garden time, and exploring

We went for an exploring trip into the area know as the Arizona Strip, that area of Arizona that is north of the Grand Canyon and south of the South West Corner of Utah. It is very isolated and can only be reached by dirt roads from the St George area. Most of the Arizona Strip is now in a National Monument created by President Clinton about the same time that he made the Grand Staircase, Escalate National Monument. There is a Gipson mine on the road. The view back towards St George is wonderful. We found and picked up some very pretty and unusual rocks.

We are going to plant our garden this week. We have some friends in the Ward who have a garden spot, 100 feet long and 40 feet wide. It is huge, so we are going to share the plot. I am planting Cherry, Early Girl, and Heat Wave Tomatoes. The Heat Wave Tomatoes are very popular here in St George as they thrive in very hot weather. I also am planting Red Bell Peppers. Our Friends are going to plant Green Bell Peppers so we can share. The rest of our planting will be Cucumbers, Butter Nut Squash, Zucini and Watermelon. The Watermelon do good here as long as they are well watered. The farm has a flood irrigation system with our water turn every Tuesday so we should we alright. Most crops have two seasons with a spring planting and a early fall planting.

The weather her is turning quite warm this week. They say that we have two weeks of Spring here in St George then Summer, Hot, Summer and Cool. It is suppose to be around eighty five degrees Friday.

PIcking, Rocks and Fish

Saturday, We were driving around and and came across a sign that said that there was a "Horse Lovers Estate Sale". Mom is never one to pass a Garage, Yard, or Estate Sale so we stopped to see what was going on. Yup, it was at some Horse Barns and they were selling all kinds of gear for those large animals. I was ready go to home when Mom went out to the office in front of the barn where She found a old dirty wood carving laying on the floor. We asked what they wanted for It and they said the $ 2.00 was fair.

The piece is a hand carving of the Last Supper done in relief, every detail has been carved out by hand. It must have taken months to carve it. The wood appears to be Mahogany as the wood is reddish colored on the back where it has not been finished. We cleaned it up and it is now hanging on the wall in the Front Room.

There is a community fish pond about 3/4 miles from our home. Monday was a wonderful day Clear and warm, about 75 degrees. Mom packed a lunch and we went to find a park where could enjoy the sunshine and food. We went to several parks but they were all full, so we thought that we would go up to the pond as there are a couple to tables there. Bingo, success, a table with a cover. We sat and enjoyed the weather and watched all the families fishing. It is spring break this week. It looked like so much fun that we decided to give it a try the next day. The limit is two fish so after we got our fish and went home and had very fresh trout for dinner. They were super good. We are going to go there again soon.

Today, Wednesday, we went rock hounding. There are lots of places to go here for that kind of fun. I went on the Internet and found some promising locations. Hurricane Mesa was our choice. The Mesa is the home of a test site which was used in the 50's for acceleration test for the ejection seats in jet airplanes. The Base is still there and is restricted but there are still some locations to find Petrified Wood and Agate.

There was quite a lot of P Wood around if you looked hard enough. Mom was much better than me at finding it.

On the road back down from the Mesa We stopped to have some lunch, While Mom was still eating I thought that I would pull some of the shale apart that was on the side of the road. I found this Fossil. It is very fragile so I took some pictures of it. The flowers must have been very pretty, but you can't tell their color. I wonder if they had bees back in prehistoric times.

The Picture above is of the Agate that we found most of it is translucent and very pretty

Roads and Rocks

I found that it is possible to find Petrified Rock on the top of the Hurricane Mesa, so Mom and I decided to take a day trip to find some. The government established a test site there where research was performed in the "50s" on jet airplane ejector seats. The road to the mesa is just before the town to Virgin on State Road ""9" on the way to Zion National Park.

We got on the wrong road, the road to Kolob Lake just after the town of Virgin. The road is paved and goes up into the mountains above and through Zions Park. It was one of those Magical times when one discovers a new and wonderful world. It is a part the park that only the locals know about. The road continues on to the top of the Mountains by Cedar Breaks so there was quite a bit of snow. We turned back from where the road was closed due to snow. I took some pictures with my "I phone" but they did not turn out due to the brightness of the snow. We will have to go back with my good camera for better photos.

After backtracking we got on the correct road and spent some time looking for rocks. The area was really muddy so we could not look around as much as we would like to but we did find several small specimens. The BLM rules are that twenty five pounds plus one rock can be taken. There is suppose to be a lot there so this looks like a return trip when it is drier,