Today, we had about seven inches of snow but I thought it might be nice to remember warmer times during the Fall here on the side of the Wasatch Mountains. We got an extraordinary crop of mushrooms this year. Unfortunately, we aren't knowledgeable enough to know if any of them are edible. But they are interesting to look at.
I realize that some people keep their lights up until the new year rolls around, but it is still time to say goodbye for another year. We saw some amazing displays of lights and had a wonderful visit with family and friends but now we are back to work and looking forward to hopefully better new year.
The North Visitors Center on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah has been a gathering place for large crowds during the Christmas holiday season. However, as time passes, buildings age and apparently it is time for the North Visitors Center to go. It is planned that the area of the center will become a beautiful garden spot. It is sad to see the old buildings go but Temple Square has always been subject to changing times and reconstruction of buildings. New construction north of the Temple is progressing.
This is a view of the Aston Gardens Christmas Luminaria. It is a beautiful setting for a fabulous light display. I cannot imagine the amount of work that went into placing and synchronizing so many lights.
The end of December brings final exams and Christmas Break to Brigham Young University (BYU). My wife and I volunteer at the BYU Family History Library which is part of the Harold B. Lee Library and so we visit the library regularly. It is interesting to observe the ebb and flow of students studying or socializing or doing both in the library. Every time we visit the library, we pass this statue. On this visit, there was an indication of the statue student's concentration. He was evidently ignoring the large piece of equipment right next to his knee.
We had a wonderful trip to the Ashton Gardens at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah. Over the next couple of weeks, I will be sharing some of the photos from the fabulous Luminaria (light) display. Merry Christmas to all and may we all remember the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ on this 2021 commemoration of his birth.
When you spend some time to look closely at the world around you, you will be amazed at the beautiful detail of simple things like this dried flower/seed on a vine. As it says in Ecclesiastes 3:11, "He hath made every thing beautiful in his time." The beauty of the earth testifies to the majesty of God.
This might not actually be the last leaf to fall but it is the only one I saw that still had color. The trees around our house have lost all their leaves for some time now. The box elder tree outside my window always has a lot of seeds in bunches that never seem to drop off until the new seeds start appearing at the end of the summer. Because we have a stretch of "wild" forest next to our house, we have a view of all the fallen leaves and the branches and tree trunks on the ground from years past. Over the past few years, the deer trail outside my window has taken on the look of an established and maintained trail through the woods. Now I guess we are on our way to winter whatever that means in the middle of an extended drought.
The plant most associated with Christmas is perhaps the poinsettia. This isn't really a flower. The red part of the plant are the leaves. The flowers are the tiny parts of the plant in yellow. Here is an explanation from Wikipedia: Poinsettia.
The poinsettia (/pɔɪnˈsɛtiə/ or /pɔɪnˈsɛtə/) (Euphorbia pulcherrima) is a commercially important plant species of the diverse spurge family (Euphorbiaceae). Indigenous to Mexico and Central America, the poinsettia was first described by Europeans in 1834. It is particularly well known for its red and green foliage and is widely used in Christmas floral displays. It derives its common English name from Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first United States Minister to Mexico, who is credited with introducing the plant to the US in the 1820s. Poinsettias are shrubs or small trees, with heights of 0.6–4 m (2.0–13.1 ft). Though often stated to be highly toxic, the poinsettia is not dangerous to pets or children. Exposure to the plant, even consumption, most often results in no effect, though it can cause nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea.
Wild poinsettias occur from Mexico to southern Guatemala, growing on mid-elevation, Pacific-facing slopes. One population in the Mexican state of Guerrero is much further inland, however, and is thought to be the ancestor of most cultivated populations. Wild poinsettia populations are highly fragmented, as their habitat is experiencing largely unregulated deforestation. They were cultivated by the Aztecs for use in traditional medicine. They became associated with the Christmas holiday and are popular seasonal decorations. Every year in the US, approximately 70 million poinsettias of many cultivated varieties are sold in a six-week period. Many of these poinsettias are grown by Paul Ecke Ranch, which serves half the worldwide market and 70% of the US market.
