Catching up on things

It's been a little while since our last post. We've been on the road, touring around Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks and Las Vegas, and now we're staying in Santa Barbara, CA for a week with Carrie's family. We'll have a new post coming soon, but for now we'll put up a blog post from a couple weeks ago that was never published:


Blogging from the our space in Boulder, Utah has proved much more difficult than we anticipated. The rough terrain of Utah was one of the last areas in the United States to be charted, and electricity didn't find its way into Boulder until 1947. Our housing on the farm has no electricity, and certainly no internet access. We've spent our time online stationed at the Burr Trail Trading Post--a small coffee shop/gear store/art gallery staffed by a mix of locals, including one of the beekeepers that maintains the hives for the Hell's Backbone Grill farm--as well as in the library of the HBG staff house.

The rough terrain that cuts this town off so successfully from many of the amenities we're used to also makes it a forbidding place to farm. Utah's position between two mountain ranges limits the amount of rainfall the state receives. An average of 7 inches of precipitation strikes the ground of Boulder annually; a small portion of the 30 inches to be had in the Lansing area. Low levels of precipitation coupled with the sandy soils created from the eroding sandstone parent material, a sun that pulls liquid from anything unfortunate enough not to find shade, and desiccating winds means that irrigation is a must for any agricultural endeavor in the area. Boulder is lucky in that it has Boulder Mountain to the north, providing enough melt water to feed the local reservoirs and the irrigation needs of the town.

A constant stream of water sputters out of sprinkler heads dotting every field in the area. Night and day, water flows through the large mains from the reservoirs into farm fields, gardens, and grazing land; anything less would result in a reversion from lush green fields to the area's resident vegetation: tumble weeds, junipers, and yucca plants. HBG's farm irrigates using a mixture of sprinklers, drip irrigation, and a flooding technique in which trenches are dug between beds and flood gates are opened along a main line for water to enter and slowly infiltrate into the soil.

For all of its difficulties--lack of amenities, formidable terrain, blistering hot sun, deafening winds, and the isolation typical of a town of 200--Boulder has been an extremely pleasant place to stay. The rugged terrain provides limitless opportunities for hiking, and attracts some of the most interesting people we have met. We have hiked into the oasis-like lush green river valleys that are Calf Creek and the Escalante River, wading through crystal clear water and basking in the refreshing spray of the Calf Creek falls; we've bored and squeezed and scrambled our way through the famous slot canyons of Southern Utah, staring at the filtered light as it sneaks between narrow walls above us; and we've reveled in the powerful scenery that stretches endlessly, in any direction.The staff at the restaurant and farm are all phenomenally nice, as are the rest of the locals. We've told stories by the campfire, lounged by the pond, learned each other's histories, and discovered more of the U.S. than we imagined we would in Boulder due to the wide range of people this place draws in.

The lack of electricity, cell phone service, running water, and heat have been little more than a nuisance. We've quickly adapted to a life of lost connectivity, recognizing that fact when family and friends drift back into our thoughts between pulling weeds or while taking in the immensity of the landscape. Water's absence is more noticeably felt; it is a short walk to fill our jugs for drinking, and a few days between hot showers. The constructed pond at the farm is a welcome blessing after a day spent under the hot sun. Walking into the pond and rinsing off the dust that sweat and sunscreen so actively attracts has become a ritual most evenings.

The raw physicality of our surroundings and the richness of the life that hold has proven inspiring. The relationships we've forged in just two short weeks with this land and its people will stick with us for a lifetime.