Fencing and wood stove

Another wet day Wednesday, though no snow fell. By the end of the day all the snow - except for the snow that slid off roofs - melted as the temperatures got into the lows 40s F. By evening the clouds lifted so I could see much of the mountains.

I stayed in all day and did stuff inside. I also made a cake and pumpkin bread and muffins. So I will be ready to be outside for work Thursday once the weather improves.

Monday I had been working on protecting my fruit trees and bushes in my garden area as I plan to let the cattle in there to eat the grass down. I am trying to get it so in the future I will only need 15 minutes or so of protection before letting the cattle in as I already have some sort of permanent fencing around the trees and many bushes to protect them from the deer. But while a flimsy fence will stop a deer, the cattle will push and break weak fencing. Time to upgrade.

Years ago when I first built fences around my young fruit trees I didn't have any fence posts so I used pine tree branches for posts. Four or five years later the 'posts' are not so strong anymore. Each year I replace the posts with metal posts when the cattle break the branch posts. This year I decided to replace three fences that are still all branch posts to get ahead of the cattle. And I replaced a few other posts in other fences as I didn't want to get into rebuilding all nine fences at this time. I keep meaning to fix all fruit tree fences for good during the summer when I have more time, but that never happens. I never seem to have time. In my defense, I have only gotten more chicken wire and other small fencing material at auctions this past year.

So I spent most of Monday working on my fruit tree and bush fencing. If it hadn't started to seriously rain Monday evening I would have finished all the protection work.

I have one more fence to completely rebuild. I wanted to complete this fence before letting the cattle in, but this morning I found the cattle have mowed the NE pasture down pretty good once the snow melted, and some of the cattle were working on reaching the small bushes and trees protected by a fence I built last year. I found they pushed on that field fence and worked their tongues through the larger openings and seemed to have eaten my small Caragana trees and were working on reaching the small arborvitae trees. *argh*

The cattle gathered around me and some bellowed at me: "I'm hungry. I want easier to eat food. I'm tired of nipping the grass shorter and I want longer grass." Okay, okay. So I quickly wrapped a last few trees and bushes and then let the cattle in my fruit tree and garden area hoping they will concentrate on the grass and leave the trees alone for now.

After I finish my breakfast I will rebuild the final fence.

I again had my wood stove going the past few days to heat my house. Here a few photos I took a few days ago when I had the stove going. The stove puts out lots of heat. Sometimes when I am tired I act like a cat and curl up in front of the stove to be warm.

Primary election

It's been over a week now, but I thought I'd write about my experience as an election judge before I forget.

In the photo to the right you can see the voting booth. The gray box on the right is the M100 voting machine.

I was asked to be an election judge for the June 3 primary in the same precinct I served in 2006: precinct 20 in Whitefish.

This year the County election officials moved our precinct and one other (47) from the Armory to the Golden Agers senior citizen center west of downtown Whitefish. This made it easier for some of the older people to come to the polls as the armory is a little ways out of town. The senior center part of the building was still open as a few people came in to have a hot meal for lunch.

Karen was the chief election judge this year as Carmen married and moved away. Karen came Monday night and set up the voting booths and checked stuff out. I and the rest of the judges came in at 6 am so we would have an hour to prepare prior to the polls opening at 7 am. For all there is to do an hour is barely enough time.

Man, 7 am is early!

I got up at 4:40 am (a crazy time to get out of a warm bed!) after waking up a few times during the night to check the time. I seldom use an alarm clock and didn't trust it.

It was dark at this time and during my drive to the polling place few cars were on the roads. Fortunately no deer were seen either.

While the forecast was for sun and a decent day it was drizzling lightly during the drive. That's ok, I'll be inside all day. Unfortunately the sky cleared later that morning and I missed out on a decent day by being indoors.

We rushed around and were able to hang the signs up, set up the handicapped voting machine, and prepare the M100 regular voting machine and be open at 7 am to a short line of people waiting to vote before they headed off to work. It would have been nice to have had a couple more minutes. The chief judge for the other precinct was pushing to open the doors to the voters even though we would have liked a few more minutes to double check we had prepared everything. Nope, the doors were opened.

Karen had all the keys we needed on a loop around her neck. The loop wasn't long enough so she had to stoop to use the keys on the machines and boxes to open them, and to activate the machines. All the keys looked similar and each time they were needed it seemed as if the last key was the correct one. I am not a fan of stooping to use a key; I would have taken the loop off my neck and used the keys. Stooping seemed to make it take longer to find and use the correct key.

Karen seemed to be the coffee addict of the group as she mentioned several times she was not functioning well because she had not had her coffee yet.

We had 6 election judges until 5 pm when two of the women left due to other commitments. Of course after they left we had our largest group of voters as people came to vote after work. It was pretty crazy there for a while.

One woman was a real estate agent. Another woman has a business taking photos of kids sport teams that play at the local KidSports public complex.

Another woman was a long time Whitefish resident and knew quite a number of the voters. She is a bookkeeper for her husband's business, volunteers at the local spay and neuter clinic, and at the O’Shaughnessy center in Whitefish. One of her voter friends told us she used to be a hippy from San Francisco. We kidded her about that as she shows no signs now she ever was a hippy.

Things were going smoothly for a few hours until the M100 ballot machine had a paper jam. We called one of the 'runners' who travel between the precincts in town to help solve problems, and she ended up calling the main office. We were told we could turn off the machine, remove the counter unit to reach the jammed ballot to remove it, then put everything back together without a loss of counted votes. *whew* It worked. We didn't want our machine to fail as that meant we would have to hand count the ballots at the end of the night.

