A cannabis shop, motel and McDonald’s in a row on Heber City Main Street. Cows grazing in the North Fields. Mount Timpanogos obscured by the wildfire-induced haze and ash that swept through the Wasatch Back last Friday. 

These are but a few of the paintings that can be found in Midway Town Hall during the Midway Art Association’s 19th annual Plein Air Paradise festival, which continues through Saturday.

Plein air is a French art form that involves painting outdoors. 

The Midway Art Association’s festival included four plein air events over the past two weeks: the main competition, in which artists must paint Wasatch and Summit counties, competitions restricted to Heber City and Midway, and a nocturne or sunrise painting competition.

The festival also has several auctions, including an auction of work artists will paint around Midway’s town square on Saturday morning.

Plein air artists combine the skill sets of visionary Vincent van Gogh and survivalist Bear Grylls. There’s a lot of preparation involved, according to Midway Art Association copresident Marge Bowen.

“A lot of artists will have wagons, but then you have to be able to roll it to where you’re going. There are easels that you can use as backpacks, so some artists are pretty compact,” she said. “Plein air artists have to be prepped to be outside in anything.”

Still, excursions sometimes turn into disasters.

“Bugs can fly into the wet paint. … If the wind kicks up, I’m telling you, a whole easel can go down. … When you’re standing outside in the North Fields, you’ll have trucks go by, and there’s a lot of dust, so you’ve got to be ready for that,” she said. “There’s lots of fun things that can go on out there.”

The festival has attracted 135 brave artists to the Wasatch Back this year. They hope to earn awards as large as $2,200 and sell their artwork along the way. They hail from nine states, some coming from as far as Florida and Hawaii. 

But many of these artists are locals, such as Heber City resident M. Scott Woodruff, who has participated in the competition for about four years. 

Woodruff has been obsessed with art ever since he was a kid.

“Sitting on my dad’s lap at church, he would draw on the back of the sacrament program to keep me quiet, because I had a lot of energy. He was a graphics designer, so art was his natural language. I became transfixed on that,” he said.

When it came time to pick a career, Woodruff wanted to become an artist.

“My dad’s like, ‘I’ll break your fingers if you become an artist,’” he said. “I didn’t know that’s an in-joke among artists. I took it seriously.”

So he pursued architecture instead, which gave him opportunities to sketch buildings for clients.

Woodruff retired three years ago and discovered plein air painting at a competition in Ogden. He thought of himself as an amateur, but his painting of the Hill Aerospace Museum placed second in the professional category. He’s been hooked ever since.

He typically begins with a pencil sketch before outlining it with a fine tip pen and painting it with watercolors. 

In a competition full of paintings of natural landscapes and wildlife, Woodruff’s depictions of buildings around Heber City stand out. Every brick and wooden slat is intricately detailed, and the buildings have a sense of texture viewers can almost touch.

Woodruff is drawn to painting buildings related to the Heber Valley Railroad in no small part because he worked there as a conductor about two decades ago. His grandfather was also a conductor on the tourist railroad. 

Woodruff completed his nocturne painting, the train station under the light of the full moon, on Tuesday evening. Another of his plein air works, which he painted during last year’s competition, depicts the Heber Valley Railroad’s original depot, broken windows and all.

“It’s just sad watching it decay. But it gets a lot of interesting texture and detail, and there’s history here,” Woodruff said. 

The artist’s passion for historic buildings is evident from his attention to detail and relentless enthusiasm.

“This is the real heart and soul of the community, because you go south of the city park, and it could be Main Street, Anywhere U.S.A., because you’ve got all your chain stores,” he said. “But then, north of that, up to the city building, which was the old Wasatch Stake Tabernacle, that’s the real texture, that’s the real nature of Heber.”

For two of Woodruff’s plein air pieces this year, he scouted out historic homes and painted them from the comfort of his camping chair. He ended up talking to the owners of one of the homes, who happened to be in their yard when he was setting up.

“They’d been in the house for 20 years. They love it,” he said. “It’s got an original sandstone foundation. It’s this typical 1890s, 1900s form on it, especially with all the beautiful woodwork.”

Painting in public often leads to conversations and compliments, which Woodruff joked give him hope for the human race in a time that often feels chaotic and negative.

Plein air painting is an excellent way to gain a greater appreciation for one’s surroundings, he said.

