Quick trip!
Down south!
Past the Damn!
Back to home!

After much debate, deliberation, and cross-eyed looks at one another in the midst of a dark and wintry week, we've arrived at a decision on the name of this delightful young girl.

Her name is Miya Prajna, and she'll be known as such as long as she has patience to carry the burdens of living with her mom and dad's odd decision making processes.

Here’s the latest from the clan Burningham, brought to light in the wee hours of the morn.

Name: To be fully determined later on today… (man, we’re tired right now)
Gender: Girly
Weight: 10 lbs 4 oz
Length: 23 inches
Date and time: 04 Dec 07, 00:51 hours
Healthy as an ox; roly-poly to boot
Mom and Dad and brothers and sisters: Pleased as punch!

Thanks for all of your prayers and wishes; they’ve come through once again.

From Paul Rolley's column in the Salt Lake Trib on Friday:

The advanced placement environmental class at Viewmont High School in Bountiful seems to be succeeding at making some of the school's best and brightest aware of the need for conservation.
Just so long as they don't become Commies.
RyLee Stowell says she and her fellow A.P. students, as a class project, created banners promoting "Buy Nothing Day," an environmental alternative to "Black Friday," which falls on the day after Thanksgiving and is touted by merchants as the beginning of the Christmas shopping season.
"Buy Nothing Day" encourages conservation rather than consumerism on that day.
But Stowell says when the students wanted to hang the banner on a balcony overlooking the commons area - where dances, programs and other student activities are advertised - they were told that the anti-consumer message would offend sponsors that promote their goods and services throughout the school.
Principal Scott Tennis, however, says the students were never censored. They were allowed to put their message on bulletin boards throughout the school and displayed their banner in the lunchroom.
But he was concerned that the students were unclear about what the message was trying to convey - if it was anti-capitalism, pro-socialism, or what?

What's unclear about the message being conveyed? It's a youthfully idealistic appeal to the spirit of humanity to pause what they rightfully see as materialistic and consumeristic insanity for just one day. That's fairly clear, even if the kids don't fully understand the implications of their message.
It would be really nice if more people who are 'in charge' could see through what we're doing to our schools these days, and into whose hands we're giving the system in the name of 'capitalism.'

The last of the photos; the sequence actually begins with this first and ends at the bottom of the line, if you want to follow it that way.
It still brings me joy to look at these, I'll be the first to admit, even with the trip over two weeks past.
Hm.


This is how it began, well, how it began as the sun rose over Idaho Falls on Saturday morn. We got off of the freeway to get some breakfast and pick up a few more thangs before heading into the park and all, and this is what we were met with- a WallyMart with a flyshop as the headline feature. Odd. Very strange and out of position, but we got a few closeout streamers and the like and were glad of it. Still, it was rather other-worldly.

We were up north Saturday to attend a funeral for my dear Aunt Kaye, who passed after a two year struggle with cancer. We've a great family, and we're extremely fortunate to be a subset in the greater whole.







My dad, far left, and his brothers and sisters.












Anwyn, doing her thing.













My sister and her wee boy.

Yet a few more photos from around the Beartooths east of Yellerstone.

A few more photos from the recent trip to Yellerstone.

A happy All Hallow's Eve to each of you from the Burninghams!

Yellowstone was as free of people as I've seen in twenty five years during our latest dash to the wilderness this past weekend.
Fish, animals, plants, rivers, lakes, mountains, air and people were all spectacular. Our senses were stirred, our hopes rekindled, and the roots of my heart found nourishment yet again in the spirit that the park and its surroundings hold.
Ah, life. It can be just wonderful when one is far away from a public school plodding along under dual-district oversight.
Sigh.

There are those who talk or write about never having seen the Milky Way until a long-planned trip to Yosemite or some other 'refuge' way-out-west. They wax eloquent about the loss of nature and man's inability to connect with the earth or something else moany and groany, and long wind their words across the page about ordinances against certain kinds of lights or support for a law mandating a certain kind of something that will certainly enable more to better see the wonders of the night sky.
Since the beginning of time (the time that our species has been able to recognize as sliding past), the stars have been blazing in their place; appearing as a procession of pointillist shapes and twinkling lights. They have offered us a stage upon which to cast our dreams and divine our future. They guided our journeys and told us stories too, and as we have lit our homes and spaces progressively more brighlty, they have begun to serve as a rallying point for those with misguided purposes and some sense of what we ought to be.
Why is a person with a high-minded and simple hope to quell lights by law and ordinance misguided? The answer lies in the society that drowns the stars with their own creations and games with little or no regard to that which fostered or nurtures it; the loss of stars and the soil will not be remedied by any less than a restructuring of the entire machine.
We are able to see the Milky Way in SpringTowne most any night there's not too many clouds. While there are many who take that for granted, those who live in places like this have a very different view on life and how it moves and moves us. The sky is a place that I see as a reflection of my hopes and history; when I look at it with clear thoughts, I can hope for eternity.

This is the man in his native environment, with a beautiful animal taken in a good way with the honorable intention of sustaining many in his immediate and extended family. He's very happy and exuberant, soaking in this moment and the immediacy of nature.













Again, this time to the right, Ryan. He's not at all in his native environs; in fact, he's in Payson, at the closest such coffee shop to his hometown. He, like his friend, is usually staunchly grumpy about chains and big corporations.
Nevertheless, he is pictured here, as happy as a clam. Certainly not as joyous as he was in the last photograph, but nevertheless, he's downright gleeful. I might add that the numbskull taking the photo is at least as happy to be there as the loon in the chair right there, as well. Why? A place with a decent cup and seemingly cheerful people there to serve it at the time. A blessing in its time and place.
Within a few minutes, though, we were striding out of that place, on our way back home, grumbling about a couple of spandex-clad walking billboards who had bicycled up to the establishment.
Go figure.

