Early Spring Shoreline - Kookoosint Fishing Access Near Plains, Montana

“There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.”

- Steven Wright

 (Full disclosure: This view was from a few weeks ago, ahead of the extreme high water we're seeing now across the State of Montana.) 
 

Greening Quietness - At Kookoosint Fishing Access, Near Plains, Montana

"...Drop thy still dews of quietness,
  Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
  Thy beauty of Thy peace...."

 -From "The Brewing of Soma" by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-92) and also adapted to hymn "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind"

 (And you can click HERE for a bit more on Kookoosint Fishing Access in Sanders County, MT.)

Plain Intimacy - Near Shelby, Montana

"There was a sense of intimacy 

and exclusion about 

the vast, open plains 

that always 

made her feel at home."

- from The Spider's Web by Margaret Coel, page 218

(By the way, today's oil painting effect is courtesy of PicsArt.)

Skies Wide Open - Near Shelby, Montana

Ahh, the welcome-home expanse of Montana's sky!

Buttercup Find - Rainbow Lake, Near Plains, Montana

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." 

- Marcel Proust (1871-1922)

River Running Through - Plains, Montana

"It is only in appearance that time is a river. It is rather a vast landscape and it is the eye of the beholder that moves."

-  Thornton Wilder (1897-1975)

(Hmmm...I may have to chew on this one a while - but it certainly gave me pause...)

Bridge of Sanders County - Plains, Montana

"There aren't too many principles
 of proper business conduct 
with which just about everybody will agree. 

Two come to mind: 

1. Unless you're a professional athlete, don't offer co-workers encouragement by patting them on the butt, and 

2. Don't burn bridges."

- Dale Dauten

Windswept Sky - Livingston, Montana

"...Therefore the storm-wind shall his comrade be,
That strips the hills and sweeps the cowering plains.
October, shot with flashing rays and rains,
Inhabits all his pulses; he shall know
The stress and splendor of the roaring gales..."
- May Gillington Byron (1861–1936), "The Storm-Child"

Wondrous Sky - Livingston, Montana

"I don't think it is enough appreciated how much an outdoor book the Bible is. It is a "hypaethral book," such as Thoreau talked about - a book open to the sky. It is best read and understood outdoors, and the farther outdoors the better. Or that has been my experience of it. Passages that within walls seem improbable or incredible, outdoors seem merely natural. This is because outdoors we are confronted everywhere with wonders; we see that the miraculous is not extraordinary but the common mode of existence. It is our daily bread." - Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays

Rockies Corralled By Grass - Near Anaconda, Montana

"Westward the Rockies jagged up as if they were the farthest rough edge of the world, but the other three directions flung themselves flat to grass, grass and grass." - Ivan Doig (1939-2015), 'This House of Sky', p. 204