Before the voter feeds their ballot into the machine we remove the ballot stub so the ballot no longer can be tracked. Apparently when the judge removed the stub she also tore/removed part of the bottom of the ballot. There was of just blank space at the end of the ballot but it confused the machine. Instead of the machine counting or rejecting the ballot, it jammed. Once we freed the ballot we took and sealed it in a 'hand count' envelope to be counted by the election department at the end of the night. After this mishap we all were careful when removing the ballot stub.

After what seemed to be all morning I discovered it was only 9:30 am. Oh boy, this is going to be a long day! Every few hours Karen wanted us to change positions to do another job. That was fine with the greeter and M100 judges as they had to stand to do their jobs. I did all the jobs but the greeter. Once the two women left the greeter job was eliminated and Karen stepped in to do one of the jobs.

As in the 2006 elections I found that the other precinct's women voters looked prettier. Why is that?! The women voters we had seemed to look older than their age. And it wasn't just my imagination. When I took turns handling the registration book, I found the voters birth date was listed with their name and address.

Our oldest voter was a 98 year old woman. Another woman was 88 years old. One 80 year old woman walked over from an assisted living facility a few blocks away using her cane. She forgot her id and said she would walk home to get it. But we found two people in the senior center who knew her and could vouch for her identify. We let her vote instead of making her walk home to get her id.

One of the voters when I was in charge was Tim Torgenson. I remember that name from the music concerts last summer. I asked if he was the musician and he told me he worked with hand puppets and was a magician. Huh?! He then confessed he was pulling my leg and he was indeed a musician. He offered to get my email address to email me a list of his concerts this summer, but in the hubbub I didn't give it to him.

The Democrat running for county commissioner lives in our precinct and he voted. He had to point out he was on the ballot as no one recognized him.

My friend Jackie stopped by. It turns out she votes in the precinct still at the armory. And after giving me something to eat left to go vote.

This being Montana, each election we have citizen initiatives to be on the general election ballot. Two groups were gathering signatures outside the building as precincts are a good place to get signatures from registered voters. One petition was to establish an individual provider program to provide assistance to the elderly and disabled to remain in their own home instead of having to go into a nursing home. I guess this initiative is modeled after a program in Washington state.

Another petition is to amend the Montana constitution to say that life begins at conception, or some such. This is more controversial and I read that Planned Parenthood or other groups planned to also have people at the precincts to try to dissuade people from signing the petitions. No counter groups were at our precinct.

I am proud of Montana's tradition of citizen initiatives unlike Minnesota where it is pretty much impossible for citizens get something on the ballot for a vote by everyone. There the bureaucracy and lobbiests control the legislation. So, while I may not agree with all initiatives, I support their right to be on the ballot for all to vote on and take a dim view of groups that try to prevent the people from getting a chance to vote. I guess I'll never be one of those slimy politicians.

Other judges brought food. Cookies, brownies, bananas, chocolate, peanut candy clusters, turkey roll wraps, tea and coffee. The other precinct also brought sliced melons and pasta salad. I got all the pasta salad at the end of the day as no one ate it and the woman who made it didn't want to take it home. It turns out the lady who made it use to live in my mom's house back in 1972 before mom bought the house. What a coincidence! Unbelievable. She knew some of mom's longtime neighbors.

Karen was more than ready to quit at 8 pm. 10 minutes prior she was starting to take down extra voting booths. When John mentioned we needed one more voter to make 33% voted, and I asked what time it was and he said 8 pm, Karen rushed over to open the door and announce it was 8 pm and the polls were closed, and then she locked the doors.

A voter came a minute later and I prevailed on Karen to let him in to vote. It turns out he was a voter for the other precinct. Darn. But a couple came a few minutes later from the other precinct and they were registered to vote in our precinct. Karen was not pleased but we let them vote. By now we only had one voting booth set up so the guy had to use a table where the senior citizens had their lunch.

Our precinct had 1240 register voters vs. less than 1,000 for other precinct. Yet they had more people who voted. Figure that.

We had 409 voters for almost a 33% turnout. It turns out math is not John's strong suit when he thought the couple would make it over 33% for our precinct. The 409 does not include absentee ballots. County wide the turnout was 41% as it is easy to vote via absentee ballot.

Our precinct is a Democratic precinct as 274 voters were Democrats and 135 were Republicans.

It was a rush to get everything taken down and put away. We had to put stuff to be taken to the election headquarters in the right envelopes. Other stuff put away in a locked closet. And a number of items had to be sealed and all our signatures on the seal.

We didn't get out of there until 9:30 pm. That explains why it takes a while for votes to be tabulated after the precincts close.

This was a good group of judges and I would be fine with working with them in the general election in November.

Cattle and snow

The cattle weren't too thrilled by the snow Tuesday as it made eating harder. When not eating they would stand or lay in the large pine trees' rain shadows where it was dry. I didn't have to fill their water trough today. Wonder why?

My neighbor's son took down their pop-up camper late in the afternoon. Half the herd of cattle all gathered round by the fence and watched. Nothing else to do I guess.

So far the trees have handled the snow. But as you can see the branches are weighted down.

The pop-up camper is in the background before it was taken down.

And yes, to those of you living in North Dakota and Minnesota, snow can fall straight down.

Snow in June

The weather forecaster got it wrong again!

The forecast was for rain in the Valley and snow in the mountains. I woke up this morning to snow blanketing everything. And it snowed all day.

It is suppose to snow tomorrow also. This is suppose to end by Thursday afternoon. I'll believe it when I see it!

