Winter reared its head today. We received over a foot of snow from last night to today.  The old plow was not very happy that it had to go to work today. Click on a picture to see a larger view.

We took the opportunity that Field Day gave, as a chance to test out our “new” 1977 camper.  I belong to the Capital City Amateur Radio Club, and we attended a national event called Field Day.  This year, Field Day ocured on June 27 and 28.  We gathered up our supplies and headed out to Devils Elbow, a campground on Houser Lake, which is on the Missouri River.  Even though this was an Amateur Radio event, we used our time to get out in the camper.  We had a great time, and this was a good time to work out the “bugs”.  We discovered a couple of things we lost or forgot, but overall, we had everything we needed.  We were only able to stay over one night, from Friday to Saturday, as we had a busy church schedule on Sunday.  Here are some pictures of our fun weekend.

Also, visit my Ham Radio site at: http://radio.mcdougallshome.net/

John

As I travel around the state, I often find interesting little creations like this stuck on top of a fence post in the middle of no-where.  This one is near the Port of Wildhorse by the Canadian border.  If you know anything about these bits of art spread throughout the state, please, leave a message and tell us about it.  Click HERE to see more photos that I have taken from around the state of Montana.

John

This type of art can be found on fenceposts around Montana.

A few weeks ago, while I was traveling from a job in Southern Montana, I happened to see an old camper for sale in Silver Star.  I stopped by, met the owners, and had a look at the camper.  Our old camper was just too small, and we now needed something that could sleep all seven of us, and this one appeared to fit the bill.

The owners e-mailed us some pictures so Carol and the kids could see it.  We made arrangements to go down and look at it.  We did look at it, and we wrote a check.  On the way back, we stopped in Whitehall, fed some trout, and then fed ourselves with some good pizza at Crzybear Pizza.  It was a fun full day.  In the following couple of weeks, we cleaned the new camper out, and moved all of our stuff from our old camper to the new camper, then cleaned the old camper out.  How did we fit all that stuff in our old tiny camper?  Carol made some new curtains, and we were now ready for a chance to try it out.  Click a picture to see a larger view or our “new” old camper, and our fun trip to get it.

John

Clancy School hosted a Spring Concert consisting of three schools. Clancy, Boulder, and Montana City students attended this nice concert on May 19th.  Ana has been playing the clarinet this year and participated in the concert.  Ana and all of the students from the three schools did a fantastic job.

Click the picture to see more photos from the Spring Concert.

Here are a few photos of things I’ve come across in the past couple of weeks while traveling around Montana and at home.
Click a photo to see a larger view.

A Cattle Drive In Montana

It is spring time in Montana and the ranchers are moving their cattle.  As I travel across this beautiful state, I frequently come across cattle drives.  This was a large one and whenever traffic started to make headway through the drive, the cattle sped up also, and made our achievement, null and void.

J.J.'s Drawing On The Magna Doodle

The above photo is a picture J.J. drew on his Magna Doodle.  Very good J.J.!

Don't Park In My Spot!

OK now, for all you A.D.A. experts out there, this one takes things to the extreme.  OK, OK, we won’t park there! Actually, it is a dog kennel that is for sale.

Those Fake Branches Are Ruining My View.

This one is really wild.  Oh, I want to live in the mountains of Montana, AND I wasn’t my precious cell phone, but don’t you dare put up a tower to ruin my view!  So, let’s put some fake branches on it and ruin a wider portion of the view!  (BTW, being a Ham Radio Operator, in my opinion, a tower never ruins the view, IT IS THE VIEW.)

John

We just went through our fourth “last” spring snow storm. We thought each of the last four storms was the last, but we are continually surprised by another one.  This one was a doozy, lasted three days, and covered the center third of the state from North to South.

A while back we got some new bird feeders.  We are amazed by the beautiful and different kinds of birds that migrate through Jefferson City in the spring.  The birds have not discovered our new feeders though, and we were wondering if there was a problem with them or the bird feed.  This last storm forced the birds to notice our new feeders and now we have lots of birds again.  They were quite happy to find some food since the ground had over a foot of new snow on it.

Click on a picture to see larger views.

John

Here it is, mid April and we got another round of winter. We woke today with another six inches of snow and is blew and snowed off and on all day.  Once again, I am reminded how ridiculous the whole “global warming hoax” is.  Hand me a snow shovel, it is getting deep in here!

Click a picture to see more of our snow.

John

Click the picture to see lots of Easter Photos.

We just got back yesterday from a busy Easter week-end in Glasgow, Montana.  We put more than 800 miles on our Suburban.

Heather now lives in Glasgow,  so we decided to visit her for Easter.  Co-incidentally, some friends of ours son was getting married on the same week-end.  The week-end was very busy but fun.

On Friday, after the long trip to Glasgow, we met Heather and Carol’s mother Myrtle.  Myrtle came by train and we showed up just as the train was arriving.  That evening, we were invited to the rehearsal dinner.  We had a very filling taco dinner.  On Saturday evening, we went to the beautiful wedding.  After the wedding, we were served a full roast beef dinner buffet.  Oh, the food!  After a quite short night sleep, we got up bright and early for Easter Church Service.  Since we were so far from home, we decided to have Easter Baggies instead of Easter Baskets.  That worked out great.

After Church, we took a trip to Fort Peck Reservoir.  The dam on Fort Peck is 3.8 miles long and is earthen.  It is very large.

We got back from our little site seeing trip just in time for an Easter dinner pot-luck.  More food!  After Dinner, we went to some friends house and the kids played lots of games having to do with raw eggs!  Take a look at the pictures to see some gooey messes.

On Monday morning, we were invited to our friends’ house for breakfast.  We had piles of biscuits and gravy.  Oh, my!  We then packed up our Suburban for the long trip home.

When we got back into Helena, we met Carol’s sister and her husband Dave along with their daughter and her husband and their little boy at Pizza Hut.  We ate a lot of pizza, then headed home.  It was a great week-end, but there is no place like home, and no beds like our own.

We hope you had a great Resurrection Day!

John

Isn’t it neat when you go to church and God REALLY shows up? Today was one of those days.  I feel sad for those churches that have such a small view of God that they don’t expect Him to show up there.  He is so good, and He is healing lives, inside and out.

After church, we were invited to some friends house for brunch.  We had all of the eggs, bacon, and french toast that we could possibly put inside us.  Oh so very good.

Last Sunday, seven days ago, we received over 20 inches of new snow.  It has been melting quickly, but we have enough left that Ana, Alia, and J.J. could have a fun time sledding on it.   They tried sledding on it last Sunday, but it is almost impossible to sled in 20+ inches of snow.

Here are some pictures of the day.  Click on them to see larger views.

John