We are the Few, the Proud,
We are the ARCHYS.

(top center: Aggie waits patiently to go four-wheeling on the airfield trails. left: Matt Punke and Amanda Sanchez can't seem to get ARCHY ATV #2 to start up)

--aggie castronuevo johann

Old Packwood Ranger Station

http://www.columbian.com/article/20090424/NEWS02/704249948

"According to the newspaper article published in the Columbian and the Seattle P-I, the old Packwood Ranger Station in Gifford Pinchot National Forest is being sold after a 45-day waiting period. I first learned of this Ranger station in the 1980s while reading Tatoosh--female fire lookout, Martha Hardy's account of life atop Tatoosh Mountain watching for forest fires and enduring the loneliness inherent in that job. Like all old ranger stations, Packwood will be remembered as a part of Forest history; and this one as a part of the history of Gifford Pinchot NF, Mount Rainier, Tatoosh, and Packwood Ranger District.--aggie castronuevo johann"

Invasive Species: Pepperweed

http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/inyo/news/2009/04/pepperweed.shtml

This invasive plant is native to Europe and southwestern Asia. Accidently introduced around 1900 through a shipment of sugar beets, the plant is aggressively spreading throughout the west, including California.--aggie castronuevo

Santa Teresa Archaeological Field School

http://www.alamogordonews.com/news/ci_12094144

This is an interesting project, not only because it is behind a Tyson Chicken Factory (oh my, the jokes!), but it is being excavated from within a building which formerly housed an old museum.

--aggie castronuevo johann

Oldest Stone Blades Uncovered

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/402/2

"Paleoanthropologists working in Africa have discovered stone blades more than a half-million years old. That pushes the date of the earliest known blades back a remarkable 150,000 years and raises a question: What human ancestor made them?..."