Japan Visits the Falls

I was on my way back from Footbridge Falls, which is just a few minutes away from The Homestead. As I walked, I could hear some loud voices. After a while, I encountered a pair of Japanese men decked out in the latest, well, adventure gear, I guess you call it. It is that stuff that REI insists you must have in southern Utah. I don't know quite what it is, but, you know, the three-sided, wicking, cooling, shading techno-hat with the long back that looks kind of like a mullet, and all that other stuff. Anyway, in broken English one of them asked me which way to the falls. I gestured, and tried to explain. They looked confused. So, I raised my voice, because everyone knows that when someone does not speak your language the way to help them is to shout. It seemed to work. They smiled, and nodded, and moved off down the trail. Probably they had no idea what I was talking about, but didn't want to risk having me explain it to them with a bullhorn. In any case, I'm often surprised at how the little, local sites that seem so mundane are on the itinerary of the international traveler.

Howard Haight's Graffito

Throw a coke can out the window of your car today, and it is just trash; let it lay by the roadside for 50 years (or more), and it becomes a "cultural resource." Likewise, graffiti: Leaving your tag today is vandalism, but leaving it yesterday is part of our heritage. In southern Utah, and around the west, the bark of an aspen tree has long been viewed as the billboard on which to leave your inscription. To me, an aspen carving from today is an annoyance, but a carving from 50, or 70, or even 100 years ago is worth noting. I stop and wonder, was this the work of a lonely cowboy, a passing tourist, or a ragged hunter? I try to imagine the shape of the forest and the size of the tree on the day it was carved. Could this artist have imagined that his work would last for seven decades?

I found this particular note from Howard Haight in the mountains above Cedar City on a tree that is still alive. Yesterday, I found a carving from 1934 on a dead tree near Yankee Meadows. Since the average lifespan of an aspen tree is probably around 80 years, finding stuff from the 1920s and 1930s is likely to be near the limit. Indeed, the oldest record that I have is from a tree on the Sevier Plateau. It is dated September 22, 1921. When your carving celebrates its 90th birthday, I will no longer consider it to be trash.

Featured Artist

It is a busy week for the talent at Rural Ways: Valerie has entered both the oil painting and mixed media competions at the Escalante Canyons Art Festival. At this event, many of the best outdoor painters in the region put their skills on the line for a chance at several thousand dollars in prizes. Past winners have included Doug Braithwaite, Brad Holt, and Daryl Thomas. Valerie has entered six times before and has collected a prize on five of those occaisons. In my opinion it shows that she can go toe to toe with the big names. Of course, there has never been any doubt that I consider Valerie to be one of the top painters in Utah—and I don't care what anybody else says, I've seen a lot of art work in the past ten years, so I know what is good. Not only that, but Valerie has been selected as the Featured Artist at this year's event. Another well deserved honor. She has painted more than 200 works from the Escalante area. It is a record unmatched by any other painter. Ever. Tired of my bragging? OK, just one more thing: The word on the street is that Valerie is currently creating a masterpeice of Powell Point (pictured). Powell Point is a landmark made famous by John Wesley Powell who is reputed to have mapped the Grand Staircase from its summit. For those who call Escalante home, the first sight of Powell Point coming up out of Red Canyon, with the Sevier Plateau to the north and Johns Valley ahead, is the signal that you're back in your home country. Alright, I'm done. But, if you're in south central Utah this weekend, stop in to see Valerie in Escalante . . . and bring your checkbook.

Carbaryl

Lodgepole pine is a fire adapted seral species that covers vast portions of the western United States and Canada. As a result, it is not practical (or necessary) to "save" it from the Mountain Pine Beetle. Some individual trees are, however, very valuable. These are the ones that have shaded the camping spot that my family and I have visited for generations. While no tree lives forever, maximizing shade tree lifespan is desirable, and avoiding complete camping area mortality is imperative.

One expensive, but generally successful, method for maintaining live trees in the face of an insect epidemic, is to spray each stem five inches in diameter or greater with insecticide. In this image, a contractor is spraying lodgepole in a National Forest campground on the north slope of the Uinta with Carbaryl. They generally spray each tree from top to bottom three times as they circle it . . . hundreds of trees per day . . . it is a slow, costly job.

