Three Days to Shania Twain! - Missoula, Montana

The rigging is going up! We're at the three day countdown to Shania Twain's concert in Missoula, Montana's Washington Grizzly Stadium...let's go girls!

Gold-Fuzzed Bee and Rose - Missoula, Montana,

"It became a game that I took to with immense gusto: to see how much I could remember about dandelions themselves, ... or searching out the smell of the gold-fuzzed bees that hung around our back porch grape arbor. Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don't they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers."

– Ray Bradbury, from Just This Side of Byzantium,

An Introduction [to some editions of Dandelion Wine], Summer 1974

(I suppose this quote merited my crouching patiently next to any dandelion bloom peppering the backyard... but this little flier conveniently buzzed at shoulder height, so there you have it. I will pencil in crouching for another day.)

Poppy In Sun - Missoula, Montana

Imagine today's sunshine-loving poppy swaying in a little breeze, humming this snappy silly 1960's surfer song by The Sunrays. 

(You can also hear this ditty at our house - or in our car, or out of doors...- on most any random day the Montana sun breaks through, courtesy of The Best Husband Ever...."Sun, sun, sun, sun...I-aye liiiive... for the suuun...")

Spring Rain Like Kindness - Missoula, Montana

“Kindness, after all, did not distinguish between those who merited it and those who did not. It was like rain, she thought. It fell everywhere and made everything green and new and alive once more. That is what it did.”

-Mma Ramotswe in To the Land of Long Lost Friends, No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Series, by Alexander McCall Smith, p. 70-71 (lg type)

Spring Training View, Lolo Peak - Missoula, Montana

Best ever spring training view: Snow-capped Lolo Peak and its lower elevation neighbours. (Go PaddleHeads!) 

Looking Up - Yelllow Snow Crocus - Missoula, Montana

...imagining a wee mousie's view of the stalwart yellow snow crocus...

(thank you to thebesottedbookworm for the charming mousie inspiration, and Big Sis 1 for the share !) 

Freshest Blooming - My Neighbour’s Spring Crocus, Missoula, Montana

“And then the light changed, and the vegetation of the ground. It was April and the freshest flowers of the year were blooming under the trees.” - from Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry, p. 351

Road Trip Ready Raccoon - Missoula, Montana

Seems I’m not alone in my springtime yen for a road trip… Another splendid Montana thing: You never know what kind of kindred spirits you may meet on an afternoon ramble! 

Spring Sunshine Melt - Bitterroot River, Missoula, Montana

Late March: We progress to t-shirt weather and not a snowflake in sight. But experienced Montanans know: Wait on planting anything tender, and don’t put away the snow shovel just yet…

Spring Snow Peaks - Near Three Forks, Montana

The one thing you can predict about springtime in Montana: it’s never boring.  Ides-of- March storms ousted the beatific sunny days of early March, adding much-coveted snowpack to many of our mountain ranges.

Spring Snow Day - Near Livingston, Montana

Ahhh, the glorious vagaries of western Montana springtime! 

Snowy Field Grass - Missoula, Montana

“I know a man who walked to the edge of a field on a snowy day…. stood in the pillowy silence and gazed out on the snow-muffled trees … The quiet was simply staggering. The man's heart was filled to bursting with the beauty of it, so he lifted his arms to God, closed his eyes, and worshipped.” - How to Worship A King by Zach Neese, Preface

Marcescent Maple - Missoula, Montana

Hurrah! A perfect new word for this recent snow walk photo: 

marcescent 

(adjective; of a plant part) : 

withering without falling off

(Big thanks to Sister #3 for the sweet word share , via Grant Snider’s charming illustration. 

Snow-capped Winter Tansy - Missoula, Montana

“It was not for her to criticize the ways of Almighty God;…. if He liked to go to all that trouble over the snowflakes, millions and millions of them, their intricate patterns too small to be seen by human eyes, and melting as soon as made, that was His affair and not hers. All she could do about it was to catch in her window, and save from entire waste, as much of the squandered beauty as she could.” - The Rosemary Tree by Elizabeth Goudge (1900-1984), p. 158

Connections - Railway Trestle, Bonner, Montana

“Books are bridges, my father had said to me when I was a child. They show how we’re connected.”

-Jessie “Kit” Carson (1876-1959) in Miss Morgan's Book Brigade by Janet Skeslien Charles, p. 41 (LT edition)

Looking Through To Beyond - Missoula, Montana

“The sun filtered down through the canopy… Above its delicate, spreading branches was the sky, which went on forever, it seemed, into a thin, singing blue.”

-Mma Ramotswe in To the Land of Long Lost Friends, No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Series, by Alexander McCall Smith, p. 90 (lg type)

May your new year be blessed with eyes to see through and beyond and more than just what seems in plain view, and to what the Holy Spirit is saying.