It sounds like a hand-labeled cassette given to you by a friend, or found in an attic or an old drawer.

We have had a lot of rainy days lately around these parts.

It feels like it was recorded in a cabin in the mountains, a homespun recording with the tape hiss in the background to prove it.

It is filled with both simple folk songs and swirling psychedelic jams.

I pretty much live in a cabin in the mountains.

It is as likely to have been recorded four decades ago as four days ago.

With the exception of the giant eyeball UFO.

The songs of this album are full of pattering drums, dripping guitars, and falsetto harmonies. They make me think of the rain when I listen to them.

The cover art might as well be my own home canyon it looks so similar, all green-hued and overcast.

One of the best songs on the album is called “Rain on You,” and features the chorus, “Oh, how the days will rain on you.”

Um, Neil Young.

This is a great rainy day album.

See my pictures of South Fork from last week if you would like a comparison.

I am starting to branch out into the role of a woodsman. I’ve logged a fair amount time in such efforts in the past week. Last Saturday I helped some neighbor friends chainsaw logs and pile them into trailers. This afternoon I came home from work and made the first real use of my newly acquired axe:

This Saturday will be more of the same wood activity, but this time it will be the entire ward/canyon, and there will be several mechanical splitters and lots of people to lift and chop stuff. Having grown up in the city, this is all an entirely new kind of work for me, and I savor the novelty of it and the sore muscles it brings. I’ve not yet quite mastered my chosen tool, but I’m having fun. I think I’ve finally found an exercise activity that I actually enjoy (at least for the next week or so).

In related news, our seasonal patio pond has finally receded to the point that I no longer have an excuse to refrain from mowing the lawn, nor from other yard and garden tasks. I guess I have my work cut out for me.

Early yesterday morning as I looked out our window to peak at the morning weather, I realized that I half-expected and half-WANTED to see everything covered in snow, rather than the few rain puddles that greeted me. Looking at the situation “objectively,” I recognize that this is sickness and madness, but nonetheless it is a true feeling. We need one more good snowstorm to wrap up everything, right? Right? I’ve enjoyed the warmer spring weather of the past week, but I guess there is part of me that is just not ready to say goodbye to snow yet. And since I live in the mountains of Utah, I have the privilege of a long, drawn-out farewell. Some of the stuff is still slumping in the shadows of the north face just a block up the street from me. But that’s just not the same as the fat, fresh snowflakes floating around and piling up on everything.

Well, today I got my snow. Sort of. It’s not sticking to anything, and half the time it is masquerading as rain, but there have been moments of genuine snow today in Vivian Park. The pictures above document this phenomenon.  Right now there are little flecks darting about, but the ground is practically dry.  I guess I won’t get snowplows today (although they were forced to visit Vivian Park, and even that pleasant valley city of Orem, one night just two weeks ago). And there is the consolation that someone built us a snowman in the park just last week.

Perhaps the real reason I am reluctant to say goodbye to the snow is because I never finished publishing my increasingly irrelevant Spring Run-Off / Winter 08-09 Recap here at the Froz-T-Freez. It’s my vain hope that as long as there is still the occasional snowstorm, such content cannot be rendered entirely obsolete.

Also, if it stops snowing and raining all the time, I will have no excuse but to start doing yard work. The receding snowpack revealed all sorts of rocks, branches, debris and garbage on our lawn and driveways that need to be gathered up, swept and thrown away, and the lawn is already overdue for its first cutting. I’m also feeling the hurt now for not planting some new bushes and perennials last fall, but I’m trying not to dwell on that oversight.

As it turns out, I am asking the snow to cover up quite a few things, and not just mud and garbage. I’m not ready to come out of hibernation. I’m not ready for the change. I’m hoping to finish up two long overdue record reviews early this week, so that we can get on with the work of the present time. This is the Froz-T-Freez after all, so an obsession with all things frigid should not come as too much of a surprise. Nonetheless, nostalgia is just one of the items on the menu here; it’s not intended to be our specialty.

My desk, where I am sitting right now, faces a window that looks out to our back yard. I got home from work a few minutes ago and I came here to set up my laptop. As I opened the window blinds, I was amazed to see part of our patio bare of snow, and, what’s more, even a small patch of yellow muddy grass!

This may not seem incredible to most people on the Wasatch Front, who have had bare ground for a while now, but to me, here in the canyon, it is astounding. Our yard has been buried in feet of snow since December. We used snowshoes a month ago to go out there to check our propane tank and get something out of the shed.  Just last week we received three days of snow dumping, bad enough that one evening last week our neighbor, who conveniently for us owns a backhoe, used it to help clear out our street and even one of our driveways.

So I was somewhat heartened by this little observation of melting snow, and was sitting here by myself thinking that it was remarkable enough that I ought to compose a little sentence or two about it for twitter and/or facebook, when I saw movement out on the snow. My first thought was one of dread: it must be a rat. The shape I saw was about the right size for a rat, and we saw one living on and swimming in the river by our house last fall. I peered into the waning evening light and soon caught sight of the movement again. Standing right in the middle of the newly revealed patch of grass was a fat red-breasted robin, and it was yanking a worm out of the ground. In the few minutes since then, I have seen this robin flying around our backyard with yet another robin. I couldn’t see very well in the evening light, but I think my first robin was fighting the other robin for this precious territory. Now the robin is sitting in our pine tree, making quite a pleasant chattering and squawking racket.

I’m going to try to resist giving voice to the sentiment that no doubt we are all thinking right now.

They are flying around again. I can now see that one of the robins is smaller and not so colorful. There is also a definite call and response going on with their chirping, too. I’m thinking now that what I’m privy to is probably less a fight than it is a tumultuous courtship.

I’m not going to say any more until all the snow is gone and there are buds on the trees.

Another misty morning in the canyon. The only difference is today I actually get to be here rather than down in Salt Lake at work.

At home with only a fire and the voices on some old CDs to keep me company.

Autumn is officially the best season of the year to live at Vivian Park.

Ha ha, as it turns out, I totally slept in this morning. The view outside my window is nice, though. Maybe sometime today I will go outside. Very ambitious.

[This post is a sequel to a previous post, "The Dichotomy of 6:00 A.M."]

This morning Provo Canyon was absolutely stunning as I drove to work. Mists rose from the waterfalls and clung to the wet rock faces of the canyon walls. We are in that fleeting time of the year when the greenness of the Wasatch mountains can almost rival the Hawaiian mountains. It was 6:10 A.M. I wanted to take pictures, or otherwise just stay and gulp it all in, and I cursed that I had to gas it down the canyon and up I-15 to get to work on time.

It is not the first time. Almost every morning I am struck by the beauty of this canyon as I come out of my house and hear the birds chirping and feel the coolness of the morning. Then I jump in my car and drive to work. And yet, if I did not need to go to work, I would still be in bed and I would never see the morning mists or hear the birds coming from the forest. So, in a way, getting up early for work is really giving me something of life in the canyon that I wouldn’t have otherwise.

Tomorrow, I don’t have to go to work. I’ll let you know whether I get up early and go enjoy my new canyon.