Good Morning South of Bridger, Montana!

The Webber's horses across the lane.

Looking up the lane towards the Webber's place.

Brief Update from Montana

As soon as we dig out the cable for the camera, I have lots to post.

In the meantime, I sit here in the Montana Brew Pub in Billings (free internet!) while Jon is at the Dry Creek Ditch Company meeting in Bridger. What is a ditch company, you ask? Well in these parts, folks (farmers in particular) live and die by water rights. The ditch companies are a cooperative of sorts that manage the irrigation ditches that in our case, come off of the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone River. Land owners pay for shares in the ditch which entitles them to pull water for irrigation. In exchange, the ditch companies maintain the ditch infrastructure and manage their administration.

Recently, one of the farmers up the way from us decided to put in a new headgate to divert more water to his place. You just can't put in a headgate when and where you want; water is a limited resource. The more water pulled from upstream, the less water there is for those folks at the end of the ditch, like us and our neighbors. Our neighbors that actively farm and ranch their property objected to this vigilantism and the ditch company called a meeting.

I have alot to learn about farming and ranching!

So Sweet!

see more dog pictures

Toys!

New toys are the greatest, aren't they? Well, this one is more of a necessity than most of our toys. After months of deliberation about how our summer was going to play out, we decided that living in a tent at the ranch over the summer wouldn't be that much fun. We looked around Boise and found a reasonably priced camper and after a few days of negotiating we purchased a Jayco Tent Camper. It's going to be great to have; aside from living in the tent trailer this summer, we are already planning camping trips in the fall! Here are a couple of preview pictures. We can't wait to go camping with you!

Scratch and Sniff

Bet you wish you could! Our yard is in full bloom; the lilacs smell so sweet.

Spring is here for sure; we've planted tomatoes and peppers!

Blind Dog, Still Hunts

Object of desire #1.

Object of desire #2.

Be very quiet, he's hunting squirrels.

Despite being blind, our dog Cassius still hunts squirrels for the better part of most days. And when I say better, I mean both quantitatively and qualitatively, for he certainly considers this to be the penultimate fun activity. The only thing better is eating anything, including cat poop.

He may not be able to see the squirrels but he can sure hear them. He spends hours racing around the yard guided by their chattering. Sometimes we even catch Cash quietly and slowly stalking the squirrels like a cat, apparently not realizing that although he can't see them, they can very much see him.


Occasionally the chases end with some collateral damage, but when you get right down to it, he doesn't need those eyes anyway!

Disclaimer #1: This injury was only to the skin outside of his eye and is now healed. His vision, however, remains the same. He has none.

Disclaimer #2: For those of you grossed out that he eats cat poop, I was just kidding. He only eats Tucker's poop.

Disclaimer #3: For those of you grossed out by any discussion of poop and in particular eating poop, it was all just a big joke. No, really.

Duck, Duck, Mallard

This little pair of mallard ducks has been visiting our front yard for several weeks now. They discovered the bird seed buffet that falls to the ground from the feeder in the tree above. We really enjoy having them, but I worry about them hanging out in such an urban setting with all the dangers of dogs, cats, and cars.

I could, however, do without the Saturday morning 6:26 am wake up call I got today. Only the female was in the yard and she was quacking incessantly; our bedroom window is about 15 feet from the tree and feeder. I assume she was calling for her mate as he wasn't around. Should I be concerned?