Our Memorial Day White Sale

Merry Memorial Day everybody! We have lots of white here in Park City and it's all on sale. In fact, you can have it. For free!



We woke this morning to three inches of snow and more is coming down. Hopefully it will melt as the day goes along. The good news is that Snowbird has announced that they will be open for skiing until the July 4th weekend.



And my question about what to do with all the aerator plugs? Doesn't much matter right now.

The search for healthy foods

I'm not the healthiest eater on the planet, but I do OK. Not much in the way of sweets, junk food, white trash carbs, or soft drinks. Every once in a while I read an article that gets me thinking a bit more. The latest was in Julie's Cooking Light, suggesting that everyone really focus on cutting back on salt.

We get most of our salt through processed foods, rather than something we add in cooking or at the table. So, I took a wandered around the kitchen, exploring all the food I had consumed. I learned some interesting things:

• My oatmeal is sodium free
• The milk I put in my oatmeal has quite a bit of naturally occurring sodium.
• The rest of my oatmeal ingredients were sodium free (flax seed, raisins, cinnamon, and walnuts)

So, my normal breakfast is very low in sodium. The lunch I had just eaten wasn't as good.

• A banana, no problem
• The whole grain chips we buy at Costco were surprisingly low in sodium. I thought they would be terrible. Good thing, as we tend to buy 5 big bags each trip to SLC.
  
• The can of all-white chicken breast was terrible! It has half my day of sodium by itself.

Chips good? Chicken bad? Go figure.

Off to the grocery store. I am on a weight loss cycle, to compensate for my apparent winter slumber. When I exercise hard and try to lose weight, I snarf lots of protein. At the store, I grabbed a nice can of healthy, organic black beans.



Then I read the nutritional info. One can of beans (not re-fried) was as bad as my chicken. You literally had half your days salt. Who is packaging this stuff and what have we done to our taste buds? I wonder how much remains if you rinse the beans really well.



Then I found something that appeared to be at the other end of the spectrum. One of the Kashi cereals listed 13 grams of protein per serving and 10 grams of fiber. My God! That's incredible for cereal. How do they do it?



Then I saw the ingredients, which they kindly put on the front of the box: "Naturally Sweetened Fiber Twigs". Yuck! I'm pretty sure I could get a lot of fiber in my diet if I hung out with beavers.

So, I continue my search for those rare healthy, but tasty foods.

Oh, one more surprise. The can of mixed nuts (again, from Costco) was bad for calories and fat, but surprisingly low in sodium, even though they are sold as "Salted". I checked another can of peanuts. I could eat several fistfuls of nuts and get less sodium than from a cup of organic milk. You just never know.

Little plugs

I knew I needed to aerate our lawn. It was compacted and I didn't want water running off. However, when you have such a small lawn, it is tough to justify renting a machine or hiring someone to come out. I got lucky this week. They were aerating the lawns around the condos and I offered a guy $20 to come do my yard. He was happy with $20 for 10 minutes work. I was happy having saved all the time and money.

Now I am left with all these little plugs. At first, I thought they were pretty interesting. You can see and feel how deep the grass roots went.



Then I realized the problem. There aren't hundreds of these, there are many thousands, even in a small yard. So what?



It turns out that Jasper goes to the bathroom in this very same back yard. Suddenly the challenge of picking up or just avoiding his dog poop grew ten-fold. In the picture above, can you tell which ones are grass plugs? Are you sure?

The Sandhill Crane story continues and ends?

The Sandhill Crane family I have been photographing took an interesting twist this past weekend. A young boy in Park City came walking home with his newly found pet, a baby duck. The baby duck was actually a young crane. The neighbors called the police, who called the Division of Wildlife. They came and got the baby crane from the boy.

Do you try raising the crane? Nope. Simply take it to my crane family and see if they will adopt it. If you remember, a crane family normally has two babies but this family only had one. Apparently the adoption took and the parents were caring for both of young ones.

On Monday I went to take pictures of Junior and his new adopted sibling. No such luck. Everyone was gone. Mom, dad and both colts. I checked again on Tuesday and Wednesday and they seem to have packed up and headed for a better home.

A big thanks to the family for being so cooperative photographically. I wish I could watch the little ones grow up, at least a few more weeks.

A double winner

This is the second one of these I have received this morning. Am I going to be rich or what? Thanks United Nations! Thanks for elevating poverty from my territory!

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Just awarded you a Grant winner of $500,000.00 from UNDP Reply Email: grantunfoundation@yahoo.com.hk. United Nations has Donated $500,000.00 to you in order to elevate poverty from your territory. Your personal reference number (UNF/FBF-816-1119 G-900-94). This is to notify you that you have been chosen through your e-mail address By the Board of trustees of the above International (Charity & Human Developmental) Organization. Beneficiaries have been chosen from every UN Member Nation from all continents.The I.T.I.L Foundation, UK has been appointed to oversee this development affair.Beneficiaries have been chosen from every UN Member Nation from all continents. Contact For Claims via e-mail grantunfoundation@yahoo.com.hk

Sandhill Cranes

If you have been following my blog, you know I was watching a Sandhill Crane nest, waiting for the chicks (called Colts) to hatch. It turned out there was only one, but I have spent a lot of time watching the family over the past two days.

Here's dad, making his call. It is loud and not all that pleasant.



Mom, with Junior about 3-4 hours after he hatched.



Fluffy little Junior. He kept standing and walking around. Then he would fall down and roll off the nest. Unlike worried, over-protective human parents, they would just wait for him to drag his unhappy butt back onto the nest.



