Happy Birthday Michael

Today my sweet husband celebrates his birthday.  We decided to take a drive—I called Nancy and Royal our friends who own the little store in Neihart, MT.  Yes, they were going to be at the store and yes they would love if we came up bearing lunch and birthday cake.

Off we went arriving just after 1pm.  Royal started the grill and I made one of Michael’s favorite meals—hamburgers.  We had another favorite—cheese dip—such a healthy meal!  And to top it all off a three layer chocolate birthday cake.

Nancy and Royal have a group of friends and customers that routinely stop by for coffee during the day when the store is open.  Everyone was offered a slice of birthday cake and all pronounced it delicious.  Even the Schwan’s man got a slice! 

We, including Emmi had a great day.  The drive up was beautiful with lots of color and it is raining—started yesterday.  Much cooler and raining—bet that smoke will be a thing of the past after today.

The welcoming Mr. Pumpkin is in the yard of our local postmaster.  Our little post office is on the closure list—we will see how that plays out.

A Birthday Party

Michael was off for the West Boulder early this morning leaving Emmi and me to take our walk.  I managed to get my new vacuum out of the box but that’s as far as it went—still sitting in the living room floor.  Baked a cake cause someone in this family is having a birthday.

And speaking of birthdays, my friend Marilyn celebrated a big one this week—70!  But she sure doesn’t look 70 does she?? Marilyn is a very vivacious, positive woman, she and her son own a wonderful art/gift gallery in Billings and have a summer cabin near us.  Peg arranged a special luncheon for Marilyn at the Grand Hotel in Big Timber today, there were nine of us for lunch.  We even toasted Marilyn with a bottle of champagne!!  It was a beautiful time topped off with a delicious cheesecake made by another friend who was unable to join us.  It was so dark in the dining room my photos didn’t turn out well. Peg is of the Peg and John fame who got their new puppy Charlee yesterday.  The little girl slept from 9pm until 4am this morning—must have been tired out after her plane ride!

Michael was just arriving home as I drove into the driveway and it had started to rain—yippee!  Maybe we will get enough rain to drown out the smoldering fire which is still producing smoke.

An Amazing Story

A Montana young woman was successful with the help of her horse in hazing a grizzly bear away from an eight year old boy and his horse. 

Near Whitefish, MT, Erin Bolster was guiding a group of eight people out for a horseback ride when things went totally haywire!  The group came across a grizzly bear chasing a deer, the horses spooked and turned around and headed back down the trail.  The little boy’s horse spooked and took off causing the grizzly to give chase.  The courageous young woman made her horse charge the grizzly and eventually caused the bear to turn and leave.  Here is a link to the news story—the young woman AND her courageous horse will appear on the Letterman Show October 11. 

An Amazing Story

A Great Dinner and Billings

We had a wonderful dinner with our granddaughter last night—she is home on leave from Italy, stationed with the USAF.  It was great to see her and give her a big hug—she has been gone a year. 

There is a gravel road from McLeod over the mountains to Livingston passing by Lonn and LoraLee’s house.  We took that road last night hoping to see some fall colors but it got dark too quickly.  Instead we were treated to a spectacular sunset.

Today we headed to Billings leaving Emmi with Nat.  I had a haircut appointment and we both had a long list of errands.

It was return things to Costco day.  Remember the new vacuum cleaner I bought in July—a Hoover—kaput all ready!  When in the upright position the beater bars were supposed to stop—that feature stopped working so if I took the vacuum outside to clean out the vehicles and sat it on gravel, guess what—yep, I sucked up lots of gravel!!  The hose for the tools was so short I would get a backache from bending over to use it.  JUNK!

Remember the blogging about mattresses and memory foam toppers???  We purchased a memory foam topper from Costco that also had gel pellets inside it.  Well, at first it was great then it began to just envelope us like little packages—made us both too warm and we both woke with back aches.  Back to Costco it went!

Purchased a Dyson vacuum cleaner today—we will see if all the hype about those is correct.  Costco makes it easy to return things—very accommodating!

My friend Jeane has a Toyota Prius and it has been in the hospital in Billings for about a week.  We picked it up for her today—when I got the key from the service guy I asked him to kind of tell me how to start the car which he did.  But when I got out there to insert the key fob into the slot and get it into “drive” I was defeated by the smart aleck thing!  Back inside to ask one of the service guys to please come outside and help me which he very graciously did.  It was kind of fun to drive once I got the dang thing started!

You run into the strangest people in Costco—ran into Michael’s good friend Sarge—we stood around in the parking lot and discussed all our winter plans. 

