Rhubarb Pie: one of spring's Big Three

If Grandma Beryl Nell Fitzgibbons Munday were alive she'd be waypast the century mark. She's been dead about a decade, but each year I seem to hear her voice as strongly as when she was younger and raising me. According to Gram, there were three "tonic foods" everyone MUST eat at least one mess of each Spring: dandelion greens, leeks (aka ramps), and rhubarb. I had my dandelion greens last week and (sadly he sighed) leeks do not grow in the northern rockies. But we do have a fine old rhubarb plant:

It's beginning to bolt (form flower heads), so it's time to harvest some stems smaller than one-inch in diameter (larger stems can be tough):

Trimmed of leaves and cut into one-inch pieces, the stems go into a pie:

Next to Grandma Beryl, Mrs Rover makes the best pies in the world:

Mmmm good.

Skywatch Friday: Low Mountain Skies

Ah, life in the Montana mountains. One day, the sky is endlessly deep, and so blue it makes you ache:

The next day the sky moves low, and the rain (or snow, if you're just a few hundred feet above Butte) is so cold it makes you ache:

Rain or shine, there are still those moments in the day when the beauty of it all takes your breath away:

Hoppy Days in Butte Montana

Heavy spring snows broke down the old arbor, and the warm (60+ degrees!) wet days are making the hops bines grow:

Mrs Rover & I drove a few miles to The Moulton for small, flexible lodgepole pines. First, cut & trim:

Then rack 'em in the truck:

A few hours later, with help from a pint or two of hoppy brew and some twine (and good Boy Scout lashings), a new arbor (two actually, for the hops bines in the front yard outgrew their old one):

Oh what's this? Common Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) all budded up? The perfect stage for a meal:

Bacon, dandelion greens, elk steaks, and a pint (and Thou). Heaven in a cast iron pan:

Meanwhile, wildflowers on the Butte hill are blooming. As an ecosystem in recovery from a century of mining and smelting damage, changes from year-to-year can be dramatic. The first Silky Phacelia (Phacelia sericea) began colonizing the mine waste soils about five years ago, and now they are common:

In recent years, Fuzzytongue Penstemon (Penstemon eriantherus) began to show up, but it was scarce. This year, it is everywhere:

Why is it called "Fuzzytongue?" Glad you asked!:

There's also showy Drummond's Milkvetch (Astralagus drummondii)--see the ant?:

And good old Sulfur Buckwheat (Eriogonum umbellatum):

Mmmm... I'm feeling sleepy. Must be the poppies--lascivious, voluptuous poppies (blooming soon in a virutal yard near you):

Have a bluebird day!

Skywatch Friday: Montana Skies, Flower Buds

Despite the look of yesterday's sky, the spring rains have been letting up a bit on Butte America. It rains every day, but not so much:

And there have been some breaks from the clouds, too, like this morning's foggy view to the mountain peaks of the Pintler Wilderness 25 miles or 30 miles west:

The Big Hole River is starting to come down a bit. Oldtimers say when the lilacs bloom on Park Street, the salmonflies hatch on the Big Hole. Won't be long:

The apple blossoms are budded up, too--though most of them froze off in the unusually cold weather last month:

Ah, life at 6,000 feet on the Continental Divide of Montana's Northern Rockies: it's not heaven, but you can see it from here.

Afternoon Hike: Wildflowers

I'm working on an article about the hunting culture of the Na'vi in the film Avatar. I reached a good place to stop and took a break, when a Western Tanager came by to tell me to get outside and enjoy the day:

I called retired friend Dave Carter--sure enough, he was ready to go at the drop of a hiking stick. We drove up to The Moulton ski area just a few miles north of Butte, Montana, expecting to get drenched under heavy, dark clouds. Despite the look of this sky, we never even pulled the raincoats out of our packs:

The dogs didn't bring their raincoats:

We hiked out on to Big Flat (aka "Moonlight Flat" when we ski there on winter nights). Superfund is never too far away when you're near Butte. Here's our view of the Yankee Doodle Tailings pond created by sludge from Copper King Dennis Washington's open pit mine:

