The Bears.

The first bear of the year was a Black Bear.


In early May we were walking along what appears to be (in season) a horse trail, along the Middle Fork of the Flathead in Glacier, from the parking lot at the beginning of the road to the Apgar Lookout Trailhead toward the east... and in a bit of a ditch, or a trench or something, we almost walked by it, and then I turned my head and saw it looking at us.
At which point I chasticed D... he was in the lead, he was supposed to be on Dangerous Wildlife Patrol. Yet I was the first to see it.

The second and third bears of the year were Black bears at the National Bison Range near Moiese, MT. We were in the car, one was far off, one is below. We watched him scratch around and nibble something for a few minutes.

The Forth Bear of the Year was The First Grizzly of the Year.

Last Sunday D and I had parked the car at the Avalanche Campground (the most easterly point you can currently reach from the West on Going to the Sun Road) then got on our bikes. We had seperate destinations, so D quickly outpaced me. He parked at The Loop and took the trail toward Granite Park Chalet, then summited Swiftcurrent mountain and skied as long as he could back down. I saw his bike when I rounded The Loop and kept going up Sun Road.

Snow Cave with a view! This opening is only about six inches wide.

I road to the point where the plowing stopped.

I then strapped on my snow shoes and kept going. Not long after the snow quality led me to remove my snow shoes and just walk, though it was still difficult it was easier in regular footwear. There were no recent tracts through the huge avalanche snow drifts across the road, which I'd been hoping for. Just very faint and melted out ski tracks. I turned around far shy of my plan and took a few pictures on the way back to my bike.

Looking down McDonald Creek, the road where I started is just visible on the left side of the river.

My mission for the day had been to see what I could find growing in the seeps along Sun Road. I also walked a bit out the Granite Park trail to a large stream that crosses the trail to see what might be out there.

Things up there are still just starting to peek out, it was hard to find fully open flowers, but lots of little buds trying to make a go of it.

This little guy had about four inches on either side before a snow bank started again. I wish I could take a GPS coordinate and then go back once a week for a month to watch it grow and bloom... too bad it's a two-three hour bike ride to reach it, and once the road opens to cars will be in a spot you wouldn't easily be able to stop at.

I took my time on the return. I find out and back hikes are great for flower foraging, as you can search seperate sides of the road on the way out/up and back/down and find flowers you never noticed the first time.

D quickly caught back up with me as we both rode back to Josey at Avalanche. While recounting our days as we rode along beside each other (one of the joys of having an entire road free of cars) we rounded a corner and I quickly alerted D to the friend who wanted to meet us.

It just kept walking down the road toward us, and we started backing up and softly but firmly calling out to it. Forgive the pictures, as my priority at the time wasn't on adjusting camera settings...
after it crossed the road it continued walking toward us...

but finally turned off down the embankment to the river. At which point several cyclist going both up and down the road, caught up to us and we related our story, and then we all rode down the road a hundred yards to a break in the trees where we could better watch it swim the river and completely and totally disappear into the dense brush on the far side.

The rest of the ride was uneventful. It was a good day. And I have another 6 or 8 (still sorting through) species for my Glacier Flora Photo Project. And a nice sense for how the flowers are slowly making their way into the higher elevations. One week can make such a huge difference for one species, and no difference at all for another. Watching the timeline unfold may end up being the most interesting aspect of this whole thing.

I should not forget the forest for the trees... (or the larger geographical-biological trends for the close up shots of flower petals...)

now to sort through more photos.

Budda's Laugh.

Other things I've found while trying to put my garden in place...

Chess Pieces
2 strands Indoor Christmas lights
3 legged dog ornament
cell phone - Nokia
3 broken garden trowels and a garden fork
4 different types of tomato cages/stakes
Bop-It
2 bird feeders
2 foot tall Cross - Christian
1 leather glove
some other random stuff I can't remember...

all of these items were found thick in brush or buried.  Suffice to say when I went to tackle the overgrowth, I wasn't expecting to find a small thrift store in the weeds.

