The adventures of this past week reached out and took my family by the hand. We in turn grabbed some good friends by their shirt-tails, and we all ended up at the trailhead of Little Wild Horse Canyon! Up and over boulders, in and out of narrow corridors, and meandering along wind carved contours; we journeyed through the belly of the beast and back again.
The hike itself was amusing enough, but the added the energy of the wild band of kids that were with us, only heightened the excitement that was had. I don’t know where they tap into all the energy, but those kids were like mountain goats! They climbed every little ledge and jumped in every sand pile, and duck under every nook that we crossed paths with.
As the kids were climbing the sloping rock walls, I noticed something that I haven’t before during previous trips to Little Wild Horse. I began to notice that even there in the very harsh environment of the canyon, grew an abundance of plant life. Considering the surrounding area receives less than 6” inches of average annual rainfall, this was impressive to me. However, what put the icing on the cake, is the fact that many of the plants had burst up through a small crack in solid rock and carved out a living right there in that little space of opportunity.
I find it interesting that at times, I have mixed up a great blend of potting soil, doused it with fertilizer and nutrients, and ran plentiful amounts of irrigation right to the base of a plant. And yet…the little thing simply wilts up and turns to dust. And yet, right there in the harsh climate and devastating odds, those canyon plants were striving and thriving.
My good neighbors of Castle Valley, if you are like me, then you or someone right close to you is suffering from the effects of an energy market that is going through a tough time right now. When many around are wondering what are we going to do if oil and gas fields continue to slow, or if more power plants or mines shut down. We need to learn from the past and make a bright future, this is not the first time that Carbon and Emery County (nor our neighboring counties) have gone through an economic drought, and yet here we are to tell about it.
I know that we are resilient. When others may seem to have a nice little pot full of soil and nutrients to work with, we have carved out our little corner of solid rock and by golly we’ve done a pretty dang good job of making it work for a long time now. And, I know that we are going to keep striving and thriving, and make it work for a lot longer, and be better because of it. Life is good!
Good timber does not grow with ease:
The stronger wind, the stronger trees;
The further sky, the greater length;
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.
-Douglas Malloch