Stained Glass Windows in Visitor Center

For the second year of the artist-in residence program at Great Basin National Park, artist Kay Malouff was selected. She is a professional stained glass artist, and she offered to do a stained glass mosaic for the slanted window in the new visitor center.

Every scene includes many components of the park, from Lexington Arch, to cave formations, lizards, wildflowers, bats, and mountain scenes.

In the panel above she depicts golden aspen leaves, a bristlecone pine, the glacial moraine, and more. Every time I look at the windows I notice something new.

Towering in the sky is Wheeler Peak, with the foothills below, where a deer stands and a Kachina figure pictograph graces a rock surface.

Morning is the best time to catch the light through the stained glass window, as it faces east.

The stained glass windows certainly brighten up the visitor center and makes it a much more appealing place.

If you're an artist and interested in the program, here's more information:
The Darwin Lambert Artist-Writer in Residence offers visual and performing artists, composers, and writers the opportunity to live and work in Great Basin National Park. The selected resident stays in a small cabin in the park for a 2 to 4 weeks residency, starting in late September or early October. Besides the cabin, no other stipend is offered. Residents must donate one original piece of their work to the park’s permanent museum collection. Residents are also required to present one public program in which they describe their work in relation to the park and its natural and cultural resources. The deadline for submissions is April 1, 2009. Selection for the 2009 residency will be announced during the first two weeks of June, 2009.

For more information on the Artist-Writer in Residence program, visit www.nps.gov/grba/supportyourpark/artistinresidence.htm. Interested artists and writers may also reach the residency coordinator, Roberta Moore, at 775-234-7331 for more information.

Adventures in the Junkyard Reaches the Quarterfinals in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Contest!

I woke to good news this morning--my manuscript Adventures in the Junkyard has made it to the quarterfinals of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA) contest! I quickly went in to tell my husband.

He rolled over in bed and said, "Great. Couldn't you have waited an hour to tell me?"

It was 4:30 a.m., early even by his standards, but something like that couldn't wait any longer.  I went back to bed and fell asleep promptly, dreaming sweet dreams. He went back to sleep, too, because I later heard him telling his alarm clock it was supposed to go off.

The ABNA contest was open for entries the first week of February, and they received thousands of entries. Then the entries were winnowed down to the top 2,000 based on a 250-word pitch about the story. These were further narrowed down by an excerpt of the beginning of the book to 500 quarterfinalists.

Now those excerpts are available for the public to read and review on Amazon.com. (I have the link to my excerpt at the end of this post.)

My story is called Adventures in the Junkyard, and the reason I'm telling you all about it is because the initial idea came from a blog post I did about the junkyard. So I guess blogging can have far-reaching effects! 

Adventures in the Junkyard is about a twelve-year old girl who goes down to her family's junkyard, and when she gets into a vehicle is transported back to that vehicle's most memorable moment.

Her first experience is in this 1953 GMC truck. What do you think could be the most memorable moment for it? How will she deal with time traveling?

If you'd like to learn more, take a ride over to the site and check out Adventures in the Junkyard, in the Fantasy category, at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001UG3C4Y.   Thanks!

New Exhibits in Great Basin Visitor Center

In 2006, a new visitor center opened at Great Basin National Park, down in the town of Baker. The old visitor center, up at Lehman Caves, is still open, but focuses on caves, while the new one looks at the entire Great Basin region. It took time and money to get the exhibits, but they've finally arrived and are really neat.

The visitor center is the building on the right, and the resource center, which includes a classroom, lab, office space, and a small library, on the left. Jeff Davis Peak, part of Great Basin National Park, is in the background.

One of the first things you see when you enter the exhibit area is this life-like bristlecone pine tree. It looks very much like the old-growth bristlecone pines found up near the Wheeler cirque and rock glacier at over 10,000 feet high. These trees are known to live over 4,000 years, but only in harsh conditions. In addition, only a small part of the tree is alive, like the exhibit shows.

There's a wall with cultural exhibits, looking at how the Fremont and Shoshone cultures lived. There is also this sheep camp exhibit, complete with the border collie lying underneath it. Kids love looking at the dog.

Another wall has exhibits about the different life zones that are found from the valley floor all the way up to the mountain tops.

Desert Boy was fascinated with the stream exhibit, which was down at his level and had fish. He can say "fish," which probably was part of the reason he liked it so much. I have to admit, having a small child made me look at exhibits in a totally different way. 

This rattlesnake made a few people jump. It stayed put, though.

There were some cutaways that showed what lives in the ground, which in the desert is quite a lot. The sagebrush vole is one of the creatures that hides from the temperature extremes in a burrow.

Here are some gigantic ants that look a little creepy.

Each exhibit has birds included with it. There's so much more to see, but I figure if I show it all, then you won't have an excuse to go and see it for yourself! To find out when the Great Basin Visitor Center is open, call 775-234-7331.

And if you have a little one, ask where the toy drawer is. They have puppets of all different sizes that don't even mind someone riding them.

Baby Calves

The heifers are nearly done calving, and it won't be long until the cute little baby calves are turning into teenagers. I'm a sucker for the baby calves, so I have lots of pictures of them! Here's number 77. Each calf gets the same number as his or her mama, so when they're being moved from pasture to pasture it's easier to keep track of them. Although the older range cows are often better at pairing up, heifers can easily get confused and lose track of their little ones. (Perhaps that same phenomenon applies to humans and is why Desert Boy made it to the post office five minutes ahead of me yesterday.)

And there are quite a few little ones. Unlike some earlier photos where they were chasing each other around, on this day they seemed to be resting. I must have missed the play session.

The additional hay is to help keep the calves warmer and drier, because when they are first born they are all wet. When a stiff wind is blowing on a cold night, it doesn't take long for a calf to get chilled. 

Here's a wet calf--it is only a few hours old. It still looks so unsure of the world and is sticking close to mom.

Mom eats on. The calf looks slightly less worried.

Mom is keeping a close eye on me. Never get between a cow and her calf--that's a good way to get trampled by a 1,000 pound beast. Yet the cow is very gentle with her brand new calf. And this calf is still getting accustomed to an entirely different environment. Do you see the umbilical cord hanging down from the calf?

The calf is starting to explore a little more. And mom is still eating. Do you wonder what she's so intent on eating? There's no green hay in sight.

She's eating the placenta. It's full of nutrients and apparently she wants them. If she doesn't eat the placenta, there are plenty of other animals that will: eagles, coyotes, ravens, and dogs. 

If you're groaning, keep in mind this is a nature blog. I'm just showing it how it is!

Sledding Date

Our snow is melting rapidly, so I figured I better get this photo up before it's all gone. Desert Boy and his friend "Aya" weren't too sure about the snow on this sledding trip, but I have a feeling that by the time next sledding season rolls around, we won't be able to keep them out of the snow!