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Montana's rivers are running high, wide and muddy right now and things typically won't improve much for maybe two months. That all depends on rainfall and snowmelt. A cool, wet spring will prolong runoff into mid-June; a hot, dry period will clear up rivers and streams faster but not bode well for fisheries later in the summer. So, what's an angler to do to catch fish? Better yet, what's a fish to do to find food? We might give up dry flies and switch to worms. Fish will...
The forest behind our second house in Ekalaka was a source of great enjoyment to me. I spent a lot of time in it either alone or with others. We called this forest the short pine hills and the forest further south and east we called the long pine hills. I knew every inch of the short pine hills up to about seven miles back. We used to live in what we called the Opeechee Park place and it was seven miles from Ekalaka. Since then, Jesse LaBree called it the Kinsey place. I loved that place, I lived there when I was four. In tha...
Hello God, it’s me, Mara: You know, Lord, grass is turning green in our corner of the earth again. It’s been said that grass is the least pretentious of this world’s everyday plants and the most important to mankind. The young blades are simplicity itself, not the simplicity of unicellular life in stagnant water, but specialized simplicity unmatched in the fields. It’s been written that all the grasses, be they corn, wheat, barley, or oats are perfection, having eliminated nonessentials, but we know it is Your gift, Lord, uni...
My sheep herding experiences started at a young age. At probably age 9, I went out to my Grandparent Coons ranch on Boxelder near Belltower and stayed there all summer. I worked and they paid me something though not too much. This lasted through age 14 after which I began to work for others for real money. I will write more about that later. In the later years especially a lot of my work consisted of herding sheep. The sheep had a bedding ground at the base of a hill we called Palmer Hill on the Briggs place just north of...
It wasn’t too long ago that Brice spotted a robin sitting in our apple tree. It wasn’t much longer before he saw another. Where are the chickadees that used to come before the robins? Maybe they will be coming soon. Robins are nice. They make nests, mate, and lay little blue eggs in those nests. I don’t remember seeing juvenile robins, but I’ve seen lots of pieces of those eggs. Shortly after the robins came the grackles, the black bird with iridescent heads that look green or blue as they turn their heads. I don’t like grac...
Hello, We have cows. We have some good cows. We have some bad cows. Everyone that has cows has some good cows and some bad cows. Everyone wishes they had all good cows. Many ranchers strive to improve their herds to have not only all good cows, but all great cows. Our red roan cow is not a good cow. She is not even a bad cow. She is a terrible cow. She has a bad bag. She is wild. She always has a roan calf that the buyers cut back because it is small, narrow, and off color. So you wonder, why would you keep an awful cow for 1...
As you read this memories article, you will discover that it is a little different from past articles. When reading through some Shifting Scenes, I became interested about the Mumedy family from an article written by Leona Mumedy Miller who begins with her father and mother, Andrew and Margaret Mumedy. She wrote this information in 1981. It includes information about her family, homestead days, school, daily activities, court house clerk for different attorneys, and up through her time at state and federal government...
Several years ago, an old man, who I really didn't know, died and his wife gave me a grocery bag full of his fly-tying material. And for a long time, it sat untouched in the corner of my office. Over the years I've tied a few miserable-looking flies, but eventually my hobby quietly disappeared into a basement corner. Fly-fishing took the next bus out of town. Then, last week I stumbled across a cheap, metal and plastic desk headed for the dump and something clicked. Now, it's...
As I was growing up in and around Ekalaka, coyotes were public enemy number one. Everyone killed them on sight. It was generally believed (and I believe it) that they were a terrible predator of lambs and even calves sometimes. They were shot on sight but they were so skinny and fast that it was hard to get a good shot at them. There was a bounty on them, as I remember it was $15 for an adult and either $5 or $10 for a pup. There was also a bounty on Magpies but I shot at many of them and all I could get them to do was jump...
Hello, We haven’t had it too bad. In fact, since we started calving, it’s been exceptionally nice. If you remember last year, April was a cold son of a gun. We were checking cows at night and grabbing any new ones and keeping them in the tack room overnight. Then in the morning, trying to get them to mother up. If you attended any cattle sales since last fall, you saw a lot of calves that had their ears froze off. And they were the lucky ones. But if you go a few miles south, it has been a trying and often times deadly spr...
Hello God, it’s me, Mara: You know, Lord, reading 1 Corinthians 15: 13, 14, 20 (TLB) might just help us to understand that You, Lord, are the Lamb of God as it says: “For if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ must still be dead. And if He is still dead, then all our preaching is useless and your trust in God is empty, worthless, hopeless… The fact is that Christ did actually rise from the dead…” Long years ago, [date is unknown]; Billy Graham wrote an interesting thought about a faithful witness. Here is h...
In 1789, Benjamin Franklin wrote his famous quote, saying the only things true in life were death and taxes. If you were alive on Monday, April 15, 2019, your taxes were due. When we lived in Billings, I did our taxes one year and decided we were due a refund. Armed with that information, we attended an art auction. There was a small watercolor painting I wanted: The Flat Cat, by a Miles City artist. I decided on a bidding limit and was out bid. Lucky thing; we actually owed taxes. Brice has done the taxes ever since. He does...
