Hike Red Butte

 Red Butte Gardens is listed in our hiking book.  It's another "hike" that is more like a walk.  We used a buy-one-get-one-free coupon for the entrance fee.  It was worth it.  There are signs that label plants, flowers, and trees, so it's a good place to learn.  The variety is amazing.  Beautiful.

 We also came across some wild animals.  There was a snake in the children's sand pit.  

This duck seems to think she's a fish.  At least she's good friends with the fish.  They weren't afraid of her at all and she swam around wherever they were swimming.  You can buy fish food by the little lake.  Maybe that's what she's after.

Fun to Watch

While he slept, my little boy's balloon found its way into a mini vortex and danced all night above his fan.  

Hike Silver Lake

The leaves are changing here in UT.  We went up Big Cottonwood Canyon this afternoon and had fun walking around Silver Lake and climbing on rocks. This is becoming a fall family tradition.

Hike Antelope Island

I took these pictures at the top of Buffalo Point on Antelope Island.  It's an easy, short hike.  The views are worth it.  Watching a sunset from here is a bucket-list must.  The sunset tonight was even more beautiful than the photo below portrays.

Fortunately, the children wanted to come with us this time. We ate a picnic dinner on the beach.  We saw a pronghorn antelope and several buffalo that were too close for comfort. The highlight for the children was climbing the huge rocks on top of the Point.

Sunflower September and Spice Jars

Mixed in with tall, golden grasses, sunflowers are covering the sides of the freeways right now. They are beautiful.  It seems like there are more this year than last.

Speaking of sunflowers, I discovered these candy and chocolate covered sunflower seeds a couple of years ago while we were living in NY.  Back then, I could only find them online or at an Amish market.  Here in UT, at the Sunflower Market, they call them "sunbursts."

Just for fun, I couldn't resist organizing them into a little 4 inch spice jar. I love these spice jars.  They're from Simply Organic.  I love their spices.  Just looking at spice colors makes me happy and the jars are so reusable!

 I've had a vision of using them as tiny flower vases for a while.  

I can envision a bunch of them lined up on a window sill or down the center of a table.  Can you?  

These pictures make them look bigger than they are, like the size of a canning jar, but they're really small. I've always loved tiny things.

Real Thursday: How to Make an OP Tattoo on Your Counter

1. Leave mail on a white-ish counter top.
2. Go to a meeting and ask your significant other (SO) to watch the children.
3. The SO will let a child have an Otter Pop (OP) while you are gone.
4. Your SO will then spend the rest of the evening watching their favorite canceled TV show on dvd.
5. When the child is "full," they will leave the OP on the counter right next to the mail.
6. Come back from the meeting.
7. Notice the mess but feel too tired/lazy to clean it up.
8. Let it sit over night.
9. In the morning, the child will simply lift the mail and say, "Cool, that's like a temporary tattoo."
10. Be grateful it was only junk mail and vow to remove important mail from the counter in future.
11. Be warned, your child may want to try it again with a "real" temporary tattoo.
12. Be grateful for Mr.Clean and that temporary tattoos are temporary.

Joyful Noise

I remember feeling like I was being tortured when I had to listen to my younger brother learn to play the trombone.  Eventually, he became a really good player.  Funny how now my son is learning to play trumpet, it's easier to put up with his squawks, toots, honks, and blasts. Not only is it easy, it makes me happy.

More Hiking Pictures

 I liked too many pictures that I took on our hike today.  I didn't want to put them all in the same post.  So here are a few more.  If you want, you can scroll down for location info and the main post.

I loved the green color of the sagebrush and the contrast of sunflowers and dried grasses.

Hike 2

The Ferguson Canyon Trailhead is only a ten minute drive (at the most) from home. We lived in Cottonwood Heights for seven years before we moved to New York and then back and never knew how close it is until now.  We were gone from home for less than two hours and that included a lot of stops for taking pictures and (before we even got started) a trip back for someone's hiking shoes.

Our hiking book calls this one "easy."  It was definitely more difficult than our last hike but this one was shorter (only about two miles).  I wouldn't have even called the last one a hike.  This one definitely qualifies.  At times it's much more up hill and sometimes down hill and always very rocky.  There's a small stream that runs down the canyon and meanders near the trail sometimes.

The only down side to this location is that dogs are allowed and they definitely have a presence.  It's too bad some people don't clean up after their animals.  They are also supposed to keep their dogs leashed and only about half of the people do.  Fortunately, the dogs we encountered were all friendly.

The rocks are impressive.

We came across a couple of groups of rock climbers.  It was interesting to watch them.







I was surprised the childs didn't want to come with us.  Maybe next week.

If You Carrot All...

Hug your loved ones!

I pulled these hugging carrots out of a bucket full of dirty, tangled root vegetables from Gerie's garden that I finally managed to go through and prepare this evening.  We are eating fresh garden roots (beets, potatoes, and carrots) from the bucket for dinner tonight. Yum!

I saw the results of a terrible car accident two days ago.  Then I heard a very scary boating accident story while I sat in physical therapy. I know some people who are depressed or scared or lonely and suffering.  I've decided we could all use more love and affection.

Hike 1

My butterflyman and I walked three miles today along the Ogden River Parkway.  We started at the Rainbow Gardens.











And ended up at the Ogden Botanical Gardens before we walked back the way we came.

It was the first "easy" hike listed in a book of local hikes. We are thinking of hiking weekly, though we are starting out weakly hiking.  Good fun exercise.

OPFs

When I walk around the neighborhood, I like looking at Other People's Flowers.  Bees were zipping around these so fast that I couldn't get a picture of one of them.

I love it when people let weedy sunflowers grow.  They come up in random places. Owners of highly cultivated yards probably pull them before they get straggly beautiful like these.

This is totally a Utah image. You wouldn't see dry pines and sunflowers like this in NY.

Peas are climbing over a neighbor's fence.  The bright pink flower made me happy today.  Plants don't care about fences. If they're thriving, nothing can stop them from crossing boundaries.