First Day of Kindergarten

 Desert Boy started kindergarten today. The night before we went to the school so the kids could pick out their desks, play, and eat cookies. The parents learned important stuff like dress code and that the kids would get homework four days a week. The parents couldn't help smiling as the kids bounced around, obviously so happy to be going to school.

 Although from this photo, it looks like the boys might have a hard time sitting still at their desks!

We don't have many kids out here, so grades K-2 are in a one-room schoolhouse with one teacher and one aide. There are about 15 kids in the three grades.

I had to take a photo of los tres amigos in front of the school. I love how they are holding hands. (Do you see one extra hand in the photo? Any guesses who that belongs to?)

 This morning we did the first-day-of-school photo. Desert Girl insisted that she be in it too.

 At the bus stop we tried to get the kids to line up, but they didn't want to look in the same spot at the same time.

 Cute little Izaak. He's got a few years to go!

 When the bus pulled up and opened the doors, Desert Boy dashed to it.

 All the kids were so excited to go. They didn't look back.

 I think Henry wanted to go to.

At the end of the day, Desert Boy still had lots of energy. He had a quick meltdown when I told him he couldn't have a playdate with one of his friends that afternoon. But he soon recovered, and we went home and got the homework out of the way and played lots. After dinner he made his lunch so he's all ready to go in the morning.

I asked lots of questions about his day.
Favorite part of it? Lying down during story time.
What song did they sing? One about bears.
What did they do in P.E.? Puzzles. (I'm not sure if that's what they really did, but that's what he told me.)
Did they do math? Yep, but he couldn't remember what.
What letters did they write? A through G.
What stories did the teacher read to them? Actually, I forget his answer!

He said the school was warm, he ate most his lunch but not all of it, and overall, "School was great!"

Here's hoping for many more great school days!

A Smoky Afternoon

 I was enjoying a little quiet time in the afternoon when the pager went off announcing a fire just a few miles away. I'm part of the Volunteer Fire Department, so after scurrying a bit to find my Nomex pants, fire boots, and fire pack, I made it to the station and jumped on the second truck to head up the hill. We could see the smoke in the distance, so it was easy to see where we needed to go.

 The fire was caused by a lightning strike (several people saw the exact one), and burning in sagebrush-scrub.

 We went to work on one side of the fire, trying to cool off the flames and keep the fire relatively small.

 Wind was not our friend, as it kept shifting. Soon we saw that we needed to move to another part of the fire.

 As the wind pushed the fire a new direction, it had more fuel to consume, and the flames shot up. We kept hoping that the extra engines on the way would get there soon, as it was more than our two engines and water tender could handle.

 The conditions got pretty smoky in places. A little of that smoke is good, but a lot is not so much fun.

 Law enforcement had the road blocked off, which made it much easier to work. Above, the first BLM engine and our water tender are checking in.

 We really like this old truck, but it has a bad habit of dying in inconvenient spots. We had to work a little to keep the fire from burning up the truck.

 We wanted to keep the fire from crossing the road, and we were successful in that, although the fire kept spreading on the south side of the road.

 The south side of the fire, which was the quietest when we got there, jumped to life and showed a big flame front that wasn't so easy to get to.

 I had to leave after a couple hours and go get the kids. This is what the smoke looked like from down in the valley.

 After some much needed snacks and ibuprofen, we went back up to the fire to see how my husband was doing. We saw that plenty of help had arrived, including two helicopters equipped with buckets. They had no problem getting to the back side off the fire.

 The kids had fun checking things out from the back of the van.

 More water drops.

 It is fascinating watching a helicopter at work.

 Meanwhile, the kids were busy making a meteor crater.

 Then they decided they were digging for gold. It kept them very happy.

 The Volunteer Fire Department tender was kept busy refilling the fire trucks. I had to go to a talk that evening, so we left my husband with the tender. He was supposed to watch the kids while I worked, but he couldn't get away. He finally left quite a bit after dark, and said that there were still some engines out there. Every time the wind shifted (which was often), more embers would burn and they had more smokes to put out.

We're crossing our fingers that too much cheatgrass doesn't grow on this site, but based on the elevation, it's pretty likely that cheatgrass will soon dominate. That's one of the toughest things about fires in sagebrush--at one time they were really beneficial, but now cheatgrass makes a spot even more prone to fire. The fire size was estimated at about 50 acres.

