2008 June | The Road Home

Archive for ‘June, 2008’

Keeping the garage door closed

This is a true story. It happened at my home in rural Kalispell, Montana in June, 2007.

Chapter 1 – Who stole the garbage?

I don’t have garbage collection at my home. The county has green box areas – fenced areas with a lot of those green garbage bins placed so that you can drive up and empty trash from a pickup or car. There is a trash truck there at least once a day to empty the green boxes. From my home, no matter what direction I head, there is a green box area on the way. I take whatever trash I have whenever I go out and drop it at one of the green box places. Trash in the garage too long is an attractant to animals…and makes the garage stinky!

I often leave the garage door open during the day as tools, garden implements, my hiking poles and other things I use outside are stored there. On the day this story begins there was one bag of garbage about halfway back in the garage, in a plastic bag, in the wheelbarrow. There was also a bag of grass seed, unopened, sitting the spreader by the door of the garage. The bag of grass seed plays a part in the story.

About 5 p.m., I stopped work for a break, collected my walking poles and called to Karl to go for a walk. It was a beautiful spring evening so I walked my “long” walk – heading down the driveway, around the edge of the property, around the edge of the adjoining vacant 30 acres and also around the edge of the adjoining state land – another 40 acres. The loop ends approaching the garage from behind and takes about 40 minutes by the time Karl and I meander around and stop to look (me) or sniff stuff (him).

As I came around the garage at the end of the walk, I saw the bag of garbage in the woods. It was torn apart and the contents scattered around. Rats! – there had been some dogs belonging to visitors in the area, that had been wandering on to the property until Karl suggested otherwise. I guessed that one or more of them had come around while we were walking and messed with the garbage. Then I saw the grass seed bag had been torn open, but it was still in the spreader. Odd…dogs usually would not mess with grass seed. I picked up the garbage and shut the door…muttering under my breath about people irresponsible with their pets.

Chapter 2 – Who is in the ravine?

The next morning the boys (Karl and Bob) and I were out early in the morning…6 a.m.ish or so – full daylight here. Karl and I have a treat ritual – he gets about ½ his treat allotment for the day and he puts them places around the yard…buries some, hides others. When he gets the munchies he goes and gets one – I don’t know why – he seems to like having them “in the bank”. So…he has a treat in his mouth, standing there deciding where he’s going to put this one when he comes to full alert – treat still in mouth… barks – kind of muffled ‘cuz he’s not dropping the treat.. – nose straight up in the air sniffing. That is the bear sniff – it is not done for deer or coyote or turkeys or anything but bears. He was near the back of the house looking down a small hill/ravine between my house and the neighbors’. The neighbors’ house is maybe 150 yards from mine through trees that we left thick for privacy.

Chapter 3 – All of our questions answered.

Later in the day….

Phone rings….

It is the neighbor. They called to tell me that they had arrived home from a shopping trip to find a black bear curled up on their front lawn with the remains of all of their bird feeders scattered around him. He barely woke when they came in, just rolled over and got more comfortable. Finally they tooted the horn and reved the engine and he got up and ambled off into the woods.

So, it was a bear in the ravine AND in the garbage and grass seed…and we never saw him.

Now, the garage door stays closed.

For a Colorado bear story from later in June 2007 while visiting my folks in South Fork, CO – Barely a bear .

Almost back to Spring

Yesterday morning started out about 35 and drippy with a lot of snow still on the ground. But the sun came out, the temperature rose to nearly 60 and by 8:30 at night, the snow was finally gone!

The midday walk was a lot different yesterday than the day before.

Night before last, Karl, Bob and I were on the front porch when I heard what I thought was a gunshot. Karl barked instead of heading for the house. Gunshots send Karl for his closet hidey-hole. There were 2 more “shots”/cracks… Today I found 3 broken trees from the direction of the sound.

This tree fell and/or broke at the root.

This poor tree just broke…you can see the part that stayed in the ground to the right – it is about 5 feet high.

This is the very sad part of a June snow storm. I’m sure my damage was minimal compared to parts of town that have oak and other old deciduous trees. I lost the coleus that I planted in the tree root, but the alysum and lobelia seem to be ok.

The brief Winter wonderland is almost back to Spring.

Snow Day 2

The evening of June 10…night before last – after the snow event…nearly mid-June, nearly the summer solstice – within 11 days of the longest day of the year – sunset is shortly after 9:30 p.m. The photo below was taken shortly after 9:00 p.m.

