The ANTecdote
The Whitehouse
Earlier this fall I was invited to the Whitehouse. As in the Whitehouse, the Big Guy’s house. The Whitehouse Business Council selected two businesses from every state to profile on the Whitehouse website. We were then invited to the Whitehouse for a forum on Jobs and Economic Competitiveness on November 4th. I will admit that my first reaction to this invite was “Oh shoot, I’ll be in elk camp with my cousin Wes.” But then I wised up. @ The Whitehouse Wes is actually my cousin Ashley’s husband, not my true cousin, but we’ve done enough hunting and beer drinking together for me to consider him real family. In September he guided me on my first moose hunt. We were back in New Brunswick, Canada. Meet Leroy, my first moose. Sorry about the tongue. We were too excited to tuck it in. Leroy, the yummiest moose ever It was a fantastic hunt. So in return, I was booked to “guide” Wes elk hunting for 10 days. Then the Whitehouse called. Being the great guy that Wes is, he understood, reminded me that it’s not everyday you get invited to the Whitehouse and I left elk camp a few days early. I like the transition of this: To this: With Senator Baucus and Senator Tester Trying to keep life in balance. My eyes were open wide in DC. The power of that city is palpable, so is the frustration, the energy and the hope. At least it was in my mind. Perhaps I’m too optimistic in these days of gridlock, national debt, and unbalanced budgets. But we must have hope. At the FDR Memorial I read these words on the wall. I could not agree more. Amen. Let’s keep working hard. And let’s never give up on hope.
Learn more
Men in Our Pants
In my attempts to get back into writing on the ANTecdote, I sat down early this morning with a strong cup of coffee and tried to begin the mental debriefing process of summarizing the Red Ants Pants Music Festival experience. It’s been four months since the event and I’m still struggling to get my mind around the enormity of what we pulled off. In the coming weeks and months I will put pen to paper and share my festival reflections. I promise. Nate and Ty in their favorite pants But today I was saved by two very handsome (and married!) hunting guides who walked into my shop to buy more pants. Yup, Nate and Ty both guide elk hunters while wearing women’s pants. Nice work fellas! Nate’s pants will even be featured on a hunting show. He needed a belt and hat to complete his RAP outfit. Ty needed a second pair of RAP’s so he could fit his long johns under them. Thanks gentlemen, for your support and for proving that “Real Men Wear Women’s Pants.”
Learn more
A Family Affair
A sunny Sunday found us in the lush city of Missoula and while our lovely White Sulphur Springs native Claire assembled delicious pizzas in her industrial and envy worthy kitchen, Sarah and Maggie spent the afternoon jumping on a trampoline and singing songs with Claire’s four beautiful children and their friends. While clouds turned into rabbits, owls and Cheerios, Tour de Pants became a family affair. Camo hats are perfect for wild little boys! Folks really don’t have to worry if life on the road leads to starvation for the two well-season pants roadies as Claire served us tasty pizzas until we could hardly jump on the trampoline. Claire’s party was hosted in her recently constructed two-story straw bale garage and ultimate kid playroom. Babies, toddlers and kids alike ran around the yard, clad in either the new RAP hats, t-shirts and favorite red hoodies. Many moms comments about the need for RAP maternity wear and matching toddler pants. It is never too early to get your kid outfitted in the best workwear and we know that Montana kids work the hardest and most certainly, play the hardest. Following suit from our Helena party, another match occurred! This time party host Claire and Maggie match their ants on the right side pocket (this is the perfect pen pocket). Claire’s pants show the effort of constructing her garage and they looked absolutely perfect covered in stucco and paint. What a great match! Check out the great photos of Claire’s family, all complete in Red Ants Pants garb! And as well all know, families that play together, stay together! What a great looking family! No caption needed for this cuteness! Sarah's newest boyfriends Shelby models the RAP belt with the ultimate coolness If you live in the Missoula area you should visit Claire and her husband Ben’s doughnut booth at the Saturday markets. Judging by how amazing Claire’s pizza tasted, we can only imagine how decedent her homemade doughnuts taste on a fine spring day in Missoula. Go out and find their booth and enjoy! Thanks to Claire and her family for letting us run around their yard, act like kids on the trampoline and let us perform our RAP show to their friends and family members. And we’re more than delighted to eat leftover pizza as we travel to Bozeman for our third and final party of the short tour at the fabulous Tart. For our Bozeman friends, please come to the Tart party on Wednesday May 18th from 6-8pm. Tart is located within the Emerson Cultural Center. There will be tasty treats, cold Big Sky brews and Red Ants Pants on hand throughout the evening. If you come wearing your RAPs or buy a pair at the party, Tart will offer a 15% discount on any items purchased that evening–handmade jewelry, artwork and more by Montana artists or “tartists”. For seriously beautiful and fun art, jewelry, hats, notecards and more, you’ll want to take advantage of this sale!
