Did you know Utah has a Nasa Moon Tree?  Pardon me, as a tree hugger by nature I’m surprised I had never heard of this beauty in our state. “This tree has boldly gone where no trees-and few humans-have gone before”, chimed KSL a few years back. And yes, sci-fi fans love the thought of humans growing plants in space so this is a great little piece of local trivia that will help you win any local pub’s trivia night!

First, the tree is located in an exterior corner of the State Forestry Department’s Lone Peak Office at 271 Bitterbrush Lane in Draper.   Second, it’s a 52 year old sycamore tree that was planted here in 1976. Third, it’s a plant with a lot of history and fourth, it may be dead or almost dead.

In 1971 Apollo 14 blasted off from it’s launch pad and inside the cockpit one astronaut (Stuart Roosa) had a stash of tree seeds on him. Each flyer gets to carry a small personal amount of goods with them and this former Forest Service smokejumper was the perfect guy to give the seeds a ride. In his cannister there were @500 seeds-not just sycamore seeds, but hundreds of redwood, pine, fir and sweet gum seeds.  His job was to bring them home safely to earth as the Command Module Pilot after orbiting the moon (and ultimately landing on it). The great news was that most of the seeds sprouted and NASA then divvied them out to various forestry departments around the country to see what would grow and if anti-gravity would effect what they grew into. Would there be freak trees?  There aren’t any reports of odd growth that I could find.

Utah reportedly got two starts of sycamores and two of Douglas fir were planted in Utah. Utah state capitol building grounds and a local nursery. Folks around the country nicknamed them ‘moon trees’ and local interest was fairly high as to the future of these special plants. The nursery gave out cuttings and clones to its customers. Sadly, the tree at the capitol was destroyed by a freak tornado when it was split in half by the wind in August of 1999 and the other is somewhere by the old prison site in Draper by the State Forestry office out there. I wasn’t able to find out where the other two seedlings disappeared to in Utah as even the State doesn’t know where they are now and if they survived.

This past November NASA launched the Artemis rocket as part of a plan to get us back to land on and explore the moon. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has decided to reactivate the moon seed program for the future. What’s a bummer is that NASA forgot about the program for many years and lost where the trees had been planted around the country. A NASA employee was contacted by a teacher who found a plaque near a moon tree who had asked where others were planted. He had not heard of the program but ended up posting on social media asking for the public’s help finding the trees and hopefully plaques around the country. The current Moon Tree Foundation is now run by Roosa’s daughter who sees to plant moon trees around the world.

It’s that time of the year when minimalists turn into maximalists. For those who celebrate the holidays we find our larders filling up with homemade jam or liquor, gifts from friends and neighbors, packages hidden or out under a tree and winter clothing piled everywhere on top of ski boots and poles. It’s also the time of year right after Thanksgiving and heading into Hanukkah and Christmas when some folk think “this place is too small, we’ve got to find a bigger place to live in this new year!”

Once the festivities are done, it’s time to declutter and purge if you’re planning to sell in the new year. You can read up on how to do it by watching a video or reading a book by the famous Japanese organizing consultant Marie Kondo, or you can hire a local pro like Linda Hilton and her company ‘Sortingthrough.com’ in Salt Lake. Linda has been helping people organize, purge, and donate contents of houses for several years and is a licensed professional organizer.  In January of every year, she has a 30 day cure to help you defrag (my word) your home. She starts in a way that makes me smile and lets me believe ‘I can do this!’ by suggesting on the first day to simply find a cardboard box. That’s easy! I can do that!  On the second day put one piece of clothing in it that you want to donate to someone that needs it more than you. Get the idea?

If you can’t do it yourself, Hilton and her team will, at an hourly rate, to help you organize, pack, plan a yard sale, find movers, shredders or storage for you, donate unneeded items, hook you up with consignment stores, give you referrals for junk disposal and recycling services.

