slightly subdued

I have been missing hiking a lot lately, what with my ankle still not 100%.  By the time the second weekend of the Wasatch Wildflower Festival rolled around, I couldn't stand it anymore.  Leaving H to give Milton a good morning walk, I was out the door and up at Alta before 7 a.m. on Saturday.  The previous weekend of the wildflower festival had been at Solitude and Brighton; this weekend, it was at Snowbird on Saturday, and Alta on Sunday, so I knew I should be avoiding most of the crowds.  

Bluebells

The wildflowers in the Cottonwood Canyons are usually spectacular this time of year (see here and here for a couple of prior year examples).  This year, however, with the long, hard winter and super-deep snowpack, the flowers are at least a couple of weeks behind where they would normally be.

Sedge (not a grass)

There were lots of bluebells and marsh marigolds (I think) in the wetter areas, a few paintbrush here and there, some geraniums and buttercups, some early lupine and a couple others, including some gentian spires that were not even close to blooming.  That was it, really, on the route I took from Albion base, through the Albion meadows, up to Germania Pass and down through Collins Gulch.  In a less overwhelmingly snowy year, I would be listing fifty varieties or more.  It was sure green, though, and when the flowers do show up, it'll be glorious.  

This field will eventually be full of

sunflowers, horsemint, paintbrush,

lupine and penstemon.  Now it's

just red elderberry (maybe?)

To be honest, I think folks coming up to Alta for the wildflower festival were probably disappointed.  I wasn't, though.  I'll be back later to see the flowers, of course, but just getting up there, in the clear air and incredibly pleasant temperatures, with the sunshine, the birds and all the green, made for a very excellent morning.

Buttercup

working dog

 We recently had to get a new roof put on our house - huge shout-out to Bighorn Roofing and their tireless, efficient and super hard-working crew.  This is not a quiet endeavor, however.  The crew got started earlier than we expected,beginning Tuesday later afternoon and not stopping until 8:30 p.m. that night (it was in the upper 90s too); all three of us in the house were twitchy and rattled from the banging and scraping while we were finishing dinner.

Taking a meeting

With all the noise, we knew Milton could not stay home on Wednesday, when they were scheduled to work all day.  So H snuck him into work, because he works in a large office that is mostly deserted since everyone works from home now.  Milt didn't like the elevator but he did like it when the office manager came over and sat right down on the floor to give him belly rubs.

Keeping an eye on things

It was a full day for him as H's unpaid intern.  There was sleeping under H's desk, sleeping on his blanket and staring out the window at the parking lot.  The boys also went out for lunch to a nearby sports bar with a dog-friendly patio.  Milton thought that this would be an excellent opportunity for him to network bake himself in the sun.

Lunch.  He could be in the shade.  But no.

When they were done with their work day, the crew was still on our roof, so H and Milton hung out at a local park where they could sit in the shade and Milton could nervously watch soccer-playing children.  By 6:30 p.m., the roofers had cleaned up and taken off so we all went home and enjoyed the quiet.  Milton crashed hard and slept well all night - being a working dog takes it out of you, I guess.

He had his lead on so he couldn't

wander off, but he wasn't going anywhere

csa summer 2023: week 2

 Second CSA box, picked up July 12, had two kinds of cherries, more scallions, some garlic scapes, carrots, more apricots, one each of a zucchini, a summer squash and a cucumber, another cantaloupe, romaine lettuce and green leaf lettuce.

My very first garlic scapes (had to

crowdsource recipes)

The cherries were delicious this time: I liked the tangy yellow ones while H preferred the extremely sweet red ones.  The melon was also very good.  I made a carrot top and garlic scape pesto for the freezer (perhaps a little too garlicky for my preference) and shredded the squashes, which were frozen in half-cup servings for future baking.  The carrots were made into a carrot "lox" for bagels - a little weird, but we may just have to try a different recipe.  The scallions went into a scallion vinagrette (scallions are the only onion I can tolerate raw).  And we've been eating a ton of salads with all the fresh greens, bulking them up with brown rice, black beans, sriracha tofu and BBQ tempeh.

cross training

 On the days that I didn't hike with Milton, we rode our bikes.  Actually, bikes were ridden each day.  H did road rides (on the bike path, on his road bike) Friday (6.23 miles), Saturday (21), Sunday (21) and Monday (21).

Some of the little trees are high and dry now

Our cruiser bikes got worked out too.  On Saturday, we just rode to Woody's to meet our friend Chris for a beer.  On Sunday, when I was supposed to be resting my ankle, we rode them 16+ miles, out to the entrance to Arches and then out along the river road and back, then rode another 3ish miles to see our friend Crystal.  Monday, after Milt's and my hike, we cruised the river road (12ish miles).  And Tuesday we repeated the Arches/river road route (16ish).

Look at all that dirt!