Our good friends Peg and John added a new member to their family today.  John and Peg had schnauzers and in the past couple of years lost both of them to severe illnesses.  They wanted to try a different breed of dog and settled on a cockapoo—Miss Charlee flew into Billings today—John and Peg are beside themselves.

Huge herd of elk in the pasture above Lonn and LoraLee’s house—it was really too dark for photos. 

Busy Monday

With a weather change on the horizon I decided today might be a good day to do some get ready for winter maintenance.  We took a walk with the Emmi girl and saw this big guy as he was leaving—seems he didn’t like our company.

When we cut firewood we haul the cut wood or logs up into the pasture and put the wood in a pile.  I started up the skidsteer and hauled several loads of cut wood down to the house.  Retrieved the weed sprayer and Michael used the air compressor to blow out all the hoses and fittings plus removed the actual pump.  OK, those chores are done for a while—of course we will need more firewood before we leave for the winter.

Last night on the way home from the movie in the dark we almost hit a huge bull elk!!!  I yelled “ELK” about the time Michael saw him and slammed on the breaks missing the big guy by just a few feet!!  Sure made our hearts beat faster!  Our friend Shirley had also been at the movies and was behind us about a 1/2 mile—she saw our brake lights and that told her to be very wary when approaching that area.  Our road is notorious for wandering deer—rarely do I go to town and not see evidence of a deer hit by a vehicle.  Guess now we have to watch out for elk!

After our spring quilt retreat my friend Shirley and I decided to doing some bartering.  Knitting for quilting.  Before Shirley and her husband George left driving to their condo on upper Vancouver Island for some fishing I ordered yarn—a merino wool/cashmere blend in a bright red color.  Four days after they arrived home from Vancouver Island George and Shirley were loaded up and heading to Minnesota to visit family.  Shirley had lots of knitting time sitting in the truck and the results are stunning!  The safety pins mark the spots where I will need to put buttons.

  

Our sweet granddaughter Laci arrives home this evening from Italy where she has been stationed with the USAF for the last year—we are meeting up for dinner, can’t wait to see her!

First Sunday In October

Clouds all day today and a little cooler than yesterday.  In Billings on Saturday heat records were broken!!  By Thursday all may change, though.

Nat came up for lunch and I made chicken tetrazzini using Judy’s recipe from the Patchwork Times, YUM!  We had green veggies and a Greek salad to go with the pasta dish.

Michael has spent the day installing a gooseneck hitch on the new truck.  He noticed one of the hide a ball type hitches for sale on Craigslist and low and behold it was located in Big Timber—so be bought it Friday night while in town.  

This afternoon I did some more quilting on the fat turkey wallhanging—it is the cutest thing!  Finished my audiobook, The Help and started a new one. 

Michael and I never go to the movies—rarely!  We sometimes purchase DVD’s and we borrow from Gina and Rollie’s extensive library when they are around us but that’s the extent of our movie watching.  Tonight we went to the movies in Big Timber.

The population of Big Timber is about 1500 people and somehow the town has always managed to hang onto the movie theatre.  And while we don’t see big name movies the exact week those shows hit the big cities, we do see them several weeks later.  On Friday when we were in town we noticed the theatre was showing The Help all weekend.  Michael agreed to go with me tonight.

I love going to the movies at the Cottonwood Theatre—holds about 200 people, we see many people we know and most everyone picks up their own trash when leaving the show.  In warmer weather everyone stands around outside after the movie and chats.  Yep, small town living!

The movie was fabulous—didn’t follow the book exactly but for once I wasn’t disappointed in the movie version. 

Emmi voiced her displeasure at not being allowed to attend the movies when we got home!

A great first Sunday in October.

Just A Saturday

Michael headed out for the West Boulder this morning, off to work on his road project some more.  Emmi and I took a walk and played some soccer.  The silly little dog will just wear herself out chasing the soccer ball.

Plugged into my audiobook, The Help, and started quilting.  It has been a pleasure the last few days to work on projects of my own—today I loaded a Thanksgiving wall hanging which features a whimsical fat turkey. 

Mid-afternoon, Jeane came up to check out my new sewing machine (rumor has it she is looking for a new machine) and to bring me two of the cutest quilts for quilting.  I love it when the customer helps chose the thread color and quilting design for her quilts—makes my job a whole lot easier. 

Michael arrived home and I fixed a supper of pasta with homemade marinara sauce and focaccia bread with a salad. 

And that’s about it for our Saturday.  Emmi and I did take an after dinner walk and captured some great sunset photos.

You can see the tendrils of smoke rising, there was a west wind today keeping us smoke free.