September
2023

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September was a beautiful month!
 
   
 I was fortunate to capture a few pictures of this amazing bird on our fence one day. I have no clue what it is, but it's so beautiful.  
   

Eric went out to give Mark's horses some carrots and some love.  They are so people-crazy
that they get a little bit aggressive in their loving.  
  Gunner loves people, and carrots, so Eric was right up his alley.  
   
Next are the best of the trail cam photos we got in September.   As previously mentioned, this squirrel shows up in over 500 photos, accessing his "pantry."

 

 

  Score one for the squirrel!  
 Now how is he going to get it into that hole in the tree?  
   
 These are the coolest photos we got this year.   It's the first time a bear seemed to know the camera was there.  
   
 Hauling that big butt up, and then immediately back down - the apples are already gone! 

 
   
 A parade of birds.  
   
   This one is stealing from the squirrel's pantry!!  
   

Another bear, again out of luck - there are no apples left.  The ravens got them all this year! 
   
We enjoyed many of Aubrey's volleyball games this year.  They had a great team.  Braden, in a typical outfit.  He creates his own fashion.  
   
At a Flathead Quilt Guild meeting, we played a super fun game.  It was called an "Auffle", because
it was a cross between an auction and a raffle.  You bought tickets and put them in a cup to win
everything in that section.  I won two sections that night and got some cool stuff.   		 Uh-oh, this poor bus driver!  This was at least 30 miles from the nearest anything, so I'm sure it
was a huge production to get him unstuck.  
   

Next, we enjoyed a visit from Marcus & Morgan from Oklahoma.  They started their trip with a tour
of Glacier Park in which they had great weather.  We joined them for the afternoon, just in time 
to get caught in a cold rain.  

We tried to view the start of the Avalanche Lake hike, but it was pretty cold, wet, and unpleasant.  
That was enough beauty for us, we headed home!  
Avalanche Creek, so beautiful. 
 
Then we spent a day in Fernie, BC - such a beautiful town!    Walking some of the many nice trails they have in Fernie.  
   

   
 Showing our "Fernie Faces" - HAH!!  

 
   

The gang after a wonderful meal at our favorite Fernie lunch place, the Bridge Bistro. 
 The view from the patio where we had lunch.  
   
   
   

Out for a post-lunch walk on yet another set of beautiful trails. 
   
   
   

Eric optimistically thought he could take a nap in the grass.  Buddy was too helpful for that. 
Eric is pointing at me, trying to talk Buddy into going to me and leaving him alone, no such luck! 
 Where there is shallow water, there will be the pebble-throwing game. Always.   
   
They were having a festival that day, which was quite lame, but at least the town is beautiful.  Back in Eureka, Buddy and I enjoy a beautiful walk near Indian Springs Ranch.  
   

A beautiful evening captured from the ditch road in front of our house.  
  The Flathead Quilt Show in Kalispell is always fun for me.  This year the theme 
was patriotic and they allowed us to feature the stories of veterans that we love.  
   

During a break in my volunteering at the quilt show, I took Buddy to a car show, thinking it would
be a fun outing for the two of us.  He just spent the entire time tugging me here & there, trying to 
find dropped food.  Not our best outing together!  
I chose to feature our friend Luc Gruenther.  They made this beautiful sign of his story.    
   

I got back to the quilt show to discover that I'd won one of the huge
raffle baskets!  It was totally full of quilting-related items, it was wonderful! 
  Here's my basket at home, ready to be unwrapped and explored.  
   

I thought I could spread everything out on the kitchen island, but there was too much to fit! 
  The cellophane and the basket, combined with an old towel, also made a wonderful cat bed. 
   

Feisty knows she's not allowed on the island, but now she argues that she isn't on the island,
she's on all this stuff I have piled up everywhere. 
  This is what I get when I sit too long in one spot without paying him enough attention.  
   
 Buddy, looking handsome and majestic. And here, looking more like his normal self. 
   
The Koocanusa Krank is a rock climbing competition that has been dormant for 20+ years.  Some 
folks decided to resurrect it this year and it started with registration at our event center and coffee shop.		 There was a huge crowd - I think they had somewhere around 75 entrants.  
 
   

We met Amy for a chat at the coffee shop that ended up lasting for 3 hours.
Each person who came in was someone we knew and we'd end up talking to
them for 20 minutes, then another person would come in and we'd repeat the 
process.  That's the kind of thing this coffee shop was designed to do!  
 Buddy after a bad life decision.
   

The first Lodge Bluff Home is now occupied by our friend Casey Manuel.  Here we are at her 
housewarming party. She gave a very lovely speech about how grateful she is to the guys for
working with her on getting that house.  It was really nice.  
One day these two were about to get on my nerves, so Eric decided to give me
a double shot of cute face so that I would go easy on them. 		  
   
I attended a ladies' luncheon at Jessica's house. We all brought a food dish and a bunch of flowers, then we put them all out
and created our own floral bouquet.  It was fun! 
   

The ladies and our bouquets.  They were lovely. 

BTW - My friend Kip allowed me free access to her entire flower garden for my contribution.  
That was so nice of her! 
Jessica is a great hostess.   
   

I stole this great picture of the Eash family, it really captures them well!  (Little Drake loves Eric!) 
  Our friends had borrowed some of our pillows, and when they returned them, 
the pillows were all in a big stack.  Buddy quickly decided that we'd finally 
provided a decently soft dog bed for him with this tower of pillows.  Spoiled dog! 
   
   
Eric took a trip to Oklahoma in September and was blessed to visit some of our dearest friends. 
Here he is, being loved by Jiayi, Charlotte, Isabel, Wei, and Melody.		 And here, he was loved and fed by Rayleigh, Elim, Ariel, and David.
    
 

He also enjoyed a shower of bubbles from the kids.

  
  We have been great friends with David for a decade or more.  
   

   

 New baby alert!  Our neice Katie & hubs Caleb 
had Myla Beth Fleury, born on September 22nd. 
   
 

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