I grew up around Farmington, and after years of computer and software work, this was a chance to spend time in that country doing something completely different. Our group started at a smaller homesite and kiva at B-Square Ranch, associated with Tommy Bolack. Later we moved to a Great House site, where we surveyed, established lines and opened an excavation. I was there as a student and took part in both the survey and the digging.

The photographs show the scale better than I can: people down in the excavation, tools leaning against the sides and canyon walls rising well above the work. The closer views show the flags, exposed stonework and sections covered with sheeting.

A field school runs on ordinary equipment: buckets, shovels, screens, string and shade canopies. In one photograph people are working close to the ground under a canopy, buckets lined up beside them. In another, soil is being worked through a suspended wooden screen, which lets fine soil fall through and leaves the larger pieces where someone can examine them. The strings and flags give everything a reference on the ground. They're easy to miss in a wide shot, and they're a good part of what makes it a work site.

San Juan College and B-Square Ranch established the Totah Archaeological Project in 1999; the college credits Tommy Bolack with starting the collaboration. The project studies the Ancestral Puebloan communities of the Middle San Juan River valley, on a ranch landscape the college describes as river country, irrigated fields, canyons and mesas.

I returned to school around 2005, after time in software and a break to travel. At San Juan I was president of the Phi Theta Kappa chapter and the chess club, served as a student senator and completed more than twice the college's required honors coursework.

From there I went on to New Mexico Tech and the mineral museum. The last photograph here is from a separate 2010 trip to Jornada del Muerto Volcano.