Despite the proximity to mining and smelting waste, however, The Moulton is a relatively pristine place with great wildflowers on the sagebrush prairie of Big Flat. Lots of Sagebrusch Buttercup (Rununculus glaberrimus):

And also Nuttall's Rockcress (Arabis nuttalli; along with Pretty Shooting Stars):

Yellowbell (Fritillaria pudica; sorry for the fuzzy pic--took several shots as usual but the camera just didn't want to focus on the bell--the deadwood looks great, though):

Pasque Flower (Anemone nuttalliana):

And a mystery flower (no hike complete without one; this is some sort of Balsamroot maybe? note the leafless, hairy stem):

The wet weather has some interesting mushrooms fruting out, too:

The Wyoming Kittentails (Besseya wyomingensis) will be blooming soon:

 The heavy, steady rains have tapered off to a light shower and a few sprinkles most every day. With Global Warming and the shifting calendar, I'm guessing that the latter part of June will be warm & dry (historically, it rained every day in June). Yeah, yeah, I know the saying: "Montana: only fools and newcomers predict the weather."

A Mouse Murder Mystery

Found on the front porch: one mouse skull & nose, with whiskers. Physical evidence:

Seen in the vicinity of the partial victim, one PhoebeTheCat:

Guilty or nor guilty?

MOUSE BREATH! Guilty. Sentence: one sacuer of milk.

Moving Logs: a 19th century flume

In the late 19th century, the Anaconda Copper Mining Company (ACM) was running out of timber. It needed logs both to fuel the smelter in Anaconda and to shore up the underground tunnels in Butte. By the 1880s, this hunger for timber carried across the Continental Divide, from the West Slope company operations in the upper Clark Fork River basin to the relatively pristine slopes of the Big Hole River watershed.

Thanks to careful surveying and engineering, contractors could build flumes to float logs across the Divide by starting on high slopes and running the water (and logs) through a lower pass. ACM contracted with A.A. McCune & John Caplice in the 1883 for the initial construction and operation of a flume from the California Creek area on the Big Hole side and down Mill Creek on the Clark Fork side. This operation was expanded by William R. Allen c. 1906-1911. Here's a historical photo from 1906 of a portion of the flume in French Gulch (Mansfield Library photo):

Friend Dave Carter & I have decided to hike and document what remains of Allen's 18-mile long flume.

Each year, more than 600 men and nearly a hundred teams of mules stripped the hills of timber. By the early 1900s, hundreds of millions of board feet had been clear-cut, and the resulting outrage over environmental damages led President Theodore Roosevelt to create the Big Hole Forest Reserve (now the Beaverhead  National Forest) in 1906.

Here's a contemporary view of a portion of the flume, more or less across the center of the photo:

Note the extensive erosion on the hillside in the upper portion of the photo, caused by clearcutting and exacerbated by toxic arsenic pollution from the ACM smelter. Note also the several trestles still standing (in the aspens at left center) and, in the left foreground, the large amounts of material excavated to build the flume in some areas. This material was dug by hand and moved by teams of mules using "flip pans" or "scraper pans" like this one that Dave & I found:

In operation, they worked like this (photo from ruralheritage.com):

In most places, you can track the flume by the erosion or by the remaining woody debris (note the bit of remaining snow):

Rarely, protected by wind and held up by trees, a few trestles remain standing:

Construction was simple, using primarily rough timbers with sawn boards only for the top supports and the V-shaped flume itself:

Occasionally, there are other relics, such as log cabins and this structure--probably a log tent platform:

The dogs came along and had a great time investigating another sort of history--one having to do with scent trails and dead animal parts. Here's JackTheDog smiling over a fine, ripe old elk hoof:

While eating lunch (the human animal's kind), my theory of ravens was once again confirmed. A single raven flew past, circled us, and flew off. It returned a few minutes later with two comrades, and they set up a huge fuss circling the little valley a half-mile below us. As we hiked up over the ridge to return to the truck, we glassed down the valley and sure enough there was a yearling moose browsing in the willows. I'm sure the ravens were very disappointed we did not kill it "for them."