Kennecott Utah Copper's Bingham Canyon Mine

Back in May (yep, I'm just a wee bit behind on posting some photos!), we took a trip to the Kennecott Utah Copper's Bingham Canyon Mine. We had seen it advertised on a flyer at the hotel, and it looked like something a little different to do. So we loaded up in the van and headed a bit south of Salt Lake City. After paying our $5 vehicle entrance fee, we proceeded up a windy road marked with numerous signs warning us to stay on the road.

We followed the signs for the visitor center, and upon arriving, found this amazing sight in front of us.

This copper mine has produced more copper than any other mine in history--more than 18.1 million tons. It's about 2 3/4 miles across at the top and 3/4 of a mile deep. Mining started in Bingham Canyon in 1863, with engineers soon after recommending a revolutionary way of mining the ore, using a process called open-pit mining and then refining the ore on an industrial scale.

The large scale processing proved necessary because this low-grade ore only contains 10.6 pounds of copper per ton of ore! About 200 holes, each 55-feet deep, are drilled each day and packed with 1,200 pounds of special blasting agents. Every day about 150,000 tons of ore and 330,000 tons of overburden are mined.

To move all this ore and overburden, the mine has 70 giant haulage trucks. You can see the size of them above compared to the crew-cab pickup that is also traveling on the road. Each haulage truck carries 255 to 320 tons of material in each trip at an average speed of 13 mph.

The visitor center had a nice movie and well-thought-out displays. The kids especially liked the models of the mining equipment. I really liked looking at the historic photos and how much things have changed. We also learned about different uses for copper, such as in plumbing, computers, and telephones. It turns out that each person in the U.S. uses about 30 pounds of copper a year. It was a thought-provoking trip, and I'm really glad we went and took a look.

Later, I got to see the mine from the Oquirrh Overlook, which you can take a peek at in this blog post.

To learn more about the mine and get directions for visiting, check out their website.

Scenes from the Ranch

 I saw this strangely-colored tree as I was coming out of my driveway. It took me a minute to remember that the weed guy was spraying Russian olives today. Russian olives are a nasty invader that can turn a meadow into a thorn forest in just a few years. They grow really fast and are aggressive. This one isn't more than two or three years old, but it's already fairly tall.

 Normally the leaves are olive green in color. The bluish hue make them seem like fantasyland.

Down the road I noticed big birds out in the meadow. I zoomed in to find the group of sandhill cranes that likes to summer at the ranch. During the spring and fall we see a lot more as they head north and then return on their migration, but a few have decided that this little part of the Great Basin is just right for their summer vacation.

One was really intent on grooming itself.

Meet Desert Boy's newest pet: a roly poly. He was so excited about finding it under some rocks. He collected it and some dirt and gravel and wanted to take it home. I didn't exactly agree, but found it in the van. I said it wasn't going in the house, but he could keep it in his tree house. Desert Boy wanted to know when he could move into his tree house. What would you have answered?

Before I knew it, Desert Boy had taken a bottle out of recycling and had decided that would be the new home for his roly poly.

(If you're wondering what I answered about the tree house living, I told him he could live there when he turned 18. That's the same answer I gave him when he asked about skydiving.)

The roly poly's name is Dirt. By the way, the name for his slightly deformed crawdad (probably due to too many catch-and-releases) was Snapper. It's probably good I record all these, because when he tells me later that I should let him have another pet, I can show him the list of all his pets.

I'm wondering how long Dirt will live in his new bottle in the tree house. Any guesses?

Catching Crawdads

 I forgot to mention in my past post that one of the highlights of the swimming was catching crawdads. With the extremely low water levels, plenty of mud was exposed, along with holes that the crawdads like to hide in. The kids quickly found their favorite spots and started catching them.

Desert Boy wasn't so sure about actually picking up one of the crawdads with his bare hands. He tried using the shovel method, but didn't have much success. The convince-a-cousin-to-pick-it-up method worked for awhile, but eventually he was on his own, and had to give it a try.

He doesn't look too sure of himself, does he? Probably for good reason. I don't consider crawdads to be particularly appetizing creatures--by any definition!

Nevertheless, he did it. He was really proud of himself.

He loaded it into a bucket and during a weak moment, I let him convince me to bring it home. Yep, we had a pet crawdad. Fortunately I get to use the word "had." Past tense. Our new pet survived a few hours. We didn't hold a burial for it. In fact, I'm not sure where it went. Maybe I don't want to know. I'm just thinking that one pet crawdad for the summer has met our quota of extraneous pets, and now we can go back to enjoying life with our awesome dog, Henry. He's a wee bit more appealing than the crawdad.

Fun with the Cousins

 The California cousins came to visit, and we went for a picnic lunch with them. While we were there, this swallowtail landed on Ruby, and she gave it to Desert Girl.

 Desert Girl was enthralled. I don't know if she had ever held a butterfly before.

 She can't stop smiling.

 Now the butterfly is getting really close, and she's not so sure anymore.

 Maybe it's better if butterflies stay at arm's length!

 Beautiful Ruby!

 The swallowtail left Desert Girl, but it stuck around.

 Desert Boy took a look at it, but he was much more interested in...

 ...bones! He found a wonderful big bone and was so delighted when I told him he could bring it home. It's in our sandbox now.

 Next we went swimming, and the girls headed out into the warm water.

 Desert Girl loved swimming with her Grandma.

 Desert Girl was learning how to hang out from her older cousins!

We had a fun afternoon.

So much fun that we came back and swam the next day. You can never swim too much in a hot summer!

Harvesting

It's harvest time, at least for some of the fruit. Our big apricot tree was full of ripe apricots the last week of June. It's always the first to produce and the apricots are wonderfully sweet. We ate them straight off the tree (or the ground--we couldn't reach most of them in the tree), gave them away to friends and family, dried them, made jam, and canned some. Yum.

Right now, the apricot tree in the backyard has apricots. I've never seen it with so many, and they are also delicious. I have to admit that I'm a little tired of apricots now! I also found that if I eat too many, I get a rash on my palms.

The kids and a friend tried selling some apricots at their lemonade stand. Desert Boy came up with the idea, and he learned a little bit about how difficult it is to be an entrepreneur. He also doesn't have much of a concept of money, except that he likes it and needs it to play video games at the Border Inn. Desert Girl sampled the lemonade copiously, doing repeated quality-control testing.

In my fourth attempt to grow blueberries, I've finally succeeded! Of course it helped that the bush I bought this year already had green berries on it. I still managed to almost kill it. Fortunately some new leaves and berries are growing, and I'm looking for acidifier to make the bush even happier.

Are you harvesting any fruits?