I had more photos to include especially JR's trips, I blew a few transitions there at the end and I wanted to add music to provide some ambiance as we looked back over our year. This will just have to do. I plan to be more organized NEXT year, which is almost here!
Of course, he asked for some science fiction and fantasy books too. Poor guy, it's in his genes and he can't help it. (He's even named after a sci fi character.) There's no escape.
Memories of birthday parties with watermelons, cakes with little trains, special presents, birthday cash. Seems like just yesterday he went out this door on his way to kindergarten. How'd he ever get so big so quickly?!
Okay, maybe I'm a little old for the girl designation, it's a granite shore, and Kharma's legs are filthy--but the delight and relaxation were primo. Kharma's never been in a kayak before; I wish I had some photos of our struggles.
Sigh, I should have taken it slowly from the beginning but I'm determined to succeed in getting her on-board and calm!
The K-dog was much happier hiking around the lake--pushing through ferns, leaping creeks, dashing down into the lake, meeting other vacationing pups, keeping our beach free from marauding ducks, playing with Quincy and occasionally checking to see if I was napping or awake.
I had a very pooped puppy dog; she napped in her crate during the two hour trip and nothing, but nothing, that Zelda did could get her to play when we got home.
As usual, Kharma has let me know that if Quincy's mom wants to adopt another dog she'll happily change homes. (No worries, it's just her way of telling me she had a good time.) She'll have to settle for me, the frisbee in the pasture and hikes up the creek until next summer rolls around and another trip to the lake is on the calendar!
Yesterday we drove to Altai to catch the charter flight, which was bringing in the change of crew from UB. But when it got halfway, they reported iced up wings, so were obliged to turn back. So we had to stay in Altai an unexpected night; terrible hotel conditions, but at least there was a toilet down the hall. Meanwhile, around lunchtime when we were still awaiting the plane that wouldn’t come at the airport, I started getting chilly. Didn’t think much about it until we reached Altai, but when we were finally arrived at a camp we thought we could stay for the night, I was freezing, and then became nauseous. I did finally vomit, which is rare for me, so I knew something was wrong. I then became feverish and still could not get warm. Luckily we had the camp doctor with us and he advised it might be food poisoning, so gave me some things to settle it. He decided it was best to get me to a hotel in town since the camp gers are not heated, and it was obviously going to get cold (freezing) and typically they give you nothing more for bed clothes than a sheet and light blanket. So we searched Altai for a motel room. When we had just about run out of options for motels, we learned by phone the rest of our crew had returned to town and found a hotel, so we joined them, and shared 3 rooms between the lot of us (14). I ate almost nothing for 30 hours. Finally, the plane arrived around noon today, we exchanged greetings with the new crew, and loaded up the prop for the 3 ½ hour flight to UB. But first we had to weigh in; the pilot, a very friendly lady with English accent, asked us each our weight in kilos and then weighed our bags, and naturally we were overweight. The doctor volunteered to remain in Altai as most of the rest of us had international connections to make and he is Mongolian; but besides, he grew up in Altai, so hopefully it is no hardship for him to remain there an extra night. We landed in UB about 5pm today, and went to eat at an Indian restaurant. The food was very good, mild but nicely flavored, but I could eat little since my stomach is still tender. Hopefully I will recover better tonight. It was absolute luxury to have a warm shower, especially after having been sick and sweating in the same clothes.
Don’t know if I am up to it, but the others want to get up to watch the final football match at 3:00am. I would like to but, probably need my rest, even if I will be mostly sleeping long hours on the remaining flights. Hopefully the trials are mostly behind us, but we were counting on a day in the UB office to do some clean-up work, so are now further behind. Guess we will have to collaborate on the flight. Time is running by, so wish us well on our connections so we return on schedule. Guess that it about all for now. I’m glad this hotel in UB is modern enough to have wireless connection! See you soon.
Did you know tropical water lilies come in blues and purples? 
