Trego's Mountain Ear

"Serving North Lincoln County"

Tag: Lincoln County MT

  • Mushrooms abound!

    Mushrooms abound!

    It’s been a good couple weeks for mushrooms here – puffballs, many ready to be made into mushroom steaks, some already releasing spores, seeding future years’ mushrooms.

    A “Giant Puffball” that was a wee bit small to turn into steaks –
    left another week, it has ruptured, releasing tiny gray-brown spores.
    Tap a mature puffball, and it’ll send up a cloud of spores. Hence the name.

    And shaggy manes, good for eating fresh, or letting sit and turn into “mushroom ink”. The first time this happened to some shaggy manes we’d collected, I was devastated. Turns out that shaggy manes left sit for a half-week turn into a black inky sludge. It’s still good to cook with, and can make a pleasant sauce. While I might prefer fresh firm shaggies chopped up and sauteed in bacon grease… I do intend to improve my grasp of shaggy ink. After all – it’s a great way to store them, and doesn’t mind the freezer.

    A rather small Shaggy Mane.
    Note the dark spores on my palm – see how the gills take on a darker color at the fringes?
    Mature shaggy mane spores turn black.

    If you haven’t done so recently, go take a hike through some Forest Service land – it’s a good time to be sampling the local fungi. I’ve spotted oysters and chanterelles as well as puffballs. Just take care that those you bring home are safe as food. There’s a number I’ve not yet managed to identify.

    As the saying goes, all mushrooms are edible… some only once.
    Be responsible in your mushroom ID, and see to it that you can have leftovers tomorrow.

  • A Reminder of My Best Week of Work

    I let the little dogs out and heard an elk bugling in the distance.  At first I thought “This is too early.” but as the sound continued, my mind went back over 30 years, to the finest week of work I have ever enjoyed.

    It was in the late 80’s, and I was working for Cadastral – and the task was to relocate and mark the survey monuments on the mining claims in the ten lakes basin. It was a simple job, with notes from 75 years before (or more) copied, ready to be retraced with a hand-held compass – mining claims are small, a bit over 20 acres, and you don’t need super-precise equipment to find the old corners.

    It was a fine September – much like this one – in a place where I will not return.  One monument was a post, just over the divide, overlooking the Tobacco Plains and Koocanusa.  The location was carved, scribed onto the post, and I restacked the rocks around it . . . rocks my predecessor had left stacked that had been moved during 80 seasons of snow, wind and ice.  The next guy may have to replace the post – I was happy just to put things as they were originally.

    Along one of the trails, I found the hole chiseled into rock that marked the corner – filled with needles and dust from the preceding 80 years.  I painted the rock around the hole with red paint, then moved to a nearby rock face and established a point, a distance and bearing that will let the man or woman who follows a half-century from now find the point easier.  For now, hikers walk by the corner and the notes on the rock face undisturbed and uncaring.  Someday, another surveyor will find the points and think, as I did, “Those old guys did good work.”

    The challenges of making coffee and oatmeal with a small morning fire, with only the light pot and bowl that fit in the backpack.  It isn’t a place or task that I shall return to – the feet don’t allow it anymore.  But I was there, hearing the elk bugle as I worked that week, enjoying the coffee, blessing the ease that instant oatmeal made in cooking breakfast.  The memories are enough – and I appreciate the bull elk’s bugling to bring them back in detail.

  • You Need to Check the Experts’ Math

    You Need to Check the Experts’ Math

    This offers a perspective on covid survival rates, but screws up some simple statistics:

    0-1920-4950-6970+
    100.000%100.000%100.000%100.000%
    -99.997%-99.98%-99.5%-94.6%
    0.003%0.02%0.5%5.4%
    100% – Survival Rate= Infection Fatality Rate.

    It’s official data.  It purports to be from CDC.  The author implies possession of a MD.

    The math is screwed up.  By a factor of 100.  I learned the difference between decimals and percentages in the fifth or sixth grade – this isn’t a mistake at a graduate stats level, or even freshman stats. It appears someone releasing official data screwed up.  We need to check the math even on official data.