Maybe hard to believe, but the temperatures did not go below freezing. Yesterday morning at 5:00 a.m. it was nearly 33 and stayed there until late afternoon when it was almost 40. The snow is still around but melting and slushy and just a damp mess – not a snow that is fun to play in. Still, a dog needs to be walked and so we went…

Sad Lupins… (that’s NOT a lupin below…I realized Thursday afternoon when I walked that I was calling these wrong – they are actually a noxious weed and I’m not sure of the name. Those are lupins in the grass under the tree….)

Above – in the grass – is how they should look now.

the walk path – see the stump to the right?

see how much snow is on the stump???

Towards the end of the walk – the top of the mountains are fogged in, but still – the most of them we have seen in two days.

June Snow

First, the lake – Flathead Lake…the view as I approach Bigfork Village and the north end of the lake – about 5 miles from my home – I love coming around the curve and over the hill and having this view of the lake appear. It is always different – different colors of the water, the clouds, the trees, the mountains…yesterday noon, with the clear air, rain and snow approaching, the sun on the water showed all the colors of the shallows, the sand bars and the deep…

On the road home, but towards the valley floor and the Bitteroot Range on the other side of the valley.

The road home towards my house – snowing up top – June 6.

Arriving home, I called to Karl for a quick walk before getting back to work – and to see what the new snow on the mountains looked like

We heard the rumble of thunder and the sky to the west (above) was dark. Karl laid back his ears and headed for home at a trot.

June storm and June snow in the mountains.

Headed North

Geese

I took these photos last Saturday. I kept hearing geese overhead and when Karl and I were walking our ridge path I heard them again. Although a bit hard to see in that first photo, I have never seen so many “V’s” at one time. The cacophony of honking almost hurt my ears. But it brought to mind “The Goose Story” … I could link to the old post but I think it is one that is worth repeating so here it is:

What science has taught us about why geese fly they way they do:

As each bird flaps its wings, it creates uplift for the bird immediately following it. By flying in a ‘V formation, the whole flock can fly at least 71% farther than if each bird flew on its own.

Perhaps people who share a common direction can get where they are going quicker and easier if they cooperate.

When a goose falls out of formation, it feels the resistance of trying to go it alone, and quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of flying with the flock.

If we have as much sense as a goose, we will work with others who are going the same way as we are.

When the lead goose gets tired, he rotates back in the wing and another goose flies on the point.

It pays to take turns doing hard jobs for our group.

The geese honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up their speed. The lead goose (on the point) never honks

The power of praise and recognition is critical to success.

Finally, (get this) when a goose weakens or is wounded and falls out of formation, two geese fall out and follow him down to help and protect him. They stay with him until he is either able to fly or until he is dead, and they then set out on their own or with another formation until they catch up with the group.

If we had the sense of a goose, we would stand by each other like that.

Last night’s walk

This post is a little late for some of my “coffee with From the Front Porch readers”…Yesterday was a little out of whack…it started with no coffee and no breakfast as I had an 8 a.m. appointment for a “fasting” blood test as part of my annual physical. The no breakfast I can do – even though I am a daily breakfast person…the no coffee is another kettle of fish altogether! I have a 35 mile drive to the clinic and all the way there I just wanted to pull over and take a nap. The good news is that I didn’t fall asleep driving and my after blood test treat was a Cowgirl Mocha from my favorite coffee spot AND Lox on an everything bagel. I know that last bit doesn’t exactly sound like Montana, but Whitefish has a superb bagel place where they boil the bagels, then bake in the proper kind of oven – just like New York City!

Because I am trying to think about consolidating trips to save on gas costs, I combined a grocery shopping trip with the run to Whitefish. By the time all of this got done it was 11 a.m. before I got home and got to work and then I was called on to help with bus navigation… The day slipped away without much work getting done. Finally I just called the day, called Karl and we took our evening walk about 7:30. I had something else planned for a quick post for today, but the mountains had a new look that I couldn’t resist.

Back from the walk, I downloaded the photos and took the computer – and a glass of cognac to the front porch. I have to ‘fess to the cognac as it is in one of the photos and looks so pretty that I didn’t want to disappear it. I have sworn off wine for the week – ‘nother story – and really intended no alcohol but the cool evening and the playing with photos…..I succumbed and I’m NOT sorry! But I did run out of steam before getting the blog post finished – hence the late post this morning.

I know a lot of you skipped reading all of the above – that’s ok! Here are the photos.

It was the wispy clouds hanging around the mountain tops that called to me…

Mountain Views