I don't know how many inches fell as the temperature hovered above freezing all day and the snow somewhat melted during the day.

Snow on June 10!!! Well... this is Montana.

Photo 1 is my front yard when I got up for the day.
Photo 2 is my front yard in the afternoon. Big, fluffy, wet snowflakes.
Photo 3: behind the pine trees is the Swan Mountain Range. Can't see it? Neither could I all day.

My back yard. Photo 1 was taken yesterday when it wasn't raining. Photo 2 was taken this morning.

Yeh, I know. I need to cut my lawn. I will... sort of... once I get things in order. Then I'll let the cattle in to eat the grass down. The grass is too tall to mow.

The back 40 yesterday... (the two white objects are milk jugs on poles to mark my pocket gopher traps)


The back 40 today...


What a difference a day makes!

Back online

I am finally back online at home. For my internet access one of the support centers in Mumbai, India was flooded. It took several days before I could get through to a real live person to have my internet reactivated.

*whew*

It has been wet and busy here. And cold. I used my wood stove over the weekend to heat my house as the temperature outside was in the lower 40s F. Today was suppose to be dry with some sun - it wasn't. I guess a 20% chance of rain means it is going to rain at least 20% of the time. During light rainy periods I kept working outside. It was sunny and dry briefly this morning - until I stepped outside. It began to rain 10 minutes later.

*augh!* I have stuff to do!

I have cattle as I am renting pasture to Dan. And I have had 3 and 1/2 jailbreaks already!!! Three jailbreaks in 48 hours - a new record. And out of the corral of all places! Last year I only had two jailbreaks and one jailbreak was through a neighbor's fence when the cattle were invited to eat his pasture down.

I have already trapped five pocket gophers without really trying. I've been busy doing other stuff and only put out a few traps when I stumbled across gopher mounds.

The forecast is for rain over the next few days. If it rains at 20% chance I am certain it will be another all day rain with a 90% chance. The mountains have a Winter storm watch out over the next several days as they are predicted to get one to two feet of snow. When I get time I will upload some photos of the mountain view from my front yard. Lots of snow on them. I'll have to fire up my wood stove again as the predicted high the next few days is in the low 40s F. Where's global warming when you need it?

Primary election job forms

I was an election judge Tuesday. I was happy to do it. The election department called me early Monday afternoon to ask to me to help them Tuesday.

The difference this time is that Flathead County outsourced the hiring to Express Personnel Services, a private employment company. I got paid the same as when the County handled the employment in 2006; I guess now it costs the County more as they pay me and also pay the employment company a fee to administer the program. I'm sure they need to be reimbursed for having to handle all the forms we had to fill out for being employed.

*sigh*

That meant I have to go to the Express company office and fill out paperwork. Lots of paperwork. More paperwork than I wanted to fill out. By the time I left them Monday I was in a prickly mood, and I think the little pimply receptionist picked up on my mood.

For a $6.50 an hour one day job I had to fill out

• an application form
• release to search my past employment history
• release for drug testing
• other forms I have forgotten.

I did not have two forms of id as I only had my drivers license. That was not good enough. Therefore I had to come uptown today to finish the paperwork before I would be paid.

Today was more forms:

• the id form
• W4
• benefits form
• form asking if I ever been on food stamps, TANF, or other assistance
• form asking about military service, if I was affected by Hurricane Katrina, and other situations where I may have preference in being hired.

For each form I had to fill out my name, address, age, and social security number as minimum. I should just had a sticker name made to put on the forms. By the end, and with the stupid forms, my handwriting was poor as I didn't care anymore - even I had trouble reading my handwriting.

I was not happy about the forms.

I was not alone. During the election I talked about this to the other election judges. Apparently during the training sessions when all the judges had to fill these forms out, most of the little old retired ladies who have volunteered for years were very offended about the form for drug testing. Apparently to calm them down the company said they were not planning on conducting any drug tests or making the people submit urine. Then why make everyone fill out this form?

At the end of my form filling I mentioned that if the company had any one or two day jobs that were interesting to let me know. The receptionist said they didn't have any short term jobs at this time, but if I was interested in being considered to come in and have a full profile done as the forms I filled out were only a "shell" evaluation.

You got to be kidding me. I ain't interested in filling out more forms.

And I left.

I guess I am still in a prickly mood.

Fruit trees and garden

This weekend I fixed my crooked mailbox. I had to take the mailbox and board it was attached to off the post, re-nail the board to the post, then reattach the mailbox. It is now straight.

I checked my garden and fruit tree area. While my rhubarb is towering over the grass, the grass is so high I couldn't see any of my strawberry plants. I thought they hadn't survived the Winter as I hadn't given them the care they needed last year. But they are there in amongst the grass. I really need to weed my strawberry patch.

My raspberries are growing. After a great year last year I need to prune the dead stems. And of course, weed the patch.

Two of my three grape plants are showing a few buds. For whatever reason the grapes are the last to grow each season. Two of my three blueberry plants show signs of life, albeit weakly. They were struggling last year.

My other plants/bushes are coming along and appear to have made it through the winter. I see the deer bit the top off a couple of my small arborvitae trees. Darn deer!

My nectarine tree is coming up from the roots as the tree appears to be dead. At least something lives on it. My other fruit trees are doing well, though my plum trees are lagging again this year. One of my apple trees is full of blossoms and the other has some blossoms. It appears it will be an off year for that tree. My third apple tree, the smallest of the "big 3" and the one that seldom produced much in the way of apples, appears to have mostly died. A few leaves is all. I think this is the end for this tree.

