I went out to get wood last night and there they were!!!!
Such a thrill to open that box and see my title, my name!!! And Lois wanted to get the first one out of the box, so I called her right over 🙂 Hollywood can call any time now 😀

October 21 is just around the corner, just nine days, and what happens that day? The release of The Sparrow’s Choice!!! Yay!!!

Did my first long trip yesterday. Three hours each way with the girls and boys soccer teams. Couldn’t have been a prettier drive up. I had a copilot, Butch, who is a great guy, happier than he looks here 🙂

Hard to tell from the pics but behind our purple team the leaves fell in a continuous curtain of mixed golds.

Clouds hid the dramatic mountains around this picturesque little town of Libby. Closed mines and mills have left it a depressed place, suffering like so many Montana towns. It didn’t dampen their enthusiasm for their soccer teams though.

I had time for lunch with Butch and then a walk around the neighborhood in between watching Polson score the only 3 points of the game.

It rained the whole way back – I learned real quick about windshield wipers and defrosters. Fun day, start to finish!

I feel like I’ve received a “get of jail free card.” Not entirely free, but worth every cent of necessary fees to I feel like I’ve been released from a long jail term. I completed my commercial driving tests and now hold a license that will hopefully end my days of transcribing! Yay!!! And what will I be driving? School busses 🙂

The bus drivers and other school district folks I’ve met have been a real treat. I’ve had some good teachers and ridden all over our county with many of them, including a trip into the valley west of town today, ranch country. Drivers out not only have to watch for deer on that morning route, but also loose cattle. It’s not open range but apparently no one told the cattle to stay inside their fences. We followed a small herd of six or so black monsters this morning. They finally ran for a bit in front of the bus before veering off, followed by a black calf that darted too close in front of the bus. And then dawn came… the pictures don’t do it justice, but the mountains were back lit and touches of pink lit up the few clouds. Baby cows were nested down in the fields where the first-of-the season fog lay like a worn-out blanket.

It’s been an adventure so far, to say the least. Soon I hope to be doing long distance activity trips, taking teams and groups of kids all over the state, and sometimes out of state. Need to rack up lots of driving hours before winter hits, which I don’t even want to think about yet!!!

Moonset over the bus yard —

Boy, I found out much work a horse can do – every ranch should have one! Cindy brought Ruger over the other day to haul wood up the hill for me. Some of it was so far down the back I had decided it wasn’t worth hauling up. None of it was cut to stove length, so what I wanted to use I’d have had to take the chainsaw down, cut it to length, and then bring it up a piece at a time. I like to have something to haul up when I run the dogs down there – added weight, added calorie burning, but sometimes enough is enough 🙂 Cindy and Ruger made light work of getting that wood up, and he and Cindy both seemed to enjoy it! It was one of our last exquisite Indian Summer days.

Today I split more wood and my pile grows! I’m almost ready for the coming cold!

Of all the amazing places I’ve been, this is at the top of my list, and I was privileged to hike the Highline Trail in Glacier National Park again after eighteen years. It’s almost an 11-mile hike, but Jackie, Dayna and I were up for the challenge! The Park is still very crowded, and it took two shuttles with enough empty seats to get us to Logan Pass to start this hike, having left the car at the downhill finish of our hike. The weather was exquisite!

The crowds along the trail eventually spread out and thinned. We enjoyed plenty of heavenly moments entirely to ourselves. Hard to find words to describe the beauty, feeling like we were on top of the world. It seemed more springtime in the Rockies rather than mid-August. The flowers put on a show like I’ve never seen in the Park. Columbia ground squirrels mingled with the blossoms.

Paintbrush, gaillardia, twin berry, gentian, columbine, huckleberry, monkey flower

Waterfalls trickled and giggled and dampened the trail, smoothing rocks and watering the happy flowers.

Few places are this untouched. The mountain goats and one longhorn sheep we saw showed no concern for us at all. The promised thunderstorm moved in behind low clouds that changed the scenery and cooled our hike at about the midway point. We were prepared for rain and didn’t mind it much; it stayed calm and cooled down nicely.

By the time we were ready for a break, the weather cleared to show us our mountaintop destination. The Chalet perched above the tree line and we felt much as those 100 years ago must have felt after the long hike from the Pass. The Chalet, along with eight others, was built by the Great Northern Railroad between 1914 and 1915 to encourage tourism. The chalets were spaced to be a day’s hike or horseback ride apart. Three stone chalets are all that are left.
No better place to share lunch. Someday I’d love to stay at the chalet. It was painful to leave.

There was a bittersweet surprise in the main hall of the Chalet – on a chalkboard, a quote of Robin Williams. He’d been shooting What Dreams May Come and had toured the Park in 1998. “If it isn’t God’s backyard, he certainly lives nearby.” We couldn’t have summed it up better ourselves!

