Road Canyon

Last year, we were chased out of Road Canyon by the darkness.  It didn't bother me so much, but I guess Valerie felt as though we had unfinished business.  So, this week, we went back.  Instead of clouds and rain like last year, we had bright sunshine.  We made it to the bottom of the canyon by noon.

It is my belief, and I am still searching for conclusive proof, that the trail we used to enter the canyon was originally built by the Mormon pioneers of the San Juan Mission (AKA, the Hole-in-the-Rock party).  The reason I think this is that it had several dugways like the one they built to climb to climb San Juan Hill.  In addition, Road Canyon is in a direct line from "The Twist," which is a famous part of the HITR trail, and the bottom of Comb Wash, which the pioneers followed all the way to the San Juan River.  Finally, the place is called "ROAD" Canyon.  Duh.  Why else would it be called that?

In any case, the canyon itself was (as you might have guessed) spectacular, and the access was so poor as to keep out most of the tourists.  There were a few older tracks, but we had the whole canyon to ourselves this week.  We found a few old Anasazi graneries, a few potsherds, and some tool-making sites.  We climbed on rocks, ate our lunch, and wandered upstream and down.  And, best of all, we made it back to the truck before dark.

Pictures HERE.

Montezuma Canyon

Eight hundred or twelve hundred years ago, many people lived in Montezuma Canyon, perhaps thousands of people.  When we visited yesterday, there was no one living there, (although we did pass one party driving a Subaru).  In their absence, we looked at some of their stuff.  We looked at their crockery; we looked at their rock art; we looked at their graneries.  We even climbed down into one of their kivas—this kiva has been rebuilt by the BLM.

Christmas Eve

For Christmas Eve I skied up Dry Canyon.  The girls were busy with church, and we weren't due at Grandma and Grandpa's until the morning.  I'd hiked up a little earlier to see how the light would be, but returned too late in the day.  It was only 3p, but the sun was gone down low and the only action in the canyon came from a couple of guys with semi-automatic rifles.  I figured I would ski longer than they could shoot, and I was right.  They were gone by 3:45p, but I slogged upward through 18 inches of sugary snow with a crust on top.

I chased the sun for about ninety minutes.  At every curve of the canyon I thought I might break out into its brilliance, but it was setting faster than I could ski.  I finally gave up and scrambled up the canyon wall.  Unfortunately, the thing that makes for a good ski boot makes for poor contact with the rough side of 5.4 off-width crack.  So, I stuck mostly to the brush filled gullies and wallowed up until I had, at least, a view of the setting sun.  I sat there and let the sweat dry and munched a few dry crackers.  I tried the camera, but knew that it would struggle with the division between dark and light.  It was time to give up and go down.

I glissaded off the ridge on a field of loose scree, my camera and tripod flopping.  I skidded down into the darkness of the canyon bottom and onto my skis.  It was around 5p—still, silent, and cold.  This is when time stands still—or I wish it would—alone, on skis, in the mountains, in the growing dusk.  I fell once, hard, when my skis hit a rock and I tried to save the camera.  Where the shooters had been there was now a small herd of deer and they watched as I stopped to look at the casings—a .22 and a .223.  In the dark, I put my skis in the car and drove home.

Cutting a Christmas Tree

When you buy a Christmas tree cutting permit from the Forest Service, it comes with instructions on what you can cut.  Around here, the Dixie National Forest issues the permit, and they only allow cutting of pinyon pine, juniper, and the true firs (white and subalpine).  You may not cut any other pines (pondo, limber, bristlecone); you may not cut any spruces (blue, Engelmann); you may not cut Douglas fir; etc.  It always makes me laugh.  Do they really expect the average schmo from Vegas to know the difference?  Heck, I'm a professional and I sometimes can't tell the difference without a good look at the leaves and cones.  (To give the Dixie credit, this year's permit came with a page of photographs of each different species.)

Sure enough, when we went out to cut a tree for Grandma and Grandpa, the first likely patch of conifer saplings we encountered had been heavily cut for Christmas trees.  They were, of course, very nice looking blue spruces.  Being mostly law abiding at Rural Ways, and not having ignorance for an excuse, we pressed on up the canyon in pursuit of a pinyon or a white fir.  We examined a couple of nice round pinyons, but discovered that their roundness was due to multiple stems.  Finally, along the banks of Center Creek, under a heavy canopy, we found a small, reasonably well-shaped white fir.  Let the Christmas season commence.

Early Christmas Gift

Someone in Parowan knows what Rural Ways likes for Christmas.  We found two bundles of seasoned hardwood on our front porch.  It was such a good gift that we tossed it straight into the fire.  With current outside temperatures in the low teens, our hearts have been, er, warmed by such generosity.  Thanks, Tiger.

The Great State of Mississippi, Pappy O'Daniel, Governor

Actually, I don't know whether Pappy is still the governor or not, but I do know that Mississippi comes top in a number of key measures.  According to the Census Bureau, Mississippi is leading the way in poverty and obesity.  With a day off from the woods of Alabama, I figured this was something I needed to see.  Plus, Keith, one of our frequent contributors, went to college and grad school at Mississippi State, so I thought it might be good to check their accreditation.

It takes somewhat less than two hours to drive from Tuscaloosa to Starkville (which, from what I understand, is pronounced "Star-vool," the second syllable rhyming with "wool.")  I arrived to find a ghost town.  The semester had evidently ended without my being notified.  So, I parked and wandered through the quiet campus.  It was very nicely landscaped and, despite being built to handle 19,000 students, it had a small college feel.  After looking into a few academic buildings and peering through the fence to see where the bulldogs play, I eventually found my way off the campus and into The Little Dooey.

Call me a quick learner, but I have begun to discern that barbeque is an important lifestyle commitment in the southeastern United States, perhaps second only to college football.  Each town, village, or neighborhood has its own favorite barbeque and the debate over which one is best may sometimes rise to the level of whether the Crimson Tide deserves to play LSU next month.  (OK, so I'm exaggerating, nothing rises to the level of what the Crimson Tide deserves.)  In any case, The Little Dooey appears to be one of Starkville's favorites, and the pulled-pork I ordered was as warm and soft and sweet as anything I've tasted.

After stuffing myself, I decided that the only thing to do was nap for the rest of the day, so I got ready to head back to Alabama.  I had failed in my attempt to check Keith's credentials, and I had been unable to confirm any of the household income data, but I had learned one thing:  If every meal in Mississippi tasted like the one I'd just had, there is no doubt that Mississippi is the fattest state in the nation.

Speaking of Loblolly

We were out working by Gabe's Corner the other day, and Lonnie, from McAlpine Logging, had just finished cutting a 25 year old loblolly (Pinus taeda) plantation.  I can see why the loblolly is favored as a timber investment.  That is one productive tree.  The stump pictured below is 18 inches in diameter.  There were others in the plantation that were larger.  Some of the growth rings were an inch across.  On average, these trees made 3/4 of an inch of wood each year.  Easy money, huh?

Longleaf Pine

The longleaf pine (Pinus palustris)—named for its 15 inch needles—was once common across the southern United States, forming pine savannas along the coastal plain, among other places.  Like other fire adapted pine species, longleaf populations began to decline in the years following European settlement due to fire suppression and timber cutting.  Today, however, the longleaf is recognized as an important ecosystem component, and a critical part of the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker’s lifecycle.  As a result, longleaf pine restoration is a major objective of public forest management in places like Alabama.

