The Promise of Fruit

Last spring, we had several hard frosts while the orchard was in bloom.  As a result, we had very little fruit come harvest time.  The situation is much different this year.  We have not had a hard frost for three or four weeks, and nothing lower than 40F is forecast for the coming week either.  This has been perfect for the orchard.  We have had very nice blossoms on all of our mature trees, and quite a few on the newer trees, too.  (The picture is of a pear tree planted last year.)  The possibility of frost is not gone, but we may have made it through the critical period.  I'm expecting that we'll have a good fruit harvest this year. 

Bull Riders Do It Best

Grandpa used to use an old Sears tiller on his farm.  When he sold the farm, he donated the tiller to us.  We used it a little, but it ran rough and treated me rougher.  Valerie has said that she used to watch it drag me around the yard.  She called the scene "a rodeo."  (Why did she laugh when I flexed my bicep and insisted that nothing drags me anywhere?)  In any case, the tiller finally quit running altogether and we let it sit in the shed like a piece of furniture.  Grandpa pulled the motor off the frame and took it home, but couldn't find the parts to rebuild it.  As a result, the motor sat in his garage like a piece of furniture.  Until last week.  Grandpa found someone who said he had the parts.  Not only that, but when Grandpa went back to get them, the guy had the motor running.  Grandpa brought it over and spent a few hours reassembling the tiller—now called, of course, The Bull.  By the time he was done, it was ready to ride.  Cowboy, as they say, up.

Planting Day

On Friday afternoon, our UACD bare-root seedlings arrived.  Fifteen for us—five lilacs, five pines, five hackberries—and 30 for the City of Parowan.  By lunch time on Saturday, I had all 45 of them either in the ground or in a pot.  (At The Homestead, we put seven of them immediately into the ground, the rest went into pots.  At the City Nursery, I potted all of them.)  During the afternoon and evening, Valerie worked to put tomatoes in the holes I'd prepared in the garden.  I helped with the Wall-O-Waters.  We finished 24 of them before 9p.  It was a big day—69 seedlings planted or potted.

Fuel Free

Last year, May 7th was our first fuel free day of the season.  We are going to beat that by two full weeks this time around.  The day is not over, but I'm going to go out on a limb and call it:  This year's first fuel free day is April 22.  It was 84F yesterday, 53F overnight, and is very sunny this morning.  I'm pretty sure we're not going to be heating the house.  This does not, of course, mean that the heating season is finished.  I'm not going to count on that until about the first of June.

A Walk in the Snow

I went out to a little north facing slope near the Vermillion Castle yesterday afternoon.  I walked for an hour or 90 minutes in near perfect silence.  It is a relatively quiet area anyway, but the snow was falling so thickly that it muffled even the sound of a few chickadees.  I saw one coyote track, but was otherwise alone.  The low clouds and dense precipitation reduced visibility to just a few feet.  The only forms to guide me were the black trunks of stunted trees—pinyon, ponderosa, Douglas fir, oak, mountain mahogany, and juniper.  It was a silent, binary world of light and dark, black and white, up and down.

St. George Gab Fest

Last year, Valerie made an effort to follow the fine-art-selling-pep-talk-manuals that she'd read.  She smiled, and asked people about their interests, and offered to help them find something they liked, and promised to throw in a couple of used cars with their purchase.  Nothing worked.  Valerie was exhausted, and discouraged, and broke.  Let's face it, some people have the gift of gab, and others don't.  (I heard one artist yesterday doing the whole show:  "If you feel like you've settled on that one, I could . . . let's see . . . what was my asking price? . . . oh, yeah, well, I'd be willing to . . . .)  So, this year, Valerie read a book and ignored the lookie-lous.  The only people with whom she spoke had already put their cash down on the barrel head.  She didn't follow the marketing script, but it sure was easier on her psyche . . . and it yielded a few small sales.  We didn't get rich, but we broke even by the first day, and made a little money on the second.

Goblin Valley and Wild Horse Mesa

Tiger wanted to go to Goblin Valley and maybe try a little slot hiking at Bell and Little Wild Horse Canyons.  We went down on Friday and camped beneath Wild Horse Mesa.  To my amazement, we found that the road around the Mesa has been completely developed and is paved all the way to the Bell/LWH trailhead.  Not surprisingly, the entire population of Colorado drove by us at some point during the evening and the road was busy most of the night.  In the morning, we went over to the trailhead ourselves and found that there was nowhere to park.  Um.  No.  Not doing that.

So, we cruised around to the upstream side of Crack Canyon and gave that a try.  Over the course of the day we encountered eight or 10 other parties in the canyon.  So, it didn't really feel secluded, but it was much better than our other choices.  Besides, it was quite a nice hike and everybody enjoyed it.  We sent Valerie and Melissa all the way through the canyon while the rest of us walked back up to the trucks.

On Sunday morning we made a solid foray into Goblin Valley (after a short visit on Friday evening), and did much hoodoo climbing.  While we were there, a cold front moved in and the wind picked up considerably.  After a windy stop along the Fremont River in Capitol Reef for lunch, we headed for the Fish Lake Mountain and Grass Valley.  The wind blew and the rain, sleet, and snow fell . . . all the way back to Parowan.

Pictures HERE.

Fooled by April

For the third year in a row, April has arrived with a vengeance.  In 2010, we got eight inches of snow, with a low of 22F.  Last year, we got 50 mile an hour winds.  This time, we got both.  We were on the road from Hanksville yesterday afternoon, and the wind was pelting us with dust and sand.  By the time we reached Bicknell the pelting had shifted to snow and hail.  Over Bear Valley it was starting to stick.  At the Homestead, we unloaded the truck in a steady snowfall.  Overnight, the mercury dropped to 20F.  April 1st was evidently made for all those fools who think spring has arrived.