Desert Boy Climbs the Chopper

Desert Boy doesn't need a playground, not when he has an array of farm equipment close at hand. One of his favorites is the chopper, where he has been developing his gross motor skills. He's 16 months old, but the huge machine doesn't faze him at all.

The first hurdle is just getting off the ground, where the first step is chest high. He looks up at all the other steps he will have to climb and plans his attack.

It doesn't take long to pull himself up. 

Then he prepares himself for the ladder. 

Daddy is close by. This is the first time he's seen Desert Boy climb the chopper ladder and he's not quite believing his eyes. 

Desert Boy has some good rock climbing moves that he's just found naturally. He seems to know that he should always have at least three points of contact.

He knows Mom is taking pictures and can't help but shoot a grin my way. What a ham.

He keeps climbing. And no, this is not a paid advertisement for John Deere. 

He knows he's close, and Dad is just itching to help him. Mom tells him no, the little tyke can do it on his own.

And with one more step,

he's up on the top platform. Success!

Finally Dad can catch up to him and take him inside for a little pretend driving. 

I'm hoping Desert Boy will limit his climbing to farm equipment; he's definitely keeping his parents in shape.

Flash Flood

Last Sunday evening dark clouds filled the sky to the north of us, lightning flashed, and thunder rumbled. I got all excited and convinced my husband to take me and Desert Boy out into the desert to watch nature's show. We spent over half an hour watching the clouds rush by, dumping their contents on the mountain range and desert to the north. We felt a few sprinkles, but we were pretty much right on the edge of the storm and could see blue skies to the south.

Eventually it got dark and we went home. My husband was happy that part of the range where our cattle graze was getting some moisture. We didn't think much more about the storm.

The next day we learned that the storm had packed a punch in an area to the northwest of us. Torrents of rain had fallen in a short time, overwhelming a small creek. Four people live on that small creek in two houses separated by several miles. Both reported that their roads had been washed out by the flood water.

I wanted to find out more so I asked one of the folks who lives by the creek, Blake. He said that he had a foot bridge over a the dry streambed. It had survived all the previous floods, but this one had washed it away and he couldn't find it. The high water mark was two to three feet higher than the bridge. That meant a wall of water about 10 feet high and 20 feet deep came rushing down the normally dry creekbed--probably more than 200 cubic feet per second of water.

The water flowed right over this main road, eating away at the road and surrounding banks. The main part of the flood came between 8:30 and 9:00 p.m. that Sunday evening, although Blake noted that the water kept flowing all night long.

This is the other side of the same road, where water flowing over the road eroded sand and dirt that had been covering most of this culvert. The culvert was nowhere near large enough to handle the quick flash of water.

The water came so fast that some animals, like this little fawn, didn't have a chance to get out of the way. My husband says that in the 1992 flood in a nearby creek, 20 cattle died in the gully when they didn't have a chance to get out of the way of the powerful water.

These old cars had previously been put in the stream channel as flood control, to help slow it down and trap sediment. Not exactly high tech flood control. I scoffed when I saw them previously, but they were still in pretty much the same positions as the last time I saw them, earlier in the summer.

The new flood control structures, installed by the ranch this year using modern design methods, didn't fare so well. The three concrete structures, each weighing about 50 tons and designed for 200 cubic feet per second of water, were washed out. This one had gullies on both sides. When I visited it yesterday, some water was running over the main part of the flood control structure, so at least it is working again. The other two aren't so fortunate.

At first this flood control structure didn't look too bad. It has a gully along the right side of it and extra sediment at the bottom. You can see that the stream channel is dry again.

From the top it doesn't look so good--the stream took away the sediment from underneath the structure, so any water that flows this way will just bypass the structure, and erode more of the sand and dirt. There's a lot of backhoe work to be done to make it functional again. 

The third flood control structure may not be salvageable without a lot more than backhoe work. One whole side was washed out, causing the very heavy concrete to tip over sideways. 

Here's another view of it. A pool of water still sits at the base of it, but no water is flowing anymore. The flash flood came and went, leaving just signs of its passing. To the left of the flood control structure you can see the bank that was cut out by the flood waters. The structures were installed to prevent this downcutting, but even they have their limits.

Out of the streambed, I found many more signs of the flood, like cracked and flaking mud. I could see animal tracks in some of the mud.

When the torrents of rain came down, the water started flowing downhill in what hydrologists term "overland flow," when the precipitation rate exceeded the infiltration rate. The water just flowed in a sheet, carrying debris with it, until it got into or formed rivulets that became larger and larger and eventually reached the formerly dry stream channel. The debris pictured here was about two inches high on a relatively flat part of the desert.

Next time I see the clouds open up, I will definitely be thinking more about where that water is going. The flash flood that came down over this little section of desert didn't get any news coverage because so few people live out here and relatively little damage was done. In a city, this amount of water would probably have endangered many people's lives. Flash floods are part of the desert's ecosystem, distributing seeds, reworking the desert terrain, and providing a quick energy input to some plants and animals. We don't get flash floods often, but when they do come they leave reminders of their force for years and even decades.

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.