One year ago, in my blog Earth Hour – Was It Good For You Too? I wrote:

“If they’re still doing it next year … and civilization hasn’t dissolved completely by then … I think we’ll do it again.”

Civilization hasn’t dissolved yet (although the Tea Partiers are doing their best to make that happen) and they’re still doing it. So we did it again.

I have to admit that we were a few minutes late flipping the main power breaker to get completely off the grid this year. I was doing a huge download from Microsoft (Office 2010 beta – 617 MB!) that I had started that afternoon. It’s not my fault that the crummy Verizon 3G Internet connection I use was only cranking along at 30 kbps! I wish I could get a better broadband connection up here!

But once we got the power off, it was good again. An hour in the dark with quiet conversation was good for the soul.

The news reports suggest that this is a growing trend. But just like last year, nobody else in Springdale seemed to be aware that it was happening. Even “glitter gulch” in Las Vegas turned off their lights. Why not Springdale?

As I write these words, a light plane – undoubtedly some tourist with enough money to rent one for a few hours – is circling over Zion Canyon and Springdale making a sound like an angry lawnmower. A couple of tourists get a scenic thrill ride. Meanwhile, every visitor to the park – and all of the residents of Springdale and Rockville – get to listen to them clattering back and forth through the sky. A few days ago, I attended an “Open House Session” at the Springdale Canyon Community Center put on by Zion Park to let us know what they are doing to create a “Soundscape Management Plan”. More than one Springdale resident suggested that they supply the people here with anti-aircraft guns to solve the problem. The Park Service took that ‘under advisement’. Action on the suggestion is not expected soon, unfortunately.

For my own part, a bazooka would do a better job. The noise that bothers me is the damn motorcycles. A swarm of those will go up Zion Boulevard and I look for rockfalls that have been rattled down. My only consolation is that the people riding them are closer to the noise than I am. As I pray for rain to follow them on their journey, I meditate about painting a silicone oil slick on that sharp corner down SR9.

The Park Service recently asked their visitors what was important to them. They found out that almost as many visitors come to enjoy the soundscape (91 percent) as the scenery (93 percent). (“Report on the Effects of Aircraft Overflight on the National Park System”) The Park Service put together a nice web site about the sounds of nature. Find it at: http://nature.nps.gov/naturalsounds/.

My sources tell me that Zion Park is on target to be the first park to have a soundscape management plan. The plan is open for public comment until April 9, 2010. You can read more about the Zion Park plan and comment about it at: http://parkplanning.nps.gov/projectHome.cfm?parkId=113&projectId=30628.

Since Americans seem to be intent on following Japan, China, and India in populating every square inch of land, we probably need to learn a little more about how to avoid violating each other’s space. Blasting your noise into my space is a violation.

This last storm had a lot of water in it.

When I fed the birds this morning, their seed dish had at least a full inch of water in it. That’s a lot of water in a 24 hour period. The mountains are white. The little ponds I have dug around the house are all full because the ground is saturated now. (My goal is to make sure that if a drop of water falls up here, it stays up here.)

From my back yard, it looked like the drought has been broken – at least for the time being. That’s a big relief. Last fall, I wrote that We Need Some Rain!. The Virgin River basin was down to less than a quarter of normal; the worst in the state.

I decided to check into that in more detail so I looked up the actual numbers from the US Natural Resources Conservation Service. If you look at the totals starting on January 1, you can see that this last storm has put us at least four inches ahead of last year. The big storm at the end of January was a huge boost too.

But the dry fall I complained about in October makes the total water year (which starts October 1) still only about normal. We’re now at 24.1 inches at Kolob. At this same time in 2009, we were at 24.4 inches – the 2009 water year was still just slightly better so far.

So if you think this storm is going to fill up Lake Powell, think again.

We’re pretty good at recycling things at our house. But a friend passed along a tip that showed us we can get better. I thought it was worth passing on to you.

Lisa sent me this email:

Many of us are looking for ways to make a difference. Check out what this 12 year old in Iowa has done.

http://recyclecaps.webs.com/

I’m hoping his web site goes viral (See Note 1). It could happen!

We’ve been throwing away our bottle caps! We won’t be doing that anymore. The site states that any store selling “Aveda” products will take the caps for recycling. I checked it out. Aveda claims that it’s true! There’s one location in St. George. (See the map.) Since it’s Sunday today and they’re closed, I can’t call and ask. But I’m going to start recycling my bottle caps anyway.

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Note 1: Viral. It’s a good thing. See http://www.answers.com/topic/viral

It’s getting hard to remember the last good rain. It’s been months since we’ve had more than a dust wetter. I call them “two inch rains” – two inches between the drops on the ground. According to the US Natural Resources Conservation Service, the Virgin River basin has only had 22% of normal precipitation this year – lowest in the state. The dirt outside is powder dry – deep dry. And there’s no rain in the forecast.

The blackbrush – a true desert survivor plant – has dropped all of the tiny leaves that it sometimes has and all life has retreated to the stems and roots in a desperate bid to stay alive. Some has lost the battle anyway. The bigger plants have deeper roots but they’ll start to go next. Even insects are coming to the little water dishes I keep outside for birds and chipmunks.

But when I go to St. George, I notice that all of the golf courses are lush and green! No drought there.

