Winter Wheeler Farm

Spiral Jetty

Today a dream came true.

Stansbury Island

My husband, a scout master, heard about Stansbury Island 

(the second biggest island of the Great Salt Lake) 

and wondered if it might be a good place to camp or hike. 

Spontaneously, we decided to drive out there this afternoon.

It's definitely not as nice, maintained, or developed as Antelope Island. 

Plus, Antelope Island has buffalo. 

We were joking and calling the cows on Stansbury Island "Stansbury buffalo."

They are the only "wild life" we encountered. Here's one pictured below.

The advantage of Stansbury Island is you don't have to pay to drive onto it.

The disadvantages are abundant: the road is not paved or maintained, there is a ton of litter,

there is only one outhouse at the overlook at the end of the road (bring your own toilet paper), 

and there are no picnic tables, developed beaches, pavilions, or anything like that.

That's because it's not a state park. 

Most of the land is privately owned, so there are no trespassing signs everywhere, 

including near interesting rock formations that you can't even approach without trespassing.

The only real destination is the overlook. 

I took the rest of the pictures that follow while at that overlook.

The ground almost looks covered in snow, but it's just white sand.

On Instagram, the pictures I show were taken from the road in the middle of nowhere, 

where Google said, "You've arrived." If you know me, you can follow me @debrog5.

If you want to really experience an island of the Great Salt Lake,

I suggest skipping Stansbury and driving up to Antelope Island.

Even so, this is a place I'd never been. 

I like the pictures I took, though I did crop out some unsightly stuff.

My guess is the sunsets here are often gorgeous.

We were mostly in the car, so we got through quite a bit of our book on cd. 

It was worth the adventure.

Perspective Matters

This morning, as I drove toward the other side of the valley, I noticed the murky distance. 

The buildings downtown were hardly visible. 

I took this after our outing. The skyline looked even murkier earlier today.

A while later at the garden, from the other side of the valley, I looked toward home. I thought the sky was clear and sunny where I live.
I was surprised to see that though the haze looked brighter, it was still hazy. 

It made me think about perspective. 

I thought I was leaving blue skies and descending into the murk,
when really, both sides of the valley were more alike than different.

Looking toward home. We live in the distant middle of the low clouds.

While at the garden, I also looked at the glass exhibit in the visitor center. 

I was trying to capture what I saw in one particular piece. 

The following three pictures are of that same creation. 

Yes, they are spirals, which caught my attention because I love spirals. 

Unlike my phone camera, my eyes were able to focus on the way the sun was shining through the outside windows and into the colorful glass. My eyes could filter out everything else that was not this work of art. The camera is obviously less selective.

Perspective matters.

That led me to thinking about the phrase, "Perception is reality."

Each of the pictures above was taken by me, with my phone camera, and around the same time.

They're all "true" pictures of the same thing, but they also look different.

No wonder it's so difficult to see "eye to eye." We can see the same things, but see them distinctly. Each viewpoint is true from our individual perspective. 

We can't read people's minds. We don't know people's motivations. 

We all go through private traumas and triumphs. 

I can accept that we all have unique realities. 

I don't expect people to believe or disbelieve like me or to feel what I feel. 

Even so, sometimes I wish I could share the beauty and joy and truth that I experience. 

It is wonderful to feel truly, deeply understood. Shared experience does that to some extent, but it takes accumulative and successive moments to feel truly known. It is easy to isolate ourselves, to stay home, to have our only contact be through technological devices which can distort reality more than eyes, ears, noses, and hands. Listening to other people's perspectives is helpful. 

Being together, face to face and hands to hands, matters. 

My guess is if we did that more often, 

we'd be surprised to discover we're all more alike than different.

Tree 2

At Wheeler Farm, there's a big, gnarly old tree down the hill just when you pass over the Cottonwood Creek northern spillway bridge on the south side. I've frequently seen people taking pictures of their children climbing over the bumpy, twisted horizontal branches. Yesterday morning, I approached the tree from the south, where the sun was shining. That side doesn't have as many photogenic places, but I took a picture anyway.

