Back to School, Rural Style

 We start school early, in mid-August. Desert Boy wanted it to start even earlier, as he really missed his friends. So when we went to back-to-school night, he could barely contain his enthusiasm. He picked out his desk, got his school supplies, and played on the playground. The parents learned about the daily schedule and dress policy. Then we went home and made sure Desert Boy was in bed by 8.

 The next morning, Desert Boy was up at 5:30, wondering why he had to wait so long to go to school and start his first day as a first grader. Good thing his dad was up that early!

Living in such a rural area, we don't have to choose between private and public, charter and magnet, one-language or bilingual schools. We have an old-fashioned one-room schoolhouse system. Grades kindergarten through second grade are taught in one town by a teacher and a teacher's aide. Grades 3-6 are in a different town in another one-room school (actually it has two classrooms and a library/computer room, but the main subjects are taught in one classroom and the other one is used as the music room/science room/cafeteria). Grades 7-12 go to a third town where several teachers teach in their specialties and the other subjects are taught via TV/Internet connections. We have a bus system that takes the kids where they need to go.

Class size is small. Last year's graduating class was about five. That's quite large. We don't have any kindergarteners this year. The first grade class has six students. The second grade class has three students, so my son is in a classroom with nine students total. The combined grades in the classrooms seems to work, mainly because we have very talented teachers. The older students help the younger students, and the younger ones see what the older ones are doing and want to do it too. (This especially applied to Desert Boy with math last year, he wanted the harder math sheets. Talk about getting his mom to smile!) Most students go on to college.

We've already told our kids that they are going to college. One morning Desert Girl surprised me by saying, "I can't wait to go to college, it's going to be so fun!" Way to go, pre-schooler, you keep thinking that way!

 Back to the first day of first grade. Desert Boy was ready to be the star of my camera. I love this photo!

 We went over to the bus stop for more photos.

 And a little comparing of who had grown more over the summer!

 But the camera got old, and the kids got tired of the photo shoot. They wanted to get to school!

 Soon it was time for the bus, and eager kids remembered the rules and stayed put until the bus doors opened and then marched in a nice line onto the bus. Good job! Desert Boy lost his backpack over the summer, so he's using a temporary one in a nice bright color that hopefully he won't lose. He has homework four days a week, so he has to learn to bring it home, do it, and take it back.

My husband wasn't such a good student, he wanted to stay out under the desert sun and go running around, so we're thrilled Desert Boy is liking school so much. We're trying to encourage him and also give him good food to fuel his body and mind. My goal this school year is to send as little processed food as possible, especially after learning how artificial food dyes have been linked to hyperactivity and how the American diet includes several times the amount of sugar we need.

Here was our day 2 lunch: left-over whole wheat spaghetti with sauce (Desert Boy picked out the zucchini from the sauce the night before, but he doesn't even know it's whole wheat spaghetti), a whole-wheat banana-chocolate chip muffin (yes, a couple ingredients in the muffin aren't the healthiest, but hopefully the banana helps balance those out!), baby carrots (he still calls long ones adult carrots), and strawberries. Yum.

Maybe part of going back to school fun are the lunches. Oh, who am I kidding? His favorite part of the day is recess!

What's your favorite back-to-school memory?

New Food: Pomona's Universal Pectin

When it was apparent that our apricot tree was going to have an abundant crop this year, I prepared to make some jam. I had plenty of bottles, lids, and rings, but I needed some pectin. Up to now my favorite has been Sure-Jell Premium Fruit Pectin Light. It uses less sugar, but the amount of sugar is still quite high--about 3/4 cup sugar per 1 cup apricots.

Since I've been trying to eat healthier this year, I decided to do a little more investigating and came across Pomona's Universal Pectin. It's available from Azure Standard and Amazon
(and probably from many other stores, but I live over an hour from a grocery store so have limited choices).

If you've made jam, you probably know how the main brands (Ball, Sure-Jell), tell you how to follow the recipe to a T. No substitutions, changes, nada. When you read the Pomona's instructions, you get a totally different feeling. They tell you you're welcome to develop your own recipes and give you some helpful hints. They even tell you how to use other sweeteners like honey, maple sugar, juice concentrate, sucanat, xylitol and stevia.

