Wednesday Afternoon Fly Fishing at UWC

So this fall term has been a very busy one for sure at the UWC. I'm involved in residential life for the first time, which means doing dorm check at 9:30pm two nights a week. I'm also running 3 club activities: Tai Chi, Fly Fishing, and Medical Club.

My classes have been pretty active this term and I've been busy grading, teaching, doing field work, and improving (I think) at the art of teaching IB biology.

Wednesday afternoons are a much-needed escape for me. Fly Fishing meets from 3-5:30pm. We bus about 20min. west on the Gallinas river to some private property and have a go at catching trout with lures that we tie ourselves. There are a couple of ponds there in addition to the river where students can practice catching some monster trout. River fishing is much more delicate and technical. There are big fish there, but they are picky eaters for sure.

Yesterday, I fished with:

Prince Nymph - caught the biggest Rainbow trout of my life in the river (~2.5 lbs)
Wire Caddis Nymph - caught a big Rainbow in the pond
Hot Butt Caddis Dry Fly - caught 2 brown trout in the river...good size, but not big. Caught them both on casts that were about 50 feet in length.


Some thoughts from the river:

Wind blows through the grass
Mountains rise in strong circumference around the gentle Gallinas
I become the fish I seek.

Big Girl

So this is little Moira Josephine Gregory at 8+ months of age. She won't crawl, she still doesn't like to sleep all the way through the night and she's a picky eater, but boy does she love to WALK!

She still needs a little help with walking (we hold one hand with her), but she can take about 5 steps by herself before losing balance.

I think there's some metaphor in this whole "I won't crawl before I walk" thing...

...at the very least, her ambition is inspiring!

The Hermit

So it's officially the Alumni Reunion time here at the United World College and "students" from all the way back in the 80's through the present converge on the campus to pretend that they're younger and to relive some old UWC memories. It seems like a pretty fun time, and our friend Jeremiah does an amazing job at organizing and running the whole reunion.


Today, I led a hike for about 9 of the Alumni up Hermit's Peak...one of the more prominant peaks in the Sangre de Cristo mountains that is about 20 miles west of campus. The peak itself is at an elevation of 10,263 feet above sea level, but really only 3700 feet higher than Las Vegas, NM (which is the nearest town to the UWC). It was about a 4 mile hike to the top and it gains about 2,000 feet in elevation.
The peak itself used to be called Cerro Tecolote (Owl Mountain)until the 1860's when Juan de Agostini occupied a cave near the summit. Agostini apparently was born in 1800 as an Italian nobleman's son and later studied for the priesthood, but refused to accept his eventual vows. This cat walked most of the places he ever went to, and his walk to the summit of Cerro Tecolote evidently was something like a 600 mile trek from Kansas. While he lived in his cave on the Summit, he befriended a local group of Penitentes and they evidently thought him a saint.


Only living there a few years, he left to have more foot journeys in excess of 250 miles each and finally ended up in a cave on another peak near Juarez, NM. A friend he met near there was concerned for his health because of hostile locals and asked him to burn a fire every night so the friend would know he was alright. On an evening in 1869, the fire didn't burn. The friend headed up to the hermit's cave and found him with a knife in his back. Evidently, people would still hike up to Hermit's Peak (Cerro Tecolote) even until the mid 1960's to pay homage to Agostini and visit his cave. The Penitentes would continue to make rosaries out of native plants that they took up to the cave at Hermit's Peak.

The hike up to the peak was really nice today. I've been hiking in Sebastian Canyon every day now for about a week, and I feel like I have my altitude lungs back as well as improved knees since a bad backpacking trip earlier in the summer. I have to admit that I'm feeling much more spry on my feet than I have in a long time.





Along the way, I saw tons of these little moths that I mistook for butterflies. Gnophaela vermiculata is the official name. Pretty little guys were everywhere on the trail today along with some Pine White butterflies. At the top of Hermit's Peak, there was a massive hatching of lady bugs as well...my phone was dead though, so sorry for no picture of that.

my dog has a stiff neck

What's with the dog posts lately? I guess there's just a lot of canine drama around the Gregory house recently.

