On this Memorial Day evening (OK it was two days later time I finished this), let’s take a moment to honor those who have served our country, and continue to, under some very adverse circumstances. Luck of the Irish, but I missed out on the military, and I hope my son is as fortunate. My father served in WWII, though, and one of our family treasures is this photo of him on leave in San Francisco, awaiting shipment back out for the invasion of Japan. Thankfully, that didn't happen, or I might not have either.

At least we were able to put flowers on his and my mother’s graves on a recent trip to north central Montana. Although, we were dismayed to see no grass on my mother’s grave! She died in ’99, and I’ve put flowers there every year but one, and there was grass on it…

So although I’m not given to griping with clerks and waitresses and such, we decided this matter was too strange to leave unmentioned, and so one of many interesting conversations from this little road trip ensued with, as it turned out, a guy that was a year or two ahead of me in high school. And, I was far from the first person to bring this matter to his attention. So being a horticulturist was never his thing, particularly, but hey, if you’re a cemetery groundskeeper you should know about soil amendments so grass will grow on people’s graves, for crying out loud! All the more reason to be cremated, in my opinion! I hope my ashes are spread someplace where the grounds are kept by God and Mother Nature. They’re way better at it.

As are any number of people we talked to on our little venture to the north country. Who’d have thought a primarily working trip to the edges of the Big Open could be so much fun? We don’t really vacation or travel that much, because, well… why should we? We live and work in a paradise, one of the nicest spots on the planet, and so motivation to travel to exotic locales is not that high. Besides, with the price of fuel these days one has to consolidate ventures whenever possible, and so my sweet wife and I embarked on an intensely multi-tasking trip to fabulous north central Montana!

Fortunately the first attractions were on back roads around the Little Belts, mainly a couple of buffalo blasting possibilities, followed by an evening in Great Falls. During our farming days on the Hi-Line, trips to Great Falls offered some of the only diversions available. Maybe that’s why my tastes ran more to exploring around the Rimrocks and Glacier Park… So you could say I was kind of over the place, although I went to college with quite a few kids from there who were fiercely loyal to their hometown. It’s a Great Day in Great Falls, you know!!

I hadn’t had too awful many of those myself, but man, after this last trip I may have to re-evaluate my stance. We had a great time! For one thing, the weather was as nice as it gets. No wind, and rain! Oh yes, if you haven’t lived in that dry, windy country you might not appreciate that combination as they deserve, but trust me, it’s a balm, a solace for the soul. And then, we were somewhat dismayed to see that a town that used to push 100,000 but has dwindled since to where Bozeman might pass it up someday boasts something over 100 restaurants! I daresay the selection and quality of restaurants completely eclipses Bozeman. We ate at the Breaks, a casual yet still kinda snazzy grille/brew pub, and were very favorably impressed with the food, not to mention the presentation was downright artistic. Sitting on the patio was fun, too, and it didn’t start raining until just as we finished.

No, we didn’t sample the nightspot offerings beyond that, as the next day contained a full schedule and then some. We were up early to drop off our ’52 Ford truck engine at a rebuild shop, then a stop at the tannery, and on the road to Conrad, where we picked up 2400 pounds of lentils. This was followed by the cemetery episode mentioned above, and then we made a figure eight tour of the Shelby/Cut Bank area, which included running into several people we know and hadn’t seen in years. It was a charmed day, including touring my wife’s childhood stomping grounds at Ledger, and a lot of back roads through country I hadn’t seen in a while. Things look good…

Perhaps the whole country was heaving a vast sigh of relief, as the previous evening’s rainfall of .5" or so was the first precip in weeks, since mid-April in most cases. Things were starting to hurt, but with another inch or more since most places have a reprieve, for now. Things look nice and green, for the most part, although one noteworthy exception struck me. In the farming country north of Great Falls, the "Golden Triangle", there are miles and miles of chem-fallowed fields with nary a thing growing in them. That’s the idea, of course, and with the price of fuel anymore it’s cheaper to spray than plow, and I did lots of that myself back in the day…

Enough that I’m not sure it’s the answer. Oh, Monsanto likes it! It’s great for them… But hey, with fuel at $3 and climbing, and consequently fertilizer and machinery and just about any input you can name skyrocketing, maybe more folks will take a look at going organic. Or not. You know, I don’t think we saw a single plowed field north of Great Falls.

Most will say they can’t. They may be right. One thought that struck me driving through that mostly-empty country… There would be a lot more people living out there if they farmed organically. As I’ve been reminded this spring, tractors go slower than sprayers. Lots slower. And sure, tractors run on fuel. Diesel, though. Can you say "bio-diesel". Good…

There’s a few trying it. One of them, Jon Tester, is running for the US Senate. I don’t think I’ve ever made a political endorsement here in the Moccasin Telegraph. Oh, I gripe plenty, but in this case I’d like to make a positive suggestion and urge Montana residents to vote for a change in our upcoming primary. Jon is an organic farmer from Big Sandy, who incidentally also used to be in the meat business and in fact lost several fingers as a child in a meat grinder. Oh, yes, I believe he and I would not be short of things to talk about…

Not only that, now I find he played trumpet at a Memorial Day service. I played first chair trumpet in the little-known yet kick-ass Conrad High School Jazz Band, and if nothing else I bet there are very few trumpet players who take themselves completely seriously! It’s better than clarinet, though.

