CONTRIBUTED CONTENT: Desert paradise

Welcome to July folks! By the time you read this, the folly of mortars and bottle rockets are over and hopefully everyone came out unscathed. 

This week, I’m writing to you from my family cabin outside Cedar City, Utah, where I’m once again spending a week with my family enjoying all the beauty this area has to offer. Our back patio faces east and embraces a miraculous view of some red rock cliff faces in the not too far off distance. The once unobstructed view is now filtered by the spruce and juniper trees that have matured over the years and have taken the place of the aspens as they expire. 

I could go on and on about the wonderful intricacies that this place has to offer, from the 50-plus head of sheep that roam the mountainside, to the horses that have kept the cabin company for the better part of two decades. The mule deer that we see every morning in the small meadow below the cabin with their tall ears twitching front to back, always on alert. Their are countless birds that frequent the twigs on the tips of the branches and hummingbirds, or “honey birds” as my 6-year-old daughter calls them, that explore the bright colored flowers in the meadow.

As I write this, the reflection of the aspen trees behind me are shining in the foreground of my screen. Unfortunately, the number of those Aspen trees are increasingly smaller every year, and I reluctantly have to face the impending reality that the cabin no longer exists in a lush aspen grove. This morning, I was looking back at the photographs from 1997 when my grandfather, accompanied by family and friends, poured countless hours of labor into developing the land and building the cabin. The aspens in those pictures were so dense that you could barely see the forest through the trees. The density of the aspens provided shade to the understory vegetation, which in turn helped keep the much-needed moisture in the soil from evaporating in the hot summer sun. 

Unfortunately, the entire ecosystem is a bit out of balance up here due to the hotter and drier summers, and the shorter winters with less snowpack. I know North Idaho feels that as well. Native trees without supplemental irrigation are all thirsty and striving for the proper nutrients to survive.

I acknowledge that this article was more about my experiences here than actual tree knowledge, but I wanted to share with you all a small glimpse of the southern Utah paradise that I get to enjoy. I’ll be back next week with a bit more information on how our changing seasons in North Idaho are affecting the delicate ecosystem that our urban and native forests rely on. 

For now, I think I will get busy exploring and push aside the anxious pull of the world as it creeps toward the time when I have to leave this serene place.

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