Wednesday, April 21, 2010.

All around this house is a rock farm. Everytime you look outside there is a new rock growing. The neighbor has 7 alpacas and about 6 dogs. Only 1 dog is in the same pasture with the alpacas. He seems to have control over them. The dogs all run up and down the fence whenever we drive by. This upsets the alpacas and they start looking all around and the largest one starts herding the others. That rancher will always know when somebody comes down the lane. Out of all of his dogs there is not 1 alike. At the beginning of his property he has 2 signs: alpaca crossing and mutt crossing.
On the way to the Chico Springs there is a Stagestop Ranch. It's where old RVs and campers go- it's their last stop. A junk yard for RVs! Last night right around here when we were driving back to the house we rode over some road kill. It looked like a wolf cut in half, so we had to turn around to see. When we looked, the road kill was moving! It was 3 porcupines and the center one could walk away, but not the other 2. I had asked Daddy to check them out. He said he's real glad he didn't go out- porcupine quills hurt really bad! The next day the vultures are eating it on the side of the road.
The mountain bluebirds here are so abundant. They are an electric blue; and the male is bluer than the female. The ranchers around here have birdhouses on top of their pasture fence posts just for these birds. They are pretty small, like a sparrow, but a gorgeous blue and they flit all around really fast. Early this morning 2 bluebirds kept flying into the sliding glass door. Maybe there was an animal outside trying to catch them. To keep the road from becoming slippery, we noticed that in the mountains they use grit instead of salt. Bill says that's why the cars coming from Colorado and Montana are in such good shape. There is no snow around the house here, only in the mountain peaks and inside parts of Yellowstone. It has been almost 70 degrees everyday here.
This area is surrounded by 3 rivers-Madison after Vice-President James Madison, the Jefferson- after President Jefferson and the Gallatin- after Albert Gallatin the Secretary of Treasury. Lewis and Clark named these rivers after those men because they were instrumental in the backing of their expedition. Actually, Albert Gallatin had never been past the Missippi River. The city of Bozeman was named for a gold miner that protected the pioneers from the Black Feet Indians. He survived several attacks and built a fort to protect the pioneers. It was also named after him. Eventually he was killed by the Black Feet Indians. The Black Feet Indians were the fiercest of all the Indians and controlled the largest amount of land. They were called the Black Feet because their moccasins were black from the ashes of their fires. The old jailhouse is now the Pioneer Museum and it has the original gallows in it. Quite impressive! Bozeman became important on March 21, 1883 when the Northern-Pacific railroad came into town. Now Bozeman was connected to the east and the west.
There were many Indian tribes that the Lewis and Clark expedition came across on their trip. Some of these were friendly, some weren't. They hired a French-Canadian fur trapper to assist them on their trail. He had 2 wives whom he procured from the Hidatsa Indians. One of these wives was a 16 year old squaw who was pregnant. Her name was Sacajawea and she gave birth to her son while guiding the expedition west. She had been captured by the Hidatsa Indian warriors from her home tribe in Idaho. She was Shoshone by birth and remembered the trails to the west. When the expedition arrived at the Bitter Root Mountains she knew they needed fresh horses to go over those mountains. When they approached the Shoshone Indians, Sacajewea recognized the chief as her brother. After a joyous reunion, her brother was glad to trade them horses. At the end of the expedition, Sacajewea and her husband-the French-Canadian fur trapper went back to trapping. One of the group, John Colter stayed out west to fur trap also. He was the first Euro-American to go further inside Yellowstone and bring back stories of natural wonders that no one believed. He was eventually killed by the Black Feet Indians.
Lester Thompston brought the first Hereford cows to the Gallatin Valley from Herefordshire, England in 1910. All of the cows are descendants of those cows. He owned 4 ranches and started the Stock Growers Association. His wife, Bessie, was founder of the Cow Belles of Montana.
The Bozeman Trail made the trip to Oregan faster. It cut off 6 weeks travel time. In 1863 to 1866 -3500 pioneers traveled the Bozeman Trail. In 1866 alone there were 2000 people and 1200 wagons. The Sioux and Cheyenne Indians were fierce fighters and attacked the pioneers because they were riding into the Big Horn Basin which was their hunting grounds. The Indians felt the land where the buffalo roamed was sacred because it provided them with everything they needed- food, clothing and tools. The pioneers were messing with their food supply. This was called "The Bloody Bozeman" because so many lost their lives here. In 1866, the government placed 3 forts along this trail to protect the wagon trains. But the Indians were so fierce the government closed the trail in 1868. There were many Indian Wars- the Sioux War of 1876, the Nez Perce War of 1877 with Chief Joseph, to name a few.
The Indians' whole survival depended upon the buffalo. From 1 buffalo the Indians were able to get 1500# of meat which they cut into thin slices and ate it cooked over a fire or dried it into jerky to preserve it. Some of this jerky they pounded into a powder and mixed it with berries and buffalo fat to make pemmican. Pemmican was very high protein and would stay good for 2 years. They packed it tightly in skin bags made from the buffalo's stomach. They would also place buffalo meat, veggies and berries into the skin bags and boil them in water to make soup. Boy, that is a new conception of soup! They made rattles, tools and large spoons out of the buffalo hooves. The bones, horns, sinew and hair was made into containers, thread and halters. The buffalo hides were made into tepee covers, clothing and moccasins.
In the time before the wagon trains the Indians traded chert, obsidian and beaver pelts for wool blankets. The Hudson Bay Company wove black stripes into the side of the woolen blankets to indicate how many beaver pelts the blanket was worth. It just made trade easier. In this house we're renting they have a Hudson Bay wool blanket with 3 black stripes woven into the side. The Indians found chert and obsidian near the headwaters of the Missouri River(which is the town of Three Forks now) and used it to make projectile points for hunting. The Indians decorated their ceremonial clothing elaborately with beads and feathers. They decorated their pipe bags, moccasins, tepees, baby clothes and papoose carriers with beads. A bride would decorate moccasins for her groom inside and out with beads and give it as a wedding gift. These moccasins would not be worn outside.