Montana Memories

Did I ever tell you about where we were raised and in turn, raised our children? No, it wasn't here, where we live now. Tim and I were both raised in the beautiful North Country of Montana. Also known as 'Big Sky Country'. I lived there most of my life and I still don't know why they call it that. The sky never seemed any bigger to me. Now, 'Big Mountain Country' I could have understood. Montana is home to some of the most magnificent mountains I've ever seen.
In fact, to this day, I don't feel at home in flat country. Although I see wondrous, peaceful beauty in the waving grasses of the prairie, they leave me feeling rather exposed and unprotected. The mountains are a type of security to me. I guess it just depends on where you grew up at. My mother says she feels completely at home on those prairies. -But she grew up on the plains of Nebraska.-

When we moved back to Montana after living in Arizona for over seven years, we nearly froze to death! I remember that first winter.....our bodies had acclimated to the southwest and when cold weather hit we were completely shocked at how cold it felt to us. I guess we had forgotten. Tim thought for sure he'd never make it through. Everyone was worried about me, as I've always had a hard time with cold weather. They really should have worried over Tim.

In our zeal for the country life we went to a bit of an extreme though and moved "way back in"....It was a tract of land that had been subdivided and was for sale at a good price. Tim and I were the first to actually move onto the property. Not a soul lived near us for over a mile. One day, we heard voices in the woods and it actually concerned and startled us. It was the cousins come up for a picnic at their property next door!

I remember not being afraid to sing as I went about my outdoor chores. -I  usually sing only in front of my children. I've been singing silly songs to them since the day they were born!- But there, in the woods and at that time, I could sing with no one to hear me but the birds. Surprisingly, they often sang back. My youngest daughter tells me she remembers me doing that and thought her mother had the most lovely voice she'd ever heard and when she grew up she wanted to sing just like that. Ahh, the innocence of children!

That summer we had no electricity, septic or running water. We pulled a camper out to the middle of the woods, set up our cabin tent and spent the summer camping out. We hauled water, used an outhouse, cooked over a campfire and lived "off grid". We listened to the coyotes singing their nighttime songs and I thought they must surely be right outside our tent. Tim would assure me it was just the way it sounded in the empty forrest. I would try to catch seeing them with my flashlight. He must have been right because, they were never there when I'd jump out and shine the light around.
I remember that summer we had some especially terrific storms. Inside of our tent, it sounded as if the thunder was rolling right down the valley aimed at us. It would echo off the narrow canyon walls and sit us straight up in bed! I think back now and am amazed and awed at the memory of it.
By the time our house came along in the fall we had gotten just a bit tired of camping! The weather was cooling rapidly and we knew we'd have to have a home with solid walls soon or find somewhere else to live. We moved in,  around late September or early October. This whole experience taught us much and assures me that we are stronger and more capable than we think we are and we could do it again if we had to. 

Tim and our son Jeff had a conversation once that went something like this... 

Tim-referring to where we presently live- : "Everyone says we live in the country. We don't live in the country, you can be at a Walmart in 15 minutes." 
Jeff : "Dad, this is the country, we were raised in the wilderness."
It made me laugh anyway. I hope it is with great fondness that he remembers our "wild country home".

It took us 9 months before we had electricity and over two years before the well and septic were completed.
Whew! No one in those survival type magazines mentions how inconvenient this can actually be. They make it sound so adventurous and exciting.  It is not for the faint of heart. It's work. Hard work. It is to be taken very seriously, in cold and wild country like Montana. Foolish mistakes can cost you more than you would want to pay.

We did it though. We took a piece of raw land and made it our home. Before we sold it and moved some years later, we had a home, a barn, garage and various animal pens. A small greenhouse along with some very nice raised garden beds that Tim fashioned with "hoop houses" over each one to protect our precious plants from frost during the short growing season. We did love that piece of land that the Lord loaned to us.

I had learned in Arizona to appreciate each place we lived for the good that was there. I did love those Woods and  my gardens, short season and all. I learned all the tricks to extending it just a few more weeks and did manage to harvest some lovely crops. Even a few small tomatoes thanks to the greenhouse Tim made me from old trampoline parts -he's very handy to have around-.....I wish I had pictures to show you.

We often wildcrafted in the mountains for herbs. The hills were just full of wild roses. Each fall, we found a favorite old logging road and hiked up it, braving the briers and picked  rose hips by the 'bushel'. I dried them to make tea and herbal medicine. In fact, when we left we still had so many, that they lasted nearly 5 years here in Tennessee. Although they were wild, there were still many different varieties. Now a days, I would have to try to ID them, but at the time we just picked them. There were hips that were covered with little prickly hairs and I wondered if they would be usable. I found out when they dried, the little prickles fell right off, making them perfectly useful for the bright red tea made from it. They came in all shapes and sizes ranging from small pea sized, up to that of a very large Cherry. They were so plentiful and no one else seemed to know that they were there. It was just us, the woods and the thorns waiting to scratch you if you didn't show enough care. The girls and I gathered enough for ourselves and my mother who by now also lived just down the trail and through the woods.... I made everything from tea, to syrup and jellies out of this wonderful and prolific fruit.

There was also a wildflower called Arnica Montana. I made an oil for bruises and sore muscles by steeping the fresh flowers in olive oil. They grew wild and abundant. Another one was Pineapple Weed a wild cousin to Chamomile. Once again we gathered and shared with our "oh so dearly missed grandmother down the trail." It was here that I began to catch herb fever and it was here that some of the most blessed changes began to come into my life. I do believe there is a connection between God, nature and emotional healing. If you will allow me the liberty of saying so. But, we must give HIM the credit for creating it and gifting it to us. I think that is also part of the process.

There were other herbs we gathered and wonderful adventures we had there. I hope that many good memories of this place have been made by all of us. I know, I have made my mind up to remember the good and leave behind the things not worth remembering. Don't we all have to do that? Life was not perfect there, we hadn't found a lost Paradise or anything like that. Winters were long and cold, money was tight, problems existed. There are things I would have done differently...

 Life on this Earth is like that. You do the best you can with what you have. You take the choices you have made and change the wrong ones, it's just never too late to change. You learn to let go of what you have no control over. You walk where God leads and let Him show you the way. You just have to be willing to say, "this is the wrong way, we need to go back and find the right path." It might mean some serious change and painful times but the path is there waiting to be found with God as our guide. If we'll just let Him.

"Teeming in the countryside, the world over, are medicinal herbs and edible plants; it shows disbelief in the power of God to pass them by." ~ Juliette de Bairacli Levy