The longleaf is a productive tree, often growing to 30 inches in diameter in around 100 years.  The one pictured got its start circa 1900 and reached 27 inches before being felled by the recent Tuscaloosa tornado.  While a mature longleaf pine looks like other yellow pines—like a ponderosa, for one—the seedlings and saplings are very different.

The seedlings, in fact, do not look like trees at all, but appear grass-like.  They grow in this “grass stage” for several years and, despite their apparent fragility, are not killed by the ground fires that kill other seedlings.  After a few years, the seedlings shoot up into skinny saplings, often reaching six feet in height before producing spindly branches.  At this stage, they look like green pom-poms on a stick—or like Dr. Seuss characters—with their long needles floating around them in a halo.

Longleaf pine currently covers just five percent of its former range.  It has been replaced, in many cases, with the somewhat faster growing loblolly and slash pines.  Longleaf seedlings are available for planting, however, and you can get 1000 plugs from the Meeks’ Nursery in Kite, Georgia for just $190.  At that price, I don’t know how you can afford not to plant them.  I wonder if they would grow well in southern Utah?

View From the Office

Earlier this year, the city of Tuscaloosa, Alabama suffered a direct hit from a tornado.  The storm also wiped out many acres of national forest timber.  So, this week we are working on tornado clean-up in Alabama.  The basic idea is that we get what wood we can from the trees that are on the ground, while preparing the site for a new forest of, hopefully, southern yellow pine, which is greatly favored.

The Talladega National Forest is more open, more hilly, and more piney than I expected.  I thought we would be working in a deep, dark swamp, but we're not.  It is a lot like the ponderosa pine forests of the west:  Many relatively open stands, maintained by fire, and full of big, pumpkin-colored pines.  Aside from the fact that I don't understand the language they speak here, it is a nice place to work during the winter.

Tilling the Garden

Each autumn at The Homestead, we like to rake up all the leaves from the yard and till them into the garden.  Last year, I turned the garden by hand, with a spade.  I worked at it little by little, and it took a couple of weeks.  This year, I didn't have the time to turn it myself.  For one thing, we had so much windy weather that the leaves kept blowing out of the garden and into the yard.  I was tired of raking.  But, I also had to travel for work, and wasn't going to be around.  So, I went and rented a rototiller from Home Depot.

This is a yearly issue.  How are we going to get the garden tilled?  For a couple of years we had our friend Mr. Free from Paragonah come over with his tractor.  He did a good job, but you need some space in the yard for him to turn around.  We have been planting trees and expanding the garden, so there is less and less space for a tractor.  Plus, despite his name, he doesn't work for nothing, so his cost needs to be compared to other costs.  My father-in-law has offered to kick in some cash to help us buy our own rototiller, but I'm loath to do it.  For one thing, the good ones start at five or six hundred dollars, but what I really dislike is needing to store it.  I mean, we only till the garden once or (at most) twice a year.  So, we'd need to have a tiller in the shed for 363 days of non-use every year.  Instead of doing that, I'd prefer to continue using a spade.  Unfortunately, with 150 square feet of garden, the spade takes more than one hour of labor, which was about all I had this year.

In any case, Home Depot rented me a Honda tiller for $52 for four hours.  I went over the garden about four times in one hour, sprayed the tiller clean with a hose, and returned it for them to keep in the store for me until next year.  I think it is a pretty good deal.  The price is comparable to what Mr. Free would charge, the garden looks great, and I don't have to trip over a rototiller in the shed all winter.

A Tale of Perfect Innocence

Rural Ways was detained by state law enforcement personnel today. Well, not detained, exactly, but certainly interrogated. I was standing at the gas pump at Maverick in Cedar City ($3.10/gal for regular; the place was packed), when I noticed a DNR cop pulled up nearby. I guess he was looking at me, but I didn’t pay any attention—like I said, the place was packed. He must have been running my plates, and pretty soon he was joined by two or three other trucks, including a K9 unit. Just before I finished what I was doing, he strolled over.

He wanted to know where I’d been all morning. They’d had someone involved in an illegal shooting incident in the Parowan foothills and the accused had been driving a “green Chev.” I told him that I’d come to Cedar City about two or three hours ago for church. He asked me how many guns I had in the truck. I told him, “none,” and offered to let him search the vehicle. The truck was, of course, covered in mud, which had not gone unnoticed by the cop. I told him that I’d got the mud when I was cutting firewood last week. He admitted that the mud seemed dry. “Besides,” I said, “I’m in Cedar City, not Parowan, why are you looking for me here?” He told me that the shooter had last been seen headed for Cedar City. After another minute, he said, “Well, I guess you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. You’re free to go.” So, I went.

While driving back to Parowan, I told Valerie the story. “The sad thing,” I said, “is that, when the guy ran my plates, he got nothing. No speeding tickets, no parking tickets, no jaywalking tickets, nothing. I’m surprised he bothered to come and talk with me. I’m so boring it’s boring. I don’t drive fast, I don’t play cards, I don’t chew tobacco, I don’t dance, I don’t carry guns, I don’t listen to rock music, I don’t even have a bumper sticker. If the law enforcement database is really thorough, the guy knows that I turn off the lights when I leave the room, I don’t stick my chewing gum on the bottom of the waiting room chair, and I put the seat down after I pee. If I weren’t so pathetic, I’d be funny.”

“Maybe,” said Valerie, “they’re looking for Cruz.” That wasn’t a bad idea. Cruz is our youthful next-door neighbor who does throw the occasional party and often listens to loud hip-hop music. He also drives a green Chev. Anyway, when we got home, Cruz’s truck was gone, and the town cop drove up and down our street a couple of times. So, maybe they were looking for Cruz? Um, nope. A few minutes later, Cruz pulled up with the music blaring. He was wearing his jammies, looking a little hung over, and, in his hand, instead of a sig-sauer, he was carrying a super-slurpee. Cruz looked like he had just crawled out of bed and stumbled over to the Sev for breakfast. I don’t think he was a wanted man.

Despite the lack of criminality in our two-Chev neighborhood, I do hope they caught the bad guy. I mean, the law enforcement officer who stopped me seemed so disappointed by my innocence that I almost felt bad for him. “Sorry,” I told him, “I wish I could help you.” I guess I wouldn’t have seemed like such a failure if I’d at least carried a gun to church.

The Fruiting Habits of Junipers

Tiger and I were wandering around out at Jackrabbit Mountain earlier in the week, and we noticed that many of the juniper trees (Juniperus osteosperma) were packed with cones. The trees were so loaded with fruit that they appeared white (not that you can tell from this picture). In any case, we got to wondering about whether this kind of cone crop was a normal yearly occurrence. Because not every tree was covered with cones, I first wondered if Utah juniper trees were dioecious. (I can't pronounce that, but it means, essentially, that there are female trees and male trees.) Nope. According to the entry on Wikipedia, the Utah juniper is largely monoecious, with both sexes on one tree. So, then I wondered about the tree's periodicity. (I can't pronounce that either, but it simply refers to the typical time period between good cone crops.) I couldn't find any information about the periodicity of the Utah juniper, so I looked up two closely related trees. The western juniper (Juniperus occidentalis) produces good seed crops nearly every year, while the Rocky Mountain juniper (Juniperus scopulorum) produces heavy seed crops every two to five years. Assuming a similar cone production habit for Utah juniper, we shouldn't have been surprised by the good crop, it probably happens every year or two.