Surprisingly my carrots are growing and did not rot over winter. I had really covered them well this winter and the Spring moisture did not reach them to rot them. I pulled a couple carrots from the ground and ate one. Edible, but old.

I spent a few hours pulling the big weeds that have sprung up across my garden. My hands were tired by the time I was done. I am still considering what to do with the garden this year as I have no starter plants. I plan to plant the crops that don't need a long growing season: radishes, lettuce, carrots, beets, peas, etc. No pumpkin, muskmelon, watermelon, etc. plants. Oh well, on a good year I seldom get much from them.

The vegetables I had stored in my crawl space over Winter all rotted or molded. It was just too long for them to be down there. I took them out and cleaned up the crawl space. The rest of my apples I had stored in my refrigerator also didn't make it. Again, too long a time.

I stopped and visited with Bob and Jan Saturday afternoon. I moved their concrete bird baths out from the garage back to their lawn. I also mowed around a few trees Bob couldn't reach with his riding lawn mower. I stayed and had supper with them. Yum! Chicken breasts, potato salad, and jello. The spices on the chicken breasts made them spicy hot. Good. Eating chicken breasts reminded me of a former girlfriend who made them often. She didn't spice them up, but they were still very tasty.

Sunday I fenced around three small trees in the NE pasture. This is to protect them from the cattle who will eat almost anything. I didn't quite finish the fence work as it began to rain, and then rained or drizzled the rest of the day. I have all three trees encircled with a fence; I now need to cover them from the top as cattle will work their head down and use their long tongue to munch on the trees.

I got a call earlier this afternoon to be an election judge and I will do that all day tomorrow. The day starts at 6 am as the polls open at 7 am. It will be a long day, but hopefully a fun and rewarding day. I again will be working up in Whitefish, though at a different precinct and location this time.

Bicycle Eclectic

A gorgeous day today! A light breezy at 5 mph under a sunny sky with a temperature of 67 F. The only clouds are white puffy clouds hanging around the mountain tops.

The mountains are mostly capped in white. June 1 of last year Gary, Joyce, and I hiked to the top of Mt. Aneneas. There was only a few spots of snow seen from the Valley then with lots of snow when we hiked up there. Not this year! I see lots and lots of snow on those mountains. It still could be a great hike under a sunny sky and warm temperatures, but one would definitely would have to wear footwear for walking on snow.

With the nice weather here the women are dressing for summer. Less clothes. Shorts, etc. Nice. On my ride uptown I saw a young woman in shorts and halter top riding a cruiser bicycle and going the other direction. She caught me eye. I guess the right woman will pique my interest even when I am immersed in getting back into a routine here and don't really have the interest in the opposite sex until I get settled again.

Friday I rode my bicycle uptown and visited the Hockaday Museum. Friday and Saturday the museum is having Community Days when people can visit the museum for free.

One of the exhibitions is "Bicycle Eclectic". This exhibition is a series of black and white photos along with a description of people bicycling long distances who had stopped in at the Adventure Cycling organization's headquarters in Missoula, Montana. (At the risk of showing my age, I remember when this organization was called Bikecentential.) The photos were taken starting in 1982 to the present.

The photos were of one or more people and a bicycle they were riding loaded with their touring gear. They are neat photos and show a variety of people, reasons for their bicycle trip, and their story.

If you following the Hockaday Museum link and see the photo for Bicycle Eclectic, this guy pictured, and holding a push lawn mower, brought it with him and earned money cutting lawns as he rode across America.

One man from Missoula, Montana had ridden from Anchorage, Alaska to somewhere in Montana almost annually for the past twenty years. The few years he didn't ride from Alaska, he rode a long distance ride elsewhere. 57,000 miles ridden during this time. His "photo" was a series of a half dozen photos of him taken over the past twenty years.

The museum also had a wooden life size model of a mountain bicycle equipped with wooden knobby tires. That was neat.

I also checked out the other exhibitions. A few were related to Montana, Indians, and Glacier Park, and others were abstract art and I didn't catch the connection to Montana. I wasn't too impressed with the other exhibitions. Then again, a non-bicyclist may not be all that impressed with the Bicycle Eclectic exhibition.

Now, after seeing this exhibit did I get the itch to go on another long distance bicycle ride? No. Being here in Kalispell satisfies me and I don't have the urge to wander. Besides I have the outlet of hiking.

Getting back into a routine

After many months away now is the hard part - trying to get back into a routine. Everything seems different and unfamiliar at the same time. Because I was gone over the winter not as much changed around town as could have. Or at least at what I've seen.

The vibe and people are what I remembered. On the go. None of the laid back Scandinavian attitude found in North Dakota. The people here look different and act different. Fortunately I can handle either attitude, though right now I prefer the forward leaning do-something attitude found here.

I found my well and water pipes were fine. No frozen pipes. I had left a light bulb on in my well shed and a heater as backup. The light bulb was burnt out when I arrived. The heater worked.

My mailbox was crooked as the snowplow was unable to knock it off my new post over winter. On my to-do list is to reattach it correctly.

I've unpacked much of my luggage. I'm still struggling to get into a routine.

I stopped by the County election office, and after speaking with Karen (another North Dakota transplant as she was originally born in Grand Forks, ND), I found she had filled all the election judge positions for the primary election. Darn! I was looking forward being an election judge again this year. I learned that the chief election judge with whom I worked last time, Carmen, got married and moved to the Hamilton area in SW Montana. Many of the women remembered me and told me to check back for the general election is November as they will try to find me a position.

