Of Muskeg And Cattails - Near Hot Springs, Montana

"...between thick forest of bog laurel and

common juniper in the humid,

subdued slopes of considerable steepness.

Seek muskeg to the west like the Queen, or

Hecate, or Alexander. Find the continuous

Tangle, diverse and mixing with Indian

Hellebore and partridgefoot...."

 - From muskeg by Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor

Tap into Rebecca's redaction poetry processs and read the full poem text here.

Spring-Sticky Greens - Missoula, Montana

My gardening-genius sister of the far northern city has been collecting aged horse manure after work - trowel scoop by trowel scoop, into large plastic bags carefully placed in her car trunk. (Yes, with patience being a virtue and all, she’s got a head start toward saintliness of some sort.) Last week, she texted something about metaphorical teaspoons and a photo of a sunset-silhouetted mountain of manure, with her comparatively teeny tiny car in the foreground. Her garden’s really going to be great this year.

Today she texted that our horse-whispering cousin’s new acreage has "singing frogs in the slough, ribbet ribbet",  (insert happy froggy emoticon) which made me think firstly, ’It’s such a Canadian thing to have fond thoughts of a slough.’ And nextly, ‘Surely, there exists a Canadian ode to spring-singing slough frogs?!’

Thoughts such as this are why Google is my Home screen.

I discovered that Lord de Tabley wrote, according to ‘The Living Age, Volume 270’, “…a charming set of interlinked sonnets to the frogs that sing unceasingly from early spring to harvest-time in every lake and pond and secret slough from end to end of Canada.“ Here’s my favourite find; may your very own memory spring to mind.

“Wrinkled oaks and plumy bracken,
Milkwort, skull-cap, sweet gale-bush,

Frog-pipe, more than you can reckon,
Cotton grass and flowering rush…”
- from ‘The Dirge of Day’, Lord de Tabley (1835-1895)

Winter Slough, Lee Metcalf Wildlife Refuge, Stevensville, Montana

Ever act upon a great idea and then wonder, "Why didn't we start doing this months ago?" A recent personal discovery of this kind is that the Lee Metcalf Wildlife Refuge is a great halfway meeting point with my dearest friend, to meet, walk, chat and laugh non-stop.
(A prescription for heart health: Repeat as often as possible, including in the spring when all the red-winged blackbirds will be full-throatedly chirr-chirring in the cattails. Any variation of scenery will suffice, as the key ingredients are friendship, chatting, and laughing.)

NinePipes Reservoir, Ronan, Montana

Walking through the boggy grassland on the early leg of the Ninepipes Reservoir trail reminded me of childhood treks across the fields between our house and my grandparents’ farmland. We’d be sure to skirt sloughs like this one, keeping our feet dry so we could continue our grand adventure for the day.