Sheepherder's Party

This weekend we went to the Sheepherder's Party out on the Utah/Nevada stateline. This area, generally called the West Desert, has been a big winter sheepherding area for over a century. This party is put on to encourage sheepherders, sheep owners, and others involved in the sheep industry to celebrate their heritage and to take a break from the mundane routines of winter.

Denys Koyle, owner of the Border Inn, organized the event, which went from Friday evening to the wee hours of Saturday night. Friday night was a dinner and sheepherder's stories; Saturday was a pancake breakfast, presentation by Sour Dough Slim, a dinner, and the sheepherder's ball, with lots of good music to kick up your heels to. 

Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons opened the program Friday evening with remarks.

Some of the actual sheepherders came. There aren't so many of them anymore as transportation has improved. Nevertheless, they still do a lot of the sheepherding the old-fashioned way, living in small sheep camps, riding horses to move the sheep, and having only their border collies and sheep dogs for company most of the time. At one point most of the sheepherders were Basque, but today they are all from Peru. 

Sourdough Slim showed off his excellent musical abilities and sense of humor.

The program included those of all ages, including young Melanie singing a pretty song in her pink cowgirl hat.

This gentleman showed off a quilt his made. He explained that he wore the elbows out of his wool shirts, and they would mysteriously disappear from the closet. He wanted his wife just to cut the sleeves off to make short-sleeved summer shirts, but she used them to make this beautiful quilt--her 100th quilt!

The emcee was the hilarious Hank Vogler. His son got up to take his turn at filling the room with hot air.

No program is complete without a little cowboy poetry. Here is the Sheepherder's Lament by Jack Ingram, about the difficulties of getting a wife while herding sheep:

And then came something new for me: cowboy yodeling. I really enjoyed it. If you want to hear more, Sourdough Slim will be performing at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada the end of January, or you can get CDs from his website.

The Extraterrestrial Highway

I saw this lovely cow crossing the ranch road the other day. Now, for most people, this would not be a memorable moment. But there was something in the cow's stature, the far-off mountains, and the winter lighting that made me remember of a trip I took a few years ago, a trip not to be forgotten.

That trip was out to a desolate highway, with plenty of open range, except the open range wasn't quite the same as it is throughout the rest of the West. This open range had the special designation shown above the cow on the sign. (Photo from rachel-nevada.com website). I kept expecting to see cows being beamed up, and the music from Close Encounters of the Third Kind played in my head.

This trip was out on the Extraterrestrial Highway, Nevada 375. This 98-mile long highway only passes one town, Rachel, NV. Calling it a town is a bit of a stretch, with just a scattering of buildings. Normally it would be totally ignored, but it has the fortune of being close to the infamous Area 51. If you like UFOs and aliens, this is a mecca. 

The Little A'Le'Inn is a restaurant and hotel. When I went in, some folks from the military base were enjoying a little time off by entertaining themselves with looking at the numerous photos covering the walls of UFOs and clippings of strange sights seen in the area. Locals offer tours to special spots where outsiders can peek into the ultra-high security area and try to determine what's happening inside. (By the way--the magnet above is a bit old--the new area code is 775, but the rest of the phone and fax numbers are correct.)

At the time I took my trip, the Nevada tourism office was offering a promotion that if I turned in a couple receipts from the ET highway, I could get this cool bumper sticker. I still haven't ever seen anyone else with one. I wonder why not??

And after recalling that wonderful trip and all the potentially strange things happening over the Great Basin desert, I look closer at the image of the cow crossing the road. Maybe some of those white clouds really aren't clouds after all...

Cosmic Ray Center, Millard County, Utah

Out in the isolated West Desert of Utah a strange sight may cause drivers along US Highway 6 & 50 to take a second look. Is that a tanning bed out in the sagebrush?  And another? And another, each spaced out in lines that cross the highway?

These strange apparatuses are part of a study being conducted west of Delta, Utah, to measure cosmic rays. Educational institutions from Japan, Korea, Russia, China, Taiwan, and the United States are involved. The headquarters is in Delta, and that's where the data is also processed.

The study is "to observe cosmic-ray-induced air showers at extremely high energies using a combination of ground array and air-fluorescence techniques." Okay, what does that mean? It probably makes perfect sense to my brother, the physicist, but for those of us who are not immersed in physics, it may be a little nebulous.

