Back to Dakota

Last Thursday Tammy and I took the Amtrak train from Montana to North Dakota.  The train was not crowded as this is the off season for traveling.  I did notice that the passenger profile has changed - there are lots of men in their 20s, 30s, and 40s riding the train while in the past I hardly seen middle aged men on the train.  Why now, is due to these men working in the oil fields of North Dakota.  Many people got off and on the train at Williston, Stanley and Minot, North Dakota.

Before we left Kalispell I had a movie (Super 8) to return to the library  as it was due before we got back to Montana.  So we were up late watching the movie; and then I had to drive into Kalispell to drop it off at the library.  We never got to bed until after 1am.  Four hours later we got up to get ready to be at the train station by 7 am.  No matter - we could sleep on the train - and we did.

Tammy claims she can't sleep sitting up.   Here is a photo of her sleeping (with her 'blankee').  She claims she is not sitting up.  What do you think?

While the Flathead Valley is pretty bare, the mountains have plenty of snow.

Once we got over Marias Pass we had sun.  Here are photos once we passed over to the east side of the mountains.  We have had nothing but sun since leaving Kalispell.

The cloudy area to the right of center is where the train came over Marias Pass and through the mountains.

The further we got from the mountains the less snow we saw.

Sweetgrass Hills

Near Wolf Point, Montana the train stopped to attach a train car that was left another day due to problems with the car. The next two photos show the scenery to the north and to the south of the train.

Another photo from near Wolf Point, Montana

The train was on time or ahead of schedule all the way until we got the train car near Wolf Point. That took 40 minutes to attach and we never made up that time before we got to Minot.

The Minot train station is still affected from the 2011 flood.  The ticket office and baggage office are located in a back room while the station is being fixed.

Bad bicycle seat

My bicycle seat broke today when I was riding my bicycle.   This is the third time this has happened to me over my many years of riding.   The first time this happened to me many years ago I was sitting up and taking my shirt off so I did not have my hands on the handlebars.  I fell off the back of my bicycle and got pretty scratched up.  This time the seat started to loosen up before the bolt broke.  So I had a clue that something was up and I was able to stop and get off the seat safely.

Still, I had to ride my bicycle home standing up all the way.  Over four miles.

Here are before-and-after photos before I used another bolt to attach the seat on to the seat post.  Pretty obvious why I rode home standing up.

FYI - this bicycle seat has had over 38,000 miles of use.  It shows, doesn't it?

Oh yeah... the newspaper?  My temporary fender as the roads are wet now.  Not classy.. but it prevents a stripe up my back.

Suet near gone

The birds have been working on the suet.  It is almost gone.

I took this last picture with the fish-eye effect on the camera.  It makes for a different kind of photo.

Ice, ice, baby

When winter started the water and snow in the livestock's water trough froze into a solid block of ice. Yesterday I noticed how the ice has changed.   See how the ice is gone around the sides?  It appears the temperature has been cold enough that all the ice does not melt back into water.  Instead the sides get just warm enough to evaporate the ice next to the metal.

Neat, huh?

By the way... as you can see in the last photo, it snowed last night.  We unexpectedly got two inches of snow.  Something (clearing the driveway) to keep me busy while Tammy is away.

Tex mex skillet dinner

Today Tammy flew to Washington State to visit my relatives and attend a Tastefully Simple conference.

I'm on my own.  I have to fend for myself.  I have to make my own food.  I'm gonna starve!!!

Oh wait.  I know how to cook.   Never mind.

So tonight I made a dinner that Tammy wasn't interested in.  A Homemade Gourmet Tex-Mex Skillet Dinner.

http://recipes.homemadegourmet.com/recipe.asp?code=9886

Tammy didn't think she would like Tex-Mex seasoning.  And this dinner was an opportunity to use up some ground beef.  Tammy is not much of a red meat eater.  And she likes her meat fresh.  No more than a few months old.  The ground beef I have in my freezer is more on the order of 'more than a few years old' and Tammy won't eat it.

Since Tammy will be away for a few days and I need food to tide me over until she returns...I got a little carried away. I added a little more of my rice to the amount of rice that came in the Homemade Gourmet packet.  Then I had to adjust the amount of water.  Then I decided to add two pounds of beef instead of just one pound to balance the rice out.  In hindsight I should have added one more can of diced tomatoes to balance the meal out.  Oh well, there is always leftovers to experiment with.  (That is if I survive after eating my 'old' ground beef.  Tammy keeps telling me I will die from eating it.  I haven't yet.  Tune in tomorrow to see if my lucky streak continues.  Or wait... the expiration date on the rice and seasoning was back in 2011.  If I kick the bucket tonight that could be the reason!   Yikes!)

