A Little Good, A Little Bad

This past week has been so eventful, but as they say, every rose has its thorns.  This spring has been a struggle for me, and it seems as if for every step I go forward, something keeps putting me back a step.

I guess the most interesting things started happening on June 11.  I was driving home from Bozeman that morning on my way to work in Gardiner.  I was almost at Emigrant when this big truck hauling a large construction machine (presumably working in Yellowstone Park), drove past me going north.  In its wake a large rock about three inches in diameter came flying at my windshield!  I had just enough time to cover my face with my hand, and then it impacted my windshield.  Fortunately it didn't shatter the windshield, but it made a pretty big pock mark on it in the lower driver's side corner.

The pock mark is about three inches in diameter.

I was upset for the rest of the day.  I mean, I wasn't upset at the driver, but more upset about having something else go wrong with the car.  I tell you, I'm ready to trade this one in and get another.  I need to make some money first though.  In the meantime, I'm just going to have to put up with this car and deal with something going wrong or bad on it every time I turn around.

Later on June 13, I saw Storm trot down my driveway with a snake in his mouth.  My kitties have this nasty little habit of bringing their treasures and gifts to me, inside the house.  Fortunately he didn't bring there, just to the house garage where he played with it and ate its head.  He didn't eat anything else on the snake, but I thought it was unusual.  At first I thought this was a garter snake, but on closer inspection, I realized it didn't have any stripes on it.

I'll tell you what, Montana has some good information for snake identification.  You should check out the poster I found.

The snake Storm caught was actually an eastern racer.  It was about 26" long without the head, and was about 5/8" in diameter.  Eastern racers are known to be constrictors, but Storm definitely had the advantage on this snake.  It didn't stand a chance!  I found out that this was an unusual observation for this part of Montana, so I offered it to the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, & Parks.  By the way, if you live in Montana and want to offer an animal observation, you can give it on the MT.gov Animal Observation Form.

That afternoon, I had to work in Gardiner.  When I drove home at about 10:00 pm, I couldn't turn into my driveway because there were two RVs blocking it!  They were driven by a group of South Korean tourists who had broken down.  Since they didn't have any cell service, they didn't know what to do.  They felt very fortunate I had come along.  I called their RV company which arranged for towing, and they went on their way.  During our conversation, one of the men told me that he was a Christian and that he loved Jesus with all his heart.  I told him that it made us brothers since I did too.  Even though it was something bad for them, God allowed it to happen in a place where they would get help.

I took my first clients hiking in Yellowstone National Park on Saturday,  June 15.  They were a nice Swiss couple who were staying at one of the local hotels.  The hotel owner also came along since I was offering hotel workers a free trip.  We walked through the Hoodoos in Yellowstone, which aren't Hoodoos at all, but none-the-less super cool.  The hotel owner even got to see pika for the first time since he's been here, and he's lived here for about nine years.  I made my first money on this hike, and I was super excited that I was already off and running.

On Sunday, June 16, I received a call for a second client and I needed to do some hiking research for a custom private hike.  I drove to the Yellowstone River Picnic Area and walked on that loop for the afternoon.  It was a very enjoyable hike with a lot of scenic beauty.  The trail rides the edge of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, and then goes into the western portion of Lamar Valley.  When I was walking down from the ridge into the valley, I saw an animal I don't usually see on my hikes.  I literally almost stepped in its den!



Soon, a bison started walking toward me.  I didn't want to get caught between it and the badger so, I decided to go on my way.

WispWest had come over to my place on June 12 to install new hardware for my WiFi.  I hadn't connected my underground wire to their stuff yet and still have been using an above-ground wire that I have to move whenever I want to mow the lawn.  It's been like this for two or three years, and I decided that I only had a couple hours more of work to be done on it and it would be done (most of the work was ditch digging).  On the 16th I messed with the wires and the connectors that evening and got it all connected.  But in order to put some of the housing on the hardware back on, I had to strip some of the CAT5.  Well, I was using a dull box cutter, and cut the end of my left index finger.  Just great.  It's still healing, but at least it doesn't hurt anymore.

That night when I got my cats inside the house for the evening, Butterscotch came a little late.  I didn't think too much of it since that sometimes happens.  The next morning, she didn't come to eat as soon as I got up!  This is unusual behavior, and I tried looking for her in the house.  An hour later I found her in a corner in the living room, and she still wouldn't eat.  I eventually found that she was limping.  One of her back paws was wounded.  Well, I immediately went to Colmey Veterinary Hospital in Livingston with her and dropped her off since I had to be at my part-time job by the time she had her appointment scheduled.  When cats don't eat, the situation is life-threatening, and they should go see a vet.

The vet told me that apparently she had been in a cat fight the night before and the wound got infected from the other cat.  This made a lot of sense to me because she wasn't limping when she came in on the 16th.  At first I thought I was negligent in observing, but I really wasn't since the infection took time to fester.

When I took her home from the vet on the 17th, she was terribly stressed out from driving and being in an unfamiliar place for about 24 hours, as cats don't travel very well.  Once she got home, she was fine.  She wasn't even limping!  The vet did give me some antibiotics which I've had to give her twice a day since then, but she only has one more day to be on the meds.  I'm thankful that they're liquid.  It's a whole lot easier to force feed liquid to a cat than it is to give them a pill.  Since then she's loved on me quite a bit more than she normally does.  She's definitely glad to be back home.

Butterscotch's infection at the wound is doing much better now.

I had my second client on the 19th.  I'm glad that I'm starting to get business. I still have a lot of work to do to market my service, but at least I'm making a little money.

Yesterday I was so exhausted from all the work I've been doing that I didn't do a darn thing.  I would have stayed in my house the whole day except I had to drive to pick up my pizza (we don't get delivery out here).  Today I'm catching up on all the miscellaneous things around the house that I haven't had time for lately.  Hopefully I can get them all done before I have to be busy again.