The Great Bull Debacle

 It was the morning of Christmas Eve and my husband came into the house.
"There's something interesting going on next door."
"What?" I asked. We usually don't have too much excitement around here.
"A bull got its head stuck in the feed panel."
I searched my brain for an image of a feed panel and was coming up short. "What's a feed panel?"
"Go see, the bull's down in the meadow."
So I bundled up the kids, grabbed my camera, and we walked along the fence line. On the far side of the neighbors' meadow, I could see the bull. And now I understood what the feed panel was.

I wondered how in the world they were going to get the feed panel off the bull. Or the bull out of the feed panel. Or however they would be separated.

 As it so happened, the neighbors were out of town for the holidays. So the guy that was watching their cattle called some friends, and then they called our ranch for some extra help. This wasn't the kind of problem that comes up every day. Or every week. Or every month. Or every year. Or probably even every ten years. This was a weird kind of problem. And it needed some extra heads to figure out how to free the bull.

 My brother-in-law Dave, who has a tremendous amount of experience with cattle, rounded up some tranquilizer. He had a bit of a dilemma deciding how much to give, as he knew the dosage for a cow, which weighs less than a bull, and had to estimate how much extra to give to the bigger bull. To make matters more confusing, the tranquilizer had been left in a vehicle overnight and had frozen, so its efficacy was unknown. He used his best judgment and drove up to the bull and darted it (you'll see the dart in the photo below. And speaking of photos, yes, there are a lot of photos in this post. And there are at least three times as many that I didn't post. You can thank me later.)

 See the dart in the left hip? After the bull had been darted, we (and I use that we very loosely, as I didn't really do anything except take photos, but I sort of felt like I was in on the whole thing as I witnessed it) had to wait for the tranquilizer to take effect. The bull looked a little pitiful with the big green metal accessory.

I was standing far enough away that I didn't know what the plan was. I was waiting and watching and trying to keep my kids from getting tetanus from all the old machinery and junk with exposed nails and sharp edges that they were playing on.

 I was a little surprised when the backhoe showed up, driven by my brother-in-law Tom. I couldn't figure out how a backhoe was going to be used in this situation.

 The bull was feeling a little calmer and had laid down in the meadow. Tom circled around and approached him from behind.

 The bull struggled to its feet as the backhoe came up next to it.

 It looked like Tom was going to scoop up the bull!

 Then it became apparent from my distant view point what was going on--Tom was lining up the bucket of the backhoe with the feed panel.

 Maybe he could push the feed panel off!

 A good shove, and nope, the bull was still stuck. On to Plan B. (Which might have been Plan A for all I know, but since I'm telling the story, I'll tell it how I want to.)

 Tom got out and lined up the panel with the backhoe. He didn't seem all that nervous being around a 1500+ pound tranquilized, trapped animal.

 He used the chain to attach the panel to the backhoe bucket.

 It looked secure to me.

 But then he had to get even closer to the bull to get more of the panel secured. I was nervous for him!

 Finally it was all secured and he gestured to the others to come up and help.

 They pulled Dave's truck right up next to the bull. The plan was to use a sawzall powered off Dave's truck with an inverter to cut through the feed panel. (I found this out after the fact, as I really couldn't hear anything they were saying.)

They got it all hooked up, but the inverter couldn't keep the power going consistently.

 The bull didn't appreciate all the extra noise and managed to bend the feed panel and get out of position. Dave pulled out his lasso rope and got into position.

 He lassoed the bull.

 Then he secured the rope on the back of the backhoe to help keep the bull in place.

I didn't have a great viewing angle, so I wandered down a bit farther, where I could see better.

 It was impressive how much the bull had bent the panel.

So what next?
The bull was still stuck, the feed panel was bent in half, the sawzall wasn't working.
It didn't look good.

Fortunately for everyone, there was a Plan C.

 Tom approached the bull again. (Like how the bull is kicking? Aack!)

  I couldn't quite see what he was doing except when I took a photo at full zoom and then played it back and zoomed even closer. He had out a hacksaw and was cutting right above the bull's neck.

 Then it was time to pull the bar up.

 Pull, pull, pull!

 And it worked! The bull was free.

And all ended well.

So now if you ever find a bull stuck in a feed panel, you know what to do.

Introducing Henryosaurus

 This is Henryosaurus, the rearticulated dinosaur found in Bone Canyon. Desert Boy and my husband had a fun time putting it together.

 As you can see, Desert Girl doesn't quite know what to make of this fantastic creature with multiple sets of teeth.

I have a feeling that we will soon be adding to our unique dinosaur collection.

A January Hike

 It was a beautiful Friday afternoon and I had spent too much time sitting all week, so I took the afternoon off to go hiking with the kids. Desert Boy was glad to go out, but had a couple tears because he wanted to have friends go hiking with us, and they were all busy with other activities.

 I'm not sure what Desert Girl was thinking. She was keeping warm in her coat. Not that it was all that cold--it was upwards of 50 degrees.

I wasn't entirely sure where to go, but ultimately decided to go towards a canyon not too far from our house. I couldn't get too wild, as I was driving the low-clearance two-wheel drive soccer mom van.