This is Camden, our sweetheart. When we came home Thursday night from Walmart, poor little Cam was having some major hip issues. She was squealing horribly and couldn't really walk. She's always had bad hips, but we couldn't figure out what would have caused them to flare up so bad in just the 1 hour that we were at the store. We came to the notion that she and Jack must have gotten into it a little while we were gone. We figured that Jack flipped her so that she tweaked her hips.

Camden and I went to the vet today and he heard the whole story and did a physical exam. He came to the conclusion that when she and Jack got into it, he probably caused her to yank her neck too far to one side, causing a mildly inflamed disc. It just so happens that the small nerve the inflamed disc encroached on was giving her a hightened sense of pain in her hips. Poor thing!

She's getting better after some TLC from Kel and Me, and, as funny as it sounds, she seemed to appreciate me taking her to the vet.

my back yard

It's true what the mysterious "they" say about how being away from home makes you miss it so much. This past year, we were SO homesick for South Carolina. The summer vacation that we just came off of was indeed a breath of fresh air. So good to see family...so good to feel the humidity and the mosquito bites...(I know that sounds weird, but it was). At the end of it all, though, it's also nice to be back in New Mexico where we can get our little baby Moira on a schedule again, and where we can see some of our newer good friends.

It's also good to get back to the wilderness out here. This is a shot I took last year on one of my day hikes behind my house. Over the past 3 days, I've been doing either 2 short hikes a day or 1 long hike. Today's hike was a long one for me...probaly about 7-8 miles round trip in some pretty mountainous topography. The baby girl has been strapped into a child-carrying backpack that I tote on each of the hikes and she does SO well. She usually talks her baby talk for the first 20 minutes or so and is then hiked off to sleepy land for a good 30 minutes before she wakes up again.

How much of a blessing it is to have such beautiful land that we're free to explore literally out of our back door.

So to all those natural born explorers out there, the proverbial door is always open and the guest room can be cleaned up anytime you want to come visit. :)

the smell of a skunked dog

So I'll finally have a post that lives up to my blog's namesake...except instead of a "wet dog", picture a "skunked dog".

This is my little buddy Jack just after he had a glorious chase down the hill from our house after a wiley brother skunk. A short battle ensued, but sadly, bearing only shiny white teeth and no projectile vileness, Jack quickly found himself standing in a cloud of "parfume de mephitus" (ode de skunky). I have to admit, it smelled completely different than I expected.

I'm sure I'm not the only good South Carolinian/New Mexican who has driven down a backroad on a mid-summer evening and caught a whiff of that unmistakable odor that seems to give the olfactory receptors a stiff uppercut. You know it when a smelly old "pole cat" is around. But this smell that Jack was wearing was a bit more like death mixed with pepper spray. The poor dog just put his ears back, tucked his tail and slinked back to the front porch...where apparently he had a grave misunderstanding that I was actually going to let him back inside.

I tied him up, snapped this quick photo, and got online looking for "de-skunking" remedies. I had always heard an oatmeal bath would do the trick, but I wasn't sure. I also heard that a tomato bath would work, but I was a bit sceptical. Turns out that a mixture of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and dish soap works pretty dadgum well at getting most of the horrible perfume off.

Our house does stink a little bit, but with a 7 month old baby girl living here, I'm sure no one will notice the difference!

a "simpler" life

On our way back west from our Summer in SC, Kel, Moira and I stopped off in Mansfield Missouri for a visit to one of the homesites of Laura Ingalls Wilder (the author of all of the Little House on the Prairie books).

We honestly had sort of planned our trip so that we would specifically go through Mansfield and see the house. As we approached, however, there were no signs or anything about the museum/homesite. We kind of expected it to be a tourist trap and were pleasantly surprised to pull up to a very well preserved site with little to no "tourist" trappings.

The house was where Laura actually wrote all of the Little House books by hand after she and her husband Almanzo moved to Mansfield from her prairie home in Des Met South Dakota.

Kelley and I walked through the small house that Almanzo built himself and left in such a relaxed frame of mind after having witnessed the "simple" life that hard work and few luxuries produces.

It was a great end to our wonderful summer back east.

Driving on the Parkway

It's the "end" of our little family summer back home in South Carolina and we decided to pull away for some time to ourselves before having to head back to obligations and excitement in New Mexico. We decided to take a lazy trip back west by heading up the Blue Ridge Parkway first, then deciding how we would get home from there.

