July has been quite a month also, and we're not even through yet. So although we're about to abandon responsibility (not completely) for a few days, I don't want to miss deadlines, even self-imposed ones. And since I've managed to post a Telegraph column by month's end for quite a few years now, and hope to be in our old haunts up in Glacier, completely computerless at this month's end, this column is ahead of schedule.

So at least some things are! Although wait, I'd say we're more or less on schedule, as much as can be expected when Mother Nature holds a significant seat on the Board.

Anyway, we're out the door shortly for a long-overdue and keenly anticipated "vacation". This is clearly meant to be, as various machinery repairs are in the works, and sundry other details have fallen together, and soon as I wrap this up...

Heading for the Flathead, and our old haunts in Glacier Park for a few days. We were going to be visiting our son Cody, who's working for the Forest Service up there, but just this morning he got sent out on a 2-week fire assignment, down by Missoula. We were looking forward to seeing him, but that's what he's up there for, and fire season is also kinda finally barely here, so...

At least we can stay in his ski condo on Big Mountain, and we'll see how many nights we're there (versus the tent). Lodging, and even campsite availability is always an issue in the Flathead and Glacier, so the condo might be tough to beat.

We can still claim this as a "business trip", though. We're taking along a few cases of our camelina oil, and hitting the health food stores along the way. That's one significant thing that happened in July, at least, we finally got through all the hoops, and our camelina oil is in the local stores, and soon the other health food stores in (at least western) Montana, and we'll soon be expanding well beyond that.

Turns out we're the first to get a manufacturing license in Montana, for selling camelina oil as a health supplement. A ton of things fell together in an uncannily short time frame, and now we're also known as BiOmega3, LLC. Not to mention we're immensely grateful the Bozeman Daily Chronicle ran a feature article in the Economy section last Sunday.

And some people think farming is dull!!

Hopefully we'll return with a bunch of great vacation photos, not to mention coolers of cherries and huckleberries, and maybe some fish, and recharged mental batteries and who knows what all else! So I'll put up another post not long after the month-end deadline, but now we're outa' here...!

My kingdom for a dull moment!!

Shortly after taking photos, sort of a "crop report" theme this month, we had a quite rare significant hailstorm here in the Valley of the Flowers.

So you can imagine this caused some consternation amongst many if not most, not to mention those who were pondering the possibility the following photos might be old news...

But then, a few minutes later, we had golf ball sized hail (and some reports maintain baseball sized).

Most fortunately, we squeaked by. Just kinda on the edge, it seems. It was absolutely roaring over toward Belgrade, though, and early reports from SE of there say gardens are history, with leaves and limbs all over!

Good heavens... That's kinda rare around here. As far as the odds of getting hailed out, I've picked neighborhood old-timer's brains about this, and they say we're talking once or twice, back into the 1800's!

So my crop insurance remains diversified revenue streams, although we are bargaining for someone insuring our diversified ventures, rolling them all into one, which seems utterly reasonable. And very low risk! So shoot us a deal, eh...?

Our camelina is kinda behind this year. Odd, surely they must get vivaciously verdant springs like this in northern Europe (where it's native) occasionally! But whatever, I was beginning to wonder if I'd seeded it too heavily, but true to form in what seems like a matter of hours it exploded. And it's in no way done, although I was beginning to wonder when the hailstones hit...!

We've had a few firsts lately, but one is growing quinoa in Montana. Far as the Farm Service Agency is concerned anyway, as they had to invent a new "code" for it!

Gotta like that... ;-)

There'd been some research done it back in the eighties, but at that point they didn't think it held much potential for filling unit trains.

Probably still doesn't, although there used to be a railroad out here into Springhill, way back when...

Quinoa is related to pigweed, which we already know does well here on the Rockpile Ranch. Except it's not that simple...

Our former mail carrier Susan Duncan had an article published a few years back in a gardening magazine, about how pigweed and lambsquarter are some of the first plants (in this area) that will grow in soils that are in the early stages of replenishment.

Now I think we can add camelina to that list.

Viewing pigweed and lambsquarter as weeds depends on your perspective, though. Susan's article (alas not available online, but if you want a copy e-mail me), titled "If you can't beat 'em, eat 'em" takes an alternate view. Some of these plants are extremely high in vitamin and mineral content, we're talking top ten...

Obviously Mother Nature is much better at this sort of thing!

So you play the hand you're dealt, although might be able to "load" the deck once in a while!

No question who's better at it, though, and She doesn't mess with tractors and such!

But alas, I have to...

Which isn't always bad...

So... if this were a poker game, I'm definitely not folding, but I'm not going to try & bluff her either.

That would be utterly stupid.

The Arrowleaf Balsamroot is absolutely thriving here on the Rockpile Ranch this year, not exactly unusual.

