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 Wild Horse

Last week I saw a wild horse (Equus caballus) out on the desert. It was a beautiful horse, and it looked powerful and free, important concepts in the United States. Seeing the horse took me back to another time, before there were barbed wire fences dividing up rangeland, before modern comforts of one-ton diesel crew cab pickups with air conditioning, before urban sprawl. 

Even as I was admiring the horse, I was concerned. One wild horse can find plenty of food and water out in the desert, but there's not just one. These descendants of escaped horses and mules from miners, settlers, and others have been bountiful reproducers, and some herds number over 100. These herds can be exceptionally hard on the delicate desert ecosystem, trampling fragile water sources, overgrazing, and pushing out native wildlife.

The ancestors of this horse came over to North America first via conquistadors in the fifteenth century, and then over time by various other travelers from Europe.  Equus caballus was not the first horse in North America; horses crossed the Bering Land bridge from Asia thousands of years ago, but they eventually died out. Bones from what is believed to be Equus scotti have been found in a nearby cave. 

I should mention that the term "wild horse" is used by some to refer to only horses that aren't descendants of horses that have escaped from domestication; these horses are called "feral horses." Nevertheless, thoughout the West, wild horse is the term most often applied to any horses that aren't owned by someone. 

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has a large wild horse and burro program. They periodically round up horses that have exceeded the BLM-determined carrying capacity and then offer these horses for auction or adoption. Usually more horses are available than are wanted.

I'm wondering if this horse is going to find some others to associate with. Usually the horses are found in small bands with a dominant mare, additional mares, foals, and one stallion. Where ever it's going, I wanted to share with you a glimpse of the American desert and a sight that's not seen every day. 

Looking for Fish in the Desert

It always amazes me that fish can live in the desert. These little creatures that require water year round are playing an amazing gamble with their lives choosing to live in such a parched area. Haven't they studied the odds? Gambling isn't a safe way to live! 

It turns out that many desert fish species used to live in a lot of water, about 10,000 years ago when huge lakes covered many areas of the Desert Southwest. We live next to the Bonneville Basin, where a huge lake the size of today's Lake Michigan flooded many of the valley bottoms. Many different fish species lived in the lake, but as it dried up, they became restricted to small bodies of water. One such fish species is the least chub (Iotichthys phlegethontis), a tiny minnow-like fish that rarely gets more than two inches long.

I set off one warm morning to help some fish biologists locate these fish. We went to a huge marsh area that has many small springs providing green spots among the more mundane-colored vegetation.

Here is Brooke, ready to measure the depth of the spring as a standard habitat measurement. I want you to notice that the pole she is holding is seven feet tall. The spring is under the thick green vegetation by her feet.

Where's the pole? Look closely, Brooke is still holding it, she's just holding the top of it. The rest of the pole is in the spring, over six feet deep. One wrong step in this marsh and you're literally in over your head.

Take a few steps in another direction and you find the salt marsh stretching off to the distance, as dry as can be. During the spring, a nearby playa fills with water and shorebirds stop by to snack on invertebrates during the migration. 

The scattered pockets of water provide opportunities for diverse vegetation, including these cattails. At selected springs, we lower minnow traps into the water and leave them for three hours.

At the end of three hours we go and pull the traps. Some springs only have predaceous diving beetles and amphipods (also called scuds or freshwater shrimp). But sometimes we have luck and pull out a trap with fish in it. We determine the species and measure the fish before releasing them back into the spring.

Here are two of our catches, a speckled dace (Rhinichthys osculus) and a least chub. Seeing them makes me realize the amazing adaptations the native species have made to live out in the desert. So far their gamble is paying off.

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.

Desert Destination: Four-wheel Driving

Every Monday we visit a desert destination.

Yesterday morning we cleaned, so we were ready for something different in the afternoon and decided to do a little sightseeing in some nearby hills. (Hills around here are just smaller mountains, generally only  a few thousand feet higher than the valley floor rather than over a mile higher than the valley floor.) We got into the truck and headed out.

The truck was a narrow fit through one section, but for the most part the road we chose was in good shape.

You can see the fields in the background, so we aren't too far from the ranch. We were feeling a little adventurous, but not too adventurous. After all, it was a hot afternoon and we didn't have much gumption.

Desert Boy loved all the jostling as we went over the rough road. I wasn't quite so fond of it, so I jumped out to take some photos. Having a camera close at hand is a good excuse for a lot of things, like getting out of bumpy vehicles and taking extra breaks when hiking. 

I told my husband I wanted to look at the vegetation, but as you can see in the photo, most of the vegetation is really brown now, after a rather dry summer. I was hoping if I looked around long enough I might find something interesting.

I did manage to find this cute cactus growing out of a little hole in the rock. It won't be able to get too much bigger.

A few white flowers were growing off this green mat of leaves on a rocky area. I still haven't figured out what they were, but the bright green leaves and long stems were distinctive. (Note: 9/29/08: This is Petrophytum caespitosum, in the Rosaceae family.)

I even found some pretty yellow flowers to help brighten up the landscape. 

These hills are really dry, with no streams or springs. This is some of the typical desert landscape, tall cliffs, scattered pinyon and juniper trees, and lots of sagebrush, Mormon tea, and shadscale. After driving awhile we stopped and took a nap. Desert Boy was the one who inspired us, he had already fallen asleep. 

After our nap and flower break it was time to get back in and see where else the road led to. We felt like rugged explorers. Except that we were in an air-conditioned truck with cushioned seats and plenty to eat and drink. And we had just taken a nap. It's tough being an explorer these days.