Mary was up really early as usual but I was able to 'sleep in' till almost 6am.
After breakfast Mary started her marking and I started my two tasks: cooking up the windfall apples and pears and beginning the design of an assignment on designing experiments (for first year students).
After lunch and Mary's conference call we stopped off at the herbarium then drove to the Limber Pine Trail at the top of the pass over Logan Canyon. It was at about 8000 ft (higher than anywhere in Australia – Logan is at about 4500 ft) so we walked slowly taking lots of photos of beautiful Quaking Aspen, Douglas Fir and ancient Limber Pines. We also had a view over Bear Lake and stood watching a little chipmunk who stood watching us.
The colours of Logan fall are quite different to the New England area. Here there are still the dark greens of the evergreens but only the bright yellows of the poplars and willows. There is one reddish maple but lots of short shrubs and more arid plants. The road down from the trail drops very quickly through the canyon offering glimpses of changing colours at every turn.
Back in Logan we did a bit of shopping and visited the library before returning home to cook another experimental recipe – savoury baked apples. They were spicy but delicious. Dinner was followed by a bit of a laze then bed by about 9pm as usual.
Tuesday 25 October
This morning Mary went to work soon after breakfast leaving me in my pjs and enjoying a slow morning. First job was to clear the lawn of windfall fruit and pick more raspberries. Most of the morning was busy cutting up pears, plums and apples and making lots of future desserts for Mary's freezer. Then I finalised the student assignment we'd been working on. Mary's garden and odd jobs man arrived to mow the lawn and continue with some painting on the front porch.
Mary came home for lunch then we spent an hour or so picking all the apples and pears we could reach that were still on the trees. However, the apple tree is so high that there are still more we can't get. We'll have to leave those to fall.
We drove up to the herbarium to collect a camera then went on another drive a short way up Logan Canyon to have a walk along the Riverside Nature Trail. Again Mary was able to get some plant photos she needed and of course I got some photos too.
Home again for me to prepare dinner – chicken stir fry and pears in red wine. They were both delicious. Then there was NCIS and Mary continued her marking that has taken up a lot of her time this week.
Wednesday 26 October
This morning I was up by 5:30am and after breakfast Mary and I headed to work at USU Intermountain Herbarium. I was kept busy by searching through a plant atlas of Utah to find any plants endemic to one particular county. My next job was to check the Hedera helix (Ivy) specimens to make sure they were not actually Hedera hibernica (a very similar species). This meant checking the specimens under the microscope and looking at the leaf hairs. Finally I was detailed onto mounting specimens and totalled 44 which was the largest number done in one day in the last 6 months. I resigned at about 3pm feeling very tired and not realising that I had not had any lunch. I could have done more with a bit of energy!
I was then able to get onto internet and email and realised I was extremely hungry and weak. Luckily Mary decided to leave for home at that point so we had a late lunch at about 4pm.
I picked a few more raspberries but as the temperature last night was below 0 C and a frost there probably won't be much more ripening happening.
The evening was spent trying out another recipe for dinner then fresh raspberries for dessert.
Mary and I then drove down to Best Buys to investigate flat screen TVs having first emailed Geoff for his advice. On our return home we started watching Sherlock Holmes. However, Mary's cold seems to have freshened so she went to bed leaving me to watch it to the end.
We can even see snow on the mountains from Mary's dining room window.
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