Sage Grouse

On Friday morning, I met a couple of colleagues at the Bear Valley exit.  It was 5:50, and still dark.  The moon was new on Wednesday, so it was providing nothing but a sliver in the sky.  We drove over to Highway 89, turned north into the Sevier Valley, and went a few miles to the Dog Valley Road.  By the time we got to the little wetland formed by the dam on Echard Creek, the eastern sky was brightening.  We stopped along the western shore and got out of the truck.  It was cold (18F), but still.  The valley was full of the hoot of the sage grouse mating call.  We were in a lek.  We counted about 80 males strutting and calling.  We saw only around 10 females, so the ratio wasn't good, but the young men were undeterred.  They strutted, puffed, flared, peacocked, hooted, scuffled, and flapped for at least 90 minutes.  By about eight o'clock, the sun was high, the temperature was up to 25F, and, as if by signal, the boy birds packed it in.  They flapped into the air and flew straight down the canyon in a couple of large groups.  That was the signal for us, too, and we shuffled back to the trucks for the drive back to I-15.  The sage grouse would be back in the morning, doing what they'd been doing there for thousands of years—with, hopefully, more females doing it, too.

Clear Creek

I-70 starts in Baltimore; it ends here.  We hadn't really planned on camping so near the freeway, but the road to Three Creeks was still gated, so we had to choose Plan B.  I found this little alcove off the Clear Creek Highway with a few rocks to climb, and we called it good.  After thrashing around through the brush with the Chev, I was able to get the camper set up in a nice spot for the night.  The forecast was for 35F, but it must have hit 25F.  I was up trying to get the fire and the coffee started when EDO came out to use the groover.  "Dad," she said, on her way back to her sleeping bag, "there was ice on the seat."

Parcel 4

A few years ago, the lady who owned The Homestead before us made a "lot line adjustment" to give a small .14 acre piece of the property to her daughter and son-in-law who lived next door.  Because it was the third time the original property was split, that piece became "Parcel 4" to the county tax authorities.  Anyway, this family transaction was done with a handshake and the deed that they recorded was scrawled on the back of an envelope—almost literally.  What it clearly did not indicate was joint tenancy as between the daughter and son-in-law.  In Utah, evidently, tenancy in common is assumed if joint tenancy is not explicitly noted.  (Note to DIY Unlicensed Attorneys:  This matters.  As we shall see.)

With the lot line adjustment, The Homestead became a .36 acre rectangle with one owner, and the daughter's property behind it became a .36 acre rectangle with three owners.  Bear with me here, we are getting into the minutia of stupid property transactions.  Without realizing it, the daughter and son-in-law had created three different real property ownerships on "their" land.  On the .22 acre piece in front was the house that they were living in.  It was owned by Chase Manhattan Bank.  On parcel 4 they had unwittingly created two 50% ownerships—one was the daughter's and one was the son-in-law's.  As my reader knows, under tenancy in common, this 50% ownership doesn't mean that you own half the property, it means that you own half of the rights to the whole property.

Trust me, it gets better:  At some point after this wheeling and dealing, the son-in-law got cancer and died.  There was one son, but no will and no probate.  Hang in there, this is starting to get interesting:  After a suitable period of mourning, the daughter married a different guy, and he moved onto her real property estate.  The four of them lived over there—daughter, new husband, step-son, and new baby—for a couple years after we had purchased The Homestead.  They didn't seem to care much about the place, and it became trashy and run down.  They left dirty diapers in the yard, kept a couple of yappy dogs, and brought in a bunch of un-penned chickens.

Abruptly, last summer, the daughter and new husband and the rest of the family moved out of the house.  They had stopped paying Chase Manhattan six months or a year before, and the bank had finally evicted them.  A property management company came in to clean up the mess, and a dull-witted realtor put a sign on the street.  The property had been foreclosed and Chase Manahattan was offering it for sale, the whole .36 acres.  After a suitable period of mourning, we made an offer on the property—contingent on the bank's ability to prove they owned the whole piece.  The bank's realtor insisted that they did, but after some research at the county recorder's office, I concluded that he was wrong (like I said, he was a great guy).  So, when I saw the daughter and new husband at the county fair, I made them an offer for parcel 4.  They verbally accepted and told me to give them a call about signing a contract.  When I called a few days later, they told me that they had just declared bankruptcy and were not allowed to conduct business without the permission of the United States Bankruptcy Court.

In the meantime, another party made an offer on the bank's house.  It was, evidently, a better offer than ours and, moreover, came with no contingencies.  When the bank showed up at the closing, however, they had only the house and .22 acres to sell because parcel 4 had never belonged to them.  Parcel 4 was now in the control of a bankruptcy court and a dead guy—with 50% ownership each.  So, we made them each an offer.  Actually, we offered to buy the property from the court, but the trustee told us that he only had the daughter's 50% to sell.  If we wanted the rest, we would have to wait until he could get a state court (not the federal bankruptcy court) to probate the dead husband's estate.  In the event, the trustee determined that probate was unnecessary and that the federal bankruptcy judge had the authority to sell the dead husband's 50% share.

When the court order and the real estate purchase contract showed up at our title company, the escrow officer we use, Steve, balked.  The title company attorneys decided that only the state court could probate the 50% share, and that the federal court had no authority in the matter.  So, there we sat.  I called and had a friendly chat with Steve each week as he waited for his corporate legal department to make a final ruling.  On Wednesday they did:  In favor of the transaction.  The federal bankruptcy court's order will stand.  We met Steve on Thursday morning to sign the paperwork.  The title should record tomorrow.  Parcel 4 now belongs to Rural Ways.

St. George Art Festival

Don't forget the St. George Art Festival coming up later this week.  VSO will be showing on Friday and Saturday in the "new" Town Square of the historic district of St. George, Utah.  She will be debuting a number of paintings, of which the one pictured is my favorite.  You can show up with your checkbook early on Friday to fight for it, or you can make me an offer today to secure your purchase.  If you wanted to start in, say, the mid-five digits (that is five digits to the left of the decimal), I might give you some pre-festival access to this masterpiece.

Near Spring

I've lived in southern Utah long enough to know that we are not yet free of the snow and ice.  We are, however, in the middle of a March thaw that puts me in mind of spring.  The equinox is not until later in the week, but already we've had temps over 70F.  The last frost was, I think, five or six days ago.  The bulbs—crocus, daffodil, tulip—are out of the ground and starting to bloom.  The buds on the elm trees are swollen.  We are burning only in the morning, and I've still got plenty of my March wood stacked and waiting.  I finished pruning the fruit trees yesterday.  The yard, such as it is, has turned green.  And, of course, around the edges of The Farm my ears are starting to catch the song of the lark.