The Forest Service silviculturist who was supervising this application told me that they have marked 15,000 trees for spraying this year. At $10 per tree, the pictured contractor should experience some fiscal stimulus this year. Of course, he wasn't wearing a respirator, or even a mask, so I'm not sure how much time he'll have to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

Mountain Pine Beetle

Along the north slope of the Uinta Mountains, most of the lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) has been killed by the mountain pine beetle (MPB, Dendroctonus ponderosae). If you drive through the forest and look at the trees, about half of them are red or grey with dead needles, the rest—the green ones—are aspen and fir. Lodgepole is particularly susceptible to MPB attack, so if you see thousands of acres of dead trees, you can count on a beetle epidemic. The tell-tale sign, however, is found on the bark of a beetle hit tree. As the beetle bores into the bark, the tree sends pitch to the wound. The pitch, mixed with sawdust and frass, pushes back out through the hole and forms a sticky white bubble on the surface of the bark. When a tree is under attack it may have hundreds of these "pitch tubes" covering its entire circumference.

Is it Over?

I was on the Kolob Road this morning and I noticed that the rabbitbrush was in full bloom. Later, as I drove through Beaver, I saw snow on the Tushars—the first of the season. Is it over? Can this spark of joy be justified? Have we endured the worst of it?

Rural Ways benefits from summer weather. We restock the freezer, harvest the herbs, stack another winter's worth of firewood. But, that doesn't mean we like it. I mean, who does? July? It could simply be removed from the calendar and we could replace it with a second October.

As I drove through the sleet of a fifty degree drizzle from Scipio to Provo, I began to wonder if we would be able to reach our work site tomorrow at 10,000 feet. What a nice predicament. Summer might be over, and snow may be in the forecast.

Rural Ways Rides Navajo

This is one of Valerie's favorite bike rides. And, I can see why. Ten to twelve miles of single-track along the shores of Navajo Lake. The riding is not difficult—I didn't have to unclip from start to finish—but that doesn't mean it is boring. There are roots and rocks and whoop-de-doos enough to keep one's attention, and even a few steep sections to push the heart rate up. We went to Navajo on Friday morning to goof-off a little before my next work-trip to northern Utah. The weather was fine and the trail was deserted (we saw just two other people). We bailed off the trail at the Lodge and rode the last mile on the road. We didn't feel like climbing up and around the summer cabins at the west end of the lake. When we got home, we looked in the guidebook and they said that you should ride the loop the other direction: The climb around the summer homes is less steep going that way, and you get it over-with while your legs are still warming up. We'll have to try that next time. Of course, since my last ride was in July 2010, we may need to wait until the end of 2012 for another report.

Patio

Once the Homestead's new roof and new sewer line were finished, I had a messy spot outside the back-door that I thought might be a good location for a patio. So, I went to Home Depot and looked at their pavers. Let's see, there are a couple of layers that go underneath—leveling gravel and weed-barrier—then there are the pavers, and then there is a special sand to sweep into all the cracks. All for the low, low price of several hundred dollars. (Which is probably worth it because, if you follow the instructions, your patio comes out flat.) After blowing through our entire housing repair budget this summer on the other projects, though, it was too much.

So, I looked around the yard and found a couple of broken pieces of concrete from earlier this summer. There were only four or five chunks, which was hardly a start, but it gave me an idea. I went about a mile up the canyon to an old gravel pit where the locals dump their junk. (They also set up dioramas with real furniture and burned out TVs which they blast into smithereens with shotguns. Good action.) Sure enough, there were numerous broken-up sidewalks that had been dumped in piles near the road. I made three or four trips with the truck and picked through all the broken concrete. I also dug some sand from the wash and put it in some old five-gallon buckets. Voila. A free patio. (But don't look too closely: It ain't exactly flat.)