Answers to Life's Questions

A week or two ago, my brother-in-law asked me for some advice, which I was happy to provide. Upon further reflection, however, I realized that, in these times of woe and want, people are looking to Rural Ways for help. People want to know how to answer the hard questions of the day, and they are coming to Rural Ways to borrow from the wisdom found here. As a result, it is probably important for Rural Ways to publish thoughtful responses to some of those difficult questions. I will start with a short essay in answer to my brother-in-law. He asked, "Would you burn eastern white pine?"

While Rural Ways does not currently have access to a supply of eastern white pine, the question goes deeper than that, and the answer has three parts: accessibility, collection efficiency, and heat production. We'll address these in order.

The first issue you'll face in choosing what to burn is accessibility. In other words, can you get it on the truck? There is lots of great wood out there that is totally inaccessible. You can be driving along the highway looking at a veritable woodlot on the opposite side of a river canyon, but you're not going to burn any of the wood unless you first build a highway bridge. Most of the wood I collect is on the National Forest. Firewood gathering there is limited to 150 feet of designated roads. If you see a good pile of wood that is 300 feet from the road, you're going to have to carry every stick of it 150 feet. (Or, use a wheel barrow, which I have done.) Thus, the first rule of going to cut firewood is that you may spend half your day looking for it. It's not that there isn't plenty of firewood, it's that you have to be able to drive to it. I found a huge pile of dead spruce yesterday, but I decided that it would take too much hiking to get it from the woods to the truck. So, there it sits.

The second issue is collection efficiency, which is the technical term for how many minutes you will need to run the saw for one stick of wood to put in the stove. You can go out in the woods right now and drive up to a pile of dead oak. It is pretty good wood (see the section on heat production) and it will practically fall into your truck. But, the growth habit of the tree is totally against you. It is skinny, twisty, and branchy. You can spin and turn that chainsaw like Houdini, but when you are done you've got just four or five sticks in the truck and a bunch of tiny branches on the ground. The best fuel is straight, round, and branch free. I know, it sounds hard to come by, but some trees are going to be better than others. A forest grown spruce, for example, will often be straight and branch free for 20 or 30 feet.

The third issue is heat production, which is really the question that my brother-in-law was asking. Will I have to fill my stove twice an hour with this stuff, or will one good chunk burn all night? The real answer to this question is that beggars can't be choosers. Which is to say that, if you can drive up to it, buck it and load it, and be home for lunch, you'd darn well better take it. Sure, some wood is going to burn longer and hotter than others. In my part of the world, I would prefer a dense wood like pinyon or oak over a light (papery) wood like aspen or true fir, but if I can drive to a pile of dead aspen, I'll take it sooner than I'll walk up and down the mountain with an armload of pinyon.

My brother-in-law lives on the east coast, and the wood in question had been cut by someone else, but was available to him to use if he wanted it. So, what did I tell him? You will get more BTUs out of a cord of eastern hardwood than you will out of a cord of eastern white pine. So, if you have a choice, sure, burn hardwood. But, this is free wood. All you have to do is drive up to it, load it, and take it home. So, yeah, I would burn it. It meets the accessibility and collection efficiency tests, and it is a lot better than burning a snow bank.

The Breaks of the Paria

I put the Chev in four wheel drive and crawled over one more bad spot—steep, abrupt, and loose. “There,” I thought, “that should put me beyond the reach of the drive-by killers.” Yeah, even in the middle of a cold November week, they were out. California, Arizona, Nevada, even Pennsylvania. It was a who’s who of license plates. Zoom in, stop, step out, snap a picture, close the door, floor it, zoom out. This is Kane County, Utah, the Walt Disney World of the west. There are dozens of attractions. Drive fast enough and you can check another one from your list before dinner time.

It was my own fault. I wanted to hike up the Paria, starting at the old town site, but I was only thirty miles from Kanab. The road to the river was generally good enough for a regular car, so there was nothing to stop them. Until now, at least. The road down the side wash was rough enough to require a little commitment—I thought—and that is one thing a tourist doesn’t have. The sun was low and the light was beginning to glow. I parked in the wash, got the camera, and began a slow stroll through a little clump of white hoodoos. It was quiet.

Briefly. Then, brrrroom, crash, here came one of those new four door jeep wrangler hard tops that look like a Hummer—hammering in and out of the wash without any hesitation. He was from California. He stopped by my truck—because tourists don’t like to be alone, and they don’t like to let you alone either—jumped out, snapped a picture, jumped back in, swung around, and pulled up next to where I was standing. He opened the door, heaved himself up into a patch of bitterbrush, and said, “I’m here to do what you are doing.” He was, of course, wearing shorts. “No,” I thought, “you’re not even dressed. I doubt you are here to do what I’m doing.”

Mr. California pulled a brand new Canon off his neck—more hardware than I can afford—and told me, “I just got this, can’t even figure out how to work the settings, what are you doing with yours, hey, that rock over there looks like a walrus.” Creacheeck. Creacheeck. He pounded the shutter a couple of times. “At least the light is pretty good,” I said lamely. “Well, have fun,” he rejoined. He jumped back in the Jeep and was out of sight in seconds.

It just goes to show that, what I think takes commitment, doesn’t anymore. I won’t leave a graded road and venture into the Utah back-country on a cold November night, unless I’m prepared to take care of myself. I’ll have on a pair of pants, for one thing. But, I’m the only one. Modern sport-utes and cell phones have removed all sense of commitment. Commitment to what? I’m just here for a quick picture and then off to watch TV at the Holiday Inn Express. If I get stuck, I’ll call the AAA and tell them to bring sushi, so I can eat while they pull me out.

I thought about that while I lay under a bright moon with a cold wind ruffling my sleeping bag. I wasn’t quite warm enough and, being November, it was going to be a long night. How easy it would be to get up, throw my crap in the Chev, drive back to town, and check-in at the Parry, where John Wayne used to stay. Who am I to blame the drive-by crowd when I like a little luxury myself? I mean, why put up with the inconvenience of a cold night in camp and the need to make breakfast in a cutting wind?

Twelve hours later, I had my answer. I was sitting on a boulder on a little bench at the confluence of Kitchen Canyon and the Paria when I heard a rock fall in Kitchen Canyon. It wasn’t a large rock, and it didn’t crash down, it just toppled over, maybe brushed by a walking deer or something. But, hearing it, I realized that it was the first sound I’d noticed in hours. The toppling rock broke, just for a second, an immense stillness. When the rock settled, the stillness returned. Sure, the wind was rattling the dry leaves of the cottonwood, the creek was chattering over small rapids, and the canyon was full of migrating mountain blue birds, but none of this disturbed the silence. I was surrounded by perfect silence. And, it was deafening.

It was also depressing. It was all I had, and it was time to start back. If I didn’t start moving, I wouldn’t make it home before I was expected by my family. Against the weight of silence, I picked up my depression and began to walk. As I walked, I thought of C.S. Lewis: “For a few minutes we have had the illusion of belonging to that world. Now we wake to find that it is no such thing. We have been mere spectators. Beauty has smiled, but not to welcome us; her face was turned in our direction, but not to see us. We have not been accepted, welcomed, or taken into the dance. We may go when we please, we may stay if we can.”

Pictures HERE.

From the Easel

Gerhard Richter, says The Economist, is "the world's foremost living painter."  Well.  How do you get to be that?  It doesn't seem to hurt your case if you 1) are as important as Jackson Pollock; 2) have a show at the Tate Modern; and 3) sell $80 million worth of art in one year.  It also helps to have a dealer who "selects buyers carefully."

