Heber City native Spencer Jacobsen has experienced it all while driving in the Wasatch County Demolition Derby. He’s bailed out of a burning vehicle, been hit so hard he’s heard bells ringing and, after turning a corner too fast, rolled his car a complete 360 degrees and just kept on driving.

Spencer has been competing since he was 17. Attending the derby with his dad and two older brothers was a childhood tradition. His brothers also competed but have since grown out of it.

“They got smart and quit. I’m going on 23 years,” Spencer said.

Spencer is carrying on the family tradition by teaching his son and nephews, aged 13 to 16, how to build cars to wreck in the derby. The Jacobsens will be competing in the youth categories during the 49th annual event taking place July 23-25.

The boys have all competed in the derby at least once before. It will be the fourth derby for Spencer’s 16-year-old nephew, Alex Jacobsen.

Alex will drive a car he initially bought on KSL Classifieds for $300. During five months of working on it in Spencer’s garage, he’s added about $900 worth of parts while stripping the interior.

“We take out everything, plastic, foam, flammable, glass, anything that could hurt you. And then, you put in a roll cage for protection,” Alex explained. “Then, you put an intake on it so that it works better and doesn’t break. You add bumpers, and you get skid steer tires for the back for extra grip and then weld the doors with little plates.”

Cars are regulated by a 20-page rulebook and carefully inspected before the competition, explained derby organizer Brad Bowman. As for the driving, there are almost no rules, except that hitting a driver’s door is strictly off-limits.

The goal is to be the last car standing, but Alex has a much different objective this year. He wants to be crowned the most aggressive driver, or the MAD Dog. 

“We just put the pedal to the metal and go hit who’s in front of us,” he said.

What keeps Alex competing is the adrenaline, the deafening roars of engines and pure, unadulterated destruction. Demolition derbies, he said, are an excellent way to “get rage out.”

There are two youth categories, one for drivers aged 12 to 15 and another for drivers aged 16 to 17. 

Across the eight categories, winners will take home a combined $200,000 generated from sponsors and ticket sales. But the youth competitions are especially fun to watch because most of the kids are in it for the chaos, not the money, Spencer said.

There was no youth category when Spencer was growing up. Bowman said it was added in recent years because the sport is “dying” among younger generations. In fact, the Wasatch County Demolition Derby was almost cancelled in 2016 due to lack of competitors. 

“Young kids just don’t work on cars anymore,” he said. “If we don’t get the kids involved at a young age, they most likely won’t get involved at all.”

Teaching kids to work on cars is an excellent way to instill a “mechanical mindset,” Spencer said. 

“Last year, I put so much more work into the cars than I have this year because they’ve become more self-sufficient,” he said. “Once you learn these little skills of being able to figure things out and look at it and make things work from guesswork, little by little, it becomes second nature.”

Cache Jacobsen, Alex’s 14-year-old brother, is currently taking welding classes at Wasatch High School and hopes to open a car repair shop one day. He said he’s not in the demolition derby for the adrenaline, but the friendships forged while working on cars in Spencer’s garage.

“They don’t even realize how nice they have it having the shop here,” Spencer said. “They’ve got tire air compressors, welders, a frame bender, all these things. Most people are out there in the sun under a lean-to, baking.”

That’s not to say the boys haven’t been feeling the summer heat. The six of them emptied a fridge full of several 24-packs of Gatorade, Bodyarmor and soda in a day. 

While their parents have helped keep the fridge stocked, the boys have been ravenous. On the day of the competition, however, they usually don’t eat anything at all due to nerves. 

Spencer said that feeling never goes away. 

“Every time my wife is driving, I’m more scared than she is, probably. And it’s not that I’m scared she’s going to get hurt. It’s just the nerves. You want them to succeed,” he said.

But for now, the boys “all talk the big talk,” Spencer said. A few of them have spray-painted messages on their bumpers like, “Drive it like I stole it.”

While the car in question was legally obtained, the boys have had one run-in with the law. Namely, Cache took his car for a test drive in the neighborhood and was instantly caught by a cop.

Demolition derby cars are not street legal, and Cache does not have a driver’s license. Making matters worse, the cop happened to be his cousin.

“He wasn’t mad, but he wasn’t happy,” Cache said, eliciting laughter from his friends.

But Cache’s little incident pales in comparison to the time his uncle Spencer burned down his parents’ barn 13 years ago. 

