It ain't exactly post hoc, ergo propter hoc, but close...

Remember the shooting at the community college in Roseburg, Oregon a couple years ago?  The President visited around a week later, greeted by confederate flags, signs, many were so vile the newspapers wouldn't print them. Here's a couple:

So today, a headline in the Oregonion is (btw, Roseburg is in Douglas Co.):

Douglas County libraries to close after voters reject funding

Somehow, I think there is a link, a connection.....

Real signs of Spring

A grizzly sow and two cubs out of their winter den, near Anaconda, about 20 miles from here.

Spring has sprung, watch out on your spring walks here, they might be feeling peckish. 

The 'Tall Firs' are back

My beloved Oregon Ducks are in  the final four for the first time since they won it all in 1939.  This meme is from the old Oregon Trail video game, one of the oldest around....my eldest played it in the mid-eighties. Oregon beat Kansas, the number one seed, by 14 points.

The weather is gradually warming here, the snow is gone from my lawn, it was 23 this morning and by noon it'll be 50 and people will be frolicking in the streets. 

This time of year...

The Big Hole River, flows into the Jefferson, then the Missouri, then on to the Mississippi, ends up in the Gulf of Mexico, after passing New Orleans.

Up here however, it's a different river. A 'blue ribbon' trout stream, great fishing, and less than 30 minutes from my house. It's also a magnet for millionaires and billionaires, from all over, but seems like most from California.

They build these McMansions, thousands of square footage, for the two to six weeks they spend here. They build them near the river, for convenience's sake. Don't want to walk to far to fish.

In the winter the river ices over, sometimes completely, no open water. Large ice sections build up, become dams of a sort, then in the spring, with rising temps, break loose and head downstream. Sometimes these 8,000 sq ft houses wash away.

Oh dear.

Perhaps I'm insensitive. 

Less the last, but other.....

Long ago, Christmas '88'd I'g guess

The three of them, Henry, Kate and Emily. Couple years ago.

My 8th grade school, around the time I was there. One room, 1-8 grades

A cute couple, seem made for each other. 

"I love genetics, mix a species here, one there...."

A fishing blog, right? A decent 15" brookie, sacrificed for lunch. 

More, doubtfully any better, another time. 

Saturday mean-spiritedness and some errata

for Cranky, the answer to your question of why...

And, just to keep things on an even keel, here's a bit of outright libel, and possibly true....remember the constant 'sniffling' that trump did during a couple of the debates?  Notice that his weirdest tweets come around 4-6am?  I've known a few people who did stuff like that, and often they had on their desk a mirror and rolled up hundred dollar bill...........just saying.....so here's a headline from the San Francisco Chron:

Hitler kept Nazi soldiers high on crystal meth during WW2

Road trip and Spring in Montana

My friend L. is visiting from her home in Orange County, I thought I'd take her someplace she'd not seen before: the Ovando area and valley.  I'd not counted on the fact it's early spring here, and sometimes there is this thing called 'weather'. Here's some pictures from the trip:

The town square in Ovando, population maybe 50

Our hotel...we were the only guests. The owners left at 5, we had the hotel to ourselves.

A nearby ranch

The Blackfoot River, the one Norman McLean wrote about in "A River Runs Trough It"

A good trip, except we couldn't see more than a half mile in any direction because of the snow....when we got back to Butte there was 8" new on the sidewalk. 

You can't make this shit up......

In a talk to his new employees at HUD, Carson outdid himself. From the San Francisco Chron:

It's been less than a week since Ben Carson was sworn in as the secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, but he's already making headlines.

Speaking to HUD employees Monday, Carson referred to slaves as immigrants who dreamed of better lives for their children in America.

"That's what America is about, a land of dreams and opportunity," Carson said. "There were other immigrants who came here in the bottom of slave ships, worked even longer, even harder for less. But they too had a dream that one day their sons, daughters, grandsons, granddaughters, great-grandsons, great-granddaughters, might pursue prosperity and happiness in this land."

Slaves were really immigrants. Who would have thought......

Springtime

This was an hour ago, at the moment the sun is shining. March in Montana. 

The low bar

In his first month as 'president', trump has managed to lower expectations so far that if he can stand and speak in semi-coherent sentences for an hour, waiting after two sentences for applause, we call that a 'successful', even 'good' speech.

Fucking Christ on a Stick, as an uncle used to say.

Here's our standard for this sorry excuse of a man that 59 fucking million people voted for:

And he barely clears the bar.