UPDATED 3/30/2012

Elizabeth here…with the first real entry on our new blog. I’ll try to keep it short and full of photos.

First, a pic of your bloggers hard at work:

…and a pic of Steve and me on Red Mountain (photo by Doug):

Welcome to the middle section of this post, in which things turn dark, even by my standards (I’ve a tolerance for the stuff.)
Just a heads up for the sensitive.

The other day on a hike we came across something unusually horrific and unpredicted: the remains of what appeared to be a violent massacre of several cattle some time ago.

I called my dad. He knows all of Tony Hillerman’s mysteries, was a judge in a rural area of the midwest, and is an inveterate reader of American western history; I wanted to hear his take on this. He didn’t think it would make a very good blog post–I agreed; it IS pretty grim–but I was bolstered by his appreciation of the story and will keep the description vague and brief:

There were several cattle, they were all dead, there were big ones (older) and smaller ones (younger), and they had probably been there over the winter (difficult to say).

Coming across this scene raised many questions. Did they suffer? To whom did they belong? Why were there balloons on the scene? Did they factor into the events that caused these animals’ deaths?

This was just off the ridge, at the end of a dirt road that heads uphill behind the “Welcome to Gunlock” sign in Gunlock, UT.

I have no pictures of cattle–I wouldn’t subject readers to that. In fact, I took no photos–I’d rather get the image out of my head!

More questions: Who else knows about this? Might the rancher’s brand still be visible, to a trained eye? Who investigates such things? I left a voice mail message with the BLM ranger. If I hear back from him, I’ll post new information.

This picture answers the question, What does the inside of a bowling ball look like?

There were at least three blown up balls’ worth of bits strewn about, as well as spent shotgun shells–some still lodged in the bowling ball finger holes, and beer bottles. The song “take the skin heads bowling, take them bowling” played in my head. It’s a mystery.

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Whew–home free! Made it to the other side of the dark heart of this post.

I’ll ask for a shout out from all angels out to sing into my ear: “Stick With It Elizabeth!” (or Lizzie, Ezra, Ebeth or Liz, however the angels are calling me these days.) “STICK WITH IT” will be my mantra with this blogging craft and I will leave you with some of my current favorite “sticking with it” images. First, two cousins at a reunion (which was also the funeral for the mother of one of them, Steve’s mom.)

Next, the image of my Fairy God Grand Mother hugging me after a holiday concert in which I was a featured guest artist. (“You stepped up to the plate, kid!”) That was neat!

Lastly, an invoked image of two elderly couples who live in our neighborhood. Their friendship has STUCK, ever since they met in 1960 in pre-Castro Cuba in their early 30s. This pre-US embargo era Cuba was a tourist’s paradise, when flying was glamorous and U.S. citizens could still travel to and from the island. These two couples, in their 80s now, are from different countries, but met by chance when they shared a taxi from the airport to the same hotel room. Decades later, they purchased homes on the same street. I got to see one precious photo of them on a sunny Cuban beach–wouldn’t I love to share that with you! But it is private and precious to them. I can attest however, the photo shows them as happy and youthful as they seem today, when they all get together. Timeless!

I will stick with this often dark labor of blogging, but if I don’t post for a while, it means there are a PLETHORA of posts in the wings, waiting to be edited for release. Goodness knows, there is so much to write about these days!
Elizabeth