Coming and Going

It seems as if I haven’t written a blog in a long time but I only skipped two days.  Our days have been busy—Thursday it was yoga in town and after yoga some of the yoga ladies and I went to the quilt shop in town to chose fabrics for making a “rag” quilt.  After our shopping Nancy, Max and I enjoyed lunch at the Timber Bar.

It is still bitterly cold—since Monday we have had two days with temps in the teens, the rest of the days have been single digits with below zero temps each night!  It’s rare we have this long a stretch with temps this cold—it’s making us long for our departure date!

The cowboy has a new toy—a ten feet wide snowplow blade.  He built a bracket to attach the blade to the skidsteer.  He can make one pass down our driveway now and it is plowed.  He was out there today plowing all the new snow which accumulated yesterday and last night.

 

I’ve been quilting like a mad woman and have finished three quilts for customers.  I loaded another one this afternoon and did some of the stitching in the ditch.  With our departure date approaching rapidly I’ve set myself a goal of finishing all my customer quilts this coming week. 

St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Big Timber has a yearly fundraising event, an Italian dinner.  We’ve never gone but this year I decided it would be fun and it was.  The food was outstanding—something you would be served in a fancy Italian restaurant.  The wines were good and the dessert was to die for!  I borrowed these photos from our friend Gladys’ Facebook page:

The decorations were perfect too—a very enjoyable evening—that’s the dessert in the green cup—some kind of light, lemon confection!

And here’s Lora Elizabeth, she is three months old now. 

Life is good.

And It’s Still Cold

Oh, my is it ever cold, our high temperature was eight degrees and when we woke this morning it was 11 degrees below zero—too cold to take a walk—we tried but Emmi just got too cold!

I spent some time working on a quilt, almost finished, just a little bit more to do.  This afternoon we headed into town driving the car with its new studded snow tires—worked very well I must say—the car is the rear wheel drive Cadillac we bought while living down in Texas.  Rear wheel drive cars will NOT go anywhere on ice and snow as we found out last year.  So, new tires were in order, now we can drive my comfortable car!

Today was the day for removing Nat’s stitches—I don’t think I tortured him too much—at least he didn’t groan and moan!  His incision from the MOHS procedure looks great.  We spent some time visiting with Nat and ran a few errands. 

Back home I worked on the quilt for a while and Michael watched a DVD detailing how to use his newest venture—a windshield repair kit.  Is there anything the cowboy won’t try???? 

Too cold to take photos today—it was a sunny, gorgeous day but without any heat in that ole sun!

Winter Came In Like A Lion

A very cold lion that is!!  Last night when we came home from Livingston after having gone out to eat with friends it was about 50 degrees with rain.  We woke to 12 degrees this morning and a touch of snow.  I think our high temperature today was about 20 degrees!  Tonight’s temp is to be below zero.  Michael thought our motorhome looked as if it were crying—“why didn’t you take me south sooner??”

We bundled up and took a walk this morning then each started on projects—I am working on a precious quilt for my friend Jeane—Warm Winter’s Blessings it is called:

I borrowed this photo from Paulette’s blog—she scored a kit on sale!! for making this sweet little quilt!  The fabrics are adorable and Jeane has done such a good job with the needlework—once it’s quilted and Jeane has seen it I will post photos—that is IF the quilt ever gets back to Jeane, do you think she would buy, “I’m just not quite finished with the quilting,” for a couple years???

The cowboy is building a steel plate for attaching a snow plow to our skidsteer—should make plowing snow a bunch easier.

That’s it for our day here in frozen Montana!

Taken on a nicer day!!

Five Generations

Friday Michael spent the day working on the motorhome dash heater/air conditioner controls—when I went out to see how the project was going he had the entire dash exposed—YIKES!  But the handy guy came through again and we now have levers which work!

Laci and little Lora Elizabeth came to visit for the weekend and last night we all gathered at Nat’s in town for dinner catered by me and to take some five generation photos.  It isn’t often families have five generations alive at one time.  This is the second time in my families we’ve had five generations living.  I was fortunate to have my paternal grandparents alive into my adulthood. My maternal grandmother was 93 years old when she died and was still aware and cognizant of her surroundings and people.  If I remember correctly she died in 2003.  While Grandma was still alive, my niece Niki, Grandma’s great-grandchild had a daughter, Elizabeth—with our Mom and Niki’s mom alive--five generations. 

 

Lora Elizabeth wasn’t a very happy child yesterday but at least she made it through the photos before having a melt down. 

I finished a quilt for my friend Jeane today and Michael hauled firewood—we may need a lot of firewood—every time I look at the weather report our high temp for Tuesday goes down a few degrees, I think it’s now at about 4 degrees—for a HIGH!!!  That Pacific storm which knocked out Rick and Paulette’s power is a wicked one I think!!

Tonight we drove over to Livingston and had a delicious meal with Sarge and Sarah at the Rib and Chop House.  It’s been a while since we’ve seen them and it was fun to catch up.  Sarah became a first time grandmother in September. 

Yoga And The Motorhome Takes A Trip

As Michael and the motorhome were starting out this morning, the cowboy said, “wouldn’t it be great to be leaving right now?”  Yes, it would—dry roads, moderate temps—we could have even put water in the rig!!  But we aren’t ready, we want to spend Thanksgiving here at home.  It won’t be long, we can be a little patient!

In our last trip out with the motorhome we got a big rock chip in the windshield which decided to become a big crack right across Michael’s line of vision.  Amazingly enough there is a glass repair shop capable of handling that big a windshield located right here in our little town of Big Timber, MT!  So, the big ole motorhome rolled down the driveway and was back in its own driveway mid-afternoon with a shiny new windshield on the driver side.

