Shoulder work... information... and other stuff...

Summer work ahead...                                                                   04/22/2013

Summer is here if by nothing but the date on the calendar, along with the start of road work in the canyon and about the State of Utah... but the weather always has the last say in the matter no matter what the paper on the wall says. Two of the most favored turn-outs in the canyon are being closed for the coming of a new look and feel... granted the views will be the same but for those returning the configuration and what can and can't stop and park at these turn-outs will be different. So the only constant in this world... change, continues to come to the canyon, and in this case with safety for the traveling public in mind. Most all of us that work in the tourist information world realize the visitors leave their brains home in a jar on the kitchen counter... but they still bring their cell phones and expect them to work all the time!! Everyone wants a map but still depends on the talking magic voice in the box on the dashboard to tell them where and how to get there (GPS)... this device is the best sure way to get lost out here, so turn off GPS and learn to read a map, mark it up with circles arrows and lines, then take it home and use it in your scrapbook. We can help you really well with the marking it up task at the VC in the red canyon, come in we have markers of many colors. And some of us can't talk very well without making lots of marks on something!! 

First day of construction...                                                                 04/22/2013

 So the bottom line of all this...
slow down, watch the road, read the signs, look at the sights, and don't stop in the middle of the highway to take pictures cause you don't know whats coming around that corner behind you not paying attention to whats in front of them, and remember our shoulders are being worked on.
Slow down and give the workers a break, they got a job to get through, and don't need to be looking out for you, as you look and drive through their work site. Cruse on into the Visitor Center stop, take a minute, let the "air" out of your shoes, re-group, look around the center, take a hike, mark up a new map, and joke with the volunteers and staff. If you have to get to Bryce and then on to Zion and catch a plane in Vegas or Salt Lake... today... then get on down the road !
We are building steam on/in this season, new volunteers arriving, opening seven (7) days a week April 30, campground opening in May, a new line of red canyon T-shirts and a Thunder Mt. bike trail "sport shirt" coming along. And with the next round of construction coming to our parking lot in June! And you thought this was a vacation!

Random parking lot...                                                                               04/2013

Right now our parking lot is random, where ever you want... or follow the leader... just and open lot, but don't get too creative... we have been known to ask people to move! We have to have 60 degrees of warm temperatures for twenty-four hours before we can chip-seal, stripe, and finish the lot with purpose and direction, so you can park without having to think too much, and that usually does not happen till June, temps i mean not your thinking! So watch out for that one coming soon, as another distraction to the great looking landscape that we always have. We also have eight blank interpretative panel frames standing at attention waiting for orders... sixteen total interpretative panels will explain who, what, and where to go, all coming before the Memorial weekend... so if ya don't like talking with folks or we're closed, we can still tell ya where to go and how to get there! Don't forget your map, shut down the GPS, all of this can be found while your on the way to where everyone else is going... the restrooms, and the panels will all be there when you come out... aha!! Then come into the visitor center... that's where a lot of the fun of discovery starts at...  but for now that's another story for another day. 

I have got to get back to work for the next eight days or so... 
Stop by if your in the neighborhood or wave as you pass through...
Some day you will stop... and we can show you the wonders of red canyon...

CHEERS till then...

Deer toes... snow... back to bright light... once again.

Box of deer toes...                                      2013

Wee...   here we go again, this is my "project box" at work, you might remember the box from an earlier post, the deer toes been hanging out on the back deck all winter drying out so to speak... the neighbor dogs took off with some of em', but they left me ten. The white pan is to catch the soil i been sifting for the silt, for a display i want to put together. Have just about completed the "dino fossil box" just have to pack it with excelsior and attach the Plexiglas top and all is good to go. Hope the box with a fossil inside rather then a just a big chunk of stone attracts more attention on the counter top. Folks look up to read the poster but don't look down at the fossil... 

The weather is/was the big deal this past weekend,  then it snowed big time this week, like all day long one day, have not seen a day like that all winter. Looking at the seven day forecast, partly cloudy, sunny and warming up this coming weekend. 

