A Night Under the Moon

 My friend Jenny had the great idea to take the kids for a moonlit hike. During the summer, Great Basin National Park offers full moon hikes to Stella Lake. Now that it's October, those hikes are over, but there was nothing to stop us from going ourselves! We decided that we would try Strawberry Creek instead of Stella Lake. One of the reasons is that we wanted to hear elk bugling, and indeed we did. In the photo above, we stopped to listen to the eerie sound.

 As we hiked, the nearly full moon rose over the ridge. We tried to have the kids keep their flashlights off. It wasn't easy for them, as they were not comfortable hiking at night with just the glow of the moon. Gradually, though, they got used to it.

 We've hiked the Strawberry Creek loop before, but in daylight. The kids fondly remembered the bridges.

It didn't take long to get to the top bridge. We stopped for snacks and photos. It was hard to get everyone to sit still! Can you see the Big Dipper in the background? (It's on the left.)

We decided to play around with long exposures and some flashlight writing. I set the camera to take a 30-second exposure, then keeping the headlight covered, ran over and wrote the word "moon." Then I illuminated us for a couple seconds. Again it was hard to keep everyone still, and I look like a ghost, but you get the idea! We'll have to work on this technique some more.

After the bridge we were out in the meadow, and it was so bright! The kids walked really fast, and by now it was no problem to hike in the moon light without flashlights.

I was amazed how bright everything was with just the moon. I dragged behind experimenting with photos.

We got to the bridge at the end right about bed time. It was the perfect length hike for the kids.

Later that night I woke up to go check out the lunar eclipse. I took a ton of photos but wasn't very happy with how they turned out. It reinforced my desire to do a 2015 Moon Photo Challenge. I'll have more up on the blog about that later, but basically the idea is to take a photo of the full moon each month, experimenting with different locations and techniques. I hope you'll join me!

Here's the full moon from under the fall colors.

The blood moon during the full eclipse.

And finally, the eclipse ending.

I was exhausted the next morning, but it was worth it.

Lifeflight Training

Last week the Life Flight helicopter from Provo came out to provide an orientation and training for the services they provide. We (the local volunteer emergency squad) actually called Life Flight a few weeks ago to respond to a motorcycle wreck, and it was so good to know that advanced medical help was coming, as it's about an hour ride in an ambulance to the nearest hospital.

For our training, they landed in a parking lot and then we proceeded to a classroom, where we learned lots of useful things. They fly Agusta helicopters, with a 150 mph cruising speed in the summer, and 130 mph in the winter when they add the skis (they get a lot of ski resort business in the winter). They have hoist capabilities, but that takes some extra time to set up before they start the mission. It took them just under an hour to fly to our location, and it takes about 5-8 minutes to get into the air from the time they get a call. They have enough fuel to get to our location and part way back, but have to do a refueling stop on the return flight.

Life Flight flies day and night. At night they use night vision goggles, so they gave us some guidance of what lights they want on the ground when they come so they know where to go but aren't blinded. We also went over the landing zone criteria, especially for the backcountry.

They gave us a tour of the helicopter. The usual crew is the pilot, a paramedic, and a flight nurse. They have room for one patient on a gurney. Because of the high level of training of the crew, they are essentially operating a mobile intensive care unit.

The crew talked about how to approach the helicopter and other safety precautions. I've heard most of it before, but a refresher is good because I simply don't deal with helicopters that often.

After a couple hours they lifted off and headed back. They had been surprised on their way out here about the vast stretch of "nothingness." When you travel at 150 mph and think that, it gives you a good idea how remote we are! It sure is nice to know that even though we are remote, we have access to top-notch medical care, although it will take a little while to get here.

Here's a link to Life Flight's website if you'd like to learn more about their bases, aircraft, history, and more.

Desert Boy's First Triathlon

Delta, Utah, had its first ever triathlon yesterday, including a kids event. Earlier in the year I had asked Desert Boy if he wanted to do a triathlon (thinking that might help him improve his swimming), and he answered an enthusiastic "Yes!" So we registered him and took him to the Delta swimming pool for the start. Adults had to swim 300 m, bike 6 miles, and run 1.6 miles. Kids swam 100 m, biked 1.5 miles, and ran .25 miles. Desert Boy had never swam that far before, so I was eager to see how he would do.

He quickly flipped on his back and did his version of elementary backstroke, which actually propelled him fairly rapidly through the water. At age 7, he was the youngest contestant of the eight kids competing.

As soon as he finished swimming, he ran out to the transition zone and quickly got stuck trying to put his shirt on. Transitions are never easy!

Once he started riding, he was stoked. He said there were people at the corners pointing which way to go. We had also driven the bike route right before the race so he knew where to go.

When he got to the track, a helpful bystander grabbed his bike so he could do his lap around the track. He didn't even bother to take off his helmet.

He liked the cheering section.

And then he was across the finish line! It took him about 20 minutes to do the whole race, and he was beyond delighted that he had finished it. Even better were the free swimming pass and drink coupon he got for participating, both of which he used later that day.

When I asked him at the end of our busy day (which also included flu shots, caving, a special lunch out, swimming, and more) what his favorite part was, he said the triathlon, and specifically swimming in the triathlon. So hopefully we'll be doing more of these races!

The organizer said they're planning to do the triathlon again next year, probably at the end of May or beginning of June so it doesn't interfere with school activities. If you're interested, check out Ready, Set, Tri on Facebook.

Desert Boy Plays From a Wigwam on the Piano

Desert Boy started taking piano lessons from a different teacher (meaning not me!) at the beginning of September. He's loving it and practices usually without being asked. Sometimes he needs a little extra encouragement, and being videoed is a great motivation for him.

Here he is playing "From a Wigwam." I'll post again in a month or two and you can see what progress he's made.

Making Our Own PVC Chicken Feeder

Our chickens are doing really well. The rooster crows every morning, and I look forward to the cock-a-doodle-doos. The hens still aren't laying, despite giving them more calcium, putting a golf ball in a nest box "to give them the idea" and putting a light in the coop on a timer so that they get an extra couple hours of daylight every day. From my research on the Internet, it looks like they grow a big wattle right before they start to lay, which one of the hens has done. (A wattle is the red part under the bill.) Otherwise, although 5-6 months to lay is average, it does take some of them 12 months. I guess we'll just keep waiting (if you have any good ideas, let me know!)

Despite the lack of eggs, we're really enjoying the chickens. They are very messy, though, and I was getting tired of them spilling their chicken feed everywhere from the metal chicken trays. I looked around the Internet a bit to figure out a better solution and decided on PVC feeders. I didn't follow any one plan, but got ideas from several and went to the hardware store. I bought two 3 ft long sections of 3 -inch PVC pipe, two Y joints, and two caps of different types.

The design was simple enough for Desert Boy to assemble: stick the pipe into the Y-joint. We added a lid for the bottom, put it on a brick in the coop, tried to secure it as best we could, poured in chicken feed (the newly-acquired canning funnel helped!), and then put on a lid just to keep anything else out. Assembly was less than ten minutes.

We also made one for the run, and for this one we used the sturdier cap for the top and the plug for the joint to keep rain out.

Here's Desert Boy filling up the PVC. We only need to do that once a week or so.

The chickens seem to be very happy eating out of the new feeders, and the mess is greatly reduced. Success!