Preschool Fun

School ended this week, along with preschool. Desert Boy really enjoyed his first year of going to preschool and learning how to better interact with other kids and have a little more structure. One of the best things he learned was that before he could play with a new activity, he had to put away the one he was playing with. We reinforce that at home all the time.

He also learned his colors, more numbers, and how to say the alphabet correctly. He misses Teacher Gwendy already and was sad when I told him that there was no school for the summer.

On the last day of preschool, we went to the school for the kindergarteners, first graders, and second graders. There are seven students in total for the three grades.

During recess, all the kids had fun playing together.

The girls had fun posing for the camera.

Desert Boy hung on every word that the teacher said. He was so excited to be in the big kid school.

Meanwhile, another mom, Chayo, was helping me with Desert Girl.

And then Isaac came and we thought it would be fun to have a little photo shoot. We honestly didn't plan their outfits. We just were thinking on the same track, I guess!

I think Isaac is telling Emma that he has some news for her.

"In just a couple years we'll be in preschool and get to have all the fun."

But for now they can lean and drool and chew on things. Life is good.

Welcome to Utah

We were at the Border Inn the other evening, and while we were waiting for food to come, I headed out into the nearby desert to look for wildflowers. I crossed the highway, taking a quick look at the Welcome to Utah sign, giving it a brief thought and then moving on. After a brief jaunt in the greasewood, I noticed that a big truck had pulled in next to the sign, and with no hesitation removed the sign. Then they got ready to put up a new one.

Somewhere in my files I have a photo of the old sign, but I don't know where. Fortunately Dan Heller had one posted on the Internet. The old sign honored the 2002 Olympic Games held in Salt Lake and also showed a picture of Delicate Arch.

The new signs feature the word Utah in much bigger shape and the sandstone cliffs of southern Utah. I think the picture is of Zion Canyon.

Hopefully in addition to paying for new signs, the Utah legislature is willing to help protect some of its resources, namely the water that Southern Nevada wants to pipe away.

The crane hoisted the sign into place and workers quickly installed it. I'm guessing the really huge sign still left on the trailer will go on the Interstate.

So here's one of the first photos of the new sign at the Border Inn crossing into Utah. Ready to go visit?

Dress Rehearsal for the Nativity Play

Merry Christmas! Tonight we will be celebrating by going to a Candlelight Service and Nativity Play. The play will include Desert Boy as a sheep. It will be his first opportunity to be in a play, and I have a feeling he will like it.

Above, he's hanging out with Mary in the stable. Mary is his cousin, so that's why he got invited into the stable. He's a pretty coordinated sheep to be sitting on a stool like that.

The play also features these three adorable angels, who tend to get distracted easily, as you will see.

Desert Boy's cousin Kayli has a solo, which she sings quite well. She is the angel Gabriel, so she had a lot of lines to memorize.

Here she is appearing to Joseph to tell him that his fiancee is with child and that it's okay.

The play is set up so you see most of the cast of characters for the entire performance. King Herod and his messenger are on the far left, the angels in the middle, Mary and Joseph in the stable on the right, and the shepherds and their sheep just off the stage.

The angels appear to have a little attitude here.

Mary and Joseph entertained themselves during slower parts by picking straw out of the manger.

Later the angels appeared to the shepherds to tell them about the newborn king.

The shepherds traveled to the stable to visit.

The sheep was left behind and was content for a little while.

The angels started singing a song...

...and the sheep decided to make a run for it, heading straight for Mama. I wonder if that will happen tonight. It will be dark in the auditorium, so it might make it harder for him to find me.

At the end, the entire cast performed Joy to the World. Minus the sheep who was hanging on to Mama. And another sheep and angel who were napping during the dress rehearsal. I think it will be an entertaining show!

Have a very Merry Christmas!

Baker/Garrison Christmas Program

This blog is posted at Protect Snake Valley.

Is Your County Prosperous?

When one thinks of prosperous areas in the U.S., usually the large, populated areas come to mind. After all, where do homes cost the most, so therefore where must the most prosperous people be living?

A new report measures prosperity in slightly different terms. Counties that had lower poverty rates and unemployment rates and fewer high school dropouts and housing problems than the country at large were considered to be prosperous. And the results showed many of those counties are in the Great Plains and Midwest states. The brighter red on the map below, the more prosperous the county.

Map by Andrew Isserman, Edward Feser, Drake Warren, University of Illinois.

Available from LiveScience website.

The data for this study were from 2000, and instead of focusing on income and growth, more traditional measures, the researchers looked at outcomes. What areas keep their kids in school the longest? Have lower unemployment rates? Better health?

The center of the country appears the brightest red. The counties in these areas have less income inequality, better education, and more off-farm jobs than less-prosperous counties. The prosperous counties had an average growth rate of two percent over the previous decade, compared to eleven percent for the less-prosperous counties. Obviously quick growth is not a recipe for prosperity.

I find it refreshing to find someone looking beyond money to determine what makes a prosperous area. There really is so much more to consider. How does your county fare?

To see more, visit LiveScience.

Harvest Festival

Last week we attended the annual Harvest Festival, a fundraiser for the local schools. Following a yummy potluck dinner with abundant food was the auction. Over 80 items had been donated. We saw a few things we wanted, so we had fun bidding on them. We got some of them and helped contribute to the night. We were amazed how much was made--$1800. Quite a good fundraiser!

I'm afraid I wasn't so good at taking photos that night. Sometimes it's just hard to get motivated!

I did manage a short video clip of what was happening at the back of the hall. Desert Boy and one of his uncles were busy cleaning the floor:

How Remote Are You?

Image of The Continguous United States Visualized by Distance to the Nearest McDonald's courtesy of Stephen Von Worly (via Carpe Diem). 

