The hEAt is on... and kicking me down.

car grill... road trip, pickings                                     June 2013

Hay... here's those grill pickings form the last post pinned onto the white pearl eraser... bound for the sketch book journal 

Well i can say this is a HOT Panguitch summer and it's only a couple of days old... summer that is. And i can also say that the heat has been kicking my buttocks all week long...  Cleaned the deck last Saturday past knowing the VC would be closed Wednesday & Thursday for parking lot project. What could it possibility take to paint a 500+ sq. ft. deck and all the railings  in 90+degree high desert, no humidly heat... well in my case about two and a half days for the first coat!! The paint was drying almost as fast as i could put it on...
even starting at 0730 it was too hot to go much past 1200... and maybe if the afternoon shadow got on the deck i could start again about 1630 and work till 2000 then soak myself with the water hose as i cleaned up. The heat just saps the energy right out of one even with a hat on and water to drink... you are left with no desire to eat anything or even drink much more. 

During my mid day deck breaks i would drive to red canyon to check on the parking lot progress. Yea hot sticky tar in hot weather, that made the deck seem like not much at all.

thirty-three spaces in black & white...                                           28 June 2013

And they got in done before i got the deck done... well they did have more then one person working on the same project at any given time, but they had an inspector looking over their shoulders... not me and the deck project... though i did, and expect to, have some good conversations with myself. Yes i know this is all, both projects, summer time work, but it could have been a bit cooler.

Then along with all this came the Panguitch Balloon festival, now these are the guys that can use some "hot air" though they do go up early in the cooler mornings before not much wind comes up. This really was one of the better weather years for the balloons. Lots of Family back to Panguitch this festival weekend... to visit the old timers that still live here by those who were born and raised here and have left. The numbers of people go up in town and go down at the visitor center, then we have the Fourth of July, our national holiday coming and then the BIG Utah State holiday on the 24th... if you didn't get home for the balloons you best be here for Pioneer Days... the whole nine yards is going on then. Those stories are for another day...
Balloons up early each of the three days... but the fun part for me is Saturday evening an night... walking the shut down main street lined with hot air balloons and more people then Panguitch ever sees, except for this one night in June. Take a short look...

first give away...                                                                              29 June 2013

They are here somewhere...       29 June 2013

Saturday night glow, main street...                                               29 June 2013

after glow at the GEM...                                       29 June 2013

So that my friends is a festival in small town Utah , not as big as some but we are glad when they all go home and we can get Panguitch back. We don't mind sharing, but we do know that Panguitch is one of those special places on earth and with only about 1,200 souls living here we do need to get back to living here... come visit when and if you can. The deck is screaming for it's second coat and we still have a hot week coming and the Fourth of July fireworks on Thursday at the city park!! Oh yea there is also a week of work at the VC bundled up in this coming  hot week, and if we continue to Fast and Pray for moisture the monsoons may start before the 24th of July... the seven day weather forecast shows a chance of showers most of the week... scattered and in the afternoons as the heat builds those clouds. O ya we do still live in a desert. Best weather predictor... keep your eye on the sky, if the ground is wet...rain, trees moving...wind, you get the picture. Remember: lightning first then thunder.

Cheers...

Chips, ARt, Butterflies and Trickster...

Chip-seal in one shot...                                                                   June 18 2013

 Monday June 24... total overcast grey windy day... and its my turn to run the secondary water... only one way to water on a day like this place the sprinkler on the south end of the property and water the whole lot in one shot.
Well here's what the red canyon parking lot looked like last Tuesday... the crazy part of this day was people still tried to drive into the parking lot. If you have any kind of earth friendly concern you might be appalled at watching this process... but some how i think you might enjoy the lot when its done on Thursday of this week! But your going to have to put your earth friendly concerns away when you consider what it takes to make this happen. Lots of Dino's made this all possible, and i am sure the Clarion Formation will try to cover it over as it continues to erode away on its way back to sea level.

Oil/Tar Abstract...                                                       June 2013

Pinch pot pottery/w beads...                                               1995

The silly part of all this stuff going on in and around in our lives is that we need to slow down the hectic-ness of our lives and notice the things that come before us each day... i think it's called smell the roses or something like that... or better yet keep your eyes open to the world about you. Even most of the visitors that come on vacation are only windshield tourists, they only come to see the BC or Z place and not all the other letter places in between, unless a place like Red Canyon knocks their socks off, and some times they leave them in the restrooms or leave a bag full of games and clothes on top of the car and drive off. Or maybe they stop to get the "i been there" rubber date stamp and are then on the road again to the next letter place. Most everything they leave goes into our lost Box, never to see home again. Slow down folks... pick the little butterflies out of the automobile grill and take time to pin them to a white pearl eraser for the scrapbook at home. Art is all about us, we just need to look out for it. We need to quit stopping the car jumping out and start walking out across the landscape to get that picture of those two hoodoos behind the VC in red canyon, look down as you tromp across the landscape and don't smash the little flowers, better yet find and take a trail to make those images, and along the way you might just find something else to fill that media card in the camera!

