The Southern Utah Sky



Glorious sunrise over the high western edge of the Colorado Plateau
Just outside my kitchen door.



Everywhere I travel in Southern Utah I see beauty, whether I am stepping just outside my kitchen door or on foot for a hike or riding in the truck exploring back country roads.  You can look up and out into the sky and experience fantastic cloud patterns, streaming sun rays, and fire lit sunrises and sunsets. Hawks, eagles, magpies, crows, ravens, doves, ducks and flocks of snow geese fly overhead. There is always something to enjoy in our Southern Utah sky.

My Bike Ride Around Cedar City, Utah

I took off riding down the country road.

I took off riding down the country road. It was a beautiful day in Cedar City.

The wind blew the grain making each stalk gracefully bow.







The sun cast western bound shadows off the bales of hay, making it appear to be a giant alfalfa chessboard.

Alfalfa Chessboard

The Crow Tree

Here is the Crow Tree. Lot's of loud cawing and ruffling of wings.









My favorite rural road has been newly paved and I must adnit it is easier to peddle on.

My favorite rural road.

No dust to swallow today, only sunflowers and blue sky to absorb.

The expanse of land is breathtaking

I can see forever along this northbound road to Lund...Green and deep brown & red earth and fields, bordered by Willows, Russian Olive Trees and Elm.There are barns and silos, cows, sheep and many mountains ranges as far as you can see, in all directions. the expanse of land is breathtaking.

My kind of place!

I turn right into a muddy bog which spread under  a stuck irrigation sprinkler. 

I can not pass, I thought.

I saw a detour through the willows in a wash, so I ventured carefully off the beaten path.

The small sandy bank caught my pedals and the rabbit bush grabbed at my spokes. But once down I had planty of room to weave in and out of the willows in the wash.
40-50 yards I traveled while the barbed wire fences screamed in the wind. I turned my head from  the hard spray of water shooting out across the wash.

I approached the dry road. I pushed my bike up the sandy clay bank.


I peddle eastward, facing the rising edge of the Colorado Plateau.




A silver grey horse comes out to greet me.



A silver grey horse trots out to greet me, snorting, head bobbing, mane blowing in the wind.
I smiled at his startled face and stance as I passed.



I turned towards home,

The highway stretched before me,

Lined with tall yellowed grasses, silver green sage and the deep dark purple alfalfa flowers.

Facing south, I think of the red cathedral cliffs at Kolob Canyon and the wild lifted rocks at 

Virgin Gorge.




The Yellow Farm House



Here is the big yellow farmhouse, where I turn for home.




My neighborhood. Cedar City, Utah .



SUMMER TIME GARDEN SO GREEN

The warm green fields of summer.

There is a lot to be said for the vast changes that occur where the seasons are true. The promise of Spring, the warm green fields of Summer, the colors and mystique of Fall and the sparkling snowscapes of Winter. They all cause me to appreciate their fleeting beauty.













I am so happy with the many shapes, colors and surprises the green gives me this summer. Walking through the arbors with the now tall willows and soon to climb Black-eyed Susans.

Iceland Poppies

The little shade garden of wildflowers are a delight with their delicate pastel fancy shapes and habits. A sure place for Faeries and Tea Parties.

The volunteer sunflowers

The volunteer sunflowers reach their faces into the wild blue sky and the smell of harvested alfalfa permeates the cool night air.

Sunflowers

Our new lawn.

Our new lawn has grown in so green! The grassy knoll we constructed with clods
 of leftover grass, grew many wildflowers.

THE VEGETABLE GARDEN

And the bounty of food and the pleasure of it's color.

My bowl runneth over!

My bowl runneth over...with squashes, beans, Chinese peas, fennel and corn. Heirloom tomatoes and peppers galore.

Green, Green, Green



Corn is not yet as high as an elephant's eye.



Green, Green, Green



The corn is not yet as high as an elephant's eye but... My Deborah Maple is even higher into the sky. about 20 ft.



Our  New Deborah Maple



Oh beautiful earth with your thunderheads.

With your ethereal paper white moons...

Ethereal paper white moons

and your circus blue ribboned sunsets

   Heavenly gilded clouds of  gold.

I am truly where I love to be. Thank you.

Chicks Become Chickens

The sun rose up like a diamond over the mountains. We had no idea our flock of chickens was increasing from six to ten hens.

The Day We Purchased Four New Chickens

That morning, Paul and I found ourselves shopping in IFA ( Intermountain Farmers Association). We were getting some feed and supplies there. As we walked in we heard the little peeps of the new spring chicks basking under warm lights in the silver troughs near the entrance of the store. There were a lot of chicks to choose from, Leg Horn, Golden Sex-Link, Ducks, Turkeys and Barred Rock Pullets. Though I  dreamed of having ducks and turkeys one day, our eyes wandered to the Barred Rock. We had done pet sitting for a few Barred Rock Hens and they were a delight. Their cackles sounded like gentle laughter. The next thing we knew, we were carrying out a little box filled with 2 Barred Rock Pullets.

I sat the carrier on my lap in the truck and I could here them peep and scuffle about. When we got home we set up the large kennel in the main coop with water spiked with electrolytes and placed the feeder with medicated chick starter inside. An infrared lamp was installed. We poured the little chicks out of their carrier and into their new home.

Barred Rock Pullets- Henny Penny and Betsy

We like them so much, my husband and grandson took the little carrier box back to the store ...

 

... and asked for a refill! "Two more, please!"

.