“We were working on a car. My parents were on vacation. The car caught on fire, and we burned everything,” he said. “They start getting phone calls from the neighbors saying, ‘How can we help?’ And my dad was like, ‘What do you mean?’ They’re like, ‘Your barn’s on fire!’ Let’s just say they started calling me. I screened them.”

After the fire claimed both the barn and his car, Spencer swore off the demolition derby. But fellow competitors weren’t going to let him quit so easily. Bowman rallied derby drivers from across Utah to purchase Spencer a new trailer, car and parts.

“When I was done, caught myself selling out and quitting, Brad and the whole community picked me up and pushed me along,” Spencer said. “I don’t know if you’d call that a brotherhood, but it is.”

The Wasatch County Demolition Derby takes place 7 to 10 p.m. July 23-25, at the Wasatch County Event Complex. Purchase tickets and learn more at tinyurl.com/bdzxvjdy.

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Artist Michelle Koskovich’s Heber City home is filled with flowers she never waters, blooming all year long. Unlike most gardeners, Koskovich doesn’t begin by burying a seed in soil. Instead, she takes her scissors to soda cans to create recycled aluminum flowers — an art style she refers to as “a-bloom-inum.”

Koskovich is currently preparing for her home’s equivalent of autumn. The color sprouting from countless vases and lining her studio walls will disappear when she sells many of her metal flowers at the third annual Wasatch Back Art Festival at Heber City Main Street Park next weekend, July 24-26.

The arts festival was organized by Heber City landscape photographer Johnny Adolphson and his wife, Sherry, to provide an outlet for local artists in a community where such opportunities are limited.

“It’s hard to get the exposure that you really need to connect,” Johnny said. “We created the Wasatch Back Art Festival hoping to make that connection between local artists and all the folks moving in.”

This year, the art festival will feature about 70 artists, including Koskovich. She’s participated in plenty of other festivals throughout the American southwest, including the Park Silly Sunday Market and the Utah Arts Festival, but it’s her first time at the Wasatch Back Art Festival.

Koskovich’s aluminum bouquets range from $40 to, in one instance, $600, purchased by a customer to whom money was no object.

“She didn’t even ask the price. She just came and said, ‘I want that,'” Koskovich said.

The tired adage about trash becoming treasure has never been truer. Oddly formed logs, chipped tea cups and rusted pots often become vases or foundations of larger art pieces incorporating Koskovich’s aluminum flowers. 

Koskovich finds many of her materials rummaging through dumpsters in alleyways or spotting interesting litter on the side of the road. Her greatest find so far is a wooden bench that looks like it belongs in an antique store.

“You wouldn’t believe what people put out,” she said.

Her friends and family know to never throw away a can, even though she already has several tubs full of them in her basement. They’ve also learned to wash them after Koskovich found mold and chewed gum in a few.

To create the head of a flower, Koskovich halves a can, then cuts patterns resembling petals. The aluminum keeps the scissors sharp, so she’s only had to use one pair in the eight years she’s been making them — other than the decorative scissors she sometimes uses to cut patterns.

“I’ve poked myself, but I’ve never cut myself,” she said. “Once you get the rigidness out of the can, it kind of becomes like a ribbon. It’s soft.”

Koskovich then ties the two halves together. She sometimes uses a contraption — a manual juicer affixed with nails — to punch several holes through the center, creating the look of a flower’s disk. 

“I used to have my dad do one-at-a-time holes. He quit on me,” she said.

Koskovich then sprays paint on a flower’s head, the mixed paints intensifying a metallic sheen. 

For the stem, she uses metal wire. Once, she accidentally used welding wire and found them “drooping” under their own weight the next morning, as if they hadn’t been watered.

Koskovich came up with aluminum flowers in 2018 while remodeling her former home in Durango, Colorado. The mailbox was “dilapidated,” so she made it an art piece sprouting with flowers. It’s been non-stop ever since.

Koskovich’s bouquets often delight libation-loving customers when they realize some of the flowers were originally beer cans. One customer stopped to smell the roses and sniffed out a Keystone Light with a greyhound’s precision.

Koskovich has lived in Heber City for two years, and the lack of local recycling services has given her even more reason to continue repurposing her garbage.

Koskovich has enjoyed art her whole life, but ironically, she’s never been much of a gardener.

“I think (I was a florist) in a past life. Or just crazy,” she joked. “I’m pretty convinced that’s what it is.”