Euphorbia pulcherrima is a shrub or small tree, typically reaching a height of 0.6–4 metres (2–13 ft). The plant bears dark green dentate leaves that measure 7–16 centimetres (2.8–6.3 in) in length. The colored bracts—which are normally flaming red, with cultivars being orange, pale green, cream, pink, white, or marbled—are often mistaken for flower petals because of their groupings and colors, but are actually leaves. The colors of the bracts are created through photoperiodism, meaning that they require darkness (at least fourteen hours at a time for 6–8 weeks in a row) to change color. The plants also require abundant light during the day for the brightest color.
The flowers of the poinsettia are unassuming. They are grouped within the cyathia (small yellow structures found in the center of each leaf bunch, or false flowers). Nothing is known about pollination in wild poinsettias, though wasps are noted to occasionally visit the cyathia. All flowers in the Euphorbiaceae are unisexual (either male or female only), and they are often very small in size. In Euphorbia, the flowers are reduced even more and then aggregated into an inflorescence or cluster of flowers.
I don't usually do images in black and white, but these winter flowers growing in a greenhouse were most beautiful from their white color and form.
The basic outline of the temple is recognizable but the entire structure is covered with scaffolding. This major reconstruction effort began in December of 2019 for general remodelling and seismic renovations. The reconstruction will take approximately four years. Meanwhile, the rest of of Temple Square is also affected. The North Visitors Center is presently being demolished as was the South Visitors Center. Although this video is out-dated, it is helpful in understanding what is going on.
https://youtu.be/67po6CtPCNY
This a photo of dinosaur bones at the Dinosaur Quarry, Dinosaur National Monument, Utah-Colorado. The bones are on the side of a huge cut into a hill where bones have been found since 1909. They are still working on extracting the bones. Her is a quote from Utah.com about the monument.
In 1909, paleontologist Earl Douglass was searching for fossils for the Carnegie Museum when he discovered a formation layered with prehistoric plant and animal fossils. A quarry was established and in 1915 Dinosaur National Monument was created to protect 80 acres in the quarry area. Today the monument includes 210,844 acres.
Many fossils are embedded in a sloping rock formation that was once a sandbar on the edge of a large river. As the river carried animal carcasses downstream, many became stuck on the sandbar, which eventually turned to rock. As a result, fossils from hundreds of creatures are concentrated in a small area. Many fossilized bones have been partially exposed but left intact in the rock where they can be easily seen. A building was constructed over the area, which is now known as "The Quarry" at the monument.
Research is ongoing. In Feb 2010, a team of paleontologists from Dinosaur National Monument, Brigham Young University, and the University of Michigan announced the discovery of a new, large, plant-eating dinosaur, Abydosaurus McIntosh.
The Quarry area makes up only a small part of the land included within the national monument. The remaining area includes canyons cut by the Green and Yampa rivers. The park backcountry is incredibly rugged and remote. It is very scenic and some areas have high wilderness value.
The curious case of the Green River at Split Mountain
Arizona and Utah are full of geological surprises and quite a few mysteries. One of the most intractable mysteries is how and why the Green River runs through the middle of the Uinta Mountains and specifically why it runs through Split Mountain. Rivers don't usually run uphill but it appears that this is what happened with the Green River as it curves west and south through the mountains. You can click on the link above to read a short history of the geologists trying to understand and explain this phenomenon. The photo above was taken at the Split Mountain Campground, right at the mouth of the canyon.
Here is a poem about a spider web by Emily Dickinson.
A spider sewed at night
In the late fall during a few days, the sun goes down behind the trees in front of our house. Eventually, the motion of the earth, causes the sun to set behind the edge of the hill next to our house and we can't see the sun from about 2:00 in the afternoon. Because we are so close to the hill (which is really a bench or beach of the prehistoric Lake Bonneville, our house is in the shadow of the bench except for about and hour in the middle of the day.
