I love "trash"

As most of you know, it snows here. For the past two winters I have relied on my technical shoveling skills to move the powder around. Well, the hard times are over. Two weeks ago, while walking home from university, I noticed that my neighbor had put their snowblower out for the trash. What?! For one, it's made of metal and plastic, so she could have at least recycled it. Second, donate the thing or get it fixed. We all need to stop buying new stuff every time we think something is broken. (I will stop lecturing now) SOOOOOOOOOOO, I politley asked if I could have it, asked her what was wrong with it, and was given the kind reply, "I don't know. I just bought a new one. You can take it. Good luck." Well, good luck indeed. I drained the old fuel, cleaned out the carburetor, adjusted the throttle, and brought this baby back from the dead. And just in time, too. We received 10 inches over the past two days.

The Exciting World of Rocks

No, I do not have a microscope "app" on my phone. These are pictures of rock thin-sections taken with the aid of my phone. (A thin-section is a piece of rock that has been attached to a glass slide and then ground down to 30 microns.) I have to look at these slides each week and learn to identify the constituent minerals that form the rock. I know how excited you must be just thinking about it. After staring down a microscope for hours on end, I then "get" to draw a picture. My drawings are on sale for a reasonable fee. Hopefully I can get a showing at a local gallery to help subsidize my education.

This is a sandstone. Notice the quartz, plagioclase, and volcanic lithic fragments.

Behold, an extrusive volcanic rock, better known as a clinopyroxene, olivine basalt. This can be found far off the coast of Alaska. The large, colorful easter eggs are olivine.

Plagioclase, quartz, biotite. (biotite rhymes with "dyn-o-mite")

Artist rendering of slide 2. Start the bidding at $1.

Archaeological Dig in Sandbox

I had the pleasure of hanging out with my nephew, Jack, this past Friday. We spent our afternoon unearthing buried treasure in my old sandbox. Among the many finds were: micro machines, army men, matchbox cars, and one Mr. Burns figurine.

My hobby..

I know you are enjoying the photos of my bike riding husband, but figured I would add a couple photos from my own hobby that I have revisited while living here in Montana. Here is my horse, Kermit. He was originally a therapeutic horse where I teach lessons and they decided it best to retire him, as he had been there 4-5 years. He is a sweetheart (well, most of the time) and I spent last weekend riding him around country roads enjoying the scenery.
He likes to show off and will do nice poses for the camera making it appear that I am a better rider than I actually am :)
Dad will be proud that I always wear a helmet, even if it makes me look like Darth Vador.

Fall, not Winter

This time last year the city of Bozeman was under six inches of snow. Our late season tomatoes suffered from the cold and more importantly, we were unable to go mountain biking. However, this year we have been blessed with an amazing fall. I went mountain biking three times last week alone, aside from my daily commute to school on a pedal powered machine. I suggest everyone ditch your car, grab a bike, and hit some dirt.

En route to the Madison Range.

A view to the East of the Gallatin Range. The peak on the far right has been trodden upon by me and many of my compadres.

Riding Buck Ridge with Lone Peak looming in the distance.

First Yellow Mule Trail: 7 miles, all downhill. Grinnin' ear to ear.

Ousel Falls

Grow-A-Dragon

I "grew" my own dragon this past month. My friend Kelly was nice enough to send me this wonderful trinket. Unfortunately, he/she did not reach his/her potential. The package specificaly says that it will increase in size by approximately 600%. Look at the evidence. The fire breather was 1 1/2" prior to saturation and, as we can see, not even 3" post-saturation. That's not even double the size. Kelly, I hope you kept your receipt. I'm sending it back.

Bikes + Pubs = Bike Pub Crawl

A few of us celebrated the end of summer in fashion by cruising around town and rigorously testing a variety of libations. No one was hurt (seriously), and since we started at 5pm we were all in bed by 11:00. Here's to getting old.