Here, put the cost of the protracted war in Iraq into context with the real world.

I went to the Annual EHS meeting up at the State Board of Ed building in SLC yesterday. It went fine, for the most part, though new accounting methods are lighting a fire underneath my forgiving teacher's seat. I need to work harder to get more numbers of kids moving more quickly through my class in the future. Other than that, it was an informative meeting; EHS is growing at an admirable clip and the Utah State Legislature wants to know where the money is going. Understandable, to a point.
On the way out, I ran into this shrine at a tree with sap running out of a limb cut. It must have something to do with Mary and weeping, but I think that the limb scar has changed in the past year or so. I couldn't see anything special about the knot besides the fluid running quite freely. I looked, but perhaps my heart wasn't in the right place...

Moving along, I spent some time at Liberty Park, stopped in to say hi to my Mimi and thereafter, generally went on a 'splore. Along the way, I decided to head out to Herriman to see how much it had changed in the intervening years since I was last there, and was amazed at how many Smith's Marketplaces and supersized cardboard cottages there were clumped about. I am growing more cynical about real estate and "capitalism" as I get older and more frustrated by what happens to everyone involved.

I took this photo by one of the very few remaining cultivated fields that I could find in Herriman. Amazing transformation of a once beautiful place. The canyons, though home to many more homes than last time I was there, are still very pretty, nevertheless.
Before skirting along the edge of Utah Lake on my way home, I stopped off at my Grandfather's grave at the Veteran's Memorial cemetery at Ft. Douglas. I haven't been to the gravesite since the funeral in '98, and despite the time, I walked right to it. It's a nice place to sit, with the two valleys stretching off to the north and south. I enjoyed my stay, speaking with his spirit all by myself as the sun slid behind the Oquirrh Mountains at my back.

Father's day was a splendid affair, with barbeque, baseball catch and storytelling with the kids. We dragged some of my grandfather's WWII aviator's paraphernalia out of the closet and had a time of looking through it.
The kids were impressed, and it was good to draw connections across the years and between generations.

The gist of this one is simple; Anwyn has discovered the stairs.
And she's decided that she's good at it.
It's all downhill from here, she'll be headed out the door to seek her fortune before anyone knows it.

Drie's birthday was just fine, with happiness and skating all around.
This is the best time for a birthday, with water plentiful in central Utah and green grass the result, it's fun to hang out on the front lawn and read or watch the kids try not to fall down.

There was a minor catastrophe in SpringTowne yesterday when an automobile, sans insurance and an adequate cooling system, burst into flames while heading up the street just north of us. It started a brush fire and bought the volunteer department out in force to quell the blaze, but not before it destroyed a vinyl fence and denuded most of an unbuilt lot of its grass and verge.
No one was hurt, thankfully, but it kicked the summer off with a bang.

Secret Journey 2006
As I left the valley yesterday, I ran into this annual rite of spring, one of the cattle drives along the highway toward summer pastures.





I was on a mission though, I was on a quest for beauty and further light and knowledge. One source of such amusement for me are these graveyards. I love cemeteries for many reasons, for grass and trees, for the information on the gravestones, and for the people and stories long passed from this now green earth.
The Provo Cemetery is a great mix of the new and the old, the ostentatious and the pious, and all things hallowed for whatever reason. There are ancient junipers and not quite so old magnolias, limestone markers and granite crypts.
I like to sit and listen to whatever passes by while looking at the leaves against the sky while amongst the graves, and somehow it comforts me that there have been so many who pass over in whatever way they end, and I'm still not sure what happens on the other side in spite of all my searches.




Among the places I explored was an old iron smelter site in a beautiful grove of Russian olive trees and wetlands. The specimens of plants and trees is wide-ranging, and one never knows what will turn up when one goes there.



The last time I was on the grounds was fourteen years ago, on a Botany field trip while I was going to Snow College. We harvested sedge, several species of mint, cattail, horsetail, and many others for herbaria that were a large part of our grades that term. I lost mine when I inadvertently left it in our damned fifth-wheel trailer after we sold it back in '94. Too bad about that.
This is in a different part of the site, at least a half a mile away from the site we explored on that field trip.















Some of the fresh graffiti here and there on the site.

A Superman of sorts, competing for the imagination with all the other permutations and reincarnations of the icon. This is one of my favorites.



This must have been a fair mighty building at one time. What a waste of materials and labor to just dismantle and abandon all of this industry.










Next to the site is this unused road spurring off from the dirt roads meandering over the abandoned area. The city must use it to initiate the newbies to the art of line painting.
On the way home, I headed up a canyon that I'd not gone up in all of the years I've lived in this area, even though it's not more than forty miles away.
There's much to see and understand, with many relic of the recent past hidden from the road and hydrological gems to explored in the future.
I had very good journey today.