompted me to purchase the Kill-a-Watt. I wanted to know what was causing it. Well, now I know. We run two baseboard space heaters periodically over the winter. One of them is for the bathroom downstairs, and runs only during shower/bath times. The other one is for Ellen's room, upstairs, and sometimes runs round the clock during very cold weather. This is the smoking gun. Ellen's space heater alone costs $45 per month to operate. The one in the bathroom contributes an additional $15 per month. Those two baseboard heaters make up 80% of our surplus winter electrical costs. Of course, while I hate paying hefty bills, I also hate making the family shower in a 40 degree bathroom, so I'm not going to stop . . . at least not until we can afford some energy efficiency renovations.

Garden Layout

I more or less promised that there would be no more posts about The Homestead's year-round winter. Instead, there may be some interest in the progress of our garden. We went with 120 square feet this year (30 x 40), which is probably our largest to date. We may add ten feet to the length next year because irrigation hoses are sold in fifty foot lengths. (Right now we have a number of J-shaped irrigation lines.) Anyway, as you can see from this picture . . . snapped on 11 May 2010 . . . we have a nice row of little onions poking up. The fence directly behind the row of onions will support the peas as they grow larger. The peas have sprouted, but they are currently covered by, um, manna from heaven. In the background, there is a row of cone shaped things called "Wall-o-waters." These are protecting our tomato plants from, well, the effects of global warming. As this picture demonstrates, gardening can be year round family fun no matter where you live.

Sable Update

A few months ago, it looked as though our car would be forced into retirement. At that time, I said that we would nurse it for a few months. Well, nurse it we have, and it is still going strong. I also noted in that earlier post that the car wasn't much to look at. Well, it still isn't. In fact, now it is worse. This morning the kid from across the street backed into it on his way to school. When I talked with his dad, the dad kept saying, "We'll make it right." I appreciate that kind of neighbor, but it isn't really worth it. Repairing or replacing a fender on that car may cost half of what the car is worth. Besides, everything still works fine. There is no broken glass or punctured tires. So, I told them not to worry about it. We won't fix it, we'll just keep driving it. (Note to all you agressive southern Utah tailgaters: We've got nothing to lose.)

A Fable

If I produce another post about the weather, I'm sure that I will lose both of my readers, so let me tell a little story:

Then they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. And they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves."

But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, "Indeed the people are one and they have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let us go down there and drop another six inches of snow, that they may not understand." So, the Lord came with lows in the mid-20s and another winter storm at the end of April, and they ceased to build the city.

Grey Water

For the past couple of years we have done a little grey water harvesting. Mostly that means bath water, although shower, kitchen sink, and washing machine are all open to investigation. The process has involved scooping from a small bucket to a large bucket and then carrying the large bucket to the orchard or the garden. This has been very labor intensive. Well, for 2010, Rural Ways is automating the grey water harvest. First, a sump pump goes in the tub, next a hose runs out the door, and, finally, a 50 gallon rain barrel is employed. Plug in the pump, toss it into the bath tub, and, voila, grey water flows to the rain barrel. The spigot on the rain barrel can be used to fill watering cans or can be hooked directly to a hose out in the yard. Actually, the sump works so well that we could probably skip the rain barrel and just use it to water the orchard directly during the hotter summer months.

Short Growing Season

I was looking for leaves in the orchard yesterday; today I was looking at four inches of snow. When I got Ellen out of bed, she said that it looked like it was going to be a cold autumn, with winter on the way. My brother-in-law marks his seasons by counting "fire free" days—by which he means days on which he doesn't have to start the wood stove. When I talked to him last week he'd already recorded three or four "fire free" days on the east coast. I guess snowmaggedon is over out there. Not here, we've not been "fire free" since the end of September.

No Shooting in Town

I saw a No Shooting Within Town Limits sign the other day as I was driving into Paragonah, a small town in southern Utah. At first I thought that this was a sign that might belong in the category of things that don’t need a sign. I mean, do we need to tell the random visitor to keep his Uzi to himself? The next day, however, I noticed that the City of Parowan, where I live, had “Shooting Within the City Limits” on the City Council’s meeting agenda. Twice in one week seemed like more than a coincidence, so I began to wonder about it.

