It’s been a while since I’ve indulged in publishing a series of the same basic subject.
But I’m a bit taken with recent multiple shots of fresh streambank mint.
Plus I’ve been thinking lately about an Ansel Adam's photo exhibit that included several prints of the same leaves, each with slightly different nuance of form or focus.
So, humour me, please, and may the subtleties entice you, also.
A hilltop view + a good dog to share it = life is good.
Maybe they’re counting the individual tree silhouettes on the far mountaintop.
127...128...129.....
Or perhaps watching the busy-ness of tiny ant cars in the city streets below.
Anyway you spend it, pausing to take in a wide, far view makes way for restful thoughts and flights of fancy.
Indulge.
Finally, I’ve badgered another photographer into submitting a guest post - Hooray for skills learned as the baby sister!
Today’s top-of-the-world view is courtesy of Paul Daniels, IT wizard and sometime backroads boulder-dodger.
If you take it slow (and aren’t driving a low-rider), you too could ascend 8,000+ feet above sea level and view the beargrass up on Morell Mountain, in the Seeley-Swan range. The blooming’s long past in lower regions, but higher elevations mean cooler temps that allow for this delayed wildflower display.
Thanks for sharing, Paul, and for visually inspiring us to gas up and get out to see more of Montana’s great outdoors.
Carefully balancing (in my favoured crouch) so as to avoid interrupting my camera time with a unexpected swim, I kept thinking, 'What is that familiar scent?'
Finally - ding! ding! - I realized I had crouched amidst a healthy plot of mint that lined the stream bank. With a slight rotation of stance, the intricate flower constructions came into delightful focus.
Join in my fragrant photo shoot by sipping some vibrant peppermint tea while you savour today's photo.
I'm off to brew a cuppa!
Click here to learn more about the uses, both current and historical, of the prevalent wild mint plant (Mentha arvensis).
This last weekend, our family walked/ran in East Missoula’s 2014 I Run For Kicks 5k/10k, a community fundraiser for school shoes. The route crosses the pictured bridge; on the way back down, the view to the right skims across the Clark Fork River down to the Sha-Ron Fishing Access. If you plan to travel to a running or walking event, check out Missoula’s schedule at both
Runners Edge and Run Wild Missoula. There are reasons the Missoula Marathon has a high rating among the running people - friendly people, clean air, vast skies, gorgeous mountain views, everything essential within about 15 minutes drive…in contrast to a bigger city marathon that features noisy gridlock traffic, congested sky hemmed in by tall buildings - are you convinced yet?
The grandeur of ‘high, wide, and handsome’ is ever present in Montana’s skies - it could be a daily photo series all on its own. Rolling grasslands outside of Shelby, Montana
, bring their own reflection of vastness beneath the spreading skies. Zoom in to just above the horizon and you’ll better see the far mountains that we wind through to finally arrive home.
