It wasn't just another Art Festival

Summerfest is the big Logan Festival each June.  July is devoted to Opera - go figure.  Anyway, Summerfest was a collection of 175 tents laid out in a big X with a portable food court and entertainment venue (a stage with a folding chair audience).  The tents were filled with arts and crafts; heavier on the crafts than the arts.

This festival is held on the grounds of the Tabernacle, and the grounds are beautiful.  A variety of  wonderfully mature trees provide shade and it's covered some kind of weirdo grass - not bermuda, not St. Augustine - and, of course, no one here knows what it's called.  Once again, I'm finding new vegetation that no one who lives here knows the name of.  As the summer season progresses, I sometimes get AHA moments especially with some of the trees I pass walking to class everyday.I now know what a live cherry tree looks like - and there are actually cherries growing on it.  I've also discovered a pear tree and an apple tree, all three about 100 feet from our condo.  

There's a perfume corridor on my way to class.  Some row of unknown trees is BLOOMING.  The clumps of flowers hang down like small bells each flower the size of your little finger, and you can smell the fragrance all over the campus.  Again, no one I've asked has any idea what the name of the tree is.  I'm going to have to break out the tree book and see if I can deduce what it is.  

Back to Summerfest.......the food was terrific - definitely a cut above fair food.  I had a crepe.  The potters were the best artists of the show, and we bought a piece.  Drake bought me a new necklace of varisite - a mineral found in northern Utah as a souvenir of this trip.  It's pale green with some white varigation in it.  The very best part of the day:  the weather, it was perfect.      

           

Hitting the Trail

We're been working hard to get back into physical shape.  It's startling how fast you lose your muscle tone and cardio fitness.  One of the attractions of Logan is the access to the gyms and pools at USU.  You all know Drake AKA the Zen Discipline Master, so he demands that we work out in some form or other five days a week. 

If that's not enough, we have been 'hiking'.  The topography here is river valley ringed by rolling hills and real mountains.  Definition of a real mountain:  You can still see snow on top of it in JUNE. Hiking starts just 15 minutes out of town.  We took the Wind Cave hike, and that one was real, real, real at four miles and 900 feet elevation gain.  I could barely walk the next couple of days.  We did discover there's a river trail hike that winds along the Logan River for miles and miles.  Parts of it are right at water level, but other parts are on top of small limestone cliffs, so there is some mild challenge to this hike.  

In my opinion the best part of the hike were the flowers.  I actually saw a few wild flowers I'd never seen before.  As always, this hike is told in pictures.  You can get a feel for how lovely this valley really is. 

https://picasaweb.google.com/jalyss1/2012UtahRiverTrailHike?authkey=Gv1sRgCJaitvCcwPDUJg#     

A Logan Secret

Here's a Logan secret:  This town has an inferiority complex.  Every where I go, Loganites want me to gush over this town and tell them how fabulous it is.  "Isn't this just the best place!!!!"  "We love it here."  By inference, so should I.   Truthfully, this town is an escape from reality.  I have been wondering if Drake and I have unwittingly time traveled.  I would swear to you that I'm now living in 1962, and it's not just that I saw someone in a turban towel walking around their front yard.  It's the unrepressed cheerfulness in a gee wilikers, golly, gee whiz way.  Everything is freshly scrubbed, ruthlessly ordered, and monotonously homogeneous.  These Loganites are clean living and clean hearted.  I suspect that 'Happiness is a Warm Puppy' is on the bookshelves, and Mr. Ed is on the TV's in this town.  I keep expecting to hear Chubby Checkers singing The Twist.   

I haven't seen so many children since, well, 1962, so sex must be alive and well here.  There are kids everywhere.   This town is overlaid with a soundtrack of high pitched voices that say 'Mom....Mom....Mom' like birds calling.  It's been a pleasure to have kids swirling around, but I know I am in an alternative universe because the concept of 'stranger danger' hasn't penetrated this town.  I was in the Village Inn last week in the bathroom.  Coming out of the stall, there was a little girl, about 10 years old, washing her hands at the only sink.  The papers towels were in this big roll without perforations.  I just tore off a section and handed them to her since it's hard to do with wet hands.  I didn't speak to her because in the metroplex of any major city, if I had spoken, any savvy girl would have immediately left the bathroom as fast as her legs could carry her.  Well, actually, no 10 year old in a metroplex would have been going to the bathroom in a public place ALONE.  Anyway, she not only started talking to me, but stayed and tore off a piece of paper for me and then held the bathroom door for me when we left.  When I said, "Thank you.", she replied, "You're welcome, Ma'am"  See?  1962.

