Lion and Lamb

And here's proof that ANYONE can be friends. This is Cowboy (the owner's dog) sleeping w/ the rabbits. He's quite the babysitter for both the rabbits & the cats although he does NOT like it when they stick their paws in his plate!

And, a pic of Bendigo doing his work horse imitation. Not sure why he stacked it so high - I guess he got my dislike of making more than 1 trip.

And, finally, what we see going by our door periodically. The neighbors just have no sense of privacy! They practically come & peer in our windows! And, actually, Bendigo got the beejeebers scared out of him the other night. He went to fill the dog dishes, looked out the window & there was phantom staring back! And he made it back to the living room and sat down & turned around to look behind him to see what the dog was staring at - and there the phantom was again! One of the cats is all black except around it's eyes & it's chin and it likes to sit in the flower boxes or on the woodpile and watch us at night. Pretty funny - but makes you jump!

Jeff & Ben went skating last night. They & Kim (the owner) played hockey. Jeff said he's going to have to be careful or he'll have ANOTHER sport he's addicted to!

Facebook

Well, I finally broke down and joined Facebook today - because I need one more thing to keep track of. But, I have to say that it was cool to see some of the "friends" it found for me. It'll be nice to keep up w/ some people I haven't talked to in awhile. And... while I didn't add him as a "friend" I thought it was funny that it suggested I add Joel Baker to my "friends". He & I went to KINDERGARTEN together! And, all through high school actually. Our mom's were friends & thought he & should be, at least, friends. But, he pulled my hair & picked on me, so it never really worked out. LOL

I do have some new pics, but haven't gotten them to the online computer yet so can't upload them. Because the WIFI won't be set up until spring, I have to download to my laptop, save to a flash drive then upload to the work pc so I can upload to my page... what a pain. Even worse since it's an older pc so the USB port is in the back & I hvae to pull out the CPU and unplug the printer USB so I can plug in the flash drive. Ugh.

Warmer today - it was only minus 8 degrees when we got up today. And, it warmed up to 15 and we even got some snow which we really need. Jeff & Ben are out playing hockey w/ the owner. They said it's plenty warm! Jeff said he's getting a little concerned about his mental state when he went outside this a.m., and 5 degrees felt warm.

Speaking of Jeff & cold.. anyone have any suggestions why his back might itch so crazily? I bought a really good lotion that he puts on every night but it isn't helping. And, we've tried Calamine. He's going a little crazy fighting it.

Well, not much else going on at the moment. Staying busy w/ "work" getting ready to send out the "Spring Letter"... we only have to mail 3000 of them (Yes, 3,000 - that wasn't a typo). So.. back to it. More later.

Daily Work

Well, woke up to minus 12 degrees this a.m. Pretty crisp outside! The moose were back again too. I think when it gets real cold, they come looking for some easy meals!

Yesterday was our day off. We went to church in Big Sky in the a.m and were pleasantly surprised by the church we attended. Then, drove up to the ski resort. Lone Mountain was beautiful. The day was absolutely perfect and the sky a wonderful blue. The Mountain was birthing clouds which was pretty cool to watch. I forgot to take my camera though, so you'll all just have to take my word for it! Then, we had lunch at the only place open (a deli inside a gas station) and came home to putter around. Jeff & Ben went ice skating and didn't even realize it was only 15 degrees until they got back. Jeff had been inspired watching the olympics so wanted to "try some stuff out". He said that some of their techniques work reall well. :)

Here are some pics of Ben helping Jeff w/ snowmobile firewood cutting. We do EVERYTHING on snowgo's here. Not sure it's real time efficient to haul firewood in a snowgo sled, but Jeff says it's kinda fun. Ben's getting much more comfortable on them, as well on his skates. Jeff said that it's pretty funny to watch the dogs in the snow. If they step off the snowgo trail, they sink up to their ears & have to fight back over to the packed trail. Occassionally they forget this & take a big leap off the trail after something & then lay there & look at Jeff like "Why didn't you remind me?" We've had to start being really careful w/ Sage. She handles the cold ok by staying really active, but she did get frostbite on her poor little nipples during our last real cold snap. They are healing, but we don't let her stay out for very long, especially when it's as cold as it is today. We'll have to get her a special coat to protect her, obviously!

Local Wildlife

Well, here you'll see a couple photos of our local "wildlife". The bunnys are quickly becoming our favorite past time to watch. They really are quite funny & all have their own personalties. The one who's on Sentinal (the little grey-spotted one) is my favorite. I call him "Peter" (yes, I know.. real original).