VSO happens to be the "foremost living painter" at Rural Ways.  She does not fling paint in quite the manner of Mr. Pollock; has not received a call from the Tate; and generally sells less than a million dollars of art each year.  Despite the differences, it is important to note that, from here on out, we will be selecting our buyers carefully.  For example, you may only collect her most recently completed work (pictured above) if you tell us that you like it.

Timeline to Two Hundred

When Steve Jobs passed away a couple of weeks ago, every article I read contained a timeline: 1974, Steve Jobs invents the computer; 1976, Steve Jobs becomes a millionaire; 1980, Steve Jobs fired from Apple; 1985, Steve Jobs invents movies; 1989, Steve Jobs becomes a billionaire; 1994, Steve Jobs invents music; 1998, Steve Jobs becomes a trillionaire; etc. Though slightly less well known than Steve Jobs, Rural Ways thinks that a timeline is a good way to show how far we've come. From a humble beginning nearly three years ago, Rural Ways has quietly become a publishing phenomenon. Now, as we celebrate two hundred posts, it is time to take a look back at the people and stories who have built this site into the juggernaut it is today.

January 1, 2009. Rural Ways enters the blogosphere with its first post.
May 1, 2009. Rural Ways goes debt free . . . no mortgage, no credit cards, no loans, nothin'.
November 12, 2009. Rural Ways nearly loses the chainsaw while preparing for winter.
January 7, 2010. Rural Ways turns one.
March 26, 2010. Rural Ways moves into the dining room at the Homestead.
August 6, 2010. Skunks decimate the food crop at the Homestead.
December 25, 2010. Rural Ways spends Christmas at San Juan Hill.
January 1, 2011. Rural Ways turns two.
April 27, 2011. Rural Ways fences out the chickens.
September 4, 2011. Firewood cutting begins for another winter at the Homestead.
November 13, 2011. Rural Ways turns two hundred . . . posts, that is.

Date With Destiny?

Stories of our vehicles are common at Rural Ways, especially stories of the Sable—a living legend. More than two years ago, we were ready to say goodbye to the car because it had been diagnosed with inoperable transmission failure. Read about it HERE. Since then, we have driven it another 15,000 miles, including multiple trips to Salt Lake or Ogden and back. The transmission periodically acts as though it is finished, and then rights itself and keeps going.

Last week, however, we noticed a new noise coming from the motor. I thought it was a bad bearing in the water pump or the air conditioning compressor. But, we took it over to Reese for a diagnosis. Nope, he said, not the water pump: The camshaft bearings are bad, and you need a new engine. The guy practically kicked Valerie and the car off his property because he didn't want the motor to break apart in his yard. He told us to get it to the junk yard before was too late. So, naturally, we're still driving it. I mean, one terminal illness is no worse than any other, right? (As my father-in-law is always saying, "I'll probably die with it rather than from it.")

In any case, I am concerned about having the Sable give its all in the middle of a busy freeway, so we are now under a very tight travel restriction—it goes no farther than the True Value. Plus, I talked to the guys over at the salvage yard, and they told me that they'd give me $150 for it if they had to pick it up, and more if I could get it to their yard myself. (The auto salvage business has got to be the last redoubt of the professional thug . . . I've never seen so many dim-witted but over-muscled guys with vicious dogs in my life.) The best way to ensure delivery to the junk yard is to drive it over there right now, but, who knows, maybe the thing will go another two years.

The Civilization of the West

A friend of mine, Colonel Benson, tells a funny story on himself: He was interviewing the guidance counselor at a school to which he was considering sending his son. The person, hoping to influence his decision, told him that the school would teach his son about the history, the culture, the art, and the philosophy of the "west." Benson was sold. He'd grown up in Montana, and his forebears had been fighting the wilderness for generations. He was thrilled that his son would become familiar with each of the Mountain Men. It was only later that Benson realized that the "west" meant Homer, Cicero, and Constantine, not Glass, Sublette, and Johnson. Benson, of course, did not need to tell anyone that story, but he used it as an introduction to his favorite book, which he was in the process of lending me. The book is called, "Crow Killer, The Saga of Liver-Eating Johnson."

While Crow Killer is a fast-paced, non-fiction (but partly legendary) account of one of the most famous nineteenth century Mountain Men, what struck me about it was that it was a story of loss. As each successive wave of settlement has crashed over the American west, the country has changed, and those who were here before have felt the loss of what they knew. The authors do not speculate regarding the feelings of the tribes—the Crow, the Shoshoni, the Flathead—as the Mountain Men began to bring change to the country, but they finish the story by noting that the Mountain Men themselves regretted the end of their own era and hated the influx of wagon trains, railroads, and cattle herds.

And on and on it goes. The "west" is now home to more than 30 million people, and rare is the corner unreached by motor or cell phone. While there is some fake (finger pointing) remorse from the pseudo-environmentalist soul patch crowd, the fact is that as Americans we want it all: We want wilderness this morning and a brew pub at happy hour; we want the back-country after breakfast and access to commercial air travel by 3pm; we want to stop development by noon and fill up our tanks in time for the commute home. I guess, like Colonel Benson, we should all have a laugh at ourselves and hope our kids grow up knowing both Homer and Hugh Glass. (My reader was probably wondering how I was going to try to tie this whole mess together. Tada.)

Long Term Repeat Photography

Cameras have been around long enough, and there are so many good older images available, that it is now possible to return to areas that were photographed decades or even centuries ago and repeat the process. The outcome of long term repeat photography is not only visually interesting, but has been used by scientists to assess landscape level anthropomorphic change. (Perhaps most famously, at least in my line of work, by Charles Kay.) The technique is, however, only effective when things do change. Over the course of 100 years, vegetation may change, but, often, geology does not. Which makes the business of long term repeat photography difficult for those of us making pictures of rock.



The photo-graph to the left was made by E.O. Beaman in 1871. Mr. Beaman was a member of Major Powell's second expedition, and he made this picture at a place that the expedition called Bowknot Bend. At image left is a view looking downstream along the Green River; at image right is a view looking upstream along the Green River. In between is a large plateau that forces the river into a six or seven mile bend. Beaman carried the heavy photographic equipment of his era up the left side, and was picked up by the rest of his crew on the right side after they floated their three boats around the bend.



Almost exactly 140 years later, Rural Ways made this second picture, standing, without knowing it at the time, almost exactly where Mr. Beaman stood. Clearly, very little has changed, geologically speaking, since JWP and the boys were here. Two things can, however, be noted. First, on the extreme left edge of the 2011 image there is a faint scuff of sand along the far riverbank. The scuff marks the edge of a dirt road. The road is open to the public, which means that modern photographers will, almost surely, be making pictures with the roar of ATVs in their ears. This is a joy that I doubt Mr. Beaman had the pleasure of experiencing. Second, the large sandbar, visible at lower right in both images, is now covered by Tamarisk or Salt Cedar (Tamarix ramosissima). Salt Cedar is an aggressive non-native plant that was introduced to North America in the early 1800. It does not appear to be present in the Green River riparian area in 1871. Today, it has obviously covered most of the long term sandbars along the entire waterway.

In any case, I'll close this post with another quote from my favorite river narrator from 1871, Frederick Dellenbaugh: "The next morning we remained here till ten for views, and then we left Beaman on the summit of the low dividing ridge, where one could look into the river on either side and see a point which we rowed more than five miles to reach. On the right bank we stopped for dinner, and when it was about ready several of us crossed, and, helping Beaman down with his heavy boxes, ferried him to our side. The opposite bank was no more than one thousand feet in a straight line from our starting-place of the morning."

