John Deere 45W Forklift

Desert Boy is always happy to join me on forays to the equipment yard because it means he can practice his driving skills. On this day, he took quite a liking to this old John Deere tractor with the 45W forklift attachment. The tractor appears to still be in pretty good shape despite a light coating of rust.

I imagine the tractor was used to move hay to help feed the cows. 

On the back axle it says Deere on one side. I imagine it says John on the other, but it's covered in grease and I didn't have a rag with me. That metal sure looks solid, doesn't it?

One of the reasons Desert Boy likes to drive the old tractors is they just have so many fun parts. Gear shifters, levers, indicators, knobs, a big steering wheel, and even something to rest his short legs on. It just doesn't get much better.

I tried to look this tractor up on the internet to get more information about it, but didn't have much luck. So I'll have to keep digging to uncover the past of this tractor and what it did. For some reason I always leave the equipment yard with unanswered questions.

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...

Bald Eagles

In the winter, we are often fortunate to have a couple bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) take up residence in our valley. Their bright white heads and tail feathers sure contrast with their dark brown bodies. Although bald eagles' favorite food is fish, they are opportunistic. That's a good thing, because there aren't too many fish out here in the desert! 

We were driving along when we spotted them, and when we stopped to take a photo, they flew off. Every winter we see two or three bald eagles, and they stay several months. We get excited seeing these huge birds, and I always am thankful they've decided to visit--and curious where they came from and why they choose this valley.

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 Destination: The Mojave Desert

The Great Basin Desert where I live now is quite cold in winter, being a high desert with a thin atmosphere. So it was time to head south to the Mojave Desert, which has warmer weather.The Mojave desert covers the southern part of California and Nevada, the northwestern part of Arizona, and a little of Utah. 

Heading down the highway, I saw the pinyon and juniper trees and sagebrush fade away and a new character appear...

A Joshua tree! The Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia) is the signature plant of the Mojave desert. It pretty much only grows in this desert, and its outlandish character makes it really easy to spot. Whenever I see one, I wonder if Dr. Seuss found inspiration in these trees.

Joshua trees are slow growers, stretching about three inches higher a year for the first ten years, and then only an inch and a half a year thereafter. Joshua trees can live hundreds of years, with a few even surpassing their thousandth birthday. They don't have growth rings, so it can be really difficult to age a Joshua tree. The tallest ones reach about 45 feet high.

Joshua trees can grow from seeds or underground rhizomes that spread from nearby neighbors. They apparently can have quite an extensive root network. The leaves of Joshua trees are pointy, so they don't exactly encourage caressing. From February to April, white flowers appear and are pollinated by the yucca moth.

As the trees grow older, they can have many branches that reach out and take even crazier forms. The name Joshua tree was given by Mormon settlers traveling across the Mojave desert who were reminded of a biblical story of Joshua reaching his arms up to the heavens in prayer.

The valley bottom is covered in fog, making these Joshua trees appear even more supernatural. Joshua trees do not grow everywhere in the Mojave Desert; for example, they were not on the valley bottom. Although they can survive with scarce precipitation and hot temperatures, even they have their limits.  

Family Fun

Desert Boy and I recently visited with family, including a bunch of uncles who were hoping to teach Desert Boy "bad" things. Now look at how sweet Desert Boy is in the photo above, riding on the shoulders of one of his uncles. Doesn't he look slightly angelic?

Then his uncles decide to twirl his brains on the merry-go-round, pushing it as fast as they could. They ended up dizzier than he did.

He got sent down the slide--upside down--into Grandma's waiting hands.

Then his uncle took him down to the creek to throw rocks and sit in mud.

So it's no wonder he looks a little zonked out in the swing, with his shoe missing. Next to him is his younger cousin. Apparently she is ready to imitate Desert Boy.

She's usually a wonderful, charming baby.

See how she grins while Desert Boy squirms?

And she coos while Desert Boy puts his finger in his mouth. At least it's not up his nose. But she doesn't have long until her uncles decide it's time to teach her "bad" things. I can hear them scheming now. 

2009: La Niña Returns?

So far the winter has been extremely dry out here, with only a dusting of snow left up on the nearby mountains and nothing on the valley bottom. NOAA weather scientists believe that a weak La Niña may be forming, and in our area, a La Niña means less precipitation. 

La Niña is associated with unusually cold ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific. These ocean temperatures impact temperatures globally for up to two years. During a La Niña, the easterly trade winds are stronger than normal, allowing colder water to upwell along the equator and western coast of South America. These colder water temperatures can be as much as 7 degrees F below normal.

In the U.S., La Niña causes drier than normal conditions in the Southwest, Central Plains, and Southeast; and wetter, cooler conditions in the Pacific Northwest. In our area, we hear news reports about places less than one hundred miles to the north that are receiving wonderful snowfall. But we are just far enough below the invisible line that we aren't benefiting from an excess of precipitation. We've been dry for the last couple of years, so it's not great to be getting a La Niña.

