Springtime in the Rockies

So this is happening.

Click to enlarge if you can't quite see what is going on there. Sigh.

It was 80F at least once last week.

Ever Feel Like You're Being Watched?

For Christmas I received serious LED headlamp. Like, 220 lumens and several strange and fantastical settings level serious.  Mostly I wanted this for after dark dog walking, but I'm sure I'll use it for other after dark yard tasks as well as when I go under the house.  POW!

This was a close as I could come to what I saw: just the eyes and some tree trunks, of course noe green misty stuff for me.  Photo: Ralph Martin visual-nature.de

Both Eric and I been using it since Christmas night and last week I saw what I'd wanted the light for seeing and what I was pretty sure I did not want to see.  EYES! A pair of green glowing eyes looking in Betty's and my direction from downwind in the trees on the other side of the fence-that-is-not-an-actual-barrier.  They didn't seem high enough off of the ground to be deer so I assumed it was a fox since they're plentiful and short.  My internet searching hasn't been as productive as I'd hoped, especially for images, but it has been a bit of a roller coaster ride making me feel more like I saw something like this.

There are raccoon, but you get what I mean: post incident minor freak out.

Here are some things I found for various critters that are known to be around here.

(From Predator Masters Forums)
Coyote--eyeshine is greenish gold.
Gray Wolf--eyeshine is greenish orange.
Red Wolf--eyeshine is gold to bluish green.
Mt lion--eyeshine is greenish gold.
Bobcat--eyeshine is greenish gold.
Nothing on foxes.

(From Sunstar-Solutions)
BEARS:
CATS WITH GREEN/YELLOW EYES: GREEN
CATS WITH ORANGE- BROWN/BLUE EYES: RED
COUGAR:
COYOTE:
DEER: WHITE/YELLOW/RED
DOGS: GREEN/BLUE
FOXES: BLUE/RED
RACOON: GREEN/WHITE
WHITE-TAILED DEER: SILVER-WHITE
BIGFOOT: RED
MOTHMAN: RED

(From a public Q & A forum called Blurtit)
Fox's [sic]eyes are green at night.

(From Backpacker.com's Ask-a-bear page)
In photos, the glow ranges from yellow to yellowish orange, though some people report seeing red or green. (Variations in color between species often come from the presence of nutrients like riboflavin, distortions in the lens, and iris color.) Black bears also appear yellow to orange, though people sometimes report seeing red.
Bottom line: You're unlikely to identify my species at night solely by shining a light into my eyes.

(From Survivalist Boards)
It [helps] to have a known reference for height of eyes from the ground. Or good enough light to sense the ground. Deer are clearly taller than Bear, Coyote, Puma, Bobcats, etc.

and

I still have not found anything about the color being a definitive point of identification. The type of light being used without question can play a role in that.


Sooooo, based on the height, what we know from our experience of who's hanging around here a lot*, and what I really want (and don't want) it to have been, I'm going with fox.  Yup, definitely fox; the trendy little predator that generally won't even mess with a full-grown house cat.

I couldn't find a way to credit this great photo, if you know better ways for me to find out, I'd love to credit this.

*We've both seen fox scat and tracks on multiple occasions in the last several weeks.

ADDENDUM: Not 5 minutes after finishing this post, which I admit got me feeling kind of edgy, I took Betty out for last-call potties and saw another pair of eyes! This time they were on the opposite side of the house, but still on the other side of the fence-that-is-not-an-actual-barrier.  Betty did her business and we came in. I told Eric that I just saw more and this time he wanted to come have a look. Once he spotted them he wanted a closer look, but I was not going out there, so I handed over the head lamp and watched him venture ever nearer... nearer to the deer.  D'oh!  But I didn't want to waste all my efforts and research and overcoming of irrational fears up there ^ and I didn't want to waste that adorable fox photo, so I decided to update at the bottom, to bring you along on my journey, you lucky so-and-so's.

Photo: 123rf.com Royalty-free stock photos.

When I went back out a few minutes later with Delia there were two pairs of eyes and they were moving through the forest parallel-ish to the fence line, by the time she had completed her task and we were going back inside they were running which was kind of freaky to see. I felt a little bad that maybe we'd scared them even though it's good for them to be scared of people and dogs.  I now assume that they were further away than I thought which is why they looked closer to the ground, they were possibly a little uphill from me, too, which I know I wasn't taking into account.

