No one likes it when drains don’t drain, toilets don’t flush, sinks overflow, and general plumbing problems rear their ugly heads in the house. However, instead of rushing to call the nearest plumber, why not try to fix the problem yourself? Here are some of the common plumbing fixes that you can carry out yourself, as well as when to know when to call for that plumber!

A Clogged Drain

This one might be a no-brainer because with the number of times something clogs in your house you don’t want to spend money on a plumber every single time. You can easily unclog the drain using simple household materials like hot water, baking soda and vinegar, and drain cleaners.

There are other tools and materials you can use from your local hardware store and they will get you a faster result than waiting on an expert.

Repairing Leaks

Not only do leaky pipes and faucets waste water, but they can also be an annoyance and the catalyst for a huge mess! Thankfully, repairing most faucets only requires a wrench and a light source, and making your pipes leakproof is pretty simple too.

Often the hardest part is finding sneakier leaks that don’t leave pools of water or constant dripping sounds as clues to their location. But once you find them, most of the time you either need to tighten the pipe or replace the seal around the joint.

Stopping A Running Toilet

If you’ve flushed your toilet but the toilet simply won’t quit, then you need to work on how to fix that before your water bill goes through the roof! You will need to take your toilet apart and use some tools, but it shouldn’t be too massive of a procedure. 

Often, it comes down to problems with the flapper and the chain connected to it, so you need to either adjust the chain or completely replace the flapper. With a trip to the hardware store and maybe a guide, you will be able to make the plumbing fixes you need to get your toilet to flush fully.

Plumbing Emergencies

However, there are some plumbing emergencies that will depend upon you knowing when to call an expert. Often, if you don’t think you can do the fix without harming your home or causing more problems than the fix will solve, you need to call in a plumber.

Because they will have the know-how to start tackling plumbing issues promptly before they can damage your home and your piping.

Additionally, if something happens and you don’t have the know-how to fix it, such as an overflowing sink or a complete lack of hot water in your home then you need to call a plumber. Many services offer same-day service so they can solve your small problem and get your plumbing working again.

Whenever it comes to calling an expert vs doing it yourself, you need to trust your gut. If you think you can handle the small problem yourself, why not give it a try?

However, if the problem is too big for you and you don’t feel confident in your ability to handle it, then you need to call for an expert.

After all, you don’t want to have a problem that can be very easy to solve, to be made much worse by your messing up. That will cost you and your plumber a lot more in both time and money, and no one wants that!

BOZEMAN — The carbon fiber material used to make aircraft lightweight and strong could soon get a major makeover as a result of a Montana State University project that’s rapidly catching the attention of industry.

For the past four years, a team of MSU scientists, students and collaborators has pioneered an innovative way of making “stretch-broken” carbon fibers that are more easily formable to the complex shapes of aircraft and could significantly cut manufacturing costs. The project is funded by a total of $25.8 million in contracts from the U.S. Army.

“We’ve invested a lot into this and now we’re approaching a major milestone where we’ll demonstrate actual manufacturing at a small scale before transferring the technology to industry,” said Douglas Cairns, the lead MSU researcher on the project. “We’re very excited about the potential impact.”

Traditional carbon fiber composite — made by embedding the long fibers, which are stronger than steel, in a hardening resin — is the gold standard in the aerospace industry because it’s exceptionally strong and durable for its weight, explained Cairns. But the fibers are so stiff that forming them into the tight curves of an airplane wing, for instance, requires complex and expensive machinery. It also often requires a scaffold-like metal substructure that’s prone to corrosion, costing the U.S. military billions of dollars each year in maintenance and repairs.

By contrast, MSU’s new carbon fiber material — created by precisely stretching the material so that some of the fibers break at natural weak points — is about eight times more formable while being roughly the same strength, according to Cairns. That means the material can be shaped with simpler equipment and without metal substructure.

