They Said I'd be Bored, but instead, I'm on Boards

This has been an easy winter. We get enough snow and cold to make me happy, then the sun comes out and it warms up to springtime temperatures for a week or so. The snow pack is low, but there is still good coverage on the snowmobile trail and I can still ski along the unplowed road through the forest, so I've accepted it. Now the days are getting longer, and the solar panels always manage to keep the batteries charged in spite of Tom's long days on the computer. I had to rebuild the carburator on the generator last week, but it has been pretty reliable most of the winter, and now we hardly ever have to use it. We have stopped using the kerosene heater in the bathhouse because it doesn't get cold enough to freeze the pipes, even if the propane heater does go out (the concrete and the pressure tank full of water hold a lot of heat, and keep the pipes from cooling as much as the outdoor temperature as long as it isn't below about 20 degrees).

But it is still winter. I still ride the snowmobile down to the car every time I want to go to town. Mud season is still off in the future. Here is a picture of the "parking lot" which is nothing but a flat meadow right where the county road ends and Tipsue Road turns up the hill. All the neighbors park their cars and trucks and snowmobiles there. Many of them have one car for town, and a truck that stays chained up all winter for going up the hill. They change cars here as they come and go. Others (like us) use their snowmobiles to go up the hill and use their cars and trucks to go to town. Again, whichever vehicle is not being used is parked here.
Our cabin faces southeast, so we have glorious views of the sunrise over the mountains. Here is what it looked like one morning this week:
And, of course in the evening, we cannot see the sunset because of the ridges to the west of us, but the same mountains that the sun rose behind reflect the sunset in rosy alpenglow. I love to sit on the Adirondack chairs on the deck and watch the eastern sky fill with the lavender-pink reflection of a sunset I cannot see directly.
But life is not all lolling around gazing at the light shows on the mountains. I have managed to make things hectic by getting involved in community organizations, both in Livingston and in Bozeman, that arose from the success of the grassroots organization of the Obama campaign. These organizations are attempting to organize community service, public forums, political action, and advocacy. It is all extremely exciting. I hope that we can keep the momentum that this time of hope has given us. In the process of getting involved and taking on projects, I have managed to get myself onto the Board of Directors of both the Livingston Food Pantry (the local food bank, seen here)
and a group of wonderful women called Montana Women For. If you're wondering "For what?" the answer is Peace, Justice, and Equality, but they like to leave their options open, so they just end it at "for." They have instantly become close friends, and we have so much fun at meetings you would never believe how much we get done. Here is a picture from their website (all members are given a Statue of Liberty costume to wear in parades and protests -these are my kind of women!):
Anyway, these organizations have the mistaken notion that I am a computer wizard just because I can plug in a monitor here and there, and maintain web sites. So I am much sought after, and I have had to learn to say "No" firmly to keep myself from being at meetings seven days a week. The Bozeman group I'm part of is called Bozeman for Change and after I spoke at a meeting there yesterday, the local TV news guy who was present asked to interview me, so now I've had my 15 minutes of fame in Bozeman. I've been to Livingston City council meetings, written letters to the editor, helped with fundraising and web pages, organized house meetings and general meetings, and generally find myself more busy than I ever planned. But it is wonderful to have the time to devote to all this.

Between that, cutting firewood, skiing around the neighborhood, baking bread in the wood cookstove, and drawing plans for the new indoor bathroom, the bathhouse extension and other projects for the summer, life has been hectic. And energizing. And fun. Bored? Never!