RIP Denver and Rio Grande Western RR

An open letter to Sage:  re: railroads in Provo Canyon

Dear Sage:

Thank you for your comment to my recent post.  It sent me on a hunt for information.  You obviously know your railroads and trains!   I've taken a new interest in the various trains, freight and passenger, that I see chug past my home here in Fernley!    When I was a girl, that sound meant the potential of freedom, of seeing places beyond the rugged mountains of Utah.  I didn't know then how much I would miss those high places, rattle snakes, bears, deer, mountain lions and all.

I am 65 and when I was a very little girl the train that is now the historic line you called the Heber Creeper was the Denver and Rio Grand Western RR.  It ran some kind of service from 1899 to 1967.  I was in the canyon off and on from 1950 to 1960. Anyway the Denver and Rio ran a service that connected Heber to Provo. Springdell is probably 6 miles up the canyon and well south of Bridal Falls.  When I was young six miles might have been a million for all I knew.  My cousins, friends and I were little Mountain Rats. My grandparents owned a home in Springdell and my younger sister and I would summer and even winter with them.  Lady Blue sometimes lived there with us when she was between marriages (six that we know of).   Any free moment found us outside roaming mountains, exploring the river, sneaking into Canyon Glen, finding horses to ride bare-back and of course, walking the railroad tracks.  We use to feel for the vibration of an on-coming train with our bare feet on the rails.  We placed pennies on the track and waited for the train to flatten them.  The flat penny was each kid's badge of honor and courage.  It was in this canyon that the older guys taught me how to track every manner of four legged animal.  My Dad appreciated the skill as he took his daughter deer hunting with him...I was the ringer.  I mentioned rattle snakes earlier.  We (the boys and I) collected the rattles as another badge of honor/courage and a kind of currency (a story for another time).  Now I respect rattle snakes and to this day can hear that rattle from a great distance - I no longer follow snake tracings in the sand, to shoot them :).   As an adult I leave them be and hope they will do the same.  Obviously I was a complete dyed in the wool tom-boy by the time I could run faster than Lady Blue...so I would say by 5 years of age.   By the way,  I have a deep and abiding fear of water moccasins.  The Dell has a huge pond in it (to this day).  Kids for several generations have spent hot summer days swinging on a tree rope and dropping into the freezing spring water that filled the pond.  The down side...we used to see water moccasins swim there too.  Nothing could clear out the water faster than one of that snake!

So that Sage is part of the story.  The vibration of train weight on tracks and the wail of the engine whistle, and yes, Brian the squeal of wheels and brakes...all (as with you) call me.  As trains roll by this little house, I can almost smell the Aspens mixed with the mint garden of a neighbor's in the Dell  and hear the night wind blow through Provo Canyon.  And yes Walking Man, it was a blessing to have that calm, safe, yet wild  place in my life.

The First Week End of Fall

Cooler air, gentle breezes and a few clouds.  Perfect.  The flowers beds seem to enjoy the change in the weather.  The color in the garden is magnificent.  All the flowers that are still blooming are so beautiful just before it is time to call it quits.  Have to get some mulching hay and decide which plants to prune and cover in the next month.  Some succulents will be re potted and come indoors until spring some will have to be replanted in safer less wind exposed places and a few will move with the potted roses to the side of the house.  The cycle of life...who stays, who goes.   

Small progress is being made in the storing food department.  So many apples so little time.  Am taking bushels to the soup kitchen and food pantry.  Wild horses get some and of course the neighbors. Still there is apple sauce and apple butter to be made and apple slices to pare and freeze.  I often think of my great-grandmother Hattie at this time of year.  I've mentioned her here before,  a hard-working farm woman.  Managed her family and life with skill.  Found time to be a mid-wife to neighbors.  Every fall she, like so many farm wives, prepared food to get the family through the harsh winter that was to be theirs on their Spanish Fork (Utah) farm. 

Yesterday we had new Mustang visitors:

Another small band of bachelors.  I don't know if they have been chased off by stronger stallions or if their herds were rounded up for auction in Fallon - some Mustangs always escape the helicopter round-up.  Several are very young.  Many had bite marks on their hides.  Life is not easy for these guys.  They gorged on apples and the sage brush blossoms.  They are very wild and stampeded off if I or the handy man move too quickly in the garden.  Still they are curious about these humans and the three dogs that follow us around the garden. 

The dogs don't bark until the horses eat apples.  Then all hell breaks loose.  They think those apples are doggy treats.   They hate sharing.  

Time to get another cup of coffee and organize the day.  Hoping your is peaceful.  

Measuring Time in Spring

Spring evening -  at 8:30 PM  -  2011

It is light until almost 9 PM.  Before long we will have light until nearly 11 PM.  The sky is light again just before 5 AM.  My favorite time of the year. Makes the winter rain and darkness seem very far away!  :-)  Okay, the rain is still here but not for much longer.  Brilliant flowers are every where and trees are completely leafed...these are the content recipients of the deluge.

