Re-con-FIG-uration!

 We have four Brown Turkey figs around our house.  One of them, the smallest one, produces very well.  The other three do not.  They just get bigger and bigger and, no matter how much we prune and care for them, their output is disappointing.

This year at the Fig Festival we went to a presentation given by Chester Lynn, the Ocracoke native fig expert.  After the presentation we stayed to talk with Chester about our particular fig problem.  His first question was, “Where is your septic field?”  Then we were on to something.

As Chester explained things, while figs do need to be fed, they do not produce figs unless they are threatened and think they need to reproduce for the future of the species. This means producing figs.  If they are over fed, they just keep on happily growing without any concern about reproduction, so, no figs!

The three problem fig trees just happen to be on the edges of the septic field.  So, this week, we had Chris from Wooden Sea Tree Service come and take out those three trees.  When the trees were cut, we were amazed at how much the limbs filled the yard.  And, all this was one year’s growth.

Once all cleaned up and chipped, we now have a very bare back yard.

The plan now is to weigh down some lower limbs of the remaining Brown Turkey and cover them with dirt to see if we get some new trees rooted.  Then we may add another variety from Chester.  We will set out these trees in the front of the house where the only food they get if what we give them.  Then…we hope for production!

Banana Surprise!

 Once Trish and I got home, one of the first things we did was walk all around the yard to see what had changed since we left six weeks ago.  Our biggest surprise was what we saw with one of our big banana tree clusters.  

First of all, the trees had more than doubled in size almost covering the steps to one of the porches.  In addition to growth, there are several more baby sprouts coming up out of the ground getting ready for next year.

Then the biggest surprise…

In an almost hidden place, one of the plants is in full bloom.  It is great that the bloom is in a very protected place.  This might give it a chance to actually mature instead of succumbing to cold weather as the year goes on.

We will be watching and hoping as the weather cools down.

Home Again!

 After leaving Newkirk, we drove to Nashville on Sunday.  On Monday we came on to Durham where we stopped for the night in order to have the car serviced the following morning.  Yes, we have driven 10,000 miles in the past six weeks.  When the work was done, Trish and I headed to the Raleigh Farmers’ Market and then on to get the 4:30 pm ferry.

Once on the ferry, we feel that we are back home even though the ride from Swan Quarter is nearly three hours.  We are free from the telephone, the internet, and all sorts of other intrusions into peacefulness.  More than this, this time of year we get a sunset near the end of the trip.

I had been napping in the car when suddenly Trish said, “Look!”  Here is the scene as we watched from the car.

The sun shown brilliantly above the slick calm water.  It was a welcome home for sure.

As we watched the sun sink toward the water, knowing that we would watch it all the way down, suddenly some little clouds organized themselves out of nowhere.  Rather than ruining the scene, they actually gave us a different and beautiful ending to the day as they crept up to meet the sun before it reached the water.  A perfect end to a long drive home!

Newkirk, Oklahoma

 Earlier in the year, Kelle Cross, from Newkirk, Oklahoma, contacted me.  She wanted to tell me about the new Amphitheatre that had been built in Newkirk and to find out whether there was a time when I might come to perform there.  She, and other community members, had heard me tell at the old Wintertales Festival in Oklahoma City many years ago.

Since Trish and I were driving out to Timpanogos in Utah, we would be driving back also and could plan our route to come through Newkirk.  So…it happened!

The new Amphitheatre is on the Court House property right in the center of Newkirk. No one can miss seeing it and knowing where it is.  There are some permanent seats but most people brought their more comfortable chairs from home.

We had a nice gathering for this, their first storytelling event.  As the evening progressed, darkness arrived and the lights came on.  This is a very sweet setting for sharing stories.  I will surely do this again.

Train Ride Scenery

 There was so much non-stop scenery on our train ride yesterday. As I looked back at some of the photos, it seemed a good idea to share a bit more of our journey.

Several times there were sets of long sweeping curves designed to gain or lose altitude gradually over a longer distance than going straight up or down.  Since we were the last car, to was easy to see much of the front of the train on these curves.  Here we have dropped the second engine as this part of the trip was all downhill.

There were forests and forests of beautiful aspen trees.  These remarkable trees share a single root system, which makes them, in fact, one tree with thousands of outgrowths.  The understory of these aspen growths was very clear and made you want to walk through the groves.

We were in the First Class Parlor Car. We had comfortable seats that directly faced the large windows.  This gave us total views of the world outside.  I had planned our tickets so that we were on one side of the car for half the trip and then switched to the other side after lunch.  This gave us the best of the views. 

