The Quilts of Meagher County

 

That's one of the first ones you see when you cross into Meagher County....there's hundreds, maybe thousands to follow. When you Google ' what the hell am I looking at in Meagher County Montana ' you get this - they're called Barn Quilts and apparently the Art community in White Sulphur Springs which is small but dynamic decided that a County wide art program could be beautiful and also set them aside from the other hum drum 185 other counties in the State . Now I'm not Inspector Closeau but I'm kinda thinking that there's got to be more to the story, after all a lot of it doesn't make sense...

1. They're in the strangest seemingly random places, everywhere .

2. They're not signed .

3. You see them as in the pic above in remote places with views of some of the most beautiful scenery in the lower 48...who thinks you can improve on that ?

4. White Sulphur Springs is the County seat and the Courthouse has one but  the Hospital across the street doesn't  have one . The Police station don't have one.....mmmm....but the industry  has 3 of them....mmmm 

5. It's hard for me to believe it's such a big thing without some $$$$ involved.  To quote one of my old fishing buddies ' nobody does nothin for nothin '.

So if your mind works like mind right now you're thinking Knights Templar . Right ?  Maybe even somehow linked to the mystery of Oak Island .

I remember in school learning about the Underground Railroad during the Civil War . In southern states the people helping the effort had to stay anonymous so for the folks needing help they devised an ingenious way of identifying each other. Of course they had your everyday secret passwords and handshakes and invisible ink but they also used everyday objects displayed in just a slightly different or unusual way for the people who knew what to look for to find....see where I'm going with this ?

So I'll be in that County from time to time and I'll do some more sleuthing. I guess in the meantime we can just consider it a gift like most art and just enjoy it...beautiful things in beautiful places. 

There's one heck of a beer culture here in Montana. Our motel was full of fishing guides getting ready to launch for a trip on the Smith River, what a life . In the morning we watched them load these I.B.R.B.'s to quote Geno ( itty bitty rubber boats ) and it seems the concern they had most was room for the Pacifico's . They even know how to buy beer. 

This note is posted on the door of our room and the second pic is the note posted at the local watering hole explaining their hours....I think you can see the situation quite well.

So we celebrated MP's ssss.......th  birthday. My neck allowed me to golf a bit and I won the long drive contest. We toured a museum where they had really old stuff covered with really old dust and a sign that said do not touch, like that's what you'd want to do with a horse bridle that had spider webs on it.  MPeasy won 15 dollars as we waited for a gourmet hamburger and I got to meet the nephew of a guy who's uncle beat up a friend of mine in 1971 . We ran into our neighbor Tom at the golf course . We toured the graveyard as White Sulphur goes overboard on Memorial Day. It was beautiful and solemn, 350 full sized flags, the sound of them flapping in the Montana wind gave me pause....that was a lot of weekend .

So now I'm getting ready to fish, seriously getting it together. If any of you are wondering how I'm looking as I work into retirement here's a current picture.

It's a Biggy

 This coming weekend sure is. Of course it's memorial day and as much as much as I'd like to redo our season of fishing kick off or maybe even to get invited to Nancy Lake for a gourmet weekend with Chris and Melinda , we can't, it don't work that way. But what we will do is go out to Fort Harrison and leave flowers for both MP's and my folks. We'll hike down to the farmers market and visit with our Hutterite friends. We'll watch the Indy 500 and most likely a Mariner game . We'll barbecue and I'll go fishing, alone . We'll plant the last of the starts in our garden that MP lovingly  has nurtured . And then on Monday we'll drive to White Sulphur Springs for soaking and supper at the Stockmans to celebrate this wonderful woman's 69th birthday, Ill give her a lucky 20 to play the Lucky Leprechaun with .  We'll get up Tuesday morning and if my neck can do it we'll golf 9 and have a walk and a talk...you see we do everything together, everything .

Mary Patricia Brown is definitely the key to our modest success in life. I had some wasted years, it's a long story . But , she said she saw something in me and we went to work, together . With our future secure and the stress of self employment over it's all the things she is that still amazes me.

She talks to the flowers and the birds like they were our kids. She talks to our kids like they are leading the world.  She's a master Gardener. She's a gourmet cook . She ends every phone call with family or friends with " I love you " . She can eat a lot of crab meat .  She's an artist, as Maria DaSilva once said ' a real artist '.....I had to prod a bit to get ny chalk board personalized .

She laughs and laughs. She keeps me motivated to not get  depressed with frustration on a few health issues. She does taxes . She researches before she votes . She fishes her ' own ' way . She likes movies .  She's an avid bird watcher . She watches PBS television , anything British .......and.....she loves me !  Happy Birthday baby, I love you.

As I type this the world famous Kenai River season is kicking off. People wonder why and how we got to Montana. Most of it was because we wanted to and a lot of it was because we had to. It's a good thing when your wants and your needs collide .   ADF+G has used a sophisticated sonar to measure the salmon runs for 40 years now, they start counting on May 15th every year. So today with 6 days of data just 6 King Salmon have  crossed the sonar.  Six .   And to think that in 1985 Les caught the world record on May 17th and now.....my goodness it's terrible. We found out the hard way that you can't run a Salmon sport fishing business without Salmon. the black line is this year and the others are the past 4 years.  For all of my friends on the Kenai, we're hoping all the best for you.

With this post of Mile 14 I expect to surpass 300,000 visits.....that's really something for me and MP. About 10 years ago I wrote a blog piece that went semi viral and had 25.000 visits in just a couple days. I subtracted that from my counter as it wasn't my steady readers, my friends, you guys reading now. To be completely honest I don't know what it is that makes ya'all come back and read my stories, especially now that the thrill of the fishing chase is...well a bit slower and of course, not Alaskan.  But having said that I'm so happy that you do like the stories, the songs , the pictures and perspectives. Thank you all for making a writer out of me.