Scourge of the Marina

You know, I can't believe it.  Everyone professes to to be environmentally sensitive.  "We love nature and the way organisms relate to each other" they profess.  They spend hours watching the Discovery channel to become more educated.  Unfortunately there is one amazing insect that creates fear and an instant desire to kill.  Is it aggressive, dangerous or harmful?  No, it is simply an arachnid with many eyes, long legs and the ability to create capture devices out of micro thin silk that are beautiful to behold.  Covered with dew the webs are a subject for photographers and artists.  These highly evolved insects silently wait for their prey to come to them.  Just like I do when I put out decoys to attract ducks and geese.  They don't eat our kids, dogs or cats, only those annoying bugs that try to fly in our eyes and nose.  Everyone thinks they will be bitten but few actually are.  Far fewer with than with dogs and cats.

A marina is a perfect place to be a spider unless you are on some paranoid boat owners vessel.  The light attract the bugs and the spider capture them and relieve them of their bodily fluids for a quick death.  The Cisco Kids take a broom and destroy their creations, customers will not get in a boat with webs and if one shows up unexpectedly the shrieks of horror make me think that a murder is occurring.  I ask them why they are afraid of spiders and all I get is that that they have long legs and are creepy.  I am sure I could hold a spider in my finger and drive them into the lake out of fear, especially Whit.  Sarah even gave up her cell phone to the lake other than to face one of these horrible creatures.

Let's face it, marinas ar perfect spider habitat.  Insects emerging from the lake or swarming around the lights provide a bountiful food source.  Their babies are grown and ready to migrate for miles on the wind above the lake hanging onto a threat in the wind.  They won't survive long and 99% will perish naturally.  Don't pollute the water with insecticides in a futile attempt to destroy them and put the "fear of God" in your childs personality.  Just remember Charlotte's web.  She was kind, loved her babies and never hurt anyone, not even the rat, Templeton..

The Ghost Sheep of Right Hand Fork in Logan Canyon

I have been waiting long time to write this story.  In my travels over the years I have seen stray and lost sheep many times.  I remember, over thirty years ago, I was stocking fish along the shoreline from a barge in Flaming Gorge Reservoir.  I was running along an island in Sheep Creek Bay and I came across a sheep that was mired in the mud and unable to get out.  I put a rope around it and tried to pull it to safety but it's long wool weighed it down and I was unsuccessful.  The animal died a short time later.

I travel Logan Canyon a lot and usually my eyes are on the side of the road instead of where I am driving much to Doreen's dismay.  Over five years ago, before I got to Right Hand Fork, just before the sheer cliff on the north side of the road I noticed three sheep on the side hill.  They had been sheared within the last few years but I had no idea where they came from.  There are no active herds in the area so maybe they escaped a wreck or something.  I figured they were toast due to predators and forgot about them.  As the years and trips passed, much to my surprise, I saw them infrequently on both sides of the road and river at all times of the year.  Two white and one black ewe.  Each time their fleece was longer.  I couldn't believe that they continued to survive.  Last winter, when the snow was up to your butt I saw them by the highway once again.  I couldn't believe they were still alive. There was no where to go and I was sure they would be hit by a vehicle.   It reminded me of an old sheepherder who that said years ago, "that you never kept mirrors around sheep because they were so stupid that if they saw themselves in a mirror and found out they were a sheep they would fall over and die."   Obviously there are no mirrors at Right Hand Fork.  I had also thought that some animal lover would have rescued them over the years but I guess sheep are not as well liked as dogs or deer.

Much to my surprise as I was hauling a boat to Hyrum this week, there they were,  Masses of wool.  No way a predator could bite through that to hurt the old ewe. I was happy they had survived the winter since I am attached to these animals.  They will never reproduce because there are no rams around.  They are destine to spend the rest of their live roaming the hills around right Hand Fork avoiding cars and waiting for someone to come rescue them which will never happen.  If you have seen them let me know and tell me why no one has ever done anything for them.

The Demise of an Old Dead Friend

It is interesting how things affect me.  Thirty years ago, just after we built our new house I went up Swan Creek Canyon to get a quaking aspen to start landscaping the yard.  Aspen are hard to move but the tree finally survived and grew.  It never was really robust but it held its own in the back yard and got about thirty feet high.  Six years ago we added an addition to the house but the old aspen was in the way so I had it spaded and moved with some pine trees.  It lived for about a year and then gave up the ghost and died.  I hoped it would send up some new shoots but it never did.  I was just below my deck where I feed birds so I thought that I would leave it as a perching area.  I then planted a small aspen next to it, 

For the last five years countless birds have sat in it.  Everything from magpies, songbirds, turkeys, crows, doves and many others.  I have enjoyed watching the birds fly from the tree to the feeder as I sat in the living room drinking coffee.  Yesterday we had a micro burst come through and it blew the old tree down.  I miss it and the birds.  There is a vacant spot in my view.  It will take at least five years for the living aspen to get high enough for me to see it.  I will cut the old tree up and put it by the fire pit and the grandsons will have great sport picking up the sticks to throw on the fire as we roast marshmallows.  Everything has a beginning and an end.

Death from the air

Sounds scary, like the old Viet Nam days but don't worry, they are not targeting us.  I remember when I was a County Commissioner one of the primary topics of the summer was mosquito spraying.  Billions of them along with countless gnats make Rich County their home in the summer.  Have you ever noticed why none of the adult men in Randolph or Woodruff wear short sleeve shirts or shorts?  The planes fly twice a year on July 4 and 24th.  They spray late in the evening when the mosquitoes are out and the bees are in.  Many people worry about the negative effects that the pesticide, malathion.  All the research I have seen indicates that it breaks down rapidly and is safe at prescribed levels.  Without it countless people would die of malaria and Florida would be uninhabitable.  So when you hear the drone of a low flying plane on a summer evening, know your taxes are at work.

Fall in the Air?

Summer just started, didn't it?  Where are the "dog days" and the 90 plus temperatures?  After a refreshing rain yesterday I got up this morning to the gas fireplace running strongly.  As the sun came up there they were.  Mourning doves sitting in the tree all hunched up.  Now of all the birds, the doves probably have some of the smallest brains but they do know something.  That is when fall is coming.  They are done raising their squab and are now just soaking up the sun.

This behavior is indicative of preparation for migration back to the south.  If I could read their tiny minds they are cooing to each other "what are we going to do in Mexico in a couple of weeks?"  Fall may come early this year.