This past week-end my sister & her husband, my parents & I drove into mid-January scenery & temperatures to attend a 125th Anniversary celebration. We met my brother & his wife in Bozeman, who had driven from Billings. Sunday morning, it was only 8 degrees outside as we left the Comfort Inn in Bozeman to drive the 30 minutes to the Dry Creek Bible Church.
My father pastored here for 14 years - while I was in Junior High, High School & college. This church was started in November 1884. That was 5 years before Montana became a state... only 20 years after the Civil War...& 8 years after the Custer massacre.
Mom & Dad were younger than me when they pastored at this community church in the middle of a rural farming area. We saw folks we hadn't seen for over 25 years & were able to catch up a little on their lives. What a blessing!
The older part of the church is now the fellowship hall, in which are several historic photos. This one is of the church building being moved a number of miles via bobsleds & 24 horses in 1905. The only damage suffered from the move was a crack in the brick chimney.
My family of origin had the week-end to reminisce without the distraction of children or grandchildren for the first time in many years. Here we are in front of the desert cake for the celebration -a replica of the older portion of the church. This is all there was to the church back in the 1960's & 70's when we drove out to serve each Sunday. Oh, yes, there was the outhouse in the yard that we used back then too.
This was our October sukkah setting - snapped just before our Beth Tephila members started coming to our home for the first day of Sukkot celebration. Lacking palm branches & other items like the etrogs (citron like a lemon), we substituted what was locally available...pine branches & cattails & lemons. Last week I reduced those lemons to hot lemonade with honey to treat the sore throat I developed from a sinus post-nasal drip. It worked so well!
These other photos are a sampling taken the last month or so. Above is a look towards Missoula during a hike Becky & I took on logging roads in Pattee Canyon.
Shadik is now 18 months old & usually sitting somewhere near my workspace. Outside, she is a huntress, but inside is slowly becoming a snuggler like our other cat, Rachel. They still do not get along, so we keep them separated in the house.
We have a wonderful bouncy, fluffy, golden retriever puppy at our home these days. He is show quality. Our friend Florence gave him to us for free! He sleeps alot & I am threatening to name him "Peewee" because of the other thing he does so much. 
Instead of stopping at Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge on our return trip, we opted to see something new. Starvation Creek Falls was a great potty stop & quite beautiful.
The ocean beach looked so inviting Saturday morning. We gazed at it through the condo. windows as we ate a leisurely breakfast & shared a devotion & prayer time.
When we actually started walking on the beach, the 60 degree temp. felt even cooler in the nippy breeze. We rolled up our pantlegs, but kept our windbreakers on. I had to keep drying off my glasses that would coat with salt-water droplets every so often.
About three miles down the beach is an area used for kites. Louis & I have bought spin-socks from "Catch the Wind" in Lincoln City just like the one in this photo. We fly them over our garden. They scare the birds away from our strawberries & show us which way the wind is blowing so we know how to set our sprinklers. Later in the day, I bought a 9 foot one to take back to Louis.
Have you heard of Kite-boarding or Kite-surfing? We hadn't, but we watched a couple of young men who appeared to have perfected the art of this sport.
"Roads End", this rocky promontory, was the destination of our 10 mile beach walk into the cool wind. As we neared the outcropping, we could see two different families posing for pictures.
When we arrived at "Road's End", we spoke to the Mom of one of the families. She is in the middle of the above photo. Her husband & four sons were all wearing blue shirts, while her daughter & she wore white. The other children in the photo were from the other family. She & her husband had adopted two Ethiopian brothers only two weeks before this photo session. They had driven from Yakima, Washington to meet the other family from San Jose, California for a vacation on the beach. This Mom was obviously a believer by everything she said. She spoke of hopefully leading her two new sons to the Lord. She homeschools her children. More power to her!
You can see how white my lower legs are compared to my friends' tanned ones. Well, after our 5+ hour beach walk, they had changed to a bright red sunburn. I should have used more common sense, but relished the feel of the sand between my toes & the wetness as the waves rolled in. I had put my sandals & socks back on just before this picture was snapped.