I first wondered about shooting deer. There would be something to that. In the early morning, with the .30-.30 on my lap as the herd came through to eat my garden? In many states, the local Department of Natural Resources offers “depredation tags” to farmers or ranchers. Why not gardeners? I live within the city limits, but that does not exempt me from depredation; should I be exempted from the DNR’s dispensation? And it is not just deer. I remember once using a garden shovel on a raccoon on the back porch. It had gotten into a friend’s box of peaches during the night and I sent it packing with a bad headache. I could have just as easily used the .22.

Next I wondered about the pet. We have a cat—a scaredy cat to be exact. Mostly the cat sleeps on the sofa, but every once in a while she likes to go out and sit in the yard. I have, on occasion, needed to help her fight off a feral cat that has spotted her out there. I have done that by shooting it. Granted, it is just the pellet gun for that. But it requires shooting within the city limits.

Finally, there is the family. And I’m not talking about crime. I live in a rural village in southern Utah and I’ve often joked that I could leave a bag of cash lying on my front yard and no one would touch it—unless they were picking it up to put it on my porch for me. But, everyone has a horror story about a dog bite. And loose dogs are not uncommon in rural areas. If one bit my daughter, I would be furious. I would be, in fact, in a shooting mood—and, in town, no less. So, I can see this being a good reason for shooting within the city limits.

In Parowan, actually, shooting vicious dogs may be legal. There is a city ordinance (Title 1, Chapter 5, Section 1-5-6(4)) that allows me to kill an attacking dog. Aside from that ordinance, however, there does seem to be a prohibition against the use of firearms (Title 16, Chapter 2, Section 16-2-1) although the language contains some ambiguity. If I am allowed to kill an attacking dog, but not allowed to discharge a firearm, how am I going to kill the dog?

The other day I noticed that there is to be No Shooting Within the City Limits of Paragonah. I also noticed a similar topic on Parowan’s City Council agenda. I wondered whether such a sign was really necessary, but I also wondered whether there might be good reasons for shooting within the city limits. Indeed, I might be tempted to shoot to protect my garden, my pet, or my kid. I am allowed to protect these things; if I can’t shoot, how am I going to do it?

April Fools

This year the joke is on all of us who thought the long, cold winter of 2009/2010 was winding down. Nope. Another eight inches and counting this morning, with the thermometer settled at 22F. We've been ordering seeds, pruning the orchard, and looking for buds on the elm trees. It looks like we've jumped the gun; winter ain't over yet. Actually, according to my notes, we started burning during the first week of October. October! It is now April and the stove is going full blast. This is month seven. I don't think I've ever had to burn for seven months before. Especially foolish are those who thought this would be a good time for an arts festival.

Saw Repair

A few weeks ago I broke the pull cord on my chain saw. It is probably something I should learn to fix myself, but I needed the chain sharpened, too, so I took it to the local small engine repair shop. The proprietor took care of both problems for about forty dollars, and had the saw ready for me in a couple days. When I went to pick it up, he pointed out some wear and tear on the bar, as well as some flattening of the links on the chain. He told me that it was caused by pressing down too hard on the saw during the cut. The saw should pull itself through the kerf, you shouldn’t have to force it, he said. He warned me that I would have to replace the bar if I weren’t more careful. He said that I should just bring it in for sharpening more often—instead of hand filing it myself—and then I wouldn’t feel the need to push on it. He also reminded me that it needed bar oil each time I used it. I listened politely to his scolding, thanked him, and hustled out of there before he could turn me in for saw abuse.

As I pulled away from the shop with Valerie in the car, I started laughing. If that guy knew how hard I really worked that saw, he would have me arrested. First of all, I’m not going to bring it to him every time the chain loses its edge. He charges $15 to sharpen the chain. A new chain costs $22. At that rate, I’d be better off throwing it away after one sharpening. No way. I can make a chain last for a couple years with some hand filing. Second, I have heated my home for six years with that saw and I have never replaced the bar. If he had any idea how many cords of wood that bar has cut, he would be praising my light touch rather than scolding my heavy hand.

The saw is a Stihl MS250 with a 16 inch bar that I bought in 2004. It is an admittedly small and underpowered saw that I have used like a workhorse for more than six years. And, I am not above taking advice from a small engine repairman. But, I have to laugh when he scolds me for actually using the saw and warns me that I might need a new bar. After keeping my family warm for six years, if that saw needs a new bar, it is well deserved, and I will have no regrets about buying it.