We also snuck in a trip to Fort Clatsop (conveniently located close to my dear SIL and BIL) on Tigger's first day of summer vacation. We had sun the entire day and Tigger got to try out his throwing arm on Calvin who will retrieve his tennis ball till H-E-double toothpicks freezes over. Throw in some yardwork and visits to the local nurseries, lots of yummy food and perfect company...what more could we have asked?!
Early this morning it started to rain, and it continued steadily all day, and blew as well, so was really cold. We decided to make it an office data catch-up day, which we needed anyway, and had really planned for such a rain out. But I did not expect it to rain the entire day. Finally just quit after dinner time, and we could see the mountains covered by a dusting of snow; this is how summer begins here? Since it is so damp, and will be very cold tonight, we finally asked the camp manager to install a stove pipe, so he did, and then lit the stove, and the ger warmed up right away, so maybe we will be comfortable tonight. Expect to spend a solid day in the field tomorrow, so imagine it will be cold and damp. Lucky the rain began early today, or we would have gone out and have been stuck in steady rain all day, as we are now working far from camp and get a driver to take us out and pick us up. So it worked out all around. Just have to hope we won’t have more days like this.
The night was cold despite the fact we had the stove; after the wood burned (too quickly), the ger cooled off fast, and of course the wind was howling all night, so it was difficult to get up in the morning. It was gray and threatening when we did, and the wind was still severe when we headed out but at least it wasn’t raining. We took rain gear, anyway, and by noon the clouds were parting and the afternoon was comfortable, even though there was still some wind, so we had a good field day. We timed everything just right taking our office day yesterday and getting back out today.
We have an “ablution block” as K calls it, with a number of separate rooms with showers and toilets; one of those is reserved for us, meaning the project supervisors. The shower usually runs cold water only, so showering in the evening is a real chore, just let water dribble, hoping the body warms it up as it trickles down. Tonight, however, I could get nothing but scalding hot water, so I had to resort to the same technique of turning the water on and off and using a minimum at a time. The toilets are not great, but at least they are toilets and do have a flushing mechanism (button on top of tank to release the tank water), and work OK.Let's head away from the head and onto the dining room:
A more serious problem we realized yesterday is that they ran out of bottled water. This is used for all drinking, mixing with tea and coffee, etc. Luckily we still had a few left over bottles for use in the field. So camp was without drinking water for 24 hours until someone drove back today to buy more cases. I hear that a truck load of supplies is on its way, but will probably be here tomorrow. It looks like they are also running out of some food items, so hope this will replenish all of those needs.
Tonight for dinner, us non-Mongolians actually got a small dab of vegetables, a “salad” composed of carrot pieces, pickles and red peppers. The rest of the plate of course had various items composed of meat. I had tea, about the only drinking option, but I’m not asking where the water came from; at least I know it was boiled. As for the apricots, I took a bunch of dried ones I had at home, so they have been useful; I have been spare with them, so still have some and some of the nut mix from Grammy.
They have a strange thin rubbery mushroom? item which we had for dinner both tonight and last night, and it was actually good. It’s dark brown to black, ruffly and thin, and looks kind of like some exotic pasta, but doesn’t taste much like mushroom.
All I can say is, What have you done with my husband? You know, the one who hates mushrooms and piles them up on my plate when we go out to eat, where'd he go?
I am totally burned out on eating eggs. They want to feed us eggs for breakfast and every bag lunch packed for us contains two sandwiches both of which are fatty bologna and fried egg between two slices of bread and then covered by another slice of bologna plus another fried egg. Everything is greasy. I am just asking for specifics now; at least they have oranges. Otherwise, not much fruit, so am glad for the dried apricots I took and for the nuts & dried fruit mix Grammy gave me. Dinners are mostly just a carbohydrate plus meat; usually noodles or dumpling type covering, often again fried or cooked in oil. Occasionally get some potatoes parts, sliced onions, and red peppers, so those are welcome. Not usually much to drink other than water or coffee, sometimes they give us a can of Coke, even for the field, which is really weird. I wish they would put out the fruit juice more often like they sometimes have in the mornings. Anyway, there is plenty of food, if it’s not completely balanced, so we will fare OK.A change in diet has to be the hardest thing to adapt to when you're travelling. This may be one reason I don't yearn to travel--if I don't have cereal and milk every morning, stay away from me for the rest of the day. He's had beef for breakfast, lunch and dinner when in South America. On the other hand, Turkey had an abundance of fruits and vegetables so that was an easy trip.
