Dead batteries and cats

Or another way to title this post... death and destruction.
 
Since I was gone a month and hadn't started my vehicles during that time several batteries had no life to start their vehicles.  The battery charger didn't provide enough of a charge on my car's battery so I had to jump the car using my pickup (which fortunately did start).  For my RV the battery charger did work to charge that battery and I was able to start that vehicle.  Ah, the problem with owning stuff... having to service and maintain it.

Speaking of the dead... Jan called me this morning and asked for a favor.  Someone had hit and killed a stray cat on the road by Bob and Jan's mailbox.  It appeared the people who struck the cat moved it off the road and then covered it with a child's sweatshirt.  Jan asked I could come and dispose of the dead cat as it was grossing her out.  I buried it in my hayfield.

One of the pocket gophers I had trapped the other day bit the trap's trigger as it died.  It's teeth were locked onto the trigger and it was a pain to remove the gopher from the trap as it was an old style trap that was an enclosed round plastic tunnel.

Did I mention that when I was gone in October my neighbor replaced the fiberglass panels on my hay shed that were damaged when the neighbor's shop burnt down last June?

Photo 1 shows the four scorched panels on my hay shed. The right two panels later broke when a strong wind blew.

Photo 2 shows the two replaced panels and the two scorched ones that are left.  The lighter colored panels are the two scorched ones and the two replaced panels are the darker panels to the left of the scorched ones.

Stamps

When going through my mom's stuff I came across a few books of stamps.  These stamps are the type that years ago one got when buying groceries (Gold Bond) or [I believe] gasoline (Simonson).  S&H were another type of stamps but mom didn't have any of those left.

Road paint

The county painted my road the other day.  This is the first time I know of that the road was painted with a yellow center line and white lines marking the sides.  We'll see how long the white stripe will last in front of my driveway.  Most of the traffic cuts the corner there and I think the vehicle tires will quickly wear that paint away.

Know what would make this photo perfect? To see the Beatles crossing the road just like in the album cover for "Abbey Road".

Friendship quote

Here is a quote I like that I lifted from the blog of Sarah the beekeeper and wonderful photographer.

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art. It has no survival value, rather it is one of those things that gives value to survival.

-C.S. Lewis

Garden tomatoes

I picked a number of the green tomatoes from my garden a month ago before I left.  Here are what some of them looked like when I returned.  Mostly still green.  Unlike when I lived in Minnesota, here in Montana I have the hardest time turning green tomatoes red. (and I have tried everything).

You can see that a few of them are turning red. Of course it is a race to ripeness versus mold. Usually the mold wins.

Again the gophers

I caught another pocket gopher today, one day after I set my traps out again.  I would have caught a few more but three other gophers buried their traps with dirt.  They are only delaying the inevitable.

My yearly total of pocket gophers is now at 205.

Home again

It's so nice to be back home again!

While I had heard rain during the night, once I woke up it was sunny.  Outside the temperature was 40 degrees but with the sunshine and no wind it felt warm to me.

The mountains had snow on them halfway down.  The ski resort's runs were all white.  I missed my mountains!

A solid mass of clouds were bunched up and slowly slipping over the mountains to the east.  The mountains to the north had large scattered clouds moving against or over the mountains on their way to Glacier Park.  Overhead and to the west it was mostly clear.

I so wanted to go hiking in the mountains.  But it was my first day home and I needed to unpack my luggage and get the place back in order.

First up was to turn the water on and hope none of the pipes froze and broke from the near zero temperatures when I was gone.  Success!  When I turned the water on the well was fine and so were the water pipes in the house and house's crawl space.

Sunday was getting a fire going in my wood stove to heat the house up from the 47 degrees inside.  And unpacking.  And getting used to being back home.

Late afternoon Kelly stopped by to hunt deer.  He had placed his deer stand in his usual tree last week. Jan had told me that when she came to get me at the train station Jasmine almost  pulled her over.  When they went outside of Jan's house there were six deer in the yard and Jasmine wanted to chase them.

