Wanda's Blog From Billings, Montana

Having enjoyed Karen Anne's post about "What Do You Do When Someone Get's Your Goat" my ears just perked up when a video appeared on the local news channel KULR 8 in Billings Montana tonight about 2 goats that had stranded themselves on a railroad trestle, high above the highway.

North of Billings in the Bull Mountains is the new Signal Peak Mine, which is a brand new high grade coal mine.  A new railroad was built to transport the coal from the mine to the nearest railroad junction. 

2 Goats found themselves stranded high, and I do mean high, above the highway for 2 days.  The Billings Gazette provided some pictures on their website of the goats and their rescue operation.

I don't have permission to copy the pictures, but if you link to them I think you will be impressed with the predicament the goats were in.

The Rimrock Humane Society out of Roundup Montana organized the rescue operation, which was accomplished with a really long reach bucket truck.  Both of the goats had collars, and the rescuers are waiting to see who claims them.

So would the owner of these rascal goats please come and get them, I think they want to go home.

Full page ad in our local newspaper this week for a "training" to educate the stay at home Mom's how to scoop up properties and turn them into cash cows, once you learn the secret formula!

Over the last 5 years these "educational" seminars that use the whole pyramid scheme for recruiting attendees have come to our town.  Mind you, our market is not as great as it was, but so far we haven't had many short sales and foreclosures selling for "pennies on the dollar".

What's really sad is the percieved intelligence level of the people who attend these things, and really how delusional they are about how "easy it is to do this".

As I hang out in coffee shops, I overhear conversations from the recruiters for a good 6 weeks prior to the "seminar".  The conversation goes something like this "for $xxxx investment, you can take the class, get the handout directions and start your own Real Estate Investment Business, can you borrow money from your home equity line of credit to pay for this?"

I have been taken on a few little joy rides with these prospective "buyers" who tell me an unbelievable tale of how they are gonna get rich on Real Estate.  I have asked them, "do you know anyone in our market who has been successful in doing what you're trying to do?  I know a few contractor flippers who've been in the business for years, maybe you should talk to one or two of them first."

Part of the conversation involves "looking for desperate people who will sign over their interest in their home, just to get away".  And I believe that some people are desperate, and might be swayed into signing things they really shouldn't due to a difficult curve they've been thrown.

I do not participate in preying on the scared and desperate, in order to take advantage of their situation.  Don't get me wrong, I'm willing to bust my butt to help people who need it, if they participate in what needs to be done to get out of a sticky situation.  Education and due diligence are better for our home owner community.

Does anyone get the fact that the reason these guys come to town and recruit for these "seminars" is because the seminars are the cash cow?

Grasshoppers are just gross looking.  I know they're one of God's creatures, but yuk!

We were destined to have a terrible year for grasshoppers on the Eastern Montana prairie, but so far, it's been bad, but not nearly as awful as we expected.

I love to go for rides, and while I was touring some large land parcels on the Molt-Rapelje road, I had to stop the car for the biggest grasshopper I'd ever seen in the area. 

I don't know what kind of fertilizer this fellow was munching on, but I think farmers should just keep that stuff in a tighter grasshopper container.

If I head out to the mailbox and run into one of these guys, I'm just gonna have to call on the Montana Army National Guard (could make a good movie). 

Sellers are remembering what prices used to be, last year, 3 years ago, 5 years ago.

Buyers are thinking about what prices are going to be, next year, 3 years from now and 5 years from now.

Think about it, the emotional attachment to price, depends on which direction you're looking, and from which position you stand!

 

Let's take this same thought and just flip it!

In 2003 to about 2008, sellers were thinking about what prices were going to be next year, 3 years from then and 5 years from then.

In 2003 to about 2008, buyers were thinking about what prices used to be, the year before last, 3 years before and 5 years before.

Right now I'm dealing with the current situation on vision and emotional attachment to price from both buyers and sellers in my market.  I have to admit, I was somewhat star struck by the brief 5 year period mentioned above. 

I was amazed that people could make a purchase and then sell and buy up every 2 years, at least 3 times during that period.  Some homes were increasing in sales price 20% in just one year, in Billings Montana.  I know there were areas of the country where this increase was much higher, but we never had anything like a 50% increase in our market.  We also haven't had any price decreases like many areas of the country either, when you go up too fast, you fall pretty hard!

I think we'll be a stronger country and a healthier economy if we work to "own a home" verses "gamble on a home".  I never would have thought of selling a home in just 2 years, and I only did that once back in the 80's when I moved to a different town in Montana.  Ever since then, we've always managed to purchase, live and improve and pay down the mortgage, about every 4 years.  (I should mention that home prices were going up on average between 4% to 8% a year for most of my home ownership) 

This pace was halted when we built our last and final resting place, the place where we live now, we've been here for 10 years!  There's a good chance we could pay this place off, completely, before we retire!  Something just feels good about that!  Feels like security, safety, good economic sense!  I won't have to worry about how well my investments do if I don't need to spend so much when I retire.  Just a little less stress I think.

Now, what to do about the kids?

I am fortunate to have an international tourist attraction nearly right out my back door!  Spent the week up in Yellowstone National Park with my husband and my daughter.  When in the Park, hiking the trails, only about half of the people we meet are speaking English!  Lots of visitors from all over the World, and they all seem to get alone just fine out in the woods.

Bears just get a bad rap!  Right now, there's only about 150 Grizzly Bears in Yellowstone National Park, but every-bodies scared to death of them (they are big, and you really don't want to mess with them).  I think the Ranger said there are about another 600 or so Black Bears (which can be brown) in the Park as well.  Check out this link for the best information on statistics for Bears in Yellowstone.