St. George is in the driest county in the second driest state in the country. But it has the highest per capita water consumption rate for desert cities in the U.S. at 335 gal/person/day. St. George has the highest per-capita water consumption rate in the state, and possibly the nation. Tucson, Arizona makes do with just about half of the per capita water consumption. In a state and county that consistently votes against all government subsidies and handouts, St. George has some of the cheapest water around thanks to government subsidies and handouts. But they want more subsidies and handouts to build the Lake Powell Pipeline.

Evidently, Washington County is only against the government giving money away to other people.

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(All data except precipitation statistics from a report produced by Colorado College in Colorado Springs, CO.)

I like to talk to strangers about my home in Color Country … checkout clerks, tourists, waitresses. Basically anybody who will listen. And I often mention the rattlesnakes that live around my house in the summer. The conversation often goes like this:

Me: “We feed everything at our house. Birds, chipmunks, squirrels. And the foxes, hawks, and rattlesnakes all say that the corn-fed chipmunks are the best they’ve ever tasted!”

Them: “You have rattlesnakes at your house!! Don’t they jump out of the bushes and try to bite you?”

Before they all headed off for their winter home somewhere, there were as many as three rattlesnakes all within a few feet of each other on the hillside behind my house. (I saw all three at the same time once.) For a period of at least a month, there was at least one every morning a few feet from where I was refreshing the bird feeder. My wife was surprised by two on opposite sides of the path to the clothesline once. Both let her know that they were there with their traditional greeting. She dropped the clothes basket and let them own the path for a while.

(Before anyone accuses me of forcing my wife to endure such treatment … she’s an even more vocal defender of their right to live here than I am.)

So … we have had the opportunity for quite a lot of “field observation” of rattlesnake behavior this summer.

First, if given the slightest opportunity, a rattlesnake will slink off and avoid you. Think of it in evolutionary terms. Why would a rattlesnake pick a fight with something a hundred times larger that he could never eat? Any confrontation almost inevitably will result in death for the rattlesnake. (You won’t be very healthy for quite a while either, and you could lose a body part, but few people actually die from a rattlesnake bite.) Rattlesnakes don’t attack people; they avoid them. The people who get bit are the ones messing with them, often thinking they’re protecting themselves by killing the snake. If you’re trying to kill the snake, the snake will do what it can to defend itself. Wouldn’t you?

Second, every rattlesnake I have seen has been very polite and gives me a nice warning if I come too close. I actually haven’t heard them that often because I just don’t get that close. I get close enough to make sure that he’s there, and then I leave him alone. The arrangement works out just fine for both of us. (By the way, especially in California where the people are fast trashing a place that was once pretty nice, rattlesnakes are starting to lose this beneficial behavior. Why? Think in evolutionary terms again. If giving a polite warning just gets you killed, then the ones that don’t warn you have a survival advantage.)

And third, they’re really not that fast. In fact, they’re pretty slow and lethargic. If one does decide that the neighborhood is going to the humans and decides to leave, he moves off at a leisurely pace, carefully picking his way with his tongue. If you want to see a fast snake, one of those common little garter snakes that you find near swamps is fast. They depend on their speed to stay alive. Rattlesnakes don’t.

I’ve seen birds, squirrels, and chipmunks dance back and forth right in front of a rattlesnake. They seem to delight in teasing them. Eventually the chipmunks seem to get tired of the game and go off and do something else. The rattlesnake doesn’t do anything. The greatest skill that a rattlesnake seems to have is the ability to remain completely still for very long periods of time. I’ve seen one remain in exactly the same position … as nearly as I can tell … for over a full 24 hour day. You try doing that some time!

Ads all over TV urge you to “go green” and replace all of your old fashioned incandescent bulbs with cost-saving florescent bulbs. They use up to 75 percent less energy and last 10,000 hours or more – five times as long as incandescent bulbs. Businesses and lots of homes have been using foorescent tubes for years for exactly those same reasons.

But when one does burn out, don’t just throw it in the trash! This isn’t just a matter of recycling. This is a matter of poisoning the environment.

To get the great benefits of florescent lights, they have to use mercury … a dangerous environmental poison … to make them. It’s against the law to throw those lights in a landfill in seven states (California, Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin – What about Utah? Utah’s Cowboy Legislature, remember? According to them, the land is there to be used … up.) Incinerating it is even worse. That just evenly disperses the poisonous mercury throughout the environment.

There is no safe level of mercury contamination, and it can cause “poor performance on neurobehavioral tasks, such as those measuring attention, fine motor function, language skills, visual-spatial abilities and verbal memory.” (Sound like your kids?) Because mercury in the environment builds up in fish tissues, it’s a leading cause of fish too contaminated to eat.

In fact, it’s bad enough that you should take special precautions if you happen to break one. You can read all about how to clean up a broken florescent light in this EPA document:

EPA Mercury Fact Sheet

So … Don’t throw that florescent light away!

What should you do?

Two stores here in Color Country will accept unbroken florescent bulbs for recycling.

   Home Depot
   725 W Telegraph St
   Washington, UT 84780

   Hurst Ace Hardware
   160 N Bluff St
   Saint George, UT 84770

The Ace in Hurricane and Lowes will not, however. So buy your new florescent lights at the two fine stores above when you drop the old ones off.