A Trip Up The Boulder

It was to be a beautiful day and we decided to take the jeep and go up the Boulder.  Our UPS man, Bill, had told us yesterday the wind had blown down lots and lots of trees blocking the road for a day or so—we went to see.  Wish you could have been with us Gina and Rollie!!!

And the UPS man was correct, hundreds of trees uprooted by this wind storm, micro burst thing we have in this part of the country.  We drove all the way to what is called Box Canyon then the road was blocked by downed trees.

But first we had to navigate the construction zone—road construction everywhere this time of year in Montana, even on the Boulder road!

Emmi’s favorite place to ride.

The Boulder River this time of year is roaring!

Trees down, we aren’t going any farther!

The USFS has been doing a fuel reduction program up the Boulder—supposed to make it easier to fight a forest fire in an area where there is only one very poor road for going and coming.  To us folks who live here—it looks as if a big huge mess was made!!

State of the art comfort station at the East Fork ranger station.

The sign in front of the jeep states, “no motorized vehicles.” 

A marmot, the only wildlife we saw today with the exception of two ducks!

We took a picnic lunch and just had a great time.  Back home around 3pm, worked in the garden a little then headed to the McLeod Bar to have dinner with friends:  Geoff & Nancy, Robyn & Claire, George & Shirley.  Great steaks and burgers!! 

A good Friday in Montana, tonight it is raining!

Peter and Beatrix, Emmi is a miniature schnauzer, a very spoiled rotten mini schnauzer!

Happy Birthday Emmi

Our sweet little Emmi turns 3 years old today.  She is just the best, sweetest little dog and we love her to pieces—happy birthday Emmi!!!

Although it was 34 degrees this morning, the temps rose nicely and we had bright blue skies and sunshine!  Breezy but warm.

I started my cleaning project in the quilt studio today—it is mind boggling how many small pieces and scraps of fabric I found in that cabinet.  How big a scrap do you keep?  Do you cut the scraps into specific sizes??  Such a dilemma!!

In 2011 we got those torrential rains for the whole month of May—flooding and I think this year we have another consequence—weeds by the millions!  We always have weeds but this year they seemed to have had babies and multiplied!!!  The weed sprayer in the back of the Kawasaki mule and I had a date this morning—sprayed a tank and a half on those prolific weeds! 

Al of the Bayfield Bunch has often lamented the lack of printed manuals for newer cameras and other devices and I’m right there with him.  The Canon camera I have—Canon30XIS—came with no manual only an online one.  That’s OK except when you are out with the camera and would like to try something different miles from cellphone or internet coverage!!!  I am experimenting with the macro setting on the camera and could not for the life of me understand what the online manual was saying or in other words not saying.  The manual explained how to set the camera to macro but neglected to explain the macro option was not available under some settings.  Google to the rescue again—I Googled my problem and up popped the answer—what would we do without Google???

I am off to a quilt guild meeting in Livingston with Marjeen tonight—I am going to set the blog to publish later—we will see if it works!

A Quilting Day

Yep, for most of the day I got to quilt.  A couple of weeks ago I made the top for a baby quilt and today I loaded that top, got it quilted and the binding sewn on.  Now all that remains is to hand stitch the back of the binding and sew a label on.  It will be ready to ship to Virginia.  Looking around my quilt studio I was thinking, “I really, really need to clean house.”  Fabric and notions are everywhere—it would be easier to quilt if I took the time to put things away now wouldn’t it???  All those little leftover pieces of batting—if I would just measure and label each significantly sized piece then I could more easily find and use those smaller pieces when quilting a small baby quilt. 

In between quilting I made two batches of granola for Michael and some rhubarb pickles!  Yes, rhubarb pickles—we’ve never eaten those before but thought we would give it a try.  What else do you do with rhubarb except make fattening desserts??? 

A few month ago Katie our granddaughter invited me to join Pinterest.  I wasn’t really interested in another social networking site until Rick wrote a post about it’s use and I was hooked.  I love to look at the “food” section and find recipes—but sometimes those recipes are just not right!  Michael loves fudgesicles but the dang things have 200 calories each!  So, I found this recipe on Pinterest for homemade ones which had less than 100 calories each and made a batch yesterday.  YUK, double YUK!!!  In the garbage goes that experiment!!  Katie tried a cinnamon roll cake kind of recipe and said it was also YUCKY!!  I guess people have different tastes.