Koskovich creates custom pieces and can be reached at mkoskovich@me.com.

The Wasatch Back Art Festival runs from noon to 6 p.m. on July 24 and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on July 25-26. Admission is free. Beyond artists selling work, there will also be performances by local musicians. Learn more at wasatchbackartfestival.com.

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Some kids participated in soccer or chess clubs in elementary school, but Ryan Shupe spent his free time recording albums and touring. 

Ryan’s father, Ted, formed the PeeWee Pickers youth band in 1979, inspired by his son’s fiddling talent. As a member of the PeeWee Pickers, Ryan toured Europe and even played before President Ronald Reagan gave an address to the Utah Republican Party in 1982 during a picnic in Hooper.

The band was so prominent in Utah’s bluegrass scene that Shupe, now the frontman of Ogden band Ryan Shupe & the RubberBand, is still recognized as a PeeWee Picker.

“When I got introduced to (Grammy-winning musician Alison Krauss), … she was like, ‘Ryan Shupe from the Peewee Pickers. I know you guys!’” he said.

The PeeWee Pickers was far from the only band Ted organized or mentored. His fingerprints are all over Utah’s bluegrass scene, even in Wallsburg, where the 12th annual TedFest music festival will be held Friday through Sunday in his honor. Ted died in October in West Valley City at the age of 86. This year’s festival will continue, organized by Ryan.

Ted began TedFest in 2014 to celebrate all genres of roots music: Americana, folk, bluegrass, gospel and more. 

“(One year,) we had a Uyghur fellow who was an incredible flamenco guitarist. Every year, we’ve had this Latin band … There are bagpipes sometimes, and rock,” said Jamis Johnson, Ted’s bandmate in swing ensemble Swing Creek. “But it’s all based on acoustic music.”

TedFest, Johnson said, is a way to show that genres that have fallen out of the mainstream are still alive and well.

“I just went recently to the Gallivan Center where Hot House West (Swing Orchestra) was playing. …. There were hundreds of dancers, and I would say they seemed like they were all in their 20s,” Johnson said. “This is an older form of music that’s being rediscovered by kids.”

At this year’s TedFest, each of the roughly 20 performing bands will share some thoughts about Ted during their sets. Johnson remembered Ted as gregarious, even when dealing with the countless issues that can arise as a touring musician.

“(One time,) Ted was driving up to a gig in Park City, and the bass fell off the roof of his car. Somebody picked up the pieces, and Ted had his bass rebuilt,” Johnson said. “It sounded like hell, but he still played that bass all the way up to the end.”

Ted first learned upright bass as a kid so he could play in his mother’s dance band, Merle Shupe and the Star Dusters.

Johnson described Ted’s mother as “a real force.”  Two weeks before she died, Merle visited Johnson’s home. Johnson played “All of Me” on the piano, and, although she couldn’t even walk up the stairs by herself, Merle insisted on getting up when she heard his playing.

“She said, ‘Ted! Ted! Get me up. This guy, he thinks he can play “All of Me.”’ So Ted took her over to the piano, and she sat there and she played ‘All of Me,’ just banging it out,” Johnson said.

Like his mother, Ted was also a musical force of nature. Every day, he would wake his children two hours before school so they’d have time to practice their instruments.

“I wonder, would I be (a professional musician) without my dad? Probably not,” Ryan said. 

He added, “When (the PeeWee Pickers) got older, then he started another kid band for my other siblings. And then, he did that again for another band and another band and another band.”

About 35 musicians Ted mentored attended his funeral. 

“He really liked finding these young musicians and putting them into an ensemble and teaching them how to play and getting them out and playing shows,” Ryan said.

Ryan said Ted’s passion stemmed from wanting to share the “gift of music” with his children and other young people. Now, TedFest carries on that mission — and ensures its namesake will be forever remembered.

“Down the road, people will say, ‘What is this TedFest?’” Ryan said. “It’s started by the guy that they dubbed the father of Utah bluegrass music.”

See the full lineup at tedfestmusic.com. Tickets benefit Vibrant America, the nonprofit Ted founded to preserve folk and roots music.

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Hundreds of kids who had been buzzing with excitement behind start lines at the Heber City Police Department on Saturday morning were off like Olympic sprinters as soon as they heard the blare of an airhorn coming through the speakers.

Their target? As many of the 12,600 plastic Easter eggs that had been scattered across the lawn as they could get their little hands on.

