Clint's birthday present

Marty and I were at Paws Up, a resort in Western Montana last weekend with Ruth and Lowell Quenemoen. We had a great time but also had an unexpected highlight on our trip. Clint had noticed that Paws Up promoted something called "geocashing". It had something to do with using a GPS and finding things.

One afternoon, Clint took his birthday present, a Garmin, turned it on and realized that one of the "caches" was very close to Camp Fortunate, the home where they were staying. The cache was no more than 100 yards from the back door when he located it with his Garmin. From then on, as we drove around the Paws Up ranch, the Garmin was turned on, looking for coordinates and comparing them to locations of other caches (Clint was trying to avoid hiking long distances) that were near the roads. Eventually, 4 different caches had been located when they realized that the prize cache was called the "mother lode".

Clint drove until he thought they were near, then parked the car. After close to an hour they found the cache, only to learn the "mother lode" was in 4 sites, not 1. Off they went to the second site, found it, the third site, they found it, but by then they had been climbing hills and trails for 2 hours and were exhausted. They realized they were close to the house, so they arrived tired and without the "mother lode"

Early the next morning they drove to within what they thought was a mile from the 4th and final cache of the "mother lode". You can see from the pictures that it was not an easy hike, you would have expected smile, but Clint was tired.

The reward was a lot of exercise, the tokens that were retrived from the cache boxes were traded for a T-shirt and Clint is hooked on "geocaching".He claims he is the oldest geocacher to find the "mother lode" at Paws Up. He has now signed onto an internet web site and has discovered numerous caches near our home in Stillwater County.
You knew you had found the cache when you saw the box, the trails were well marked and at times you had to look hard to find the caches.

The views from the areas where the caches were found were spectacular.
but the climb, the rocks, and the terrain for the "mother lode" was tiring, look at Clint & Marty

Woodbine after the snow has melted

One of our favorite hikes is on the trail along the Stillwater starting at the Woodbine trailhead. We visited there yesterday with an old friend of Marty's, Tempril Zunka, a friend and former student when Marty was teaching dental hygiene at the University of Richmond, many years ago. The water has receeded, but the view is still spectacular. If you go to the July 23rd posting on the blog you will see Marque, Dana, and Sam in a close proximity to where I took these pictures yesterday.

A new picture over the mantle

Julie Jeppsen, the artist that painted the picture of Al and Clint recently completed another painting for us. This one has images of Toby, Maggi, and Tex featured in a pasture with the Beartooth Mountains in the background. In addition, Rick Stiles, Clint's mentor in the photography business, completed the product with a beautiful frame.

Check out the eagles

I photographed these 2 eagles 1 1/2 years ago. Recently, as I was trying to improve my photoshop skills, I discovered a way to refine their appearance. Let me know if you see a difference. If I sent you a print of either of these eagles and you would like to have it replaced, let me know.



















You may have to double click on the picture to truly see the difference.



















When I printed these as 8 x 10 images and held them side by side you could definitely see a significant improvement

An exciting time in Bozeman

We arrived Friday afternoon to prepare for a Dressage and Combined Training Show and it got exciting before it started. Rain, hail, and snow in the mountains.
Grover was there, he was in 4 classes and won another Blue Ribbon, this time with Wendy Bleacher riding, her son John Ross rode in 2 other classes and of course Grover got to jump again.
We had some diversion from the weather and the 7 classes that we participated in. A roar in the sky produced 4 helicopters on the way from Yellowstone National Park with the President of the United States and his entourage returning to the airport in Belgrade. He arrived on Friday and spoke about the "health care reform", went fishing, and then to the park, before returning.
Doc and Marty had a great day as well. He was on his best behavior and performed at his best.
It was a great show. Doc and Grover continued to perform at higher levels and more complex routines. That was a real feat, but to win Blue Ribbons was even better. We all left pleased and tired with plans to return in early October for one last try this year.

