Wild Horse Showdown At The DR (Damonte Ranch) Corral

After not seeing any for a couple months, the wild horses came back to the the hills east of Damonte Ranch in full force about two weeks ago. I thought maybe they'd gone to the glue factory. One evening we walked to the park in the late evening with my in-laws, and from there spied several groups near the lone white house on the hill. Joanie (my wonderful new mother in-law) and I decided to drive over and take a look. We had no idea we were in for a wild horse showdown!!! There was a group to the left of the house that decided to come down the corral area, and a group to the right. One of the stallions from the group to the right was having none of their encroaching on his territory, or his lucky ladies, and went over to take care of business! And he did!!! He confronted the opposing stallion, had a little smack-down, and effectively drove the other group away. Of course I had my camera with me :)

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

A mare nurses her young one

Over looking Damonte Ranch High School - home of the Mustangs

Behold Our Glorious Smoke Free Clear Skies

For three entire days now! Oh the Joy

Today - beautiful art work at our new park on Steamboat

Aug 1st, aaaaahhhhh - I'd forgotten what it was like to see clearly

Part 3 still to come...

Tail end of our trip

We picked up our cousin Ben in Berkeley on Friday, and then had some fun in Santa Cruz, and up the coast. These pics are just from yesterday and today though. The slide show starts out at a beach in Davenport, then at the Pigeon Point Lighthouse, and then Emerald Bay and Eagle Falls at Lake Tahoe.

More to follow soon...blogging is so much more fun than unpacking :)

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Randomness Vol. 1

How cute is this? A boy and his bug. Tuesday evening out at the Hamricks in Mogul, RJ (my nephew) brought in a wounded dragonfly and placed it on the kitchen counter for all of us to enjoy while we made dinner.

The dragonfly wasn't quite dead yet, and was still moving its wings ever so slightly. Ella was appalled at its suffering and wanted it smashed with a rock to put it out of its misery. I don't think that happened - no one volunteered for bug smashing duty. The thing was as practically the size of a small bird, but it did eventually disappear from the kitchen, and is probably blowin' in the wind somewhere.

I really like dragonfly art, btw. Stuff like dragonfly garden ornaments, candle holders or jewelry with dragonflies are wonderful, but they're really horrible up close, and you would certainly never want one near your face - unless it was in earring or neclace form.

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This male roosting pheasant (my father in-law Marv informed as to what it is) has been hanging out in the wetlands off of Double R Blvd, just north of Double Diamond Blvd. Ella and I first saw it about three weeks ago. We both couldn't believe our eyes, so I flipped a u-ey (how is that spelled?) and drove past it again. It was a strange sight! Since then, Matt and the girls have seen it on several occasions in the same general area, and yesterday I was finally able to get this picture. Isn't he beautiful? Marv says he used to see these in this area while out surveying, before there were any houses out here. He said there was a hunting club somewhere near the gun club that used to release them for hunting. Hmmmm, maybe it survived some lousy hunters who couldn't shoot straight.

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I was able to revive my latest hydrangea from dehydration, after having taken very good care of it for a couple weeks. It had a near death experience Tuesday morning, but made a comeback that took an hour! My last one died when we went to Idaho, and this one will be dead by Sunday morning- we're going out of town tomorrow - RIP beautiful blue hydrangea

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This is our very impromptu family get together family portrait. It happened that we wanted a picture of all of us (right when I stepped out of the water of course), and when we were looking around for someone on the beach to take it, Robert (in the red shirt next to me in the back) spotted a professional photographer getting ready to shoot the sunset. So he took Janene's card out of her camera, quick thinker that he is, and took it over to the photographer and asked him if he would put Janene's card in his camera and take our picture - and he did :) What a nice man!!! That's how we get stuff done in our family, lol! Never with very much forethought, but it always turns out alright. It was all crazy because we were trying to hurry for him though, and we were running around to get in place so we wouldn't waste too much of his time. Sophie had to be dragged over in the boat because she was too cold from swimming to move or do anything, but it turned out pretty cute I think, for throwing it together in about 60 seconds :)

Wild Horses

For the last few weeks, I've been seeing articles in the paper about yet another plan to get rid of the wild horses. The issue comes up every couple of years it seems like. Usually, the BLM is accused of having managed the wild horses poorly, or they say no one wants to adopt them, the state doesn't have the money to support them any longer, blah blah blah. I really don't know anything about how much it costs the state, who is responsible, or what the answers to the problem are, I just know I'll be sad if they aren't here anymore! Here's one of the latest articles:

http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008807200339

The horses come and go in this area. Sometimes they're around for weeks or months, and other times they're no where to be seen. Lately, I haven't seen any. I think these horses belong to what is called something like 'The Virginia Range Herd', and they have a large area to graze and wander. But when they're here, I just love driving down Steamboat, and seeing them dot the hills. It makes me happy! They're easiest to spot while driving down Steamboat in the late afternoon and evening, when the sun is shining from behind as you're going east, and there aren't as many shadows. I look for them all the time coming home this way. And of course I love it when they wander out of the hills, and just kind of meander around and do whatever they want - because they can :) I have a lot of pictures and some video, but not all of it is digitized. Here is what I could whip up though.

