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!

May - Exploring Our New Area

On our days off in May, we tried to get out and explore the area.

The first week, we drove south on the old highway to Dayton, WY and then west on Hwy 14 into the Big Horn mountains. The highway climbs up and up to the top of the mountain ridge.  There were still mountain meadows covered with snow, we could see snowmobile tracks yet on some of them. Our plan that day was to drive further on Hwy 14A to Lovell, but when we came to Burgess Junction we found the 14A was still closed because of snow.  To get back home now, we either had to turn around or make a loop south and east. We continued on Hwy 14 south to see more new sights and our next stop was Shell Falls.  A beautiful area in the Bighorn National Forest, the water was running strong from all the snow melting from the mountains.  We drove on, turning south again at Greybull and then took a little short cut on Hwy 31 at Manderson.  This took us down to Ten Sleep, then turned east on Hwy 16 to go up across the Powder River Pass, 9655 feet elevation.  It became very cloudy and we even had periods of rain - we hoped it would not turn to snow.  Back to Buffalo, then north on I-90 to Sheridan.  We had an early supper at a very popular restaurant there, Sanfords. Historical pictures, license plates, and decor gave us plenty to look at and they had a large selection on their menu.  We stopped afterward at the Wyoming Cattle Company, a restaurant which also houses the Luminous Brewery.  Gary liked their Steamboat Oat Stout and I liked their Kolsch.

Shell Falls

Wyoming scenery

Sanford's decor - Sheridan

Montana sunset

Our next visit that week was to the Big Horn County Museum in Hardin.  This was very interesting, we spent over three hours there looking at all the exhibits.  They have about twenty restored buildings on the grounds from the area in the early 1900's.  A train depot, Will James's studio and cabins and a large barn building filled with farm and commercial vintage vehicles.  We found the Campbell Farming Corporation - Camp 4 buildings and information very interesting.  Thomas Campbell became the owner of the largest privately owned wheat farm, 95,000 acres, near Hardin to produce food for the war effort. He was a Brigadier General during WWII and invented the "fire bomb" used in that war.  The exhibit had the bathhouse, commissary, bunkhouse and cookhouse where the farming crews lived and were fed at one of four camps. www.nps/gov/bica/learn/historyculture/tom-campbell.htm  Everything at the museum was preserved very well and the information presented clearly, we enjoyed our visit there.

Lodge Grass Depot

Restored machinery

On my birthday, Gary did not find time to make a dessert, so we went to the Trading Post near the battlefield for supper.  As we were leaving the motorhome and getting in to the car, we heard bagpipes playing "Amazing Grace"!  Looking around, we saw the bagpiper standing at the top of the flagpole hill.  What a treat for my birthday!

One afternoon/evening we went up to Billings.  We stopped to see our friends Bill and Darla McLain, who worked for Bretz RV Center for the summer.  They were working that day, but we stopped and said hi (saw Bill wearing a tie :) - he is our foreman at the sugar beet harvest) and made plans to get together another time.  That evening for supper we picked up friends from Arizona, Marshall and Dianne Dennis, who were in town overnight as part of their western United States summer tour.  It was great to catch up with them, we will see them in Arizona over the winter.

May 16 - we went to the Wild Horse Bucking Sale and Rodeo in Miles City, MT.  Our co-workers Deb and Miles Tucker, went along for the day.  This sale is held the third weekend in May every year and is a major auction of rodeo stock.  We missed the parade, but walked around the park and looked at the exhibits and then had a great sandwich meal downtown put on by the Volunteer Fire Department.  In the afternoon, we went to the sale and rodeo.  The horses sold are not wild, but bred as bucking stock or riding horses that have been adept at bucking off their riders.  The wild horse race event is popular, teams of three cowboys had to subdue a wild horse, saddle it and then put a rider on for a lap around the racetrack.  No bridle or halter, they held on tight!  There was also bull riding and pari-mutuel horse racing.  On the way home, we just missed driving through a big storm - there was hail lying beside the road as we got closer to Hardin.

Wild horse race

Working cowboy :)

Late May, Memorial Day weekend, we had five days off, so we drove the car home. The first night we spent with my folks in Rapid City, then drove to Sioux Falls and stayed with Katie and her family. We had time to stop with flowers at the cemetery and run other errands.  I went with Katie and the boys to get their haircuts and we helped Katie prepare the garage for her rummage sale.  Saturday night we went to Gary's nephew's wedding.  It was a great time to see family at this joyous event. We enjoyed quick visits with friends and playing games with Riley and Sam.  We drove all the way back to Montana on Monday.

