Gold Butte and my fascination with old things.

I have always been intensely fascinated with old and dead things. Not recently dead thing of course. I'm talking dead for decades, centuries, and longer.  From a very young age I wanted to visit ancient ruins, especially the pyramids in Egypt. I can't ever remember not wanting to be an archaeologist. Every time I drive past an old abandoned house, I yearn to go inside to see what is left to tell me the story of who once inhabited the home. Ghost towns enthrall me. I want to know their whole story. Why they came to be and how they then dwindled and eventually died.

There is such a place not to far from where I live. Just across the border into Montana right in the heart of the Sweetgrass Hills. The place is called Gold Butte. As the name suggest, it was once home to a mine in pursuit of gold. The mine, of course has since been boarded up for safety reasons, and there is very little left to indicate  that there had once been a small town complete with a hotel and mercantile. But indeed it once was.

We recently went out to visit Gold Butte again. We wondered around the hills looking for anything to tell us a story. First we visited the old cemetery. For some reason I wasn't yet in picture taking mode, and so I don't have any photo's to share. I read each and every marker, many of them unknown, probably miners come to seek their fortune in gold. Unfortunately that fortune was never found.

Here is the story we discovered on this visit, in picture form.

The inscription reads "Remember me as you pass by, as you are now so once was I, as I am now so soon shall you be, prepare for death and follow me".

An interesting story goes along with this marker. You can find it here http://www.montanaheritageproject.org/edheritage/HE_01win/pages/dafoe.htm

Possibly on old well or cistern.

Taking care of business in an old outhouse.

The roof off of something. 

Possibly the something the roof belonged to.

likely a part of an old refrigerator that I neglected to take a picture of.

Some old mining equipment

The company who made the mining equipment

Oh look, it's a Dodge.

I would love to know more about Gold Butte. I have googled it but I can't come up with very much information about it's actually existence. I did happen upon some fabulous pictures. Here is what Gold Butte looked like at one time.

Armed with these photos, I want to go back and map out what is what and what was where and see what other interesting things I can find. If anyone out there is this wide wide world knows anything more about Gold Butte Montana, I would love to hear about it. 

The boy and his dinosaurs.

I'm not too sure how it happened, but two years has past since this little man came into my life.

The boy is boy through and through. He loves dinosaurs and he loves to roar. When Daddy comes home the boy will roar in greeting, and daddy will roar back, and then the boy will roar, and then daddy will roar...and it goes on and on. I love it. He also loves trucks and anything with wheels. He lines up his little ones all in a row. It cracks it me.

There was no question as to what we would be getting him for his birthday. Saturday was his actual Birthday. We let him open one gift but because Daddy was going to be at work all day, we had decided to save the cake and other gifts until Sunday when we would celebrate with family. We gave him a super sized mega blocks set that came with a couple of cars. He likes to play with the mega blocks, but the cars were his favorite part. He put them down for anything.

On Sunday, I let the kids choose what gift to give him first, they gave him the gift with the dinosaurs in it...I should have thought that through a little more and made sure that he opened the books first(a dinosaur book and a truck book), he loves books, but not as much as he loves dinosaurs. After he opened the gift with dinosaurs he was in heaven and he didn't care what was in anything else.

Little dino's lining them up all in a row.

Because he was so in love with his dinosaurs, the kids helped him open his books and most of the other gifts, including a dino stuffy that Kathryn had created for him.

No thanks, I've got my dinosaurs.

We saved the gift from my mom and dad for later. He just really didn't care about anything but his new dinosaurs. When we did give him his last gift, the kids had to help him at first to get him interested, but as soon as he saw this

he dropped the dinosaurs and was in heaven all over again. See that green button on the cab? When you push it it makes all kinds of truck noises. My dad finds great pleasure in buying noisy toys for his grandchildren. He figures it is his duty to make sure that we, as parents, get to "enjoy" all that he and mom "enjoyed" as parents.