"Because it’s so much easier to form, we're conservatively estimating that we can lower the manufacturing costs by a factor of four,” said Cairns, the Lysle A. Wood Distinguished Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering in MSU’s Norm Asbjornson College of Engineering. “That’s a huge deal.”

Although the concept of breaking carbon fibers to improve their formability has been around for decades, previous methods such as randomly cutting the material proved to significantly compromise strength, said Cairns, who has worked in aerospace materials for nearly 30 years. The idea of stretch-breaking also isn’t new, but until now nobody had figured out a way to consistently and efficiently do it in a way that could be scaled for industry. “The concept is easy, but the control of it is very difficult," Cairns said.

Working with nearly two dozen Montana companies to help with design and machining, the MSU team developed a new kind of stretch-breaking tool called the Bobcat Head. As a flat strand containing thousands of individual carbon fibers is rapidly passed through a series of rollers, precise force is applied to break the fibers where there are nicks and other imperfections. Only about 2% of the fibers are broken across a given area, Cairns noted.

The researchers then studied the properties of the resulting material. Roberta Amendola, associate professor in the mechanical and industrial engineering department, led a team of fellow faculty and students to test how easily the stretch-broken fibers could be bent into complex shapes and set with resin.

“The material keeps surprising us,” Amendola said. “What we’ve confirmed is that it’s as strong as material made with continuous fibers but is very easy to form. It’s a remarkable result.”

The next step, according to Cairns, is to scale up the stretch-breaking machine for a pilot demonstration of how it could be used in actual manufacturing, which would pave the way for licensing the technology to aerospace companies that produce both military and civilian aircraft. There’s the potential for the material to start being used industrially in the next few years, he said.

In the meantime, the work is having an educational impact at MSU, with more than eight undergraduates and a dozen graduate students having contributed to the project, Cairns noted. Other MSU faculty on the project are professor Dilpreet Bajwa and associate professor Cecily Ryan, both in the mechanical and industrial engineering department.

Federal appropriations for the $25.8 million in Army contracts for the project were supported by Montana Sens. Jon Tester and Steve Daines.

“The scientists and engineers at Montana State are consistently at the cutting edge of innovation, and I’m proud to see some of Montana’s brightest minds helping to keep our nation safe through this partnership with the United States Army,” Sen. Tester said. “As Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, I was happy to help secure funding for this partnership and am confident that MSU’s breakthrough carbon fibers will deliver for our armed services.”

Cairns said the project is already attracting attention from advanced material supply and aerospace companies that have come to the Bozeman campus to see the material for themselves and are eager for material samples, which the MSU team is working toward providing. "When we talk with aerospace companies, their eyes light up,” he said. “They recognize how much this could impact their design and manufacturing."

BOZEMAN — Montana State University and Gallatin Valley communities pulled out a win in the 23rd annual Can the Griz food drive, with supporters donating the equivalent of 613,054 pounds of food to the Gallatin Valley Food Bank and MSU’s Bounty of the Bridgers food pantry.

Can the Griz — and the corresponding Can the Cats food drive in Missoula — is an off-field competition between MSU and the University of Montana to see which school can collect the most donations for its local food bank. The competition is held each year as part of the celebration of the Brawl of the Wild football game between the two rival schools.

This year, MSU and Gallatin Valley communities donated 207,854 pounds of food and $405,200, according to Kim Cleary in the MSU Office of Student Engagement, which coordinates Can the Griz. Pounds and dollars are added together for the contest, resulting in a total this year of 613,054 pounds donated. The Can the Cats food drive in Missoula brought in the equivalent of 428,022 pounds of food for the Missoula Food Bank, Cleary said. MSU and the Gallatin Valley communities have won the competition 19 out of the 23 years it has been held.

“We are so thrilled to have secured our 19th Can the Griz win,” Cleary said. “It is so inspiring to see both the Bozeman and Missoula communities come together to support their friends and neighbors in this especially difficult year. At the end of the day, we are all winners when people are being fed and the people who run our local food banks have the resources they need to continue to serve individuals that need their support.”

