Lizzie goes visiting

Lizzie goes visiting once in a while.  She has good friends at the nursing home in Plains (about 40 miles east of us), and she likes to go see them on Tuesday afternoons.  So I drive her down there and watch her work the hallway.

She loves to see these folks, and they love her.  We'll go from room to room, and she'll jump up on a patient's bed if she's invited.  The patients enjoy just watching her, feeling her warmth, stroking her, and reminiscing about the dogs they used to have as kids.

I'm not sure she understands how much joy she spreads when she visits them.  But I do know how much she gets out of it herself.

This little pit bull, who came to us via a Safeway parking lot puddle four years ago, has brightened many lives.  I'm very proud of her.

Don vs. Tasty: Don Wins

"Tasty" is the name of every buck who shows up on our property.  The does are all named "Sweetie."
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With about two weeks left in this year's season, Don had come up short one buck on all his hunting expeditions.  Fortuitously, "Tasty" himself wandered through our 41-acre property one day and Don nailed him.  The shot was clean, death was instant, and Tasty was promptly dressed out and delivered to the local butcher.  He yielded about 110 pound of absolutely exquisite meat--the best venison I've ever had in my life.  It tastes more like beef than wild game.  Really.

We attribute much of his good flavor to the way he was taken.  Augustus McCrae ("Lonesome Dove") would have said, "Yes sir, he died fine."

Welcome, "Women of Shooters Supply"

Don, Christina and Judy

Judy Pearson and Christina Ashbaugh came from Yakima to see us in October.

Judy is Jim Pearson's wife.  Both she and Jim have been dear friends of ours for several decades.  Christina is a good friend of Judy's, and also a former long-time Shooters Supply employee.  We were delighted to see both of them for a few days, and this was a first visit here for both of them.

Christina worked in Don's office at Shooters Supply.  She had lived and worked through the daily trials and tribulations Don shared during the building of our house here.  Those were stressful days back at Shooters Supply, involving lengthy phone conversations with the contractors here in Montana, and frequent long weekends when Don and I would escape to Montana to oversee the building project.  Christina was there through it all, listening to--and sharing--Don's frustrations.

"It's nice to see the finished project," she said while visiting us, "especially after living through all the day-to-day stress with you.  It all finally seems real now."

A Visit from an Old Friend

Peg Holloway is 96, but you wouldn't know it to look at her.  She still drives to and from church and the  food bank in Clarkston, Washington (where she volunteers several times a week), and she climbed in and out of our horse-drawn cart, without assistance, when she visited us here at Shorthorse in October. 

Peg and her late husband Marv were family friends of the Mannings when Don was growing up in Pomeroy, Washington.  Marv worked for the Forest Service.  The Holloways and Mannings spent  lots of time together camping, fishing, hunting, and playing in the Blue Mountains of southeastern Washington.

We've stayed in touch with Peg over the years and encouraged her to come visit us here n Montana.  Don's sister Martha finally made it possible when she drove Peg up to see us this past October.  We got to spend three great days in the company of both Peg and Martha (who now runs a bed and breakfast in Pomeroy).

While they were here, I was honored to take Peg for a couple rides in our horse-drawn cart.  Peg said it was like going back to her childhood in eastern Oregon, when horses and buggies were the only means of transportation.

It was great to have Peg and Martha visit us!  Ironically, we forgot to ask these special guests to sign our guestbook...which means they'd better come back in 2011 and do it!