Bring spring

Recently, my folks decided that they wanted to build a retaining wall in our backyard, by our shed, to start a garden. So they ordered a pallet and a half of bricks, which were delivered by Home Depot. They were deposited in our driveway, and we had to move them to the backyard. Whew! Each brick is more than sixty pounds. I counted that as my strength training that day.

My dad is a workhorse. The bricks arrived on Wednesday, and he had the wall done on Saturday. I helped for a couple hours, but he did by far most of the work.

The completed wall!

All this taught me that I really don't like manual labor. I'm not very strong, and I find this kind of work boring and tiring. I'll stick with editing, thank you. But I feel bad that I'm not more well rounded to do this kind of thing. I did feel muscles that I haven't noticed in a while.

My youngest nephew, Nathaniel, often questions why we do things the way we do, and he was asking why they spent all that money and did all that work for just a small garden spot.

Now, if you thought that you were going to get a post without me talking about running, you were mistaken. I needed some new trail shoes, because my toes were literally coming out of my last pair. Luckily, Wasatch Running was still open, so I got some. I was going to order online and do a curbside pickup, but I couldn't get a discount that way, so I just went into the store and already knew what I wanted.

And since I had new shoes, I thought I would try new trails. A few months ago, I ended up by a trailhead at the end of North Salt Lake's Tanglewood Loop. There's a sign saying "Private Property," but it says "Access road closed to motorized vehicles & hunting," which to me implies that hiking, etc., is A-OK. There was a fenced area with an underground reservoir, and there were various dirt roads that are overgrown because they haven't been used in years. I think a lot of them are associated with the natural gas pipeline that spreads across our mountains. There were lots of roads that seemed like they were going someplace important, but there were dead ends. It was very confusing.

This part of the road looked newer, even though the surrounding roads still looked old.

 I hit most of the roads on Monday, and then I went back on Wednesday to hit the rest of them. It's really not a great "trail." There's little shade, and not really anything interesting to see. I'm glad I satisfied my curiosity, but it won't be on my regular trail rotation.

I have been running in the mornings/early afternoons because it's convenient to have my running done early in the day. But it rained Wednesday and Thursday morning, so instead I had to run in the evening. This has made me question the rules I have made about running on days it rains, because the trails weren't muddy at all. But that also reminded me that evening runs really are more enjoyable than morning runs. Direct sunlight is not fun to run in and has a bigger impact than temperature. Running in mid-60s in the evening feels cooler than running in mid-50s in direct sunlight.

Here is some tufted evening primrose, the first I have seen this season. When I got down close to smell it, I stabbed my finger on a goathead or some other sharp plant debris.

 Friday was Arbor Day, and it was also the fifth anniversary of the first time I went to North Canyon, my favorite trail, so I went there to celebrate. My stamina certainly is greater than it was five years ago. But I couldn't go very far up, because there was still lots of snow, the most I've ever seen there this late in the season, which is weird because this is turning out to be the driest April on record.

 My brother has been wanting to take my nephews on a hike to Ensign Peak, the long way, since he remembers hiking there from our house when he was a teen. So we went there on Friday night (leaving from Tunnel Springs Park), except we didn't go on the peak itself, as there were lots of people. Since I had been in North Canyon earlier that day, I hit 26,000 steps that day.

These are Wasatch Bluebells! This might have been the first time I had seen them in person, but I recognized them from my books, even though I didn't remember what they were called at the time.

 Since I was reminded that evenings are better, I saved my Saturday run for the evening. It took me longer than I expected, but I don't regret it. I went up some steep hills that have been very challenging for me in the past, but this time they weren't that challenging. I went past a meadow that's above Wild Rose. It was completely lovely as the glacier lilies and arrowleaf balsamroot seemed to glow yellow in the light of the setting sun (which was obstructed by clouds).

On my way home, the blossoming trees and the fragrance of pollen filled me with joyful spring feelings. I don't think I really paid attention to spring until my mission and especially college. Fall will forever be my favorite, but spring is spectacular in its own way. As I ran home in the mild temperatures, a truck was blaring "Stupid Love" out its windows, contributing to the pre-summer celebratory, party atmosphere of April and May. What a wonderful time of year!

In other news, I finished reading the second volume of Saints this week. I liked this one more than the first, but that might be because I'm more familiar with the history. When I worked at BYU Studies many years ago, I remember the secretary saying that in Church curriculum, Church history ends after the 1840s. It's true—we hear so much about Palmyra, Kirtland, Missouri, Nauvoo, the pioneers, the handcart pioneers, and then poof—no more. But truth be told, I find the Utah history far more fascinating than the pre-Utah history. In volume two, I especially liked how it showed how hard it was for the Saints to accept the Manifesto.

This week we also got to see a lot of people who were unfamiliar with science.

The Davis Clipper

I was filling a spray bottle with Lysol cleaning solution. My brother said to me something like, "Since you're not a Trump supporter, I assume you're not using that for yourself?"