A Little Rain Must Fall... Sideways

Now we sure haven't been getting the crazy weather that people in other places have been getting, but last week as a bit more dramatic than so far this winter.  Friday morning we woke up to 2-3" of fresh snow on the ground and it kept coming down until early afternoon.

This is not a black and white photo.

Then around dusk it started to rain a little. By morning it was raining almost like "real" rain. You know Oregon rain; the kind that actually gets you wet when you walk out to the car, except it was barely that rainy.  Rainy enough to make most of our snow disappear and expose the death-luge ice on the driveway, though.

It took me several seconds to figure out what about our bedroom window was familiar, but not familiar, or what. It was big water droplets on the glass! I hadn't seen that except on the windshield in a loooooong time. Note how the rain is ruining our winter wonderland effect. Jerk.

The wind kicked up early Saturday afternoon and the rain started turning into this thing the weather folks call "wintry mix."  It's not great for road conditions, but when it's going sideways and in multiple directions it's pretty cool to watch.

Apparently this combination of conditions is what leads to avalanche warnings.  Whoa. Luckily, our property is at the top of this particular rise and there are low points between us and the rises beyond and I don't think we're included in the warning area even though my various weather* apps n' sites notified me of it.  Anyway, it was good weather for replenishing our supply of fire starters and folding a few loads of laundry.


*I hardly ever paid attention to weather reports until we moved. Now I have the Weather Channel app on my phone (as well as the weather app that came with it) and I keep a tab open of our coordinates on the NOAA website. I've become one of those people.

Last Week Around Here

Autumn here in our part of Montana is a wonderful time of year. I've always loved autumn, but here it's actually a strikingly different season from both summer and winter.  It's mostly sunny and dry; it's distinctly cooler, but still feels so much warmer than the thermometer reads.  I wanted to share just a few photos I took last week while taking care of the mundane tasks of daily life.

(in the order they were taken)

This business is between us and town; the beetles eat the flesh of bones, I assume mostly for skulls mounted for trophies.  Also, they sell fresh eggs*.  For reals.

I saw this as I drove into Missoula and was able to pull into the credit union parking lot to get a quick picture. Look how blue the sky is!

Ideal Delia napping conditions: the back cushion on the sofa had fallen onto the seat and that spot was full of sunbeam.

Betty always likes playing pine cone, but this day she got three (3) pine cones in her mouth at once!  AND she still managed to chase down or otherwise block the others.

*Eric suggested that I should write "chicken eggs" because it sounds like they are beetle eggs. I was going to do that, but then drove by today and the sign does not specify that the fresh eggs are indeed chicken eggs.  So, who knows?

One Year is Cookies, Right?

Anniversaries seem like a good time for looking back and for lists and since we've now been here on the side of this mountain for a year, I thought I'd share with you some of the lists we've been keeping both in our heads and written down.

When a dear friend sent me a surprise giftie in the mail of a woodland creature cookie cutter set that had a a fox AND a porcupine* I decided to make cookies of as many of our locally spotted critters as I had the cutters for. Luckily, I have a lot of cutters and I'd already started this post as a handy-dandy list. Neither Eric nor I are huge fans of cookie icing, so I applied only outlines. The cookies are Martha Stewart's shortbread recipe.

Critters we've seen at home or within a few miles of home:
Furry
White-tailed Deer
Mule Deer
Foxes (we've each seen them one or more times in the daylight since this post)
Flying Squirrels
Red Squirrels (I think)
Least Chipmunks (I think)
Skunks (one visual down the mountain a bit, one purely olfactory at the house)
Rabbits (probably Mountain Cottontail)
Marmot, probably the Hoary kind usually along the road, sometimes "sleeping"
Porcupine ("sleeping" by the highway)
Black Bear (cub)

I tried to include a turkey and a duck  cookie, but the turkey dropped when I tried to move it to the cooking rack and the duck wouldn't come out of the cutter with both its feet or its bill.

Feathery
Mallard Ducks
Wild Turkeys
Bald Eagles
Blue Heron
And these:

Plus two different as-yet-unidentified larger, grouse-yish types.

