It's DONE!

Finally, after literrally months of work, I've finally got the new and improved version (or at least updated and enlarged version) of our web page up and running. It has been an effort - and not a lot of fun sometimes - but there is an incredible sense of accomplishment having reached this point.

Of course, if I'd known it would take this long, and be this hard - well, to be honest I wouldn't have started. However, even though I'm still working out the bugs, it is a pleasure to be able to look at it and know I did it - for better or worse - I'm responsible! Check it out!

Okay, to the weather news: Today is sunny. After several days of spitting snow and clouds, the sun is shining, the sky is blue, and life's good! Days like this I wonder how on earth anyone could live anywhere else.

And, wildlife: yesterday was a ridiculously slow day. I can honestly report I saw as many moose as I did people. Two of each. The moose (at least the one) were definitely harder to get along with.

In fact, yesterday afternoon we looked out our sliding door - from upstairs - and here is a moose! If I'd been on ground level we would have nearly been nose-to-nose! It was definitely in a BAD mood! It was licking its lips, stomping its feet, and pinning its ears. Craig had to snowball it (there was a little moisture in our recent snow fortunately) to get it to back off. I tried yelling - it just gave me the evil eye.

Thinking back to our first year and our first experience with moose always makes me laugh. Yesterday was too similar to that first encounter. Here we are - an agressive moose in the yard. Everytime (for several days) he shows up, the kids run for the house. The dogs run for the deck. So, what does one do?

Craig calls the refuge and asks the biologist how to discourage his overzealous attention. "Throw rocks at him."

Throw rocks at him? Nice idea, but there's 2 feet of snow covering all the rocks. So, Craig decides to try snowballs. Well, if you've never experienced winter in Montana, you might not immediately suspect the problem with the plan. In Montana, the snow usually has a very low water content, i.e. it's dry. Dry snow doesn't stick together. So, no snowballs.

Now what? Well, to make a long story short, in the end they cut up potatoes and threw them at Mr. Moose (it was a bull, by the way). He finally takes the hint and leaves - I suspect only to return as soon as we were out of sight and feast on the potatoes we threw at him. Oh, well, moose are moose!

Lady of the Lake