Miscellaneous June 2017

 I guess I'm not too far behind if I'm wrapping up June! Here are a few photos that didn't make it into previous posts. We enjoyed eating at the new Kerouac's Cafe in Baker, Nevada. The food is delicious and service is great! We've returned several times!

For work, I went up high in the mountains to protect some limber pines from mountain pine beetles. They are part of a proactive white pine blister rust program. Several trees (both bristlecone and limber pines) have been selected and pinecones harvested. The US Forest Service is propagating the pine seeds and then testing them for white pine blister rust, a non-native pathogen that can kill whole forests. The idea is that some resistant trees might be found, then their pine seeds can be stored and grown and resistant trees planted to help when the rust eventually arrives. In the meantime, we have to protect those trees from mountain pine beetle, so we apply verbenone, a natural pheromone that the  beetles excrete to say that the tree is full of beetles and the incoming beetles should select a different tree. So cool! (Bristlecone pines don't seem to be affected by mountain pine beetles, so we don't need to put verbenone on them.)

The bristlecone in this study isn't part of the study, but it looks cool.

We had been having some warm temps, but on this particular day it was really cold. And there were still snow drifts. Bruce and Becca helped us get up the road, moving trees and digging through snow/ice drifts. It was an adventure!

To my surprise, Nevada primrose was already blooming.

The views from Mt. Washington were amazing.

I spent a week near Redmond, Oregon teaching cave rescue. We had a fun day on the cliffs. This was a different type of rock than what we used for the rest of the week.

That's because there are lots of lava tubes around Redmond.


We didn't actually go in many, but we played at the entrances of several, including doing a highline across this one.


We also had some zen time in the gym/exhibition hall, floating students across.


Back at home, we tried out a new (used) sailboat that my husband purchased. It's lots of fun, but also a little scary when the wind gets going.

I enjoyed a trip to an ice cave that has part of its entrance blocked by snow.

It had never been entered this time of year before, so we didn't know what to expect. We couldn't use the bolts at the entrance, so tied off to a tree and went over the snow.

The transition to snow to ice was abrupt. It was an interesting cave, but very difficult to get to. We installed a wildlife camera at the entrance, so we'll learn what else is using the cave.

We've also been spending time with the lambs. We figure if they get used to chaos here, they'll do better at the fair. So we invite friends over to play!

Desert Boy got some lessons on showmanship, but needs a few more! It will be fun to watch him at the fair. He's definitely gotten a lot more confident, and I can see why it's good to start with animals that weigh about 100 pounds instead of those that weigh much more (like steers).

Western Regional Meeting of the NSS at Great Basin National Park

 Every fall, the Western Region of the National Speleological Society (NSS) holds an annual meeting. This year it was held at Great Basin National Park and organized by the Southern Nevada Grotto (caving club). The forecast wasn't great, but that didn't stop about 100 cavers from venturing out. After all, we were planning to spend a good amount underground, with temperatures of about 50 degrees F in the caves.

On Saturday morning, I joined Dave Bunnell's photo shoot in the Talus Room of Lehman Caves. This is a huge room that is off the regular tourist route, and the park wanted some photos to capture just how immense this room is. We found we can't get the whole room in just one photo because the floor fluctuates too much. But the photographers did get a bunch of great photos, including the Rainbow Wall (below).

In the afternoon, a variety of talks were held at Baker Hall (another nice place to get out of the cold and wet weather). 

I had Desert Girl with me and brought some boxes with me so she could make her own cave. She was excited to do that.

But then an opportunity came up to go into Little Muddy Cave with some other girls her age, and we jumped on that. 

Because I had been in the cave before, I led the trip and had the girls follow me and then the adults follow. The young girls were right behind me, loving it!

We eventually made it to the back of the cave and to the "Challenge Hole." Here's a dad giving it a try. He wasn't sure he could make it, but he did.

Leigh is heading down with no hands.

After going feet first, it was time to go head first, which was quite the plunge.

 

The girls kept going, trying it again and again.