We stopped to check out the level of the Colorado River on one of those cruiser rides.  It's down for sure - the current looks slower too - and the amount of sediment it has dropped on the boat launch by the pedestrian bridge is incredible.  There must be two feet of dirt on top of the concrete - it's a whole new beach.

It's important to stay hydrated

Tuesday was also the Fourth of July so we took Milton out to watch the parade (it ended a block from our house and lasted a whole fifteen minutes, consisting primarily of first responder vehicles wailing their sirens, but also included a horse drill team with a well-trained blue heeler).  We also were social!  Our friend Jose invited us over for Palomas, which were delicious, and then we three and our neighbor Natalie walked to the Trailhead Public House and Eatery for burgers.  What's more American than a good burger?  We are pleased to report that you can get very good ones at the Trailhead: I had the Italian Chic and H had the BBQ Bean, both house-made vegan burgers on vegan brioche buns and both VERY good; Jose had the Polygamy Burger (multiple patties haha); and Natalie had the Rosemary Mushroom Melt, which if I were just a vegetarian, I totally would have gotten, it looked so good.  No photos as we were all too busy stuffing our faces.  But the food was great and we were able to sit outside on the deck which was (1) in the shade at that time and (2) dog-friendly.  So you know we'll be back - Milton will insist upon it.

easing into it

My ankle is improving but since it's a high ankle sprain (I did finally go see the doctor), it will take longer to fully heal than a more common low ankle sprain.  I really miss hiking though - Milton does too! - and when we were last down in Moab, I wanted to see what I could do.  I was looking for something not too long, with a combination of surface types.  I wanted water too, since it is July and the desert and you can't take a dog hiking without water in these temperatures.  Millcreek seemed perfect and since it's close to the house, we didn't have to get up too too early to get to the trailhead by 6:30 a.m.

Low sun, long shadows

We did it twice, on Saturday and again on Monday, giving my ankle some rest in between.  Each time, there was just a single car in the lot when we got there; on Saturday, there were about fifteen or so cars when we finished but on Monday, there were fewer than ten.  Each morning it was an extremely pleasant low 60s temperature when we started, with the sun just barely clearing the La Sal mountains as we headed out along the rim.

Sun's out, tongue's out

My plan had been to go out along the rim where there is no shade when the sun was lowest, then drop into the canyon, head upstream to the beaver flood section and cross there, then come down on the far side since it stays shadier longer.  On Saturday, the creek was really cranking and we weren't able to cross where I wanted to: the bank was steep, the current was fast and the water was deep, and between my wonky ankle and Milton's beginner-level swimming, I didn't feel comfortable with it.  So we retraced our steps and walked out on the sunny side.

Pretty native grasses

By Monday, the creek seemed to have come down a little - not much, but enough that I felt comfortable crossing.  All things being equal, however, we probably should have just stayed on the sunny side again because when we got down to the cowboy jacuzzis, we couldn't cross back over (see above re: deep and fast).  We had to backtrack to find a shallow enough place to cross the creek.  Since the creek crossings were difficult for me (stupid ankle), adding those two for no real good reason wasn't the best idea.

Enough water still to cover

the cowboy jacuzzis

Still, while difficult, all the creek crossing went fine (if slow) and the cold water felt really good.  Milton seemed a little nervous about the strong current but he stuck close and didn't get carried even a little bit.  I also found the sections of trail with deep sand to be challenging too: harder to walk in and more of a strain on the still-sore ligaments.

Love a blue sky

It was good to test things out and I think that was a good trail to attempt different conditions.  Milton thought I was still a little slow (I was) but as always, he loved getting back out on the trail.  So did I.

csa summer 2023: week 1

 After we enjoyed last year's foray into CSAs, we couldn't wait to sign up again this year.  We went with Tagge's Famous Fruit & Veggie Farms again for the convenience and for the amount and quality of the produce.  We got a small discount as a repeat customer and our first box arrived on July 5: zucchinis, summer squash, beets with greens, green onions, apricots, cantaloupe, cherries, dino kale, red leaf lettuce and an enormous head of romaine lettuce.

So much squash tho'

The first night, I quick-pickled a bunch of zucchinis and summer squash and we had the beet greens, sauteed with garlic, olive oil and lemon juice, for dinner (along with brown rice and BBQ seitan).  By the next day, we had devoured the melon - it was a mini, must be an early variety, and was delicious - and were working quickly through the cherries.  Kale and summer squash went into vegetable pancakes for Friday night dinner; more kale and summer squash went into Saturday afternoon smoothies (with mango and Meyer lemon and orange juice).  I'm mostly at a loss as to what to do with the beets - I still have some in the freezer from last summer! - but I think I'm going to quick-pickle them too, and we can eat lots of pickles with the lettuces.

We get a two-person box and even though we're vegans, it's still plenty of produce to get through each week.  And it's super fun figuring out how to use everything with as little waste as possible.  I'd never done beet greens before and they were yummy - I prefer the greens to the actual beet roots.  Can't wait for the next box!