Twas the Day After Christmas and All Through the House...

Yesterday we could see the mountains of Glacier

It's freezing in here--well, 52 degrees anyway (inside--26 outside). I have become my parents: they kept our house 50 degrees at night and 62 during the day. I hated it when I was growing up, and Jessie hates it now, but I strangely like it. Fortunately for Jessie, the radiant heat from the floor in the basement keeps her room and bathroom a bit warmer. Today looks like a good day to try out a fire in the stove down there too. There is a vent in the dining room on the main floor for passive heat from it. Today we'll see how well it works. 

Snowing this morning!

I am going on and on about the temperature as this is one of the first mornings I have been out of bed before 9:00 am. I wake early, but it's so cozy under the down comforter that I hang and read for awhile before getting up. This morning, however, I had someone coming to service the gas fireplace on the main floor--our main source of heat--so I was up and dressed by 8:00. I turned on the heat, made coffee, and watched it snow while waiting for the guys. Sadly they forgot to tell me that the unit needed to be cold for them to take it apart and clean it so off they went, promising to return sometime next week. Back to the snow. It's snowing!! Little, fine flakes, but snow!

This Christmas was one of our best ever. I usually overdo, buy too many presents (spend too much money), and burn both myself and everyone around me out. This year we stuck to two presents and stockings, each and it was glorious. Dave got hiking poles for us and we started the afternoon with a long walk up the hill behind our house (it's tribal conservation land). Then, for the first time, we walked around our own property. Wow is it big!! Turi is gong to be one happy horse. The former owner created little resting/viewing areas and cairns across the property which are just stunning--and so fun to stumble upon while walking. our land is also mostly hill slopes so we followed animal trails up and down and around.

Dave and the Pablo Reservoir on our walk

Today I begin work on Dave's Christmas present. I learned my lesson about the necessity for proper fittings from the sweater I knitted him a few years ago, and this year's effort is too precious to waste. Details tomorrow...

Enjoying my new walking poles

The happy campers

Dave heading to the top of the hill

A Carnivore's Responsibility

View from the Nest (tm Anya)

Yesterday I spent the late afternoon arranging the furniture in my Nest. I borrow that name from Anya as for the first time I have a small, cozy (the word of the year) space for sewing, spinning, and other lap fiber crafts. It's almost like a tower room as it is at the top of the house, a smaller mirror-image of the master bedroom and has three sets of windows. The bedroom faces east to the Missions, the Nest faces west towards the Flathead river and the Salish Mountains beyond. Dave helped me wrestle the new cozy chair purchased the other day in, and then made me a Negroni to sip as I watched the sunset from it.

This morning there is fog in the valley and sun up here and across to the mountains. I am, as usual, in the cozy chair in my nook in the dining room, enjoying an iced latte and a Croffle from Bayside Riser. My wonderful spouse went out foraging first thing this morning before I was even awake and brought me sugary goodness and caffeinated sustenance. 

Today marks a new point in life for me: I put my money where my mouth is and I am assisting in butchering and packaging half a steer this afternoon. I like to eat meat. I LOVE steak. I love beef, chicken, pork, duck, venison, elk, bison... the list goes on. I also believe in responsibly and humanely farming the animals. I could go to the grocery store (or, rather, Dave could as he does all the food shopping) and buy cellophane-wrapped, sanitized meat in a package without a care as to where it came from, or how the animal that provided it was treated during its life. I could pay money and support the factory farming system. Or I could pay more and trust the marketers who label meat organic, free-range, grass-fed, etc. Frankly, I don't trust those marketers. Every one of those claims could be "true" and the animal could still have had a miserable life and/or end of life. Being a control freak, I found a way to know about every step in the life of my food. 