Before and After, Part II

Last March, I did a before and after for our living room. Now it is time for the dining room. Patching and painting just one room each year seems like a slow way to go. But, we've also cut, split, and burned five or six cords of wood; developed a 600 square foot garden; and done some major patching on the roof. It is currently time to finish the pruning in the orchard, so the interior improvements may be on hold for a while. Next winter . . . the kitchen.

Trailer Loading Lessons

Since I had to move our household to Parowan last winter, I got to be pretty good at loading a trailer and a truck. The better you are at loading, the fewer trips you have to make. Most Parowan residents are pretty good at trailer loading, too. From hay bales to appliances, locals are prepared to move it themselves. I think all of us, however, could take a lesson from this guy. I wasted all that fuel last winter driving the car to Parowan when I could have just put it on top of the load.

Trimming the Elm

I’ve been looking at a large, mostly dead branch in the American Elm in front of The Homestead for more than a year now. I’ve wanted to remove it, but have hesitated because of the difficulty. I did not, however, want to let any of the remaining live twigs form buds, so I knew I had to do it before any warm spring weather. It was almost spring-like today, so I decided that it was time.

The limb I wanted to cut was about 25 feet off the ground. It was also about 15 inches in diameter—so I wasn’t going to be cutting it by hand. I hate to run the chain saw one handed and wasn’t sure that would work anyway, so I needed to use both hands. Using both hands means that the only way to hang on is to wrap your arms around the tree. The problem with that is it puts your face very close to the chain. If the saw kicks back, you’re going to lose a nose before you can stop it. I didn’t want to cut my face and I didn’t want to fall out of the tree, so I pulled out an old climbing rope and tied it to the bumper of the Chev. I then ran the rope through a crotch several feet above where I needed to be and tied it off to a waist harness. There. I wasn’t going to hit the ground if I lost my balance and I could use both hands without putting my face in the chain.

I’m good at some things, but trimming trees isn’t one of them. I once removed a middle sized maple from a friend’s back yard. I volunteered to do it because they didn’t feel they had the skill and couldn’t afford a professional. I didn’t have the skill, either. I bounced one limb off the roof, set another on the picnic table, and crushed their kid’s slide. Sure, I did the job for free, but all the repairs to the infrastructure were costly.

I didn’t hit anything this time, and I didn’t hurt myself, so I guess the day was a success, at least for me. The tree, however, fared less well. The best way to cut a heavy branch like that is to reach out from the crotch and score it on the bottom a couple of times. Then, when you start the cut from the top, the bottom can collapse until the whole thing snaps off cleanly. Finally, you can move back to the crotch and finish the cut flush against the trunk without all the weight of the branch pulling against you. My position today was so bad, however, that I couldn’t reach out and score it. I did my best right against the trunk, but it wasn’t enough. When the branch let loose, it tore part of the bottom of the branch, pealing the bark back like skin, and leaving an ugly wound on the trunk. I got the limb on the ground; I just hope I didn’t do permanent damage to the tree.

Burning Pine; Burning Eyes

The other day a friend of mine sent a picture of me that he had found on his computer hard drive. He had taken it a couple of years ago when we were under-burning some ponderosa pine at a place called Stump Springs on the Dixie National Forest. I had a job as a “lighter,” which meant that I spent the day using a drip-torch and enjoying a walk in the woods. Unfortunately, the day would soon become less than enjoyable.

A prescribed fire is planned in such a way that the flames are always traveling away from the lighters. This is frequently accomplished by way of topography. That is, you start lighting at the top of the hill and burn your way to the bottom. That way, the fire, which travels uphill, is always moving away from you. The people who plan prescribed fires, the Burn Bosses, also keep careful track of the potential weather and the prevailing winds. A strong wind can, of course, push a fire downhill—straight at the lighters. The perfect situation is to burn from the top down with a slight uphill breeze to help push the fire (and the smoke) away.

On this day, there were probably eight or ten of us burning about 100 or 120 acres. It was a lot of work and, as the day grew long, the wind started to turn against us. By the late afternoon, our smoke was not going, but coming. After a while, it became so dense that I couldn't keep my eyes open. The wind was not strong enough, or low enough, to push the flames downhill, but it was enough to hold up the smoke and put us in the middle of it. It isn’t easy to walk through the woods wielding a drip torch while keeping your eyes closed.

