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.