“You can live in an area and not really see it until you have to slow down and paint it,” he said. “You can snap a pic … and it’s one of the hundreds or thousands of pictures on your phone that (makes you think), ‘Why did I take that pic?’ But when you sit down and do a painting, it’s an investment.”

Artwork from the Midway Art Association’s Plein Air Paradise festival will be available to browse and purchase at Midway Town Hall until 6 p.m. on Friday and from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday.

The quick draw will also take place Saturday morning for those interested in watching artists paint around Midway’s town square. At 11 a.m., that work will be auctioned off. Learn more at midwayartassociation.com.

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Heber City residents Bonny and Andy Armstrong were looking for the perfect campsite for a nature retreat with their pet ducks when they found the avian equivalent of a blood-splattered crime scene: a splay of feathers on the dirt. Obviously, some predator had killed a bird.

The Armstrongs had traveled up Mirror Lake Highway to Upper Setting Road. Other than the concerning feathers, the site was the idyllic getaway for their beloved Serrano and Lucy Boy, complete with a bubbling creek for the ducks to wade in. So the next day, the Armstrongs hopped in their van and drove back to the site, this time with their ducks in the backseat.

As soon as they exited the van, they heard a rooster crow nearby.

“We were like, ‘That’s weird because we’re at least eight and a half miles from Kamas,’” Bonny recalled.

They found the entrance of a dirt tunnel hidden underneath a bush while investigating the area. Nestled inside the tunnel was a sunset orange rooster.

The Armstrongs immediately realized two things: The feathers they’d found the previous day were from a chicken, and the birds had probably been abandoned in the wilderness. The couple set up camp, and the rooster — whom they affectionately named Sparky — took an immediate interest in them.

“The rooster was real interested in our ducks, and our ducks were kind of afraid of him,” Bonny said.

So Andy picked up Sparky and walked him to a campsite down the road to give his ducks some temporary peace of mind.

Thinking that was the end of it, the Armstrong clan enjoyed their first night under the stars. But in the morning, Sparky made his triumphant return.

“We’re like, ‘OK, we’re just going to be camping with the rooster, too,’” Bonny laughed. “He never got farther than maybe 20 feet away from our van the whole time.”

Even when the Armstrongs walked away from the campsite, Sparky was always close behind. 

“He’s kind of like our ducks in that he wanted to be close to us but didn’t want us to really touch him,” Bonny said.

Sparky wasn’t aggressive, only curious, but the ducks never became used to him.

As the sun began to set, the Armstrongs noticed Sparky was gazing up into their van. Then he flew inside, searching for a place to roost.

“The temperatures up there were in the 20s at night,” Bonny said. “And we’re thinking, ‘Oh, God, the poor thing. He just really wants a safe, warm place for the night.’”

The couple knew that keeping their two nervous ducks mere feet away from a rooster would be a nightmare for everyone. So they nestled Sparky under a wheel well on top of one of their van’s tires that faced the campfire.

“Once we put him in there, he was like, ‘OK, I guess this will do,’” Bonny recalled.

The final night of their camping trip was hard on Bonny. She “cried all night,” pondering what to do with Sparky. If the Armstrongs took Sparky and dropped him off near a farm, he’d become someone else’s problem. 

Bonny knew that with the coming winter, the most merciful outcome for a rooster surviving on its own would be a swift dispatch by a predator. But she thought Sparky was too “smart and savvy” for that. If he managed to avoid predators, he would starve or freeze to death with frostbite creeping up his feet and beak.

The dilemma was even more heart-wrenching for Bonny because Sparky reminded her of the couple’s ducks.

In March 2013, the Armstrongs were buying seed for their bird feeder at the Silver Eagle Country Store in Heber City. A woman entered with a box she’d found in a Smith’s parking lot. Inside were six chicks and two ducklings, shivering and no more than a few days old.

An employee agreed to take the birds, placing them in a cozy cage with a heat lamp and trough. 

“When we got married, we had pledged to try to be a no-pets, no-plants, no-kids type of family. And we were doing really good, but something about these two baby ducks — they were just so adorable,” Bonny laughed. “I don’t know what possessed us, but we brought them home with us.”

The Armstrongs named the ducks Sarah and Lucy after the characters from “Trailer Park Boys.” The ducks grew as quickly as Clifford the Big Red Dog, and as they did, the Armstrongs realized by raspy quacks and curling tail feathers that Sarah and Lucy were male. 

