Many of our surrounding neighbors have two acre parcels, nice, flat, usable rectangular plots. We are surrounded by big mountains, which jet thousands of feet into the big, blue Montana sky! The land in the valley below is mostly flat, accessible, usable and filled with perfect soil everyone wants for planting.

Since it is such rich soil, everything tends to grow well, especially native wildflowers, a fancy name for "weeds!" I for one, do find beauty in these intrusive little plants and often catch myself clicking away to capture the beauty they contribute to our springtime pallet. The wild, fragrant grass is also a sight for sore eyes after so many months of snow piled up along the fence line!

At dusk on Saturday, I walked to the front of our property for a few photos of our ever changing "Hen Den". We decided to participate again this year in the annual "Chicken Coop" contest at our one feed store in town. We won first place last year for "Fanciest Coop" so at first, we were not real hip on participating this year.

We should own stock in the feed store, as we are there nearly everyday picking up some kind of critter thing or another, mostly food, of course.... our critters are spoiled and have nice, round full tummies to back that up!!

Owned and operated by several women in town (who also own a couple of our best restaurants) they 'convinced' us to submit an entry this year and not worry about winning last year. In the last couple months we have expanded the coop, enclosed the outdoor area with double fencing, wire weld and chicken wire (no critters getting in or out without our permission!!) Since we expanded, nearly tripling the size of our coop, we gave in and will submit our entry, today.

It is now the time of year when every single weed (oh, I mean wildflower) is in full bloom and spreading like wildfire! In the field directly across the street from our mailbox, the flowers have filled every square inch of the fenced in area. There is a drainage ditch between the road and the fence, so I can't actually set foot on the property, but in guessing, I would estimate the flowers and grass are about 3 foot tall in many places.

On Saturday, camera in hand, I slowly meandered along side the ditch to take photos of the graceful little flowers bending and twisting in the cool spring time breeze. Camera to my eye, fingers working to bring my photo into focus, I was startled to see something moving in the tall grass!

I dropped the camera to my waist and searched for the movement in the field. I saw nothing! Tall flowers and grass, but nothing like the movement I had witnessed from behind the lens. So I raised the trusty little camera to my eye again, focused and clicked away. This time, I did capture something different, something unusual!!!

We have new neighbors!!! Two handsome (can you call cattle handsome?) young steers have moved in and comfortably taken to the new digs. Relaxing in the tall grass, chewing their cud and paying me no never-mind, they looked up briefly as my camera snapped away! After about 60 seconds, their attention diverted back to what really mattered...the thick, yummy grass that lay beneath and around them.

Side by side, each of them turn every now and again to see what I am up to. Lazily they contiued to chew, tails whipping at obnoxious flies, peering at me with big cow eyes, as if to say, "Yep, we're your new neighbors and we don't care a bit about who you are or what you're up to!"

CATTLE FACTS:

* The average cow produces 90 glasses of milk a day.

* It takes 12 pounds of milk to make 1 gallon of ice cream and 10 pounds of milk to make 1 pound of cheese.

* The United States and Brazil are the top beef producing countries in the world.

* In the US, Texas has the most beef cows.

* Cattle outnumber humans in 9 states: Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, and Wyoming.

* Daily, a cow spends 6 hours eating and 8 hours chewing its cud; sounds like some teenagers I've known!