April Potpourri

It's so easy for me to get behind on photos! Here are some from April. We went for a drive and saw a pronghorn. I love watching these animals, the fastest land animals in North America. They are also unusual in that they don't jump over fences, but go under them.

On this particular drive we were heading to a wet meadow area, but due to the dry winter, it looked kind of brown.

This fence post caught my eye. And in the background you can see that there isn't much snow on the mountains.

This is one of my favorite trees. Sometime I hope to go down and take a night sky photo with its silhouette.

Back at home, the kestrels have moved in and make a lot of noise.

One day I found the kestrel was excited about its catch--a lizard.

Our dog, Maggie, jumped out of the back of the truck and broke her femur. So she had surgery and was on a lot of confinement. Fortunately she's been recovering well.

We have a lot of playdates. I loved that one incorporated some music practice. These two will be performing in the spring concert next week. They will have a duet, as they're the only brass players in their school.

A couple coworkers and I led the elementary school on a wild cave trip. The kids had a great time and were delighted to have an opportunity to crawl and get muddy. One of the chaperones was surprised how we incorporated how much science into it--programming bat equipment, checking climate data, reading maps, showing geologic features. It's easy in caves, there are just so many cool scientific areas to study!

Our currant bushes bloomed, and that brought lots of pollinators, including these cool sphinx/hummingbird moths. They are not easy to photograph! They move around really fast.

I thought it was cool to see how the proboscis is curled up while it's flying.

Then it extends it to take a drink.

The flowers help provide a bullseye.

Desert Girl did a session of dog training for a friend. They were so cute! One of Desert Girl's ambitions is to become a dog trainer, so it's good to start young.

Caving friends came via a small airplane, and they let the kids sit in the cockpit. They immediately started dreaming up their adventure.

These ladies are awesome, I will have to do a whole post more about their geologic work in Lehman Caves soon.

We squeezed in some trail work on the local Sagebrush Discovery Trail. The flowers along it have been great in May (also another post!). There are still so many more rocks to move, but we're slowly making a difference. And it's always great to socialize!

One of the school events was a Young Author's Fair. Guest speaker Glenn Terry came in to do some cowboy poetry. Then the kids read each other's book that they had written for the event and did some activities. Parents and friends also get to read the kids' books, which are very entertaining.

We had a few EMS and fire calls for the month, including this vehicle fire. It had stalled, so the driver pulled it over to the side of the road, and then it caught on fire. She was able to get out safely, but the car was totally engulfed. Fortunately minimal brush caught on fire, as you can see there was some wind.

We got good practice with self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBAs). There are so many toxic fumes from a car fire that you don't want to breathe even a little of that smoke.

One last tidbit was a school field trip to the Aquarium in Draper, Utah. It's a 3.5 hour bus ride--each way--but it was worth it. Everyone had a great time and we certainly got to see things that we don't usually see in the remote desert!

Hope you had a good April and are enjoying May!