Dad, PLEASE......?

So we went to Farmington to get our taxes done on Friday. Relatively painless and we get a little of our own money back.

Afterward, we ran some errands and then, for a treat, stopped by the PetCo store to look at all the cool animals. We saw a tank with some "feeder" gold fish that were going for $0.12 each and started talking about getting some. Aquariums were only $11.00 so we figured that each kid could get 5 fish and we would still only be into it for less than $15.00.....
Well, one thing lead to another and the kids decided they would like something they could "Take out of the cage" and play with. Mason sugguested the Burmese Python ($125.00) would make a nice pet, but was shot down in a hurry. I started thinking about the $7.00 hamsters that were up in the front of the store. Wife and I had a hushed discussion about whether or not she could stand one and she went off to look them over again and see if they triggered the same feelings of revulsion she experienced with the white rats in the cage next to them. She returned shortly and thought one might be 'alright'. I was thinking "$7.00 hamster, $11.00 aquarium.... maybe a couple bucks for food.... still under $25.00, not bad for a bit of entertainment for the kids."
By the time we left the store, the total was more like this:


$7.00 Hamster
$11.00 Aquarium
$5.00 food
$6.00 waterbottle
$3.50 waterbottle holder
$6.00 exercise wheel
$5.00 bedding material
$10.00 little house to live in
$8.00 hamster book
$10.00 exercise ball to run around the house
Total.......... $77.00

We left the store and headed for home with CHEWIE in his cardboard box temporary home. During the two hour drive, he began to gnaw on the box to the point that Sara refused to hold it and we had to pull over to put him in the aquarium for the remainder of the trip. We are hoping he outlasts the 3 weeks that Freddy (the guinea pig) lasted.

Indian attack on the beach

More video from Florida:

Indian Attack on the 'Explorers' from M Blakemore on Vimeo.

Bald Eagle

Here's a little video I shot on Wednesday.

Bald Eagle from M Blakemore on Vimeo.

More FL pix

Here are a few more Florida pictures for your viewing pleasure. We had a great time and it was fun seeing so many people again. We counted up 26 different people that we spent time with on this trip. Seeing Eric, Lori, and Jananne was a complete (and great) surprise for us. We wish they could have spent more time but the couple days we had were great. It was also nice to let the kids play with their West cousins since they hadn't been together much before this trip. Mason and Kylie were still trying to work out some 'issues' when they left. (I'll have to try to scan the letter she sent him)
I found 997 shark teeth this year including 4 of the biggest ones I've ever found. I have to thank my little brother, he told me where to look and then didn't find any for himself. I was sure I would break 1000 but Arden came down with an ear infection the morning of the day we left so I spent several hours in the Urgent Care Clinic with her just before we left. She is getting better, taking antibiotics externally for a week.

Slow day

At the beach....

Baby Gopher Tortoise

Here's the baby Gopher Tortoise that was found crossing the road. He was released to be eaten by a raccoon later.....

Sharks teeth

These are the biggest I've ever found here.

Florida pix

Here's a few:

Interesting, very interesting

So I was doing a little on-line research tonight and looking at snow fall data for our area. When I looked at this winter as compared to others with high totals, I got this graph. It looks like every 13-14 years we get hammered.

Some more snow.

So we went for a little trudge today; I would say walk, but the snow makes for challenging walking.

We walked to the old Catholic Church in town which suffered a roof collapse under the weight of all the snow. Looks to be a complete loss as the whole building is pretty much a pile of rubble now.









We fared a little better since ours slid off. It is fun to watch the kids climb from the snow bank up onto the roof without a ladder. I've lived here 11 years and this is the most snow I've ever seen. The old timer down the street says this is the most he's seen "since '57". I'll have to take his word on that!

Global Warming....

This Global Warming is really annoying...
I wish Al Gore would come help me shovel out our windows, my back is killing me.

Looks good....