I spoke with Dan this morning. He is still putting a herd together as one of his sources fell through. He may not get a full herd together so I may end of cutting the hayfield this year. I'll see what happens.

This morning I walked part of the pasture and checked the boundary fences and river. The fences look good. The river is muddy and high and moving right along. It doesn't appear that any trees blew down over winter. But then they seldom do. It is during summer rain/wind storms that they can get blown over.

While uptown yesterday it rained. I waited until it quit and rode my bicycle back home last evening on wet roads. Three miles from home it began to rain. Hard. I was soaked by the time I got home. After supper I fell asleep early listening to my favorite radio station.

This morning I got up early. 8 am! Can you imagine me getting up that early if I didn't have to?

I am at the library again today and thunder has started to rumble. Outside the open library window the street now sounds wet . Another wet ride home I guess. *sigh*

Train back to Montana

I had to be at the train station for luggage check-in by 10:30 am. Even though we were getting all green lights, my brother and I were cutting it close. Then we discovered the road to the station was blocked off. The train station is being remodeled from the boring 1970s style box building to a station with bricks and a sloping roof of an old style station. Because of the construction work the road was closed.

*argh!*

The detour was way around to the east and through downtown Minot.

Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!

I got to the station at 10:25 am. *whew*

I found when I got to the train station that my train reservation/ticket was wrong. It was from Whitefish to Minot, not Minot to Whitefish. The arrival and departure times are close each way so I hadn't noticed. The only thing I could think of was that Amtrak's web site reset to my profile's default itinerary sometime during my search for available dates.

Oh! Great! I need to get home today.

The ticket agent checked and said there were no seats left. WHAT?! Then she corrected herself. Because the time now was after the scheduled departure time her computer had checked availability for the next day.

*whew*

Checking this day showed one seat left. I bought it even though when a person buys a ticket from an agent and not through the 1-800 number or web site you can't use your discounts on the purchase price. No matter, what I wanted was a ticket.

Then it was time to wait for the train. It arrived after 11 pm - more than 2 and 1/2 hours late. Apparently the train had been delayed around Detroit Lakes, Minnesota in the middle of the night because a car was on the tracks. People weren't sure if it was a suicide attempt or someone drunk out of their mind. A wrecker had to be called to move the car.

Because of the number of people on, and boarding the train at Minot, I made sure I was one of the first to get on my train car. I was able to find two seats open and got a window seat. While there were plenty of passengers, the car was only about 3/4 full. I was able to have the two seats my entire journey.

I checked three large suitcases. There is a 50 lb limit and they check the suitcase's weight if they feel heavy. My suitcases weighed: 47, 47, and 35 lbs. The agent weighed the two 47 lb suitcases as she didn't believe me when I said they weighed that much. They did.

In addition I had another suitcase plus a half dozen bags and boxes. These I brought on with me as there is always plenty of room around one's seat and in the downstairs luggage bin.

*whew* Made it.

As the train left Minot I could see the areas that had burnt in the grass fires a month ago. The ground was a nice green. The areas not burnt had more brown than green as the green grass is not very tall. It was this way across North Dakota and much of Montana. It got greener the closer we got to the mountains. When I got home I was surprised at how green and tall the grass was in my yard. I shouldn't have been surprised considering it is this way every year at this time.

The tulips on the north side of my house are in bloom and very pretty. On the south side they are not and actually seem stunted and smaller. The south side always blooms first so this is a surprise. I wonder if the deer ate them and they are now re-growing. The tulips I transplanted to the west side of my house are a mixture of stunted and trying to bloom. I found I didn't find all the tulips bulbs last Fall when I moved bulbs from the holding area outside my tulip garden south of the house. I have a dozen or so plants coming up.

My train trip was enjoyable, though non-descript. I think this was partly due to me being tired and partly because I have done this trip quite a few times. I mainly slept and read and didn't spend much time sightseeing out the window. One noteworthy time was when the train passed the Sweetgrass Hills. I sat on the north side of the train and had view of them. The other time was when we were in the mountains. Even though the train was late it was still light when we entered the mountains, though dark once we got to West Glacier on the other side. The Middle Fork of the Flathead River is running high and brown in the mountains, even on high and closer to the Pass.

There is still lots of snow on the mountains and they are very pretty. The setting sun added a muted orange color in the sky around some of the mountains. The best views shift back and forth between the north and south side of the train. I didn't go to the observation car as, while beautiful, I have seen the views many times before.

The passengers were of a different breed than usual, else I was too tired to really socialize. I did speak with a guy across the aisle from me. He was getting off the train at East Glacier, then going the next day to the Many Glacier Hotel where he will be working for the summer. Last summer he worked at the Lake MacDonald gift store. This past winter he worked at a resort in Hawaii. This is what he does for a living. The jobs don't pay much so he does it partly for the experience. After working this Summer at Many Glacier he has no idea what he will do next.

He was a nice enough guy, but there was something odd about him. He was balding and looked to be in his 40s, but he had a naivety about him. My gaydar was going off, and although he mentioned he used to have a girlfriend for 4 years, I wonder about him.

Oh well, he should have a good summer at the Park.

At times during the journey the train was as much as 2 hours 40 minutes late. Eventually the train began to make up time and I arrived in Whitefish a little under 2 hours late. They could have made up time on the whistle stops but the train allowed smokers a couple minutes to smoke outside and that delayed us.

The smokers would rush outside and stand and smoke their cigarette furiously. While one of my friends thinks seeing a woman smoke is sexy, not me. Quite the opposite. Even the young women with good looking bodies who smoked looked old and haggard to me when I looked at their faces.

