Sunday, June 29, 2008

Barlow Family Reunion

My husband is better than yours!

I had a particularily trying week at work last week and on Thursday night my wonderful husband gave me these!
That's right one dozen, long-stemmed, bulls-eye, red roses. Now don't get any ideas, he is taken and he is a keeper!

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Josh's Field School

In order to finish his geology degree, Josh had to take a field geology class where he spent three weeks in Payson, Arizona hiking and mapping the mountains all day. He didn't get cell phone service where he was so I rarely got to talk to him. Ironically, the Sunday after he got back, my work sent me to Yuma for two weeks so we will have gone for five weeks with only seeing each other on weekends. It hasn't been very much fun but hopefully it will be over soon. Here are some pictures of Josh's adventures in Payson.

This is a view of Box Canyon


This is a rat snake they found there.


This is a bear that wandered into camp. Look close, he is behind the tree in front.

Scenic view.

A eagle's nest

1.6 Billion year old fossilized ripple marks!

Nature's ampitheater

Wild strawberries. There was also wild oregano in the area.

A cabin guest.

Some of the fossils Josh collected.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Things that prick in the desert


A baby saguaro cactus A baby horny toad

Josh holding a lizard. He was trying to catch it and it climbed to the top of a bush and had nowhere else to go so it jumped on his arm.


A adult horny toad
A tarantula
Oh the fun we have with all the animals and plants we see in the field. If only I had a picture of some catsclaw or some cholla for you to see how fun it really is!

Monday, June 2, 2008

Archaeology-Part 1

Whenever I tell people that I am an archaeologist they always ask what I do as such. Well, here it is, with pictures to prove it. This is the field side of archaeology in the southwest.
Most of our projects start with digging lots of backhoe trenches. We then get the pleasure of scrapping down the walls of the trenchs with a shovel to make them nice and smooth. Then we look for changes in the soil, artifacts, or charcoal and ash. These are all indications of human activity.

When we find something we will draw a profile of the different layers of soil. This is a really good example of a Hohokam canal. Typically our features are not this easy to see. The Hohokam built a fairly advanced network of canals to irrigate the area around Phoenix, some of their alignments are still in use today!

This is a picture of seven overlapping canal alignments. We actually got to excavate a portion of three of them. This is what it looked like when we were working on it.


As we dig the dirt we also screen it through wire mesh to look for artifacts. These are some of the crew members who work with me.


I don't really have any pictures of typical artifacts but I will try to get some and post them later. The most common are pieces of broken pottery, and stone artifacts. We don't find arrowheads very often or any gold ever. I also don't know anything about dinosaurs. Josh is the one with the fossils. Some of the neat things we find include rock art. Here are some examples of things we have found.
























That's all for today. I will continue with more pictures later.