I also noticed that my neighbor finally tore down the rest of his fire damaged building and cleaned everything up and hauled it away.  It looks different now that the decades old large white building is gone.  The view that direction is more open now.  He also replaced the fire damaged fiberglass panels on my hay shed.

Monday I placed my pocket gopher traps back into the hayfield.  The ground was wet from all the rain that occurred when I was gone.  Still I found a few mounds of dry dirt dug up recently.

I also picked the litter out of the ditch on my side of the road.  That never ends.

I ended the day outside by trimming some dead branches from trees in the front yard until it got dark.

Journey home

Saturday I rode the train back home.

The train was on time the whole way.  Ahead of schedule many times.  In those cases we had to wait at the station as we couldn't leave until the official departure time.  We arrived at Whitefish, Montana ahead of schedule.

It was announced that due to a mudslide in the mountains near Seattle that covered the train tracks passengers traveling beyond Spokane would be bussed to the stops between Spokane and Seattle.  Not so good.  I'd take a train over a bus any day.

Not many people were on the train.  The Minot ticket agent told me only seven people were getting on the train at Minot.  On my train car I estimate there were only about a dozen of us.  In the car between my car and the observation car I saw only 10 to 20 people, and in the observation car there were only a half dozen people.  Furthermore, during the stop at Havre I only saw one to two dozen people get off the train to smoke their cigarettes.  All in all this was only of the lighter passenger loads I've seen on the train.  I didn't mind.  Less people, less noise, less people on their cell phones and less people walking up and down the aisles.

I had a few middle aged men sit in seats across the aisle in rows ahead of and behind my seat's row.  They hardly used their cell phones, and when they did, they spoke quietly and not for very long.  So it wasn't annoying like the times I sat near women or old couples who talked long and loud on their cell phone.

My train car attendant had an accent.  He seemed to be from Africa.  When I chatted with him I sometimes had to have him repeat what he said due to his accent and soft voice.  Later whenever he saw me he asked if I was enjoying the train ride.  Train car attendants never do that. He was a nice guy.

A passenger at Havre boarded and took a seat in the row ahead of me.  A woman who looked to be her sister and a late teen girl boarded with her.  They were so busy chatting they forgot about the train leaving.  The sister and teen girl were starting to leave just when the train started up to leave. Some people have no common sense. The women were fortunate the car attendant was nearby as he called and the train engineer stopped the train at the end of the platform and the women got off.  I and several other passengers thought the women would be stuck on the train until the next stop at Shelby, Montana.

At Wolf Point, Montana our stop was longer than the usual quick stop and go.  On the loudspeakers they finally announced that they were looking for one more passenger expected to get off the train and asked this person to disembark.  Wolf Point is on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation.  The only other time I've been on a train where the Amtrak officials had to track down passengers to remind them to get off the train was on the Blackfoot Indian Reservation.

It was sunny when the train left Minot.

Even though the green of summer was gone, the many shades of brown from reddish brown to golden brown to brown was quite pretty.

Here are photos of the coulees west of Minot. Notice that some people live in them.  One way to get out of the wind.

Once we left the coulees the land leveled out.

Then we entered a large area with lots of ponds.  This is a major route for migrating waterfowl.  Around one pond I saw lots of white from the migrating geese.  It was too far away for a decent photo.  And yes, it was geese and not snow.

It kept being sunny until western North Dakota. Notice how the color disappeared once the sun's light went behind the clouds.

After we got into Montana we had sun once again.  The sun then lasted all the way until near the mountains.  The Rocky Mountains were covered in a line of clouds that stretched north and south as far as one could see.  The sun set behind the clouds as we neared them.

At the Minot train station I picked up a local brochure describing some towns and sites seen from the train and a little history about them.  The section between the North Dakota border and Wolf Point, Montana - an area I have traveled many times on the train - was new to me when using the brochure.  I saw things I do not remember ever seeing.  Fort Union is a restored army fort.  I saw it just before I read about it.  It looked new, and as I never remembered seeing it before, I thought it was recently reconstructed a year or so ago. Nope.  According to the Fort Union park service web site, it was reconstructed around 20 years ago.