Learn more
Spring into Red Ants Pants!
Look for the Anthill on the road in Montana this May! Spring (yes, as of May 16th there are officially signs of spring in Montana) is here and you know what that means (besides tilling the garden, making gin and tonics on the deck and painting your toenails): Tour de Pants! Our Spring 2011 version of the Tour takes us around our lovely and beautiful home state with parties in Helena, Missoula and Bozeman. When Sarah was sent these photos from Helena resident Sue asking to host a pants party for her birthday, Sarah knew that this was just the kind of party Red Ants Pants would love to be a part of! Who wouldn’t want to party or hit the trail with these ladies? Working hard, even without pants on the trails in Glacier These girls are in dire need of Red Ants Pants! These ladies know how to relax after a long day of work! Cheers! Sue and her friends volunteer during the summer months with the Continental Divide Trail Alliance and we figured that these ladies were in dire need of some workpants that can hold up to trail work abuse and still look fancy enough for huck margaritas on the deck of the Many Glacier Hotel after trail dogging for a week. We celebrated Sue’s birthday with her friends and family on a blustery Saturday night in Helena with views of the Big Belt mountains. Naturally, Sue received some birthday spankings at her party but she reported that she barely felt the slaps because of the durability of her Red Ants Pants. That’s right folks, 12 ounce cotton canvas duck will spare you the burn of a birthday spank! Sue’s birthday wasn’t the only cause for celebration at the party but we also had another Match! Two party goers tried on their new pants and quickly located their ant label and found their matching ant on the back belt loop. When you’re out and about in your fancy Red Ants Pants and see someone else wearing the infamous pants, be sure to check ant labels because you just might have an ant that not only gets you a free t-shirt but is also a pretty cool way to connect with other fans of RAP. Another great match! Beer just tastes better with a RAP koozie Maggie just may have eaten not just one but two slices of Sue’s decadent chocolate and Earl Grey birthday cake and we spent the evening swapping trail stories and gushing over Sue’s birthday present: two teeny tiny orange Tabby kittens! Many thanks to Sue and her sister Cindy for hosting such a fun and lively party with their closest of friends. From the state capitol we chugged up and over Roger’s Pass to Missoula for a Sunday afternoon backyard party. Oh–and if you haven’t heard the latest RAP buzz besides Tour de Pants–clear your calendar for the last weekend in July and find your way to White Sulphur Springs for the Red Ants Pants Music Festival. And hold on to your Red Ants Pants…Lyle Lovett is the headlining act! Run, bike, fly, drive or crawl if ya have to to White Sulphur Springs this summer for the musical event of the summer! Guy Clark, Jerry Jeff Walker, Carrie Rodriguez and more are all playing under the Big Sky in July. Tickets are on sale now at Montana outlets and online (so click here and get your tickets. Camping is available on site too!). We can’t wait to see you in White Sulphur Springs this summer! Does anyone know Lyle’s inseam????
Learn more
Donkey Basketball Champions!!!
There are many benefits to living in small town Montana. One of my favorites is that we get to play donkey basketball. For those of you who have not had the opportunity to view or even play this dangerous and tremendously entertaining ‘sport’, it involves 2 teams, 10 donkeys, one basketball and an entire high school gym full of town folk out for a good laugh. Getting Psyched The rules are similar to regular basketball, except for the only way to move about the court is while riding a donkey. True story. Luckily no dribbling is required. However, it is required that you figure out how to mount a donkey, often while holding a basketball and the donkey is on the move while you’re trying to mount (believe me, this is way harder than it sounds). It is quite possible to most ridiculous and unflattering sport imaginable. But so much damn fun. Especially when when the Red Ants Pants team beats the men’s basketball team, and the junior class team, and the Search and Rescue team and is declared CHAMPION!!! In a grown up world where the thrill of playing team sports has been diminished to high school memories, I won’t deny that it felt really good to win. Here’s to the donkeys that carried us to victory!! Thanks team!! Julie, Anna, Jen, Nancy, Sarah and Darcy...The Champion Team!