The beauty of the trip is the spontaneity of it all. We started out by leaving charleston last Thursday and ended up at Lake Jocassee (Devil's Fork State Park) by nightfall...since then, it's been the Blue Ridge Parkway the whole way until today (Monday). We stayed at Mt. Pisgah, Doughton Park VA., Roanoke Mt. VA, and now a Holiday Inn express for a little break from the camping life.


There have been TONS of cool sights along the way, and we've definitely been taking advantage of the whole "drive awhile, stop awhile" mentality of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Most memorable stops so far have been Brinegar Cabin, Mabry Mill, and Roanoke Mt. park where we saw a surprise bluegrass concert on Sunday night.



We also had an unexpected reunion with our friends Tim Okeefe, his sons Devin and Colin, and his wife Heidi Mills when we stayed in Devil's Fork State Park. We haven't seen them in some time and it was so good to catch up! This is our little Moira posing with Heidi and the Okeefe boys.


So from here the plan is to spend a little time in Shenandoah National Park before heading west for sure. The only major places we want to hit on the way back are Mammoth Cave and the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum. If we hit those soon enough, we may head past our New Mexico home and go to the Grand Canyon and Canyon DeChelly before calling it quits on our road trip summer.

Happy Trails!

Too Many Variables

So I'm a bit frustrated right now during my summer vacation. Not mad or anything, just perplexed a bit...

...The UWC just got in its grade results for the spring 2009 International Baccalaureate (IB) exams and I specifically got my individual grade results for the kids who were in my bio class this year. They were AWFUL! I had way more failing grades than I ever expected and didn't have the number of great grades that I thought these kids were capable of.

I sent an email to our vice president making sure that she knew I wasn't happy with the results and that I'm more than willing to work to figure out how to remedy the situation so that:

#1, the current first year students who will be taking their exams next year don't have to suffer the same fate and

#2, so I can sleep at night feeling that I'm a halfway decent teacher.

The thing is that this whole bad grade thing isn't real simple. There are way too many variables to try and break down "where it all went wrong" so-to-speak in my teaching.

Variable 1: Not my kids

I took over this year for the previous bio teacher who is now in California somewhere. Evidently he was a chemistry teacher by experience who was filling in as bio teacher last year (for just one year) before he left. Out of basically 13 overarching concepts that need to be covered within the 2 years that the students take biology, he only covered 4 in the first year, leaving me 9 major bio concepts plus all major labs to get done during the second year. That's a lot to do from September to March (march is when we have our trial exams and basically it would be nice to be done with concepts by then).

Variable 2: Rookie year

I've never taught International Baccalaureate (IB) Biology before. I've also never been a father before (both of which happened this year). This means no experience with what the IB asks on the final exams (even though I've researched previous exams) and limited experience in how they externally moderate the labs that I grade for the kids.

Variable 3: Subjectivity and Higher Standards

Evidently (from what I've heard) the IB organization that grades off my students' exams has gotten very strict over the past 2 years...almost to the point of being unrealistic with grading. In addition to this, there is also a high degree of subjectivity to the way the final exams are graded and students from 2 different IB schools could get a completely different grading experience based on what Examiner grades their papers. This seems normal, but the level of subjectivity is astounding.

Variable 4: Careless Kids

Don't get me wrong...UWC kids are bright...some of the brightest in terms of book smarts that I've even been around. I've heard, however, that in many cases this spring, my kids put off or ignored studying bio altogether for various reasons.

WHY?

Did they think that the concepts were too hard for them to understand at the last minute...so why bother?

Did they think that they knew the material well enough and they needed to concentrate on other subjects?

Were they too overwhelmed with the crazy exam schedule that the IB organization puts them under and they were too tired to remember and communicate the concepts that I thought they knew so well?

Could it possibly be that some of the kids actually "threw" their own grades...thinking they wouldn't perform well anyway...just to spite me? (man I hope not)

Variable 5# Teaching

Is it my teaching style?
Many of these students come from very strict educational backgrounds that are majorly teacher centered. When we do group activities, simulations, long-running labs, and so on that are student-centered, I wonder if these kids have a hard time learning the same way. Would it be better if I just lectured...Ferris Bueller style at them so they could get very concise notes...instead of truly learning through experience so they'll remember for a lifetime. (I'm a little bitter about this one)

Variable #6 Labs

The IB requires that bio students complete 2 full labs in which they design the labs themselves and come up with a real meaty lab report. After I grade these labs, some of them are sent off for "moderation" in which an IB employee looks over a representative sample of them and my grading of them to determine if I am being too easy, too hard, or just right in terms of assessing my students' performance.
Did I screw this up and therefore jeopardize the lab component of their final grade?


