News you can use
News you can use
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I know what you’re thinking, because I’ve been thinking it, too: What this pandemic — and, frankly, all of 2020 — needs is a good old-fashioned treasure hunt. Someone already found the $1 million treasure stashed “somewhere” in the Rocky Mountains by art dealer, author, multi-millionaire and part-time oddball Forrest Fenn. He hid that treasure more than a decade ago, and June 6 he announced someone had finally gleaned the location from his writings and they claimed the prize....
I just wanted to be a real adult, but it ended up like that Pleasure Island scene in Disney’s “Pinocchio” where our little, wooden, not-a-real-boy makes seemingly innocent, but morally delinquent, life choices and starts turning into a donkey. This week, my computer asked me — yet again — if I wanted to download the most recent version of my system, and normally — by which I mean every time since the first personal computer arrived in my home — I hit cancel or no or whateve...
Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov — who has also been known to bust a move singing rap — has written a poem to honor Turkmenistan’s wheat and the farmers who grow it. “I wish success to the farmer, the whole world warms itself with wheat,” read the poem attributed to Berdymukhamedov in a June 30 Agence France Presse article, which was picked up by news agencies all over the world. Berdymukhamedov, who parlayed his early dental career into a presidency, told Turk...
The Blackfeet Tribal Business Council voted Thursday to close the reservation’s western border, shared with Glacier National Park, for the remainder of the tourist season. The border closure, which the tribe’s release said includes Two Medicine, Chief Mountain, St. Mary’s, Cut Bank Creek and many glacier roads, is in response to Thursday’s report of the highest daily number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Montana since the outbreak reached the state. This action is an amendme...
The annual migration of miller moths is officially in full swing, and researchers at Colorado State University have said we should expect to see abundant numbers this year. Unfortunately, their assessment is spot-on accurate. One night this week I even had to abandon my office to escape repeated onslaughts from these gray-brown nuisances — my metal-handled swatter no longer able to bear the strain of our dual. I could hear a few of them clamoring around the ceiling light t...
When I say that I’m a simple person, I mean I’m just a step or two upslope of simpleton-simple. I like things to be straight forward in simple terms. Complicated things are best dealt with if they are easily related to stuff I already understand so I can grasp the big picture and the nuts and bolts of a thing at the same time. I am here to say that this week has failed me miserably. It started with me wanting some beef and my week somehow turned into a lesson on but...
This has been a completely weird decade so far this year, even if you only look at what nature has given us: A viral pandemic, murder hornets, 18 inches of snow in June, a major waterway failure in our state, a broken dam elsewhere, a lunar eclipse, a solar eclipse coming, some sort of alignment with the moon, and a couple planets or with its reiki chakrahs in the seventh house or something, killer tornadoes and several earthquakes centered in Yellowstone. I was trying to...
It’s easy to love my pasture in spring when the vegetation is just getting a good hold of the season — the place is blanketed in green, and looks like a lush, manicured lawn punctuated with bursts of shrubs and trees — but those blissful days are past, and I have entered the chaos period from whence both pride and aggravation grow. By now, the vegetation has grown enough that I know what I have for “good” forage, acceptable weeds and bad weeds — and what needs to be mowed an...
Satire is the only superpower I wield with any sort of natural grace and effectiveness. It’s likely that this shouldn’t be something to brag about, but I would argue that what satire lacks in measurable worth it makes up for in its vast sphere of influence. The key to the wide-ranging power of satire is that it is a multifaceted tool incorporating sarcasm, irony, parody, mockery, travesty, a bit of burlesque and more. Think of it like this: If your superpower was super str...
Editor’s note: This version corrects the days of the week listed. Rocky Boy Health Center is holding two days of free COVID-19 testing for all members, ages 2 and older, of the Rocky Boy Community Thursday and Friday, May 28-29. The tests, offered through a partnership between the Montana Governor’s Office, the Chippewa Cree Tribe and Montana National Guard will be administered in a drive-through/walk-through clinic at the Health Center. The Health Center will be offering tes...
I know a lot of people have been upset lately about the fact that regular events are being canceled in the name of social distancing for a pandemic that hasn’t hit our state very hard. So, whether “misery loves company” is your thing or “I hate to say I told you so” is more your go-to saying, I’ve got some news for you. If, in fact, your misery does enjoy company, your favorite event isn’t the only one canceled this summer. The annual Ernest Hemingway Look-Alike Contest has b...
Public awareness of the inordinately high number of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls has come increasingly to the forefront as a serious issue in the United States, as well as Canada, and one 2020 Chinook High School graduate, Wylee Brown, took the opportunity of her graduation ceremony to help spotlight the issue to her community. Brown, who said it feels really good to be graduating, said she didn't know how she got the idea to make her unique statement that...
