Sunrise

How many photos can one take of the sunrise?  Does it ever get old?  So far....no.
It doesn't matter that my files are already filled with the sunrises and sunsets of my Montana life. 

Every time the sunrise shows her colors, I'm drawn to run outside with my camera and capture it.

Of course the backdrop of this old homestead makes for an idyllic setting.

Can't you just hear the rooster crowing?  Trust me he is....

and the old stud horse wants his grain, so I better get to it.

Enjoy your day out there, wherever you are.




Now go make something beautiful,
PB

October Homestead

 It's definitely autumn around here.  The mares and colts are enjoying the last bits of green(ish) grass before the snow flies.  Soon it will be weaning time for the two little fillies.  So we spent some time with them yesterday afternoon and introduced them to halters and brushes.

Little Eileen has grown into quite the young lady. She is pretty willing to go with the program, whatever we ask her to do.  That's the way we like our colts to be.

You can tell by looking at Reba that she is bred to run.  We call her the "little red rocket".

We also happen to have a litter of livestock guardian puppies that are busy growing like weeds so they can soon head out onto farms and ranches and guard them from predators. We are so fortunate to have a pair of "LGD's"  to keep the grizzlies and other predators from strolling onto our place. In this area we are all having to learn to live "with" the bears a lot more than a few years ago.  The dogs are part of what makes our lifestyle possible in such a high predator area.  But for now, they sure are cute!!

The baby chicks we brought home last spring are grown now and have started laying an abundance of eggs. I had to snap a picture of Zorro yesterday, as he strutted around to show everyone  that he's the boss.

 The last of the garden will be harvested today and the soil will be turned over to rest.  Does it feel like Autumn where you are? I really hope it does! This is one of the best times of the year....

Now go make something beautiful,

PB

On The Map!

Last month I got an odd email.  A little gal claiming to be a TV producer wanted to talk to me.  "Yeah suuurreee," I thought.  She said they wanted to film a TV episode about 6-man football and that she had read a blog post I had written about the Rivals football team here in my little town.  (You can read the post she found if you click HERE.)  I wrote it a couple of years ago when a filmmaker made a documentary about the team. So I did a Google search to check out this "stranger" and found she was a bona-fide producer.  So I wrote her back and agreed to talk to her about my little town.

She called one afternoon while the kids and I were enjoying ice cream from the drive-in in Fort Benton.  I sat there with my soft serve dripping all over and told her a love story.  The reasons I moved here, the many things I love about our little place and a few of it's secrets.  We talked about the football team but we also talked about the life we have here and why it's so special.  I hafta say it was a fun conversation because it's basically what I blog about already.

Alyonka let me know they were coming the week that school starts to do some filming.  That is this week.  The kids had their first day of school yesterday and the film crew was there.  The kids were lit up like the Fourth-of-July!  I got to hear about the experience from my favorite high school kid.  How it was weird, but fun, but really weird to be filmed while you're eating!  Gotta love it!

The feeling I'm having about what's happening here this week is.... tickled.  How cool is it that this tiny town in the middle of nowhere is once again getting a little national attention?!  The kids here will likely remember this unique experience for the rest of their lives.  They are feeling so special and important right now.  They get to do a TV show! The children of farmers, ranchers and truck drivers get a few moments to shine like stars.  Yup, I'm tickled for them.

So sometime in the future, look up "Vice World of Sports" for the episode on "The Rivals" and there you will see our little town, right there on the map!

Farmhouse Project: Bedroom

Hi guys!  How've ya been? I have been working on sooooo many things I can't even tell you.  But this is one project I wanted to share with y'all.

The master bedroom in the old farmhouse has been my focus lately.  First, Prairie Granny and I took apart and dragged out the no-longer-functioning, therefore unused, huge treadmill that had overstayed it's welcome by about a year.  Next I decided we needed to squeeze another large dresser into the not-very-large room. 

The only space I could do that was along one wall, right next to each other.  So I scrounged around the house and gathered up enough wall décor to make a collage big enough to span both dressers and treat them like they are one.  I think the result was pretty good!

The next thing I did was figure out what to hang above the bed that was more "farmhousey" than the little sparkling thing that has moved with me from house to house over the years....

Ta-da!  I still used the sparkling thing!  I just hung it from an old window frame that used to be in the chicken coop here on the homestead.  No kidding! I have been loving the ideas I see in magazines and on Pinterest that use old windows and doors as wall décor. Like these....

 I know I still have a ways to go with this room.  With this house, for that matter.  But A little at a time, we're getting there.

There are some things I love about this room now.

My nail head trimmed headboard.
The wall color. Sorry, can't find my can to get you the color. What kind of blogger am I !?
The bench that sits at the foot of my bed. (Found down in the barn at my previous farmhouse.)
The original wood floors.
The ceiling fan that my mom and I installed. Ahhhh....
The original closet doors with their very old hardware.
And of course my new "feature" above the bed.

My "wish list" for this room is:

To someday refinish the floors.

Some nicer, more sturdy and decorative curtain rods.

