29 September 2013- City details

My brother recently spent three days attending a local blacksmithing conference. I took the opportunity to art bomb his house. Heh heh. Turned out pretty well, in my opinion, but what's not to like when you have spray paint? 

He had not yet trimmed back the flower stalks on the yucca. Now they look happy!

Took a trip downtown for a stop at TJs for coffee, I seem to be addicted to their pinon coffee. I needed a new set of fiddle strings and other odds and ends of errands. 

The city has changed so much since I left. Several downtown blocks were razed and a big plaza was put in. It has fountains in the summer, ice skating in the winter, and lots of art. 

I am particularly fond of the way this arbor doubles as a water feature with its curtains of rain. The sound is wonderful and it really cools off the area. 

This overhead walkway serves as an entrance to the Gallivan Plaza as well as an artistic (?) solution in connecting a parking structure to the Wells Fargo Building. I'm ambivalent about this. I like the circular shape, but think the two wings near the top just make it look messy.Without the wings you would have a very clean shape.

 In an alley way back behind what once was the best bookstore in the west (Sam Weller's) is a great mural. If this doesn't make you want to pull up a deep leather chair and sink in with a good book I don't know what will.

The books are one and a half stories high. So to speak. 

If you are in the older part of town you'll find some wonderful man hole covers.
The street lights have wonderful decorative bases. 

Many of the buildings have detailing that you just don't see anymore, such as this fabulous buffalo head over the door of what once was a trading exchange.

The top of that same building has lion heads between the windows. In my perfect world, new buildings would incorporate these details as well. 


Wouldn't you love to have this kind of thing on your own house?  Lions snarling on either side of your front door?

Buffalo (or other critters) gracing your chimney where it can keep watch over your yard?  

Another old building detail I like to look for are the building names and dates from when they were built. This once proud brick building has been updated with bright colors that look wonderful against the blue sky. The first floor now is host to a very busy restaurant and bar, and classy enough to valet parking.


Here is another romantic example with the numbers entwined in leaves.     


 
I am also fascinated by the new, but I don't think the new buildings will stand up over time, but check this one out -- it looks like it would blow over in a high wind. 

Actually, it isn't really this skinny. It is triangle shaped, but you can't see the other point from this side of the building. 

A new Federal Courthouse is under construction. I love the new-fangled streetlights in front of it.  
On the other side of the building, this huge sculptured awning marks the entrance to the underground parking lot.

Can't believe that in one more day it will be October. Last year we had our first accumulation of snow in mid-October. Fortunately it did not last and we went on to have a lovely Indian summer. Last Wednesday, September 25th, we had snow in the mountains down to 8000 feet. 

 I do not remember ever having snow in September. I'm not sure if this is just a fluke or a portent of things to come this winter. The snow on the ridge was accompanied by several nights in the low 30s and highs in the low 50s. It got cold enough that I had to turn the furnace on. The cats were grateful and spent most of their time sacked out in front of the registers. 

Sept 30
As a note below, I went out for the paper this morning and discovered that my own painted yucca stalks had been art bombed in retaliation. The top yellow portion has been repainted in metallic silver.  Now they really sparkle in the sun. 

Wonder what is next?  One upmanship is a road without stop signs.

 

 

14 September 2013 - Putting off painting

My plan for Saturday was to get in the shop and finish painting the ceiling and walls in the original section.  Once again, I got up and thought maybe later. Instead I wandered down to the International Center. The bird list was reporting many sightings of warblers and yellow-breasted chats and other birds that had me drooling just thinking about it. 

I was dismayed not to find anything new. Since I was fairly close, I hopped onto the access road and headed toward the GSL marina. This is one of my favorite drives. Fabulous scenery, and you never know what you will see.  

Here's the first thing that tickled me. When you first start on the access road, there are sidewalks -- no buildings, just huge fields, with sidewalks along the road. What I loved about this is that the sunflowers had grown up in the tiny crack between the sidewalk and the curb. 

What you can't tell from this picture is that the sunflowers were filled with birds. Lots of seeds to eat in here. 

  When I drive this road I always scan the telephone poles for hawks. I was not disappointed. This is a Swainson's hawk. He posed for me then took off. Poor thing. The minute he hit the sky a mixed flock of blackbirds, starlings and swallows came up out of the field and started harassing him.

He took refuge on a different pole, and the birds lit around him. 

 The hawk is in front of the upright between the the horizontal bars. 

He took off again and the flock let him go. 

Continuing down the road, I had to pull over again to admire the landscape. There was rain, thunder and lightning to the south of me, and I could see the sky was getting dark to the north. I took a picture of the landscape with the dark sky and rain coming.

 

I looked again and wondered what the brown lumps were. To my amazement the lumps were pronghorn antelope bedded down and chewing their cud. 

Several of them were very young with tiny black buds starting to show on their foreheads. 

At this point the rain was beginning to catch up with me. I loved how this flock looked silhouetted against the dark clouds.

Next I ran across a new bird for my list. This is a Lesser Yellowlegs.  So many of these wading birds look alike. You think you are seeing the same thing over and over until it dawns on you the beak is a different color, or the head is gray instead of white. So much to learn--it's part of what keeps me going back.


                                                                                                         I also like watching how the plants change from the summer greens to the golds and reds. Here a few late blue chicory flowers are hanging in among the yellowy grasses. I also found the first milkweed plants letting go of their seeds. The wind had picked up with the oncoming rain and was blowing the umbrellas out of the pod and into the world.