Okay, some of the adults did too!

When we got back, we heard part of the business meeting and then it was time for a delicious dinner, catered by Salt & Sucre.

 Even in Baker Hall, coats and hats were being worn! It was about 20 degrees cooler than normal.

But what fun! Beginning cavers to experienced cavers were all intermingled, sharing stories.

The girls got back to making their cardboard cave.

Next was the Western Region auction with a variety of items from t-shirts to new rope.

The next morning I helped put on a mini-small party assisted rescue class. This class only lasted three hours, so we had to figure out what would be best to teach. One station was rigging for contingency, or in other words, how you can rig so if something goes wrong, you can make it right quickly.

Another station was traveling haul, one of my favorite small party techniques. You don't need any extra ropes, and if you have a couple pulleys, you can make quite an efficient system. 

Meanwhile the girls were practicing their knots in the corner.

Our third station was getting over a very difficult edge. If you have an extra ascender (mechanical or prusik) that can help a lot. Another trick is to tie a butterfly in the knot below you and stand up in that.

And back to the traveling haul with some different configurations students wanted to try (hint: a prusik at the top is not the most efficient way to set this up). 

Afterwards some folks did more caving, others started home. We had folks from California, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, and Arizona attend. It was a lot of fun!

If you want to reminisce, here are posts from some other Western Regionals:
Lava Beds (2017), Motherlode/Sonora (2016), Joshua Tree (2015)

Miscellaneous May

 Once again I have lots of miscellaneous photos for the month. Since my filing system is Year and then Month and then Event, it makes it easy for me to find these photos. My brother Ed came out in May and we took a drive up the Scenic Drive in Great Basin National Park. The road was closed at Mather Overlook, so we stopped there and shivered. It was fun to have some rain.

Down lower, Ed was able to enjoy the trampoline with the kids.

Desert Boy turned 11 and we celebrated with an Escape Room challenge. Even though it was aimed at kids, it was hard for them to solve, and there was definitely some frustration.

With a few clues, they were all able to escape.

Desert Boy really enjoys birthday parties. We'll see if he can practice enough to learn a couple songs on the ukelele.

Jenny showed amazing balance skills on the steel drum.

At work, we did a cave rescue practice, starting outside through an obstacle course.

Then we headed into the cave for a scenario.

We also spent lots of time at the settling pond, aka swimming hole. The mountain stream water is still cold, but that doesn't stop the kids. Having extra pool toys has allowed them more time on the water.

We helped briefly on a highway cleanup project.

Desert Girl and I got matching dresses from Svaha. They sell science-related apparel. We're wearing the cross-section of coral reef dresses.  (Click this link if you want to try them out and save 15% and help me earn some points to get discounts.)

Our rhubarb did well this year, and Desert Girl brought home a coupon from school that was an offer to make a rhubarb crisp. I took her up on it and it was delicious!

Desert Girl reached a milestone with her First Communion.

 Afterwards we went and looked for garnets at Garnet Hill and found a nice assortment.

We kept an eye on the owls. And Mama Owl, pictured below, kept a close eye on her two owlets and on us. To our amazement, all 7 of our chickens survived the backyard inhabitants.

We got 4-H t-shirts for our club and helped do a service project at a local cemetery to put out flowers for Memorial Day weekend.

Even though I was dreading the work, we got a small garden planted. This part followed the Square-Foot-Gardening method, where everything is planted densely to decrease weeds. Then I put down ag bag on the rest of the garden and made small holes for plants to keep weeds down there. Finally, I put a sprinkler on an automatic timer. So overall, the garden is relatively easy to maintain. We've been eating lettuce, spinach, cilantro, and peas out of it so far.

The end of school meant it was time for Field Day, a track and field event.

The events are so much fun to watch.

It also marked the retirement of the school custodian. He will be missed! Happy retirement!

Yikes, May is always a busy month. June doesn't have as many special activities, so we'll be focusing on play dates, sleepovers, and swimming. Hurray!