Monday Drive

Sunday we both tried to totally exhaust ourselves—Michael working on his “thumb” project and me in the flower beds pulling weeds.  Today we decided to take a drive—that way we wouldn’t be caught working! Over the Beartooth Highway we went—340 miles total—from home to Red Lodge, Montana then up over the 11,000 feet Beartooth Pass, into Cooke City and back home via Yellowstone Park and Livingston, Montana.  It was a glorious day! 

Traffic outside Yellowstone was light—and lighter than usual inside the Park—it is early in the season but there were several buffalo and bear jams as we traveled along.  We shared the driving and Emmi kept an eye out for critters—we saw two bear, loads of buffalo, antelope, sheep and elk. 

Michael took these bear photos:

He/she appears to have wintered well.  This one was causing a major people jam and the other bear we saw, a grizzly, was hiding himself a little too well to get a good photo.

The Bear “tooth”Lots of snow up there still!

We stopped in Silver Gate for Wilcoxson’s ice cream milkshakes before heading into the Park—YUM!

 

Pilot and Index peaks.

Disrespectful birds!

We are so fortunate to call Yellowstone Park our backyard!

Rhubarb Explosion

This time of year our rhubarb plants produce more than we can eat—or need to eat.  After all rhubarb requires lots of sugar to be made palatial so it really isn’t good for the waistline—but, sometimes it’s just necessary to eat some rhubarb crisp!

This is the best recipe for rhubarb crisp—from a cookbook I purchased in Alaska when making frequent trips up there for work. 

Today I was back on the weed sprayer, getting two tanks of solution sprayed on the never ending supply of weeds—I am making a dent, should be finished by next week.  The birds are eating us out of house and home, we counted eight hummingbirds on the feeder while we enjoyed lunch out on the deck.

The cowboy is creating again—our mini-excavator does not have a “thumb”—a movable piece attached to the bucket of the excavator operated by hydraulics which allows you to “pick up” things such as rocks.  So, he is working on creating a “thumb.”  He has welded, pounded, looked for parts—all without too much cursing—and the “thumb” is taking shape—he’s a smart cowboy!

I finished the stitching in the ditch on my little Winter Solstice quilt—I’m not going to do much more quilting on it—the quilt is small and the SID is enough to securely anchor the layers in place.

Sunset photos from last night.

It was a “why we live in Montana” kind of day—warm and sunny!

A Storm

Early this morning on Facebook I began to see the aftermath a major storm left in Big Timber last night about midnight.  I drove through Big Timber on my way to yoga about 9:30 and there were still huge piles of hail—thankfully the hail was small and caused no car or roof damage but the hail did a number on the trees, gardens and flowers.  There were also some broken windows in homes.

Taken by Jim Baldwin, that is hail in the parking lot of The Fort, a local gas/convenience store shortly after the storm moved through.  The next photos I took with my iPhone as I drove through town on the way to yoga this morning.

It was 68 degrees outside this morning—that’s a lot of still un-melted hail in the streets!

Wednesday Michael and I took Nat back to Livingston to retrieve the other pair of glasses he had ordered—we enjoyed a fabulous lunch at the Rib and Chop plus milkshakes at Mark’s In & Out.  It was a very good day!

Today Michael helped our friend Ken with a lathe project, I went to yoga then came home and worked in the garden. 

Life is good, very good!

And this is the trailer the cowboy built from scratch!  Now all inspected, licensed and legal.

Oh, it is good to have Live Writer back—but I will miss that lightening fast posting speed Blogger produced!

Cooking With Herbs

It's high water time in Montana--we've had lots of rain and the temperatures are finally warming causing some snow melt up in the mountains--thus the rivers are rising.  A good friend of ours, Larry, took this shot of Natural Bridge which is located near our home.  Only during times of high water does the water flow over the natural bridge, all other times it flows under the bridge.


Monday Nat and I took a run to Livingston to pick up his new glasses.  Due to a doctor office snafu we will be returning to Livingston Wednesday to pick up the other pair of glasses!

The last couple years I've given up on gardening as our growing season just seems so short--by the time anything is ready for picking it's time for frost.  But this year I seem to have the bug again--in a small way.  When we built this house we started a small garden and it still contains some things such as chives--that's the garden we are planting--the small one and only with limited plants!  The cowboy and his mini-excavator moved some compost into the garden and I used our little Mantis tiller to get the soil ready--since then we've had just enough rain to keep me from doing anything else.  

Tonight I went to Big Timber for a "Cooking With Herbs" class given at the greenhouse owned by our friends Kelli and her daughter Bonnie--oh, MY!!!  Kelli's good friend Linda was our chef for the evening and she can cook!  Our first course had us sampling Garden Fresh White Sangria which had a hint of jalapeno accompanied by Crisp Rosemary Flatbread and Green Herb Dip with fresh veggies. The main course was Zucchini Noodles with Slow Roasted Cherry Tomatoes and Cream.  Reed, my friend Jeane's son was sitting beside me and agreed--the cowboy is NOT going to eat zucchini noodles--but I bet he would love the sauce!  And the Italian Herb Baked Meatballs would also be a cowboy hit!

Dessert was just absolutely awesome--Lemon Basil Blueberry Swirl Pound Cake!  I could have eaten the whole dang cake!!

Storms are coming--I think there is a full moon tonight but with the storm clouds brewing I don't thing we will be seeing that moon!

