| Mylinda's visit this year is now part of the annals of ancient history, but recently this image surfaced, suggesting that Barbara is still susceptible to grandchild induced silliness. |
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It seems that we have had an inordinate number of "gully washers" this year. Then again, it may just be that I now, thanks to gifts from Sabrina and Barbara, am tracking rainfall amounts. So far this year, we have had 12.1 inches of precipitation. Here is an ugly glimpse into the future. "Gully washers" made our roof leak around the kitchen skylight, so I undertook repairs, only to discover, to my surprise, that I can no longer walk up a ladder carrying a 5-gallon bucket of elastomeric roof coating. It required a little ingenuity, along with levitational techniques learned from Yoda and belaying techniques acquired as part of the Alpine Rescue Team at BYU but, 45 minutes later, the bucket was on the roof. I liberally coated the area around all three skylights, as well everything else that looked like a seam (then spent the next three days nursing an aching back). So far there have been no more leaks... |
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Barbara flew to Florida for ten days to tend grandchildren, thus allowing La Rena to attend a medical conference. While there, Barbara had the opportunity to enjoy a number of adventures involving precipitation and geographical mystification, and as a result got to see several sections of Ft. Walton Beach, Destin & Shalama not originally on her itinerary. Taking a page out of my playbook (and much to my chagrin) she returned with only one usable photo. This is 4-year-old Madison Coiner. On the last evening in Florida, John Coiner took 10 year-old MaKenzie, 4 year-old Madison, and me to a Japanese Restaurant to celebrate my 56th birthday. At the restaurant, the chef put on a show while cooking our dinner. While preparing our fried rice, he had 3 hard boiled eggs that he was juggling and was tossing them several feet in the air, at the same time he was banging his metal spatula on the grill. He threw some oil on the grill and had flames shooting up several feet above his head. Meanwhile, he caught one of the hard-boiled eggs in his hat (he didn't use this egg in our food.) I got as much enjoyment out of watching the girls while all this was going on as I did from the actual performance. I tried taking pictures of all this, but without success. After the dinner I had to go (I got to drive La Rena's 2014 BMW the whole time while there) and, pick La Rena up at the airport. |
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The Labor Day campout was fun this year. The food was good, even if the amount available did grossly exceed the demand. |
| There was, however, a lack of consensus as to how to remedy that over abundance (and even over the desirability of attempting to implement such a remedy). |
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There were a plethora of cute grandkids there. Unhappily, I only photographed a few of them. |
There were also a few old fogeys... But who wants to look at them? | |
 After the initial alluvion, the weather became quite congenial--cool enough to enjoy a fire, but warm enough to not actually need one. |
Nathen and I took a short hike to the top of a nearby peak where a building (probably a fire lookout) used to be. From this vantage point it was obvious where the recent fire had killed the trees.
Good times were had by all, but not all times were good...
We also visited a site on the New Mexico border and collected about three dozen Apache tears. Unfortunately, most were perhaps half the size of a pencil eraser.
The third place we visited was the Black Hills Rockhound area. The ground there was covered with pieces of fire agate. Unfortunately, most pieces were significantly smaller than the nail on my little finger. In all, it wasn't a particularly profitable day.
Mylinda wanted to see what I did with my "chess boards" so here they are. There is a third one running around that is leather wrapped and decorated with silver colored chain. These pieces were quite difficult to photograph, and I regret the fuzzy images. If I still had my Nikon F, I suspect I could have done a better job. Autofocus is great... when it works.
I don't remember ever seeing a tree shaped like a goal post. I suspect it would have been more impressive when it was still growing.
AJ organized a fantasy football league among those who were interested. I think that is a good thing and I would like to say that I supported and joined them. Unfortunately, the "I don't even care about real football!" factor was overwhelmingly high.
After the campout, Mark and I spent another day exploring a couple of sites described in, Gem Trails of Arizona. This obsidian dike, located in a road cut along highway 70 between Safford and Duncan, is described as being ten to twenty feet wide and contains chunks as big as the bed of a pickup. The author fails to mention that it is poor grade rock, with many inclusions, cracks, and seams, and is not suitable for making arrowheads. I brought home about twenty pounds of it, and if you carefully cut and shape it such that it doesn't crumble, it appears to hold a polish.
If you are interested, the GPS coordinates are:
depending on the system your GPS likes to use. These coordinates are actually for the closest parking spot, about 75 yards up the road towards Duncan.
After returning home and ruminating a bit, I had an epiphany as to how small pieces of fire agate and other forms of chalcedony might be utilized. I flattened one side of the small rock, then epoxied it to a slab of "background" rock and proceeded to shape and polish it as if it were a single piece. Shown above are three proof-of-concept cabochons. There is still some tweaking and fine tuning to do, but the method shows promise. All I need now is a thin bladed, slab saw with a sliding, power driven, vice (on sale for only $1200).
And, as a footnote, I could use a new phone. If you encounter one like this, be sure to let me know...
