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

Kids on a hot tin roof

 

Cat Faced Spider

Sawyer found this guy on the side of our utility trailer this afternoon. It appears to be a

Araneus gemmoides- Cat Faced Spider

Osier Station

We took a drive up and over Cumbres Pass to the Colorado side of the line. After 17 miles of dirt road we came to Osier Station, the midway point of the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad line. The train stops here for lunch and to allow passengers to stretch their legs a little. We continued down into the mouth of Toltec Gorge and crossed the raging Rio de los Piños and let the kids play a little before heading home. There was a rare afternoon train just pulling in to the station as we were leaving.

Osier Station

New (different) baby pictures

This should be considered the "Official" baby album for Alden Faroni. Please disregard and erase from your memory any previous postings on the subject.

I guess there is less bosom on this one......

Some good readin'

You have to look at these police reports from Española, a town about an hour south of us. Amazing!

Brad & Olan's visit

Brad & Olan visited us for the night and most of the day Saturday. We had a really good time and went up to Trujillo Meadows Reservoir and the Rio de los Piños.
Here's some pictures:

Brad & Olan's visit

This is good!

Colorado Alligator Farm

Saturday we took a drive to the Colorado Alligator Farm outside Alamosa. The alligators live in a series of ponds that are fed from 87.5ºF water from a natural hotspring. They also have a bunch of "exotic" animals that people bought as pets and could no longer care for and dropped off. Pretty cool, we even got to hold our own live gator. The kids thought it was really cool.

Horses

We went over to my co-worker's house to check out the horses on Friday night. They were getting some new shoes and then did some roping a little later.

An interesting expedition

Check out this blog, it looks like a really interesting expedition in a remote part of Siberia:
LINK

Summitville, Colorado

We took a drive today up the Conejos Valley to the abandoned mine at Summitville. It was nice to get in the "high country" again in spite of an afternoon thunderstorm. We ended up going down the west side of the Continental Divide and then climbing up over Wolf Creek Pass to Pagosa Springs and then home. It was probably close to a couple hundred miles, most of it on dirt.
We saw a Lynx cross the road about 20 yards in front of us. Amazing!
The kids were most impressed with Summitville and the "Ghost Town" of abandoned miner's cabins.

The bowl trade.

So Paul Olson makes some amazing hand blown glass art:

by paulolson5
I make hand turned wood bowls:

Bowl Trade

I thought it would be cool to work out a trade. Paul finished his in short order and shipped them to us. I, on the other hand, was not so quick. I got one done pretty quickly and started on a second. I wasn't happy with how the second one turned out so started 3 others that I ended up abandoning before finishing. I finally got a couple more I was happy with and will ship them off on Monday.... It's been like 6 months that he's been waiting.....

Paul, I'm done!!!

Finally!

Gambel Oak bowl

A few more Camp pictures

For your viewing pleasure:

Our trip to New Hampshire

We just got back from a two week trip to NH. We had a great time and did a lot of fun stuff, beach, camp, beach again....
The kids really wanted to fish this year so here is a "Fishing at Camp" slide show. I dumped all my pictures to Dad's computer and then forgot to burn them to CD so I'll have to wait 'til they arrive in the mail to upload any more.

Trip down to the river.

I got the kids an inner-tube yesterday and we took a little hike down to the river tonight to give it a try. Looks like we need 2 more.....

Mandy's ready for bear

Getting some practice in for the big bear attack.

Shotgun: 1, Watermelon: 0

Here we have the effects of a 12 gauge loaded with 00 buck on a spoiled watermelon from 7 yards:

Amazing Chain Reaction - The Way Things Go

For the guys.....

Scenes from my Birthday & the 4th of July

I like this kid

First of all, he's the first Navajo to play professional baseball, second he can really play!
Here's a good story about his second game in the "Bigs"

Solifugid

Here is a Solifugid (Camel Spider) we caught under the kitchen table. They are not spiders, not scorpions, and not insects but related to all of them. Even though they look scary they are pretty harmless and eat other bugs. 10 legs is pretty unique!
Arden wants everyone to know that "Mom catched it."
If you want to read more, click here.

Trip to Atlanta

I took a class about 40 miles west of Atlanta this week. In a stroke of good luck, I found out the Red Sox were playing a three game Interleague series with the Braves and went to the first game on Monday night. The Sox lost but it was fun to go to the game. I hadn't been to a Red Sox game in more than 10 years! I got out of class at 4:00 on Tuesday, went back to the hotel and took a nap and woke up with nothing to do. I figured I'd drive back into Atlanta and see if I could get tickets. As I was walking up to the stadium I heard a guy say something about getting rid of tickets. It turned out that he had two extra tickets and gave me both of them! The Sox shut out the Braves 4-0 and it was a fun game to watch.
Wednesday I did the same thing as Tuesday and scored another free ticket behind the Red Sox dugout. It was a great game, the Red Sox got a home run on the 3rd pitch of the game and the scoring didn't stop.... 11-0 by the time it was over. The best part was the foul ball I caught in the 8th off Alex Cora. It came down about seven rows ahead of me, passed through all the grasping fans, hit the top of a seat, and bounced right to me. I was thrilled. My total expense for the night was $9.50, five bucks for parking, and $4.50 for a frozen lemonade.... good times!

Some good lookin' chiluns

I think they get their good looks from me. We need to get dental insurance.....