It's so tough that during the middle of the summer (when I'm away from school and when I like to evaluate my previous teaching year), I have nothing concrete with which to judge my performance this year. My vice president is disappointed, as am I, and I can only hope that...since I've covered 9 out of 13 topics as well as 2-3 major labs with the current first year students, this next year will provide them with the extra time needed to prepare better ahead of time for their final IB Bio exams.

Patches

So evidently I either forgot or gave up in terms of uploading all of my journal entries from the Yellowstone Trip back in March...so on to greater things.

This first year in Montezuma has been a rollercoaster to say the least. Moira was born in December and the whole year was spent for me trying to balance out a new career at an IB prep/boarding school, fatherly duties, tai chi classes, fly fishing classes, etc.

I'm older than I was before, but I don't really feel it. Watching Kelley become the wonderful mother she is has given me an incredible amount of energy. Her instincts are so keen and her power with that kid is remarkable at the very least. We've hit our breaking point a few times through this spring...like when that favorite pair of jeans starts to wear at the knees and the fray begins to accelerate with every bend.

We thought that coming out here would be good for us...forcing us to learn to raise this kid on our own, without the direct help of family when things got tough...and God is good at giving you what you ask for! It has been a lot tougher than we realized, but I think we met the challenge head on, and are now better because of it...really frayed at the knees, but that only shows character in my opinion.

Yesterday Kelley repaired those favorite jeans of mine with a mended belt loop and a big patch on the left knee with bright yellow stitches on the borders. They've aged with me throught this year and now are ready for another gauntlet. This summer break that is ahead of us will be much like the patches that fixed my worn threads.

Tomorrow afternoon marks the day that Kelley and I have been looking forward to since Christmas time. After an all-employee meeting here at the United World College in Montezuma, New Mexico, we're packing up the kid and the dogs in our pimp-daddy gold colored covered wagon and we're heading back east for a summer of family, friends, surf, and adventure.


Potential Stops along the way:
Boiling Springs State Park - Woodward, Oklahoma
Village Creek State Park - Wynne, Arkansas
Cheaha State Park - Alabama

We'll have a six hour drive ahead of us tomorrow evening that will put us in the pan-handle of Oklahoma and then it's drive drive drive until we feel like stopping. We'll most likely be home thursday evening or Friday morning.

I don't really have any plans for the summer other than a beach week with Kel's parents and an adventure with the old Spring Valley Outdoor Adventure club to our stomping grounds (Linville Gorge).

The freedom that the summer hopefully has in store for us is so appealing and it will be a much needed break...mending the fray from this year...so that we can all come back west in August refreshed and ready for another challenging and meaningful year.

3/8/2009

This morning we woke at 6am and were driving towards Lamar Valley by 7am. It was truly an amazing experience traveling into the heart of such a wild and harsh place. We saw bison in the valleys...and then in front of our bus on the road.


















We stopped several times on our way to Lamar Valley...watcing coyotes, elk, and big horn sheep.



















Once we got to Buffalo Ranch in Lamar Valley (one of the original sites of Buffalo re-introduction into the west), there was activity from 6 of the druid peak wolves on top of the ridge. They had evidently made a kill an dwere taking turns feeding on the carcass. We only saw them when they came up for air after feeding and walked higher up on the ridge. The snow was falling heavy though and visibility was poor. I only caught a glimpse of a gray wolf through my scope.






A magical moment did occur, though when a lone moose cow walked out into the valley right in front of us! (30 yards) She seemed a bit sad and lost (being that there was no appropriate habitat for her down in the valley at that time of year and that the wolves were so close). She looked thinned from the harsh winter but she was still so beautiful.




We skiid for a few hours after that up towards a place called Tower Falls. It was my first time on cross country skis, but it was so nice. The overlook at the top gave a nice view of the river below and some sulfur deposits where a thermal vent was exposed. There was also a nice view of a rock formation made of columnar basalt...formed when hot magma cooled fast...but not fast enough to form obsidian.