Something about deer

If you have visited us in Fishtail, you have become a part of the game of counting deer along the Grove Creek Road. The record for only one side of the 4.7 miles from Fishtail to our ranch is over 100. The late spring brings the new fawns and we now have a "Cabela's spotting scope" to get up close and personal with the mother and her babies as they track in and out of the trees and brush along the Grove Creek. A couple weeks ago I decided to see if I could get some pictures of a fawn.

A doe with twins was heading east along the Grove Creek, the doe jumped the fence to the adjoining property and the twins were not as experienced in leaving our property and for a while they were trapped. I use my zoom lens so that I keep the intimidation to a minimum. After they realized I was not going to get any closer to them, they relaxed and posed for some pictures, these are two of them.

As I was preparing to publish this blog, I learned that there are more deer in the State of Ohio which has 1/3 the land mass and 10 times more people than Montana. Yet as I have vistied Ohio and driven in the country, I seldom if ever see deer, yet there are supposedly 200,000 more in Ohio.

If you have any insight on where I can get data about the deer population in the United States, please let me know.

Update on our weather,

Look at the 2 pictures, the one on the left was taken in September 2008 and the one on the right was taken today, August 4, 2009, both sun shiny days. You say, it looks like a cloudy day or perhaps hazy, but it has been this way for a couple days so I asked the weatherman. He stated, "this is smoke from the fires in the Pacific Northwest and Canada". It is hard to image that the smoke has traveled close to a 1000 miles. You would think it's on the other side of the mountain. Although it has been hot and dry for the last view weeks, we are hopeful we don't have a return of the fires of several years ago.








. . . . . so do you have the air conditioner on during this warm spell. We don't have an air conditioner that runs off electricity. Our log home has great insulation and even when it is extremely hot outside, it stays comfortable inside. At night when the sun starts to fade, we open the windows and welcome the cool air from outside. Normally by morning the temperature in the house is between 65 and 70 and normally does not get warmer than 75 to 78, even on the hottest days. This is a picture of our indoor, outdoor thermometer reflecting the temperature at the end of a very hot day.

The youngest to venture west

DOUBLE CLICK ON PICTURE FOR A BETTER VIEW OF JOHN

Look carefully at the back of the covered wagon and you will see our newest grandson, John, hitch hiking a ride through Yellowstone National Park. He made it all the way to the confluence of the Lamar Valley and the Roosevelt Ranch. His great grandfather Frank would have been very impressed that he chose a wagon pulled by a team of Belgium draft horses. Great Grandpa Frank would have said, I can't wait until someday he's up front driving not just 2 but 6 Belgiums, just like his Great Grandfather.

John Robert Houser

This picture says it all. John Robert Houser was born on July 17th, 2009. He is pictured here with his mother, Jennifer, father, Bob, sisters Grace and Violet. Welcome to the family, you are number eight, the boys are in the majority, Jack, Peter, Patrick, Curtis and John and the girls are the best looking, Crissy, Grace, and Violet.

What were Crissy and Kate doing?

You saw Patrick fishing and Sam at Woodbine. Their sisters, Crissy and Kate were in Montana having a good time as well. After spending the 4th of July in Yellowstone National Park, they greeted Sammi with their holiday attire, on the 5th they attended the Absarokee Days BBQ Cookout and helped in one of the booths, Crissy, after a long hike, is seen in the doorway of an old cabin on the Johnson Place, and of course a sleep out in the barn with Nana Marty and the horses. Kate could be found in one of the arena's almost every day, this day it was on Sapphire.

Woodbine, our favorite place

One of the most scenic places in our area is Woodbine, where as the snow melts the water spills out of the Beartooth Mountains and forms the Stillwater River. In the spring the water is fast and furious, the fish are hiding in the rocks from the rapid water flow, the temperature of the water is cold and you want to stay away from the flow. (Come back in August if you want to fish). Picture s of the gorge are beautiful, we then added Marque Teegardin and his son, Sam, from Alpharetta, Georgia posing on a boulder near the rapids. Suddenly, Marque was behind the rock they were sitting on, grasping to get out of the flow and the cold water. Marque did escape and was later seen with his wife Dana and Sam in a more friendly setting.