Check out his birthday cake

 I think it is appropriately boyish, don't you? It was all edible except the trucks and the little Lego guy. Sometimes I simply amaze myself.

When it was bedtime, he would not go to bed with out his two big dinosaurs. And just now when I put him down for a nap, he had to have them. What a crazy kid.

Mother's Day Treasures

Oh how they all spoil me! On Saturday Daniel brought home these beauties.

The kids made me pancakes and chocolate milk with a side of strawberry apple sauce and brought it to me in bed. Then they showered me with precious home made gifts. The one that made me tear up was one of Kathryn's. She had painted some rocks a pearly white and wrote on each one a reason that she loves me and then she put them in a pretty velvet bag. Her own idea, her own creation and so very special.  Kathryn had also made me a necklace at a church activity as well as a "Mom and Me" journal where we can share our thoughts and ideas with each other and leave it on the pillow of the other to read. Tansley gave me a treasure box that she had painted and inside she had put some precious treasures, pretty beads, a dandelion, a bracelet she made and a "Super Mom" badge. Along with all these gifts were a myriad of home made cards. For me, these are the gifts that mean the most. I don't need anything fancy from the store. These simple gifts created from the heart of my children express their love for me in a far greater way than anything that any factory can produce. I get all teary just thinking about it.

 And then they sang me this song that Kathryn wrote.

I had to be to a meeting before church so I printed off these Mother's day questionnaires for them to fill out while they were waiting. Too much fun. They did some for the grandmas too.

From Kathryn, age 9 1/2

From Kymberly, Age 5(almost). Kathryn wrote out the answers for her.

From Tansley, Age 7

As requested here is a translation of Tansley's

My Mom is 35 years old.

My mom weighs 32 pounds.

My mom's favorite colour is Green.

My mom's favorite food is Pancakes.

My mom always says "I love my kids".

My mom cooks the best spaghetti.

My mom's job is sewing.

My mom laughs when I smile.

If my mom had time, she would love to read outside.

My mom and I like to play.

My mom really loves to sew.

I love my mom because she is awesome.

She's a brave one.

Today, my girl made me proud. She's been working on this school project about her family tree for a month now, and today was the big day. Today she packed it all up and took it into Lethbridge to show off at the Heritage Fair held at the Galt Museum. She has been feeling nervous about it for the past few days. I've been working with her trying to do what I can to help her remember her stuff. On the way into Lethbridge she asked me if I had ever did anything like this when I was her age. I told her that I hadn't and left it at that. It was pouring rain when we got to the museum. I dropped her off at the door with her display board so she could get it inside with out getting too wet. Then I went and parked at the far end of the parking lot and walked with the other kids and the rest of the display through the rain. Once we got her all set up, the nerves kicked in. She started to crying and just wanted to hold onto me. I tried to calm her down. Reassured her that she knew this stuff. Told her to be confident. Take a few deep breaths, I'm right here and I wont leave you. They gathered all the kids and told them what to expect and then sent them back to there displays to await the judges interviews. A total of three judges would come and ask questions about her project. I stood back and watched from a little distance as the first judge came to talk to her. He was great at putting her at ease. She started smiling, and became animated as she answered the questions. When he was done I asked her how that went and she said "Great! He asked really good questions." And she was set.

When the day was done, we packed up and headed back out in the SNOW. The rain had turned to snow and it wasn't nice. When we got in the van we talked about what the judges had written on there evaluations and how she could improve for another time. One of the things mentioned was to have more confidence. She got this kinda sad face. It was something we had talked about before and it seemed that she felt like she had failed. I quickly told her that I thought she had done great and that the reason that I had never done anything like this when I was her age was because I was too scared. But since then I have learned to be able to do those kinds of things. I told her how proud I was of her and that she shouldn't let the things the judges said make her feel bad, they were meant to help her get better for the next time. She then said "Mom, does it make you feel embarrassed that I can do something that you couldn't do when you were my age?" What a cheeky little monkey....