Still Wintery Sky - Near Wilsall, Montana

I’ve been hoarding this evocative quote, but the timing is now quite perfect, both to honour an inspiring author AND because it is still snowing fiercely in Montana…!

"I wiped my hands on my apron and went to the window. Outside, the prairie reached out and touched the places where the sky came down. Though the winter was nearly over, there were patches of snow and ice everywhere. 

I looked at the long dirt road that crawled across the plains, remembering the morning that Mama had died, cruel and sunny. They had come for her in a wagon and taken her away to be buried. And then the cousins and aunts and uncles had come and tried to fill up the house. 

But they couldn’t." 

-Anna Witting, in Sarah, Plain And Tall by Patricia MacLachlan

Moss And Timber - Garnet Ghost Town, Montana

"...Well quit of the world,
I framed a house of moss and timber,
called it a home,
and sat in the warm evenings
singing to myself as a man sings
when he knows there is
no one to hear..."

- from Poem of the Forgotten by John Haines (1924-2011)

A big "thank you" to word-weaver Will Nixon for sharing this cabin poem - and two others, including one of his own crafting - at his site.

Homestead Memory - Near Gold Creek, Montana

"Memory is a kind of homesickness, and like homesickness, it falls short of the actualities on almost every count." -Ivan Doig, 'This House of Sky', p. 239

Boxed Cornice, Hamilton, Montana

With modern construction techniques often focused on weather-tightness, I sometimes am amazed how neglected wooden structures have withstood wind, snow, hail, and rain, over decades. Abandoned homesteads are a familiar sight in the farming region we grew up in. Seeing the old houses, barns, and granaries always makes me wonder at the stories they have to tell.

Old Barn No.472, Woodside, Montana

Have I mentioned the beautiful views on the way to my sister's house?
This one is almost a Montana postcard cliche, but I still like it.
I'm drawn to imagine that the original builder of this barn fastened the last shingle, then proudly looked around the homestead he was carving out, seeing only meadows and mountains - not another house for miles and miles, & barely a town on the valley floor.

Homestead Ghosts, Corvallis, Montana

On our weekly walks, my sister & I sometimes take the worn track up through sparse adolescent pine trees and arrive at a high pasture and this well-weathered shed. A long time back, someone was extremely industrious - picking rocks to clear the field, building fence around the hilltop view. They prob’ly never thought of a day when their efforts would become mainly picturesque.