The donations from Can the Griz will help the Gallatin Valley Food Bank, as well as the Bounty of the Bridgers food pantry, provide food for families in the community through the spring and summer. The Gallatin Valley Food Bank is one of the HRDC Food and Nutrition Programs’ Initiatives. The Bounty of the Bridgers, housed in the Office of Health Advancement, is a student-driven initiative to combat food waste and food insecurity on the MSU campus for students, faculty and staff.

Donations to the food bank may still be made. Donation information is available at canthegriz.com.

On November 17, 2022, at 7:40pm, Gallatin County 911 received a call for a person with severe mental disabilities that had walked away from home. The person was not dressed appropriately for the weather and the direction of travel was unknown. With temperatures being dangerously cold assistance was requested to help find the individual.

Gallatin County Sheriff Search and Rescue (GCSSAR) volunteers from the Valley Section, Bozeman Police Department officers, and the Bozeman Fire Department coordinated their efforts to search the area. GCSSAR Dog Teams and the Drone Team were also utilized.  With numerous law enforcement officers, firefighters, and GCSSAR personnel searching a large area, the missing person was found cold but in overall good health.

Sheriff Dan Springer would like to remind everyone, with the cold temperatures upon us to remember to dress warmly and prepare appropriately for the elements even if you are in a city.

Photos courtesy of the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office.

CARDWELL – Game wardens with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks are seeking information on a deer that was killed illegally at Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park.  
Sometime between the afternoon of Friday, Nov. 11, and Saturday, Nov. 12, a deer was shot in the eastern half of the park, where hunting is prohibited. The whole animal was removed and was not field dressed at the kill site.   

Anyone with possible information about this case is encouraged to visit myfwp.mt.gov/fwpPub/tipmont to provide details or call the FWP violation reporting hot line at 1-800-TIP-MONT. They may be eligible for a cash reward of up to $1,000. 
Hunting is allowed in the western half of Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park during the general season. The eastern half is closed to all hunting and firearm shooting year-round. Hunting access to open areas and game retrieval is not allowed through the closed eastern half of the park. Hunters must use designated access points along Montana Highway 2. For more information about hunting opportunities and rules at Lewis & Clark Caverns State Park, call 406-287-3541. 

Some of Montana’s other state parks provide hunting opportunities. However, certain restrictions may apply, such as no-hunting safety zones and restrictions on the type of hunting weapon or firearm that may be used. Contact the specific park and refer to fwp.mt.gov for site-specific information regarding hunting opportunities and restrictions.   

BOZEMAN — Stephanie Land, the author of a bestselling memoir about overcoming food and housing insecurity as a single mother while earning a college degree, will speak at Montana State University’s First Year Student Convocation next August at the Brick Breeden Fieldhouse. The event is scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2023, and it is free and open to the public. 

Land is a writer and public speaker known for her memoir “Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay and a Mother's Will to Survive,” detailing her exit from an abusive relationship, trials of single motherhood, a series of events that brought her to a homeless shelter and her journey scraping by as a house cleaner to provide for her young family.  

Land’s memoir addresses pursuing the American Dream from below the poverty line while cutting through stigmas of the working poor, said a reviewer from The New York Times. "Maid” has been at the top of many bestseller lists, including Times’ list, and is the inspiration for the recent Netflix original series of the same name.  

Driven to create a better life for herself and her daughter, Land cleaned by day, took classes by night, and wrote relentlessly as she worked toward earning a bachelor’s degree in English and creative writing from the University of Montana. After graduating in 2014, Land stopped using food stamps and started working as a freelance writer. “Maid” was published in 2019. 

“As many of Montana State University’s students regularly show us, a relentless sense of hope, coupled with grit, can help individuals conquer challenges and forge new paths for themselves,” said MSU President Waded Cruzado. “Stephanie’s story, like the stories of many other working-class Montanans, is a testament to the strength of the human spirit and to how education can transform a person’s life.”  

