Our Field Guide

Now this is what we refer to as a "conifer" tree. There are approximately 500 kinds, most with needles for leaves. This one is what I like to call a "Mama" sized tree. The "Colter" sized trees are a tad smaller than this, the "Daddy" size are larger.

M, Dad! M!!

That's what Colter will holler out the back patio door while pointing to the mountain. If you click here, you can see the "M" from our bedroom window. If you click here, you can see what it looks like from the Google satellite. If you look below, you can see Colter actually touching the M. It's a helluva walk up, took a little over an hour. That's mostly because we wouldn't carry Colter on the way up. We kept telling him if he wanted to see the M, he had to walk. The way down was another story. We took the longer, much less steep route, and picked him up about two minutes into the decent. He promptly fell asleep in Jenn's arms as we walked down. We switched back and forth a couple of times, but he styed asleep until we put him in the car, then he was wide awake.

May Not Be Suitable for Some Viewers

Well, he's been doing it at school, on occasion, for more than six months, and tonight he finally did it at home! Another sticker on the calendar to mark the occasion!

(Don't worry, you'll not be subjected to any advancements in this particular field. This is the only photo I'll take. Promise.)

Oh, Starry, Starry Night

It's a trick. There are no stars in this picture. Only the moon and Venus.

Spring Fever In Yellowstone

In the Lamar Valley, there were a group of bison getting feisty with one another. I was sitting on the edge of the road, along with two other guys, across the Lamar River from these guys watching them knock heads. When they decided to cross the river, that's when we decided it wouldn't be too bad of an idea to mosey back to the cars.
These are a little over-exposed because I was shooting into the sun.

In the very last picture, you seen two bison knocking heads again, in the middle of the highway. I don't know if one is male and one is female, but I do know that the one on the right had just gotten done trying to mount the one on the left. I was about five seconds too slow getting the camera off the seat to snap that one through the windshield.

Can You See It?

This is one of those pictures where you're just going to have to take my word for it.

In the Chronicle on Friday, they had a story about how the grizzlies were starting to wake up in the park, and since we had since quite a few in the area I was driving through, I had my hopes up to catch sight of one of those big beasties. No luck on the bears, but once again, terrific luck with wolves. Got to see and hear two different packs.
The Slough Creek pack was singing like you wouldn't believe. There's no sound in all of nature like a wolf pack howling. At the time, this was the only one that could be seen. There were a few more just behind the rise that's out of frame. With a spotting scope, this black one was plain as day, and I could see him pretty well with my binoculars. The camera is another story, however. This is not only zoomed in all the way (a 12x zoom), but I cropped it, too. Just below the tree in the middle of the pic, is the black wolf we could see in the scopes. They howled for about a half-hour before they started wandering off.

On my way back from Cooke City, I found out there was a kill that I had just missed on my way through, that morning. The Druid Peak pack had taken down an elk about 8:30am. It was far enough from the road that scopes were needed, but close enough that quite a few people were able to watch the whole thing go down. By the time I got to the area, the higher ranking members of the pack had eaten their share and were basking and lounging in the sun, napping. Tuckered out, no doubt, from the kill and with full bellies. There was a couple of others grazing on what was left of the kill. We could see them very well, tearing of bits of the carcass. The ravens were everywhere. That's one easy way to spot a kill from the road. Look for flocks of ravens trying to get their share of a kill.

Portrait of a Coyote

When Jenn and Colter were in Minneapolis, I took a couple of trips, myself. The first weekend, I went to Yellowstone. The only road open is the one from Mammoth Hot Springs to Cooke City, Montana. Could not have had a better day, weather-wise. Near fifty and sunny most of the trip. This was just outside of Mammoth. Not a wolf, but a coyote. Taking his sweet time meandering across the field. It's funny, with that reddish color in his ears and such a pointy nose, and poofy tail, he really looks like a fox.

He was in a similar spot near the end of the day posing for some other folks, too.

Spring in Montana

If there's one thing you can count on here, it's that you can never put away the snowbrush. It should always be left in the car. When we went to bed last night, it was raining a little. When we got up, there was about two inches of snow on the lawn (but the streets were clear). We had about four or five inches at the studio at the peak of the snowfall. By noon, there were green patches already starting to show in the lawn as it was melting.

I took this picture at 8:00pm. Good example of what it's like out there right now. This is from our second-floor bedroom window, facing east. The grass is green and clear of snow, but the Bridgers are still full of the stuff. At the far right, where there's a big clear spot in the trees is where the "M" is on the mountain. Click here to see what the "M" looks like without snow.

It's snowed in Bozeman during every month of the year. A few years ago, they had so much snow in the middle of June that Bridger Bowl opened for a day of skiing and Big Sky was open for a couple days of skiing.

Who's The Leader Of The Club That's Made For You And Me?

This is from last night. Again, no coaching or suggestions or anything said by me or Jenn. He was kind of singing the song as he started putting the letters together. We're slightly torn...my god, he can spell, already! I mean, he's spelled "house" now, based on how to spell mouse. He know "mom," "dad," and also "car." But on the other hand, could such a big phrase like Mickey Mouse, be done if he hadn't seen "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" so many times?

Last Name, please?

This is from Tuesday night. Colter managed to lose most of this set of letters before we left Minneapolis, but still loves to play with them anyway. He did figure out there were just enough letters to spell something, however. Neither Jenn nor I did anything to coach him on this. Jenn was washing dishes at the time and I was sitting at the table when he said out loud, "H, Woo, B, E, R. Colter Hoober." I quickly grabbed the camera before he mixed them all up again.

