Scenes from the Ranch

 I saw this strangely-colored tree as I was coming out of my driveway. It took me a minute to remember that the weed guy was spraying Russian olives today. Russian olives are a nasty invader that can turn a meadow into a thorn forest in just a few years. They grow really fast and are aggressive. This one isn't more than two or three years old, but it's already fairly tall.

 Normally the leaves are olive green in color. The bluish hue make them seem like fantasyland.

Down the road I noticed big birds out in the meadow. I zoomed in to find the group of sandhill cranes that likes to summer at the ranch. During the spring and fall we see a lot more as they head north and then return on their migration, but a few have decided that this little part of the Great Basin is just right for their summer vacation.

One was really intent on grooming itself.

Meet Desert Boy's newest pet: a roly poly. He was so excited about finding it under some rocks. He collected it and some dirt and gravel and wanted to take it home. I didn't exactly agree, but found it in the van. I said it wasn't going in the house, but he could keep it in his tree house. Desert Boy wanted to know when he could move into his tree house. What would you have answered?

Before I knew it, Desert Boy had taken a bottle out of recycling and had decided that would be the new home for his roly poly.

(If you're wondering what I answered about the tree house living, I told him he could live there when he turned 18. That's the same answer I gave him when he asked about skydiving.)

The roly poly's name is Dirt. By the way, the name for his slightly deformed crawdad (probably due to too many catch-and-releases) was Snapper. It's probably good I record all these, because when he tells me later that I should let him have another pet, I can show him the list of all his pets.

I'm wondering how long Dirt will live in his new bottle in the tree house. Any guesses?

Catching Crawdads

 I forgot to mention in my past post that one of the highlights of the swimming was catching crawdads. With the extremely low water levels, plenty of mud was exposed, along with holes that the crawdads like to hide in. The kids quickly found their favorite spots and started catching them.

Desert Boy wasn't so sure about actually picking up one of the crawdads with his bare hands. He tried using the shovel method, but didn't have much success. The convince-a-cousin-to-pick-it-up method worked for awhile, but eventually he was on his own, and had to give it a try.

He doesn't look too sure of himself, does he? Probably for good reason. I don't consider crawdads to be particularly appetizing creatures--by any definition!

Nevertheless, he did it. He was really proud of himself.

He loaded it into a bucket and during a weak moment, I let him convince me to bring it home. Yep, we had a pet crawdad. Fortunately I get to use the word "had." Past tense. Our new pet survived a few hours. We didn't hold a burial for it. In fact, I'm not sure where it went. Maybe I don't want to know. I'm just thinking that one pet crawdad for the summer has met our quota of extraneous pets, and now we can go back to enjoying life with our awesome dog, Henry. He's a wee bit more appealing than the crawdad.

Fun with the Cousins

 The California cousins came to visit, and we went for a picnic lunch with them. While we were there, this swallowtail landed on Ruby, and she gave it to Desert Girl.

 Desert Girl was enthralled. I don't know if she had ever held a butterfly before.

 She can't stop smiling.

 Now the butterfly is getting really close, and she's not so sure anymore.

 Maybe it's better if butterflies stay at arm's length!

 Beautiful Ruby!

 The swallowtail left Desert Girl, but it stuck around.

 Desert Boy took a look at it, but he was much more interested in...

 ...bones! He found a wonderful big bone and was so delighted when I told him he could bring it home. It's in our sandbox now.

 Next we went swimming, and the girls headed out into the warm water.

 Desert Girl loved swimming with her Grandma.

 Desert Girl was learning how to hang out from her older cousins!

We had a fun afternoon.

So much fun that we came back and swam the next day. You can never swim too much in a hot summer!

Harvesting

It's harvest time, at least for some of the fruit. Our big apricot tree was full of ripe apricots the last week of June. It's always the first to produce and the apricots are wonderfully sweet. We ate them straight off the tree (or the ground--we couldn't reach most of them in the tree), gave them away to friends and family, dried them, made jam, and canned some. Yum.

Right now, the apricot tree in the backyard has apricots. I've never seen it with so many, and they are also delicious. I have to admit that I'm a little tired of apricots now! I also found that if I eat too many, I get a rash on my palms.

The kids and a friend tried selling some apricots at their lemonade stand. Desert Boy came up with the idea, and he learned a little bit about how difficult it is to be an entrepreneur. He also doesn't have much of a concept of money, except that he likes it and needs it to play video games at the Border Inn. Desert Girl sampled the lemonade copiously, doing repeated quality-control testing.

In my fourth attempt to grow blueberries, I've finally succeeded! Of course it helped that the bush I bought this year already had green berries on it. I still managed to almost kill it. Fortunately some new leaves and berries are growing, and I'm looking for acidifier to make the bush even happier.

Are you harvesting any fruits?

Day 7 - Minnetonka Cave

 Our last big stop for our trip was Minnetonka Cave near St. Charles, Idaho. I had found out about it during my research and figured we just had to make a stop. The 10-mile paved road to the entrance is in really good condition. We had it all to ourselves so were surprised to pull up to a full parking lot at 11 a.m. We bought tickets right away for a tour starting at 11:30. By the time we started our tour, they were selling for 1:30 p.m.