Cat and Mouse

"If any will not work, neither let him eat." Did the Apostle Paul intend for his famous admonition to apply to cats? Because, if so, the pictured feline will be seeing a drastic reduction in the daily distribution of kibbles.

One of our neighbors has been dealing with a mouse infestation, brought on primarily by the presence of loose chicken feed out by his chicken coop. As the fall weather strengthens, we are beginning to see a spill-over effect. It seems that mice, not knowing where the property line is located, have been coming to The Homestead for shelter. Once inside, they have been snuggling in for the long winter. There is no way that Rural Ways is going to share a pantry with mice, so I have been trapping them.

While killing mice is a somewhat unpleasant task, I would be much happier about it if I hadn't just spent the last six years sheltering a cat. If the cat can't take care of the mice, why am I supporting her? I suppose that we have been too soft. We have supplied her with store food for many years, which is likely to have blunted her native ferocity. Perhaps some rationing of the free food is in order.

(The fact that the object of my ire is currently napping in front of the woodstove is not helping her case.)

Heating Improvements?

It is November 1st and, right on time, we've got a cold, blustery winter storm blowing through: Lows in the teens have been forecast. Fortunately, over the summer, Rural Ways added 10 bales of insulation to The Homestead. In addition, we renovated the screen porch and added a ventless gas heater to warm it. Two more heaters are either installed or planned for the bathroom and bedroom, respectively. With all that, you'd think we'd be living like those people from Vegas who have adopted shorts, flip-flops, and tank-tops as a uniform. Well, you'd be wrong. For one thing, heat isn't free, and for another, it doesn't work when it is turned off, which, under the frugal regime at Rural Ways, it often is. So, pull on the long-johns, the sweat-shirts, the Sorrels, and the ski hat, and get ready for winter weather . . . indoors.

Seven Times Twenty Makes One Hundred Forty

The girls came along for yesterday's firewood run. I told them to wait in the truck while I felled a couple of trees. The first, a 12-inch blue spruce, went as planned. The second, a 12-inch cottonwood, was hollow in the middle and broke off while I cut it, falling directly into the middle of the creek. So, instead of two nice trees to buck and load, I had just one, . . ., and an old top that someone had left, and a dead oak stem, and a broken juniper, and on and on. The girls started loading the truck, but it was one of those days where we were picking and plucking, one six inch stick at a time. It was going to take us all day to fill the truck.

About that time, I decided to take a whack at the butt end of an old Douglas fir that someone had felled and left laying on the hillside above the truck. It was 21 inches in diameter, nine or ten feet long, and wedged between some boulders. I could see why they had left it. Because my saw has a 16 inch bar, I had to cut half of it from one side, and then go around and cut the other half from the other side. I got one round off without hitting a rock, and Valerie rolled it down to the truck. I almost quit there, but decided to try the other end. Fortunately, it broke off before I got to the bottom, so I didn't have to risk hitting a rock on that one. At that point, the log was small enough—six or seven feet—that I could pick up one end and flip it over. I only strained three muscles doing it, and it put the log out into the open, away from the boulders. I was able to make four more cuts, rolling the log to avoid cutting all the way to the ground, and voila, we had seven rounds to put on the truck. It was all I could do to lift each one, but when I was done the truck was FULL. It had turned out to be a good morning after all.

When we got home, I put one of those rounds on my chopping block. I split the whole thing just to see what it would yield. I got 20 pieces of firewood out of one round. I didn't split all seven rounds, but, by my math, that would make 140 chunks of firewood. Each morning when I get up, I burn four or five chunks of wood to warm the house before the girls get out of bed. Without complicating this post by including too many lengthy calculations, I would say that our seven disks of 21 inch Doug fir will give us about one month of warm mornings.

Labyrinth Canyon

Whenever we are floating, with our cell phones and car keys, overtaken by parties of yuppies with the latest in high tech gear, I can't help but think about JWP. He launched from Green River, Wyoming in 1869 with nothing but the shirt on his back and no hope of help from AirMed. By the time he reached the mouth of the Virgin River, he had been given up for dead. He had been on the river for months and had not tasted a single burger from Ray's Tavern or ridden for a mile in a Subaru. Yet, despite the seeming hardship, he did it all again in 1871.

Sometimes I wish I could go back and do the trip the way he did it, but I have to admit that when the Chev started on Sunday morning and hauled us two thousand feet to the top of Horsethief Canyon, I was glad we didn't have to walk. I guess I'm as soft as anyone. In fact, it was luxury the whole way. We had brats on the breach near Dellenbaugh's Butte, curry across the river from June's Bottom, ravioli at Spring Canyon Point, and home-made chili at Cottonwood Bottom.

And the weather . . . sparkling from start to finish. Which is not how Major Powell and the boys found it in 1871. For them, it was cold and wet. They strung tarps upon oars and built bonfires to warm up. But, really, I need to let Dellenbaugh tell the story of Labyrinth Canyon. He does it better than I ever could, and gives you a feel for it that is unsurpassed.

"No sooner had I arrived at the camp than the sky which was leaden and low began to drop its burden upon us. Packing up could not be done till the rain slackened, and we sheltered ourselves as well as we could. As we waited a deep roaring sound from not far off presently fell on our ears and we were puzzled to explain it till an examination showed a recently dry gulch filled with a muddy torrent which leaped the low cliff into the river, a sullen cascade. The San Rafael, too, was a booming flood. We packed the boats as soon as we could and ran down about two miles and a half to where the first boat was. Cliffs bordered the river again, 50 to 100 feet high, then 200 or 300, and we saw we were in the beginning of the next canyon called from its winding course, Labyrinth. Over these straight walls hundreds of beautiful cascades born of the rain were plunging into the river. They were of all sizes, all heights, and almost all colours, chocolate, amber, and red predominating. The rocky walls, mainly of a low purplish-red tint, were cut into by the river till the outside curves of the bends were perpendicular and sometimes slightly more than perpendicular, so that some of the cascades fell clear without a break. The acres of bare rock composing the surface of the land on both sides collected the rain as does the roof of a house, and the rills and rivulets rapidly uniting soon formed veritable floods of considerable proportions seeking the bosom of the river. This seemed the most fantastic region we had yet encountered. Buttes, pinnacles, turrets, spires, castles, gulches, alcoves, canyons and canyons, all hewn, 'as the years of eternity roll' out of the verdureless labyrinth of solid rock, made us feel more than ever a sense of intruding into a forbidden realm, and having permanently parted from the world we formerly knew."

Click here for pictures.

The Demise of Highway 14

When I posted on Friday, October 7, I noted that southern Utah had received its first snowfall of the season. What I didn't mention is that it was a major winter storm with lots of moisture. Well, sometime during that night, State Highway 14 over Cedar Mountain was wiped out by a landslide. This is a very narrow part of the roadway going up the canyon where there has been evidence of slumping and sloughing before. In this picture, the highway enters at the bottom right corner, and exits towards the upper left in the shadow of the cliff. The big blob that fills the middle of the picture is earth and forest and mountain. It has relocated itself to where the highway used to be.