I wasn't feeling quite brave enough to make my own recipe, but I was willing to follow one of theirs. They have three main categories: Cooked recipes with low sugar or honey, No-cook freezer recipes, and cooked "all fruit" recipes. I've tried the cooked recipes with honey and the cooked "all fruit" recipes, with concentrated apple juice sweetening the jam. Both have turned out great, and neither have any white sugar added. Yippee!

The reason that Pomona's can get away with no white sugar is that it is citrus based. The pectin is extracted from the peel of a lime, lemon, or orange. It activates with calcium water (which you mix up with the included packet).

The jam that we made tastes fruitier with the Pomona pectin, which makes sense because there really is more fruit in it. I highly recommend this pectin, and find that not only is it healthier, it's also cheaper, because one box makes more jam than the other brands of pectin. What a win-win. This is the only pectin I'm going to be using from now on. And with two big boxes of fruit arriving later this month, I'll be ready!

p.s. For more of my adventures in new, healthy foods, click here.

This post includes an affiliate link to Amazon. Should you click on this link and decide to purchase anything, I will receive a small commission  and you will have my sincere thanks for supporting Desert Survivor! 

Tips for Watching the Perseid Meteor Shower with Kids

Desert Boy holding a meteorite

You've probably heard that the peak of the Perseid meteor shower is tonight. Are you ready to watch this exciting natural phenomenon? Here are some tips to make the most of it.

1. Find a Dark Spot

We are lucky out in the rural desert to have a very, very dark place to watch the meteor shower. However, we even have some stray lights around. So to make it as dark as possible, we'll try to position ourselves to use buildings to block out that extraneous light. Tip: out in the West, the moon will set around 10:00, so it will be even darker after then. (You can find your moon and sun times for your area here.) Also, use red flashlights or regular flashlights covered with red tissue paper to preserve your night vision. It can take 15-20 minutes to get your eyes accustomed to the dark!

2. Get Comfortable

I've gone for night hikes to watch meteor showers (partly to stay warm!), but perhaps the best way is to sit down or lie down. We're planning on hanging out on air mattresses in the back yard with sleeping bags and pillows. That way if the kids fall asleep early, we can still enjoy the meteor shower. 

3. Be Patient

The Perseid meteor shower is expected to have 80-100 meteors per hour. That's over one a minute. But that still leaves about 40 seconds of every minute with nothing. That can be difficult for little kids (and sometimes adults) to wait. Things that might help are to look at the constellations and listen to stories about them, to join a meteor viewing party so there are more people to talk to, or to play games about where the next meteor might be. (Hint: this is called the Perseid meteor shower because many of the meteoroids appear to originate from the constellation Perseus, which is in the northeast sky under the "W" of Casseiopeia.)

Hope you see some good meteors! (And if you happen to get lucky enough to have a meteorite land near you, send it to me!)

Definitions from The Free Dictionary:

Meteor: A bright trail or streak that appears in the sky when a meteoroid is heated to incandescence by friction with the earth's atmosphere. Also called falling star, meteor burst, shooting star.

Meteoroid: A solid body, moving in space, that is smaller than an asteroid and at least as large as a speck of dust.

Meteorite: A stony or metallic mass of matter that has fallen to the earth's surface from outer space.

The Perplexing Plum Tree

 My husband noted that a tree near our house was producing fruit. He had never seen it produce fruit before, so we went and took a closer look.

 The fruit came in two sizes, the larger about an inch and a half in diameter, the smaller about the size of  a cherry. We discussed if this could be a Potawatomi Plum, but neither of us was sure. Potawatomi plums (Prunus munsoniana) are native to the southeast, but were reportedly brought by miners and Mormons to the Colorado Plateau and Great Basin. I did a bit of Internet searching to find more, but ended up more confused!

Here's a closeup of the fruits. As you can see by the fruits in the background, many of them were split. If you know anything more, please leave a comment.

And what about the taste? My husband said he had eaten one a few days earlier, and he was still alive, so I tried a few. They tasted sort of like a plum, but left a cottony feeling in the mouth, which isn't all that pleasant. Perhaps these would be better in jams.

