Accidental Bingo

This weekend I went to social knitting at a local yarn store and one of the gals there mentioned that the other night she went to "bingo accidentally". Another knitter and I could not refrain from asking how one goes about going to bingo accidentally and it struck me as there perfect name for a band or blog post. So, I bring you todays offering of Accidental Bingo along with some old photos off the big canon.

The first is from our late summer fun up to Traverse City. We went out towards Old Mission on the peninsula and we stopped to take a look at the old historic light house. We got there just in time as the parking lot was filling up as we were leaving with the boys.

Unfortunately the skies were grey until after we sat out the falling rain while we had pizza at Pangea Pizza in town, huddled with the dogs in their 3 seat beer garden. Don't ask, I don't know.

We have hopes since we've heard people talking about the presents of cranes in the summer that we are not finished hearing these guys on warm mornings. I saw a huge blue heron flying over a small stream here the other day heading home from town, so there's hope that there's more birds around the area than were in Casper.

I snapped these one morning off the deck in Michigan. Stupidly I think I deleted the originals of these photos the other day and now can't blow them up better. Some people...

I know they say we have a lot of these guys in Alaska, but unless you're willing to be out in the mosquito ridden bogs and marshes, you don't often see them. Typically you'd spot them flying over but they have a tendency to stay away from the more populated areas there. Even spotting them at Potters Marsh was a rare treat, despite it's constant population of ducks, swans, and other birds such as Terns and Harriers.

I've seen a harrier over some of the local hay fields several days now. I love how they zoom across the ground at such low altitude for such a big bird, trying to scare hares and other small mammals into running. We saw a ring necked pheasant the other day too, I'm sure an escapee from a hunting farm, and I wondered if a Harrier would take one of them too.

This is a bad picture through two layers of gazebo screening and a window screen of our little Coppers Hawk that liked to try to get our chickens if we hadn't been keeping songbird traffic high with full feeders. It took me a couple times of chasing this guy out of the yard before I realized the connection to empty feeders and seeing him. I doubt he could have taken down a chicken as I think our girls outweighed him, but I'm guessing there was a nest of hungry hawklings somewhere needing food, and hunger talks.

Just the other day we were looking at a red tail hawk and it struck me that I think the ones here are bigger than the ones in Michigan. I thought that when we first moved there, but then thought that I was probably imagining the size difference until we saw one skulking in a tree here. They really do seam substantially larger than the red tails in Michigan.

I think I shared some photos of the praying mantis I had on my cell phone, but I pulled the ones off the canon while I was at it. They're a bit better than the iPhone ones.

Stop with the heebie jeebies, they're just photos. Besides, this girl was hunting the damn box elders. One night I had to have The Guy help me so I could clean one of our windows out that had probably a couple hundred dead beetles in it before the house went on the market. I don't know how they would get under the screens but they would, then roast against the glass and fill up the space between the screen and glass. Ugh, I'll take one of these mighty huntresses anytime.

I mentioned before that at first glance I just thought she was another grasshopper because we had them bad this past summer out near us. I snapped this on the stoop on the same day and as a reference, this guy is at least as long as my index finger and about the same circumference too.

The rest of these are all from Thanksgiving Day when after I got the bird in the pot we went out the Missouri River Headwaters State Park. It was a lovely day for a walk with just a bit of a breeze.

Fort Rock

The park is situated where the Jefferson, and Madison rivers come together to start the beginning of the Missouri river. Some people argue that the Missouri should be marked from it's start at the Brower Spring upstream of the Jefferson and that the Jefferson river is actually still the Missouri, But Lewis and Clark back on July 18th, 1805 decided that neither tributary could be called the Missouri, thus causing a debate as to which river (Missouri or Mississippi) is the longest river in North  America though it has traditionally been understood that the Missouri is. Combined with the Mississippi at the point of convergence, they create the 4th longest river system in the world.

Gallatin river then joins the waters of the Jefferson and Madison less than a mile downstream forming the actual headwaters of the Missouri.

It's a great area to have less than 10 miles down he road to walk the boys. There was only a few other people out there this day. Last week when I decided to take a post interview stroll I wandered through quick and was the only person as it was threatening to snow.