First off, what are cosmic rays? Here's the simplistic answer: tiny stuff you can't see with the naked eye that comes from outer space. Now here's the official answer: The term "Cosmic Rays" refers to elementary particles, nuclei, and electro-magnetic radiation of extra-terrestrial origin. These may include exotic, short-lived particles such as muons, pi-mesons or lambda baryons. (okay--did any of you have fun saying "muons"? I started imagining cows flying through space. Sorry for this tangent, but I couldn't help myself. Moo.)

Cosmic rays weren't discovered until the 1930s, when Austrian physicist Victor F. Hess went up in a hot air balloon over 17,000 feet high, measuring radiation along the way. He was surprised to find that the radiation increased with altitude, and surmised that radiation was entering the earth's atmosphere from outer space. He called this phenomenon "cosmic radiation," and later it was coined "cosmic rays." For his trouble, he earned a Nobel prize in 1936.

Next, what is a ground array technique? The ground array uses 576 scintillation detectors. Here's what one looks like:

And from its better side:
These scintillation detectors are laid out in a grid, each 1.2 km away from the next. The research area covers 760 square kilometers. Helicopters were used to install them, with each one weighing about 250 kg. 

The map below shows the ground array of scintillation detectors.

On the sides of the grid are fluorescence detectors. Sorry, I haven't made it to any of them to photograph yet, but researching this study has piqued my interest and I may have to wrangle an invitation. The fluorescence detectors are able to detect cosmic rays with much less energy (between 3x10^16 eV and 10^19 eV to be exact) than those detected by the scintillation detectors (which only detect cosmic rays greater than 10^19 eV).

Let's get back to the tanning beds--oh, I mean scintillator detectors. They are double layer scintillators which sample the charge particle density of the air shower footprint when it reaches the earth's surface. Okay, I took that last sentence directly from the project website. I think that means when the cosmic rays get close to earth, these detectors see how close together they are. (Please correct me if I'm wrong!)

The solar panel on the scintillator detector collects enough energy to power it for an entire week in complete darkness. Unless Yellowstone explodes and we're shrouded in really thick ash blocking out the sun, we probably don't have to worry about that. 

The magazine Science took note of this huge project, called the Telescope Array. It came about when two rival groups merged, using their two different techniques in this one project. Despite its name, no telescopes are part of the project; they had been included in an earlier proposal. Japan put up $13 million of the $16 needed to install and operate the project, but it was never planned to be installed in Japan because of the increased humidity there. 

One of the reasons to study cosmic rays is that physicists had been noting more higher energy cosmic rays than expected. Some can hit the ground with the force equivalent of a golf ball hitting the fairway. It makes me want to duck under one of those thick scintillation detectors so I can avoid getting hit.

This post just scratches the surface of this interesting project, which includes lots more acronyms (like TALE) and terms (such as "energy spectrum"). To learn more about this project, visit the Telescope Array website. And if you happen to be driving near the project area, you might  think about particles falling from outer space all around you. Someday we might understand what's out there.

Desert Boy Goes to the Outlet Mall

We're visiting family, and over the weekend we went to the outlet mall. While the ladies enjoyed shopping, Desert Boy hung out with his Grandpa and Uncles. What did they do for a few hours? Watch the video to see!

An Old Homestead

There's something about a coating of snow that makes everything look old romantic, even an old, abandoned homestead like this one. We have a number of abandoned houses in the area, mainly due to a change in the culture. 

In 1900, about 39 percent of the American population was involved in agriculture. In 1945, that number had fallen to about 17 percent. In 2000, only one percent of the American population farmed. This dramatic decrease in the farming population is mirrored by a decrease in the rural population, from 60 percent in 1900 to 21 percent in 2000. Although this huge transformation meant many people left rural areas for urban and suburban abodes, many of their homes were left behind.

Over time I'll feature some of these abandoned buildings and look at some of the architectural styles of them. This particular style is common around here, a square house with a door in the middle of the front. It usually had a living room, dining room/kitchen, and two bedrooms. Running water was not available when the house was built, so an outhouse is out back. Many houses of this type have an addition in the back or on the side for a bathroom and more modern kitchen. Because refrigeration also was not available, a root cellar is nearby, along with assorted outbuildings. It's fun to imagine what life was like in these old buildings when they were occupied by vibrant families busy with their day-to-day activities.

