Life among the Tall Pines

Checking out an Expo building

2012-01-31T20:47:00.003-07:00

Tammy is planning and organizing an expo on March 24 for direct-selling home-based businesses. Examples of which are: Tastefully Simple, Avon, Pampered Chef, Scentsy, etc.

The location will be one of the smaller buildings at the county fairground. A few weeks ago we visited the building and measured the dimensions and got an idea of where the doors and other stuff were located. I drew up a floor plan for Tammy and she felt we could get almost 40 vendors in the building.

We weren't sure how many vendors would be interested in being at the expo. The answer is: lots. Tammy already has 34 vendors signed up and more may be interested.

With so many vendors participating we decided to double check the floor plan I drew. It wouldn't be good to have so many vendors and find out we didn't have enough room. Today we went to the building to arrange tables in the building to see if our design was correct or if we were missing anything.

We found the floor plan works. We can fit the tables without it being super crowded. I then thought of a slightly different arrangement for one row where we could squeeze 7 more vendors in. Tammy was getting stressed by my rearrangement as she didn't see it at first. But, between arranging the tables and my later drawing a new diagram, she gets it. So we have this plan in our back pocket if we have more than 40 vendors.

Here is a look at how the tables work across the width of the room. Earlier we had placed the tables across the length.

Eggs and auction

2012-01-28T21:20:00.001-07:00

Today Tammy and I got a carton of fresh eggs from Michelle, one of her home business direct selling friends. She and her husband have a chicken operation with over 1,000 chickens.

Fresh eggs! Yum! But Tammy won't eat the eggs as they don't come from a store. Her loss as farm fresh eggs taste better than old store bought eggs. Tammy made me some scrambled eggs tonight for supper. Yummy!

Before visiting Michelle, Tammy and I went to an auction in Columbia Falls. A store that sells used sporting goods and odds and ends of stuff was holding an auction of some stuff. Most of the stuff was "junk", though one must remember 'beauty is in the mind of the beholder'. Not many people must have thought this stuff was 'beautiful' as the prices payed were low. The auction did have a couple of newer looking ice axes that interested me. I've never had a need for one, but I can see where an ice axe may come in handy on a future hike in Glacier Park. But I had no interest in waiting a long time for the axes to be auctioned off. So we left.

Map of trees

2012-01-26T21:51:00.001-07:00

I like maps. Here is a map of all the trees in the U.S. that NASA, the National Geological Survey, and the U.S. Forest Service put together.

http://www.geekosystem.com/america-tree-map/

Barn snow curl, part 3

2012-01-25T20:47:00.011-07:00

Tuesday there was no movement due to temperatures that only ranged from 3 to 27 degrees. Today the curl is gone. We had freezing rain overnight and some wind. I think this finished off the curl.

Barn snow curl, part 2

2012-01-23T23:23:00.001-07:00

Even though the temperature was above freezing today and the sun was out this afternoon, surprisingly the snow did not completely slide off the barn roof.

Here are photos from today. You can compare them to the photos from yesterday's post to see the little bit of movement.

Barn snow curl

2012-01-22T19:54:00.001-07:00

The nice thing about metal roofs is that the snow slides off.

The bad thing about metal roofs is that the snow slides off to places you don't want it to. I had to shovel the snow away before it hardened into an ice hump.

Also notice the wood pile in front of the camper is lower. We can see the top of the camper now. However, with this recent snow my movement of the wood is on hold.

More snow photos

2012-01-20T23:15:00.005-07:00

It finally stopped snowing last night. Today after Tammy and I ran around uptown for some errands I was able to shovel the snow off the driveway while she went over to visit with a neighbor. I have the back yard left to shovel unless the forecast is true and it warms up and we get freezing rain.

Annual snow photo

2012-01-19T20:12:00.001-07:00

It started snowing on Wednesday and hasn't stopped. Over 7 inches have fallen so far. Mother Nature seems to be trying to make up for a lack of snow so far this Winter.

I've been spending lots of time sweeping and shoveling snow. Tammy thinks I should get a snow blower. She thinks I will drop dead of a heart attack from shoveling all this snow. Nah. What doesn't kill me only makes me stronger. And I ain't ready to kick the bucket yet. Beside, shoveling snow keeps me in shape for all the ranch work I have to do this year.

This morning a neighbor came over and plowed my driveway using the blade on his pickup. I didn't turn down his offer to help. I spent this afternoon shoveling the parts of the driveway and yard I want snow free for now.

Now that we finally got snow this Winter, it is time for my annual 'Back 40' snow photo. Enjoy.

Auction items

2012-01-16T22:23:00.001-07:00

Tammy and I ran around uptown today in advance of the predicted snow. One of our stops was at an auction place. We were there a few hours before the auction started. There was nothing there that enticed us to return for the auction, though there were a few items we had some interest in.

The rooster weather vane actually would be more of an interest to my Uncle Curt and Aunt Cathy as they like roosters.

The suit of armor was in fact made of tin, and not that tall. "Hey little buddy."

More trimming

2012-01-10T21:45:00.001-07:00

I start pruning and get carried away. After I finished pruning the apple trees I worked on the shrubs in front of the house.

Before:

As I started to trim them in 2009...

Before I started in 2012...

After...

Hmm... in the photo the 'shorter' shrub now looks wider than tall. In 'person' it looks better. This is a shrub that was allowed to grow and grow and should have been trimmed many years ago. All the greenery is on the outside of the shrub so it is hard to trim it back. I hate to cut down trees and shrubs, but this Summer it may be the end of the line for this shrub. It depends on - now that the interior is opened up to sun - whether greenery will grow and fill inside.

I also trimmed a couple feet off the tops of the two arborvitae bushes. These bushes also had been let go over many years. Over the years I have been cutting the height down. The 2009 photos was not the first time I trimmed their height down. I'm not sure I can 'save' - or trim to be smaller - these bushes either as I may be limited in how I can sculpt them to be smaller in size. Still, for arborvitae I have noticed that greenery will re-grow out of trunks and branches to fill in open areas exposed to sun. So there is hope.

Pruning apple trees

2012-01-09T00:01:00.018-07:00

The weather is nice. No snow on the ground. I decided it would be a good time to prune my two apple trees for the year.

While I could, and perhaps should, trim the trees lower in height, I decided not to. Overall I am happy with the number of apples I get from each tree. I decided to mainly trim the new branches growing upward since my last pruning job last Winter. And to thin the interior branches to give the apples a chance to get air and sun.

Tree number 1:

Tree number 2:

Fallen branch

2012-01-08T00:01:00.007-07:00

A few days ago it was windy. Well, for the Flathead Valley... windy. I found this branch in the NE pasture.

I have not waked around all of the pastures to see if there is any more tree damage.

Night clouds

2012-01-07T18:33:00.001-07:00

Late last night / early this morning just before I went to bed I stepped outside and checked the weather. No snow. Good.

Here is what I saw...

These photos were taken in color and not in black and white.

Sisyphus and the wood pile

2012-01-06T20:37:00.000-07:00

Another nice day. No real rain or snow in the forecast for a week. I surveyed my pole shed and decided to start moving the wood pile and camper from one bay to the next so I can have the vehicles next to one another. If Sisyphus can move the boulder, I can move my wood pile. Besides, even though there is no snow on the ground, the ground is frozen preventing me from digging fence post holes.

That's a lot of wood to move!

The start.

What I accomplished for the day. Now do you get why it takes me so long to complete the work on one of these bays even though I worked well after the sun set?!

Actually, I did more than what is shown. Go back to the side view photo. I removed all the small odds and ends of wood right next to the camper above the brown concrete.

You know... I should have a contest. Instead of guessing when the ice on some lake will melt, people can guess when I finally get everything moved.

Odd fire extingisher

2012-01-05T12:01:00.025-07:00

Last week, while in my attic to string the speaker wires, I took a photo of one of the odd fire extinguishers I found on the attic beams.

At least I think they are fire extinguishers as I can think of no other reason for them to be hanging in the attic. When I look through the clear top I see a liquid inside the container.

Actually I looked these containers over in depth years ago back when I put extra insulation in the attic. So I can't really answer (remember) right now whether these containers are glass or plastic or ceramic or some other combination.

I did a little research on Google about "glass fire extinguishers" and I found out three things:

They are collectible and worth money,
Some versions are called fire grenades, and
They are very dangerous.

From Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_extinguisher)

Another type of carbon-tetrachloride extinguisher was the Fire grenade. This consisted of a glass sphere filled with CTC, that was intended to be hurled at the base of a fire (early ones used salt-water, but CTC was more effective). Carbon tetrachloride was suitable for liquid and electrical fires and the extinguisers were fitted to motor vehicles. Carbon-tetrachloride extinguishers were withdrawn in the 1950s because of the chemical's toxicity–exposure to high concentrations damages the nervous system and internal organs. Additionally, when used on a fire, the heat can convert CTC to Phosgene gas,formerly used as a chemical weapon.

Another article on the fire grenades is found here: http://www.thegavel.net/grenade.html

Other articles mentioned how carbon-tetrachloride robs the fire of oxygen. That is both good and bad. The bad is if you are nearby and need oxygen also.

For now I will leave them be. Initially I thought they were neat. Now that I learned more about them I would like to remove them but I don't want the risk of accidentally breaking them. They have remained intact in the attic for 50 to 70 years - the range between when the house was built and when it appears these type of fire extinguishers were taken off the market (late 1950s)

Now... if someone wants to buy them and remove them, I would be fine with that.

Also, in the photo you can see how old my attic is. Instead of plywood sheets for the roof, the builders used 1 inch boards. And why the long bamboo pole is in the attic... who knows!

Larry Light

2012-01-04T00:01:00.021-07:00

The following photos show a light Larry left me with. I didn't notice the light until a few days after my uncles and aunts left last June. My uncles Larry (taking the lead) and Curt re-wired my barn when they were here in June.

For the electrical outlet my second well pump will plug into, Larry installed a Ground Fault Interrupter. The unit also has a small light. Now whenever I am outside after dark in the back yard I think of my uncles and how they re-wired my barn for me. I call it my "Larry Light".

An opening has been made

2012-01-03T21:37:00.002-07:00

Well, this time I was right. I only needed one more day to finish clearing an area in the pole shed. Oh... and I needed one pickup as I moved a pickup load of wood to finish my cleaning.

I forgot to take a "before" photo. The best I could find was a photo from November 2010. The blue bars indicate the section I cleared. The wood and other stuff mostly filling this area was six feet high and the length of a pickup.

Wow. It is amazing how clean it looks. It certainly took me long enough to clean, clear and sort all the stuff that used to be here. It hasn't looked like this since 2002 or 2003 when I last sorted and cleared this area. Then bit by bit over time I placed various boards, pieces of wood, and other items in here until it was huge unorganized pile.

This is one step. I have lots of odds and ends of wood. It will take several iterations later this year until it is completely organized by board width and length. Just as my fence work seems never ending, so does the sorting of my boards and wood.

Ideally I would like to move my pickup camper over to this location so my pickup and Tammy's van can be side by side in the pole shed. Ha! That's a gigantic project for another day.

Broken fence wire

2012-01-02T20:11:00.001-07:00

The deer are at it again. I had another barb wire to fix.

After looking at the following photo I took of my repair job, I could have done better. I should have attached the broken wire to the same level on the stay.

Another day. Another attempt. Look better?

Here is an example of why I don't like the vinyl fences. They are suppose to be maintenance free, but they break so easily. This is one of my neighbor's fence. I don't know if it was vandalized or if a deer tried to jump over/through the fence.

Later in the afternoon Tammy helped me clear out the spot in the tool shed for her vehicle. Each time I work on clearing the spot I think it will take only one more time to finish. Even with Tammy's help it appears it will take one more time for me to finish the job.

It was nice to have Tammy help me. We moved the rest of my wooden fence posts over to the hay shed. To ensure the posts don't roll down in their new location we pounded a couple of metal posts into the ground. Tammy bravely held the posts upright while I used a sledgehammer to hammer the posts into the frozen ground.

Why in the attic?

2012-01-01T20:27:00.001-07:00

One of my uncles asked me why I ran my speaker wire in the house's attic instead of under the molding along the floor. In case you were also wondering, here is why:

The living room has no molding. (Yes, I plan to eventually get rid of this old ugly green carpet and replace it with wood/laminate flooring.)

The speakers are mounted near the ceiling. Notice: no sign of speaker wire. (Yes, the hated red shag carpet will also eventually be replaced.)

By the way, I ran the microphone speaker balancing test last night. The home theater system sounds great. Even when watching the movie, Date Night, which is not a movie to really test the home theater's abilities, the sound was rich. I should have had this home theater setup a few nights ago. Then maybe I could have understand half of what Jeff Bridges mumbled in the movie, Crazy Heart.

Shelves and speakers

2011-12-31T21:37:00.002-07:00

A busy end to the year. This morning Tammy and I washed all the house windows inside and out. It was sunny in the morning and I noticed a layer of dust on the windows. We also vacuumed the rugs.

In the afternoon we put up brackets in her office closet so she could hang some shelves.

In the evening I hung four of my home theater's speakers (the mid room and back speakers), and wired all of them into the home theater receiver. Now that we've eaten supper it is time to run the microphone setup that balances and adjusts the speakers based on the room configuration. Then we'll watch a movie. Too bad I watched Iron Man 2 last night, that would have been a good test of the speaker's surround sound.

Happy New Year!

Alone in the Wilderness

2011-12-30T22:33:00.002-07:00

I finally got around to watching the documentary that my uncles Curt and Larry, and friend Jeff, all recommended to watch.

"This documentary tells the story of Dick Proenneke who, in the late 1960s,  built his own cabin in the wilderness at the base of the Aleutian  Peninsula, in what is now Lake Clark National Park.

Using color footage  he shot himself, Proenneke traces how he came to this remote area,  selected a homestead site and built his log cabin completely by himself.

The documentary covers his first year in-country, showing his  day-to-day activities and the passing of the seasons as he sought to  scratch out a living alone in the wilderness."

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0437806/

The documentary is about an hour long and apparently has been shown on PBS. The documentary is very interesting. This guy had an amazing talent. He made wooden handles for his tools then built a cabin that allowed him to live through an Alaskan winter.

He was in his early 50s when he built the cabin and lived there until he was 83 years old.

Speaker wires in attic

2011-12-29T22:30:00.001-07:00

To go with my new TV I bought an Onkyo HTS5400 7.1 home theater system. Since my living room is so long I had to buy more speaker wire so the two rear speakers could go against the back wall.

With all my new components: TV, home theater with a receiver, 7 speakers and a sub woofer, a DVR, and my old VCR, I have wires everywhere. Tammy wasn't too thrilled with the home theater system with the speakers as that meant wires strung all about the room. She thinks it looks too much like I'm a red-neck.

Even though it was more work that running the wires along the ceiling, I decided to run the speaker wires through the attic.

I wanted to put the wires into wall behind the receiver and TV but that was a "no-go". The wall is an outside wall filled with insulation. In case I could fish a wire through the insulation along a stud I went up and checked out the attic. Nope. The top of the wall is covered by a board and the roof is a low roof.   No way to drill a hole into the wall from the attic.

Then I thought about running the speaker wires "kind of" outside the wall. A number of years ago I added panels of R-12 insulation between the wood siding and the plywood outer part of the wall. I could drill through the drywall and plywood then run the wire up under the insulation panel.

When I looked at the wood siding I remembered that I had been concerned that gravity would pull down the 2 inch insulation panels and the wood siding so I nailed them real good, and used ribbed nails. I did a good job as the wood siding and insulation panels are fastened tight to the wall. I didn't want to ruin my insulating work so I discarded this idea.

So I ran the speaker wires up the inside wall to the ceiling. I do have a window and curtains nearby and that camouflages most of the wire.