    This site https://lincolnmtcovid.com/ has local numbers – and you can contrast them against the CDC statistics:

    The local numbers show some anomalies when we compare and contrast them with CDC statistics.  The Libby area shows a cumulative 1,190 cases (in a population of 9,772  that’s 12.2%).  North County shows 467 cases (in a population of 6,470 that’s 7.2%) and Troy shows 258 cases (in a population of 3,435 that’s 7.5%). 

    Lincoln County death rates can’t be contrasted with the CDC percentages – the tyranny of small numbers makes it impossible.  That said, in the 70+ age range that the CDC figures identify as a (corrected) 5.4% infection fatality rate, Lincoln County’s charts show 24 deaths in 311 cases – 7.8% – 44% more fatalities than national statistics.  The 3 deaths in the 50-69 age range, with 557 total cases work out amazingly close to the national 0.5% infection fatality rate.

    There’s not enough data for me to infer causality.  It is good to have local data available – and I do wonder why the infection rate is higher in Libby.  Checking the math when you can is a good idea.

  • County Fair

    This year’s fair was fun, with activities for young and old alike. Vendors were present, and the food (sold by many local organizations and churches) was excellent. Plenty of raffle tickets were sold (not all for firearms), and folks seemed to be in good spirits.

    The exhibits were neat, and some of the produce very impressive. The sunflowers were especially remarkable, with substantial height, thick stems, and enormous heads. Neat wood working and a creative chandelier of hummingbird feeders. The cakes and sundry baked goods in the youth section were quite impressive as well. We have some talented decorators!

    As remarkable as the exhibits was the number of names that weren’t present. Perhaps we’ve simply gotten out of the habit of putting things into the fair, but while the talent displayed was impressive, much of our region’s talent was missing. I’d like for next year’s fair to feature more from the many gifted gardeners, crafters, and creatives we have in the community.

  • Thursday Held Shakespeare in the Park

    Thursday marked another season’s Shakespeare in the Park at the Historical Village.

    This year’s visit offered Cymbeline. Cymbeline isn’t the only play available- which play is offered varies by location- the better known play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, will be occurring in Libby this week.

    While Shakespeare in the Park makes due with a much smaller cast than the original plays seem to call for, it stays true to the original spirit. Some adjustments are made; minor characters are consolidated, and names are changed to account for actresses stepping into traditionally male parts.

    But the spirit remains, the jokes are made accessible despite the language barrier that Shakespeare presents, and the plays are as enjoyable by the general public as ever.

    We’d like to thank Montana Shakespeare in the Parks for the lovely performance, and Sunburst Arts & Education for their part in making it possible.

  • Lightning Strikes and Power Outages

    Can lightning cause power outages?

    As it turns out, lightning doesn’t even have to strike a power pole or knock over a tree to cause a power outage. The build up of charge nearby can actually cause power surges -no contact necessary.

    Additionally, lightning gives off electromagnetic radiation. The phenomenon itself is called “sferic“, and it means you might notice static on the AM radio frequencies around the time of a strike.

    That said, outages are more likely to be due to tree branches hitting power-lines than an actual lightening strike; Power-lines are often in the position of being the most attractive thing around for a lightening strike, and that is considered in their design.

    What brought all this to mind?

    It was a dark and stormy night. Well, it was a bit after midnight on what had just become Saturday morning. Heavy Rain. A flash. A house-shaking kaboom. The power suddenly out. It seems to have been the start of an outage on the section of power-line that goes up along Griffin Road. Lincoln Electric had everything back up and running later on Saturday.

    Speaking of outages, though- there’s a planned one this week (11 PM Wednesday ’til 5AM Thursday) for everyone served by Lincoln Electric. Another overnight maintenance outage, courtesy of Bonneville Power Administration, since they need to replace structures damaged by gunshots (They’d love to have more information about that- call the BPA Hotline if you have any).