The Chippewa Cree tribal council announced Friday that the tribe is implementing a Phase One re-opening plan, and Rocky Boy Health Center has entered Phase One plans for its services, as well. The stay-at-home order will still be in effect until June 3 on Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation, and the general curfew is still 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., but weekend curfew for adults is now midnight to 6 a.m. Friday, through Sunday, the announcement says. The check points at reservation b...
I don’t want to be that person who doesn’t count her blessings — gratitude, after all, has been scientifically proven to be practically a cure-all for what ails your attitude — and yet, here we are with a great big “but” blocking my path to enlightenment-level grace. After a rocky start to the pandemic when I didn’t have disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizer, three weeks ago I managed to procure a container of wipes, though I was limited to one item. That was OK because it wa...
At some point in my adult life I took a moment to contemplate my small circle of friends and realized that somehow, instinctively, I had assembled an awesome apocalypse team. It’s held true since then that the people I make a personal connection with are do-ers with a wide array of life-saving and survival skills, and together we would dominate any apocalypse, even one of a zombie nature. All that said, at another point not too long ago I came to the realization that I was t...
While many fishing access sites and state parks in Montana are set to re-open today, the state is also in peak tick season, but information is available on what to do to avoid ticks, remove them if they are embedded in the skin and have them tested, as well as providing information on signs and symptoms for tick-borne diseases. Laurie Kerzicnik, anthropod diagnostician at Montana State University’s Schutter Diagnostic Lab, said in a release that Montana’s two most common tic...
Whether you are still trying to fill the void of things canceled or postponed because the the pandemic, you are still being strict about self-isolating, or you just long for those weird and wacky stay-at-home days of yore, I have a list of activities to fill the need. Are you a horse racing or betting nut suffering withdrawals over the loss of this spring’s Kentucky Horse Derby which should have been running this weekend? Well, dust off your big bonnet and whip up some mint j...
One of the many age-old questions is this: Is it better to do the right thing for the wrong reason, or the wrong thing for the right reason? But I’m here to ask this sidebar question: If you do the right thing with no thought behind it whatsoever, is it wrong to later claim you did it for all the right reasons? I’m asking for a friend — just kidding. I’m not going to give any of my friends credit for being thoughtless. I planted four trees on Earth Day. I thought it was just W...
I am very pleased to announce that despite, and sometimes even because of, the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is still generating odd news. This fact alone made getting up and putting clean clothes on this morning worthwhile. My intent today, then is simply to cram as much of the latest pandemic-related news as possible in to my column and see how far it takes us. People around the world have been sharing photos of how wildlife has moved back into their mostly abandoned city...
Anyone interested in learning more about how to grow cold-hardy berries in Montana can tune in to a four-part series of web broadcasts by the Montana State University Western Agriculture Research Center and Ravalli County Extension Office over the next four Fridays. The information was to be presented at the Montana Berry Growers Association spring conference, but the event was postponed due to social distancing requirements during the COVID-19 pandemic. The video broadcasts c...
As prices for cattle continue to trend low and the beef market gets more turbulent between producers and meatpackers, spring yearling bull sales, operating under social distancing guidelines, are turning to technology to meet cattle producers' need to continue operations. With Gov. Steve Bullock's stay-at-home order extended to April 24 on top of federal social distancing guidelines put in place in March to combat the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S., agriculture producers are...
Knowledge gives me comfort — but I think that’s true of everyone. Think about parents with their first child. Everything the child does is interesting or worrisome, and studied for understanding. The second child is a lot more boring, and if they get up to, say, six children then that last one can be running feral in the street with grapes stuffed in its nostrils and pencil firmly grasped in one hand, and the parents are, like, “Meh, it’s OK. Kids are resilient. Remarka...
As COVID-19 restrictions on social interaction continue to keep family, friends and communities separated and to halt normal activities and events, Native and Indigenous people in the U.S. and Canada have found a way to continue sharing their culture and connection online - and a local powwow dancer has won in an online powwow competition. The Quarantine Dance Specials 2020 Facebook page, one of a handful pages that have gained early and immediate popularity, is holding almost...
I am one of the least likely people to participate in what I normally call “Rah-Rah” stuff — those spirit-lifting, come-together, team-building exercises to rally the crowd — so this op-ed is going to come as a shock to everyone who knows me. The people of Havre and Hill County have done an amazing job of coming together during this pandemic crisis, supporting one another and not only finding the good in others, but also expressing gratitude publicly — all while still followin...
The Centers for Disease Control and National Institutes of Health recommend a thorough cleaning of your hands, repeatedly throughout the day, as well as avoiding touching your face to keep from getting COVID-19 by transferring the coronavirus from infected surfaces to your mouth, nose and eye - where the virus enters the body through mucous membranes. Any hand soap will work, because the virus is a simple structure made of a fat and protein sphere around some genetic coding ca...