Construction Update

The enclosure and winterization of the western porch at The Homestead is a very small job. Which might be why the contractors we have hired to do it can each alot one hour per week to it. The progress is slow. But, there is progress. The windows and doors are in, the sheetrock is up, and the mud and stucco have got one coat each.

Taxicabs and Motorcars (and Rhinos)

One of the things I dislike about The Homestead is the street noise. We have a large lot, set back from the street, but it is in town, and there is plenty of traffic. Even worse, Parowan has become a bit of a second home, vacation home destination for Las Vegas and southern California. As a result, we are flooded every weekend with the motorhead crowd. I'm guessing that it is a great deal of fun and a big "country living" sort of thing to ride your ATV, Jeep, Pick-up, Rhino, etc up and down the streets of a small town. Every summer weekend, there is a steady background roar of recreational vehicles up and down the streets, and up and down, and up and down. Fun.

Actually, I have nothing against motors. In fact, I benefit tremendously from motors; they make my life better. I guess what bugs me a little bit is that it is simply joy-riding. It is noise for the sake of noise. It is engine revving for leisure. Which, I guess, is still fine . . . except that every headline every day is about how terrible it is that we can't afford pensions and medical care and that we're broke and nobody has a job and gas is too expensive and the sky is falling and won't somebody do something and I deserve a bailout. Um. No. I don't believe any of it. Not while half of Las Vegas is roaring up and down my street with the throttle open. When motors are used because we need them, not because we just like to listen to the turbo open as we push the pedal down, I'll start to worry that we are running out of cash.

G.K. Chesterton is, perhaps, the most quotable writer to have ever lived. He made note of my problem about 100 years ago: "It is customary to complain of the bustle and strenuousness of our epoch. But in truth the chief mark of our epoch is a profound laziness and fatigue; and the fact is that the real laziness is the cause of the apparent bustle. Take one quite external case; the streets are noisy with taxicabs and motorcars; but this is not due to human activity but to human repose. There would be less bustle if there were more activity, if people were simply walking about. Our world would be more silent if it were more strenuous." Amen. Let there be quiet.

First of the Firewood

Tiger said that the sleeping campers would be up and on their ATVs soon enough. And he was right. The roar from dozens (hundreds?) of revving joy-riders soon filled the canyon and swamped any remaining sympathy I may have had for those who were startled from slumber at 7a by a pair of chainsaws. Besides, if they'd read my last post, they'd have known that we'd be starting early, and that this wasn't going to be a good place for sleeping in.

Tiger cut and bucked probably four dead trees, including a pine, a true fir, and two Douglas firs. I bucked a downed Douglas fir, and felled two others, (only one of which got hung up, costing us an hour of fooling around to get it on the ground). Together, we filled the Chev and loaded about 2/3 of Tiger's trailer before noon. I usually get eight truckloads each fall, so there are seven to go.

What is Wrong with Starting Early?

It is an unfortunate fact that we have not experienced the normal late August cooling trend at The Homestead. We have had consistent, and persistent, temperatures in the nineties. Which means that the best time to get anything done is between 6a and 10a. After that, work is simply a suffer-fest.

In addition to the weather, we are still experiencing the joys of home renovation. As I noted last week, we are in the middle of a project to winterize the back porch. This project, in conjunction with the circumstances of our current weather, brings me to the reason for this post (yes, despite the evidence, there is a reason).

With the exception of the Mexican guys who replaced our roof, every contractor we've met this summer seems to start his work day at 10a. When they tell me they'll be here in the morning, I'm standing out there at 7a. After three hours of waiting, they usually come slouching in with a cigarette and a cup of coffee sometime before eleven (if they show up at all). They work until noon or 1p, take a lunch break, then come back and pack up their tools so that they can be gone by 3p. Is this the normal work day?

If it were me, I'd be on the job site by 7a at the latest. Yeah, you can be somewhat quiet as you unload the sheetrock (so you don't wake the neighbors), but by 7:30a there is no more Mr. Nice-Guy: The nail gun is switched to full automatic. By the time the sun is really hot, you've got half your work done. Plus, the project takes just three or four days instead of a couple of months. Is there something wrong with starting early?