Desert Junk

It's just one of the facts of life when you live in the desert. There's nowhere to hide the junk. That's right, those old refrigerators, automobile carcasses, flat tires, and other random big things can't be thrown out behind the house and get swallowed up by the woods, because we don't have woods. We don't have enough rain to have trees grow on the valley bottom unless they are next to a stream or watered. We mostly have weeds grow up around the junk that gets thrown out. 

Yes, the junk could be hauled off to the dump, but when you live out in the middle of nowhere, you just might need that junk someday. It might have another use, like spare parts, or a place for Desert Boy to practice driving, or a place to stop the tumbleweeds,  or a good place for a cat to sleep. (Did you see the cat in the junker above?) 

Of course one person's junk is another person's treasure, and some of my favorite art pieces are made from junk. I figure it's a good way to support the environment. What do you do with junk?

Desert Boy Plays with a Sprinkler

Monday is usually Desert Destination day, but today we're not going far because I'm tired! So what better place to go when you're tired but the backyard.

The heat of the summer keeps us playing in water, and today we get to watch Desert Boy learning about hydraulic properties. Specifically, he's learning that when he sprays water, it gets whatever it's aimed at wet.

He seems fascinated by the water and looks for things to get wet. 

He stands up to get better leverage.

And then he's back down on the ground again. It's tough work moving water around, you know.

Oops, his aim was a little off, and Desert Boy got an unexpected splash. It's warm out, so it feels good despite the surprise.

He's not fazed by getting wet and gets right back into playing with the sprinkler. By the way, if you've never seen this kind of sprinkler, it's really cool. As the water spins around, it propels the tractor forward, so you just lay out the hose where you want the sprinkler to go and it can cover a large area.

He keeps trying to figure out what other things he can do with water.

He begins by making his vroom, vroom noises.

And finally he decides it's time to ride the tractor. The backyard turns out to be a great destination.

Name This Slimy Creature

I just want to have fun with Sunday posts, so we're going to venture into another world. Last week it was UFOs, this week it's this slimy creature. Know what it is? Here are some clues, and because I'm in a good mood, I'll include the answer at the end of the post.

I found this creature in the stream, under a rock. It likes water and it truly is slimy feeling. You can even see the reflection of that slime coat in the photo. Technically this is called the mucus, and it uses the mucus to glide along the rock. I feel smarter when I can write "technically." Do you, too? I thought so.

This critter has no arms, legs, head, heart, or brain. It must have a pretty simple life! It does have a couple spots that look like eyes, called ocelli, and they detect light. The critter doesn't like light and  moves away from it.

I can't say that it's a he or a she because it's both. It can reproduce asexually, which means no mating. But if it wants to, it can mate. Such choices.

One of the coolest things about this critter is that it can regenerate body parts. That's part of the reproduction thing. If it's split crosswise or lengthwise, it can regrow what it lost. 

So what is this thing? It's a planaria. Maybe you got to see one in high school biology class. And if not, go out to your nearest stream and look under some rocks. There's a good chance you might find one. Not that you would want to, but don't you feel that the quality of your life has improved knowing that you can? 

Have a good Sunday. I guess this post will show you that you should be out doing something other than sitting in front of the computer looking at photos of unattractive, uncharismatic, creatures. I guess I should get a life too.

A Family Hike

We needed to escape the desert heat, so we headed up high again, this time with the cousins and their parents. We drove up to 10,000 feet elevation, and right off it felt so much better. Our destination was Bald Mountain, at about 11,500 feet. It was the first attempt to climb a mountain peak for some of the cousins, and they were very excited. Or maybe you can't tell, because little girl in the foreground is trying to kick her brother. Yes, we're a peaceful and quiet family. Well, some of the time.

We didn't stay on the trail all that long, because there isn't a trail up to the top of Bald Mountain. The cousins thought it was fun to lead the way. The aspen groves gave way to the low, bent trees of limber pine and Engelmann spruce. Then the trees stopped and we walked on talus. Small patches of flowers and grasses provided bits of green in the landscape.

Although Bald Mountain is pretty high, it's not that high compared to Wheeler Peak and Jeff Davis, which you can see in the background. I like having such great views when I'm hiking, because when I'm gasping for oxygen I can always say that I'm taking a break to enjoy the view. Or to take a photograph.

I like to take lots of photographs when I'm hiking up high. So I can get lots of oxygen. This pretty flower presented a good reason to stop forcing my body against gravity. 

But I kept trudging along, and we all made it to the top. It was cold and windy, and we huddled behind a rock cairn and ate lunch. See the clouds in the background? We're still in monsoon season, so we had to eat fast because it was starting to thunder in the distance.

Here you can see more clouds. We felt kind of exposed. It was hard to believe that just a few short hours before we had been sweltering on the valley floor in the desert heat. I was proud of the cousins climbing the mountain and being such good sports about it.

Desert Boy enjoyed most of the trip. But he doesn't like to stop to take photos. After all, he doesn't need the extra oxygen! 

We thought we could get a nice family shot on top of the mountain. But Desert Boy's patience had run out, so all we have are a bunch of photos with a red-faced, crying kid. So don't look at us, just enjoy the scenery!

Fossils: A Glimpse of the Past

One of the benefits of living in the desert is that the trees don't get in the way of covering up the rock, so we can see large expanses of it. Some people might say that this is really boring, and yeah, it can be. But in certain areas, the rocks are fascinating, even to a non-geologist like me. I've been trying to learn more about geology, and in that quest have learned which layers of rock are most likely to contain fossils. I find these most fascinating because they give us glimpses of what used to live here.

We have lots of exposures of sedimentary rocks (the type of rock where fossils are found), but because the rocks were laid down at different time periods and under different conditions, the fossils can be very diverse even within the same mountain range. There are also some sedimentary rocks that have no fossils at all, so it's good to have a guidebook or two. I've spent some time looking for fossils in the wrong rock type and that's no fun.

Here are some really cool fossils that look like they're coming right out of the rock. Many of the creatures that lived in the seas hundreds of millions of years ago no longer exist, but some have relatives that we still see today. I still have lots of work to do to be able to identify the fossils. With over 200 different fossils in this valley alone, it's nice to know I won't get bored.

Here are some more fossils that look like they're popping out of the rock. The one in the middle looks like a shell you might find on the beach.

These fossils are in the rock and have such pretty patterns. It's fun to think back to the time when this was all water and not a dry desert!