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Another one of my teaching colleagues, Alice Bassett, has passed on to that big school in the sky where there is eternal duty free lunch. Alice's husband, Charlie Bassett, was my teaching partner for 23 years, and I taught with Alice until she retired. Alice was an amazing kindergarten teacher who suffered from very severe arthritis, which forced her to take early retirement. Although she lived with daily pain, she had an indomitable spirit. Before she came to Big Timber to...
In the last five months I have had three cardioversions, one angiogram, and two ablations. Those procedures have made me appreciate the technological advances in treating heart issues, and it served as a general wake-up call. It seems to be the general consensus that I need to cut back on a few of my obligations, so I am working to do that. However, ranchers and farmers either have to die or go broke to get out of the business, so retiring from ranching is not really an option for us—yet. Still it is interesting to think a...
There are many negative attributes of social media, but there are also posts that are truly enlightening. One such post recently led me to check out Warren Johnson’s Facebook page, which led to discovering his blog. I do not personally know Warren, but he is a larger than life character whom everyone connected with horses, rodeos, and outfitting knows about. The primary thing I knew about Warren prior to discovering his posts and blogs was that he upstaged us back in May of 2013. A Today Show film crew visited our ranch to d...
Another teacher that I taught with for 25 years at Big Timber Grade School has gone to the great classroom in the sky. Marion Beley was a fourth generation Montanan who taught a total of 46 years with 41 of them at BTGS in the county where she was born and raised. Both of Marion’s great grandparents came to Montana in covered wagons to establish cattle and sheep ranches. This poem is my tribute to this sweet woman and great educator who epitomized “native Montanan.” Her memorial service will be held at noon in the Big Timbe...
As Easter approaches, and the robins return, my thoughts turn to digging out the spring and summer clothes. I look at my white flabby arms and panic. Then I look at my white flabby legs and become inspired to unload the ironing off the exercise machine, dust it off, and take it for a spin. A few moments later, my inspiration has turned to perspiration, and I begin looking for ways to justify returning to hibernation. I just received my health screening results in the mail and was delighted that none of my cholesterol levels...
This past few months I have been having heart rhythm problems. Long story short, I have to have a second ablation procedure at the Missoula Heart Institute on the very day that calving starts. Now, calving doesn’t really start on the first date that the gestation calendar says it would be biologically possible. Calving usually starts days or even a couple weeks early, so often by the “first day of calving season” there are quite a few calves on the ground--especially if a storm blows in. However, we say we start calvi...
We are at the stage in our lives where we find ourselves in the bleachers every Saturday for elementary intramural basketball, because we would never miss a game of grandson basketball. Where else can you watch your grandson celebrate an assist with a breakdance move that would have made Issei swoon? (No, I do not know who Issei is, but I do know how to type into the Google search bar, “Who is the best break dancer in the world?”) Unfortunately, we have no video of Jasper bustin’ a breakdance move on the basketball court in t...
Our community is mourning the loss of Judy Vidack, who moved to Big Timber to teach at BTGS in 1969, touching the lives of hundreds of students plus parents and community members in her forty year tenure teaching elementary school. She lost a short, valiant battle with cancer on February 25, 2024. Judy, who was raised in Bozeman, Montana had a huge family with seven aunts and uncles on her mother’s side. Her second cousin is Shelly Goggins, so many readers might have known her. Judy became my friend the minute that I walked i...
When our son Bret bought into our ranching operation when he came back to the ranch after college, I no longer had to be the unpaid hired hand man in this operation. I was demoted to Assistant Nobody, which is a great title. I love my life of part-time cowgirl and part-time school teacher/dishwasher/journalist. However, occasionally I come to the conclusion that I need to get a full-time job. The problem with a part-time job is that the ranch manager/CEO/husband person feels that since my hours are somewhat flexible, I can...
Calving season is almost upon us. It is a time that fills me with both enthusiasm and dread.There is nothing more rewarding in ranching than helping calves come into the world. The dreaded part is the small percentage of mamas that have delivery problems and/or attitude problems as in they seem to have both severe pre and post partum depression and resent human intervention. Once they are on the ground, it seems like the hard part is over, but that is not always the case especially if a nasty spring storm blows in. For...
The best part about winter used to be skiing, ice skating, and ice fishing. However, as I have grown older, it has become harder and harder to find a winter sport that I can participate in, because I don’t dare risk my knees, my hips, my skull, etc. So when our friends, Keith and Holly Williams from Virginia, suggested a snowmobile outing, it sounded fun and harmless. We met them in Jackson, Wyoming and headed out for a three day ride through Yellowstone Park, and then one final day in the Grand Tetons along the C...
Covid 19 effectively ended our ranch vacation business when all of our summer guests cancelled during the spring of 2020. The silver lining of the pandemic was we found that it was much easier just to rent out cabins than offer guests a full-fledged ranch experience. During our years of hosting ranch vacations, we hosted several travel writers and journalists. I recently found this column written by a New Jersey journalist, Erin Boyle, who visited the ranch with her Northern Irish friends, Cathy and Jules. The following is...
