A Study of Aspen

Last Friday I took the kids camping, and the next morning we got up and went for a hike. It was a little chilly, so Desert Boy had to put on a hoody and was ready to walk fast.

The aspen have been beautiful this fall, although the color has been short-lived. The trees started turning the second week of September, and many leaves fell off this last week, the first week of October, as a storm system moved through.

Nevertheless, last Saturday morning we were still able to find a lot of beautiful aspens at middle elevations.

These are quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides), so-named because they have flattened petioles that make them tremble in even the slightest breeze. The colorful leaves really stand out against the conifer background.

Desert Girl looked a little concerned as we began the walk, but she soon fell asleep.

The leaves are nearly circular, and a few dusted the ground.

When Desert Boy spotted a bridge, he got excited and ran across.

He ran so fast that he crashed on the other side.

I wouldn't mind having just a thimbleful of his exuberant energy.

(By the way, if you see typos that have the letter r missing, it's because Desert Girl got hold of the computer keyboard one morning. Despite repeated attempts to fix it, it's just not the same, with the letter r permanently handicapped.)

The sunlight danced across some of the leaves, illuminating their paper-thin wisps.

I liked this tree with its crooked trunk.

Aspen are fast-growing, but often don't live more than 100 or 150 years.

I noticed some elk scat near these aspen leaves. I was hoping we might see some elk or hear them bugle.

Unfortunately we didn't, but we did see some more elk sign: bark rubbed off the aspen.

This aspen leaf was nestled on the yellowing leaves of a snowberry bush.

Some of the leaves fell in the creek and were washed downstream. Cobbles slowed or stopped the movement of some of the leaves.

While most of the aspen leaves were yellow, some had orange or red tints to them. Since aspens are usually clones and are genetically exact to those around them, it's common for whole groves to turn the exact same color at the exact same time.

A problem aspen are facing is that fire suppression has allowed conifers to encroach on their habitat, crowding the aspen out of their old habitat. Trees can't exactly walk away, so if their neighbors take over, they're out of luck.

Oh my, those aspens were beautiful!

This one was particularly red.

We don't have many deciduous trees displaying fantastic fall colors, but we sure do appreciate the ones we have.

Happy autumn!

Downward Dog

This is Emma's version of crawling...

...or maybe an early yoga move...

The Fishing Hole

Last weekend we had a couple hours free and decided to go to our secret fishing hole.

Top secret.

So secret that if I told you.....well, you know the rest!

It was a good spot.

Here's a rainbow he caught. Not too big, but if we had kept everything, we would have had a nice little meal. Desert Boy wants to do that, have a little fish fry picnic. I do, too, as long as I don't have to cook!

My husband takes the hook out of the fish.

And promptly lands another one, the second of two rainbow. Earlier he caught a big brown.

Desert Boy was a little squeamish around the fish, but we made him touch it anyway.

Maybe it was his dad telling him he would teach him out to eat fish eyeballs.

Ew.

Here you can see Desert Boy's expression a little better.

I used to think fishing was extremely boring and wasn't at all interested in it.

Now I still agree that it's usually boring, but I find that I don't mind some down time. I really don't have to be running evey minute.

Desert Girl was along for the adventure, but she mainly just sat and ate dirt.

It was a good way to spend a couple hours.

Hope you can find your own top secret fishing hole!

On the Slide

I had to go to town earlier this week to get the van windshield replaced, so we had four hours to kick around town. Flu shots, shopping, and eating took up some of the time, but the kids really wanted to go to the playground. So off we went, and after Desert Boy played for awhile on the "big" equipment, we went to the "little" slides so Desert Girl could have some fun, too.

They found they could sit side-by-side, and Desert Boy immediately came up with some kind of train analogy. Desert Girl just enjoyed being by her big bro.

They both are good at hamming it up for the camera.

Then it was time to go down the slide, and I was impressed with how well Desert Boy took care of his sister. He put his arm around her to help her.

Emma doesn't look too certain about going down, but they did fine.

She even gave it a go alone.

Like the sock that is about to fall off? It did a little later and I never found it again. Somewhere out there is a lonely white sock.

It probably won't be the first.

Then it was time to make a different train and go down again.

This way also worked well.

Desert Girl is going to like playgrounds as much as her big brother!

Unidentified Walking Object

We live out in the desert, with clear night skies that show off the remotest corners of the universe. We live near restricted military areas where secret things are done. So strange lights in the night, a.k.a. unidentified flying objects, might raise a few eyebrows and start some rumors, but they're not all that unusual.

However, sometimes we see something else out of the ordinary. We live on a cattle ranch, a cow/calf operation. The boys sold off the last of the sheep when their dad went on vacation (when they were teenagers), so the only animals on the ranch are cows and horses and cats and dogs and some 4-H animals.

So when I was driving down the main ranch road the other day, I saw a sight that made me pull out my camera. It was an unidentified walking object.

There was something unusual. (No, it wasn't my extremely dirty windshield. That unfortunately is common.) What I saw was something small and white and following one of the cows. The cow didn't seem to mind at all.

I pulled to a stop, rolled down the window, and waited.

And I got a good view of a sheep. The sheep that has decided it wants to be a cow.