Bob and Jan were waiting at the Whitefish train station for me. To my surprise Jackie was there also in case Bob and Jan couldn't make it. Jackie brought me a bag of food to help me until I get situated.

Around the luggage cart one young woman waiting for her husband/boyfriend/or brother didn't manage her daughter well. Once the cart arrived it was a mad rush of people pulling their bags down off the cart. This is not a place for a 3 or 4 year child. Fortunately the little girl did not get clipped by a suitcase or stepped on before her mother finally pulled her away from the cart. I did give the mother a look though, and not a pleasant one.

I got home at 11:30 pm. The house had a smell of a combination of being stuffy with a wood smoke smell. An interesting combination and neither smell was dominant which made for an interesting smell and not a terribly obnoxious one. I did open the windows briefly today in an attempt to air the house out.

I was tired as I had slept only three hours the previous night and a few hours on the train and fell into bed without unpacking my suitcases. My bed felt odd. It was no longer familiar after all these months. Still, I quickly fell asleep and slept long and hard.

Catching the train

I am waiting for Amtrak. If the train was on time I would be on it and going to Montana right now. The train was suppose to arrive at 8:34 am. The latest estimate is for it to arrive at 11 am - 2 1/2 hours late. *argh!*

The good news is that I wasn't ready to catch the train if it was on time. I didn't start packing my luggage until 11 pm last night. I didn't go to bed until after 4 am. I planned on getting up at 6:40 am but didn't. The alarm clock only had a low hum. It was almost 6:55 pm when I faintly heard my mother's voice calling me. I was in the middle of an active dream so I was surprised I woke up.

Then I have been dragging on less than 3 hours sleep as I packed a lunch this morning.

So I am happy the train is late, but not too happy that it is this late as that means it will be late into Whitefish. The train can make up time across Montana but not 2 and 1/2 hours.

Trivia night: last night

Last night was my last night of trivia before I return to Montana. I was happy the Landing Bar decided to have a trivia night on Memorial Day as I wanted one more time at trivia before returning to Montana. I wasn't sure how many people would attend, and saw less cars in the parking lot than usual before I entered the bar, but the place was almost full.

Our team had plenty of members: Darell, Mona, Al, Marvin, Jeff, Donna, and Carla - Jeff and Donna's daughter. Yes, that is where I got the idea Donna was called Carla. The others realized I didn't know Donna's name and got a kick out of me referring to her as Jeff's wife in my blog. It appears they misled me into thinking Carla was Donna's name. Tonight we all had a big laugh when they introduced Carla and they explained they knew I didn't know Donna's name for what seemed to be forever, and knew I had thought Donna was Carla for a few weeks.

Carla was visiting her parents and hometown for the weekend and her parents encouraged her to attend trivia with them. Mona and the group said that when I wrote up about Carla on this blog I should write something sexy about her; i.e. say that she works as a stripper in her spare time. The next the group did was make jokes about pole dancing with Carla joining in on the joke. Well, none of that is true. Carla is attractive and intelligent and looks like her mom. Carla won one of the quarter questions and took a Miller Lite t-shirt as her prize. In the regular contests I can't fault her for saying Venus was the planet with a blue sunset as I thought the same.

After the trivia contests were over I also learned Carla is getting her Masters in psychology and also has "spidey sense" as she shared an amusing spider-in-the-bathroom story with the group. Carla works for a company that creates job application personality questionnaires which I found to be fascinating as I have taken a number of personality tests and have an interest in this subject.

But... Carla and I got into a debate as, having taken a number of the tests, I wondered how accurate or foolproof they are. I found our discussion interesting, as a number of my close friends would nod their heads and expect of me, but Carla's and my debate came within about 5 minutes of first talking with her. I've found in the past that discussions like this too soon can annoy people as they can take it personally when what I am interested in is an intelligent discussion on some idea or concept where I can learn something.

Carla will be an excellent employee for her company as she adamantly defended the tests as I challenged, probed, and tried to learn more.

She also mentioned that IBM has implemented conflict resolution training since 2002. This was after I left IBM so I checked with some of my longtime colleagues at IBM and they never heard of it. I've found online a mention of a class IBM offers on this subject. I also see (via google) that conflict resolution seems to be a popular topics for companies.

Al came this night with Ed. Al is feeling better now, which is good as he provided answers for some of the questions.

With so many people I had to get another table to make three tables for people to sit around.

Ed may use my questions in the upcoming weeks since I will be back in Montana. I'll be curious if he does and how they went over. Perhaps he will tell Rod, and Rod will email me.

I was the bucket boy again this night. Some questions were answered correctly by the first person who guessed, and other questions gave me a workout as I had to walk around and around the room. The barmaid reminded me that I was missing the people sitting at the bar who wanted to guess. One woman at the bar was so drunk I initially didn't know if she was wanting to guess. She was. I got to her other times for guesses before she made a fuss.

One time I was so caught up in trying to figure out an answer to the written contest that I missed when Ed called out a quarters question. I had to jump up with the bucket real fast. Then later Ed missed when it was time for another quarters question and I had to remind him.

Our team didn't do all that great: 12 correct and then 14 correct. The 14 correct wasn't too bad as the winning team had 16 correct, but nonetheless it would have been nice to win again before I left for Montana.

Something was in the air as Mona and I were thinking alike. When Darrel was talking about something several times Mona made the exact same comment as I was about to make. Spooky? Or great minds thinking alike?

