Why is Grandma Digging a Hole: 8 Reasons

Posted on March 9, 2017 by waterhigh

Forrest Fenn’s Treasure Chest

Just for Fun:

My grandmother emailed me the other day that she was digging in her backyard and called the utility marking people beforehand. The man asked her a series of questions including “why are you digging?” She found this to be a personal matter and convinced the man that he didn’t need to know why she was digging. “But” she wrote, “you could practically hear the wheels turning.” We both got a kick out of that and decided it would be a good idea to come up with the eight most plausible reasons a grandmother might be digging a hole in her backyard. Without further ado, 8 Reasons Grandma is Digging a Hole (in no particular order):

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The Junior Oxford Dictionary is Losing Touch with Nature

Posted on March 2, 2017 by waterhigh

Forrest Fenn wants to get kids off the couch and out of doors. What does this news say about our culture when “selfie stick” & “hashtag” replace words like “acorn” and “otter”? : (

Sharing this post from Lady Muir:

I was shocked to read the list of nature words removed from the Jr. Oxford Dictionary in the last decade. What follows are excerpts from an essay that explores the intersection between language and life.

via Let Nature Words Live — LadyMuir

Just Sharing a Song

Posted on February 7, 2017 by waterhigh

One tin soldier Listen people to a story That was written long ago, ’bout a kingdom on a mountain And the valley folks below. On the mountain was a treasure Hidden deep beneath a stone, And the valley people swore They’d have it for their very own. Go ahead and hate your neighbor, Go ahead […]

via One Tin Soldier — Life Through My Eyes

Cliff Palace and the Ancient Pueblo People — A R T L▼R K

Posted on December 18, 2016 by waterhigh

On the 18th of December 1888, Richard Wetherill, explorer, guide and excavator to-be, along with his friend Charlie Mason, both cowboys from Mancos, found Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde after noticing the ruins from the top of the highland. Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in North America, its structure built by the Ancient […]

via Cliff Palace and the Ancient Pueblo People — A R T L▼R K

Fort Rock Cave

Posted on October 12, 2016 by waterhigh

One hundred sagebrush sandals—very old. The shoemaker’s cave?

bend branches

View from Fort Rock Cave 9June2016 View from Fort Rock Cave, Oregon

Looking out of the mouth of the Fort Rock cave at the Sagebrush Sea, one can only imagine the thoughts of those that lived there thousands of years ago. Sagebrush sandals, determined to be 9,300-10,250 years old, were found in the cave. These sandals are the oldest ever found in the world.

Fort Rock Cave 9June2016 Fort Rock Cave

Luther S. Cressman, an archaeologist and founder of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oregon, found the sandals in 1938. He knew they were old but some of his colleagues doubted their age. The radiocarbon dating process had not been developed yet. In 1951, he was vindicated when the sandals were radiocarbon dated using the new process.

A small hearth was found in the cave and it was radiocarbon dated to be 15,000 years old. Several stone tools were found nearby. Though that date was questioned…

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How do Gemstones get their Colors ? — Know-It-All

Posted on September 3, 2016 by waterhigh

Reblogged this because it’s kinda cool:

The most common cause of color in gemstones is the presence of a small amount of a transition metal ion. Most gemstones are allochromatic, meaning that they are colored by impurities or trace elements in their crystal structure.

via How do Gemstones get their Colors ? — Know-It-All

Longevity

Posted on July 5, 2016 by waterhigh

Don’t you wonder what secrets to a long and happy life Forrest Fenn might share? (In addition to being extremely fortunate in the outcome of his flying career, I mean.)

100 years ago

So, I asked him. Diet? Exercise? Are you some sort of vegan?

His response:

This old lady was asked that question. She said she drank 4 Dr. Peppers a day since she was 8 years old. She said her doctors promised she would die at an early age if she didn’t stop. She said, “I’m 104 years-old, still drinking 4 Dr. Peppers a day and my doctors are all dead.”

Wiki-link — Dr Pepper Interesting: they sued Coca-Cola back in the fifties.

Once, at the county fair, I tossed rings and won a couple large, glass bottles of Dr Pepper. I had to give them to my brother because I couldn’t stand the flavor; tasted too much like prune juice? Like a lot of other fine things, I acquired a taste for it later in life.

Happy hunting, all!

500 year-old shipwreck full of gold found in a desert

Posted on June 10, 2016 by waterhigh

Portal

Posted on May 31, 2016 by waterhigh

P1000420

I won’t be making it to this year’s Fennboree, but if I could, I would take a moment in Santa Fe to get a look at an ancient wrought iron gate on East Palace Avenue, the site where dozens if not hundreds of scientists, mathematicians, and physicists, after meeting with gatekeeper Dorothy McKibben, disappeared from sight beginning in April 1943. P1000401

(Well, first I might stop at that French pastry shop at La Fonda where Amy bought those gorgeous treats for Forrest’s book signing last September.)

Said portal transported those invited to the site of the Los Alamos Ranch School on a mesa in New Mexico. You probably know (part of) the rest of the story, but for me, I learned a lot from a book called Bomb, by Steve Sheinkin, my newest favorite non-fiction author. Wow. He used to write textbooks for schools but kept notes on all the things they wouldn’t let him put in–fascinating stuff I should have learned. Sheinkin puts it together in a compelling and quick read. (Young Adult level but hey, who’s got time for an academic treatise these days?)

So back to the story: the race between the Americans and the Germans to develop the bomb; some very, very brave Norwegians on a mission; the spies who wanted to steal the plans for Stalin; the guys who just wanted to give it to the Russians so there wouldn’t be only one superpower in possession of the new and terrible weapon of mass destruction.

When I was young, my ideas of Russian spies were partly based on Boris and Natasha, and hearing intimations about the McCarthy era excesses. Somehow my public school history classes never got much past the Civil War by the end of the school year, hence the black holes in my knowlege. (No, that’s not a typo; it’s spelled Fenn’s way.)

[Side note: There was a Rocky and Bullwinkle episode titled Buried Treasure. Hmm. Frostbite Falls?] P1000443

I could also rave about Sheinkin’s newest book, Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret Viet Nam War. I have no excuse for not knowing or remembering more about the topic, having been of school age when it was in the newspapers, except that the facts didn’t all make it into the media at the time. I wish that weren’t still true. History gives us perspective if we’d only choose to look at the parallels in our own day. Does your view of Ellsberg color your impression of Snowden? What caused Benjamin Arnold to switch sides? Had you even heard of the Port Chicago 50?

Do you agree with Abraham Lincoln?

“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.”

(Check out Steve Sheinkin’s other books like King George: What Was His Problem? or The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights or Lincoln’s Grave Robbers, etc.)