Survey on Pregnancy and High Elevation

My five-month pregnant friend at 13,000 feet elevation

I've been out hiking to mountain tops this week with a friend who is five months pregnant. During one of our hikes, we got in a conversation about high elevation exposure while pregnant. My friend conducts fieldwork on mountain tops. Her doctor had looked into the literature, but hadn't found much information, so had cleared her for staying two weeks above 10,000 feet. For her next jaunt into the mountains, her doctor recommended that she spend the evenings at a lower elevation to make sure that her oxygen levels would resaturate in case her baby was having any stress during the days. My friend was hiking as well as I was, so I was really impressed!

Between hikes, I had a chance to check my email and saw a request from two doctors to post a link to a survey about pregnancy, exercise, and high elevation on my blog. It's not like you can really run a controlled experiment on high elevation pregnancy exposure ("hey, you pregnant lady, go spend two months above 10,000 feet and tell us how you and your baby do, you may or may not have some consequences"). However, this survey can gather some information that may provide doctors with a little more data for making recommendations in the future.

I filled out the survey, and if you'd like to, just click on the link below.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Looking For Female Participants For a Research Survey on Pregnancy, Exercise and High Altitude Exposure

Very little is known about the safety of travel and exercise at high altitude during pregnancy. Furthermore, although exercise is considered safe during pregnancy some activities, such as downhill skiing, are discouraged and many women modify their exercise regimes during pregnancy
We are conducting a research project to study what kind of exercise women participate in during pregnancy and whether they travel to high altitude during pregnancy. Our goal is to use the information obtained in the survey results to provide advice to physicians and their pregnant patients who want to travel to high elevations. If you are physically active and have been pregnant you may be able to provide useful information for our study, which is being run jointly through the University of Washington and the University of Colorado.

If you choose to participate, you will find a link to the anonymous on-line survey at the bottom of this email. The survey will take 15-20 minutes to complete and does not require you to provide any personal information.

Eligible participants are women who have completed a pregnancy and are physically active. You do not need to have been to high altitude during pregnancy to participate. If you are currently pregnant with your first pregnancy, please wait until after delivery to complete the survey.

Participation in this study is voluntary. You may decline to answer any question in the survey. All of the information you provide in the survey will remain anonymous. Although you will not benefit directly from this survey, we anticipate that information learned from the survey will help physicians and pregnant women who wish to travel and exercise at high altitude.

If you have any questions, feel free to email us at linda.keyes@aya.yale.edu oraluks@u.washington.edu, although please be reminded that the confidentiality of emails cannot be guaranteed. We appreciate your time and effort in completing this survey and look forward to reviewing the information you provide.

Click here to complete this survey: https://catalyst.uw.edu/webq/survey/aluks/204130
If the link does not work, you can copy and paste it in your web browser.

PLEASE REMEMBER TO CLICK ON "SUBMIT" AT THE END OF THE SURVEY TO ENSURE THAT YOUR ANSWERS ARE ALL SAVED PROPERLY.

Sincerely,
Linda E. Keyes, MD
Assistant Clinical Professor, Emergency Medicine
University of Colorado, Denver

Andrew M. Luks, MD
Associate Professor, Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine
University of Washington

Summertime Swimming

 School starts in about a week, so we've been trying to squeeze in as much summertime fun as we can. The hot temperatures have made it easy to agree to go to the swimming hole, where the kids also enjoy digging in the sand.

 Desert Girl was sporting a new swimsuit, which she called a "zucchini." She was sure that was the name of it.

 Isaac was having good success making sand castles.

 The dogs were having a great time, too.

 The fun factor ramped up when the kids made their own "jumping boards." The water depth in the swimming hole varies quite a bit, from just a couple inches to about four feet. It's actually a settling pond, where the water slows down before it heads down to the fields below via a pipe. It's quite interesting to see how the substrate changes, from rocky where the stream enters the pond, to sandy, to fine sediment that becomes very mucky. I don't like the mucky parts, especially when my foot sinks in several inches. The rest is nice, though.

