Last summer we went hiking with our friends up to Twin Lakes in the Jewel Basin area. Since it was early July, there was still a lot of snow up in the hills, and we didn’t make it to the lakes. Now that it’s late August, we figured the snow would be clear. Indeed it was, and we were able to get to the waterside.
I saw on a hiking web site that Jewel Basin has a total of 27 lakes within its 15,000-acre boundaries. The handful we’ve seen have all been gorgeous.
It was a beautiful day to hike. When we arrived at the trailhead, it was a nippy 43 degrees (in August!) but of course you always want to start your hike a little chilly and then shed layers as you warm up. I don’t think the temperature got above 55 the whole time we were out, but it felt great in the sunlight. The only downside of the cool air was that we had absolutely no inclination to jump in the ice-cold lake water.
Jewel Basin has so many trees and awesome views of the mountains and the valley.
Naturally I have to add a photo of my awesome wife, too!
When our grandson Ollie was born in March, it was a weird feeling to think that I’m a grandpa. We visited him in Utah a couple of times, but it was only for a few days. Well, we were thrilled to welcome him to our home these past couple of weeks. It was a blast to spend so much time with the little guy.
I forgot how much babies drool. Holy cow. His chin and hands and shirt collar were always damp, as were any shirts we were wearing while holding him.
Now that he’s five months old, he’s much more interactive. No longer is he like an inert potato who cries occasionally. He smiles and laughs, flops around on the floor, flaps his arms, and makes faces when he’s fed strange food like avocados mixed with bananas (yes, Kaitlyn really fed him that!). He tried some sushi:
Alex kept joking about feeding him a bit of wasabi, but Kaitlyn was having none of that. Ollie did seem to enjoy some ginger. He loves “riding high” on his dad’s shoulders:
He seemed confused at times, but I guess that’s normal for someone who’s just discovering the world.
All in all, he’s an awesome little guy. I’m excited to see how much more he’s grown when we see him again in a month or so.
Now that I’ve confirmed our Starlink system will provide great internet service, it was time to move it from its place sitting in the courtyard up to the roof, where it would not only be out of the way, but would have a better view of the sky. I bought a mounting kit– really just a big metal frame that sits on the ridgeline of the roof– and Alex and I went to work. Our roof is crazy steep: it’s at 45 degrees everywhere, which is surprisingly difficult to climb on. I went to the local hardware store and picked up a couple of ladder hooks, which we attached to the top of our extension ladder. They hook on the far side of the ridgeline, basically turning the ladder into something you can use to scale the roof.
From this view, it doesn’t look all that dangerous, but the roof on the far side (behind Alex) not only slopes down at the usual 45 degrees, but then drops off to the front porch. It’s easily a three-story fall. Luckily Alex enjoyed being on the roof, and I was happy to hand up the parts and tools. With some concrete blocks to weigh it down, the ridgeline mount seems firmly in place and we were able to slide the dish into its new mount:
It took us about an hour, but all’s well that ends well, and now Starlink is happily watching the satellites whiz overhead.
For many years, I was spoiled by gigabit internet speed in Longmont. The city’s fiber network was inexpensive, screaming fast, and amazing all around. Then I moved to the sticks, and I was faced with only two internet options: CenturyLink with a 10Mbps download speed and a 768kbps upload speed (what is this, 1998?), or an $18,000 investment to have Spectrum run a coaxial cable from the highway at the bottom of my driveway up to the house. I’ve limped along with CenturyLink for almost two years now. To be honest, it’s not completely awful; I’ve been able to have video calls (albeit choppy) and do most everything I want on the internet, albeit much more slowly than I’m accustomed.
But today, I set up my shiny new Starlink antenna and connected to the satellites whizzing overhead. Suddenly I’m using the internet like a civilized man:
At one point I was seeing 140Mbps download speeds, but it’s well known that Starlink’s speeds vary quite a bit because the constellation isn’t finished yet. Technically the entire system is still in “beta”. But wow, it’s so much better than before!
Now I just have to figure out how to mount the dang thing on my roof, instead of having it sit in the middle of my courtyard…
There’s a wildfire burning just a few miles south of our house. It started yesterday morning, and has grown significantly since then. Here are some photos of the mountainside last night:
We’re much too close for comfort. The highway has been closed, at least 20 houses have been destroyed, and the area’s been evacuated. Although we haven’t been ordered to evacuate yet, the updates we’re seeing online indicate the area under evacuation orders is expanding. The dry conditions and wind aren’t helping, although we’re hoping the rain forecast for this evening rolls in.
It’s one thing to read about wildfires burning throughout the west. It’s quite another to have one literally down the street.