If you'd like to keep up-to-date with our fire department, you can like us on Facebook.

Topaz Museum Groundbreaking

We took a break from the Millard County Fair on Saturday morning to go to the main park in Delta for the Topaz Internment Camp Museum Groundbreaking. Topaz was one of several internment camps during World War II. Over 110,000 Americans of Japanese descent were taken from their homes and put into camps for years. They were never charged with any crimes, yet they had to stay in the camps, surrounded by barbed wire fences and guards. Over 11,000 were processed at Topaz, out in the Great Basin desert.

Jane Beckwith started the push to recognize Topaz about twenty years ago. Since that time, the Topaz Museum Board has accomplished a lot. They've bought 634 acres of the 640 acre site of Topaz. It was named a National Historic Landmark by the National Park Service. They also purchased property on Main Street for the Topaz Museum and received a NPS grant to design the exhibits. They've raised $1.6 million toward their goal of $2.3 million. They've also done a lot of outreach over the years, spreading the word about what happened at Topaz.

That outreach has been successful, as there was a very good turnout.

Toru Saito shared two songs with the crowd.

Willie Ito, a former Topaz Internee, spoke. He was a child during the war, and he practiced his cartoon drawing. Later he was employed as a cartoonist for the movie industry. It was good to hear something positive came out of the terrible idea of Topaz and the other internment camps.

Drummers from the Kenshin Taiko group performed amazing numbers on their huge drums.

The sound echoed all around the park.

Next was the groundbreaking for the museum. It will be located next to the Great Basin Museum on Main Street. Delta is sure getting classy with two museums on Main Street!

The rest of the day included tours to the Topaz site, presentations, more Taiko drumming, the showing of the digital mapping project of the site, and more.

To learn more about Topaz, check out their excellent website, which includes links in the Digital Archive section to photos and newspapers from the 1940s.

A Walk in the Woods

Shoes? Check.
Cameras? Check.
Water bottles? Check.
LOTS of snacks? Check.
Pirate gear? Check.
Princess paraphanelia? Check.
Train sounds? Check.
We were ready to go hiking, a little walk in the woods.

 I was on the lookout for photos for a photo challenge, with this week's theme being fruit and flowers. I found some Oregon grape (Mahonia repens) berries.

 Desert Boy had expressed some interest in taking photos, so I let him use my old camera. Desert Girl just wanted a snack.

 Redroot buckwheat (Eriogonum racemosum), one of the prettiest late summer flowers.

 Our hike suddenly got exciting when we found we could eat some of nature's bounty. The wild raspberries were delicious.

 A butterfly landed on my shirt. It turned out to be a Pine White.

 The currants were at their peak, and the kids quickly learned how to forage for them.

 Yum!

 I saw this dragonfly (or is it a damselfly?) and that made me take the photo, but I didn't notice the spider dangling underneath till later.

 We made it to our destination, a bridge where the kids snacked and spent twenty minutes throwing sticks into the water. They really didn't want to leave, but finally conceded it would be okay as long as they had hiking sticks.

 The sun peeked out from the storm clouds and made the mountain mahogany seeds glow.

 The trees look so cool!

Here are the kids sharpening their wood pirate and princess knives. They made up lots of games on the hike back, which made me delighted as in the past I've had to make up games for them. They also thought it was lots of fun to run down the trail, and Desert Girl would yell out, "Running," and then take off. They already want to hike again today, so I think that means we had a successful day.

Monsoons Are Back

 This morning a large cloud came over the mountain, sending out rumbles and drops of rain. Behind it was blue sky, and I figured we would resume the heat in the afternoon. But I was wrong. We ended up with a stormy day, and rain even accompanied the thunder and lightning. (That is notable in the desert--we get many storms with no rain.) After dinner I couldn't resist going for a little walk to enjoy the spectacular light.

 I could see more storm clouds to the south. It was beautiful. It was also fun to watch the heifers totally ignore those dark clouds and distant lightning.

 We headed back out for a family walk, but in the time it took to find kids' shoes, the light had faded. The lightning hadn't faded, so I tried my best to capture some lightning shots.

 There were some magnificent displays, and sometime I will have to use a tripod!

It's nice having some of the cooler weather. I'm just really hoping that we have a break from the monsoons on Saturday night so we can watch the Perseid meteor shower!