I just love those helpful hint columns, books, and posts full of tips on how to remove every stain known to man or cure anything from warts to arthritis with a home remedy. Sometimes though, I have to question the effectiveness and efficiency of the remedies and helpful hints. I have actually had less than miraculous results with many of those tips. A tomato juice bath is supposed to be the cure-all for skunk spray. Do you know how much a tomato juice bath for a small boy costs? Back in 1992, it was $92.00 cheaper and much...
I always dread when our kids ask us to babysit the grandpets, because it is more responsibility than I want to tackle at my age. I worry that one of the pets will get injured or worse yet--die on my watch. I am much less worried about keeping the grandchildren safe than the grandpets. In fact, I remember the first time our daughter Brooke asked us to “babysit” for her when she went on a little trip. She didn’t have children yet, but she brought us her boxer and her cat for the longest four days of my life! Boston, her boxer...
I heard on the radio the other day that children get their intelligence from their mothers. That might explain what has happened to my brain. Perhaps I drained part of it for the first child and the rest for the second. I can almost buy that theory--except for the fact that I have another theory that makes more sense to me: the Full Brain Theory. I believe my brain is like a computer that has no memory left. My brain is full, and my folders cannot be compacted. In fact, my brain is so full that according to the bathroom...
This week I am feeling particularly old. In the last two months I have officially become an old person with nothing to talk about but old people maladies. The first thing I came down with was a venous stasis dermatitis ulcer. (Yes Google the images of that and just imagine how fun that has been! When I Googled it, I stopped feeling sorry for myself for having just one on the inside of my ankle bone.) However, my ulcer grew for six weeks, because it was misdiagnosed and treated with antibiotics for six weeks while it got...
The last of the Christmas cookies have been eaten, and I find myself thankful that it is coverall season, which is also bulky sweater season. If you cannot follow this line of reasoning, then you aren’t one of those people who gains weight every winter! The best part about winter clothes is that they hide weight--at least psychologically. Coveralls are lifesavers. Everybody looks 20 pounds heavier in them, so no one has to feel self-conscious wearing them. You can wear sweat pants in them and be really comfortable. Then t...
According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, while both male and female reindeer grow antlers in the summer each year, male reindeer drop their antlers at the beginning of winter in late November to mid-December. Female reindeer retain their antlers till after they give birth in the spring. Therefore, according to EVERY historical rendition depicting Santa’s reindeer, EVERY single one of them, from Rudolph to Blitzen, had to be a girl. We should have known... ONLY females would be able to drag a fat man in a red v...
This is a tough time of year for working mothers. I know this, because I was one for 21 years. Now, both of my babies have long since left the nest, but I still remember the perpetual state of exhaustion that is the normal state of being for working mothers. Now I look into the haggard faces of working mothers, and I wonder how I survived all those years. Working mothers do not get a lot of sleep, because there just isn’t time for it. They have to put in a minimum of eight hours at the job site and still plan menus, shop, c...
“It takes a village to raise a child,” is is an Igbo and Yoruba proverb that exists in many different African languages, and we in rural America have borrowed the phrase. This proverb became reality in our village a couple weeks ago when my guest columnist, Gayle Grosfield Callinan, encountered my grandson Jasper on the sidewalk in front of our store. To help her overcome the trauma of that encounter, I encouraged her through my tears of laughter to write it down in the following guest column. As one of my former stu...
As another general season deer and elk season ends, many hunters are contemplating robbing a bank or at least a convenience store to make ends meet AND stay within the hunting budget their wives have given them. You see, phonier than any hunting or fishing story you have ever heard is the myth that hunting saves money. At our house, the hunters definitely boost the local economy and the economy of several brick and mortar sporting goods stores and a couple online sites. I figure that every meal of wild game we consume costs...
The best part of writing a weekly column is that readers love to help me out. This week I have Bobcat/Grizzly jokes as the cross-state football rivalry looms this Saturday. I am sure you will be able to tell that the jokes were sorted by a Bobcat fan, but of course I will give equal time to Grizzly fans if they send me some great jokes. Albert Einstein met a Bobcat alumnus at a party. He asked the Bobcat if he knew his IQ score. The Bobcat replied, “240.” Albert and the Bobcat had a great conversation about physics and the...
This weekend is Veteran’s Day, and while war rages in the Ukraine, Israel, and fifteen other countries around the world according to Wikipedia, we honor the veterans of all wars. The World War II veterans are becoming fewer in number every day, so we have little time left to honor and thank them for their sacrifices. I want to thank all veterans for their service and assure them that their sacrifices do not go unappreciated. There are so many poignant stories that have been shared by combat veterans of the horrors they e...
Parent teacher conferences are traditionally held after the first quarter of school ends, and I have to say they are one thing I didn’t really miss about teaching. Now, having returned to the classroom after 16 years off from parent teacher conferences, I find myself facing upcoming conferences with some trepidation. The parents of the good kids always show up, but the parents that you would really like to meet to give you insight into the reason their children are the way they are coincidentally don’t show up. My hat goe...
Since my faithful mare, Tinkerbelle, died, I have been looking for the perfect old lady’s horse. Actually I found him in Ekalaka, Montana, but I can’t wrap my head around the asking price. I have come to realize that the perfect bomb proof Grandma’s horse is going to cost me about a trailer load of calves, but I am struggling with writing a check that size for something that could die the next day. Several years ago, I realized that I no longer had any desire to hit the ground coming off a horse. After the cows were all w...