In addition to the hole for the wires to enter the ceiling, I drilled four more holes for the back speakers and the mid-room speakers. I ran some stiff wire up the holes so I could find the wires and holes once I got in my attic.

Years ago I insulated my attic real good, so moving around it was harder than usual. In some areas the insulation was so thick I had trouble finding the wires poking up through the ceiling.

Tammy fed wire up into the attic and I grunted and moaned as I tried to move about the attic by keeping on the studs and not falling through the ceiling. The entry point for the wire, and the rear speakers, were along outside walls with the speakers being in corners. Very difficult to move around.   Grunting and moaning did help me move about.   Tammy found my sounds humorous. That was because she stayed in the living room and didn't have to move about the attic.

Fortunately I bought two 100 ft rolls of speaker wire as each roll only wired two speakers, with some wire left over. That left over wire will go to my front speakers mounted on the wall by the TV as the wire I bought was 16 gauge, an improvement over the wire that came with the speakers.

This wiring job took all afternoon. Even though I wore a coat, hat and face mask, I had enough of insulation. Once all the wires were threaded though the ceiling and to the speakers I quit for the day as taking a shower was my main priority. Tomorrow I will hook up the speakers.

Photos:

The attic for the original (core) part of the house. The roof has a steeper pitch so I could actually partially stand up in this section.   Here is the amount of insulation I have up here.

Below is where I uncovered a walkway. After I had insulated the attic years ago I had left some boards over the studs to allow for walking. I'm glad I left those boards.

The house was built in stages over the years. When a new addition was built they cut a hole through the roof to allow access to the new section. Whoever cut the hole must have been small. This is the opening in the attic between the core of the house and the living room. And this is after I had enlarged the opening back when I had added the insulation.

The attic over the living room. Notice the roof isn't as high. Here I had to move about on hands and knees. Also notice the "walkway" I had left earlier.

This gives you an idea of how fast the roof slopes down.

Here is my "path" to where the speaker wires come up into the ceiling (at the far end). Here I had to move about on the studs on each side of the "path". At the far end I had to lay to reach the wire coming through the ceiling and hope the ceiling wouldn't give and I drop down.

At the top of the photo you can also see how I ran the speaker wires along the roof. This was to keep the wire out of the way if I have to move around the attic again. And I wasn't sure if the wire would be ok to be buried under insulation.

Flat tire finally fixed

2011-12-28T00:01:00.081-07:00

I have spent the past month wrestling with patching my bicycle inner tube. Or I should day: tubes. It has been frustrating.

I've had:

value stems come out of the tube (unrepairable)

tires that hold air until you put them in the tire, then hours later they were flat. Removing the tubes, filling them with air, putting them underwater to find no leaks, putting them back in the tire to have them go flat - frustrating.

old patches come loose and leak again,

new patches not hold tight. I've tried glue-less patches and they don't have a good success rate. The local bicycle shop still hasn't got a new shipment of kits with patches and glue.

a tube get ruined when I roughed it up prior to patching. One time I used a new metal 'rougher' and in thoughtlessness/absentmindedness/frustration pressed too hard on the tube.

tubes get pinched when putting the tube and tire back on. This is because the tire fits incredibly tight on the rim that often I had to use a tire iron to put the tire back on the rim and then I accidentally punctured the tube. *augh!!!*

One time I was drying a tube over the wood stove after I had tested it underwater only to have the glue on an old patch melt and then leak.

In addition to my bicycle's bad tube, I had four old inner tubes that had been problems in getting patched in the past. With all I've been doing this month I haven't devoted my full attention to patching my tubes. Instead I fit the work in here and there. Over the month I have been working on this problem I was down to my final tube when I finally patched it.

It has been three or four days now, and 20 miles, so - cross my fingers and knock on wood - the tire is holding air. Good, as I hate to think my streak of riding at least one mile each month would be broken. The last time I did not ride any miles in a month was way back in June 1983.

Keep your chin up

2011-12-27T00:01:00.001-07:00

Static cat

2011-12-26T23:30:00.002-07:00

Christmas turkey

2011-12-25T19:41:00.004-07:00

From the cooker to the plate... yum! Tammy made it all. Merry Christmas.

New glass table

2011-12-24T20:21:00.001-07:00

Tammy likes glass tables. We moved three of her glass coffee and end tables from Minnesota to here. We haven't set them up for several reasons. First we have no place to put them. Second, I am leery of glass tables. Glass breaks and I don't trust myself around them.

Well... Tammy didn't like my wood coffee table I use to hold my stereo equipment. She thinks it is ugly.

So she ordered a table to her liking. Guess what? It's all glass.

She got the table and like a kid on Christmas couldn't wait to get it out of the box and put it together.

Here is how everything looks now.

Oh joy. I can see more of my ugly green carpet.

Now to do something about all those wires.

Nuts

2011-12-23T21:11:00.001-07:00

I like nuts. Snacking on them or ground up and added to my oatmeal cereal.

So much so that when a grocery store had nuts on sale for $1.98 a pound I filled several bags. Tammy helped me as she likes nuts too. She held the bags while I shoveled nuts into them.

Once I was done there wasn't enough filberts/hazelnuts left to fill another bag. There were more almonds left but I thought two bags each was plenty. For now.

I left the walnuts be. Walnuts are easy to get and not as expensive as almonds or hazelnuts when bought shelled and in a bag.

A couple people in line made comments to me when I was in the checkout line. Tammy - not standing anywhere near me - heard other people comment on my nuts. Right Tammy? They were commenting on my nuts and not me being nuts?

My nuts...

These are a little more than 23 pounds of nuts and they cost me about $47. The hazelnuts weigh more than the almonds do.

Broken handle

2011-12-22T00:01:00.004-07:00

I'm still splitting logs for firewood. Usually I don't get around to this until around dusk.

Tuesday night it was fairly dark when I was about done splitting logs. For my last log to split I needed one more hit to complete the split.

I missed.

The splitting maul's handle hit the top of the log. The log split and the handle broke.

*argh!*

Wednesday I replaced the broken handle with an old axe handle from my "treasure" pile in the tool shed. I had to trim the handle a bit to squeeze it into splitting maul. Then it was on to splitting a few more logs. I quit splitting logs earlier this night.

Cleaning ash

2011-12-21T20:45:00.001-07:00

The weather was nice today so I decided to clean the ash from my wood stove's pipe. It has been a couple of months since the wood stove burning season started. The section of pipe that is closer to horizontal collects ash more than the other sections or the chimney.

Here is how much ash collects in the horizontal section of the pipe.

The loose stuff shakes out. I have to use a wire brush to get it all out. This job is one that is done before a person takes a shower that day.

River sunset

2011-12-20T00:01:00.029-07:00

The other day, as I walked along the river with the GPS, I took a few photos of the river and sunset.

GPS smart phone app

2011-12-19T00:01:00.077-07:00

Tammy found a GPS app for her smart phone. It is called: Backcountry Navigator. I tested it out by walking around much of the ranch's boundary. I then downloaded the data to Google maps. My mapped route is pretty close to Google's (via the USDA Farm Service agency's) satellite image for the ranch but not perfect. East/west and north/south are off a few feet with east/west off by a greater amount.

The mapped route had me walking through part of the barn when in reality I walked just south of it. The route did have me start and end correctly in the house even though my entry and exit into the house were through the same door, which is in the NW corner of the house. Therefore the line from the right going into the house is wrong as I have no door in the NE section of the house.

And the GPS app had me some distance off the fence line when I actually walked right next to the fence. In the photo below I had walked to the corner even if the track does not have me doing that. Also I walked in a straight line to under the tree where I marked an X. I wonder if walking under the tree threw the GPS app off and it then guessed that I had walked north of the tree?

Also when I walked along the river I often was shown to have been walking in the river. In the photo below I walked to the right of A, the end of land. Then I backtracked to go to B as I had to walk around the tree that is in the 7 o'clock position from B. I then walked a little to the left of B then up to C. As you can see this doesn't not match the route mapped. The route here is in the middle of the river and I assure you I did not walk in the water especially as this is December and the water is very cold.

I've noticed the same problem with my property boundaries/fence lines with other government agencies who have mapped the ranch using satellite photos. I think the original GPS coordinates for the USDA Farm Service Agency satellite photos were inputted a little off, or is this in the margin of error for GPS units?

The distance I walked seemed to be correct. However the elevation gain and loss were way off. The GPS app had me gaining 679 feet in elevation and losing 820 ft. I walked in a circle starting and ending in my house. The elevation gain and loss should be identical. Also I think the elevation numbers are off by a more than a factor of 10. My estimate of the elevation gain/loss to have been 20 to 30 ft.

Still, for a $9.99 app, this may be a good deal as a decent GPS unit - or at least the one I would like - is $600.

Birds

2011-12-18T15:47:00.001-07:00

The birds have been working on the suet. Yesterday the sun shone so that was a bonus day.

Bohemian Grange Hall expo

2011-12-14T00:01:00.023-07:00

Sunday, December 11, Tammy organized an expo for home based businesses like her Tastefully Simple business.

For a place to hold the expo she found and rented the Bohemian Grange Hall south of Whitefish, Montana. Because part of the goal of the expo was to collect winter clothing for the Evergreen Panty, Tammy was able to get fifty free posters printed for her event.

Fourteen vendors including Tammy said they would be at the expo. Twelve vendors showed up that day.

Because Tammy and I were running the expo we had to be at the grange before the other vendors started to arrive at 9 am. We were there at 8:20 am on a cold frosty morning. I had to take care when driving as some sections of the road were slippery.

The grange is a two story building and some vendors had to be on the second floor. There were plenty of electrical outlets for vendors to use.

All the vendors were ready when the first customer showed up right at 11 am. What seemed to be a good sign, wasn't. It was a slow day. All total we maybe had around 30 customers. Tammy and I put posters up all around Kalispell, Whitefish and Columbia Falls. We had the expo listed in the events sections of the locals newspapers and on a number of radio stations. So the word should have been out there for people to know about the expo.

Maybe it was because it was a Sunday. Maybe it was because people are worn out from all the Christmas shopping. Maybe it was the location. I don't know why the turnout was so light.

A number of vendors sold a few items, but overall it was a dead day. Even though the expo was to go until 4 pm, we all made the decision to pack up and leave after 3:30 pm. All the vendors were gone before 4:30 pm. Tammy and I had to clean the building in order to get our deposit back so we didn't leave until 5 pm.

Bohemian Grange Hall

We could have made better signs.

All the vendors were to bring sweet and/or salty food. Most vendors brought sweets. One vendor brought Cosco wheat bread on top of which he added Parmesan cheese and with his homemade Ratatouille. It was very tasty.

Some of the food the vendors brought

Tammy's location.

Bunny and pie

2011-12-13T20:50:00.000-07:00

I made another apple pie today. The brown streaks on the crust are from the cinnamon and sugar I sprinkled on top.

After getting my mailbox smashed several weekends in row, my mailbox was left alone this weekend. It appears putting a board and bar across the top has deterred the vandals.

Late afternoon near dusk, as I was working on moving more of my boards and stuff from my pole shed, I noticed a large black rabbit sitting in the corral near the loafing shed. It sat there until I looked away. Tammy had seen this rabbit before but I never have seen it. I have seen its tracks in the snow. The rabbit is very large and completely black. I've never had a rabbit at the ranch before. I don't know if this is good or bad. I don't have a garden right now. The rabbit is cute. So I guess having a rabbit around the ranch right now is good. If the rabbit ever becomes a problem I can always have Tammy research rabbit stew recipes.

Zero horses

2011-12-12T20:57:00.001-07:00

The last two horses left Sunday. They were way out in the south pasture but came when they saw their owners' horse trailer and heard them call. Loading these horses was much easier than loading the first two horses.

So the ranch feels empty once again.

With the horses gone I rolled up and put away for the Winter the hoses I had used to fill the water trough. Definitely on the 'to-do' list next year is to get a pump for the well by the water trough.

I put the salt blocks into the barn for Winter. As I now no longer need to get into the barn until Spring I laid some boards and fabric inside the large door to prevent/reduce the amount of snow that could get blown into the barn by the mean ol' north wind. In the past I've had some hay ruined when snow blew in then melted on the hay. The wind doesn't blow much here, but in the Winter, on occasion, cold air will spill over the mountain passes from the east and will roar down into the Valley.

I'm still working on clearing a spot for Tammy's van in the pole shed. I'm still splitting more logs for firewood. I finished clearing the logs off two pallets. I am down to one towering 6 ft pile of logs on one pallet. I do have enough logs split to last the Winter. I think. Tammy likes the house warmer than I usually have it.

Turkeys

2011-12-11T00:01:00.012-07:00

There are a flock of turkeys that roam the neighborhood. Now that the Corriente cattle are back in the neighbor's pasture the turkeys show up there and in Bob and Jan's yard more often. In Bob and Jan's yard the turkeys eat the bird seed that the birds spill from their feeders.

(Tammy took this photo with her new smartphone.)

Two less horses

2011-12-10T20:07:00.001-07:00

Today the owners were in town to fix a flat tire on their horse trailer. They decided to take two of the horses back home even though there is little to no snow and the horses still have lots to eat in the pasture. The owners came this afternoon and loaded two of the horses: one older horse and one filly.

Once the horse trailer door was closed and the two horses left behind understood what was happening they now wanted to go too. Especially the filly. She ran around the trailer and pawed at the ground trying to figure out what to do. The wife and I got the two remaining horses out of the corral into the pasture and this enabled the husband to drive out of the corral with the horse trailer.

Once I let the two remaining horses back into the corral they ran to the front gate in hopes of joining their friends. It was not to be.

They are sad tonight. They would whiny calling for their friends. They ran around the corral in hope of spotting them somewhere. Whenever they saw me come out of the house they called to me. When I walked to the corral they would look at me then turn their backs to me.

They get over it by tomorrow.

Here are the photos of the remaining horses. Photo 1 is the older horse (Fancypants) looking for her friends who left. The second photo shows the filly who ran around and around the corral looking for her friends.

Here are two photos of the oldest horse. Now and when she first arrived this past Spring. Being at the ranch fattened her up and did her good.

Here one horse is unfriendly and the other is accusing. The two photos also are now and then to show how the filly grew over the Summer.

Looking out to the pasture for her missing friends.

Sqeaking refridgerator

2011-12-07T00:01:00.029-07:00

My refrigerator makes noises quite often. Some days are worse than others either with loudness or frequency. Sometimes it sounds like it is full of a herd of crickets. It is driving Tammy crazy.

I don't hear it half the time as I am so used to it making noise. If the refrigerator is quiet for too long I worry it has died.

I don't know how old the refrigerator is. Since dad didn't leave a warranty instruction manual, the refrigerator must pre-date dad's ownership of the house. Therefore it may be from the early 1970s or 1960s.

Here is a 23 second video of it squeaking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Lorpp3IYqI

Damaged mail box

2011-12-06T00:01:00.037-07:00

A week or so ago someone dented my mailbox. I pounded out the dent. Then I put two wooden poles in the ground on each side of the mailbox to prevent someone from again whacking my mailbox as they drove by.

This morning I found my mailbox dented again. This time it was worse than the first time. They had to stop and then hit the mailbox from the top to dent it. I haven't seen any other mailboxes a short distance up and down the road that were dented so I don't know why seem to be only targeting my mailbox.

I again pounded out the dent and straightened the mailbox so I could close its door. I added a board and bar to protect the top of the mailbox. It doesn't look pretty but hopefully it will protect my mailbox. I have an idea now on how I can use some odds and ends of re-bar and pipe I have and make a cage around my mailbox. That will have to wait until next year and warmer weather.

The two poles on the right exist to protect my mail box from the snow coming from a snowplow. Once it snows I nail a board to the poles to deflect the snow and protect my mailbox.

