View of the mountains

Weeks ago when I was cleaning up branches in the south pasture to get ready to start harrowing that pasture, I took time to look at the Swan Mountain range from my south pasture.

Winter has arrived

Back on November 2 Winter arrived.  We got snow and cold.  More than expected.  Initially they said it was 7 inches of snow.  Later they said we got 10 inches over the first three days.  And this snow was unusual.  Lots of power outages.  Half of the electric customers lost power the electric co-op said.  I lost power two different times, on separate days.  On Wednesday into Thursday, and again on Friday.  Wednesday before I left for the livestock auction on Thursday.  No electric alarm clock to wake me up early to load the cows.

The electric co-op compared the wet heavy snow to a Spring-like snow.   But some trees still had leaves on them making matter worse.  And the evergreen trees with needles... look out. The north side of trees were coated, and many branches then broke off.  And on a number of trees a broken branch fell on another branch, breaking that one also.  Some trees all the way down.

I have a lot of broken branches.  It will take a long time to clean up.  I have all the broken branches cleaned up in the yard and fruit tree area.  I have the three pastures to now clean up.

So much snow that it looked like it would last until Spring.  But, even though our high temperature since then didn't exceed 33 or 34 degrees, and then only above freezing a few times, most of the snow melted and is gone.  Kind of surprising.  I now only have some snow in shady areas.  And of course, plenty of snow are still in the piles of broken branches which makes moving then hard.

Western Larch / Tamarack trees hadn't lost their needles for the year yet. And while in the past it seems that these trees' branches break off more, this time not many Western Larch trees lost their branches.

In the second photo you can see the branches from near the top were broken all the way down.

The chain link fence was coated.

After it started to melt.

With the snow I had to start feeding hay to the cattle.

After the snow mostly melted.

Swan Mountain range.

Some branches to clean up.  Fortunately none of them broke the power lines to my house.  My first power outage affected all the houses in the neighborhood.  The second power outage was just me.  Again no broken lines to my house.   Maybe the second power outage was because the circuit breaker on the power pole across the road was tripped.  The second power outage lasted from 10:30 am to 10:30 pm until the power company fixed the problem.

A few years ago I had the power company trim branches on this tree near my power line.  I guess this branch was too high for them to reach.  Fortunately it didn't break off.

The size of some of the broken branches.  This is after I cut off the branch's side branches.

Weaning calves and mountain view

A cold and windy day.  High temperature was maybe 42 degrees.  Snow flurries at times.

The low clouds pretty much hung around a good portion of the day.

Of course I have a calf that likes to stand in the feeder to eat the hay.

Flathead Lake cruise

Earlier on my hiking blog I had posted about Wild Horse Island.

http://tallpineshiker.blogspot.com/2019/07/wild-horse-island.html

As the island is only accessible by boat, this is how I got there.   Donna's family held a family reunion back in July.  On July 26 a number of the family members at the reunion rented a pontoon boat to cruise on Flathead Lake and go visit Wild Horse Island.  One of the local family members is an experienced boat pilot.

Donna's zodiac sign is Cancer.  And Cancer is a water sign.  I'm a Cancer and love water, and all the Cancers I've know love water.  Not Donna.  She doesn't even like drinking water.  I wonder if she really is a Cancer?  Anyway, Donna wasn't planning on going on the boat ride.  But her sister visiting from North Dakota talked her into going on the ride.  So I also went along as I love water and lakes.

It was a warm sunny day.  The wind was light, unlike the previous day and the next day which were both windy.   It was a beautiful day for a boat ride on Flathead Lake.

Mission Mountains

Mission Mountains in the back.  Wild Horse Island on the right.

South side of Wild Horse Island.  The slight hill left of center is near where Skeeto Bay is on the north side of the island.

Looking at where the highway goes away from the lake and over to Hot Springs.

The next two photos are of an island owned by, and a large ugly mansion on it built by, a guy from Las Vegas.

The next photos are of the most expensive house (and property) in Montana.  The property is an island.

Mini-island.  As far as I know it isn't owned by some rich person.

The trailer is on an island.

Smoke from a forest fire near Ronan, Montana.

Mission Mountains in the foreground right.  Swan Mountain Range is in the back.

The Starbucks COO had a funicular built so he could go from his house down the very steep hillside to the lake.

Alpen glow on Swan Mountains

I never get tired of looking at the mountains.  The view tonight from my place.