Dang, forget about the whales! I live in the desert - save the horses ;-)

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Sand Harbor - another video with our Kansas kin :)

In this video, Ben and Ella jump the 'runway rock'. I don't know what that rock is actually called, or if it even has a name (someone should name and map out all the jumping rocks at Sand Harbor), but it's the one that has to be run down before reaching the point at which you can jump. You can't tell from this angle, but it's only about 3 feet wide at the most all the way down, so not slipping or tripping is critical!!! Ella has wanted to do this for a long time, and it's always made me nervous, but she finally did it on Friday, and so did Ben! There were no injuries sustained, yay :)

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Emerald Bay and Eagle Falls outing

Here's a little video montage of our outing last week with our relatives from Kansas. I already posted a couple pics from this last week. They'll be at my sister Janene's house today, after having been to San Francisco, Berkeley, Napa Valley and Chico - all after leaving Lake Tahoe on Sunday. They can watch this when they finally get home and have recovered :)

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Summer rain

We had an unexpected, but very welcome torrential downpour yesterday. It did cause some flash flooding in the North Valleys, but it didn't do anything here but clear the air :) Yay, we can see the mountains clearly this morning. I haven't heard if it put out any of the California fires though. The smoke will probably be back soon.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Afterwards, we had some lovely sunlight cast through lingering clouds

p.s. to all my LDS friends who have moved away - I would post some pics from the ward BBQ last night, but I couldn't be there because it was back to school night *SCREAM*.

I just wanted to whine some more about school in July!

And can I just say how wonderful and joyful I felt yesterday, knowing someone else was planning the ward BBQ and worrying about whether or not to cancel it because of the weather?! I think I might have had a heart attach if I had still been the Activities Committee Chairperson when that rain started, which was at about 4:52, according to my video timer. It ended here in our neighborhood at about 5:20, and the BBQ was scheduled to begin at 5:30 out at Bower's Mansion. I can't tell you how overjoyed I was just thinking about someone else having to deal with it :) Matt took the kids and said they had a great time.

Slideshow

Our little family soiree was a huge success. More details to follow soon. But for now, here's a slideshow

They're not in Kansas anymore...

...they're in Reno (right now Lake Tahoe actually) - our visitors that is. Last night, my Aunt Eileen's daughter Gretchen(see earlier post about my Aunt Eileen) and Gretchen's husband Robert and son Ben flew in from Kansas for a visit :) We had a very fun day, despite the smoke stifling us here again in Reno. Wednesday night, after a relatively clear day, it rolled in again in the evening like dense fog spreading itself over a coastal town :( But, they had a great attitude about it, and we decided to just pretend it wasn't happening. It was hard not to be disappointed all day though, that most every beautiful view was filtered through smoke - sometimes even completely blocked. Oh well, what cha gonna do?

After we had visited for a while (with my mom, Janene, Josie, Jamie and Julia here too), and caught up with each others lives and then some, we went to the lake and went to the beach at the end of Ski Run in South Lake Tahoe first. You can walk all the way out to the buoys and never have your head below water. Ben really loved how clear the water was, and he and Ella and I went quite a ways out.

Then we headed over to Emerald Bay. They were all overwhelmed by the beauty of the drive and the views, even though we couldn't quite see anything very clearly. Robert especially loved the part of the drive right before you get to Emerald Bay, and on either side of the two lane road is water. Emerald Bay on one side, and Fallen Leaf Lake on the other. The road is elevated enough that if you were to sneeze violently, or be too distracted by the beauty, you could accidentally drive right over the edge and kill your entire family. There are no guard rails. That's my favorite part of the drive too, lol. I think I'll have to video tape that sometime - while someone else is driving of course.

Then it was getting dark, and we headed back to where they are staying, and stopped at Big Daddy's Burgers for dinner and ate outside in the smoke :)

Sophie, Ella, Eva and Ben overlooking Emerald Bay

Eva, Sophie and Robert

Eagle Falls at Emerald Bay, Lake Tahoe

Smokey Sunset at Emerald Bay

This picture doesn't at all do justice to the color of the sun - it was red

Beautiful tree roots at Eagle Falls

Fourth of July weekend

For the fourth of July weekend, we invited ourselves to Joanie's cabin. She's quite a hostess, and even gave us the master bedroom, and we were selfish enough to take it, because that's how we are :) We all had a great time, and the smoke mostly even stayed away until Sunday.