The two poles on each side of the mailbox are what I added a week or so ago. Monday I nailed the board to the poles and added the re-bar over the box.

Browning Expo

2011-12-05T22:07:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday Tammy and I drove east of the Rocky Mountains over to Browning, MT to attend an expo held in the gym at the Browning school. Tammy sold her Tastefully Simple product at the expo.

It was a long way to drive at around 95 miles. And through the mountains. We had watched the weather all week and crossed our fingers hoping for good weather and driving conditions. Driving over Marias Pass on a snow covered slick road is not a fun time.

The weather cooperated. No snow or ice. Just snow along the sides of the road and pretty snow covered trees. It was chilly outside as the temperature was in the low teens Fahrenheit for much of the morning. Once we reached the Pass the wind started. There looked to be some icy snow spots between the Pass and East Glacier but it was no problem to drive on.

The expo started at 10 am and Tammy wanted to be there to set up around 8:30 am. That meant we have to leave the ranch close to 6:30 am as it was around a two hour drive.

Morning came early. Way early.

It was dark when we left and for much of the drive up to Marias Pass we drove in darkness. This meant watching out for deer along the road. Fortunately we did not see any on the drive there. On the drive back home I saw two deer crossing the highway.

View NE from near Marias Pass

Browning is on the Blackfeet Reservation.

Browning Montana. The building with the red roof to the left of center is the school building.

We were set up and ready well before the expo started at 10 am. Tammy made and brought some Tastefully Simple wild rice soup for people to sample. It is in the red crock pot. We got a corner location so we would have electricity to keep the soup warm.

The expo organizers said they had enough vendors to fill the gym. As you can see not all the vendors showed up. The weather was decent so that shouldn't have kept the vendors away. Perhaps the lack of vendors was because both of Montana's university football teams were playing playoff games. The price of a vendor spot was only $10 so the vendors who didn't show up weren't out of much money.

The traffic at the expo was light. One vendor who was at this expo last year said there were more vendors and people last year. Again, the football games may have had something to do with the light traffic.

Tammy ended up selling more to other vendors than she did to people attending the expo. She could have sold lots of wild rice soup mixes as everyone who tasted the soup loved it, but she didn't have many mixes to sell.

The expo was also a fundraiser for women's health. One booth took a person's blood pressure and tested their blood sugar. This is especially important on the reservation as Native Americans have a high chance of having high blood pressure and blood sugar readings. Since both of my parents had diabetes I had my blood sugar tested. I had last eaten food (breakfast) at 6 am and I had my blood sugar tested after 1 pm. My reading was 86, which is good.

The expo went to 4 pm. People quickly took down their displays and were out of there. The sun had gone behind the mountains and clouds by the time we were on the road.

The mountain on the right half of the photo is Calf Robe Mountain. Last year I had hiked up to the long flat part just right of center. Awesome views.

We didn't get home until 6 pm. It was very dark by then. We got and cooked a Papa Murphy pizza for supper.

Tammy's first Montana freezer meal class

2011-12-01T20:47:00.010-07:00

Wednesday night Tammy held her first Tastefully Simple freezer meal class. While Tastefully Simple is known for their seasonings to make great dips, the seasonings can also be used to make meals.

Four women bought eight Tastefully Simple seasonings each and then Tammy held a class at the house to show them how to make eleven meals to be placed in their freezer for later cooking. The women provided the meat and canned goods the seasonings are added to. Around 6 pm the women arrived with their ice chests of food.

The class was over in less than two hours even with all the chit-chat that went on.

Tammy made a few dips, wild rice soup, and some beer bread for the women to sample.

I spent all day cleaning the house. The lady came and got the couch and loveseat I had sold her and that freed up room to allow us to move some furniture around and to set up the table and chairs I had bought at the auction a few weeks ago.

This was the first time we had a chance to put the extra leaf into the table and we discovered the leaf's color was slightly different from the rest of the table. We have no idea as to why this is.

I cleaned and cleared off stuff of my kitchen table and took off the table cloth to find a nice table underneath.

Before and after the freezer meal class with the happy meal makers.

Sold couches and loveseats

2011-11-30T22:47:00.001-07:00

I sold my couch and loveseat to make way for Tammy's couch and loveseat as Tammy didn't like my furniture. My furniture was originally dad's furniture.

As you can see below my furniture was leather or fake leather - I'm not sure which. It was in very good condition. I put an ad on craigslist and sold it within a couple of days when a lady came and bought it for her son and his kids to have as she said the kids are very hard on the microfiber furniture currently in their basement.

I thought it would take longer to sell the furniture here as craigslist has lots of used furniture for sale here in the Flathead. However the furniture listed is either cloth, microfiber or contemporary overstuffed leather furniture. To me the furniture listed looked ugly. And the prices being asked seemed high to me.

I sold my furniture last week but the lady didn't come get it until this morning. I had to call and remind her a few times about getting the furniture as I needed room for my living room rearrangement.

The room without the furniture. ...for now.

A few weeks earlier I had sold my couch and loveseat that I owned back when I lived in Minnesota. I had left that furniture at my mother's house when I moved to Montana. The couch had built-in recliners which my mother really liked so she used it until she died. My brother and mother already had a couch, and my brother didn't care for my couch and loveseat, so I sold it, again via craigslist. It sold quick even though that couch and loveseat is a cloth version I had bought in 1992 and is now long out of style. The oil workers flooding to North Dakota need furniture so the demand is high and the listings on craiglist are low. The guy who bought my furniture said he didn't have any furniture where he lived. His place was bare.

Tubes and TVs

2011-11-29T23:20:00.003-07:00

When writing about my bicycle inner tubes last night I forgot to include a photo of them. Tonight I thought I had better success repairing them but I found one tube went from a fast leak to a slow one. The local shop I visited today didn't have my usual Rema patch kit. Instead he had a glueless patch. I haven't pulled the tube tonight to see if the slow leak is because this patch loosened up, or whether the slow leak is from elsewhere on the tire. The tire fits so tight over the rim that I have to be very careful when putting the tire back on the rim so as not to puncture the tube again.

Yesterday I also went from having my new TV on the console TV to having my TV on a coffee table. This is just an intermediate step as I have a wall mount on order to have the TV hung on the wall. Tammy thinks the coffee table is ugly.

Flat tires

2011-11-28T23:33:00.002-07:00

I got a flat tire on my bicycle today when I decided to ride a couple miles after getting the mail. By the time I got home my bicycle tire was flat.

In the evening when I got around to patching the bicycle tube I successfully patched the hole but then found the valve stem was coming out of the tube. That tube was no good.

I didn't have any more new tubes so I worked on four old tubes I had trouble patching over the past few years. Back then I had different type of patches and different glue. I thought with better patches and glue I would get the tires fixed this time.

I struck out. Some tires I patched the hole only to find a second hole after I put the tube back into the tire. A few patches didn't take for various reasons.

On. Off. On. Off. What made it worse was the tire barely fit on the rim. That means I had to really work with tire irons to get the tire off and on the rim

I only had four patches and glue for four patches. I ran out.

Frustration.

On the to-do list tomorrow is to buy a new tube and another patch kit. I have so much crap around here that either these tubes will be fixed now or they will get tossed.

New digital TV

2011-11-27T21:30:00.001-07:00

Saturday I bought a digital TV. I've been talking about buying one for years and finally did this year.

For those not in the know... my previous TV (which still works fine) was a Sylvania Superset console TV. My mother bought it new back in 1983 and gave it to me after I moved to Montana. I actually had two TVs as the console TV could not get the PBS station without a lot of snow. So I also had a small 13" TV dad bought in the 1990s that clearly received the PBS station. Neither of the old TVs could get all of the channels on one TV. Half of the six channels available over the air wouldn't show up clearly on the small TV. Go figure!

So my solution was two TVs. Not that it mattered as I don't watch much TV. When Tammy got here it was confusing to her as to which TV had which channels. The remotes were a bit confusing too as the small TV had a remote and the signal to the large TV was run through a digital converter and that had a remote. (Because some of the channels are re-transmitted on translators those signals were analog and not digital and therefore the small TV not using a digital convertor could receive them. Confusing? Really?!)

But I finally broke down and bought a new TV. And I went big. I bought a 55" Samsung. Model UN55D6000.

Right now I have my new TV sitting on top of my console TV. The new TV replaced the 19" TV of Tammy's that replaced the 13" TV of dad's.

Note: that is the flash of my camera that made the star burst on the screen.

The TV was easy to set up. I also found more over-the-air channels when I scanned for channels. Between my two old TVs I got six channels. This new TV found 14 channels. Four channels were duplicate channels as the TV pulled in channels from Missoula that were identical to Kalispell's channels. So I am up to ten unique channels. None of the channels are HGTV or TLC channels so Tammy still isn't satisfied.

The long term plan is to buy a wall mount and attach my new TV to the wall. Also in the plan is to get a home theater system. I had my eye on a Yamaha YHT-495BL system at either Best Buy or Vann's Electronics for $299.99. But they are sold out in Kalispell and one can't order them online right now at either store. They cost $100 more at Amazon.com. The sound from my new TV is decent so there is no rush to get a home theater right now.

The next step is to work on getting cable or dish for more channels. It was very windy here tonight and that affected many of the digital channels as they would freeze up off-and-on.

Cactus flower 2010

2011-11-26T20:33:00.001-07:00

My indoor cactus plant is still alive. Since it is the end of November, the cactus is flowering.

For photos of the cactus plant in prior years, click here: http://tallpinesranch.blogspot.com/search/label/Cactus

Tamping down drain field dirt

2011-11-25T21:57:00.028-07:00

The past few days have been warmer than usual. The snow has all melted except for a few areas where it is cooler than average and always shady.

The ground is no longer frozen. I took advantage of this and tamped down the dirt heaped over the septic tanks and the drain field where I had dug it up. No sense in tripping over a frozen mound of dirt under the snow this Winter.

I used a "tamper" tool I had bought at an auction west of Whitefish, MT a number of years ago. I haven't had much of a chance to use the tamper till now but it came in real hand for this project.

Before and after:

Look better now, doesn't it? Keep in mind I had to use a little muscle power to flatten the dirt.

First thanksgiving

2011-11-24T21:05:00.000-07:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

Tammy and I had our first Thanksgiving together here in Montana. She made a delicious meal and I am full after eating it.

We got a frozen 11.61 lb turkey Wednesday. Tammy was concerned about the turkey thawing in time so she soaked it a while last night in warm water in the kitchen sink.

I already carved half the turkey before I thought of taking a photo. The gravy is homemade by Tammy.

Green bean casserole.

My full plate. I don't mind if my food mixes together before I eat it.

Then for desert Tammy made Pumpkin Pie cheesecake. It was one of her Homemade Gourmet products from when she used to sell Homemade Gourmet food.

Vaughn trivia

2011-11-22T23:17:00.001-07:00

A local radio station I sometime listen to has a morning trivia contest on week days. Often I know the correct answer, and even have won a couple times. Often the prize is coffee from Montana Coffee Traders. I'm not a coffee drinker so I don't call in with my answer.

Robert Vaughn's birthday is today. He is 79 years old. This morning the trivia question was:

Name the character Robert Vaughn played in this 1960s popular TV show.

I am not sure if the question was how I worded it or whether they mentioned the show was was The Man From Uncle. It didn't matter as I knew the answer based on how I wrote above the trivia question.

I called and the phone rang and rang and I thought the radio station was on another line with someone who answered the question correctly. When they answered the phone I asked if they had a winner yet. They did not.

My answer of Napoleon Solo was correct and I won a free breakfast at the Montana Club restaurant. If they asked I would have known the other character's name in the show was Illya Kuryakin.

I have vague memories of the TV show as I was in elementary school when it was on TV (1964-1968). I do remember that a neighbor girl with whom I car pooled to school, and who was two years older than me, had a big crush on the Illya Kuryakin character.

Tool shed wood room

2011-11-21T21:27:00.002-07:00

For the first time since dad died I cleaned out the tool shed's wood room. And who knows when dad last cleaned the room out?! Dad had pieces of wood stored in this room: smaller and larger pieces of tree branches. And some split wood.

Over the years I have added some wood and used some. The past year I have made an effort to use more than I add. I wanted to get to the bottom of the pile and see what all was in there.

I didn't use all the wood, but enough that I could clean the rest of it out and stack it in a small pile according to size. I found a dozen logs that needed to be split. Needless to say the logs were very dry and the splitting was only needed to get them into smaller sizes to fit and burn nicely in the wood stove.

Once the wood was out of the room I shoveled out the sawdust and wood chips covering the floor. I filled a large garbage can and a medium sized tote container. Over the years ants and/or other insects had bored into the wood making the wood holey and leaving sawdust. One year I could even hear them gnawing on the wood. The sound was a high squeaking noise similar to when a person slowly tightens a screw into hard dry wood.

Here is the room after I cleaned it. Apparently the small opening at the far end use to be opened for ventilation. Someone told me that the tool shed used to be a chicken coop many years ago. If so, I wonder what was stored in this room?

Once the room was cleaned I discovered the room's outside walls were only supported on a few small pieces of old crumbling concrete. Before I shoveled out the sawdust etc. this was covered. Now I had to seal the walls to keep the snow and rodents out. Fortunately I had odds and ends of scrap metal from which I could chose to cover the openings.

Now my room is sealed and tight. Well, kind of. The room is still lacking a door. A project for another year.

Now that the room is cleaned and sealed I need to put the pile of wood back into it. And then add similar sized wood currently piled in the pole shed as I need to find another place for the wood stored in one bay of the pole shed in order to park Tammy's van in there.

Always something to do.

Snowy weekend

2011-11-20T22:37:00.003-07:00

A snowy and cold weekend. I kept tossing logs in the wood stove.

A cleaner tool shed

2011-11-19T00:01:00.025-07:00

I've taken crap from Tammy and my uncles and aunts about my 'treasure pile' in the middle part of my tool shed. Last month, before Tammy moved here, I went through most of my treasure pile and cleaned and sorted it. Part of my motive for cleaning was that I was looking for something in case I hadn't gotten rid of a year or so ago during my last mini-cleanup. I must of gotten rid of it as I never found it.

It looks a lot cleaner now. Perhaps next year I will find time to go through the rest of the stuff along the back wall. Tammy wasn't impressed by my cleaning work.

Snow filling

2011-11-18T00:01:00.006-07:00

I woke up to an inch or so of snow on the ground this morning. The temperature did warm up a little above freezing. It wasn't warm enough to melt much of the snow, but I was able to fill the dirt back over the septic tanks. It was warm enough that the dirt wasn't frozen. The sod, however, was almost frozen.

This photo was taken after I attempted to mash the dirt down.

The weather forecast is for our high temperatures to remain below freezing until next week. It was almost 'now or never' to get the dirt back over the septic tanks.

2011 pocket gopher count

2011-11-17T00:01:00.018-07:00

The other day I removed my pocket gopher traps from my hayfield and pasture. I had covered all of the hayfield and pastures, and Winter is coming. Theoretically this would mean I have gotten rid of all the pocket gophers. Based on past history I seriously doubt this has happened.

I trapped 126 pocket gophers this year. My lifetime total is 1598 pocket gophers killed. I so wanted to get two more gophers this year. If the ground wasn't usually more frozen than thawed, the temperature colder than normal, and snow in the forecast, I would have trapped some gophers on Wyatt's land just across the fence. He looks to have some fresh pocket gopher dirt mounds.

There is always next year.

Almost jury duty

2011-11-16T23:23:00.001-07:00

I have been in a jury pool since September 1. They call it the "Fall" term but this jury pool lasts until February 29. Fall and Winter? I thought that was a long time until the Flathead Clerk of Court said Monday that Montana law sets jury pools at 1 year: September 1st through August 31st. Really?!! The Clerk said Flathead doesn't follow that law and only goes for six months. When I was in a jury pool years ago in Minnesota the term was two months.