While MSU convocation is free, members of the public must reserve tickets. Tickets will be available beginning in January 2023 at the Bobcat Ticket Office and all TicketsWest outlets. 

MSU’s First Year Student Convocation is the formal welcome of the incoming class, where the university focuses attention on the start of the academic, intellectual and personal journey of first-year students. Convocation demonstrates the support of the university and community to help students reach the goal of becoming the graduating class of 2027. Land’s lecture will be part of MSU’s 16th convocation. 

BIG SKY – Game wardens with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks are seeking information on an elk that was killed illegally near Big Sky. 

Wardens initially received a tip via FWP’s violation reporting hotline, 1-800-TIP-MONT, reporting that an elk was killed around 9 a.m. on Nov. 10 on private land without the landowner’s permission. The site was on Chief Joseph Trail in Big Sky.  

Wardens located what was left of the elk near the road. The tenderloins and half of the backstraps had been left with the carcass and wasted. The elk was a spike bull. Harvesting spikes in this hunting district, HD 304, is only allowed for youth hunters and disabled adult hunters with a permit to hunt from a vehicle. 

The person who shot the elk was reported as a white man in his 50s of average height, with a round face and a short graying beard. He was seen with six Hispanic men packing out the elk in white garbage bags. They carried the elk to two new Polaris Ranger UTVs—one black, the other camo—both with four-door hard cabs. 

Anyone with possible information about this case is encouraged to visit myfwp.mt.gov/fwpPub/tipmont to provide details or call the FWP violation reporting hot line at 1-800-TIP-MONT. They may be eligible for a cash reward of up to $1,000. 

                                       John Lowell photo by William Campbell

(Livingston, MT) - The International Western Music Association gave out awards on Nov 12th at their conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

John Lowell won “Working Cowboy Song of the Year” for his song “Angus Mackenzie.” The song features a melancholy and regretful Scotsman

who sees being a cowboy isn’t all it was cracked up to be and is featured on his recent release, “She’s Leaving Cheyenne.”

Lowell was nominated twice in the Song category, as well as Songwriter of the Year and Album of the Year. “She’s Leaving Cheyenne” was released late in 2021 and was named Album of the Year by Wyoming Public Radio. 2021 also brought Lowell the Grand Prize in the Hazel Dickens Songwriting Contest.

“This award means so much to me,” said Lowell from his home in Livingston, Montana. “This was a pandemic project to honor some of the great cowboy songs I’ve grown up listening to. I’m glad the IWMA recognized the original works I submitted and liked the classics I covered.”

John Lowell will take his show on the road early next year, with a stop at the prestigious 30A Songwriter Festival in Florida. He’s also performing in Key West, Orlando, Gainesville and Ocala, then on to Dublin. John will be teaching at the UK Sore Fingers camp this spring, Montana Fiddle Camp, the Kerrvillle Folk Festival in Texas this spring, the Antlers and Acorns Songwriter Festival in Boone, NC this fall, and a German tour. For all concert dates and more information, please go to www.johnlowell.com. To listen to John Lowell’s award-winning song, please go to https://johnlowell.bandcamp.com .

For booking information, contact Joanne Gardner at joannegardnermt@gmail.com.

CLARKSTON – Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks has implemented a partial closure of the north portion of Fairweather Fishing Access Site due to flooding. 

An ice jam on the Missouri River has caused water to flow onto the access road at the site. Due to these conditions, motorized access is temporarily prohibited, but the site remains open to walk-in access.

 Visitors are encouraged to use caution when visiting this and other sites because river and ice conditions can change suddenly and without warning. When parking, visitors are asked to ensure they don’t cause obstructions on roads or other points of access.  

Vehicle access will be reopened as soon as conditions allow.  