Here's what we got:
Tonight
Snow Likely. Chance for Measurable Precipitation 70% Lo 14°F
Sunday
Snow. Chance for Measurable Precipitation 80% Hi 32°F
Sunday Night
Snow. Chance for Measurable Precipitation 100% Lo 16°F
Monday
Snow Likely. Chance for Measurable Precipitation 60% Hi 33°F
Monday Night
Chance Snow. Chance for Measurable Precipitation 40% Lo 8°F
Tuesday
Slight Chance Snow. Chance for Measurable Precipitation 20% Hi 31°F
Tuesday Night
Partly Cloudy Lo -6°F
Wednesday
Slight Chance Snow. Chance for Measurable Precipitation 10% Hi 40°F
Wednesday Night
Slight Chance Snow. Chance for Measurable Precipitation 10% Lo 2°F

Word up, homies!

Whut up? A little Egyptian breakin' for yall'

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Finish what you start....

Well, about a week ago I got started on a bowl from some beautiful Apricot wood Scott Simmons gave me from a tree they had to cut to make room for a garage at their renovation project in Durango. This wood is really something special, incredible color and fun to work with. I got pretty far into it but had to stop for dinner. I didn't get back down to the basement until recently and found that the wet wood had split as it dried while still on the lathe. I was so sad to have wasted such a precious piece of wood that I quickly cranked out another bowl out of some scrap Aspen wood. I've wanted to try woodburning the sides of some plainer wood for a while so this was the result of taking a soldering iron to it.

Wicked cool !!!!

Take THAT

Don't call me an infestation!

Sawyer jumping

Roof video

Roof Jumpers

I had to shovel some snow and ice off the roof this morning. The boys "Reeeeealy" wanted to come up and check it out. When we were done, to my suprise, they jumped off. Sawyer without any hesitation..... Of course they had to come back up and do it a couple more times too.

Amazing contrast

Check out this map of two stops on our trip. Point "A" is in the lava beds outside Carrizozo. Point "B" it in the heart of White Sands National Monument. The contrast between the black of the lava and the white of the Gypsum sand is amazing! The two points are less than 100 miles apart by road. You can zoom in or out using the small "+" or "-" buttons on the left side.

View Larger Map

The Mystery Destination

So we had a long 3 day weekend looming on the horizon with no plans made. On Thursday I started thinking about going someplace a little warmer and out of town. I asked Sara what she thought about taking the kids on a trip back to White Sands Nat. Monument and she thought it would be fun. We decided not to tell them where we were going except to say that it was a "Mystery Destination". I took a 1/2 day off from work on Friday and we headed to Albuquerque for the night. Saturday morning we went to the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History to catch the "Tombs and Treasures" exhibit of Egyptian artifacts from the British Museum's collection. The kids were super-excited to see things related to mummies (even though there weren't actually mummies in the exhibit). No photographs were allowed in the exhibit hall, so sorry to disappoint.
We headed for Alamagordo and stopped at the lava beds outside Carrizozo and the petroglyphs at Three Rivers Canyon.... amazing, both.
Sunday we got up and had a little meeting and then headed to White Sands. It was 39º when we arrived at the Park entrance and headed in. We drove to the end of the road, 8 miles in and the temperature was 29º...... so much for going someplace warmer. We spent most of the day hiking around, having sand clod fights (the whole family was involved), and carving into the giant pillar of packed sand we found. By the time we left it was 57º and very nice. We drove back to Albuquerque for the night and took our time shopping and eating out today and got home in the late afternoon.
Here's the pix:

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Drive home

On the way home from work on Friday night.
 

Snow in the pass

From our drive this morning.

A walk around town

Here's some pictures from this afternoon. We hiked around town to see the sights.

The snow keeps falling

Outside our house tonight.
 

A happy ending

Hopefully this link works, (click on the title of the post).
Big news in town for the past couple days. All found safe!
Here are some other stories about it.

It's been snowing.....

We are at 193% of average and it is still snowing hard. We've had several feet in the past couple days and it keeps coming down. I got up on the roof today to shovel. Our town hall had part of the roof collapse under the weight of snow and I wanted to avoid that.

A mixed bag

of pictures.... here are some odds & ends from the last couple weeks.

