Red Poppy Buzz - Missoula, Montana

Red poppies were this morning's hot spot for our neighbourhood bees - and even with some blossom sharing (aka caring, haha...)! Among the buzzing patch, this one bloom hosted four or five different bees, cycling through in a do-si-do dance switcheroo. 

Drop of Hope Blooms - Missoula, Montana

"And even though I no longer really knew what it was, I felt it: a drop of hope. The fog surrounding my life rolled back another inch, and a sliver of blue sky peeked through." -When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, p.135

In With The New - Spring Iris - Missoula, Montana

"The day can't be more beautiful. The skies are blue all the way to the heavens...And the bracingly cold air reminds me with each new breath of my continuing existence as a living creature on this planet. "

-Dead By Dawn, A Mike Bowditch novel by Paul Doiron, p. 405, Lg type

Out From The Old - Missoula, Montana

"...Put your faith in the two inches of humus

that will build under the trees

every thousand years...

Practice resurrection."

 - from Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry

Tansy At Twilight - Maclay Flat, Missoula, Montana

Pack in a lawn chair and sit awhile, cool your dusty, summer-hot feet in the Bitterroot River, maybe even at this same perfect spot on Maclay Flat just south of Missoula, Montana. 

“The mark of a successful man is one that has spent an entire day on the bank of a river without feeling guilty about it. “ — Chinese philosopher

Worry-Free Echinacea - Rocky Mountain Gardens, Missoula, Montana

" 'You're not worried?' 

'Worry's for people who think blowing on the dice will change their luck.' " 

-Mike & Charley in One Last Lie, A Mike Bowditch novel by Paul Doiron, p.412 Lg type

Small Yellow Dahlia (and Bug) - Rocky Mountain Gardens, Missoula, Montana

Meandering through Missoula's Rocky Mountain Gardens, this small yellow dahlia  captured my atention - each petal a perfect tiny scroll, Fibonacci swirled for our delight. (blossoms approx 1.5 inches) Seems the wee bug is a bigger fan, hanging out unfazed through my intrusive camera hovering!

Not Earned - Echinacea / Coneflower - Missoula, Montana

"Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning. Earning is an attitude. Effort is an action."

-—Dallas Willard (1935-2013), Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1984, 1993, 1999), 194.

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...")

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 !) 

Fully Present In Spring Garden - Missoula, Montana

“The best way to prepare for what’s ahead is to be present to what is now.” 

- Ann Voskamp, in her post “4 Secrets (in Grad Season), At The End of Seasons, When You’re Not Ready for All the Changes”

Setting Sun-filled (Flower) Smile - Missoula, Montana

“It was a transporting thing, that smile, as it had probably been all her long life, and I felt its power to fix you where you stood (or sat, or fell); it lifted her beyond age, in a way that the other women present, with their more effortful looks, were not lifted.” -The Poet’s House by Jean Thompson, p. 35

Glorious Morning- East Missoula, Montana

A wee Montana field weed allegory :

 Even the tiny wild morning glory thrives in opening its weedy little heart to the sun each day, then later wrapping in to its core all that sustaining warmth and life, ready for what’s next to come.

Summer Rain On Peony Stem - Missoula, Montana

“And finally, spring's offspring. Summer.” 

- Jick McCaskill in English Creek by Ivan Doig, p. 34

Solitude - Missoula, Montana

“I remember my grandfather telling me how each of us must live with a full measure of loneliness that is inescapable, and we must not destroy ourselves with our passion to escape the aloneness.”
— Jim Harrison (1937-2016)

Tulip Cuppa Sunshine - Missoula, Montana

Sending out a little tulip cuppa sunshine amidst this gloriously stormy day…

Present Grace (Poppy) - Missoula, Montana

“The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.”

-C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), from  Learning In War-Time, 1939

Late Grape Hyacinth Beauty - Missoula, Montana

“The beauty of the world is Christ’s tender smile for us, coming through matter.”

-Simone Weil (1909-1943)

Sunflower With Light Shining Through - Missoula, Montana

 Extra happiness during a neighborhood ramble at sight of the sunset backlighting the delicacy of  sunflower petals....!