Thou Shall Go to Glacier.

The Flathead Valley is a Special place. I don't know many people who would deny that... in one form or another.

There are 33 miles between our front door and the enterence to Glacier National Park. The following pictures were taken along the first 25 miles of the route we drive to get there. It is not the signed route, it is a back way.

The following are photos of signs that contain The Ten Commandments.

1) Along a Golf Course.

2) Private Yard #1.

3) Chapel.

4) Private Garage.

5) Church Yard #1.

6) Private Yard #2

7) Church Building

8) Church Sign (almost doesn't count because it also has service times, etc, on it

9) Church Yard #2

Also on the Golf Course - there are two of these along the way, "Quotations" from "God", and there's another board with a quote from Ezekiel :) But they don't exactly count...

So, that's, like, one Ten Commandments per every three miles.

I guess my only issue is that none of the signs are large enough, or close enough to the road for a person to actually read the commandments. Everyone obviously knows what they are... they're a bit distinctive, with the traditional, Moses, two big tombstone-esque slabs, I'm not sure why anyone bothers with the words.

Quote of the Day.

Enjoying a quiet evening at home. D on the computer, me cooking...

D - Can I read you something... cycling related, but also cosmotology related???

M - Oh, Please!

(but then I was disappointed)

see Here.

Quote of the Day.

(D shows me a trip report on BackpackingLite.com of a 9 day trip in the Wind River Range)

M - There's an exhaustive gear list but no milage figures!!!
D - The people on this site care more about gear than miles.
M - What's wrong with them???
D - They're old and slow.

The Kitchen.

Last weekend I awoke at 6am, Saturday. I drove D to Two Medicine (East side, Glacier) and drove home.

I'd been trying to figure out what to do with the kitchen. The evil, dark, gloomy, cave-like, dungeon of a kitchen. I don't have any photos of the kitchen as it was, as D had the only camera in the house I can currently get to work, but it sort of looked like the kitchen to the right. The other problem - we have so much kitchen stuff, fun, happy kitchen stuff, that we had to have a lot of stuff sitting out. On the counter, on top of the cupboards, everywhere. And because the horrible dark, dungeon cupboards were this horrible medium to dark streaked wood laminate, it created a very busy looking kitchen. We had to put a warning sign up as epileptics were likely to have seizures upon entry.

We had bought a couple gallons of paint from, essentially, a Home Improvement thrift store (amazing) for really cheap to cover up the creepy 70's childrens wallpaper in the room we were going to use as our bedroom. And the owner of our new house had a couple of gallons of paint in the basement. When I returned from driving D I started in on the sink full of dirty dishes, giving me time to dwell on everything that was wrong with our kitchen... dishes are good for stewing. And it occured to me that what I needed to do in the next 28 hours before I had to go fetch D - was repaint the entire kitchen.

The walls. The cabinets. Heck I considered painting the countertops (only for .2 seconds, but still).

So I hopped downstairs and pulled out all the paint in the house and started looking around. Well, actually, I pulled everything out of, down from, and off of, the cabinets first. The Bike Box (the downstairs bedroom that serves as bike storage) became the kitchen overflow room (told you we have a lot of kitchen stuff). Then I removed all the cabinet fronts and drawers, pulled off the hardware, and sat down on the floor of the now empty kitchen to figure out step two.

There was an almost full gallon of the most ridiculous green paint I'd ever seen, presumably because our landlord had considered painting something that color. As a favor to her, and anyone else who ever occupies our house, and really, to the world at large, I dumped a bunch of off-white paint of a slightly pinkish/peachish persuasion into the green. It made a previously fluorescent and acidic green, into a very acceptable vibrant moss color. And that's what ended up on the walls.

I then pulled over another can of paint already in residence in the house, pleased that the streaks down the side of the can looked like a promising off-white in the yellow realm, which would work well with the counter tops. Popped the top to find an inch of light blue liquid on top, grabbed a stirring stick and hit a very hard, sticky layer of paint. There was no stirring. Absolutely nothing was moving in the bottom of that paint can. The Off-white color that I'd mixed with the green was much too peachish, and looked atrocious against the yellow counters. So I grabbed my purse and headed for Josey. With $12 worth of paint and some more painter's tape in my hand I was back at the house painting cabinets.