New carpet

We decided it was going to be too hard to refinish the soft pine flooring in the back room so to eliminate splinters we covered it all with carpet. Sara found a nice remnant in Pagosa Springs and went up and brought it home in the van.

Christmas Day

Kids opened some presents and then we sat around the house waiting for the turkey to cook. I turned a couple bowls out of Apricot wood that Scott Simmons gave me from their project house in Durango; nice stuff! We did get out for a little sledding too.

Christmas Eve skiing

With the family all in town, we took a trip to the top of the pass today for some skiing and sledding. Here's some pictures off Craig's camera.

Train Yard snow

A walk in the snow

Snow fun

Crazy!

Check this out from the Wolf Creek Ski report:
Midway Base Depth : 102 inches
Last 7 Days : 75 inches
Latest Storm : 8 inches
Year to Date : 182 inches

That is 6ft 3in in a week!

The great Elk massacree of Ought Seven

I went on my annual Tribal Employee cow elk hunt this morning with the guys; Tom: Wildlife Biologist, Stuart: Director of Game & Fish, Doug: BIA Natural Resouces, and Dave: Doug's friend. It was bitterly cold, somewhere around 8ºF when we met at 6am and set out for Willow Creek Ranch. We had progressed no further than 1/4 mile down the access road when a herd of 6 or 8 elk ran across the road in front of us. We jumped out of the truck but decided against shooting as it would have been impossible to get close to a downed one where they were. About a mile further we came upon a second small group and shortly afterward a third and fourth. The recent snow we've had (24") has apparently forced the migratory herds down out of the high country. There were elk everywhere we looked.
Stuart quickly dropped a small cow and Tom took a long, fast shot at another that was over 400 yards out. I was pretty sure he hit it and after a short discussion he and I hiked up the hill through the snow to see. I felt pretty bad for being so sure he'd hit it because when we got to where they had been standing there was no sign of any damage, let alone a cow down. We agreed it was better to hike a little and be sure than to leave a wounded animal out there.
After hiking down the hill, Tom and I got in Dave's truck the others had left behind for us and drove until we met up with them. About 3 minutes later we ran into a herd of over 50 elk milling around about 350 yard out on the side of a hill. Six shots later there were 3 more down and we were done for the day! It was 8:57 when I checked my watch.
Here's some pictures.... click to start:

Winter

Here are a few shots from our trip home from Durango on Sunday. You can click them to view larger versions.

The coolest video you will see today.

This makes you want to buy a suit.

Sorry, I can't directly post the video, just click the picture to load it.

A little ski video

Here's Holly cutting it up at Purgatory......

Ron makes the Blog!!

We went to Durango on Friday night in the middle of a rain storm. The rain that fell all day in town was snow in the mountains..... over 3 ft. of it! Sara watched the kids and Scott, Holly & I had a big powder day. Click the picture of Ron to go to the album.

A bit of snow

 
We got about 6" of snow last night. Here is the wife doing her duty and clearing the driveway. "FASTER, FASTER"

Potsdam Brass Quintet: Contrapunctus IX (Bach)

We went out for a little "Culture" tonight (hard to come by in a town of 1100) and listened to a nice concert by the New Mexico Symphony Brass Quintet. They opened with this piece, played here by the Potsdam Brass Quintet. A real treat, although the kids got a little restless sitting in the Episcopal Church pew for 1:20.

Aunt Pauline's funeral trip

I flew back to NH last week for the funeral of my Aunt Pauline Chappell. It was nice to see a bunch of cousins and relatives I hadn't seen for a long time. I didn't have my camera so here are a few pictures off my cell phone.

Greatest movie ever

Pictures from Lake City

I went up to Craig & Mandy's over Thanksgiving. We drove to Grand Junction and met mom and dad. Here's some pix from Lake City.

The Texas pictures

As promised...

A stop @ Carlsbad Caverns

We took a trip to Texas last week to Sara's Aunt and Uncle's ranch. On the way we detoured to Carlsbad Caverns that were only 30 miles out of the way. Here's some Caverns pictures and I'll load up the Texas pictures tomorrow.