Since records have been kept, there's only been 5 deaths from Bears in Yellowstone National Park.  One other death in 1983 happened outside the West Entrance in the Rainbow Point Campground in the Gallatin National Forest. 

Just this past July, a Grizzly Bear Mom with 3 cubs attacked tent campers in a campground outside of Cooke City Montana, one person was killed and several others were injured.  Our hearts and prayers go out to the families involved in this terrible encounter.  The bears have since been captured and euthanized.  An investigation is underway to figure out why this happened, there is some speculation that a photographer may have been baiting the bears prior to the attack.

When these kind of headlines are in the news, bears become the evil empire of the forest.  In reality, these incidents are extremely rare! 

We did see a bear with 3 cubs in the Hayden Valley last Saturday evening.  She was doing one of those food searches where she goes back and forth in a zig zag pattern searching for maybe a baby elk?  Baby elk have no scent, so if a bear wants to find one, they need to do a strategic search.  I had to use my binoculars just to watch these Bears because they were a good 150 yds away.  The cubs were hiding in the sage brush, but every now and then, they would pop up their heads and check out the crowd of people watching them!

I would love to show you a picture of the Bears we saw, but I didn't get a good picture of them.

I did get a picture of the Teton's of Wyoming as the backdrop of a vacation pose.  This was taken just above the Jackson Lake Lodge.  Stunning!

 

 

Just before my vacation, my computer blue screened and then came back, with no evidence of my ever being there!  I could find my files in one of my back up programs, so I know there's a possibility of resurection.

My computer guy was able to copy my files and reload them under a new user.  He did some checkdisk things and thought maybe my hard drive was on the fritz, but things seem to be working ok, for now.

Can I recover my old Microsoft Outlook files?  I have email history and folders, some of which I really want back.  I think they may be hidden somewhere in my saved files.

If anyone knows where I should look, that would be very helpful.

 

The jobless rate in North Dakota is the lowest in the country right now, 3.6% compared to Montana at 7.3%, Montana ranks 16th.  Yellowstone County, where I live, is doing a bit better than the rest of the state at 5.7%.  In fact most of the East side of the Rocky Mountain Divide has a lower unemployment rate than the Western side. 

That's why I'm headed to the West side of the Mountains for Vacation, to help their economy, and because they have Huckleberries.  I get some kind of sick enjoyment out of spending hours hunched over with bug spray all over myself, looking out for bears and mountain lions, picking a Montana delicacy.  I've been doing this for 40 years, and I hope I never have to stop!

When you're from Montana or North Dakota, there's a good chance some of your relatives came over on the same trail or train.  So when we trade jokes back and forth, it's all in family fun.  I'm sure other states have similar fun, but up here in the twilight zone, where our population is sparce in most of the country, we pull jokes on each other all the time.

Here's a work joke, thought it suited the unemployment situation pretty well:

2 North Dakotans were working for the city of Fargo works department.  One would dig a hole and the other would follow along behind him and fill the hole in.  They worked up one side of the street, then down the other, then move on to the next street, working fast and furious all day, without a break. 

A passerby watched them at their work for awhile, when finally he asked the workers "you guys are the hardest working fellers I've seen in a long time, but what I was wondering is why do you dig a hole, , only to have your partner follow behind and fill it up again?"

The hole digger gave the passerby a quizical look and answered "well, I suppose it probably looks odd because we're normally a three-man team, but today the guy who plants the trees called in sick."

Just keep on workin, that's the motto!  Guess the jokes on Montana right now!

On Father's Day 2010, Billings Montana suffered a very strange tornado that pointed it's finger at a 12,000 seat Arena and sucked most of the life out of a community center.

We lost several businesses besides the Metra Arena (also known as the Rimrock Auto Arena), and numerous homes were flooded during the 2 hour deluge of rain and hail that went along with this storm cell.  Here is the link to some pictures if you want to see what happened---click here to go to one of our local tv stations KTVQ.

Fortunately, or miraculously, no one was killed or seriously injured. 

One of the strangest things to me, is how this tornado picked the tightest and most congested place in our whole city to land.  There are 2 huge cliffs of Rimrocks towering over the Metra which is right in the tight valley along with the Yellowstone River.  Topographically, it just seems weird to me to have this happen, there, it's actually one of the last places around here I would think one would land.  The last time we had a tornado in Billings Montana was over 50 years ago!

The area was designated a disaster, and the Governor authorized the Montana Army National Guard to assist the local police in providing security for the local area and businesses that were destroyed.  As I drove by this morning, trying not to gawk (don't want to rear end the person in front of me), I'm just trying to recall the time I have spent inside that Metra Arena watching hockey games, sports tournaments, rodeos and graduations.

Thank goodness we weren't having a major event the afternoon of the tornado, I don't even want to think of the possible devastation.

Now back to the day after the tornado.  Here is a picture of a storm cloud, due east of my house.  While it's beautiful in it's arrangement, it is a reminder of what can happen when Mother Nature feels like stirring things up a bit.

Homes are selling in Billings Montana, in fact the last 90 days has been pretty good to the under $200k price range. Market Activity for Billings Montana Real Estat1

This guy used his feet (covered by shoes) as a brake at one of the busiest intersections in Billings, Montana. 

I took this picture out the front window of my friends car.  We had just almost lost our hearts in our throats as he skidded to a stop, 10 feet into the intersection, at a red light.  Somehow he managed to stop before he was hit, backed up and waited his turn.  Then this guy just peddled off to the left, fearless!

A true Montana Trailblazer, wish we had a bike trail in this part of town!