Creepy-crawly/fly-y
Phyciodes orseis herlani butterflies
Some kind of swallowtail butterflies (9 species in Montana)
Other Butterflies
Yellow Jackets
Wasps
Horse Flies
Flies
Mosquitoes (just a few)
Ten-lined June beetle
Western Conifer Seed Bug
Etcetera and so forth

I spotted the Ten-lined June Beetle one night on the deck when Eric was setting up his small telescope for us to peep some stars.  He's REALLY big and freaky looking in the dark, let me tell you. (the beetle, not Eric)  We all played it fairly cool though; the beetle went about his beetle business and we peeped stars. (photo from wikipedia)

Scaley
Mystery Jumping River Fish or Fishes
Mystery Swimming Creek Fish or Fishes

It has been interesting for me, whose only memories are of living in Northwestern Oregon, to get used to this type of forest and it was fun (and a bit of a relief) to watch it get so green and relatively lush in the spring. From late-May to mid-June or so our part of the National Forest was carpeted with wildflowers. I bet we saw more than 2 dozen kinds over that time in the area within 10 minutes walk from the house.

We've lived through all four seasons (five if you include fire season) and can already tell this autumn is cooler, wetter, and less smokey than last.  We've already had a few fires in the wood stove, something we didn't do for a few-to-several weeks after we arrived.  We've had a few weeks of overcast and rainy weather, not real rain-rain, but probably what passes for real rain-rain in these parts.  If your head is covered (with lots of hair or a hat) you don't even really get wet and what wet you do get drys really quickly.

Eric with our Realtor, Sherry Kolenda, on our one viewing of the property back in August 2012.

We've done some cosmetic work in eight rooms. When I itemized it here and looked back at so many posts to make the links it seems like a lot has been accomplished.

Laundry Room (not yet photographed or posted even though it was the first room I painted, etc.)
Kitchen (appliance)
Living/Dining Room
Upstairs Hall Bathroom
Master Bedroom
Guest Bedroom
Master Dressing Room
Master Half-Bathroom
Plus replaced ALL the door knobs

When I think about the things we still have on our list to chance it seem like there's a long way to go.  I think that the stairwell and upstairs hallway, the master water closet. and the downstairs bathroom are at the fore of my mind.  The first three can probably be accomplished with just a little money, but quite a bit of work. The last one will be quite a bit of work, too, but will probably require more supplies be purchased to get to the image I have in my mind.

And tomorrow is October 1, one year from the day I took this photo.

Damn.


* I'm sure it's supposed to be a hedgehog, but as long as it lives under our roof it's a porcupine!

Voodoo I Never Knew I Could Use

** Not exactly a sponsored post, but it is all about some of my wares for sale although TOTALLY in the context of our new life in the mountains of Montana **

Years ago I made my first Varmint Voodoo "doll" for Eric for Christmas; he had The Squirrel Problem at the time.  He'd tried everything but a wrangler and voodoo.

Of course we have squirrels here, but they are so much smaller and so many fewer and above all NOT living in or eating the house.

Then people started adding it to their Wist (like MySpace was to Facebook, Wist was to Pinterest) and I decided to open an etsy shop.  I started with some local-type varmints such as a raccoon for a friend with that problem.

Then, I expanded to a few others and one of the first few I sold was shipped to Poland!  Then I got a request for some for a little gallery in Maine, including Varmint Voodoo: Bear Edition.  And now we and our neighbors could sometimes use the Bear Edition.  Which has got me to thinking on all the various Varmint Voodoo that could apply to me now, that I originally made for people who were elsewhere.

In the spirit of my Oregon Duck and OSU Beaver Editions, I've added University of Montana Grizzly to this listing and am working on making their cross-state rival, the Montana State Bobcat.

If you've been following along, you know we're working on The Mouse Problem now. After a week of no catches, I was about to put away the traps... and caught another, our third, in the mudroom.  BLECH.  Maybe I should raid Bubble Off Plumb's stock.

Varmint Voodoo: Mouse/Rat Edition.

Of course we had wasps/hornets in Portland, but not like we have them here.  We've bought the spray, but haven't yet gone after the 6-10 nests in various spots around the property.  They actually don't bug us that much (see what I did there?), but we should and want to get rid of them.  They have the whole forest to nest in.

Varmint Voodoo: Wasp/Hornet Edition

Now deer really are something we deal with.  We didn't actively garden or even do much yard work this year, but the deer have and will graze our yard so we'll need to figure out some ways of discouraging them next year. Not to mention their cavalier attitude about looking both ways before crossing the street... and then not crossing if there are autos in the road or driveway.

We have both Mule and White-tail Deer around the property.