Mona is pushing for me to have a big bonfire when I get back to Montana, invite lots of people and have a big party. I think she believes that if I have big parties and invite lots of people I will get laid and have sex, as her telling me a few weeks ago that I need sex hasn't seemed to work in getting me laid.

Earlier when I was talking to Ed and Al about canoeing with Rod a week ago Mona teased me about "cannodling". "What, you were cannoodling? Who were you cannodling with?" Umm... no.

I noticed in the pool table area a man in a cowboy hat and the woman he was with. She seemed to put more energy into making out with him than in playing pool. There was no doubt he was 'getting lucky' later that night. "Get a hotel room!"

I had four drinks. The first two I got for being bucket boy, Darrel bought me one since it was my last night here, and later the bar owner sent a round of free drinks for our table. More than I usually drink but still I did better than the rest (Darrel, Mona, Jeff, Donna, and Carla) who stayed late. Some were feeling very good, loose, and funny. I wonder how some are feeling today. Some had to get up early today. And Carla... very early as she planned to get up at 3:30 am as she had a very early flight out of Minot.

Darrel, Mona, and I stayed till the bar's closing. The longest I've stayed. I'll miss trivia nights when I return to Montana. These are a good group of people - especially as I now know all their names.

Photo 1: Al and Ed
Photo 2: The group. (Note, the two guys behind us not facing the camera are from a different team)
Photo 3: Darrel. I had to include this photo as he closed his eyes in the group photo.

Lastly, a photo of Carla. I think she is ready to punch me during our discussion of job personality aptitude testing.


And with that... good night. I'm off to catch a train in so many hours.

Sitting close in a pickup

The other day I saw a sight I don't see much anymore: a woman sitting right next to man driving a pickup. I mean right next to him. There was room for at least three more people in that pickup's cab.

When I was younger that was a common sight. Now I do a double take as I rarely see it happening anymore. Today two people sit at opposite sides of the cab with room for about three people between them. Why is that? A few reasons I can think of are:

• I think it is mainly due to seat belts. That is what is keeping lovers apart. One has to sit on each side of the pickup cab to use a seatbelt. Yes, there usually is a seatbelt in the middle, but using it still doesn't allow a woman to sit right next to her man.

• Perhaps it may not be cool for a woman to sit so close to her man. Everyone wants their space and independence now a days.

• many cars do not have 'bench' seats anymore in the front seat. Pickups may be the last vehicles to have a single seat. Couple are out of practice in sitting close together when driving.

• People don't go to drive-in movies anymore where there is a reason to sit next to one another.
  

• Economic independence. When I was younger and this behavior more common, many young women didn't have a vehicle and depended on their boyfriend to drive. Now with most women owning and driving their own vehicles, there is less of sitting close. A man will not sit right next to his girlfriend as she drives. A man just doesn't do that. With feminism and women taking on more behaviors of men, the women today take their cue from men and then sit like them when the man drives - on the other side of the cab.
  

Well, for the couples I see sitting so close together... good for them!

Rain and window frame

It has been raining off and on all day. A dark dreary wet day, but one that is needed. It had gotten so dry the past few weeks we started to have grass fires around Minot again. The County put a burn ban back in place a few days ago.

My swollen face continued to get better. I am peeling like mad though now.

I took one of mom's basement window frames in to a glass shop yesterday to get new glass. Somehow both panes of the window glass broke in this window and my brother had covered the frame in plastic. Not a good thing in North Dakota over the winter time to have plastic on the window.

Now that it is warmer, and before I return to Montana, I had new glass put in the window frame. The cost came to almost $36 for the two simple panes of glass. Nothing is cheap these days. I'm currently waiting for the putty to dry before standing the window up and putting it back in place.

While waiting for the window to be fixed I went next door to a thrift store run to raise money for the Boys Ranch. Surprisingly I found a few pants in my size. Now I can retire those patched up jeans I use when working on the ranch as these newer pants are in much better condition than my old pants. I also found several pairs of shorts good for hiking with plenty of pockets.

Flowering trees

Here are photos of a group of flowering trees from down the street. It is nice to see the trees bud out.

Squirrel

Yup. This is what was in mom's front yard the other morning. I don't want to sound like I don't like animals - I do - but squirrels are on my 'do not like' list along with gophers and deer. Squirrels are nothing but rats with bushy tails. And they are such pests when you want to have a bird feeder.

I had trimmed some tree branches the other night and I believe this squirrel is munching on some of the buds from the branches.

Less swollen

After spending time with ice last night my swollen face is better today. This morning when I woke up, my face was more swollen under my eyes than above my eyes. My vision was limited from below.

Over the day the swelling seems to be receding slightly. My forehead is starting to itch; I am starting to peel; and my lips are now getting blisters.

Swollen eyes

A first for me. Yesterday afternoon my forehead started to swell up.  Today my eyes are partially to mostly swollen shut.

It started yesterday afternoon when the area above my right eye started to swell and drop and I could notice it in my field of vision. Later I could see a similar thing above my left eye.

That is where it stood when I went to bed. This morning I had trouble opening my eyes due to the swelling. I looked like a bad mug shot.

I expected that once I got up and moved around things would get better. I put a cold washrag across my forehead. It helped slightly.

As the day went on my face got even more swollen.  I called the convenient care clinic at Trinity Hospital.  They recommended I put a cold pack on my forehead and take benadryl in case this was an allergic reaction.

At the drug store I asked my mother's pharmacist about benadryl and he felt benadryl wouldn't help me. Because of the way I looked he strongly felt I should see a doctor.