We crossed several trestles on the trip, some of which were more than a hundred feet high. When on the trestle you found not see the track, so, it felt like you were suspended in the air while looking out.    We loved every mile of this trip!

Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad

 From Monument Valley Trish and I drove over into New Mexico to a little town called Chama.  Located at an elevation of 7,800 feet, Chama is one terminus point of the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad.  We had tickets to ride the entire 64 mile route.

As we left the little cottage where we were staying, we were greeted by a lovely double rainbow.  This marked the beginning of a beautiful day. 

Down at the station we boarded our Parlor Car.  Our seats were at the very tail end of the car, right by the door to the rear observation platform; a great place for taking pictures.

We had double-header steam engines for the first part of the trip when we needed their extra power to pull up to a crest that was 10,015  in elevation.

At this trestle, the front engine had to unhook and cross on its own.  Then the second engine pulled the train across after which they hooked up again.  The weight of both engines at the same time was too much for the trestle.

As the day progressed the scenery was breathtaking.  We saw multiple versions of rock formations and gentle valleys far below.  It was a relaxing ride.

After a  lunch stop at a tiny place called Osier, we went on for the afternoon.  There was never a time of dullness as the landscape continued to change for the afternoon.

It was a totally enjoyable day. We ended our trip in Antonito and were taken by bus back to Chama for the night.

Monument Valley

 When the Timpanogos Festival was all over, Trish and I drove down to southern Utah where I had a performance in the little town of Torrey.  From Torrey we drove the next day through Capitol Reef National Park on south to Monument Valley in the Navajo Nation.

This is the land where John Ford and others produced and directed many Western movies.  The landscape is start and spectacular. You almost expect to see John Wayne ride up at any moment.

Several years ago I spent a full week at the elementary school here telling stories and working with children in their own stories.  Each day, as they look out their schoolroom windows, this is the scenery that is constant.  I always hoped they appreciated its grandeur.

Trish and I drove off-road on a very rough tour into the rock formations.  It was a trip well worth taking.

Unusually we had a hard rain that night and the next morning dawn was colored differently with the humidity of the downpour.  This was a most memorable visit.

Butterfly Biosphere

 One day at the Timpanogos Festival, we had some time before the performance schedule started, so, we went to the Thanksgiving Point Butterfly Biosphere.  The Biosphere is the only butterfly habitat in Utah and one of the largest in the United States.

Even without the butterflies, the indoor greenhouse-like Biosphere is a wonder of tropical plans

of every sort.  For the health of the butterflies, the temperature is kept between 80 and 90 degrees and the humidity is maintained at 60%. It is a perfect environment for vegetation to thrive. 

The butterflies are not shy about eating. They love fruits of every sort, especially oranges, bananas, and apples.  You can watch then make the slices actually disappear as you look on. 

We had an unhurried and fascinating visit.

Timpanogos Storytelling Festival

 We have just finished the full week with the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival.  Doug and Jill came out for the festival this year.  This is the year of their twenty-fifth anniversary.  They spent their honeymoon in Moab, Utah, and are hanging around for a week after the festival to celebrate.

The festival happens in the beautiful fifty-five acre Ashton Gardens at Thanksgiving Point, just south of Salt Lake City.  There are four performance tents as well as a large hillside Amphitheatre and another pavilion setting.

The tents are filled during the daytime and the Amphitheatre and pavilion are used in the evening.  On Friday and Saturday nights at least thirty-five hundred people filled the hillside of the Amphitheatre.

On Sunday morning, after the festival is all over, the tellers are taken up to Salt Lake City to attend the Sunday broadcast, Music and the Spoken Word, by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra.  What a magnificent ending for our time together.  Afterwards we have brunch together before everyone returns home.

This is something you should plan to do someday…I mean both the festival and the choir!

The Apple Seed

 Sam Payne is the host of a wonderful storytelling show on KBYU radio called The Apple Seed.

During its beginning years, The Apple Seed depended entirely on storytelling CDs from noted storytellers throughout the United States and beyond.  As the popularity of the show increased, a podcast version was added.

Now, twelve times each year, tellers are brought into the KBYU studio to create live recordings with a small audience for use in the show.

On Tuesday of this week, it was my turn to get to record the live Apple Seed storytelling hour.

With a tight little studio audience I got to record six stories for the program.  These stories were recorded so that they might be edited as a set or each one used individually in ongoing programming.  We had lots of fun playing with this little audience in a space that was deliberately tight so that the audience would be visible as well as the teller.