There is local rancher who raises all his cattle completely free-range on grass. He supplements with hay and a bit of grain in the winter, but the animals are still out in the field, in their herd. They are hormone, antibiotic, and everything-else free. They are never jammed into cattle cars and trucked to a feed lot to stand in misery and filth, eating grain and not exercising so that their meat gets softer and fat, (the way most people like it) until they are killed one after the other by strangers whose only job is the slaughter and butchering. They live their lives free and as comfortable as living outdoors in Montana in the winter can be until they are humanely killed at home by a person they know and who knows them. No fear, no stress. I know it's weird that all of that makes me more at peace with being a carnivore, but it does.

I do not expect today to be easy. It is hard thinking that an animal that was living a week ago is now not living because I want to eat it. But if I want to eat it, I should own the rest of the process and take part in the rendering of that animal into food. As I do, I will give thanks to it for feeding us. Were I a better person, I would be a vegetarian or only eat meat from hunted--not farmed--animals. And I would also do the hunting myself. (I will not go into the necessity of humans hunting and our responsibility to keep down the prey populations since there are not enough other predators left to do it. That's a rant for another day.) 

However I am not yet that person. Maybe next year.

Life Goes On

It used to be I'd start my posts with what coffee mug I was drinking and what music I was listening too. Now it's where we are in relation to the clouds. We are inbetweeners today: Polson and the wildlife refuge are shrouded in fog below, there are clouds above the tops of the Missions, but we and the mountains are clear and eye-to-eye. And I am never going to get tired of leaning over, sliding open the patio door, and snapping this view from my cozy chair!

Yesterday with Turi (the equine companion) was wonderful!! I spent almost no time with him over the summer between time on renovations of my parents house and moving here--I hadn't seen him at all for two months until yesterday! He let me know it too. He looked at me, and then pointedly looked away when I walked up to the paddock to halter him and take him to the barn for his turn with Sadie the vet. Instead of coming right to me (his usual behavior) he made me slog through the gooey wet mud in my little suede WalMart boots to get him. Ugh. (I put Mucks Tall Chore Boots on my Christmas list when  I got home). But when I brought him into the indoor arena to check him out, he was AMAZING!! I let him off lead and just walked/ran around the arena with him at liberty, and he stayed right with me! Wer swooped and turned and he pranced and kicked up his heels and was my perfect boy. I am sooooo looking forward to bringing him home this spring.

When I got home from the barn (I drove the grey beast--my favorite vehicle) I unpacked my goodies from Harbor Freight which included two truck ramps and a big Yukon tool chest. I put the wheels on the tools chest in the back of the pickup, put the brackets on the ramps, and then Dave and I wheeled the tool chest out of the pickup and down the ramp. There is no way we could have lifted it out. As it was, it skittered kind of fast down the ramp.

By then it was dark, but not too late for either UPS and FedEx who both delivered packages to our door. Our driveway is a half mile long (I measured). It is gravel/dirt, one lane, twisty, narrow, and uphill. And they STILL deliver to our door! USPS, on the other hand, not only doesn't bring packages up the drive--or leave them at the bottom of the drive, but they don't even bother leaving slips! Going to have to have a talk with them today...

And that's enough babbling. I'd forgotten how much I liked the morning ritual of posting. It's not as good as my regular coffee with Zaga, but it's going to have to do till she gets here this summer! Biscuits and gravy are ready (thanks Dave) got to go.

PS-Dee, horse pics tomorrow, and Anya, yes! fulltime!

I Have My View Back!!

Northeast from my cozy chair 

Today is another day out and about, and I still have to shower, but the reemergence of the views from the house merit a quick post! These are pretty much the same shots I took yesterday, but even though it's still cloudy, you can see all the way to the mountains on all sides.

Southeast to the Mission Mountains-my favorite view

Today I am off to the barn where I stable Turi. The vet is coming for vaccinations and deworming, the farrier is coming for winter shoes, the dentist is coming to check and grind (I think), and the chiropractor is coming because every horse needs a good adjustment! For me it means a lovely, chilly, winter day spent with my horse. I won't ride, but I will brush and treat and hang with him. 

