Look what we saw . . . . . . .

As we finish the summer season, we have spotted some interesting sites on the Circle B Bar T. Over the past few years we have had a huge penetration of grasshoppers as the summer temperatures arrive and the enviroment for the grasshopper optimizes. The next question is how do you get rid of grasshoppers. The best answer we have come up with is let mother nature take its course. The best way is for the cooler weather of the fall to arrive, perhaps even earlier than planned. That gets rid of them. Another way is shown in the next photograph. These healthy birds are feasting on grasshoppers. At the moment they are resting before their next penetration of our pastures.
At this time of the year, we have already harvested the hay and in fact after filling our barn with hay for the winter our neighbors were able to bale as much hay as we did for their own use. There is ample hay still in the pasture for the horses and the neighbors brought some of their sheep to graze on the pasture across the Grove Creek. In recent years, coyotes have visited their sheep in our pasture for a good lamb dinner. This year, they delivered a protector as you can see in this photograph. Mr. Larry the LLama is in charge of the sheep. He is their leader and their protector.

While it may be a long time before the signs of winter arrive at your home, we looked at the Beartooth Mountains the first day of September and guess what we saw. It was still warm at the 4500 feet elevation of the Circle B Bar T Ranch, but it was cool enough for the precipitation to take a different form in the mountains. In fact, there was enough of the white stuff that the Beartooth Pass, the road from Red Lodge to Cooke City was closed until the road crews could remove the snow.

Finally, the same view that we had, looking west from our home to see the birds, came later in the day. Marty came running into the house and announced a beautiful sunset. Not only was it beautiful but we were quite pleased to shout, "Red sky at nite, sailor's delight". This meant that we would enjoy another day in Montana, plenty of sunshine, a great view of the mountains, and fall would have to wait. What Marty didn't see was the deer who were passing across the ridge in full view of the sunset. What a great photograph.

Hope your sights have been as rewarding as ours.

See you in Montana