Good Grief, 2011 is over already?!

Well, we still have another fifteen minutes or so of sunshine. It still looks more like possibly October out there, and until last night we didn't even have any snow to speak of. But then it rained!!

We recall it raining once before during the Holidays, that time on New Year's Eve back in about '80 or thereabouts. Similar mild year, we were having a back-yard barbecue party, which got crowded once it moved indoors.

At least last night the rain finally turned white. Only a dusting down here, but at least Bridger Bowl finally got almost a foot, nearly doubling their snowpack!

Here on the west slope of the Bridgers, there hasn't been nearly enough snow to even consider going cross-country skiing, somewhat to my dismay. In fact we went for a hike Christmas Day.

We've also been horseback riding a few times. No expeditions, just here on the farm. In fact Cody came home with a new horse a few evenings back. We've kinda been looking, & he came across this not-quite-four year old Andalusion/Paint cross mare. Andalusions are interesting, they were the preferred "war horse" for European royalty back in the day, at least until the armor got really heavy and they went to draft horses.

Fortunately this one was owned by a horseshoer, so is completely used to that, and has also seen quite a bit of mountain use for her age, including packing deer and elk. Completely calm, steps out nice and smooth...

The above photo was right before I took her for our first ride yesterday. She wasn't too crazy about leaving her newfound pals, although mostly cooperated. She far prefers them to the prior arrangement, where a more dominant mare was bullying her, resulting in a near-starvation diet.

That's not the case here, in fact the boys are utterly smitten, and will even share their camelina concentrate/winter wheat dessert with her, previously unheard of. We're still amazed at the amount of height, and size in general Buddy put on after he arrived here at age five, and kinda expect the same thing again.

For these end-of-the-year columns, I've stuck with the Prediction Theme, versus reviews and Best & Worst of lists for quite a while now.

This year, we could have quite a striking list though, which is tempting. Still, complaining is near-useless at this point, and I far prefer to end things on a positive note. Just briefly, though, I have to touch on a few things that went on in December, if for no other reason than that's what I mainly have new photos of!

We're largely out of the buffalo business, although have a neighbor with a few, & skinned one a while back, causing flashbacks.

As you can see Molly is absolutely thrilled! So are the chickens...

I used to joke that skinning buffalo paid better than anything else I'd done except for farming in the '70's, although it wasn't really a joke.

So now we're working at getting BiOmega3 to that point, which certainly wasn't dull in December!

We're developing labels for a line of new products, when ongoing trademark issues resurrected themselves. Luckily it looks like they'll sort out, but not before we found there's no trademark lawyers in Montana up for this, and even good referrals in Vegas deferred to more qualified associates, but luckily free (and accurate) advice was eventually forthcoming, from Arkansas of all places! Well, there's still another option or two in the works also, so as usual, we'll see. At least now we know all the "competition" have had their trademarks denied!

But then of course like a lot of things anymore, our oil bottles come from China. And, they've gotten noticeably thinner, just in the last year or so. In profound ironies, now we're shipping some oil to China, and apparently the pressure differences between here and sea level cause the bottles to contract slightly, or dent. Obviously, this isn't limited to just China! We thought bottling the oil at cold temperatures might take care of it, but no. Somewhere there still have to be decent food-grade recyclable bottles that aren't a fraction of their former thickness, and so if you know about that, let us know...

Plus we ran into an apparent global shortage of induction foil seals, which we use on the aforementioned bottles. Strangely, mainly just in that size, so someone in China must have misplaced the die or something! Luckily that sorted out also, but not before we just almost ran out of seals.

So school has been in full session. No Christmas Breaks around here...

But again, I need to catch myself... I well know by now, and completely understand that complaining around here remains almost useless!

So, getting back to this prediction theme...

Some are saying that 2012 will be a landmark year, maybe even the end of time. I far prefer local writer Alan Kesselheim's take in the article linked above. The ancient Mayan civilization had some pretty amazing calendars, and they were quite sure 2012 would be the end of one era, and the beginning of another. Of course, no one knows the day or the hour of such things, but I kinda think they may be right. There's some changes coming down the pike... Maybe some big ones.

Perhaps growing up farming in "Next Year Country", up in northern Montana, somewhat surrounded by pessimists instilled this eternal optimism, but I'll take our chances. The healthy, "locally produced" food model continues to take hold in a big way, and who knows...

If the Mayans are right, that could turn real important. Even if not, I'm still optimistic for 2012. It always beats alternatives...

Happy New Year!

See update below...

Holy cow! We're a full day ahead of schedule here!!

Although I tend to leave things until the last moment, it's not just because I seem to work best "under pressure". The schedule overflows with some regularity, but along with numerous other deadlines (there has to be a better word...) I've managed to get out a Moccasin Telegraph by month's end for a long time now. A wholly different model than constant tweeting, I know, but still...

I can't leave this one till the last minute (in case we don't make it back over the pass!), even though tomorrow promises to possibly be the most fun and certainly interesting day all month! The Citizen Working Group is presenting our suggestions to be Interagency Bison Management Plan partners, at one of their two annual meetings at Chico Hot Springs.

So although I'd sworn off going over Bozeman Pass in snowstorms, I'm not missing that one! We got in a wreck a couple of years ago, heading over to participate in the Park County Christmas Fair, which ahem..., we're doing again this weekend, although luckily the weather man says it'll be better by then. Plus he's been consistently wrong lately, so we'll see about tomorrow...

At least the accomodations at Chico are way nicer than the cabin in the photo above!

It's at an old homestead, here in the Valley of the Flowers, where there's a bin of camelina we're buying.

At least the view out that window is hard to beat, and frankly, hasn't changed that much.

Beyond that, the accomodations at Chico are a bit nicer, although gotta admit, I find these old places intriguing.

We're not even taking swimsuits, let alone staying there this time. One of the things I didn't mention last month was that Kim and I spent our 27th out of 29 anniversaries there, so you could say it's a favorite, and so I guess if you have to spend tax dollars on accomodations, twice per year, you could do worse!

In fact I'm really looking forward to tomorrow. Incredibly enough, it's mainly the members of this working group representing the Montana Stockgrowers who are presenting our suggestions to the IBMP partners. We all agreed that would likely have the most significant impact, and so conscripted them to this task, and I tell ya...

We're presenting common-sense, win/win suggestions, same as we've done for quite a while now. Arrived at by an incredibly diverse citizen working group, open to anyone who would commit to participating, through a slightly extended series of meetings, that frankly I wouldn't have missed for anything!

<update!>

Praise the Lord, the weather man was wrong yet again!! It didn't even snow going over Bozeman Pass coming or going. Except coming home, just as we hit the bottom of the pass, where one inevitably gets caught in clusters of semi's, it finally started snowing. Minimally, really...

But at Chico, well... you'd have thought a rainbow ended there today, and I even saw a bit of blue sky (and even got cell reception!) while outside briefly.

It might have been the best meeting I've been at, or at least certainly in the top handful! So watch the news, at least the local NBC outlet was there.