Unusual rock formations appear in pockets around southern Utah. This is part of what is known as Kodachrome Basin. The thin tall structures are pipes whose origin is disputed. The sandstone cliffs are ubiquitous but the pipes are only found within Kodachrome Basin State Park or in the immediate surrounding area. There are some trails up along the tops of the sandstone ridges but these trails are not for anyone suffering from a fear of heights.
Each of these Southern Utah rock layers took millions of years to form.
Carmel Formation: Deposits from an inland sea that existed 180 million years ago formed this layer. This is the oldest exposed formation in the park. The Carmel Formation is characterized by solid layers of the mineral gypsum, which forms white striations in the red colored cliffs in the lower elevations of the park.
Entrada Formation: Lying just above the Carmel Formation is the red colored Entrada. The Entrada was formed from deposits that were laid down during the mid-to-late Jurassic Period, approximately 180 to 140 million years ago. It is primarily composed of fine grained sandstone along with gypsum, shale, quartz and clay. This formation is one of the most scenic in the park due to its color. It also forms the ubiquitous “slickrock” of southern Utah. Most of the sedimentary pipes found within the park occur in this formation.
Henrieville Sandstone: Deposited near the end of the Jurassic Period, the Henrieville Sandstone is white to tan in appearance. Deposits of Henrieville Sandstone are almost unnoticeable in the main part of the park. However, Grosvenor Arch, located approximately 11 miles south of the park, was formed within this sandstone.
Dakota and Tropic Shale Formations: These are the uppermost formations visible in the park. They were deposited approximately 95 million years ago when a vast seaway covered much of the interior of North America, including most of Utah.
Southern Utah is the land of rocks and sky. Almost everywhere you turn off of the freeways and highways you will find places that seem so different as to be almost alien landscapes. This sense of the unreal has been used hundreds of times for movies that depict alien worlds. If you need a sense of dislocation, there is an almost endless variety of places to visit.
I am fascinated with the time and effort it took the builders to build these fabulous model ships. These models were made to scale and were used to build the actual ship. In most cases, the models you see in the museums of sailing ships were part of the plans and promotion to raise money to build the ship. Military ships were no exception. It is interesting because a few of the model ships never became full-scale ships due to failure to raise the money or changes in plans by the governments. We have seen some very impressive collections of model ships in the Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis, Maryland, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
This is a gilded model cannon from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It is dated to around 1745. There is some measure of controversy with this and other objects because they are accused of being obtained by military actions during the Dutch Empire. I think of all the, perhaps, millions of objects in many of the museums in the world that were obtained during conflicts. It is just one of those issues that keep smoldering out there in the world like U.S. Civil War statues.
Chain mail (often just mail or sometimes chainmail)[1] is a type of armour consisting of small metal rings linked together in a pattern to form a mesh. It was generally in common military use between the 3rd century BC and the 16th century AD in Europe, and longer in Asia and North Africa. A coat of this armour is often referred to as a hauberk, and sometimes a byrnie.
The White Church or Wieskirche is located in Steingaden, Weilheim-Schongau district, Bavaria, Germany and it is one of the most important places of pilgrimage in Southern Germany. Here is a description of the place from Wikipedia: Wieskirche.
The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (German: Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by brothers J. B. and Dominikus Zimmermann, the latter of whom lived nearby for the last eleven years of his life. It is located in the foothills of the Alps, in the municipality of Steingaden in the Weilheim-Schongau district, Bavaria, Germany.
It is said that, in 1738, tears were seen on a dilapidated wooden figure of the Scourged Saviour. The legend of this miracle resulted in a pilgrimage rush to see the sculpture. In 1740, a small chapel was built to house the statue but it was soon realized that the building would be too small for the number of pilgrims it attracted, and so Steingaden Abbey decided to commission a separate shrine. Many who have prayed in front of the statue of Jesus on the altar have claimed that people have been miraculously cured of their diseases, which has made this church even more of a pilgrimage site.
Construction took place between 1745 and 1754, and the interior was decorated with frescoes and with stuccowork in the tradition of the Wessobrunner School. "Everything was done throughout the church to make the supernatural visible. Sculpture and murals combined to unleash the divine in visible form".