The Glasgow, Montana train station.   Seen from the station is the Montana Bar.  From the window it appears there is a barber shop inside the bar.  Would you get your hair cut in a barber shop in a bar?

Then the clouds were ending and soon it would be sunny again.

Malta, Montana and the three chair waiting platform.  Three chairs, three legs. Do those chairs look stable to you?

Malta, Montana as seen from the train station.

The Bear Paw Mountains as seen from east of Havre, Montana. If you look close you can see snow on some of them.

Some of my favorite mountains: the Sweetgrass Hills.  You definitely can see snow on these mountains.

After Shelby, Montana I picked up part of a tumbleweed on my window.  All across Montana it was very windy.  In areas with lots of leaves I would see leaves flying horizontal past the window. No mean feat as my window was on the upper part of the train car. The tumbleweed shook in the wind but held on past dark.

The line of clouds mark where the Rocky Mountains can first be seen from the east.
Photo 2 was taken over the Cut Bank River west of the town with the same name.

It was dark by the time the train reached the mountains so I couldn't see the snow on them. I could see that Hwy 2 through East Glacier, Montana was wet from rain.  It looked pretty.  Then we were in the mountains and darkness.

As we approached Essex, Montana a train attendant announced that we should wave to the people standing outside the Issac Walton Inn at Essex.  Essex is a flag stop for Amtrak.  We didn't stop today.  Only one person stood on the lit porch of the Inn as we passed by.  He waved.

Jan and Jasmine were waiting for me at the Whitefish train station.  I was asked by several people what breed of dog Jasmine was (border collie) and whether she was male or female (female). They all remarked on what a beautiful dog she was.  Once I got into Jan's SUV Jasmine had to move to the back seat, which she didn't mind doing.

Then I was home.  It was still and warm.  Even though there was no wind on the ground the clouds were moving steadily and the near full moon came and went.

The temperature outside was 46 degrees and the temperature inside my house was 47 degrees. I unpacked the food items that needed to go in the refrigerator then got a couple extra blankets to place on my bed. No more summer weather sleeping arrangements!  I was tired and went right to bed.  Tomorrow I will get heat into my house and warm it up.

Heading home

Today I am returning to Montana on the train.  I've been away too long and I miss the mountains.

I didn't get all I wanted to do done here in North Dakota.  I had hopes of going through the rest of my mother's stuff and holding a garage sale in addition to selling some other larger stuff.  I suppose it doesn't matter that I didn't sort through all the stuff as the weather all month was too crappy to hold a garage sale.

I found my mother saved almost everything the past 25 years.  I mean almost everything.  Letters, cards, bills, receipts, newspaper articles, recipes, photos, legal papers, family history research, etc., etc.  I had to go through everything one by one as it was all mixed together in drawers, cabinets, shelves and boxes in her office.  Time consuming and draining.

I got most of the office sorted through.  I tossed out four large garbage cans of stuff.  Later I noticed that I forgot the closet.  *sigh*  Hours to occupy my time the next time I am here.

It gets me thinking.  If one doesn't keep on top of 'stuff' it builds and grows.  And it takes time to mange all the stuff one has in life.  And when one is gone, most of it doesn't matter.

Happy Halloween!

24 hr flu

Just to let you know I seemed to have had the 24 hour flu. Late Tuesday afternoon I felt sick. I was able - barely - to keep from throwing up (though I made frequent trips to the bathroom ).  But keeping from throwing up took some concentration on my part.   And then I was freezing. It took forever to warm up.

I laid down at 5 pm and slept until almost 11 am the next morning. The last of the symptoms disappeared by late afternoon.

I had the exact symptoms my brother had the previous Friday. So I guess he had the flu.  Initially he blamed my cooking for his feeling ill even though I wasn't ill at the time.

Same old story... the only time I get sick is when I visit my brother and it is always three to four days after he gets ill. Co-incidence?  I think not!

