Calling In The Experts

Last night friends Boo and Terry called asking us to come over for coffee and to meet the new dog—a lab named Rio.  Nowhere else would anyone drive 30+ minutes on a road from h**l just to have coffee with friends—but Montana!!  Shortly after 8am off we went bouncing and jouncing through mud and muck.  We spent a delightful couple hours catching up with Boo and Terry and meeting Rio who as a puppy is quite the handful. 

Back home I began preparing pizza dough, sauce and toppings—you see, we decided we needed to call in the experts to help us in deciding how to remodel the inside of the Tin Tee Pee—I was bribing Jill and Terry with pizza and homemade ice cream. 

Terry is a contractor who has spent a large portion of his career building incredibly wonderful houses, Jill is a realtor now but has dabbled in interior decorating and has excellent taste.  They are in the ongoing process of remodeling while living in an old brick farm house where at one time Jill’s grandparents lived. 

Many years ago Terry with a partner got into the sheep wagon business.  The sheepherders would stay with their bands of sheep in these adorable round top little covered wagons.  In the days of real sheepherders the wagons probably weren’t adorable—a bachelor spending days on end with a bunch of smelly sheep probably starting to smell a bit like sheep in a wagon with no running water or toilet!!?? 

Terry and Hilary took these sheep wagons and turned them into works of art, stunning works of art.  Some of the wagons were purchased by very famous people to be used as guest cabins, offices, children’s play rooms, etc.  Michael and I would accompany Jill and Terry with the wagons when Terry and Hilary would enter their creations in various art shows such as the Western Design Conference in Cody, WY every fall.  The wagons were expensive—they truly were works of art.  The following photos were not taken by me but were included in a June, 1996 article in Architectural Digest in which Hilary and Terry were featured:

So, thus the bribery—we got some great ideas from Jill and Terry, can’t wait to get started.  Some of the ideas included a granite countertop, copper shower overlay, leather headboards and other rustic wood features.  Pendleton blankets, nice light fixtures—a special kind of folding dining table!! 

It was a great evening as usual with these good friends—food was good especially the homemade strawberry ice cream! 

We woke to the same story, second verse this morning, another 2 inches of snow!!