Learn more
River House
Hello from the depths of winter, Calhoun here, finally checking back in. Earlier this week I felt warmth to the sun for the first time since October. There is hope at last! I know I can’t get too excited, as this is Montana after all, and despite the 50 degree heat wave, I need to pace myself for the long haul till June. So if you’re like me and plan to spend a little more time reading by the fire awaiting spring, read on. There is a phenomenal book I would like to recommend to anyone who is in need of an honest read. A book that will remind you of home, adventure, family and roots, and of hard, very hard work. It is called River House and is written by a gal by the name of Sarahlee Lawrence. I first connected with Sarahlee when she emailed me saying she stood too close to the exhaust on a piece of heavy equipment and burned a hole through her Red Ants Pants. She needed a swatch of fabric for a patch. Fair enough. I ended up on her email list and stumbled upon an announcement of her new book release. A few months later I got my hands on a copy and couldn’t put it down. Lawrence has an amazingly raw and real flavor to her writing that speaks right to your core. Or it did to mine anyway. This memoir takes you from some of the wildest white water in South America to the family ranch in the high desert of Oregon. It touches on the age old question of how can we put down roots but still grow wings? Lawrence inspires with accounts of the arduous process of building her own log home, by hand. In Phil Condon’s words, “Log by log, and word by word, Lawrence locates her love and affirms her commitment to her parents, herplace, and the natural world. If you love wild water and land, if you value hard work and family, this is the book not to miss.” I had the opportunity of attending one of Sarahlee’s book readings, where it became immediately apparent that not only is she a very talented writer and a hard worker, but she’s unbelievably hilarious. She now owns and operates an organic veggie farm in Oregon. River House is published by Tin House Books. www.tinhousebooks.com. Lawrence with River House Nice pants!
Learn moreThis House of Sky
Winter in Montana is close at hand: the snow is falling on the valley floor, the mountain peaks are solid white and each morning this week, public radio has announced a winter weather warning for much of Montana. Fall gives way to snowflakes. Our winter season is long-lasting and we thought we’d share with you just one way (besides playing in the snow) we like to spend our shorter days, inside, nestled by the fire: reading. There’s one very special book that prompted Sarah to pay a visit to White Sulphur Springs and eventually fall in love with this small ranching town and make it her home. So, if you’re up for a great read and want a more intimate glimpse at life in White Sulphur Springs, Red Ants Pants brings you our falling into winter book recommendation: This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind by Ivan Doig. This House of Sky is Doig’s powerful and haunting memoir of growing up in White Sulphur Springs, among sheep herders, small ranches, and the many bars that line Main Street. Written in the late 1970s, Doig chronicles his life growing up in the small Montana town, of his life spent with his restless sheep herding father and his relationship with his grandmother, Bessie. This House of Sky is a beautifully written story: not only does it describe the wildness and remoteness of life in White Sulphur Springs in the late 30s and 40s but also is an exploration into a bond that ties father, son, and grandmother together among ranching jobs, bad marriages, falling in love, and how the sense of landscape shapes and guides a person. Doig is considered one of Montana’s finest writers and honestly, a fine American novelist. We suggest you start with his memoir and then continue to fall into his other books that celebrate and explore the lives of Montanans and life amongst the peaks of the Rocky Mountain Front . If I have any creed that I wish you as readers, necessary accomplices in this flirtatious ceremony of writing and reading, will take with you from my pages, it’d be this belief of mine that writers of caliber can ground their work in specific land and lingo and yet be writing of that larger country: life. –Ivan Doig We encourage you this winter to discover White Sulphur Springs through the pages of This House of Sky. Happy reading! And…tell us what books are on your shelf during the holiday season!