Now, the question I am curious about is whether I had the dreaded swine flu.  Especially as I haven't been paying attention to it in the news.

What are the symptoms of swine flu in humans?

The symptoms of swine flu in people are expected to be similar to the symptoms of regular human seasonal influenza and include fever, lethargy, lack of appetite and coughing. Some people with swine flu also have reported runny nose, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

I don't think I had the swine flu as the only symptoms I had were diarrhea, aching muscles and loss of appetite.  I briefly had a headache when the other symptoms were subsiding.  No coughing.  And my flu was gone in 24 hours.  Doesn't the swine flu last longer?

So perhaps... one flu down, one to go?

IBM Charlie

Another stroll down the IBM memory lane...

How many of you remember the IBM PC?  And how it was advertised?

IBM thoughts

Here are photos of where I used to work at in Rochester when I worked on the AS/400 computer.  The first photo was taken prior to my working there.  The second photo when I worked there. The place looks different now.

The plant is large.  Roughly... the left half is development lab with the right half being the manufacturing plant. The buildings are two stories tall with many buildings in the lab also having a basement.  According to the Wikipedia site the plant is a mile long.  I don't remember it being that long.  More likely it was a mile if you drove around the plant.

In the second photo the open area in the lower right is now filled with businesses and box stores. Also the open area at the top of the photo is cluttered with businesses and houses.

A close up example of one of the blue buildings I had worked in (though not this particular building).

When I was in Rochester a few weeks ago I also noticed the IBM parking lots now are nowhere near full. They actually seemed empty. When I worked there in the 80s and 90s if you came late you often had a problem finding a parking spot. Apparently IBM has laid off a lot of people earlier this year.  Talking to people I am learning that a number of my peers over the age of 50 were laid off.  Apparently IBM is shipping their jobs to China.

It's too bad.  I have fond memories of working at IBM.  Lots of people working there; full parking lots; people excited about what they were doing, new computers to design and build; the promise and excitement of a future.  I wonder what it is like to work there now.  Must be a depressing place with the feeling that the best times have passed.

People no longer ask me if I wished I was still working for IBM.

From the articles I am struck at how different the mindset is between Minnesota and Montana.  The economic downturn is hitting the Flathead Valley hard.  The loggers and the lumber plants are hurting with the housing downturn.  The aluminum plant is closing the end of this month. Etc., etc. Yet our Montana U.S. Senators and Representative are talking of protecting and promoting jobs and are securing and ensuring government financial and educational help to the laid of people, even when only 50 are laid off.  I noticed in the following news articles, and in other similar articles, the lack of any political help by the Minnesota officials for the laid off IBMers.

IBM Rochester layoffs may number more than 1,000

IBM Jobs: 60% of STG terminations were over age 50

Rochester thoughts

A few weeks ago I was in Rochester, Minnesota.  I was there to visit my girlfriend, Tammy.  That was my only reason to go back there.  I love my friends there, but after almost 18 years of living there and two prior visits back since moving away, after my second visit I had a strong feeling of moving on and never visiting Rochester again.

It was not because Rochester is a bad place, it isn't. It is a planned, clean, and safe place to live.  However it also is more of a sterile, safe and soulless place. I believe the main passion is to make money.  Not surprising when it is dominated by two large corporations, the Mayo Clinic and IBM.  The people are well mannered professionals.  Many jobs are medical or engineering.

Where I live in Montana it is almost the opposite of Rochester.  It is unplanned, wild, unruly, messy.  Definitely not sterile, safe or soulless.  While there is a desire for money, it seems to be more of the entrepreneurial gold-rush mentality.  But there are also other passions that make it unruly; passions for property rights, individual freedoms and the environment.  People are not well mannered professionals.

People in Rochester are rich. In Flathead county the people who are from other places and have second homes are rich.  The typical Flathead resident is not rich.

Here are some snapshots from the U.S. census web site.  As you can see Rochester (Olmsted county) is well above the national average in income while Flathead county is well below the national average.