Now, you're probably saying to yourself, "And this is bad?"  Not exactly, but it seems unreal.  It's very relaxing, but also strangling.  I find myself wondering how Loganites handle the seamier sides of life because those sides exist no matter how cheerful you are.    Something to ask about.  Something to find out.  Meanwhile, I'll just see if I can find my saddle shoes, dig out my Kingston trio records, and find my twinsets - then, if I can check my profanity, I'll fit right in.             

Looking Over the Blogs.......Critiquing the Prof

I've just been browsing all the blogs of my USU classmates.  I'm interested in almost all of them.  OK, that's just being kind - I'm mildly interested in most, really interested in a couple and just minimally interested in some.  No, I'm not going to say which ones; these kiddos might read this, and I'm not going to be so cruel as to say - "Oh, give me a break; this is soooooooo boring.".

I had someone ask me the other day how different was it to be the student instead of the teacher.  I've been pondering that.......  Here's what I have come up with:

Decided to add one of my 'school' pix just for fun

1)  Less pressure.  I'm not responsible for 90 minutes of being 'on' 

2)  Tendency to mentally critique the teaching of the professor - I spent so many hours mentoring new teachers, sitting in on other teachers' classes that during class I'm carrying on an interior dialogue simultaneously with being a student.  There's a tape inside my head going:   "Don't do that!"  "Yikes!!"  "Good analogy"  "Come on, say it a different way." and stuff like that. 

3)  Find myself wanting to help him out when he asks a question and there's dead silence

4)  Restate what he's trying to get across in a different way when I see that several of the kids just don't get what he's trying to teach.   (I'm sure he doesn't appreciate that.)

5)  Find myself wanting to be the 'devil' student - haven't done it yet, just daydream about it

6)  I realize I have responsibilities as a student, and I try to fulfill them because it makes it easier on the prof - who I identify more with during class than the other students

7)  Envious as hell.  The Prof doesn't have to convince students to a) quit fucking around, b) listen, c) participate

8)  Difficult to not have the POWER in the class

9)  Wondering if I missed something by not teaching at the college level.

10)  So grateful every morning that I'm actually learning something NEW

Strawberry Fields

I grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  It's not quite as black prairie as Kansas in that it is slightly hilly and actually has TREES, but it was ringed with truck farms.  In 1960 the small towns that were 20 miles from the center of Tulsa were the farms towns.  The farmers grew items that could be hauled to market in trucks, sometimes even pick up trucks - thus, 'truck farms'.  There was corn, tomatoes, every kind of bean, pea or squash, cucumbers,  eggplant, peppers and strawberries.  As each crop ripened, you got your paper sack, walked out into the fields and picked what you wanted.  Each farm wife had a small cash box on the worn front porch of the farm house. I can remember these make up free, slightly frowsy women in their house dresses covered with worn aprons  pushing open their creaking screen doors to take the quarters and dimes with their work hardened hands.  At my house going to pick fresh vegetables was as big a part of summer as the slip and slide.  It was also the only time of the year we ate fresh vegetables.  Other than potatoes and onions, and sometimes carrots, all our other vegetables were canned because fresh was expensive.  

I did love eating the vegetables, but I hated picking.  There were BUGS, and if the goal was corn, there were corn worms - fat, sluggy worms that seemed to always find my arm to crawl up.  Another rough spot of picking is that if you didn't arrive almost at the crack of dawn, it was hot; breathless, beating down sunstroke hot as you walked up and down the rows looking for whatever was ripe.  

As we have been vagabonding, I've been fortunate to live in three farm valleys.  The best by far was the Skagit Valley in northwest Washington.  They produced EVERYTHING (except tomatoes - too cool), and they especially produced berries.  I developed a taste for the just picked berry, and believe me, that's not hard.   The Satsuma Farm actually had an ice cream stand on their farm and mixed the freshly picked berries into the most divine shakes I've ever tasted.  

I was extremely happy to discover the Mt. Naomi Farm just north of Logan (1285 South 4500 North, Hyde Park) www.mtnaomifarms.com .   Immediately I signed up for their email notifications telling me when the berries would be ready to pick.  This past Saturday we went a strawberry pickin'.  If you haven't ever had berries fresh from the vine, then you won't know how remarkable it is to find a farm like this one. 

We met Brenda "Grab Life by the Berries" Meikle who owns this farm with her husband.  This was a portion of the second generation family farm that wasn't devoted to the dairy business.  They also grow alfalfa and hay, in addition to the berries. This is the third year that the strawberries have been planted, and they are finally making enough berries to sell.  There will also be blackberries later in the season.  Run don't walk to this farm for some of these luscious berries.  They are open for picking Saturdays in 7:30 - noon or other days by appointment.