Last night was freezing and lots of us had a hard time. Today it was clear, though, and warmed up, so hope tonight will be better. Although the gers have wood stoves in the center, we still don’t have a stove pipe in our ger, so can’t get heat even if we want it.
Let's see, that was Saturday. The weather didn't improve much for Sunday:The wind was ferocious in the field today, and now it is blowing again, bringing some rain. John and I may stay in during the morning to catch up on all the mapping.
On the way after lunch, we traveled through an area where a pastoral family lives where JS and I had previously avoided since we knew we would be asked questions and couldn’t respond. But the Mongolian in our group translated, and as per tradition, we were invited into their ger and asked to eat; it is considered more than rude to refuse such hospitality, and in fact when passing by, you are expected to drop in. So we all crowded into their ger and sat as they served up milk tea (goat & sheep mixed), then brought on a platter of biscuits, hard cheese, and a huge tub of “yogurt”. We all drank the milk tea, but only JS and I tried the “yogurt”; we still aren’t sure what it is but it is rather bitter, so they sprinkle sugar over it. I’m hoping that I don’t get sick from the unusual food and possibly unsanitary utensils, but it looked like they kept a reasonably clean ger. All of this is a show of wealth. Apparently the herders are doing better these days since the price of cashmere is high. We still see a lot of dead goats in the field, however. This family looked to have 200-300 goats plus sheep, so are considered well off. They actually have a small TV and solar panel. We couldn’t communicate much, but apparently this family was suitably amused by our outlandish attire and inability to speak a word of their tongue. They commented that they had been seeing JS and I in the field on previous days, so it was good that we introduced ourselves.
I have no idea what day it is since we are always working and Mongolian time differs from Pacific time. We figure we have hit the 10th day of work here, so that means we are half done, so guess we are about on schedule as we will need some days to finalize.That's all for now. It's so nice to have an adventure on the other side of the world and still be able to "talk" daily.
The wildlife here is herds of goats and some sheep, and a few horses, but all domestic. The dogs, however, are huge, with fluffy brown coats that puff them up even bigger, so they look more like yaks. There are very few birds and we only saw one tiny snake, ...ants and a few beetles; rarely we have seen the iridescent beetles like scarabs. I had one mosquito land on my arm, but killed it when it started sucking, so that line will not replenish and think there are few relatives left.
We are getting further afield, so the hikes are getting longer returning to camp.
We are working further afield each day, and today at noon were probably 2 miles away when the clouds moved in. They come fast here, and we didn’t have much warning, but I could see they were bringing rain. We crouched by the biggest outcrops we could find and let it come, but after 15 minutes we were thoroughly soaked anyway. We continued mapping and over the next couple of hours the clouds parted a bit and the wind occasionally kicked up, so we dried out ok. By the time we reached camp at 6:30, we were dry. This evening, though, it has rained off and on for the past couple of hours. Afternoon thunder showers seem to be common here, and explain why we see all the green, though short, grasses.