As the week goes along, more recording will be done with Ed Stivender, Josh Goforth, and Lyn Ford.  The Apple Seed is building up quite a library of live telling that will gradually be an archive of storytelling for the future.

If you want to find out how you can listen to The Apple Seed, google the show on KBYU radio and you will find it there.

Golden Spike

 On our way from The Tetons to Utah, Trish and I visited the Golden Spike National Historic Site at Promontory Point, Utah.

Here, in May of 1869, the nation was literally joined from coast to coast when the Union Pacific Railroad line was joined with the Central Pacific Railroad at this very spot.

Construction on both rail lines had badly bogged down when Brigham Young send The Mormon Brigade to finish the job.  And it was done.

The Jupiter arrived from the west with Railroad President Leland Stanford of the Central Pacific Railroad on board.  

The large stack shows us that the Jupiter was a wood burning engine. One simple reason for this: there are no coal mines in California and coal, though more efficient, was simply not available.

From the different stack, we see that Union Pacific 119 was a coal burner.  It came right of the heart of coal country.

When President Stanford tried to drive the symbolic Golden Spike, he missed. One of the ordinary laborers who was present volunteered and finished the job in three blows.

One hundred years later, the first man walked in the moon.  While a great feat, if you think about it, which event actually affected the lives of people more: the moon landing or the trans-continental railroad?  You decide.

Snake River Rafting

 When Trish and I visited the Tetons in 2019, we took a raft trip and loved it so much we decided to do it again.  It was just as wonderful this time as it was before.

Our guide, Skylar, took us all in hand for our trip of about two and a half hours down the Snake River above Jackson, Wyoming.  The day was so beautiful and the Teton Range was always in the background to give us scenery all the way.

We saw five very large bald eagles on this trip.  They nest along the Snake and love to feast on the cutthroat trout that live in the river.  The ones we saw seemed to be on lookout for prey.

Would we do this trip again? Absolutely. Every single time is different, unique, and very relaxing.

On to The Tetons

 It is an unbroken drive south from Yellowstone to the Grant Teton National Park.  This is one of our very favorite restful places.

Trish and I are staying is a small log cabin that was built south of here about 1930.  It was moved here to Colter Bay and upfit as tourist housing.  We love it!

There is nothing like the splendid view across the valley at the Grand Teton range.  As the light changes throughout the day, from misty morning to sparkling afternoon, the scene is never quite the same.

We had our lunch at Jenny Lake Lodge where the views across Jenny Lake are very different from Colter Bay.  The lake here is so clear you can see the bottom to great depth.  There were even people swimming in the cold water!

The end of our day brought us back to watch the gradual sunset.  So different from home at Ocracoke, but the same sun!  What a beautiful close to the day!

Geyser Day!

 Of course, one of the great attractions at Yellowstone is the geysers.  On our main geyser day, we had great good look in being at the right place at the right time.

We were walking around the loop at the Old Faithful Basin when, at the same time, Sponge Geyser erupted while we were watching the marker eruption for Beehive Geyser.

By the time Sponge was finishing, Beehive, one of the highest erupting geysers in the park, really began to put on a show.  This eruption lasted a full five minutes at its  fullest.

Then, as we walked back toward our supper reservation time at the Lodge, Old Faithful give us splendid views from across the Firehole River.  

As Trish and I finished our walk back to supper, we could see both Grand Geyser and Daisy Geyser erupting in the downriver distance.  

What a day for good eruptions!

In Yellowstone

 From Cody,  Trish and I drove into Yellowstone National Park for several days.  There is very sketchy internet here and I am having a hard time with photos and the blog in general. Still, we are having a very fine time.

It is very beautiful driving alongside both Yellowstone Lake and the river that flows from it.  We are staying beside the lake, so, each time we go somewhere we get the calming beauty of this drive.

One day we headed up to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and spent a lot of time exploring the waterfalls. One walk took up to the very brink of the upper falls where we could feel the earth rumble with the power of the confined rushing water.

We then walked to an

overview of the Lower Falls where we took photos of a young couple and they in turn took our picture.

After the floods earlier this year, it is not possible to drive to the northern part of the park.  There is so much to enjoy in the south half that this did not interfere with our visit. After going around the southern loop to the west side we stopped at the Norris Geyser Basin and then hiked to the Artists Paint Pots. Our last stop of the afternoon was at the magnificent and enormous Grand Prismatic Pool where the range of size and colors are unlike anything seen anywhere else in the world.  We made this a slow visit as we could not make ourselves hurry.  What a great finish to a wonderful day.