Ennis, MT

Skiers and snowboarders in the Madison County now have access to Jack Creek Road and skiing at Moonlight Basin. The Madison Valley Ski Club allows gives members discounts on Moonlight season passes; an adult pass is $445 discounted $110 from the regular rate.

The Madison Valley Ski Club meets at the Lions Park Saturday and Sunday mornings at 8:00 am and convoy over Jack Creek Road. More than one group can go each day, so other departure times are available as long as a group can be organized. I will also be putting together a couple of midweek trips over the hill for those of us who work on the weekends and have more time to ski on week days.

It is $15 a person to join the Madison Valley Ski Club or $40 per family.

Contact Amanda Nelson at the Moonlight Basin Corporate Office for more information and membership details. 682-2221

I was just reading the newspaper today and saw a reference for the Madison County Emergency Website. This looks like a great resource for up to date information on the County. I also enjoyed reading a letter sent to the Editor of the Madisonian from a traveler in need and his experiences with the kind, caring, and thoughtful people of the Madison Valley.

I see you can also check the Sheriff’s Dispatch Log as well. I think you can really get feeling for a community by seeing what crimes are being committed. It is nice to see that the Sheriff’s office only had 17 traffic stops and 25 calls for the week of December 7 - 13, 2008. Not too bad for a county of 2.3 million acres.

P.S. If you are not here in the area, it has been cold. 16 degrees below last night at my house on Ennis Street in downtown Ennis. The river gorged last night. It is quite a sight, I’ll try to get a good picture of it this afternoon.

If you are out of town call one of your neighbors or friends and have them check on your house to make sure your pipes did not freeze. It is better to find the frozen pipes while they are still frozen. It is a mess after the water has been running for a few weeks. The forecast is calling for cold temperatures for at least the next week.

The Horizons meeting has been postponed due to the cold weather. It will be rescheduled for another time when the temperatures rise above the zero mark. Stay tuned for updates. Stay warm.

The meeting has been rescheduled for January 7th 2009 from 6-8 at the Fire Hall.

Click this link to view all known Ennis Volunteer and Social Organizations
Updated January 8th 2009

This list was prepared and is maintained by the hard work of John White

Please send updates, additions and corrections to: John D. White gingerquil@3rivers.net

Thank You John, what a wonderful asset to the Ennis community.

You know its winter in Ennis when the cows come home.

Click on the picture to enlarge. It is either too big, or too small. I’ll get this blogging thing down one of these days.

I think that this dog really shows Leadership Skills and Mobilizing.

Watch were you step if your going in to the Claim Jumper this afternoon.

These are some of the pictures I took from the Christmas Stroll. My camera has a lot of settings, exposure levels, and digital processing speed, but I don’t know how to use it properly, so most of my pictures came out too dark, or blurry. I should know by now to just put the setting to Auto. Anyway if anyone out there has any good, clear, and bright pictures of the Stroll email them to me and I will post them here for all to see.

One of these pictures is the legs of an elk sticking up out of a pick up truck. This was parked in front of the Ennis Pharmacy. I feel that this is classic Ennis. Shoot your elk, then go take the kids to see Santa, park right outside so you can keep an eye on the elk while sitting on Santa’s lap. It was a nice bull though. At least it was not a caribou (reindeer)

Good news for the Madison Valley food bank, the Christmas Stroll Buttons are selling well. The proceeds from the $2 buttons are being match by an equal donation from the Town Pump here in town and the funds are going to support the Food Bank.

In other news. The Hunting season has been extended. I was speaking with the game warden the other day and he has been spending his time in and around the Tobacco Root Mountains. There the season has been extended for elk, but not for mule deer. I guess this is confusing for some, since he has been spending his days confiscating illegally shot deer. These animals are sent to a processor and then given to the food bank. To all the poachers, keep up the good work you are helping support a valuable local charity.

Remember to buy your 2008 “Spirit of Christmas” Christmas Stroll buttons today or tomorrow. You don’t want to be the only person on Main Street with out it.

My study circle finished our 5th meeting last night while the snow fell and the winds blew. We came to the agreement that the highest priority and most easiest accomplished projects should be a consolidation of all area resources into a resource board. To make it possible for those in need to go to one place to find out information on all the community support available.

We also saw the need to create a Community Organization Panel, a quarterly gathering of representatives of the many community groups. A place where group goals and projects can be shared, hopefully leading to collaboration and combining of resources towards a common goal.

We put a medium priority on safe pedestrian pathways connecting downtown with the hospital, grocery store, and other area businesses and residential centers. We see affordable housing to be a priority as well, but at a lower level, since the real estate market just might fix that problem on its own.

I guess now we will all get together to present our findings and look towards the future so see what Horizons can do for our community. It sounds like this will happen around the middle of the month. I should know more details in the next few days.

I would like to say a big thank you to the North 40 Development for letting my Study Circle use their facilities for 4 of the 5 sessions. It was a great environment for collaborating and team building and thanks to Robin Blazer for keeping our group on track and working hard to schedule meeting times around our diverse groups time constraints.

As always send me any community related information that you would like to see posted on the Ennis Community Blog.
bigskylincoln@gmail.com

Be sure to visit this site over the weekend for highlights of the world famous Ennis Christmas Stroll.

I want to make this post about all the community activities going on in Ennis for the month, but I am having a hard time finding any source of information. What I have found so far I will post here and as more events make themselves known I will continue to update this schedule.

Friday December 5th is the annual Ennis Christmas Stroll it is kicked off at 3 p.m. with the Ennis School Choir preforming songs of the season from the Town Center Mortgage balcony overlooking main street. There will be special window displays, treats and toddies, and in-store specials at Main Street businesses. Santa will be at the Ennis Pharmacy posing for pictures with children of all ages and there will be horse-drawn hay rides on main street. I myself will be assisting with cookie decorating for kids in the Fischer Realty office.

There will be a lot more going on this evening than I can write about right now, and you will just have to come out and be part of the community to see it all.

Monday, December 15th the Ennis High School will be holding their Winter Concert at 7:00 in the High School Gym. The Elementary School’s Winter Concert will be the next evening same place same time.

At sometime the Horizons Program is going to be holding a get together for all the focus groups to present their Ideas. I don’t know when this is yet, but I’m sure someone will leave the details as a comment to this post.

As always feel free to let me know if there is anything that needs to be blogged about, leave a comment or send me an email at bigskylincoln@gmail.com

Here is a little something to get you in the holiday spirit.