 I sat and watched the wind take all the seeds. It only took about 15 minutes for them to get sucked out of the pod and on their way to their next home.

Looking across the lake, Antelope Island is disappearing behind the rain. 

 
We have had several days with heavy rain resulting in a major green-up, whether it is lawns or desert. The salt flats are looking quite spring-like as the parched earth soaks up the water and the plants put out new growth.

 Even though much of the vegetation is turning yellow and red for fall, the grasses are greening up. 

The rain followed me home, which made a nap with cats imperative. But after all that, I did get out and get a coat of paint on the ceiling of the shop.

12 September 2013 - A is for Antelope Island

My plan for this evening was to put another coat of paint on the shop. I started out there and said "No. It's time for some fun."  Got in the car and took myself off to the island.

I am so in love with Antelope Island. If if weren't state land, I'd want to build a house there. So much to love: wind swept slopes, craggy rock formations alternating with slopes covered with tumbled white boulders. The geology is amazing. Most of the island was once under the waters of Lake Bonneville. Even if I could get over the land itself, the flora and fauna will keep me returning again and again. 

Driving home, I  was thinking I could write a Sleeping Bear style children's book about the island. 

A is for Antelope. 
Yes, there is a reason it is called Antelope Island.  Pronghorns are native to both Utah and the island. 
On this trip the antelope  were everywhere. 

Usually the antelope are not in sight or a long ways off. I lost count of how many I saw.  



B is for Bison.
Wow. I must have seen at least 300 buffalo scattered around in large herds around the island. 

Doesn't this look like something out of the Old West?  But, wait, this is the old west. 

                                       
 Lots of youngsters running around playing games with each other--racing around the parents, kicking their back feet in the air, even saw some head-butting. They often stop traffic. Including me.

Have you ever wondered about the etching in your side mirrors that says Objects may be closer than they appear?  It is so true! This guy was about five feet from my back bumper. I was stopped for about ten minutes while at least fifty buffalo ambled across the road in front and behind me. Waiting on the herd to cross the road was not a hardship. What fun to be so up close and personal with these massive animals. I did have a few visions of some big male pushing my car over, but I do have an active imagination.

The island is also home to mule deer, big-horned sheep, badgers, bobcats, porcupines and coyotes as well as the ubiquitous jackrabbit. 

Antelope Island is the largest of the GSL's 10 islands, although the lake is so low that right now it is more of a penisula. The oldest rocks found on this island are from the Precambrian era (a whopping 2.7 billion years old!) and are older than the Precambrian rocks found at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. It makes me feel very small and insignificant.

The rock outcroppings and formations are spectacular. Many of the rocks have beautiful striping. 

Then contrast these with what is on the other side of the road--a hillside covered with rounded boulders. Totally different rocks.

Or contrast with these rugged outcroppings. This looks like a boar with front legs stretched out in front.

Then these rocks are totally different than the rocks in the previous picture. Such diversity!

I started going to Antelope Island for the birds. It is a major stop for migrating birds which is fabulous, but now I go for the island and the birds are almost secondary. Almost. 

I ran across a flock of Chukars-- counted 25 but think there were more. There were so many juveniles in the group running every which way, while adults stood on rocks and tried to call them to order. 

I had pulled over at a spring area hoping to find some of the little birds that I was hearing and another car pulled in to see what I was looking at. 

One of the women was telling me about seeing some large but really scrawny quail running around. I am sure she saw these juvenile chukars.  

There is an area of the island where a pair of great horned owls tend to hang out. I spent a good half hour searching the tree tops and finally found the female.  What a beauty!

I also spent quite some time following movement in the undergrowth trying to find the bird(s) causing it.  I haven't figured out who they are yet. One is some kind of a wren and other one of the many flycatcher varieties. 

This is the wren. It doesn't have the distinguishing marks that would help me identify it. They do this on  purpose. I have it narrowed down to perhaps a house wren or a rock wren.

And here is the flycatcher--complete with fly, although in this case I think it is a grasshopper. 

 The sunflowers were full of blackbirds. 

When I realized it was getting near dusk, I drove to Buffalo Point and hiked to the top. 


From this ridge you can see the west side of the island and lake and see the next band of islands. Oh my. I didn't want to leave. I had the sun setting into the lake to the west, and the last rays of sun hitting Bridger Bay on the east. 

And here, the last rays of the sun hitting the smoke on Stansbury Island. The smoke is from a minerals company that makes potassium sulfate and magnesium and sodium chloride. 

I turned back east, looked across the lake to the Wasatch Mountains and I could see rain coming down along the front from Salt Lake to Ogden. 

This was accompanied by lightning and thunder that I could hear from 40 miles away. The sun came out in the west and there was a rainbow that stayed in place for almost an hour. 
 
One end came down in Bountiful and the other end was anchored in Ogden Canyon about 25 miles north. 

As the storm moved north, the last rays of the sun hit the rain  turned it pink.  This photo does not do it justice.

See the really bright pink spot above to the far left?  

That is the rainbow you see in the picture before this.  The setting sun made it glow. It was amazing.

You just never know what incredible new thing you will stumble across on this island.                 

By now it was getting dark, and I still had to get down from the ridge. Definitely not one of my better ideas, hiking an unfamiliar trail in the dark. A steep and rocky trail to boot.