*argh*

My brother drove me across town to the walk in clinic. With my swollen eyes I was in no condition to drive.

Because of my insurance's high deductible I decided to immediately pay for the clinic visit from my HSA account and avoid insurance paperwork. Many places - happy to avoid insurance paperwork and get paid right away - give you a 5% or so discount. Not Trinity Hospital. No discount when you pay right away.

For $124 the doctor told me that the swelling was a result of the sunburn from my canoe trip on Sunday. It took two days to swell up? I've had much worse sunburns in the past with no swelling. He could not explain why this time and not other times. He did say this was the worse case of fluid build up from a sunburn that he ever saw.

Gee.. thanks.

Most of the time while canoeing I hadn't worn a hat. Later when I did wear a hat a branch snagged my hat and tossed it in the river. After that the hat was too wet to wear.

The doctor told me that around the eyes is the part of the face that can swell up as fluid can pool here. Gravity pulled the fluid from the top of my head and forehead where it was sunburned down to around my eyes.

One eye is almost swollen shut and the other is half shut. It looks like someone beat up me. I look bad. The doctor said it will take a week or two for the swelling to go away.  Fortunately  it didn't take that long as I started to see improvement the next day.

Great. Just great. 

In the meantime ice is my friend.

Yes, my left eye is open.

Trivia night: Zip to Zap

Another middle of the pack performance this night with 12 and 13 answers correct out of 20 questions. The best we did was a tie for third place. Darrel, Mona, Marvin and I were there; Dave, Jeff, and Donna were not as they had other engagements. And Jeff's wife's name is Donna, not Carla. How is that I can remember movie stars' names but have trouble remembering real live people's names?

Ed started on time - or even earlier - as I arrived at 7 pm and he was on the third question already. While the bar clock is set fast, people still joked Ed must have a hot date later as he was zipping through the questions quickly this night. All the games were done before 8:30 pm. Ed claimed he was moving along faster because there were less people there this night. Huh? Yes, the crowd was smaller but that shouldn't make a difference Ed.

I handled the quarters bucket again and got a couple of free drinks for doing so. Darrel won a couple of the quarter questions and he chose a t-shirt and large water bottle as prizes. Both prizes fell under the "now what do I do with these?" categories.

After the contests were over I gave Ed a half dozen collections of trivia questions to use as contests and for quarters questions. I will be leaving for Montana in a little over a week and I wanted to give something back. Also I wanted to introduce more current questions than questions from the 1940s and 50s.

Ed stopped and socialized with our group for a while after the contests were over. Later Jeff and Donna came. We quizzed them on questions we had missed and they knew a few answers. But not enough to win. With Jeff's and Donna's help would would have gotten second place each time.

We traveled down memory lane and us older members of the group informed Darrel and Mona (the young pups) about the "Zip to Zap" concert festival. This concert was held in the tiny town of Zap, North Dakota May 9-11, 1969 - before Woodstock was held later the same year. Jeff was on his way to attend the concert when he learned from the news it was canceled. Canceled? It had gotten out of hand and the North Dakota National Guard was called out by the governor to put down a riot. This made the lead story on the CBS Evening news that night. This was the only time the Guard ever put a riot down in North Dakota. No wonder a few of us old timers kinda remember this festival, as most people have or want to forget it ever happened. Wikipedia has a good writeup of the "Zip to Zap" festival if you want to know more.

After trivia was over the bar cleared out of most people. Later a group of four women and one guy came and sat at another table. I wasn't facing them and they were kind of loud. Later they were louder still and laughing and carrying on and when I turned to look the table was a dozen or so women and the one guy. I don't know... there was something different about that guy. I was thinking he was either gay or was a male stripper. Or maybe both. One guy and all these rowdy women? The women were all ages so it either may have been a bachelorette party (that would explain the guy... but, on a Monday?) or one of the girls 21st birthday.

Yoga and belly dancing

Late the other night when flipping though TV channels before bed I came across a show on the FitTV channel showing a number of Namaste yoga moves. There were three women demonstrating several moves over and over. As they went through the moves the location shifted from indoors to a park to near the ocean to a forest. It was quite interesting to see the location changes. I must admit I noticed the locations more in a peripheral manner as the three women in their tight tops and shorts were quite appealing to watch. And these women were flexible! Wow. They were quite, um, ...interesting... to watch as they went through their 'cat' and 'dog' and 'reverse dog' and whatever moves. Hmmm... maybe I should take up yoga?

Why this came to mind now was my brother was just flipping through TV channels and came to the FitTV channel and the show had three belly dancers dancing. Apparently this a regular belly dance instructional program but when I saw the show it was near the end and the dancers were just dancing around the stage. Oh man!

Ever since I saw Barbara Eden in "I Dream of Jeanie" on TV when I was a kid I've had a weakness for belly dancers. I like the costume, look, jingle-jangle, and the movement of belly dancers. I still remember the Afghan restaurant in Minneapolis I visited in 1989 where they had an attractive belly dancer performing while people ate their meals. She was good and for one dance balanced a large sword on her head as she moved.

The Renaissance Festival held annually near Minneapolis, MN usually has belly dancers performing on one of the stages. One year a vendor was selling belly dancing outfits. I bought one for the woman I attended the festival with. She had taken a belly dance class or two years earlier and claimed not to remember any moves. No matter, she looked great, moved great, and I was in heaven watching her.

A woman who can carry off wearing a belly dancer outfit and can belly dance is a woman. And if a guy is not attracted and interested in watching that, then, well, he is not a guy with an appreciation for the fairer sex.