Current Blizzard Conditions

This is a game of “What’s Wrong With This Picture?” Do you see it? Even if you do not currently live or reside in the Black Hills, you can probably figure it out.

No, it isn’t the second Latest News headline inserted to correct a typo, which typo was then not removed, though that’s also pretty funny. Here, let me highlight it for you:

Right. Now here, to illustrate what 115 degrees and foggy looks like, is a picture out my front window:

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If Sea Kittens Taste Like Pumpkin Pie…

So: PETA has asked the principal of Spearfish High School to change the school’s name to Sea Kitten High.

“Well obviously!” you say. “Every high school in the nation wishes for a mascot as enviably ferocious as a kitten!”

Apparently the name “Spearfish” is a little too violent for the animal rights group. I’d never be able to summarize better than the letter states itself, so here’s the whole thing:

January 7, 2009

Steve Morford, Principal
Spearfish High School

Dear Principal Morford

I’m writing to you on behalf of PETA, the world’s largest animal rights organization, with more than 2 million members and supporters. In early October, PETA launched its Sea Kitten campaign, which suggests a name-change for fish as a way to promote empathy for them and other marine animals. Today, we’re proposing that Spearfish High School adopt a new name to reflect the gentle nature of its current marine namesake.

We’re hoping that by calling fish “sea kittens,” compassionate people who would never hurt a dog or a cat will realize that fish feel pain and fear, just like furry and winged animals do. In fact, neurobiologists tell us that fish have complex nervous systems that comprehend and respond to pain. Fish communicate and develop relationships with one another, show affection by gently rubbing against other fish, and even grieve when their companions die. However, when they are dragged from the ocean’s depths, sea kittens undergo excruciating decompression, often causing their eyes to pop out and pushing their stomachs out through their mouths. When they are tossed onto ships’ decks, many sea kittens slowly suffocate or are crushed to death. This is no way to treat a “kitten.”

Most parents would never dream of spending a family weekend torturing kittens, but hooking fish through their mouths and pulling them through the water is just as painful as hooking a cat’s mouth and dragging him or her behind a car. We’re hoping that this name change will encourage people young and old to start treating these gentle “kittens of the sea” with respect–and show them the kindness that they deserve.

We hope that Spearfish High School will start off the semester right by changing its name to Sea Kitten High School. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Dan Shannon
Assistant Director

Also, check out what the Black Hills Travel blog has to say on the questions. The links they have posted in their article are pretty funny.

It sounds to me as if PETA would like to do a Find/Replace on the word “fish” where it is used in every possible context. Unfortunately, that would leave us with the city of Spear Sea Kittens, which doesn’t have quite the same effect as just plain old “Sea Kitten.”

My buddy Mat has been wandering around the office all day muttering about “sea kitten sticks” and meowing while trying to look fishy. Apparently, he finds the whole thing even more ludicrous than the rest of us, though I think it was rather inevitable myself. As soon as the tuna people starting calling their fish Sea Chickens, it was bound to start a slow tumble into madness.

And finally, the whole quote from the title, courtesy of coworker Chris:

If sea kittens taste like pumpkin pie, yes, I’m eating sea kittens.

Post Script: For something that’s way too funny to believe, check out PETA’s Sea Kitten page, and make your own Sea Kitten. Here’s mine.

Create Your Own Sea Kitten at peta.org!

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Blizzard, Baby!

I’m snowed in! Hooray! I’ve been waiting to get snowed in since I moved into this house. We’ve had a few other good blizzards, but the hazard of working in Deadwood is that you usually get snowed in there with no chance of getting back to the house. Last night, we crept home at about 30 miles per hour (took a little longer than an hour) and when we woke up this morning, here’s the sight that greeted us out the bedroom window:

Beautiful. Now why is it on mornings when I work I can’t pry myself out of bed to save my soul, but on mornings when leaving the house isn’t even an option, I can’t go back to sleep? I have no idea. In any case, I got up and went to see if I could scope out the damage. The windows and doors are all crusted over with snow and ice, making it nearly impossible to even see outside.

The cat, who has been frolicking happily outside every day since last spring’s snows melted, was totally baffled. Just three days ago, it was 79 degrees here. She has been sitting by the back door all day, staring at the snow drift, unable to figure out why we won’t let her out. I finally pried the door open – six inches is about the best I could do – and held her up so she could see. She blinked in confusion a little before trying to step out onto the snow. I fished her back inside where she threw a fit as I dried her off, then immediately resumed her post by the door. Poor Minou.

