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.