Fresh, farmhousey, stuff for the bedding.  Like some new pillows and a throw maybe.

But for not spending a single cent on décor to update this room, I hafta admit I am tickled with it.  I would've shown you 'before" pictures but I would have been embarrassed. And I didn't take any. Ha!

Thanks for checking out my little farmhouse project and sticking with me on my little blog.
I've been living a double life.  Well, kind of anyway.  I have two websites.  But I am seriously considering simplifying my online life back to just this one.  Anyhow.... If I figure out how to consolidate all my content I think I will be hanging out over here on "Why Geraldine" a lot more often.

Now make something beautiful,
PB

A Birthday Party for Geraldine

My little town is a pretty special place.  At least some of us think so.  Over the Fourth of July weekend we had us a reason to throw a party.  The town of Geraldine turned 100 years old!  The town was scrubbed, painted, spruced up and fixed up like it had a hot date!  Long empty flower beds were filled, streets were swept and just about everyone put a coat of paint on something!  Then we had a parade. Of course we had a parade!!  Summer in a tiny, Montana town just wouldn't be the same without parades!

 

We had our fire trucks and old tractors and vintage automobiles....

Hired Man Jim at the wheel.

Of course there were cowboys.... and mountain men.  Like, real ones.

We had some floats of a variety you wouldn't see, say in San Francisco or Seattle....

There were something like a hundred entries in the parade this year.  Which is amazing considering there are usually about seven.

Where there are cowboys, you also find cowgirls.  Of all ages....

 

 

 

 

 

But my very favorite.... has to be the draft teams!  I love them!!

So there you have a little view of our small town party.  We also had a concert with the Bellamy Brothers, which had to be the biggest name to ever make an appearance in Geraldine.  Then we had a street dance and the best fireworks show this town had ever seen.  All and all I think we showed our small town pride just perfectly and here's hoping we will see another hundred years for Geraldine.

Bye for now,
PB

The Knitting Group

Yesterday I got a wild hair.  I decided to grab my knitting projects and head down to the senior citizens center and join in on the knitting group that meets every Tuesday.  I had some new yarns I was pretty excited about and looked forward to being able to knit and talk to some grown-ups for a couple of hours.

This is the scarf I finished at the knitting group.

I did happen to be the youngest woman in the room by and average of maybe forty years.  I think the ladies were a little surprised to see me plop down in a recliner to join their group.  A couple of the ladies knew who I was but the others I had never met before.  So I gave a short run down of who's place I had bought and that my knitting was strictly out of fleece from my own little fuzzy critters.  Then I just listened mostly....

One lady in particular had me fascinated.  Her name is Katie and she has lived all of her life right here in Chouteau County.  I believe she said she was 83 years young.  She grew up on a homestead up in the Highwood Mountains, on Shonkin Creek. 

Her dad was an immigrant from England and her mom had immigrated from Scotland.  She told me how her dad came here, homesteaded the place and was raising sheep up on the Shonkin.  Until the wolves, (yes wolves!) the coyotes and the harsh winters decimated the sheep.  Then he became a sheep shearer and would travel around each spring, shearing hundreds of sheep by hand, in a time before electric clippers. Anything to help make ends meet.

Geraldine in it's early years.

Katie's mother was one of 10 children back in Scotland.  When one of her siblings came here to Geraldine, she ended up following.  Her sister's children had both died within three days of each other, during the scarlet fever epidemic.  The sister was just six weeks from delivering a new baby when she lost her children and sent for Katie's mother to come help with the baby and also work in the general store they ran here in Geraldine.  She was here for a couple of years before Katie's dad came into the store one day.

A friend had told him, "There's a young lass down at the store you outta meet."  So he made the trip to town with the excuse if needing to buy a bar of soap, just so he could meet the "lass".  They met and then courted for about a year before getting married.  He was 47 and she was 28 when they married.  He moved her to the homestead where sometimes it was six months before she even saw another woman.  But Katie says they loved each other and were the happiest couple on Shonkin Creek for all of their marriage.

 I don't know about you, but their story just tugs at my heart.  What a legacy of love to have!  Now Katie's son runs his cows on the homestead place.  They are one of the families that have been here in Geraldine since the very beginning of this place. All because two people fell in love....

I warned the ladies at the knitting group that they might end up on my blog.  I have their blessing and it is my hope I retold Katie's story without errors.

Bye for now,
PB

Hello March

Ok, it's the first day of March.  Almost spring.  Could it please, please start to act like it??  It's -14 this morning.  We have a good six inches of snow.  This has been the coldest, snowiest winter in about 15 years. I'm over it. So, I am going to reminisce.... Just to remind myself spring will eventually get here.

I took these last spring and summer.

Here at the farm or just down the road....

 



Mostly just as I wandered around my yard in my bare feet with a coffee cup in one hand and a camera in the other....

Or from the porch....

Sometimes I had to set the coffee cup down.....

Ahhhh.... I don't know about you, but I feel better.  Maybe I'll go lower all the window shades, crank up my heat, put on some capris and a tank top and pretend it's spring.



Bye for now,
PB