Christmas Fun

Every year the local schools put on a Christmas program, and two nights ago was the special occasion. Desert Boy was calmest when we sat right up front so he could see all the action. He wanted to go up on stage, but fortunately he didn't quite make it. He also spent some time between acts wandering around and visiting people. One of the nice things about living in such a small community is we didn't have to worry about him--we knew just about everyone there, and they knew him.

First were the musical numbers--the school band, beginning strings, and intermediate strings. Then it was time for the children's choir, which is a combination of the pre-school, grades K-2, and some home-schooled kids. Here's a video of the end of one of their songs:

After that, the K-2 class put on a really cute play, Christmas at Old McDonald's Farm. Each student was an animal and had a few lines, including getting to make their animal's sound. Everyone enjoyed it. Then it was time for the play from grades 3-6. The play started with the magical appearance of Elfis at the back of the hall.

Before long Elfis was rocking up on stage with Mrs. Claus, some reindeer, and elves.

The kids really got into the music--just look at their expressions. They didn't seem to be at all shy to be performing in front of 200 people. I think because they perform every year from the time they're kindergartners, they just take it for granted. Hopefully they'll keep that skill of being able to talk in front of a crowd for the rest of their lives!

The costumes and choreography were great.

The play helped us all get into the Christmas mood. When the lights came back on, refreshments were served in the back of the hall. And then another special guest arrived: Santa Claus!

Here's my nephew, Tractor Buddy, up on Santa's lap. He wanted some big things for Christmas.

Even Elvis took a turn, sideburns and all.

I was hoping Desert Boy would pose for a picture on Santa's lap, but it had gotten a little too late for him, and he dove into my arms. Maybe next year. The kids were so excited to tell Santa what they wanted---and they were probably eager to get their bag with candy cane and orange, too! 

Have a Merry Christmas!

How to Entertain Yourself in the Desert

The evenings are long in December, and we have to look for ways to entertain ourselves. It helps with college break. My nephew brought home Rock Band, a game where a drummer, singer, and two guitars try to mimic a song that is played on the TV. It turns out it is really, really addictive. Even if you're bad. Really bad. After we kicked the kids off it, we spent a couple hours and were glad when we could get 43 percent of a song finished. 

Here's my husband and his sister rockin' out.

I had to give it a try, and it is fun. I'm standing with the guitar on the left in the blue shirt, while my sister-in-law is on the other guitar and my brother-in-law is on the drums. Desert Boy couldn't resist helping us out. He's quite a crooner. 

I'm glad they didn't have this game when I was in college, it might have been hard to get my homework done. Now if I can only sneak over to my sister-in-law's house and get some practice time in, maybe I can get to 63 percent.

Federal Land and Population Change

If I had to pick a different profession, I might choose geographer. I love looking at maps, and it is amazing how much they can tell us. Take the map above, for instance. I've seen it in two different places (including this one) in the last two weeks, and I think it's one of the coolest maps around and just had to share it with you. The map shows how much of each state is owned by the federal government. (To see a larger version of the map, just click on it.)

I used to think that Alaska had the most federally-owned land, but it doesn't, it's in second place. The top five states are:

1. Nevada - 84.5%

2. Alaska - 69.1%

3. Utah - 57.4%

4. Oregon - 53.1%

5. Idaho - 50.1%

Did you notice that all those numbers are over 50 percent? The government manages more than half the land in each of those states! The federal government is caretaker for nearly one-third of the land in the entire U.S. The land is managed in a number of different ways, although I found it amazingly hard to find info on the internet about amounts of land that different agencies manage. Here are some statistics from my trusty America's Federal Lands insert in the National Geographic Magazine from 1982. I've had it up on my wall for years. 

The Department of Interior manages about 70 percent of federal land, with the Bureau of Land Management responsible for over 40 percent, and the Fish and Wildlife Service,  National Park Service, and Bureau of Indian Affairs each managing about 10 percent. The Department of Agriculture oversees about 25 percent of public lands via the U.S. Forest Service. And finally, the Department of Defense holds the reins for about three percent of federal lands, while the remainder is an unspecified 'other'. 

The map above also makes it obvious that the bulk of the federally owned land is in the western United States. Considering the pattern of settlement in the U.S., this makes sense. Now something that doesn't make quite so much sense, at least in the terms of where private land is available: where the population is growing in the U.S. The map below (found at this website) shows which states are growing the most in darker shades of blue (again, click on the map to see it larger).

