Grand Mesa

On Friday we loaded the canoe on the Chev and went to meet the cousins near Grand Mesa, Colorado. On Saturday we put the canoe and the cousins into a lake atop the Mesa. There were two of them. Cousins, that is. Which made three little monkeys. Uncle Keith tried to give the monkeys canoeing lessons. A couple of them were getting it, but they still need some practice. On Sunday we loaded the canoe, said Goodbye to the cousins, and came home.

Rock Squirrels

I don't really mind rock squirrels in the wild. But, I won't have them in my garden. I was out working on one of my Homestead fences yesterday when I saw one dash under an old wood pile. After I tried to smack it with a fence post, it became even more elusive. I moved all the wood, and an additional pile of pales under which it was burrowing, but I never could find it again.

When Grandpa had a problem with a squirrel bothering his bird feeder, he used a live trap to move the squirrel to another county. It seems as though I'm going to have to borrow the trap. Maybe the squirrel in the picture would like a neighbor. It lives on Circleville Mountain, with a burrow in the middle of the road. I don't care about that so much, I just don't want one in my yard.

Flat on a Ford

My work truck is a Ford F-250. On Wednesday afternoon, I was driving it down from Sawmill Bench when a rock punctured the passenger rear tire. It wasn't long before the tire was flat and I was parked. No big deal, right? Just put on the spare and keep going. Well. I don't know if you've had a flat tire lately, but this no longer the day of burly jacks and available spares. Evidently, automobile manufactures want to ensure that the buyer is never troubled by the need to fix a flat: The tiny jack will be hidden away in some secret compartment and the six or eight fiddly little tools to operate it will be tucked into a bag under the carpet of the back seat.

On Wednesday, I fooled around for a good while gathering all the pieces, starting the jack, and breaking the lugs free. Before going any further, I decided that I'd better remove the spare from under the back bumper. It was at this point that all the fiddling finally got the best of me. The spare on most pick-ups is on a cable that winds up tight against the bottom of the truck bed. To access it, you simply turn the crank that unwinds the cable, lowering the spare to the ground. Unfortunately, the cable crank is usually two feet in from the bumper up a narrow channel, and thus invisible to the operator. You are supposed to assemble a number of pieces from the bag and stick them up the channel so that you can unwind the cable.

I did all this on Wednesday, but I could not catch the cable crank and lower the spare with any of the tools in the bag. I pushed, pulled, kicked, cursed, banged, and pounded on it for 20 or 30 minutes. I had just started digging for the owner's manual when a couple of guys from the recreation crew pulled up next to me. "Are you using the key?" asked one of the guys. THE KEY? I had no idea what he was talking about. It turns out that Ford is saving the world from the scourge of spare tire theft by making the spare accessible only by use of a small round socket that sits in the bottom of the glove box. The socket "key" must be attached to the end of four or five of these fiddly tools and inserted down the channel of the spare tire winch. Only then can you catch the crank and turn it, releasing the spare.

Holy crap. What a pain in the butt. I can read, so I may have eventually found some instructions regarding THE KEY in the owner's manual. But, I'm sure glad that one of those guys knew about it. It makes me want to toss a lug wrench, a hi-lift, and a spare into the bed of the truck so that I can fix a flat in three minutes instead of 90.

VSO at South Hall

From now until the end of August, VSO will be showing on the campus of Southern Utah University. As part of Cedar City's "Art Walk," she will be displaying a collection of about twenty paintings at South Hall. For hours of operation and address information, click here. (Cedar City believes in saving the best for last, so scroll all the way to the bottom.) As always, VSO's work—some of the best in southern Utah—is for sale. You can purchase directly from the Braithwaite Fine Arts Gallery, which is also on campus, so don't worry about not being able to find someone to take your money.

Mr. Carter

On March 18, 1992, Barney Carter passed away. He was 43 years old. Those two facts are virtually all I know about Mr. Carter. The only other thing I know is the location where his family (or friends) put his ashes--under a pile of rocks on a ridge in the Great Basin. The hidden cairn is on public land where disposing of human remains is not exactly legal. But, I'm not telling the grave police. Nor am I telling my reader. You'll have to find it yourself. Until then we'll let Mr. Carter rest in peace.

The Big Tree

On May 28, 2012, I was working in the Sierras and I found a 64 inch ponderosa pine (or Jeffrey pine, it is hard to tell the difference). I made note of it at the time because that is a big ponderosa, even in the Sierras. On May 28, 2014 (last Wednesday), I was looking for a colleague on the Beaver Ranger District in southern Utah. I parked by his truck and started walking in the woods. I was near what they call "The Big Tree," so I wandered around until I found it: A very large ponderosa. I decided to tape it. 66 inches. Wow. In southern Utah. A new personal record that is larger than the one I found in the Sierras.