And speaking of social networking sites—I HATE hackers and spammers.  Today I received an email from a good friend inviting me to view something on the website Linkedin.  I am a member of Linkedin along with several other nursing type friends—I never use the website, ever.  The reason the email raised a red flag—the supposed sender, our friend is elderly and in very poor health—he wouldn’t have a clue what Linkedin even is!  Then I read where Linkedin is admitting its system has been compromised and passwords stolen.  All righty then—I changed the Linkedin password, all our email passwords, etc.  What kind of person sits around all day figuring out ways of preying on people they don’t know?????  A jerk, an a**h**e, a total loser!!!!!

Rick left a comment on last nights’ blog, “ In Palm Springs they advertise a rattlesnake vaccine for dogs.”  Emmi has had the rattlesnake vaccine but our veterinarian tells us it isn’t 100% effective—it just makes the bitten dog be less sick—sometimes it eliminates the need to give the very pricey anti-venom.  Our vet told us because Emmi is so small, 11 pounds, a rattlesnake bite would probably kill her if she didn’t have the vaccine. 

One of our local restaurants serves a steak called a flatiron steak and our friend Jill cooks these same cuts of steak all the time.  Well today I tried one and look Jim, what I’m using to grill the steak-- The steak was awesome, I used a molasses marinade from the newest issue of Southern Living.  Very good, tender and flavorful! 

Michael hauled dirt here and there again today, loaded some logs and took the mini-excavator up to Geoff’s.  I’ve got to get up to their house and see their new puppy—Michael says he’s adorable! 

Indian paintbrush

Notice the coat—it was cold this morning, 44 degrees!

A good day in Montana.

More Of The Same

Michael headed off early this morning for the West Boulder—he is finishing up the road project he started last fall.  Emmi and I took a walk with gun in hand—yesterday Emmi and Michael came very close to getting bitten by a rattlesnake.  Have I said before—I HATE snakes!!

After our walk I went into town to get milk and some plants for my deck planters at the nursery belonging to our friend Kelly.  Jill was there helping Kelly unload the truck which comes every Tuesday.  They were both giving me grief for coming in the little convertible—how was I supposed to spend any money??  Nothing would fit in that little car!!  I managed!

Made myself some lunch and then hopped on the riding lawnmower mowing our walking paths, the edges of the driveway and the grounds around the worm fence.   On the way back up the driveway it began to sprinkle and by the time I reached the garage it was raining.  A quick rain storm then sunshine again.  So, I took the lawnmower up to the shed on top where we store it and began to walk back down to the house.  Sprinkles then hail—Emmi was sitting in the open doorway of the garage and headed to the house with me—she didn’t like hail and kept trying to dodge the little ice balls.

The tomato plants I put in the ground and in pots yesterday look a little better today—planting shock I guess.

My family in Arkansas experienced some of the heavy storms which have been traveling through that area—my sister and her husband have a tree on their barn.  Several years ago they experienced a tornado which caused extensive damage and flooding to their home. 

Lonn sent me some cool photos he took of us in the kayak this past weekend:Looks like dear husband is taking a break!!

See little Emmi’s head just below Michael’s paddle?

Another busy day in Montana.  We are having basil/tomato soup for dinner—a recipe I found on Pinterest—we will see if it is any good!

The Never Ending List

Tossing and turning this morning after 5am my brain was going round and round—listing all the things I need to accomplish this week.  And why was I awake at 5am???  The sky begins to lighten and by 5am it is full daylight with sunrise at 5:33am this morning—yep, I’m awake!

My list filled a sheet of notebook paper—weed the garden, water the garden, mow grass and trails, do laundry, weed whack, make rhubarb pickles , quilt, make phone calls, the list went on and on.  I managed to make a huge dent in the list and my poor aching body is saying I made a dent. 

