Sharrott Creek Fire Camp Edge - US Hwy 93, Stevensville, Montana

This quote in no way denigrates the seriousness of the Sharrott Creek and other wildfires, especially as relates to people’s safety. But driving past this smokey reminder of possible loss on our way to visit family re-upped my ongoing pondering on what is truly important.

"…Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain…Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go." - May Sarton (1912-1995), from Journal Of A Solitude

(Quote find thanks to Austin Kleon in his thoughtful action-inspiring Keep Going: 10 Ways To Stay Creative…)

Smokey Mountain Canyon - Sharrott Creek Fire, Stevensville, Montana

“Break-through sunlight 

filters through wildfire smoke, and suddenly you see the depth of what you didn’t know existed - there is a canyon and a whole other hill where you thought it was just one big tree-covered mountain. And so it often is under the shining light of truth paired with love - you see what you could not see before, your perception widens.” -Cyndy Hull

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

Snow, Shadow, Sky - Missoula, Montana

“Most people think that shadows
  follow, precede or surround beings or objects. 

The truth is that they also
 surround words, ideas, desires, deeds, impulses and memories.” 
- from The Fifth Son by Elie Wiesel (1928-2016)

Smoky Golfing - Toward Lolo, Montana

Please pray for the fire situation in the West, which is affecting much more important daily aspects of life than the local golf games. 

(I think I heard a shocked gasp somewhere in cyberspace: More important than golf?) 

Nighttime photos posted by others illustrate more dramatically that this is a dire situation and we crave rain.

Pale Winter Calm - Missoula, Montana

I paused to take in the pale (& lately rare) winter sunshine filtering through tops of the riverbank trees, & was reminded of similar childhood views through a winter-sparse row of cottonwoods flanking our farm. Evening snow lends such a quiet calm.

Clean Slate - Vaughn, Montana

“Life is grace. Sleep is forgiveness. The night absolves. Darkness wipes the slate clean, not spotless to be sure, but clean enough for another day's chalking.”
― Frederick Buechner, The Alphabet of Grace

Storm Front - Near Drummond, Montana

"By early evening all the sky to the north had darkened and the spare terrain they trod had turned a neuter gray as far as the eye could see. They grouped in the road at the top of a rise and looked back. The storm front towered above them and the wind was cool on their sweating faces. They slumped bleary-eyed in their saddles and looked at one another. Shrouded in the black thunderheads the distant lightning glowed mutely like welding seen through foundry smoke. As if repairs were under way at some flawed place in the iron dark of the world.” - From 'All the Pretty Horses' by Cormac McCarthy

Fencing The Sky - SouthWest Montana

"There's always another storm. It's the way the world works. Snowstorms, rainstorms, windstorms, sandstorms, and firestorms. Some are fierce and others are small. You have to deal with each one separately, but you need to keep an eye on what’s brewing for tomorrow.” - Maria C. Snyder, Fire Study "

Under the Bridge, Clark Fork River - Missoula, Montana

"...But only the silence and white, the shores that grow chiller and dumber,
Wherever the ice winds sob, and the griefs of winter are heard...." - from - The Winter Lakes, by Wm. Wilfred Campbell (1858-1918)

(Click text links for more from this soulful Canadian author.)

Mullein Sunset - Missoula, Montana

The hillside above and below the Sentinel Fire Road in the Pattee Canyon trail system was thick with chin-high stalks of blooming and spent mullein. Then, suddenly, around the next bend, there were none - almost as if the wind and critters conspired to transport these seeds to a limited portion of the grassy, open hills. Since I‘d assumed plenty more of these tall plants would pose for me further down the trail, I trudged back the way I’d come to find a likely subject - and the bonus of cooperative sunset clouds. 
Moral of the story: take your chances while ye may - there be no guarantee of yet to come, or nay.

Leaning Left - Missoula, Montana

“As I follow the fence line, I am carried even further back in time to when perhaps my great grandfather, or more likely, my grandfather, my granduncles, or a forgotten hired man did as I am doing.…The wire in my hands goes back to the time when my family still used horses to work the fields and pull wagons, and when steam tractors were the advancing technology.…

In those days, cedar posts were often used to make corner posts. Gnarly with age, weathered by wind and rain, and covered with mold and lichen, they often are leaning, as if rotted out. But I know that if I pull them out of the ground, and scrape the dirt away, the wood will look as fresh as the day they were buried. …

Even though the cedar posts haven’t rotted, the pull of the wire over the decades has been slowly, perhaps a hair’s breadth a year, levering them out of the ground, leaving them barely anchored. Too often, I find myself replacing them with new corner posts that won’t last a faction of the time, erasing the mistakes of the past. “ - from Harbingers of the Next CenturyBy Wade Sikorski
For further reflection on his family’s ranching legacy and future, you can access the entire essay
here.

Wetlands Sunset, Nine Pipes Reservoir - Charlo, Montana

Yes, Nine Pipes Reservoir really is this peace-inducing - and more so.
(Well, there was the intermittent whinging mosquito whine. And a couple no-see-um unaware inhales. But other than that, blissfully peaceful.)

Sunset Sentinels, Missoula, Montana

“To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.” - Helen Keller (1880-1968)

Poured Poetry, Shelby, Montana

"We are not all poets

But God pours poetry
In, above, around us
In everything we see"

 - from "We Are Not All Poets" by Janet Martin

Visit Janet at Another Porch and dive into more lyrical sunshine - or any other strain of thoughtful word weavings she has on offer.

Windmill Horizon, Sweetgrass Hills, Montana

“There, lay outskirts. Through them are windmills lining
A vast expanse of amber sky, and there they are refining
A pure blue wind, tinted such within by turning steel fins…”

- From Sunset Spirals by Elijah Corbeau, poet
Read the full poem here.

High Water Island, Missoula, Montana,

“What makes a river so restful to people is that it doesn't have any doubt - it is sure to get where it is going, and it doesn't want to go anywhere else.” - Hal Boyle, American Journalist (1911-1974)

Click here to read Boyle's wry 1952 Montana story.