First day of Cruise to West Caribbean Sunday April 7 2013

Desert Mountain

When I was about 12 years old dad bought a cattle ranch in Tooele county.   The shortest route to the ranch was straight North through Sugarville and over Desert Mountain.  This year 2020  For Memorial Day Linc and Tina took me and Cecilia on a trip to Delta to visit the graves of our departed loved ones.

 On the trip home we went North through Sugarville over desert mountain to the ranch and Vernon and home. We had a wonderful time! Now we have a Desert Mountain in our side yard.

Meteor 1962 "turning night into day"

1z RISKY BUSINESS

4m HHO BIG Explosion

Do you know what this is?

It is a McCormick Deering Cream Separator.
My parents had this exact same unit with an electric motor added.
You had to hand crank it to get it running then plug in the electric motor to keep it up to speed.
You could also sustain the speed by hand, but it was a lot of work.

The milk is poured into the big bowl on top and is metered into the shiny dome with spouts which has a centrifuge inside.  The cream being the lightest constituent of milk is forced to the top where it pours out of the upper spout into a container placed on the round shelf. The fat free milk pours out of the lower spout into a milk pail placed on the floor.  The cream exits as a small stream and the separated milk is almost 10 times the volume of the cream.

I fed a lot of the separated milk to a calf I called Pard' using a teat bucket hung on the fence of his pen.
Pard' became so tame that I could go into the pen and stand with my arm draped down over his neck.

Pard was among a group of steers that we included in the cattle drive to the summer range.  He disappeared among the herd, but on about the fifth day I spotted him trailing along with the others in single file.  I dismounted from my horse and went over to him to see if he still recognized me.  I did put my arm around his neck, but he just kept right on walking.  While the other steers near by shied away.

All because of the McCormick Deering Separator

Snail shells on Mars!!

This is the picture that was taken recently by the Mars Curiosity rover.

The (boys) were concerned about the white shiny object, wondering if it was plastic from the rover.

A "big wig" examined the photo and said that it looked like part of the formation.

Here is a section of the photo enlarged and point out what looks to me like snail shell fossils.

Here is the photo with a picture of an earth snail shell super imposed. It even coils in the same clock-wise direction!  To Zoom in press and hold (ctrl) then press (+) 1, 2 or more times.  

SEE IF YOU CAN FIND MORE FOSSILS.

Totally Amazing High Tech Granny!!

I have been involved with computers since they first came available.

Cecilia feared becoming a computer widow so she joined the fracas.

We are really glad  we did.

JACK FROST FLASH BACK

 Cecilia told me of her conversation with Stevie about "JACK FROST"  It brought memories from my youth flooding forth.  In Abraham Utah we used to have extended periods of sub freezing temperatures and fog.  The trees would get so loaded with frost that I could cause my own personal snow storm by kicking the tree trunk.  The frost would fall in a veritable blizzard.

 I have seen the frost build up on our rural power lines so heavily as to create a diameter of at least eight inches.  Each succeeding morning would reveal the lines sagging lower and lower. Sometimes to the point  of breakage.

While feeding the horses I would come to a realization of their ability to deal with the cold.  When you need a winter coat, GROW ONE!

Fido would also show signs of the harshness of the cold

Kitty perhaps felt it worst of all!

Sometimes, having her ears bitten off by "JACK FROST"
By the way, this cat survived 4 weeks in a commercial freezer  eating only frozen peas.

The moisture from ones breath would freeze to ones facial hair.

Even ones Eye Lashes would frost up.

During these cold spells the 90 wt gear oil in "THE BLUE CORN BINDER's" transmission would be so stiff that the truck would roll forward even with the transmission in neutral. It would take a few minutes of driving in "first gear" before the gears could even be shifted.

I didn't know it at the time, but the reason they called the truck a "corn binder" is that
"McCormick Deering" which later became "International Harvester" had invented the "corn binder" pictured above. (a real RATTLE trap)  Google "corn binder truck"
Thus the "International" truck was referred to, in a derogatory manner, as a "Corn Binder"

The worst of these winter sagas was in the late 1950's .

WE HAD 30 DAYS OF CONTINUOUS FOG

 WITH THE TEMPERATURE DOWN TO 30 BELOW EVERY NIGHT!

BURIED WATER PIPES WERE FREEZING.
I had do dig down in the shallowest location to find the pipe then pour hot water on it to thaw it out. Otherwise our feeder calves would have to go without water.

Dad had been driving the "winter herd" of cattle home.  Upon awaking on the morning of the first day of the FOG, he had no choice but to leave them for the thirty days because the fog was so thick  he couldn't even find the cows.

Nearing the end of the thirty days dad and I hauled our horses through the fog out to hot springs.

We then rode our horses up on top of the hot springs lava bench into the bright sunshine hoping to see some  cattle, but none were there.

What a sight to look out over the bank of fog across the valley toward Delta and Fillmore.

It was like the whole valley was full of milk with mountains poking up through the fog into the bright sun which was shining down on the whole scene.
IT WAS A GRAND VIEW.

This is the closest representation I could find on the internet.  Ignore the tower.

We had no choice but to return home to wait for the fog to lift, which it did in a few more days.

Thanks to the internet community for all the photos.