.

The night before I left to do some work in Portland, we were lying in bed and Eric asks, "Do you smell coffee?"  [sniff, sniff] "I smell burning..."  I stood up to make sure the portable air conditioner wasn't overheating and then realized it's not coffee and it's not burning, it's skunk and it's strong which means it's near.  We'd been told it was too dry up here for skunks, even though Eric saw one down at the bottom of the hill last autumn.  Eric & I thought we (and by "we" I mean "the Beastie Grrrlz") were safe from that stench.

Not at all like Pepe.

Speaking of the BGs, they were each due for some boosters shortly after we moved and we got to meet our (AWESOME) vets in town.  We asked if fleas were an issue here (they're not really) and about ticks (they can be).  The ticks are one thing I really dread having to deal with; I've never seen one in person, but I have seen photos and video.  So far, so good, though.

I'd use this to protect the dogs and us; I've known a couple of people who've had Lyme Disease and I want no part of that.

I don't know if we'll have problems requiring extreme measures such as voodoo with the grasshoppers, but the crickets can be REALLY LOUD at night. At least once before going to bed, I've looked for the open door or window that was letting all the cricket racket in and there wasn't one.

Also good for locust invasions.

Other critters that I don't think we'll have trouble with, but that we see frequently are ravens.  They are so big that we've mistaken their flying silhouette for some kind of raptor more than once.

Helpful with crows, too.

Eventually, I added some "human varmints" to the collection, because let's face it we all have people in our lives at times who we must tolerate, but who we'd really rather jab with a pin.

Varmint Voodoo: Loud-mouth Jerk & Shrieking Harpy Editions; we all know at least one of each

And since Bubble Off Plumb has moved its production facility to Florence, Montana we've added a few new, not-necessarily-locally-useful editions:

Varmint Voodoo: Aphid Edition (AKA Greenfly, Whitefly, Blackfly, or Plant Lice) for gardeners all over.

Varmint Voodoo: Cicada Edition for everyone who's been deafened by their song and waded thought their shells on the sidewalk.

A custom order that's now in the collection; Varmint Voodoo: Coot Edition for golf course personnel and park departments maintaining water traps and features.

Another custom order that's now in the collection: Varmint Voodoo: Sharktopus Edition. This customer swears that since his friends have kept this on their boat there has been not one single Sharktopus attack!

Mouse Week!

Midway through Shark Week on Animal Planet (and Facebook), Mouse Week started here in Florence, Montana.

I may have to buy a Varmint Voodoo: Mouse Edition from my own Esty shop!

WEDNESDAY: I found mouse turds in the mudroom and in the laundry room so I set one trap in each room in the afternoon, hoping to catch some over night.  MOUSE-1; ERIC & TARA-0

THURSDAY: In the morning when I woke up enough to remember to check on the traps there were no mice.  Thursday afternoon when I looked more closely at the trap in the laundry room, I noticed that had been licked clean of its peanut butter, but had not sprung.  Then I shook my fist at the sky - well, the ceiling of the laundry room - and reset the trap, being extra smeary with the peanut butter and hoped that Thursday night would be the night.  MOUSE-2; ERIC & TARA-0

FRIDAY: I remembered much sooner to check on my traps on Friday morning. The mudroom trap was still pristine, but the laundry room trap was... gone.  Ugh.  Our laundry room is tiny and a bit cramped with our fantastic, but large, "new" washer and dryer, a cold-air drying rack, water heater, and clothes hamper all sharing the limited square footage, so I was not looking forward to pulling these things out and poking around in a tight space for a live, dead, or half-dead mouse stuck in a trap. Plus, I felt like a jerk that it didn't die instantly and may have suffered or still be suffering.  That it may have crawled off somewhere I couldn't reach to die and rot and stink was distressing me, too.

Luckily, I didn't have to look long or move anything awkward or heavy.  The trap, empty of its peanut butter and its mouse, was on the other side of the water heater, just a few feet away from where I'd placed it the night before. Reset or re-evaluate and try another method?

I did not have another reason to go out on Friday, so I didn't get another method of trapping this mouse/these mice.  I reset the trap, I mean if something is not working, just keep doing it and eventually it will work, right?  MOUSE-3; ERIC & TARA-0

SATURDAY: No peanut butter and no trap to be found anywhere in the laundry room after a fairly thorough inspection. So I came out of the laundry room looking low and in corners and found a mouse!

