Ladies and gentlemen, we are entering crunch time.

That time of the year when spring and winter play a tug of war, and depending on how it goes, deer and elk could be the losers.

Members of the deer family that go into winter in good shape have the energy reserves and body fat to survive those December and February subzero spells. But a long winter that continues through March and April will start to tip over the smallest and weakest.

And if we humans are not careful, we’ll cause some of the bigger animals to tip over.

Already some of our large game species could use a break. January was nice, with a handful of 50 degree days. But February plunged us back into winter, which after all is the season we’re in.

Now the real test for wildlife begins.

By March and April, many animals will have used up the majority of their nutritional reserves. For deer, especially, winter is a long downhill slide. If spring arrives early or the winter has not been too tough, the females will come through in good shape and produce healthy fawns.

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The American Dream Well-Being sub-index measures the extent of resident contentment, health and prosperity in life. It is developed from the following dimensions:

Family Support

Support of Friends

Support of Someone Special

Happiness

Freedom of Expression

Fruits of My Labor

Entrepreneurial Spirit

Leisure Activities

Social Status

Personal Health

Satisfaction with Residence

Optimism

This is the sub-index that would likely be impacted most directly by the quality of a resident’s non-work life. For employers, employee dissatisfaction with and/or lack of engagement in their community outside of work contributes to turn-over. That is why the traditional “Best Places to Live” surveys are paid attention to by HR Directors. The impact of well-being has been scientifically studied and described as “job embeddedness”. It is described in the literature as “community dimensions of fit”. Lack of “fit” contributes to higher voluntary turn-over among employees. Locations with a higher well-being score may offer employers a competitive advantage in employee retention.

And the Winner is...More at Burghard Group

Lacey Middlestead is a Montana native and freelance writer currently living in Helena, Mont. She loves meeting new people and helping share their stories. When she’s not busy writing articles for newspapers like the Independent Record and Helena Vigilante, she can usually be found indulging in her second greatest passion–playing in the Montana wilderness. She loves skiing and snowmobiling in the winter and four wheeling, hiking, boating, and riding dirt bikes in the summer.

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Being the daughter of a man who owned a powersports dealership for over 30 years, I was naturally born and raised a motorhead. But, on occasion, I find myself needing those quiet moments out in nature without the sound of an engine thrumming underneath me. So this past weekend, I traded in my 155” track and 2 stroke snowmobile engine for snowshoe crampons and the sheer ingenuity of my own lungs to propel me.

One of the beautiful things about living in Montana during a solid winter season is that you can often drive a mere 20 minutes to find hip deep or greater snow to play in. My boyfriend and I headed for the top of MacDonald Pass for some snowshoeing last Sunday as it is usually deserted and affords plenty of snow.

When we reached the top of the pass, we pulled off and parked on the side of the highway. As we strapped on our snowshoes, we noticed two ladies plodding along in their snowshoes back to their vehicle. Smiles stretched across both of their faces and made me anxious to begin my own hike.

Snowshoeing is peaceful, but man is it ever hard work. The first time I tried it I had this disillusion that it would be like Jesus walking on water and I would just skim gracefully across the snow barely making a dent in its surface. This is so not how snowshoeing is. While snowshoes do elevate you and make walking in deep snow easier, you still have to make an effort and trudge your way through. If you don’t snowshoe often, it can be terribly awkward. My boyfriend was dressed in head to toe brown Carhart gear and I told him he looked like a newborn deer learning to walk. He didn’t appreciate this comment very much but I felt it was fairly creative metaphor. He also didn’t think it was funny that I chose to let him break the trail while I followed in his footsteps. And what interesting footprints snowshoes make. A casual observer might mistake them for the remnants of some rectangular-footed snow beast gallivanting about in the mountains.

Snow is one of my favorite things in the world, but when you whiz by it on a snowmobile or downhill skiis, you miss some of the details about it that make it so amazing. As I walked along, I noticed long ripples in the snow like desert sand gets from the wind. The sun was high in the sky that day and illuminated every twinkling crystal on the ground. The only noises around me were the occasional rustle of wind through the trees, the crunch, swish, crunch swish sound of my snowshoes, and my labored breathing that synchronized with my steps. The feeling of isolation that encompassed the area was refreshing and calming. I began to fantasize that I was walking alone through some undiscovered “white” desert somewhere.

E. E. Cummings wrote that “The snow doesn’t give a soft, white damn whom it touches.” Snow truly falls upon the earth indiscriminately and let’s anyone play in it that wants to. I think that’s one of the reasons I love it so much. I found that quote popping into my head as I flopped backwards into the untouched snow to make a snow angel. No matter how old I get, making snow angels still puts a smile on my face. Trying to stand back up from my snow angel sprawl in snowshoes, however, put an even bigger smile on my face.

I spend every winter frolicking about in the snow in any number of ways, but snowshoeing is the one activity that forces me to slow down and appreciate the snow for all of its little splendors. It was another beautiful and blessed day in Montana for me.

7:50 a.m. A man called 911 to report that a woman in a white Cadillac pulled out in front of him.

9:53 a.m. A Kalispell man reported that his landlord intentionally plowed a berm of snow into his driveway.

12:37 p.m. A 14-year-old Somers kid brought pot to school.

1:15 p.m. A plumber was bitten by a Jack Russell terrier while visiting a home on Nicholson Drive.

3:46 p.m. Neighbors in Kila accused one another of intentionally plowing snow onto each other's property. They were advised to quit shoving snow around and be civil.

