MontanaMama
MontanaMama's JournalDoing Thanksgiving dessert a little differently this year...
Never been a fan of pumpkin pie and I just made a pecan pie a couple weeks ago. I decided to make gingerbread whoopie pies. Gingerbread to honor my dad because it was his favorite. I miss him terribly and Thanksgiving is a tough holiday for me for that reason. I thought this was such a cheery thing to make.
I cannot wait to eat these tonight with a fine glass of bourbon. Here’s to you dad. ❤️
Just got boosted! #funkycoldmoderna
My staff and I just returned from getting our Moderna boosters. Everyone but me had the two Moderna vaccines...I had the single J&J back in March and took the Moderna this time. I'm excited to have this over and done. I picked up lunch for the crew on my way back to work so we could all celebrate together. The one staff member who wasn't vaxxed quit 3 weeks ago with no notice. We're in a pickle as far as being understaffed at the moment but he needed to go and I'm glad he's gone.
Hey Virginia.
I’m sorry about the election tonight. I know what this feels like. In November 2020, MT slit its own throat in our election. We have a horrendous Governor and legislature. It just sucks. It’s disheartening and infuriating. I’m with you tonight.
Love, Montana.
Update on the Eurasian Dove I rescued back in June.
We call him Ragamuffin...RG for short. He's been flying free since early August and he runs with a flock of about 17 or so doves. I never thought he would live a day after I found him on the ground with his dead sibling after a thunderstorm let alone grow to thrive and and be accepted by wild doves.
My favorite thing? RG flies in every evening for happy hour with me. I take a glass of wine out to where I feed the doves and he swoops in to join me for a few precious minutes...sometimes he is there waiting for me if I'm late coming out to the garden.
He will sit in my lap for some neck scritches or on my shoulder just to rest. He will usually hop on my head to preen my hair before flying off for the evening. It moves me to tears that he chooses to do these things...sometimes with his pals looking on from a distance. When they fly in closer, I leave RG to his friends so they can fill up on food and water before dark.
I don't know if RG will migrate out for winter or stay. I guess we'll see. I love this little bird so much.
I know a woman who is not vaccinated against Covid.
Her husband has just been diagnosed with Covid. He's in their home and quite sick as I understand it. He's been staying in the basement while he has been ill. This woman is a technician in respiratory therapy and is apparently at work today per the text that she just sent to a mutual friend. The friend texted me and wondered if this should be reported? The woman in question is leaving her current position at a hospital 45 minutes away for a job here in town. I don't know which facility she's working in at the moment. I didn't think these people could still shock me but I'm pretty upset by this.
My gawd...my vaccinated kiddo woke up with a scratchy throat and I kept him home from school today as a precaution. What the hell is wrong with these people?
ETA: My friend who told me about this woman being at work and being a close contact is going to try to extract where this person is working so we can report it.
I got an email warning from my identity theft insurance
that my email address and possibly the password were found on the dark web as a result of the Anonymous hack of Epik.com. I have no clue how my email could have landed at Epik of all places. I changed my password as soon as I got this news. I have have freezes on all my credit reports and will watch them too as a precaution. I'm curious if anyone else has gotten a message like this?
One of my employees likely has Covid. UPDATED
He shows up for work yesterday and tells my husband that his wife is positive and has had symptoms for around 5 days. That means that she had symptoms at the end of last week when he was at work with us. He told my husband that he’s had a runny nose and a slight cough through the weekend. I am SO freaking mad.
The wife apparently got one vaccine but regretted it and did not get the second shot. I believe this guy is unvaccinated. By law I’m not allowed to require employees to have vaccines nor am I allowed to even ask if they’re vaccinated thanks to our thug Governor. Everyone else at our business is vaccinated because we’ve all happily shared that fact.
The good news is that we’ve got lots of personal space around each of us and none of us have spent any significant time in Mr. Covid’s work area. My husband and our other employee work in a separate building and I have a private office away from all of them. Our par time employee hasn’t been in the shop for two weeks so he’s safe. The local health department told me that none of us can be a close contact of a close contact. I’m not worried that any of us will become sick.
We sent the employee home for the required 10 days. That’s 10 days of quarantine IF his wife self isolates. If she does not, his quarantine should actually begin when hers ends. We obviously cannot control what they do at home…we can only hope they’re telling us the truth.
Here’s my dilemma: Do I pay this guy to stay home? Last spring, we had another employee whose spouse became very sick with Covid. At that time, we had an active PPP loan and we paid that employee to stay home and quarantine. The PPP program has run out and we no longer have those funds available to us. There’s a part of me that wants to incentivize this employee to do the right thing. But, he hasn’t done the right thing so far. On the other hand, I don’t want to reward his willful ignorance and defiance about the vaccine and the disease by paying him while he is home. He put us in potential danger. The fact is, he’s costing us a ton of money by being out of the shop… We can’t fill orders and are really over a barrel until he gets back. I have a part time employee who is going to come in and help us out here and there which is wonderful. I want to do the right thing and I don’t know what to do.
UPDATE: I just found out I can pay this guy up to 80 hours of lost wages due to Covid-19 through September 30th via the ARPA National Paid Leave program. So, my un-vaccinated employee gets 7 days of paid leave courtesy of the US tax payers. Problem solved. It pisses me off, however that he gets rewarded by a system that he clearly disrespects. At least the funds don't come out of my pocket...well they do but I'll get a refund in a couple months.
Last night's bear visitor.
My cameras didn’t get a full photo…I’ve been experimenting with where to place them to get the most action. However, if the parting gift he left on my front lawn is any indicator…it was a decent sized bear. This is the third bear that I've caught on camera this week. ‘Tis the season! 🐻
Update on my rescued dove. The Ragamuffin...or RG as we like to call him.
So the dove hatchling that I rescued back in June is flying free every day now. Up until a week ago, he would fly inside the house at night and perch on the dining room light fixture for the night. Now he does his own thing which I know is the goal…but truth be told, it slayed me the first night he didn’t come inside…and the second night.
As the days have gone by, he stops in regularly to say hello…he will randomly land on my head without warning. I’ve gotten used to that. He runs with a flock of 6 or so other doves that will not tolerate me in the yard at all…they fly at the first sight of a human but RG will usually stay behind to visit and tell me about his new life.
My favorite thing is that he always flies in for happy hour…tonight was especially precious…he stayed for over an hour while his posse complained in the tree next door.
Here are some scenes from tonight’s happy hour. I love this bird so much.
Second bear in my plum tree in the last few days...UPDATE
This one is collared and not as big as the one who came through in Sunday. The plums are just now ripe enough to pick but there aren’t any left that I can get to even with a ladder. Some years are like that. I believe the bears know more than we do when it comes to weather changes and winter coming.
UPDATE: So my husband talked to the Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks bear warden yesterday asking about this collared bear. He was told that FWP doesn't collar black bears and this little bear was collared by the biologists at the MPG Ranch near Florence, MT. I don't know how the MPG gets authorization to collar bears...and that's a whole argument by itself but what's interesting is that this bear got to my house in the Rattlesnake Creek drainage from Florence! That's over 25 miles. Fascinating!!
Here’s last night’s bear:
Sunday’s bear:
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Gender: FemaleHometown: Montana
Home country: USA
Member since: Mon Oct 31, 2016, 02:23 PM
Number of posts: 23,297