The lawn was spotless within 10 minutes. 

“If only they were picking up dog (poop) in the backyard,” joked grandfather Troy Palmer from the sidelines.

Palmer lives in Orem but came up to Heber City for the weekend to visit his daughter and son-in-law, Kaylee and Alex Agin, and their four children.

The kids were quick to scurry back to their parents and grandpa, loot in hand, from the various sections of the lawn. Each was designated for a different division: children under 1 year old, those aged 1 to 4, 5 to 10, 11 to 13 and those with physical or intellectual disabilities.

Hunter, 12, recalled the moment the airhorn sounded without warning.

“I was just standing there, and then I just heard, ‘beep!’ and saw everyone else running. I didn’t think it was going to go off like that,” he rambled quickly.

Hunter and his family have attended the Wasatch County first responders’ Easter egg hunt through all three of its iterations, but this event saw Hunter’s best performance. He nabbed about 30 colorful eggs and stuffed them into a plastic grocery bag. His strategy, picking up multiple eggs with each hand instead of one at a time, had paid off. 

Hunter’s 10-year-old brother, Jagger, returned with a much different spoil of war: an egg-shaped, 16-inch-tall Squishmallow. The brown stuffed animal looked like a bat, but its tag revealed it to be a goblin king named Ambergris.

There were over 100 of Ambergris’ brethren spread out across the lawn. It wasn’t quite the “battle” between children Palmer had been expecting. Many kids went home content, their own goblin king in hand.

Heber City Police Sgt. Zac Hendricksen, who organized this year’s egg hunt, explained the Squishmallows were a bit of an Easter miracle, albeit an unconventional one.

About three weeks before the event, a local landlord donated roughly 125 Squishmallows to the Police Department. She had evicted a tenant who had defaulted on rent. That tenant owned a small army of Squishmallows — ultra popular, super-soft collectible plush toys shaped like various animals or foods — that were still in the box, but she apparently refused to retrieve them despite the landlord’s attempts to return them. 

Police officers picked up the Squishmallows from the landlord using the Police Department’s 26-foot-long enclosed motorcycle trailer. According to Hendricksen, the trailer was nearly overflowing with boxes.

“I don’t think we’ll have that opportunity next year,” he said with a laugh.

The first responders’ Easter egg hunt began three years ago as the brainchild of Chief Parker Sever. It’s only gotten bigger each year, expanding last year to add a pancake breakfast. Sever estimated that around 1,000 people came this year. The jam-packed parking in the blocks surrounding the Police Department seemed to support that fact.

Organizing the Easter egg hunt was a collaborative effort between the Police Department, Wasatch County Sheriff’s Office and Fire District, Department of Natural Resources and Utah Highway Patrol. 

The latter agency brought its car crash simulator — two bumper cars mounted on a trailer — to teach kids the importance of wearing a seatbelt while letting them crash into each other at 5 mph. 

Meanwhile, inmates booked into the Wasatch County Jail volunteered to help fill the 12,600 eggs. Local Latter-day Saint youth groups pitched in, too.

“I’ll be honest with you, this is about a month’s worth of work for a lot of people,” Hendricksen said. “So, it’s kind of nice to have it behind us.”

Hendricksen said the egg hunt is a good way for local law enforcement to connect with community members.

“Sometimes people are just scared of cops, so then, when they get to come out and see them in this aspect, it makes them know that we’re all human,” he said.

The egg hunt also allows Sever to operate his “candy cannon,” which uses pressurized air to shoot candy through a muzzle made of PVC pipe. 

“If you put too much pressure, though, it just blows all the wrappers off the candy,” Sever explained.

He was speaking from experience. The contraption, created in his garage a few years ago, involved a lot of trial and error.

Many kids jumped around with excitement as candy shot up in the air and rained down from the sky. But not all were impressed with Sever’s invention.

Pouting as though she were about to burst into tears, 8-year-old Riley Pettee whined, “I don’t like it because something hit me in the head.”

But she cheered right up when she showed off her bag full of eggs. Plastering a smug grin on her face, she bragged that the egg hunt had been “easy.”

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For 13 years, a pajama-clad family of 12, headed by great-grandparents Teresa and Lawrence Weyer, has made the trek from Green River, Wyoming, to Heber City to ride the Heber Creeper’s North Pole Express. 