There is a popular belief that the Bavarian government planned to sell or demolish the rococo masterpiece during the secularization of Bavaria at the beginning of the 19th century, and that only protests from the local farmers saved it from destruction. Available sources, however, document that the responsible state commission clearly advocated the continuation of Wies as a pilgrimage site, even in spite of economic objections from the abbot of Steingaden.
The Wieskirche was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1983 and underwent extensive restoration between 1985 and 1991.
Neuschwanstein Castle, Hohenschwangau, Germany. Here is a brief explanation of the castle and its background. See Wikipedia: Neuschwanstein Castle.
Neuschwanstein Castle (German: Schloss Neuschwanstein, pronounced [ˈʃlɔs nɔʏˈʃvaːnʃtaɪn], Southern Bavarian: Schloss Neischwanstoa) is a 19th-century historicist palace on a rugged hill above the village of Hohenschwangau near Füssen in southwest Bavaria, Germany. The palace was commissioned by King Ludwig II of Bavaria as a retreat and in honour of Richard Wagner. Ludwig chose to pay for the palace out of his personal fortune and by means of extensive borrowing, rather than Bavarian public funds. Construction began in 1869, but was never fully completed.
The castle was intended as a private residence for the King, until he died in 1886. It was open to the public shortly after his death. Since then more than 61 million people have visited Neuschwanstein Castle. More than 1.3 million people visit annually, with as many as 6,000 per day in the summer
I think that this, and other hilltop castles in Germany and other places are the basis for the idealization of castles by Disney and other movie producers. Obviously from the description, this was not a castle with a moat and all the other military accuments that go along with the real purpose for castles.
The Kapellbrücke (literally, Chapel Bridge) is a covered wooden footbridge spanning the river Reuss diagonally in the city of Lucerne in central Switzerland. Named after the nearby St. Peter's Chapel, the bridge is unique in containing a number of interior paintings dating back to the 17th century, although many of them were destroyed along with a larger part of the centuries-old bridge in a 1993 fire. Subsequently restored, the Kapellbrücke is the oldest wooden covered bridge in Europe, as well as the world's oldest surviving truss bridge. It serves as the city's symbol and as one of Switzerland's main tourist attractions.
We enjoyed our walk across the bridge. You can see where the original wood has been replaced from the fire.
When I was quite young, we had huge agaves in our front yard. They were sharp and not friendly to small children. I remember them being huge, much higher than my head. These are similar agave plants from the Desert Botanical Garden. They are just as big and unfriendly as when I first say them as a child. However, they are quite useful to those who know how to process them.
The Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona has a huge collection of desert plants. It is a lovely place to visit especially in the cooler parts of the year. Over the past few years, the garden has been improved and beautified. One addition that I noted was that there are now several boojum trees growing in different parts of the garden. Here is a short explanation of these plants.
Fouquieria columnaris, the Boojum tree or cirio (American Spanish: [ˈsiɾjo]) is a tree in the ocotillo family,(Fouquieriaceae) whose other members include the ocotillos. Some taxonomists place it in the separate genus Idria. It is nearly endemic to the Baja California Peninsula (both the northern and southern states), with only a small population in the Sierra Bacha of Sonora, Mexico. The plant's English name, Boojum, was given by Godfrey Sykes of the Desert Laboratory in Tucson, Arizona and is taken from Lewis Carroll's poem "The Hunting of the Snark".
We made a short visit to the Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch in Gilbert, Arizona. It was a lovely, warm, sunny day in the Fall and the ducks were in abundance on the ponds. There were some children throwing bird feed into the water and the ducks were frantic to eat each piece. The Water Ranch is one of our favorite spots in the Salt River Valley. It was respite from the cold and snow of our home in Provo, Utah.
Lake Powell is the second largest reservoir in the United States. However, both Lake Powell and Lake Mead are suffering from the prolonged drought in the Southwest. From this photo, you cannot tell that the lake level has dropped over the past few years. The top of the white stone line is about the mostly full level of the lake. As of October 2021, Lake Powell is 155.16 feet below Full Pool (Elevation 3,700).
