Flower Season

We had our first nineties this week.  Which is awful.  But I guess the roses like it.  It is definitely flower season at 420 Grand.  I may have mentioned before that the rose garden here is extensive.  Unfortunately, roses are often attacked by aphids.  And this year has been especially bad.  Unless you're an aphid.

Like a Park

I made these pictures last week, but never got around to posting them.  There are a couple of canyons near our Utah house that remind us of Bryce Canyon or Cedar Breaks.  But they are small, relatively remote, and unnamed, so they don't get nearly the traffic.  We like to go out there to walk the ridges.

Hope

We are, obviously, getting to the bad time of the year.  The time of year when you can't go out.  The time of year when the sun is hot and the back-country is full of the sound of motors.  The time of year when you turn up the A/C and hide under the bed, praying for the first frost.  But, yesterday (when I made these pictures), we had a brief interlude.  A small reminder.  An indicator of good times to come.  A reason for hope.  If we can make it through the bad days, winter will return:  Short days, dark nights.  And snow.

Hurry Up and Germinate

I'm not sure whether I have the correct term, but the sentiment is right.  We've got a pair of hummingbirds nesting on our front porch.  They built right on top of our house number sign.  It seems cute, but it's not.  We can't go out there.  Have you ever been attacked by angry hornets?  That is nothing compared to what you get from a nesting hummingbird.  It's fun until someone loses an eye.  The sooner we can get those eggs hatched and the little ones fledged, the better.  I haven't dared look in there, but they say that the eggs are about the size of a pea.  How long can it take?  (I was able to get up close to an abandoned nest in our shed, below, a feathery little cup shaped thing.)

Centered

In 2017, Center Creek was closed by the Brian Head Fire.  It remained closed in 2018 as dead trees fell and the road washed out from post-fire flooding.  I'm not sure what happened last year because I spent the month of May in California.  For 2020, the road is open again, and in much better shape, better even than before the fire.  So, we've gone back to exploring the side canyons and climbing the ridges.  I've been there, either solo or with EDO, each day of the past week.  It is a spectacular canyon, much more open since the fire, so a lot of the beautiful ridges are accessible.