Well... Monday I had to report for jury selection.

The clerk of court was selecting jury members for two court cases, an estimated three day trial and an estimated seven day trial. I was in the selection for the seven day trial. Oh joy.

I am not sure the defense attorney were the ones listed on the court calender. The defense team consisted of two people and one of them was a young woman. She was the defense lawyer who questioned the potential jury members.

I didn't count, but it appears that fifty people were in each trial's selection pool. The clerk had us all together in court room #3 for orientation and we barely fit. Some people has to sit in the jury box as there were no more benches to sit on. She went over the basics of jury pools and the selection process. That is when I learned we were lucky to only be in the jury pool for six months.

If a person serves on a jury they they are done for this term. After being called twice and not selected, then they are done for this term.

We are paid mileage at 55 cents mile each day. When called for jury selection we earn a whole $12 - a day. If we serve on a jury our pay increases to $25 a day. Woo hoo. That's not even minimum wage. Jurors should be paid at least minimum wage for doing more than minimum wage work.

Once the overview finished the three-day jurors were moved to their court chamber and we began our selection for the seven-day trial.

We were to report that day before the 9:15 am jury pool orientation. Jury selection was to begin at 9:30 am. With so many people having to sign in we didn't start orientation until 9:25 am. The selection process did not begin until close to 10 am.

The judge and lawyers entered the court room and Judge Lympus introduced the lawyers and court personnel and spoke generally about the process. He promised the trial would not last more than seven days since if the trial went to eight days it would be the day before Thanksgiving and people do their traveling then.

Once a court official called everyone's name to make sure they were there, 20 people were called to sit in front of the courtroom for questioning. People were selected at random to be in the jury pool and this same random order was used to call the 20 people up to the front of the room to sit in the jury box (14 seats) and temporary chairs (6) in front of the jury box.

I was in the first 20 names called to the front for questioning. Oh, joy.

The questioning process, which lawyers refer to by the French term, voir dire, is to select a fair and impartial jury. Judge Lympus did not conduct this process, instead letting a plaintiff and a defendant lawyer do all the questioning.

Traditionally, lawyers did almost all of the voir dire questioning. However, many judges have come to believe that lawyers take up too much time and try to persuade jurors of the merits of their cases rather than simply select a group of impartial jurors. As a result, today many judges conduct most or all of the voir dire questioning.

Judge Lympus's lack of involvement in the questioning process resulted in a long jury selection process. The Clerk of Court told us during orientation that she expected the jury to be chosen by noon to 1 pm. Our process drug on until to almost 5 pm. The judge appeared to let the two lawyers to somewhat "try" their case in order to get the jury pool's feelings on broad arguments they planned to make. I guess the better to get rid of jurors who they felt were unsympathetic to their case. Everyone's time was wasted by Lympus's lack of involvement and control.

The plaintiff lawyer, Henning, asked questions of the jurors from after 10 am until 3 pm or later, minus an hour and a half for lunch. An hour and a half? An hour was plenty. Let's get the process over so the jury can be seated and everyone else released so they could go back to work or home.

Here is an article on what the lawsuit is about:
http://www.flatheadbeacon.com/articles/article/family_of_boy_who_drowned_in_septic_tank_suing_developers_evergreen_sewer/15537/

The part of the lawsuit I was in the jury pool for was:

Last year, Henning filed a separate suit in Flathead District Court against Mohl Concrete Products, Inc., which sold the septic tank, and against Washington-based W.M. Matzke Co., which built and distributed the septic cover without the “kid catcher” safety device.

The plaintiff lawyer asked questions like:

This tragedy was covered extensively in the news. What have you heard about it?
This trial is about product liability. What do you know about product liability cases?
If a mom and pop shop sold an item sealed in a package that was defective, the law says they can be held responsible for it being defective in addition to the manufacturer of the product. Would you have a problem following the law to hold the mom and pop shop responsible for damages?
Has anyone lost a person close to them?
Who has heard about tort reform? What are your feelings about tort reform?
The burden of proof for the plaintiffs is that their argument is more likely than not. That could mean you could feel 50.1% one way to 49.9% the other way. Are you comfortable with that, or would you feel you needed a higher burden of proof?
Would you have a problem awarding a large sum for damages?
The law says the jurors must only consider cause and harm when awarding damages. Would you have a problem following the law when deciding damages, and you would not take in account of things like whether the party is deserving, etc.?
We had a three year old boy who died and we will never know how his life will have turned out. We will have an expert testifying to the loss income of the three year old. Do you have a problem awarding damages for lost income?
And on and on and on...

He asked everyone some kind of question in order to get a feel on how they would decide the case.

For how much people knew about the case, most people were general and said they had read about it or seen TV news coverage. A few people mentioned a few details. I mentioned even more details.

For product liability cases I brought up the McDonalds/Hot coffee trial. He said that was negligence and not product liability. My impression was he didn't want to discuss it. Later, in regards liability vs negligence I brought up stupid stickers warning against commonsense behavior. The example I used was a sticker saying not to use a blow dryer while taking a bath. He didn't want to talk much about these scenarios and changed the subject.

For the tort reform question I explained a little about tort reform. He flattered me and praised my description as very good. Like I said, flattery. After lunch he asked a few follow up questions of a few people. To me he asked me to explain more about tort reform and how I felt about it. I gave a long winded answer listing pros and cons and when pressed I said I could see good ideas on both sides of the issue.

A number of people had no strong opinions on matters. But when it came to the question about losing someone in their life some people talked about their family losing a member or relative before the person answering the question was even born and therefore it didn't really affect them. They didn't get that the lawyers were only interested in situations where the loss was so close as to have had an effect on the person. The lawyers were trying to figure out the emotional versus the analytical people.

From the plaintiff lawyer's questions he seemed to be asking for damages for:

the boy's funeral expenses
the boy's lost income
the parent's loss

He focused on whether anyone had a problem awarding damages based on the boy's funeral expenses. No one did. A couple of people had reservations with awarding damages on lost income for a three year old as they said no one can predict how his life would turn out.

I told him I had no problem with an expert testifying about lost income, but I had a problem with giving a deceased dependent a settlement for damages. I had no problem awarding damages to an estate of a person who was not a dependent, especially if the deceased was a spouse or had children or others dependent on them. I suppose that since an "estate" is an abstract legal concept even a three year old could have an estate. By damages to me mean compensation and how do you compensate a dead three year old? Awarding damages to a dead three year old seems to be punitive as they cannot benefit from the amount awarded to "them".

I opened up a can of worms and a few people began to open up they had a problem awarding damages on the future income of a three year old.

Challenges for cause: Here the lawyer claims on the basis of information provided by the panel member that he or she might not be able to render an impartial verdict. An example of a challenge for cause might be one in which a lawyer asks to excuse a panel member from serving during an auto theft trial since the juror’s car had been stolen just the week before. The judge will grant challenges for cause if he or she agrees with the lawyer’s argument that impartiality might be threatened. There is no limit to the number of challenges for cause, which either party can make.

The lawyer pressed people on whether they could set aside their conviction on an issue and follow the law as stated by the lawyer. A few people said they weren't sure they could set aside their conviction on the matter and the lawyer asked the judge to excuse that person for "cause". A few times the female defense lawyer objected and had an opportunity to question the potential juror some more. Usually she impressed on the person that the law was such and such and then asked if they couldn't set aside their personal convictions and follow the law. People think of themselves as law abiding individuals and most said they would follow the law even if they didn't agree with it. The judge sometimes granted the request to excuse the juror and other times overruled it depending on how reluctant the juror said they could follow the law.

In my case of awarding damages to an estate of a three year old, when pressed by the plaintiff lawyer I said I would follow the law but I would struggle with it. He said I should think about it more and he would get back to me. Once the defense attorney stepped up with objections to jurors being dismissed the plaintiff lawyer toned down his efforts to get rid of people who he felt was unsympathetic to his case. He never got back to me for my final answer.

Whenever a potential juror was excused the court called from the jury pool the next person on the list. As they had not been part of the prior questioning the lawyer would go over an abbreviated list of his questions with them to get a "feel" for how they could rule.

Around 3 pm the plaintiff lawyer finally finished and the defense attorney had a chance to question the jurors. Even though she had heard everyone speak and mostly likely had a decent idea on how they felt about things, she still asked everyone a question or two. Sometimes it was a hypothetical question as to who they would select as their charity if someone wanted to donate money in their name. Other times it was further questions about losing a loved one. For people who answered on their jury questionnaires that they had served on a jury before she wanted to know more about that experience and how it went.

She also used this questioning as an opportunity to make her case. For example one question was about this hypothetical situation:

Suppose a person had some strong chemicals in a closet that has a door that locked. Supposed the door's lock was broken and a child got into the room and into the chemicals and something bad happened. Do feel the business that sold the door should be held responsible for what happened?

When the person answered no, she then asked that if the person knew that some doors were sold with an additional deadbolt lock, would the person hold the business responsible for the accident for selling a door without a deadbolt?

Yup, this appears to be the case in a nutshell.

She asked several other hypothetical questions on situations very similar to this case and asked how the potential juror felt about it.

Yup. The jury selection process can be improved in Montana. The judge should be the main driver of the questioning.

Finally around 4:20 pm the lawyers quit the questioning and entered the next phase of jury selection:

Peremptory challenges: Each side has a limited number of challenges for which no reason need be given. These peremptory challenges give both sides some choice in the make-up of the jury.

Each lawyer got to strike four people from the jury pool with no reasons given. Of course this phase can open up trials to being overturned based on the appearance of racial or sexual profiling, or other issues.

At the end of the selection process, those in the panel who have been "challenged" will be excused, and those remaining will be sworn in as jurors.

When the names of the selected jurors were read, my name, along with a few other people with strong opinions, were absent. The man who earlier was almost excused from the jury until the defense attorney got him to say he would follow the law as written, was also excused. A woman who had strong emotional stories about losing people in her life and also volunteered to rescue animals was not chosen.

The eight of us not chosen could leave. The jury selection them moved to the phase where the court selected two alternate jurors. I do not know how that works as I had left the courtroom when the court called some people up for more questioning from the jury pool.

Stuck nail

2011-11-15T23:57:00.018-07:00

In the corral I had an old unused wooden gate that I plan to take apart some day as it is too old and broken to bother to fix. Today I noticed a few nails sticking out the gate and from a few fence posts. I decided to remove the nails before an animal rubbed against them and got cut.

The wood is old and dry and that made removing the nails difficult. One nail in a post was extremely hard to remove. I took a pair of vice grip pliers and was able to turn the nail so I knew it wasn't "welded" to the wood.

I even used a crowbar and hammer and had trouble pulling the nail out. Finally after much work and leverage I got the nail out. Oh... the nails had 'ridges' and that was what made it difficult to remove.

November Mountain Snow

2011-11-14T00:01:00.003-07:00

A few photos from Sunday when the clouds lifted. Fresh snow!

2011 Kalispell Women's Expo

2011-11-13T00:01:00.126-07:00

Saturday Tammy and I attended, as a Tastefully Simple vendor, the 3rd annual Women's Expo at the fairgrounds in Kalispell. This is a big event put on by the local Biz-to-Biz network (http://www.biztobizinc.com/Womens_Expo.php). I think there were about 75 vendors there.

It is a bit expensive to have a spot there: $275 for the cheap spots. But Biz-to-Biz claimed a thousand people attended the first year and 1,600 the second year. So for Tammy, who is new to the Valley, it was a good way to get the word out that she and Tastefully Simple is here.

Since Tammy moved here several weeks ago we learned that several women had sold the Tastefully Simple product in the Kalispell area in the past, but they stopped last year and earlier this year for various reasons, among which was that they moved away. So some women attending the Expo knew of Tastefully Simple and were very happy to have a consultant in Kalispell from who they could buy their favorite Tastefully Simple product. The Beer Bread mix is especially popular.

Many other women had never heard of Tastefully Simple and Tammy had to do some explaining of the product and how it was sold.

The expo ran from 10 am to 4 pm. People traffic was fairly steady all day. A few times it was slower, such as when the Expo put on a fashion show at 11:30 am and 1:30 pm. I am not sure how many people attended as I am not an expert people counter, but I wonder if it was a thousand people. Still it was a good turnout, especially since the Expo was competing with a large arts and craft show this weekend at the Majestic Arena.

The weather cooperated. While it was an overcast chilly day, the day was better than what the weather forecasters had predicted: which was snow. We didn't have any snow.

Vendors were allowed to set up Friday afternoon and night. Which was essential as it takes time to set up one's table with product and signs. We set up Tammy's table Friday night once it got too dark for me to fill the septic drain field's trench back in with dirt.

The Expo provided a free lunch of tacos, chips, cookies and candy for the vendors from 11 am to 2 pm. I went to eat at 12:30 and they had just run out of meat for tacos with no plans/means to get more meat. A few vendors were frustrated by this. So my lunch was chips, lettuce, shredded cheese, tomatoes and olives. I guess you can call it a salad. Oh, and lots of the cookies and candy.

Once I finished eating Tammy went to eat before the rest of the food was gone. When she came back she told me they had gotten gumbo to eat. So I went back and even though you were limited to one meal they allowed me to have a plate of gumbo since I didn't have any meat earlier.

In the spots next to us was a Pure Romance vendor (www.joellenwilliams.pureromance.com) and a vendor (Mike Powers) selling Farm Bureau Financial Services (www.mwfbi.com). Mike also helped organize the fashion show. In the morning before the fashion show he seemed to be away from his booth more than there. Most vendors give away a door prize in order to get people's names and phone numbers or email ids. Most door prizes are related to the product being sold. Mike's door prize was a free one hour massage. He got lots of door prize slips from people. Imagine that!

The next vendor location was for Northern Lights Chiropractic (www.northernlightschiropractic.com). Rhonda was giving free neck tests using a scanner and laptop. In the afternoon Tammy had her neck checked. The scan picked up that her right side of her neck had issues. This is the side where Tammy had fractured her shoulder this past February.

Tammy sold about half of her product. She sold out of her Beer Bread mix.

The view from Tammy's location.

Tammy's Tastefully Simple website: www.tastefullysimple.com/web/tshank
If you see something you would like, you can order it from her website and it will be shipped directly to you.

Septic drain field failure

2011-11-12T00:05:00.001-07:00

My earlier septic tank cleaning did not work. Thursday morning water seeped out of the tanks' lids as after last week's work I had not shoveled the dirt back over the tanks in order to wait and see if the drainage problem returned.

*sigh* It looks to be a problem with the drain field. Not good.

Once the ground thawed in the early afternoon I got a shovel and set out to dig and find the drain field pipe. I am quite proud of myself that I found it quite quickly. The PVC pipe was inches away from the hole I originally dug. It was a pretty good calcuated guess as to where the pipe was over 20' away from the septic tank. The pipe doesn't go straight out of the tank as it had to turn to miss the patio.

Once I found the pipe I started digging to see if I could find an area with a mass of tree roots around the pipe - the likely cause of the problem as two large box elder trees are relatively close. I didn't find any.

I was surprised to find a number of small pieces of long dead tree roots in the ground above the pipe. It appears that when the pipe was laid in the 1980s dirt and roots all were pushed back into the trench to cover the pipe.

I also ended up digging up some of the alfalfa plants growing above the pipe. The alfalfa has very long roots. The roots went down deeper than the pipe. Several alfalfa plants I was able to dig around without slicing through the roots. I will be interested if the alfalfa continues to live as large sections of the roots were exposed during the day.

I kept following the pipe to the west. I did this partly in hopes the end would have a cap at which I could enter the pipe from a direction other than from the septic tank. Also I was curious at how far the drain field went to the west. I half expected the drain field to be small considering the soil is porous and dad could have skimped on the size when he had it fixed/redone in the 1980s.

