We Were Short On Snow

NOT!  We got less than the 10 inches some were predicting and more than the 2 inches others were predicting, about 6-7 inches of fluffy, wet snow.  It stuck to poor Emmi like glue on our walk this morning. She doesn’t seem to mind.

This time of year our UPS man Bill is a busy dude!  At least now UPS has provided him with a 4-wheel drive vehicle.  He can at least get up our driveway and many other driveways in his delivery area.  The previous UPS normal panel trucks had to be chained up before navigating these steep driveways.  To make it easy on him, too, we unlock the door to the big barn down near the road and have told him to leave packages there if the driveway is too nasty. 

I hope to sleep like a baby tonight, my new pillows came today via Shirley.  Some Santa presents came in the mail, too.  I love this time of year!

I loaded Jill’s quilt onto the frame and came close to finishing it and would have if I had not had to do battle with insurance companies.  I thought I was the customer but the way the woman in Pennsylvania was talking to me maybe I was just a bum!  Yes, can anyone tell me why BCBS of MT claims are processed in Pennsylvania???? 

Michael and Emmi puttered today, it was a good day for puttering!  Michael accomplished a little, Emmi destroyed a little!

LoraLee was given a Kindle by her boss—she hasn’t used it and offered it to me for the winter.  Because we are no where near an AT&T cell tower, I had to download the book from Amazon through my computer then onto the Kindle.  I was successful with only ONE call to the Kindle store.  How cool is that??!!

A Fun Day In Bozeman

When I first moved to this area with Michael I met two sets of his friends right off the bat—first Jill and then Jeane and Steve.  Jill and Jeane have over the years become the greatest of friends and I enjoy their company tremendously.  They welcomed this city girl into their cowgirl world with open arms.  I spent the day in Bozeman with them, shopping and having lunch. 

Downtown Bozeman—there is usually a lot more snow in Bozeman than here as the elevation is higher—not this time, Bozeman has very little snow compared to what Big Timber received.  There are still HUGE piles of snow on the city streets in Big Timber where the plows just pushed all the snow—some of the piles are as big as Rollie’s truck!

Bozeman is a very touristy town and as a result has blocks and blocks of little fun shops and some great restaurants.  We had such a good time and I didn’t do too much damage to Michael’s wallet!  Found a stainless steel carafe for the motorhome and some cool Christmas presents. 

By the time we got back to Big Timber late this afternoon it had started to snow.  Maybe 2-4 inches we will get??

A tragedy happened here in Montana yesterday, a Montana state highway patrol officer was shot and killed during a routine traffic stop, may God be with his family, he was only 23 years old.  The last time a state trooper was shot in Montana was in 1978 and before that in 1946.  It just doesn’t happen here.  The man who shot the officer committed suicide. 

One of the neighboring ranches is owned by an elderly couple and Olaf is Norwegian—speaks with a heavy accent.  His wife’s name is Gladys—I would always see Olaf driving and Gladys opening the gates, even in the worst of weather, raging snowstorms, high winds, etc.  I asked Gladys one time, “why do you always ride as the passenger and have to get out and open the gates?”  Her reply, “because it is just easier to get out and open the gates than to listen to him complain about every bump and frozen cow patty I drive over.”  And, I cleaned up her language for the blog!  So, Al and Kelly, tell us why we see Kelly always opening and closing the gates!

Another One Finished

Two more to go, quilts that is.  I finished a sweet little Christmas quilt for my friend Jeane today—I smiled the whole time I was freehand quilting mittens all over the quilt—the fabric is jolly snowmen, winter scenes and pure white, the whole thing just made me happy! 

We had fairly nice weather today, over 30 degrees and only a little wind, snow was melting and dripping. 

For lunch today I made homemade bread and beef stew—very good and perfect food for this kind of weather.

Tomorrow Jeane is taking me to Bozeman for a belated birthday lunch (yes my birthday is in September but better late than never!)

George came up today and brought us really good bottles of wine as a gift for Michael plowing his driveway on Thanksgiving Day.  I think I have this story —straight--George’s daughter is a wine buyer for a chain of grocery stores in California, gives George great wine recommendations and all his friends and neighbors benefit! 

Emmi loves her ducks!  She is exercising Michael’s arms.