As you might have guessed, State Highway 14 is currently closed. This is what the Utah Department of Transportation has to say about it: "Employees are working to address safety concerns and assess repair options." Um. Is that bureaucratese for "we-got-no-freaking-clue?" I'm no road engineer, so perhaps I am over-reacting, but when an entire mountain-side pushes half a mile of highway two hundred feet down the slope and into the river, is repair an option?

Identifying the Blues

The Utah State Tree is the blue spruce (Picea pungens). As a result, you'd think that it would be common within Utah and easy to identify. Well, I'm not sure. In southern Utah, hundreds of thousands of acres are composed of Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii) only, not a blue spruce to be found. For that reason, whenever I see a spruce tree out of the corner of my eye, I assume that it is an Engelmann. That can, of course, lead to some acute embarrassment because sometimes I'm wrong. So, here is the question: How can you tell, with a passing glance, whether your spruces are blue or Engelmannii? If I have time to examine the cones, I think I can get it right, but how about during a drive-by? Any tips? (Hint: In this picture, the blue spruce cone is on top, the Engelmann spruce cone is on the bottom.)

First Snow

Working at 9400 feet in the foothills of Colorado, I wasn't surprised to be snowed on yesterday. It was, however, a bit of a shock to hear that the girls were shoveling snow at The Homestead. OK, maybe not shoveling, but they got snow in southern Utah, too. When I left there a few days ago it was still topping out in the low 80s, so it's been quite a turn around. While I'm glad it is cooler, I'd like the snow to wait until I have all my firewood in.

View from the Office

This week the office view is of Pike's Peak. We're working along the Rampart Road just north of Chipita Park. We're supposed to be planning group selections for a mix of ponderosa pine, limber pine, Douglas fir, and aspen. This would, on the other hand, be a good place for slashing and burning. The stands are still relatively open, and a moderate fire would set back the shade tolerant advanced regeneration (Douglas fir and some Engelmann spruce) while preserving the legacy pines and stimulating aspen sprouting. Unfortunately it is very difficult to find a window for smoking 1,000 acres within view of 600,000 people, so broadcast burning may not be a realistic option. That leaves group selection. Oh well, it beats a week sitting at the desk.

Japan Visits the Falls

I was on my way back from Footbridge Falls, which is just a few minutes away from The Homestead. As I walked, I could hear some loud voices. After a while, I encountered a pair of Japanese men decked out in the latest, well, adventure gear, I guess you call it. It is that stuff that REI insists you must have in southern Utah. I don't know quite what it is, but, you know, the three-sided, wicking, cooling, shading techno-hat with the long back that looks kind of like a mullet, and all that other stuff. Anyway, in broken English one of them asked me which way to the falls. I gestured, and tried to explain. They looked confused. So, I raised my voice, because everyone knows that when someone does not speak your language the way to help them is to shout. It seemed to work. They smiled, and nodded, and moved off down the trail. Probably they had no idea what I was talking about, but didn't want to risk having me explain it to them with a bullhorn. In any case, I'm often surprised at how the little, local sites that seem so mundane are on the itinerary of the international traveler.

Howard Haight's Graffito

Throw a coke can out the window of your car today, and it is just trash; let it lay by the roadside for 50 years (or more), and it becomes a "cultural resource." Likewise, graffiti: Leaving your tag today is vandalism, but leaving it yesterday is part of our heritage. In southern Utah, and around the west, the bark of an aspen tree has long been viewed as the billboard on which to leave your inscription. To me, an aspen carving from today is an annoyance, but a carving from 50, or 70, or even 100 years ago is worth noting. I stop and wonder, was this the work of a lonely cowboy, a passing tourist, or a ragged hunter? I try to imagine the shape of the forest and the size of the tree on the day it was carved. Could this artist have imagined that his work would last for seven decades?

I found this particular note from Howard Haight in the mountains above Cedar City on a tree that is still alive. Yesterday, I found a carving from 1934 on a dead tree near Yankee Meadows. Since the average lifespan of an aspen tree is probably around 80 years, finding stuff from the 1920s and 1930s is likely to be near the limit. Indeed, the oldest record that I have is from a tree on the Sevier Plateau. It is dated September 22, 1921. When your carving celebrates its 90th birthday, I will no longer consider it to be trash.

Featured Artist

It is a busy week for the talent at Rural Ways: Valerie has entered both the oil painting and mixed media competions at the Escalante Canyons Art Festival. At this event, many of the best outdoor painters in the region put their skills on the line for a chance at several thousand dollars in prizes. Past winners have included Doug Braithwaite, Brad Holt, and Daryl Thomas. Valerie has entered six times before and has collected a prize on five of those occaisons. In my opinion it shows that she can go toe to toe with the big names. Of course, there has never been any doubt that I consider Valerie to be one of the top painters in Utah—and I don't care what anybody else says, I've seen a lot of art work in the past ten years, so I know what is good. Not only that, but Valerie has been selected as the Featured Artist at this year's event. Another well deserved honor. She has painted more than 200 works from the Escalante area. It is a record unmatched by any other painter. Ever. Tired of my bragging? OK, just one more thing: The word on the street is that Valerie is currently creating a masterpeice of Powell Point (pictured). Powell Point is a landmark made famous by John Wesley Powell who is reputed to have mapped the Grand Staircase from its summit. For those who call Escalante home, the first sight of Powell Point coming up out of Red Canyon, with the Sevier Plateau to the north and Johns Valley ahead, is the signal that you're back in your home country. Alright, I'm done. But, if you're in south central Utah this weekend, stop in to see Valerie in Escalante . . . and bring your checkbook.

Carbaryl

Lodgepole pine is a fire adapted seral species that covers vast portions of the western United States and Canada. As a result, it is not practical (or necessary) to "save" it from the Mountain Pine Beetle. Some individual trees are, however, very valuable. These are the ones that have shaded the camping spot that my family and I have visited for generations. While no tree lives forever, maximizing shade tree lifespan is desirable, and avoiding complete camping area mortality is imperative.

One expensive, but generally successful, method for maintaining live trees in the face of an insect epidemic, is to spray each stem five inches in diameter or greater with insecticide. In this image, a contractor is spraying lodgepole in a National Forest campground on the north slope of the Uinta with Carbaryl. They generally spray each tree from top to bottom three times as they circle it . . . hundreds of trees per day . . . it is a slow, costly job.

The Forest Service silviculturist who was supervising this application told me that they have marked 15,000 trees for spraying this year. At $10 per tree, the pictured contractor should experience some fiscal stimulus this year. Of course, he wasn't wearing a respirator, or even a mask, so I'm not sure how much time he'll have to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

Mountain Pine Beetle

Along the north slope of the Uinta Mountains, most of the lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) has been killed by the mountain pine beetle (MPB, Dendroctonus ponderosae). If you drive through the forest and look at the trees, about half of them are red or grey with dead needles, the rest—the green ones—are aspen and fir. Lodgepole is particularly susceptible to MPB attack, so if you see thousands of acres of dead trees, you can count on a beetle epidemic. The tell-tale sign, however, is found on the bark of a beetle hit tree. As the beetle bores into the bark, the tree sends pitch to the wound. The pitch, mixed with sawdust and frass, pushes back out through the hole and forms a sticky white bubble on the surface of the bark. When a tree is under attack it may have hundreds of these "pitch tubes" covering its entire circumference.

Is it Over?

I was on the Kolob Road this morning and I noticed that the rabbitbrush was in full bloom. Later, as I drove through Beaver, I saw snow on the Tushars—the first of the season. Is it over? Can this spark of joy be justified? Have we endured the worst of it?