La Niña is part of a natural cycle, alternating with neutral conditions and El Niño, when the ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific are warmer than normal. During El Niño years, climate is often the reverse of La Niña conditions.

So I guess we'll just have to do the best we can for now and hope that this La Niña will be weak and soon end. The intensity of La Niña and El Niño events can vary a great deal. If you'd like to learn more about this weather phenomenon, check out the NOAA website.

More Fun in the Equipment Yard

The North American International Auto Show begins in a couple days in Detroit, so in honor of that, we'll take another trip to the junkyard (oops--equipment yard) to celebrate. Okay, I just heard about the show on the radio today and I went to the equipment yard a couple days ago, but I feel like I need some excuse to show you more junk (or equipment). I find the equipment yard really fascinating. After all it has over a hundred years of hubris resting in it. Someday, maybe some archeologist will find great value in it. Or if the recession gets bad enough, maybe the ranch will start selling parts and scrap metal. I guess I better just enjoy it while I can.

Here's a 1948 Ford F-1. It's the first Ford F series pickup truck. Ford has sold more F-series trucks than any automaker has sold any other model of car or pickup in the history of the automobile. This one was blue at one point, but the paint has sort of faded. Take a good look at the grill, because that was one of the first things to change. Something else to note is that it only has windshield wipers on the driver's side--one mounted on the bottom and one on the top.

This truck looks fairly similar, but you've probably noticed the grille looks a lot different. This is a Ford F-2. Most of the rest of the truck looks pretty similar, with a running board, raised hood, and big fenders (supposedly the fenders are bigger on a F-2 than an F-1, but I couldn't tell). 

This is another Ford pickup--would you like to wager a guess what model? I guessed F-2, and if you did, you can be wrong with me. Despite the funny front, it's an F-1. I really like the bumper--not only does it have the thick metal horizontal piece, it looks like someone added a couple vertical sections. This truck is going to move whatever is in its way. It's also impressive how vibrant that yellow paint has stayed--much better than the paint on my husband's F-150, which is flaking away in big chunks and wouldn't make Henry Ford proud at all.

This truck is also kind of cool despite all the rust. It has a neat windshield that curves around the sides and has the roof protecting it, nice curves, and---

---the coolest speedometer panel I've seen so far. Most are plain old circles or rectangles, but this is a triangle. I guess it doesn't take much to impress me. But trust me, it's cool looking, and I think I'm going to have to go back and look at it again. I've never been into vehicles, but looking at some of the details on these gets me excited. Maybe Desert Boy's interest in anything that moves is rubbing off on me. Oh, by the way, this is a Chevrolet Apache 32 Fleetside.

Sometimes cars don't look like much at first glance, like this Ford Galaxie 500. But take a closer look at the taillights. They really are out of this world.

I liked the lighting power of this car--not two headlights, but eight. No need for a big bumper if you can see what you're going to hit.

Ooh, these taillights are sexy. These are on a 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Air. This model was produced from 1953-1975, but the 1950s versions were definitely the coolest. Old age (and lack of imagination by the automaker) made this a more utilitarian car in the latter years.

The lines on this car just make me want to go cruising. I'm ready to put on my cotton check dress and with my carefully coiffed hair pulled back with a hair band and go out with my beau.

It's not all vehicles in the equipment yard. Here are some strange metal things that caught my eye due to their symmetry. I've come to learn that they are called bowls, and are the bottom part of a well pump. The water entered the metal grate, and the motor at the top of the well pulled the water up. I don't know how this knowledge will enrich my life, but perhaps someday it will. And maybe yours too.

Tracking a Bobcat

A coworker told me about a bobcat she saw. It ran across the road in front of her and into a sagebrush and grass meadow. I've only seen a couple bobcats in my life, so I went over to investigate. It didn't take long to find the tracks. Bobcat tracks are like most cat tracks, with four toes that are curved around the paw. The paw itself has two lobes at the top of it (instead of a single lobe like a dog), but because the rear foot of a bobcat often steps on top of the front foot track, the two lobes can be obscured.

By the stride of the tracks, I can see the bobcat was walking. It also appeared to have been dragging its feet even though the snow was no more than three inches deep. Bobcats are generally solitary and nocturnal, and although they might wander more than 25 miles, they frequently stay in the same two-mile radius.

Here's a closeup of the paw print. It's not very large, only about 2 inches long and 2 inches wide. (It's very common for tracks to appear a little larger when the snow melts.) An adult bobcat weighs between 11 and 20 pounds. They are expert tree climbers.

One of the reasons I wanted to follow the bobcat is to see how it moves. It curved around bushes, and I could just imagine it sniffing around, trying to locate small mammals or birds, its favorite food. Before long, in February, bobcats start mating season. The kittens are born two months later and stay with their mom until autumn.

I followed the tracks until they started getting too far away. It's really fun tracking, and I have to admit there's always a little surge of adrenalin as I follow tracks around a tree, wondering if I've somehow caught up to the animal. So far I never have. But maybe someday.