Montana

Canola is a popular crop in North Dakota, I thought the fields were beautiful.

And here we are in Montana, they also have many farms with a variety of crops.  I did learn that the fields that looked like wheat but was less than 2 feet tall is barley.  The blue/purple fields can be either flax or alfalfa.  I also saw what looked like corn but was much shorter and the stalks and leaves were much smaller.  I have not figured out what that is yet.

We had 2 of these combines go by us.  Its a good thing there was a driveway handy.

I also learned the difference between hay and straw.  Hay is to feed animals and straw is used for bedding, this I knew.  I didn't know the difference as to where they came from.  Hay is a variety of grasses where as straw is the stalk of different grains, like wheat, oats, barley, etc.

We went by this machine several times, there were 2 of them, we went in a looked all around them.  Come to find out, they also grow sugar beets, once they have harvested the beets, they bring the truck loads here, back it up to the machine and dump them.  The machine gets rid of any loose dirt or left over stalks and leaves, dumps that back into the truck and piles up the beets for pickup.

While staying at Big Horn Campground in Fort Smith, Montanna, we visited the Custer National Cemetary.

And the Little Bighorn Battlefield.  This comprised of a very large area.  There were just under 1,000 soldiers and 10,000 Indians.  The only survivor on Custer's side was a horse.

There are markers all over the battlefields, they were placed where the person was shot, either by gun or arrow.  These were indian scouts.

They had red markers for Indians.  It was really interesting to drive through.