I found the west end of the line was a "T" connector with pipe going to the north and south. I found connections for side pipes all along the east/west pipe. I eventually found 8 side pipes. I have no idea how long these side pipes were. All total I estimate the drain field size to be 220' feet of pipe if the side pipes were the same length as the one side pipe I dug out.

The "T" connector did not have a cap or access in order to run a snake from that side.

It was dark by the time I dug out the east/west pipe. I had dug out 45-50 feet of pipe.

Friday - once the ground thawed late morning - I dug 20' away from the main line at where I guess the side pipe would end. I was right once again.

I took the cap off and found a small amount of very dry stuff along the bottom of the pipe. I ran a small snake into the pipe and found it to be blocked fifteen to sixteen feet away. In other words the first four to five feet of the pipe from the main line was blocked. I had to dig out the entire length of the side pipe.

Once that was done. I removed the two 10' sections of pipe. The four feet or so of one pipe was clogged with fine tree roots that had entered in a number of the small holes running along the bottom of the pipe. The fine tree roots acted like hair clogging a drain.

Small holes on bottom of the pipe

Once I cleared the roots out of the pipe I turned my attention to the main pipe. The "T" connector was mostly clear of roots. I had thought the blockage was to the right . The problem was how to remove the pipes from the middle and not from the ends.

I found the pipe had enough give for me to lift it high enough so that the end came out of the "T" connector.

I found the right pipe had some roots in it covering the bottom half. I cleared them from the pipe.

I found the left pipe was where the clog was located. A foot from the connector was the clog. The pipe was completely blocked for a distance of about four to five feet. It took a lot of effort to remove the tree roots. Some roots had grown large enough to fill the hole they entered the pipe.

I ran a snake into the rest of the pipe I could reach (most of the east/week pipe and one side pipe) and didn't find any more tree roots. I was sure the roots I had removed were the problem and I didn't want to dig up any more pipe.

Confident I had fixed the problem I began to shovel the dirt back into the trench to cover the pipe. I got the side trench filled and a little of the main trench filled before dark.

I had read up on drain fields and it seems as if laying the pipes on a bed of gravel was the way to do it. There were lots of rocks under the pipe but dirt had filtered in over the years. If Winter wasn't approaching with a weather forecast of snow on Saturday I wanted to finish this project. Besides I had other stuff to get done before Winter is here for good. I estimate the length of the drain field pipe from the septic tank until the blockage at a little over 20 feet. Apparently this length was acceptable for just me. Two people used enough water to be a little too much water. So the 220 ft available now should be plenty of length for drainage even if the gravel bottom is not as robust as I would like it to be. If it isn't good enough, the pipe will be easier to dig out next Spring.

Off off-year election

2011-11-11T00:01:00.105-07:00

Tuesday I worked part of the day on the election. Kalispell, Columbia Falls, Bigfork and Whitefish held elections. All but Columbia Falls held mail-in elections.

The County administered the elections. A couple dozen of us had the job to open the mail-in ballots. This was the first time I did this type of election job.

A team of three to four people were at each table. One person opened the mail-in return envelope with the voter's signature. He/she handed this envelope to the second person who took the secrecy envelope out of the mail-in envelope and handed the secrecy envelope to the third person who opened that envelope and took out the folded ballot and handed the ballot to the fourth person who unfolded the ballot and placed it on a stack of ballots.

This sounds simple minded but part of the purpose was to separate the envelope with the voter's signature from the ballot to ensure confidentiality.

Prior to us getting the envelope, the election department had verified the voter's signature to ensure the returned ballot's validity.

My job was to open the mail-in envelope. And I filled out the paperwork for each bundle of 25 as I was the first to complete my task. Sometimes I helped unfold the ballots to get them flat and more easily read by the computer.

We worked on bundles of 25 ballots at a time. Once 25 ballots were opened and stacked, we counted the mail-in signature envelopes and the secrecy envelopes to make sure we had 25. Another election official gathered our 25 ballots and envelopes. She counted the ballots to make sure she had the correct amount before the ballots were fed by another person into the voting machine to be counted. That is why it was important for the person unfolding the ballot to do it in such a way as have the ballot lie flat for easy feeding into the voting machine.

There were exceptions to 25 in a bundle. Sometimes the returned envelope was invalid for some reason. I didn't work that part so I don't know the reasons an envelope and its ballot could be rejected. But a few of our bundles only had 24 envelopes in them.

I was one of the younger people working the election. I think the average age was in the mid-60s, if not higher.

I worked in a table of four with three other women, Tammy, Fran and Bobbie. One woman said she was 41. Another woman said she had a 60 year old son. The third woman looked to be in her 70s at least. None of us had worked before at opening ballots. The 41 year old and I had worked as chief judges in the past. The other two ladies had worked many previous elections.

We all got along well and chatted the time away which made a boring job go faster. The ladies all had led interesting lives.

The election department had lunch catered for us as we were sequestered once the opening of ballots started.

I believe that countywide over 10,000 ballots were mailed out and a little over 3,000 ballots were returned.

Whitefish had a contentious election with a clear divide between conservative and liberal candidates. Around 53% of the Whitefish ballots had been returned vs. a countywide return rate of over 30%.

Voters had until 8 pm to return their ballot, but after the mail was delivered the only way a voter could return their ballot was to hand deliver it to the courthouse election department. As a result most of us workers ran out of envelopes to open after 3 pm. My table ended our work at 3:30 pm. We had started at 10 am.

Everything ran smoothly and I was impressed at how the County election department ran the process.

Auction and dining room set

2011-11-10T00:01:00.137-07:00

Monday afternoon Tammy and I went to an auction. It was an estate and liquidation auction. They had lots of stuff so the auction started at 2:30 pm rather than the usual 5:30 pm.

A quick look around and they didn't have anything of much interest to me. No fencing stuff, gates, or stuff useful on a ranch.

But then Tammy noticed a wood dining room table with six chairs. It was "farm style" of furniture. Wood. White legs. Clean lines and a warm bright blonde color to the wood.

Oohhh.... ...said Tammy.

It is so cute and so perfect for the dining room.   ...said Tammy.

What about the current dining room table? The one filled mainly with our computers and equipment?   ...said I.

We'll move the table and computers into the south part of the living room.   ...said Tammy.

Oh.

It is so cute and so perfect for the dining room.

Oh.

How much is our upper limit that we would bid? Neither of us were sure what a similar dining room set costs.

It was 3:20 pm and the auctioneer had at least an hour or more of stuff before they got to where the table and chairs were located.   We left the auction and visited a few stores and looked at their furniture to get an idea of the price and availability. No one had anything close to this style of dining room set.

We stopped by the library and searched online at Amazon. We saw a similar dining room set (though with a larger center supporting leg instead of four legs) for $474. Also the other dining room tables similar to this one were square and not round.

We got back to the auction by 5 pm. Did they sell the table and chairs when were gone? No. They were at least a half hour away from it. When we got a bidding number the clerk told us the order in which the auctioneer would sell stuff in the main room, which was different than what we predicted. She estimated they wouldn't get to the table until 6:30 to 7 pm.

Should we wait? Or leave and come back?   We decided to wait, and to sit on we found some chairs with backs.

We also re-looked stuff over and found a few other items of interest.

For my cousin Jen - the sailor girl - we found this painting:

For my aunt Cathy and uncle Curt who collect roosters we found this in among the collectible items being sold:

Tammy sent Curt a text message with a photo asking if we should buy it for them. We got no reply back. You don't want another rooster in the house Curt?

It takes two people to get a bidding war going. Some of the other furniture being sold went cheap, and others went much higher than I expected. What would our table sell for?

The auctioneer started the bidding on our table at $200. His starting prices that night were almost higher than what the final bid was. He quickly dropped to $100. When he then dropped to $50 someone else bid. I bid the next call of $75 rather than waiting in hope he would cut his asking price to $60. I wasn't taking a chance of him selling the table without cutting the asking bid. He then asked the original bidder for $100.   No bid. He cut his asking bid to $85. Tammy and I waited and hoped no one else would bid. He called and called for another bid before finally selling the table and chairs to us. Success!

The auction house charges the buyers a 10% premium so the final price was $82.50.   Still a very good price to buy the table and chairs.

The auction also sold two pairs of Whirlpool front load washer and dryers. More people were interested in them and they sold for $500 each (pictured) and $350 each (same washer/dryers but without the bottom drawer). I see Sears has these washers and dryers on sale for $999 this week.   Tammy was happy with the table and chairs so I didn't get pressure to upgrade my washer and dryer.

This ATV sold for $4,700. With the buyers premium it cost $5,170. A grandma wanted the ATV badly and got it. I talked with her later and she was excited to get it so she could go riding with her husband.

This mower sold for $3000. Only one person bid. Apparently the mower had been repossessed and $10,000 was owned on it. It was a little fuzzy as to whether the auctioneer had to accept the $3,000 bid or if the owner had a right to reject the bid later. I believe $3,000 is cheap for this machine.

Tammy and I didn't wait much longer before paying for our table and chair and loading it in my pickup. The painting and chicken were a long time off from being sold. Sorry Jen, and Curt and Cathy. The Dancing with the Stars TV show was on and we were missing it.

Even though I had some rope to secure the table and chairs I drove home slowly on a longer less traveled route and went around corners even slower.

Now to find a place to put it in my house as I have boxes, a hutch and two sets of couches and loveseats in the living room already, and a full sized table and chairs in the dining room.

Tammy is happy.

Note, the table does have a leaf to make it bigger.

Turtle shell

2011-11-09T00:33:00.003-07:00

Occasionally, down by the river, I see turtles sunning themselves on logs or river debris along the river bank. Recently I came across an empty turtle shell on the river bank. Cool marking on the shell.

Mystery scat

2011-11-08T01:03:00.002-07:00

A few days ago I found some unusual scat on my property down by the river.

It looks like there are nuts and seeds in the scat. I allow a friend to hunt deer on my property and last week he shot and gutted a buck. That may account for the reddish color as this animal must have eaten some of the guts.

As you can see by my shoe in the photo (the only thing for size measurement I had on hand), the amount of scat is relatively small. The bear scat piles I have seen when hiking have been definitely larger.

A small bear? Some other animal?

I sent out this photo to a few friends -- who have friends. I got back an answer.

A person who works in the Fish and Wildlife Resources department of a local lumber company said:

...looks like coyote scat after eating nuts and grains. If it was bigger I would think it could be a bear. This time of year the scats are fairly “squishy” with berries, nuts and remaining green vegetation.

A coyote! Yes, that is who the scat may be from. While bears can travel this river corridor, I often hear coyotes near the river and the nearby ridge. The guy I let hunt deer on the ranch told me he saw a small - maybe baby - coyote one day when he was sitting in his deer stand.

It is a good thing it may be from a coyote and not a bear as Tammy and I plan to have a bonfire some night this month to burn another tree stump if the weather cooperates.

Contra dancing 2011

2011-11-07T00:01:00.028-07:00

Saturday night Tammy and I went to a contra dance. This month the dance was held at the Senior Citizen Center in downtown Kalispell. The room is a little smaller than the usual location at the Salvation Army Center. Lots of people showed up so the dance floor was full.

The contra dancing group invited a Kalispell group of swing dancers to demonstrate some swing dances. During intermission eight young dancers demonstrated several Lindy Hop styles of swing dancing. The swing dancers also danced some of the contra dances have never done it before. For one contra dance where Tammy and I sat out the dance they asked me to record them dancing using one of the member's iphone.

Tammy is not crazy about contra dancing as she thinks it is corny. It was a role reversal as I had to encourage/drag her out onto the floor to dance. It was fun swinging her around and around for that section of the dances. I could never get her to balance as part of the balance and swing move. Tammy would always go in for the swing move.

The people dancing ranged from a five/six year old girl to people who looked to be in their 70s. The skill level ranged from people who danced before and knew the dance moves to people who never danced before. As contra dancing is a social dance where you dance with your partner and with a series of other dancers, it could be a challenge when the other dancer was a shy young child not knowing what to do next.

I did pretty good as I only got confused or forgetful of the dance moves a few times. Contra dances have a small number of dance moves with each dance being a different combination of some of the moves. We had a caller to help people learn/walk through the moves for the particular dance before the dance started, then they called the moves during the dance. We also had several performers playing live music. They had a good sound for only two musicians.

We didn't stay for the whole dance as Tammy had her fill of dancing. After the intermission where we saw the swing dancers perform I got only one more dance in. Tammy wouldn't dance anymore and a woman in her 60s came and asked if I would dance with her for the next dance. Tammy didn't mind, so I danced.

First Snow 2011

2011-11-06T00:01:00.020-06:00

I woke up this morning to our first snowfall of the season.

An Associated Press article mentions what we here in NW Montana already now, all the snow from last Winter didn't melt. Unlike what the global warming believers say, all the glaciers are not shrinking. The weather forecast for Montana this Winter is for an identical Winter to last year. Which mean more snow to add to the glaciers' size. Since the glaciers are not shrinking I guess the Glacier Park marketeers will have to come up with something else to entice you to visit Glacier Park now instead of later.

Old Snow Stays in Rockies, Adds to Glaciers’ Size

Montana Tammy's blog

2011-11-05T00:57:00.006-06:00

Tammy has created a blog about her life here on the ranch.

http://montanatammy.blogspot.com/

She doesn't always see things the same way as me. I mean... I didn't have useless stuff in my kitchen cabinets. To her it may have been useless, to me it was good stuff.

Septic

2011-11-04T23:57:00.001-06:00

I dug up the septic tanks for the bathroom. When a lot of water is flushed down the drains in a short period of time the water goes down slowly. With one person the septic system works fine but with two or more people the septic begins to drain slowly. The problem seemed familiar. When Francis and Linda visited me a number of years ago a tree root had infiltrated a pipe via a joint causing the water to drain slowly.

The advantage this time is that I know where and how deep the septic tanks are located. I got to work since rain and snow were forecast. With the overnight low temperatures well below freezing the ground is frozen until afternoon. It took two afternoons to complete my work on the septic system.

The septic system is an old fashioned gravity system. As you can see the tanks are a few feet underground.

This time I couldn't find a "smoking gun" as to a reason for the slow drain. No tree root masses were in the tanks, pipe from the house or the drain field pipe. I did find several good sized tree roots along the tanks on their north side. I got an axe and chopped them out.

The tanks could use cleaning and I cleaned them. First by using a pump to empty the tanks. That worked until the material got thicker and harder to pump. While I stopped and cleared the hose several times when the pumping got tougher, my pump decided to up and quit one time when I plugged it back in. So the rest of the job to clear the tanks was done via manual labor and buckets. It is a good thing that I don't have a great sense of smell. And that I have a pasture that could use some fertilizer.

I then borrowed a metal snake from the guy who hunts on the ranch. I ran it into the pipes and found no clogs.

Now to wait until the tanks refill to see if the minor stuff I did resolved the problem. Otherwise I will have to dig up the drain field pipe and see if tree roots have clogged it.

Moving: cold

2011-10-29T23:57:00.013-06:00

I forgot to mention in the previous post how cold it was in the house when we arrived. The heat wasn't on when I was gone and the outside temperature was below freezing when we arrived. Under a clear star-filled sky the air had a frosty chill and the temperature was falling fast.

Inside the house the temperature was only 47 degrees. A bit chilly. It was too late to start a fire in the wood stove to heat the house before we went to bed so we went to bed fairly early. And the bed's sheets were cold. "Freaking cold!" as Tammy gasped when getting into bed. That is the reason for all the blankets on the bed. They eventually helped us warm up.

In the morning I lit a fire in the wood stove and warmed the house up.