I have two sets of volunteers in the center now so that frees me up for more project time...
deer hoof/toe rattle along with the legs so folks don't have to go catch the deer and hold it down to get a good look... only kidding. The box will also have other animal parts... ya could call it a parts box. Hides, bones, antlers, scat in a jar, a fauna box. Ya know work has got to be fun or why do it... other then feeding the money habit/need that takes care of the other mundane things we have to do in this life. Went to the GEM the other night to see escape from planet earth... what a hoot and an escape from cable TV!
Well all that's left now is back to work and wait for the new storm door handle to arrive.

In a Hebrew proverb, God is said to have made the desert so there'd be a place he could walk in peace.

Tuesday 16 April 2013

 " We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us." 
"... even in the absence of climate change, even without human contribution of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, mega-droughts happen in the normal course of events. "
" The fertile American High Plains are sitting on top of a desert... The last full-dune episode across the High Plains was six hundred years ago."
We live in an ephemeral landscape.

Thursday 18 April 2013

 y

Field Support Unit... 18 April 2013

I have started and am reading "Apocalyptic Planet" 

by Craig Childs... it's not the hoot that escape form planet earth was at the GEM... but it sure makes more sense then what i hear from my government and big business concerns about climate change...

Childs says: "Deserts are not aberrations. They are one of the quintessential environments of the earth, a quarter of the planet's solid surface covered by them... and are one of the drivers of global climate patterns... As landscapes, they are tricksters, shape-shifters."

Good book so far... if ya want a different slant on things pick it up, a good read and digest and apply it to your own beliefs... remember that we here in Panguitch live in/on one of those deserts.

Well for now that's about all i can put into words... or better yet want too, because with everything going on in this country and the world my personal opinions are best kept close to my faulty heart.

D&C 38: 29&30

 Thanks for coming to visit me in my part of this great world we all live in...  tomorrow back to my other world of visitor's questions and answers, along with my own... continue to read the scriptures every day... pray, trust, hope, and believe in the Lord, who's brother i am.

Cheers till we meet again.

Snow... more boards... wind & oreo's...

12:38pm                                  4/8/2013

 "...imperfect people are all God  has ever had to work with.
That must be terribly frustrating to him, but he deals with it. So should we."   
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland April 7, 2013

With that in mind have another oreo and let's get to work...
With two weekends of visitor center work tucked into my belt... the changing weather, light, and the variety of people that walk through the door is amazing !! The new comfort station works well and people speak of the new smell, they are only two weeks old.  

1:36pm                                     4/8/2013

With the next few days off, the delta disaster folks were here to complete their work on restoring the once flooded bedroom to its pre-flood state. Now it's time to unwind and get to work on the 84 million year old fossil's display box/crate... off to the saw mill for two more 1x10x 8' boards to get this project started... i have all the other materials on hand. 
It appears that it is still snowing to the east of here in the red canyon area... as the images show from this past Monday...
wind blowing all day here in Pnaguitch with all the loose vagrant plastic bags caught in trees and on fences to act as wind socks... the wind is blowing from the north by the way and can stop anytime now.  I continue to hit wrong keys to make this whole thing work and want at times to kick myself... as i wander about in this cyber-space of un-reality... except for these words.

4:03pm                                     4/8/2013

i do believe i am done with this post for today 

the sun has cmoe out and work beckons so i will depart with this one final thought and image...

i am one of those imperfect peolpe that Elder Holland refers to in his conference talk... and some days i know it more then ever...

as Elder Holland also stated... "hold to the ground you have already won, be true to the faith you have... fan the flame of your faith."  i struggle with this each day...
now is the time to get away from the words and get my hands dirty and my body tired.

This image from easter 2012........

see ya later... 
love ya... 
bye>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>







CHEERs 1!2!!3!!!

Red Canyon... rocks, light, and wonder...

