Chuck Suchy concert

Friday night Donna, her daughter, son-in-law, and I attended a free concert by North Dakotan musician/farmer Chuck Suchy held at the Flathead Valley Community College.

While Chuck has performed in the Flathead Valley over the years I have been here, this is the first time I attended one of his concerts since the mid to late 1990s back in Minnesota.

He is 67 years old now.  He played two hours of his original songs with no break.  Once he started playing a number of his songs I then remembered them from the Minnesota concert.  People here are familiar with his songs as a number of people called out different songs as requests.  A number of people also sang along to some of his songs.

It was a good concert.  It was relaxed and felt like he was some guy with a guitar sitting in a living room singing a few songs to his friends.

http://www.chucksuchy.com/

Here is one of his songs (Cool in the Shade):  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFvQu9MJOgU&index=1&list=PLxSEEF5s06AJCuxnT0YyKS-pSJs4MrqB5

Molly's Field:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dkpWvukxH0&index=24&list=PLxSEEF5s06AJCuxnT0YyKS-pSJs4MrqB5

Burma Shave Boogie:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AGXPkpt3PM&index=28&list=PLxSEEF5s06AJCuxnT0YyKS-pSJs4MrqB5

Dancin' in the Kitchen:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5R7_urF5S4&index=57&list=PLxSEEF5s06AJCuxnT0YyKS-pSJs4MrqB5

Return to MT

Sunday Tammy and I drove back to Montana.  It had rained overnight, and between the sound of the rain (especially hitting the downspout), the train whistles in the valley, the birds chattering, and her restless legs, Tammy didn't sleep much during the night.  I drove the entire distance so she was able to sleep with her snuggie and favorite pillow several times during the drive.

It wasn't raining in the morning when we left but as you can see we were headed for rain.

The rain wasn't heavy and it ended by the time we got to Montana.  I had tightened the screw for the windshield wipers on Tammy's minivan and this tightening held all the way home so we didn't have any wiper problems this trip.


Lots of man-camp buildings along the road.

Man-camp type of buildings are even located next to rundown buildings along the highway.

Target Logistics are big builder and operator of man-camps.

Lots of oil wells along the highway.

Oil drilling.

One of many trucks.

I took the new highway bypass around Williston.  Tammy's GPS Garmin insisted I turn around as it had no clue the highway existed.  It thought I was driving across a field.

In addition to the many mancamps, there were lots of places whose purpose was to park trucks when not running, even if it was the middle of nowhere.

Montana.   This photo was taken 10 minutes after I cleaned the windows during our one gas stop.  Naturally a big fat bug committed suicide right in my field of vision.  I had to stop and clean it off because it was too distracting.

Bug splat

I saw bicyclists only in Montana.  I counted 10 bicyclists heading east, one bicyclist heading west, and two fully loaded bicycles parked against a bar in a small small town in Montana.

Scattered shower

An old church on the Fort Belnap reservation.

Bear Paw Mountains

Rocky Mountains...

With no problems, and less traffic on the road, we made good time and did the trip in 10 1/2 hours, an hour less than when we drove to North Dakota.

Once we reached the ranch I saw four cattle in the hayfield.  After parking at the house I went out to herd the cattle back into the pasture.

The four cattle were: Momma, Baby, one of my heifers, and #19 yellow tag.  I saw a broken top fence wire and figured that was how the cattle got into the hayfield.  Momma, then the other cattle easily followed me back to the pasture through the gate.

I shut the gate and then the other cattle came from the second pasture to join us.  Once they got bored Momma and others wandered off to the fence.  Not where I saw the broken wire.  A few minutes later I saw Momma on the hayfield side of the fence with a half dozen or more cattle on the pasture side of the fence.

What?! 

I found the fence had a gap.  The second wire was broken and the third wire was not fastened to a post and was drooping.  Momma did the limbo and walked through the fence.

Momma was now wise to me, and the other cattle wanted to join Momma, so I had to get Tammy to help me by handling the gate while I herded Momma.   Momma was now in an excited mood and ran around.  She eventually ran through the gate to join the other cattle and they then all ran off kicking their back legs up as they ran.

I went to work on fixing the fence and by the time I was done the cattle returned to see what I was doing.  My repair job has kept the cattle in the pasture.  It's not like the cattle don't have grass to eat, but you know... "The grass is greener on the other side of the fence."

A 1:05 video of the cattle after the fence was fixed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_ziZyM_IMo


I also found that the rain gutter on the tool shed came down while I was away.  I took the rest of it down until I can re-shingle the roof and put up a proper rain gutter where I - and my uncles - don't hit their head on the gutter when they enter the tool shed.