Too curious to leave well enough alone, I shoved into my boots (still wearing fuzzy pajamas) and tried to get outside. I could only open the front door about six inches, so I went through the garage. The side door there opens inward and the drift outside that door was only about a foot high.

It is SO cool outside. My pictures won’t really do it justice because the wind is blowing so hard I couldn’t leave the shelter at the side of the garage. In some places, the drifts are nearly six feet high. The fence you see IS six feet high, to give you an idea. In other places, you can see the grass. It’s really beautiful and really white. I love it.

This one was taken through our bedroom window into the back yard.

The other corner of the back yard. My garden is under there somewhere. Poor carrots.

The front yard, snow sculpted up and around like sand dunes. Really cold ones.

And here’s the reason I couldn’t get out the front door. Too cool.

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Will all the archaeologists in the room please raise their hands?

Wee! I’m an archaeologist. Now it’s official. Public Radio says so.

During our week doing the Deadwood Archaeology Camp in June, Jim Kent stopped by and did a lot of recording. I got elected to do an interview (probably because of my cool hat) and, happily, I managed to acquit myself rather well. At least, I don’t *think* I said anything too stupid, though I did manage to use the word “things” more than I would have liked. Oh well.

So! If you’d like to hear my 15 seconds of radio fame, you can check out either of the following links. The stories are essentially the same, but shaken up a little for variety.

Dakota Digest - Pictures and a lovely sound clip. Don’t you love my hat?

Voice of America – This one has a transcript in addition to the sound clip. I had to choose the “download” option to get the soundclip to play.

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Deadwood Archaeology Camp

I’ve been rather absent for the last couple weeks, and my excuse is that I’ve been busy digging up the lost treasure of General Custer. Okay, all I actually found was some beer bottles and old shoes, but still! I’ll take archaeology of any flavor.

I meant to write a blog-journal, documenting the silliness of each day, but I forgot how tired wielding a shovel and corralling kiddos can be. Instead, I’ll have to try to scratch my brain for the good stuff a week after the fact.

The camp was a combined endeavor between the City of Deadwood and the Adams Museum & House, designed to give kids a taste of “real” archaeology (and also probably as an excuse for the “real” archaeologists to play in the dirt). There were 26 kids divided into five groups, with about 15 adults to herd them here and there, including three “real” archaeologists, including myself – a fine tribute to my ego and happiness for the week.

The site we chose is up in the hills behind Main Street Deadwood, a location that was so beautiful it almost hurt. It was halfway up the hill, with Spring Creek flowing at the bottom, pine and aspen trees framing the field, and blue, blue skies all week. There is a foundation still in tact there, a root cellar from a residence of uncertain date. At some point, there was an ice farm there, evidenced through various historical documents and the lovely dammed up collection pool that now collects mostly weeds and scraggly trees.

We didn’t begin there, though. We started the week with a field trip to the South Dakota Archaeological Research Center (SARC), where I spent a few months working back in 2005 after I came back from Europe. The trip wasn’t terribly interesting of its own merit (I’m afraid the folks at SARC were thrown a little off balance by a crowd of 8-12 year-olds; they couldn’t resist using words like “topography,” “morphology,” “stratigraphy”), but the way we got there was great.

All 26 kids plus about 10 of the adults piled onto a Deadwood trolley, which proceeded to navigate the terrors of I-90-under-construction. We topped out at about 55 miles per hour, though that was during a no-obstacles section. At other points, we were passed first by a Winabego, an 18-wheeler, and finally a grandpa in a golf cart. I think it must have been pretty funny for other people who saw the thing going down the road.

During one of the construction bits, Mikaela (one of the counselors) was looking out the window. “We’re awfully close to the guardrai-” KRZEEEEEEEEEEIIIXXXX!

Oops. And so the trolley pulled over and the driver got out to inspect for damage. No problem. “It was just the rubber bit,” he said. The little boys I was smooshed between spent the rest of the drive debating how fast we’d have to be driving in order to zoom off a cliff and explode with maximum fireballage. (Consensus? Two thousand miles per hour would be best.)

