"Serving North Lincoln County"
This graph, from 4-30-22 shows that the snowpack on Stahl is still increasing. The upper line on the record suggests that there’s only a week or so left for it to increase. Still, 127% of the long-term average is nice to see.
NOAA has this posted for May-June-July, suggesting we can expect the chances of warmer temperatures and less than normal precipitation coming up.
Last year, we noticed the removal of the Trego School Sign. The removal occurred because the estate of Mr. Leroy Mee paid the school the remaining value of the lease in order to end the lease.
As you may have noticed, the Reader Board for Trego School, situated between the community hall and the post office, is no longer present. So what happened? Some History: In June of 2016, Trego School entered into a lease agreement with Leroy Mee, allowing the school to place the Reader Board on Mr. Mee’s property. The term of the lease was ten years, at a rate of $100 per year. The school paid the full $1000 in 2016. Earlier this year, the Montana Department of Labor Safety and Health received an anonymous complaint about the…
Keep readingSome time later, a new location was found and a new lease signed. There were no costs to the school for the new lease, beyond the time/materials required to put up the sign.
Earlier this month, we reported on the removal of the Trego School reader board, and noted that the board was looking into options for a new location. Last week’s meeting included a new lease for the reader board. This time, there will be no expense to the school beyond the time and materials to put…
With spring here, the holes have been dug, and the board has arrived. Keep an eye out for the return of the sign.
Held in conjunction with Rendezvous, Scraps and Threads Quilt Guild annual quilt show was well attended. This year the quilt show’s theme was Montana Silhouettes. The fair barn was decorated with silhouettes mostly representing Montana’s wildlife and included live wildlife (a fat mouse) scuttling in the facilities’ bathrooms. With over 100 quilted items on display, there was a variety of techniques and a lot of talent on display. Mel Casey and Shawnna Casazza tied for best theme quilts. Delora Gauger won the People’s Choice award and 1st place in the large quilts category. Delora’s extraordinary star quilt required 8 years to complete.
In the adjacent fair barn was a craft show with a mixture of crafts, art work, antiques, plants, clothing and baked goods. Coffee and seating encouraged shoppers to linger and visit. Based on the empty tables and various shopping bags, much retail therapy occurred. -Patches
In fact, in Montana neither party actually has to be present. We are the only state that allows double proxy weddings (for residents and members of the armed forces). So, while someone has to stand in your place, it doesn’t need to be you. We also allow a “declaration of marriage” to be filed, which is more of an after the fact “We got married on this day” piece of paper (though, provided it had the right information, it needn’t be on paper. A napkin should work just fine).
Of course, in Montana you don’t have to actually have a wedding. We are also a common law marriage state, which means marriage doesn’t actually require paperwork. Common law marriage requires competent, consenting adults to “confirm their marriage by cohabitation and public repute“.
The second part, “public repute” means that it would be difficult to establish marriage accidentally. People must present themselves as married in public, file taxes as married, or other similar indications.
While common law and proxy marriage may both be products of being rural (difficult to find someone available to officiate), they seem to have gained some popularity during the lockdowns.
Any other weird facts about our state? Let us know!
What do you call it when only one person runs for office? An uncontested election. It seems like this must be a bad thing, and also that it is increasing in frequency. Is it?
It seems, given the explanation about removing term limits at the last Interbel Meeting, that the situation is at least increasing in the telephone cooperatives. Watching the local school board shows a similar trend.
How common are they by state? The data’s a bit hard to find- but at least some of it is out there. According to ballotpedia.org in 2020, 100% of Wisconsin’s local elections were uncontested. This seems a bit high- and they didn’t cover the local elections for Montana, so we can’t compare.
That said, Massachusetts had 100% for state executive and 75% for state legislative. Alabama and North Dakota were 100% for state judicial. If it’s showing up at the state level, where it really ought to be easier to find two candidates, uncontested elections are likely more frequent at lower levels.
Is this a bad thing? There’s an argument that electing (appointing?) the same people over and over ensures that an experienced person holds the position. However, there’s also an argument that doing so increases the likelihood of solving today’s problems with yesterday’s solutions.
And, if the outcome is predetermined, why show up and vote? Our cooperatives have attempted to solve member disengagement by reducing the number required for a quorum. It’s a treatment- but it doesn’t consider any of the underlying causes.
It’s that time of the year again- time to watch for frog eggs, listen for sandhill cranes, examine thatch ants and watch for salamanders.
Perhaps you’ve heard the distinctive call of the sandhill cranes recently? -Patches We’re actually in at the very south edge of the breeding range for Sandhill Cranes. They’re not particularly picky eaters- they’ll eat snakes, frogs, insects, seeds… Often, we’ll see them in the spring, hunting frogs in shallow water.
Spring seems to have finally arrived, and soon the pond will be full of little frogs. As it turns out, frog eggs and toad eggs are different, and far easier to tell apart than the tadpoles. Frog eggs typically form nice clumps. -this years batch are particularly muddy. Toad eggs, however, will generally be in…
Our mound-building ants in this part of the country are Western Thatching Ants, Formica obscuripes.These ants are rather special because they generally have multiple active queens in a single colony – the young queens often help out and reproduce at home, instead of founding their own new colonies…
We seem to have made a good location great for salamanders – ours are long-toed salamanders. Despite being in a near-perfect location for salamanders, most of the time we don’t see them. The information is online- and the field guide does a pretty good job explaining why we see them rarely. They’re classified as “mole”…
Trego's Mountain Ear 