Moving, part 2

2011-10-28T23:57:00.190-06:00

For our drive from North Dakota to Montana we got an early start. The distance was 700 miles. In North Dakota Hwy 2 is four lane, but in Montana the highway is two lanes, and old and narrow in some areas. It would be a long day of driving.

We left at 6 am. Minot was quiet at this time. After gassing up the moving van (another $70 to $80) we took 4th Ave NW west through town to the bypass. We drove through an area hit hard by the Spring flood. Stoplights weren't working and street lights were off between Broadway and 16th St NW. Some houses had lights, some houses had no windows or doors. Most houses were dark. It was eerie.

The day before, as we drove through town with my brother, we passed through areas that looked like they were from a war zone. Few people or vehicles were seen. Lots of debris were still on the boulevards. Houses without windows. A few houses had only studs for walls to hold up the roof.

As we drove west out of Minot the traffic picked up. Soon the traffic was a long string of red taillights in front of us and a long string of headlights behind us. ND rush hour. Ten years ago when I drove this route I maybe saw a dozen vehicles the 130 miles between Minot and Williston. Now? Pickup truck after pickup truck. People commuting to work in the oil field. This road had more traffic than the interstate highway in western Minnesota and in North Dakota. Amazing.

As I drove through Stanley, ND I saw the Cenex gas station is now a big truck stop. At 7 am it was jam packed with trucks filling up with fuel.

In the morning dark both Stanley and Tioga were lit up with lights. Both towns looked much larger than the sleepy small towns I remembered them being before the oil boom.

Instead of darkness with a few scattered lights from farms across the wide prairie, now there were lights all over. Some lights were the gas flaring off oil wells. Other lights were from the over 200 active drilling rigs. The rigs were lit up like a night time space shuttle launch.

These are not the best photos as I took them as I drove, but the first two photos are of the gas flaring off oil wells.

Bad photos of oil rigs drilling for oil. Over 99% of the oil rigs strike oil. An amazing statistic.

Near Williston we saw the sunrise. Mara, Tammy's former co-worker, had asked Tammy for a photo of the sunrise after Tammy retired. She claimed it was a tradition people do the day after they retire from the Mayo Clinic. We were a few days late in taking the photo.

At Williston we got gas for the moving van as the towns in eastern Montana are few and far between. While the gas price in Minot was $3.53, the gas at most stations in Williston was $3.79. I spotted a station that sold gas at $3.53 and we stopped there. There was a line to fuel your vehicle, then a long line inside the station to pay for gas. And that was with three cashiers.

Williston was hopping. Vehicles and people everywhere. Taco John advertized jobs at $15 an hour. About 1/4 of the ads on the radio station were for companies looking to hire people. There is no recession in North Dakota. The economy there, especially in western ND, is in overdrive. It's crazy. This is the modern day version of the California/Alaskan/Black Hills gold rushes. If I was in my 20s or 30s I would head to North Dakota to work. It's crazy. It's hard. It's exciting. It is a once in a lifetime experience.

As we drove west of Williston the traffic quickly died off even though there were still a few oil rigs drilling here and there. It was quiet when we crossed the Montana border.

Montana border

In Montana we encountered road construction. Montana is finally improving the old part of Hwy2 that used to go up and down and up and down over the rolling hills.

While we were stopped and waiting for a pilot car to lead us, three cattle came to the road. After looking the line of vehicles over they turned around and went back to where they had escaped from.

A small town we passed by with two cute small water towers.

Then miles and miles of Montana roads.

The Sweetgrass Hills are in the distance beyond the freight train.

As we drove Tammy noticed the truck's shadow and the strange shape rising from the roof. Was something on the roof? Or something coming off the roof? What was it? After a while she realized it was the shadow from the truck's right side mirror.

Eastern and northern Montana is the home of a number of dinosaur bones. At a couple of places the locals placed dinosaur statues near the road.

Part of why we got an early start (well, earlier than normal for me) was to avoid driving through the mountains at night after a long day of driving. The following photo was taken was shortly after we entered the mountains. The yellow are the Western Larch trees turning color before their needles fall off for the season.

By the time we exited the mountains and entered Flathead Valley it was getting dark. It was black by the time we got to the ranch.

The truck didn't have enough power. A stiff headwind slowed us down by 5 to 10 mph. For some of the steeper hills we were down to just 35 mph - though if I floored it I could have gone a few miles an hour faster. Fortunately across Montana the traffic was pretty light. In the mountains we had a few more vehicles and when I was able to, I pulled off the road a few times to let the vehicles pass by. That's not to say I never passed any other vehicles. We did encounter a few vehicles going even slower than our truck.

The journey took 14 hours. The truck averaged between 9 and 10 mpg. We spent over $500 in gas.

We unloaded just the stuff we needed in the morning or that would freeze overnight as under a clear and starry sky, the temperature was dropping fast. Tammy slept in late the next morning.

Moving, part 1

2011-10-25T23:57:00.068-06:00

On Monday Tammy, her parents and I loaded up the moving truck with her household stuff and left Rochester.

It took longer than normal in the morning to get the moving truck as the old guy at the Budget rental office had an old-fashioned tube computer, and it and the Budget rental software wasn't working right. Over and over he tried to complete the rental before it finally took. Then, after I drove the truck to Tammy's house, he called and Tammy had to go back to his office as he still hadn't completed the rental correctly.

It took four hours to load everything in the truck. Because we were pulling the mini-van behind the truck the minimum size of the truck was 16 ft. While that was larger than what we thought we needed, Tammy didn't sell her furniture as planned. We filled the truck. We had left a few items at my brother's house so the photo below doesn't show how full the truck was when we left Rochester.

It was after 3 pm when we finished loading the truck: too early to stay in Rochester and too late to drive all the way to Minot. Then I remembered my friends Francis and Linda in eastern North Dakota. A perfect distance. And I hadn't seen them for a few years now. A quick call to them and then Tammy and I were on our way.

A fully loaded truck pulling a mini-van can't go very fast so the drive took a lot longer than normal as we couldn't even make it up to the highway speed limit. What could be done in five hours took us seven.

I had concerns about driving this big rig around the Twin Cities due to all the traffic. But the traffic wasn't too bad and we didn't hold people up much.

We had a nice chat with Francis and Linda and slept on a comfortable air mattress on their living room floor. Tammy and I got a late start after noon Tuesday as we chatted with Francis all morning.

The highway between Jamestown and Minot is mostly two-lane. The traffic was light so we didn't hold up many vehicles with our slow speed. It took five hours to get to Minot.

October train to Minnesota

2011-10-22T23:57:00.219-06:00

Friday, October 21, I took the Amtrak train to Minnesota to get Tammy and move her here to Montana. Unlike the previous day where the train was over 5 and 1/2 hours late to Whitefish, the train was on time the day I rode it. The train lost some time as it went across Montana so I arrived in Red Wing, MN twenty minutes late. For Amtrak that is not bad.

My train car was a little over half full with passengers but I was able to get two seats to myself. When I walked through the three other coach cars I found that they were less than half full with a number of two seats without people.

I only had 3 1/2 hours of sleep the night before so I slept as the train went through the mountains. I woke up east of the mountains and this is what I saw. Yup, fresh snow on the mountains. When I returned home there was much more snow on these mountains.

East of Browning, MT

Between Malta and Glasgow, Montana the train tracks go near the Milk River as it curves back and forth. It is very pretty in the Fall when the colors change.

In this area the BNSF railway had upgraded their communication network - apparently to satellite as they had removed all of the power line poles along the track and had quite a number of stacks of poles along the tracks.

At Havre, MT the train stopped for 20 minutes for refueling and we could get off the train to stretch our legs. The weather was nice. Here is the car I rode in.

While I noticed several border patrol agents on the platform outside the Havre train station this was the first time the agents didn't walk on the train asking everyone if they were U.S. citizens. After I got home I found out why.

Current and former Border Patrol agents said field offices around America began receiving the order last month — soon after the Obama administration announced that to ease an overburdened immigration system, it would allow many illegal immigrants to remain in the country while it focuses on deporting those who have committed crimes.

The full story can be found here: US northern border checks scaled back

Before the North Dakota oil boom few people got on and off the train at Williston and Stanley, North Dakota. On this trip the three top destinations were: Chicago, Minneapolis/St Paul and Williston.

A Montana truck driver getting off at Williston told others that Williston and the area is like living through a gold rush. He claimed there were over 6,000 trucks operating the Wiliams County alone.

Minot, ND was devastated by a flood this past Spring. The train tracks, which were flooded, are located at the south end of the valley. As the train came into Minot I looked out the window for the city lights. I could see the lights of North Hill, but one can always see those lights before entering the city. This time I turned around and looked out the south train windows to find we were in Minot as those lights were bright and I could see where we were. Large areas of the valley to the north that were devastated by the flood were still without house and street lights and it was eerily dark.

The Minot train station is still closed due to the flood damaging the train station and platform. The train still stops there for refueling but no one is allowed to get off the train during this time.

While the train refueled at the closed Minot train station I talked with a man heading home to St Paul for a break from work. He had a job laying new train tracks. Private companies are building oil loading terminals and also new train tracks.

The Bakken boom: Rail terminal construction picking up speed

The St Paul man had a job back in Minnesota but his brother, working in the oil fields, strongly encouraged him to come to North Dakota to work. His wife and kids are staying back in Minnesota but he hasn't regretted it as he is making good money and paying off his house mortgage, his debts, and is building a nest egg for his kids' college tuition.

But then he hasn't spent a winter in North Dakota. He said the train track continues to be laid even in the dead of Winter. The company has a large structure that covers the area where track is to be laid and heats the ground allowing for track to be laid when normally the ground would be frozen. With the oil boom going full blast no one can wait and allow Winter to slow things down.

While the St Paul man and I were having a pleasant discussion on ND and Minnesota winters another man chimed in about how the wind blows in North Dakota and not Minnesota and North Dakota winters suck. He didn't know that I had lived in Minnesota and can call his BS about the wind not blowing in Minnesota. I lived in southern Minnesota and the wind there blew just as much and strong as in North Dakota.

This second guy was also from Minnesota and he was a prideful ignorant Minnesotan who thinks Minnesota is better than all other states. He reminded me of what a person who had lived in both Minnesota and Texas (but was not a native to either state) once told me: Minnesotans are like Texans in that they think they are better than others. The difference is that Minnesotans don't have a sense of humor about it.

Here is another example. A bicyclist rode across the U.S. and had a blog on the New York Times website describing his ride. He wrote about how nice and friendly people in North Dakota are.

Welcoming Monks and Wild Horses, in North Dakota

Of course a Minnesotan couldn't let it be. Here is her comment on the article:

Funny. When you read the bicycle rider's blog about his ride through Minnesota he didn't mention how nice Minnesotans are. Gasp.

Anyway the Minnesotan on the train - who was wearing a t-shirt with the saying "If you can read this, thank a teacher" - wanted to brag about Minnesota to me. Uh, oh. Wrong person. I lived quite a number of years in Minnesota and know that "Minnesota Nice" is just a marketing slogan. Only Minnesotans or former Minnesotans use this phrase.

He was a classic case of cognitive dissonance. He used two methods of resisting information: attitude bolstering and selective exposure. For more on cognitive dissonance, click here.

For example, since he couldn't get anywhere bashing North Dakota and Montana and saying how much Minnesota is better than these two states, he switched and said he was happy to pay higher taxes as Minnesota schools are the best there are and he would never live in Alabama and Mississippi because they have low taxes and bad schools and roads.

Another point he tried to make was Minnesota was better than North Dakota and Montana because Minnesota had more people than these other two states. He tried to ridicule Montana and North Dakota because they have less people than Minnesota. Really, then why do so many Minnesotans take their vacations in Montana? And why are so many Minnesotans working in North Dakota? Here is a Minneapolis StarTribune article on the subject: Minnesotans drawn to North Dakota’s siren song of prosperity

From another Minneapolis StarTribune article...

So even with facts on your side one can't argue with people like this. It is a waste of time. They have a closed mind and are annoying. So I excused myself and left the observation car and returned to my seat. The St Paul man had left earlier after the second Minnesotan hijacked our conversation. I left the Minnesota man to wallow in his "Minnesota niceness" and superiority.

Willow tree in the Fall

2011-10-19T23:57:00.022-06:00

I took pictures of my willow tree now that the leaves are turning and starting to fall. Here is how the tree looked before and after I cut it this year...

Another view...

Last view...

Pickup heater unit

2011-10-18T23:17:00.001-06:00

My brother has a 1979 pickup and the lever that switches between heat and defrost broke. 1979. Old. Hard to find parts for as many older vehicles have been crushed for scrap iron now that scrap iron prices are so high. Back in North Dakota the only 1979 pickup he knew of for parts was in a Williston farmer's field, not in Minot.

I checked my favorite local salvage yard here in Kalispell and they had two 1979 pickups with heater units. Monday I went there to buy one unit. I found that both of their 1979 pickup heater units also had air conditioning and a lever for double fuel tanks.

Hmmm.. I don't think these units will work. My dad bought pickups without frills and I needed a basic heater unit. I looked around the salvage yard and found a 1975 pickup with a heater unit identical to my brother's pickup. Apparently the 1975 - 1979 Ford pickups were very similar.

I bought the heater unit and associated cables for $35 and now my brother should have a good heater in his old pickup. Which is a good thing as the long range weather forecast for North Dakota this December through February is for a much colder than normal winter - and a North Dakota winter is already plenty cold.

Snow frosting the Swan Mountains

2011-10-15T23:57:00.010-06:00

It rained Friday night. Saturday afternoon the clouds left and the sun came out. Yes, that's fresh snow on the mountain tops. Winter is coming sooner than we'd like! I used my wood stove for the first time this season to warm the house up.

Digging a tree trunk

2011-10-14T23:57:00.017-06:00

The past week or so I have been off-and-on digging out another tree stump. This was another one of those stumps that barely stuck out of the ground. Until I started digging I wasn't sure if this was a stump or a stick.

I thought I had most of the stump dug around when I discovered a half a foot to one side of the hole a whole another stump.

It is late in the year to be burning stumps, but I figure we need at least one stump to burn in a bonfire after Tammy moves here.

Splitting logs

2011-10-09T23:57:00.014-06:00

Lately, in between when it is rains, I have been splitting firewood. Here are a few of the logs I have split.

This log is from a Western Larch (Tamarack) tree. Even though I have aged the wood for a year or more before splitting it, the wood is still 'fresh'. Don't be fooled by the insect/rot at the bottom - this log is solid and heavy.

The log was so solid the wood absorbed the splitting maul's blows. I had to use a sledgehammer to pound the splitting maul through the log. Over and over for each time I split the log, not just the first time the log was split. I couldn't split the log in two. I had to split pieces off the sides and whittle the log down in size. I split over a third of the log when I took the photo.

Even though the log is old the wood had a sweet fresh smell after I split it. Nice.

Some of the logs I split are larger than my splitting stump.

October moon

2011-10-08T02:09:00.012-06:00

I took these photos of the moon late at night (early morning) on Saturday October 8. Earlier the weather had turned cold, cloudy and rainy. The clouds broke up for a little while and I snapped these photos before going to bed.

Testing a sharpened chainsaw chain

2011-10-06T23:57:00.039-06:00

Thursday, October 6, I finally got back my sharpened chainsaw chain. I immediately tested it out as I had taken the chain to a new place to be sharpened and I wondered how good of a job they did. I had one tree trunk laying on the ground in the middle pasture that needed to finish being cut before it started to rot. The sharpened chain cut through the trunk well.

Here is the rest of the tree trunk that laid on the ground (I had cut part of the trunk earlier this year using a handsaw).

Because I don't like leaving gas sit in the chainsaw's gas tank, I went around and cut other stuff. For the tree that fell over into another tree this past Summer, I cut its branches for as high as I could reach with the chainsaw.