We drove down to Newport to see all the male sea lions taking their siestas near the fishing boats on the wharf. These 1000 pounders had such beatific expressions. Their barks could be heard blocks away.
Ending our Newport experience with the Marionberry cobbler at "Mo's" was so satisfying. I couldn't think of a better birthday outing.
My birthday always closes off the summer by being September 21st. This year it also closed my contract with the Army Nurse Corps. At the age of 60, the Army releases retired doctors & nurses from their "hip-pocket orders" that automatically can call you back to active duty in time of war. Although I enjoyed my almost 23 years as an Army Nurse, it was a relief to turn 60. I no longer have this sword held over my head. Part of Louis's BD gift to me was letting me take a four day road trip to Lincoln City, Oregon with three of my hiker buddies. They stood for the above photo after our 13 hour drive to the Pacific Coast. We arrived at Diane's condo. on the beach right at sunset.
This pic was taken from the front room in the condo. as we dropped off our luggage. We headed to the beach for the first photo & then hiked south along the beach a mile or two to "Mo's Restaurant". It's a well-known place for delicious clam chowder & other local foods.
In the dusk, this large piece of driftwood looked like a sea lion or walrus from the distance. We didn't see the actual sea lions until the next day in Newport. We drove there to eat marionberry cobbler at the original "Mo's" & see those male sea lions. The females stay in California year-around.
As we neared "Mo's", we watched three pelicans circling, landing on the water & then taking off again.
Our waitress brought me a free sundae for dessert because of my BD that week. We hikers split it, since we were so full from our salads & the scrumptious clam chowder. Besides prayer-hiking, we hikers have something else in common. We all love ice cream!! It is not uncommon for us to stop at an ice cream place on the way home from a hike & quickly consume the same or more calories than we just used to hike 6-10 miles.
Here we are posing for the 69 year-old waitress, Judy.
On two different days, between hikes, Bible Studies, Beth Tephila activities, etc. Ron Smith & I used our apple press to make homemade apple juice/cider. This was our 4th year to do this together. We work well as a team. Ron does the hard manual work while I wash the apples, cut out the bad spots, load the hopper on the press, help change the buckets collecting the juice & then pour the juice into our milk cartons after it's filtered through our linen dish towels. I also feed the left-over apple mash to our horses & sheep.
The apples are cut into little chunks when put through the hopper. When the chunked apples fill the wooden barrels, we put a couple of wooden tops over the barrel & start pressing the juice out of the apples. In the photo above, we had just finished the pressing, so the large screw was raised so we could remove the wooden tops & then the apple mash.
This was the finished product on the first day... 11 gallons & 16 half-gallons of juice. We have to leave quite a bit of head space in the milk cartons as the juice expands as it freezes. We didn't leave enough space once & I had a sticky mess all over my chest freezer to have to clean. We had nearly this much on our second day as well. Family & friends of Ron's & ours end up getting most of this juice/cider for gifts. It's a labor of love, organic & a wonderful purgative if you drink more than one glass at a time.
The Kootenai Creek Fire that had stayed back in the wilderness area & fairly contained through August & early September, blew up & headed toward ranches bordering the Canyon on September 19th, Rosh HaShanah. I have blogged about a couple of our hikes along Kootenai Creek in past years. Louis & I had been busy with the morning Rosh HaShanah service & Beth Tephila Congregation Tasch-Lik service after our oneg (potluck lunch). Our Tasch Lik, along the Clark Fork River, was extra special since one of our members was baptized during the service this year. The day was clear & warm - around 80 degrees. A great day for a baptism. As we drove home on Highway 93, we noticed the wind was starting to gust. After driving through Lolo, we noticed a large plume of dark smoke rising above Kootenai Canyon. In the smoke, you could just barely see flames of fire along the ridgeline between Kootenai & Bass Creek Canyons. We have good friends who own a ranch in the Bass Creek area, so we wondered how this would affect them. No sooner than we arrived home & we received an emergency call from Janie saying that the fire was heading their way & they had been put on possible evacuation status. We offerred our horse trailer to help move their horses & cattle if need be. Thankfully, the fire never reached their ranch & they never had to evacuate, but it was touch & go for a couple of weeks. Well, several days after this blow-up, the hiking group decided to get out of the smoke filling our valley. In this photo taken from the lookout, we could look down at the smoke-filled Bitterroot Valley from above & to the West of it.
