June in "Big Sky Country"

We started a second part-time job at the beginning of June.  A friend of the Watts, Bob, hired us to water and mow the yards for the two houses on a ranch that he manages nearby, about four miles away. The first day we mowed it all, on a nice riding lawnmower, and we trimmed branches.  Then we set up the watering.  An irrigation ditch runs along the property, so we positioned the pump to pull the water from the ditch for the spigots.  We worked quite a few hours in June, with all the trimming and mowing that needed to be done.  Most days we would go over and set the sprinklers to run for four to six hours, then move them to the next dry area.  Several times we saw good size bull snakes, but they went their way and we went ours.

Upper lawn at Bob's

Irrigation ditch pump

Lower house lawn

Sunset beauty

Morning sun on the bluffs

One day that first week, Gary got to be a cowboy again and round up cows and calves. He said the horse knew what to do, he just had to hold on.  Then he and Chip separated the calves one by one from the cows and tagged them.  After all, that is what you do on a ranch! That afternoon, we restrung a window blind for Gail and George, fellow workampers.

Helping Mom out

Gary on Billy

Week 2 - we had five days off again, we went to explore some of the southwest area of Montana. The first day we drove to Butte and went on an underground copper mine tour at the World Museum of Mining.  The guide took us down to the sixty-five foot level of the Orphan Girl Mine.  He told us about how the mine started, progressed and how the miners lived and worked.  This mine produced 7.5 million ounces of silver while in operation. A great tour!  We stayed at the historic Hotel Finlan, built in 1889, designed after the Hotel Astor in New York City.  Located in the historic downtown, we enjoyed looking at the other historic buildings restored there.  We stopped by Headframe Spirits, a micro-distillery and had a great supper at Metals.  The next morning, we walked over to see the Berkeley Pit, a former open pit copper mine.  Underground mines became too costly in the 1950's, so they switched to mountaintop removal (open-pit) mining.  As more rock was excavated, ground water seeped up and when they shut the underground mine pumps off in 1983,  the pit continued to fill with toxic water.  It is now one of the EPA's largest Superfund sites, trying to contain the toxins. Leaving Butte, we drove on Hwy 1 up into the Beaverhead/Deer Lodge National Forest to Philipsburg. Philipsburg was a mining town, known now for sapphire mining in the area.  Several businesses let you pan for sapphires, it was too hot that day for us, so we bought a bag of sapphire mine gravel - that I still need to mine.  We did not know that sapphires develop in every color but red, the red stones are garnets.  Philipsburg is restoring many historic buildings, one we visited housed the Philipsburg Brewery.  Quite a selection, we tasted and enjoyed. We stayed at "The Inn at Philipsburg" that night, a one level 60's road hotel, but it was very clean and roomy.

One of the old gallows headframes

World Museum of Mining Tour

                                                       

                                       "Tap Her Light" - originated in Butte

CopperWild Brewery & Trimbo's Pizza   

Butte architecture

Lobby of the Finlan Hotel

Berkley Pit Mine                                           

Headframe at Berkley Pit Mine

Beer List in Philipsburg

Philipsburg buildings

The next day we were up early, had breakfast at a little coffee shop and started on our drive south on Hwy 569, over the Continental Divide, then on Hwy 43 to Dewey.  Very scenic, we drove down to Dillon, then back up Hwy 41 and reached Virginia City.  Virginia City and Nevada City nearby, are historic gold & silver mining towns, now tourist towns.  We found Virginia City interesting because many of the buildings are filled with never used items.  We were told that when the mining was depleted, some of the shopkeepers just locked up their businesses and left.  When the buildings were purchased to move to Virginia City, everything was left as is.  The General Mercantile store had boxes and boxes of new shoes, clothing items, toiletries, bolts of fabric, etc.  One building displayed arcade and other vintage musical machines, including the "Verbal Fortune Teller" from 1906.  This is the only verbal animated fortune teller machine, unfortunately they do not have it running for the public. Our destination for over night was Ennis, MT.  On the way, I tried to find a hotel room for the night, most on-line sites showed everything full.  Once in town, we checked and found out that the Montana EMT and Paramedic conference was there that weekend (this was Thursday night) and most places were full. We finally found a room at the Rainbow Valley Lodge, a hunting/fishing lodge just outside of town. In Ennis, we visited Willie's Distillery, well known in Montana for their bourbon, whiskey and chokecherry liqueur...and grappa!  Gary had his first Moscow Mule drink, they called theirs Montana Mule using their bourbon.  The next morning we headed back home, enjoying our drive through the Madison River Valley - known well for its great fly fishing, to Bozeman and then back on I-90 to the Ranch.

Georgetown Lake, near Anaconda, MT

Our moose sighting

Entering Madison Valley

Rainbow Valley Lodge

Madison River fly fishing

Beaver-slide hay stacker.

Rainbow x2

The next week proved interesting.  Gary, Miles and Chip were cowboys again and rounded up the next group of calves. We continued to have wind and rain storms, but were rewarded with a beautiful rainbow one night.  While working one morning, we discovered that a little dog had slipped out of its motorhome when they stopped in the parking lot and got left.  I tried to call the owners, but they had given us their home phone number, so I could not reach them.  The poor little thing went back and forth from the office to the RV park, trying to find his house. Finally, another camper was able to catch her and fed and watered her.  The owners eventually missed the pup and so the husband drove back 100 miles to pick her up.