Coyote/Fox Window                       June 2013

And if you look hard and high enough you might see old coyote (trickster) laying on top of a window looking at that stack of pancakes on the table above him. That's all at post #13 by the old Podunk Guard Station at the end of the now chip-sealed parking lot, but ya got to be lookin with your imagination turned on, remember that art i was talkin about?

So buttons on your underwear... spend some time among us... hang out, walk about... let the air out of your shoes... be on vacation and don't go home tired and warn out from vacationing.

In the mean time we are going to shut the place, red canyon visitor center and parking lot, down again this week, June 26 & 27, to finish the parking lot to make life better and easer for all of us. They got to sweep it clean of the chips they put down last week, then seal it with a flush coat, let it sit over night, then paint it with direction and parking stripes and install car bumpers and new signs.

While they finish the parking lot i got a deck at home to get painted on Wednesday and Thursday,  back to work on Friday the 28th. Then watch some balloons go up in Panguitch in the morning and walk the evening glow up and down Main street Saturday night this coming weekend.
Maybe stop in the Gem theater for a movie and ice cream... we just might hit 90 degrees this weekend, that's hot for Panguitch, but we got to get the wind turned off.
Cheers...   till we meet again.

be still... listen... WATCH where the water goes...

Lower Calf Creek...                                                                                                                                                          October 2012

and we went forth...                                                       2011

When you live in a place where water is scarce... and you have to go a long way to find it... and you need to fast & pray for the good rain that we do get... it makes it just that much more valuable when we do get it... we need to store it in case we need it... along the way trying to use what we have with wisdom.

I grew up, was raised and educated in California next to the Pacific ocean... then moved inland many years later to live in an area that was once an inland ocean... and is now an dry ancient seabed that has moved upward and sits on the top of the Colorado Plateau much higher then at sea level where i grew up...

There are lakes, streams and creeks here... but there is more evidence of water that was here... and still comes at times in large uncontrolled amounts that have cut canyons both slotted and wide... they act like drains to move water from the high ground to the low lying areas where it is deposited and then dries up leaving its debris as evidence that it was here... clam shells in bottom lands and sharks teeth on mountain tops... strange land... but now home.

So much for the now... today is Fathers Day... i am one and know of five in my past history that i have done work for and still have more to do... i must be more diligent and move forward with their work... they are waiting for me... "We did not come into this world accidentally. We came for a special purpose, and it was undoubtedly through certain arrangements in the other life where we dwelt that we came into this life." So this temporal life is not my first life. The memories that i remember are from this my second life, there having been a veil drawn between the two.

This Fathers Day with a new granddaughter just new to this world... i think back to my youth in southern California in the first of three houses i lived in with Dad & Mom. I helped my Father plant fruit trees in our back yard, which was a special world to me as a  young boy. One of my chores, once the trees were planted, was to water what at the time seemed to be a lot of trees, maybe six or eight. I would drag the hoses from our houses outside hose bib to the trees at the back of the lot, water running as i walked out, and dropped the opened ended hose, water running into and filling the four or five foot diameter basin. This is where the "magic" started for me watching the water move across and through the dry tree basin.  I waited and watched the as the basin filled, then moved the hose to the next tree. It was during this ensuing time that i watched, observed, and listened, even though this was the mind of my youth, my imagination developed, grew and then ran wild as i watched the water engulf the dry ground, dissolve dirt clods, soak into cracks, and sometimes get swallowed up in a gopher hole, fill and then move on, then it would surround, cover and drown rocks. I observed the route the water took as it filled each basin... the stories i invented and the scenarios i created, bets i made with myself were endless, and only now do i realize the things i learnt by being still, listening and observing. This may be where and when the Artist in me started to develop and grow... thanks Dad.
I try each day now to pray, read and stop, be still and  listen to what my Father in Heaven has to say to me... God is the Father of my spirit from my first life and i Know that i am his son... Jesus Christ is my brother and is my Savior.

May this new grand daughter, Layla K. Costigan, show us a glimpse of that first life we have been so long from, and will return to some day.

