Local Happenings aka A Rather Random Post

 Some of these photos are a little older. (Or maybe a lot older, but who's counting? :) After the fair, we had one sheep left. Sheep are social, so it followed us (and the dog) around everywhere. Including to the swimming hole!

The kids painted some rocks and found some rocks around town.

It's always a fun surprise.

Every once in awhile you should take time for a tea party. Holding your pinky out is optional.

While it was warmer, we played soccer at the playground. Actually the "we" didn't include me, but I enjoyed watching. Maybe next year I'll work up the guts to get out there and give it a try!

Desert Girl is still working on being an animal trainer. Here was some success getting Maggie to go down the slide.

One evening I was in search of sandhill cranes. I found the cows creating quite a lot of dust.

I eventually found the sandhill cranes. Such cool looking birds!

When they took flight I was lucky to get them backlit. What beauty!


Meanwhile, the cows were curious and coming to see what I was doing.

And just playing around.

Here's a fun fact. Baker Ranch provides the hay for the National Finals Rodeo. The horses, bulls, and other animals get some delicious high desert hay. 

These cows are eating a mixture of feed grown on Baker Ranch.

As you've seen, this is very much a rambling post. So why not include Desert Girl's fish imitation?

Along with her drawing of fish. She also wants to be a marine biologist.

One day, Desert Girl and I took a trip to Garnet Hill near Ely, Nevada. Desert Girl was ready with a hammer to find some garnets.

I was fascinated watching the huge mine trucks on the next mountain. The mine trucks look tiny, which tell you how big the mine is.

It's been a busy year for our volunteer fire department. This day was someone burning brush that got out of control.

Fortunately it wasn't too windy, and the fire didn't spread much.

Each year the local school kids do a Wheel-a-thon as a fundraiser. The younger kids (grades K-2) ride eight miles, and the older kids (grades 3-6) ride sixteen miles.

This year, local law enforcement from four jurisdictions came out and did some educational activities. I think they also enjoyed sharing stories.

And here's one of our super bus drivers, Carrie. She followed the kids at the Wheel-a-thon. And she takes Desert Girl to school every day. It is great to see her smiling face every day!

Rodeo Fun

Delta, Utah was having a rodeo this last weekend for three days, so we decided to go to it Friday night. Amazingly we made it on time for the Grand Entry. (I say amazingly because my husband ended up having to work late and then we had to take a potty break on the way there which is a little time consuming when the little ones that have to go are buckled into the very back of the van!)

I'm always so impressed with how easy the riders make riding a horse look!

Then it was time for the exciting riding to begin! They started with bareback riding, and many of the riders stayed on the eight seconds and more.

And here's Isaac! Jenny and her kids came with us, which made the night even more fun. Isaac loved running up and down the bleachers.

More bucking horses. Ouch. Just watching them makes me ache.

Desert Boy and Ava were keen spectators--sometimes! There was a good crowd, but still plenty of room for more rodeo fans. The weather was about perfect.

I don't know exactly what they were looking at when I snapped this photo, but it must have been good!

Then it was time for mutton bustin'. About a dozen little kids wanted to try their best to stay on the back of a sheep.

Most of them immediately fell off.

One little tyke was like a tic, though. I didn't even notice he was still hanging on for a bit, as he held on so well! (He's on the sheep second from the right.)

Then it was time for steer wrestling. In this round, the steer won.

When I asked Desert Boy what his favorite part of the rodeo was, he said the dessert. He was mightily impressed by the snowcones. You can see what color Ava had.

Back in the arena was a really bizarre show with monkeys riding border collies. I had never seen anything like it.

After running around the bleachers for awhile, Isaac finally got tired and was willing to sit still--in his mom's arms.

 

I didn't get photos of all the events, mainly because the fast action and low light were challenging conditions for my camera. Above is one of the barrel racers-they sure were fast!

I wanted to get a nice shot of all the kids, but probably waited a little too late into the night. They all stayed awake throughout the rodeo. Three fell asleep pretty fast on the way home, but Desert Boy persevered until the last half hour.

I'm really glad we went, it really brought out the spirit of the Wild West. Plus it was some downright good entertainment. 

2011 Old Sheepherders' Party

Last weekend we were fortunate to be able to attend the 2011 Sheepherders' Party, celebrating a way-of-life that is fascinating to me. It was held at the Border Inn and attracted a full house. Friday evening was open mike, and we heard some great stories of life out on the range, some risque jokes, super singing, and much more.

The next day we missed the sourdough pancake breakfast and range tour, but we were able to make it to the afternoon program featuring Sid Hausman.

Sid Hausman is a real treat. A talented musician, songwriter, and artist, he had something for everyone in the program. I was in awe of his musical ability, he made it seem so easy!