The number one state for population growth between 1990 and 2005? Why Nevada is number 1 again!

Here are the top five states gaining population:

1. Nevada - 101%

2. Arizona -62%

3. Utah -43%

4. Idaho -42%

5. Colorado -42%

Three states are in both lists, Nevada, Utah, and Idaho. Why are people moving to states that have so little private land? Perhaps those large swaths of public land are part of the appeal--plenty of space to go and play. Maybe North Dakota, the only state with a negative growth rate, just needs to make more of its land revert to federal management and they will see large population growth. Okay, that's not likely to happen anytime soon, but perhaps Nevada can find some other ways to be number one.

School Auction

Every autumn the local schools hold a Harvest Festival with an auction as a fundraiser. People donate all sorts of different things, so the first thing you have to do when arriving at the school hall is cruise the tables of goodies to decide what you're going to bid on. There was quite an array this year, ranging from kids' toys to baked goods to original artwork to a crock pot and deer antler fireplace tools.

Before the bidding begins, everyone partakes of a potluck. I forgot to take a picture of the wonderful array of food, probably because I was the first one in line for the food. I really was. My excuse was that I wanted to get food quickly for Desert Boy so he would eat and behave. The reality was he only would eat desserts and he wanted to run around with the other kids.

Here are a couple nice ladies enjoying the delicious food. I just have to include their picture so if they look at the blog they can yell at me.

I was the only one taking pictures, so the kids had fun making faces for me and then wanting to see how the picture turned out. The wonder of digital cameras.

An original way to wear a headband.

Making crazy faces.

And then the auction began. I love bidding, it's so fun trying to figure out how high the other person or people are willing to bid. And because the money is all going to a good cause, it's okay to bid a little higher than you might otherwise. Apparently a lot of other people like to bid, too, because we had some fun little competitions.

My husband followed Desert Boy around as he tried to ransack the place, allowing me to bid on whatever I wanted. And I saw something that looked really neat, made right here in our valley, and I won the bid.

Here it is, a horseshoe lamp. The horseshoes are even from a couple local horses, so their memories will be preserved. It was a good night, and hopefully the funds raised will help the schools get all the supplies they need.

Just wondering, what's your favorite object you've bought at an auction?

Desert Boy the Plumber

Desert Boy the Plumber says go vote today!

Because we live out in the boonies, we actually had to vote last week because we're a mail-in district and wanted to make sure our ballots got to the county clerk's office in time. I sort of miss going to a polling place, passing the people outside on the sidewalk trying to convince you at the last minute to vote for their candidate, waiting in line, and going into the little booth and pressing the buttons to make those important choices. On the other hand, mailing a ballot in does have some perks like being able to vote wearing pajamas.

Whatever the results, it will be nice to have an end to the advertisements, excessive TV coverage, and most of all, all the phone calls. The 45-second surveys generally last several minutes, and if a survey is supposed to last 5 minutes, you better be prepared for 15. Eeesh. A couple calls have been sort of amusing: a candidate saying he is for taking the water in our valley and exporting it (hmmm, I think we are the wrong target audience for that phone call), and another for a candidate that lives in Virginia. That dialer sure got the wrong area code!

Have a good election day, and if you have any plumbing problems, Desert Boy is really good at flushing.

The Long Ride

We live out in the middle of nowhere. Pro: We don't have to deal with stoplights, freeways, rush hour traffic, or road rage. A traffic jam consists of two cars at the same intersection. Con: It's a freaking long way to get to somewhere. 

Yesterday we needed to go to town. "Town" can mean several different places, but yesterday it meant the town 100 miles away from our house, where we go to the doctor and dentist. The town has about 5,000 people and two grocery stores, so we can get most of what we need. I get excited going to town because there is so much more to see. Several cars parked along the sides of the street. People I don't know. Sewers and curbs. 

Maybe I should get out more. It doesn't take much to get me excited. Actually, what I crave when I go to town is a visit to the thrift store to see what bargains I can find, fresh fruit from the grocery store, and maybe a swim or haircut. The last two don't happen too often, but I can dream.

