This Garden of Mine...

I love gardens. I'm not really exagerating when I say that either. They are relaxing things of effort and reward. Here are some pics of mine. Now note, I didn't grow these. A lady worked in it all summer while I was gone! I came back to it waiting to be harvested! Green beans, egg plant, and tomatoes all ready to be eaten!

Back in Northern Montana

This morning I walked into my kitchen and saw a truly beautiful sight. My dish drainer was a sparkling jewelcase as the morning sun enlived every piece of new, pawn shop glassware I bought and washed yesterday! Life has great details sometimes.
















I drove in to Libby holding my eyelids open so I could see the road. It was good to step into my little house, smell it's old house smell, and see my unbelievable garden (yes, some grew a garden here while I was gone!). It was good to see my Libby friends again at church the next morning. They took me huckleberry picking too! Now, you must understand the joy this gave me. I've grown up putting up hundreds of pounds of fruit each year and, believe it or not, I felt a huge gap all summer not being able to do that. Well, I got 6 cups of huckleberries and I was probably on the edge of gleefull over it.

Two Days and Lots of Montana!

This last week has been rather unusual in that we haven't fixed food or cleaned cabins. The time somehow became used up anyway! Wednesday and Thursday we took off from the lodge with several things on our schedule: Virginia City, Nevada City, Sheridan, Twin Bridges and a hike up into the Madisons.


I'd never gone through the old buildings in Nevada City. That's a cool place! It still has a very uncomercialized feel to it, and that makes it all the more fun. Nathaniel found an old car to 'drive'. In V City we visited a museum, stopped at several stores, the old church (FYI, in which resides a baby grand piano), and totally enjoyed the whole boardwalk/old west feel. Main street is the only one that is paved. Wait, Sheridan's streets are mostly gravel too...moving on.



We drove to Twin Bridges and visited the museum there. The ladies were super nice and helpful. We especially enjoyed reading about the round barn (which we drove out to see). I read about the Beaverhead Rock while Lerrina educated herself on the round barn. Apparently Lewis and Clark left an inscription on it which was blown to bits to help a water problem. Gotta love those priorities!





We drove out to see both the barn and the rock.









Sheep Creek Trail in the Madison Moutain Range turned out to be a great hike on the second day! It was beeeeauuuuutiful! That hike would be worth doing again! I lost my sunglasses...that's three this summer...and gained 2 cups of Montana's treasure-huckleberries. What a treat!




The wildflowers were totally unbelievable! I saw deep pink Indian Paintbrush, which I've never seen before. We were following Sheep Creek most of the way and that was beautiful too.

The Ruby

Find a map of Montana, put your finger on Elk Lake then move it up and slightly to the left. This should put your attention on a little place called the Ruby Valley. Ever heard of Virginia City, Robbers' Roost, Lewis and Clark, or the Beaverhead River?

The Ruby Valley is the land of cattle and beautiful mountains, gardens and flatbed trucks, sweet cafes and garden stands, hay (as shown) and the steady pumping of field irrigation, mining and fishing. Fishing is quality and sought after here. R.L. Winston Rod Co. sits unassumingly but neatly at the edge of tiny Twin Bridges producing it's coveted bamboo and boron/graphite rods. There's an art gallery in Sheridan boasting one of the neatest collections of Airforce related paintings I've ever seen. Granted, I haven't seen many =). Cows are everywhere; big, sleek, beautiful, happy cows eating and sleeping their way through the day in lush, green fields. The rivers, and there are three near Twin Bridges, are small. That is something I had to get my eyes used to. The Santiam River in Oregon is a small river for the Willamette Valley, but is much bigger than the rivers here. "Here's the creek, but where's the river?" was my thought on first sight. As Lerrina explained, the closer one is to the source, the smaller the river is. Right here, we're really close to the headwaters of many of these rivers. This afternoon is an 'empty' day. It's my day off, and having worked on matting a cool Tim Cox print I have to think of something fun to do. Right now my mind is working on trying to figure out a good reason to head to the Ruby for the rest of it...

The Path My Feet Found

My feet are often clothed in my favorite summer shoes, Chaco sandles which my mom gave me as a present last summer. They are awesome and I've even worn them on all day hikes through sage brush. That did push it a little as they provide little protection against stinging nettles. The other day I slapped them on, and Bo and I headed up and over the hill to Horse Creek.