Frankly, my last move was overwhelming. I had a basement full of crap all the way back to college, a mix of treasured items/family keepsakes, as well as boxes and boxes of paperwork along with camping equipment, Burning Man stuff, staging items, collectables-you name it. As time grew closer and closer to moving, I found myself paralyzed as to what I could pack, throw out/donate and store. I literally would go downstairs and just stare at my stuff. I finally called Linda and she patiently, and without judgement, put her hands on virtually every item or box down there and simply asked: “Keep? Donate? Throw out?”.  After three sessions we had the whole basement cleaned out and all the items on their way to a new but smaller storage (rental) facility, various charities, a local consignment store or the dumpster. She was worth every penny and although I was quite embarrassed when I introduced her to my piles of detritus, I was completely joyful as we got into the pattern of packing and purging.

Buyers want to picture themselves in your home, so after the hols pack up holiday décor, organize closets, cupboards, and purge. Make your home open, light and neutral if possible, for a cheap and easy way to stage it for a sale.

In a “Who’s winning this design battle”? the state of Utah has a finalist for it’s new state flag.  If you haven’t noticed, Salt Lake City got a new flag two years ago, made up of two horizontal bars of blue on the top and white on the bottom with a sego lily flower in the upper left side (canton/corner). We don’t see many sego lily flowers in the capitol city, but there is a giant concrete representation of one in Sugar House park that you can sit on if you walk in the south end of the park. The first city flag was created in 1963 and designed by J. Rulon Hales, the winner of a contest run by the Deseret News. The first version of it was made by Highland High students and it was officially put into use in 1969. It included seagulls, pioneers, a covered wagon, and the sun rising over the Wasatch. In the center was the beehive, our symbol of industry related to the founding of the city and its Mormon heritage. It was a busy flag and not a simple, ideal design in the world of flags.

In 2006 the second design of the city flag was adopted by the City Council after Mayor Rocky Anderson sponsored a design contest a few years earlier. Anderson, who’s announced he’s running for Salt Lake mayor again felt that “the old flag was too exclusive and focused entirely on the city’s Mormon heritage.”  This flag had a green horizontal bar on top, blue on the bottom, and a modern graphic rendition of the Salt Lake City skyline with snowcapped mountains in the background as a center oval. Not to be outdone, Mayor Mendenhall decided she wanted a  new flag and so the city government in 2020 opened a contest with a $3,000 prize for the winning entry. Six hundred people sent in their ideas and the final design was adopted by the city council October of the same year.

A commission met last month to advance their choice for a new Utah state flag, with three horizonal lines-the top a navy blue sky, the middle a representation of snowy mountains, a red bottom line to represent the red rock of southern Utah, with a beehive in the middle and a star underneath it (to represent the state’s Native American tribes). Over 44,000 citizens chimed in on designed ideas after state leaders criticized the current flag as “boring” and called it a “state seal on a blue bedsheet”. The Utah State Legislature in January 2023 will have to approve the new design.

One critic of the new flag told me the new flag design seemed appropriate: ‘Blue at the top of the state, red at the bottom, and white in the middle’ to represent the political factions within our borders. It was in 2011 that the current flag was adopted with the state seal over a navy blue background.

You’ve driven by the Fisher Mansion a million times if you’ve taken the freeway to the Airport from the east side heading north. It’s at 1206 West 200 South and if you’re the passenger in a car you can look to your immediate right as you weave from 1-15 to the west. It was designed by Richard Kletting, an influential architect from Utah who also designed the original Salt Palace, Saltair resort pavilion, the Utah State Capitol, the Territorial Insane Asylum, Lehi Tabernacle and many other buildings. It’s been sitting vacant for decades.