Rural Ways benefits from summer weather. We restock the freezer, harvest the herbs, stack another winter's worth of firewood. But, that doesn't mean we like it. I mean, who does? July? It could simply be removed from the calendar and we could replace it with a second October.

As I drove through the sleet of a fifty degree drizzle from Scipio to Provo, I began to wonder if we would be able to reach our work site tomorrow at 10,000 feet. What a nice predicament. Summer might be over, and snow may be in the forecast.

Rural Ways Rides Navajo

This is one of Valerie's favorite bike rides. And, I can see why. Ten to twelve miles of single-track along the shores of Navajo Lake. The riding is not difficult—I didn't have to unclip from start to finish—but that doesn't mean it is boring. There are roots and rocks and whoop-de-doos enough to keep one's attention, and even a few steep sections to push the heart rate up. We went to Navajo on Friday morning to goof-off a little before my next work-trip to northern Utah. The weather was fine and the trail was deserted (we saw just two other people). We bailed off the trail at the Lodge and rode the last mile on the road. We didn't feel like climbing up and around the summer cabins at the west end of the lake. When we got home, we looked in the guidebook and they said that you should ride the loop the other direction: The climb around the summer homes is less steep going that way, and you get it over-with while your legs are still warming up. We'll have to try that next time. Of course, since my last ride was in July 2010, we may need to wait until the end of 2012 for another report.

Patio

Once the Homestead's new roof and new sewer line were finished, I had a messy spot outside the back-door that I thought might be a good location for a patio. So, I went to Home Depot and looked at their pavers. Let's see, there are a couple of layers that go underneath—leveling gravel and weed-barrier—then there are the pavers, and then there is a special sand to sweep into all the cracks. All for the low, low price of several hundred dollars. (Which is probably worth it because, if you follow the instructions, your patio comes out flat.) After blowing through our entire housing repair budget this summer on the other projects, though, it was too much.

So, I looked around the yard and found a couple of broken pieces of concrete from earlier this summer. There were only four or five chunks, which was hardly a start, but it gave me an idea. I went about a mile up the canyon to an old gravel pit where the locals dump their junk. (They also set up dioramas with real furniture and burned out TVs which they blast into smithereens with shotguns. Good action.) Sure enough, there were numerous broken-up sidewalks that had been dumped in piles near the road. I made three or four trips with the truck and picked through all the broken concrete. I also dug some sand from the wash and put it in some old five-gallon buckets. Voila. A free patio. (But don't look too closely: It ain't exactly flat.)

Construction Update

The enclosure and winterization of the western porch at The Homestead is a very small job. Which might be why the contractors we have hired to do it can each alot one hour per week to it. The progress is slow. But, there is progress. The windows and doors are in, the sheetrock is up, and the mud and stucco have got one coat each.

Taxicabs and Motorcars (and Rhinos)

One of the things I dislike about The Homestead is the street noise. We have a large lot, set back from the street, but it is in town, and there is plenty of traffic. Even worse, Parowan has become a bit of a second home, vacation home destination for Las Vegas and southern California. As a result, we are flooded every weekend with the motorhead crowd. I'm guessing that it is a great deal of fun and a big "country living" sort of thing to ride your ATV, Jeep, Pick-up, Rhino, etc up and down the streets of a small town. Every summer weekend, there is a steady background roar of recreational vehicles up and down the streets, and up and down, and up and down. Fun.

Actually, I have nothing against motors. In fact, I benefit tremendously from motors; they make my life better. I guess what bugs me a little bit is that it is simply joy-riding. It is noise for the sake of noise. It is engine revving for leisure. Which, I guess, is still fine . . . except that every headline every day is about how terrible it is that we can't afford pensions and medical care and that we're broke and nobody has a job and gas is too expensive and the sky is falling and won't somebody do something and I deserve a bailout. Um. No. I don't believe any of it. Not while half of Las Vegas is roaring up and down my street with the throttle open. When motors are used because we need them, not because we just like to listen to the turbo open as we push the pedal down, I'll start to worry that we are running out of cash.

G.K. Chesterton is, perhaps, the most quotable writer to have ever lived. He made note of my problem about 100 years ago: "It is customary to complain of the bustle and strenuousness of our epoch. But in truth the chief mark of our epoch is a profound laziness and fatigue; and the fact is that the real laziness is the cause of the apparent bustle. Take one quite external case; the streets are noisy with taxicabs and motorcars; but this is not due to human activity but to human repose. There would be less bustle if there were more activity, if people were simply walking about. Our world would be more silent if it were more strenuous." Amen. Let there be quiet.

First of the Firewood

Tiger said that the sleeping campers would be up and on their ATVs soon enough. And he was right. The roar from dozens (hundreds?) of revving joy-riders soon filled the canyon and swamped any remaining sympathy I may have had for those who were startled from slumber at 7a by a pair of chainsaws. Besides, if they'd read my last post, they'd have known that we'd be starting early, and that this wasn't going to be a good place for sleeping in.

Tiger cut and bucked probably four dead trees, including a pine, a true fir, and two Douglas firs. I bucked a downed Douglas fir, and felled two others, (only one of which got hung up, costing us an hour of fooling around to get it on the ground). Together, we filled the Chev and loaded about 2/3 of Tiger's trailer before noon. I usually get eight truckloads each fall, so there are seven to go.

What is Wrong with Starting Early?

It is an unfortunate fact that we have not experienced the normal late August cooling trend at The Homestead. We have had consistent, and persistent, temperatures in the nineties. Which means that the best time to get anything done is between 6a and 10a. After that, work is simply a suffer-fest.

In addition to the weather, we are still experiencing the joys of home renovation. As I noted last week, we are in the middle of a project to winterize the back porch. This project, in conjunction with the circumstances of our current weather, brings me to the reason for this post (yes, despite the evidence, there is a reason).

With the exception of the Mexican guys who replaced our roof, every contractor we've met this summer seems to start his work day at 10a. When they tell me they'll be here in the morning, I'm standing out there at 7a. After three hours of waiting, they usually come slouching in with a cigarette and a cup of coffee sometime before eleven (if they show up at all). They work until noon or 1p, take a lunch break, then come back and pack up their tools so that they can be gone by 3p. Is this the normal work day?

If it were me, I'd be on the job site by 7a at the latest. Yeah, you can be somewhat quiet as you unload the sheetrock (so you don't wake the neighbors), but by 7:30a there is no more Mr. Nice-Guy: The nail gun is switched to full automatic. By the time the sun is really hot, you've got half your work done. Plus, the project takes just three or four days instead of a couple of months. Is there something wrong with starting early?

Spruce Beetle

For about the past ten years, the forests of the western United States have been subject to two different bark beetle epidemics. Most recently, the talk has been of the Mountain Pine Beetle (MPB, Dendroctonus ponderosae), which, as you might guess, impacts mostly pine trees. There have been large areas—millions of acres—of pine mortality in places like Colorado and Montana. The dead trees are often lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta), which is not rare, but a high rate of mortality in outposts of five-needle pines, such as whitebark pine (Pinus albacaulis), have caused some to worry that rarer species may face local extirpations.

