What Happened to Spring

We are back to fires in the fireplace, wearing a heavy coat outside and Jazz is snuggled up to her heating pad. It rained most of yesterday which is a good thing this time of year and we now have lots of sticky, gumbo mud.
Tuesday evening I listed for sale our Gold Wing on Craig's List. If you are not familiar with Craig's List, it is a nationwide free classified listing that you can specify the state for your listing. Our Gold Wing motorcycle was a 1988 and Michael was thinking he might like to have a newer one. I listed it for sale on Tuesday evening and a guy called at 8am Wednesday and wanted to come look at the bike. He arrived two hours later with a U-Haul and left with the bike. We decided to celebrate, went to town and put our check in the bank and had ice cream.
Today it is cold and there is a bitter wind blowing. Michael was headed to town to help his Dad (remember this is the 85 soon to be 86 year old Dad) dig the footings for a garage he is going to build at his place near Big Timber. But we discovered that our neighbor's horses had decided to come visit our two horses and had pushed the fence over in the process. So, Michael spent the morning putting the fence back together--thank goodness we have equipment, skid steer with auger so we don't have to dig fence post holes by hand!
Mom arrived about 6pm tonight, it is so good to see her.
I took great photos of birds on the bird feeder, even got some in flight today but "Blogger" is not cooperating. Even thought my photos are saved right side up when I go to put them on the Blog, it turns them sideways, wierd!

The birds are eating me out of house and home and our usual assortment is not all here yet.

Do You Ever Have Days Like This

It was a cool, cloudy and windy day in Montana, not very spring like. My Mom is arriving on Thursday evening from Arkansas to spend a week or so with us before heading off to her summer job as an office person on a large dude ranch in Laramie, WY. So, I tried to do what every good daughter does when she knows her Mom is coming---CLEAN LIKE CRAZY. But nothing seemed to go right today, couldn't find the mattress cover for the guest bed--now how do you lose a mattress cover?? It was just a day of things like that, frustrating little things that won't matter a hill of beans tomorrow.
Michael also had a frustrating day being a mechanic, not one of his favorite things. His old standby work truck, a 1995 Ford diesel died last summer and could not be ressurected even after Michael gave in and took it to a paid mechanic. So, he is determined to figure it out and has it narrowed down to a part he can order from eBay.

I caught Jazz in the midst of a good stretch this morning

This whitetail deer seems to be saying, "who are you and what are you doing in my pasture?"

Tomorrow is another day!

TV Watching and Motorcycle Riding

Ever thought of giving up TV? Ever wonder what you are paying for when you can't find anything to watch?
I grew up in rural Arkansas where we got 3 channels on the TV, sometimes snowy pictures, sometimes not. TV watching was not an activity that was high on the priority list of my family. Mom and Dad worked too hard and when we were at Grandma and Grandpa's house, Grandma thought electricity cost too much to let us watch much TV. I have always been a reader and would much rather read a book than watch TV so even after I married and left home, TV still wasn't something I enjoyed. My husbands (yes, plural, that is a story for another day) were channel surfers so we had cable in most of the places I lived. Michael grew up in very rural Montana and got no TV channels.
As an adult, Michael taught himself to install the huge satellite dishes prominent in many rural areas of the country and later began selling and installing the small Direct TV dishes for our local telephone co-op, supplementing his ranching income. He had always received free programing from the companies in return for being a representative. The small Direct TV dishes became so common and inexpensive that even Wal Mart began to sell them and Michael's business died off. We had been married about 5 years when we came home one evening to a message on our screen that our free programing had been cut off. We talked about it and decided to try it without.
Nine years later, we still have no TV service and haven't missed it for a minute. We read, talk, do puzzles, take walks and we do use the internet.
There is so much on TV that is offense, vulgar and just plain nonsense--why bother! You can surf through 100 channels and find nothing that interests you to watch. And right now with all the political ads, we can only be thankful we don't have TV! When we travel in the RV, we do watch TV and I am appalled sometimes at what I hear coming from the television at 7pm in the evening! Do parent's let their children watch that garbage???
It works for us!

A beautiful day in Montana, 78 degrees and sunny, so nice we took the Gold Wing out and went to town for ice cream!

An Easy Sunday

Jazz has always been a sleep through the night little dog--last night she decided she needed a drink of water and to go potty--just like a kid!! Needless to say, it was mighty hard to get back to sleep so when I did get up, I decided it was going to be a lazy Sunday.

We took a walk around the ranch we used to own that adjoins our little 38 acre homestead, it is about two and one half miles. It is uphill and downhill so we get a workout. This is one of the views we have as we walk:

I've been trying to educate myself on blogging, adding ads to blogs and other aspects. I learned a lot this afternoon but I think I will probably have to get a whole lot more traffic to make it worthwhile, right now it is just fun.

