Andrew land

Any confusion about Andrews out there?
The patriarch of the Anderson family, who first moved to the Tom Miner Basin with his wife Ginny, was named Andrew.  He died several years ago.  One of his four sons, Hannibal, owns the stone house ranch up the hill from here and that is the ranch where the one room school house is that we lived in during the sabbatical year three years ago.  Hannibal's son is named Andrew.  He is married to Hilary, who was in another cabin up by the schoolhouse during our sabbatical year, and was a wolf researcher at that time. They have two children, Andrew and Elle, with a third child due on March 18.  Andrew and Hilary were married at the stone house ranch this past summer, but we missed the occasion due to moving and Betsy's broken leg.
Sunday, we went to a conference at Chico Hot Springs, sponsored by the Defenders of Wildlife.  It consisted of researchers sharing information about predator-livestock incidents, trends, and means of minimizing livestock depredation by both wolves and grizzlies. As we walked in to the conference room, where lunch was being served, Andrew Doolittle, son of our friends Jay and June from St. George's, came across the room.  He is event manager at Chico.  So we introduced Andrew (father) and Andrew (son) Anderson to Andrew Doolittle.
Ginny came up to the house, later in the day, with some printed histories of the Tom Miner Basin.  In that, I found that Hannibal was in fact named Andrew.  When he was young, to avoid confusion, Ginny had hoped to nickname him Sandy.  But somewhere along the line, someone began calling him Hannibal, and that stuck. Ginny was quite funny in admitting that on several occasions, she has either said, or been tempted to say..." Excuuuse me, do I LOOK like a woman who would name her child Hannibal???!"
So anyway, now we know- they're ALL Andrews!
Last night we drove into Bozeman with Jay and June Doolittle to hear Temple Grandin speak.  Her story is extraordinary, and she is a woman who has had an enormous impact on the meat-packing and livestock industry.  Autistic, she has always seen and understood animal behavior and interactions in a fundamentally different way than the rest of us.  And she went on to become widely respected and listened to in changing the way livestock are handled.  She is now a professor at Colorado State University.  She expressed real frustration that so  many animal rights activists don't realize the major changes that have taken place in the way cattle are handled by the industry, and that for the most part, treatment of cattle and other livestock is now much more humane than it was even 10 years ago.  She was truly intriguing to listen to. Below is Temple Grandin signing June's copy of her book (June on right, Temple on left):

Sixteen degrees when we went up to let out chickens and feed the baby goats this morning.
And we have just learned that Andrew Doolittle will be performing (guitar and singing with two others) at the Chico Saloon on Sunday night ( and June may even join in on a couple of songs on hammer dulcimer!), so that is a must.
We also learned of a presentation of wildlife videos on March 22 in a tiny community hall way up in Jardine, a tiny and far outlying community outside of Gardiner, MT by Bob Landis, a videographer who lives locally and has filmed National Geographic and PBS wolf and grizzly videos. Another must.
And so it goes in the valley...