Cottonwood Alley - Missoula, Montana

What a week - Sunday was shorts and t-shirt sunshine, Monday saw enough snow in the Bitterroot Valley that Corvallis, MT, called a snow day and canceled school! 

Springtime in Montana reminds us that change is part of life and there are no regrets when we choose to be fully present.

Winter Fenceline Shadows - Missoula, Montana

“He closed the missal, looked out the window at what was left of the day. Not too far back, it was the shortest day of the year. He was some farther north here, the shadows seemed longer, the blue in them colder.”

-from Coyote Wind, A Gabriel Du Pré Mystery by Peter Bowen (1945-2020), page 135

Neurosis At Bay, For Today - Greenough Park, Missoula, Montana

“I think it was Thomas Merton who said that the easiest way to rid yourself of neurosis is to surround yourself with nature, or more specifically trees.

"You can't be neurotic in front of a bunch of trees," he claimed; nor, I hasten to add, in front of dunes or sea or humble scrub pine. 

Standing here at the edge of the world shows me how exaggerated my own emotions seem to be. 

This, strong, silent place interrupts confusion, rage, and depression, and just now I feel more at home with the landscape than with people.”

-Joan Anderson, in A Year By The Sea, p.13

Mountain Shadows - Mission Mountains Near Arlee, Montana

Mission Mountain views - or those of any of Montana’s mountain ranges - never get old. Just when you think you have a level of familiarity, shifting sunbeams and shading clouds reveal layers and canyons previously unnoticed. It’s like a whole new view with any change in timing or weather. 

Twilight Reflections - Grant Creek, Missoula, Montana

"The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. 
My days of old have vanished - tone and tint. 
They have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were. 
Their memory is one of wondrous beauty, watered by tears and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. 
I listen vainly, but with thirsty ear, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll."

-  General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964), from his May 12, 1962 Thayer Award Speech

Wishing For Sky - Missoula, Montana

"All stories are love stories. 
Paul remembered someone famous saying that...All men get the things they love. 
The tragedy of some men is not that they are denied, but that they wish they'd loved something else."

-From The Last Days of Nightt by Graham Moore, p. 26

Leaves Extraordinaire - Missoula, Montana

"In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary." - Aaron Rose

Lamplight Shadows - Missoula, Montana

"Never fear shadows. They simply mean there's a light shining somewhere nearby." ~Ruth E. Renkel

(Note: If anyone has info on who is Ruth E. Renkel, I'd love to hear it - she is a rather elusive character who Is credited with some well-spoken words. But it drives me a little crazy to be stymied in finding out more about her!)

Mixed Personality - Superior, Montana

"All forests have their own personality. I don't just mean the obvious differences, like how an English woodland is different from a Central American rain forest, or comparing tracts of West Coast redwoods to the saguaro forests of the American Southwest... they each have their own gossip, their own sound, their own rustling whispers and smells. A voice speaks up when you enter their acres that can't be mistaken for one you'd hear anyplace else, a voice true to those particular tress, individual rather than of their species.” - Charles de Lint, The Onion Girl

Wise Saplings - Missoula, Montana

"All the complicated details

of the attiring and 
the disattiring are completed...

Thus having prepared...

the wise trees 

stand sleeping in the cold."

- from "Winter Trees" by William Carlos Williams

Snow Quilt Shadows - Missoula, Montana

"I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says 'Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.' " - Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

Heron Tracks - Missoula, Montana

Great blue herons have been among my favourite creatures since learning about them from the venerable Mrs. Casselman in grade seven science class.  They frequent our local watering holes - of the pond and river backwater variety. In flight, they bring to mind an awkwardly flying frigate. But anchored knee deep in water, they're one long sinuously graceful curve. 

Alas, no sighting this day; I happened along only in time to see leftover tracks, coincidentally veiled 'neath a track-shaped tree shadow! Typical imprints measure 6-8.5 inches long - enough to stabilize this wise-eyed bird with a seven foot wing span and standing height of over four feet.

Click here to choose from several audio recordings of these lovelies in the wild - then close your eyes and imagine yourself streamside.

Frosted Morning Bridge - Missoula, Montana

“All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost...."

- J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Fellowship of the Ring"

Reed Shadows At Dusk, Charlo, Montana

Do you ever favour something so much that you want to save it - the best for last, in a sense? Perhaps the magazine you must read entirely before anyone else paws through it? Or a best-loved book that you hoped could be your own special copy?
 
As a kid, I did this regularly with food on my plate - mashed potatoes and gravy at family dinners, partly because I‘d scooped out a little moat and filled it with Mum‘s great gravy. And French fries when we ate out, guarded against sneaky sibling thievery - still my weakness; the French fries, I mean . (No comment on what this quirk might say about me.)

This photo was taken during an earlier fall drive up the Flathead Valley. Ninepipes Reservoir's shining waters beckoned me to stop and see what there was to see, which included a mystically shifting sunset, for starters (and dessert). I first walked out on the little pier in the fishing pond next to the parking lot. Trout were rising, leaving concentric rings to ripple a different surface section every few minutes. The dusk-shaded depths of the water were intense, with the last of the fish rings fading on the edges. It was so pervasively peaceful. 
So, I savoured this favourite photo, keeping it all to myself for a few weeks. 
But today is a good day to share. 
Happy Friday. 

(But the French fries are still all mine - unless you've got a bite of something else good to trade!)

Share your very own personal favourites (pretty please with a cherry on top!) or fill in the blank:  "Don't even think about sharing my ________________!" in the comments below. 
Enquiring minds want to know. 

(Time-Saving Hint: If you're in a hurry & want to avoid log-in rigamarole, submit comments as "Anonymous"; you can type your name at the end of your comments.)

Green Hills - Storm Sky , Missoula, Montana

Grant Me Strength
By Esther Popel
Give me the strength
Of verdant hills
Washed clean by summer rain;

Of purple hills
At peace when weary Day
Sinks quietly to rest
In Night's cool arms;

Of rugged, wind-whipped hills
That lift their heads
Above the petty, lowland, valley things,
And shake their shoulders free
Of bonds that hold
Them close to earth;

Of snow-capped hills
Sun-kissed by day, by night
Companioned by the stars;

Of grim volcanoes
Pregnant with the fires
Of molten fury!

Grant me strength,
Great God,
Like that of hills!

Organic Glow, Crazy Canyon, Missoula, Montana

Gazing into the crisp, winter quiet of the forest, I watched the shadows sharpen and moss-sheathed trunks illuminate to a verdant glow.

Privacy Wall, Hamilton, Montana

I have a slightly unusual preference for walking down back alleys to get where I need to go, albeit when in a safe small town. Alleys show more of life's serviceable side, and occasionally reveal delightfully chatty people in their back garden. This functional "Private Parking" signage, with the mellow bricks & contrasting angles of pipe and shadow, was featured in my journey from the Bitterroot Brewfest to the Public Library in downtown Hamilton, Montana.

Frozen Angles, Bitterroot River, Corvallis, Montana

After the balmy spring-caliber day we had Sunday, this setting is most likely a small pond now.
And the ice fishing season will prob’ly wind down in a hurry. But you can prolong the winter joy by listening here to this funny 80's song re-make posted last week by the Montana Outdoor Radio Show.