"We all grow up with the weight of history on us. Our ancestors dwell in the attics of our brains as they do in the spiraling chains of knowledge hidden in every cell of our bodies."                       ~Shirley Abbott

So much has been going on that it has been difficult to sort through much less note on a blog.  Violin practice continues a pace but am thinking of changing to the Irish whistle or perhaps the banjo (for all things country).  Arthritis is such a nagging drag ~ my neck complains about leaning to the left (so does my family but that is another story).  However the stiffness keeps my massage therapist gainfully employed.  Speaking of violin I should add here that I began learning this wonderful instrument because I so enjoy Celtic fiddle music.  To make a long story short, I've been on a journey of discovery about my family's genealogy.  It seems I have deep Celtic roots.  Ferguson's from Dundee, Scotland, Gavin's from Ireland and the Reynolds' from St. David, Wales.  Are those the strands of genetic code that whisper a love of the jig and reel?  I found relatives in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts back to the founding of the country...perhaps that is why I felt instantly at home in those places. Found one soul who fought the British  long ago and died doing so.  These generations of cousins were not nobleman but hard working folk who helped build a nation: mainly farmers but also miners, laborers and builders of homes and towns.  I've found myself reading some of their stories from letters and family histories as relatives moved across this nation. I've felt very proud of their courage and strength.   I also found Mormon and Catholic roots and two male cousins many times removed who were polygamists.   A female Scottish cousin married a Mormon minister after she converted in Scotland and followed him to the States.  Her first husband was a sailor who died at sea.  There are two cousins from almost 100 years ago who were nurses and midwives.  One of those brave women served her community in Utah when that state was a territory and her people live in dugouts.  She also cared for some of the Ute tribe and her husband's cattle and farm were never scarred during the war between the Settlers and the Ute...even after her husband died from wounds he received in those battles her home remained intact and cattle left alone.  She like so many women buried most of the children they birthed.  There are long lists of cousins who did not live beyond their first year.  One grandfather remains a mystery.  He was an orphan. He died in a mining accident in Utah.  He was possibly Navajo or Mexican or Portuguese. I know only that his father was from New Mexico.  His mother from Arizona but to date those great grandparents remain nameless.  If my half-brother were to decide to have his DNA tested we might be able to find out which human migration that side of the family is followed - for now that greatgrandparent's story is encased in silence.


The genealogy search was rekindled because I have been traveling back and forth between the Northwest and the Southern Utah desert to check on my aged Mother.  Her energy, memory, and heart are failing her.   Sometimes she can not remember why I've come to see her.  Sometimes she is angry that I'm helping her pay her bills.  Sometimes she is mellow and full of old stories.  She will not leave her home - she is frail but the whole of her being wants to be fiercely independent to her last breath.  Managing fiances and health care from 1000 miles away is daunting.  Have even driven down once.  I have to admit I love to drive and eventually will get back to editing the photos taken on the journey.   So my own mother is failing.  My children are developing their families and careers.  The youngest son completes graduate school in June and the eldest is teaching English as a second language at a university in Texas.  We are  living life as it unfolds.  For now life continues to be relatively calm...not without its sorrows but that is to be expected.  The ebb and flow of each day feels connected and 'normal'.   There is a pleasure in knowing I am moving through my 60s with family secrets unlocked.  I now hold information about my connection to the generations who went before me.  There is a promise in it all.   It all seems appropriate to the season. 


"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world.  This makes it hard to plan the day."  ~Elwyn Brooks White

Pondering the Price of Oil

“There's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our lungs there'd be no place to put it all.” 

~Robert Orben

I love to drive. My Father taught me how to drive when I was 12 years old. I have a clear memory of his smiling face as I s-l-o-w-l-y drove down a country road. I can remember the searing heat of July in Price, Utah. There were no jarring stops or wild accelerations. Just his soothing voice telling me not to worry about 'gauges just feel the car and watch the road'. It was such a long time ago ~ 50 years has elbowed its way between me and that sultry day. Time has claimed the moment and death my Dad. So much has changed.  We had no idea that we were contributing to pollution.

“Nature provides a free lunch, but only if we control our appetites.” 

~William Ruckelshaus,

Business Week, 18 June 1990

Driving these days is a guilty pleasure. As I watch the Gulf turned into a cesspool of muddy oil I too find myself pondering thoughts of carbon reduction. A new car is out of the question. The current car is still owned by the Bank. I live quite a distance from my office but ironically I am rarely there as I am always on the road, traveling to one or the other of the Care Centers. The one nearest to my home is 20 miles to the south, with one another 18 or so miles south of that and the furtherest is 56 miles to the north. Obviously this is not a carbon reducing trek. My buildings are not very electronically up-to-date. I can't review medical records from the comfort of my little home office. We can't Skype meetings. Anyway, all those activities require electricity so it is likely a carbon wash so to speak.

“It wasn't the Exxon Valdez captain's driving that caused the Alaskan oil spill.  It was yours.” 

~Greenpeace advertisement,

25 February 1990

I plan to move off this Island. Closer to the main office and the Care Centers to the south. The thought of packing is repulsive but not as repulsive as thoughts of sea creatures drowning in oil. While on my cruise (yet another carbon expensive trek) I listened to a naturalist discuss the oil spill in Alaska. He said he was still haunted by by the sound of hundreds of confused and frightened sea otters when they began to freeze to death as the crude robbed them of their ability to withstand the icy water temperatures. He and his fellow volunteers listened to them scream as they died. They did not know that otters sounded like humans when they screamed. Who knows what screams, loudly or quietly, are echoing in the Gulf? Soon more and more humans will join in the screaming as animals, plants and shore line are increasingly destroyed.  This man-made leak stains all that we use to know. I, like so many others, send donations to various groups struggling to save what has been damaged. I work at reorganizing my life. I make lists of all that is petroleum based and weigh alternatives. Time for me to move back into an urban area ~ and I can't begin to express to you how sad that makes me feel...living the escaptist fantasy has been glorious!  How I love the peace, space and safety of this Island.  But, to be honest, I love not contributing to pollution even more.  Living in a city seems an odd way to accomplish this but ... ~  it makes dependence on a car less of an issue.

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. 

~Native American Proverb

It's time to change. We've already left a monsterous finacial debt for our grandchildren and their children.  Shall we also leave them a “scorched earth”?  Time to drive "s-l-o-w-l-y down the road" in a new and healthier way.