My Life has been disrupted, and as a result I have been
distracted and have ignored the blog…
Since last July I have only blogged once… since that July
blog post, my wife (of 35 years) and I have divorced, I have taken a new job as
the Director of the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Boulder City Nevada
(between Las Vegas and Hoover Dam) and I now live in Henderson Nevada…
I may blog about that eventually, but for now I want to blog
about a desert ground hog… Not quite a ground hog… but our local equivalent… (local
now being the northern edge of the greater Mohave desert…. )
In much of the US we look to a burrowing beast, a ground
hog, named Punxsutawney Phil to predict the
end of winter and the coming of spring (noting that ending winter without
starting spring would be bad… )
Traditionally, if when Punxsutawney Phil emerges from his hole in the ground on Febuary
2nd, he casts a shadow, we will have 6 more weeks of winter… if no
shadow winter will end sooner… Logical
minds might suspect that the only thing that his shadow would suggest it the
state of the cloud cover on February 2nd…
Here, near Las Vegas in the Mohave we have a different animal and a
different system… we have Mohave Max…
a desert tortoise, and as locally believed when Max emerges from
his burrow after his winter brumate (the reptilian form of hibernation) Winter is over…
Max has his own website…. http://mojavemax.com/ He has a facebook page too…. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mojave-Max/517602118291193
Two days ago, on March 8th at 1:20 pm Max emerged…
so winter is over… He quickly returned
to his burrow, so maybe its not quite over… but mostly its over…
Today, as I pulled into the driveway at 5:00 after a day at
work, the Jeep said it was 82 degrees…
supporting Max and his (officially sanctioned) decision to call an end to Winter…
supporting Max and his (officially sanctioned) decision to call an end to Winter…
With spring, come wild flowers… this was a wet fall and the
wild flowers in Death Valley are especially spectacular this year… a Super Bloom… a once in a life time bloom of
color in the desert… tomorrow the girls
and I will head west to Death Valley… to explore a bit and see the flowers… The
National park web site on the bloom is found at http://www.nps.gov/deva/learn/nature/wildflowers.htm
Reports to follow….
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