 "Ready, set, go!"

Ava loved to splash!

 Then the big kids wanted to go into the deeper water. Desert Boy has learned to back float and doggy paddle better this summer, so I feel more comfortable with him around water. He still has a lot to learn though, so I'm sure to remind him of that.

 Henry is a natural swimmer, but even he gets worn out and needs time to go get his nose sandy.

It was a fun afternoon. Eventually we got cold enough in the mountain stream that we had to go home to warm up. That's a nice feeling on a hot summer afternoon!

A Trip up Mount Washington

Ready for a road trip? We're going to head up the west side of the South Snake Range to Mt. Washington in Great Basin National Park. It's a long trip (and a long post), but it's worth it! The road goes nearly to the top of the mountain, but the road is not the easiest to drive. Think switchbacks that are so steep you have to do three-point turns to go up some of them. This is a section my dad would rather get out and walk. (Dad, you have to come visit sometime in summer so you can see for yourself!) 

The trip starts from Nevada Highway 894 (a spur off US Highway 93 in Spring Valley),  opposite from the Pickering Ranch. The unmarked gravel road goes up the bench (in other places it would be called the alluvial fan), crossing from sagebrush to pinyon and juniper. Up in the pinyon-juniper, the road starts switchbacking, but is still passable to passenger cars up to the Pole Canyon adit of the Mount Wheeler mine at 7850 feet. The adit is over a mile long. Water flows out from the entrance (see photo above), but I've heard that it contains heavy metals so isn't recommended for drinking.

This beautiful swallowtail was enjoying the coolness of the water.

Several structures still stand from when this mine was in action, in the late 1940s and 1950s. Beryllium and tungsten were the primary targets. (You can find more information in Chapter 20 of Great Basin National Park: A Guide to the Park and Surrounding Area--link in the sidebar to the right).

From the adit, the road becomes much more of an adventure. It was made as a jeep road in 1948. High clearance and four wheel drive are required. A chainsaw wouldn't be a bad idea, as we didn't get too far up the road until we found this:

We didn't have a chainsaw. Or a handsaw. Or a hatchet. But fortunately there were three of us, and through brute strength we were able to roll that tree off to the side of the road.

Then came the numerous switchbacks. I was busy driving so didn't manage to get any photos of them. I don't know if you could capture them well on photo--they are definitely an experience!

A bit further on we reached the small sign informing us that we were entering Great Basin National Park. The road crosses the park part of the time. The other time it's on private land owned by LongNow, a foundation interested in the very long perspective. (See their website for more.)

From up on the cliff we had super views of the switchbacks we had just traversed, Spring Valley, and the Schell Range.

Located along the cliff edge were bristlecone pines. Bristlecone pines are a great way to think of a longer perspective. Needles stay on the trees for 40 years. The harsher the climatic conditions, the longer the tree grows--one was found nearby that was about 5,000 years old (and then it was cut down, but that's a story for another day).

There's a lot of concern about bristlecone pines and other five-needle pines due to the combination of mountain pine beetle (MPB) and white pine blister rust.  MPB is a native beetle that has benefited from climate change. In some areas, instead of completing one life cycle in two years, it may do it in just a year. That means lots more beetles, and all those beetles need something to eat. As they eat the trees, the trees die. In normal years, a few trees die every year from MPB. When epidemics occur, and MPB beetle populations are especially high, nearly entire forests can die, although MPB generally just attacks trees greater than six inches diameter, so at least the young trees are spared.

However, the non-native white pine blister rust is spreading. It can attack trees of any age and kill them. Some trees are naturally resistant, but those trees may still be susceptible to MPB. It's a nasty one-two punch that has nearly wiped out whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis), the predominant tree near treeline in the northern Rockies. In some areas, more than 90% of the population has been decimated, and the tree was petitioned for listing under the Endangered Species Act. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared it warranted but precluded in 2011, meaning that it deserves protection but that the staff and money don't exist to do that. In Canada, it's been listed as endangered.

