Latest
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Blossom’s Birthing Suite: Supervised by One Cow, One Chicken, and Absolutely No Qualified Adults
There are moments on a homestead when you look around and think, This is peaceful. This is beautiful. This is why people dream of this life. And then there are moments when you are knee-deep in old manure, dragging a rake across the barn floor like some pioneer-era hostage, while your very pregnant Guernsey cow decides she is not only the reason for the project, but also the foreman, assistant manager, safety inspector, and demolition crew. That would be Blossom. My sweet, round, opinionated, golden girl is getting very, very close to having her baby. Close enough that every time…
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This photo, taken from a Facebook post, reminds me of the stories from the early days of Montana – the explanation I heard years ago was that “Not all of the Vigilantes were Masons, but all of the Masons were vigilantes.” I think of the names I learned in Grade School – names that showed…
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I’m a rural westerner. That means that I have a nodding acquaintance with rabies, hantavirus, and plague. Plague – Black Death – is endemic among western ground squirrels. It’s not an easy disease to catch from them – Yersina pestis can be passed on through fleas or direct contact with infected individuals, but it doesn’t…
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We are watching one of the largest resource grabs in modern history get marketed as “innovation,” and somehow people are applauding while corporations build digital coal plants disguised as progress. The modern data center trend, especially the AI data center explosion, is being sold to the public like it’s the second coming of electricity itself.…
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Looking for a (very) short but pretty hike? Consider this trail, about six miles south of the Koocanusa bridge. It feels a little silly to drive the distance for a hike that short, but it is very pretty. There’s ample parking space, an outhouse, and a little campsite by the river that’s a decent spot…
local
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We started the Mountain Ear (both times) because we wanted better coverage of local news. There are so many board meetings, and all of them are important. The Tobacco Valley News faces the same problem we do- not enough people and too many meetings, and their focus is on a larger area. So we started…
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An emergency meeting of the Trego school board was called again on May 4 at 4 PM to update the community on the methamphetamine contamination of the school grounds.. Although the meeting was poorly noticed, there were nearly 40 community members in attendance, these included parents, teachers, former students and teachers and interested community members.…
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Earlier this week, a meeting was held to formalize the existing long-term relationship between the TFS Community Hall and the TFS Fire Department. Tables were set to form a circle, and the meeting began with introductions. It was a joint meeting meant to prevent future problems, without any reason to expect them. The issue: an…
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An emergency school board meeting was held at the TFS Community Hall, Saturday at noon (which coincidentally is the time the Rendezvous Parade in Eureka began). The board acknowledged that they failed to provide adequate (48 hours notice) on the meeting, and cited the requisite MCA code allowing it in the event of an unforseen…
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When I went to get some repair work done, the person I was consulting advised fixing the structural issues and then putting the same ancient dilapidated siding back on the building. The rational? Property taxes. Last summer, we joked about how much the nice flowers my mother had on their porch raised their taxes. They…
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I spent most of a year away from the school after I finished my term. I attended a couple of board meetings because I was asked – on one hand, there was, at the least, the appearance of an unlawful board meeting . . . unlawful because it appeared to violate Montana’s open meeting law.…
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Historically, independent voters, and voters for minor third parties, do not get a large percentage of votes. Often, they’re considered “spoiler” candidates, who lose the election for someone by dra4wing critical support away during a close race. Or their thought of as simply “protest candidates” with no chance of winning. In Montana, for the presidential…
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Not many years ago, if you were faced with a cluster of unacceptable clowns on your ballot, you could write a name in and cast a protest vote. Hell, I guess you still can – the thing is, your write-in protest vote won’t be counted or reported. With the elimination of subsection 7 last year,…