I ask myself, why so quiet?

Maybe it's the post-vacation thing--coming back to too much to do, keeping my head down, etc.? Anyway, I took a quick trip up to Logan to visit my college daughter, who is continuing the honorable if poorly remunerative tradition of the fam by majoring in the humanities--a Professional Writing major, and holding. We had a great time: saw three movies, ate out, tore it up retail-wise in Logan, and talked over the limitations and pleasures of a freshman year at a land-grant institution.

This visit, I was struck by the Ag in Aggies, as it were. My first husband had big Logan roots, including an uncle who was the basketball coach at Utah State in the glory days-- by which I mean the days when Ainge played for BYU and Tom Chambers played for the U, and some good players I can't quite remember played for the Aggies. We used to go up there sometimes in the summer because it was a little cooler than down in the Salt Lake Valley, up to his grandmother's for Thanksgiving, and so on. I'm sure that Logan lifers would tell you Logan has changed a lot. But to me, it seems to have a certain eternal quality. Once you get out of Logan proper--and Logan proper isn't so big--it's all farms. Some ranches, too, but largely fields that, at this time of the year, are unplanted and gleaming with snow.

On my way into town, I thought briefly about taking little snaps to post here, the signifiers of hickville--"USU Experimental Animal Science Lab," where, what? they breed the [insert freak animal joke here]--but on my way out, I thought better of it, and here's why:








I got a little dirty-windshield action on these, but I think it kind of catches what Utah farming in a wintry mountain valley looks like--kind of beautiful.

In other weekend news, Sleepy E made it to SLC, and the historian and I got to break bread with him, Middlebrow, Dr. Write, and Son, and Otter Butt and her darling baby.
Completely enjoyable, if always a little weird, to meet a person with whom your only contact has been writing. Cheers to this emergent genre, the blog, that makes such events, their pleasures and oddnesses, possible.