Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

If good fences make good neighbors, what do good stockades do? Rural Ways just completed construction on this one along our northern border. It seems a little intimidating, and is probably overkill, but it should make life easier for property owners on both sides.

Our neighbors have a chicken flock with a tendancy to stray. We don't dislike chickens, and don't dislike our neighbors, but we don't want the chickens in our garden during spring planting: chicken scratching tends to disrupt seeds and seedlings alike. The old fence along the property line was a porous eye-sore, and the chickens knew it. So, we decided to replace it with something that would work (and look) better. Hopefully, we've succeeded.

Financial Mistakes

At Rural Ways, we like to think that our family embraces frugality and hard work. But, even under those watch-words, we make the occasional blunder. Yesterday, in an attempt to teach Ellen about the value of money, while also clearing the yard of dandelions, we offered to pay her a 2 cent bounty on every dandelion head she pulled. (Yanking up the head doesn't kill the plant, but it stops it from seeding.) Unfortunately, it was a foolish mistake that had us wondering if we would need a bail-out.

Our picture (as parents) was of a sweaty-faced young girl laboring for an hour or two to earn a few bucks. In reality, she settled in on a soft spot on the lawn and sat there for 20 minutes chucking dandelions into a bucket—no sweating necessary. Pretty soon, she had 500 dandelions. Yikes. We had to call the whole thing off. We agreed to pay her what she had "earned," but instead of having the talk about, ahem, the value of hard work, I ended up trying to explain that making money was not always going to be that easy. She listened seriously for a few minutes, and then said, "OK, Dad. Now Mom is going to drop me off downtown so I can buy a car." Great.

Freeway Booty

Near Parowan, there is a large truck-stop. Evidently truckers take advantage of the stopping to adjust the black bungy cords atop their loads. Occasionally an adjustment goes awry and the bungy is flung clear once the semi hits freeway speeds. As a result, the freeway roadsides near Parowan are a virtual Bermuda Triangle of lost bungies. This is, of course, unfortunate for the trucking industry, but provides a bit of a cottage industry for Rural Ways.

This morning, at dawn, I went bungy hunting on I-15. Between Parowan and Summit, I found nine black bungies (see picture). Now, this is definitely not something for you to try at home. It is dangerous work. When I was a kid, the posted speed limit on most freeways was 55 MPH, and everybody knew you could go 62 MPH without risking a ticket. Today, the posted speed on I-15 is 80 MPH, and most people will settle in at just over 85 MPH. If you don't, personally, feel like being vaporized, it is best not to slow down out there . . . which makes it tough to pick up bungies.

My preferred technique is to use the car. It is low to the ground and means that you can reach out the open door and snatch the bungy without stopping. (The pick-up truck is too high; you actually have to put the vehicle in "Park" and climb down, which is a no-no.) The best way, of course, is with a gunner. That way, you can focus on driving, and he or she can make the grab. But, if you're flying solo, you need the bungy to come up on the driver's side of the vehicle, which means skimming the far right side of the shoulder, or even going down into the ditch if necessary. It is also important not to be fooled by the strips of shredded tire that are routinely laying on the freeway shoulder. These can be tempting decoys, but a practiced eye can help you avoid slowing for them.

Despite the need for a sharp eyes and steady nerves, this work can be tremendously rewarding. The retail price of a 1,650 PSI bungy strap can run from $1.79 to $2.99 depending on the length. Though much of the highway booty is damaged, you can probably get one good strap out of every two grabs, which means that I may have netted $8 worth of bungies for Rural Ways today. Not a bad day's work.

Near Skunking

Neither of my readers visited the St. George Art Festival this year, leading to a near skunking. Last year, Rural Ways sold some art work—netting a low four figure sum. This year, we made it through two full days without a sale. Finally, with five minutes to go in the festival, Valerie sold one small piece from the bargain basket. The proceeds from that painting helped cut our losses, but the substantial festival fees and fuel costs associated with the event mean that we are deeply in the read this year. Selling fine art is a funny, unpredictable business.

St. George Art Festival

We are set to participate in the 2011 St. George Art Festival on Friday and Saturday of this week (April 22-23). Valerie will be showing dozens of her new small paintings (8" x 8" and 8" x 10"), as well as many of the larger works that she has created over the past couple of years. The festival opens at 10a on Friday. If you are in the St. George area, please stop by her booth. We'd also recommend that you look around for one of our favorite painters from Arizona, Charles Thomas.

House Sparrows

On the front of our wood shed/garage at Rural Ways we have installed a decorative cow skull. I noticed the other day that a pair of house sparrows likes the decoration so well that they have decided to move in. The two of them fly in and out through the ear hole; they are building a nest. It will be interesting to see if we soon have a family of sparrows living in the skull. If I were more literate, I might be able to come up with a quip or quote regarding the cycle of life—something about a death which turns to new birth (new birds?)—but I'm not.

Meadowlark

A few weeks ago, Rural Ways mentioned the early spring absence of the meadowlark. Since that time, their song has become more frequent, though they must not be nesting on The Homestead this year because we don't hear them nearby. In any case, they can be seen here and there with their bright yellow breasts puffed out in song. I made this picture down near Kanarraville last Sunday when I was looking for a good place to skip church.