Rafting trip on the San Juan River

Here are a few pictures from Saturday of our Rafting/Kayaking trip on the San Juan River through Mesa Canyon. The rafters included Sara & the kids, Mandy, Ed & Audrey, and Mom & Dad. Craig and I kayaked. Running about 1200cfs when we did it. (Click the picture for more)

Rafting the San Juan

Back to the Swell

Mom and Dad are on another driving vacation with Uncle Ed and Audrey. They were coming down from Wyoming and I drove up to meet them on Friday night in Green River, UT. I've been to Green River three times now in the past 2 months. I think they will have to name a room after me at the Holiday Inn Express. We spent the weekend driving around looking at Indian art (pictographs/petroglyphs) and hiking. Good times. Here's some pictures:

San Rafael Swell

Kayaking

I finally got the kayaking season started this weekend. I met Craig up in Buena Vista and hit Brown's Canyon on the Arkansas on Saturday, followed up with a town run in Pagosa Springs on Sunday, and finished up with a Upper Rio Grande trip today. Here's some pictures from the Rio Grande:

Just one more....

One of Craig's from today. We finished up the season with a 5 nest day and a total of 25 chicks banded. A new record!

More eagle pictures.

These are Craig's pictures. Click the picture to start.....

eagles2

2007 Golden Eagle Banding

This week I had a great privilege. I got to work beside my brother, hanging off ropes and banding Golden Eagle chicks. I have been working on this project for the past 4 years for the Nation's Department of Game & Fish, but my friend Jim who has been my climbing partner for those years has taken another job and left the state. We needed a strong climber and I got to pick him, so Craig got the job. It is hard to imagine being paid to do something this much fun. There are bad times too, some hiking and bushwhacking through thick oak brush, rattlesnakes, scary nests with no ledge to sit on, thunderstorms, piles of rotten rabbits in the nest, etc. We set a new record on Monday and banded 9 chicks in 5 nests. Craig was invaluable; setting anchors, hauling gear and even banding 3 chicks. The rest of the week was not as productive, but we still visited 12 active nests (out of 19) and got 17 chicks banded. We have some follow-up work to do next week and should finish with around 25 chicks banded.
Here are some pictures from the first week, I'll have more a little later: (click the picture to get started)

Eagles_07

Springtime in the Mountains

Hazardous weather condition(s):
Hazardous Weather OutlookShort Term ForecastToday...Windy. Thunderstorms with rain and snow showers likely in the morning...Then numerous thunderstorms with rain and snow showers in the afternoon. Snow accumulation 1 or 2 inches above 8000 feet and near the colorado border. Cooler. Highs in the upper 40s to lower 60s...Except in the 30s to mid 40s over the higher elevations. Southwest winds 20 to 30 mph becoming west 15 to 25 mph in the afternoon. Gusts up to 40 mph. Caution advised on area lakes.

The train has started....

Check out the web-cam pictures to see if the train is moving around in it. The past couple days we've been hearing the whistle as it starts preparing for the "Train Season"

A hike in Chavez Canyon

So Eric, Lori, and Max flew out to Denver, picked up Bryant, and drove down to see us on Friday. We hiked into Chavez Canyon on Friday, went to Santa Fe on Saturday, and then drove over Wolf Creek Pass to the Sand Dunes after meeting in Pagosa this morning.
Here's a few pictures from the Chavez Canyon hike, more to follow.
Click the pic:

Chavez Canyon

A trip to Abiquiu

Sara went over to Durango for a little "alone time" on Saturday and the rest of us decided to go hike a slot canyon near Abiquiu, NM (about an hour south of us). It was snowing in Chama when we left but Abiquiu is about 1500 ft. lower than we are so I thought it might be nicer down there.
We got about 1/4 mile into our little hike when the lightning and thunder started. I decided a slot canyon wasn't the place to be in a thunderstorm and we headed out. Dinner at McDonalds in Espanola by vote instead (3-1 for those of you counting). We saw some nice antelope on the way home. Click picture to start the show......

Abiquiu

$400 vs. $10

Click the picture for a humorous news item

Turkey Hunt

Mason REALLY wanted to hunt Turkey with me this year. I hurried home from work tonight and we set out for the east side of the Reservation. We stopped and called a lot but never did hear any gobbles. We saw a lot of elk, a coyote, a fox, and eventually a hen, but no gobblers. Maybe next time...


















Just after we stopped for this picture, a hen walked out of the trees and across the field behind my head. At least we got to see a turkey! Mason was using the box call (in his hand) about every 50 ft so she probably thought there was a whole pack of her friends just up the hill.











Using the "binoc-ules" to look for turkeys.

A trip to Echo Amphitheater

We got out of the house for a little on Saturday. There were 4" of snow on the ground at home so we headed 45 minutes south to Echo Amphitheater and climbed on the rocks. (click the birdy for a slide show)

Echo Ampitheater

Sand Dunes trip with the nephews

Dunes with the nephews

Sara's sister Heather Wicks and her kids came to visit us for their spring break. They had a lot of adventures (Chaco Canyon Anasazi indian ruins, Echo Ampitheater & Ghost Ranch museums, Pagosa Wildlife park, and of course a trip to the Sand Dunes)

Highly recommended

This is a really cool time-lapse series of the Red Sox home opener. (click the logo)

Cousins

Arden and her cousin, Elliana in their matching outfits.

Hmm, shooting at tanks.....

You have to wonder about the mental capacity of people that shoot at tanks.
Clicky-clicky

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