My friend, Becky, whom you met in the post on the Hiawatha Trail, joined the Hallelujah Hikers for the first time. She took us to one of her favorite hikes - Skookum Butte Lookout on the Montana-Idaho border. This hike is not in all the Bitterroot or other hiking trail guides...so it's a well-kept secret by those who know about it & the pikas that inhabit the talus around the lookout. We heard those pikas, (small mammals allied to rabbits that inhabit alpine regions), whistling but never saw them. We were just too chatty as we hiked along.
The hike was supposedly only a mile or so long, but it felt like much longer, since it was quite steep. It offerred great views of mountain ranges in both Montana & Idaho.
As we climbed above the treeline, we could see Skookum Butte with the Lookout
The photo below was taken as we were just leaving the trees. We were reminded of the house the wise man built upon the rock versus the sand. It would remain when the storms came. (Matthew 7: 24-25) We hope to be such wise women - who hear our Lord's words & also obey them. Our foundation is the LORD - THE ROCK. (Isaiah 26: 3-4)
Some of the slope was covered with Huckleberry plants loaded with berries & russet leaves. We snacked on Huckleberries & a few wild Raspberries along the trail on our way down to the trailhead.
Part-way down, we detoured to check-out the trail to Granite Lake that we hope to hike another time. The lake in the distance is Lily Lake, not Granite Lake. Maybe we'll hike to Lily Lake sometime too.
The next week, we drove south on Highway 93 a couple of hours to reach the trailhead for three lakes that are on the way to the summit of Trapper Peak. I had hiked Trapper Peak about 4-5 years ago with several members of my extended family on the 4th of July. Mosquitos swarmed around the lakes on that trip, but this hike was late enough in the season that we saw no insects. We did see deer & Hungarian partridges. ( If you want to enlarge any of the photos, just left click on the photo.) The hike starts fairly steep until you reach the ridge. Then it becomes quite enjoyable as you walk along the ridge toward the southern Trapper Peak.
This photo was taken as we reached the ridge & could look back at one mountain ridge after another in Montana & Idaho. There were not too many wildflowers, but plenty of Fall color here in mid-September.
We passed a few meadows on our way to Baker & then Middle Lakes, but did not see any wildlife in them.
Baker Lake is the first one you reach on this trail after about an hour of steady hiking. It is full of small trout, but we had not brought our fishing poles. We ate our lunches at this gorgeous site before heading down the trail to Middle Lake.
Middle Lake was only 45 minutes along the trail. It is more green in color, but with the same rugged beauty of Baker Lake. The trout in Middle Lake & later in Gem Lake were much bigger than in Baker Lake. All three lakes were so pristine that you could see the trout easily from the shore.
Above Middle Lake, the trail winds up a steep gully along a tiny stream before reaching Gem Lake. We met only one other hiker on this trip - Lisa. She hiked with us from Baker Lake to the other two lakes. She's in the photo below about half-way between Middle & Gem Lake. Judy, (one of my hiking buddies), had met Lisa at a rest home, where Lisa is a CNA & Judy holds a Bible Study for some of the residents. So the two of them started chatting away, as we continued to hike. When we returned to the trailhead at the end of our hike, Lisa introduced us to her pet rabbit, who was napping in her truck.
Gem Lake was an even deeper green than Middle Lake... hence its name. The trail doesn't go much further than Gem Lake, so to hike any further up towards Trapper Peak requires a lot of rock climbing. You hike above the tree-line fairly soon. Its quite strenuous, but worth the effort to see the view from the summit. However, we didn't have the time to reach the summit this day & turned back down the trail after roaming around Gem Lake awhile.
Phonetically, my initials spell out "CaMeL". My husband and I also raise a few sheep: Romanov-Texel-Columbian, to be exact.
Sheep are sheared; Llamas can be sheared. Can CaMeLs be sheared? I think so! I will pretend so ... and share some of the shearings with you!