It's a native plant, which I'm coming to see is exceedingly well adapted. In fact its tap root goes preposterously deep, up to eight or ten feet. You understand the ones in the photo above are doing that in nearly unfathomably rocky ground!!

And, it takes them up to seven or eight years to flower! So I think we can say they're in it for the long haul.

Plus wildlife thrives on it, and I'm told even horses eat the flowers, although I've never seen mine do that. Although that could explain why Sonny gets so fat...!!

It's been suggested that I "do something" about this thriving stand of balsamroot, out in the pasture.

Supposedly I could grow more grass, and then presumably feed it to cows and lose money?!

Except believe it or not, we actually have an airstrip here, where former Rockpile Rancher (and airplane mechanic/pilot) Cliff Lincoln sprayed out the balsamroot (and picked heinous amounts of rock!) many years ago.

We're talking probably at least 30 years.

The balsamroot has only just barely regrown in that strip. And, I'd say there's really not much more (if any) grass where it was "eradicated".

But I should eliminate this native under the guise of "management"?

I don't think so...

You never count your money, when you're sitting at the table...

Oddly enough (or not) the content of this column often revolves around the photos I've taken that month. And so we are lacking content for May, as grey skies and rain don't lend themselves to photography, not outdoors at least.

Other than that, though, farmers aren't allowed to complain about rain in Montana. Although I think we can complain about snow! But no, I'm not complaining. All this rain is fantastic! Although I need to get some plowing done hasta pronto...

In fact if it wasn't for our son Cody I would be sorely lacking in the photo department, and as is we're running 60/40 in his favor.

Because that was one interesting thing we did, at least, help him move to Whitefish, where he landed a summer/fall job with the Forest Service. One that he's liking a lot.

And who wouldn't?! Thanks to Craigslist he wound up with a deal on a ski condo on Big Mountain, in Ptarmigan Village. A fully furnished one, nice & private, "studio" but plenty roomy and what's not to like?

Cody was just here for a quick visit, and we're glad to hear he's planning on coming back to the Bozone next winter. Depending how the upcoming summer turns out (which it's agreed should be interesting) he might be up there into November, and it's agreed we need an early-season ski vacation. Been a long time since I skied Big Mountain... And, since since the bison business is suddenly no longer so we might even have time! Not to mention go hunting again...

Thankfully it looks like another long-term project or two are about to come to fruition. Although I'm not going to spill beans just yet. Ran it by the Board (as opposed to Bored) in fact, and we're not quite ready for a Grand Opening yet. In fact still coming to grips with having to answer the phone differently yet again! I've long joked it's hard to know how to answer the phone around here, so we might just go back to "Hello". Have to run that by the Board also...

Proving the conventional wisdom wrong yet again, it appears April both came in and is going out like a lion. Fortunately inbetween there was some outstanding weather, along with a bit of everything else, as I recall.

For a change we have a ton of photos this month, and I know, I'm supposed to post these daily and then Twitter about them, but I'm still stuck on this monthly model. "Free" time and all, but today we've been all snowed in (although it's disappearing now), and it's a good day for photo editing among other things. So more or less in sequence...

April Fools Day was bookwork and business, although got some good stuff done that day, which is also proceeding well since. Actually got out a little this month though also, including going skiing on Bridger Bowl's last day of the season back on the sixth.

It didn't feel like springtime at all!! In fact it was a fairly epic powder day, undoubtedly because it was the last day of operation for the Bridger lift, to be replaced by what's becoming the more normal high-speed quads these days. Still, that old Bridger lift is all but a shrine to many of us, so it was more than fitting its final day was off the scale! Conditions easily could have been January. and I heard no complaints whatsoever.

And then, later that week, took what passes for a "business trip" around here, actually a very interesting one. Made our annual seed/supply run to the north country, picking up a wide variety of stuff. Camelina, clover, peas (a couple different varieties), flax but couldn't get mustard (have since), plow shovels and let's see, barley and more clover for a buddy and... that might be about it.

This was back on the 8th & 9th, when the wind was SCREAMING up in that country.

Actually made quite the tour in spite of the wind. Hit the old haunts around Shelby and Kevin, but then veered off east, first north across the Teton river and then east and south almost into the Breaks, northeast of Geraldine.

Where Leonard Stone farms, quite possibly the best camelina farmer in Montana. He's been doing it a year or two longer than we have, even, and has tried every combination of seeding methods, rates, timing, etc. Somewhat contrary to the "conventional wisdom", Len's taken with seeding it in the fall, the earlier the better (within reason).

Look at that stuff!! It's a good three inches tall, in early April! Seeded early October. Len is convinced scratching it into furrows (versus broadcasting/harrowing) is the ticket.