It began when their granddaughter, Katie Fryer, insisted on an authentic “Polar Express” experience with her 2-year-old son. 

Her son is now 15, joined this year by his 2-month-old sister, who slept peacefully as the 11-car locomotive chugged south into the Provo Canyon. 

“She wasn’t supposed to come until December, but she came early,” Fryer explained as she held the baby bundled in a blanket. She must have wanted to join in on the tradition.

As train host Brooke Thatcher outlined a journey to the North Pole full of hot cocoa and caroling, she approached Lawrence. 

“Sir, I can tell that you’re going to give us the most beautiful Mariah Carey solo,” she said into the microphone. “You’ve got that sparkle in your eye.”

Lawrence declined in his soft-spoken manner, though the grin on his face was undeniable.

The great-grandfather fondly remembered taking field trips on trains when he was growing up in Carlyle, Montana, in the late 1950s. As the family’s biggest train enthusiast, Lawrence expresses his undying love for the lost art of the locomotive by completing a handful of train-themed jigsaw puzzles every winter. He owns about 50 of them.

Teresa said riding the Creeper during the holidays never gets old because every year offers minor changes to the script. Last year, there was a surprise appearance by an Elvis Presley impersonator, who “gyrated up and down the aisles,” belting out “Blue Christmas.”

Parker Wilson, the assistant director of the Heber Valley Railroad, confirmed reports of the King of Rock and Roll. Wilson took over his role last month, but he rode the North Pole Express the previous year. Wilson said he was caught off guard, as were a few other passengers — though some, such as his wife, “fan girled.”

Despite being a “mind-blowingly popular” addition to the experience, equal parts hammy, hilarious and absurd, Presley didn’t return this year because the railroad couldn’t find enough impersonators to fill the North Pole Express’ 86 round trips. 

Each trip serves around 600 passengers, beginning a week before Thanksgiving and wrapping up on Dec. 30. After that, the staff will take a two-week break to rest and regain their voices before continuing operations with a variety of other train rides, which range in theme from dinosaurs to “Star Wars.”

While the “Pirates and Princesses” train remains constantly in demand, the North Pole Express is the railroad’s most popular offering. Wilson said tickets go on sale in July and are mostly sold within a couple of weeks. By September, it’s slim pickings.

The newest addition to the North Pole Express this year is a silver dome car built in 1948. Restoration took “up until the final minute of the 11th hour,” Wilson said, so the car hasn’t yet been painted in the signature gold, black and silver of a 1950s Heber Valley Railroad car. 

Passengers seated near the transparent ceiling are given a 360-degree view of the 16-mile route south along the Deer Creek Reservoir and into the Provo Canyon. The most magical moment, Wilson said, is turning out the lights as the train passes by the North Pole, a picturesque candy cane village where Santa Claus waves a greeting as kids lose their minds. 

Ask Wilson about any aspect of the 126-year-old railroad, and chances are he’ll answer without missing a beat. Since 2014, he’s worked as everything from a gift shop employee to a conductor to a member of the railroad’s advisory board. 

“Every kid at one point wants to be an astronaut. For me, I always wanted to be a train engineer,” he said.

Now he’s living the dream. His work is mostly administrative, though he also rides the North Pole Express to serve as one of the few adult presences onboard. He estimated the railroad employs about 190 kids ages 12 and up who serve as centuries-old elves on the North Pole Express. 

One elf, Frosty, was truly committed to the bit. He’s been working the North Pole Express as a stable hand and chef for the past 200 years. He’s now 532 years old. He said the hardest part of the job was none of it.

“It’s not that bad. It’s super awesome to talk with kids, ask what they want for Christmas,” he said, singing the final word in a vocal flourish.

Wilson wasn’t surprised that Frosty refused to give his human name and age. The North Pole Express tends to attract the theatrical type. 

That was certainly true for Thatcher, who was able to weave safety information into a script full of terrible reindeer puns without missing a beat. 

A native of Midway, Thatcher started working at the railroad when she was 13. The next year, she was hosting a car.

“I saw what the hosts were doing, and I was like, ‘I want to do that instead, pretending that my name is Twinkle and that I am an elf,’” she said.

It was a tricky character to pull off, in part because she was “super tall for a middle schooler.”

Now 22, Thatcher has seen it all — rude guests, vomit and even Elvis — but embodying her character is second nature. 