South to the hill behind the house

For the near future I am keeping him where I currently board him as what the hell do I know about caring for a horse?!? But this spring I plan to get him a companion (donkey? llama? horse for Dave?) and bring him home. This house has a paddock, a tack room, feed storage, and a loafing shed. No, I did not make that up. Apparently the shelters for animals that have no doors are called loafing sheds. Additionally the entire 33 acres the house sits on is fenced so they could free range (like the llamas that used to live here did).

Off to dress and shower! Long sleeved shirt? check. Jeans? check. Cozy vest? check. Warm glove and scarf? check. Work boots? No, but sneakers!

North to Flathead Lake and towards Glacier Park

West over the Flathead River to the Salish Mountains

A Rural Life

Grey Beast and Scoot Scoot

Pomeranian sleeping on my slipper as I get in a quick post before heading into Missoula for banking and shopping. Going to take the Grey Beast today so I can haul a tool cabinet from Harbor Freight and a chair from Furniture Row. Hope she starts. The Beast is a 1989, 4WD, Ford F150 that I bought from a friend last year so I could Haul Sh*t (including a horse trailer). It turns out to be very useful as it is also the vehicle we are using to truck the garbage from the house down to the bear-proof (saying that never gets old) garbage can at the end of the drive. It's about a 20 minute walk down the drive (no, really... well, maybe only 15), so hauling the bags on foot one at a time is Not Feasible. 

Hoar frost

The world outside my window is also still grey this morning, and the hoar frost is even longer. Makes me just want to cuddle up in a chair with a cozy blanket and read all day, but not today. Today I go to the Big City for supplies. Polson has Safeway and Super One for groceries, Ace and Western Building Supply for Hardware, and WalMart and Murdoch's Ranch and Home Supply for everything else. If you need anything else, you go to Kalispell or Missoula for Home Depot, Lowe's, Target, Costco, Harbor Freight, Butterfly Herbs (not all destinations have to be big box stores), etc.

Still need to shower, set up the printer for Jessie, and get the truck defrosted and warmed up, so I had best finish my coffee and get to it. Got a lunch date and an afternoon visit to old friends to set up too.

Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful, but the Fire is So Delightful!

The view from my cozy chair

Sitting in my cozy corner in the new house (located in the dining room, of all places) and looking out the window at... well, you can see for yourself! This is not the way I remember Montabna winters being--though that is probably because I have always lived down in the valley instead of up on the hill. Up here at Coyote Song (now officially named for the romping and singing we hear almost daily), we are IN the clouds. All day every day for the past several days it has been white as far as the eye can see (which, to be honest, isn't very far). And it's not snow--it's hoar frost! And it is cold... High 20's every day. But I am still soooo glad we finally moved here!

Part of living in Montana in December is (re)learning a whole new skill set. So far I have mastered the gas fireplace (our small, primary source of heat), and am learning how to use the atv with the plow on the front, and manage garbage until we can drive it down to the bear-proof garbage can at the bottom of the drive (which is to say some enormous, to-be-measured-later distance). e got a cord of wood for the stove downstairs but haven't had a real fire in it yet. The closest I have  come is burning packing material and junk mail. That's mostly because we do not have a sitting area set up down there yet (though we got a small love seat last week to put down in front of the stove for cozy reading. The main room down there will house the games table when I finish repairing it from the move. It was badly packed and lost a leg. Once it's up J and I will do puzzles down there, and Dave and I will play games.

Frost whiskers on our porch raccoon

Jessie rarely leaves the downstairs. We have the radiant floor heat on all the time down there, and she also has a small space heater in her room so it's nice and toasty. The main floor is noticeably cooler as the gas fireplace is really small, and there are high ceilings and openings into the rooms on the upstairs floor--which has no heat at all except for a small space heater in Dave's office. The upstairs--our bedroom, the master bath, Dave's office and my sewing room--are quite chilly. But since we have a Mr Big down comforter from Three Dog Down (big enough no one can steal the covers) on the bed, whenever we are are upstairs we are just fine. In fact I am warmer and more comfy in this house than I ever was in Austin when it was cold. I think it's mostly because it's not damp here, and the house isn't as cavernous as there. 