Here is the tree before and after I cut some of its branches.

I also cut more of the ends off three fallen tree in the south pasture. These trees have fallen onto their branches so the trunks are not laying on the ground. Because I have plenty of logs back at the house I need to split, I have left these fallen trees alone for now. To use up the chainsaw gas I trimmed each of them a little bit from their ends.

Here is one of the south pasture trees. Before and after views. This isn't the first time I have cut the end of this tree. The tree used to be much longer.

Puyallup Fair

2011-09-25T23:57:00.084-06:00

Sunday afternoon, September 25, my Aunt Cathy and I went to the Puyallup Fair. Instead of trying to find parking near the fair grounds, we rode a bus to the fairgrounds. The rain started to sprinkle by the time the bus arrived at the fairgrounds. By the time we bought our tickets it was raining hard. Neither of us had brought a rain jacket. We waited and waited... and waited... for the rain to end. Finally we left the shelter near the ticket booth and went inside the fairgrounds. IKEA was giving away large plastic bags away and Cathy and I each took one to use as an umbrella.

The buildings were at the opposite end of the fairgrounds. We were very wet by the time we got inside the first building. Wouldn't you know it... it quit raining a few minutes after we got inside the building.

For lunch Cathy and I each ate an Earthquake burger and shared an order of fries. As you can see the fries are cooked in a glob.

Seeing the high school students artwork on display brought back memories of my high school art classes.

The yellow ducks have grown up since I attended fairs when I was a kid.

I wish they had this when I was a kid!

Cathy and I watched several "mutton busting" contests including the final contest that crowned a winner for the Puyallup Fair.

If I remember right, the contest was open to kids age 6 and younger, and who weighed 60 lbs or less. The contest is just like the grown up bronco riding. The goal was to stay on the animal at least 6 seconds and officials score your ride based on how difficult it was to stay on the animal. If you had a wild animal and stayed on you could score high.

Here is "Buster" warming up the crowd before the contest started.

As you can see, the top three riders were girls. They look puny but, boy, could they hold onto the sheep! Sometimes the handlers had to pull them off the sheep after their six seconds had passed.

Prior to the mutton busting competition, "Buster" warmed up the crowd with some dancing. He is seen in the first video.

Mutton Busting video 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX5kEjt_Dsw

Mutton Busting video 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tnm5vtCsims

Mutton Busting video 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6e7ESClGLw

After the mutton busting contest, Cathy and I went over and watched the kid's tractor pulling contest. The contest was for kids 12 and younger. To make it fair between the older and younger kids, the amount of weight they had to pull was based on their age. The older kids pulled more weight.

Tractor pull video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhMIRVE9_MU

Even though the fair was located in Western Washington near a large population base, the fair still had a small town, ag-based, arts and crafts feel to it.

All in all a nice day at the fair even if we got wet in the beginning. By the end of the fair we had dried out.

Alaskan cruise: return

2011-09-24T23:57:00.107-06:00

The cruise ship was docked in Seattle when Tammy and I got out of bed Saturday, September 24. After eating breakfast we left the ship around 9:30 am. There weren't many passengers on the ship when we left. The final departure time for people to be staged off the ship was 10 am. The ship felt odd and lifeless with so few people on it.

My uncle Curt paid for the limo service to have a town car drive us from the ship to his place. Tammy accidentally packed the limo company's phone number in her luggage that was picked up overnight so it would be ready for her to get once we left the ship. So she had to call Curt in the morning to get the limo company's phone number. When she called the limo company she discovered the driver was already at the dock and was driving circling around looking for us. We told him we wouldn't be off the ship for another 90 minutes or so.

Finding our luggage wasn't hard. Waiting for our town car to arrive took a while as there were so many vehicles and people waiting to be picked up.

Tammy left for home Sunday morning. I left Monday afternoon after having breakfast with my uncle Larry and aunt Diane. Larry took me to the Tacoma train station. Larry had overestimated the amount of time it would take us to get to the train station so we arrived plenty early. That turned out to be good as the train between Portland, Oregon and Seattle was delayed. So that I would be on time for the train leaving from Seattle, the Amtrak official put me on a Trailways bus going to Seattle.

There were four of us, including the driver, on the large bus. Talking with one young woman I learned she was taking the bus all the way to Spokane. She wasn't taking the train from Seattle as the Department of Corrections would only pay for a bus trip. I never asked where she came from and why.

It was overcast and raining and I read during the journey. Just outside of Seattle the driver slammed on the brakes and shouted "No! No! No! No! No!" as the bus slid on the wet pavement. The traffic in our lane of the freeway had stopped suddenly and the bus slid and slid as we were going downhill when the driver slammed on the brakes.

A red car was stopped in front of us and I watched as the car got closer and closer and then disappeared below the bus's front window. I thought we had stopped just in time only to feel a bump as we slid into the car.

The bus stopped. As the driver was asking if we were ok the woman in the red car drove off. What? Where's she going? She was lost in traffic before she signaled and pulled over to the right shoulder. The car that had been in front of her car pulled off the road behind her and the bus then moved to the shoulder behind them. We were delayed as everyone looked their vehicles over, exchanged insurance information and took photos of the vehicles. No one appeared to be hurt.

I felt sorry for the bus driver as he seemed to be a real nice guy. He had been allowing for plenty of room in front of the bus to the vehicles ahead of the bus. But I think it was a combination of the traffic stopping, and suddenly, plus the wet pavement and being on a downhill section. Take any of the elements away and the bus would not have hit the car.

After the accident another young woman came from the back of the bus up to the front where the other woman and I were sitting. She was traveling with her baby daughter who was sleeping. She was also going to Spokane by bus. Both women seemed nice, but neither were the sharpest stick in the woodpile.

Because I was way early at the Tacoma train station, this delay didn't hurt. I was still at the Seattle train station well before the train left.

Our train car was a little over half full but I was able to get two seats for myself. This was good as I had came down with a cold the day I left the cruise ship. The cold was serious by the time I took the train home. I slept good on the train only waking up a little before the train arrived in Whitefish.

And then I was home as my neighbor Jan came and got me. Once home I slept most of the day as I was still suffering from my cold.

Alaskan cruise: Day 7 - sunset

2011-09-23T23:57:00.015-06:00

The sun was setting by the time we returned to the ship.

Near the ship was a long walkway. Even though we had walked all around Victoria, we walked out in the walkway to watch the setting sun and see the ship from another angle.

The bright light in the middle at the top of the ship is a large outdoor movie screen. Tammy and I never watched any movies there as the weather was so poor much of the time.

Alaskan cruise: Day 7 - Downtown Victoria

2011-09-23T23:30:00.085-06:00

The Empress Hotel.

Curt told me the name of the leaning tree, but I forgot it.

Pedestrian street.

On the pedestrian street we saw a handful of vendors. While we sat and rested, this fellow who sold leather belts, packed up his supplies and tent (just like the white tent on the right side of the photo). He put everything into these boxes and bags. He then loaded them into his cart, attached the cart to his bicycle, then headed for home.

Manscape spa? No thanks.

This is a men's bathroom on a city street corner. There is only a urinal inside.

The entrance to Chinatown. There is not a whole lot of interesting stores on this street. The entrance and some nearby statues were more interesting. The Red Dragon photo I took when I visited Victoria in 2008. I tried to take a similar photo this year but either a wino was loitering near the statue and sneakily filling a can with liquor from a bottle in his backpack, or later a woman was videotaping her kids climbing on the statue.

Street art for money. On another street I saw three young men sitting and laying on the sidewalk with a homemade cardboard sign saying "Need money for weed". I didn't get their photo as I didn't want to be obliged them to give them money.

This character was sleeping. I love his beard.

In 2008 I was fooled by this "statue". At the time I muttered about Victoria appropriating a symbol of the American West - a cowgirl - for a statue when they should instead have had a sailor statue or something similar. Then the statue moved. This was street art and this is how she made money.

I had told Tammy the story of the cowgirl and how I was fooled. This year as we walked by the "statue" in the following photos Tammy asked me if this was a statue or a person like the 'cowgirl'. I looked as I walked by, and seeing no strings on the guitar, came to the conclusion this was a statue. Tammy kept an eye on the statue and saw that it moved from a standing position to this sitting position. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I should have known better. And what does having or not having strings on a guitar have to do with it being a statue? Duh.

People wanted to contribute but didn't know where to put the money. They would walk up to him and ask him. He would slightly motion to the open guitar hole with a couple fingers.

On our harbor walk back to the ship Tammy and I passed this cute little car.

Alaskan cruise: Day 7 - Totem Poles

2011-09-23T23:00:00.026-06:00

Inside Beacon Hill Park is the world's tallest totem pole at 127 ft 7 inches. It was carved from a single tree in 1956. The black base at the bottom is 6 feet tall. I know, I stood next to it for a photo.

Just outside Beacon Hill Park, on the way to downtown, is the Victoria Thunderbird Park. Tammy and I looked at some of the totem poles there.

Someone else's photo that shows the context of my previous photos.

Alaskan cruise: Day 7 - Beacon Hill Park

2011-09-23T22:30:00.012-06:00

According to my Uncle Curt, the green tree is called a monkey tree.

We came across several peacocks sitting high up a large tree with smooth bark.

Lots of ponds with ducks are in the park.

The Park looked to have a small mini-golf course.

Alaskan cruise: Day 7 - ocean walk

2011-09-23T22:00:00.011-06:00

Friday, September 23, we stopped at Victoria, British Columbia. Originally we were suppose to arrive at 7 pm. However, due to not stopping at Ketchikan, Alaska the previous day, we arrived at Victoria around noon. We had to be back on board the ship at 11 pm so that gave us a nice long day to enjoy Victoria.

Finally we had sun. And warm temperatures! The temperature was in the low 70s F.

Tammy and I didn't go on any excursions. Instead we walked around town all day. In the map below, we walked along the ocean shore from the "You are here" marker on the left side over to Beacon Hill Park on the right. Then we walked up through the park to downtown Victoria up to Chinatown. Then back downtown and along the harbor back to the ship.

Washington State (The U.S.) and Olympic National Park mountains in the background.

Our cruise ship.

Along the ocean shore I picked and ate some late season blackberries from plants that were growing wild.

Near Beacon Hill Park is mile zero of the Trans-Canada highway. This marker is in a corner of the park.

Alaskan cruise: Day 6

2011-09-22T23:57:00.077-06:00

Thursday September 22 we spent all day at sea. We were suppose to visit Ketchikan, Alaska but the weather and waves convinced the ship's captain to change course and skip our stop at Ketchikan.

Apparently the weather forecast had numerous low pressure systems in the Gulf of Alaska and we were forecast to have winds up to 80 mph and big waves. Lots of people were lined up to buy Dramamine. Later I heard that the ship ran out of Dramamine to sell people. I also saw quite a number of people with patches behind their ear to ward against seasickness.

As soon as we left Glacier Bay the previous day the waves increased. Instead of dropping the Glacier Bay National Park rangers and naturalist off near the entrance to the Park, they stayed on the ship.

While the seas were a little rougher, they didn't affect the ship nowhere near as bad as when we sailed up to Juneau. Perhaps it was because it looked like the ship was hitting the waves head on and not at an angle.

In the end, whether it was because the fears were overblown or because the ship's course minimized the waves' effect, the sailing was relatively smooth.

The ship was able to drop off the Park employees onto a boat near Ketchikan even if the cruise ship did not stop at Ketchikan.

Because of the ship's schedule change, Tammy's Tastefully Simple/Homemade Gourmet group held their three meetings (two educational and one farewell get-together) this day instead of spreading the meetings over three days as planned. A number of the Tastefully Simple/Homemade Gourmet people were into karaoke singing. They had entered the ship's "Pop Princess" karaoke contest. For the farewell get-together, the Tastefully Simply officials arranged for a karaoke machine for the party and it was used the entire time.

Since this was another day at sea, the evening dinner was another formal dress night.

In the evening Tammy and I were busy attending several shows.

The show in the following photo was actually from the previous night. The ship's employees starred in a talent show.

The following photos are from one of the shows we watched Thursday night. This one was a salute to songs from the British Invasion. The songs went from the 1960s to the present. The show was very good.

This was to songs from the Beatles "Sgt Pepper" album.

Then we watched the finals of the "Pop Princess" karaoke contest. Here are the six people who performed in the finals. They all were very good.

The winner was the one person from the Tastefully Simple/Homemade Gourmet group who made it into the finals. The audience voted for the winner.

Our room was near the art gallery. These are some of the pictures we saw on the wall leading to our stateroom.

Alaskan cruise: Day 5

2011-09-21T23:57:00.063-06:00

On September 21 we cruised into the Glacier Bay National Park.

We were in Glacier Bay from about 8 am to 2 pm. We probably hung around the Lamplugh Glacier for a half hour to an hour or so. It was another wet and cold day.

Some of the ship personnel were vacuuming up water on the deck.

Tammy wearing the new rain jacket she bought in Juneau. The jacket and warm mittens came in handy today!

The ship's wake.

The glacier we are going to see (Lamplugh Glacier) is in the background on the right.

A video of the previous photos of the mountains and clouds as we left the glacier.

Photos of Lamplugh Glacier.

Video 1: At Lamplugh Glacier

Video 2: Leaving Lamplugh Glacier

Alaskan cruise: railroad map

2011-09-20T23:59:00.001-06:00

Here is map of the route for the White Pass railroad.

Alaskan cruise: Day 4

2011-09-20T23:57:00.171-06:00

On the fourth day of the cruise, Tuesday Sept 20, we were in Skagway, Alaska. We arrived at 6 am. The weather again was overcast with light scattered rain.

Our train ride on the White Pass and Yukon River railroad was at 12:40 pm so we had several hours to walk into Skagway and do some shopping before the train left. But because it was raining Tammy decided to wait until after the train ride was over to shop. We would have three hours after the train ride - plenty of time.

The train boarded right next to the cruise ship. A long line was waiting for the train when we arrived and we were at the back of the line. The train hostess told us people at the back of the line that after the people at the front of the line began to board she would give us a signal and we could go around the back of the rope barrier and we could board the rear cars of the train. I don't know if she gave the signal because as soon as the front of the line began to move to the train the rear of the line went around the barrier and began to board in a rush.

Tammy and I boarded the last car of the train which was great. Once the train left Skagway people could step out of the passenger cars to the platforms at each end of the train cars to better see the view and take photos. Being at the back of the train allowed me to see more than if I was between train cars.

The train was 15 cars long and each train car had a wood stove to provide heat. The black pipe going to the ceiling from the wood stove can be seen in the photo below.

We followed the Skagway River up to the White Pass at the U.S. Canadian border.

Because of the sharp turns and limited space to lay the tracks, the train tracks are narrow gauge. They are only three feet across.

The following photo shows the grave site where a very large boulder fell on a couple men and their pack mules when the railroad was being constructed.

An original bridge no longer used.

Along parts of the railroad tracks you can see the original trail the miners used before the railroad was built. Here the trail is hard to see due to the clouds that moved in during our journey.

The U.S. Canadian border.

The train went past the border to almost Frazier, British Columbia.

The train circles around on the tracks short of Frazier. In the second photo that is Frazier in the distance. Apparently only 13 people live there.

Just outside Skagway, near the train tracks, is the Gold Rush Cemetery. In this cemetery - or near it - is where the infamous "Soapy" Smith is buried. I wanted to see the cemetery and Soapy Smith's grave site.

Tammy had gotten a bracelet in Juneau and each Alaskan town at which the cruise ship visited one could get a free charm to add to the bracelet. Tammy wasn't interested in the cemetery so I suggested that she do her shopping in town while I visited the cemetery. However Tammy was afraid I would lose track of time and miss getting back on the cruise ship before it departed. So she went with me to the cemetery.