When we finished the unit, the Burn Boss told a bunch of us to jump in his truck and drive around to the top to see if we could get out of the smoke. Some of the younger guys had been using some goggle-type eye protection and they were still able to see. I got into the passenger side of the six-pack with my hands over my face while one of the young guys drove. For probably 15 or 20 minutes, the tears streamed down as I ground my fists into my burning eyes. I wasn’t sure how long it would take to see again.

After a while, resting in the clear air and setting sun at the top of the unit my vision slowly returned. We were in a meadow just below Powell Point, the place from which John Wesley Powell supposedly scanned the entire Grand Staircase—from central Utah to the Arizona Strip. It was a place for clear vision and long views. Finally, everybody cracked the Gatorade and snacks and we drove back down. There was laughter in the truck then, and a sense of accomplishment. Of course . . . you know what they say . . . any day in the woods is better than a day in the office.

Chinese Tree of Heaven

I was in the southern Sierra Nevada mountains during November and I went for a hike along the Kern River. It was a beautiful fall day and many of the trees were displaying colorful foliage. I was surprised, however, when I noticed a Chinese Tree of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima) growing there by the river. Soon I recognized that it was growing everywhere and that there were thickets of it springing up throughout the riparian area.

The Chinese Tree of Heaven, as the name implies, comes from central China. It is a root sprouter and prolific seeder with a foul smell, and it can quickly take over any disturbed area. According to the Plant Conservation Alliance’s Alien Plant Working Group, the Tree of Heaven was first introduced in North America by a Philadelphia gardener in 1784. It has now spread to at least 30 states and has become an obnoxious pest.

This is something I know well, because in Salt Lake City we once bought a house with an established Tree of Heaven population. I was unfamiliar with the species at the time, but I soon determined that it was an unwelcome part of the landscape. It sprouted everywhere, pushing up into the garden, cracking the foundation, and leaning against the wall of the garage. I couldn’t stop it. I cut it, I dug it up, I sprayed it. After a while, my vigilance allowed me to stay even with it, but I hardly dared go away for a weekend vacation. After that experience, I will not consider buying any property where it has an established presence. It is that bad.

Because Ailanthus altissima is a stump and root sprouter, it will not go away when you cut it. That is, you can cut down the clump of trees, but the clump will immediately re-sprout from the cut stumps and lateral roots. According to The Nature Conservancy, there is not much information regarding the use of herbicides to control the pest, though it may be effective in some circumstances. In Salt Lake, the only thing that worked was heavy cutting, followed by persistent pulling of small sprouts and seedlings, but this level of maintenance is clearly impractical for an area a large as the Kern River Valley. In that case, it is likely that the locals will simply have to learn to live with the tree.

The Chinese Tree of Heaven is an alien plant in North America that is quickly becoming an invasive pest across the continent. It is a prolific seeder and sprouter and can quickly colonize an area. It is an ugly tree with a foul odor and poor form. The best way to remove it may be simply to persist in cutting it and weeding it over the long term. In my own experience, moreover, the tree is improperly named. I mean, if they've got these things in heaven, I'd rather go to the other place.

Bald Eagle

One of the things about Parowan that is very different from Escalante is that it is near an interstate highway—I-15. (Interstates are interesting things to me—urban bubbles or tunnels passing noisily through the quiet, rural west.) When we moved here last winter, I drove repeatedly up and down the Parowan Valley, using the freeway. During these drives, I began to notice, often perched in the crosstrees of an abandoned series of power poles, a bald eagle.

When I was a kid, bald eagles were rare outside of Alaska. During the middle of the 20th century, population estimates in the lower 48 states were as low as 400 nesting pairs. And, sure enough, I don’t remember ever seeing one alive and in the wild. Under the protection of the Endangered Species Act starting in the late 1960s and early 1970s, however, bald eagle populations began to recover, and today I no longer think that it is unusual to see one . . . even along the highway.