A Good Day

Michael got up feeling much better today and did some more puttering with the motorhome—mainly trying to figure out how to work the heating system so we won’t freeze when we head out in fifteen days!  Gina, we are also trying to figure out whether to take the couch out and put the recliners in or leave the couch.  I know what Rollie’s vote would be!  I think the washer/dryer is staying at least until we are around some more muscle!

I quilted ALL day and Ellie, your quilt if finished!!!  It looks wonderful, I think you will be thrilled.  I even got the binding sewn on with the longarm and tomorrow I will load another quilt—three more to go!

It was warmer today if you call 20 degrees warm but with a cold north wind blowing.  And that is about it for our day around here.

Strange clouds over the Crazy Mountains this morning. 

Here Comes The Cold Again

Emmi and I just got back from a walk, her afternoon stroll and I am frozen!  It is right at 18 degrees and the wind is blowing!  The skies are also clear so can you imagine what the temperature is going to be tomorrow morning??

Michael was kind of under the weather today and doesn’t feel like he accomplished much of anything except for changing the oil in the Jeep.  He did take a care package for our USAF granddaughter out to the post office for me.

Ellie’s quilt is coming along nicely, I am almost at the halfway point quilting it—I used a wool batting for the first time and I love how it looks, so puffy and nice!  This quilt will give me something to do to pass the miles as we travel—hand sewing the binding—as big as that quilt is it will probably take me all the way to Arkansas! 

I made that Chicken Tetrazzini recipe for lunch again, YUM!

Stormy looking mountains this morning but we have had sunshine this afternoon.

A golden eagle perched high up in a tree watching us this morning.

OK, Are We Finished Eating??

Tonight we went over to Lonn and LoraLee’s to have Thanksgiving with them, Katie and Michael along with Michael’s parents.  The owners of the ranch where Lonn and LoraLee live and work were here over Thanksgiving.   Michael also had to work over Thanksgiving so tonight was the night for us to eat turkey and all the other stuff that goes along with it.  I am stuffed—shouldn’t have eaten that pumpkin pie but it sure was good! 

LoraLee has a new puppy, a Heinz 57 variety and it sure is cute—the puppy wasn’t too thrilled with Emmi though.

I did get Ellie’s quilt loaded onto the frame today.  Michael spent some more time puttering around the motorhome—he got all the wiring put back in place and the Cradlepoint router installed in its new home.  He also put two more batteries in the coach. 

A recycled photo of our snowstorm.  As we drive around—to town and up the West Boulder to Lonn and LoraLee’s we see more and more evidence that this snowstorm was one heck of a storm—there are HUGE piles of snow where the snow drifts have been plowed off the road and out of driveways.  Downtown Big Timber is a mess with piles of snow everywhere.  An older man who lives out north of town fell in the snow Wednesday night and came close to dying.  A variety of circumstances saved his life—here is a link to the Billings Gazette with the heart warming story.  We can all be thankful the storm has passed and we are all safe and sound. 

Making Preparations

Our high temp today was to be between 40 and 50 degrees—Michael decided to start the motorhome and pull it forward into driveway area so he could work on replacing the rubber ducting surrounding the radiator.  I heard a lot of colorful language out there but he finished the chore.  The driveway was slushy in spots and bare in others—we decided to take the coach down the steep driveway while the getting was good.  The motorhome is now parked in front of the big garage down by the road.  I loaded some stuff into it but without heat inside I can’t load much.  All the other things will have to wait until closer to time to leave.

I didn’t get much quilting accomplished today.  Nat eats lunch at the Big Timber Senior Center four days a week and then usually comes to our house for lunch at least one day per weekend.  This week the weather was so bad on Wednesday he didn’t go, Thursday and Friday the Center wasn’t open and now it is the weekend.  I decided we needed to take Nat dinner tonight as the roads still aren’t the greatest.  I had inherited a spiral cut ham this week, made some garlic mashed potatoes and salad with apples, almonds and poppy seed dressing.  We arrived at his house about 5pm and he provided the appetizer (cheese and crackers) to go with our drinks.  We had a great meal and a great time visiting.  Leftover pumpkin pie and cherry cheesecake pie completed our delicious meal.

Emmi played with her duck she keeps at Granddad’s then had to take a nap in his chair-- Dortha and Ellie—Emmi’s original duck had an untimely accident this week, Emmi broke its neck.  I had purchased a couple spare ducks and today gave Emmi a new one—you should have seen her—talk about excitement—she loves her ducks!