A day's work

 
 
 
 
So I was headed to Lumberton to the water plant when I saw a lot of smoke in the sky. Turns out this Chevy Blazer took it's name litterally and decided to self immolate. I called 911 since no one was around and then helped shovel dirt on it to slow down the blaze until the Dulce FD showed up. It got so hot at one point that the side of the house in the background melted off.

Momma fox

 
 
The neighborhood fox set up house under the old shed across the street. 6 kits later, she is looking a little worn out. These guys are a riot to watch, the jump all over her and their siblings. Video in a bit.

A drive in the country

It was a nice enough spring day after the 3 inches of snow we got yesterday. We decided to go for a drive in the country. We had lunch at our favorite local resturant, Cookin' Books and then headed south to El Vado Reservoir. We drove all the way around the lake and then on to the Reservation and up through Thompson Gap. When we got to the intersection I turned left on a whim and headed for a place I've always wanted to visit but never have, Ross Springs. Here's some pictures:

Mean looking zoo animals

 
 
 

The kids and I sent mom away for a little "get away" trip to NH for 4 days this weekend. She had fun and we did too. The first day we went to the Albuquerque Museum of Science and took in an IMAX movie about dinosaurs. We spent about 4 hours walking around the museum and then went to the mall. The next day, we got the Combo-pass for the Zoo and the Aquarium. 6 1/2 hours later, we stumbled out and drove the 3 hours back home. Saturday we were at home and Sunday was 8 hours in the van driving back to Albuquerque, picking up mom, and back home again. Fun times.

Trouble in The Box

Here's some footage from last weekend in the Taos Box. She was in Powerline Rapid and ALMOST made it....

First day of the season

We all went over to Taos with Craig & Mandy and our friend Jim for the first day of the 2008 kayaking season. It was a rushed affair, they didn't show up until 9 on Saturday and had to be back to Pagosa Springs that night. We did the Taos Box @ about 1400 cfs. Sara and Mandy watched the kids and went to the park (thank you ladies!)
Here's some pictures:

Easter Eggs

Here's the kids hunting Easter Eggs:

Untitled from MarkB on Vimeo.

How do you like it?

So I've got some new video from the camera. I think that when I actually embed the video on here it makes the page load slower. I can either embed it like I have before (Eagle Video below) or post the link, like this:
CLICK HERE

Which do you like better?

Arden's afro

Arden has had her hair in tight pony tails for a few days. This is the result when it came out.

We're in trouble

when these things can start manufacturing themselves.....

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.