The geology:
The vegetation is not enough to form much cover, so the rocks are usually well exposed, although the complex folding of these strata makes figuring out the geology really difficult. There are a lot of fossil wood casts in the sandstone beds and I have found several small logs. Since the beds are Permian, these are very primitive trees, probably cycads or similar tree fern types. Typically there are just alternating beds of carbonaceous siltstone (black) and sandstone (tan or light gray) so distinguishing rock units is easy enough, but these repeat so frequently it is almost impossible to tell them apart to know where in the entire sequence any one bed lies. Exposures are good along sides of hills and in gullies, but many flat pediment surfaces are all just alluvium, so we will be extrapolating our map units quite a bit in some areas. I figure this area was dominantly fluvial plains with meandering streams and interwoven swamps, and that these migrated through time, so the beds are thin, variable, and abundantly interspersed with siltstones and sandstones and occasional conglomerates from the channels. But now the beds are rumpled like a carpet that has been shoved completely against one wall, and we rarely find beds dipping less than 40 degrees, many being vertical.
Since beds are Permian, no, we will not find any dinosaur remains, as the period just preceded their reign.Dang.
Enough...I have to finish work and this connection is a real pain.
I finally have an internet connection briefly at the camp, but there is only one tent that has cables for this, so we will just be accessing when we have time and a cable is available. It is slow, though and difficult to type because the lag time is extreme; I can type a whole sentence before I see the words on the screen. Also this will quit in a few minutes and then I will have to restart.
Today we had our field introduction so tomorrow we may be able to start out mapping.
The “tents” here are called gers and are the cylindrical Mongolian houses with two central poles holding up the roof. They have wool(?) batting for the walls and then bright-colored fabric over that so they are fairly quiet, warm and clean. I’d guess they are about 20’ in diameters, so plenty spacious, as we only have cots and one small table for furniture.
We didn’t know it, but there are laundry facilities and women who will do laundry, so they actually place a laundry basket in each ger and these women will pick it up and do the laundry.
Food is pretty basic usually noodles with some meat in a soup base, white bread, sometimes a vegetable. I’m not usually asking what the food is, because you just get what is served, so there is no point contesting.
We have electricity, from a generator, so two light bulbs hang down from each ger’s ceiling. Can’t complain, but the cots and bedding are so short it is nearly impossible to keep my feet undercovers at night, a feeling I hate. I’m going to have to devise some system.
The weather was warm today, mostly clear but clouds seem to build in the afternoons and sometimes threaten rain. Apparently it has been raining fairly consistently over the past weeks as there is a lot of low green grass and the shepherds are running their flocks of sheep and goats all over.
I tried a bit of white brick cheese today and found it really sour; this is a Mongolian favorite, but would take a lot of getting used to for us; it is a mix of sheep, goat and camel cheese, and the odor that comes off it strikes me as smelling rather like the negative end of the camel. Come to mention it, our ger smells a bit like that as well.
Every bed in the Queen Mother's house was filled and a couple of sleeping bags rolled out in odd corners. The table was full at every meal and she even Used-The-Dining-Room and the world didn't come to an early demise as a result. (Just kidding, Mom.) Visiting with one of your bridesmaids is pretty cool too, after what, sixty years?!
Before I was a Mom
Before I was a Mom
Before I was a Mom
Before I was a Mom
Before I was a Mom
I LOVE BEING A MOM!
What can I say? We had plans to replace several of the 4x4 posts this weekend. We did not have plans to crush our ten year old wisteria in the process. Kharma loved it--she thinks we enlarged the yard especially for her. Fortunately our neighbor is a dog person.Ah, but that was yesterday. Today we woke up to find:
Yes, snow. Followed quickly by an earthquake at 8 a.m. Followed by an entire day of jittery little jolts. They are predicting seventy degrees for tomorrow.
You just can't get bored by Nevada weather.
It's nice to have family come and visit. It's even nicer, possibly, when they show up singly rather than en masse.
It's not usually my favorite color combination, but how can you beat pink and blue at this time of year?
Come late September (with a little help from the bees, a minimum of snow on the blossoms and a ruthless culling process involving many pounds of small green peaches and a garbage can), we'll be harvesting Early Elbertas.
