Just got back from visiting friends and family in Idaho and going to our place in Montana. My wife has owned this place (10 acres and a one and a half room cabin) on the Clark Fork river over thirty years. We haven't been there for a couple years especially since the fishing has gone to hell. No TV, internet or cell service unless you're wired for it. Radio? Scratchy christ, cowboys and NPR. The closest cell/internet is seven miles East towards town by the Bluebird box on a fence post. Do you know what that lack of noise feels like? I'm not talking about "real noise" because there is a train track across the river, a highway as well and the wind blows like sixty in the afternoon. I'm talking about the other noise, "breaking news! Trump did this, they did that!" Everyone screeching for attention. Neighbors arguing over and over about the same stuff as well. Bumper stickers, yard signs, flags flying, people screaming their political BS.....
So after a while I look around there, what am I missing? There were no yard signs or bumper stickers pro him or her, anti this or that. I asked the neighbor about it. He says "We all feel once the politicians move up from county office, they become corrupt." The county commissioner candidate who promised to "protect our freedoms" didn't get elected and the Guy who said he'd fix the roads did." At The Circle Drive in/Cafe (every town in Montana seems to have one) there was a gathering of locals seated next to us talking. The subjects were: the new truck stop, the Mennonite mafia (my words because they have a hand in everything) building a tire store and butcher shop, the new MRI at the community hospital, school budget, and OMG migrants moving in! six more Amish families who are welcome.
Pretty nice huh? Can't wait to go back next year.

A person has to spend time in a rural community to really understand what life is like.

I Thank God everyday that not only am I a Texan, but that I grew up in rural Texas.

I was not aware that the Amish + Mennonites were prevalent in Montana. I always pictured them in the Ohio,Pennsylvania district. Sounds like a fun place to be however. Reminds me of what it was like here 45 years ago.

sounds like here.
I couldn't leave the mechanic shop for over an hour yesterday because my wife and his wife were sitting around her desk gossiping.

I then stopped in the local body shop to get a quote for a new windshield and bargained the price down to wholesale by trading the owner some tin [for bullet casting]
I then showed him where to buy a ladle to cast better bullets for his 45-70 on his office computer.

another half hour later the wife shows up to the truck after blabbing with the owners daughter about the stuff she heard from the mechanics wife.[who is the aunt to my daughters sister in law]
yep.

quote:

Originally posted by NormanConquest:
I was not aware that the Amish + Mennonites were prevalent in Montana. I always pictured them in the Ohio,Pennsylvania district. Sounds like a fun place to be however. Reminds me of what it was like here 45 years ago.

Think they even have some Hutterite colonies.

Grizz

Lots of Hutterite colonies some are even on the state road map. I'd visited them with my Father-in-law years ago. He was the only Dr. in the area that would tend to them. They usually live in very large farms with family apartment type buildings, sell excellent meats and produce and make their own wine. The rub is they have huge farms generate a lot of $ and pay no taxes. All the women have poor eyesight which is interesting.
The Amish are fairly new to our area, a few families moved onto a small place down the road from us a few years ago. They are a little mechanized and have a suburban to get to town. They also took an old fridge off our hands. The six families that bought into a 2,000 acre ranch are not mechanized and close enough to town they do the buggy thing. When we were up there my wife and I were chasing huckleberries and I noticed buggy tracks and horse turds in the logging road we were on. I told her if the Amish had been up there there wouldn't be any huckleberries left. They took a side road but we still didn't find any on that side of the valley. There was a large Amish community in NW Montana on the US/Canada border that got burned over a few years ago.
The Mennonites are pretty much like everyone else and are good businessmen. They've brought a lot of meat, cheese and other products from Ohio and Pennsylvania into the area.

The good part is, that most likely folks will help ya. Though ya may hear back about it

Then in some small towns

The bad part is, the busybodies that have time to take care of your business AND theirs too!!!

When I moved out here to Liberty Hill (just outside of Austin) There were NO mercury lamps,Hell there were no people out here in the country or in the little town.The roads were all one way;if some one was coming (rarely) one of you just pulled over + let the other by.The next closest berg was Leander,just a few miles down the road (1 building built in the 20's that had a little cafe that had'nt changed the juke box since 1952 + a waitress with the bee hive hairdo that served the best chicken fried steaks.I thought I had gone to heaven + I did,but Hell is encroaching here on all sides. The local lead realtor has moved to Theon,says its just too crowded here anymore. I told him,so whose fault is that? I live out in the country but they are still all invasive + forcing us to finance them with our property taxes.End of rant for now.

Price of living where you do.

Rumor for several years now is that the Austin/San Antonio/Houston and Waco are the growing points for the biggest Metropolitan area in Texas.

quote:

Originally posted by nobull00:
Lots of Hutterite colonies some are even on the state road map. I'd visited them with my Father-in-law years ago. He was the only Dr. in the area that would tend to them. They usually live in very large farms with family apartment type buildings, sell excellent meats and produce and make their own wine. The rub is they have huge farms generate a lot of $ and pay no taxes. All the women have poor eyesight which is interesting.
The Amish are fairly new to our area, a few families moved onto a small place down the road from us a few years ago. They are a little mechanized and have a suburban to get to town. They also took an old fridge off our hands. The six families that bought into a 2,000 acre ranch are not mechanized and close enough to town they do the buggy thing. When we were up there my wife and I were chasing huckleberries and I noticed buggy tracks and horse turds in the logging road we were on. I told her if the Amish had been up there there wouldn't be any huckleberries left. They took a side road but we still didn't find any on that side of the valley. There was a large Amish community in NW Montana on the US/Canada border that got burned over a few years ago.
The Mennonites are pretty much like everyone else and are good businessmen. They've brought a lot of meat, cheese and other products from Ohio and Pennsylvania into the area.

The poor eye sight and other medical problems, like diabetes, problematic to Hutterites, comes from inbreeding, they are all descended from about 300 original members and there has been very little growth in the gene pool over the centuries and they tend to marry close to home.

Grizz

You are correct Grizz. My father-in law said the same thing. We used to tell our boys, if they didn't behave, we'd give them to the Hutterites. They always seem to be looking for new males.

CHC,you're right of course.But I love the property where I live,the rest of the county can go to hell + in large part already has.The Travis/Williamson county line runs right through my property.And forget about Austin,I never go to town anymore. I remember Austin from the early 70's when it was a beautiful small town. What a shame.

quote:

I remember Austin from the early 70's when it was a beautiful small town. What a shame.

So do I and your right it is a shame. Have you seen anything in the news down there about the proposal to change the street names to be more Politically Correct.

Ungodly growth is happening all over the country. Lots of places are busting at the seams. When I moved to the Boise, Id. area in 1981 we called it "Death Valley" not the "Treasure Valley". I bought a "T" shirt with a big black square in the middle of it. It said "Boise at night". Even where my older Son moved, Idaho Falls, Id. which has no visible means of supporting population growth has subdivisions going up around the whole area. Plowing up farm ground of course. Fortunately where I live (pop. 250+-) growth is limited by surrounding Federal/Private timberlands, big ranches, no infrastructure and Oregon's very restrictive rezoning laws.

Well they did change 4th st. to Willie Nelson Blvd. + there is a proposal to change Bowie St. to David Bowie St.The 1st I don't really have a problem with but the 2nd I do.Years ago they changed 19th st. into MLK + South 1st st in to Ceaser Chavez Blvd. I still call them by their old names. There is another proposal to name anther street 'Leslie' st.For those who don't know,"Leslie" was a transvestite that walked the streets bearded wearing a tutu.Honestly you can't make this stuff up.