It's situations such as these that it would be nice to have some mouser pets; mouser pets who would have taken care of this before we even noticed.  Sigh.

It was under the cabinets, wedged halfway into the tiny space between the toe kick and the dishwasher... alive!  Now a live mouse in my house in daylight is a totally different thing and a nighttime mystery mouse or a dead mouse.  This makes me want to jump on a chair and squeal like an old cartoon housewife.  So Eric tried to pry her out which only wedged her in further.  Sigh.  Did I mention this is all before coffee was consumed? Luckily the coffee had been made, so we settled down to drink it and left the back door open should she decide to make her escape.  Eventually (about halfway through coffee drinking), Eric went back to try again, wiggled the dishwasher and she slunk back in there all the way.  Here's hoping that was how she got in originally and she was just too fat from eating peanut butter to get back out easily until the dishwasher wiggled.

So either that mouse ran over there with the trap on it and managed to get the trap just right through that trap-sized crack, or there is an empty trap somewhere or, much worse, a full trap somewhere in the walls or under the house.  Sigh.  (Eric has since told me that he heard the creature scurry after it finally squeezed through the crack and it did not sound like it was attached to a sprung trap.)

I found this mouse trap on a shelf under the house, but it was not our brand and obviously it had been there awhile.

SUNDAY:  We took a night off from the mouse hunt simply because we didn't have another reason to drive down into town (even if town is only a few miles and several minutes away). Obviously we couldn't let this keep going, so I went to the local Ace around noon and bought some modern "touch-free" mousetraps that look like they'd be able to grab and hang on to a larger mouse as well as not fit under the appliances or through small holes around plumbing .

My hope with this style is that its larger "clamp" size will actually kill the mouse or mice and if not that at least prevent it from getting away or dragging the trap off somewhere.  I admit to being squeamish about live, wild mice, so couldn't quite bring myself to get live traps or the horrifying glue traps.

Here's why I wasn't considering live traps (until now): These mice have a 4.66 acre range.  Which means that I would a) have to drive a live mouse 4.66 acres from my house and in order to not be a jerk I'd have to b) drive that live mouse 4.66 from anyone else's house. AND if I'm having a heart and all that be sure that c) there is food and shelter for this live mouse. Not to be overly species-ist (but I'm about to be anyway), but that's a lot of effort and driving around with a live mouse to find a nice home for a thieving squatter that poops (and pees) who knows where all in my house. Four and two-thirds acres isn't that far, but driving to a place that is not near a home and would give it shelter would be a hassle.  Did I mention all that driving would be with a LIVE MOUSE in the car with me?
  
Here's why I am considering a live trap if these don't work: I don't want to maim the mice, because it's cruel and because having maimed mice somewhere in the walls of my house doesn't solve my problem, it only changes it.  I just want this over with.  Oh!  And Eric has volunteered to take the caught creatures to the creek which is easily 4.66 acres from any houses as well as full of food and shelter.  MOUSE-5 (or possibly 6); ERIC & TARA-0 (or possibly -2)

MONDAY: Before I even got out of bed in the morning I realized that I forgot to set a new trap in the laundry room Sunday night.  "Oh well, what's one more day," I thought.  So, I got Betty leashed up for morning walkies and as we head out the back door I saw that finally the trap in the mudroom had sprung and caught a mouse!  This one looked smaller than the one that got away through the crack between the cabinet toe kick and the dishwasher on Saturday, so there are definitely more traps to be set.  We're definitely postponing the live trap idea. MOUSE-5 (or possibly 6); ERIC & TARA-1 (or possibly -1)

TUESDAY: There were no tripped traps, but I couldn't tell if the peanut butter has been compromised. I reapplied the bait and reset the traps. Because I'm not sure if there are any mice left on the opposing time, I will say this for the score: NO CHANGE

WEDNESDAY: We caught another one!  This time it was in the laundry room.  I'm just going to keep setting traps until we go a week or so without a catch or trip.  MOUSE-5 (or possibly 6); ERIC & TARA-2 (or possibly 0)

FINAL SCORE: TBA

Speaking of Shark Week, also available in the Bubble Off Plumb Productions Etsy shop is the Varmint Voodoo: Shark Edition. Ahem.

Hot Fun in the Summertime

I have been having trouble with all my Google accounts, including blogger so a few posts I had started and planned are sitting in the queue without photos or videos.  I thought I'd try a new one with a video from a different source (iPhone, rather than camera).  