Enough talk of the cold! Time to bindle up and go pick up another load of stuff at the old house--small trailer and sheets of plywood to put up walls in the shed/new glass studio. Pictures are all from today.

Looking down the front porch steps

The garden in front of the front steps

Poor Austin rose on the back deck

The greenhouse behind the house

Looking up at the hill behind the house

The vast, empty nothingness all around

Day 20? Day 43?

We have been in our new home for 43 days, but as I have only been here for 20 days, I'm not sure how to count it! While Dave has held down the fort (and the cats), I have been laboriously transporting our lives and belongings from Austin to Polson in a 16 ft trailer towed by a 2002 Ford Excursion (it's for sale if you want one!) or in 26-ft UHaul trucks. Four trips, two with each vehicle configuration, and I am done. Well sort of done if you don't count the last trip I will have to make with the 4Runner and the small trailer to pick up some wood (ironically purchased a few years ago in Montana and carried down to Texas), a loom, and some finished glass work. That trip will happen when the Austin house sells or spring, whichever comes first.

I meant to start posting again on Day 1 as I am that kind of a girl. The kind that can't watch a series on  tv without starting at Season 1, Episode 1--even if the person with whom I am watching it has already seen all of Season 1 and the first episode of Season 2... (Dave!). The kind that has to have ALL the possible crayon colors (currently Crayola has120 in production of the 400 they ever made). But here I am, breaking the mold, being a little less rigid, and starting in the middle of the beginning...

Dave put up the new Christmas tree today. It is new because the tree we had in the Austin house (9 ft) was just too big for the new house. Now we have a lovely little 7-footer, and it's just right. Too big/too much for the new house is the story of our lives right now, as we have seriously downsized on house (while upsizing on land). When we  moved from Atlanta to Austin eight years ago there were seven UHaul loads (I think--it is a bit of a blur in my memory). To get everything down to the four trips for this move, we had to divest A LOT. 

I didn’t want to add to the landfill so I tried to find homes for the things we decided not to keep. I sold some online, I donated some to various charities and Goodwill (a lot of effort to load, drive, and unload), and I still had mountains of stuff to deal with. I was overwhelmed and in way over my head, and then Angie the Estate Girl stepped in and took care of EVERYTHING. By the time I found her, I would have happily given everything we still had away just to get rid of the headache and stress. Instead I handed it all over to Angie and she not only managed to sell far more than I would have thought possible, but she also coordinated the donation of items that didn't sell, and the disposal of items that couldn't be donated. She (and her crew) were warm, friendly, professional, honest, supportive, and incredibly hard-working. I could not recommend them more. I cannot stress enough how STUPID I was trying to sell and give away our lifetime's worth of belongings without Angie! My recommendation: Do yourself a favor and hire her to help you move on to the next stage in your life or to assist you in dealing with someone else’s lifetime of stuff. If you're not in Austin, find another good estate sales agent.

I wasn't there, but Angie had an estate sale in Austin last weekend and we made out like bandits on stuff that I was trying (and failing) to give away. It was a three-day event, and at the end everything that didn't sell and could be donated was (handled by Angie), and everything that couldn't be donated was hauled off in a dumpster (again, coordinated by Angie). 

The Austin house will probably go on the market in the new year when our fabulous real estate agent Dina deems it ready (repairs, painting, cleaning, staging...). In the meantime, we settle into our new life on in a house on the hill on 33 acres in Montana overlooking Flathead Lake, the Mission Mountains, the one million acre Bob Marshall Wilderness area, and the Pablo National Wildlife Refuge. On a clear day we can almost see Glacier National Park to the north.