EDO's New Game

EDO had been hearing about this sport, or game, called geocaching.  She wanted to play.  I agreed to give it a try.  Geocaching is a treasure-hunt-type of game played using the Global Positioning System (GPS).  Cachers build a weather proof collection of stuff—it doesn't matter what, but it is usually composed of cheap trinkets—and hide it in the woods.  They then publish the cache coordinates on the internet for others to find.  It is pretty simple really.  And, normally, the cache isn't too far off the beaten track.  It is the searcher that makes things difficult.  For example, in looking around last week, we got the car stuck in the mud and then decided to hike cross country to find the cache.  I called it a "short cut."  Calling it that was, of course, certain to turn the whole thing into an afternoon long thrashing.  Which it was.  But, we did find the cache.

Beetle Trapping

This week we've been trapping pine beetles for a colleague in Louisiana. From what I understand, he is trying to determine whether the western pine beetle (Dendroctonus brevicomis) in southern Utah is, perhaps, its own sub-species. For that, he needs up to 50 beetles. I went out to an area where I knew there were multiple active Dendroctonus populations and hung the traps. So far, we've collected at least 60 or 80 beetles. Unfortunately, as you can see from the picture, many of them are roundheaded pine beetles (Dendroctonus adjunctus). I don't know if we're going to get 50 westerns.

Chainsaw Replacement

In 2003, needing to cut wood for our stove in Escalante, I went to Richfield and bought an MS250. Now in its eleventh year, the saw was starting to show signs of strain. In fact, during the Mother's Day Massacre, I was unable to start it and had to do most of the clean-up with a hand saw. While we've already got a partial supply of wood for the upcoming winter, I didn't want to get into the serious work of completing the pile until I knew I had a working saw. Last week, VSO felt that she had saved up enough money to afford a replacement for the MS250, so I called the dealer. He said that they were no longer selling that model, but that they had an upgraded version, the MS251. VSO brought one home on Thursday. I still had a mess of elm to cut up, so I went out yesterday and assembled all the saw paraphernalia. I had gas and oil in the old saw, so I decided to try that first—might as well run it into the ground. Of course, it started right up and ran all morning. I cut the whole pile of elm with it. Except for the last piece. I saved that for the new saw, just to see how it was going to run. Nice and smooth: Quiet running and fast cutting, just what you'd expect from a new Stihl.

Chev Turns 200

Thousand miles, that is. On Thursday, during my evening commute from Beaver, the Chev hit the 200,000 mile mark. I was on I-15 at Exit 100 in the northern end of the Parowan Valley. I pulled over to celebrate. Later, when I mentioned it to one of my colleagues, he said, "Well, I guess it doesn't owe you anything." I guess not.

View from the Office

We've continued to harvest limber pine cones this week. On Thursday, however, we moved around to a different area, working in the middle of the Tushar Mountains, just below Mount Belknap (12,119 feet). The view, above, was from my drive home yesterday.