BIS

It takes two hours to drive to Escalante from the Homestead.  We decided to attend the ECAF awards ceremony yesterday evening, but stopped on the way to stretch our legs with a short hike in Henrieville Creek.  I had not scouted the hike, so it turned into a bit of a thrashing.  VSO fell in the mud at one point and soiled her Anne Taylor dress.  (She did keep her footing during the creek crossing pictured below.)

When we got to the festival, I was stunned by the crowds.  Things have changed.  This is not the sparsely-attended, rustic affair of the past, but a hot, noisy room full of out-of-towners.  (Or maybe they've all move to Escalante, I don't know.)  At any rate, I would not have stayed for five seconds except that the judges had hinted at good things for EDO.  Wow.  It was true:  She won Best In Show (and a cash award) for a picture she entered in the Junior Division (7th through 12th grade) painting competition.  I was proud of her.

Horse

The girls are painting at the ECAF this weekend.  Stand by for the preliminary results.  In the meantime, I've started exploring the side canyons around Horse Canyon.  I have the car—they have the truck—so I can go carefully up where the rocks are small before I start to walk.  In a couple of weeks I'll have them bring the Chev because they are going to like this place.

Can We Add a Smoke Cloud?

VSO has been painting every day.  I don't know whether she likes these two, but I do.  My only complaint is that her skies have been boring.  There were a few clouds in Cannonville (below) but otherwise it has been relentlessly clear day after day.  The only thing in the sky anymore is smoke.

The Queen of the Golden Hall

With apologies to Tolkien, I needed a title for this post that captured the feel of walking through the corridor of Populus.  And I could tell that "The Corridor of Populus" wasn't it.  We are probably a week or ten days away from the full golden rush, but it has begun.

We Were Lucky

When we got out of the car at Brian Head Peak, it was raining.  When we returned to the car two hours later, it was raining.  In between?  Nothing.  It didn't rain while we circumnavigated the peak:  Sidney to Dark Hollow to Mace's to the Marathon (a quick five miles).  And it was a good thing, too.  The wind was blowing and the thermometer stood at 42F.  If we had been wet, we would have been cold.

Perception and Reality

Earlier this year, I said that we might be experiencing an "historic" drought.  As the water year (Oct-Sep) comes to a close, my reader might be wondering whether I was correct.  Well, it depends on what I meant.  Have there been drier years at The Homestead?  Certainly.  In fact, even during the period of instrumental record, there have been drier years.  In our experience, however, the farm and garden have never been drier.  This is primarily because the city irrigation system was damaged by a flood during August 2017 and it has never come back on line.  On the other hand, our perception is not entirely out of step with reality.  Based on 70 years of data collected at the airport in Cedar City (below), 2018 is on track for fourth place with 28 days to go.  (Look at the 1950s; that was a difficult time.)

Year	Inches
2002	4.86
1959	4.9
1960	5.63
2018	6.71
1956	6.83
1976	6.92
1951	6.98
1950	7.59
1977	7.69
1996	7.87