Meanwhile, in spruce-fir forests, there have been cases of nearly complete Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmannii) mortality—see Utah's Markagunt Plateau—caused by a cousin of the MPB called the spruce beetle (Dendroctonus rufipennis). The specimen pictured is a spruce beetle plucked last Thursday from beneath the bark of a dead spruce tree at the headwaters of Wolf Creek in northern Utah. The spruce beetle lives in the cambium of the tree for two years, eating the phloem until the tree is completely girdled. Unfortunately, what is often left in place of the spruce is subalpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa), which is the rattiest-looking excuse for a tree a forest visitor could ever wish to see.

Uinta Wasatch Cache

This week's assignment takes us to the Uinta Mountains of northern Utah. The mountain pine beetle arrived first, and has killed most of the lodgepole on the north slope. Our local sources tell us that the spruce beetle is just getting started in the Engelmann spruce. That leaves a lot of ugly subalpine fir, which is mostly infected with broom rust. We are doing vegetation management plans for campgrounds on the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest. Between the forest pests and the millions of campers who simply must try out that hatchet they got for Christmas, it is tough to keep the trees alive at many of these sites.

Pulling Weeds

I've come to the conclusion, after a summer of doing it, that the true test of someone's willingness to work is see whether they will pull weeds. Weeding, especially where the ground is hard and the cheat grass thick, is not a rewarding occupation: The work is slow, tedious, and difficult. If you don't much like to work in the first place, you're not going to have a lot of enthusiasm for pulling weeds.

At the Parowan City nursery, we've had a weed problem this year, and I've spent many hours trying to get it under control. In addition to the weeds, we've had some convict labor assigned to the nursery by one of the local judges. Well, not convicts really, but kids who have spent their time misdemeanorin' and need to work off their debt to society with a little community service. What I have discovered is that the two do not mix. That is, convicts will not pull weeds; they would rather go to jail.

(The Economist recently had an article about farmers in Georgia who were running short of field hands this year. An enterprising state legislator came up with the bright idea of building a program to match the state's unemployed population with the farmers who needed help. The plan quickly ran aground when the bright eyed politician discovered that the jobless were unwilling to do that kind of work. So, the unemployed stayed home while the crops withered in the fields.)

Which is why I was dismayed to learn that the local university (Southern Utah University) would be sending a group of freshman to Parowan to do community service. I was assigned a work crew and my job would be to get them to pull weeds in the city cemetery. I figured that I would do the work while they gossiped, flirted, and talked on the phone.

When they arrived yesterday morning the sun was high, and I was already sweating on the end of a shovel. I showed them what to do and got back to work. Much to my surprise, they all pitched in. There were five of them and they each worked in the sun for more than an hour. They didn't complain (much) and managed to complete the task I had started. Hats off to my five kids from SUU, they passed the test.

Work in Progress

At Rural Ways we agreed on a small home renovation budget for this year. The need for a new roof and a new sewer connection had become dire: We had reached the point where we were achieving a good flow through the shingles but none through the pipes. So we tackled those two projects first. Afterwards, we found that we would have enough left in our budget to build a small studio by enclosing the sleeping porch.

Since both Valerie and I work out of The Homestead, we need both office and studio space under one roof. For the past couple of years we have been sharing a windowless 200 square foot room. It has worked out OK, but it could be better. For one thing, Valerie drives me crazy with her sudden loud laughter when someone sends her a funny email. She has disrupted my concentration so badly that, for two years, I still haven't been able to decide why I like brown ale so much. She, on the other hand, is probably tired of me constantly telling her how and what to paint (as though I know anything about it). As a result, we have both felt that we could each do better with our own space.

We decided that the most cost effective way to build an addition without building an addition was to enclose and winterize the existing screen porch. The work, as you can see from the picture, is in progress. When complete, the new room will have five largish windows on both the north and the west sides. This will provide WAY more light than what we currently have in the area where Valerie paints. It will also provide her with a place where laughter is allowed. As for me, I will have a quiet space where I can focus on the things that really matter: Like whether Brett Favre and Randy Moss are really retired?

Southern Utah in Slow Motion

There are many places in southern Utah where you can't get cell phone service. I love those places. They give you the feeling that you may need to take responsibility for yourself . . . you're out from under the wing of the nanny state. I do not, however, like it when the girls are in those places without me. I can't ensure their safety when I don't know where they are. (I do have to remind myself, of course, that the days of family cell phones are very new, and people managed to somehow survive without them.)

In any case, the girls were coming up from Mexican Hat yesterday and the cell coverage was bad until the top of the Moqui Dugway, and even from there it was spotty. By the time they reached Natural Bridges, the transmission on the Chev was having some problems. It was 100 degrees outside and the next town (if you can call it that) was Hanksville, 85 miles away. We were able to talk sporadically and I gave some suggestions that seemed to help, but I knew that I'd lose touch with them from Fry Canyon down to the river and up North Wash. I was pacing around the house, nervous as a cat, plucking at my face and imagining the worst. Finally, I grabbed some leftovers from the fridge along with a bottle of water; I went out to the car; drove straight to the highway; and set the cruise control on 80.

I reached Loa in a shade over two hours. (The Sable has its own transmission problems, but once it settles in at over 80 mph, it is a beast.) The cells were working and I learned that the girls had made it to Capitol Reef by that time. The Chev's transmission had stopped shifting and they were driving the shoulder of the highway in first gear with the flashers on. I met them at the turn to Teasdale. They were tired, but otherwise fine. My 150 mile flight had probably been unnecessary. On the other hand, what was I going to do, sit in the house sipping a rare Cabernet while they were at risk of being stranded on the banks of the Dirty Devil?

I gave them the car and sent them home. It was 6:30 pm. The automatic transmission on the Chev has an electronic sensor that tells it when to shift. When that stops working, the transmission stops shifting. I wondered if it might be protected by a fuse, but it wasn't. I wondered if it was too hot, so I cranked up the heater to cool the engine, but it wasn't. So, I kicked the tires a couple of times and got back on the highway.

I decided to enjoy myself. I mean, it has probably been 60 years since someone saw all of southern Utah at 30 mph. I imagined that I was Maynard Dixon, out from California in the 1930s. The roads were bad, the car had tires like a bicycle, and maybe Dorthea Lange was on the seat with me. I got on the shoulder of the road with the windows down and started looking over the country. And what country it was.

From the Thousand Lake Mountain to the north and the Awapa Plateau to the south, I started. I coasted down the hill in Bicknell with the engine detached from the transmission. I noticed a waitress from the SunGlow watching me, so I waved. At Loa I looked in at Rob Hamilton's place. He told me that his wife was going to make him buy a boat for Lake Powell, and there it was. Up the mountain towards the Fish Lake; then down, in silence, the truck coasting without the sound of engine compression. The merc was open in Koosharem, but I didn't stop. I was headed for Grass Valley and the glow of the setting sun. There were two guys standing in the road when I turned west, down Kingston Canyon. We waved, and I concentrated on the sun setting directly into my eyes. When I crossed the E. Fork of the Sevier at the bottom of the canyon, the sun was gone, and the cool air off the creek flooded the truck. Around Circleville a few vehicles passed me headed south, and then it was just me and the river and the growing dark. I turned up Bear Valley with the flashers on, but at the top I no longer needed them. Without the compression of the engine to slow my speed I coasted all the way to I-15, which is probably about 10 miles. I wasn't going to risk the freeway in the dark, so I turned down the frontage road. There, to my left, was the rest area, half the population of Vegas, and the roar of the big rigs. Then there was me, driving in the fields of the Parowan Valley at night with the windows down. When I went through Paragonah, a guy was walking his dog in the street. I went back out into the valley with the lights of Parowan in front of me. A few minutes later, I was home.