Paula will purchase a computer when she moves her business into the old church across the street. A family of 5 who arrived destitute from Arkansas to work on a ranch were not equipped to deal with the fact that they were dairy farm experienced and there are no milk cows in the Big Hole. Through Dillonet computers here, and the Women's Resource Center, they were helped with food, warm clothing, and to find suitable employment elsewhere. Making a living in this particular rural area of Montana is harder and harder. Families are smaller and tend less to stick to ranching alone.
Businesses have wives and husbands working more than one job.
Seasonal workers come and go and those families also have members doing several jobs. A ranch hand works 6 days a week, moonlights washing dishes or bartending, his wife makes crafts to sell during the tourist season, or hays during hay season, kids are working the hay season driving tractors, mowers, rakes, mostly ages 12 to 16. Wendy Goff, a talented local quilt maker has her own web pages. She recently completed a quilt for a person in California that specifically wanted a quilt made in the Big Hole Valley for her granddaughter. They have put their business on the web to carry them through and are reaching buyers who would never have heard a radio ad about them or driven the 8 miles off the highway to their home and workshop.