A short walk leads to the entrance. Minnetonka Cave is on the Cache National Forest. The tours are run by a concessionaire.

The cave tour includes 444 steps each way, both up and down, so it's a little workout. We had plenty of time to stop and look at some of the nice formations.

Some porcupine bones were arranged on a boulder. Before the cave was called Minnetonka Cave, it was known as Porcupine Cave.

Unfortunately some parts of the cave are lit with colored lights. I guess this is to make the cave more appealing to visitors, but it detracts from the natural beauty of the cave. Likewise, the tour would be much better if the tour guide concentrated on facts and not pointing out the Seven Dwarfs and having us name them all (major eye rolling), along with Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy's Tail, in the form of a "halagmite" (more eye rolling).

We enjoyed the cave, and it's well worth the stop.

From there we ate lunch in the rain (rain, what's rain?) in Garden City, headed down beautiful Logan Canyon, and stopped at the Utah State University Press. I had never met the people who published my book in person (the book is available over in the sidebar), so it was nice to put a name and voice to a face!

We dropped off my brother Ed in Salt Lake City, as we didn't have a way back for him to the airport, and he didn't want to risk getting stuck in the boonies. I'm sure he would have eventually adapted! Fortunately he was able to find some fun things to over the weekend. We then headed back out into the void. The entire trip was about 1,500 miles, which to my mind was not that much for a week.  Of course, when I was a kid, it was a three-day drive home from Yellowstone, with lots of fighting with my brothers. ("Mom, he touched me!") Fortunately my kids haven't started that (yet) and were good travelers. I guess it's time to start thinking about a fall weekend getaway. Hmm...

Day 7 - National Oregon/California Trail Center

 We arrived too late in Montpelier, Idaho to go to the Oregon/California Trail Center, so we stayed the night, ate a Boy Scout pork roast dinner, and watched a fun fireworks display (not necessarily in that order!). The next morning we headed to the center.

 Montpelier is at the edge of the Great Basin, and I've been doing research about the entire Great Basin for an upcoming book, so I had learned about this center and really wanted to go.

 This sign made me laugh.

 They had a special Bigfoot/Sasquatch exhibit, which was a little odd. I guess we just don't have Bigfoots coming down into the central Great Basin, so I don't have much experience with Bigfoot sightings.

 Down in the basement were some historical exhibits by the DUP (Daughters of Utah Pioneers) and railroad exhibits, as Montpelier has busy train tracks through it. The nice lady in the museum really interacted with the kids. Desert Boy walked through the museum once and was ready to leave.

She told Desert Boy, "You're looking at things too fast." She led him over to the typewriter and let him type. Then he got to do some other activities on the old equipment.

As we headed up the stairs, he said to me, "Mom, she was right. I really was looking at things too fast."

 This quilt caught my eye. It's based on an historic photo. What impressive craftmanship!

Then it was time to begin our tour of the Oregon/California trail. It's a living history tour, with costumed interpreters.

 We first learned what we needed to take on the trail, how to make rifles, and other assorted important information. Then we prepared for our 2,000 mile journey.

 We were fortunate, we didn't have to walk the whole way, we got to make some of the journey in a covered wagon. The moving wagon freaked out Desert Girl, and she kept saying for hours afterward, "Oregon scary. Oregon scary." It was kind of cute. Hopefully she will recover some day.

When we exited the wagon we stopped at some camps and learned more about life on the trail. Those people sure had it rough! Desert Boy and Desert Girl were fascinated with the 45-minute program.

It was a fun stop. After we finished the living history portion, the kids ran back to the basement to continue looking at the local history museum. I've never seen them so interested in history!

Day 6 - Paris Ice Cave

 Heading south from Grand Tetons, we decided to visit Paris Ice Cave near Paris, Idaho. We got some directions from a local and headed up the good gravel road.

 After putting on helmets and finding lights, Desert Boy took off down the trail to the entrance.

 It was an impressive entrance, with huge blocks of limestone. We could feel a cold breeze coming out of the cave.

 We found lots of snow and ice still in the cave, despite it being July.

 A sturdy boardwalk helped us get across the icy wet parts.

 We still had to do some walking on the snow and ice, and Desert Boy found that it was painful to fall.

 The boardwalk part of the cave is not long, and you can see one entrance from the other. However, I could see that there was more cave, cave where we needed lights.

 We found another big room, with lots of ice.

 Ed checked out an ice formation.

 It is amazing how slippery the ice is!

 Ed looked up to see where all those big chunks of ice had come from. You certainly wouldn't want to be underneath when they fell.

 There was another entrance in this room, but it led to a long chimney that was too difficult for the kids.

 Quick pose!

 The ground is really rough around there. We wandered a bit and found one cave that looked only accessible by rappelling into it.

 Meanwhile, Desert Boy and Dad found another passageway and surprised us by coming out.

The Paris Ice Cave was a highlight of the trip. It's not big, but it sure is fun!