PEMF technology is rising in the medical world. PEMF [Pulsed Electro-Magnetic Field] is a revolutionary wellness technique that uses soothing pulsed electromagnetic fields to stimulate and train the body's cells.

PEMF, also known as high-energy inductive therapy, is trusted worldwide to support the body's natural healing and regulatory abilities.

This therapy is innovative and is used in a variety of areas. Being new to this therapy, people only have this question of how long this therapy takes to work. Well, the answer to that depends on various factors. So, there is no precise time limit.

However, you can still predict the duration required for PEMF to heal your body. For proper estimation, you need to have knowledge about PEMF therapy and how it works. In the article, you will read all about this therapy and how long it takes to heal you.

PEMF-A Healing Miracle
PEMF is one of the latest healing technologies that has emerged in the market. However, the concept of this therapy is not that new. The earth comprises its natural electromagnetic field. In the same way, each organ has a field around it. When a cell gets damaged, it loses energy that is stored in the form of an electromagnetic field. The PEMF releases low-frequency electromagnetic pulses similar to those naturally found on earth. These activate the natural healing process of the body.

Which conditions can PEMF cure?
PEMF therapy is effective to cover a wide range of health issues. Mainly people use it for the following reasons.

Pain Management
Primarily, PEMF gained popularity for being an effective painkiller. It cures both chronic and acute pain. In many cases, people get stuck with body and joint pain. Such conditions take forever to heal and impact your lifestyle. Electromagnetic pulses tend to reduce inflammation. Whether you have pain due to an injury or a chronic condition, PEMF can heal you.

Speed Up Healing
In acute conditions, like injury, trauma, or after surgery, PEMF speeds up the healing process. Sometimes, even non-intense conditions take forever to heal. This is when your body issue changes from acute to chronic. The PEMF provides timely energy to the cells and tissues to promote healing. Apart from that, when a body part gets damaged, there is a chance that your interneural communication is affected. PEMF makes sure that this communication remains intact to promote natural healing.

Bone Disease
PEMF also helps with bone pain conditions. Arthritis and osteoporosis are such conditions that are hard to cure. Joints like shoulder, knees, elbows and hip joints easily get damaged. PEMF does not regenerate bone, but it can help with pain and ensure healing. This therapy will keep your bones intact and stimulate muscles to further support you. If you get surgery or bone replacement, PEMF can fasten the healing process.

Mental Health
Apart from physical ailments, PEMF also helps to soothe your mind. It can reduce stress and even help with insomnia.

How to get this treatment?
Now that you know why PEMF is used, you must know how to get it. There is a huge variety of PEMF machines available on the market. These devices target your specific body needs. You can find PEMF mats, pads, pillows, and small devices at the healthyline outlet. Various models have emerged in the market. These have different features and specs like frequency range and intensity. Remember that the healing time of your body also depends on what device you are using.

How long does this therapy take to work?
Here are some factors that can help you determine how long this treatment will take to heal you.

●       The intensity of the Condition
Many people experience results after a week of use. This depends on the severity of the condition you are targeting. If you are trying to cure injuries, fractures, or other chronic conditions, it may take a while. However, consistency is the key. If you want results, keep getting the therapy regularly.

 
●       Device Selection
Device selection is an important step when it comes to the PEMF treatment. You must select a device that meets your requirements. If you do so, you will see the results soon.
 
●       Proper Use
To get the most out of this therapy, proper and regular usage is required. You must know what frequency you need. Also, consult a health specialist to find out the dosage of this therapy.
 
How long does a PEMF session last?
In normal cases, a 20-to-30-minute session once or more a week is enough to get you active. However, this is mostly not the case. Some people take overnight therapy. This depends on the severity of the condition and the intensity of the PEMF you are using.
 
Final Words
To conclude, PEMF is an innovative therapy that can promote healing. This therapy does not offer a fixed time of healing but ensures a cure. Try this therapy to say goodbye to everlasting pain and disease.