Because eagles are carrion eaters, and because it is common for deer to be killed on the interstate, the eagle that I saw each day last winter was likely feasting on road kill. My only concern was that he—for it was a male—would be hit and killed himself. The eagle disappeared after a while and, though I glanced along the roadside a few times on the off chance of seeing it’s body, I wasn’t really sure where it had gone. Spring came, and then summer, and I mostly forgot about bald eagles.

I was on my way out of the house this morning to run a couple of errands. I was late for my appointment, and it was a cold, grey winter morning holding the threat of snow. I had my head down with frustration and was on my way straight to the door of my car with the sound of I-15 in the distance. I glanced up as I opened the door, and my eye caught the familiar “V” shape of a large bird in flight overhead. With a fleeting thought of, “raven,” I dropped my head. But, somewhere in my subconscious, something said, “not raven.” Involuntarily, I lifted my head. It was a bald eagle. It flew silently toward me, passed above the car, and went on towards town—a soft wishing sound fell from the back of its wings. I laughed aloud. “Welcome back,” I said.

Juniper Cones

I was hiking in the mountains above Kernville, California this fall and I came across a juniper tree loaded with cones. In fact, that one tree had more cones than I had ever seen in my life. A juniper is a small conifer, or evergreen, tree. When I hear people talk about conifer trees, they mostly call them “pine” trees—although pine trees are actually only a subset of conifer trees—and they usually call conifer seed pods “pine cones.” Thus, people often say that there are “pine cones” laying all over the forest floor even if the cones actually come from fir trees or spruce trees. In any case, the curious thing about juniper cones is that they are small, blue, and waxy. They look like berries. So, people never call them “pine cones.” Instead, they are commonly called “juniper berries.” Which, of course, is only half right because they are not berries at all.

Even more curious than their appearance is the fact that juniper cones (or berries) are used to flavor food. They are, according to the FAO, the only spice extracted from conifers anywhere in the world. Most famously, however, juniper berries are used to make gin. So, when I saw this tree burdened with a load of small blue cones, I began to dream of bottles of Tanqueray stacked to the ceiling.

Before filling my pockets with ingredients for the liquor cabinet, however, I decided to go home and look for a gin recipe that would give me some idea of how many berries I’d need to pick. So, I surfed the web for a while and found a very interesting gin-making discussion hosted by Jeffrey Morgenthaler. I also discovered, alas, that not every species of juniper provides edible berries. Wikipedia lists just six edible species (of more than 35) and includes just one from western North America—the Juniperus californica. I’m sorry to say that I don’t know the species of the juniper I saw last fall, though I suspect that it was a western juniper (or Juniperus occidentalis), and I would be hesitant to eat from it since some juniper berries can be toxic. But, I did learn that the place for premium juniper berries—the ones used for gin—is northern Italy, not North America. As a result, my search will now mature from the woodlands to the upscale supermarkets. (Do we have those in rural southern Utah?)

Stuck in the Snow

We went skiing on the mountain over the weekend. Ellen made it to the yurt in the National Monument on her first try, but she was tired by the time we got back to the car. We hustled her into the back seat and headed home for a nap. Before we got even a mile down the road, however, we saw a family in a Toyota Tacoma stuck in the snow. We weren’t driving the Chev, so I couldn’t pull them out, but we did stop to help. The story ends happily, but the rescue took much longer and was much more difficult than it needed to be. The family had obviously never been stuck in the snow before and they were completely unprepared. I’ve written on this previously for Associated Content, but the guy in this truck violated all of my driving in the snow rules.

First, he didn’t have boots, gloves, or a jacket. He was out digging in the snow with sneakers and bare hands—at least his shoes had laces, which is a lot better than all the foolishness with slip-ons and flip-flops. People! If you’re going out in your vehicle in the winter, bring some winter clothes. Anyone can get stuck and you need to be able to put on a jacket and some gloves.

Second, he had no shovel. This guy’s Toyota was high-centered in deep snow and he was digging with an 18-inch crow bar. A crow bar. The thing was an inch wide. Aside from having a warm coat to put on, the number one thing you can do to be prepared for winter driving is to put a shovel in the back of your truck. Fortunately for this guy, I used mine to dig him out.

