PACKING UP

October 25, 2010

We had the first hard frost here last night, up until just a few days ago we were still picking and eating fresh tomatoes from our garden. My husband cut the remaining useable fruits and put them on the bench in the garage. I’m really amazed we had as many nice ones as we did - the growing season here isn’t very long and I seem to remember being discouraged because my last attempt at growing tomatoes here ended up with green fried tomatoes and if you can believe it green tomato mincemeat. (I still have that recipe if you have an overage.)

I have to put this year’s garden on the plus side; we also had some cucumbers loads of green beans and two really small green peppers. Probably didn’t break even on the later, but the rest sure was a nice addition to the dinner menu.

We’re still doing our daily (almost) walks, some being around town. We’ve developed a bit of a route which has turned out to be very nice. We’ve seen how various gardens turned out, some remodel projects which are now completed, and they turned out very nicely...especially the older Victorian style homes either spruced up or updated.

There are a lot of places for sale around town. Trav says a couple of years ago before the economy went down the tubes almost everything was selling, and going for unbelievable prices. A friend told him they were going to list their place, which they had bought while waiting to get their ‘dream’ house built. They told the real estate agent what they wanted and were told that price was much too low and it should be much higher. They listed at the suggested price and the realtor was correct, it sold immediately. They told Trav they were embarrassed at what they got. I have no idea if the current asking prices here are realistic or inflated, but I suspect if this economy doesn’t pick up there will be bargains here too.

There are several ‘summer’ rentals around town, some listed in our daily newspaper as well. You can pretty much spot the other summer places by the out of state license plates and the various toys around; waders hanging on the porch railing, pontoon boats in the side yards, motor homes in the driveway or parked out in front (parking in the street is legal here).

We have friends who take care of property in the off-season and they are busy closing up places for the winter. There are some folks who come here in the fall, which still surprises me. I haven’t hunted in so many years I sort of forget about it. We met a nice couple at church who live in Interlocken, Michigan during the summer. They are retired too, but they have a charter fishing boat on Lake Michigan for salmon with their son. The husband is an avid hunter and is here now hunting antelope and elk. They bought a place on the mountain between Livingston and Bozeman and will hang in until either they get their game or are snowed in once too often. We also have folks who settle in for the winter here for the skiing at Bridger Bowl (the poor man’s local ski resort, Big Sky is the rich man’s resort) and of course cross country too.

No question about it, winter here is very beautiful, just cold and windy. So we, like lots of others head for warmer climates. Slowly as we watch on our walks we notice more and more places closing up. If you weren’t watching you might not see it, but drapes closed and shades drawn during the day, yards cut back and put to bed for the season.

Trav went over to nephew Tom’s house this morning to help him load the trailer for the next-to-last batch of stuff. Two labs in crates go in the back of the truck undercover with the cat riding up front with Tom when they leave tomorrow. They ran into a little problem when the reserved trailer wasn’t at the rental place. Someone mistakenly rented it out to someone else last night and it was gone. It will work out, the rental people were on the phone trying to locate one this morning and if someone has to drive to West Yellowstone or Billings Tom will have a trailer. Trust me. He and wife Chrystal will winter in the Indian River Florida region; do some fishing, writing and a trip to the British Fly Faire yet this fall. (Our West-Point grand nephew Ryan Travis and wife Lindsey should make it home on leave from Afghanistan about the time Tom gets home.)

That puts us in the same boat, as we are leaving here, God willing, the 29th of October. We aren’t hauling as much as we did when Trav moved me from my home of twenty years in Washington, but we do have some things for our new place in Tucson. The house is partially furnished and we have an inventory of what is there so mostly it is personal stuff, some kitchen stuff and everything it takes for computers and associated equipment to produce FAOL. Small trailer, the Trail Blazer has lots of room for four cats and a bird.  Yah right.

Three days on the road and we’ll all be ready to fall into our Arizona bed. We have some friends who spend the winter in motor homes on permanent spots in the south. Others just wind their way south until they find a place they like and turn around and head back when it’s warm up north. This is all new to me, but I think I’m pretty adaptable. I can tell you I like warm better than cold. Right now our schedule is back to Montana about April 1st.

On the road again...

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