It was 4:30 pm and we didn't have to be on the ship until 7:30 pm. But Tammy had overheard some women tell their husbands who were planning on going to a bar after the train ride to be on the cruise ship at 7 pm. I didn't realize Tammy was referring to the controlling wives and their hapless husbands. If so, I would have discounted the 7 pm time instead of believing it. Because one had to be on the ship 15 minutes before the ship left, our ending time morphed into 6:45 pm.

We walked along the train tracks back to the cemetery as this was the shortest way to get there. We walked along a creek. The salmon spawn was over and there were dead salmon in and near the creek.

We were told that the winter population of Skagway is 800 people and the summer population is two thousand. A tent site like this rents of $350 a month. A pad for a camper or RV rents for $550 a month.

A bowling ball sculpture outside a house that we saw during our walk.

The cemetery is in the trees up ahead. Yes, it was raining lightly during our walk.

Soapy Smith's grave. The second photo is the grave site of the man who shot and killed Soapy and then who died 12 days later.

The cemetery seems to be a miss-mash of sites and not orderly at all.

Here is a youtube video someone else made of the cemetery: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rjUgJ6SFGc

The cemetery about two miles from town. We walked from the ship to the cemetery in 45 minutes. After 15 or so minutes of looking over the cemetery we walked back to town at 5:37 pm.

Part way back to town we left the railroad tracks and took a city street that went to downtown. We entered the town at State Street and 23rd Ave. The business district started at about 8th Ave. The rest was residential houses and not many people were out and about. It was quiet. At 6 pm one of the cruise ships blasted their horn which caused Tammy further anxiety about missing the ship.

Once we reached the business district it was mostly empty of people. People had been shopping and on excursions since 6 am and now were back at the ship. The lack of people contributed to Tammy's unease that we would miss the ship. I still talked her into visiting a few stores to get the charms for her bracelet.

The difference in the stores in Skagway and Juneau was in Juneau the stores were crowded with shoppers when we shopped. Here the stores had more employees than shoppers and often we were the only shoppers in the store.

At 6:25 pm I relented and we walked back to the ship. We walked into rain and wind. Only a few people were walking back to our cruise ship and the sister Princess cruise ship docked next to our ship. Tammy thought we'd be the last to board our ship - if we made it in time. I told her I would wave and yell to get the ship's attention if they started to leave.

We made it on board to Tammy's relief. It turns out I was right: the time to be back on board was 7:30 pm. We had dinner and had just started to watch one of the ship's musical shows when I could feel the ship's engines start up. It was just after 8:15 pm. We could have done more shopping.

Another historic saloon to visit, and one we did not visit because Tammy didn't want to miss the ship. In the old days the saloon has a brothel upstairs. Now-a-days some of the saloon's female employees dress as "saloon girls" - and I missed seeing that.

Alaskan cruise: Day 3

2011-09-19T23:57:00.072-06:00

On day 3 we arrived in Juneau, Alaska. Because of the previous day's waves and bad weather the captain had altered the ship's course and our arrival time was estimated to be around 2 pm instead of noon. However, overnight the captain put a little extra power to the ship's engines and we arrived on time to the relief of the people booked on excursions between noon and 2 pm.

If only the weather cooperated. The sky was overcast and threatened rain.

Juneau harbor

Once we were in Juneau people could get cell phone service. Here Tammy is too busy checking her phone to pose with Dan. Doesn't she look cute in her hat?

The main excursion I wanted to do in Juneau was to take the tram to the top of Mt Roberts. We decided to do some shopping first in hopes the weather would improve. The opposite happened: it began to rain lightly. Even when the rain quit later that afternoon it was wet and the sky very overcast. So we skipped going up on the tram. That makes two visits to Juneau via cruise ship for me and both times rain ruined my chance to take the tram.

Tammy and I did buy some fleece-lined rain coats for $20 each. They came in handy the rest of our trip.

The Red Dog Saloon is a top tourist attraction. However, with five cruise ships in town there was always a line of people waiting to get inside. So we didn't go inside. The saloon had two merchandize shops on each side of the saloon to get Red Dog souvenirs. Having not gone inside the saloon we skipped buying any souvenirs.

Juneau is not a very level city. Here is an example of the way to get up to the next street. We have now moved away from the main shopping area and to the left of the photo were some down-and-out people loitering. After I took this photo one spacy woman got upset thinking I was taking her photo.

I like "totem pole" art. One shop was crammed with wonderful pieces.

This small St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox church is from 1894. It wasn't open when we visited.

Whenever I go to Glacier Park I see a vehicle with a Minnesota license plate. Minnesotans are everywhere. This car was parked in front of the church.

I had traveled through Juneau in 1980 on my bicycle. For the three or four days I spent in Juneau I camped at this park. In 1980 this was just a grassy empty lot. The city has made it a 'park' since then having developed it and getting rid of most of the grass.

In 1980, in the evening, a man would play violin in this house across from the 'park'. He would sit by the window on the right on the first floor. It was nice.

One of the small shops.

This Holland America cruise ship was suppose to visit Sitka, Alaska. However due to the rough seas they altered their course and came to Juneau inside. This made five cruise ships in the Juneau harbor. As the fifth ship their passengers had to be tendered between ship and shore.

Alaskan cruise: Day 2

2011-09-18T23:57:00.034-06:00

Rockin' and rollin'! That is how day 1 ended and day 2 started. The weather was cold, rainy and windy, and the waves were breaking. The area between Vancouver Island and the islands of SE Alaska is open sea with lots of waves.

In the morning when I got up to use the bathroom I walked up, then down, then up the short distance between the bed and bathroom. The grab bars inside the bathroom were not just for old people to use. I thought about shaving and showering but my stomach was feeling the waves. I didn't have anywhere I had to be so I went back to bed. I felt better laying down.

Tammy turned on the TV and we watched the channel that showed the view in front of the ship. We could see the waves coming. Count to five, then we felt the wave. After a bit of this I asked Tammy to change the channel as seeing the waves wasn't doing me any good.

Before our cruise started my Aunt Cathy had given Tammy some Dramamine tablets for her to use in case she needed them. I ended up being the person who took a Dramamine tablet.

The ship's captain came on the speakers and in his thick Italian accent announced we would have the bad waves until 2 pm. After 2 pm we would be in the protected waters of the inland passage of the Alaskan islands. While the TV had listed the waves as "moderate" at 4.5 to 6.75 ft, the captain said the waves were 15 to 20 ft. That's more like it. The captain also pronounced "swells" as "schwells".

So Tammy and I stayed in bed until almost 2 pm. Later we learned that quite a few other people did the same thing.

Later we heard stories from people who had ventured out and about during the rough seas. Stacy attended a shopping presentation and said the lecturer gripped the lectern to stay upright, and Stacy could hear people puking in back of the room.

Apparently one fellow out on deck was slammed against a wall when a bad wave hit and his camera ended up going overboard. He was white as a ghost when he got inside an elevator and said "I thought I was going to f'ing die!". The hot tubs had their water roll up and down and out. Tammy and I could hear dishes crashing out in the hallway. We also talked with two people on another cruise ship and they said two people on their ship fell and broke their hips during the rough seas.

A crazy time!

It was nice that the seas calmed by afternoon as this night was one of two formal nights on the ship. I even put on a suit. This was the first time Tammy had ever seen me in a suit. Apparently I look good in suit. Tammy doesn't care to have her picture taken but I talked her into posing with me for three of the ship's photographers. We ended up buying one of the photos to commemorate our cruise.

After a dinner in one of the restaurants, Tammy and I attended one of the ship's shows: Stardust.

Alaskan cruise: day 1

2011-09-17T23:57:00.081-06:00

Saturday, September 17, Tammy and I departed on the Alaskan cruise that Tammy had earned for herself when she worked for Homemade Gourmet. Me... I had to pay my own way.

Tammy had never ridden in a limousine so I surprised her with my Uncle Curt and Aunt Cathy's help. Setting a time for the limo ride was harder than you'd think. About a month before the cruise I needed to know the time we were going to meet another couple (Gary and Stacy) at the ferry dock to start the cruise. Vacation planning is not what I am known for, and Tammy wouldn't help me by giving me a time. Instead she gave me a hard time about doing some planning for the vacation. Eventually I picked a time.

Tammy was excited to go on the cruise and on the morning of the cruise she asked me if I was excited about the cruise as I was so calm. Little did she know that I had arranged for a limo to arrive shortly.

A half hour before my limo was to arrive, the other couple texted Tammy that they were traveling from their hotel to the ship in a limo. Oh joy.

Cathy had kept the house's window blinds mostly closed so Tammy wouldn't see the limo drive up. Once the limo arrived Curt told Tammy we would be taking the luggage out the front door instead of going through the garage to their SUV. Tammy opened the door and stepped outside to hold the door for us. She hadn't noticed the long white stretch limo. We waited for her to see the limo and finally she looked that way and saw the limo. Then she went crazy with excitement.

After we loaded our luggage into the limo and took photos of us with the limo I proposed to her and she said yes.

Tammy was over the moon with excitement.

Stacy and Gary were already at the ferry dock and waiting for us when we arrived. This was the first time I had met them. Once we boarded the ship the first order of business was to switch rooms. Tammy and Stacy had earned the cruise and were booked into the same room. Gary and I booked another room. There wasn't going to be any 'Brokeback Iceberg" for this guy so we switched rooms so Tammy and I shared a room.

We were on the Golden Princess ship. I found that this ship was identical to the Star Princess ship I had taken to Alaska back in 2008. Still, it took some time for me to get oriented on the ship.

The view of Seattle before we got under way.

Train trip to Tacoma

2011-09-15T23:57:00.043-06:00

Wednesday night I took the train from Whitefish, MT to Tacoma, Wa. to see my uncle and aunt and then go on a cruise to Alaska. The train was a half hour late to the Whitefish train station.

It took a long time to load the train passengers as the Whitefish train station's platform is being redone. Over half of it was ripped up to prepare for new cement. Only two train cars could access the platform at a time so the train had to load in four stops: Seattle sleeper cars, Seattle coach cars, Portland coach cars, Portland sleeper cars.

Because the platform was half ripped up there was no checked luggage service and I had to carry my luggage onto the train myself.

I ended up sharing a pair of seats. I picked a seat next to a woman going to Libby, MT - the next stop. She was returning from Williston, North Dakota where her husband was working in the oil fields.

At Libby I got two seats to myself. At Spokane, where lots of people got off the train, I moved away from the stairs - and lights - that go between the upper and lower levels. I moved back to a pair of seats midway back to the rear door where the only lights were a few night lights. I had the seats to myself all the way to Seattle. I slept well. The train car's heat was warm so I didn't need the blanket I had brought along.

A young woman missed her stop at Edmunds and didn't know it until the conductor later double checked her train stop. I think she was too busy texting on her phone to notice her stop. She got off at the next stop.

We got to the Seattle station early as we arrived around 10 am.

My next train connection was from Seattle to Tacoma on the Amtrak Cascades train. It left at 11:26 am. Because this train was a single level train there was not as much extra room for luggage in each car. So I had to check my luggage.

I forgot to send a reminder for Curt and Cathy that I was arriving so I hoped they remembered. Especially because I also forgot their phone number. They were at the station waiting for me. Yay!

It was a bit hard to leave Montana as the sky was clear of clouds, the temperature was in the mid-70s, and there was no wind. Perfect weather. At Seattle/Tacoma when I arrived the skies were overcast and temperature was in the 60s. The weather forecast for the cruise in Alaska is rain and temperatures near 50. I hope the forecast is wrong.

Small stuff before I leave

2011-09-14T23:59:00.003-06:00

Before leaving for my vacation I tended to a number of small projects.

I was surprised to find that the horses ate all of the remaining hay I had put out for the cattle before the cattle left. Usually horses are finicky eaters, closer to cats than dogs in this respect, and since the hay I put out for the cattle was two years old, I thought the horses would pick at it like they did with the leftover hay I had fed the cattle this past Spring. Instead the horses ate all of the hay within a few days. It wasn't like they were hungry as they have plenty of green grass in the pasture. Apparently they wanted something different to eat.

With the feeder clean of hay I took the temporary floor out of it, cleaned the matted hay off the boards, then put the boards away for the winter.

I also finished using the rest of the herbicide, Brash. When I visited the CHS store, I asked Linda if there were any new herbicides that would handle my weeds and she told me about Chaparral.

(More info on Chaparral: http://www.dowagro.com/range/products/chaparral.htm)

Chaparral is different than Brash in that Chaparral is a dry formula and not a liquid one. Linda told me to use a tablespoon of Chaparral in my backpack sprayer for the weeds I have. When I read the Chaparral label the amount per acre varies depending on the weed I am trying to kill, and the amount of Chaparral for the sprayer is dependant on the sprayer's flow rate, which I do not know.

Because we are in a dry period right now, the weeds' metabolism is slow and it takes longer for the herbicide to take affect. So I wanted to make sure I sprayed a few tanks of herbicide on a variety of weeds, including the snowberry (buckbrush) I have. When I return from vacation in a few weeks I can see if the tablespoon amount was enough. Part of my concern on the amount of Chaparral to use is that when I spoke with the man who owns the horses he told me he just started using Chaparral on some wormwood he had and the results were mixed on how much wormwood was killed.

So I was spraying weeds right up until almost when I left to catch the train for Washington.

Here is the herbicide in my sprayer.

While I thought I has cleared my pasture of gophers, when spraying for weeds I found new gophers mounds in three areas where I had last cleared them from the middle pasture. *sigh*

Window bird

2011-09-13T00:03:00.001-06:00

Monday morning when I was puttering around in my tool shed a small bird started to fly against a window in an effort to get outside. Once I got a photo of the bird I went around to the back of the room and the bird then flew out the door into the cool clear morning air. This morning we didn't have much smoke from the forest fires as I think the occasional wind Sunday night kept the smoke from settling into the Valley overnight.

I don't know what kind of bird it is.

Cutting a neighbor's tree

2011-09-12T00:22:00.001-06:00

Last Thursday I cut up a neighbor's tree. This is the neighbor who had a beaver problem last year until they were trapped and removed. The tree was dead and the top part of the tree had broken off last year. Since she had no plans for the wood I told her I would cut down the trunk that remained and take the wood. The weather was wet this Spring so this was really the first chance I had to get in there to remove the tree.

I had to be careful when cutting the trunk down. I had to miss the road, another neighbor's mailbox, the fence, and another tree. As you can see the tree fell right where I wanted it to. I cut the trunk so it would fall where I wanted but the trunk wanted to sit upright and perhaps lean back towards the road and mailbox. So I gave it a little push and over it fell. I got a nice amount of firewood from the tree. Now to split it.

On the left side of the photo is the part of the trunk that had broken off last year.

I also hauled off most of the branches the beavers had used to create one of their dams last year. They were stacked next to the creek.

When moving around the ditch to cut the tree down I must brushed against a large houndstongue weed. Both of my pants legs were thickly covered with the Velcro-like seeds. It took a while to pull each seed off my pants.

Rim for salt

2011-09-11T22:47:00.001-06:00

I catch myself checking for my cattle out in the hayfield. I do miss them a little bit. At least I still have the horses to keep the place from feeling completely empty.

I toss the small and/or bruised apples out for the horses now that the cattle are gone. They turn up their noses and don't eat them. Go figure.

My neighbor welded a couple things for me yesterday. I had broken another rake and he welded the two broken metal pieces back into one. I also had him weld a rim used to hold a salt block. Last year I snagged it with the harrow. When it was pulled from the ground one of the spikes broke off. It looks like there used to be three spikes but that appears to have been long a long time ago.

Here is how the rim looks before it is sunk into the ground. The spikes are good idea to keep the cattle from moving it all around the pasture.