Camping at Jackrabbit

OK, our new favorite place is Jackrabbit Mountain. It is close to town, but quiet and fun. We went out there yesterday afternoon and didn't see a soul. This is what I wrote early this morning:

When I got up the sun was still down and there was a skim of frost on the camp. After lacing my boots, I lit the burner under the coffee water, lit the fire, and peed in the bushes. When the first mug of coffee was ready, I took it, and the camera, for a walk across the road and into a little meadow. It was very still and the sun was just brightening the tips of the juniper trees, so I stopped to make a picture. In that moment, though, two other things stood out, things that cannot be collected by a camera: Up and down the little valley, the chickadees were calling—chick-a-dee-dee-dee—and the air was pungent with the smell of cold, wet sagebrush.

Power Outage

On Thursday evening, the winds at the Cedar City airport reached 55 MPH. Sometime during the night, Rocky Mountain Power lost contact with Parowan and we awoke on Friday morning without electricity. I got out of bed in an almost eerie dark silence. I put on my head-lamp and Valerie lit some candles, but it was almost 7a before we could see anything without them. It was a strong reminder of how much we rely on the ambient light from a thousand electronic devices. Normally, when I get up, there is some spill-over light from the street, from the neighbor, from the printer in my office; there is a little blue light from the coffee maker, from the microwave, from the cell phone charger; and on and on. There is no such thing as darkness anymore. Our lives are lighted from a hundred sources that we no longer notice. Likewise, there are sounds that have become part of the background hum of modern life: the motor in the fridge, the small fan cooling the computer hard-drive, and the surge of the heater keeping our water hot. On Friday morning, all of these were absent . . . and the house was quiet . . . quiet and dark . . . like it must have been on a Friday in April a hundred years ago.

Snomageddon

It started snowing on Thursday night. Currently, it is noon on Saturday, and the snow has not stopped. We awoke to snow on Friday morning. It snowed all day Friday. It was snowing when we went to bed. We awoke to snow this morning (Saturday). It has been snowing since we got up. The forecast for this afternoon? Snow. "Chance of precipitation is 100%. Total daytime snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches possible." The forecast for tonight? Snow. "Snow likely, mainly before midnight." If the snow quits by midnight, it will have snowed for about 48 hours straight. Some areas around southern Utah are reporting more than three inches of water from the storm, which is equal to probably a quarter of our yearly precipitation.

Snowbasin, Utah

When I got to the Salt Lake airport on Tuesday night to collect Benson, it was raining hard. We thought that meant plenty of fresh powder in Wednesday. In the event, there was a little creamy new snow and lots of sun. We spent the morning taking laps with Katie until she went to do some work and Wally broke his pole in the bottom of a tree well. After a little lunch the wind started to pick up and the snow was drifting in over our tracks at the top of the lift. At the bottom, it was still mostly spring slop. My skis were sticking a little, so Wally loaned me his butter. After that I went really, really fast. Of course, I still wasn't fast enough to keep Wally in view, so I set my sights on Benson, which was a little easier. By 4p, it was time for a ride back to town, a shower, a couple of pizzas, and a bottle of Cabernet on the deck. The next morning, I returned to southern Utah, while Wally and Benson went back to the mountain. Fortunately for me, I got off the road before the storm hit; fortunately for them, they were at Snowbasin when the storm hit. Benson sent me a text that said: "May be the best ever."

For more pics: https://picasaweb.google.com/aorlemann/SnowbasinUtah#

Hiding the Mess

There are those who like to try making complex pictures, or at least to try harmonizing complexity in their pictures. Some have said that Garry Winogrand was like that, although one of my favorite pictures of his, Statue of Liberty Ferry, New York (1971), is, perhaps, simpler than it looks at first. In any case, my own intent is to do the opposite. Mostly this is because I’m not competent to handle complexity, but also it is because I am always looking for a thing that reminds me of peace.

When one is looking for pictures that are not complex, one quickly sees the advantages provided by fog and ice. Fog covers the detritus of man’s rush to build as many pink stucco mansions as the southwest can hold, and ice covers the trash. Yesterday, we awoke to fog and ice. Valerie suggested that it might be a good time for making pictures. She was probably right, but by the time I got around to it, the strong April sun had burned most of it away. I drove out to a clump of cottonwood trees that I like. What I found (above) was trash, and weeds, and the roof-tops of a development in the distance.

I have, on the other hand, been lucky with that clump before (below). It just goes to show that fog and ice can be an advantage, but that it is best to wake up early if you want to use it.

High Wind Warning

It was supposed to be a camping weekend, but when we got up the National Weather Service was forecasting winds of 35 with gusts to 55. Now, I don't know if you've ever camped in 55 MPH winds, but it generally amounts to dust in your eyes, sand in your food, and a clattering in your dreams as all your stuff starts down the road to Piute County. So, we postponed it for a week. Instead, we went out to Jackrabbit Mountain and climbed around on the hoodoos. The wind blew, we got dirt in our sandwiches, we saw a jack-rabbit, and then we came home. As soon as we got back, the wind stopped. Maybe we should have spent the night?