The Bozeman area sits in a wide valley that interrupts a couple of smaller ranges that help to make up the rockies. We live just a ways up the road outside of town and have a great view of the Bridger's and Ross peak from our place that lay directly to the east.

Though not visible from here, on the other side of the Bridger's is another wide valley that is hemmed to the east of it by the Crazy mountains, then to the the south by the Absaroka Mountains that can be seen barely from here.

The Bridger Mountains as seen from the overlook atop Fort Rock.

Next to the west that borders the south of the Bozeman valley is the Gallatin Mountains and then Spanish Peaks.

Way across the valley to the southwest you can then see the crags of the Tobacco Root Mountains.

And then not visible to the north then Elkhorns and the Big Belt Mountains border us in to the valley. Gorgeous country no matter how you look at it and I hope to get these boys out in it as much as possible.

I believe this is the Gallatin Mountains and Spanish Peaks looking south.

Just like Wyoming though, I'll have to make sure that we take care in packing water. We no longer live in a land of ample ground water sources. I better find the dog back packs, eh?

Although it does seem slightly wetter than Casper was, though it's still a fairly arid environment. I've already had to up my moisturizing game and even bought my first chapstick since leaving the west.

I just realized how gray even his back paws are going on me.

The boys seem to have a great time out for a grand romp off leash as they have been on leash and re-learning some of their forgotten manners of being on leash when they're around town. Buttheads.

Actually, it's nothing bad, but they do tend to just be a bit better off leash since that's how they spend most of their time. Tucker in particular seems to forget he is not to pull while on leash.

I'm sure walking here though Sullivan wanted to zoom in that tall grass so bad.

He was still getting over his gut bug from earlier in the week.

And just has he was recovering, Tucker stopped eating and was having runny butt. So The Guy got to take him to the vet while I went to knitting. I swear, what's wrong with my priorities?

Turns out that this guy had the same issue, though not near as bad as the big guy, but since Sullivan is so sensitive, especially his gut, that's not at all surprising.

He's on the mend now to with antibiotics and some extra loving. He's a bit worrisome because he's still less than 70 pounds after his surgery, and though that's easier on his joints he feels to dang skinny and has no real reserves should he get truly ill.

Emmitt was a bit sickly one morning but that seemed to be the end of his issues after coming in from being outside to vomit at The Guy's feet, because nothing says I love you like throw up on your toes. Does it? I'm willing to bet that it was the same bug but Emmitt being a little garbage gut fought it off on his own. I'm wondering if the last round of sickness Shiela had in Casper that caused bloody stools and vomiting was the same bug. It was the only time I was ever worried about her gut as she, like emmitt seemed to be able to handle anything. Even at her age when we had the sickness on our Grand Canyon trip, all three of the other dogs recovered when Sullivan had to go to the vet and go on meds. Of course, the dog that would cost the most due to size would be the one that needs such intervention.

Here's the bustling metropolis of Gallatin City... Amazingly, there's no tumble weeds. The old hotel is the only real building standing still at this point. That's the second in from the left. The other buildings is someones hot, barn ad the interpretive plaza sight. Those are the Gallatin Mountains in the background and I believe a little winding arm of the Gallatin river in the foreground. From this vantage point the Gallatin is toe our left (east) and the confluence of the Jefferson and Madison rivers is across the road directly to our right (west) of us and they join behind us about a half mile to the north. Okay, geography lesson of the day is done. I have some turkey soup to be getting to. The joys of holiday left overs!

That's times upon us and I found this while looking for a full clip of the show where I first heard of these guys. We always need some acapella, right? Well, good Acapella, despite knowing this is a studio version that's been produced heavily.



Here's another of theirs.



This is a part of the clip that I originally wanted but it doesn't have the whole interaction. This is from the show The Sing-Off that was an acapella competition. It was as close to shows like American Idol that I liked.



And for those that know me and know that I don't care for a lot of Christmas songs, this show led me to my favorite rendition of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. I've always liked Jewel's voice, but truly love this performance of hers. Fast forward to about a minute in if you don't want to hear all the banter. That's why I like watching these snippets on youtube and can do exactly that.



And while we;re talking about her and since it popped up, might as well share it.