He desperately wanted to climb onto mom's back, but it wasn't until day 2 that he had enough strength and coordination.



This was the first I saw Junior getting fed. Not sure what the food was.



When he wanted to be with mom, he was quite the hugger.



A little game of Where's Junior?



The relationship between the parents and the colt was interesting to watch. They were ever-observant and always protective. However, most of the time they seemed to let him do whatever he felt up to.



I was stunned to see that late on his first day, little Junior was out swimming in the 33 degree water. He got about 30-40 feet from the nest, but was never further than four feet from one of the two parents.



Mom had been off feeding while dad watch Junior on the nest. When she flew in, you got an impression of just how big their wingspan is.



On the morning of day 2, they were venturing a good bit further from the nest. Here's mom watching Junior in the bottom right. They are about 100 yards from the nest.



Then dad flew back in from his brunch. They each seem quite happy taking their shifts with Junior while the other goes off to feed. I couldn't tell any real difference in how the two parents cared for the colt.



It's been fun getting to watch this happen, especially from such a close distance. I'll keep stopping by as long as they hang out in the same general area. I can't imagine ever getting another opportunity like this to photograph these birds.

A wonderful day in the neighborhood!

First, it was sunny and 60 today! No snow! No rain! It was almost like spring!

Then I went down to check on my crane family. Sometime this morning, a little chick hatched. It turns out there was only one egg in the nest instead of the normal pair. I spent way too much time shooting photos, and it will take me forever to sort through them all, so I just put up a quick one. This is Junior with Dad.



Not only did I get to meet little Junior, I got to meet Bill and Loris Benson's newest resident: a Yellow Bellied Marmot. I haven't met a lot of marmots in my time, but this one has to be right up there for the laziest. He just hangs out on their retaining wall, soaking up the sunshine. I guess after four days of snow in May, I can't blame him. If you haven't seen a marmot before, imagine the offspring of a squirrel with a woodchuck or a beaver.



More pictures as I sort through them.

Day 272 of winter....

OK, maybe it really isn't day 272, but it is day 4 of our recent snowstorm. In theory, it should be the last one in this batch. At this point, I will believe it if I see it.

Good thing I got the cushions out and put them on the lounge chairs. Hate to miss out catching some rays.



This is looking at the trees behind our house. What you can't see is the fox that ducked into the trees about 3 seconds before I took this. I was hoping he would pop back out, but I didn't see him again.



As I drove down the hill to go do my CrossFit workout, the change was dramatic. At our house (7400 feet) there was nothing but snow. Two miles away, at the city park (7000 feet) there was mostly slush. Three miles further, the White Barn (6800 feet) had nothing but rain. From 6 inches of white to green grass in only 5 miles.

However, even with the rain I am worried about my crane. No signs of little ones hatching yet, and the 33 degree water just keeps on rising.



This area normally has a 4 foot wide creek and some marshy area around it. The snow melt from the mountains and the precipitation are mixing to cause some minor flooding. I hope they built that nest with some flotation!

Basketball recruiting

NC State has a new basketball coach, so I have been paying a bit more attention to recruiting. After only a few weeks on the job, he signed one excellent recruit for 2012. I was poking around a recruiting site and saw Kentucky's incoming class for this year. They have signed the:

1. Number 1 point guard in the country
2. Number 1 small forward
   
3. Number 1 power forward
   
4. Number 2 center
   

That just doesn't seem fair. Even Duke's recruiting is bad by comparison. Check out the list. I guess that crappy center will have a lot to prove, being second best and everything.

What would you expect for May 19th?

The past three mornings, we have woken up, glanced out the windows and groaned. It is just hard to imagine it keeps snowing. This morning was the worst. The roads and driveways have spent all their stored up sunshine and now a lot of the snow is hanging around. I decided it was time to stop fighting it.

Somewhere up in that snowy cloud is Deer Valley, and it was time to break out the winter gear and go snowshoeing with my sidekick Jasper.



While the snow at our house was constantly in an epic battle between melting and piling on more, higher elevations had no such fight. The snow had already won.

Snowbird is the only Utah resort still open for skiing, and only on weekends. They have gotten over 30" this week and it is still snowing. They may not open tomorrow as planned because of too much snow. Their mid-mountain base is 182".



And no one on the planet was happier about that than Jasper. After watching him for about 30 seconds, one of the Deer Valley employees said "Man, he really loves the snow, doesn't he." Pretty damn obvious.



We hiked from Silver Lake up to Cushing's Cabin. I was very disappointed to find it closed. A cup of hot chocolate would have been really good with the blowing snow.



A lot of the people who ski DV lust after the big houses up in the Red Cloud subdivision, right on the slopes. Perhaps it is nice for ski-in, ski-out in winter, but how will spring and summer fair, driving 15 minutes up the hill to find this? Don't think they will be planting their tomatoes anytime soon.



Jasper took the lead most of the time, getting first tracks all the way. If you double-click on the picture, you can see from his tracks that he is getting some nice turns. I'm a proud ski father.



I was going to hand the camera to someone else and ask them to take a shot. Then I remembered that there wasn't anyone for miles around. Self portrait.


And we end with some humor. This is the sign where we parked. The only reason it wasn't piled in snow is that it was under a roof.



On the way over to DV, I heard a radio ad for golf lessons. On the way back, I heard a reminder that PCMR starts it summer rides (including mountain biking) in about a week.

The good news is that the chance of snow drops to 90% tomorrow. Yeah!