Grandpa and pajama boys

        

           Memorial Day at St Ann's Cemetery

May 2015 - Working at 7th Ranch, Montana

We arrived the last week of April at the 7th Ranch RV Camp, Garryowen, Montana.
We spent the week helping the owners, Chip and Sandy, with the ranch and park work. Gary helped with the construction of a new shop building and I had a training session in the park office.  Sandy taught me how to enter reservations on the Campmaster program and the other office procedures I would be responsible for.  Wednesday we drove north and stopped at Pompey's Pillar National Monument. This is a landmark rock where William Clark visited on his return trip on their expedition in July, 1806. There he carved his name into the rock, next to drawings the natives had carved in the years before. Then on to Billings to stock up on groceries at Sam's Club and the grocery store.  We had lunch at the Montana Brewing Company, one of six breweries in Billings.  Thursday, we did laundry and finished setting up the motor home for our summer stay.

Pompey's Pillar

William Clark was here

We were parked on a site in the lower right corner of the RV park.  We had a great view to the southwest, we could see the tops of the Big Horn mountains from our front door. The ranch pasture was just over the fence and each morning and evening thirty cows passed by on their way to and from the ranch buildings.  They would be calving in the time we were there.  The owners also had four horses they ride and use to help round up the cattle that come by our home too.  The other treat we had for the summer was a mountain bluebird nesting in the birdhouse just across the road from our spot.

Our site at 7th Ranch RV Camp

The view from above the park

The park cross at sunset

Miles, Billy and Neon

Birdhouse across from our site

Mountain Bluebird male

May 1 - we started our first four day shift at the park.  We were assigned to work the 7:00 AM to 2:00 PM shift for the summer.  Another workamper couple took over for us in the afternoon, they worked from 2:00 to 9:00 PM.  My responsibilities were to open the office, water the flower gardens and lawn (in May we were busy planting the flowers and vegetables in the garden areas), keep the office and office bathrooms clean and answer the phone, taking reservations, entering the reservations on the computer, checking out campers as they leave and checking in campers if they arrived during our shift.  Gary took me to the office every morning in the park golf cart and then checked the campground, making sure the bathrooms/shower house were clean and stocked for the morning, checked to see if a camper had left from their site before we had started and looked for any problems in the park that needed to be worked on that day.  Then he reported in to the owners and found out what tasks they wanted him to work on that day.  Some of the ongoing jobs were to spray weeds, fix sprinkler system heads, and working on the new shop building.  His daily assignment was to totally clean both bathrooms and the laundry room every day beginning at 11:00 AM.  He also cleaned the cabins if they had been used the previous night.

7th Ranch Office

Spring flower garden at the office

Vegetable plots

After we went to the 5:45 Mass in Hardin that first Saturday night, Chip and Sandy had us over for a potluck supper with the other workampers.  Our work day partners are Miles and Deb, they were from the Mobile, Alabama area. (We loved their distinct southern accent!).  This was their first workamping experience.  The morning couple on our off days were Maurice and Kathy, from Washington state.  They had workamped other jobs, spending the last four summers in Alaska.  The afternoon couple for their days; Gail and George, were from Texas.  They had been fulltiming just a couple years like us, working in California and Wisconsin during the last year.  Great people, we enjoyed spending time with all of them.

Chip and Sandy Watts have owned the ranch for 25 years and built and opened the RV park 14 years ago. They have had workampers for most of those years, so they have perfected the process of training all of us in the jobs they needed us to do.  They both grew up in southeast Montana and were a great resource for us as we learned about the area and explored Montana and Wyoming.  One day when we were off, they took us up to a high point on their land and Chip gave us a great tour/history lesson about the Battle of the Little Big Horn.

High point on the ranch looking toward the battlefield

We were just seven miles by car from the battlefield, but only about a mile as the crow flies, from the place where Gen. Reno & Benteen's troops were pinned down after the demise of Gen. Custer on Greasy Grass Ridge.  We went to visit and enjoyed the displays in the visitor center/museum, walked up the hill to the memorial where Custer and his men were killed and then drove the five mile loop through the park, reading and seeing the places where it all happened.   

Markers where the soldiers died during the battle.

Monument for the Native Americans at the battlefield

Driving up to Weir Point on the battlefield

Custer died here, the visitor center and Nat'l Cemetery are below

During May, we had quite a few days of rain, which was good for the area.  Sandy told us the summers can get hot and dry, they then have to worry about prairie fires.  It seemed like every time we went to Billings in May, we drove in rain to, from or while we were there!  Billings was 55 miles northeast of us and Sheridan was about the same distance to the south.  Garryowen, which was our address there and the nearest exit off I-90 consisted of a post office, museum and gas station with a Subway shop.  The next exit north was for Hwy 212 and the battlefield park entrance.  Just across from there is a locally owned restaurant and souvenir shop, "The Trading Post".  They have great food, known for their Indian fry bread, Indian tacos and desserts.  The next closest town was Crow Agency, just eight miles north.  The Crow tribe had a mercantile store with groceries and a few other necessities. There was a gas station, post office and several churches (a small Catholic parish) and a community of homes. Our best option for the area was Hardin, twenty miles to the north.  A town of about 5,000, they had most of the businesses we would need to use.  An IGA grocery store, Shopko, Family Dollar, Ace Hardware store and several good restaurants.

All God's glory in the sky

Hiked up to the cross

Prairie wild flowers

May sunset colors