Wednesday, June 29, 2022

Jesse Came Home for a While


Not a long while, mind you, but for a couple of weeks. And that's a good thing after not seeing him for a year and a half-

His time in the Army has given him some perspective, but his specific Jesse-ness remains strong as a girder running up and down his spine. 






 

Friday, March 25, 2022

Road Closed and Flowers Sprouted

 

This is what we have to look forward to for a couple of months, at least. 

But without community and with nothing but sweepstakes winners schlorping from the real estate troughs and bringing whirlwinds and pits for all of our neighbors, what hope will this dry, locust-riddled land bring to our grandchildren?

Tuesday, March 22, 2022

Out to the Swell

There was a time not long ago even by the reckoning of a young person when one could venture out into the desert and see very few people, and not only on trails and in the back country- on the main roads it wasn't uncommon to see one or two people every couple or three hours. That's not the way it is now.
This time we saw as many as seven cars and three trucks and trailers along with a couple of loud mouthed side-by-sides all at the same time from a side trail ovelooking a section of road no more than a third of a mile long. That's a sad contrast, and one that I didn't think would happen over the space of a few years. 
 
 
 

 

 

Neverthless, we had a good time and tried hard to be grateful for what we have. Even it might not last long.

Friday, March 18, 2022

Pan-Celtic Fest 2022


 

SUCCESS! 

A new age of friends and loved ones participated in this year's Saint Paddy celebration, and the food was superb. 

It would be nice if this would become a real holiday followed by another holiday so it wouldn't  be so danged hard to drag out of bed to go to work the next morning, though.

Saturday, March 12, 2022

Skiing and Loganing


 

 

Jerusha hosted a lark up to Logan and Beaver Mountain so we could get away for a couple of days to ski and spend some time, well, you know, living. 

It was memorable and too damned short.


 

 



Monday, February 7, 2022

Again to St. George

Tor had a hankering and Anwyn and I piggybacked on his goodwill, heading down to St. George for a quick overnight adventure and marathon drive. 













 

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Greenhouse in Feb

 


Mandatory February greenhouse checkup.

Asher's doing some good work keeping things from getting too out of control, and even though we've seen some of the coldest temps in years this winter, most everything is surviving.


Monday, January 24, 2022

Gone to Winter Fire School...


Last year was a wash for UFRA's Winter Fire School. Covid did that for most everything for a year and a half, so when we got word that January 2022 was on, we bit like steelhead in a good riffle.

We got a good place on the lee side of the mesa, and even though I didn't get much sleep in my little twin-sized bunk bed for the three nights, being with my kids and good friends made it a good deal that I knew I'd have to pay for over the next week or so- but that's what life's all about. Feast and famine, play and, well, pay.

 



 

Friday, January 14, 2022

Assessment Assessment (or What Condition My Condition is In)

In our age and at our society's demanding pace, there is too much information available to the human mind in too many ways and in a variety of tones, opinions, and levels of authority. 

I don't say this as anything but a simple and personal observation. I am a teacher of both college age, and high-school age at-risk youth, and I participate in a variety of online and in-service trainings, and it astounds me how many people have high-level high-importance and high-volume expensive opinions and impositions. We had one such trainings today on assessment (formative and summative high-impact and highly-effective this is the engine of all that moves and grooves in education stylee), and it was two hours followed by other stuff followed by another hour and a half of stuff related to and immersed therein. 

I know I've probably been in this blessed business for too long and following too many bad career decisions and abusive employer relationships, but I don't know how the education sector can afford to keep spending all of this money on self-important emcees, administrators, and other passionate and impositionally pensive pundits and keep quality individuals involved in the teaching cadre to take care of our lovely students anymore.

We'll keep 'reforming' and 'reimagining', but when will we actually make education something besides a terrible simulacrum of industrial production? Pert soon, I pray and hope.





Sunday, January 2, 2022

Change-of-Year 2022

 

The new year has arrived up the canyon, and with it, more snow than we've had at one time for years and in glorious condition. It's not often that we see this sort of weather and at a time when we can readily take advantage of the snow, so we headed up and down the canyon numerous times and got really good and tired and cold in pursuit of beauty over the past few days.