Last of tree trimming

On my last day at my brother's house in North Dakota he and I trimmed more tree branches.   These branches were crowding and shading the pine trees.  More importantly they went mostly straight out.  In the past when there was an early or late snow branches like this would break.

Before and after photos...

The first large branch I cut came to rest against my ladder after it was cut.

Cutting another large branch at the far end of the reach of my pole saw.

Trimming trees

Thursday morning it rained hard.  The weather was nice by afternoon and I did some more trimming of trees and the hedge.

The trees are getting taller.  The red arrow shows the branch I cut.  The strong wind didn't make it any easier.

Then I stepped off the ladder and climbed up in the tree to cut another branch.   The tree swayed in the wind.

Some of the branches I trimmed.

Return to a bad toilet

Tammy returned from Minnesota today.  She arrived earlier than she estimated due to good traffic and good weather. My brother and I were in the process of fixing the toilet when Tammy arrived. This morning the toilet had a little leak at the base, and earlier this afternoon my brother and I had gotten a new wax ring for it.  Of course after a long trip Tammy needed to use the bathroom sooner than later.

The bolts to hold the toilet in place were old and when I gave the final screw to the last bolt, the bolt snapped in half. 

Off to the local Ace hardware store for new bolts.

The toilet is now fixed.

Broken water pipe

Over Winter a water pipe at my brother's place froze and split.  This water line runs under the front deck.

There is a valve to drain the pipe.  A few years ago my brother forgot to drain the pipe and it split.  It was a big plumber's bill to fix it.

My brother said he drained the pipe this last Winter.  He suspects the pipe was low in one corner and apparently the water did not completely drain.

We have a pipe cutter tool...

and we bought a click-in joint at Menards.

Wednesday I cut the pipe and put the pipe back together with the click-in joint.  The pipe ran through holes in the deck floor's studs. I cut several holes larger in order to bend the pipe so the joint fit together in a straight manner.  The blue pex pipe was how the plumber fixed the previous problem.  The white piece is the connector joint I used.

We turned the water on and found that there was a second hole in the pipe under part of the deck my brother did not remove.  When originally investigating the leak my brother did not check for more than one leak.

We removed more deck boards.  This was difficult because most of the screws would strip and not screw out.  I had to carefully pry each board off the deck frame.

I cut the second split out of the pipe.  Then back to Menards for another joint connector.  I clicked it on the pipes, put a brick under the corner to keep the pipe high for draining, and we were done.

Cutting and packing

Yesterday I fixed my brother's sink which had a clogged pipe.  One of the nuts broke when I removed the pipe using a pipe wrench.  I got it in my head that I needed to replace that part of the trap pipe.  Well... the style now a days is for the pipe to be a male while my brother's old pipe is a female.  I was not about to replace all the pipes especially the pipe that goes into the wall.  I thought I would have to go to a plumbing retail store and not just Menards or Ace hardware when the light went on in my head and realized I only had to replace the nut as the pipe had some years in it before it gets too corroded.  Now the sink is fixed.


The garbage men had not come when I got up this morning. They were running late.   So I immediately went to work trimming tree branches.  The garbage men didn't come for over two hours to I got plenty of branches trimmed.  Of course there are many more trees and the hedge left to trim.

In addition to seeing the branches, you can also see the old chair my brother replaced yesterday.

The garbage men took the garbage and chair and one pile of the branches.  They said they would be back later this week to get the rest of the branches.


While on Sunday evening we had packed the unsold garage sale stuff into boxes, in the afternoon today my brother and I worked on packing the unsold garage sale stuff back up into the garage's attic.  First I wanted to look over and organize the other stuff in the garage attic.  We got rid of old boxes, carpet, carpet pads, old machinery parts, plant food, bird foods, etc. and freed up lots of storage.

The attic has no vents so while outside got to 77 degrees F it was hotter in the attic.  I took a break after cleaning and organizing.  As you can see my jeans are soaked from sweat except of their very bottom.

In the evening we packed up the garage sale stuff into the attic (the attic was still hot)  and swept out the garage and are done now.

Trivia night

Monday night in Minot and that means... trivia at the Landing Bar.

Ed has retired from hosting trivia games and is back being a player.  Matt has taken over hosting.  He put on good contests with a good balance between hard and easy with a variety of topics.  The contests didn't seem too hard yet the scores were not really high.

Some questions from memory...

1. True or false - all rattlesnakes are venomous?
2. True or False - Norman Rockwell created Rosie the riveter?
3. Which is further west... Milwaukee, Wisconsin of New Orleans?
4. Which fast food franchise has the most locations in the world?
5. What is the newest African country created July 9, 2011?
6. What is the first name of the angel from the movie,  "It's a Wonderful Life"?
7. Which two American presidents were adopted?
8. How many teams play in the World Cup?
9. What car company had the two slogans: "Go further" and "Built for the road ahead?"?
10. What common ailment are marshmallows used for?
11. In 2001 from which country was  Slobodan Milošević extradited to the Hague to be tried for war crimes?
12. In response to an articles implying he was a homosexual, what performer sent a telegram that read: "What you said hurt me very much. I cried all the way to the bank."

