Love my swamp cooler I can think again — the portable swamp cooler is a gem. Holds about 5 gallons of water, has a big old fan, and cools the house down just enough … because it just evaporates cold water and blows the slighly cooled air into your room, the swamp cooler doesn’t have that harsh refrigerated edge to it that air conditioners give off. And it’s pretty energy-effecient since it’s just a big fan with a water pump. It’s 95 outside, and currently 79 degrees inside my house. This I can live with. Now I can think.
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Weather is hot, Blogging is slow I am not a hot weather gal. One of the things I loved about living in Telluride all those years ago, is that it was almost never hot (not at 9000 feet, it wasn’t). However, it’s hot here in Montana. High 90s by midafternoon, and since the sun doesn’t set until almost 9:30 — it stays hot. Now, I realize this isn’t someplace really brutal like, say, New York City (where I sweltered away two summers of my 20s, too poor to afford a summer share, just sweating in my tenement), but nonetheless, the…
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Rodeo Wrapup I’ve been meaning to blog about last week’s rodeo, but it needed a little time to sift its way through my consciousness (that and there was a big fat literary party last week that kind of threw me off my center for a few days — those things always make me feel like Sally Field at the Oscars — I still can’t believe the French editor had read my book, had remembered it, and had liked it. Of course, it would have been nice if he’d published it, but perhaps when the next one comes out). So anyway,…
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Breakfast of Champions The garden is in full swing — no tomatoes yet, but plenty of greens. Yesterday I harvested chard, radishes, carrots (about 4), gai lan (chinese broccoli — like broccoli raab but the chinese version) and a lot a lot of lettuce. It’s all lettuce all the time here right now. I bought a Foodsaver vacuum sealer the other day and so I spent much of yesterday morning washing, blanching and freezing veggies. My next big home purchase is going to be a freezer, but I’m waiting for the used appliance store on the other side of my…
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Well, we didn’t see a bear up in Suce Creek last evening, but we did come across a mountain lion. We’d had a nice hike; I was with my friends the Campbells — and had been talking a lot about bears, since Bill is the guy who has spent so much time filming them. Had our bear spray with us, but with four dogs, and general conversation, we weren’t really worried. After we got back to the trailhead, we grabbed a picnic table in the campsite — a really nice one up in the trees, a lot of brush around…
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Take Back the Flag! Okay Lefties, it’s time to take back the flag from the Right — why should only horrible righ-wingers fly the flag on holidays like the Fourth of July? What could be more patriotic than dissent — has anyone read the Declaration of Independence lately? So yesterday I went out and bought a big flag, and flew it from my porch. It looked swell, especially with the Tibetan Prayer Flags that always fly on the top of my porch. Festive, Patriotic. (While we’re at it, let’s take back “patriotic” too.)
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Rodeo Week in Livingston Fourth of July is a big week here in Livingston — the rodeo comes to town, there’s a parade, and everyone I know seems to be having parties. Friday night was the Art Walk, or Art Swill as some of us have come to refer to it — the whole town strolling up and down the street stopping in art galleries and drinking too much cheap art gallery wine. It was one of the first nice warm summer nights, and people had their party hats on. Then last night was a gorgeous potluck barbecue outside of…
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Eating Local We have a little local farmer’s market – when I moved here last fall it was pretty much just one good vegetable merchant and a lot of crafts. Well, they’ve done a great job getting new vendors, and Wednesday there was a local family selling their own pork, raised naturally without hormones and allowed to roam outside. Mr. Miller told me they started because they thought the local 4-H kids were paying too much for their weaner pigs, so they raised some weaners, and then when the weren’t all sold, well, they were in the pork business. So…
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Summer Snowstorm Not here, but over in Yellowstone and up on Beartooth Pass … the pass is closed because they got 18 inches over the last two days. Glad I didn’t take the Wall O’Waters off the tomatoes … it’s just been gloomy and rainy down here, which is a mixed blessing. The plants love the rain, but it’s been so cold that the beans and zucchini are having a hard time getting off the ground. It’s supposed to warm up later this week. Not much happening in the garden right now. The lettuce is coming up really well, as…
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Solstice Hailstorm Well, summer came in on a wave of dark clouds, thunder and lightning, a litte hail, and two days of steady rain. This morning my brother came over and said the Nice Girlfriend reported ice on her windsheild when she went to work, so I went out to check and it looks like the only things I lost were a couple of plants that got dried out last week when it was hot, and didn’t like the flip-flop to cold weather. Oh well, it’s Montana after all, things are going to run hot and cold.