The two story, twelve-room mansion was constructed in the Victorian Eclectic style in a sparsely populated neighborhood near the banks of the Jordan River. Albert Fisher had immigrated to Utah from Germany and built this home near his place of work-the A. Fisher Brewing Company. The family beer business in Utah was brewing 75,000 barrels a year of suds with around 50 employees,  and provided the beverage to bars and taverns in Salt Lake County-many of which Fisher owned. His mansion showed off his success, and interestingly enough was the only beer brewery to re-open after the repeal of Prohibition. It closed in 1957. The mansion later was leased out to the Catholic Church for missionary sisters and then in 1970 became an alcohol and drug abuse treatment facility. It was later purchased by Salt Lake City in 2006.

The home sat vacant for several years as input from citizens was gathered as to the potential use of the building, as it’s got great bones with wonderful craftmanship. In 2020 the 5.7 earthquake damaged the building and all three chimneys, so in September of that year the City switched from attempts to update the mansion to focus on the carriage house there. Sadly, in the middle of the night that spring, someone stole most of the bronze metal fence surrounding the property that was most likely part of Kletting’s original design. The carriage house is now complete, with offices and a small public meeting room.

What’s great about all of this is the new boat ramp by the mansion that gives access to kayakers who want to explore the Jordan River in that area. Users say it’s the best boat ramp yet to be built along the trail. The other two ramps close by are located near the Utah State Fairpark at the Gadsby trailhead and one at 1800 North. Getting into the river now is much easier for people to access and there are more ramps planned for the future. The Jordan River flows from Utah Lake in Utah County to the Great Salt Lake and state, county and city planners and volunteers have been working for years to develop not just the Parkway along the river but the boat ramps. It’s really a great experience to boat during the fall, to leaf peep along the waterway and see nature first hand rather than through your car window. For more info on ramps: slc.gov/parks/Jordan-river-boat-access.

Third quarter real estate stats are out for Salt Lake County and frankly, they are a bit odd. The median sold price in the Q3 here was $600,000, which is down almost 6% over Q2 of this year. BUT if we look at stats from last year, we see a growth pattern in sales of 9%. Interest rates on 30 year mortgages are now up to 7% or more and less buyers are coming into the market right now, so predictions for this final quarter aren’t looking too great. The Fed is definitely going to keep raising interest rates until inflation cools and we’re seeing massive price reductions of homes on the market. Nationally, new listings in September fell 22% over the previous month, and 17% of listings under contract/sale pending failed to close. Sales are down 20% over 2021. In the County, Q3 sales were down 18.8% compared to Q2 and down 30% compared to the same time in 2021.

‘Run, don’t walk to the nearest exit’ is starting to be the war cry for some sellers, as ‘days on market’ in Q3 moved to 22 days, VS six days on the market until recently. If you love house porn you’ll notice on many listings that sellers are willing to ‘help pay buyers closing costs’ or are offering incentives like new carpeting. This is the time of year when people begin to seriously nest-cold weather, holidays. And given those vibes it’s when the market generally slows down. Although we’ve seen only smoking statistics for the last few years here, we will experience a slow down as predictors are saying that the housing market needs this kind of correction to balance out housing supply and demand.

I can’t stress enough that if you can qualify for a loan, there are options to get better rates. The ‘two-one’ buy down is a great product, wherein if rates are at 7, you loan starts at 5% for a year, then 6% for another year, and then fixes at 7% for the rest of the loan. You can refinance if rates go down and the initial discount will hopefully allow for you to get raises at work to afford that 7% rate down the road. PLUS buyers are starting to get great deals as the market softens. There’s no better time in Utah to shop for homes than during the colder months. Why? It’s nice to know how that potential house fares in winter! When you walk into an empty house, does it feel drafty although the heat is on? How’s the insulation in the attic, around the doors and windows, and under the floors? Does the furnace growl like your stomach in the morning? Since it’s cool to cold here about half of the year, a well-built home with good insulation is a must. And if seller’s are willing to chip in to the deal to make you more comfortable by giving you a credit towards closing costs or added insulation…well, it doesn’t cost a dime to make an offer!