4:02 p.m. Someone driving down Highway 93 reported that an intoxicated man in a red GMC cut in front of other drivers, flipped them off, and made little effort to hide the alcohol he was drinking.

MORE>>>Flathead Beacon

Employees at Twitter's headquarters in San Francisco will soon get to take their lunch break in 19th century log cabins.

It's a design feature that "makes them a little different than any other tech company," a company media relations representative told the Marin Independent Journal. The move highlights the unofficial race amongst Silicon Valley's most successful tech companies to provide one-of-a-kind workplaces where employees can tap into their creativity.

Having ping-pong tables in hallways, as Huffington Post employees enjoy, or beanbag chairs and video games, like the lounge at Etsy, no longer makes a tech space edgy. The giants are taking it much further from traditional.

The homesteader cabins to be installed at Twitter headquarters were salvaged from ranches in Montana by contractor Karl Beckmann and sold to the owner of an architectural firm helping to refurbish the Twitter offices, reports the Journal.

MORTE>>>CNBC

Mississippi has topped West Virginia as the most obese state in the nation, according to a new Gallup analysis.

The latest poll found that 35.4% of Mississippians were obese in 2013, compared to 34.4% of West Virginians.

At the other end of the spectrum, Montana overtook Colorado as the state with the lowest obesity rate — 19.6%.

It was also the only state with an obesity rate below 20% in 2013.

There were 11 states with obesity rates that topped 30%, compared to five states in 2012.

People are classified as obese if their Body Mass Index (BMI) is 30 or more.

MORE>>>NY Daily News
 

It only comes but once a year, and it's quite a sight to see.

Over the next few days FWP is trying to airlift 60 Bighorn Sheep off Wild Horse Island and send them to other parts of the state.

"Yeah, this is great," said Bruce Sterling, a wildlife biologist who has helped with the annual transfer for nearly two decades.

They're blindfolded, bound, and strung up underneath a helicopter, then flown and gently landed in Big Arm State Park where they get a whole set of medical tests before being carried into a trailer.

Then the entire thing starts over again.

"The only way to really control the population is to periodically go in and capture sheep," explained Sterling.

Wild Horse Island really doesn't have many predators for the sheep and hunting isn't allowed, so the numbers can get out of hand. The Island can only support about 100 sheep, and at last check, 155 sheep were spotted, but there could be more. They're hoping to airlift out 20 ewes and 40 rams.

The collars are equipped to locate the animals with radio waves and they put two fingers underneath the collars for a good fit.

"The radio collars are going out on ewes and we're doing that so we can keep track of where they go, and primarily know where they spend the summer," said Sterling.

Some of the sheep will head to the Cabinet Mountains, and the others will be sent to the Kootenai Falls Wildlife Management Area just west of Libby. Sterling says the sheep populations in these areas aren't struggling, but they could use some beefed up numbers.

MORE>>>ABC/Fox

Joseph Shelton is a freelance writer who graduated from Montana State University with a degree in English Literature. He lives in Bozeman, where he enjoys hiking, reading, and being a misunderstood artist-type. 

I have a tattoo on my left forearm of a cave glyph from California which is known as "Hairy Man" by the locals.  It has become a kind of visual shorthand for Bigfoot, amongst those who follow that sort of thing.

My own relationship with Bigfoot, or Squatchy, or whatever you may want to call him/her is one of fascination and/or reserved belief.  It makes sense to me that an intelligent bipedal ape might be able to hide in the woods.  It also makes a good deal of sense to me that a Western subculture that used to value hardiness, closeness to nature and independence would think up a bogeyman to invest with those qualities, even if he didn't exist before.  So whether Bigfoot is a real man/animal or a symbol for the dreams of rural America, I believe in him.

Anyway, Bigfoot expert and local figure Kelly Berdahl happened to notice my tattoo, which eventually got me invited to a taping of one of the "Town Hall Meetings" that lend the Animal Planet program "Finding Bigfoot" all their drama and pathos.  Afterwards I ended up at the Cats Paw lounge in Bozeman, getting sloshed with Bobo, Cliff, and Matt Moneymaker. 

I had secretly hoped to find Ranae Holland there, owing to a nice compliment she earlier paid my vintage coat (not to mention a passing resemblance she has a to an ex girlfriend I still can't get out of my mind), but alas, she was off searching the local woods for Squatches.  Still, I managed to force Bobo to buy me a drink, and to talk shop with Cliff and Matt.  It's one of those memories that I will be able to amuse myself with for years.  The time I got snockered with professional monster hunters from the television.

The really surreal thing was seeing myself on television when the episode came out.  I didn't say a word, and in fact only appeared in about two to three seconds of screen time.  There is a shot of the back of my head, which I was able to recognize as myself despite my lack of familiarity with my rear, as well as a really regrettable shot of me in profile in which my facial hair looks like some kind of hairy animal clinging desperately to the underside of my face.  Still, it was pretty exciting, the culmination of a lifetime of thinking that I really oughta be in pictures.

 Perhaps someone at the the network will see me and, impressed by my obvious gravitas, say "let's make a spin-off with that one kid we see briefly in the Bozeman episode".  If so, they can reach me here. 

And as a note: in all seriousness, I met some very cool people on the shoot that day, including "Finding Bigfoot" crewmember Tyler Bounds, who I still plan to interview at length someday, and who also appreciated my tattoo.  I look forward to seeing whatever monsters he finds, and the same is true of the cast of the show, which was very kind to suffer the company of a fan on their set, not to mention buying him drinks.

Download the guidebook here:

Montana Guide Book 2014-15