 On the way I spotted a large bird and noticed it had a white head. Brakes!! We stopped to admire the beautiful bald eagle. We usually have a couple that spend the winter near us, and it's always so cool to see them.

Then we continued on our way, and instead of going up into the canyon, decided to climb a "mountain" that juts up from the bench on the way up to the canyon. The "mountain" doesn't have a name, but when I deigned to call it a hill, Desert Boy was quick to disagree.
"That's a big mountain," he said.
Okay, I wasn't going to disagree.
"Do you think we can climb it?"
"Yes."
Good. Because I knew he could. But it would be better if we wanted to.
Before we started the hiking challenge, we had the fording the creek challenge. In the low-clearance two-wheel drive soccer mom van.

Momentum was our friend, and we made it across. Good thing, too. It would have been really embarassing to have to go for help and tell someone we had gotten the van stuck in the middle of the creek.

 Before I had gotten out of the van and Desert Girl strapped on me and the camera ready, Desert Boy and Henry had charged up the mountain. This mountain is known for lots of rattlesnakes in the summer, so it was nice to be climbing it in winter and not have to worry about them at all.

 When I finally caught up to Desert Boy, he was trying to scale the sharp limestone on a "huge" cliff. He made a good start of it, but eventually slid right down the face of it. He skinned part of his hand, getting a "blood owie." Then it was time for more tears because I didn't have a bandaid with me. I know, what an unprepared mom I was!

I convinced him we could continue, and despite great protestations, we ascended.

 We could measure our progress by how much smaller the sheep camp below looked.

l

 Yep, it's tough to climb a mountain with a blood owie. Really tough.

 I was amazed that there wasn't any snow. And looking up the canyon, we could hardly see snow at the higher elevations.

 We hadn't gotten too far when the kids decided it was snack time or else. So we plopped down and they happily sipped and munched away. Afterwards they were slightly more willing to continue.

 They got much more excited when we found some fossils.

 Here I am holding one for scale.

 Then the whole mindset for the hike changed. Now we were on a mission to find cool fossils.

 And cool caves. This one was big enough for the kids to climb into it.

 It turned out it had a sunroof so I could look down at them. We found several other little holes to investigate, and Desert Girl got really good at spotting them. Unfortunately my camera battery died and the spare was back in the low-clearance two-wheel drive soccer mom van, so the photo taking part of the trip was over.

We made it to the peak and enjoyed the view. Then Desert Boy was really concerned about how we were going to get back down. I told him there was a special way. And lucky for me, there was. We went down a little gully, and on the way, we saw some bones. Desert Boy entered his dinosaur paleontologist mode and immediately declared we had discovered some dinosaur bones. He asked if he could take them home. I told him that if he carried them, he could. Then we found more bones. And more. It turned out that the gully was full of sheep bones, including some recent deaths with lots of wool all around them. Desert Boy had to pick and choose what he wanted and filled up his backpack. He decided he was going to make an Emmasaurus with that day's finds, and then we might have to go back to gather more to make a Henryosaurus and a Daddyosaurus and a Mommyosaurus.

 Here are some bones he had at the end, while he's looking at a large sheep dog with a blood-covered face that came up to check us out. Fortunately she was very friendly. I tried not to dwell too much on why her fur was blood red. It wasn't too appealing.

 I tried out my new camera lens.

Hurray, we survived the mountain! Then we went home and promptly all took a nap.

Fun with Triops

 We're starting the New Year with some new pets: Triops. My first thoughts about these creatures is that my parents really should have let us have these when we were kids.

They instantly stop fights because the parent just says, "Look at the Triops."
or
"What are the Triops doing?" 
or
"Are the Triops still alive?"
or
"Have the Triops grown so much that they're going to eat your head off?"
 and the kid is immediately distracted. They're also much more entertaining at breakfast than reading the backs of cereal boxes (which is what we did when we were kids when we weren't throwing dirty looks at each other).

 Every day I wonder if the Triops are still alive in their slightly murky water. Why is the water murky? Maybe because my husband feeds them hamburger. Maybe because I give them a little carrot once in awhile. Maybe because we couldn't resist adding some sand to the bottom, and the water has never been quite the same since.

Fortunately, Triops are quite hardy. They lived when the dinosaurs lived. Whatever killed the dinosaurs, the Triops survived. It probably helped that their eggs can be dormant for up to 30 years. 

 The above photo was taken a couple weeks later than the first two, and the Triops has grown in size, to almost half an inch. It's really cool looking.

 They live in our water pitcher, for perspective. And to future house guests: if you see this water pitcher on the table, DO NOT drink from it unless you ask first. I'm not sure what Triops taste like, but I imagine the sensation of something going down your throat and wiggling its way into your stomach is not pleasant.

 We have one Triops that looks like a classic Triops, and then we have a bunch of these shrimpy-looking things (as my friend Anna calls them. And a million thanks to Anna for starting us on our Triops adventure!). I should do a little research and figure out what they are, but when I did the research before, I didn't get much past the part where you could add sand and feed them carrots on weekends.

Photographing Triops has proven to be a challenge. This one looks like it's ready to jump out of the pitcher and attack.

Don't you want some? We need some Triops penpals!