I know I live in one of the remotest places in the lower 48 states. After all, it's an hour drive's to our nearest grocery store. Here's a map that helps show how remote places are in the U.S. based on the location of 13,000+ McDonald's restaurants. 

"For maximum McSparseness, we look westward, towards the deepest, darkest holes in our map: the barren deserts of central Nevada, the arid hills of southeastern Oregon, the rugged wilderness of Idaho’s Salmon River Mountains, and the conspicuous well of blackness on the high plains of northwestern South Dakota.  There, in a patch of rolling grassland, loosely hemmed in by Bismarck, Dickinson, Pierre, and the greater Rapid City-Spearfish-Sturgis metropolitan area, we find our answer.

Between the tiny Dakotan hamlets of Meadow and Glad Valley lies the McFarthest Spot: 107 miles distant from the nearest McDonald’s, as the crow flies, and 145 miles by car!"

So this map shows that we are fairly remote, but not the remotest in the country.

Now I wonder how if the map would look any different if the nearest WalMart was plotted. Our nearest WalMart is 135 miles by car.

Wheelathon

On Wednesday it was time for the annual Wheelathon, a fundraiser for the local schools. The kids in grades K-2 ride from their school to the next town, about eight miles one way. The kids in grades 3-6 ride from their school to the K-2 school and back, sixteen miles one way. 

Desert Boy and I rode the entire way last year and decided we wanted to ride again this year. We got a bit of a late start so we had to ride a few miles by ourselves before we caught up with the kids. Then we saw the little kids passing us going the other direction.

The little kids were darling, and how can you not smile when you see the cute little bikes with training wheels?! These plucky kids think it's great fun to ride the eight miles, even though it was a really cold day and they were riding against the wind.

Here are a couple more riding along.

What makes the miles go by faster is that at every mile marker there is a rest stop with snacks. Everyone stops and waits for everyone to catch up. In the photo above you can see an interesting bike, a recumbent that has a solar panel. The bicyclist is going cross-country and happened to be in town during the Wheelathon and though it would be fun to participate. He ended up taking kids who needed a rest on the back of his bike.

The school bus also followed, picking up anyone who needed a break.

After biking eight miles, Desert Boy and I (okay it was just my decision) decided we needed a break and loaded the bike and trailer on the bus and went for a bus ride. I didn't think I was quite up to riding with a trailer against the gusty wind, especially since my training for the Wheelathon consisted of riding two miles in the last two weeks.

Most of the kids were able to make it the entire distance, though. I was really impressed with their fortitude. The last few miles took a bit longer, but they kept after it.

The route is fairly barren, so it's not like they have cheering crowds along the way to distract them. Or much of anything along the way to distract them, unless you count some pretty flowering rabbitbrush.

Or Desert Boy getting off at some of the stops so he could get a snack.

At the end it was time for lunch. Everyone seemed to eat heartily. They had worked up good appetites!

Following lunch there was a little program, but it was time for Desert Boy's nap, so we couldn't stay for that. 

We'll have to keep teaching Desert Boy to pedal his own bike. In a year or two maybe he'll be able to ride some of the Wheelathon by himself.

National Public Lands Day

Yesterday Desert Boy and I went to participate in National Public Lands Day, a nationwide effort to help improve public lands. There was a site not far from our house. When we got there, volunteers were already working on building a new fence and trailhead area for a relatively new hiking/mountain bike trail at the Sacramento Pass Recreation Area. 

Here's a view of those volunteers from a different angle. 

We hurried to catch up with one of the groups of kids that was hiking on the trail. Part of the day was dedicated to getting kids more involved with nature and appreciating the public lands around them. 

BLM and National Park Service rangers led this group of energetic kids. There were also three other groups. Desert Boy thought it was great to go hiking and wear his backpack again.

We stopped to listen to a BLM biologist talk about the components of a healthy human ecosystem. The kids liked the presentation, especially her analogies to chocolate chip cookies and receiving one at the end. Desert Boy went right to the front of the line to get a cookie. I guess he's got a bit of a sweet tooth. 

Wonder where he got that from?

We had to take a break along the trail a little while later so that some of the kids could go "water the trees." I'm sure that was part of the fun of the hike for them. They also really liked squirting each other with their water bottles.

Next we found a BLM wildlife biologist who talked about healthy natural ecosystems, using pinyon jays and pinyon pines as an example. He had some pine nuts for everyone to snack on. The hike had whetted everyone's appetite, so they were consumed rapidly! 

We hiked a bit further on and met up with a Forest Service ranger who talked about Leave No Trace principles. The kids seemed to understand what that meant--hopefully they'll actually practice it, too!

Then it was time to finish the mile and a half long hike. Desert Boy walked it all, even though he asked to be picked up a couple of times. He got very excited at the end because he saw a school bus that would take us back down to the trailhead, and he loves school buses. He couldn't wait to get on it.

But first we met Smokey Bear, who was celebrating his 65th birthday. Desert Boy approached cautiously...

...and then gave him a tentative hug.

Back at the trailhead, grills were going with hamburgers, hot dogs, and chorizos for a yummy lunch.

The kids crowded the picnic tables to eat. 

Afterwards, Desert Boy found some friendly labs who didn't mind being petted and laid on. I knew that Desert Boy was getting a little tired, so it was time for us to leave. (He fell asleep in the car before we even left the parking lot.) 

I had never known the trail existed, and in fact there are even more new trails in that area, so we'll have to go back and check them out. It obviously took a lot of work and coordination to pull off a successful National Public Lands Day, and thank you to everyone who contributed. We appreciate your efforts! 

And as a reminder about public lands, tonight begins the weeklong documentary series about the National Parks. Can't wait to watch!