As any number of interviews make clear, Tester is a "straight shooter". I think it’s safe to say he’s grounded, as he’s been putting in a full stint of farm work this spring, in addition to campaigning, something that’s caused some angst amongst supporters who think he should have been campaigning full time. Personally, I think politicians should have to drive tractor periodically. No entourages; just them, and the iron, and the dirt.

Can you picture Dubya doing that?! Ah, amusement is therapeutic…

Assuming Tester wins the primary next week, he’ll be going up against Conrad Burns in the November general election. I don’t know if the following qualifies as a Hot Tip, as it’s wild speculation or more accurately an edumacated guess, but I have a strong feeling Burns is going to wind up indicted on corruption charges, sometime closer to the election. That’s when things are going to unravel badly for some powers that be.

Recent news of the convictions of Enron executives Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were just one more reminder of how deeply entrenched the "Culture of Corruption" has become in our halls of government. Montana had our own mergers and aquisitions debacle, and although the demise of the Montana Power Company pales in dollar terms to the Enron meltdown, it gives up little or nothing in terms of corporate and political malfeasance. "Kenny Boy" Lay could reportedly pick up the phone and get the President on the line more or less any time he liked, and there were a series of increasingly desperate calls to the White House when things started to unravel.

I don’t know if Montana Power CEO Bob Gannon had a direct line to the White House, but he definitely had the ear of then-Montana Governor Marc Racicot, who in turn got Bush’s ear in a big way as his campaign manager, not to mention as the oddly invisible head of the national Republican Party. Oh, yes, I feel quite certain that Bush has heard of the Montana Power Company.

A bit of Googling will produce no shortage of opinions that Montana Power execs had the plan of dismantling the company in place when they brought an 11^th-hour deregulation bill to the Montana Legislature. It’s said "less than 20" legislators completely read that bill, which I’ve come to find is not an abnormal situation. The (as we now know) disastrous deregulation bill sailed through, and surprise, surprise, but MPC’s generating facilities soared in value and were promptly sold to Pacific Power and Light. Guess who brokered this little fire sale? Goldman-Sachs. The same Goldman-Sachs whose chairman Henry Paulson was named Secretary of the Treasury yesterday! God help us… Of course it’s Paulson’s business acumen that Bush mentions instead of huge Republican political contributions. At least he has experience pillaging a rock-solid if boring company like Montana Power. After Goldman-Sachs set up multi-million dollar payments to MPC’s top execs, what was left of the company transformed itself into Touch America, just in time for the telecomm meltdown of the 90’s, and within months they were bankrupt. It’s mind-boggling…

There’s plenty of people in Butte, for starters, who’d like to see Bob Gannon and the other MPC execs in the dock. With Kenny Lay and Jeffrey Skilling looking at spending the rest of their lives in a prison cell, I bet those guys are a tad nervous…

Enough with the conspiracy theories already, although… I’m not at all convinced those are theories. We may find out.

Let’s wind up this column with a certifiable Hot Tip, in this case a product endorsement, being as I’m on an endorsement kick here. I recently put up corrals on the Rockpile Ranch. It was initially almost like an archeological endeavor, as I put them on the spot the Lincoln family had their pens, possibly dating back to the 30’s? I know there’s some awfully nice well-rotted compost there that’s going on the wife’s garden… Back on topic, though, I put up a 60’ diameter round pen of unpeeled lodgepoles, and a bigger rectangular enclosure of Horseguard Tape. I’m impressed with the tape. It’s very heavy duty, yet with an open enough weave to minimize wind resistance. It has a series of stainless steel wires woven through it, that apparently pack a bite as the horses are plumb leery of it. It’s easy to put up, relatively inexpensive, and best comes in brown and green, in addition to white. Personally, I don’t like the white fencing tape that’s commonly available. The brown or green are more visible to animals, and blend into the landscape.

Plenty of horsie types are enamored of round pens for training. I’ve read their theories, and they make sense. In fact, I immediately was the beneficiary of first-hand confirmation of this matter, and a chuckle in the process…

Not long after I got the corral completed, I wanted to take a horse out to check how our camelina and golden flax were coming up. The ponies were all feeling good, and Strider was tearing around all full of himself, so got the nod for the first round pen experiment. I got him in the pen no problem, although I think his attitude started to waver as soon as he realized he was by himself. Still, he was unrepentant, so I gave the lead rope a swing and started chasing him around the pen.

It was almost laugh-out-loud funny! His demeanor went from snotty to deeply concerned, within two laps. After I made him reverse direction a time or two, he would have burst into tears if such a thing were possible for horses. After maybe six or seven laps, I let him stop and walked up to him no problem. They say the test is if they’ll follow you when you turn your back and walk away. That means you have "become their security". Strider followed me around like a lost puppy, and not only that stood there as if he had grown roots, without being tied up, while I saddled him and was Mr. Compliant thereafter on our little crop inspection ride. It was a pretty impressive demonstration of these equine psychological theories.

Oh, that political theories were as easily verifiable.