Here's a video montage, my very first, that's not yet finished. I've been waiting for some pictures from Joanie, but she's taking her sweet time, lol. Send them when you can Joanie, and I'll add them. Mostly I can't wait to post this video because I'm anxious to see my superior handiwork on display ;-) I also have some captions, but that feature is a 'premium' feature, and I don't feel like going to fetch my wallet to sign up for the service. So, here is the as yet unfinished montage (I also have to take care of some of the bad wind sound)

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Ode To Sand Harbor

This was going to be short, with only a couple of pictures to show the differing water levels at Lake Tahoe over the last few years. But then I started getting all nostalgic, and got a little carried away :) We have so many great memories of Sand Harbor! The year of all years was 2006, when the water level, after two HUGE snow years, was SUPER high. That may go down as one of the most fun summers ever for me, and for my kids too. It was the 'Annus Aqua Maximus' (I just made that up, obviously). We never knew there were so many rock jumping possibilities, but with the water so high, there were dozens of safe places to jump and dive. 2007 was pretty good for that too, but even after only one lousy snow year, it wasn't quite the same.

We always have a good time at the lake, but I'll really miss all the friends who have moved away in the last few years. I think they really suck for leaving, and I'll never forgive them. They know who they are ;-) They better come back this summer and go to Sand Harbor with us!!!

Here are pics of some fun times, and also the drastically changing water levels. It seems like every year at the lake is different. Along with the kids changing and being able to do more and differnt things each year, the changing water also makes it a new and unique experience every year.

Late June 2003

There was less water than this in 2004, but I didn't take a picture from this vantage point. This is my favorite spot to spend the day at the beach!!!!!! Anyone who's been to the lake with us knows that :)

2006

The change from 2004 to 2006 was dramatic!

The reason I love my favorite spot so much, is because the kids can hunt for crawdads without being out of my sight, and this huge granite wall is a great wind barrier. If the wind kicks up, which it often does, I like to watch how everyone on the main beach is struggling, while we are enjoying the calm in our special spot. Plus, the sun doesn't shine directly in our eyes, and the sand hill that leads up to the boardwalk is a fun place for the kids to bury each other without being in anybodies way.

2003 Valery Olive and Ella

2003

In this picture (that's Sophie, btw), the two rocks circled in white were perfect for diving and jumping in 2006. The highest one circled in pink was also unbelievably jumped by a few crazies (teenage boys). It doesn't look like it, but there was a tiny landing area with a few feet of water.

August 2003 , Josie and Eva You can see how shallow it was, especially for adults. Everyone in this picture would have been completely under water in 2006

August 2003

The tip of the rock circled above, was the only rock poking out a bit by the end of the summer of 2006

2006

You can see here that nothing is breaking the surface

2003 The rock that is circled above, is the same rock Ella and Jessica and Amber Crane are standing on below

2006

2006

This was our combination wind barrier, crawdad haven, climbing wall and jumping trainer all in one

2006

This was the perfect place for the young kids to learn how to be brave and jump in, but sadly the water isn't as high anymore :(

2006

View of favorite spot from above

2006

The main beach in the cove - not much beach that year

Reno Artown begins today!

I love Reno Artown! It lasts through the month of July, and my favorite events are the concerts at Wingfield Park. I've added a link of scheduled events to my side-blog.

Lingering smoke makes for beautiful sunset

These were taken from my same spot tonight

I started smoking today

I just walked outside and inhaled. We went from a stage 1 air pollution alert, to a stage 2 today. This is from the Reno Gazette Journal:

"The Stage 2 alert means health officials wants everyone, not just those people with heart and respiratory problems, should stay indoors as much as possible, Andy Goodrich, director of the department’s Air Quality Management Division, said in 22 years he has never seen so much pollution in Reno skies." (they need a better editor)

This is all from the northern California fires that were sparked on Saturday. Over 800 were started from dry lightning.

Here's my comparative photo essay (I've always wanted to do a 'photo essay' lol)

Looking at Peavine Mountain from the hills behind Damonte Ranch High School

4 February 2008

You can see the outline of the smaller hills here, that are in the photo above - that's the same house in the foreground, and it still isn't finished

25 June 2008

Earlier today it was much worse than the afternoon and evening - this is looking in the same direction as the pictures above

25 June 2008

Looking east from our backyard

6 January 2008

25 June 2008

2 June 2008

Looking at Slide Mountain and Mt. Rose

Very close to the same view, with Damonte Ranch High School in the foreground

25 June 2008

Two very different looking sunsets taken from the same spot

4 February 2008

The sun is much further north now, and doesn't set over Mt. Rose at this time of year

25 June 2008

This is creepy and disgusting...

...and I'm not even a snake hater. In fact, I held a snake a couple weeks ago on a field trip with Eva, and I even caught a snake with the girls once while on a potty break on a highway in Wyoming. But this - this is more than I can take!!!!! This comes from a forward Travis sent out (my brother in-law). These pics were taken in the hills south east of Reno - which just happens to be close to our neck of the woods!

Here is what the e-mail said:

Sent: Monday, June 02, 2008 12:19 PM> Subject: FW: Mothers Day '08> > Yesterday the family went out in the hills South East of Reno we were rock hunting and picnicing and enjoying a spring day. Our son yelled out saying, 'come look at this' We all tip-toed in that direction for a look. Here is what we saw.>