He switched to a banjo, giving a perfect twang for his Southwest-themed music.

Emma was having a ball. She loves music, and she spent nearly the entire program on her feet, wiggling along to the beat. Here she graces Denys with some of her moves.

Little Desert Girl could really move!

She took a liking to the gentleman sitting across the row from us and took her first step on her own without coaxing to go over to him. I didn't get a chance to tell him afterwards what a momentous occasion it was.

Ukelele? You bet. He made it sound good, too!

Then it was time to get the kids to Grandma and Grandpa's so my hubby and I could go enjoy the Basque-style dinner. It was wonderful not trying to entertain kids for two hours and just be able to enjoy conversing with our tablemates.

The food was delicious: soup, salad, lamb, beef, chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, wine, punch, and ice cream and cookie for dessert.

The cafe was packed, and everyone was having a good time.

I love this photo of Sam rushing off to do something important. He looks great in his cowboy hat!

Afterwards it was time to visit with friends and then get the kids so they could enjoy some dancing to the music of the Silver Sage Band. What a great party. We can't wait till next year!

(If you want to see more about sheep on this blog, click the little blue word sheep below.)

Into the Inversion

So we've managed to get an impressive amount of snow out here in the Great Basin Desert.

Even the old-timers are saying things like, "I haven't seen this much snow since my aunt wrecked the car by driving into a snow drift and then had to walk five miles home in a blinding blizzard (uphill), but instead she got lost and went in circles (uphill) for three hours, and then it was really like ten miles she walked (uphill), and she only survived because the Christmas star came out and guided her the rest of the way (uphill)."

Okay, nobody said that.

But I have heard a couple comparisons (or hoping that we aren't going to be compared) to the winter of '48-'49, which was a really bad one. So much snow fell and blew--and blew--that most of the roads in the area were closed and lots of livestock were stranded out in the range. Ranchers couldn't get out to check on them, because each time they started off from home in their Caterpillar dozers, the snow blew back over their tracks and they risked getting stranded themselves.

Sheepherders in lonely sheep camps couldn't even go far from their tiny abodes because of the deep snow. They despaired as they saw more sheep dying each day and they were helpless to do anything about it. They relied on the radio to get news of what was going on in the outside world. And fortunately they got news of something to help them out: Operation Haylift. The U.S. Air Force came out to help, dropping hundreds of tons of hay in western Utah and eastern Nevada. This real-life event took place using C82 "flying boxcars." You can read a pretty good account in this Time article. Hollywood also made a movie called Operation Haylift, using some real footage, and you can find it on Netflix.

Somehow I've managed to digress, because the real topic of today's post is the inversion we've had the past few days. I guess being in all the frigid weather with deep snow has put me in a wee bit of a gloomy mood with regards to weather.

Up high on the mountain, the weather has been great. It's snowy there, too, of course, but the sun is out and trees are emerging from their wintery weight.

Down in the valley, it's been a different story. Instead of the warmer weather being at the lower elevations, like it usually is, the temperatures have inverted, with a cap of air keeping the cold air down in the valley. Those cold air molecules have sunk, and they're trapped until we have wind to blow them out.

Entering an inversion is kind of an interesting process. You start out in the nice sunlight and see the cloud layer below. On the other side of the valley you can see the mountains poking out above the clouds, looking like islands in the mist.

The cloud layer made me think of the time when vast Pleistocene lakes, some as big as today's Lake Michigan, filled the valleys in the Basin and Range country. That was back in the days of the wooly mammoths, dire wolves, camelids, two different horse species, and an array of other animals that made their home here. Paleoindians roamed the area, hunting these animals. It was cooler and wetter than recent millenia.

We've gotten so much snow that the bushes are entirely covered, appearing as white hummocks from a fast moving vehicle. Or from a slow crawl. Or anything in between. This is the kind of weather you expect in Montana, not in Nevada.

The road straightened and the layer of clouds started looking more ominous. I could still see the mountains on the other side...

...but not for long.

It sort of felt like a bad horror movie. You know what's going to happen, but you just can't avoid watching it happen.

And then, there it was: the road disappearing into the clouds. And I was hurtling myself into it.

Help! Stuck in the inversion!

Fortunately this inversion cleared out in a few days. We don't have pollution stuck under the cloud layer with us (like Los Angeles frequently does), so although the colder temperatures (about 15 degrees colder that day in the clouds from up in the sun) and gloomier light might make everyone feel a bit grumpy, it could be worse.

When Desert Boy got up Christmas morning and asked why our stockings hung by the fireplace with care weren't filled with goodies (he had heard from a neighbor that they would be, and then I had promptly forgot), I considered telling him Santa Claus couldn't come in for a landing in the inversion. But I didn't. I chose distraction instead. Hopefully that was the right thing to do.