What are friends for?

Who do you call when you buy a house and need the intire inside painted. Your friends of course. We do a pretty good job and we are cheap........anything for pizza and beer. I think that the guys were quite impressed with my mad painting skillz. CONGRATS on the house Matt and Heather!

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

It was a beautifully eventful weekend of floating the Yellowstone.... As it usually is. The best part was when I landed my first trout on my fly rod. I hooked into 2 rainbows on Sat and 'let them go' aka lost them before I could land them in the boat. When I hooked into the 3rd G thought it was a MT Whitefish. I asked if I got it into the boat if we could pretend that I hadn't caught it because I didn't want my first fish with my rod to be a Whitey. Turns out he was wrong and it was a 14 inch Rainbow................................I was VERY excited! I didn't catch anything on Sunday but we happened to go under the train bridge just a a train passed. Kinda freaky. I love the trains.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...jam

So I set out last night to do my first bit of canning. I grew up with my mom and aunt canning veggis and making jams and such all of the time. But I had never done it myself. My bro gave me a canning set for my bday because I am planning on making salsa from all my goodies in the garden this year. My mom mentioned that she was going to get a flat of raspberries to make jam and I though I would give it a shot. Turn out......it isn't as hard as I thought it would be. I made 2 batches last night from the berries that we picked up at Farmers Market. I have to admit I am quite proud of myself. G said that he could design me a sweet label and we could get rich off the jams....selling them at Farmers Market with the rest of the yahoos. I told him that I had better come up with a recipe other than the one from the pectin package if we are going to sell the shit.

Wed. night Farmers Market

Throughout the summer on Wednesday evenings in Livingston you can find most of your friends chillaxin at the bandshell near the river enjoying the Farmers Market. It is full of vendors selling fresh fruit and veggis, furniture, bio diesel fuel (my uncle), jewelery (both crappy and nice), baskets....if you want it you can probably find it. It seems like it has rained almost every week so far. But that doesn't stop the crowds. I went this week with my mama and her beau in search of raspberries to make some jam. We successfully found the fruit. We also found some friends along the way. We chatted it up with my uncle about bio diesel and gardening. He gave me most of the veggis in my garden that he had started in his greenhouse so he wanted to be sure that I had not killed them. We also ran into Brooke and Peter at the Farmers Market along with many other family and friends. Gotta love the small town livin.

Behind Again

Last weekend my old roomie and college bestie came to visit from Denver. It has now been over a year since she left me here in search of something bigger and better. She found it but I am sure that eventually she will find her way back here. She is an MT girl through and through. We had a great afternoon and evening in Bozeman shopping the crazy days sales, hiding from a serious hale/rain monsoon, reminiscing at the Canary and din din at Ale Works.

Alicia and Jacqueline waiting in the car for the storm to let up.

Crazy storm. Bozeman got something like 7 inches of rain in about 30 min.

Girls night.

Diner at Ale Works at 10pm when we finally got around to eating.

Sunday G and I spent a glorious day on the river with some great people. The day was filled with fishing, rowing practice, a few great wave trains, kayaking, BBQ on the gravel bar, and lots of laughter. I finally got to use my new fly fishing set up. I didn't catch anything but G told me that I learned a lot. Thanks for the encouragement babe. I think that the other guys felt bad for G cuz he had to row me the entire time and didn't get to fish much so I gave rowing another shot.....and I think that I am getting a little better. It is not easy but I am ready to practice again soon.

Maiden voyage for the Red Super Puma....GO BROOKE!

Perfect spot for food and relaxing.
Brooke really is quite a bad ass!

First time trying out the new set up.

I L.O.V.E. love floating!

This must be the job you get if you are an intern at AIRE.

Can you tell I am ready.

One happy guy!

Beautiful Paradise Valley.......home sweet home.

This part I do not like!

This did not last long.

A CAIRN

A cairn is a pile of stone or rock that is arranged with a purposeful intent. Most times you'll see these on backpacking or hiking trails to mark the way. Those who place them are thinking of those who will come after and those who find them are trusting those who went before that this is the way to go.

G has built up many many a cairn on the trails above the house. I love seeing them because I get lost very easily and often don't really know where we are even though we walk up there all of the time. I lose my sense of direction right away when surrounded by trees. G doesn't and always knows where we are but I always feel reassured when I see stacked rocks. (he really does know where we are) We built this one about 3 miles up the trail last weekend. Very grounding for me to know that I am going in the right direction.

Its a pretty big deal around here.

Oh, the 4th of July. How Livingston celebrates. It is almost as if it is our own little holiday. Generally more people come back here (home) over the 4th than any other holiday.......even xmas. There is much to do and many, many people partaking in all of it.

I was lucky enough to get to see some of my favorite old friends over the weekend. Some were missing but I will see them soon................;)

What parts of the 4th of July in Livingston, MT did I enjoy. The parade of course. The annual parade is at 3pm on the 2nd every year. It is really the kick off to the continual 3-4-5 day party (depending on what days of the week it all lands on). We start on the 2nd around here with a huge parade. Most business' choose to just shut down when the parade starts. If they don't their employees will take the afternoon off anyway and probably not make it back to work. If they do.......you probably don't want them there if you get my drift.

The Livingston Roundup Rodeo (pro rodeo) runs the 2, 3, 4 followed by fireworks and much celebration. We hit up the rodeo on the 3rd this year.

After the rodeo and parade G and I had all that we could handle of the festivities and spent the rest of the weekend in the mountains and on the ranch.

Saturday morning we got up early and headed up the South Fork of Deep Creek. It is a trail that runs parallel the the southern boundary of the property that we live on. So we jumped on the 4wheeler and bypassed about 1/2 mile by going up to the southeastern corner of the property and hopping over the fence. That put us right on the trail. We hiked about 3 1/2 miles up and climbed about 2,500 feet in elevation. We had to turn around when we lost the trail under snowpack. G is in much better shape that I am and He really pushes me to my limits. It is nice because he gets me to places that I would not ever make it to if it were on my own accord. But it really feels good to make it that far.................until a few days later. I was EXTREMELY sore. But it was totally worth it.

I HATE bug spray but it is a must.