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Two views of the house we lived in. Actually we lived in a trailer house and we built this addon later as a living room. My parents sold the trailer a long time ago, but of course they couldn't sell this building, so it remains.

And another view:

The winter weather in Montana is quite severe, expecially in the mid-western part I lived in. There's also almost no precipitation, usually that's about 10-12 inches a year (and mostly snow).

Jens is located on the long upward slope of the western front of the Continental Divide. Weather systems drop off the mountain ranges on the western edge of the state and drop most of their precipitation in the relatively tropical bowl around Missoula. That area is right between mountain ranges, so its at only 3000 feet.

80 miles west of Missoula where Jens is located, the altitude is up to 4000 feet (this is only 25 miles from the Divide). By the time weather systems get there, most of the precipitation is gone. Those two factors lead to very cold, dry conditions. Nighttime winter temperatures can easily dip down to 35 below.

That's a long-winded explanation for why everything in these photos is so weathered, even though it's only been there for 20 years.

On the plus side, there's virtually no rust due to the dryness. Also, the cold seems to significantly reduce the number of insects (except for the yearly swarms of locusts, or grasshoppers as we call them). The dryness contributes to a generally sparse biota.

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