Learn more
Unleash Your Inner-TARTress
The very beautiful ladies of Tart! The final stop on Tour de Pants landed us in Bozeman at TART, an incredible contemporary art gallery and boutique (or TARTique as they prefer to be called!) on Friday October 22nd. All of the incredibly gorgeous handmade artwork, stunning jewelry, ceramics, sassy note cards, funky hats and clothing, and much more is all crafted from the hands of Montanans! The open house for Red Ants Pants was all in the hands of the Tartress Herself, Anna Visscher, and the evening was an incredible success. Although we were feeling a bit road weary from a long drive north on I-25 from Denver to Montana that included a lengthy shopping session at an outdoor outlet store in Wyoming (we Montana ladies never pass up a good deal on wool long underwear!) and sadly Sarah tagged her first deer of the season. Why sadly you ask? Well, it was the mighty Chevy and not Sarah’s riffle that claimed a deer outside Sheridan, WY. Consider how severe the consequences could have been: an all too quick of a reaction resulting in a swerving truck and Anthill screaming down the Interstate at night in traffic; the truck, Anthill, Sarah and Maggie came through unscathed with the exception of a slightly dented front bumper. However, the deer didn’t fare so well. Considering the thousands and thousands of miles Tour de Pants has danced across the country, for this to be the first animal-vehicle encounter, we feel lucky. Now, who wouldn't want to get into these pants?!? Road kill aside, our arrival back in our home state was nothing short of gorgeous! Sunshine and warm temps greeted our cheeks as we strolled through leaf-padded streets to the Emerson Center for the Arts and Culture where the fabulous Tart resides. Our host Anna and her crew did an incredible job of serving guests ants on the log, cold beers from Big Sky Brewery, and cheesecake with red ant frosting. And it didn’t take long for all of our RAP fans, some old and new, to cram into the gallery and try on pants and gush over stunning silver hoop earrings, laugh at the array of nutty holiday cards, and check out the two new samples styles of our soon-to-be-launched USA-made Red Ants Pants hats! Many thanks to the women of Tart and their lovely artists for hosting such an incredible event. Plus, both Sarah and Maggie and many other guests were able to stock up on unique and funky presents for the holidays! Anna offered a 15% discount on any item in her store for those wearing their old or new RAPs. What a deal, ladies! And with our final event in Bozeman behind us, we take with us the wonderful memories of our fall tour. Our most heartfelt appreciation and gratitude to our Denver party hosts Gwen and Trinity, the women of Chelely Colorado Camps, Erin Howe and her husband Mark for letting us crash at their home in Colorado, Shanan at Abbondanza Organic Seeds and Produce, and Anna and her Tart crew. Also, we can’t possibly do a Tour de Pants without our wonderful customers and supporters! Thank you, thank you! Sarah fitting a customer into her second pair of RAPs As quickly as the beautiful weather turned to gray and snow in the mountains, Tour de Pants has come to a close. Sarah’s off to play hunting guide to her visiting cousins and when she’s not stalking wild game through the woods, she’ll be sewing her very special Halloween costume (let’s hope there will be pictures!). Maggie’s ready to stretch her legs and get her quads in shape for the upcoming ski season–she was just nominated to the United States Telemark Regional Ski Team! Happy Fall to our Red Ants Pants family. Stay posted for more fun from Montana and learn about some very exciting upcoming events (hint: you might want to visit to White Sulphur Springs in July!).
Learn more
Living in Abundance
The beautiful Abbondanza farm On what felt much more like an Indian summer day then late October, our Tuesday party at Abbondanza Organic Seeds and Produce was a glorious evening spent under Colorado’s Front Range. Abbondanza is a small, family run operation in Longmont, Colorado and our party host, Shanan, graciously opened her home and farm to us for an evening of Red Ants Pants, Big Sky beer, horse drawn hayrides and unbelievable wood-oven fired pizzas served al fresco. Abbondanza comes from the Italian word abundance and one strong guiding principle at this organic farm. Shanan’s parter and co-farmer Rich’s mother’s maiden name was Abbondanza and he’s always wanted a farm in her namesake. While the farm was recently hit was a devastating fall crop loss due to spotting just two weeks ago, we’re more than touched that Shanan and Rich offered to host a Tour de Pants party during this extremely difficult time at their farm. However, a loss of their fall crop didn’t, in any way, diminish their abundance for a good life and good friends. We are very honored that we were able to witness their lives as abundant farmers. The ant label goes for a hayride With the farm bathed in sunlight, our pants party goers, including veterinarians, farmers, toddlers, mothers, and high school friends, enjoyed a horse drawn hayride through the fields and the best pizza you haven’t tasted. Shanan’s daughter took the reigns of this pizza operation and cooked up many a fine pizza in the open air wood fired oven. Such goodness! Elise and Sarah catch up and bask in the sun We were able to connect with current customers who proudly wore their well worn RAPs to the party and made new RAP connections, something we’re so thankful for, each and every time. And even Sarah’s high school friends came and joined the late night fun at the farm. Red Ants Pants just keeps connecting all different types of people from all different backgrounds all in a celebration of workpants for women and in working hard. All different bodies fit beautifully in RAPs! Our most sincere thanks to Shanan and her family for hosting such a stunningly beautiful event. We hope to spend some more blissful days at your farm. And with our last party in Colorado, we roll north to Bozeman for a Friday night party at Tart. Come join us on the fall edition of Tour de Pants! Our handmade ant belt goes very well with our pants
Learn more