Desert Boy made the best of the long journey. He didn't have much of a problem getting comfortable. Check out his thighs; he still has cute dimples separating his fat rolls. Don't they make you just want to squeeze him and say something like "gootchy gootchy goo?"   Too bad fat rolls aren't considered cute when you get older!

On the way back, Desert Boy wasn't quite so happy. He didn't grumble too much, but he did make some funny expressions. Fortunately he had a tractor to play with and some books to read. But what held his attention the most was the moon--he's really into the moon and kept staring at it. If he starts howling at it I will get worried. We got home late, happy but tired. Even though it's fun to go to town, it's always nice to get back home.

A Community Barbecue

Every Saturday of Labor Day Weekend, the Volunteer Fire Department holds a barbecue to raise money. It's been held for decades and is a great place to catch up with folks you haven't seen for awhile. My husband and I are members of the Volunteer Fire Department and the barbecue is held at the cookhouse next to our house, so we had great views of the event from start to finish. 

The start actually begins several months in advance with the planning. Food is ordered, a cleanup day is scheduled the weekend before the barbecue, and tasks are divvied up. Finally the big weekend arrives. 

On Friday night the meat (tri-tip roasts) is taken out of the huge walk-in cooler, rinsed, and marinated with yummy barbecue sauce. At first only one person squirted a bottle of barbecue sauce.

That was going slow, so another person started squirting. His squirt looks more sporadic than the first. Neatness didn't count for this part, because we had several coolers to marinate, plus the more barbecue sauce, the better!

One volunteer reaches into the cold meat to make sure that it is all covered. Looks nice and messy, doesn't it!? The meat goes back into the walk-in cooler until the next day.

At mid-morning on Saturday, more preparations take place, like shucking the corn. Coming from the Midwest, this is one of my all-time favorite tasks. As I shuck the corn I just imagine biting into those firm, sweet kernels, releasing a wonderful squirt of corn juice. Mmmm.

Tables and chairs are set up, signs made, lemonade mixed, potatoes wrapped and baked, beans prepared, and much more. Desert Boy kept me occupied for a little while so I didn't get a chance to take photos of all the separate parts, but you get the idea. 

The serving line was set up in the cookhouse. Folks enter through one door and exit through another, making it an efficient process. The smells in the cookhouse are getting better and better as we approach the appointed hour.

At the back door of the cookhouse, the corn station is setup. Two huge pots are filled with water and a flame thrower is used to light the burners. Okay, it's probably not exactly a flame thrower, but it sure looked like one to me.

On the front porch of the cookhouse, this huge cauldron is set up. Can you see the smoke coming off the top? Why in the world do we have a witch's brew for a barbecue? This is the homemade root beer, and the dry ice is making the neat visual effect.

Over on the side the guys are grilling the roasts over a bed of charcoals. The barbecued meat flavor ensures that people are constantly circling around the grill to check out the progress.

Here's some of the circle. In the background of this photo you should see some mountains, but a huge rainstorm came in about half an hour before we were due to start. The wind started blowing, and we could see rain showers on the mountain. We tried to figure out what we would do if it started pouring rain or even hailing. We ended up deciding that the storm would blow through, and sure enough, it did. 

The scary weather did scare some people away, but we still had many come. Here's the line forming at the front of the cookhouse to get the delectable food. 

People whizzed through the serving line thanks to the attentive servers. Ready for the mouth-watering menu? Here it is: tri-tip roast (or hot dogs for the kids), baked potato, corn on the cob, beans, salad, roll, watermelon, cake, root beer, and lemonade. 

I was trying to help sell tickets, so I parked Desert Boy with one of the oldest inhabitants of the valley. He quickly tried to steal her watermelon. 

Some of the kids thought stirring the cauldron was really fun. The aroma of root beer filled the air.

After we had eaten as much as we could hold, it was time for the games. I guess I'm still a kid at heart because I volunteered to organize them. Here we are getting ready for the watermelon seed spitting contest. It's not so easy with seedless watermelons. (Thanks to K. Rountree for this and the next photo.)

 
The water balloon toss was a huge hit despite the little sprinkle of rain we had right before the dinner. In fact the kids clamored to do the water balloon toss again. So we did it again. And again, until we ran out of balloons.

Finally it was time to clean up. Leftover meat was bagged and sold, chairs and tables taken back to the school, garbage taken to the dumpster, and the floor mopped. It was a good, but tiring day. But we saved enough energy to head out to the dance and dance the night away.