Layla your eyes are clear and blue as a mountain stream...
you speak a different language then we do...
we will teach you ours so we may know where we/you have been...

where water use to be...                                                                                 2011

HAPPY FATHERS DAY


CHEERS 

Best Laid Plans of mice & men...

looks pretty much like the same old parking lot...                                                                                                    June13, 2013

This is not what this was suppose to look like by this time of this week...
it was a hetic week to start with... we closed the VC to chip-seal this lot...
ring... ring can you open the VC the contractor is not coming to chip-seal...

hay but i did get my ears cleaned out this week... huh so i hear better...
butt ya don't need ears to read or write a blog... or respond to email...
it's been a stunningly clear, a bit windy, week to make images...

the experimental garden planting from last week is working... 
green is starting to show... water twice per day... wind dried...
something to do each evening... besides TV reruns for the summer.

rosemary-mint is the soap of the week... tin-foil lunch+open fire...yum
movie at the GEM... Star Trek into darkness... two hour episode... pure trek!
speaking assignment at panguitch lake branch... need for water is critical...

monday secondary water day... also a blow your hair off day...
place sprinkler at south property line... water the whole lot at once...
office... email, time sheet, RC weekly report... meet with DR...

turn off secondary water eight am... ready for the mower in afternoon...
RC another of those thousand visitor days... four in a row this week...
home... lawn trimmed and mowed... he can come back next week!! (-;

Slow morning today... listening to Elder Holland's conf. talk "Lord I Believe"
spent the morning outdoors at the canyon, talking, image making... loving my work...
machinery images... hundred plus... chip-seal tomorrow... noooooot!! )-:

Ears cleaned... keys locked in FS rig... call for help... saved with set of extra keys 
light tubes for the VC fixture... ice cream is medicine to relieve a hot day...
returned to VC to wrap up a 900 plus day... someone turn the volume down...

Cool bright sunny... flag day... red white and blue... wind up & down canyon today
solar scope in the canyon today... not clouds... lots going on the surface... 
eight plus minute delay for us to see... good show ... stars at night.

Layla K. and mom&dad came to visit today... she is now to an eight pounder...
cute as a ladybug... its so much fun being a grandfather... and watching her father...
the wind is back today sucking the moisture out that i put on the garden...

Off to the Gem... movie and more medicine to smooth  the day...
see ya later love ya bye... looking for better plans next week...
but it will also be busy... chip-seal Tuesday... maybe... for sure when its done.

Layla K. two weeks six days...                      15 June 2013

 Cheers

Front Desk and Garden Dance...

Red Canyon... North Face                                                                                                                                                 June 6 201

It looks calm enough... but maybe that's what keeps me coming back to work each day.
A very hectic busy week... a bit slower then last but... still coming strong.
D-3 District orientation, BCNHA EOS hire, Volunteer lunch, Paintings down, new up.

Home yard water... lawn & garden... rototill garden plot later... Red canyon numbers...
High overcast clouds... bright-blue skies...fill water storage barrels... 97 gals. 3weeks.
Till the garden... very dry ground, powder... still harvesting rocks... water on plot...

Home... office... canyon front desk dance... new rubber shoes on work rig...
RC T-shirts from D-3 office...restroom supplies... VC restock and clean...
Clouds building... wind blowing... trying to rain... too hot for that to happen

Morning read; Book of Alma... account of Alma... son of Alma... first chief judge of Nephites.
BCNHA review to hire EOS... peripatetic: walking to & fro while talking or teaching...
Dream... Inspire... Create...  quilt walk starts this day/evening... no snow or rain... yet. 

Home... office... running late... gathering for lunch... "where have you been?"
All volunteers now on the same page... i hope... clear blue sky day... hot.
New red canyon shirts & hats on the wall for sale... blue& kiwi... bright.

One more busy day to go... Holt painting show un-hung... Braithwaite pastels up...
" Make Good Art" courage to invent your own life... search out good Art...
Art is redemptive... it allows us to speak from center of ourself... make good art.

Break the "human" rules... or better yet ignore them... stay in the moment...
End of a busy canyon week... do not linger too long... one may fall asleep, canyon slumber.
All of this is a part of the "world" of the natural man... be in... but free from the "world".

Bright sunny clear sky morning... 45degrees 32%... bar is steady... up and out early.
Garden plant day... most of the morning... mound, seed, cover, water... wind up.
Dog on his leash... chairs in the shade... drink water... back and finish wildflowers.

Sometimes love comes in the form of a rock... take the time to look about...
Notice the speed-o-meter... i am still looking for the tar snake on the canyon road...
Well the day is winding down... "quad" & "triple" are eating grass next door... goats.

A-marrow is SUNDAY and the day of rest... travel to the Panguitch Lake Branch...
Two thousand feet higher and eighteen miles south of here to speak to the Saints...
Be prepared, store water/food, be ready... two edged sword... spiritual and temporal.

"... the size of your faith or the degree of your knowledge is not the issue...
it is the integrity you demonstrate toward the faith you have and the truth you already know."
                                                                                                                                                 Elder Jeffrey R, Holland, April 2013

Love is as a rock...                                                                                 June 2013

Cheers till we meet again...