Sunday involved second coats for most things and a third coat for some of the larger cabinet doors where I had lost my patience and not done the most even and effecient job the first time :)

I didn't quite manage to get all the painting done by the time I picked D up, and that was even with the extra hour from Daylight Savings Time :( This is what he saw when he got home... note the refrigerator pulled away from the wall and covering most of the entry way into the kitchen.

But the painting was done on Monday, and I moved the last few things back into the kitchen today.

I was a little worried about the hardware, but in the end, I wasn't going to pay for new stuff myself, and D says he actually likes it... hmm.

Three notes -

- No I don't approve of painting wood. This was horrible wood laminate over pressed wood product, so I felt no qualms.

- No I didn't get permission from our landlord. The property management company gave me a pretty unconcerned answer when I asked about painting walls, so I decided to run with it.

I believe they said "as long as it looks better than it did before". Check.

- The older I get the less I cherish my perfectionistic tendencies. I worry this is the truist sign of cynicism I have yet shown. Though D may argue.

Quote of the Day.

D - That wasn't funny.
M - Oh, no. In my head it was.
D - It wasn't funny primarily because the metaphor was nonsensical.

Quote of the Day.

(D accidently put the sauce on the pizza crust before baking it, I scraped it off, he put it in the oven and then went to pull it out, top it, and put it back in, he got back into the living room)

M - How is the pizza crust??? Did it pre-bake alright???
D - Yay, it's fine, it just has a tan...
M - A tan???
D - A weird coloration... a little orange tint... a John Bahner tan.

Quote of the Day.

D - Don't even think about getting sprinkles on my keyboard.

Quote of the Day.

M - I'm worried.
D - Worried about what, that god will bring back the dinosaurs and you won't be able to run fast enough to get away from them???

Per This...

Quote of the Day.

D - "K taught me how to use commas yesterday at lunch."
M - "What do you mean, what did she say about how to use commas???"
D - "Wait... commas... or apostrophes... which ones are up high???"
M - "Apostrophes??? You didn't know how to use Apostrophes???"
D - "I just sort of put them where they seemed right. But now I know the rule."


(D says we can't have children till I eat at least three different vegetables that are green... I say we can't have children till we can afford to send them to private schools... where they'll learn the difference between commas and apostrophes before they're 30).

Quote of the Day.

D- "Yeah - well that's because while they were listening to Gilbert and Sullivan they couldn't think beyond whether to stab out their left eye, or their right eye."

In reference to a study referenced in This.

Quote of the Day.

D - You're really someone to cast aspersions on others for sounding obnoxious.

Half a minute later -

D - They do really sound like Marmots or something...

(while watching the Russian Ladies' Curling Team)

Quote of the Day. Midnight Special.

D - Stop asking questions that make me think you're a bad person.

Quote of the Day. K 2.0

From tonight.

K - Don't ruin my life, M. Don't ruin my life.

Quote of the Day.

D - You smell funny, were you drinking???
M- I had a beer at work... actually, it's probably Beer, potato salad and ice cream...
Snad - That is Disgusting!!!

Quote of the Yesterday.

K was over for dinner last night with D and I. D pulled out the camera - the products of which will never surface. Anyway... after K realized that D wasn't just taking photos, but had actually taken a video she innocently pleaded -

Don't embarrass me on the internet D, don't embarrass me on the internet.

Chunky Chewies.

I'm torn... torn between calling these little darlings (and little is not a descriptor of their caloric presence) Chunky Chewies... which has a certain sickening sound to it, an onomatopoetic harbinger of how your stomach will feel after eating them, or BacoMallow Blast! which gives a slight indication of how oddly giddy I felt making them...

point being, there's this website. It's called This is why you're fat. And it has had a great impact on my life recently. The following is a recipe fpr the first of two creations (the second will come to life for an event, presumably next weekend) I'll be submitting to this awe-inspiring web site. I hope you enjoy.