They renamed Sarah “Serrano” because his black feathers look iridescent green in the sunlight, just like a pepper.

As for Lucy, Bonny explained, “We tried all kinds of different names for him, but Lucy still fit him, even though he was a boy. So we just always introduce him as Lucy Boy.”

The Armstrongs expected Serrano and Lucy Boy to live for about 10 years. The ducks are now 11 and a half years old.

“I’ve since learned that ducks that are really well taken care of and kept safe from predators can live to be 16 or 18 years,” Bonny said. “My husband and I, a couple of years ago, bought a house in Costa Rica. That’s where we plan to retire. And we can probably move within a year or two, but we can’t take the ducks because Costa Rica doesn’t allow you to import birds. And so we’re like, ‘Well, I guess we’re staying here until our ducks die.’ We’re not going to abandon them. That’s how they started off life. They’re like our children now.”

Bonny is sure that Serrano and Lucy Boy were abandoned because they were male. Ducks and roosters tend to become hormonal and fight other males, so farmers raising the birds like to maintain an unbalanced male-female ratio. If a farmer is unwilling to kill a male or find it a home, they may leave it in the wilderness.

Bonny suspects that Sparky was abandoned for the same reason. 

“Whoever dumped (Serrano and Lucy Boy) — it just kills me that they never got to know what cool animals these two ducks are and how much personality they have,” she said. “I feel the same way about that rooster. He was a really nice bird, and you could see all this personality. I feel like if someone took him home and treated him well and was kind to him, I think he would be somebody’s really special pet.”

As Bonny pondered the dilemma, Andy recommended calling an animal shelter. They were surprised to find that Summit County Animal Control in Wanship, a no-kill animal shelter, accepts roosters, not just cats and dogs. Staff reported he’s doing just fine.

People interested in adopting Sparky can call 435-336-3990 or visit the shelter at 1745 S. Hoytsville Road. 

Summit County Animal Control also accepts donations. Monetary donations go to the county’s general fund, but the shelter also accepts goods like food, toys, blankets, towels, litter and even newspapers.

Alyssa Poulsen, animal care manager at Park City’s Sage Mountain animal sanctuary, and Adri Ballif, president of Wasatch Wanderers Animal Rescue, agreed that the No. 1 cause of rooster abandonment is farm supply stores that sell baby chicks.

Because the birds are too young to be accurately identified as male or female, it’s entirely possible to find a rooster among a batch of what were advertised as hens.

The desired male-to-female ratio Bonny Armstrong mentioned can certainly be a factor that leads to the abandonment of a rooster. But more often, cities have zoning laws that prohibit roosters in residential areas due to potential noise complaints.

For example, Park City, Heber City and Coalville prohibit roosters within city limits.

“(Farm supply stores) make it really easy for people to impulse purchase animals,” Baliff added, even if the buyer has little to no education on appropriate animal care.

Dumping a rooster in a canyon or a domestic duck at a local pond is often a death sentence because they don’t have the same instincts as a wild bird, she said.

Abandoning any domestic animal is a crime per Utah Code 76-13-202.

Ballif said Wasatch Wanderers receives calls about abandoned roosters two or three times a week from throughout the state.

She usually recommends contacting a local animal shelter to see if it accepts roosters. If it does not, she suggests trying to find a home for the animal by reaching out to friends and family members or posting on social media.

You can reach out to Wasatch Wanderers for additional advice or to see if they might be able to take the animal. They’re currently at full capacity.

“Everyone is stretched so thin,” Ballif explained. “There aren’t enough foster homes or adoptive homes.”

Poulsen added that you may have success with a rooster as a pet — if you live in an area that allows for it, of course.

“I have a friend that has a house rooster,” Poulsen said. “You can get them diapers, and they’ll basically just live in your house like a dog or cat and become your best friend.”

Those are chicken diapers you’d be using, not human ones.

If you are interested in adopting a farm or exotic animal, consider reaching out to Wasatch Wanderers. Both Wasatch Wanderers and Sage Mountain accept monetary donations and would love more volunteers.

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Local dog owners and their furry friends took to the Library Field Wednesday afternoon, March 1, 2017.  (Tanzi Propst/Park Record)

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