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

River’s Influence - Yellowstone River, Livingston, Montana

“Who looks upon a river in a meditative hour, and is not reminded of the flux of all things? Throw a stone into the stream, and the circles that propagate themselves are the beautiful type of all influence.”  — Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), Nature

Montana Spring Sky, Afternoon - Near St. Ignatius, Montana

More from the wise tea bag tags:

"In all things of nature,
 there is something of the marvelous."

 - Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

Unwasted Sunshine - Grant Creek, Missoula, Montana

"I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house."

-Nathaniel Hawthorne, (1804-1964) The American Notebooks, [Notebook, Oct. 10, 1842]

Semi Still-Life - Missoula, Montana

 “But in a still life, there is no end to our looking, which has become allied with the gaze of the painter; we look in and in, to the world of things, in their ambiance of cool or warm light, in and in, as long as we can stand to look, as long as we take pleasure in looking.” - Mark Doty

Autumn Colour - Missoula, Montana

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”
— Albert Camus (1913-1960)

Berry Berry - Missoula, Montana

“Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup.” - Wendell Berry

(I'm not sure if these particular berries are safe for picking, but the quote was pretty perfect. They kind of look like the wolf or goji berries that my oldest sis has been known to harvest from rampant back alley vines. Any expert identification is welcome!)

Future Abundance - Missoula, Montana

"Choose a mindset of abundance.  There is enough for both of us to win." - from Book Notes by David Mays, on Stephen M. R. Covey's The Speed of Trust, The One Thing That Changes Everything

European Bittersweet - Missoula, Montana

I was drawn to the shooting-starness of this lovely streambank wildflower, but it turns out it's actually a relative of the potato plant. Common in much of the United States, this small purple beauty is known by many names - Climbing Nightshade, Bittersweet Nightshade, Woody Nightshade, European Bittersweet, Fellenwort, or Blue Nightshade. (For the scientifically inclined, it is classified as Solanum dulcamara.) Pick a name - any name! - it brightens a streamside ramble no matter what you call it.

River Singing - Missoula, Montana

"There is another alphabet, whispering from every leaf, singing from every river, shimmering from every sky." Dejan Stojanovich

Happy Father's Day and happy longest-day-of-the-year. 
May you enjoy at least some of it in a favoured place.

Afternoon Yellow - Missoula, Montana

"All told, she owned fourteen books, but she saw her story as being made up predominantly of ten of them. Of those ten, six were stolen, one showed up at the kitchen table, two were made for her by a hidden Jew, and one was delivered by a soft, yellow-dressed afternoon.” - Markus Zusak, 'The Book Thief'

Bright Whites - Missoula, Montana

"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day." - E. B. White (1899-1985)

Spring-Sticky Greens - Missoula, Montana

My gardening-genius sister of the far northern city has been collecting aged horse manure after work - trowel scoop by trowel scoop, into large plastic bags carefully placed in her car trunk. (Yes, with patience being a virtue and all, she’s got a head start toward saintliness of some sort.) Last week, she texted something about metaphorical teaspoons and a photo of a sunset-silhouetted mountain of manure, with her comparatively teeny tiny car in the foreground. Her garden’s really going to be great this year.

Today she texted that our horse-whispering cousin’s new acreage has "singing frogs in the slough, ribbet ribbet",  (insert happy froggy emoticon) which made me think firstly, ’It’s such a Canadian thing to have fond thoughts of a slough.’ And nextly, ‘Surely, there exists a Canadian ode to spring-singing slough frogs?!’

Thoughts such as this are why Google is my Home screen.

I discovered that Lord de Tabley wrote, according to ‘The Living Age, Volume 270’, “…a charming set of interlinked sonnets to the frogs that sing unceasingly from early spring to harvest-time in every lake and pond and secret slough from end to end of Canada.“ Here’s my favourite find; may your very own memory spring to mind.