Red Canyon... new restrooms                    31 March 2013

Well it looks like a good season has started... we have a moon over the new comfort station... rather then a half moon on each door. After a week of getting the visitor center reheated, cleaned, and a lot of work going on outside to complete the restrooms, clean-up the grounds and install the interpretation panel frames... the red canyon visitor center opened for question and answer sessions on March 29th. We also had the final walk through of this past winters construction/facelift of the center front yard, not all without some complications, on opening day, we had port-o-potties the first day open to lend to the air'e of wilderness experience... and just to let visitors know they were on "vacation". The following morning we opened the new restrooms for public use... there are still a few odds and ends to do... benches to set on are still coming and a series of interpretation panels still to come... as the frames are now "blank" as i felt moving toward the completion of this project at sometimes. I was glad to have my own punch list to keep me busy inside the center to get ready to open this center for the tenth time in as many years.  There is lots of show and tell inside as well, a most wonderful show of plain aire paintings by Cedar City artist Brad Holt, who worked all winter painting in the canyon, along with an eighty-four million year old Hadrosaur mandible still incased in stone, along with all of our usual display's and gift/book store, come on in if your in the area, and we have an answer for most everything relating to the area.
The center is open Fridays through Mondays, 9am-6pm, for the month of April, then starting April 30 we will be open seven days a week same 9-6 times daily.

Red Canyon, Dixie National Forest                                                                                                                                March 2013

YES we're OPEN                                         2013

Lots to do hiking trails, biking trails paved and dirt, single track, and the best single track bike trail in Utah... Thunder Mountain!  This is a great place to get away from the crowds of the surrounding national parks. Red canyon is a canyon by definition, it is "V" shaped, has two sides and in our case a dry wash, most of the time, running through it. The canyon runs east to west and is cut into the western edge of the Paunsaugant Plateau. As one, of eight, persons that spends seven plus months of each year working in the canyon it is comfortable and makes me feel at home because the canyon "wraps" its arms/walls about me. We operate/work in the bottom of the canyon and look up to "see" the warm red rocks surround us. Most visitors like this canyon for that feeling of being "in" a canyon, unlike Bryce, where you stand at the top and look down into it like a god. Bryce Canyon is miss named, it was called Bryce's Canyon by the early pioneers. Bryce is not a canyon at all, but a series of horseshoe-shaped amphitheaters carved from a break on the eastern edge of the Paunsagunt Plateau. The marvel for me of red canyon is to watch the weather move over, through, and up and down the canyon, and as an Artist/photographer watching the change in the "light" and shadow move through the canyon hour by hour, day by day for months at a time, this is something visitors rarely experience when they visit, because they don't stay long enough. Come and experience the canyon and also know that there are people here that watch over and care for one of the special places on earth.

" Man in the rock..."                                                                                                                                                              April 2013

Come and we will show you windows, coyote sleeping on the rocks, faces in the rocks and even this guy trying to escape from the rock... bring your sense of wonder and imagination... and see what you may find. This is my tenth year in the canyon and i still see/discover new things each day, and always look forward to tomorrow... with a smile.

Cheers...  till you come again.

it take's a GEM... to finish the day.

Back again near the end of a stressful day... as always with Panguitch weather what ya see in the morning is usually not what ya get by mid day or even the end of the day for that matter... that's spring at six thousand feet... the "mile high city" has got nothing on us. They got football & baseball but we have the Utah State 1A championship baseball team.

Plumber... delta... and just a sweating pipe in a hot room...
but... it took a three headed detective... to figure it out...
turned into a clear blue sky... sunnny day...

No new leak... just a lazy plumber from the start...
two holes in the ceiling to close up... come monday...
off to the movie at the GEM... "The Croods"... follow the light

The GEM is a great place to unwind at the end of a stressful day...  dark room, popcorn, soda, and  handmade ice cream to escape the stress of a day that in the end did go more right then wrong!!
This small grey movie house on the corner of Main street in Panguitch is worth your support.
It was a busy family day at the movies today, with a good/funny show... and it saved my outlook for the day and put a smile on this old face.
That's what i call being prepared for the doldrums and its not the two hour round trip drive to the west, and the GEM is half the ticket price of the west, bring your cash cause the plastic don't work here!! (-:
And if ya look close enough ya can see Henries Drive-in down the street is open sooooo... enjoy...
 Cheers

Here's to the morning... twenty% chance.