By the way... I like the meal I made and am looking forward to leftovers tomorrow.

Expo candidiates

At the Ronan Expo and tradeshow I had a conversation with the campaign manager for Janna Taylor.  In the last Montana legislature Ms Taylor had voted for HB 198 which:

"Authorizes public utilities to acquire property by eminent domain in order to provide service to customers or construct a facility without certifying that the acquisition is necessary for public use, whereas existing law required such certification"

http://votesmart.org/bill/12628/35878

HB 198 came about because a Canadian power company wanted to take farmers' and ranchers' land to build a power line.  Local Republicans claim they are for property rights... but apparently not when it comes for a foreign business.  No wonder all the local Republicans who voted this bill into law would like to pretend that didn't happen.

The campaign manager let slip that Ms Taylor warned him that her vote on this bill would come up in conversation.  Still, he wasn't able to defend her vote beyond the vague 'there were some good things in the bill'.  His defense withered away when I discussed the history of this bill and a similar bill in the legislature that protected a landowner's rights. That bill was side lined by the lobbyists and politicians.  Based on her vote on the matter I believe Ms Taylor doesn't deserve to be returned to the Montana Legislature.

http://laws.leg.mt.gov/laws11/LAW0211W$BLAC.VoteTabulation?P_VOTE_SEQ=H335

Ronan expo

Today Tammy and I drove to Ronan, Montana to attend the Ronan Expo and Livestock Trade Show at the Ronan Community Center building.  Tammy had a table there to sell her Tastefully Simple product.

It was a much earlier start to the day than we are accustomed to.  We left the house at 6:30 am.  This is hours before we normally get out of bed.  The expo started at 9 am and it was more than an hour drive to Ronan.  Very little traffic was on the road as most sensible people were snuggled in their warm beds.  It was dark out until we got to Polson, Montana, 11 miles from Ronan.  Then it was grey from an overcast sky.

The expo room wasn't too big.  There were probably a little over two dozen tables/vendors in the room.  Several Republican candidates for state offices had tables. A bank had a table.  An insurance agent. A cable TV company.  Several agriculture-related businesess.  A half dozen home-based direct-selling businesses like Tammy's Tastefully Simple business.

We were set up and ready a short time before 9 am.

 
Next to Tammy's table was Tammy's friend, Eva's, table.  Eva sells Tupperware.  Eva had a very good day as she had several big sales.  Otherwise it was slow sales wise for most people.  Tammy sold some things, but not enough to cover the expo fee.  The expo had a decent attendance for a small town and a number of women took catalogs and expressed interest, so it may be a case where the sales come later via the internet once the people look the catalog over.

On the other side of Tammy's table was one of the two irrigation sellers at the expo.  Before the expo started I chatted with one of the guys about irrigation pumps, one of which I have. The pump has not been used since dad quit using it.  I am interested in re-starting irrigating the property but would want to know if it was possible to use the old pump.  Nothing definitive can be determined without seeing the pump, but it seems possible to do.

I also talked with an older couple who had a disabled son or grandson along with them.  They were selling vitamins that causes people or animals to stimulate their adult stem cells to allow them to heal quicker. They had three gruesome before-and-after photos showing the claim of how well the pills work. I am leery of pills that could work on either horses or humans, depending how much you like the taste of alfalfa.  He seemed sincere but the pills seemed like snake oil to me.

The expo left a side door open all day even though the outside temperature was in the mid 20s under a cloudy sky.  The reason the door was open was so people would go visit the livestock stuff outside.  For us inside it made it a cold day.  The room had four or five heat lamps as pictured below.  But it didn't make the room warm.  Tammy hugged her cup of hot chocolate and ended the day with cold feet.  Most people kept their coats on.

Tammy bought a raffle ticket to win an iPad2.  She didn't win.  

The expo went from 9 am to 3 pm.  Shortly before 3 pm most vendors were taking their booths down and packing up.  Close to 3 pm we did the same.  Tammy has a fast routine and we were on the road by 3:30 pm.

We drove home on the highway on the east side of Flathead Lake as Tammy had never been south of Bigfork on this road.  This area is where most of the Flathead cherry orchards are located.

Mountain snow

Light from the setting sun on the mountains today.

For the first photo I zoomed into Glacier Park.

Swan Range.

On the right side of the photo, and perhaps just to the right of the photo itself, a cross-country skier died in an avalanche Wednesday afternoon when a snow cornice he was on broke and he fell down into the ensuing avalanche and was buried under five feet of snow.

Checking out an Expo building

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.