Cindy called two nights ago and said she’d picked three huge bags of broccoli, could she bring it over and preserve it at my house? She wanted company for the annual chore. I said sure, come on over! She arrived with pounds and pounds of broccoli, weapon-size zucchinis, green beans, and raspberries! And Buster, of course! The washing, trimming, and blanching began. With two big pots of boiling water it went pretty quickly. There’s a lot of water involved and with the distance from sink to stove the floor and cabinets had a good soaking and later both had baths; they probably needed it anyway 🙂 Cindy is a farmer’s wife, seeming to this city girl, from another era. I wonder if I fascinate her the same way? I also had to look up again why blanching is necessary – it’s to preserve color, texture, and flavor – something every good farm wife knows. City girls’ ignorance can be excused.

Lucky for me she left me with broccoli, the zucc’s, the green beans and the raspberries. For two mornings now I’ve had raspberry pancakes for breakfast – yum! Last night was battle of the zucchini. My 30-year-old food processor, the lid now held together with electrical tape, did a fine job of shredding and slicing and I diced one for later fall casseroles, then did the blanching thing again. I didn’t do a count but my freezer is bulging with bags and yogurt containers of green veggies waiting to treat me at some later date with their yumminess. I’m still cleaning up seeds and leaves and petals. I moved the coffee maker out this morning to fill it with water and there were broccoli petals hiding out under there. I expect I’ll find more in the coming days, maybe hanging out in drawers or cabinets.

And my kids and Buster helped, of course! Buster came over shaggy, went home with a summer do! All this in two hours. A fun night!

Not being my favorite time of year, there are a few perks to the hot, dry, shriveled up days of July and August. Like fruit and flowers! The prep, planting and watering finally start paying off. I had zero lettuce sprouts this year, no clue why, but I have sorrel coming out my ears, it’s a perennial that’s very happy where it’s planted; it’s like a very, VERY tart spinach. I have cilantro that I let reseed a few years ago that just happily keeps providing the prefect spice for my bean dip and Mexican dishes with no effort at all on my part! The sunflowers, the seeds still from Mom’s friend, Darlene, are matching the wall I painted this spring – bright and sunny – and more opening every day!

Several years ago I planted gooseberry bushes – silly me thinking the deer wouldn’t eat them because they have serious thorns. Usually by the end of summer, though, the deer are pretty desperate and have stripped them of their leaves. This year two of the bushes produced berries – enough to flavor exactly one bowl of oatmeal, and they did a fine job of making it pretty and tasty!

Fresh picked cherries – yum! I love summer fruit! It’s cherry season here in Lake County and there are cherries for sale EVERYWHERE! There are roadside stands and a downtown Cherry Festival, contests to spit the seeds, a craft fair and numerous activities all to celebrate the pretty and delicious cherry! Cherries are even better when you have the privilege of picking them yourself, organic and homegrown in an old orchard right in town. I was invited to picked Rainier cherries – the best! My friends bought an old orchard, complete with a canal that looks like a lovely creek that runs most of the summer. They’ll have pears and apples in the fall. And they love to share! I’m not going to do anything fancy with mine, no pie, no cobbler, just good snackin’!

I’m in love with anything from the 1800s, the clothes, the lifestyle, the customs…okay, maybe not the lack of proper plumbing, but everything else 🙂 Anyway…turns out my friend, Cindy, has a buggy!!! When she invited me for a ride I floated over to her house – thrilled, giddy, hardly believing I was going for a buggy ride!!!

Cindy had Ruger all harnessed up and ready when I arrived; it looked like quite the accomplishment! I held his head while Cindy hooked him to the buggy and we were ready. Buster came too, of course. There’s a little shelf on the back, maybe for a picnic basket ? and he was happy to ride back there. Such a good boy!

This buggy is actually called a phaeton. It has big yellow wheels and a fringed top and deeply tufted upholstery – a total marvel! Ruger had done this before and he seemed pretty happy about the planned adventure, so off we went! I loved everything about it, the crunch of the big wheels up the gravel road, Ruger’s mane blowing in his self-made breeze, the fringe dancing overhead. It was much smoother than I expected. On top of all that the weather was perfect. We headed down the main road and had a spectacular view of Flathead Lake and the mountains beyond. From this vantage point it was pretty easy to pretend it was really 100 years ago! Next time I’ll have to come up with a vintage dress to wear!

We circled through a couple of quiet streets and along some open ranch land. Cows came running to see us – bunching up at the fence and watching us go by. Hilarious! At one point we stopped so Buster could ride in front with us. He liked the wind in his face, his ears blowing – this was way more fun than hanging his head out a car window!

I’ve taken some great rides in my day, helicopters, biplanes, trains, and ferries, and now I can add a buggy ride – it rates right up there with the rest of them. Do I know how to pick friends or what? 🙂