Summer has arrived in my corner of the world. The nights are still cool for sleeping and the days are sunny with temperatures in the mid-to-high 90’s. Our garden and our small orchard are doing well—so far (gophers and deer took their toll last year—but that is another story).
Our valley is mostly agriculture with many […]
I grew up in a large family in a very small town. At the back of our acre lot we had a Jersey milk cow (named Bessy–actually I think there were a succession of cows all named Bessy). She served dual purposes: 1) she kept our family well supplied with milk, and 2) she gave […]
Farmers Country Floral and Gift, a florist in the next town, celebrated Good Neighbor Day today by giving away 7,500 (625 dozen) roses. Anyone could stop by and collect a dozen roses for free. All they asked is that the customer keep one and give the other 11 roses to 11 other people whom they […]
Most of the time life sails along as I had planned and everything seems in order, and then, suddenly, out of seemingly innocent circumstances there is a major change of pace. Beginning last Friday I experienced such an event.
Let me preface this by saying what I have said before, “I don’t particularly like cats.” I […]
As the whole world probably knows, we here in Utah have been fighting wild fires for some weeks now. The above photo is of a fire near here on Thursday. I took this photo from my back porch soon after it started. It is about 40 miles away. It has been so very long since […]
One day many years ago our young son announced at dinner that our neighbors were getting ready to move.”How do you know that?” we asked.”Because of the home improvements they are making,” he said.”What are they doing?”
“They bought a ‘bug zapper’ for their back porch,” was his triumphant reply.
These days we are making improvements of […]
We live in a quiet small town that has a reputation for remarkable historic homes (the entire town is on the National Register for Historic Places) and a reputation for being home to many well-known Utah artists. To celebrate both of these assets, one day each year twenty-homeowners open their historic homes for a tour and […]
A couple of weeks ago my sewing circle, the Red and Green Girls, came here for the day. We had lunch, we looked at quilts, we stitched and enjoyed each other. It was a lovely spring day, the sun was shining, the meadow larks around our house were in full voice and spreading their form […]
It has been cold here. Very cold. Overnight lows temperatures have been zero or below for weeks. Extreme cold temperatures are a factor in the creation of temperature inversions that trap cold air and pollutants in valley locations. That has been the case here. Our normally clear air is clouded and it seems a bit dreary. I have been thinking recently […]
On our drive to Tucson, one of the many small towns we passed through in Southern Utah was Orderville. That tiny town is a part of my personal history. My mother grew up there and in the small cemetery near the center of town, three generations of my grandparents lay sleeping. Growing up, I heard […]