“My 13-year-old self had a ton of excitement with nowhere to go,” she said, which wasn’t helped by the fact that hosts weren’t given rigid scripts like they are now.

Thatcher said the key to keeping up her energy as a host is engaging with every passenger.

“For me, it’s, like, my sixth Christmas,” she said. “But for them, this is something that they do every single year with their family. It’s their family tradition. I know how much my family traditions mean to me.” 

As Thatcher led a high-energy, pop-punk version of “The 12 Days of Christmas” and chased the elves around the car with mistletoe — which is considered “highly toxic” in the North Pole for the amount of holiday cheer it spreads — it was hard not to feel infected by a bit of that yuletide spirit, too.

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Last year, Katarina Ryanna, a funeral director at Heber Valley Funeral Home, approached Carrie Zabaldo, founder of Charitable Acts Theater, and offered her business as a venue for events — “because we don’t want the community to be scared of us.”

These days, Ryanna roams the funeral home, a mop of black hair obscuring her face, screeching at any jumpy teenagers (or reporters) who approach her.

For the week of Halloween, Heber Valley Funeral Home has been transformed into a haunted house, complete with cannibal clowns, a ballerina with a monstrous mouth and even some ominous polka-dotted creatures.

The production was made possible by a Wasatch County Trails Arts and Parks tax grant and dozens of volunteers, including a professional scarer teaching the greenhorns how it’s done. Zabaldo said the effort took “12 to 14 hours a day for the past week.” One of the biggest challenges comes in having to inflate and decorate their two tents every evening.

“We’re honestly ready to sleep tonight,” Zabaldo joked.

The haunted house serves as a fundraiser for Charitable Acts Theater. The theater company donates all proceeds from their plays (outside of those used to cover production costs) to local charities. Since their creation four years ago, they’ve donated $72,000, according to Zabaldo.

“I don’t think I’ve ever lived in a place that’s had more charitable-minded people, not just financially, but with their time and their talents,” Zabaldo said. “I had this idea when I lived in Oregon, but I just didn’t think it would fly, because who gives away all their money?”

When Ryanna and Zabaldo came up with the idea for a haunted house in October 2024, they were worried that Francis Mortensen, the funeral home’s new manager, would say no — but he was thrilled by the idea. You may see him at the entrance, introducing a Nosferatu statue as his “great-grandfather.”

For Mortensen, the event provides an opportunity to rebrand the funeral home as a community space.

“Even though this is a haunted house, this building is not spooky,” Mortensen said. “We’re seeing the transition of people not knowing how to handle death, and they just put it away. ‘We don’t need a service. I don’t want a service. Then I’ll feel sad.’ But that misses a big point of everything that we’re here to do. We’re here to help you grieve. We’re here to help you have fun. We’re here to help you remember your loved ones.”

After Dark at the Mortuary runs through Oct. 31, 7 to 10 p.m. at Heber Valley Funeral Home (288 N. Main St.). Tickets are $15 for adults and teens and $10 for children under 12, who must be accompanied by an adult.

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As the sun dropped behind the mountains, it set the stage for a colorful evening at Summit Community Gardens and EATS celebrating La Milpa and this year’s harvest — a moment sweetened by the presence of Maria Elena Lowe, a Maya elder from the Chiapas Highlands region of Mexico who would lead the blessing.

The blessing of the harvest is a tradition in many Maya communities, reflecting their connection to the land and its cycles. This ceremony takes place at the end of the growing season, marking the culmination of hard work and dedication to their agricultural practices.

During the blessing, community members express gratitude to the Earth and the gods for the sustenance provided. They offer prayers, light candles and present offerings such as food, flowers and incense. These acts of reverence acknowledge the importance of the natural world in human lives.

On Thursday, Maria Elena prepared for the blessing in the heart of the gardens, laying colorful tapestries on the ground as a base for the harvested fruits, vegetables and flowers.

Fanny Guadalupe Blauer, executive director of ARTES de MEXICO en UTAH, prepared the group for the harvest by first asking if anyone wanted to share their stories or personal histories of growing up in regions with these practices. 

With tears in her eyes, Mariana Venegas, a Park City community member, shared her feelings of the La Milpa program and the personal richness she has found in it. 