Four Barred Rock Pullets

Meet again Henny Penny and Betsy with their new coop mates,

 Cali ( Caliente) and Peck.

The Chicken Sun Ritual

The afternoon sun made it's way into the coop in long streaks of warm clear light.

I was surprised and enchanted to see the little chick instinctively open her wing to her first sliver of sunlight.

Chicken's First Sun Ritual

 4 weeks later... they are venturing out of the kennel into the main coop. In the picture below, Henny Penny is always in front. She is quite the adventurer. The other are leery after being pecked by the older hens. We are designing an escape section in the main coop for our little young hens.

Four weeks old Barred Rock Pullets

Betsy is now bigger than her bowl! 4 weeks old

.

Barred Rock Pullets 4 weeks old.

Here are all the supplies we needed. We already had a kennel. It came in real handy. You can slip a  stick through the bars when the chicks get old enough to roost.

Just add your own mason jar to this feeder.

Chicks Turn Teenager

Barred Rock Pullets about 3months old





Egg Laying Adults

Peck is now 5 months old.

3 month old Peck was injured by Lucy our aggressive Rhode Island Red Hen. Peck was bleeding a bit from the neck. We scooped up her quivering body and quelled her inside in the kitchen in a kennel ( See? The kennel comes in real handy). We applied Mercurochrome and I held her in my lap with my hands lightly on her wings. * She relaxed and nodded off to sleep. We kept her overnight and found that her wound was healing nicely. she was eating and drinking. We released her in a couple of days back to the coop. Since that episode, she has been particularly friendly running up to greet me and following me underfoot.

Chicks Become Chickens- These hens are very friendly.

 The Barred Rock hens lay the reddish rust colored eggs.

Little Mama Chicken with her two white daughters Venus and Jupiter.

We collect a rainbow of colors everyday from all our hens. We also have two Black Sex-Links ( Madonna and Faith), two Rhode Island Reds ( Lucy and Kitty Hawk), and one Leg Horn ( Venus). Mama, our first chicken, hasn't been identified yet.  She appears in my post Feeding My Chickens. She is tiny and lays small white or pale beige eggs. Above is a picture of Mama

 Can anyone identify the dark grey and white hen?

These barred rock hens are the friendliest hens we have. They do really well in the freezing cold of winter and are the last to go into their coop at night.  We use an infra red lamp for their insulated roosting area when it gets in the 20's or teens or sub zero temperatures.

When we lived in Southern California, we would turn on the lamp when it was 50 degrees. That temperature was cold for us then and we thought they needed it. But these girls do fine here in Utah weather. They say the red colored lamp does not bother them at night.


Related posts:

Feeding My Chickens- A collection of gourmet recipes that my girls love.

Raising Chickens In The City Our first experience with chickens.

Hurray For Llama Beans - A New Green Lawn

In April we dug up the old lawn in the garden and threw all the clod of grass and roots into a mound or knoll along the fence. Then we sprinkled llama beans (manure) evenly over the the ground.

We covered the area with llama bean (manure)



The little llama beans protect the seeds from the winds and are just the right height to cover them. I run a rake gently over the beans in an up and down motion just enough to vibrate the seeds down a bit to cover them. The llama beans are a balanced fertilizer and keeps the grass seeds and surrounding area moist.

Below you can see green blades of grass are peeking thought the layer of llama manure we applied.  It took awhile to sprout with the weekly snows and cold temperatures. But Mother's Day I noticed the welcome green haze coming up from the lawn. The right side was planted first. The left side of the garden lawn was seeded a week later. Notice in the far upper right hand corner of the picture there is the little knoll we built from recycled clods of grass. We will plant wildflowers there when the weather warms.

A new green lawn is sprouting

Animals In A Storm

Cattle facing northeast in a storm.

I spotted these cattle one blustery morning. I was touched by the sight of their backs turned toward the storm. I had seen this in western paintings and perhaps in a few movies but to see this in real life was very moving. Animals are connected to the web of life. They move through their challenges with dignity and grace. I have always admired in their natural instincts.

Horses with no complaints.

These horses face northeast away from the storm. Snow collects on their back sides without any complaint. The animals take what nature gives to them. They allow rather than survive.

Rose In A Storm- By Jon Katz

This book was highly recommended by my friend. I am now reading katz's book on dog training and I find his writing very healing and comforting. If you love dogs, his books will make you love dogs even more. When you click on the image below, it will take you to Jon Katz books on amazon. I buy all my books on this site.

Product Description

Rose In A Storm

From New York Times bestselling author Jon Katz comes a moving and powerful novel, the first one inspired by life on his celebrated Bedlam Farm—and perceptively told from the point of view of Rose, a dedicated working dog.



Rose is determined and focused, keeping the sheep out of danger and protecting the other creatures on the farm she calls home. But of all those she’s looked after since coming to the farm as a puppy, it is Sam, the farmer, whom she watches most carefully.



Awoken one cold midwinter night during lambing season, Rose and Sam struggle into the snowy dark to do their work. The ever observant Rose has seen a change in her master of late, ever since Sam’s wife disappeared one day. She senses something else in the air as well: A storm is coming, but not like any of the ones she’s seen over the years. This storm feels different, bigger, more foreboding.



When an epic blizzard hits the region, it will take all of Rose’s resolve, resourcefulness, and courage to help Sam save the farm and the creatures who live there.



Jon Katz consulted with animal behavior scientists to create his unique and convincing vision of the world as seen through the eyes of a dog. Poignant, thrilling, and beautifully wrought, Rose in a Storm is a wonderfully original and powerful tale from a gifted storyteller.