Critters Galore!

During the latter part of March, we have had a panda,

lots of pretty butterflies,

 

and a tigress at our house.

The Rest of March

Mid-Semester Piano Recital

held at the Gloria de Cristo Lutheran Church in Foothills

(with a REALLY great baby grand piano)

Megan played Etude No. 9 in F minor by F. Chopin

Ian played Invention No. 1 by J.S. Bach

Napping House

Apparently our house is a good place in which to nap 

(or maybe it's just an extremely boring place to be).

Dallin naps rarely anymore, but this time he napped with Zach.

Canning Chicken

 Chicken was on sale, so we stocked up and bottled several pints.

Budding Artist

 Dallin spent a long time gluing animals on his picture.

It is now hanging on our fridge.

Seminary Class

 This is Megan's early-morning seminary class.

Their wonderful teacher, Sister Hatch, decided to move to Utah, so they

took a photo and made her a fun "thank you" card before her departure.

New Yard Visitor

This cattle egret has been visiting our yard and other yards on our street the past several days.

Zach saw it catch and swallow a pocket gopher in his yard!

Spring is in the Air

Radio-tracking horned lizards isn't quite as rewarding as radio-tracking black bears. However, finds like this one make the work a little more eventful. The female with the transmitter glued on her back was found hanging out with this handsome male. Oddly enough, the male ended up getting a transmitter glued on his back too. There are certain hazards associated with mixing with members of the opposite sex (at least when there are biologists around).

T007 must have suicidal thoughts rather frequently. She has been found basking at the edge of the road on multiple occasions. If she isn't careful, she might end up like...

...this poor lizard, who looks like he tried to have the last laugh, but failed.

This fringe-toed lizard was an unusual road find. 

Usually these lizards spend most of their time in sand dune areas.

Initially we thought this side-blotched lizard was a FTHL basking on the road.

When we stopped, she ran up into our tire. She is now Erin's pet and resides in a cage.

Bears!!! Part V

Random pictures that don't show any bears 

but are included because they were part of the trip:

Ian's attempt to build a snowman in the wind blown drifts on the Seep Ridge Road

Three Canyons Bed & Breakfast

Owned by Lee and Deb Elmgreen

 

Mule Deer outside the B & B

The new Old Spice Guy

Hal likes the Old Spice commercials, along with the Old Spice product itself.

We joke about Hal being as studly as the Old Spice guys.

What do you think for a man who's 72?

 

Monday, 12 March 2012

The Black's Farm, Mapleton, UT

Ian had tractor-driving lessons around Hal's property.

(Again, we have video that won't upload properly.)

The Black's House

View of garden looking Northwest

View of garden looking Southwest

View of garden and orchard looking South

We awoke early Tuesday morning and drove back to Yuma.

Bears!!! Part IV

Sunday, 11 March 2012

Bleach's Den

Sunday morning, we drove to the top of Hay Canyon to see if the roads were good enough to get to Bleach's Den. We were in one truck and Julie's family was in a second truck. Hal gave us a Sunday School lesson (2 Kings 2:23-24 among other animal-related scripture stories) to make up for us missing church.

We saw LOTS of elk along the drive.

This was the ridge road. It appeared the snow was melted enough 

for us to get through, so we decided to go for it.

Just to be safe, we chained up the front tires.

We made it out to Moon Ridge without any difficulties.

Josh took the receiver and started looking for Bleach's den.

This hike was longer and steeper than the 2 previous hikes. 

We like the leaning effect displayed in this photo.

We hiked down the dry side, and up the snowy side to get to the den.

Bleach was denned in the bottom of a draw under this rock--poor choice as the

inside of the den was encased in ice from the days that the snow melted.

Bleach and her yearlings had already been out a few times

based on the bear tracks visible in the snow around the den.

 

 

Ian started getting cold once we were waiting around at the den.

 He warmed up with Hal's camo jacket and with 

hand warmers inserted in his boots.

But he still wanted to try making a fire using the fire-starting kit 

he made in scouts.

 

Once Bleach was asleep, I crawled in to put on her blindfold and look

for her yearlings. She was supposed to have two.

 

I could see a black rear end of a yearling tucked up behind the rock on the left

of this photo by Bleach's rear legs.

 Josh noticed that there was another opening to the den on the side.

He could see 2 yearlings from this point and positioned himself

to keep them from escaping through this hole.

Eventually we got the yearlings tranquilized and inserted ear tags.

We didn't pull out any bears due to the constraints of the den.

Ian looked at the yearlings afterwards.

When we finished, we hiked part-way back up the 

other side of the canyon and took a lunch break.

Hal preaching some more sermons...

before he and Josh pushed down the slab of rock in front of them.

(It must be a guy thing.)

 We miss the Utah mountains!

Group photo back at the trucks

This is what the roads looked like on the drive out after the snow melted.

It was MUDDY! But the chains worked and we didn't get stuck.