Not From Around Here

First off - it snowed again yesterday.  Second - dodging the pot holes might be an Olympic sport up here.  Third - narrow mountain roads that most states would set at a 55 mph speed limit, Montanans set at 70mph.  When you combine falling snow, 70 mph traffic and HUGE pot holes the size of truck tires it is very exciting.  I learned quickly why they don't tailgate up here, it is so that you have enough time to see and react to upcoming pot holes -and so that you don't get the road spray on your windshield.  One dude was following me closely and was unable to avoid the potholes that I was avoiding.  It was funny because you'd think he'd have backed off after the first few potholes he hit HARD, but he didn't.  So I made it a game to avoid the huge potholes at the last minute so that he couldn't follow my lead.  HA! I know.  I'm awful.  But it was his choice to follow so closely at 70 mph. . . . .

I went shopping at the small local market up here in “the canyon”.  The parking lot is the street.  I’m not joking.  As we emerged from the teeny tiny (super cute and staffed with nice people) market pushing our shopping cart down the street, Lucas hollers out to me over the rattle of the cart “Mom they really need to pave this road.”  Yeah.  They really do need to pave that road.  It would make shopping much easier.  That is how little these towns are.  It is expected that you will return the cart when you are done so that they don’t have to retrieve the cart from down the street.  500 people is a good sized community here in the canyon.  The canyon people are tough as nails.  Really. Tough. As. Nails. 

I was talking with a local and he said that the natives like the imports (people from out of the area) as long as they don’t try to change things.  They don’t appreciate all the imports demanding things in their home like updated sewage systems and plumbed in gas lines. They are perfectly happy with the septic systems and electric base board heat.  In fact electric base board heat is considered updated in many areas.  Most people here still heat with wood stoves.  I thought all of this was interesting.  I’ve never lived in an area where the primary heat source is a wood stove.  I’ve always assumed people would prefer central heat, but that is not the case up here.  In fact wood collection in these parts is in full swing for next winter.  Old pickup trucks are filled to the brim making laps into the mountains collecting LOTS of dead wood.  It seems like they are doing what the wildlife does – hurry up and restock supplies during the brief warm period so you can survive the next winter.   I am so fascinated by this.  

The kids were playing in the mud out in front of the house.  It has been raining so much that the mud is everywhere.  I noticed that the kids had dug down several inches, and the dog was eating something that looked like a clot of dirt.  Lucas pulls his hands out of the mud and tells me that his hands stink bad.  I had him come over; I smelled his hands and knew that something very wrong was on his hands.  It smelled like human waste. 

I!  Freaking!  KNOW!!  The dog was yanked into the house, the kids were stripped down and put into a bath where I scrubbed the heck out of them.  I drained the bath water again, and refilled it so I could rewash the kids with clean water – just to be sure. 

WHAT THE HELL IS IN MY FRONT YARD????? 

Is this a leach field (I don’t even know how those work) – or whatever kind of freaky redneck human waste disposal method they use up here in the woods?  Seriously.  WHAT did Lucas have his hands in, and why is it there? 

So.  I am going to be one of the “imports” that demands an updated waste disposal system that takes my shit away to the treatment facility and away from my yard.  Sorry.  I like the new-fangled sewage treatment methods of the 20^th century. 

Today we went to a local restaurant up here in the canyon.  The neon OPEN sign was illuminated and the other signs promised homemade huckleberry jam for sale inside.  We went in and were told that they weren’t serving food that day.  Today was not the burger day.  Tomorrow is the day.  Today they didn’t have supplies to make burgers.  They were planning a run down the canyon and into town to get supplies for the burgers tomorrow.   The place across the road had elk burgers though.  We had elk burgers.  Yummy.