I am frequently too much in my head, so getting out into nature and focusing on something other than my own thoughts is rejuvenating.

Under the Tree

The white red bud in our front yard is huge,

bigger than it should be to achieve its maximum aesthetic potential.

We will probably pay someone to trim the tree next spring.

My visiting teacher said that being in my living room is like sitting in a tree house.

If she sat on the bench on our front porch. she'd feel that way even more.

The other day, I had the irresistible urge to lie under that tree and take a picture of leaves and sky.

So I did.

Antelope Island Three Days Ago

Wind, rock, open sky,

Still, quiet, tranquil freedom,

Timeless bison roam.

RBG Early Fall

Lovely bridge view in the water conservation garden

Sedum dragon's blood stonecrop

Prickly pear cactus

Seriously amazing maple tree!
It's the same tree as the post below, just a couple of weeks later.

Low Clouds

Sunshine beams onto billows  

Floating lower than mountaintops, 

Streaming through wispy openings,

As wind pushes white swirls of droplets, 

through following light, 

forming layers of shadows, 

Clouds upon clouds upon clouds.

Timeless

Life gets crazy. Red Butte Garden is a helpful destination.

Total Eclipse in ID (Updated with Facebook Insights from Rob Eaton, a professor at BYU Idaho)

Rexburg, Idaho Temple Before Totality

Rexburg, Idaho Temple During Totality

My Facebook friend Sheralyn Belyeu shared the following Facebook post from Rob Eaton. He is a professor at BYU Idaho. Reading this has helped me remember that it is glorious and blessed to strive to live the gospel with 100% totality. I know we need Jesus Christ to help us do this. I feel more willing to try harder, to give up all my sins, and to recommit to living as I know I should. I know that the blessings of totality are worth the effort, even beyond ordinary comprehension and experience. 

"I had read all the hype, and I had a hard time imagining there was any way a total solar eclipse could live up to so much promotion and praise. One account was so effusive that even my young nephew dismissed it by saying, 'It had too many superlatives.' Surely nothing could be that good.

"If I had not lived plop in the middle of the zone of totality in Rexburg, Idaho, I don’t know that I would have traveled far to see it. When I mentioned it to my brother a month ago, remarkably enough, he hadn’t even heard about it yet. But before I could even say anything about it, he said, 'It seems like every eclipse that comes along is supposed to be the only time in the next 57 years you’ll be able to see something like it.' He hadn’t been that impressed with what he’d seen in the past, so he wasn’t interested in driving a couple of hours north to reach the zone of totality for this eclipse.

"I don’t fault him. If I were him, I might well have looked at a map and figured, 'I’ll just stay here and see 75% of the eclipse and get 75% of the benefits. Why go all that way just to see the sun all the way covered?'

"But with solar eclipses, I learned vividly and personally today, there is a world of difference between even 98% of an eclipse and 100%. We watched with interest and amusement during the partial phases of the eclipse, but right up until a few moments before we witnessed the total eclipse, it seemed like not much more than a pleasant astronomical quirk visible only with special protective glasses.

"But as the moon began to totally cover the sun and we witnessed the diamond ring and the corona visible only with a total solar eclipse, I was absolutely blown away. I thought I would remain calm, but I couldn’t keep the emotions I felt inside. And neither could most of the people around me. As one writer had predicted, it was as if it touched something deeply primal within us. No photograph or video I’ve seen of this spectacular phenomenon does justice to it. It is simply the most amazing thing I have ever seen.

"Afterwards, my nephew volunteered to his mother: 'Now I know why they used so many superlatives.' Despite all the hype, we discovered a total solar eclipse had not been overrated.

