Volcano Hill

 We have a large mound of dirt in our yard, and I thought it might be the perfect place to try out our volcanoes, as I didn't want to repeat the inside explosion. Desert Girl was happy to dig.

Desert Boy was given the task of burying some plastic bottles, aka magma chambers.

 Then his friend Neto came over to help with the volcano eruption. I mixed a little food coloring in with the vinegar to give it some extra oomph.

 I never did find the exact proportions of baking soda to vinegar we were supposed to be using, so I just guessed. I also had the kids make a "forest" on the hill.

 Eruption time! Looks like the forest was spared.

That was so much fun we had to do it again and again until we had used up all the baking soda and vinegar.

 A few days later, after resupplying, Ava came over and we had to show her volcano hill.

 The kids were looking forward to what would happen.

 Ava and Desert Girl don't look so sure about the eruption, but Desert Boy is clearly enjoying the mess.

We kept going with more explosions. We are still trying to perfect the technique and see a two-foot high explosion. So if you have any ideas, let us know. In the meantime, we'll keep experimenting. It's nice to be outdoors!

Wind turbines going up in Spring Valley

They are making fast progress on the Spring Valley wind farm in eastern Nevada. We were amazed to see so many towers up. The plan is to put up sixty-six 2.3 MW Siemens turbines over 7,673 acres of public land.  This will be Nevada's first wind farm.

For the record, I think that wind energy is great. It's renewable and it's fairly clean. However, this wind farm is poorly sited, with a cave that is an important migratory stopover for over a million bats each year only a few miles away. I talk more about the cave in this post, so I won't dwell on that here.

The cranes are enormous, although they don't look that big in this photo. I looked up the specs for Siemens 2.3 MW turbines. I'm not sure what model they're using, but here's more info on the 113. The 113 model means that the diameter of the rotor is 113 m (about 350 ft--longer than a football field!) Each of the three blades is 55 m (~160 ft) long. The swept area is 10,000 meters squared. The rotation speed is 6-13 rotations per minute (that seems fast to me for such a huge rotor!).

This type of windmill gets very little power when the wind is less than 5 meters/second (11 miles per hour), and in fact the cut-in wind speed (minimum wind speed at which a wind turbine will generate usable power) is 3 meters/second (7 miles per hour). Nominal power is at 12-13 meters/second (27-29 mph). The hub height for each tower is 99.5 m (over 300 feet) or site specific.

So those cranes have to lift a nacelle (cover housing that houses the generator and all the other parts for turning the blades) on top of a tower that is taller than a football field. The nacelle weighs 73,000 kg (160,000 pounds). The generator that must also be lifted to the top of the tower weighs 66,700 kg (147,000 pounds). Three blades must also be lifted that high. That means those are some powerful cranes!

We've been seeing trucks carrying the blades go past on Highway 6 & 50. They usually travel three blades at a time, sometimes with some other assorted parts (like the nacelle or generator or tower parts). In Utah, each truck has a vehicle behind it and in front of it announcing an oversized load. They also have a police escort in front of and behind each of the semis. So for three blades, there are six Utah highway patrol vehicles!

On the Nevada side, I haven't seen the Nevada highway patrol escorting the oversized vehicles.

To get a little perspective of how long these vehicles are, check out the above photo. How many of those pickups could you place alongside the semi and trailer?

I couldn't manage to safely get a photo of the blades traveling down the highway, but when I saw them parked I just had to pull over and take a closer look.

Here's the view from the back. You can see that the blades are not straight, they curve.

Here's me next to one for scale.

These are where the blades attach onto the nacelle.

Yesterday it was too windy to put up the wind turbines (isn't that slightly ironic?). So there were six blades and a couple other parts parked at the Border Inn. If you figure a semi driver and two pilot car drivers per truck, that means 24 people got stranded at the Border Inn for the St. Patrick's Day party. It certainly turned out to be a big party!

Update

Probably time for an updated family photo. Well, this is really a photo of a photo taken at the winter carnival. As you can see, we survived, greatly aided by our sword finesse!

Here are more scenes from the carnival from one of my favorite blogs.

A Trip to the Beach

The other day I had the urge to go see some birds. I figured the beach would be a great place to go. Of course, the nearest beach isn't what most people might envision. We'll get to that in a moment.

Hundreds of mallards like hanging out near this beach, but they took off as I approached.

The Canada geese were quick to follow. It didn't help that I had Henry with me and he likes to chase birds.

I also had the kids with me, but they were content to start the hike to the beach with a snack. Desert Boy had packed everything in a big ziploc bag.

The geese on the other side of the pond were still hanging out.

Then it was time to hike. Desert Girl had some difficulty navigating the willows.

She made it, though.

That's when I noticed she still had a juice pouch in her hand. No wonder it was so hard to get over the branches.

Desert Boy was looking forward to this adventure with a lot of enthusiasm.

We were almost to the beach!

Can you see what's coming?

Desert Girl wanted to get to the other side.

Oops, maybe not this time.

Time to try again. Obviously Henry wasn't so shy about getting wet.

Those black boots were just the right footwear for this day.

If Desert Boy was on the other side, Desert Girl had to go too.

Henry was in heaven.

He did a lot of running.

Meanwhile Desert Girl was showing me her muddy hands. She seemed a little perturbed.

But then she went back to playing on the beach. Apparently a little mud was okay.

But a little more mud was worrisome.

Or maybe not.

What's better than a late afternoon on a muddy beach? Alas, it couldn't go on forever...

Eventually that mud got a little too cold.

Well, at least we had some time at the beach! Some day maybe we'll try for a different kind of beach!

Closeups

 I got a new lens for my camera (50 mm), and decided to experiment a little with it. First subjects: Desert Boy and Desert Girl, of course! The one above ended up being a little fuzzy.

 I decided to change subjects. Desert Girl can be so expressive.

 I sure wish I had all her energy.

 You can just see that she's an imp. She is still in her Emzilla stage (a.k.a rearrange continuously a.k.a. mass destruction). Our house is not pretty. At all. The last few days I've given up and we are living in total chaos. Well, a bunch of teenage boys would probably be worse. Like when my husband was a teenager. He seems to like chaos quite a bit, at least if that means he doesn't have to pick up.

 She has managed to perfect the "Who, me?" look.

 She has her sad moments. And when she says, "I so sad," you can't help but smile and give her a hug.

I also found out that a 50mm lens can get you close enough to see more than you probably want to see on a gritty little desert face. Like her eyebrow look?

Most of the time the kids get along well, which is a real blessing. We've been trying to spend more time outside.

Here are the signs of spring we've seen/heard/experienced so far:
-side-blotched lizards scurrying out of the way of our bikes
-mourning cloak butterflies sweeping down to the rocks
-American robins and western meadowlarks singing their mating songs
-Tiny bits of green grass pushing up in the lawn (but no flowers yet)
-Killdeer and spotted towhees making noise
-The need for an allergy pill due to something in the air
-plenty of mud to track into the house, van, and anywhere else we go

What signs are you seeing/hearing/experiencing?