Day 2: We went up to the site for the first time. Despite all the rain we’ve been getting this year, it was a beautiful day. The Forest Service was there to teach the kids how to use compasses, which was a huge success. Then we did a survey of the site (a bit like an easter egg hunt, except instead of looking for colorful eggs, you’re looking for broken vases and rusty lard cans – whee!). The kids put down bright pink pin flags wherever they found things.

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We didn’t start digging this day because there were too many preliminary things to learn first. (Alas for the kids with the shortest attention spans, we were still attempting to do science.) So after a stratigraphy lesson where several kids felt it necessary to point out all the things that were wrong with my Stratigraphy-In-A-Jar (at least they were learning?), we took everyone for a walk. It was meant to be a fairly short jaunt, but wound up being a good deal longer than expected. Enter my favorite quote of the whole week:

Jaichin, whose name I’ve probably misspelled, was the littlest guy in the Red Group. He is 8 years old, red-headed, and not terribly interested in archaeology. He was very well behaved though, which makes up for anything. As we are finally returning to the dig site after what the staff began referring to as the “hike of death” (it was so long one kid had to pull off to the side of the trail to make use of a convenient bush), he is picking up beer cans from the side of the road.

“They’re artifacts,” he informs me when I ask what he’s doing with them. “Artifact” is a word we learned on Day 1, and which is now the all-purpose word for anything that isn’t a plant or a rock or a caterpillar.

“But they don’t look very old, do they?” I asked.

“No, they’re probably new,” he replies, one Bud can in each hand.

“So what are you going to do with them?”

“I should throw them away,” he says.

“Good idea!” I reply, pointing out a dumpster coming up.

He toddles on ahead a little way, angling toward the dumpster, one empty can of Bud Lite in each hand. As he goes, I hear him mutter to himself: “This is the march of a thousand souls!”

Anne – camp coordinator – and I just about wet ourselves laughing.

Day 3: We laid out the units, one yard square in five different locations. As this process began, one of the other archaeologists (Cher, who is eq4bits’ evil twin) asked if anyone knew the Pythagorean Theorum. I was smacking my forehead, remembering the glazed looks at SARC when someone had to ask what a topographic map was, when one of our campers pipes up with the most simple, elegant explanation of the Pythagorean Theorum I’ve ever heard. I was blown away. I didn’t get that stupid thing figured out until I was 23.

Do you SEE my awesome hat??

And so we laid out our units and began clearing away the grass and weeds growing on them. This might have been the point when one of our Blue Team girls started her caterpillar collection. Despite discussions about how we weren’t allowed to touch any animals we found (and the fact that if an artifact moves out of your unit of its own volition, it probably wasn’t an artifact), caterpillars apparently don’t count, and several of our girls are determined to collect enough caterpillars to start whole little caterpillar colonies.

This was also the Day of the Pollen. At one point, mid-morning, one of the kids wanted to know what was burning. I sniffed the air.

“I don’t think anything is burning.”

“But look at the smoke!” he insisted.

Sure enough, what appeared to be smoke was billowing all across our clearing. I sniffed again. Still no smoke smell.

“My God, it’s pollen!” Michael, counselor extraordinaire, exclaimed. If you’ve never seen pine pollen, you have no idea what a nightmare this was. By the end of the day, everything at the site was covered by a fine layer of yellow dust: picnic table, backpacks, rocks, units, campers… You could actually see the stuff blowing through the air, and knew you were breathing it in, but could do nothing to stop it. I can’t believe I didn’t die of an allergy fit.

Day 4: We continued our excavations, with plentiful breaks to go play in the creek. The phenomenal weather was holding – hardly a cloud all week, and everyone was baking.

Our discoveries are more or less as follows:

The Purple Team had a unit by a fire ring, where they found burned wood, a metal grill, lots of charcoal, and some bits of bone.

The Blue Team found a terra cotta flower pot.

The Orange Team found slugs. The slimy sort.

The Green Team found a giant bolt and a bone and some nails and lots of other goodies. Their team won the prize for having the tidiest, professional-est looking unit I maybe have ever seen. Credit for this goes largely to their team leader, Michael, who was absolutely brilliant at corraling his group and making the edges of his unit fanatically vertical.

The Red Team, where I spent most of my time, had a unit located right in front of the root cellar. They found lots of nails, bits of glass, bricks, a bit of bone, and on and on. They really had a treasure trove of old junk.