We had a bit of a heat wave like so much of the rest of the country in the week or so before the Independence Day holiday.  Is there anything sadder than too-hot dogs laying around?  Sure there is, but too-hot dogs is something we could easily do something about right quick: swimmy pool!

I can't tell from the preview if the video has loaded and will play.  Here's hoping!

Mid-May Montana Mountain Mayhem

Hoo boy!  So much fun and games in so few days!  We were joined by 4 of Eric's longtime crew who came from Portland and Kansas City, KS to celebrate Mid-May Montana Mountain Mayhem (MV) i.e. Eric's 40th birthday.  There was eating & drinking, games of cornhole, badminton, & Yahtzee, rafting & hiking, hot tubbing & even a little bit of sleeping.  Did I mention eating and drinking?

Mountain Men with Mountain Man Beards.

Brace yourselves for the MV slideshow: safety not guaranteed.



Good times.

Lady beard and man beards: In Montana we enjoy freedom

 
Special thanks to JP, Brent, Greg & Juan for passing along some of their choicest pics.

Craft Long & Prosper

Hey you guys!  I'm in a craft book!  You can buy it at Powell's & Amazon and probably other places, too!.

While we were packing up for our move, I was contacted by the author, Angie Pedersen, about contributing my Star Trek Dog Vest to her book.  The deadline was right during our move, so I had to decline even though I really wanted to participate.

From now on, you can call me Admiral Tara.

Angie got back to me saying that her editor really wanted to include the dog vest, so I was given some extra time.  My first fabric shopping trip in Missoula was to buy the supplies to make all the examples and the sample to be mailed off to be photographed!

Those are not my thumbs and that is not one of the Beastie Grrlz, but those are my in-progress examples and finished product sample!

As you may or may not know, we spent our first week in Montana living at a long-stay hotel in Missoula.  I worked on the in-progress examples and finished product sample and the directions while there and our first week or so here in house in Florence. 

And here is First Officer Betty wearing the sample vest before I packed it up and shipped it off.

The finished product sample will be part of a giveaway at the big Comic-Con in San Diego!  YEY!  The in-progress samples will be returned to me and will likely become the Beastie Grrrlz' Halloween Costumes.

After our big May of House Guests, I will be adding these to the GreatBigBeautifulDog etsy shop, too!  Yahoo!

Spring in The Bitterroot

On Friday afternoon I was playing a game of Pine Cone* with Betty and Delia when I noticed some of the mystery bulbs were blooming!  Of course, I had to get my camera to catch some macro floral action.  Then on Saturday morning, it snowed and I got my camera again.  Things can change fast here on the side of this mountain.

These crocus flowers seem about the same size as those I was used to in Oregon.

The tallest of these tulips are about seven inches!  I don't know if they're a special variety or are small because of the climate and other conditions.

Who can tell me what these are?  They are also super small: about 3-4 inches high, the blooms less than an inch across.

And these?  Anyone know?  They're about as tall as those in the last photo, but the blooms are probably an inch or so across.

*Pine Cone is a game played most enthusiastically by Betty, but sometimes Delia joins in an axillary role.  All Pine Cone requires is a whole lot of pine cones spread out along a walking route and a person to kick them.  The person kicks pine cone after pine cone while Betty chases and snatches them up in her mouth.  Sometimes if her mouth is full with a particularly good pine cone**, she'll stop the next one with her front feet.  If Delia joins, she does so in a herding-style capacity or will sometimes play Tug-a-Stick with the person while Betty is off fetching.

**What exactly is a "good" pine cone?  Ya' got me.

Betty has always appreciated a good pine cone, now she has all she could ever want.

Easy as Pi

HAPPY PI DAY!

We celebrated by finally going to Glen's Cafe which is famous for their pie.  It says so right on the sign.

Apparently we weren't the only ones out for a piece of pie on Pi Day.  Everyone knows Bigfoot loves math.

I don't know if you felt the shift in the time space continuum when we were served our lunch beverages, but there definitely was a shift.

One thing we've noticed is that Pepsi seems more prevalent than Coke in the Bitterroot.  When we automatically ask for a Coke, we are often asked if Pepsi is ok.  Here we got our Coke, but with an ice-filled Pepsi cup.

Did anyone else celebrate?  If so, how?  If not, what is wrong with you?