First snow...

We worry about its return from late September on even though we'd be better served to keep our minds on the moment. We fear it. We dread it. No, I'm not talking about the election. It's our first snow of the season. And somehow, when it finally arrives whether forecasted or not, it is nothing short of beautiful and it makes the heart leap the way it does when a friend who you haven't seen in weeks suddenly shows up at your door. You can't help but greet this with a smile.

Suddenly, the kitchen is abuzz...

He was raised to love the taste of lamb. Then college boy thought he might want to raise lambs. Alas, the classroom learning coupled with the internship at the sheep ranch in Montana helped him fine-tune his vocational plans. He'd rather cook — lamb among other things — he decided. Next week, college boy begins a 15-month intensive education at Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts. We expect to be eating very well going forward.

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home...

Salt Lake City, with its wide streets and full days of learning, is behind me now. I returned to Four Cedars tonight to find the corn across the street has disappeared but the stiff wind that I said goodbye to eleven days ago remains. Ahh, such is life on the plains.

For those of you who follow this blog, I promised to post the video my workshop peers and I made in one afternoon last week. I had hoped to embed it here, but ran into technical difficulties. But, if you have 3-1/2 spare minutes, you can find the video on YouTube by following this link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79nZsGTIFyQ

Random observations from Salt Lake City

• The streets in Salt Lake City, to this average pedestrian, seem unusually wide, so much so that I decided to count how many steps it takes to cross one. The result of my count: thirty-nine. I know my son will dismiss this unscientific test; after all, his pet name for me is "Shorty." Regardless. These streets are really, REALLY wide. It turns out, city planners (here in Zion) wanted to insure there was adequate space to U-turn a full yoke of oxen.
  
• Here in the city of saints -- of the latter day variety -- Halloween is a really big deal: the LDS library and museum closed early, there were costumed adults to be found all over the city, in bookstores, in restaurants, on the train/trolley/tram (a debate waged in my forthcoming video), and even here at the hotel where a party for local youngsters rocks on. The seeming obsession with a pagan-rooted tradition seems counter-intuitive in a settlement built on faithfully following the principles of Christ.
  
• Becky and I walked to a nearby cemetery to visit the grave of a woman I knew when the kids were young. Since Becky, walks faster than I, she reached to grave before I did. I heard her gasp ahead of me and then call out: Jacko, you're not going to believe this. When I reached the grave, I paused. There, engraved in the granite, was my friend's potato salad recipe. Becky asked: What the h...? I can't believe it, I said. Sally always said the only way people would get this recipe was over her dead body. She wasn't kidding.