What makes a happy rancher?

An abundance of moisture. It started several months ago, mositure, more mositure, and at the correct intervals. What does this mean to a rancher? The best pastures and hay crops in years. What evidence do we have? The Montana Bureau of Mines has monitored our well for the past 7 years. Our well has averaged 56 feet from the surface of the ground to the top of the water for the entire period of time. 3 months ago it was 45 feet, an increase of 11 feet of water in our well. The spring tank in one of our pastures has been full for the last 5 months with no signs of weakness, the Davidson Creek (you never heard of this one) has flowed thru our property for over 4 months. The result of this is more hay and pasture than Marty and I have ever experienced. This grass is shoulder high, you cannot see our Great Danes when we take them for a walk in the pastures. The picture of the round bales is just some of the 60 that our neighbors have baled for themselves in our fields. This is equivalent to our total hay crop in 2008. The other picture is our hay crew that had just finished putting over 1200 bales of hay into our shed . . . . and we still have 5 fields that need to be harvested.

Where do we get the crew? Our neighbor, Theo Yanzick, cut and baled the hay. The 3 young men pictured here are members of the Absarokee High School football team who are getting in shaped for the upcoming season. Josh Royce and Cameron Rice on the right side of the picture had just finished picking up and putting 900 bales into our shed in the last 24 hours. Jordan Rice and cousin Baily Osterberg helped on the final 300 bales.

Happy Days in Montana, a great harvest.

Jump Grover jump

It started 7 years ago, he was know as "stud muffin", then a young stallion who eventually sired 8 foals, he started training as a cutting horse but the testosterone was controlling his every move, he was gelded and in the last 18 months he has been returning to the role of an athlete. He started jumping during the winter plus started to learn the rules of dressage. On July 18th he competed for the first time in dressage and started jumping in public. He won his first blue ribbon with Wendy Bleacher in the saddle and Johanna Kern took him over the jumps. His buddy, Doc, also was shown by Marty at the show in Bozeman.

Nephew comes to Montana

Our nephew, Zach Teegardin spent 9 days with us in June. In that short time he saw alot. However, he noted immediately the lack of vehicle traffic on the roads. This is not Ohio. On the way to the Woodbine trailhead, Zach spotted a deer with her young fawn, we stopped for a bunch of pictures. We hiked into Woodbine something that every guest has done for over 15 years, but every time I looked for Zach, he had climbed into the rocks, he wasn't hiding, he just liked the rocks. Yellowstone National Park, Old Faithful, wildlife and Zack took at least 250 more pictures. We departed via the scenic Beartooth Highway and Zach was impressed by the amount of snow and the altitude. You see him at 2 miles, elevation 10560 feet, standing in the snow about to throw a snowball at the host and photographer. Of course there was fishing. His other favorites were riding the John Deere Gator, our 2 Great Danes, and the horses. Rumor has it, Zach is planning another trip out west next year.

Fishing is getting better

It has taken the Montana rivers and streams a long time this year for good fishing. As a result of the abundance of rain plus the cool weather, the fish have been hesitant to come to the surface. But not today, Patrick McCarthy, our grandson from Westport, CT landed 7 fish ( 5 rainbows and 2 brown trout). Mike Mouat, Montana Fly Fishing was our guide on the Stillwater River. Patrick and Grandpa Clint almost got a bonus, because at times the water was still rough enough that we thought we were white water rafting.

Would you believe we were just passing through Red Lodge?

A once in a lifetime experience. We have already been to Yellowstone, 7 times this year. Althought we did have a neat experience on July 4th when a black bear jumped in front of us and spent 5 minutes trying to figure out where it was going to go next, it was nothing like this. On the 11th, we were on our way home, on the outskirts of Red Lodge, Montana when this happened. Thanks Susan, for your quick response to this opportunity.

We will fill in the gaps of the last 30 days very soon.