6-15-08

Spring 2008

A three-legged dog walks into a saloon in the Old West. He slides up to the bar and announces, "I'm looking for the man who shot my paw."

My friend Mark Browning asked me if I could take a trailer over to Bozeman and pick up some artwork that had been donated to the Art and Heritage Center that he manages. I was happy to do it as it is a way for me to support the fine work that the Center does for the community. I really like Mark too and we get along really well together. Mark is a great artist (Wow, what interesting timing. Mark just drove up with a woman named Donna from New York. She is commissioned to do a dance program for a group over in Missoula. I told her I had just finished my new dance floor and took her up to see it.)

Mark and I had a great time going over to Boz and back. The art pieces were huge and very heavy but we were able to get them in the trailer and back to the art center in good shape.

I had the neighbors bring over their cows and new calves to hopefully graze down all the dry grass that surrounds my camp area. This was just after they were turned in and it had been just dry as could be. A friend told me that there had been less than an inch of rain since June of last year and this was March. We didn’t get rain until May and since then it has mostly been gray overcast with light sprinkles. Now and then it has opened up and rained and even hailed a few times. I am living in ‘Hail Road Alley’ but hope this new little doghouse will weather those storms well. The cows were held outside of camp with a wire hooked to my fence charger. If I didn’t have the place wired off from them I am sure they would have moved in or at lest hung out under the porch roof. I like the cow songs they sing while here. The babies get lost or separated from Mom and they ‘sing’ to each other until they get back together. It usually ends this way…..

I guess I should have made a lower wire to keep the little rabbits out too. As you can see here I had one that moved in. He/she took a cruise inside but decided it wasn’t ready to move in yet and moved over to the woodpile.

I had to buy more pine boards and here I have them all painted with a clear stain and tied up with little lath between the layers so the air from the fan could blow through and dry them.

I was really pleased that all the wire that I had strung out seems to work. This fan and light was a head scratcher to figure out as it has two switches, one for the light and the other for the fan.

I was listening to the radio and heard that the bike show was that weekend over in Glendive. The weather had been really shitty and the forecast was for maybe snow over night and possible rain the next day. I contacted as many of my motorcycle friends to see if I could get someone to ride over with me. One guy said that we could go over in his Suburban!! Well, if I am going to go to a bike show I was going to ride. I was ready in the morning and it was sort of gray and threatening. I dressed warm and headed out. Heck, it was a nice ride over and even a better one back. My motorcycle buddies over here tend to be….??

There were a few nice ‘alternative’ type bikes in the show. I really liked this Honda four chopper. Check out the spring arrangement on the rear wheel.

I like this old Harley that they belonged to a rancher that used it to check cattle.

This looks like a lot of fun if you can hop up on it.

Glendive is a paddle fish area and these two painters must have found this model and gave it a great paint job.

My friend Rob who is an organic farm inspector rides a Buell. Over in the corner was this Buell that has the new Rotax engine and has 146 HP and weighs 376 pounds. Fast? You bet…..

Some of these custom Harley’s have the most beautiful chrome engines.

A cute little English Bull dog puppy and not a bad looking owner.

There was a woman over from Billings that had a site that was promoting women riders. She was riding a huge Goldwing and pulling a trailer. I talked with her for a while and found that she really does do a lot of long distance rides with her girlfriend.

Two methods of tattoo’s. I liked the redhead the best.

This guy has pretty cool hair and said it was ok if I took a photo of it. 

A girl getting a new eyebrow stud.

I made a run up to see Tucker and Glenna’s new Earthship home that they are building up on a ridge east of town over looking the Yellowstone river and the Kinsey farm area. They are pounding sand into old used tires to make walls that will be later plastered.

The rural phone company is putting in a fiber optic line down the valley. They started doing it last year down the highway but now they are ripping in the lines to the houses.

They used this little machine to rip up to the junction box up by the power pole.

This big ripper took the line down to the highway.

I decided to wall off a shower room and here you can see the studs and the start of the shower tile installation.

The tile is 12”x12” and is placed over ½” cement board. Here I am starting up the back wall.

Tile in place. I put on my plumbers hat and crawled under the floor and installed a small hot water heater and the pipes for the showerhead as well as stub up for the kitchen sink.

Sheila was here for a visit and she was the ‘First’ to use the new shower. As you can see it seems to be OK.

After the bucking horse sale parade we went over to the fair ground to watch some of the sheep shearing competition. They had some real fast guys from around the world.

The tools of the trade.

I found an old Stetson 4X beaver hat for sale and picked it up for Sheila and was pleased to find it fit just right. I love these old high quality Stetsons that are soft and not the hard ones they mostly sell today.

Sheila’s friend Wendy came for a visit with her new boyfriend. She had never shot a gun before and that is enough reason for me to get out my little Rugar 22cal. Bearcat pistol. It is the first gun I ever bought and it is nice and small / light for small hands and new shooters. She did really well with it and even better when I got out the Rugar 10-22 rifle with a scope. I had talked to her before about getting a pistol for self-protection. She lives alone and it just seems to make a lot of sense for a single woman to be able to protect herself in her home. I like the option of opening the window and doing a little shooting. Jeez, I would sure hate to live in town. It wouldn’t be long before I was in the jail…..

I took the Bloodhound over to Bob’s to have the transmission changed out. This is the tranny that Bob loaned me while I was having trouble down in Arizona with mine. I rode the new Texas Blue Tick back and mounted the parabellum windshield and the bags that came off my Yellow dog when I put on the aluminum panniers. I also put on a couple of Texas stickers that I picked up for it when I was down there.

Sheila and I were out at the dump getting rid of some of the trash I am collecting around here. I drove over to the iron pile to throw out an old fan and look around. Sheila came back around from the other side and said there was a motorcycle over there. What??? Here it is. I think it is a 70cc kids bike and the interesting thing is that it still has the key in the ignition. Seems to have compression and hell, it might run with a battery. Needs tires and upholstery. Oh, and a small rider.

I had bought tongue and grove oak flooring last fall and had it stacked up along the back wall. Oh, you can see the tile entry area that I had put down. I nailed them down with this pneumatic nailer that the lumberyard ‘loaned’ me. It works really slick. All you do is pound the board in place with the rubber head hammer, put the nailer up against the board and whack the little black knob with the rubber hammer. That pushes the board up very tight and inserts a nail at an angle into the sub floor. The wood is ¾” thick and  is prefinished.

The flooring goes down pretty fast but it sure made my back hurt. I did some stretching exercises and took some ibuprofen and that helped a lot.

After getting it done I find it is really slick and it looks like I will need to get a dust mop. My nice old hair push broom just doesn’t leave it clean. With a little floor wax it should make a great dance floor.

 
It is finally starting to look pretty good inside. I like to just go in and sit in the chair and look at wood. Ahh, so much better than looking at sheetrock. I have put up enough shitrock to know I don’t want to live with it. My neighbor Charlie gave me his old oak chair, which is truly a wonderful gift. He said that two soil scientists have retired from it.  Thank You Charlie, I will take care of it and you can come sit in it anytime!!!

Well, Charlie didn’t come up to sit in ‘his’ chair, but to show me his new rifle. Wow, a new Winchester Yellow Boy in 44 magnum. I got the shooting bench positioned and we gave it its first shooting session. As you can see the grass has finally started to grow and there are now little flowers everywhere.

Here is Matt taking steady aim.

It is a sweet shooting little rifle and it gave me swift little kicks and the nice deep Whack! of the bullet hitting the cardboard target. I was able to get a nice 1 ½” group at 50 yrds which is pretty good for these old eyes with open iron sights.