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Jaichin, Lindsay, Anne, Tia, Me, Tanner, Raleigh

Day 5: On Friday, we only spent half a day on the site, finishing up the level we were at on our units, then cleaning up.

After that, it was on to the celebratory picnic, where the food available included hotdogs, or fake hotdogs. The second was only in deference to Anne, the only vegetarian in our entire group. I know that I don’t like real hotdogs, so I decided to try a veggie hotdog. How much worse could it be? I reasoned. Well, I don’t know about worse, but let it be noted that I think vegetarian hotdogs are very, very gross. Aside from being neon orange (the same color as the orange team’s shirts) it was the texture of curdled tapioca puding. And it was gross. Oh well.

So I’d say Archaeology Camp was a success, and now I’m sad because I have to go back to my Grown Up Job. But at least I get to keep my Oh-So-Cool hat.

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No Democrats Allowed

Ssssh! Secret Public Meeting! No Girls Democrats Allowed!

My mother-in-law is running for the State Senate. I have no idea why. I have absolutely no interest in public service myself, so I’m baffled when other people put huge amounts of time, effort, and money into trying to get elected for such a thankless job. Well, they probably don’t think it’s thankless.

Anyway, the other night, she went to a Public Forum for the Republican Party. She herself is a democrat, the only democrat running for this seat, so she wanted to know what sorts of issues she’d be dealing with once the election becomes her vs. the republican candidate. She asked Derek, the guy who shot the video below, to accompany her and record the proceedings so she could sift through them later.

Remember: Public Forum. Everyone’s invited but, apparently, not everyone was welcome. Check out this video. Derek subtitled it so you could better understand what’s going on.

In sum, there was a gentleman present who wasn’t interested in having republican secrets videotaped for the whole world to see. He wanted to have Derek and his camera tossed out, or failing that, offered to provide his services as a human barricade. In case you missed it, here are the highlights:

Objector: I don’t think it’s right to have him film for a democrat so she knows what the hell we’re talking about.

And my favorite:

Nyla: I’m sorry, I thought this was a public forum.

Moderator: It is a public forum.

Objector: It is a public forum but we don’t want the opposition coming in and listening to our candidates!”

In the end, Derek was allowed to stay, and Mr. Objector cooled down, took a seat, and wasn’t a bother any more. What’s more, absolutely nothing interesting happened for the rest of the forum. I’m a little disappointed. Maybe if they hadn’t noticed Derek there in the first place, they’d've let loose with some nice republican secrets. Oh well. Maybe next time.

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Gee, Archaeology Must Be Coooool

I was watching a show on the History Channel last night about how much of Indiana Jones is based in fact, and how much in fiction. The final conclusion is that  more of it than you might think is based in fact, and that Indiana Jones, as an archaeologist, is a pretty excellent guy. He favors acquisition of information over acquisition of treasure, believes that artifacts belong in museums rather than private collections, is hugely respectful of the cultures he studies, and a decent human being to boot.

As this show is going through the various cultures associated with the movies and interviewing experts at each of the sites, I caught myself thinking “gee, wouldn’t it be cool to be an archaeologist?”

And then: “Holy crap. I AM an archaeologist!!”

Okay, I’m not a very convincing archaeologist. I have a masters degree in archaeology, yes, but I haven’t done much with it. I excavated during two seasons in the Netherlands (about the highlight of my life), and also for three months with the State Archaeologist in South Dakota (not really a highlight at all). I know lots of stuff about old stuff (especially ancient Levantine goddesses) and I know how to dig a pretty excellent feature profile.

I gave it up in favor of being able to live with my husband and also being able to earn enough money to support myself, but I miss it. Even the less-than-thrilling South Dakotan bits. Archaeology IS exciting, whether you get chased through ancient temples by 5-ton boulders or not. It is about a hunt for information that has been lost for hundreds or thousands of years.

Someday, when I’m a millionaire (this is my catchphrase lately), I am going to be an archaeologist again. I’m going to move to Europe, find a job working on something cool, and live happily ever after.

Until then, I guess I’ll spend an unfair portion of my free time watching the History Channel.

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Livin’ the Dream

We’re famous!

