This morning, Morgan left for Phoenix with the rental. His vacation time is up, so back to Florida he goes. Ann, Jim and I spent most of the day touring around Wupatki and Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. It was a day of rocks and Indians. The flaky, baklava-like rocks were very nice to look at. The Indian ruins were cool. There were many ruins to tour but since we've seen so many in New Mexico, Colorado, etc, we opted to just tour some of them. Other than size and the number of rooms, how great can they be? It's not like some are decorated.... or even inhabited.
Those cattle guard stripes are perplexing (and funny) indeed. And are cows roaming around in the desert really that big a problem?
ReplyDeleteJust askin...
Love the hokey picture of Jim holding the cloud!
ReplyDeleteWhat the hell are cattle guards?
OOPS!! My bad! That was Morgan, not Jim! I couldn't see the picture when I was commenting. Don't be mad at me, Jim!
ReplyDelete@Joanie: It's Jim holding the cloud.
ReplyDeleteCattle guards are so that cars can drive on a road but cows won't pass it. A metal grate sits on the road. I guess cows are scared of it or won't walk on this grate.
@Alix: It probably does work on other wildlife but there are cows roaming here in the desert. Go figure.
lol, I don't like walking on those things either.
ReplyDeleteCattle guards rattle like crazy, they have a lot of flex, and they have very scary (to cattle!) gaps inbetween parts.
So you dig out an area (assuming you don't have a natural ravine/dip/river to bridge) and make a bridge out of the cattle guard. Cars can drive over it fine, but cattle hate the way it shifts under their feet and won't cross it without serious motivation. (Nothing stops a stampede) A big enough cow can jump them, but most bovines aren't all that energetic.
Scroll down on this page for some good pictures if anyone is curious.
http://tinyurl.com/d5z375
As to the painted-on one...umm..yes, cows really are that stupid. Their vision doesn't work like ours, they don't see colors and contrast the way we do, and if they have experience with a real cattle guard, they will see the painted one and think it's real. So will sheep & goats for that matter.
Cattle have got to be the dumbest animals in the world, I'm surprised they can eat without help sometime. I saw one come through a half open gate, start grazing, realized that his buddies were on the other side, and start bawling. You see, to get back to the field he needed to move to the right by about two feet and go back through the gate. Could he figure this out? Nope. He stuck his head through the gate, tried to push through it and pushed it shut instead, then stood there and bawled. It took me over an hour to drive the stupid thing back through the gate he *wanted* to go through. (Once he watched me open it, he decided it was a scary cow eating monster.)
Seriously, you can find more intellengent rocks.
My grandfather raised cattle, as do my uncles. Does it show? ;)
lol, I'm sure all of that was more than you wanted to know and all, but hey, it may come in use if you ever get on Jeopardy.
I love love love the pic of Jim holding the cloud!!!
ReplyDelete@Walk on: Thanks for the description. Jim's mom, Jim and me were laughing hysterically about your cow stories!
ReplyDeleteGarret