August 2019

10th anniversary finds the movement 90,000 strong and growing The non-profit Little Free Library (LFL) was started in 2009 by Todd Bol in Hudson, Wisconsin. Thinking of his mother, a bibliophilic teacher, he built a miniature one-room schoolhouse and p …

Foxtails: Don’t let your pet near them The barbed grass may look beautiful as it blows in the breeze, particularly in the spring when it is supple and green, but foxtail (a self-seeding annual grass) is a serious danger to pets and livestock. Farmers k …

Prevailing winds carry ozone to Utah from upwind states as well as across the Pacific This time of year there is a lot of buzz about ozone air pollution. Ozone plagues areas of Utah every summer when the temperatures rise and the sun shines bright. Ozo …

My explant story I never really wanted implants. A fan of mother nature, I was a bit of a hippy really, and felt that her creations were better than any surgeon could fabricate. All that changed after having my daughter. You see, I was an exotic dancer …

A Westside love story This is a love story. To be fair, all tales of small farms are to some extent love stories. Ask any member of this new generation of farmer their reasoning behind choosing such a challenging and demanding profession for their live …

The pioneer town of Fruita is long gone, but its orchards remain, within the bounds of Capitol Reef National Park. The orchards contain about 3,100 trees including cherry, apricot, peach, pear, apple, plum, mulberry, almond and walnut. The National Par …

The yuks come easy when someone says, “I’m going to X-place” and you say, “Oh I’m sorry.” Or you can always refer to your birth city as “A nice place to be from.” Completing the rule of comedy thirds, you could also refer to X as the “armpit of Y” for …

Osho Zen Tarot: Projections, Existence, Stress Medicine Cards: Lizard Mayan Oracle: Organic Balance, Caban Ancient Egyptian Tarot: Ace of Disks, Prince of Cups Aleister Crowley Deck: Pleasure, Death, Lust, Strife, Ace of Disks, Abundance Healing Earth …

August 1  Average temps: high 92º, low 67º. 11% chance of precipitation. Sunrise 6:23am, sunset 8:52pm. August 2  Spiders serve as food for 8,000-10,000 insect species and 3,000-5,000 species of birds. In turn, spiders consume 400-800 metric tons of ot …

In the service industry, even a broken arm might mean you can’t go to work. For injured or ill baristas, bartenders, servers, hosts and cooks this may mean weeks, even months of unpaid time. Being unemployed adds a considerable amount of stress to your …

Oasis Café and Golden Braid Books have been longtime enthusiastic supporters of CATALYST, since their early days, and we love them back. They’ve now given us more to appreciate, remaining open for brunch until 3 p.m. and introducing new menu items fill …

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt has requested over $20 million to relocate Bureau of Land Management (BLM) offices from Washington DC to Grand Junction, Colorado. BLM is a federal agency under the Department of the Interior that manages 245 million …

By 2050 the climate of Denver, Colorado will be as hot as Salt Lake City, Utah; Salt Lake City will be like Las Vegas, Nevada; Las Vegas will be like Phoenix, Arizona (a.k.a America’s least sustainable city); Phoenix will be like Baghdad, Iraq where he …

The Trump administration has inadvertently halted uranium mining near Grand Canyon and within the Obama-era boundaries of Bears Ears National Monument by making it unprofitable. Trump had called for quotas on uranium imports which would have boosted th …

Foxtails: Don’t let your pet near them The barbed grass may look beautiful as it blows in the breeze, particularly in the spring when it is supple and green, but foxtail (a self-seeding annual grass) is a serious danger to pets and livestock. Farmers k …

Arches National Park has been certified as an International Dark Sky Park by the International Dark Sky Association (IDSA). The certification recognizes voluntary efforts to preserve dark skies from artificial lights that confuse animals and blot out t …

Researchers at the University of Utah studied where water in the Jordan River comes from as a  step toward sustainable river management. The Jordan River is on a state list of impaired waters under the Clean Water Act. The river originates at the outle …

A new report from the Western Watershed Project says that cattle are eating Pando, an aspen clone in the Fishlake National Forest that is considered the world’s largest living organism. A 2018 study blamed mule deer because cattle only graze for two we …

In July the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources reported an unusually high number of calls about bears, probably because Utah’s growing population puts more people in wildlife habitat. The Wild Aware website maintained by Hogle Zoo, Utah State Universi …

A pair of endangered California condors nesting in Zion National Park have hatched a chick which has been entered in the official condor “studbook” as number 1000. This is the third chick hatched by Condor 409 who was herself hatched at the San Diego Z …

The Wild Utah Project is seeking citizen-science volunteers to study black rosy-finches this upcoming fall and winter. The finches live in rugged mountain landscapes and are one of the least studied birds in North America. Black Rosy-Finch Study

Cycling Utah sent a survey on bicycling transportation to candidates for Salt Lake City Mayor to ask questions about bicycles in the Salt Lake City Transportation Master Plan (last updated in 1996), as well as plans for cycling in relation to climate c …

BLM headquarters moving to Colorado? Interior Secretary David Bernhardt has requested over $20 million to relocate Bureau of Land Management (BLM) offices from Washington DC to Grand Junction, Colorado. BLM is a federal agency under the Department of t …