An Iowa Visitor and Foreign Relations

It is always nice to have visitors to our house, especially visitors from outside the state of Montana.  It seems so rare when people visit, and especially (in this season, anyway) when they are not coming to hunt.

About a week ago, my brother came to visit from Iowa for a long weekend.  We picked him up on a warm (by Montana standards) Wednesday evening at the Great Falls airport.  Promptly the next day a winter storm set in.  The storm even earned a name: Winter Storm Brutus.  Personally, I felt it was a little tasteless to give the storm a name when Hurricane Sandy had just raved the East Coast. I mean, in Montana, we should be used to severe winter weather, right?

It took a little longer than expected for Brutus to make it all the way to our house. Frankly, I know the feeling.  Because of Brutus' delayed arrival, we had some time on Thursday to show Ryan around the farm and surrounding environs. It was his first visit to the HiLine, and his first visit to Montana in a non-summer month. It must have looked pretty bleak.  Cloudy, cold, and windy, the Sweetgrass Hills were completely obstructed.  Nothing but flat, grassy plains and stubble fields in every direction, and not many trees to break it up.

I think it's pretty in its own way.  Every time I drive around this area, I discover something different about it.  Perhaps it's a requirement to live here that one is able to see things in a different light, and be open to surprises. After all, the prairie is comprised of as many different types of grasses as there are personalities of its human inhabitants. To paint a cloud solid white is a disservice to the cloud.  Having visitors from beyond Montana reminds me to look deeper, and be thankful for what we have.  There is more here than it seems.

We took Ryan on a brief tour of the coulees to the north. Jeff took his rifle, so I think that actually made it a hunting excursion.  As seems to be the requirement for first time visitors to the area, we took Ryan to the Canadian border marker.

As we were leaving The Point where the marker is, we saw these guys driving around on the Canadian side of the fence, in full hunting garb. 

Jeff, being the neighborly sort of guy that he is, got out of the pickup and chatted with them for a bit.  Turns out they were from Lethbridge, I think. Not from the area directly across the border from us, anyway. Jeff said they had thick Canadian accents and definitely said, "Eh?" quite a bit.  I think Ryan was a little disappointed he didn't get the chance to observe interaction with real, live Canadians! 

At one point, the guys asked Jeff where the border fence was-  Jeff pointed straight down at the fence between the two of them.  No illegal border crossings on this day!  I think US-Canadian relations maintained amiably during this exchange.  Foreign Diplomacy at its most basic level! Needless to say, the fence between Canada and the US is not the same as the fence along our nation's souther border.

I think Ryan enjoyed his visit, overall.  Hopefully when he and my parents are back for Christmas, the weather will be grand and we can all have the Hap-Hap-Happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye!