Our good friends, the
Meulis, have a very large cattle ranch here in the valley. We went to their ranch to get our Christmas tree this year. On the way, Brad announced to us all "Let's get this straight. We are not looking for the perfect tree today - I am not going to carry this chain saw around in the wilderness for hours. We are going to find a mediocre tree - it is a Charlie Brown Christmas tree for us, everybody got it? " Now that we had that straight, we headed out with the
Meuli's truck (ranch truck with chains which is the only way we were getting out to where we needed to go). The kids were all in the back of the truck (
brrrrrrr!) and my former
race car driver husband was having the time of his life sliding all over the place and trying to keep it between the trees while I, imagining smashing into trees and kids flying all over
tarnation, rode white knuckled and wide eyed up to
Skaggs lake - the official Christmas Tree grounds. The snow was at least 2 feet deep, but we only had to trudge around for about 30 minutes to find the tree. It was cold crisp and beautiful out. It is such fun cutting down your own tree - I really do love it. HOWEVER, I would be even happier if we cut down a tree, for the "cutting your own tree" experience, and then ditched it in the bushes to go home and plug in a
pre-lit fake. Not very politically correct or environmentally friendly of me, huh? But way easier than stringing all those lights. Ugh.
When McGyver got back from the ranch last week, our car was looking mighty odd.....the horses are staying at the ranch all winter this year and becuase of the snow, Brad couldn't get the car to an area where the horses couldn't get to it. When Brad arrived at the ranch, the car was a filthy brown from all of the snow, sludge and salt on the roads through the pass. Well, the horses not only cribbed the front hood (but we won't talk about that) but they also LICKED the entire car. You can't really tell by the photos - you can see parts of the car (I took these a few days after it had been driven around and sludged off) that look like there are weird brownish smudges all over. The entire car - really - entire car - bumpers, rear view mirrors, windows; were thoroughly licked by the horses. We figure it is from the salt they put on the roads ( I'm thinking they need some salt and minerals out there maybe?). I couldn't even see out the rear window to drive. I would love to have seen that taking place and loved even more to get a photo - or video!!! MONTANA CAR WASH!! HA! America's Funniest Videos here we come. 
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