Everything in Northern Arizona looks small compared to the land itself. Dozens of houseboats are stored at the Wahweap Marina but they are only a small smudge on the vast landscape surrounding Lake Powell. What is not obvious in this photo is the record low level of Lake Powell. Here is a quote from a NASA article entitled, "Lake Powell Reaches New Low."
Straddling the border of southeastern Utah and northeastern Arizona, Lake Powell is the second largest reservoir by capacity in the United States. In July 2021, water levels on the lake fell to the lowest point since 1969 and have continued dropping. As of September 20, 2021, the water elevation at Glen Canyon Dam was 3,546.93 feet, more than 153 feet below “full pool” (elevation 3,700 feet). The lake held just 30 percent of its capacity. To compensate, federal managers started releasing water from upstream reservoirs to help keep Lake Powell from dropping below a threshold that threatens hydropower equipment at the dam.
I might remind anyone who wants to know: we live in a desert.
A few if the thermal features at Yellowstone National Park are so big that they defy your ability to comprehend their extent. The Grand Prismatic Spring is one of those features. This one hot spring is an attraction in itself. There is no other place in Yellowstone that compares in size and color and the variety of formations.
I never seem to run out of strange plants to photograph. Quoting from GardeningKnowHow.com,
Like all members of the milkweed family, balloon plant (Gomphocarpus physocarpus) is one of the best plants for attracting monarch butterflies. This unique shrub, which reaches heights of 4 to 6 feet (1-2 m.), is also known by a long list of alternate names including balloon cotton bush, family jewels, Oscar milkweed, goose plant, and swan plant to name just a few.
I sometimes hesitate to touch an unfamiliar plant because some plants are not friendly but the spines on these were not hard but might be when the pods dried out.
Most commonly purple, the spongy, absorbent fruit is used in several cuisines. Typically used as a vegetable in cooking, it is a berry by botanical definition. As a member of the genus Solanum, it is related to the tomato, chili pepper, and potato, although those are of the New World while the eggplant is of the Old World. Like the tomato, its skin and seeds can be eaten, but, like the potato, it is usually eaten cooked. Eggplant is nutritionally low in macronutrient and micronutrient content, but the capability of the fruit to absorb oils and flavors into its flesh through cooking expands its use in the culinary arts.
Fall has come to the Wasatch Mountains of Utah. Just a short distance from our home, there is a road up to the Rock Canyon Campground. This road is only partially paved and climbs almost 3000 feet up into the mountains just east of our home which is at almost exactly 5000 feet up the side of the mountains. We live about 500 feet above the floor of the valley. The timing of the change in the color of the leaves depends on their elevation. That 3000 extra feet make a lot of difference. Very few of the trees around our home have even begun to change.
The Y is an iconic university letter on the face of the Wasatch Mountains in Northern Utah. It represents the Brigham Young University, which is usually referred to as the "Y." Here is a explanation from Wikipedia Y Mountain.
Y Mountain is a mountain located directly east of Brigham Young University (BYU) in Provo, Utah, United States. The Slide Canyon, or Y Mountain Trail, leads to a large block Y located 1.06 miles (1.71 km) from a parking area at the mountain's base with an elevation gain of 1,074 feet (327 m). This hillside letter was built over a hundred years ago as the insignia for BYU. For years the trail to the Y has been one of the most hiked trails in Utah Valley and provides a scenic view of Provo and Orem, the rest of the many cities in Utah Valley and Utah Lake. The trail is also regularly used by hikers, bikers, paragliders and hunters to access the backcountry in the Slide Canyon area.
We can't see the Y from our house because of a ridge on the southside of our property, but it is visible for miles from most parts of the Utah Valley. There is a tradition to hike up to the Y. We have done that several times.
We woke up to a much colder and cloudy September day to see the first snow for the Fall season on Mount Timpanogos. You can also see a few of the leaves turning and it looks like winter is on its way. Utah Valley September 2021.