Take a bit less than 1 pound of thick sliced, peppered bacon. Quarter the slices and bake at 350 degrees F on a cooling rack placed over an aluminum foil lined baking sheet (I don't normally employ aluminum foil solely to ease clean up, but I made an exception here, and I think you should too... just wait). As you flip the bacon, make sure to add extra pepper... pepper all over...

Cook them till they're about 70% of the way to crispy, crispy goodness...

meanwhile, get a small bowl and mix 1/4 cup Maple Syrup, 1/4 cup Balsamic Vinegar and 1/2 cup brown sugar... stir vigorously.

Now. Coat those babies with Maple/Balsamic goodness. Brush some on one side, put back in oven for 5 minutes, pull out, flip over, coat other side, repeat till out of syrup!

Right about now the kitchen smells like God really does love Man.


You'll need to let them cool just a tidge, while you melt about a cup of chocolate in a double boiler. Once the syrup on the bacon has cooled enough to be stickily solid and not so liquid that it slides around, you dip each piece of bacon in the melted chocolate.

While the chocolate dries - you make Marshmallows!!! Instead of adding vanilla extract, I used a bit more maple syrup to flavor the marshmallows :)

I also may have left it mixing in the Kitchen-Aid too long... I think you're suppose to be able to pour it out at this stage...
P.S. Homemade marshmallow creme is excessively sticky. Coat the entire kitchen in scalding hot water before trying to work with it.



P.P.S. When trying to scrape the last bits of marshmallow out... don't drop your mixing bowl upside down on the floor.

P.P.P.S. If you do drop your mixing bowl upside down on the floor don't mention it to your husband who will mock you and photograph the result.

Now chop up all the chocolate covered, candied bacon, into little pieces...

and sprinkle it over one half of the marshmallow, which you've flattened out onto a well powdered-sugared baking sheet. (I originally planned on using sugar crystals instead of powdered, for that Peep look... but somewhere around trying to wrangle the marshmallow out of the mixing bowl I forgot about that great intention and just started throwing powdered sugar at everything in sight.)


Then layer the second half of the marshmallow on top.

Cover the top layer of marshmallow with sugar to prevent sticking, then wrap it up and let sit for about 12 hours. Then... cut.


I re-coated my knife in powdered sugar between each row.


Look at the cute little, bitty, bacon, peeking out of the marshmallow... who's a cute bacon??? Who's a cute little, bitty, bacon??? Yes you are!!!

Whoops...

as you cut the squares, you typically dust the edges in powdered sugar to keep them from sticking to everything, as well as themselves. I chose to dust one side of each marshmallow with cocoa powder... I could say I did it because it tempers the sweetness of the marshmallow... but really it's because I can't leave anything well enough alone.

You grab one of this kiddos and tear the thing apart...


and find chocolate covered, candied, peppered bacon inside. It warms my heart.

P.P.P.P.S. Photo and patience credits to D, who graciously cut off whatever the heck he was doing and ran over with his Macro-Happy new camera every time I yelled - "Photo... photo, I need a photo... now, photo!!!" That's Love.

Quote of the Day.

M - I hate it when you do that.

D - I hate it when You do that.

M - Do what???

D - Anything.

It just started snowing...

and I finally got around to starting some holiday yum-yums.
First up - pretzels.
Lots of pretzels.

I sort of didn't realize how many pretzels would be covered with a reasonably small amount of chocolate...
good thing I love these and D doesn't :)
Now the fun part.
Adding the tiniest amount of peppermint extract.
And food coloring...
patent-pending pastry bag in a glass, filling technique.
Gone to town.
Muahahahaha.
And a sneak preview of the top of our non-denominational, Victorian-inspired, there-aren't-enough-hours-of-sunlight-in-the-day-and-therefore-I-hate-the-world-and-everyone-in-it, seasonal, holiday tree.