Cache Valley is one of those unique places that has fertile land perfect for farming, just as the Skagit Valley is in Washington or the land around the Franconia Notch in New Hampshire or the farms around Tulsa in Oklahoma.  The farms no longer exist around Tulsa.  From 1960 to 1980 Tulsa doubled in size, and the city fathers didn't encourage high rise or multi-family housing, instead, it was large subdivisions and freeway development.  The farmland is gone and can't be reclaimed.  Farmland is a natural resource just like forests, mountain vistas and national parks.  I can already see the beginning ravages of suburban 'sprawl' creeping into the farmland of this valley.  I think the residents here need to be asking themselves what they want this valley to look like in 50 years.  Neglecting this question will result in losing something irreplaceable.   

Why Do I Write?

I'm doing my homework, good little student that I am, and suddenly after seven pages of reading the personal essay book, I have to stop and answer the question:  Why Do I Write?  Oh, this is not something I really wanted to get into.  You would think that because I'm a former English teacher, I would LOVE to write - wrong.  It was actually my least favorite part of teaching the subject; mainly because I wasn't very good at teaching GOOD writers.  (I'm really dreading having to comment on the other students' writing in this USU class.  I feel like such a fraud.  Can I just correct their grammar?)  I was actually very good at teaching kids who had never put a word on paper to learn how to do it. 

I know the reason I write now is different than the reason when I started this blog in 2007.  Initially, I was in the midst of having to accept some hard truths about myself and my health, and I used writing to help me sort out, accept and make sense.  I explored faith and the role it played in my life.

In 2008, I stopped writing.  I posted exactly two times about nothing;  It's a wonder my audience stayed with me.  I think if I had written, it would have helped me come to grips with new responsibilities and the re-ordering of my extended family's life.  I wish I could truthfully say I sorted through my mother's death, but that would take 3 more years.  I did come to a peace about my brother's death, and I spent a lot of time in 2008 accepting my father's dementia and the horror of relocating him against his will, and closing down their lives  Writing would have helped me, but I was too outwardly focused to use it.

In 2009, I found the passion again when we decided to cut ourselves adrift from the lives we had led for 20 years and take off adventuring.  No, we aren't climbing mountains or taking to the sea in a small boat, but we are opening ourselves to new places, new communities, new people.  Writing about the process of making this happen gave me the feeling I had something interesting to say.  I guess that says why I write in one sentence:  The feeling I have something interesting to say.

In 2010, 2011, and up to the present, I found my voice.  Yes, my entree to my audience is ostensively a travelogue, but I get the most responses from my readers when I write on a more personal level or when I muse and comment about people I've met - both individually and as as groups.  Another reason I've chosen this form is I'm acutely aware that many people read my stuff who can't (or won't) travel, but love to hear the word descriptions and see the pix.
I have to admit that while I do write for myself - a life chronicle, I'm flattered that I have an audience.           

 

The Horrible Hill

It doesn't look THAT bad, does it?  Just a sidewalk curving gracefully up and up shaded by newly verdant trees.   Well, what's that old saw?  LOOKS CAN BE DECEIVING.   We live only about 4 blocks (at most) from the USU campus, and we have to go up this hill every time we want to access the campus. 

Logan is lovely; the crown jewel of the Cache Valley, but it is perched right on the edge of the upturn into the mountains, and Utah State sits on top of one of the slightly risen plateaus at one edge of town.  Now, that doesn't sound like such a big deal, does it?  WRONG. 

There aren't too many things I admire about Arizona.  Everyone knows that I despise its overall 'brown' theme.  For some reason the desert just soaks up color and transforms it to buff, or sand, or beige, tan, almond, or my personal favorite:  terra cotta.  But one big smooth spot of Arizona, especially in the Phoenix area is that if you are in Paradise Valley, a misnomer if I've ever heard one, it is FLAT.  Bike riding is a pleasure.  You never have to contend with a hill of any size except for the few man made ones scattered here and there.

Logan, oh, Logan, hill is thy name.  My personal nemesis is the horrible hill I have to walk up every day, sometimes twice a day.  First, it's the culmination of two other smallish hills that I have to drag my uncool backpack on wheels up every morning at 7:30 am.  I'm slightly breathless when I get to the bottom of the H. H.  I gaze up, and each time think to myself, "I'm going to conquer you today, sucker!"    And every day the damn hill wins.  Oh, I finally get up it, but not without standing about half way up trying to suck as much air as possible into my lungs.

How steep is it, you ask?  Let me tell you that DRAKE (not me, but DRAKE who does numbers) estimates a 15% grade.  In the middle of the climb, you are almost face to face with the concrete, and notice the picture - they don't put handrails up for nothing, you know.   Even more ignominious are the lovely gliding girls and boys that effortlessly climb it.  I try to pretend that I'm contemplating the lovely view halfway up. but none of us are fooled for an instant.  Some days I think I can hear the hill laughing, but it's probably just the 20 somethings snickering at my obvious inability to walk up the H.H. without stopping.  

Ah, well, tomorrow is another day, and the view really is lovely..............