And, we have Moose car toppers, as you can see. They'll go ANYWHERE! :) This particular moose is right by the house many mornings. They also like to eat the hay in the manger with the horses. Well, not exactly WTIH the horses. The horses stand to the side & watch while pretending to NOT watch. It's fairly humorous.

Speaking of local wildlife - did any of you see the recent article in the paper under the "Montana Outdoor Digest"? (at least that's what it's called in the Bozeman Chronicle - amusing in itself since the "Montana Outdoor Digest", located in the MT local paper mind you, is all of 2"x3".. you'd think they could find more to include). ANYWHO... this recent article caused not only amusement, but also raised some serious questions. Here is what the article said:
KALISPELL - MAN CATCHES RECORD PYGMY FISH (now doesn't the title itself raise some questions?)
State wildlife officials say a Kalispell man has caught a state record pygmy whitefish. The Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks says Russ Geldrich caught a 0.36-pound (5.76 ounce), 9.84-inch pygmy in Little Bitterroot Lake on Feb. 13 while fishing for kokanee. The previous mark was 0.23 pounds held by three anglers. Fisheries biologist Mark Deleray certified the record. The pygmy whitefish is a native fish that lives near the bottom of northwest Montana lakes such as Little Bitterroot, Ashley, and Flathead.

Ok, so here's the questions we had:
1. Would you even know what you caught if you caught one of these?
2. Would you want to ACKNOWLEDGE you held the record for a PYGMY whitefish?
3. How big can a pygmy get before it's not a pygmy?
4. How would you know you had caught the record pygmy? (I mean really.. 0.36 pounds?)
5. The previous record was shared by 3 anglers? Does that mean they each get credit for 0.076 ounces? And again.. would you admit this?

Well, that's it for today's pics & comments. Perhaps tomorrow I'll feel ambitious enough to retype the entire article written by dogs regarding animal protection in CA. :)

Our New Home

Well, here are some pictures out our window shortly after we arrived. The bottom picture is of the lodge, which sits below our log home. The owners stay in the upper part of the lodge when they are here. Not much out there! Just the way we like it! We are a little over 5 miles from the highway, and even then it's another 20 to the little town of Big Sky. We have no neighbors on our road, except the owner's mom who's only here in summer. We do get snowmobiler's here a lot on weekends though, and some x-country skiers.

Ben continues to maintain the skating pond & practicing his skating. He likes it better than he thought he would! They use hockey skates here which give way more support to your ankle than figure skates and he likes that. We had a good laugh the other day. He had to re-flood the pond to smooth it out. I asked Jeff how they did that. He said there is a hole out there and you can look down & see the water flowing about 10 feet down. They pump the water up to flood the pond. I, being a Mom, was quite concerned of course. I told them to be very careful & I wasn't sure it was safe for Ben to do that by himself. They both looked at me like I was crazy. I said "Ben could fall into the hole & drown or freeze to death!" Bendigo started laughing like a loon. He said "Yeah, MAYBE if I stand on my head & push with my feet!" Come to find out, when Jeff said "hole" he meant a 12" diameter pipe that runs up from the water below. I love it when he's so clear with his explanations... argh!

Nine Quarter Circle

Well, here I am again. After a long hiatus (most of you know the story), I've decided to pick up the blog again. Jeff & I are both working here at the Nine Quarter Circle ranch now and it is expected Ben will work part time this summer also. Jeff is Foreman/Corral Boss/Winter Maintenance and I'm Secretary/Head Cook.

This is a Resort Guest Ranch (as opposed to a "working" guest ranch which would have cows, etc.). They raise their own Appaloose horses but otherwise there isn't any other stock here. We're located just 17 miles from West Yellowstone and actually border the Park in places. We'll live here all year in a great log cabin/house. We really like it.

There are LOTS of winter activities here and the owner encourages us to enjoy them. He is an avid x-country skier and also loves to ice skate. There is also snowmobiling and sledding of course. Ben is in charge of the ice skating rink which of course must be kept shoveled and occasionally needs to be re-flooded to smooth it out. He's taken his responsibility very seriously and also is picking up the ice-skating pretty quickly.

So, here are a few pics of us moving in (too much snow to drive to the house so used the crawler to pull the u-haul up.) And, packing the bed up the hillit was on top of the vehicle, not in the uhaul) seemed out of the question, so it got put on the snowgo trailer! So did the rest of the stuff out of the vehicle. I'll put more up tomorrow.