"C" is for "Cowboy"

This is something Jenn drew, copying it out of an ABC book about Wyoming that we have. We also have the Montana book and gave Jackson Barnes the Minnesota book. North Dakota's book sucks, I mean, it's REALLY bad. That's the only reason Dawson doesn't have it. I read it at the bookstore and told Jenn I'd be embarrassed to give this to Dawson, because I wouldn't want Kev to read it to him and say, "what kind of shit is this?" Because if you know Kev, that's exactly how he'd say it, too.

This is actually from the letter "H."

H stands for the horse they called Seamboat.
The "horse that couldn't be
ridden" we note.
All rodeo cowboys know this of course,
Steamboat's the
most famous bucking horse.

If you ask Jenn, she will tell you that she can't usually just draw something from scratch very well, everything kinda looks cartoony. But if she has reference, she can copy like an art forger. You should see the Mondrian she painted for my birthday present four years ago.

EDIT - This is what the picture that Jenn painted for me looks like. I got this from a website, it's not a picture of her painting. Jenn's looks exactly like this, even done in oil just like ol' Piet, himself. It's called "Composition A."

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter from Colter! Grandma & Grandma and Grampa all sent cards and booty to put inside Colter's eggs, and he found them all! Of course, his first real Easter egg hunt brings about 8 pounds of candy for him to ingest along with all the nickels and pennies Momma got for the eggs and the quarters Grampa Elroy put in the eggs he sent. Don't worry, they're in separate bowls, he won't be poopin' pennies anytime soon. We went to an egg hunt at the school right by the house last week and the ended up with three eggs. We tried to go the the hunt at the Museum of the Rockies yesterday, but 10,000 eggs got snapped up before he could even start. That and the 26-degree weather made for a pretty shitty morning.

Colter Spells His Name

Now, don't let the title mislead you. Colter has been able to spell his first and last name, out loud, for almost a year. He can spell mom and dad out loud as well, and a very small handful of other words.
Colter and I were drawing with colored pencils tonight when I saw that he did a 1 and a 2 on the paper. WOW! He very rarely decides to draw a 2, usually only 1's. That was only the start. When I asked him to do a 3, he started a biiiiig circle, but stopped. He said it was a "C, like Colter." I asked him what comes after C, and he said O. I asked him to draw an O and he did! Then he drew an L! Then we ran out of paper! So I flipped the sheet over and asked him to try again. The first picture you see is of Colter's name in his very own little left-handed handwriting. I had to fiddle with the lighting settings so it would stand out more, he was using a very light blue pencil (our carpet is that dingy of a color for real). Starting at about the 9:00 position and going clockwise, we have C-O-L-T-E-R and a 2 that he added for extra gits and shiggles. Once he did that, I got him to draw Mom and Dad. He's known how to spell these for more than six months. Now he's WRITING them. And notice, he knows the difference between upper- and lower-case letters as well. He does the same thing on my laptop in Word--going between upper- and lower-case letters.

(don't forget - you can always click on any of the pictures here to make them bigger)

Snow...remember that?

This is a picture of something that's not around here much anymore. Last weekend, we had about two feet of snow in the yard. Right now there a couple of spots where the sun can't get that's still harboring some snow, but with another day like today, there's not much left in the valley anywhere.

It's 70 degrees right now.

This is the view from the parking lot at KBOZ facing southwest.

Here Ducky Ducky, redux

You may remember here we wrote of feeding the ducks at MSU. A couple of weekends ago we went to the symphony(!) and afterwards, took a couple of loaves of bread we had been saving along with some buns to the duck ponds. I also brought some lettuce thinking that might be a treat for them. Turns out ducks don't like lettuce...or at least Romaine.
The ducks at MSU have no fear of humans. In fact they can be pretty damn impatient if you're not quick enough on the draw. The one behind my right leg is pecking at me trying to get me to hurry up and turn his way. If you wait long enough, the closest ones will peck at your pantlegs until you give in and feed them.
I discovered one way of stopping the pecking...throw a handful of bread the other direction. It works for about ten seconds. At least they don't draw blood.

Peek!

Nuzzlin' Nozes

Snuggling with the Duck.

Snuggling with Mama.

Washing Clothes 101

This is how you get ready to do the wash:
First, sort the clothes.
Second, beat the dirt out of them.
Third, put them in the washer.

(Colter demonstrates step #2)

A recent conversation

"Hey, look! Daddy's home. Let's watch him get the mail."

"That's not a man."

"Daddy's a man."

"No, he's a Jay and you Jenny."

A, B, C easy as 1, 2, 3

Each child at Colter's school has a mailbox. The teachers will provide the parents with bills, of course, but every now and then we'll get a project that the kids have been working on. You know, the various pasting project, a painting or marker drawing, sign language chart. Yes, I typed that correctly, a SIGN LANGUAGE chart. Apparently Colter has been interested in signing his A,B,C's. Not only does Colter sing the whole song, he now wants to sign along with the singing. The best part is the end when he starts signing and signing at the same time, "now I know my a, b, c's (insert signed characters here) next time won't 'wue' sing with me."

Some of Colter's other accomplishments this month:

Counting to 100 without help
Counting to 10 with his fingers
Starting to add (1 duck plus 1 duck = 2 "gucks")
Learning to play Chutes & Ladders
Learning to play Memory game
Used the potty once at home
Putting together a 24 piece puzzle

What did he just say? This coming from the boy who we thought would never speak:

"I'm having a little trouble finding little quack" (having a "little trouble?")
"I'm just going to play cars for a little bit"
"I'm going to go get my water real quick"

Boys and their trains

and 12 hours later he decided to open the rest of his gifts from Santa.