“I grew up in a part of Guerrero (a state on Mexico’s pacific coast) called Quechultenango,” said Venegas, “and this brings back memories of my dad. It’s something I want to pass on to my daughters so they can feel happy and see how we lived before. But the one thing I want my daughters to learn is how everything we acquire — every fruit, every vegetable — comes from the land, and why we need to take care of the Earth so we can continue harvesting and feeding ourselves. I want them to know the roots of their grandfather, their great-grandfather, and our ancestors. My grandmother on my mom’s side taught me to eat all kinds of green plants.”

“I don’t know if they were edible or not,” Venegas added with a laugh. “But she would cut them, cook them, and make us very tasty tacos. That’s how I grew up when I was the age of my daughters.”

Guadalupe shifted the attention to the kids who were surrounding the crops laid before them in the center of the gardens.

She grabbed a small and perfectly ripe tomato and asked, “How long did it take for this tomato to grow” to get to what it is now?

The kids responded with a few guesses and fanny counted up the months out loud for them to follow.

“It took five months for this little tomato to grow and be ready for harvest,” she said. “So then parents go to the store, buy vegetables, buy food, and the tomato sits sad and forgotten in the back of the fridge, abandoned for a week. Then Mom or someone in the house comes and says, ‘Oh, it’s ugly,’ and throws it in the trash. Poor little tomato that took five months to grow just to end up in the garbage, right? So kids, I’m going to give you the task of speaking up when you see food going bad. Go and say, ‘Mom! We need to use that tomato! Mom! We need to use that squash! We can’t waste food!’”

All of the kids nodded in agreement, each with a multitude of corn and vegetables in their arms as they learned about them. 

Guadalupe urged the kids to be conscious of the time and resources needed for their food to grow. She implored them to be conscious stewards of the Earth. 

The time came for the blessing of the harvest, which Maria Elena would perform in her native tongue of Tzeltal, a Mayan dialect. Everyone sprang into action, bringing in the crops ready to be blessed, with Guadalupe and Maria Elena leading the way and teaching the children about the crops and their significance.

Before beginning the blessing, Maria Elena emphasized the importance of taking responsibility for the care of the Earth. She spoke about climate change and how her home region has experienced record high temperatures in recent times. She noted that these heat waves have caused difficulties for everyone’s crops and that similar challenges are occurring worldwide.

“There is a global change in temperature,” said Maria Elena, “and where I live, it has never risen above 80 degrees. This year, I was very worried because my daughter was very sad and concerned. She said, ‘Mom, I don’t know what we’re going to do, what we’re going to put in the offering because there’s no harvest.’ I told her not to worry and to ask those who are coming to bring their crops, and that’s what we would put on the altar. So today, I told them, ‘Well, today we’re going to make an important reverence. We’re going to give our heart and our soul to the creators and ask for forgiveness. Please forgive us, because we do many things, and we say, ‘I’m not cutting down a tree,’ but we throw away garbage, and that contaminates, pollutes and creates many problems. So it’s time to plead starting now. Right now, God, we don’t lack food, but a time will come when there will be nothing. That’s why we’re going to do this starting today, pleading in my prayer, I plead that Mother Earth, nature, does not get angry, that it has patience with us, and that from the Earth all the little herbs grow and that it gives us corn.”

As Maria Elena prayed, only her words and the nature she was blessing broke the quiet.

As the blessing of the harvest came to a close, it was time for guests to enjoy each other’s company, share stories about life and the harvest, and indulge in the tamales and champurrado prepared for the event.

Summit Community Gardens and EATS offers programs and events throughout the year. For more information, visit summitcommunitygardens.org.

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The Park City High School girls soccer team faced off against Ogden High School at the North 40 Fields Monday afternoon, September 11, 2017. The Miners beat the Tigers 4-1. (Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

Link to full gallery here: https://parkrecordphoto.smugmug.com/PHOTOS-PCHS-Soccer-vs-Ogden/

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The Christian Center of Park City held their annual family-friendly and non-competitive Hike For Hunger at Deer Valley Resort Saturday afternoon, September 9, 2017. The event, which featured three hiking and two biking trails, aimed to raise awareness about hunger issues in the Park City community. (Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

Link to full gallery here: https://parkrecordphoto.smugmug.com/PHOTOS-CCPCs-Hike-For-Hunger/

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The National Ability Center held a senior takeover day Saturday, September 9, 2017. The event gave individuals aged 60+ an opportunity to try the center’s adaptive cycling and archery resources. (Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

Link to full gallery here: https://parkrecordphoto.smugmug.com/PHOTOS-NAC-Senior-Takeover/

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