Peaches bigger than a baseball. Peaches so ripe that the skin just about falls off. Gourmet peaches. Incredible peaches that are completely organic. Peaches warm off the tree. Peaches I share with my neighbors and co-workers because we can't possibly eat all of them ourselves. Peaches dripping with flavor.
Whoops! I think my taste buds briefly hijacked my post. Because what I really want to say is...
Even if we didn't get one single peach, the blossoms against that blue blue sky would be beauty enough for me!
The rocks on Grammy's pond waterfall have shifted over the past two winters and were in need of an overhaul. Erkie-pie moved all the heavy rocks for me and I took advantage of a brief spell of warm weather and began rebuilding the waterfall. We went for a longer drop this time with a smooth veil of water. The new rivulet has a nice deep sound as it hits the pond.
***
But then I look back on this picture of the old waterfall engineered by Pierre two years ago. It looks so natural as it fans out on the rocks, splashing and tumbling on the way down. I wonder if I really improved on the original?
Here we are at the Rio Grande Zoo. Do you think I could get them to turn my way for just one family photo op? Not when there was a good excuse like the darling baby chimp right in front of them. I can't compete with that level of cuteness. Instead I have this photo of four anonymous humans who may or may not be part of my family. Hmmm...those buns do look a little familiar. 
Occasionally they will humor me, but getting a good photo of them is still a challenge. They're looking at the camera, they're posing, they're actually smiling (which I attribute entirely to the fact that they know we'll be waving goodbye in five more minutes). Now if I could just get everyone to keep their eyes open at the same time--two out of three ain't bad. Let's count noses: Pierre, check; Leah, check; Romeo, check; Deni...uh-oh, where's Deni? It's hard catch all four of them in the same place at the same time and willing to pose.
Of course, if you can 
The front yard before
The front yard after
A pile of granite boulders in the backyard and a slope in desperate need of a retaining wall
Voila! A retaining wall composed of granite bouldersPierre could earn a living manipulating things with the Bobcat if he didn't want to play with computers! First of all, I'm amazed that he could even get into the backyard--the Bobcat has no steering wheel, just pedals and levers--and he only had about eight inches of clearance between him and the house stucco. Some of these boulders must have weighed a couple tons--I know I could feel the earth shake under my feet when he dropped them into place. Yet he was able to orient them nicely. He smoothed down the construction "piles" into natural-looking hills that enhance the view towards Tijeras Canyon.
Too bad there wasn't a bucket attachment to use like a backhoe. If there was, he could have excavated a trench for the irrigation system. That's the next big project. I'm sure he and his friend Geoff from freshman year at UNM will share a Ditch Witch rental sometime soon. There are soooo many basketball-sized rocks in the soil that I don't envy them that task. I'm guessing that there will be as much pick and shovel action as Ditch Witching.
Our role was that of sounding board, consultant and intermittent rock picker uppers. When you're swinging a pick, there's nothing better than having someone else get down in the hole and remove that rock while you wipe off the sweat! Fortunately, the weather was perfect for heavy-duty yardwork and the soil was nice and soft and moist after the winter.
And yes, the food was deluxe. What can I say? The child has talent at the barbeque--his chicken was exquisite! Yep, Spring Break was fun!
I'm hoping the new light comes this week. Then we'll see if the old mirror fits in the new space. We raised the vanity height and lost a little over four inches in mirror space. We'll see how far I get on installing the new faucet set before JR comes home.
Needle-sharp and white as death.
(Hissy Cat looks appropriately terrified, but then H.C. always has that expression.)
Someone has a birthday today! Happy Birthday, Birthday Boy/Tigger/ Pooh's Offspring/HP!
It seems like yesterday that I flew up to Pooh and the Prof's soon after you were born. Now you're so grown up and soooo fun to be around. With interests of your own, enthusiasm for life, and talents that amaze us all.
(Note to adults: Just goes to show that you have to enjoy kids while they are around because they grow from babies into toddlers into children into interesting nephews while you file your fingernails. How does that happen?)