So I'm looking forward to seeding camelina in the fall myself. Luckily I got it in on time this spring, but I'm thinking fall could be way better. For that matter right now I have some volunteering back in fields from last year, and it's about three inches high (we're a thousand feet higher than Len). And a couple of years ago I had similar volunteer stuff that withstood temps in the teens. Horses love it, and it's tough stuff...

Except for when the oil is pressed & bottled! Made it back in time for the Farmer's Market that Saturday.

I hope you'll bear with a photography tangent for a moment, because this point marks a (LONG-overdue) transition here in the Telegraph.

Go ahead and laugh, but we've finally gone digital. Scored a bargain on a digital SLR, and you can compare forthwith. This next photo was at the 4/24 market, the last Winter Farmer's Market of the season.

This is in the Emerson Cultural Center, a wonderful facility but alas, the lighting in the Ballroom absolutely sucks for photography! So in a way I'm kind of amazed with the upper photo, taken with the antique Canon film SLR. At a preposterously slow shutter speed, with yours truly leaning against a pole for steadiness. Using 200 ASA film, in a camera that has been horribly abused for a long time now. The farmer's camera! Not to mention horse packer and hunter, among other things that take a toll on tech devices.

So with that said, I'm actually kind of fond of that first photo. The digital version, the second photo, I had the ASA cranked up to 1600, and still a fairly slow shutter speed, but it lacks that glow. Gotta practice...

And then, Mother Nature fairly purred for a while, and handed us something over a week's worth of fantastic, beautiful farming weather. Well, the wind might have blown a bit during that period too, but Hi-Liners would laugh...

As they would at my machinery! But hey, I still have my old air seeder, not too shabby in size, and a decent and bigger Versatile than we used to have back in the day to pull it with.

Which we used for a quick pre-plant plowing, and then the wind blew so the vast majority of weeds croaked. But oddly enough, I've been seeding with the relics, the heirloom '67 Massey, and the even older possibly 40's John Deere/Van Brunt disc drill.

Except that drill is really a pretty amazing device. Long as you don't have to seed several thousand acres! And I could (and will, at some point) tweak my air seeder to do the same things, more or less, but for the moment...

We've seeded a fairly wide variety of stuff so far. In fact amazingly enough our winter wheat came through in good shape, especially considering things went sub-zero about a week after I seeded it! But first up this spring I seeded some camelina (two different varieties), then quinoa, peas (a new variety they say gets tall enough to cut in rocks!), mustard, flax, and barley. All interseeded with red clover, except the peas.

Those old disc drills... John Deere/Van Brunt were smarter than they get credit for! You can literally set them to seed pretty much anything imaginable, not to mention combinations of things, with some at one depth, and another sprinkled on the surface.

Plus, they're tough!! That old drill gets hammered through the rocks with nary a problem for years now, although I will slow down slightly if they're real bad.

Farmers are always looking over the fence, you know, and as usual I was struck by the contrast over on the neighboring Running Elk Ranch.

One day when things were getting rolling good they had four big tandem trucks, plus a fertilizer truck coming & going. Plus three tractors, but I used three tractors that day myself, so...

I haven't even fired up our grain truck yet, although I might now that I'm seeding wheat & barley. So far, though, I was getting by nicely with the assortment of antiques, although my pickup is the newest thing out there, mid-90's! And instead of a fleet of big trucks, I have a few bags or at most a tote bag of seed. Plus a few buckets and a garbage can to mix the clover and innoculant with the seed.

But luckily we got all that done without problems, now it's gotten a nice soaking and it's snowing again at the moment in fact.

In spite of that, spring is definitely here! In fact the plant growth is taking off like mad. I'm glad we've made it to green grass once again, and I was more than happy to use that congratulation to a couple of my ancient horses, ~35 year olds. That's getting to be a milestone for them, making it to green grass again, but they're doing fine.

In fact they're totally full of it! Just before my wife got the above photo, I'd caught them all & wormed them. Even 35 year old Bo, eventually. He's not in the above photo, trailing behind and expressing independence. On the first, (or actually second) try catching him, though, just at the moment of truth with my arms around his neck but the lead rope not quite making the loop yet, he charged off. A first, I must say. Which resulted in me actually doing a summersault more or less underfoot, and winding up on his "off" side, miraculously without broken bones or even hoofprints!

But after catching all the others, I eventually persevered in this mental matter, and got him caught. And wormed him. Maybe not as gently as normal. But at least yesterday I took mercy and got them all home again, and out of the wind and snow. Even Bo was grateful, although scornful of capture, and if I had caught him & tried to ride him bareback (unlikely in a blizzard) he'd have no doubt bucked me off.

Oddly enough, somehow that's almost OK at this point. Cody rode him a while back, so it can be done, apparently, and I'm just glad the old boy made it to green grass again.

Not to mention the rest of us!