"As a follower of Jesus Christ, this experience has reminded me of three important lessons. First, heaven is not overhyped; eternal life will be worth every sacrifice we could possible make to partake of it.

"In one of my otherwise favorite songs by Train, the singer asks of a friend returning from some kind of cosmic journey, 'Did you make it to the Milky Way to see the lights all faded and that heaven is overrated?' Just as my brother assumed a total eclipse had been oversold, much of the world today has come to believe heaven is not real or that it can’t be all that. They doubt the reality of an eternal existence with God so exquisite that Peter described it as becoming 'partakers of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4). I believe that one day, everyone will be as convinced of the desirability of eternal life with God as those who witnessed the total eclipse today were of its stunning glory.

"Second, I was reminded that there is a dramatic difference between the blessings that come from sort of following the gospel of Jesus Christ—being in the zone of partiality—and striving to following Him and His teachings with all our hearts—the zone of totality. One of the reasons my brother and I underestimated how rewarding the total eclipse would be is that we based our estimates on what we’d witnessed in prior partial eclipses. But a total eclipse isn’t just twice as beautiful as an eclipse where the moon covers half the son; it is exponentially better.

"And so are the blessings that come from living in the zone of spiritual totality. I’m not talking about a place where we are perfect, and I’m certainly not talking about a condition we achieve through our own efforts alone. But I am referring to a state of mind and heart where we jump in with our whole souls, holding nothing back but relying on Christ to realize our divine potential. The blessings of spiritual coronas and diamond rings come not to those who merely go through the motions and occasional effort it takes to reach the zone of partiality; they come to those who yield their hearts and souls to God in the zone of spiritual totality.

"Finally, now that I know what a rare and exquisite experience a total solar eclipse is, I regret terribly the fact that I didn’t try to persuade my brother and his family and all my siblings and children who lived elsewhere to join us. What a terrible waste it was to have a home located in the heart of the zone of totality with only 5 guests. I wish I’d been more like some of our neighbors, who had family members and friends stuffed into every bed and couch and spilling over onto their lawns.

"For those of us who have lived the gospel of Jesus Christ enough to know just how exquisite its blessings are, there is a special responsibility to find ways to help others come to understand or even consider the possibility that it will be eternally worth the sacrifice to come to the zone of spiritual totality.

"For me, in some small way, glimpsing the silvery brilliance of the corona today felt like a symbolic foreshadowing of what it might be like to dwell eternally in the presence of God—in a place with 'no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof' (Rev. 21:23). Even more than I will strive to persuade my loved ones and friends to go witness the next total solar eclipse visible in the United States in 2024, I feel inspired to do all I can to help others know that heaven is real and that moving to the zone of spiritual totality is eternally worth it. We cannot use enough superlatives to describe it."

Orange at Red Butte

Albion Basin Flowers

Butlerville Days Pig

Monday Rainbow at Ashton Gardens

In the Fragrance Garden at Ashton Gardens

Thriving Tulip Tree

On April 25, 2014, Mariel went with me and Roger to Red Butte Garden for Arbor Day. They were giving out free tulip trees. Mariel was very excited to receive one and she planted it in our backyard. She took good care of it. You can't really see much of the green leaves up against the pink blossoms, but they were there.


The story of the tragedy and hope of the tulip tree is documented here, and here.

Some of these pictures below are from those posts.

After the first tragedy

A couple of weeks later

A little later that year

Still struggling in the fall of 2015

Mariel gave a talk in church relatively recently where she mentioned how much faith and care were required of her to help her not give up and to help the tree along. Then this spring, we had a late freeze and most of the leaves froze off. Once again, we weren't sure if it would survive. I didn't take pictures for a couple of years because I wasn't hopeful.

But here it is today, thriving. 

I'm so glad she didn't give up.

It's still undergone recent opposition. 

Mariel said that her dad mowed into it last week. 

He promised to avoid it in the future.

Looking Out and Up

Two different places, two different weeks, on two happy dates.