Snow Goose Festival, Sheepherder, Deseret/Delta DUP, Fort Deseret

Early Friday morning, we packed up lunch and Grandma Rainey and headed toward Delta for the Snow Goose Festival. We stopped at a gas station in Delta for a snack, and noticed a pickup truck with a horse in the bed and pulling a sheepherder wagon. I knew there was something interesting to see here, so we stopped and asked the cowboys milling about if there was a real sheepherder around. We met the owner of the sheep operation, who was a tall, cheerful and good-looking cowboy with a shiny belt buckle. We met the mechanic who was driving a big water truck out to the range. We met Dueler, who is a sheepherder from Peru who lives on the range for three years at a time caring for 1000-2500 sheep on a BLM range on the border of Utah and Nevada. He was nice enough to show us the inside of the wagon including the wood burning stove and oven, and a flat-screen TV. We met his horse, Pinto, and his sheep dog, Duke. We took pictures with him and he took pictures of us to send back to his family, too. He teaches high school chemistry when he's at home and lives a very solitary life in the desert when he's in Utah.

 

We drove out to Gunnison Bend Reservoir just in time to see a big cloud of birds hovering over the frozen water. Ikey said, "They're making art in the sky!" They were flying in zig-zagging formations and intricate patterns. Parts of the noisy cloud would turn black, then white as they changed direction. It was so exciting! Here's our movie: http://youtu.be/vxlbfrJ6C54

The birds would take several minutes to settle down on the ice, then rev up their engines and take off in a wave in about ten seconds. They squawked and flew around, then started settling down again. We watched this for about an hour until they finally settled in a spot for a while. 

  The kids ran around like they were dirt bikes on a track and I took a million photos.

  We stopped at the DWR tent to ask lots of questions about snow geese. They told us there were about 20,000 birds on the reservoir. A group of birds leave the Imperial Valley in California and Mexico to fly for about 15 hours, up to 50 miles an hour and stay in Delta for about a week. They eat new little shoots of grains in the farmer's fields in the morning and evening, and gather on the water during the day. They they take off toward Anderson River in the Northwest Territories of Canada. They rest in a couple of places before they get there. They estimate that 30,000 birds stay in Delta each season.  

The kids broke the ice at the edge of the reservoir by wading in about up to their knees, and they threw a lot of rocks in too. Their super-smart and prepared mother changed them into dry clothes and shoes before heading off to the museum portion of the trip. 

We visited the Great Basin Museum on Main Street in Delta where we raided the costume box. 

We had a very good tour from an old Delta rancher who was so kind and funny. We especially liked the rock and fossil collection and the phosphorescent minerals. 

The kids played forever on this shoe fitting machine from a department store in Delta. They'd rigged the machine so it showed an x-ray of a foot, which was pretty tricky.

The museum for Topaz Japanese American WWII Internment Camp was closed for construction, so we missed it this time, but we'll definitely come back when it opens. 

We headed to the old town of Deseret and met Miss Emmalu at the Daughters of Utah Pioneers museum for Fanny Cropper Powell Camp. It is a Relief Society building that was erected in 1907. It served as the school for a while when the school burned down and a church for a while when the church burned down. The building was severely damaged in the 1983 flood and had a cabinet shop in it once too. The DUPs have fixed it up beautifully, but it isn't heated and it was really chilly inside. 

Miss Emmalu was so nice and friendly. She pointed us in the direction of an old school (the one that didn't burn down!) and told us not to miss Fort Deseret. The school was built in 1894 and is really interesting. Someone should restore it. 

Fort Deseret was just down the road from the school. It is a six-acre area surrounded by a 149-year-old eight- to ten-foot-tall wall made of mud and straw. If that was the only thing protecting my family during a war, I'd feel nervous. Of course, this was back when someone had to see you to kill you in a war, so I guess it worked for those people. The kids, once again, had a good time running around. 

After all these museums, we visited Rainey's Aunt Florence at a care center in Delta. Rainey's late mother is Mabel Cook Smith and Florence is her younger sister. Their parents, Barnes and Alice Adeline (Jovie's namesake) Cook had thirteeen children. Mabel had seven children and Florence had ten. Mabel has 24 grandchildren and Florence has 63. Mabel would have turned 100 this year and Aunt Florence is 92. She recognized Rainey and she proudly showed us photos of her family. Rainey asked her lots of questions and she knew all the answers. She was sweet and I was glad to meet her. As we were leaving, we took her to the BINGO game in the common area. The kids joined in the game and each won a prize (cookies for Isaac and lip balm for Jovie.)

We were STARVING, but Isaac successfully lobbied to wait until we got back to Nephi to eat at JC Mickelsons where the food is ok and the model trains are ubiquitous. Rainey treated us to dinner and no one fell asleep for the whole day.