The Camper's Curse

Dear Visitors to Glacier National Park,

I suspect your Labor Day camp outs were pretty much ruined by the weather over the past three days. I wish I could say I was sorry, but really I'd like to thank you on behalf of the entire local population. Such a large swarm of people determined to enjoy themselves in the great outdoors is an irresistible target for Mother Nature's contrary sense of humor, and she obliged by dumping up to ten inches of snow in our mountains (which have been ablaze for weeks) and two inches of sorely needed rain on the adjacent plains.

Also, a shout out to my cousin who did his part by not entering any of the rodeos this weekend because he planned to be home harvesting grain.

I do feel badly for those who traveled hundreds or even thousands of miles to revel in the Park's natural beauty. Please do come back next year. We'll probably need more of your weather karma by then.

A Little Icing on Top

*

We've had two days of miserable, foggy weather with a cold south wind. But this morning the sun came out and we got our reward. My trees are all decorated for the holidays, I can just kick back with a hot chocolate and enjoy the view. Until it warms up and the wind blows all that ice down like buckets of marbles on the metal roof of my bedroom, usually at around 3 a.m.

Heart Butte

*

A couple of weeks back my sister and her fancy schmancy new camera were visiting, so we decided to go off on a photo safari of the wildest reaches of the Blackfeet Reservation...at least from our perspective. We live on the northeast side and rarely venture to the southwest section, especially the back roads. So we gathered up my cousin Rhonda to be our personal historian/trail guide, since she lives down there. I'll sprinkle some of these photos around the blog over the next few weeks, starting with the area around Heart Butte, which is both a mountain and a town.

Green Lake....I think

Badger Creek canyon

Heart Butte

Jack pines, which were once used to hold burial platforms.

Sun lodge...and one explanation of what they're used for:  Okan

*

Magical Disappearing Mountains

*

The view from our living room on an average day:

The view today:

This is how Meriweather Lewis managed to miss Marias Pass and take the long way around to the Pacific. Well, this and the Blackfeet. 

*

Photo Ops

Otherwise known as 'Up half the night, too tired to write.' Stayed awake 'til eleven-thirty to check cows. Started snowing hard just before I went out, so I was scrambling around for close to an hour in the mud and the snowstorm rearranging cows and trying to get newborn cow/calf pairs under the shed for shelter. Got it done, then the four wheeler quit and I had to walk back to the house. Then I crawled in bed, barely dozed off, and my son came shuffling in wanting someone to come lay with him because he had a nightmare.

Thus, pictures.

The Nursery:

Prize Heifer (Apex Focus 053 cow and Apex Windy 078 bull, (Apex Angus) for those of you who care about such things.):

Would you believe we were being ironic?

At the end of the day:

*

Chinook Arch

*

This one's for my friend Stan, who asked if we had this particular weather phenomenon today. And of course he guessed correctly. With the dramatic warming trend of the past two days (as in, the temperature is sixty degrees higher today than it was last Saturday) we had a near perfect Chinook Arch, which is the arc of blue sky over the mountains that often heralds a warm front.

Unfortunately, it almost always comes with a Chinook Wind, but we'll take it anyway.

(For orientation, the video starts out looking due south, swings west, and ends looking due north)



*

A Fair Wind

We complain a lot about the wind here, but the fact is, it makes for good cattle country. It keeps the flies down in summer. More importantly, you rarely see our cows pawing through snow for grass. The wind keeps parts of the pastures bared off so they can graze freely, which saves us a bunch in winter feeding. And because our winds vary from north to west to sometimes south and east, they tend to bare off different parts of the pastures from one week to the next, so the cows can use most of the grass.

So here's to the wind. Nice to know it's good for something.  

One Cool Puppy

The only way Max could be any cooler is if I took this picture in the morning, when it was sixteen below, instead of in the afternoon heat (aka, two above).

*

The Magic Hour

We live approximately twenty miles east of the Continental Divide. The upthrust of the mountains causes turbulence in the atmosphere and creates the wind we so love to complain about. It also creates some very striking cloud patterns, as was in full display tonight at sunset. So now I'm going to shut up, because this is one of those times when I have to just let the pictures speak for themselves.

Oh, just one thing. As you're looking at the pictures, do you see what you don't see? Hint: it's white.