Third, he couldn’t resist turning his wheels. The family did not speak English, but I showed the guy with the steering wheel how to straighten his wheels. Then I signaled vigorously outside the cab to get him to straighten up. But . . . the minute we got the thing to move an inch, he kept trying to turn the wheel. No, don’t turn the wheel, it creates a tremendous amount of surface area and friction that brings the vehicle to a stop. Plus it puts you into a whole new pile of snow. If you go straight in . . . and then I dig you free . . . please drive straight out.

Fourth, he wouldn’t keep his foot off the floor. Every time we were ready to try, he put the truck in gear and opened the throttle all the way. Don’t gun the motor, you will never move in the snow if you step on the gas. I don’t care if it is one inch of snow or one foot, you gotta be gentle on the throttle. You want your wheels turning slowly, not spinning wildly. This guy was about to set his tires on fire with how hard he was spinning them and, as a result, he had absolutely no traction.

A couple of other guys stopped to help and we finally had enough man power to get the truck out of the snow and back on the road, but it took about an hour more than it needed to. I was soaked with snow, sweat, and irritation by the time we were done. I told Valerie, “I could have got that truck out faster working by myself; all the ‘help’ provided by that guy and his family made it almost impossible.”

How I Narrowly Avoided a Stay at Gitmo

It is a prudent thing to carry a pocket knife at The Homestead. I use mine at least five times a day and won't leave home without it. Unfortunately, I had a meeting at the Federal Building in Salt Lake City this morning and, indeed, arrived at the meeting with not one, but two, knives in my pockets. The TSA/GSA/Federal Marshall that screened me found the small Swiss Army knife that I carry on my key chain, but let me keep it. She could not, however, figure out why I kept buzzing the metal detector. I couldn't either. We took off my sunglasses, my belt, my watch . . . until finally I was clear.

I sat in my meeting until my parking meter had expired and then asked the uniformed guards for permission to go out and come back in. They said, "yes" but wanted to run me through the metal detector again. As I patted my pockets prior to my second screening, I found the seven-inch serrated lock-back knife in my back pocket. I froze. The knife had been there all day. What if the guards discovered I had eluded them earlier? Sweat broke out on my forehead. The guard with the scarred cheek and eyes of ice cleared his throat. What if they thought I had deliberately left my meeting to retrieve a weapon? I could feel a muscle in the corner of my eye begin to jump. The guard with the Grim Reaper tattoo got up and began to circle. I made a dash for the metal detector and slipped through. Nothing. I was clear. I gave the guards a nervous smile and wished them a good day.

Urban Forestry

Parowan is a “Tree City USA.” Tree City USA is a program of the Arbor Day Foundation. To qualify for such a designation, a community must have a Tree Department, a Tree Care Ordinance, an Urban Forestry Budget of at least $2/capita, and an Arbor Day celebration. Here, the Tree Department is called the Parowan City Shade Tree Commission. The Commission meets once a month to discuss policy, budgeting, and long range planning, among other things. A friend of mine is the Chairman of the Commission and he invited me to attend a recent meeting.

As you might guess, the discussions of policy and planning were a little less than stimulating for some of the guests of the commission, but when they got around to discussing Parowan’s tree inventory, my ears perked up. Using volunteer labor, the Tree Commission has collected data on more than 4000 tree “locations” under the city’s jurisdiction. This includes existing live trees, existing dead trees and/or stumps, and places where trees could/should be planted. This may not seem like a large data collection effort for many cities or towns around the country, but for a town the size of Parowan, these kind of numbers mean more trees than people.

According to a summary of the inventory data there are nearly 50 different tree species growing on city property today. Of course, not all of these are “desirable” from an urban forestry perspective. Street tree desirability is based on a number of factors including longevity, strength, and size—urban foresters do not like trees that tend to die young and/or blow over. Unfortunately, approximately 17% of the existing live trees in Parowan are undesirable. These include Siberian elms, cottonwoods, and box elders. The latter two species are native to southern Utah and can be beautiful components of their natural environments, but the box elder especially tends to have weak wood and a poor form, not the best characteristics for street trees.

On the other hand, the Parowan data shows that the city owns nearly 60 American elm trees. This was a surprise to me because American elm trees are rare in American cities today. A very popular street tree beginning almost two centuries ago, the American elm population was decimated by Dutch elm disease starting in the 1930s. Bruce Carley, at his website, Saving the American Elm estimates that nearly 100 million American elms have succumbed to Dutch elm disease over the past few decades. So many have died, in fact, that I have stopped looking for them when I travel because I don’t expect to see them.