March 23 2013 13degrees mostly cloudy... snowing ever so lightly.

Cold gray moving clouds... snowing
get out of bed... dog out... knee hurts...
a day of waiting for delta disaster too start... again.

The window from my world to the physical outside world... change.
reading... 2Nephi and Isaiah... knee feels better... change.            
the gray moves past my window... still i wait on... delta

The sun breaks through... but is covered by gray... again.
and the snow dusts the ground... breakfast with oj... again.
"...every mouth speaketh folly... but his hand is stretched out still."
                                                                                                                                                                   2Nephi19&20/Isaiah9&10

ChEeRs...

Week # 9... and other thoughts.

Cluttered desk... mind full                                                          November 2011

After a day trip to the other world and away from Panguitch, to pick carpet for the downstairs along with shopping while we are there, any more that takes the sap out of ya... these trips beyond our realm require much more then just going but must be accomplished with a list in hand otherwise life becomes hectic... and you must also take  your list into the store so that your not having the "what else is on the list?" conversation. This comes back to that idea... write it down and forget it but take the list with ya. One way or the other we always come home with more then we went in for, and the check-out clerk says "did you find all you needed"... oh yes and most likely more! Maybe that's because the list is viewed as a "suggestion" rather then the bottom line.

Well to week #9 food storage, eight cans of "meat/protein" per family member, lots of options here tuna, chicken, beef, turkey etc., unless you have a non meat eater in the house... This will be active rotation food for the three month supply for the pantry we are trying to get started. Work from the best use by date on the cans, most about a year. Now the option is always out there for dehydrated or freeze-dryed meats if you want longer shelf life, but also remember the need for more water to bring it back to life. In a recent round table talk the other day the idea of jerked meat came to light, expensive if purchased, and again shelf life issues... but what and how can you/we make it? The local/only grocery here in Panguitch has sirloin tip roast on sale till this coming Thursday, Mar 21, go in and get one and have the meat counter slice it the thickness you want, and save some work and fingers when you get home. Un-earth your favorite marinade and drop the meat in, then hang it on a rack to dry, or if you have a dehydrator lay it out on the racks, turn it on and check back later. If you hang it on a rack to air dry, ya might want to drape some cheese cloth over it to keep the flies off, ya know like ya do the deer meat to let it age. If you have any ideas or suggestions use the comments below, is there anyone out there??

Week #9 extra item, don't forget the paper (toilet) to clean up with, remember it's your done till the paper work is finished! Don't forget water 14 gals per person per week to drink and more for food and hygiene.

Week #9 72 hour and family prep, Get small inexpensive copies of the scriptures for each 72 hour kit, emergency box's, car etc. . In my case i always have a copy of the Book of Mormon in my brief case, don't leave home without it! Great reading when your some place and have to wait... food for your soul and spirit. The next biggie on my list is pen and paper... a journal, again it always goes with me. These can and are the records we are asked to keep by the Lord and our leaders. Take a min. during the day, pull it out jot down some insights, thoughts, ideas and forget about having to remember them till you read about them later as you write a review/record of your day. In the above image the black book in the foreground is my journal...don't leave without it, it's better then trying to find scratch paper to scribble on, and then can't find later! Remember these records are not for you, they do help though, but are for your family and children to get to know who you are better through your every day experiences and how the Lord influences and touches your life each day.

Psalms 46:10-11

Journal entries...                                             March 7 & 8 2013

"...though ours is a time of conflict, quietly caring for "the life of the soul" is still what matters most."

                                                                                                                                                               Elder Neal A. Maxwell   2003

Press forward and be of good cheer each day, one day at a time. Do something each week to build and prepare the storage needs we have been asked to get together, something is better then nothing. 

" In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die

       Where you invest your love, you invest your life

         Awake my soul, awake my soul"

                                                                      Mumford & Sons - Awake My Soul

Cheers...  until you return again.