I'm getting skilled at avoiding foot-catching, scratchy sage so down the hill we ran. I did find some more bones for my classroom halfway down the hill. At the bottom, we headed up Horse Creek and my feet found a new way to avoid foot pain. The dry creekbed opened up as a comfortable walking path for making our way up the draw. Horse Creek is a funny little creek. Where we dropped down into the creek, the water was still flowing, but as we walked up the stream, the water disappeared and a dry bed emerged. If we would've walked further, we would've seen the pattern over again. I don't know where the water flows, underground maybe?

Bike Ride!

Yesterday the kids and I went for a bike ride up to the north road. FYI, you can begin getting a cell signal there. It's a couple of miles from the lodge. The faithful Bo and Rosie followed us the whole way! Hannah made sure we stopped to give them a chance to satisfy their thirst in the creek. Good friends these are.



A cow trail alongside the road is MUCH more fun to ride on than the road itself...

Dillon, 40 Miles of Gravel, Fine Dining and A Little Boy

We had quite the day yesterday! Nathaniel and I took off for Dillon yesterday morning. I'd never taken the south road west toward Dillon, but having heard it wasn't too bad of a road, I turned my wheels right at the junction and tried it. Forty miles of gravel road! We saw many birds, the little village of Lakeview, two real cowboys, herds of cattle, and water-lots of it!


We got into Dillon around 12:30 and stopped at the nearest Dairy Queen for, of course, burger and fries. I'd forgotten what it was like to have a little one accompanying me. "Ok, you take the tray, I'll open the door." I open the door, we go out, tray is suddenly perpendicular, chocolate shake is streaking the doorjam and sidewalk, ketchup is adorning little one's shirt, water and burgers begin to wiggle loose from the wedged place between tray, arm and little tummy. "Tip the tray up," is my altogether calm command. Well, that is hard to hear when in the apex of such an emotional moment. The tray did come up after a while and we began lunch. Do you know how many of those wimpy little napkins it takes to clean up anything?! Lots! FYI, I was wearing a white shirt and nothing got on it! Anyway, I could hear my mom as he stood outside the car and said, "Don't touch anything, don't move until I wash you off!" Out the handy wetones came and within minutes a smiling clean little face appeared from under the ketchup and burger crumbs. The last casualty from that stop was my keychain. I'd saved his chocolate shake for later, but as the cap was gone, my keychain took a bath in it while I was searching for the wetwipes. "This is not dignified," I thought as I popped it into my mouth (what else could I do) to clean it off. You moms will say, "Why even relate this? This is as common as breathing!" But, you see, I'm not one yet, and it's quite novel.

The day turned out very well. We found the DMV; I got my Montana driver's license! We shopped and had fun, went to Roxie's Nursery...again, got an americano at Serendipity Gifts and Coffee (a must return for pizza sometime!), and found a garden stand in Sheridan out of someone's beautiful yard. We ate at the adorable, elegant Old Hotel in Twin Bridges. Nathaniel was sporting a new Patagonia tee-shirt (remember the ketchup) so we were definitely dressed for the occasion! We had minted asparagus soup and Misoyaki Atlantic Salmon Filet with Tsunemono Pickles. He was a delightful little dinner companion! I've never had so much fun eating bread and butter before the meal came, nor playing I-Spy with stuff on the table, or trying not to slurp soup. It was a delightful meal!



We left there and headed home, but as I needed to sort out receipts, we stopped at a playground and Nathaniel bounded around for a while. I hadn't been on a teeter-totter for a long time. Not anymore! With that, our last stop was the candy store in Virginia City...a kid in a candy store is fun. Nathaniel read to me from the backseat much of the way home. We listened to Your Story Hour, we listened to the radio. Good thing he didn't control the radio or we would've done each one 30 times. Kids don't have very lengthy attention spans. After hitting the gravel road at about 9:15, Nathaniel became rather infatuated with the idea of sticking his head out the sunroof. I don't know how many bug funerals he caused. Their sacrifice was a worthy one. He was shrieking with delight.


The day was a fun one! Fun in a different way than being totally independent, but definitely worth it! Sticky little hands, a grinning face, jubilant play, giggles at dinner, reading 101 Dalmations and figuring out words like "Colonel" and "Pongo", laughing at the song "Favorite Things", getting out to watch a frog hop down the road...a just right, full, fun, tiring day.