Drie and I crawled up the canyon backroads with Ryan and Amy today for a few hours, and in that process, found a lake that we'd never been to. It was saturated with dandy rainbows, so we hooked a few and fried them up over coals. Drie said she felt alive. It was well worth the time.

It was a long and snowy/rainy day yesterday. Today it was decided that I would need to take a short secret journey, so...
I made my way down to Red Way Canyon (no, that's not the real name, the only way you will find out where it is, is by going down with me sometime) with Moshe. The light is always best in the morning, but it was just right for a quick five miles or so up the canyon in the afternoon.
It's a nice place to be, just remind me to wear something besides my riding boots next time. They're not the best redrock scramblers in my closet.

Jerusha had her birdah today, right around 22 hours after her little sister. She was pleased to recieve a party and a new Raggedy Anne doll from her Nana, amongst other thangs.

It's wee Anwyn's second barthdeee, and we're celebrating with a cake!
She says it's cute!

So, Ryan and I decided to head over the mountain around noon or so yesterday, so we could try out Current Creek above Strawberry.
One thing lead to another, and we ended up on the Yellowstone River. The Yellowstone River! Well, not that Yellowstone river, but certainly well off the track from our original intentions. We followed whim after whim until we ended up on the south face of the Uinta range in Yellowstone Canyon, just north of the Uintah-Ouray Reservation.
It was uncommonly beautiful and we were able to catch some wonderfully bright brookies and nice rainbows, so it was well worth the crazy long drive.
It was a nice way to wander out the day.

It froze again last night, getting down around 27°f. Here's the chunk of rainwater ice from the top of the 'Runner, it melted down to a swell draught of sky.

Yep. It's snowing. Right here in our front yard-
the very first snow of the season.

Please keep in mind that this is a free country, friends, and consider this with special emphasis on the fact that this is the Vice President of said "free country":

VP Cheney makes quick trip to Utah to address secretive conservative policy group
By Nathan C. Gonzalez
The Salt Lake Tribune

Dick Cheney has departed Salt Lake City today after making a quick speech before a super-secret conservative policy group.
Air Force 2, a blue-and-white 757, took off about 2 p.m. - just about two hours after he landed. A small group of dignitaries greeted Cheney upon his arrival, including Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. and family members.
Cheney made no public appearances.
The purpose of the trip - which is privately funded - was to speak to the Council for National Policy, a private group that permitted no press coverage. The four-day event that began Thursday is being held at a downtown Salt Lake City Hotel.
The Council's self-described mission is to promote "a free-enterprise system, a strong national defense and support for traditional Western values."
The organization -- made up of few hundred powerful conservative activists -- holds confidential meetings and members are advised not to use the name of the group in communications, according to a New York Times profile of the group.

This from the Deseret News, as well:

Cheney addresses Salt Lake City gathering
By Nicole Warburton
Deseret Morning News
Published: Sept. 28, 2007
Vice President Dick Cheney spoke about the war in Iraq this afternoon during a brief visit to the Council for National Policy, said those who heard his speech.

News media were not allowed to observe the event, which was held in the Imperial Ballroom at the Grand America Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney also spoke to members of the Council for National Policy, which is described as a secretive conservative networking group.

Utah Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert said the vice president's speech was given to a "very friendly audience" of maybe 300 to 400 people.

"He talked about how it is not an option to lose," Herbert said about Cheney's remarks on the war.

Herbert is not a member of the Council for National Policy, but has been invited to speak Saturday during the group's four-day conference here. Former Utah lawmaker LaVar Christensen declined to comment on the vice president's remarks but said Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, gave a speech that touched on family and other conservative values.

"We don't talk about the specifics outside, but in general, regarding the governor, the speech was sincere and substantive ... it was from the heart," Christensen said.

Loud applause could be heard from the ballroom both during and after the vice president's speech and Romney's speech. Romney was approached by news media as he entered the event, but declined comment.

As for Cheney, he was greeted at Salt Lake City International Airport by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., first lady Mary Kaye Huntsman, Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert and other dignitaries before being whisked away in a car for his speech downtown.

The vice president had no public appearances. Cheney was last in Utah in April to deliver the commencement speech at Brigham Young University in Provo.

Here and here is some information on the 'Council for National Policy.'
This is a website maintained by the group itself.

This is what it looked like after our snowstorm on Round Lake this evening.
Nothing better, anywhere.

How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed!
-Walt Whitman

The whole clan wound our way up to Springville this evening to participate in the baptism of a friend of ours who is re-entering the church after a brief hiatus of a few years. I doubt that there are very many long-haired, bearded, double earring wearing anarcho-socialists running around enacting saving ordinances while sanctioned by the LDS church, but that's what I was pleased and honored to be able to do for a dear someone, just a few hours ago.
There were a few confused people in the audience, I'm sure.
Afterwards, we snagged a few Little Sleazer's pizzas, skarfed them up, and thereafter engaged in a long game of tag at a local elementary school park. The kids and I had a great time running hard and doubling back and forth on the playground, but I think I'm gonna feel it in the morning.

On a smoky evening, after a long week at the schools, Ryan and I headed up the mountain to listen for elk.
We heard a few, felt the first true chill of the coming autumn, and ate a hearty meal of cold victuals.