Birthday and Branding

A week ago today we celebrated Nat's 93rd birthday.  I would say he is doing well--93 years old, lives alone and makes his own decisions. He attends lunch at the local Senior Center four days a week and spends many afternoons playing a mean game of cards.  We celebrated with beef filets on the grill, garlic mashed potatoes and brown sugar carrots.  Instead of a cake we had homemade chocolate pudding.



Saturday morning had us leaving the house by 8am heading to Lonn's for branding.  Lonn and Katie had purchased sliced pork and I provided the rest of the food--potato salad, calico baked beans and a green salad with homemade poppy seed dressing--a favorite of Katie and Laci's.  Dessert included Costco pies and homemade rhubarb crisp--my rhubarb is out of control!  It was a day of fun (except for the calves) and laughter.

After I started lunch Emmi and I decided to take a walk--the main house on the ranch Lonn manages is way up on top of a hill--probably only about 1/2 a mile but with an extreme elevation gain--I was huffing and puffing as was Emmi!  But the views from up there can't be beat!

Today Michael worked on his trailer and moved some dirt around--I think he just likes to play with those toys!  I sprayed weeds and this afternoon was ambitious enough to weed my strawberry patch--now if we can just keep the mice out of the strawberries!  Oh, and I potted all my flowers--the deck is looking great!

Lonn

Jayme trying out her roping skills on one of the Friesian horses she and her Dad Jim raise 

Michael (Katie's husband) and my Michael

Doug and Jayme

Jayme

Lonn

Lots of help

My cowboy

Exciting Blog--Not

We have off white ceramic tile in our kitchen, mud room and bathrooms.  Over the years the grout had started to appear rather grubby and no commercial cleaning solution helped that grubbiness.  Not long ago I noticed a recipe on Facebook for grout cleaner with a before and after photo--what the heck, the recipe contained common ingredients I had on hand.  It consisted of 7 cups of water--and I thought hot water would work better.  The next ingredient was 1/2 cup baking soda--do you know what happens when you dump baking soda into hot water--a mess is what happens--I had the container sitting in the sink so no harm was done.  One-third cup of lemon juice and 1/4 cup of vinegar completed the recipe.

Crawling around on my hands and knees with a squirt bottle of this stuff and a brush made for clean grout and one exhausted me!  It was amazing how well this stuff worked!

Yesterday we headed to Billings--I had two medical appointments.  For about three years I've had what I call a cranky hip.  It bothers me most when sitting in a car for long periods of time and especially if Emmi is in my lap.  About two years ago I saw an orthopedic surgeon who diagnosed me with bursitis--well, exactly how long does bursitis last???  The hip pain wakes me in the night and is just annoying.  So, I decided to give the medical community another shot and ended up seeing the orthopedic surgeon's physicians assistant (PA)--a delightful, young, personable young woman.  She didn't think I had bursitis, took some more x-rays and thinks I have some kind of muscle/joint strain.  I received a cortisone injection (which she performed causing me very little discomfort), an anti-inflammatory med., and a Medrol dose pack.  Last night I slept through the night for the first time in ages!

My other appointment was just a bone density scan.  A wonderful lunch at Jake's, stops at Costco and Wal Mart and we were heading home.  Michael did his Harbor Freight run while I was seeing doctors.  Emmi kept Nat company.

There are sure lots of disgruntled Microsoft Live Writer users out there and I am one of them but have decided to just put it in prespective.  It was and is a free program.  My blog is my journal for friends and family to read.  I enjoy the fact that others in the far flung world of blogging read what I have written but seriously--it's my journal.  As Sue from The MoHo And Other Traveling Tales said, it's also searchable which is important.  I have stacks of journals from pre-blogging years and it's a pain trying to find something in one of those books.

More rain equals more mud around here but today the sun came out at times.  The photos show how green all this rain has made our little neck of the woods!

Routers and Flowers

Blogger and Live Writer seem to be having some issues, I can't publish a blog with Live Writer--so if this one looks different it's because I had to use Blogger.

I think we've been transported to Seattle.

Our little mouser!

For as long as we’ve been back in Montana, the cowboy has been having computer issues—he gets those annoying “webpage cannot be opened” messages especially when hanging around on Craigslist but it happens on other sites as well.  I’ve not received near as many of those “webpage…….” messages but it does occasionally pop up on my laptop. 

This winter while in Arizona we purchased a new Brother wireless printer and it worked flawlessly—we love the thing but as soon as we were home the printer started losing connection with the computers.  Did these two issues have anything in common???  The HP printer we had before the Brother also had problems staying connected to the computers when we were home in Montana—I would have to unplug the printer and router allowing both devices to reboot—that little exercise kind of defeated the purpose of wireless now didn’t it!! 

At the end of last week I called our DSL provider, explaining our problems.  The tech thought it could possibly be a router issue and  offered to send me a new router—if that doesn’t fix the problem I can return the device—it arrived today and we will see what happens!

Michael is still working on the trailer he is building (almost done) and I’ve been spraying weeds (not done!).  Yesterday afternoon I loaded a quilt of mine—the Winter Solstice one—and started quilting. 

Last summer I didn’t plant any flowers in pots for our deck as we were going to Alaska—I missed my flowers!  Today I paid a visit to the greenhouse owned by our friend Kelli and her daughter Bonnie.  The flowers/herbs will probably spend a few days inside before being potted—we could still have a frost/freeze.

Not long ago a local business, The Fort, installed several Tesla car charging stations.  I must admit I was skeptical anyone would ever use the stations—look what I spotted today while filling my car with gas.