A day at the dunes

Sara had an all day Board of Directors retreat (for the daycare facility in the town south of us). The kids and I went up to the sand dunes. Fun time.

My new favorite musician

This guy rocks!

Pumpkin patch

We had to drive Quinn over to Durango on Sunday and stopped at the pumpkin patch to pick a few:

Abiquiu

We hiked up to some ruins and looked at pottery shards. We didn't take any, so don't get excited....

Feeding deer

Scott & Holly and Bonnie & Roger came over last weekend for a visit. We had a lot planned but couldn't pull it all off. We did get up to the Brazos and fed the deer:

Blakemore Well

This is located on the White Sands Missile Range so I don't think we'll ever get to visit:

View Larger Map

Good times, good times

Click here

First snow

We got our first real snow this morning. The mountains are white and there was 2 inches on the top of the pass.
Sawyer was running around and bumped heads with Mason.... hence the tears.

Scary!!

Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!

Trip to the White Mountains and Nathan's Wedding

One of the purposes of our trip to NH was to attend my cousin Nathan's wedding in the White Mountains. It was lovely......

Climbing in NH

While we were in NH we did get in a little climbing. Mason is really into it so we went over to the NE Center to some little cliffs that were over there.

A fine day at the beach

The weather was about perfect today. No people, a nice breeze, and some decent waves. All followed by a great meal of seafood at Newicks. What could be better?

Sweet jump

We went over to Scott and Holly's house in Durango this weekend for a little visit. Scott was showing me the new Mt. Bike trail he has cut through the woods behind their house. After that we were sitting around talking and he showed me this big bank on the vacant lot next to their house. We started out "High Marking" trying to outdo each other and one thing led to another until we were pretty much going as high as possible. We started out saying that you had to get both wheels above the flat rock in the lower left of the first picture.......

Sweet Jump

Plaza Blanca

We finally found this place. I've read some about it and Sara tried to find it when Mom & Dad were out here the last time. It is very hard to find but worth the hunt. We are thrilled it is only about an hour from home, we'll be back! A great Saturday excursion!

Plaza Blanca

Ummmm?

Bear

Brad and Olan spent the night with us last night. We went to bed about 11:00 and were sleeping pretty hard when Brad woke us up at midnight with "Mark, come see the bear in your trash"! We went out on the front porch and flipped on the light and saw the back end of a bear sticking out of our trash can. He was finishing up scraps from the big birthday party on Saturday. I yelled at him and he backed out and looked around. It was a BIG bear!
I grabbed a stick of firewood and hit him in the back and he ran across to the neighbor's yard. We picked up all the trash and put our trash can in the back of the utility trailer, thinking that would keep him from tearing it apart again. WRONG.... after we went back to sleep, he came back, climbed into the trailer, and tore into the trash again. This morning Brad and I found this in the mud puddle next door.

Twins Birthday

We had a birthday party for the twins (4 years) this weekend. Holly took this one of her boys on either side of ours. I'll get some more pictures up soon.

Broken Wood Grenade

I broke my Wood Grenade yesterday. I am sad because they are hard to find. I guess I should be happy because it lasted for more than 5 years and more than 10 cords of wood.
If you are splitting cord wood by hand, this is the thing to have. There is nothing better.

New pet

I found this guy at work a couple days ago. He is really calm and doesn't really run away when the kids try to hold him. Maybe he'll hang around for a while.....
















He looks less than thrilled..

New Swingset

New swing-set: $250.00
Rope in a tree: $5.00
which one will they use more?

Sawyer mixing

It's late, and I can't seem to figure out how to get this to post to the blog directly.
Click the link, it's funny.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8763367054968536510

Boulder

We got a call Saturday morning from my cousin Eric as he and Lori were landing in Denver. Since we wanted to get out of town anyway, we packed some bags, booked a room on Priceline.com, and drove north for 6 hours. We all met in Boulder where Bryant (their son) lives and spent a few fun packed days hanging out. Here's the evidence:

Boulder