Last year, our cherry orchard had some issues. Our 92 trees produced a few meager buckets of fruit. Well, we learned our lesson and this year we repaired the weak points in the fence and electrified it. Voila, no more bears! And as a result, the harvest was monumental. Row after row of cherry trees were heavily laden with red berries:
We’re going to have them professionally harvested and sold, but before that happens, Pepper and I decided to take a few for ourselves and some friends. It was fun to see these enormous bunches of cherries. They’re the Lapis variety, in case you’re wondering.
After half an hour, we’d filled a big box with them… and we hadn’t even picked an entire tree!
They’re absolutely delicious. I bagged up most of them and headed out to share.
(Yes, I wrote Schroeder Orchards on the bags with a Sharpie. A fun touch.)
Everyone loves someone knocking at their door with a couple bags of juicy cherries! Although I have no real interest in managing an orchard, it’s fun to have one (and let someone else handle it) for moments like these.
Another group of visitors, and another visit to Glacier National Park. This time we went in the evening. As always, Glacier presented a new face to us… I feel like the experience is slightly different every time we visit. This time, the smoke made the distant mountains look ghostly.
It’s always fun to hear our guests ooh and ahh as we ascend Going-to-the-Sun Road. The views are magnificent, and the scale of the granite mountains is staggering. Even with smoke, it’s a magical place.
The entire Western United States is under drought warnings, with major wildfires burning in several places. For the past week or so, we’ve had a haze of smoke hanging over everything. It’s not awful, but it’s a reminder that many places are in dire straits.
I took advantage of the smoke this evening to capture a pinkish-red sunset. This is how the sun has looked for the past few days as it nears the horizon.
Our jet ski died the other day, after sucking something through the engine and destroying the wear ring. I figured I could take it to our local dealership for repairs (there’s only one dealership within several hundred miles), but it would be costly and probably take weeks since it’s high season. So I gritted my teeth and decided to attempt the repair myself.
The guy on YouTube who explained how to replace a wear ring started by saying “this should take around half an hour”.
(pause for laughter)
It took me three and a half hours.
Admittedly, I had to run up to Kalispell to get a part because after taking everything apart, I found something else broken. That took about an hour and a half. So I guess my ratio against YouTube repair videos is about 4:1.
That said, Pepper and I felt like we should go out on the lake to exercise the jet skis and make sure everything was running smoothly, and my repairs worked flawlessly. I may not be very handy, but I was successful, and if the wear ring blows out again, I know what I’m doing and may be able to shave my time down to a mere hour and a half…
Tonight I went to my very first rodeo! Right here in my town is the world-famous award-winning Bigfork Rodeo (the announcer made sure to remind us it’s an “award-winning rodeo” over and over), and Pepper and I decided to give it a shot. We grabbed some friends and the four of us sat out on a warm summer evening and watched a bunch of horses run around in the dirt. There were more hats, boots, and belt buckles than I’d seen in one place in a while, and the country music was blaring from the speakers. It definitely felt like stereotypical Montana.
Cow-roping was one of the events; a calf would be released from a gated cage and a cowboy would launch from the chute on his horse. He’d lasso the calf’s neck, then jump off his horse, pick up the calf, body-slam it to the ground, and tie its legs. Of course the goal was to do it as fast as possible. I think the winner pulled it off in something like six seconds.
(Forgive the terrible picture quality; these were taken on my phone and although we were actually pretty close to the action, it has a wide-angle lens like all phones do. I regret not bringing my real camera and a telephoto lens.)
The cowgirls had a similar event, although they just roped the calf– they didn’t leap down and tackle it. The cowgirls also did barrel racing, where they shoot out of the gate and ride their horse around three barrels before galloping at full speed back to the gate. It was pretty exciting, and the eight or so contestants all had times within half a second of each other. There were two winners who actually tied with 15.76 seconds (yes, tied to hundredths of a second).
There was team calf-roping, riding a bucking bronco (“let ‘er buck!” screamed the announcer), and the pinnacle of all rodeos: bull riding. Bull riding is crazy dangerous, and one cowboy nearly got his head kicked off by the flailing legs of an angry bull. The announcer frequently pointed out that the men and women we were watching in the arena were world-class cowboys and cowgirls. I guess these people literally travel the country every week of the summer, attending various rodeos and earning a living. What a life!
For me, the highlight of the evening was definitely mutton busting. That’s where a bunch of kids volunteer to ride sheep. The sheep aren’t exactly raging bulls, but they get pretty excitable when a child is clinging to their back for dear life. They come roaring out of the chute, with a little six-year-old in tow, and it’s absolutely a riot to watch. Some of the kids held on for a good ten seconds, riding a crazy sheep all around the arena. In the (horrible) photo below, you can see a pink blob attached to a sheep just left of center; that’s a little girl hanging on while the adult cowboys chase alongside for safety.
It was two and a half hours of fun, and now I can honestly use the phrase “This ain’t my first rodeo”.
Also, Pepper and I decided we’re going to use the phrase “let ‘er buck” more often in conversation. We might also throw in an occasional “rip-roarin'” but only on special occasions.