Michael took off after lunch and went over to the ranch his son manages to install a well pump. He came back very disgruntled--guess he is out of practice!! He was pulling a 5th wheel trailer loaded with a piece of equipment and left the tailgate of MY truck closed when he pulled away from the trailer. The tailgate doesn't work very well, but will it matter in a year??

I got a little bit of ambition this afternoon and unpacked the remaining boxes from the RV that were full of my quilting and sewing supplies. It felt good to finally say, "the RV is unpacked."

Happy Sunday!

Sunshine and Wind

Sunshine and blue Montana skies today but we have that pesky wind again. Our friends that are unfortunate enough to have to stay here in the frozen north in the winter say the wind has driven them crazy this winter.
My family is busy, busy at home doing cleanup. My brother-in-law is pastor of a Missionary Baptist Church and it is always so heartwarming to see the outpouring of help, support and prayers when someone is in need. There has been a crew at their house all day helping to put things back together. A stranger even stopped to see if he could help, was put to work, fed at lunchtime with everyone else and then went back to work with everyone else this afternoon.
Even though it is only about 55 degrees and windy this afternoon, Michael couldn't stand it any longer and got the Gold Wing out and took it for a ride--I declined to accompany him, too cold.
We took a long walk this morning before it got windy and I took these photos. Even I have to admit that the snow on the mountains in the sunshine is gorgeous.

Some of the mountains you can see from our home

The Crazy Mountains and a friend's horses that are being winter pastured on the ranch we sold when we retired

May Snow

We woke to 2 inches of snow and more filtering down. Michael got up before me, leaving Jazz and me in bed. When we did get up, I told him Jazz and I were going back to Arizona! All the snow was melted by noon.
We spent the day still cleaning and unpacking. After lunch we decided to head into Big Timber to run a couple of errands and to maybe have dinner. On the way into town, we noticed friends Jim and Kathy out by their corrals near the road and stopped for a chat. A few years ago, this friend Kathy and I decided to open a little shop. We sold women's clothing, books, jewelry, and other things such as pottery. We also had an espresso bar. I only had the store for about 2 years, deciding that retail was not for me and sold my half to another dear friend, Jeane. Kathy and Jeane have made such a success of the store--it is the gathering place for many and the place to shop in Big Timber. I stopped in to visit this afternoon while Michael went to his Dad's to call the electric and phone line locaters so he can start digging for his Dad's new shop. Jeane and I had a great visit. Her husband, Steve stopped in and we all decided to go to the Grand for dinner. It was such fun to see friends and we enjoyed our visit very much. The Grand is an old late 1800's hotel that has been restored. It is a bed and breakfast with an excellent restaurant. Michael's great uncles owned the Grand at one time and rumor has it, they lost it in a horse race!
We live so remotely here in Montana that cell phone service is almost non-existent. With an antenna, we can get a signal most of the time and we leave one of the cell phones plugged to the antenna all the time. The other cell phone we just leave turned off. On the way to town today I turned it on and had a voice mail from my sister asking me to call. She, my brother-in-law and my Mom have been in Holland for the wedding of an exchange student my Mom and Dad had many years ago. When I reached my sister Ann, it was not good news she had to share. They had arrived in Detroit this morning and called their daughter, my niece, Niki who lives near them with her husband and two daughters. Arkansas has been hard hit this year with killer tornadoes and today another one hit killing 7 people in Arkansas. My sister's home is extremely damaged, my brother lost his shop and the roof from the barn my grandfather built and other outbuildings. His home and the home of my Mom had no damage. They all live on the farm my grandfather owned when he was alive. My brother worked the night shift and slept through the whole thing! Thank God no one was injured but my heart hurts for them.

Our view this morning, BRRRRR

May Day

This is the first day of May, May Day, and isn't it supposed to be sunny and warm?? Well, it is not here in Montana, overcast, cold wind and only about 40 degrees. UGH
Hooray, I finished unloading the RV today but of course the downstairs storage room and my sewing room look like bombs went off in them. So, the next step will be putting all the stuff away. I am anxious to get started on some quilting projects so maybe that will encourage me to get with it!
Michael did some clean up work today, hauling away old dead limbs and trees. He also cut us some much needed firewood. We have a wood-burning fireplace in our living area and we use it lots.
Nat, Michael's Dad came up today to pick up a post pounder--sounds like work to me. He is planning on building a shop next to his house and he is going to put up a temporary backyard fence for "his little black friend, Jazzy," while they are building the shop. Remember this man is 85 years old, soon to be 86, hope Mike has that much energy when he is 85!

First Goldfinch of the season arrived today

I can't resist taking pictures of Jazz, we are just so happy she is well and still with us
This very fat Robin has been hanging out on this window ledge and pecking at the window. I guess he is saying, "let me in, it's cold out here."
One goofy looking pooch