“Wrinkled oaks and plumy bracken,
Milkwort, skull-cap, sweet gale-bush,

Frog-pipe, more than you can reckon,
Cotton grass and flowering rush…”
- from ‘The Dirge of Day’, Lord de Tabley (1835-1895)

Greening Patches - Missoula, Montana

"Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are ‘patches of Godlight’ in the woods of our experience." - C.S. Lewis, Letters To Malcolm

Winter Clings - Missoula, Montana

"So fair, so cold; like a morning of pale spring still clinging to winter's chill." - from The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien

Seed Shine - Missoula, Montana

It's official: my hiking season is closed until the first summer heat wave.

Why, you ask? Particularly since nature daily beckons with all her springly wiles, "Come closer!"??

Well, The Best Husband Ever - who does not traipse about in nature - found a tick on his person.

If that doesn't give you the heebie-jeebies, you've a stronger constitution than I, my friend. Or you've never had this brand of sneaky little creature tickle your neck a couple of days after you were last in their terrain. (Shudder!) And you haven't seen the giant tick at the Ravalli County Museum's historical display of Rocky Mountain Tick Fever research.

On the bright side, I suppose this qualifies as is a sure sign of spring.  Which I will happily enjoy from the safe distance of concreted city streets, and a few select treeless, grassless hilltop trails. After I vacuum the house (and husband) one more time.

Cottonwood Corridor - Missoula, Montana

Falling in the creek (almost) is not quite like falling in love (for real).
But they have their similarities.

The good news is I did not fall in the creek yesterday - which would have been hilarious, since not life threatening this time of year, but terribly inconvenient to my hectic afternoon at work.
The little outcrop of tree debris and ice - which I heartily poked with a stick to be sure it wouldn't sink - lured me with promise of a better perspective; a low leg stretch brought it in reach. I just didn't count on a camera arm extension adding too much teeter to my tottering islet. Oh, plus I let go of my designated safety branch attached to the big, sturdy tree. Enter flailing, stage right (where is my safety branch?!); exit with a less than spectacular topple onto my right hand - which also cradled my phone/camera/music source, thus bending my headphone jack, cutting out sound to the left earpiece. BUT neither I nor phone/etc embraced chilly water ie. good news.

Which circles back to falling in love - really!
From my (dry) point of view, here are a few parallels:
- the glorious possibilities of in-loveness can addle our sound judgement and even nudge us off balance from a more cautious perspective. Thus, It's a good idea to (metaphorically) poke future scenarios a little more aggressively and with a sturdier stick
- sometimes a stretch out of your comfort zone leads to a clearer perspective
- alternately, sometimes how far you have to stretch is a big fat clue that this is not a smart choice
- we often try to do too much in the limited special time we set aside, instead of simply being fully present in a beautiful moment - and then we miss out on half of what we need to hear.
- when falling ends in a bad landing, we are somewhat shaken by realization that it could have been much worse, and mentally promise ourselves to never again be this stupid - well, at least not this exact version of stupid. 

That's all I've got.
But perhaps you can cull a few more similarities, from your own near-fallings, love-  or  other-ward? I'd love to read your comments, below!

Winter Sky - East Missoula, Montana

"It is a spur that one feels at this season more than any other. How nimbly you step forth! The woods roar, the waters shine, and the hills look invitingly near. You do not miss the flowers and the songsters, or wish the trees or fields any different, or heavens any nearer. Every object pleases...the straight light-gray trunks of the trees...how curious they look, and as if surprised in undress." - from "Winter Sunshine" by John Burroughs (1837-1921) 

Winter Freshet - Missoula, Montana

"Under the bank, close-shadowed from the sun, 
By winter freshets spun, 
Dry tangled wreckage hung above the shallows ..."

- from The Kingfisher by Martin Donisthorpe Armstrong (1882-1974)

Winter Recharged - East Missoula, Montana

A couple weeks' boon of springlike weather has given way to the truth that winter is not quite done with us yet.  Brrrrrrrr!