Winter Swale - Missoula, Montana

"With windy haste and wild halloo 
 the sheeting snow comes down
And drives itself through bush and swale
 and leagues of stubble brown...."
- From  "Snow-Storm", in the collection "Wind and Weather" by Liberty Hyde Bailey

Radial Pine Patterns - Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

The radial twist of these deadfall limbs was more apparent when it was right in front of me, but contrast patterns still abound betwixt sun, snow and shadows.

Winter Waterway, Owl Creek, Sealy Lake, Montana

“Stream that leapt and danced
Down the rocky ledges,
All the summer long,
Past the flowered sedges,
Under the green rafters,
With their leafy laughters,
Murmuring your song:
Strangely still and tranced,
All your singing ended,
Wizardly suspended,
Icily adream;
When the new buds thicken,
Can this crystal quicken,
Now so strangely sleeping,
Once more go a-leaping
Down the rocky ledges,
All the summer long,
Murmuring its song? “
- “The Frozen Stream” by
Richard Le Gallienne

Winter Deadfall, Missoula, Montana

If a tree fell in the forest but no one was around to hear it fall, would future firewood foragers even consider this?

'Tis the season for skating and sledding parties, with bonfires and cocoa. But if your calendar is bare of such events, think cozy thoughts and enjoy a good book. Or go to a hockey game. Pretty much the same, natch!

Return Trip View, Bitterroot River, Hamilton, Montana

If you compare this to yesterday’s photo, you’ll see the willows at the end of this view are the same batch as at the beginning of yesterday’s path.