Olmsted County (Rochester)

Flathead

Rochester continued to grow after I left.  More and more cornfields converted to subdivisions.  Huge houses - McMansions - that look alike.  In one suburb one of Tammy's daughters' house was about the only different one as it was at least painted a shade of red, out of a sea of gray or beige.  About the only way I could pick out Tammy's townhouse was the one whose garage door opened when the button was pressed.

And there were subdivision after subdivision that looked the same, each with their own cute subdivision name, large houses, manicured lawns and lack of trees.

*shudder*

It was nice to see old friends.  It was mildly interesting to see places: that is new, that is the same, that has changed.  But I seemed to have moved from liking it, feeling stifled by it, to an indifference to Rochester as we drove around it.

Some places I made no effort to revisit.  For example, the first apartment I lived at is now hidden behind a noise barrier wall as the highway has been expanded to 6 lanes now.  I never went behind the wall to see what that apartment complex is like now.  I did visit the last apartment I lived at, but that was to see if the trees I planted still were there.  They were, and thriving.  I'll post photos of them later when I get home and am able to upload photos from my camera to the computer.

Here are a few photos of Rochester.  The old photos are from a souvenir booklet I found the other day that my mother had bought when we visited Rochester prior to my moving there in the early 1980s.  The other photos are more recent ones I have found.

Note the smallish white square building a little north of the tall white Mayo Clinic building.  That is the Damon parking ramp.  I have a photo of it later before it was demolished.

The following is a building that existed when I moved to Rochester: the Damon parking garage.  Before I left the Mayo Clinic demolished it and built the large building that sits north of the Mayo Clinic building as seen in some of the previous photos.  I think they opened the new building shortly after I left.

Memories and a wrench

Friday I went for a bicycle ride on my brother's bicycle.  This is the first time I had ridden all month.  A long time for me to not be on a bicycle.  Since I am not returning to Montana - and my bicycle - until late on the 31st, I was in danger of going a month without riding at least one mile on a bicycle.  That last time that had happened was June of 1983 - over 26 years ago - back when I was in college.

Friday was a nice day.  The temperature was in the mid 50s, the wind light and the sky sunny.

I thought I'd go for a quick three mile or so ride but I ended up riding north of town and then on the way back home through the trailer park I grew up in.  It was more than an eight mile ride.

The trailer park looked about the same since I seen it last, which is to say, not the same as when my parents sold it decades ago.  It was neat to see the trees my father and I planted.  Quite a number of them are huge, especially the popular trees I planted and many of the evergreen trees my father planted and I watered.  The original shelter-belt trees that existed prior to the trailer park's existence are mostly gone, the victim of dutch elm disease.  Other trees need to be thinned now that they are large.

As I was on a mountain bike I rode over to the ponds for the sewage lagoon.  The trailer park my father built formerly was well outside the city limits and therefore the park had its own water and sewer systems.  The park is now hooked up to city water and sewer as the city is right across the street.  A street had been extended this year and almost matches up to one of the trailer park's streets.  On this street just across the road apartment complexes are currently being built.

One of the sewer lagoons is partially filled in.  Now that the only water in the lagoons comes from precipitation the water level is lower, and in one lagoon very tall cattails fill much of it.  No more ice skating on that lagoon during Winter.

The park also had it own landfill but that is now long buried and one could only tell where it had been if they had seen it when it was open. I walked over the buried pit.

Ah, memories.

The city now has built a street from 21st avenue all the way to 30th avenue.  It used to be a section line dirt road.  The new street is one and a half lanes wide each way with a full lane as a turn lane.  If the3 city wished it could turn the road into a tight four lane road in the future.  Right now it goes through hay fields.  That is changing as already a housing subdivision is being built just west of the large water tower.  Since at least the 1960s, well over 40 years, that red and white water tower has stood on a hill well outside the city's limits.  Now it is fenced off with a tall chain link fence.  No more will kids get a chance to play around its base and test their strength in trying to climb up one of the large cross cables.

Here are a few photos from a couple of winters ago prior to the new street.

Also during my bicycle ride I found a small wrench laying on the side of a road.  Score!