All three gardens are looking great—used the little Mantis tiller to weed supplemented by a good old fashioned hoe.  I got brave and put some tomato plants in the ground under the plastic row cover I am using until the weather really warms up and straightens out.  I also planted some tomatoes in tubs on the deck—we will see which location does better.  The potatoes are up as is the corn.  Lettuce and radishes are looking good.  I was feeling really proud of myself until I read the Patchwork Times and saw Judy’s photo showing two large ripe tomatoes and a bowl of fresh green beans—but I wouldn’t trade our weather here in Montana for her weather in Texas.

Michael worked on another Geoff project, fixed our Kawasaki mule which left him stranded up in the pasture today and parked the Tin Tee Pee after I unloaded the remainder of things left from the weekend. 

Tacos for lunch, fruit salad for dinner—not much meal making going on today!

Views from the road leading to our camping spot this past weekend.

We Go Camping

A camping trip was in the works for the weekend but until Saturday morning we didn’t know for sure we were going—LoraLee called bright and early and the packing began in earnest!!!  By 10am we were heading down the Boulder headed for Delome Lake which is on top of what is referred to as Butte Hill here in Montana.  The Butte hill is one of the longest, steepest mountain passes you will ever encounter giving truckers and RVer’s nightmares! 

A USFS campground right on the shores of the little mountain lake and we lucked into a great campsite which held both rigs.  We dodged rain showers yesterday and today but also enjoyed some sunshine and warmer temps. 

Lonn and LoraLee have a little inflatable boat complete with trolling motor—they caught three fish and had a ball doing so. 

The dogs had a enjoyable time too—Buddy got in trouble with Grandpa and Grandma (aka Mike and me) and found himself attached to a rope—he is pouting:

He wanted to go catch Lonn and LoraLee in the boat.

We enjoyed breakfast over the campfire cooked by chef Michael—very good!

Scooby even enjoys riding the dirt bike with Lonn.

When we went camping with Lonn and LoraLee up the Boulder Lonn had these ridiculously short marshmallow roasting sticks—you had to get way too close to the fire.  When Mike and I were in Wal Mart the other day I saw a display of these long, double decker roasting sticks and bought one as a gift to Lonn.  He didn’t quite get the concept it wasn’t necessary to totally fill the roasting stick with marshmallows and was a little on the sticky side by the time we all enjoyed the fruits of his labor last night!

 

A great, short camping trip!

On Friday Michael noticed that folks we met in Cedar Key, Florida this winter, Betsy and Nancy were in of all places, Livingston, MT.  We were really late reading their blog Friday night and left early Saturday morning.  I did manage to figure out how to send them an email from my phone suggesting we get together for dinner tonight.  No cell or internet service at our campsite but on the way home today listened to messages and we were on for dinner.  Michael and I drove over to Livingston tonight and had a great time catching up with all their travels since we saw them in February.  They have plans to spend a lot of time in Montana this summer. 

Just a great, busy weekend!!

Branding Day

We could hear the rain on our metal roof this morning—uh,oh—today was branding day at Lonn and LoraLee’s and rain isn’t a good thing.  Thank goodness by 9am the rain had rolled out and branding proceeded as planned.

I have mixed feelings about branding and all that goes with it—I totally understand why we have to brand but it doesn’t make me like it.  When the cows belonged to Michael and me, I felt branding was just a necessary evil.  Now that we own no cows, I don’t do brandings.  I stay long enough to get a few photographs and then head for the house.  LoraLee needed a little help today—not much—even when the woman doesn’t feel good she is a whirlwind! 

I love the way friends and neighbors turn out to help—brandings are social occasions and as Lonn still ropes calves, everyone is eager to help, roping is fun!  Many of our rancher neighbors use chutes and branding tables requiring less people but the process isn’t nearly as much fun for the helpers!

LoraLee had prepared a spread—ribs, baked potatoes, macaroni salad, watermelon and bread sticks.  She had three different kinds of dessert so no one went away hungry!

Here are some photos from today:

That’s our granddaughter Katie with her back to the camera.

Someone wasn’t happy at being left in the VW—too many Emmi stomping horses around!

Our friend Jim with one of his Friesian cross horses—I was teasing Jim saying his horse needed a haircut, he couldn’t see.  Jim’s daughter Heather is in the background. 

Lonn and Michael