We have been so fortunate here in our little neighborhood to have a wealth of yoga instructors.  Now remember, we live 22 miles from anything—no grocery store, no gas station, nothing except the post office, a one room school house (still in operation) and a bar.  But we have yoga teachers!  

Julia, our dear present instructor along with her husband Rich recently purchased a beautiful new to them home north of Big Timber on property along the Yellowstone River.  While we were sad to have them leave our neighborhood, we were also so happy for them—their home near us was tiny, very tiny and they have two teenage sons!! 

So, one day a week Julia drives up the Boulder and we have yoga at Nancy’s.  The other yoga day we students drive to Big Timber and have yoga in Julia’s beautiful new home with its to die for mountain views.

While in town for yoga I made a stop at Nat’s to change his dressings and give him an iPad lesson.  Nat had three MOHS procedures on Monday—I think he is soon going to earn the prize for the most MOHS procedures ever done on a human!!  He is LOVING the iPad and is really enjoying the Kindle app plus he is figuring out lots of other internet stuff.  We are so glad he has decided to embrace the computer age at his ripe old age of 92!!

I also enjoyed lunch with my friend Jill—we had a great time catching up on all the news and missed having our friend Jeane join us, she had a commitment in Bozeman.

On the way up the Boulder I will frequently call Michael and say, “I’m on my way home, do you need anything?”—once again, remember it is 22 miles to “anything!”  Today I did this, he said no and I continued on toward home—when I reached our driveway I remembered Joe and Tammy were here for the weekend at our former home—figuring Joe would be out fishing I stopped in to see Tammy.  We were chatting away when I saw Michael’s pickup coming down the driveway and said to Tammy—“Oh, no!!  he thinks I’ve had car trouble.”  Yep, the cowboy was coming to look for me—I had had time to get home but seeing my car at Tammy’s he knew I was safe.  Tammy said, “he really does that, wow, I’m impressed.”  Yes, my cowboy cares greatly for me and I am truly blessed to have him! 

Driving up the Boulder—a view I never tire of.

Tin Tee Pee and Motorhome Remodel

Karen from Log Cabin Quilter left a comment the other day stating she had made the little Winter Solstice quilt plus she also stated, “your blog name is intriguing.”  I thought an explanation might be in order.  In 2008 when I started this blog with the help of my friend Ellie, the cowboy and I struggled with names.  I grew up in a camping family—my Mom and Dad had a RV, my then husband and I had a tent.  Michael grew up in an outfitting family—they used horses to pack their gear into the mountains near Yellowstone Park and slept in wall tents. 

As we were nearing retirement age in 2003 and were participating in a shooting sport I would suggest getting a RV so we could travel to warmer climates in the winter and shoot.  The cowboy would say, “I’m not living in a *&^% tin tee pee.”  We live in a log cabin on acreage in the mountains of Montana—thus TinTeePeeLogCabin became the name of our blog.  Needless to say, the cowboy does now spend a fair amount of time living in a tin tee pee.

We’ve had several “tin tee pees”—our friends Angie and Ralph frequently say, “you guys change RV’s more often than most people change their underwear!” But I think we’ve finally settled on a rig we truly love—we’ve had the 1995 Country Coach for 4 years now. 

The motorhome has no slides and we love it that way—we have no slide issues such as leaks and we don’t have to deal with flapping slide awnings.  With that said, we also don’t live in our motorhome full time and if we did I might want slides. 

When we bought it this is how it looked:

Wall to wall furniture! 

The TV was above the driver’s seat and you would sit in those two swivel recliners to watch TV.  We took the old TV and the recliners out.  We also removed that gorgeous green/turquoise couch and replaced it with a reclining love seat.  Now how do we watch TV—we aren’t TV watchers—we have no TV in our home, none, zip, nada.  When in the motorhome we will occasionally watch a movie or pick up a local TV station. 

While I was traveling the cowboy was remodeling.  We’ve had a hard to use situation—the TV rode in one of the upper cabinets and when we wanted to watch TV we took it down and sat the TV on that little table between the recliners in the above photo—wires hanging everywhere—not very aesthetically pleasing!  Plus that dumb little cabinet/table stuck too far out into the room since we removed the recliners.  That lamp you see in the photo was glued to the table—that took some doing to remove!!

I sure am glad I have a handy husband!  He removed the little cabinet, split it in half and designed this one using the materials from the old cabinet.  It looks GREAT and is now out of the way.  The TV and DVD player ride inside the cabinet!! 

Notice our little blue flame heater on the wall—have you seen the great article in the Escapees Magazine about blue flame heaters? 

Home Sweet Home

Gosh it is so good to be home with the cowboy and Emmi!  So very, very good!!  After spending 16 days of October away from home, I am beat physically and mentally!  My little episode of food poisoning mid-October didn’t do me any favors—my tummy hasn’t been right since—which doesn’t help the exhaustion! 

I haven’t flown much in recent years—in the past I flew 2-3 times per month—and I didn’t realize that since the merger of Delta and Northwest Airlines, Montana has way fewer flights than we formerly had!  The planes are packed and some of the planes are those Canada Air regional jets—small and packed!  And why does every flight I need to take leave at 6am????  UGH!!! 

We were at the hospital in-servicing the night nursing crew until after 11pm on Friday night—my flight to come home left Virginia Beach at 6am—so there weren’t very many sleeping hours that night.  I arrived in Billings just before 1pm and at home sweet home about 3:30pm.  I was in bed by 7pm and we both slept for almost 12 hours non-stop—I think I was tired!!!  Plus this stupid time change doesn’t help matters!

Feeling much, much better today.  We have taken a couple walks, played ball with Emmi, cleaned house and visited with friends/family on the phone.  Our weather is cold and blustery—we might get snow tonight???