Winter Fenceline Shadows - Missoula, Montana

“He closed the missal, looked out the window at what was left of the day. Not too far back, it was the shortest day of the year. He was some farther north here, the shadows seemed longer, the blue in them colder.”

-from Coyote Wind, A Gabriel Du Pré Mystery by Peter Bowen (1945-2020), page 135

Cloudy Day - Missoula, Montana

My husband asked for a seniour price ticket for today's matinee movie. The high schooler manning the ticket window glanced over at me then asked, in all seriousness, "One seniour ticket or two?" 

Of course, I laughed and wondered aloud if I should, perhaps, be offended? Our serious ticket seller appeared confused by my quip.

I suppose when you're still wearing teen braces, everyone older than you appears ancient. 

Commitment to my latest skin serum is redoubled.

Ironically, this little incident would have been avoided had we known that ALL matinee tickets are the same price.

Leaning Left - Missoula, Montana

“As I follow the fence line, I am carried even further back in time to when perhaps my great grandfather, or more likely, my grandfather, my granduncles, or a forgotten hired man did as I am doing.…The wire in my hands goes back to the time when my family still used horses to work the fields and pull wagons, and when steam tractors were the advancing technology.…

In those days, cedar posts were often used to make corner posts. Gnarly with age, weathered by wind and rain, and covered with mold and lichen, they often are leaning, as if rotted out. But I know that if I pull them out of the ground, and scrape the dirt away, the wood will look as fresh as the day they were buried. …

Even though the cedar posts haven’t rotted, the pull of the wire over the decades has been slowly, perhaps a hair’s breadth a year, levering them out of the ground, leaving them barely anchored. Too often, I find myself replacing them with new corner posts that won’t last a faction of the time, erasing the mistakes of the past. “ - from Harbingers of the Next CenturyBy Wade Sikorski
For further reflection on his family’s ranching legacy and future, you can access the entire essay
here.

Fenceline, Shelby, Montana

"Three long days of dust behind him, 
at least that many more to go. 
His job it is to ride the fences, 

to bend the wire and mend the posts...

Another sunrise finds him mounted 
ready to begin the day. For now the sun 
is at his back, no wind or rain to cloud 

their way. 

He loses count of what he mended on his 
journey east to west. He knows the 
corner post will greet him; three more 

lines until they rest."

From  "Riding Fences" by Alexander Beebe