Answers:

1. True
2. True
3. New Orleans
4. Subway.  My team didn't believe me and went with McDonalds.  McD is number 3.  Here are the rankings: http://www.franchisedirect.com/top100globalfranchises/rankings/
5. South Sudan
6. Clarence Odbody
7. Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton
8. 32
9. Ford
10. Sore throat
11. Serbia (Yugoslavia was accepted as an answer).
12. Liberace

In the first contest we finished in the middle of the pack with 13 correct answers (two teams had 17 correct).  We won the second contest with 15 correct answers and could have had maybe 19 correct answers if we hadn't second guessed ourselves.

Our team name was "French Fried Tators" after the quote from the Sling Blade movie since Matt does a good impression of the Sling Blade character. 

The team was: me, Darrell, Ed, and two young guys who work at the Minot Daily News paper (you know me, I forget names at the drop of a hat).  Marv came late and decided to join a team of people he knew with less players.  Rod didn't show up.  it was good seeing everyone.

For the "quarters" questions, Darrell won a "Field of Dreams" DVD and a bottle Dr McGillicuddy's liquor.  One of the young guys won a large bag of tootsie rolls and a box of beef jerky.

The bar provided free sloppy joes and potato chips to eat.

After the trivia contest the bar had a karaoke singing.  The singers were pretty good but loud.  North Dakota has banned smoking in bars so it was nice to not have to sit in smoke and come home smelling of it.  Some people took smoke breaks outside.   Since this is North Dakota the bar built a four sided "bus stop" type of structure to protect the smokers from the elements and at one point someone came out and told people to move at least twenty feet away from the door.

Garage Sale: Day 2

Another slow day at the garage sale. We kept selling stuff, though not as much as yesterday.  Still it was worthwhile as we got rid of more stuff.

Talking with some long time garage salers I got the impression that people don't go to garage sales like they used to do.  Perhaps it is due to the rise of Goodwill and others stores selling used items.

Yesterday a couple of funny guys stopped and bought stuff.  The one originally from Texas mowed lawns and the other was originally from Tennessee (hence his nickname) and his strong accent.  "Tennessee" bought a pizza cooking pan though he had to borrow money from the Texas guy.  At the end of yesterday I remembered I had a female bicycle Dad owned.  I got it out of Devan's storage area.  Today "Texas" came by with a woman and bought it.  They used her can of change to come up with $15 for the bicycle.  So we ended up with lots more change than usual.  While the sale had stuff priced in increments of 25 cents we ended up with lots of dimes and nickels.

Even though the ad said we ended at 4pm we took our time and didn't close up until almost 5pm and made a few extra dollars as a result.

We have most of the stuff boxed up after throwing some items away.  I didn't toss much as during this sale I sold stuff that I had in the last sale, and in that sale I sold stuff from previous sales.  And I have more stuff to get out of the house to put in another sale.  A sale this or next Fall as I didn't have a chance this time to go through and put out mom's Christmas stuff.

The plan tomorrow is to haul the stuff back up into the garage attic.  Some of my stuff I am taking to Montana.  Tammy, like Devan, has little enthusiasm for holding a garage sale but I think I have enough stuff for a sale back in Montana later this year.

Garage Sale: Day 1

The garage sale went well though it was not as busy as I expected.   In prior years people were outside before the time we opened the doors.  Not this time.  A few people started to arrive at 9 am, the time the ad said the sale started.   Only a few times was it crowded and chaotic.   Otherwise a slow and relatively steady number of people came.  Some people I asked in the afternoon said they hadn't seen many people out at other garage sales.  The newspaper had 33 sales listed for Saturday plus one estate auction.  I think a dozen vehicles did a slow drive-by without stopping.  This was unfortunate as most people who did visit found at least one item to buy.

There is more stuff for sale than can be seen from the street

For the first time ever at a garage sale or flea market I am out of comic books to sell.  One of the first buyers offered me a certain number of dollars for all the comics I had for sale, and after some negotiation for a higher price to which he agreed, I sold the two big boxes of comics I had for sale.  I did have one other guy an hour or two later asking about comic books, but I think that if I had not made a deal to sell all the comics I still would have some left to sell.

Later I made another deal to sell a box of heavy stuff at a 'take it all' price.  That is good as the goal is to get rid of stuff and reduce the amount of stuff to carry back up in the garage attic for another sale.  Since I hadn't gotten all the stuff out to sell, even with one more day for the sale, it looks like there will be another North Dakota garage sale in my future. Hopefully it won't take another two and a half years to have the next sale.