What about the bristlecone pine? Could it suffer such a fate? That's not known. For now, some proactive measures are being taken. A number of seeds were collected several years ago and are being tested for white pine blister rust resistance at the Dorena Genetic Resource Center. The main test takes seven years. If the tree shows resistance, more seeds can be collected to protect the genetic material, and if needed, help restore populations. But what happens if mountain pine beetle attacks the tree during those seven years, and the tree's not around to produce more resistant seeds? That's where our trip came in. We were putting pheromone pouches containing the chemical verbenone on the selected trees. Verbenone is what the mountain pine beetles send out to tell other beetles that the tree is full. It basically is the "Stay out, we're full," signal. If MPB populations aren't too high, the beetles are tricked and stay away. If they are high, nothing can really be done. But we do what we can, in the hopes that we can help this majestic species.

The trees we were visiting were scattered, which meant we had more higher up the mountain.

Further up the road, we took a side trip to some historic cabins. These were made by miners. Guess what trees they used. If you guessed bristlecones, you're right! These bristlecones are taller than the really old ones, mostly due to a gentler climate--not as much wind.

You can tell that the cabins are really old by the construction style. They didn't use nails to put these logs together--they built these cabins lincoln-log style.

Oops, I got distracted by a pretty penstemon with a pollinator in it.

Did the miners get distracted by the flowers? It must have been quite a hard life to get up there and then mine at such a high elevation. Then they had to get the ore off the mountain. One account says that they waited for winter and used toboggans to get the ore down.


Near the cabins is a thick metal cable. It goes down into the canyon. I decided to see what it was connected to up on the mountain.

First I found a huge pulley, probably ten inches in diameter, up high in a bristlecone. The chain holding the pulley in place is starting to get overgrown in the tree. This pulley appeared to help get the cable up high in the air.

Further uphill was the attachment point, the cable running around the base of a bristlecone. It's been there so long the cable is part of the tree now. I feel a little bad for the tree.

We got back in the truck and headed up higher.

Our next stop was to look at the Nevada Climate-Ecohydrological Assesment Network (NevCAN) weather station. This is a network that goes across the Snake Range and up one side of the Sheep Range in Nevada. You can look at real-time data and photos from the cameras at the link above.

The views kept getting better and better as we ascended. Finally we reached the end of the road and had to travel the last part of the way up to the summit of Mount Washington on foot. It was good going on foot, we had time to absorb the beauty around us.

These dainty Erigeron looked bright and cheerful with their yellow and white coloring.

A knob of wind-eroded wood made me consider the bristlecones that used to grow at this elevation, which is now above treelike.

The Colorado Columbine (Aquilegia caerulea) made a striking appearance.

I wasn't the only one being held captive by the diminutive but colorful flowers!

Soon we could see north towards Wheeler Peak. It's so interesting how the colors change. Wheeler , Jeff Davis, and Baker Peaks are all made of metamorphic rock, the Prospect Mountain Quartzite. Closer we start getting into granites, and then closest, with the grey rock is limestone.

We had to pause for a few photos.

Aileen's first visit to the summit of Mt. Washington.

Looking northeast towards Steve, with a view of the Snake Creek drainage and Eagle Peak behind him (another limestone area with bristlecones).

Looking west towards me, with Spring Valley and the Schell Range in the background.

The view to the east takes in the North Fork Big Wash. The day was a bit hazy, so we couldn't see Snake Valley or the next mountain ranges very well.

Then it was time to head down the mountain.

We paused to check out some trees that had burned during the 1999 fire. The fire had burned up into bristlecones. We're not certain what the effect might be to the bristlecone community, but the fire certainly has opened up a lot of habitat to bighorn sheep, which are being tracked periodically with collars.

The afternoon light was magical, and I couldn't help but take a few more photos.

I noticed a younger bristlecone tree. Here's the next generation!

This striking three-foot tall plant with four-petaled green flowers is green gentian or elkweed (Frasera speciosa).

In contrast, here's the tiny dwarf alpine paintbrush (Castilleja nana), with a bee pollinating it. Note the orange pollen on the hind legs of the bee. This has been a busy bee!

The stunning sego lily (Calachortus nuttalli) with a pollinator. 

It's a long drive back down the mountain, but with great views along the way.

It's worth the trip!