Old cowpokes at work!

7th Ranch Teepee for rent

Rental Van  painted with Looney Tunes

Approaching storm front

Sunset at 7th Ranch

Lightning Show over Montana

Friday morning, on our first day off that week, we went over and mowed at the other ranch and set up watering.  Gary went back over to turn off the hoses late afternoon, just before another storm was rolling in.  This one looked different coming at us and it was!  Hail!  Many were golf ball size and ended up breaking the windshield of our car, denting the side and hood of the car, broke pieces off our TV antenna on the motorhome, but just a few pocks on the motorhome itself.  Other campers did not fare so well.  We had one Airstream trailer that really got dented up and had all their skylight/vent covers broken (Airstreams are the silver metal tube shaped campers) Other campers had some damage, one owner had left his awning down when he left and the wind caught it up and broke it. The owners' buildings and vinyl siding on their house were damaged heavily too. We spent time helping some of the campers fix their damage before having supper that night.

Showers in the immediate forecast! Turned out to be hail!

Golf ball size hail & smaller

Broken windshield on Taurus

The next morning we went over to the other ranch to check damage.  Several windows on the houses and out buildings were broke, Gary boarded them up while I picked up branches.  We found out that our RV park was on the south edge of the storm, everything north of there had larger hail and worse damage.  The wheat field at this ranch was ruined by the hail too, we had taken a picture of the beautiful field just the week before.

Wheat field before hail.

Sunset colors on I-90

Sunday, after Mass, we drove to Sheridan to watch a horse polo match.  Another first time event for us.  There are two polo clubs and fields outside of Sheridan and the view of the surrounding mountains are incredible.  One of the women that help run the polo group heard us say we were new to polo and she took time to explain how the game and teams operate.  Each player has three or four horses at the ready and they change them out each quarter, especially when the temperature is high - like it was that day.  We had supper at the Wyoming Cattle Company and went home.  Driving back from Sheridan late afternoon evening on I-90 was so pretty.  The sun hitting the bluffs, changing every five minutes is so amazing.

Polo in the shadow of the Big Horn Mts.

Monday, Bill and Darla came for a visit.  We took them up to the battlefield and then went out for lunch at the Trading Post before they went back to Billings.  Tuesday, we went in to Billings to have the windshield replaced on the car.  Then back to work on Wednesday.  This was our busy weekend at the park, the local Little Bighorn Days event was taking place.  Hardin,MT has a celebration and rodeo and it is the anniversary of the Battle at the Little Bighorn.  Special events were held at the national monument and a private group does a reenactment of the battle.  We had a lot of people checking in to stay at our park for the events. Thursday night we slipped away to Sheridan to have supper with the Grives family.  They were traveling through the area on their summer vacation, coming from Yellowstone Park that day.  Dr. Grives was one of Ben's professors at South Dakota State University and now lives in the Chicago area.  It was great to visit with them.

Friday after work, we met Wally and Jan in Hardin for the rodeo.  They stayed in Hardin at an RV park with friends and then moved to our park Saturday morning to stay and visit for a couple days. The weather turned really warm, high 90's for the weekend, so we decided to go sightseeing in cool places.  Saturday, we drove to Sheridan and went to the Bradford Brinton Memorial ranch.  This is a memorial to Western Art and History established on the ranch of Bradford Brinton who collected art from many of the well known western artists, including Charles Russell, Frederic Remington, Will James, John Audubon and many more.  We enjoyed the art displays in the museum and then toured the Brinton ranch house, decorated in period furniture and many more original western paintings and sculptures.  Unfortunately they did not allow pictures to be taken there. We showed Wally and Jan some of the sights of Sheridan and had supper at the Wyoming Cattle Company.

Sunday was hot, 100 degrees.  Gary and I went to Mass at the Crow Agency parish, St. Dennis.  It is their tradition to have Mass on this weekend outside in the yard of the church.  Everyone put their chairs in any shade available, the priests had a canopy tent over them.  We were all very warm by the time Mass ended.  We had planned to take Wally and Jan to the reenactment event after lunch but mutually changed our minds realizing how hot it would be to sit for two plus hours on open bleachers.  We drove them through the Battlefield Memorial and stopped at the museum.  We all took naps afterward and that night Wally made lamb chislic for us. We were able to take a walk through the park that night after it cooled down.

Monday, we packed the car and headed for the cooler mountains with Wally and Jan.  We stopped and hiked a trail winding through the Tongue River Canyon.  It was beautiful.  We only went two and a half miles because the temperatures were rising.  We drove up to the Big Horn mountains to Sibley Lake.  Only 75 degrees there!  We enjoyed the picnic lunch we had brought along and then hiked a little area of the lake.  We drove on to Burgess Junction before turning around to go back home.  In Dayton, we stopped at the general store/antique shop and browsed.  Back home, we took naps and then grilled for supper.

Hiking with friend in Tongue River Canyon

Tongue River Canyon near Dayton, WY

Bridge overlooking Tongue River

Looking east from the the top of the Big Horn Mts.

Picnic at Sibley Lake--a cool 70's temp

Sibley Lake & Dam

Tuesday morning, Wally and Jan left to continue their travels to South Dakota.  We went over to Bob's and mowed, trimmed and turned on the hoses for watering.  Still a hot day and windy, at home we caught up on our laundry and computer work.

Big Sky Country!