After the ski we returned to base camp and grabbed our swim suits...that's right...in sub-freezing winter at Yellowstone, we all took a dip...in the "boiling river"...the main public hotsprings at Mammoth Hot Springs. The water temperature was around 90 degrees Farenheit while the ambient air temp was around 0-10 degrees Farenheit.

Yellowstone Journal - 3/7/2009

Traveling through Wyoming after leaving Denver at 5:45am. A dusting of snow covered southern Wyoming up until Douglas.
















We have to continue into Montana and enter Yellowstone from the northern entrance because the southern routes are closed for the winter. The total trip is ~1200 miles and we've currently gone 573 of them. We hope to make our Mammoth Springs base camp by 6pm.

- - - We actually arrived at 5:15pm, set camp and met with Merideth and Tory (our guides) who, with the help of their friends, had a wonderful dinner of beef stew prepared for us.



















After some camp games and briefing time, we all bedded down. Tomorrow is the change to Daylight Savings and we leave base camp at 7am to travel to Lamar Valley to start our wolf observation. We are scheduled to ski after that.


















- - -I can now feel myself slowing down a bit mentally...in a good way...preparing myself to listen to what this amazing place has to offer. The wind rattles my tent as the waxing moon shines down from the star-scattered sky. The earth groans all around me with life...but also with a sense of urgency and possibly even resentment. Even this place that Teddy Roosevelt tried so hard to preserve is endangered by human impact, both near & far...physically, spiritually, politically.

This week I will listen. I will give ear to what this land wants to say, and I will carry its words back to others who will listen.

I've been accused of it a time or two...

...being a 6-year-old that is.


I can't help it man. For some reason I still have that natural desire to plunder around for shiny stuff when I go into people's houses. I'd rather be out in the woods building a tree house than sitting inside doing "grown-up" stuff. I'd just assume not eating brussel sprouts and if you want to go on a bike ride with me, we better be heading to somewhere with a big dirt mound we can use as a ramp or a hill to ride down. I don't mind working at all, but you better spell work "P-L-A-Y", or at least make it seem like it's fun to do.

And so, in appropriate kid spirits, Kelley let me drive us all up to Agua Piedra 2 weeks ago to do some sledding on a school day (after work of course). I used my brand-new birthday/christmas gift...my Mountain Boy Ultimate Flyer and zipped down the hill like a monkey on a banana peel surfboard. I have to admit...being from the east coast, I've never been on snow like this, or a hill quite that steep...it was AWESOME (and I screamed like a little girl).

So here's to harnessing your inner 6-year-old!

cheers,
jeff

Muse

I've been busy in the past 2 weeks getting some new song-writing done. I don't know where my muse was hiding, but I've found her again and she's back in full force. I'm not suggesting that my new music is good or anything, but it makes me happy at least.

Here at UWC we have a really nice recording studio that I have free access to, and I've been taking advantage of it. One of our first year students, Tyler, is a very accomplished studio engineer and has been helping me put together the rough cuts for what might turn into a full album at some point.

Most of the tunes are typical for me, but at least 2 of them are more rock-influenced, and one of them is a reggae tune...definitely different for me.

So over the next month or so, if you're interested in hearing some of the stuff, please let me know and I'll get you some music files.

take care!
jeff

Eyes on the horizon...

I dream of it at night. My thoughts sit on it during the day.

It has become an idol that has taken over every fiber of my being. (well, not really, but that just sounds cooler)

As Kelley and I have spent over 6 months in New Mexico now, we have come to love so many things about it. The weather, the stark landscapes and beautiful vistas have pleased us so much and renewed our love for the west. The kind people and completely different perspective on life has both satisfied us as well as made us so very appreciative of our home in South Carolina.
Then with the "onlslaught" of Moira, our connection to South Carolina has been growing even stronger as we are missing parents and our siblings (Kelley's sister, her husband, and our little nephew).

So with all of the thoughts being thrown back to the east coast, my mind has drifted to surfing again and I so long for this coming summer's vacation in South Carolina. We have plans for beaches and I have plans for waves...good ole dirty, salty, short SC waves. And so I will get a longboard...

...this longboard, in fact. I'm hoping that it will bring Kelley and me some great times at Hunting Island and Folly Beach during the summer months.