The funny thing about all this is that we have both a Siberian elm and an American elm in front of The Homestead. I didn’t recognize the American elm until my friend on the Tree Commission pointed it out. One of these trees is “undesirable,” and the other is a rare American treasure, but I love them both. Admittedly the American elm is more beautiful with its black branches and spectacular fall foliage, but both trees provide valuable shade, free compost for the garden, and a home for nesting birds. And, given that the city’s budget for removing “undesirable” but healthy trees is practically nil, I think we will be able to enjoy both of these trees for a long time. In fact, I won’t be disappointed if both of them are still standing long after my time.

The Lost Art of Glazing

The windows on the older part of The Homestead were handmade at least 100 years ago and set into 18-inch thick walls made of native stone, local brick, and home-made mortar. They are typical pioneer windows in a typical southern Utah pioneer home. And, when we bought the house, they were in awful shape—cracked glass, broken sashes, and peeling paint. From day one, the wind blew directly into the living room, mitigated only by some masking tape installed by some previous owner.

The first thing the old windows needed was a set of storms. The single (interior) pane of glass was exposed directly to the wind and the rain. A storm window on the outside would add some protection from the elements while providing a dead-air space for insulation. So, we measured the windows and made a trip to George’s Salvage in Salt Lake City. George’s is worth a story of its own, but suffice it to say that the place is stacked 50 feet deep in old windows and doors, not to mention toilets and coal stoves.

We left our measurements with the staff at George’s and they promised to do some research. In a few days they called back to say they had what we needed. I went to pick them up and found that the objects in question were in the back warehouse, upstairs, and down the hall. I also found that there were no lights in the warehouse and that the upstairs walkway was only as wide as one of my feet. It was great fun blindly wrestling those things down the stairs and out the door without breaking my neck. I had to feng shui them into the car, but I managed to haul six of them home and into the shed.

In contrast to modern windows which arrive from the factory in one piece, old window frames were constructed of wood by a carpenter while each piece of glass was individually cut and fitted to the frame. The glass was secured by glazier’s points and sealed by glazing compound. Glazing compound is a putty like substance that can be applied like caulk, but that eventually dries to form a hard “gasket” around the edge of the glass. After many years of exposure to sun and wind the dry glazing can become cracked and brittle, eventually falling out and leaving the glass propped against the frame without a weather proof seal. We found that all the windows we owned were in that condition, the ones on the house as well as the ones we had salvaged. So, it was time to make some repairs.

We started at a major home improvement retailer where we found that they no longer cut and sold glass. OK. How about glazier’s points and glazing compound? After a long period of fruitless searching, the salesperson said, “Nobody does that anymore, so we don’t sell that stuff.” Glazing windows, I’ll admit, is somewhat painstaking, but does that mean that it can no longer be done? We moved on to the local branch of a national hardware franchise. The salesperson gave us a blank stare but pointed us vaguely to the back of the store. It was there, on a dusty rack, that I found a box of glazier’s points. With those, a tub of glazing compound that I found on their painting aisle, and some glass cut by a custom glass shop, we were in business.

Now I’ve seen some poor glazing jobs in my life . . . and I’ve even done some. But, the trick to good glazing is to lay in an angled bead of compound and then smooth it with a knife until the whole thing looks uniform. A really good glazer can make the window look like it came from the factory with the glass and the frame molded together perfectly. On a hundred year old house, perfection is not necessary, but we don’t want it to look bad from the road. And, so, slowly, window by window we have practiced the art of glazing . . . massaging the putty into the cracks, smoothing it, adding some here and there, and re-smoothing it. With each repair the wind whistles through the living room a little less and the place looks like less of a derelict.

Is window glazing truly a lost art, and does it really matter? I mean, it is simply a tedious home maintenance job and nobody, apparently, does that anymore. Besides, factory built windows are easier to use and much more energy efficient than old style single pane windows. I suppose that the loss I feel is simply nostalgia. As I glazed a storm window in the early winter sun yesterday, working to make the house warmer as winter begins to bite, Ellen played beside me in the yard. Just for a few minutes the world was settled, my daughter’s voice was soothing, and I was working a good line of glazing into a salvaged storm. It was art.