First, we have our first visitors!!! Our neighbor in OH, Charlotte, and her sister Jackie came to visit! Charlotte's daughter actually lives in Cody - (side story - when we came out 2.5 yrs ago to buy our land, we let Charlotte know and at that time had no clue her daughter lived out here!). She flew into the Cody airport (the smallest airport I've ever seen!). Her daughter Amy let me know when she was coming in and Scott and I was there to see her. However, we made is a surprise. We sat with our backs to them as her family hugged and greeted them first. Then Amy said, 'Mom, I have something to show you this way....' and as Charlotte walked around the end of our bench I said, 'Hey stranger!'. I thought she was going to lose it!! She had to sit down and just couldn't believe we were there to see her too. She was so shocked that when she went to call her husband she kept fumbling with the numbers on the phone. I was on a natural high that night because of the wonderful surprise for her!
Charlotte and her sister came out to see our place on Monday and we had a lot of fun with them! They had a first hand look at our progress, we surprised them by showing them that the north side of the roof was completed (yay!), then we went to the Silver Tip restaurant in Belfry, MT where we had the infamous Wimpy Burgers. Finally, I just had to show them an up close view of our gorgeous mountains, so we went into the Clark Canyon. There was a surprise there for Charlotte - her daughter Amy is an amazing photographer whose passion is for bears. There in the canyon is a bear informational sign with lots of Amy's pictures.
House Update
We are making progress! We have the entire north side of the roof on. First we added the top 'board' as a trim piece (we'll do the same at the bottom but after we have the batten added). Then Scott added the roofing fascia. Once that was up we started on the roof panels! The first day we had about 2/3rds of it up, but I think it was a few days past before we could finish it because of the wind.
Since then, we really haven't had much to do because we were waiting on the last 100 pieces of our siding (it arrived this past Monday) - however, because of the cold, rain, and yes, even snow, we haven't been able to put on the sealant/stain yet. But it looks like sometime tomorrow afternoon we should be able to. It's supposed to warm up to the low-mid 60s tomorrow.
Wyoming Weather
Last night, September 10th, it was in the forecast for us to get snow! I personally LOVE snow - the peacefulness, the beautifully made snowflakes, how it transforms the land into this winter wonderland.... to me, snow is just magical! Well, lets just say I couldn't wait for it to snow at our house and since we were already cooped up I told Scott I wanted to go to Red Lodge to see the snow. Red Lodge is quite a bit higher in elevation than we are as it's a mountain town, and they called for 100% chance of snow by 8pm! And we had a recommendation to go to Foster's and Logan's Bar and Grill - by the way it was so good. After we ate we went and sat in the parking lot of the Visitor's Center (they have free wifi) and sure enough, shortly after we got there the snow started falling! On the way home, once we were out of the Red Lodge area, it turned to rain, but when we arrived home it was basically really wet snowflakes.
I was really hoping that when I woke up this morning we'd be in a winter wonderland, but not a single snowflake on the ground near our house. However, we were blessed with a view of the beautiful snow covered Beartooth Mountains!
Today's Adventures....
I didn't feel like staying at home, not with the first snow and all. First we wanted a better up-close look at our snow covered mountains so we ventured into the Clark Canyon to see first hand.
Afterwards we went toward Cody and ventured to South Fork (the North Fork is the road into Yellowstone, where South Fork takes you around the other side of the lake). This area got a lot more snow! The lake was just beautiful with the steam rising from it. We even saw some fish jumping up out of the water, a duck swimming then taking flight, and even a 'v' of geese flying above. As we continued on past the lake there was a field of deer and antelope. And finally, after we had turned around, we drove over a bridge that had a creek under it. Way up in a tree over looking the lake was a Bald Eagle!! What a symbolic way to remember September 11th with today.
Fun Stories
In the pictures below you will see a pack rat... Notice where he is! Under the hood of Scott's truck! Out here you have to check your vehicles frequently because the pack rats like to get in there, make their nests and even chew up all your hoses. He also left us some 'presents' of pieces of cacti - that's the interesting thing they do. To discourage other animals from getting to them, they put pieces of cacti all around where they are nesting. We tried scaring the thing out of there and he just wouldn't budge. So Scott moved the truck and all it would do is hop from one part of the truck to another. I hate to admit this, as I'm very much an animal lover, but in an effort to get him out of the truck he wasn't very quick/smart and got ran over. So much for trying to save him and just discourage him from being in the truck!
Two days ago (9.9) it was too cold and windy to work on the siding, and we had to go to Bridger, MT anyway (to pay for our siding), so we did a little more exploring. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures, but we took the long way to Powell and ended up by the Pryor Mountains. This was such a cool drive. Sometime I'll have to get pictures to share with you all of this area to show you all it's beauty!
During that same 'exploration' day, we passed a lot of farm fields that were being harvested. We saw the sugar beets being dug up by an interesting machine that digs them up the beets ride this circular conveyor belt and it dumped in a wagon. We passed lots of trucks that were leaving the fields. We discovered that they were taking the sugar beets to an empty field where they were dumped in these rather large piles. I asked my older brother Darren about this - he said they will leave them in the fields and they will freeze. As long as the beets make it to the factory before they thaw it will be ok, but if they thaw first then they become mush.
We also saw several MT corn fields being harvested when the fields were still very, very green. I haven't seen this done before so I also asked Darren about it. He said that if they took the stalks, which I do believe they did, then it was probably silage for feeding the animals.
Farming out here is so different than in OH. I don't think I've seen a single soybean field. There are pinto beans, sugar beats, the occasional corn field (mostly I've seen them in MT), sunflowers, different types of oats, and lots of hay. When they bale the hay out here, all the bales, even the square bales, are left in the fields in rows. Then later a special tractor comes and gets the bales. Here they make round bales, really big square bales, and then the smaller square bales (what I'm used to).
Let me just tell you, every day out here is an adventure!
Here are LOTS of pictures of everything I've described above. Click on the first one and it will scroll through them all. Enjoy!
No comments:
Post a Comment