Lead opera house goes on with the show

Featured Video

Lead opera house goes on with the show

Okay, being on local news doesn’t exactly qualify as famous, but it does make me feel extra cool. (Ten points if you can pick me out of the crowd! Hint: I’m not blonde and I can’t really sing.)

And to be fair, it really isn’t we who are the stars of this little report, it’s the Opera House itself. Built in 1914 and burned down in 1984, it is a beautiful wreck of a place. That’s probably a little more extreme than it deserves. Parts of it have been completely restored and look fantastic. The stage itself is a bit rough.

It looks a bit better now than it does in this photo, which is a few years old, but there is a lot of work left to be done, so they’re looking for funds. Hard to blame them! Being part of the first community production to happen at the Opera House for over twenty years, I’d like some lights and sound equipment too (especially since I’ve been well-informed about the pitiful state of my diaphragm. I’ll be hopeless without at least a mike dangling somewhere nearby…).

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Moving up in the world!

As of this week, I am officially a professional blogger. I have been elevated to the status of Contributor to the Black Hills Travel Blog, a really beautiful blog dedicated to extolling the virtues of the area where I live. Since I have always been convinced that everyone should come visit the Black Hills (and not just because I live here), I am delighted at the chance to get to write about why I think it’s so wonderful.

So if you have a chance, go check it out. When you’re ready to make your travel plans, let me know and I’ll give you any tips that the blog might not already have covered.

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There’s Gold in Them Thar Hills

(Please forgive the quality of the photos – they were taken while I was hanging out of a moving car.)

In this case, I’m not talking about element number 79 with an atomic weight of 196.97 which has driven so many men mad in the history of the world. No, I am talking about trees.

Sunday was the first official day of Autumn. I say official, because if you’ve read my earlier posts, you may know that we had our first freeze on the 10th of this month. I take back what I said then about the seasons; I was bitter after losing my pumpkins.

In truth, Fall is by far my favorite season. The days are still mostly nice, with plenty of sun occasionally interrupted by a storm or blustery wind. You need to start dressing in layers, but you can usually leave your winter coat at home. There is no better time for hiking or biking or taking a drive through Spearfish Canyon.

The colors are fantastic, especially on those few days when the leaves on trees have begun to turn and the flowers have not yet died off. Sometimes, the sky in the background is such a startling shade of cerulean, it could almost break your heart.

Especially beautiful is the contrast between our beloved ponderosa pines and the fiery aspen trees that are also abundant in the hills. The ponderosas, viewed from a distance, appear very dark, or even black – hence the name “Black Hills.” The aspens, on the other hand, practically glow in their fall attire, yellow more dazzling than the finest daffodil. The contrast between dark pines and bright aspens is truly magnificent.

I realize I’m using a lot of big words for “beautiful,” and at risk of minimizing their impact, I must insist that I am not using them lightly. If you’ve never seen the Black Hills in the Fall, you’re missing out.

Now I’m going to go a step farther than your average Fall nut. The trees and the sky – they are beautiful, yes, yes. But everyone knows that. What about the rocks?

(Since when are rocks a Fall spectacle? you ask. Let me tell you!)

The Black Hills are home to some really fascinating geology. They say our hills are not truly hills, but mountains which are so old, they’ve been weathered down to the gentle slopes you now see. The granite peaks, which formed the Needles and attracted the sculptors of Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse, are surrounded by millions of years of sedimentary deposits. These can be seen, most famously, in the Badlands National Park. They can also be seen almost everywhere you look throughout the hills, to one extent or another.

Take, for example, my drive to work in the morning. We go through Boulder Canyon, which connects Sturgis and Spearfish. The canyon was carved out naturally by Boulder Creek, then given some further assistance by the folks who wanted to put a road through. Cliffs on one side of the road have been exposed so that their layers and swirls of color can be seen by all.

I’m a bit of a geology nut anyway, but I never get tired of looking at these rock faces as we drive by. Every Spring and Fall I watch for new landslides, wondering what interesting new things might be uncovered. Just this morning, we saw the workers out with their Bobcat, rounding up the fallen rocks and carting them away.

Spearfish Canyon is another place to see Black Hills colors – plant and mineral alike – at their finest.

Really, though, there isn’t anyplace around here where you’d miss out on the show. For all of the month of September, and also into October if we get lucky, the Black Hills are on display, the best Mother Nature has to offer.

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