GA Gypsies – Fulltiming

A real low-keyed day today. Rested and fixed up my little quilting area. That’s all.

Headed back to Bigfork late in the morning. The smoke was so heavy, in some places you couldn’t see the mountains. And today you could smell the smoke in the air. Where we are at the lake, there are basically fires burning in every direction around us from a distance. As we got closer to the lake and Bigfork, the breeze had the smoke smell blown away from us. Newpaper said this was the worst year ever on record for fires for Montana, and they are running out of money to fight them with. One reason we couldn’t find a room last night was because of the number of firefighters in town. Missoula is where the smoke jumper training facility is. We saw a lot of livestock trailers on the road today, with people having to evacuate they were moving horses and cows too. I don’t think I would want to own a home out here.

Called the shop in Seeley Lake and the lady said they were evacuating north of town, the only road in from the north that we would have taken. So we decided it best to not go there now and went to Missoula, looking for a washer/dryer. Nice ride down there, a bit smoky but not real bad. Stopped at a couple of quilt shops and Tony looked for washer/dryer. No luck – none in stock. We had an awful time finding a room for the night – all the hotels were booked. We finally stayed at the Airport Days Inn – the last room. Actually, I had called and she said the only room she had was a smoking room. It was on our way into Missoula, so we stopped and Tony walked in and asked and she came up with a non-smoking room. Not a very comfortable bed, but it worked.

Well, plans can certainly change. We may not be headed to Seeley Lake, as they’ve ordered evacuations and the air is considered hazardous at this point. The fire that is burning is about 3 miles east of Hwy 83, the one we would take to get to Seeley Lake. They don’t think it will reach into the town. We’ll see how things are in the morning. Lots of smoke in the air.

August! August already. Too soon. Where does the time go? Tony picked more cherries today – bunches! They are just about to get too ripe and there are still gazillions on the trees. Picking through to get rid of the bad ones. Birds have started nibbling on them. Got my table today to put sewing machine on. We took out the table and chairs before we left GA and have had an empty cubby. Now my table is there and will be setting up my little sewing nook. Tomorrow we are headed to Seely Lake to explore and then on to Missoula. We’ll stay the night in Missoula and look for a washer/dryer Thursday, then up towards the lake, making a stop at the Hutterite mercantile in St. Ignatius. Picking up the best cheese and sandwich meats and other treats to have for the following week when Megan gets here. Reservations next week in Cut Bank for two nights to go to Many Lakes and Two Medicine in Glacier on the east side. Can’t wait. Hope some of the crowd has gone since school has started. Pink, billowy clouds to the north of us over the mountains – hoping for some rain. It is very dry. The leaves on all the trees are covered with dust and I’m sure it will be like that in Glacier unless we do get rain.

Tony made an early morning trip to Dan’s and picked a bucket full of cherries, picked up some flat rate boxes and we sorted and packed cherries. Then a trip to PO to send out the cherries. While Tony was picking, he thought he saw bear scat in the orchard. Whatever it was had eaten a bunch of cherries – lots of pits in the scat. Bears are unusual there but not impossible. I’ve been reading that because of all the burned areas in the past years, bears are moving more and more into residential areas.

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SONY DSC

And just a couple more pictures of God’s creation.

Made it to our little Montana church this morning. Had communion. Very good service. Not a lot of people there – summer vacation. Lunch at The Echo Lake Cafe and then home for a long nap! 

Just another normal day in the beautiful mountains of northwest Montana. Still a little hot here, but it is starting to cool down in the evenings. Did some cleaning, some reading, and some chilling. Life is good. Thank you Lord for all Your blessings.

Rode south down the eastern side of the lake to Ronan to a quilt show. Had lunch at a little local spot and had a huckleberry ice cream cone – yum! Stopped at Walmart for supplies, then back to the homestead.

Lazy morning. Decided to visit with our preacher at his house – his wife is visiting family in Georgia. They also raise Australian labradoodles and had two litters of puppies, so I got a little bit of puppy breath! We also picked some cherries – they were good, but will be at their peak next week.