Hello God, it’s me, Mara: You know, Lord, comfort and safety, that’s our motto. It’s so easy to hide our heads in the sand, pretending there are no problems. We’re like everyone else, aren’t we, Lord, wanting to wash our hands of the whole affair. One chap with that attitude is written about in the Gospels. The scene, so long ago, was dramatized in the city of Jerusalem. We picture the event which unfolds involving Pontius Pilate, the governor (recorded in Matthew 27). Pilate, a procurator, was in the judgment hall of the pa...
Hello, This past week was a harbinger of spring. Big word I know, but needed here. We had warm, breezy days. We had a night thundershower that woke me in the night and freshened the air up. I swear it made the grass start to green up in a matter of hours. As I write this, they are talking of rain or snow, beginning in a day or two. It’s springtime in the Dakotas. Nearly everyone is in the middle of calving, so I’m hoping it’s a warm, gentle rain. I know most of you that have followed my columns over the years, don’t realize...
'Tis spring, the time when a young males fancy turns to, well, not football. Humans are such an odd lot. Animals – underwater, on the ground or in air – simply are driven by the survival of their species. We fret about home loans, school choice or health insurance. Wild creatures do not. Of course, those critters don't rush to the hospital when sick, play music when sad or have barbeques on the Fourth of July. Animal behavior is largely driven by daylight length. And rig...
Hello God, it’s me, Mara: You know, Lord, it’s April - a New Season has arrived! There were new baby animals all over our prairie farm/ranch when we were kids back home. The birds were back. The trees were budding. Tulip, and daffodils and some lovely prairie flowers were up and in bloom; if no tulips at our house, they were at Aunties house in town. Spring plowing/seeding had begun. April is a new lease on life! The countryman will tell you he’s turning the soil to prepare the seedbed so he will be ready to plant oats or cor...
I would like to end my articles about my Grandad and Grandma Townsend with a few of my memories of them and the homestead place near Tie Creek. During my third, fourth and fifth grade school summers, I would go to their place and spend quite some time with them. Even from my time there at that young age, I can still see some of those buildings. This includes the house that had one large room downstairs which included the kitchen, dining room and living room. There was also a...
Hello, I have one of the smartest dumb dogs in the West. Tyke. I’ve told you about him. He will chase cows. In fact he will chase them for miles, even if you don’t want him to. It’s hard to sneak up on a calving cow because Tyke runs alongside you and barks constantly. But he is faithful to me. Always happy to see me, even after a severe scolding for doing something wrong. And he never misses a ride to town in the pickup. He, like a good rope horse, is bar broke. He can sit in that pickup for hours and be plumb happy. But t...
I missed the deadline for last week’s paper, and I apologize to people who read my articles. I have a medical excuse, but not the normal one. This time I had pneumonia, but not a bad case. I was having trouble driving my wheelchair in the house. I was lethargic, and when Brice checked, I had a slight fever. That was unusual; my temperature usually runs a little below normal. My husband called the clinic and they sent the phlebotomist to our house to draw blood. When that showed infection, I took the Carter Charter one b...
Hello, If you are in any agriculture business, you have been engrossed following the devastation from the storm 10 days ago. From south central North Dakota, on through South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri, the losses have been devastating. The worst has to be in Nebraska. Dams broke, bridges washed out, roads wiped out, fences gone, stored grains lost, and to me, the livestock losses had to be devastating. So far, I think they say three people lost their lives in the floods. Heartbreaking. I was thinking about those...
Hello God, it’s me, Mara: You know, Lord, seasons sometimes just seem to slip on by us. Now that it’s officially SPRING, it’s so nice to see green grass springing up all over the neighborhood. When the grass dies, we are reminded once again of how short our lives are. But then when Spring comes, we usually think about birth and since we’re close to some ranches, we know that it is ‘time’ for the birth of new baby calves, little lambs and maybe even baby chicks. The deer that winter near here, usually head off to the Mountai...
Alice, daughter of Fred and Eva Townsend, gives more information on the early day family that homesteaded in the Tie Creek area with the home buildings being just one mile west of the Padden Ranch. She wrote: "My dad got itchy feet again and in 1919 started to Canada-you guessed it-in a covered wagon! They landed in Leslieville, British Columbia, Canada. They stayed there two years and then went back to the old ranch in Tie Creek country." After reading about those...
After reading and writing about some of the Carter County Homesteaders, I felt that I should have an article on my Grandad and Grandma Townsend, Fred G. and Eva. I only wish that I knew more of their early life before coming to Montana. Again I read a Shifting Scenes Vol. III article for some history and information. It was written by their daughter Alice. She reports: "In July 1910, my father, Fred G. Townsend, his wife Eva and six children, Bill, George, Alice, Fred Jr.,...
Hello, I apologize profusely! I missed my St. Patrick’s Day column last week. And if you are, as I, married to a Murphy that is a mortal sin. We all have that one friend that tells us jokes whenever you meet. I have a friend that tells Little Johnny jokes. You know them. The teacher asked little Johnny… Most of them can’t be printed in this fine family newspaper. But he did tell me one the other day that I can adapt to an Irish story. Little Johnny Mulligan was sitting on the stoop eating a chocolate bar. Father O’Lea...
Not all creatures have given up on spring ever happening. Some are counting on it. And soon. Great horned owls and Canada geese are sitting on eggs now, or soon will be. Two totally different Montana bird species with different diets and nesting habits have placed all their eggs in one spring basket. Great horned owls are sitting on eggs now, that will soon hatch if they haven't already, because they must. Think back to those January nights that, looking back, seemed...
