Fire Formations - Missoula, Montana

Smoke plumes from a couple peripheral fires burning on national forest land blended with high cloud formations above the Missoula valley. Fire season presents a strange dichotomy which we in the western mountain regions have become used to: it makes for spectacular sunsets and provokes good-paying jobs, but we'd all prefer some rain.

Other Days Blue Sky - Missoula, Montana

"...Other days from ridge to ridge
there’s only a high, dry, guileless blue,
and you can fairly hear
the meadow grass breathe. You could say,

I have lived well. You could say, I have lived
well and anyway been troubled. You could say, 

Come evening,
deer browse the meadow fringe."

-From BACK FORTY: MANIFESTO by Joe Wilkins

Some Days Sunset - Corvallis, Montana

"Some days clouds drift over the canyon,

horsetails, bits of high cotton.

In the afternoon, then,

the sky quickens, tumbles —

a dark creek crashing down the mountain...."

-From Back Forty: Manifesto by Joe Wilkins 

Big thanks for today's photo to Pat Richards. 

To see more through Pat's eyes, browse around in JourneysWithGod.com.

Fire Season - Lolo Peak, Lolo National Forest, Montana

"Love is a smoke rais'd with the fume of sighs;
Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in a lover's eyes..."

- from Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 1, Line 196