for "Bonded"

for "Hooters"

for "Night Patrol"

for "On a Dare"

for "Best Journal (Overall)"

Daily Sights

our Honeymoon view

a tall mountain

a tall tower

a comic strip


powered by SignMyGuestbook.com

Want an email when I update?
email:
Powered by NotifyList.com

Newest
Older
Previous
Next
Random
Contact
Profile
Host

blizzard warnings - 13:52 , 03 October 2013

heelerless - 21:32 , 18 August 2013

Red Coat Inn in Fort McLeod - 11:38 , 23 June 2013

rushing into the waters - 09:53 , 21 June 2013

choosing a spot - 17:43 , 27 April 2013

30 August 2004 - 23:31

a meeting and a desert crossing

You know, 15 minutes before you need to hit the road for a meeting 127 miles away, probably isn't the best time to decide to give yourself a haircut.

But I did.

Heelers and I left the house with one hour and fifty-nine minutes available to make the drive. And got there with five minutes to spare.

'Course, they didn't get any breaks along the way, so they were quite appreciative of the five minutes to run around in the open field next to the corrals. And the huge pile of boulders awaiting placement in some river or stream.

And just so you know, this...

is new snow, not white left over from last winter.

So, the meeting?

Twenty-three of us there, quite a few absent from this, one of our two annual "mandatory" meetings. Of the 23, there were ten I did not know. Guess I need to get up to the office more often. Which is one reason why at least two of these monthly meetings are mandatory every year...

They have a new acronym for these monthly meetings, which I do not know. I still like the old acronym we used for many years.

The "RATs" meetings.

Only three of the 23 were female. Not including the two guest presenters, one of whom I discovered was the full-grown daughter of the fellow I replaced, ohhh so many years ago. Didn't get a chance to tell her her Dad still came up in conversation with a local cowboy this month.

Radio-tracking of fish is getting more practical and affordable these days, with internal transmitters. Our folks are working on sauger, now.

I don't know all the recent history, but our local fish hatchery is being essentially rebuilt from the bottom up. In the process, they apparently acquired a new source of water. This is ground water, geothermally heated to sixty-some degrees. But fish thrive in it.

They also thrived (throve?) in the original water source, which is quite cold.

But when the two waters were combined, the fish died. Which has apparently been a mystery for some time.

Turns out the warm, ground water was saturated with iron. Which was not a problem for fish, so long as it stayed warm. But mix it with the cold water, and the iron precipitated out of solution, and coated the fishes' gills.

Hence, dead fish.

Filter the warm water, and they'll be back in business, sometime the year after next.

Other news...

Our nongame people are about three-quarters of the way through with their spotlight surveys for black-footed ferrets. (These folks are trying to function both nocturnally and diurnally this time of year, hence the tired, squirrely look to their eyes.), and have already confirmed over 60 ferrets running around out there in the wild. May get as many as 100 by the time they're through, an all-time high.

And the bear guys report the grizzlies have moved up to hit the moth sites this month, with at least 100 of the big bruins up there throwing boulders down the mountain so they can eat the fuzzy, fat-loaded bugs.

In summarizing his activities this summer, one of the wardens mentioned his time spent on "all the watercraft crap". And to make sure the gal taking minutes got the terminology correct, he spelled it out as C. R. A. P. After some discussion, it was concluded that must stand for Citizen Response And Patrol.

One of the wardens expressed concern over the low numbers of antelope that he found in his part of the desert.

Which gave me the perfect excuse for taking the scenic, slow route home. An excuse to look out on the red canyon again.

But before leaving, I grabbed a quick lunch at McD's. And remembered that it is a whole lot easier and less messy if you let the hot heelers have their share of the chocolate shake first, rather than tearing the cup down later so they can get the dregs at the bottom.

But you gotta watch that little maskless one. She's not afraid to get shake on her face, and must have an anteater tongue.

I think I got maybe two centimeters of shake off the bottom.

So, we headed up the pass, to 8,000-some feet, to the land of aspen and beaver dams, and then dropped down into the old mining town.

With its unusual mixture of ancient and modern buildings.

If any of you are interested, the fancy log resort/hotel/inn with the beautiful windows is still for sale.

And then, in just a mile or so, we've dropped out of the trees and out into the desert. And the warden's right. His portion is devoid of pronghorn. Admittedly mid-day with temps in the 80s is not a good time to expect to see them, but we saw not a one in our crossing.

Did spot this, though,

as I gave the heelers a break along a sandy beach.

And, of course, there may be a reason why so much of his desert is emptied of critters...

And yes, that's my beloved Honeycombs right there a few miles behind that sign.

( 3 comments on this entry )
previous entry || next entry
member of the official Diaryland diaryring: next - prev - random - list - home - Diaryland
the trekfans diaryring: next - prev - random - list - home
the goldmembers diaryring: next - prev - random - list - home
the onlymylife diaryring: next - prev - random - list - home
the unquoted diaryring: next - prev - random - list - home
the quoted diaryring: next - prev - random - list - home
the redheads diaryring: next - prev - random - list - home