Winter Gear

It seems like we can only get a small taste of winter so far. Every time it snows it warms up and melts. But Liz and Dave have been getting themselves all geared up anyway. I figured I deserved to be ready for the real storms too. So I had a little talk and they got me outfitted.

First I got a new sweatshirt. It's a little snug but I like it.

They they got my some booties to protect my feet from ice and rocks. I'm not quite sure about these yet.

Today Dave got me all dressed up and we ran around outside for a while.

It feels funny wearing all that stuff but I feel ready for winter now. Thanks guys!

Deer - 1 , Dave - 0

One thing we've heard a few times out here is "It's not if you hit a deer, it's when you hit a deer".  So after a few close calls my day finally came.  

I was about halfway to work when I passed the second group of deer crossing the road (I didn't hit the first ones).  I had slowed quite a bit but I made contact with the second deer.  I stopped immediately after impact.  Got out of the car but didn't see the deer anywhere.  She was alive enough to disappear.  I grabbed the big chunks out of the road and assessed the car.  The radiator seemed to be fine and the airbags didn't deploy.  So I hopped back in and drove to work.

Aside from being a little shaken up I was fine.  And the car is still works.  Once I got to work it was a little lighter out so I was able to take a better look.  I was also on a side street instead of the highway which helps.  No further damage but I removed the loose pieces so they wouldn't fly off on the way home.

Called the insurance to put in a claim and went to work.  All this before 8 a.m.  Just another rite of passage.

Dave at Work

Here's Dave hard at work installing a down spout at a house in Bozeman from his company Gutter Solution's website.

Riding with Elaine

For the past few weeks I've had the super good fortune to learn to ride with my friend Elaine. We connected at the Bank Bar over our shared love for horses and she offered to teach me the basics. Elaine and her husband Frank live just a few miles away from us and have five equines - two quarterhorses and three mules - that she trains and rides. She performs with the Bozeman Saddle-ites, an all-female drill team, with her horse Blueberry. We saw them perform in August at the Wilsall Rodeo - amazing!

Once a week I go over to her place and we catch the horses - primarily Blueberry because she's excellently trained and calm but also Snoopy - and head over to Elaine's indoor riding arena (more amazing-ness!). We groom and saddle them and then practice. We start with groundwork exercises - that's getting the horses to move their feet while you're standing next to them using the lead rope connected to the halter. Then we do some basic riding drills - and I mean basic because I'm a total rookie. Elaine is a great coach and patient teacher. She wants me to have strong foundations so we really focus on the basics.

After we finish - which is always unwillingly but when our toes are totally frozen (riding in Montana in December is not for the faint of heart) - we take them back to the pen and muck the stalls and pens.

Elaine says that having me come by to ride gives her a good opportunity to get out and ride - it turns out, riding in an arena by yourself can be pretty boring. (It's funny how it seems like all the romantic ideas of having horses - and an arena! - lose their luster when reality sets in.)

I am so fortunate to have met Elaine and Frank!

Two miserable weeks without plumbing

Just about two weeks ago, just after our neighbors (and landlord) left us to caretake for their farm while they traveled for Thanksgiving, our plumbing went down the tubes. The toilets stopped flushing, backup filled our bathtubs, and the sinks stopped draining.  


We tried plunging like crazy and dropped lots of liquid plumber down the drains but to no avail. We were convinced that the septic tank was so full that nothing else would go down.


What a nightmare!  But since our neighbors were out of town, we at least had access to functioning indoor plumbing.  We let them know the bad news and called to get the septic tank drained.


I called the septic service but they need to know where the cap is outside the house where they can access the tank.  So Dave and I searched everywhere around the house, not really knowing what we were looking for since neither of us knew about septic tank caps.  No luck.


Seann, our neighbor, came up to look around but couldn't find it either.  So we decided to start the search for the cap.  And then began our week long search to find the septic cap.


He brought up their tractor and we started to clear the rocks and soil in hopes we'd find it.  Three days in a row we cleared a radius of about ten yards from where the pipes headed but no luck.

So finally, the septic service guy brought up the backhoe, dug up the whole area, and finally they found it!  He sorta broke the concrete cap in the process but at least we finally knew where it was - nearly two weeks later.  

But then they discovered that although it was really full and needed to be emptied, that it wasn't full enough to be causing our backup problem.  Nope.  We had a plumbing problem.  


Dave and I borrowed a snake from a neighbor to try to clear out the pipes ourselves rather then bring  out a plumber.  Dave shoved the snake up the pipes over and over again but no luck.  Then, two weeks to the day this whole problem started, Dave and Seann together shoved the snake as hard as they could until the blockage came free.

Working the snake

They did it!


Dave immediately got to cleaning - he bleached every inch of both bathrooms.  And we were back in business.

Our First Christmas Tree

On Sunday we ventured out to the Gallatin National Forest in the Crazy Mountains to cut down our first Christmas tree. We picked up a permit from the national forest for $5 to take any tree smaller then ten feet.

We suited up in our NEW showshoes (they're awesome!) and hiked out from the Smith Creek Rd trailhead on the north end of the Crazies. It was just our luck that in a million acres of forest, we pick an area with a weak selection. It was lots of old growth and moss-covered firs and few ripe for the pickin'.

But after an hour and a half of searching, we found her.

She was close to ten feet tall and she looked best at the top so we cut her down and then cut her in half. Boo was so excited.


Dave threw her in the back of his truck and we headed home to decorate with the bounty of sweet ornaments we picked up at the thrift store.

And here she is:

Anna & Colin Visit Montana!

Our friends Anna and Colin came all the way from Chicago to visit us for a week in early November!  They were our first official house guests and Dave's first visitors from home.  We were so excited to have them and so grateful they'd come all the way out here!

They're both hardcore backcountry hikers so some sweet mountain hikes were atop the agenda.  They got in a summit of Sacajawea Peak - the only over 9k peak in the Bridgers.  We took a hike along a creek drainage in the Beartooth Mountain range south of Livingston.  We hiked up Drinking Horse Mountain outside of Bozeman along with Marc and the dogs.  And Dave, Colin and Anna got a great snowshoe trail on the Bangtail Divide Trail, also in the Bridgers.

But no adventure with Anna and Colin is complete without lots of delicious drinks.  We hit Wilsall's Bank Bar for cheap beer and Shake-a-Day.  We partied in Bozeman one night at the Boz-Mac & Cheese Festival, drinking Moscow Mules, and stayed the night at a hotel.  And we visited Marc down at Big Sky for a big dinner, hot tub, and homemade cocktails.  We also made a Halloween ginger bread house from the discounted rack.

On their last night in town, they helped us celebrate our engagement at Montana Rib & Chop House in Livingston, where my parents had sent us a gift certificate to celebrate.  The lamb, steak, seafood and wine were incredibly delicious!  Thank you, Mom & Dad!

It was a great vacation for all of us.  We are so thankful for friends who go to such great lengths to see us!  We hope they'll be back in January for skiing!

Anna took this photo from our front porch