Garage sale start

I plan on having a garage sale this weekend with my brother.  I had planned on holding the sale on Friday and Saturday like everyone else but the weather forecast was for rain on Friday, with a chance of severe weather.   The weather forecasters were right about the rain but fortunately not right about it being severe.

It is just as well I waited until Saturday.  I would not have been ready on Friday.

Thursday was spent getting the tables out and boxes down from the garage attic and the house's basement.  It took many hours even with my brother's help.

Friday was spent setting up the tables, placing sheets on most of the tables, placing the stuff on the tables, and marking prices on items added since the last garage sale attempt.  This also took most of the day. My brother helped price stuff in the evening.

I again have more stuff than tables and more stuff than can fit inside the garage. And I am tired.   The sale starts at 9 am tomorrow but I'm sure people will be here before then and I have stuff left to do.

Road trip to NoDak

Tuesday Tammy and I drove her minivan to my brother's place in North Dakota.  Thursday Tammy drives to Minnesota to visit her kids and grand kids while I stay with my brother.

Our start from the ranch on Tuesday wasn't too late, but later than desired.  Before we left I had to:

• close that corral gate to the back yard,
• take down the corral panels limiting the horses to the back yard,
• open the corral gate to the north pasture to let the horses out there,
• open the gate between the middle and south pastures to let the cattle access to both pastures while I'm gone.

Then I made my lunch, loaded the minivan with all our stuff, ate breakfast and closed up the house.

We were off a quarter to 10 am - mountain time.  Tammy's Garmin estimated we would arrive at my brother's place at 8:53 pm - central time.  But the Garmin didn't estimate stops for stoplights, stop signs, gas refueling stops, road construction, and problems.  Tammy's new Garmin also showed the current speed and the the road's speed limit.  I said "new" Garmin.  But not new enough to account for quite a number of lowered speed limits in North Dakota due to more traffic in the Bakken oil boom area. Often 70 mph was now 55 mph and the Garmin showed us "losing" time as we drove the speed limit.


Our first unanticipated stop was when Daisy threw up on the back seat floor 15 minutes into our journey.  Daisy was not pleased when we left as she stood and looked out the minivan window and meowed as we left the ranch. Out of site of the ranch she eventually settled down and laid on Tammy's lap until she felt queasy.  Once I cleaned up her mess our time of arrival was 9:01 pm.  Once we got through the mountains it was 9:12 pm.  And so on.

For the rest of the trip Daisy lay on the floor.   First in front of the driver's seat, and once Tammy got her snuggie out, Daisy laid on the floor under Tammy's legs and snuggie with no interest in being elsewhere.  I had easily put a collar on her in case she attempted to bolt from the vehicle during stops.  After a couple of thwarted half-hearted attempts to exit an open door she gave up and settled down for the rest of the trip.

Our next problem was after it started to rain in central Montana.   The week before we left Tammy had the air conditioner fixed in her vehicle. During the drive to the repair shop her windshield wipers quit working.  The repair shop fixed them.  Or so they said. During our trip, after about 15 minutes, they quit working again.  Tammy was driving, the traffic was light, and concentrating we were able to see enough to make the 20 to 30 miles to the next town.

At the gas station and undercover out of the rain I found a screw was loose and tightened it.   This time the windshield wipers lasted 10 to 15 minutes.  When they quit working again there was a spot nearby with cover and I again tightened the screw.  The wipers lasted 5 minutes.  By now there was nothing but open fields.  The traffic and rain were light so we kept going.  The rain clouds were going from SW to NE and we began to get just ahead of the clouds and rain.

It remained that way until we got to North Dakota road construction.  Each time we waited the rain caught up to us until we could get going and eventually ahead of it again.  So the construction was more than an annoyance as a time waster.

It was raining when we drove through Ray, ND.  The road was so bad with large potholes that the speed limit was 15 mph - not 55 mph.  Between the rain and non-working windshield wipers it was hard to avoid the large holes in the road.


People living in trailers along the highway were common.

So was gas being flared at the numerous well sites.  If they could build pipelines maybe they wouldn't have to waste the gas.

We had another incident in eastern Montana as we were getting closer to North Dakota.  Two large semi-trailer gravel trucks were going the other way on the highway.  The trucks were full, the wind strong, and a bumpy road meant gravel flying out of the trucks.  All of sudden were were "strafed". One large rock hit the windshield on Tammy's side.  The rock didn't make it through the glass but it left a large impression.

We didn't get to my brother's place until 10:14 pm. Eleven and a half hours to drive 700 miles.   So much for Garmin's initial estimate.  Tammy and I slept long and hard Tuesday night and late Wednesday morning.